Both Christianity and Islam lean heavily on personalities of their founders and they seem to be far from moribund, even though both dudes are long dead.
That's a good point. I explicitly thought about religious fundamentalism as another variant of a worldview that is allergic to error-correction. But although world religions have a much bigger shelf-life than personality cults, they're still susceptible to brittle shattering in the long run. My (potential dodgy) rebuttal would also be that those religions may have started as personality cults, but that's not really the case now.
I mostly just want a presidential candidate with a 101 level understanding of basic economics, and while Trump absolutely isn't it, Harris's economic agenda...um...doesn't exactly inspire confidence in her either.
At least there's that, although I'm not confident that the cause is her suddenly learning why price controls are bad (more along the lines of her proposal causing backlash). And as the link mentions, it's not like she's given up the idea of price controls.
Can you name one single president in the entire history of the United States who campaigned and was subsequently elected on a platform of sound economic ideas? You economic purists are living in a fantasy land.
Bill Clinton campaigned on NAFTA, and I think free trade is a sound economic idea. Ronald Reagan campaigned on tax cuts, and I think tax cuts are a sound economic idea.
Clinton won because Ross “Giant Sucking Sound” Perot sucked away 21% of the vote campaigning against NAFTA. And Bush Sr. lost a lot of political capital and the election because he raised taxes for sound economic reasons by breaking his “Read my lips: no new taxes” election promise.
Reagan campaigned on tax cuts, which is not always a sound economic idea, and US budget deficits ballooned under and after him.
Seriously though, I'd take demonstrating a basic understanding of econ101. It's not a high bar, and your point that basically every president fails it is not encouraging.
On the other hand, the whole point of having professional politicians representing us, instead of direct democracy, is to shield the country from the majority of the voting public.
It'd be nice to vote for a president that can signal they understand these things, though I'll easily concede it's not likely to happen.
I dislike Trump but holding up this National Hurricane Center picture as a sign of his stupidity always bothered me because if you are a weather nerd living on the Gulf Coast who watches hurricane nerd stuff religiously - If you look at spaghetti models, operational runs, and ensembles, the area he drew was exactly what models were showing beyond the 5 day cone. He didn’t just draw some random nonsense without data. This was like the one instance where he wasn’t being an idiot.
Do you sincerely believe that Trump is a weather nerd who watches hurricane nerd stuff religiously? I don't. The reason I'm claiming he's lying is that by Sept 1st, all the forecast models made it obvious that the storm was going to make a right turn north, and I dug through the NWS archive to find the specific time-stamped advisories that showed that. If the area he drew was indeed "exactly what models were showing beyond the 5 day cone" then why didn't he...just show those models?
He didn’t show those models because they aren’t tidy like the NHC cone. The NHC doesn’t make operational runs easily public in its packages. Go to tropicaltidbits.com and look at model runs and see how you would present that on a slide.
I looked at that site and don't understand your point. Are you claiming that static 2D models are insufficient with conveying the full information? I agree, and assuming you're referring to Trump needing to present a "sequence" of information, he could've wheeled out a TV, or he could've presented a triptych, or flipped through multiple charts. If a static 2D slide was not enough, then I don't understand how a Sharpie (which you may note is also a static 2D slide) fixed that issue.
So just think of the Helene cone 5 days out that stopped in middle Georgia. If you ran through the GFS and Euro and looked at ensembles you could extend the cone of high possibility of impacts further north. If you are an idiot like Trump who merely got briefed and probably half paid attention, do you take screen captures of operational runs and have multiple boards to shoe or do you just use a marker to note the zone that is also likely in jeopardy after the NHC 120 hours? His biggest sun here was being a day late in his awareness of the changing models, not the fact he used a sharpie to illustrate the day old forecast.
Again, I have no reason to think he actually paid attention to the maps. He doesn't express that level of attention and focus on these issues. Him misreading (given his bad eyesight) and then lying about it (given his history of lying) are the far more plausible explanation. If you think my interpretation is wrong, tell me where.
