United States Politics Thread 47

[alice]

Name five people who act this way. You're making these people up to make your own praise of the fascists sound reasonable.

It's not praise to acknowledge their victories and strengths. We need an honest assessment of the enemy if we want any chance of defeating them and that includes recognizing their strengths, not just clowning on their mishaps. How would you suggest analyzing the Trump regime that doesn't sound like praise but doesn't sugarcoat things either?

You have to acknowledge their strengths and their weaknesses, and. not focus on just one side like you seem so fond of doing. Yes, Trump came back to win in 2024 against everyone's expectations, but there's little he's actually done which is deserving of any kind of praise from anyone. You might want to look at what's happening with his lawsuit against the BBC, for example.

[Raphael]

You might want to look at what's happening with his lawsuit against the BBC, for example.

Oh, thank you for the reminder. I had not paid attention to that in a while. Had been worried about the Florida justice system automatically siding with right-wing politicians no matter the merits of a case.

[zompist]

Do you object to the term "state capitalism" for what the USSR ended up as? I think it's pretty accurate in the sense that when the state takes over everything, it acts like the worst sort of capitalist.

My main problem with that term is that it seems to be mainly used by people who want to criticize the Soviet Union, which is all fine and nice and good of them, but who want to maintain capitalism as the single villain of a single villain ideology. I'm no fan of single villain ideologies.

I'm not sure how this squares with "I find it hard to think of any good forms of capitalism." Are France and Denmark total hellholes?

I understand that most people here have never lived under Rooseveltian liberalism and cannot believe that, say, the marginal tax rate was once 94%. But it was a huge and positive change from laissez-faire, and an improvement for every income level.

Not much disagreement here, though I still think it doesn't make sense to describe crony capitalism as not really capitalism.

I said "barely capitalism", which is not a One True Scotsman statement at all. I think when you remove all the positive aspects of a thing and leave all the negatives, it is both not a very good thing, and not a good exemplar of that class.

FWIW, among versions that you call "crony capitalism", I'd still distinguish between the Trumpian version and the last-few-decades-before-Trump version. I'd say the last-few-decades-before-Trump version is a good deal more capitalist friendly.

Of course! That's plutocracy, which is itself pretty bad, but we're now seeing open corruption, open fascism, kowtowing by the oligarchs, anti-business policies, repudiation of the rule of law, repudiation of alliances in favor of bullying and deals.

A nice example is AI. The big idea of the Trumpists is some sort of government review of AIs— meaning government enforcement of a cartel, so AI money goes only to the existing techbros, and of course only US firms. But even those have to lick Trump's boots, as the head of Anthropic is finding out.

For years I tried to get into Americans' heads that their liberal system what benefitted everyone was gone, replaced by plutocracy which benefitted only the 10%. Now people have to get it into their heads that the Republicans are trying for something even worse, crony capitalism, and the benefits are going to go to an even smaller group.

[Raphael]

My main problem with that term is that it seems to be mainly used by people who want to criticize the Soviet Union, which is all fine and nice and good of them, but who want to maintain capitalism as the single villain of a single villain ideology. I'm no fan of single villain ideologies.

I'm not sure how this squares with "I find it hard to think of any good forms of capitalism."

"X is bad" does not mean "X is the only bad thing in the world".

Are France and Denmark total hellholes?

No. It would be great if they'd move more in a socialist direction, though.

I understand that most people here have never lived under Rooseveltian liberalism and cannot believe that, say, the marginal tax rate was once 94%. But it was a huge and positive change from laissez-faire, and an improvement for every income level.

No disagreement.

FWIW, among versions that you call "crony capitalism", I'd still distinguish between the Trumpian version and the last-few-decades-before-Trump version. I'd say the last-few-decades-before-Trump version is a good deal more capitalist friendly.

Of course! That's plutocracy, which is itself pretty bad, but we're now seeing open corruption, open fascism, kowtowing by the oligarchs, anti-business policies, repudiation of the rule of law, repudiation of alliances in favor of bullying and deals.

A nice example is AI. The big idea of the Trumpists is some sort of government review of AIs— meaning government enforcement of a cartel, so AI money goes only to the existing techbros, and of course only US firms. But even those have to lick Trump's boots, as the head of Anthropic is finding out.

