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Signifyin(g)Monkey last won the day on September 5 2023
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It will get him Cuban votes lol. I know there’s much ado about Trump getting more Latino votes, but FWIW my mother’s side of the family are all solid Republicans, for the most part religious and moderately conservative, and all hate Trump’s guts. Enough to advertise that they’re voting against him. All first generation Puerto Rican immigrants, too, btw. I’ve managed to numb myself to Trump’s rhetoric over the years out of necessity but that comment legit got under my skin.
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It’s funny—there’s a longstanding tiff between Marxian and liberal economists on the relationship of politics to economics, wherein liberals (including classical Keynesians) argue the two are separate but related spheres, while the Marxians (and some other heterodox schools) argue they are one in the same thing. The way in which economic reality (and things like recessions and the unemployment rate) has now seemingly become completely subordinated to political narratives is a major vindication for the Marxian/heterodox view on the matter, IMO.
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This made me think a bit about the history of inflation and successful reelection campaigns. Looking at the numbers, there are four cases since the start of the 20th century where an incumbent was reelected during periods of high inflation: Wilson in 1916, FDR in 1940 and 1944, Johnson in 1964, and Nixon in 1972. Interestingly enough, none of these elections were close, with the exception of Wilson's. They were all blowouts in the incumbent's favor. However, one could argue that there were other more prominent things occupying the public consciousness in Wilson, FDR, and Johnson's cases--respectively, World War I, World War II, and the Kennedy assassination. But that leaves Nixon. It makes me wonder what it was about Nixon during 1972 that made it so he wasn't saddled with the same kind of dissatisfaction that the Biden/Harris administration is. Notably, interest rates were slightly higher at the time--the Fed funds rate was at 5.5% when he was reelected, as opposed to 4.83% now. Was the Southern Strategy just that effective? I don't know. Maybe it's just another indication that we've well and truly reached the point where reality doesn't really matter anymore, and has become subordinated to the narratives of social media.
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Mind if I ask if you're a crossover-ish voter? Or a true independent? (not 'independent but only vote for one party' independent) Typically vote Republican or for other parties (like the libertarian party, etc.) but couldn't stomach a vote for Trump? You never struck me as a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat partisan. More of a classical liberal guy who could be persuaded in a number of directions depending on the candidate. Or if you don't want to say, can you give us a sense of which way Nevada is leaning? Asking because I'm trying not to doom too hard about the early voting numbers we're seeing coming out of Nevada right now. (particularly Clark county) If they represent what the national voting trends are, and there isn't a decent helping of voters who are registered Republican but voting Democrat, or non-affiliated voters breaking for Harris... We won't know until the votes are counted on election day, of course, and Nevada might not be representative of what happens in the other swing states, or Democrats might have a stronger turnout on the actual day of the election versus early voting than usual, but ugh this is going to be a long two weeks...
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For a further supply of hopium that will not make you any less terrified of what could happen in two weeks but may numb you for a bit, (and give you a sort-of-plausible excuse to ignore the negative polling) here’s irrepressible dem optimist Simon Rosenberg’s take on things: Since late August more than 70 right-aligned polls have been dropped into the polling averages. The two states that have been worked the hardest are North Carolina and Pennsylvania. In October of the 27 Presidential polls released in Pennsylvania, 16 are from right-aligned pollsters, a majority. Since August 31st of the 41 Presidential polls released in North Carolina, 21, a majority have home come from right aligned pollsters. At least 31 right-aligned pollsters and sponsoring organizations have released polls in the last 7 weeks: The red wave campaign this year is on a much greater scale than 2022. It started much earlier, has many more actors and has produced far more polling. It needed to be bigger for in general election years there is more polling. So to move the averages more polls were needed, and they got to work earlier doing so. And this is important. In 2022 the campaign began late, in mid-October. They had less time to move the averages so their polls were often 3-4 points to the right of the polling as they needed these bigger margins to move the averages in a shorter time period. This time, because they started earlier and are producing more polls their polls are often only 1-2 points to the right of the polling average or independent polls. They are working the averages more carefully this time, over using the time and volume to move them gradually so the op is not as crude and as easy to see as last time. If Harris leads by 2.5 points and you drop 5 polls showing the race tied or her ahead by 1 or even 2 points the averages moves and it looks like she is losing altitude. Consider this Tweet from one of the top analysts at 538. It is part of a thread referring to what was a very junky PA poll by TIPP. So here is 538 admitting that even something they consider a bad poll could move the average in PA by a tenth of a point. OK, red wave pollsters say, got it. Appreciate the tip! So I just need to produce more polls to move the average by a meaningful amount. Which is what they’ve done. If each of these polls moves the average by a tenth of a point then 16 of them in October in PA could have moved the average by 1.6 points - and poof a Harris lead becomes a tied race. The red wave 2024 campaign also includes a major new entrant, Polymarket, an off-shore crypto-based betting market whose lead investor is Peter Thiel, former business partner to Elon Musk and primary political patron of JD Vance. Polymarket is buying product placement on sites and with influencers for their 2024 American election results even though NO AMERICAN CAN LEGALLY PARTICIPATE IN PROCESS THAT DETERMINES THE DATA. Polymarket is everywhere. Harry Enten higlights their data on CNN. Right wing influencers pump Polymarket maps showing Trump “winning” everyday. Nate Silver is an advisor to Polymarket. Elon and Twitter of course are pumping this stuff, hard. The Wall Street Journal had a major pieceon Polymarket yesterday, writing: There is no end to the fuckery. And of course Trump is now not just lying about leading in the polls he is citing this rancid Polymarket campaign as proof of his electoral “strength:” Finally, while the red wave campaign has largely focused on state polls, this week it started focusing on the national polling averages. TIPP launched a daily poll tracker which will be able to be used to push down the averages every day. Yesterday 4 right-aligned national polls dropped, and the 538 national poll average went from 2.6 Harris to 2.1 in 48 hours. This movement then tipped the 538 forecast to Trump, and if they keep working it all averages and forecasts will very soon show Trump winning the election and the national narrative will change. As I am running out of space, a few final points: 1) yes the media and Democrats should be talking about this more, and electoral analysts need to be far more honest about what is going on 2) yes it is likely that red waved maps showing Trump winning will be used as a central argument for him to contest the election. And yes therefore we should be challening all this a bit more forcefully 3) all this bs and fuckery is why we just have to put our heads down, keep working hard and ignore the noise. It is a close election today and will be on election day 4) they would only be doing all this if they thought they were losing. You only cheat when you are losing. Heads down peeps. Let’s make this a big weekend and go out and win this thing, together.