You have got to be kidding me. He mistakenly said it was going to hit Alabama and instead of just ignoring his error (or admitting it), he got a sharpie out.
The hurricane was not making a direct hit on Alabama. The fact that hurricanes have an effect after making landfall and continue weakened was not the point he was making.
The sharpie incident is the THE defining act that best exemplifies how stupid and insecure he is. If you knew someone that did this in your personal life, you would be having an intervention.
Two days before both the GFS and the Euro operational runs as well as many GFS ensembles showed a continuation across the Gulf toward Mobile. He half paid attention in a briefing and didn’t stay up to date on track changes. This was a really odd thing to highlight as every weather need who lives on the Guld and obsessively tracks models during hurricane season just thought "meh, he is a few days late on the updated operational runs". Trump is an idiot and lies a lot but this one instance was only an example of laziness.
How can it only be a result of laziness? I genuinely want to understand your point, as it seems clearly you know and remember the data better than me. Are you saying the sharpie drawing WAS accurate on the day he shared it? Or was it wrong by the time he shared it but was right prior to that?
It would have been accurate two days before. He half listened at a briefing, probably vaguely remembered some track ensembles he was shown ywo days before and filled in the rest. I live in Tallahassee and my house was wrecked in Michael and I obsessively monitor the operational models that NHS uses to issue forecasts during hurricane season. I saw Trump's briefing as it happened and my immediate thought was Trump hasn't been briefed in a maybe 2 days since he was about 5 model runs behind (models run every 6 hours). But everyone acted like he just made it up out of thin air but he was just referencing slightly old modelling. See tropicaltidbits.com run by hurrican expert FSU PhD Levi Cowan to look at operational forecasting models and see ensembles for current storms. You do realize spaghetti models go out longer than the NHS 5 day cone? He just wasn't aware the longer term.track guidance had changed significantly in a few days because he was bad at his job.
That's what I thought, and no, that doesn't just mean he's lazy. That means he's also insane. Instead of checking (or maybe he did check) and understanding he was wrong on the day, he got a fucking sharpie out. That's insane. It's not as though he merely MENTIONED Alabama was still in the path, he got out a sharpie because he couldn't feel 'wrong.'
This is a very minor thing in the big scheme of things but perfectly showcases his insanity.
I'm far from a Trump supporter, but I'm fascinated regarding how he succeeds. As far as I see, a major "idea" is mainly "owning the Libs" - that they are Bad People - and everything else is considered an inconsequential detail. I think there's a real method in this madness. Basically, consider when someone is mobbed on social media, one type of advice is never apologize, never admit error. For the simple logical reason that it'll only make things worse. You might believe an apology is proving character. But in the hate-mob context, it's arguably just walking into another line of mob attack: "You dunderhead, you idiot, now hang your head in shame for being so wrong! Grovel and beg our forgiveness, since even you have admitted you were wrong!" And forever after, "Hey, wrongo, remember that time you messed up so badly you had to apologize it? Oh how wrong you were? Now why should anyone ever take you seriously, never darken our screen again with your wrongness!". And politics is the biggest hate-mob of all. People give Trump endless grief even for stuff he never said, like the "drink bleach" story. Thus I think he's following a strategy of in effect just replying "F-off" to being called on his lies. I don't think there's a four-dimensional hyperchess strategizing behind it. It's much lower level, what's to his advantage? Liberals already despise him, nothing he says is going to win their votes. MAGA's like him being rude to liberals, that's part of Trump's appeal. Nothing more is needed.
The advice against apologizing is conditional on not apologizing reflexively (and non-earnestly) in a bid to mollify to mob, because that does indeed tend to backfire. The only thing non-genuine apologies communicate is one's willingness to capitulate and grovel, and mobs feed off of that. In contrast, genuinely admitting mistakes and expressing earnest contrition are both admirable qualities. Can you think of any scenario where a genuine apology backfired and encouraged further attacks? Relatedly, why can't Trump and anyone else just ignore the attacks?