For years I tried to get into Americans' heads that their liberal system what benefitted everyone was gone, replaced by plutocracy which benefitted only the 10%. Now people have to get it into their heads that the Republicans are trying for something even worse, crony capitalism, and the benefits are going to go to an even smaller group.

No disagreement.

[zompist]

Seriously, I'd be surprised if it lasts the intended 60 days. What is Trump going to be able to do to Israel to make them behave? What happens when Trump's supporters realise that the main result of the war is that the Iranian regime is in a much better position than it was beforehand, and the USA has gained virtually nothing?

Trump does have leverage over Israel— the US is its major arms supplier— but he's not going to use it, so that's one possible failure point.

We don't know the terms yet, but we do know it doesn't cover nukes. Somehow I doubt that those negotiations will end quickly or do what the GOP wants.

If Trump is lucky the Strait will open again— meaning that we go back to where we were in January. Only we won't, because infrastructure is damaged and it will take months or years to repair, and there are mines to remove, and the IRGC could get frisky. That means prices won't return to January levels.

As I think I pointed out before, ships were struck in the Strait not because of the Iranians, but because of US insurers. Nobody's moving until the ships are insured.

The other possible failure point, of course, is Trump's big fat mouth. He likes videos of missiles blowing things up. The rest of the world thinks this war was a huge mistake and then a huge capitulation by the US. But he has to preserve his toddler worldview that blowing things up did something good for him, which means he will want to do it again.

[Raphael]

Seriously, I'd be surprised if it lasts the intended 60 days. What is Trump going to be able to do to Israel to make them behave? What happens when Trump's supporters realise that the main result of the war is that the Iranian regime is in a much better position than it was beforehand, and the USA has gained virtually nothing?

Trump does have leverage over Israel— the US is its major arms supplier— but he's not going do use it, so that's one possible failure point.

Even if he would use his leverage, my very rough guess is that it would take more time than Trump has before Israel would be in any serious trouble because of that.

The other possible failure point, of course, is Trump's big fat mouth. He likes videos of missiles blowing things up. The rest of the world thinks this war was a huge mistake and then a huge capitulation by the US. But he has to preserve his toddler worldview that blowing things up did something good for him, which means he will want to do it again.

Yes, of course.

[Raphael]

Interesting piece from the BBC, though I wonder how much the whole "Netanyahu is in serious trouble now"-angle is wishful thinking by the author: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj4gnqw8j52o

[bradrn]

Interesting piece from the BBC, though I wonder how much the whole "Netanyahu is in serious trouble now"-angle is wishful thinking by the author: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj4gnqw8j52o

Israeli media also think he’s in trouble.

[Torco]

I don't anticipate the ceasefire with Iran lasting more than a week. it coud be, let me google...
yup, israel has been attacking lebanon in the last 24 hours, it seems. probably some move to make the monday markets do this or the other thing.

[Raphael]

it coud be, let me google...
yup, israel has been attacking lebanon in the last 24 hours, it seems. probably some move to make the monday markets do this or the other thing.

I don't see how you get that idea. When they're doing simply what they've been doing for a while now, I'd say the most likely explanation is that they're doing simply what they've been doing for a while now.

[rotting bones]

I don't see how you get that idea. When they're doing simply what they've been doing for a while now, I'd say the most likely explanation is that they're doing simply what they've been doing for a while now.

Every time Trump says peace is a done deal, the market recovers. Every time war breaks out again, the market gets nervous again. (That's the inscrutable mind of a financial genius, you see.) Someone knows these things are about to happen before they do, and they are insider trading based on that knowledge.

[rotting bones]

What is Trump going to be able to do to Israel to make them behave?

Israeli firepower is entirely dependent on the US. That's why people are talking about it so much.

What happens when Trump's supporters realise that the main result of the war is that the Iranian regime is in a much better position than it was beforehand, and the USA has gained virtually nothing?

Significant parts of MAGA are anti-war. I should have mentioned that before, actually...

