Bidenomics: Truly Transitory Inflation, Remarkably Successful on Employment & Growth—But Unable to Break Through the Media Misinformation Machine My attempt to set forth a balance sheet: Bidenomics was an extraordinary success. The economy healed fast; the… braddelong.substack.com/p/bidenomics...

Trump's name wasn't on the ballot, just his party and the people and issues he supported

Yep. What Mamdani has an opportunity to do — and it will take both luck and talent — is to show the left-progressive policies can work. Shades of the original progressive movement and municipal reform politics.

Pains me to say it but I think this is true. Some of my colleagues in the media who’ve stayed on X don’t even realize how badly its noxious algorithm is skewing their perception of politics and reality. Also, that place seems designed to make you miserable unless you’re a Nazi. It’s just wretched.

not to bring the vibe down, but my guess is that after tonight Trump will probably double down on gerrymandering, voter suppression, and intimidation as tactics to disincentivize Dem turnout ahead of next year‘s midterms. (with margins like these, it won’t matter, but it’s a time to be vigilant)

Me: Send very detailed note to company about security enhancements for Windows networking User on Teams: Hey so I heard you broke my MacBook This is why they pay me

For the first time in my life I'm begging Donald Trump to post more.

Came here to say this, but Jamelle Bouie has this covered. 👇 When the Democratic tent includes candidates like Spanberger and Mamdani, there is no crisis, or fight, for the party. IT’S A COALITION, NOT A POINT ESTIMATE.

It’s time for the pundits who have pushed their own regressive political preferences as wisdom to listen to people like @jenvictor.bsky.social.

as a vote-blue-no-matter-who democrat, I am excited for this November when we are going to elect Mikie Sherrill, Abigail Spanberger, and Zohran Mamdani

This statement is true, and Steve also knows what I‘m about to say, so this is just additional commentary not a correction: This is not new. Cops have been doing this for ages. Talk back to a cop and they’ll rough you up. They have been doing this and getting away with it for a very long time.

Dan Drezner joins the Sisyphus Brigade! < braddelong.substack.com/p/what-to-do... > Welcome much! Dan has put a bright blue analytic frame around the phenomenon: American foreign policy, lately, as "a bunch of stuff." Not strategy; not coherence; not even path-dependent muddle. Just different... 1/

What To Do with the Trump-Scrubbing Sanewashers? Not weak tea, but no tea at all: attempts to scrub chaos into “strategy” in Trumpworld are really not helpful… <https://braddelong.substack.com/p/what-to-do-with-the-trump-scrubbing> 2025-11-03 Mo

Looking at Today's Democratic Party Make more, share better: it has to combine supply-side dynamism to fair distribution. But is there any reason to think that that prestidigitational construction and maintenance of such an incredibly broad political… braddelong.substack.com/p/looking-at...

What I Said at: The State of the National Labor Market for Recent College Graduates UC System-Wide Academic Congress on the Labor Market Destinations of Recent College Graduates: The UC Systemwide Academic Congress is Oct. 28–29, 2025, focused on recent… braddelong.substack.com/p/what-i-sai...

Competition, Civility, & the #Discourse: Against panic about “feminization”: how pipeline, tasks, and norms actually shift work. And for modes, not morals: human organizations need challenge, support, and triage—without the gender war frame. And context… braddelong.substack.com/p/competitio...

The State of Trump's Trade War: Short- & Long-Run Consequences of Optics vs. Economics Symbolism wins, technocracy bends: the public sees “tough,” firms get exemptions, and growth pays the tab. And then cycle repeats: unilateral tools plus attention… braddelong.substack.com/p/the-state-...

HOISTED FROM THE ARCHIVES: Reading Practices for Tomorrow’s Infotech World Originally 2023-07-28. Hoisted & separated out so I will easily be able to find it in the future. From braddelong.substack.com/p/briefly-no... braddelong.substack.com/p/hoisted-fr...

& People Were Worried About Biden Having Lost a Mental-Cognitive Step Donald Trump has no anchor tying him to reality… <https://braddelong.substack.com/p/and-people-were-worried-about-biden> 2025-10-25 #people-were-worried-about-biden-having-lost-a-mental-cognitive-step

READING: W.E.B. DuBOIS: Of the Training of Black Men From 1903, at the nadir of Jim Crow… <https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/408/pg408-images.html> <https://braddelong.substack.com/p/reading-web-dubois-of-the-training> 2025-10-25 #reading-w-e-b-dubois-of-the-training-of-black-men

Chaos-Monkey Trump, Tomahawk Missiles, & the Art of Sanewashing: On the Nearly-Irresistible Temptation to Normalize Nonsense Trump’s behavior is stochastic, not strategic. Smart people keep retrofitting “grand design” onto random flailing—and look foolish… braddelong.substack.com/p/chao-monke...

