@djc Usually I'm on the other side of this. I hate it when people tell potential primary contenders to stay out because it would be "divisive". Given our terrible electoral system and the two-party oligopoly it yields, the primary system is the *only* outlet through which new ideas and ideologies can gain expression. My first choice would be to pick a better electoral system, but while we have this one, contesting primaries should always be encouraged IMHO. 1/
@djc But I don't think that holds now. What little legitimacy surrounds our usual, very flawed electoral process comes from the fact that the rules and contours are well-known in advance, and the public does have some ways to intervene in it. This process would lack that legitimacy. "Public opinion" would have its effect only through media and algorithmic social-media funhouse mirrors. Those are both antidemocratic antiprocedures. 2/
@djc And unless there is a very quick consolidation behind a ticket (what I think the outgoing administration stands responsible to engineer), all bets are off about whether Democrats will be able to present themselves as suitable to govern. (And of course interested actors — Republicans, maybe geopolitical interests that would prefer dealing with Trump administration — will act strategically to provoke an unflattering process if they can.) /fin
@djc it could! if it becomes sufficiently untenable for him to even pretend to go on, that might happen. but if there isn't any internal process, it will be hard to prevent ambitious politicians from contesting what institutionally would become an open convention. the point of a "position of strength" is the ability to "clear the field", to get consensus behind the ticket they endorse even from disappointed contenders. 1/
@djc the goal would be (and should be at this point in the cycle IMHO) to prevent a mediagenic quasi-"democratic" horse race during which negative campaigning intraparty would be difficult to prevent. instead of Biden, the choice is between Trump and what the publish perceives as chaotic, ambitious, backbiters and their rioting supporters outside the convention. 2/
@djc that may prove impossible! if the rebellion cannot be crushed, if there is sufficient pressure from democratic pols and public to drop out now now now, then they may feel they have no alternative than just calling quits (with or without some endorsement) and risking a chaotic, more-democratic-in-form-than-substance, "open convention". 3/
@djc That might work out! I mean, both Biden and Trump are absurdly unpopular candidates that only America's weird electoral institutions would have set up for a run-off. A kind of random quasidemocratic process might well do better! But it also might prove terrible. It would be wiser to prefer a better-managed and substantively more democratically legit process (the winner of the public election chooses his emergency successor), if that remains possible. /fin
@norootcause @marick i think Ford is kind of a great sign! Low key, understated, probably underestimated.
[new draft post] Superdelegates https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2024/06/29/superdelegates/index.html
A really excellent rundown on the incoherent judicial gymnastics threatening the most important reform in higher-ed finance, like, ever, President Biden's SAVE plan. by @ddayen https://prospect.org/justice/2024-06-26-student-loan-rulings-unaccountable-judicial-power/
"This is the American story of the past 4 decades: accumulate tech debt, merge to monopoly, exponentially compound your tech debt by combining barely functional IT systems. Every corporate behemoth is locked in a race between the eventual discovery of its irreparable structural defects and its ability to become so enmeshed in our lives that we have to assume the costs of fixing those defects. It's a contest between 'too rotten to stand' and 'too big to care'" @pluralistic https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/28/dealer-management-software/#antonin-scalia-stole-your-car
@LesterB99 a friend sent me a bag after that exchange, but i still might buy one of the brands suggested (many of which were completely occluded from Google searches). i had planned to be traveling to Europe this summer but called it off, so it's less urgent a call.
what if Biden is just a morning person?
to be discreet is to have discretion but to be discrete is to have discontinuity.
@softwarepagan have you ever wanted to run an intelligence agency?
“I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to design large parts of a relaunch of medicare plan compare, the US government site through which hundreds of thousands of medicare recipients purchase their health care plans each year… I especially want to share this story because I want to show that quality software can get written under government constraints. It can! And if we all start believing that it can, we're more likely to produce it.” @llimllib https://notes.billmill.org/blog/2024/06/Serving_a_billion_web_requests_with_boring_code.html // a deep dive
@marick i’m envious.
I periodically — lately oddly frequently — repost this one.
Merge the Court https://www.interfluidity.com/v2/7964.html
the american zodiac is the presidency you were born in. i’m a nixon. explains a lot about how things have gone.
@LouisIngenthron i guess i’m crediting the administration with some influence over this.
@LouisIngenthron i’d characterize that mistake, in either case, more as overestimating themselves. and i don’t doubt that there’s a lot of that! but there are also a lot of very brilliant, more detached people associated with this administration, and i think they might have considered the contingencies. prediction markets now have Biden’s nomination at 60-ish percent. which sounds about right to me.
@_dm @Simplicator i think Trump did a good job of not being that bad.
he confabulated on abortion and professed moderatehood by supporting medication availability, completely dodged questions about kicking out stable, attached long-term undocumented and climate change, questions on which his movement’s actual answers would alienate tye public.
if the strategy was let the public see Trump and be afraid, i think it failed badly.
@Simplicator i’m not sure how you do damage control from events like this. a public that already suspected the president has lost a step will just somehow forget?
@paninid i don’t know. domestic policywise it’s been by far the best administration of my lifetime. that earns them at least a little bit of benefit of the doubt in my book.
my theory is that the Biden Administration demanded an early debate precisely so there would be time for a change of course if his candidacy came to seem untenable.