Even if I accept your framing, Trump lies so pervasively and to his own supporters, and that's better explained by a social control framework rather than an "own the libs" one.
I think there's a kind of "No True Scotsman" problem of distinguishing "genuine" vs "non-genuine" apologies. Any mobbing is going to have the target being accused of all sort of exaggerated things, and not agreeing completely with all the mudslinging can easily be deemed "non-genuine". This is very common in the case of e.g. if someone is accused of having done a racist thing, and wants to express that they meant no harm, but doesn't want to agree that they were racist. Basically, when you say "admirable qualities", that's your own moral determination, you can't speak for the members of the hate-mob. Such a view doesn't say anything as to whether it's effective in any sense.
Unfortunately I don't keep detailed accounts of social media incidents - I actually wish someone did that. Thus I can't come up with a specific case study in the time I'd want to devote to this comment, I'll need to admit that.
Note I don't contend every lie Trump tells has the exact same single motivation. I'm pointing out that many of the lies have a much simpler incentive-based explanation than the "social control framework", which strikes me as a far too elaborate framework for much of what Trump does. Part of his strategy is projecting "strength" directly. When he tells the press to essentially "F-off", it's not that he's showing he's so powerful that he can make everyone agree to false things, it's that he's showing he's so powerful that he can tell them to "F-off". That's the primal message (which wouldn't be so evident in just ignoring them). I believe "intellectuals" sometimes get much too enamored of constructing complicated explanations for the visceral satisfaction which can be found in giving a middle finger to prominent "opposite tribe" members.
FYI, here's a detailed case study of admitting error vs mob dynamics. I simply happened to read it this morning, and it's just another day on social media. I wouldn't be keeping an archive of this stuff in order to provide evidence for the proposition that the "is" of results is not the "ought" of morality:
"What really struck me was that for some people, a single bite of the cherry wasn't enough. You hear about accounts working on their tweets to try to make them go viral. It's what we could call the hyperbole ratchet: you amp up the outrage, step by step, trying to find something that will work best."
"But if you're on the hyperbole ratchet, it is a big deal, and the next time Kuenssberg shows her face you can be absolutely sure there will be a ton of people ready to remind her of it. ... Ratchets can be reset, and the best way is to put events into perspective. Not, of course, that anyone on social media wants to do that. Because where's the fun in being accurate?"
> "I know some bona fide Trump supporters are masochistic enough to read my shit ..."
Reminds me of a joke: masochist says "beat me", sadist says, "no". Some truly wild and wonderful behaviours, and "perverse incentives" in human kind.
But the one you describe kind of comes under the heading of "cult of personality" -- both Canada's own Justin Trudeau and Stalin spring to mind. A classic case in the latter being audience members not not wanting to be the first to stop clapping following a speech from the "Dear Leader".
But, sadly or not, Trump in many cases has the better ideas, even if they're marred by some serious scientific illiteracy and outright cluelessness of his own. Case in point being his stated policy of kicking transwomen -- AKA male transvestites, if they still have their nuts, or sexless eunuchs if they don't -- out of women's sports, toilets, and change rooms.
You may not think it much of an issue, but some reason to argue -- as did Helens Dale and Joyce -- that transgenderism is a "civilization threatening/ending movement":
When Harris boots "Rachel" Levine out on "her" ear is when I might think that she is the "lesser of two weevils" and not Trump. Won't be holding my breath ...
I know you're not, like, explicitly putting Justin Trudeau and Stalin on the same level, but the way you mention them both in the same breath without elaborating and kinda wiggle your eyebrows strikes me as really petty.
Also, to save anyone from reading that podcast link to find out why transgender issues would be civilization threatening, the argument boils down to "Lies are contagious so if you lie about sex you have to lie about everything".
