so this is actually interesting imo because I think it is simultaneously true that there is not and never really has been a plan to "open" the Strait if Iran decided to close it because there's no realistic military solution, and also it's not unreasonable for normies to assume there was a solution

I think the tax stuff and “throw DEI, trans people under the bus“ are two sides of the same coin in that they’re counterproductive, and desperate reaching, and call into question what the point of the party is

And the White House press corps was absolutely giddy to have Trump back in because none of them have any dignity and they all love having Steve Chueng scream slurs at them.

Like I’m sorry if some people were rude to you about your personal situation, but way, way too many people hitched their own personal experience to this fundamentally reactionary project of helping the bosses revolt against Biden’s pro-labor politics. That context is pretty critical here.

This is the economic equivalent of “Climate change is not real because the weather near me was colder the last few years” We can both acknowledge the wide range of problems & distributional inequalities in the economy at the micro level & not deny empirical reality & data at the macro level.

“Slopulism” is a redundant phrase in the same way that “chai tea“ is but it’s a very evocative one which neatly captures how populism is bad even when it’s not racist

We're gonna see folks come back out of retirement for One Last Job except it's going to be "mid-level US Attys who made their bones doing FARA work and maybe one or two major white collar cases" and they're going to be swinging a terrible swift sword like they're God's avenging angels in courtrooms

Quite frankly, if you aren't directing your economic and intelligence agencies to do anti-Republican election interference, you're an idiot.

The orgs supporting this are so funny, like Indivisible? Lol

So a fear I’ve had for awhile is that Trump II convinces progressives our politics are fully consumer blackpilled, and they give up on social welfare projects not just for electoral populist reasons, but because of the fear of an executive abusing and degrading it at will. And well…

One reason I never identify as a "left populist" despite advocating fairly extensive redistribution and vigorous erosion of concentrated wealth is because I don't want to be associated with bullshit like this. 🧵

Let there be as much outrage from politicians in Washington when kids go hungry as there is when I break bread with New Yorkers.

the middle class will be taxed. you will pay the transit fares. shoplifting is bad. you will live as a civilized person in a mutually co-operative society or you can live in the woods like the animal you are.

The longstanding critique of the groups is kinda directionally correct. But thats also the cost of having a pluralist democracy

If you’re out there tweeting that the insurance CEO salaries are why we can’t have health care, or how no one can afford anything, you can’t actually complain about this new zero-income-tax idiocy from Democrats. They’re all slopulism and you’re being eaten by the monster you created

"people were mean to the protesters" there are people still chasing ICE around in minneapolis after they shot two people to death in cold blood on camera

Imo center left parties and liberals across the west need to cooperate far more. Ironically for a bunch of people that are racist, the global far right is cosmopolitan as fuck in terms of its cooperation. I cant help but think of France/the EU trying to cut the IRA off and water down MERCOSUL

This is basically the crux of my argument for a project for my friends @liberalcurrents.com not having a defense policy is not a defense policy

God wyden fuckin rules

so for the record folks this is the sort of shit that gets spread in your circles.

Look, the Atlantic made a racist Adrian Chiles

one more note here: we are currently running absolutely astronomical deficits at the federal level, and nobody cares because a Republican is president but the second a Dem gets back in the Very Serious Debt People will be back in force demanding safety net cuts not a lot of room for tax cuts there

we should absolutely raise taxes on rich people and corporations both because it can help pay for the safety net and because reducing their power is a social good in and of itself but "nobody else pays taxes" is not going to work

It's an incredibly stupid idea, one that manages to misread the moment badly but also sets up the midterm election to be fought on one issue where Republicans still have an edge.

You should scream at whichever consultant or advisor told you to do this. And we know thats a thing you like to do

populism always sucks.

IMO if you want to criticize ‘the Democratic Party’ as a whole for something, it’s fair to note that virtually all Dem electeds from left to right are guilty of suggesting you can do great social policy with just tax hikes on rich people alone, and this horseshit is a logical extension of that

Alright what consultant did a poll

Not a big yglesias fan but hes completely right tbf

karp and others have made significant and irreversible bets on the country becoming hard-right. they're incentivized to keep doing this and its how they should be read

Hot take but getting a PhD is less about intelligence but grit. It’s basically a test of how much bullshit you can put up with and push through and get it done anyway. It demonstrates that you are able to work on a task thoroughly and see it through to the end. Using AI defeats the entire point

I think a big part of the derangement of the average American is that they see people on their phone who are lying about how successful they are, believe that they're telling the truth, and then get mad that they aren't that successful right now.

Millennials really are the only good generation

relatedly, older folks in the us love to pull out the "i paid into medicare/social security my entire life, you can't cut it" - like, if you just want what you paid in, it would cut your benefits by 50-65%

i think that it is plainly obvious that we should bankrupt Palantir on day one by cutting all of its contracts and declaring it a supply chain risk.

anthropic is going to win because they are not a supply chain risk. palantir should be declared a supply chain risk because we cannot have people openly dedicated to overthrowing democracy in charge of our intelligence backends.

MPU is slopulist policy personified

It is hard not to think that MPU wants to make their viewers as stupid as possible. If I wanted to incapacitate the American left, running MPU would be a decent strategy

Obama made that mistake once. Cant do it again

Like i keep saying. Theres going to be a red brown alliance. Stoller is already in favor of it. Wont be surprised to see khanna jumping on board in 3-5 years

yo this is horseshit We literally trained Saudi pilots, gave them jets and bombs, and then gave them tanker gas and ISR support to go bomb Yemen for FIVE YEARS until Biden put a stop to it. Not a peep from anyone. No one knew or gave a shit. We were effectively co-belligerents in their war!

Now that is an onion headline

No they're not. That's not true.

I dont find schmitt that compelling either tbh

The real answer is LeMay

A bipartisan target for everyone should be politicians' sense of their own personal importance