Hotter, Badder, and Unpopularer Takes

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I am a HUGE contrarian, and I really mean HUGE.
Basically all of my hotter, badder and unpopularer takes stem from this.



I can be very easily apologetic of people whose ideology I can't stand because I can't stand even more people saying bad things about others (and I'm a contrarian).
Like, if I read an article of The Atlantic decrying Donald Trump as the ultimate threat to democracy in the US, I start almost rooting for Trump. Of course, if then I open David Horowitz's Twitter page, I come back to my usual left leanings and hope Democrats win everything.
Last year, I both attacked Giulio Andreotti once in a discussion with my father about the former Christian Democrats, AND defended Giulio Andreotti once in my classroom because I felt my teacher to be punching him unfairly. (I'm normally no fan of Andreotti)

I have a problematic relationship with the concept of marriage. I think the word marriage should be reserved for religious ones. I'm torn about what to do with civil marriage - both opposite-sex and same-sex - though. Sometimes I think it should be renamed, possibly changing its legal obligations; basically render all civil marriages civil unions. Sometimes I am in a libertarian mood and I think we should get away entirely with these concepts; after all, why do I and my fiancée need the recognition of the state? Sometimes I am in a traditionalist mood and I just surrender to reality because I feel that the words husband and wife can't be used outside of a marriage.

I get annoyed by how little coverage I see in the United States media of the plights of Native Americans compared to other minority groups.

One of the things I really can't understand of the United States, politically speaking, is how in 50 years of debates about this they haven't been able to formulate a federal compromise on abortion and then let it stand, like most of Europe, inclunding heavily Catholic Italy, has done. (Also, why death penalty is so disgustingly popular)

I am ambiguous on some social policy because on the one hand I support a fairly conservative order of things but on the other hand I think it's immoral trying to enforce it by law so I end up being liberal.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

The modern American right hate democracy. Seen by their approval of Trump and McConnell sh*tting all over norms and checks and balances. Along with the fact that wannabe dictators like Bolsonaro, Le Pen, or Salvini are being invited to places like CPAC and are becoming celebrity figures in rw meme culture

Matteo Salvini has been our Minister of the Interior for 14 months. I despise him, but saying he is a "wannabe dictator" is pretty crazy and by the way Silvio Berlusconi deserved that label far more than Salvini (even though I would never use it for Berlusconi too).

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

The modern American right hate democracy. Seen by their approval of Trump and McConnell sh*tting all over norms and checks and balances. Along with the fact that wannabe dictators like Bolsonaro, Le Pen, or Salvini are being invited to places like CPAC and are becoming celebrity figures in rw meme culture

Matteo Salvini has been our Minister of the Interior for 14 months. I despise him, but saying he is a "wannabe dictator" is pretty crazy and by the way Silvio Berlusconi deserved that label far more than Salvini (even though I would never use it for Berlusconi too).

He’s literally been quoted as saying he hates democracy. Sounds pretty authoritarian to me

I can't find the quote, instead I found a tweet where Salvini accuses the left of not having faith in democracy.
Anyway, I just tell you one thing about Berlusconi. It's called "editto bulgaro" and happened in 2002.
Basically there were some programs on the public television Rai that were overtly critical or satyrical towards Berlusconi. While on a foreign tour in Sofia, Bulgaria, he denounced the hosts of them as people making a criminal use of television and expressed hope that Rai would not let that happen again. The three hosts involved had their shows cancelled by Rai board of directors some months later.* Ah and by the way Berlusconi owns the largest private television company in Italy.
This sounds like some of the acts that get the left totally apesh**t at Trump. Berlusconi also always accused judges of persecuting him.

*I should point out that they weren't the first people fired by Rai for "stepping too far" in satyre towards politicians, but this case was particularly egregious and public

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I get annoyed by how little coverage I see in the United States media of the plights of Native Americans compared to other minority groups.

They are a smaller group numerically in the US than blacks or Hispanics.  And Blacks, Hispanics, Koreans, etc. have neighborhoods where they make up a majority of the population in the big cities where the large news media organizations are based, but American Indians don't, so perhaps they are more easily forgotten.


anyway, welcome to the forum.  always nice to have another contrarian here!

Thank you for your welcome!

Now I have a take that is sure to be unpopular here (and probably bad too):
I think Democrats should invest in the Alabama Senate seat to try and save Doug Jones.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Last year, I both attacked Giulio Andreotti once in a discussion with my father about the former Christian Democrats, AND defended Giulio Andreotti once in my classroom because I felt my teacher to be punching him unfairly. (I'm normally no fan of Andreotti)

I think this is a fair stance on the man, especially when you compare him with explicit demons of postwar Italian politics like Craxi and Berlusconi. Whatever you may say about him - and you can rightly accuse him of an awful lot of crap - he was far more principled and serious a politician than the sort of politician who looted everything not bolted down and ran off.

I am not sure that Andreotti was especially more serious and principled than Craxi, although they both were obviously much more so than Berlusconi.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I am not sure that Andreotti was especially more serious and principled than Craxi, although they both were obviously much more so than Berlusconi.

