Hotter, Badder, and Unpopularer Takes

[Gracile]

I don't like the terms "culturally Southern," "culturally Midwestern," "culturally Northeastern," etc. when describing characteristics of a given place. It's narrow-minded to pigeonhole an entire region based on stereotypic notions of what said region's culture consists of.

[Gracile]

Bicycles are for children too young for a license, and their use by well-off adults as a primary means of transportation is a sign of softness and social decay. This applies to the general decline in driving as well.

In many parts of the country and the world bicycling is a more practical mode of transportation than driving a car. I fail to see what it has to do with "social decay" - whatever that term means.

[Gracile]

Atlas WAY overrates the speed of "trends" (that often don't exist anyway).

While trends are certainly not everything, observable ones over a long period have high predictive power. If anything, Atlas puts too much emphasis on past electoral margins - the expectation that an election is a one-off event and that a given state will easily revert to its results in a prior election (such thinking often ignores the reasons why a given state shifted toward one party in the first place).

[Gracile]

I have an irrational dislike of the "Tilt" rating, especially if Tilt and Tossup are used in the same rating system (should be Tossup > Lean R/Lean D or no tossup and just Tilt R/D).

[Gracile]

"Pub" is such an awful shorthand for Republican.

[Gracile]

I don't like Andrew Yang.

[Gracile]

If he were to win the Democratic presidential nomination, Bernie Sanders' general electoral coalition would look virtually the same as any of the other potential Democratic candidates in terms of the urban/suburban/rural breakdown. Furthermore, his electoral map would largely track closer to the 2016 presidential map than the 2012 presidential map, with many of the trends we saw in 2016 continuing with Sanders as the nominee.

(And for the record, I don't mean this in a pejorative way as I am a Sanders supporter myself.)

[Gracile]

I have been a Sanders supporter since mid-2015 and I've never heard of half of these internet commentators his detractors keep bringing up as speaking for a wide swath of his supporters - nor do I care to find out.

[Gracile]

One of the worst aspects of politics today is that so many people have gotten into the habit of calling politicians by their first name (ex. Bernie, Hillary, The Donald, Mayor Pete, etc.). It's even worse when people add a familial element to it (Uncle Joe). Politicians are not your friends or your family; they are tools for enacting meaningful policies that improve the lives of their constituents. It's important to divorce one's self from that kind of superficial admiration and familiarity to be able to hold a person accountable for how they are serving their communities and championing political causes.

[Gracile]

The word "folks" is such an unsightly, condescending word in our political vocabulary, and it's disgusting that virtually every person seeking elected office unironically uses that term. Just call people "people".

[Gracile]

"Malarkey/No Malarkey" is a horrible slogan. It needlessly talks down to groups who are not in Biden's wing, and it shows a great deal of irony because its overuse makes it seem like Biden's campaign leaning heavily into vapid catchphrases at the expense of substance. I dislike how many on the political center-left refer to left-wingers as unserious (as an earnest left-winger who goes to great lengths to show that my positions are authentic and not part of some edgy act, I take great offense to this). Yet, they are intent on propping up a candidate who uses odd expressions that just makes him sound foolish much of the time.

[Gracile]

I'm not sure how hot this take is, but Election Twitter is mostly terrible aside from the maps and I would say the median Atlas poster has a far better sense of contemporary electoral politics than the median ET user (with some major exceptions like J. Miles Coleman). I also think Twitter is a horrible place to have in-depth discussions about elections, though that's more to do with the limitations of Twitter as a medium than anything else.

[Gracile]

Atlas is incredibly ignorant of taxation for an ostensibly "high info" forum.

I think the mere understanding of marginal tax brackets seems to qualify as high info in this country. So many people love to bring that up in discussions to sound smart (and in fairness, so many people are always claiming not to want to move into the next tax bracket)

I suppose that's true.

It's just frustrating to see people be so capable on maps, and demographic analysis, but then make really, really basic errors on taxes like suggesting plans that would charge small business owners at hugely different rates depending on if they pay themselves dividends or salaries, or claiming that Amazon doesn't pay any taxes.

No offense, but it's a little foolish to assume that a group of people on a website would be knowledgable about a topic that is outside the site's primary focus. At the very least, given how segmented the forum is, it is not surprising that someone would be knowledgable about its principal subject matter (election results, geography, campaign politics, etc.) while still not being high info on issues like taxation.

[Gracile]

I get mildly annoyed by the way people throw around the term "Blue Dog" to describe any conservative/centrist Democrats. For example, John Bel Edwards, Joe Manchin, and all conservative Democrats from before the 1990s are not Blue Dogs. (pedantic)

[Gracile]

Politically "moderate" people can be just as hackish as people on the far ends of the left-right ideological spectrum (and conversely, people on the far-left and far-right can be pretty knowledgeable/earnest about their wings' political realities).

[Gracile]

I find the abbreviated term "state lege" (for state legislature) to be incredibly disconcerting. What's wrong with "state leg"?

[Gracile]

I find discussion of personal political opinions and ideology to be highly uninteresting much of the time (especially for someone who frequents/moderates a political forum). That kind of information is only compelling to me if it can be applied to data about voter preferences and demographics.