On the Surface, the U.S. Economy Looks Better than Its Fundamentals The stock market says “all good.” Consumer sentiment says “2009.” Both can be true—if the scoreboard is rigged, and sends the wrong signals in the context of AI-overexuberance and a two-class… braddelong.substack.com/p/on-the-sur...

Trump's Non-Reciprocal Transactionalism: Favors Flow Only to Supplicants Who Disclaim Entitlement America’s plutocrat class talks, in private, about “hedging” and “exit”. But, so far, no people have and not much money has moved. Instead, they seem to have… braddelong.substack.com/p/trumps-non...

HOISTED FROM THE ARCHIVES: High Patriarchy Hoisting and breaking this out so I will be able to find this easily in the future... braddelong.substack.com/p/hoisted-fr...

Where Are Others Obtuse?: Noting Others’ Annoying Fumbles as THE Guide to Self-Knowledge This is because talent does not feel like talent. Competence feels like the absence of difficulty others routinely encounter. Thus begin your “mental autocompletion” by… braddelong.substack.com/p/where-are-...

Monday MAMLMs: Just What Is Going on Inside the "Mind" of ChatGPT?: Images Edition Ghostly images in the latent spaces: my image model summons panthera leo loe from the Vasty Deep. But why & how? & what does that tell us about lions, deserts, phalanxes… braddelong.substack.com/p/monday-mam...

On the MCM6 Milk Consumption Switch & Lactase Persistence; & the Nonexistence of Any Such Switches in IQ Genetics "Race Science" This is too close to the “let’s get out the skull-measuring calipers” discourse. I shouldn’t have to do this. Any genetic variants… braddelong.substack.com/p/on-the-mcm...

The Pseudo-Classical Semi-Liberal Era: The Belle Époque’s Glow, Alas!, Outran Its Reality Over 1870-1914 The Belle Époque felt so golden at the time and feels so in retrospect because expectations surged far beyond the very real progress in prosperity and… braddelong.substack.com/p/the-pseudo...

READING: The Storm God of the West Semites Has Views on the Institution of Kings “And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the LORD will not hear you in that day”… braddelong.substack.com/p/reading-th...

& here we have someone from a very different faction of the Democratic Party than me! In the Progressive Era, “sewer socialists” won not by lecturing on dialectics but by municipalizing and operating assets for public benefit, with mortality and cholera rates falling as if by magic. Nathan... 1/

Veering Outside My Lane to Give Political Advice No, I have no qualifications for doing this. & there is little reason to take me seriously here. Nevertheless… <https://braddelong.substack.com/p/veering-outside-my-lane-to-give-political> 2025-10-14 Tu #veering-outside-my-lane

SubStack's Three-Body Problem: Teaserage, Patronage, & Premiumage Orbiting... …about & very much hoping not to get sucked into the black hole that is ad-supported ens***ified clickbait eyeball-glueing ad-supported media. What are its prospects?…. braddelong.substack.com/p/substacks-...

Kyiv & Muscovy 'Rus Today Putin’s theory of victory must be a bet on attrition, not maneuver. IMHO, the right strategy to go for is appeasement with teeth: Appeasement with teeth: acceptance of Russian conquests, EU for Ukraine, taxes on Russian energy… braddelong.substack.com/p/kyiv-and-m...

"All That Is Solid Melts into Air": Since 1870, Roughly One-Fifth of the Economy Is Transformed Every Thirty Years This time, we experts in the liberal arts—the artes liberales, the skills appropriate to enrich the lives and make productive those of us who… braddelong.substack.com/p/all-that-i...

Beyond the SmartPhone? Or an Actually Functional Siri without a Screen?: The Altman–Ive Ambition Is Going to Meet Physics, Compute, & Etiquette I smell a “welcome to the NFL” moment coming for this piece of OpenAI’s ambitions. But I also know that it is much… braddelong.substack.com/p/beyond-the...