Which... I mean, I can see we're not going to see eye to eye on gender issues anyway, but I still don't see how that makes Trump *less* civilization-threatening. Especially when climate change is one of the things he keeps lying about.
But glad you appreciate that "if you lie about sex you have to lie about everything", though I don't think you appreciate how much rot transgenderism has wrought -- so to speak. For examples, see:
Therefrom, see also Joanna Williams' detailed essay on "The Corrosive Impact of Transgender Ideology" which provides an entire chapter on the "ideological capture'" of a wide range of social institutions.
Though not sure about your "eye to eye on gender issues". A big part of the problem is that virtually everyone has a different, and often quite unscientific, definition for both sex and gender. And rather pigheadedly refuses to consider more tenable definitions. The late great US Justice Anton Scalia had a very useful and quite illuminating analogy that underlined those differences:
"The word 'gender' has acquired the new and useful connotation of cultural or attitudinal characteristics (as opposed to physical characteristics) distinctive to the sexes. That is to say, gender is to sex as feminine is to female and masculine to male."
> But glad you appreciate that "if you lie about sex you have to lie about everything", though I don't think you appreciate how much rot transgenderism has wrought -- so to speak.
Look, words fail me to describe how little I respect that mindset, and how little good faith I expect from people who adopt it.
You're clearly very upset about the US left wing's gender orthodoxy, and sure, if you press me on it, I'll agree there's lots to be reasonably frustrated about.
But the moment that frustration becomes "And therefore Donald Trump is the better choice", you've lost me. Maybe I was being too coy earlier, so I'll be more explicit: claiming to care deeply about truth-telling and honesty as a motivation to endorse Donald Trump is an incredibly hypocritical and self-serving narrative.
Like, I'm sorry, but I'm not even gonna pretend this is subjective. If you support Donald Trump, caring about honesty is optional for you.
What *isn't* optional for you is caring about transgender issues. You clearly think that the idea of "The label of 'woman' should exclusively refer to biological women" is so self-evident as to not need explaining. You think that anybody who disagrees with the above is clearly lying, creating a shared hallucination, and enforcing conformance with that hallucination on pain of ostracism.
And fair enough, what makes this debate especially contentious is that people argue not just for policies but for *how to interpret reality* (eg the whole "trans women are women" slogan), and the progressive side has a tendency to frame having a different reality-interpretation as a moral failing. It's fair to be upset about that.
But don't pretend you care about truth. You only care about truth insofar as it means "Being able to talk about trans people however I want to".
And in practice, however you want to ends up being "with a lot of contempt and disgust". The scare quotes, talking about "male transvestites", "sexless eunuchs", "how much rot transgenderism has wrought", etc.
OF: But the moment that frustration becomes "And therefore Donald Trump is the better choice", you've lost me.
You're kind of missing the point. Any politician who insists that transwomen are actual women -- and implements laws to give weight to that fraud, that medical scandal -- has clearly proven himself to be profoundly unfit to govern. Regardless of any possible flaws on the other side.
OF: The scare quotes, talking about "male transvestites", "sexless eunuchs", "how much rot transgenderism has wrought", etc. You're a bigot.
Those aren't "scare quotes"; they're rather brute facts that too many want to sweep under the carpet or sugar-coat. Standard biological definitions for the sexes stipulate that to have a sex is to have functional gonads of either of two types, those with neither being, ipso facto, sexless. "male transvestites" and "sexless eunuchs" follow inexorably. Sorry if that "offends" you ... 🙄
Hmm, let's play a devil's argument here.
Both Christianity and Islam lean heavily on personalities of their founders and they seem to be far from moribund, even though both dudes are long dead.
That's a good point. I explicitly thought about religious fundamentalism as another variant of a worldview that is allergic to error-correction. But although world religions have a much bigger shelf-life than personality cults, they're still susceptible to brittle shattering in the long run. My (potential dodgy) rebuttal would also be that those religions may have started as personality cults, but that's not really the case now.