[rotting bones]

Staircase with:

Are you sure that (disgustingly evil) oligarchs like Peter Thiel aren't controlled by MAGA?

The Trump administration is staffed by people from the Heritage Foundation. If you want to know who is responsible for policy, check out who its backers are.

The question is who's controlling whom. Just asserting that "oligarchs" are in control does not make it so. Under crony capitalism, capitalists lick the leader's boots, not vice versa.

The MAGA masses didn't want an attack on Iran.

[rotting bones]

Jesus, this is the universal codeword for "I've stopped thinking and just want to put people into bins."

Ok, TMC then. Or more specifically, my cousin, the journalist. That's the liberal...

Maybe that's the problem. Since only you exist in the world, and you are the only real socialist, and history began when you were born, no one else's ideas matter.

I told him so many times BJP is going to win this time, just like I told Americans Trump is going to win. Why don't you people listen to me?

[rotting bones]

Ah, the problem is, the far left has exactly the same problem, or even worse. Far-left activists seem increasingly unable to recognize when they're wrong, even when faced with clear evidence that they're wrong.
Now, their hearts are generally in the right place and they may be generally right 80% of the time; but who wants to be led by people who seem utterly convinced they have the correct view on everything?
To make things worse, each activist -- naturally enough -- is 100% certain they're correct; so on top of the dogmatism you get incessant internal fights.

Activists of various stripes have different attitudes in different parts of the world. I can't just go along with something I know won't work. All you can do is say 2+2=4 and hope someone will listen this time.

[Raphael]

What is Trump going to be able to do to Israel to make them behave?

Israeli firepower is entirely dependent on the US. That's why people are talking about it so much.

Mostly, but not entirely. I've been thinking for a while how a serious US/Israel rift would actually work out in practise, because I think it will probably happen at some point in the not-too-distant future. And, well, my very rough, very unscientific guess is that in that guess, things might get very unpleasant for Israel very quickly, but they'd probably be able to hold of their own collapse for at least five years. Longer if either China or Russia should be stupid enough to replace the US as Israel's main sponsor, but I doubt that they would.

The point being, Trump probably doesn't have five years. He probably won't be around politically any more in five years, and might not be around biologically.

The MAGA masses didn't want an attack on Iran.

Neither did the oligarchs. This was a personal whim of Trump and some of the people close to him, including Netanyahu.

Every time Trump says peace is a done deal, the market recovers. Every time war breaks out again, the market gets nervous again. (That's the inscrutable mind of a financial genius, you see.) Someone knows these things are about to happen before they do, and they are insider trading based on that knowledge.

There's still no need for that explanation, as long as the "Israel is just continuing their regularly scheduled descent into self-destructive hubris as they've done for weeks, months, years, and decades now"-explanation covers all the known facts just fine.

[rotting bones]

I think that in the couple of centuries before the 1980s, society did progress in all kinds of ways. I'm pretty damn glad that I don't have to live in ancien régime Europe. From the 1980s to the 2010s, society progressed in some ways but regressed in some others, and I myself would never deny that it regressed in some ways during that time. Today, it's mainly moving backwards, and again, I myself would never deny that.

Marx never said capitalism is always bad either, BTW. Marx was so pro-capitalist that Jordan Peterson was shocked. Marx thought capitalism was a progressive revolution that broke out of the crisis of feudalism.

The punctuated equilibrium model in biology was inspired by Marxist dialectics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium According to this, some periods are plateaus where things are in relative equilibrium. This persists until material conditions send the system into crisis. To weather the crisis, revolutionary action forces people to adapt until a more fit system is created. However, this leads to diminishing returns until the system reaches rough equilibrium again.

Personally, I doubt reasoning at this level is satisfying for any purpose except pedantry.

[rotting bones]

Mostly, but not entirely. I've been thinking for a while how a serious US/Israel rift would actually work out in practise, because I think it will probably happen at some point in the not-too-distant future. And, well, my very rough, very unscientific guess is that in that guess, things might get very unpleasant for Israel very quickly, but they'd probably be able to hold of their own collapse for at least five years.

