Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Whitley]

Yeah it's possible Trump wants to play kingmaker, but I think the only way that is possible is if it is clear he can't make another run. He only cares about being president, any long term policy agenda to be had from anointing a successor is of no consequence to him.

Of course nature may take its course, he is not in good shape and 4 years is a long time. It is just amazing to me how much the GOP fears him.

a poll a couple weeks ago found that 56% of those surveyed felt a personal loyalty to Donald Trump over the Republican party. That is pretty eye opening and another reason that most Republicans cower in front of Trump (well that and most of them are Beta males too).

[Ghengis Jon]

And that is the challenge for the Republican party. How do you deprogram the hard core Trump Cult? How can the GOP transform itself back to a conservative party?

[Whitley]

And that is the challenge for the Republican party. How do you deprogram the hard core Trump Cult? How can the GOP transform itself back to a conservative party?

Not sure it is possible. The never trumpers have infected the Democratic party and they just might stay. The reality is that the Republican party as it stands right now--really does not want to govern.

[iam416]

The Rs are moving toward populist working class families who don’t want to be micromanaged by condescending elites and the professional class and aren’t particularly fond of the media elites definitively siding with their elite brethren. They generally don’t want government picking winners and certainly not those people.

But, hey, the Rs are doomed. Lol. They’re going to win the House in 2022 and people will still ask, what’s wrong with Rs? Can they survive?

Incidentally, Bernie tapped into a lot of that, but his answer wasn’t to just stop unfair shit. His answer was to create a massive deomocratic-socialist technocracy that is way more intrusive.

[iam416]

R/conservative and D/liberal are just relative labels. They change and evolve. 20 years ago Ds were against gay marriage. Today they’re for dudes dominating chick sports if the dude says he’s a chick.

Buckley Rs are having an increasingly difficult time finding a platform. Obviously the Ds aren’t the answer, and increasingly the Rs aren’t either.

[Dr. Strangelove]

I disagree that right-wing populism is against government intervention, or picking winners and losers, or whatever you want to call it. Right-wing populism and Trumpism are both for tariffs, which is in effect picking winners. They support govt handouts. They support throwing money away in exchange for votes. Right-wing populism and the Koch Brothers are wiiiiiiiide apart.

When the state of Florida strongly votes for Trump and even more overwhelmingly votes for a $15 minimum wage, how can you possibly argue that to be a Republican these days means anti-big government? They applaud big government, they just think the wrong people have been the beneficiaries for decades

[Dr. Strangelove]

My cynical take: the Republican Party has only ever been for limited government when a Democrat is President.

Under Reagan? Hahahaha spend like a drunken sailor

Under Dubya? Hahahahaha spend like a drunken sailor

Under Trump? Hahahahahahahahahahahaha spend like a drunken sailor

[Dr. Strangelove]

Hannibal- Since you love the prequels so much now (compared to the Ridleyverse), this one's for you

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[iam416]

I disagree that right-wing populism is against government intervention, or picking winners and losers, or whatever you want to call it. Right-wing populism and Trumpism are both for tariffs, which is in effect picking winners. They support govt handouts. They support throwing money away in exchange for votes. Right-wing populism and the Koch Brothers are wiiiiiiiide apart.

When the state of Florida strongly votes for Trump and even more overwhelmingly votes for a $15 minimum wage, how can you possibly argue that to be a Republican these days means anti-big government? They applaud big government, they just think the wrong people have been the beneficiaries for decades

I don’t disagree with your general sentiment in the first paragraph. What I’ll say about parties is that they only “generally” stand for certain things. No one of any significance in politics is pure.

I will say that tariffs aren’t micromanaging THEM. It’s not even a direct sop (like, say, free college — the great giveaway to professional upper middle class or SALT (same)).

I think it’s fascinating to think about the realignment of both parties. I’ve highlighted problems the Ds are going to have. I’m happy to discuss the Rs further. But, you know, during work hours. Your state tax dollars will fund my efforts!