He was if you think of him as a man who believed in one big thing rather than lots of little things, if that makes sense.

Said like this, you remind me of this phrase attributed to Archilocus: "the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing", that political analyst Nate Silver likes very much to use, and in his use the foxes are better than the hedgehogs.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Whenever I hear NeverTrumper takes about the pre-Trump Republican Party, I can't help but think about Real Conservatives^TM like Jesse Helms, Trent Lott and Strom Thurmond.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I kinda think some (many?) Democrats have a fetish for William Jennings Bryan and Theodore Roosevelt where they think that Woodrow Wilson was a Racist^TM and instead WJB and TR were not, so that they both are Good while Wilson is Bad.
Which of course is a gross oversimplification.
Not to mention that Bryan was a Prohibitionist, that he went the full religious crusader / opponent of evolution theory in the 20's, or that Roosevelt was imperialist and nativist.


(this is not meant as an apologia of Wilson, who did obviously some pretty overtly racist things like segregating the federal government)

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

THOUGHTS ABOUT KANSAS FETISH

In 2016 Trump won Kansas by 20.5 points roughly. He also won Nebraska's 1st congressional district by 20.5 points roughly. Clinton won the national PV by 2.1 points of course.
But Kansas swung a little to the left. Nebraska's 1st district swung quite a bit to the right.
Then in 2018 every political junkie of the world got amped up by Kansas's gubernatorial race, which had a weird dynamic and was competitive. Laura Kelly won and Democrats went crazy about the Sunflower State. No one cared about the boring race in Nebraska, where Republican Pete Ricketts was re-elected; but he won NE-01 by 11.6 points (and it swung left compared to 2014).
I don't mean to say that people believe that Laura Kelly's race is representative of the conditions which Trump and Biden will face in November, but now fast-forward to 2020.

I see a lot of posters thinking that a Biden landslide can open the floodgates of Kansas big time and make it just 12~15 points to the right of the national average. Meanwhile people seem to think it's completely impossible for NE-01 to flip. This strikes me as off. It seems something along the lines of "muh trends" or even "muh Kobach Brownback Kelly Bollier Johnson County" or probably these posters didn't even know Nebraska has a 1st district. I call this Kansas fetish.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

THOUGHTS ABOUT KANSAS FETISH

In 2016 Trump won Kansas by 20.5 points roughly. He also won Nebraska's 1st congressional district by 20.5 points roughly. Clinton won the national PV by 2.1 points of course.
But Kansas swung a little to the left. Nebraska's 1st district swung quite a bit to the right.
Then in 2018 every political junkie of the world got amped up by Kansas's gubernatorial race, which had a weird dynamic and was competitive. Laura Kelly won and Democrats went crazy about the Sunflower State. No one cared about the boring race in Nebraska, where Republican Pete Ricketts was re-elected; but he won NE-01 by 11.6 points (and it swung left compared to 2014).
I don't mean to say that people believe that Laura Kelly's race is representative of the conditions which Trump and Biden will face in November, but now fast-forward to 2020.

I see a lot of posters thinking that a Biden landslide can open the floodgates of Kansas big time and make it just 12~15 points to the right of the national average. Meanwhile people seem to think it's completely impossible for NE-01 to flip. This strikes me as off. It seems something along the lines of "muh trends" or even "muh Kobach Brownback Kelly Bollier Johnson County" or probably these posters didn't even know Nebraska has a 1st district. I call this Kansas fetish.

It's very true. Neither will flip even in a landslide, fwiw. Although kobach does have a tangible chance of losing his race if he wins the nomination.

I agree about Kobach, but of course the Senate race and the presidential race are two separate things with different dynamics. I tend to think the range of scenarios in Senate races is larger than the range of scenarios in the presidential election.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I get extremely annoyed whenever I hear people talking about immigrant assimilation.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I get extremely annoyed whenever I hear people talking about immigrant assimilation.

Why?

Because people always get highly condescending and I hate that.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Most people laugh at me when I tell them the simple fact that KFC is the best chicken on the planet.

They are in the right. Lol

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

More of a question than a take, but this seems like the right thread. Is the reason that discussion of economic issues on here is so superficial more because thinking about it, beyond very shallow points like "single payer good" or "debt bad" is just a bit too complex for most people to try and engage in beyond the most cursory way? Or is it because current culture wars political discourse has completely eradicated even thinking about those sorts of things from most people minds?

I'm interested because for such an allegedly left-wing forum it seems like it is very rare for anyone to really express any particularly left-wing economic opinion beyond the, lets be honest, not exactly radical one about healthcare

Well this forum is alleged to be pretty liberal/Democratic but I don't really think it's alleged to be particularly left-wing.
Also re: healthcare. EUROPEAN BIAS SPOTTED (of which I am full myself by the way).