Personally, I doubt that very much. I don't think personal values have much impact on a professional relationship like America's and Israel's. Israel functions as a military outpost for America in the Middle East. Everything else from biblical prophecy to "Jewish state" is propaganda and distraction. "Jews" don't exist. There are only humans, the only animal capable of lying literally all the time and therefore sees no reason to stop.

It's true that in recent times, spectacularly weak leaders in America have resulted in the outpost being misused. If America gets its act together, it will put its foot down and Israel will behave again. If it needs to, America will send the CIA to make a few heads roll in Israel. Then the partnership will be back in business.

Neither did the oligarchs. This was a personal whim of Trump and some of the people close to him, including Netanyahu.

I feel so sorry for Raytheon and the massive profits they must endure every time America starts another war. Just curious: How much of Chomsky's writings on the military industrial complex have you read?

There's still no need for that explanation, as long as the "Israel is just continuing their regularly scheduled descent into self-destructive hubris as they've done for weeks, months, years, and decades now"-explanation covers all the known facts just fine.

The people around Trump are enriching themselves through government policy. Everybody knows this including the political mainstream, even the centrists.

[Raphael]

Personally, I doubt that very much. I don't think personal values have much impact on a professional relationship like America's and Israel's. Israel functions as a military outpost for America in the Middle East. Everything else from biblical prophecy to "Jewish state" is propaganda and distraction. "Jews" don't exist. There are only humans, the only animal capable of lying literally all the time and therefore sees no reason to stop.

It's true that in recent times, spectacularly weak leaders in America have resulted in the outpost being misused. If America gets its act together, it will put its foot down and Israel will behave again. If it needs to, America will send the CIA to make a few heads roll in Israel. Then the partnership will be back in business.

I don't think any of this has any relation whatsoever to reality, sorry.

Israel is not a US military outpost. If it was, there'd be significant US military bases there. There aren't.

If the point would simply have been a US military outpost in the Middle East, a Jordan-style US-aligned Arab regime in the former Mandate would have done the job a lot more effectively.

The USA sending the CIA against Israel? Yeah, sure, whatever.

Your post, frankly, is a good illustration of what kind of nonsense people can talk themselves into if they insist on only looking at material factors and denying any role for psychology and ideology. Theory of Humors of the field of human actions and interactions.

Not interested in reading Chomsky. He's made a professional career out of spending more than half a century talking nonsense about linguistics, while, at the same time, becoming more famous among the general public for his hobby of talking nonsense about politics.

No one who can seriously believe in a single villain ideology is worth reading or listening to on matters of human life.

[rotting bones]

I don't think any of this has any relation whatsoever to reality, sorry.

Israel is not a US military outpost. If it was, there'd be significant US military bases there. There aren't.

This is true in the sense that the Shah of Iran wasn't American. "Israel" is just a word Americans say when referring to a certain segment of American military presence in the Levant. Israel is not self-sufficient. It's nothing without American aid. No other faction is willing and able to send the same amount of aid to maintain a military presence in the region.

If the point would simply have been a US military outpost in the Middle East, a Jordan-style US-aligned Arab regime in the former Mandate would have done the job a lot more effectively.

The US can't trust indigenous populations. The reason the US can trust Israelis is because they are settler colonials without good relationships with their neighbors. This atomization of peoples makes them dependent on foreign aid.

The USA sending the CIA against Israel? Yeah, sure, whatever.

What's too immoral for the CIA, regime change or Antisemitism?

Your post, frankly, is a good illustration of what kind of nonsense people can talk themselves into if they insist on only looking at material factors and denying any role for psychology and ideology. Theory of Humors of the field of human actions and interactions.

Personally, I don't believe that humans have minds along the lines of a psyche as developed from Greek thought. What humans have is closer to behavior that can be described along the lines of Behave by Sapolsky (which I read again recently). Although I'm not a fundamentalist behaviorist either.

Not interested in reading Chomsky. He's made a professional career out of spending more than half a century talking nonsense about linguistics, while, at the same time, becoming more famous among the general public for his hobby of talking nonsense about politics.

No one who can seriously believe in a single villain ideology is worth reading or listening to on matters of human life.

Those books are effectively a collage of press clippings. The alternative to imperfection you have chosen is that you don't actually know anything.