Steady Data, Shaky Narratives: Why Poll Hype Misleads & Slow Drift Rules in Understanding "Public Opinion" G. Elliott Morris deservedly trashes the once-reliable Harry Enten for feeding the ad-supported eyeball-gluing misinformation beast. & it leads me to… braddelong.substack.com/p/steady-dat...

Might We Replace Our Ten Year-Old Prius with a Chevy Bolt Next Year? If continued battery-cost savings are passed on to purchasers, fast charging blooms, rules tighten, and EV tax credits emerge that provide preference for EVs over PHEVs, then the Bolt wins… braddelong.substack.com/p/might-we-r...

The Chaos Monkeys: Flying Down to Buenos Aires Yes. They are going ahead with draining the Exchange Stabilization Fund of its dollar liquidity for purposes that seem to make more sense. &, since this is TrumpWorld, the odds are heavily in favor of the right… braddelong.substack.com/p/the-chaos-...

Am I Biting Off More than I Can Chew Here? À propos of figuring out how to enable students to enrich their lives and provide value to their employers, as they live as free people do, by their wits, in having lives and careers as good front-end nodes to and… braddelong.substack.com/p/am-i-bitin...

Neal Stephenson tells us: Dickens could do in 15 words what "show it, don't tell it" would need 15 sentences of paragraphs to accomplish. It works for a reader willing to do the work of coöperating with the author in the construction of the fictional world portrayed—which requires spinning-up... 1/

For a Normal U.S. Government to Shoulder "Credit Risk" Can Be Fine. But This Is Not a Normal U.S. Government, Is It? Chaos monkeys promising unconditional U.S. financial support for unsustainable Argentinian economic policies is a royal road to disaster… braddelong.substack.com/p/for-a-norm...

On Peter Thiel's AntiChrist “Restrainer” Politics: Billionaire TechBro Peter Thiel, Nazi Political Philosopher-Theologian Carl Schmitt, Pacifist Christians René Girard & Wolfgang Palaver, the AntiChrist & his enemies, & J.D. Vance & the scapegoating of the… braddelong.substack.com/p/on-peter-t...

What Happened with Elon Musk & the "CyberTruck", Anyway? EV freedom vs. bunker aesthetics: how the Cybertruck squandered the skateboard, and misfired as its stainless shell met actual materials-science physics. A bold silhouette, a brittle reality: the… braddelong.substack.com/p/what-happe...

How Many Magics to Human Prosperity & Progress? Call off the cults and the funerals. “AI”’s real advance is high‑dimensional prediction that generalizes without interpretable laws. That’s operational power, not Turing-Class cognition. Noah Smith says: Think… braddelong.substack.com/p/how-many-m...

The Ongoing Trumpist Unmaking of U.S. Network Power: Tariffs, Ambivalence, & the Slow Isolation & Hence Decline Yes, Henry Luce’s “American Century” is now over. Any further questions? Tariffs tax deterrence; & policy volatility prices U.S. reliability of… braddelong.substack.com/p/the-ongoin...

READING: Henry Luce (1941): The American Century Luce’s manifesto and the world order that it… signposted… <https://braddelong.substack.com/p/reading-henry-luce-1941-the-american> 2025-10-05 Su #reading-henry-luce-1941-the-american-century

Abstraction Layers: In Arithmetic & Elsewhere Counting to 84 by offshoring much of the real work to your information-technology ASI arabic-numeral symbolic copilot, and other topics about variation in proper education for the kind of numeroliteracy… braddelong.substack.com/p/abstractio...

HOISTED FROM THE ARCHIVES: Why Gillian Tett's Anthropological Take on the World Is Very Useful Why you should listen to her; a N2PE event from 2021-11-18 Th… <https://braddelong.substack.com/p/hoisted-from-the-archives-why-gillian> 2025-10-03 Fr

Notes on the Berkeley "The AI Con" Book Launch Event 2025-10-02 16:00 PDT (Th): 470 Stephens Hall: Alex Hanna, Timnit Gebru, Khari Johnson, & Tamara Kneese. 2025. “The AI Con Book Roundtable”… <https://braddelong.substack.com/p/notes-on-the-berkeley-the-ai-con> 2025-10-03 Fr

HOISTED FROM THE ARCHIVES: The Music to the Zombie Dance of Human Society Changes Its Key... From 2.5 years ago. Time to start thinking about this, again, and about what I would change, and will change as versions of this go into both What Rough Beast &... braddelong.substack.com/p/hoisted-fr...