[Dr. Strangelove]

Yeah, we can return to this when I'm less tipsy. WOOO, HUMP DAY!!!

[Dr. Strangelove]

1869 deaths today. Worst since May 8. The 7-day death average now well above the highest peak of the summer.

You guys can cite the low CFR to me all you want, but at some point scale begins to dwarf CFR and I think we're there.

Room for hope: the case curve is just barely starting to show some sign of flattening?

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[iam416]

I’ve always assumed I’d get it, so scale matters not to me. What matters to me is 0.4% (or less) IFR for my age.

Ultimately, you’re looking at 0.2-0.3% of the population dying with a median age north of 75. That’s less than projected in April. None of this was ever gonna be good, but it ain’t the bubonic fucking plague.

[Ghengis Jon]

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[Dr. Strangelove]

I didn't think Trump's "overturn the results of the election" strategy could get much dumber than the laughable court cases (he's at least 1 for 30 right now), but trying to convince state legislatures to ignore the results of the election and just name Trump the winner is proving me wrong.

[Jeff Buchanan]

You guys can cite the low CFR to me all you want, but at some point scale begins to dwarf CFR and I think we're there.

Right, and we have. At this point, rational people realize COVID is bad; deaths are bad but I keep hearing from the so called experts things like, we're not doing things right, if we don't change the way we're doing things, more people will die. Fine. what exactly are we doing wrong and what exactly do we need to do to make things right? Useless grandstanding.

I could list dozens of answers to those two questions and the one place where there seems to be consensus on what works to contain the virus is wash your hands, social distance and wear a mask.....and even then, not every one is doing that for any number of reasons. The messaging from reliable sources telling us that this works is not one of them. The messaging from Donald Trump that Americans don't need to do any of that IS one of them. Where there is clearly no consensus though is on matters dealing with restricting social engagement and economic activity.

It isn't hard to look at data on a local level and impose or ease restrictions of both types based on it. As many are claiming, we don't need, at least on this issue, some kind of national response strategy. Responses should be local. Aside from the few officials imposing sweeping restrictions, most from the state level on down appear to be acting rationally. The ones that aren't are being constrained by the courts. And even then, if they don't make it to the courts, they are being correctly restrained by group and individual pressures to justify a particular restriction and consider the costs of any restrictions they might impose.

The debate over the response to the pandemic has devolved to and is centered around the degree of restrictions to social engagement, personal mobility and economic activity is going to be tolerated to prevent deaths from COVID. That's the calculus in every country, every state and every locality dealing with the virus when the data shows it's circulating and not contained. Here in the US, the social fabric, our culture, tends to tolerate less government mandated restrictions while elsewhere either people are forced to restrict by their governments or they are more tolerant of government mandates to restrict.

We get down to this: Right, deaths are bad....... so is being forced to stay in your home and shutter business. While it can be done, it's hard and seemingly a bit distasteful, to assess the cost of COVID deaths in dollar terms and compare it to the dollar cost of curtailing economic activity. You then end up with this rather subjective assessment of the two and it appears the predominating trend in the US and in some countries in the EU is to accept the rising death toll as the cost of maintaining social convention and keeping businesses open. Public officials are never going to admit that but that is where we are. The appearance of a vaccine that is likely to contain this thing sooner than we thought is contributing to a trend away from adding restrictions ..... except where either we have officials who are in the camp where government knows best (Whitmer) or where bucking the trend can be sold to the people with good messaging and based on solid data, targeted restrictions (Dewine).

Recognize that the cake is baked. The virus is out there, spreading in some places faster than others and some are going to succumb to it. There is not one way to respond that is entirely right or wrong. Of course, that isn't going to stop the media from making silly comparisons between how country A or state B or city C is responding to rising COVID case numbers and deaths and that we ought to be doing this or that. Nonsense.