More to the point, I think it is a mix of both. On the one hand, I doubt most posters here have the skills or the willingness required to engage seriously with economics and stuff - including yours truly. On the other hand, the current discourse is heavily bent towards fighting culture wars.
To be honest I am not sure that the culture war discourse is particularly less shallow than the economic one.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

More of a question than a take, but this seems like the right thread. Is the reason that discussion of economic issues on here is so superficial more because thinking about it, beyond very shallow points like "single payer good" or "debt bad" is just a bit too complex for most people to try and engage in beyond the most cursory way? Or is it because current culture wars political discourse has completely eradicated even thinking about those sorts of things from most people minds?

I'm interested because for such an allegedly left-wing forum it seems like it is very rare for anyone to really express any particularly left-wing economic opinion beyond the, lets be honest, not exactly radical one about healthcare

Well this forum is alleged to be pretty liberal/Democratic but I don't really think it's alleged to be particularly left-wing.
Also re: healthcare. EUROPEAN BIAS SPOTTED (of which I am full myself by the way).

More to the point, I think it is a mix of both. On the one hand, I doubt most posters here have the skills or the willingness required to engage seriously with economics and stuff - including yours truly. On the other hand, the current discourse is heavily bent towards fighting culture wars.
To be honest I am not sure that the culture war discourse is particularly less shallow than the economic one.

It's not that cultural issues are shallow, it's more that, well, economic issues are super important. We live in societies that are more unequal than they have been in a century, in where the assumption of ever increasing living standards has been fatally undermined. These are extremely important factors in understanding the world we live in, and don't get anything like the attention they should be getting on here. Especially when, any cursory look at the USGD board will show you a lot of threads full of people getting very angry about things are really rather trivial.

It's not that universal healthcare isn't important either. It's just that well, the experience of the rest of the developed world shows that it both doesn't particularly disrupt how an economy functions and doesn't fundamentally redress the balance of wealth or power. That's what I mean when I say it isn't actually a radical project.

I agree with most of your post.

As I said, I have a relatively cursory knowledge of many of the economic matters you are referring to, but that's not really because I am invested in fighting the culture wars. We could have a discussion about that, but not here.
There is much useless outrage on the USGD board, but that is another matter.

I also agree about universal healthcare. I initially thought you were referring to the political standpoint about it (which is obviously not the same in the USA and in Western Europe).

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I think I have already said this, but the overwhelming presence of the abortion topic in the American "discourse" makes me lose my sanity.
Sorry but I needed to vent.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I think I have already said this, but the overwhelming presence of the abortion topic in the American "discourse" makes me lose my sanity.
Sorry but I needed to vent.

Agreed, I wish Republicans would stop trying to control women's bodies.

You are contributing to what I referenced.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Like everything, if you don't know about something, best thing is to look towards the experts. And many experts, for instance, called the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act a terrible move and one of the biggest grifts in American history. And all experts worth their salt know Amazon is a brutal, labor-exploiting monopoly that certainly doesn't pay enough in taxes or enough to its workers. People who say they don't pay taxes are referring to the federal tax  on their profits, which they get away with paying nothing on thanks to endless credits and rebates and the TCJA. Obviously, nobody thinks they aren't paying sales taxes or whatever.

Never underestimate human stupidity.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I can only speak for myself, but I care very very strongly about economic issues (far more than about most culture war issues) but find cultural issues easier to discuss because my academic and professional background is in the humanities rather than the social sciences. I'd imagine many other leftists on the forum are similar.

I think most people on this forum major social sciences, and analyzing election results and trends and discussing history and politics is pretty clearly social science, no? Conversely, on AAD we did have some good talks about taxation policy, economic history, banking and regulation, but both here and there, people just don't focus on these topics. I love talking about accounting, finance, economic history, and trade policy with posters like Ebsy and DFB, but if it's just us three then the conversations are pretty limited in length and ideological diversity. I can't remember what Ebsy studied but I know DFB studies economics and works with the financial sector, whereas I have gotten a specialized degree in accounting and corporate valuation, so that also limits the perspectives we bring. I know there are quite a few business-y people here but I cannot remember for my life if we have anyone in medicine or hard sciences.

There just aren't enough posters who study these topics to have really detailed and productive conversations. I don't really know how to solve this because this kind of forum just doesn't attract those kinds of people.

I study Mathematics, which I don't know if you are classifying under hard sciences but certainly is not a social science.

However I simply take more interest in analyzing election results and trends (which has a pretty obvious mathematical aspect!) than in most kinds of economic discussion.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Nuclear Take Alert

This one is a bit self-serving, but sometimes I think politics would make more sense if the party positions on abortion were flipped, or in other words at times I think being 'pro-life' is more consistent with being economically leftist and being 'pro-choice' is more consistent with being economically rightist.
I have mulled over this for some time, but in this specific moment I was inspired by comparisons with guns.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Humans never react to facts; they react to how facts relate to their expectations.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

John Roberts is actually one of the most powerful people in the United States, and it might be argued, the single most powerful one.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

The swamp is actually the best part about Florida.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

A Romney victory in 2012 would have likely halted this level of radicalization within the GOP.

Old School Republican is that you?

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

If George McGovern was alive and a nationally relevant politician today, he would be similar to Andrew Yang with some extra #idpol mixed in and a good chunk of the Bernie left would see him unfavourably.