I mostly just want a presidential candidate with a 101 level understanding of basic economics, and while Trump absolutely isn't it, Harris's economic agenda...um...doesn't exactly inspire confidence in her either.
Her price control proposal was really bad, but at least she's capable of scaling back errors: https://reason.com/volokh/2024/09/30/harris-scales-back-harmful-price-control-proposal/
At least there's that, although I'm not confident that the cause is her suddenly learning why price controls are bad (more along the lines of her proposal causing backlash). And as the link mentions, it's not like she's given up the idea of price controls.
Can you name one single president in the entire history of the United States who campaigned and was subsequently elected on a platform of sound economic ideas? You economic purists are living in a fantasy land.
Bill Clinton campaigned on NAFTA, and I think free trade is a sound economic idea. Ronald Reagan campaigned on tax cuts, and I think tax cuts are a sound economic idea.
Clinton won because Ross “Giant Sucking Sound” Perot sucked away 21% of the vote campaigning against NAFTA. And Bush Sr. lost a lot of political capital and the election because he raised taxes for sound economic reasons by breaking his “Read my lips: no new taxes” election promise.
Reagan campaigned on tax cuts, which is not always a sound economic idea, and US budget deficits ballooned under and after him.
Hamilton, if the musical is to be believed.
Seriously though, I'd take demonstrating a basic understanding of econ101. It's not a high bar, and your point that basically every president fails it is not encouraging.
That’s not my point, my point is sound economic ideas are not popular with the majority of the voting public.
Agreed.
On the other hand, the whole point of having professional politicians representing us, instead of direct democracy, is to shield the country from the majority of the voting public.
It'd be nice to vote for a president that can signal they understand these things, though I'll easily concede it's not likely to happen.
I dislike Trump but holding up this National Hurricane Center picture as a sign of his stupidity always bothered me because if you are a weather nerd living on the Gulf Coast who watches hurricane nerd stuff religiously - If you look at spaghetti models, operational runs, and ensembles, the area he drew was exactly what models were showing beyond the 5 day cone. He didn’t just draw some random nonsense without data. This was like the one instance where he wasn’t being an idiot.
Do you sincerely believe that Trump is a weather nerd who watches hurricane nerd stuff religiously? I don't. The reason I'm claiming he's lying is that by Sept 1st, all the forecast models made it obvious that the storm was going to make a right turn north, and I dug through the NWS archive to find the specific time-stamped advisories that showed that. If the area he drew was indeed "exactly what models were showing beyond the 5 day cone" then why didn't he...just show those models?
He didn’t show those models because they aren’t tidy like the NHC cone. The NHC doesn’t make operational runs easily public in its packages. Go to tropicaltidbits.com and look at model runs and see how you would present that on a slide.
I looked at that site and don't understand your point. Are you claiming that static 2D models are insufficient with conveying the full information? I agree, and assuming you're referring to Trump needing to present a "sequence" of information, he could've wheeled out a TV, or he could've presented a triptych, or flipped through multiple charts. If a static 2D slide was not enough, then I don't understand how a Sharpie (which you may note is also a static 2D slide) fixed that issue.
So just think of the Helene cone 5 days out that stopped in middle Georgia. If you ran through the GFS and Euro and looked at ensembles you could extend the cone of high possibility of impacts further north. If you are an idiot like Trump who merely got briefed and probably half paid attention, do you take screen captures of operational runs and have multiple boards to shoe or do you just use a marker to note the zone that is also likely in jeopardy after the NHC 120 hours? His biggest sun here was being a day late in his awareness of the changing models, not the fact he used a sharpie to illustrate the day old forecast.
Again, I have no reason to think he actually paid attention to the maps. He doesn't express that level of attention and focus on these issues. Him misreading (given his bad eyesight) and then lying about it (given his history of lying) are the far more plausible explanation. If you think my interpretation is wrong, tell me where.
I think he was probably briefed the day before. And yeah, he was a day late in the models.
