Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

A scary thing abt Gaza is, when considering future contingencies or policy changes and gaming out potential abuses, we'd clip a lower tails with remarks like, "It'd be too overt, too egregious, the public simply wouldn't tolerate it." After Gaza, that kind of implausibility claim seems implausible.

Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

That's an interesting point: Subnational legislations as "feeder leagues" for parties that compete to join the national legislature.

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Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

@leedrutman.bsky.social's suggestion of using single-transferable-vote multiwinner districts lets the number of winners serve as an elegant filter of parties with little support in a district, although if districts are v heterogenous, you could get some small delegations from locally popular parties

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Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

after reading Lee Drutman (and thinking about eg Israel), i think it's probably best to design a system so it gravitates to something like six parties, plus or minus.

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Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

oh, he's here! @leedrutman.bsky.social

in reply to self
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

(i think fusion voting would be a great reform, perhaps more plausible than others in the current US system. and i'm jealous of all those extra parties you have where you live.)

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Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

a democracy is a China shop. a billionaire is a bull.

Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

[new draft post] Rule-of-law is incompatible with a sharply polarized two-party system drafts.interfluidity.com/2024/10/21/r...

Rule-of-law is incompatible with a sharply polarized two-party system

Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

“We're handing so much money over to owners of prime residential or commercial land…of oil and gas fields, intellectual property and infrastructure…there isn't enough left to create…demand for dynamic sectors of the economy.” @chrisdillow.bsky.social stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_an...

Link Preview: 
Against Scooby Doo ideology: There's an unspoken and apparently unquestioned presumption at the centre of this government's economic policy. We saw three examples of it this week. The first came in Starmer's speech at an investme...

Against Scooby Doo ideology

Link Preview: Against Scooby Doo ideology: There's an unspoken and apparently unquestioned presumption at the centre of this government's economic policy. We saw three examples of it this week. The first came in Starmer's speech at an investme...
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

regardless of who becomes the next President, nothing is a Federal crime unless this Supreme Court agrees that it is.

Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

here’s to quicksand, my friend!

in reply to this
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

the main case people make for capitalism is that it gets incentives right to encourage people to act, to produce. but a capitalism under which the key to wealth is riding number-go-up by owning the right assets engenders very different incentives than to act, to produce.

Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

am i misreading the joke, or was Trump not the first major figure to allude to genital size during this campaign? www.cnn.com/2024/08/21/p...

Link Preview: 
Obama mocks Trump about his ‘weird obsession with crowd sizes’ | CNN Politics: At the Democratic National Convention, former President Barack Obama mocked former President Donald Trump and said he had a “weird obsession with crowd sizes.”

Obama mocks Trump about his ‘weird obsession with crowd sizes’ | CNN Politics

Link Preview: Obama mocks Trump about his ‘weird obsession with crowd sizes’ | CNN Politics: At the Democratic National Convention, former President Barack Obama mocked former President Donald Trump and said he had a “weird obsession with crowd sizes.”
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

slurring on about how all this is just a thimulaaaation. it might have been charming, in a sad way.

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Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

or the supreme court just legalizes his behavior ex post. no need to drag things out when you can clear the way for the next cycle.

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Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

It's arguably becoming a self-fulfilling prophesy.

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Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

maybe i am crediting him with too much, that he might game out a probability 0.5 alternative scenario in addition to his baseline scenario.

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Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

probably not. but even if Trump loses and the DOJ of course prosecutes, this may be the result. it follows pretty naturally from Citizen's United logic. unless of course we manage to reform the Court. we are a dead democracy barking unless and until we manage that.

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Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

I wonder if Musk’s game plan is to break black letter election law then run the case to the Supreme Court, so it can declare that much of that longstanding body of law is unconstitutional. 1/

Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

Since, according to this abomination of a Court, spending is speech, paying voters to register is like encouraging voters to register. Encouraging voters to register is your protected free expression. 2/

in reply to self
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

It is also your protected free expression to restrict your encouragements to register only to people who sign your petition. So any prohibition of paying people, or even paying a restricted class of people, to register is unconstitutional. 3/

in reply to self
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

Of course it follows that since encouraging restricted classes of people to vote is also free expression, paying only people in restricted classes only if they turn out to vote would also be protected by the First Amendment. /fin

in reply to self
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

the regulatory community openly regretted prosecuting Enron because it drove Arthur Anderson out of business turning the Big Five accounting firms into the Big Four. you see, impunity for the rich and powerful was just their version of antitrust.

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Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com

more collective unconsciousness.

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