You have got to be kidding me. He mistakenly said it was going to hit Alabama and instead of just ignoring his error (or admitting it), he got a sharpie out.
The hurricane was not making a direct hit on Alabama. The fact that hurricanes have an effect after making landfall and continue weakened was not the point he was making.
The sharpie incident is the THE defining act that best exemplifies how stupid and insecure he is. If you knew someone that did this in your personal life, you would be having an intervention.
Two days before both the GFS and the Euro operational runs as well as many GFS ensembles showed a continuation across the Gulf toward Mobile. He half paid attention in a briefing and didn’t stay up to date on track changes. This was a really odd thing to highlight as every weather need who lives on the Guld and obsessively tracks models during hurricane season just thought "meh, he is a few days late on the updated operational runs". Trump is an idiot and lies a lot but this one instance was only an example of laziness.
How can it only be a result of laziness? I genuinely want to understand your point, as it seems clearly you know and remember the data better than me. Are you saying the sharpie drawing WAS accurate on the day he shared it? Or was it wrong by the time he shared it but was right prior to that?
It would have been accurate two days before. He half listened at a briefing, probably vaguely remembered some track ensembles he was shown ywo days before and filled in the rest. I live in Tallahassee and my house was wrecked in Michael and I obsessively monitor the operational models that NHS uses to issue forecasts during hurricane season. I saw Trump's briefing as it happened and my immediate thought was Trump hasn't been briefed in a maybe 2 days since he was about 5 model runs behind (models run every 6 hours). But everyone acted like he just made it up out of thin air but he was just referencing slightly old modelling. See tropicaltidbits.com run by hurrican expert FSU PhD Levi Cowan to look at operational forecasting models and see ensembles for current storms. You do realize spaghetti models go out longer than the NHS 5 day cone? He just wasn't aware the longer term.track guidance had changed significantly in a few days because he was bad at his job.
That's what I thought, and no, that doesn't just mean he's lazy. That means he's also insane. Instead of checking (or maybe he did check) and understanding he was wrong on the day, he got a fucking sharpie out. That's insane. It's not as though he merely MENTIONED Alabama was still in the path, he got out a sharpie because he couldn't feel 'wrong.'
This is a very minor thing in the big scheme of things but perfectly showcases his insanity.
I'm far from a Trump supporter, but I'm fascinated regarding how he succeeds. As far as I see, a major "idea" is mainly "owning the Libs" - that they are Bad People - and everything else is considered an inconsequential detail. I think there's a real method in this madness. Basically, consider when someone is mobbed on social media, one type of advice is never apologize, never admit error. For the simple logical reason that it'll only make things worse. You might believe an apology is proving character. But in the hate-mob context, it's arguably just walking into another line of mob attack: "You dunderhead, you idiot, now hang your head in shame for being so wrong! Grovel and beg our forgiveness, since even you have admitted you were wrong!" And forever after, "Hey, wrongo, remember that time you messed up so badly you had to apologize it? Oh how wrong you were? Now why should anyone ever take you seriously, never darken our screen again with your wrongness!". And politics is the biggest hate-mob of all. People give Trump endless grief even for stuff he never said, like the "drink bleach" story. Thus I think he's following a strategy of in effect just replying "F-off" to being called on his lies. I don't think there's a four-dimensional hyperchess strategizing behind it. It's much lower level, what's to his advantage? Liberals already despise him, nothing he says is going to win their votes. MAGA's like him being rude to liberals, that's part of Trump's appeal. Nothing more is needed.
The advice against apologizing is conditional on not apologizing reflexively (and non-earnestly) in a bid to mollify to mob, because that does indeed tend to backfire. The only thing non-genuine apologies communicate is one's willingness to capitulate and grovel, and mobs feed off of that. In contrast, genuinely admitting mistakes and expressing earnest contrition are both admirable qualities. Can you think of any scenario where a genuine apology backfired and encouraged further attacks? Relatedly, why can't Trump and anyone else just ignore the attacks?
Even if I accept your framing, Trump lies so pervasively and to his own supporters, and that's better explained by a social control framework rather than an "own the libs" one.
I think there's a kind of "No True Scotsman" problem of distinguishing "genuine" vs "non-genuine" apologies. Any mobbing is going to have the target being accused of all sort of exaggerated things, and not agreeing completely with all the mudslinging can easily be deemed "non-genuine". This is very common in the case of e.g. if someone is accused of having done a racist thing, and wants to express that they meant no harm, but doesn't want to agree that they were racist. Basically, when you say "admirable qualities", that's your own moral determination, you can't speak for the members of the hate-mob. Such a view doesn't say anything as to whether it's effective in any sense.
Unfortunately I don't keep detailed accounts of social media incidents - I actually wish someone did that. Thus I can't come up with a specific case study in the time I'd want to devote to this comment, I'll need to admit that.
Note I don't contend every lie Trump tells has the exact same single motivation. I'm pointing out that many of the lies have a much simpler incentive-based explanation than the "social control framework", which strikes me as a far too elaborate framework for much of what Trump does. Part of his strategy is projecting "strength" directly. When he tells the press to essentially "F-off", it's not that he's showing he's so powerful that he can make everyone agree to false things, it's that he's showing he's so powerful that he can tell them to "F-off". That's the primal message (which wouldn't be so evident in just ignoring them). I believe "intellectuals" sometimes get much too enamored of constructing complicated explanations for the visceral satisfaction which can be found in giving a middle finger to prominent "opposite tribe" members.
FYI, here's a detailed case study of admitting error vs mob dynamics. I simply happened to read it this morning, and it's just another day on social media. I wouldn't be keeping an archive of this stuff in order to provide evidence for the proposition that the "is" of results is not the "ought" of morality:
https://socialwarming.substack.com/p/roll-up-for-the-hyperbole-ratchet
"What really struck me was that for some people, a single bite of the cherry wasn't enough. You hear about accounts working on their tweets to try to make them go viral. It's what we could call the hyperbole ratchet: you amp up the outrage, step by step, trying to find something that will work best."
"But if you're on the hyperbole ratchet, it is a big deal, and the next time Kuenssberg shows her face you can be absolutely sure there will be a ton of people ready to remind her of it. ... Ratchets can be reset, and the best way is to put events into perspective. Not, of course, that anyone on social media wants to do that. Because where's the fun in being accurate?"
> "I know some bona fide Trump supporters are masochistic enough to read my shit ..."
Reminds me of a joke: masochist says "beat me", sadist says, "no". Some truly wild and wonderful behaviours, and "perverse incentives" in human kind.
But the one you describe kind of comes under the heading of "cult of personality" -- both Canada's own Justin Trudeau and Stalin spring to mind. A classic case in the latter being audience members not not wanting to be the first to stop clapping following a speech from the "Dear Leader".
But, sadly or not, Trump in many cases has the better ideas, even if they're marred by some serious scientific illiteracy and outright cluelessness of his own. Case in point being his stated policy of kicking transwomen -- AKA male transvestites, if they still have their nuts, or sexless eunuchs if they don't -- out of women's sports, toilets, and change rooms.
You may not think it much of an issue, but some reason to argue -- as did Helens Dale and Joyce -- that transgenderism is a "civilization threatening/ending movement":
https://lawliberty.org/podcast/when-does-sex-matter/
When Harris boots "Rachel" Levine out on "her" ear is when I might think that she is the "lesser of two weevils" and not Trump. Won't be holding my breath ...
I know you're not, like, explicitly putting Justin Trudeau and Stalin on the same level, but the way you mention them both in the same breath without elaborating and kinda wiggle your eyebrows strikes me as really petty.
Also, to save anyone from reading that podcast link to find out why transgender issues would be civilization threatening, the argument boils down to "Lies are contagious so if you lie about sex you have to lie about everything".
Which... I mean, I can see we're not going to see eye to eye on gender issues anyway, but I still don't see how that makes Trump *less* civilization-threatening. Especially when climate change is one of the things he keeps lying about.
Well, Trudeau hasn't invaded Hungary -- yet, but the same cult of personality, with similarly "problematic" consequences:
https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/kinsella-cabinet-faces-matter-not-in-justin-trudeaus-cult-of-personality
But glad you appreciate that "if you lie about sex you have to lie about everything", though I don't think you appreciate how much rot transgenderism has wrought -- so to speak. For examples, see:
"Statistics Departments Corrupted by Gender Ideology; Lysenkoism and The Gangs Who Couldn't Shoot Straight"; https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/statistics-departments-corrupted
Therefrom, see also Joanna Williams' detailed essay on "The Corrosive Impact of Transgender Ideology" which provides an entire chapter on the "ideological capture'" of a wide range of social institutions.
Though not sure about your "eye to eye on gender issues". A big part of the problem is that virtually everyone has a different, and often quite unscientific, definition for both sex and gender. And rather pigheadedly refuses to consider more tenable definitions. The late great US Justice Anton Scalia had a very useful and quite illuminating analogy that underlined those differences:
"The word 'gender' has acquired the new and useful connotation of cultural or attitudinal characteristics (as opposed to physical characteristics) distinctive to the sexes. That is to say, gender is to sex as feminine is to female and masculine to male."
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/511/127/
> But glad you appreciate that "if you lie about sex you have to lie about everything", though I don't think you appreciate how much rot transgenderism has wrought -- so to speak.
Look, words fail me to describe how little I respect that mindset, and how little good faith I expect from people who adopt it.
You're clearly very upset about the US left wing's gender orthodoxy, and sure, if you press me on it, I'll agree there's lots to be reasonably frustrated about.
But the moment that frustration becomes "And therefore Donald Trump is the better choice", you've lost me. Maybe I was being too coy earlier, so I'll be more explicit: claiming to care deeply about truth-telling and honesty as a motivation to endorse Donald Trump is an incredibly hypocritical and self-serving narrative.
Like, I'm sorry, but I'm not even gonna pretend this is subjective. If you support Donald Trump, caring about honesty is optional for you.
What *isn't* optional for you is caring about transgender issues. You clearly think that the idea of "The label of 'woman' should exclusively refer to biological women" is so self-evident as to not need explaining. You think that anybody who disagrees with the above is clearly lying, creating a shared hallucination, and enforcing conformance with that hallucination on pain of ostracism.
And fair enough, what makes this debate especially contentious is that people argue not just for policies but for *how to interpret reality* (eg the whole "trans women are women" slogan), and the progressive side has a tendency to frame having a different reality-interpretation as a moral failing. It's fair to be upset about that.
But don't pretend you care about truth. You only care about truth insofar as it means "Being able to talk about trans people however I want to".
And in practice, however you want to ends up being "with a lot of contempt and disgust". The scare quotes, talking about "male transvestites", "sexless eunuchs", "how much rot transgenderism has wrought", etc.
You're a bigot.
OF: But the moment that frustration becomes "And therefore Donald Trump is the better choice", you've lost me.
You're kind of missing the point. Any politician who insists that transwomen are actual women -- and implements laws to give weight to that fraud, that medical scandal -- has clearly proven himself to be profoundly unfit to govern. Regardless of any possible flaws on the other side.
OF: The scare quotes, talking about "male transvestites", "sexless eunuchs", "how much rot transgenderism has wrought", etc. You're a bigot.
Those aren't "scare quotes"; they're rather brute facts that too many want to sweep under the carpet or sugar-coat. Standard biological definitions for the sexes stipulate that to have a sex is to have functional gonads of either of two types, those with neither being, ipso facto, sexless. "male transvestites" and "sexless eunuchs" follow inexorably. Sorry if that "offends" you ... 🙄
“Trump qua Trump” is no bueno