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Yeah I posted about this awhile back. Ruy Teixeira, the guy behind the original ‘permanent Democratic majority’ thesis, has been writing for awhile at an outlet called the ‘Liberal Patriot’, arguing that the Dems need to ‘move to the center on social issues’ to actually bring the thesis to fruition, because these minority groups are fundamentally socially conservative in many ways, as are working class voters in general. I mean, anyone who knows a fair amount of Hispanic or black folk should know this. Many of them are very religious. The black church has historically been a more central anchoring institution in the black population’s lives than the government has, and one could easily argue that Catholicism runs deeper in the blood of many Hispanics than any single national identity. Even in an increasingly secular world with increasingly secular people, these religious institutions leave cultural residues that influence many people, and play a key part in their lives as a touchstone of their social networks and their social identities. But this election has made me question what a ‘move to the center’ would even mean. In our media environment, it seems the idea of political messaging in general is starting to breakdown. Harris has run straight to the center and she still gets the ‘far left’ label thrown at her by lots of people she’s tried to target. Politics seems to be transforming into something completely vibes-based. I feel like the whole Democratic Party could take a big rightward leap in its policy messaging and no one would notice unless the algorithms deemed it anger- or horror-inducing enough to let information about it seep through, or if the message boards, substacks etc. wanted it to be true. Even Teixiera and other writers at the ‘Liberal Patriot’ have barely made a peep about Harris’s pivot to the center. She followed their advice, for the most part, and they barely noticed, because it doesn’t align with their vibes, and they’re stuck inside their hermetically sealed info-bubble like everyone else. But, yeah, don’t count on minorities to be dedicated progressives. They might be in the future, but for now their cultural allegiance isn’t to progressivism, it’s to other things, which occasionally intersect with progressivism, and are occasionally at odds with it.
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She needs to have a good answer if he asks her about her background prosecuting weed-related offenses in Cali, though. It shouldn't be too hard, but she's flubbed some responses to some obvious questions already. (particularly about what she'd do differently from Biden, I'm kind of floored she didn't have a solid answer ready to go when she was asked about it) Just spout some shit about "At the time I was the DA and my job was to prosecute the laws of my state, wrong or right, but if I'm elected president I'm going to be working for all Americans, not just for one state, and I don't think cracking down on weed is going to help the country as a whole", and you're good.
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I agree, but not just because of the size of the audience--I think more important is the fact that Joe Rogan is representative of the new 'bro' form of masculinity, and people who conform to it are a huge part of his audience. And one of the best ways to weaken Trump is to weaken his bro appeal. If she can make herself out to be a friend of the bros, or at least somewhat more bro-adjacent, she can effectively emasculate Trump, and weaken his cred with the bro's and their enthusiasm for him. And they are a fairly sizable part of his coalition. Because if this isn't election about the bros vs the enemy of the bros, why tf is it even worth a bro's time to go vote for the old orange dude? A bro's got important shit to do, bro. Also, I shit you not, if she can make herself more bro-adjacent, while also still leaning in a bit on her femininity, she might steal a few bro votes, or discourage a bro from voting for Trump, by coming off as an embodiment of the 'cool hawt chick' archetype, which actually has a bit of unspoken pull and credibility in bro culture. To put it crudely, men who think mostly with their dicks can be enticed to vote for a woman who excites their dicks. As you can tell I've had way too much exposure to the bros. Not willingly, mind you--but I've had a few friends-of-my-friends who were very bro, and have been forced by social inertia to engage at length with them.
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I don’t even think it’s necessarily just the ‘bro’ vote. What Trump is latching onto is a broad emerging trend of young women moving left and young men (and especially young non-college educated men) moving, in comparative terms, right. Just a moment... WWW.AXIOS.COM I think this could be the broader social cleft that could define the coming era of American politics. The coming cohort of male Gen Z’ers will embrace, along with a critical mass of their older Gen X peers, a more conservative, illiberal strain of male-oriented, chauvinist politics dressed up as ‘populism’ or ‘nationalism’ or ‘MAGA’—while their female counterparts will embrace the liberal cosmopolitanism/internationalism associated (for now) with the Democratic Party. You can already see the former philosophy emerging, in a more mature form, in the nascent cohort of post-Trump Trumps—I’m thinking in particular of guys like Ramaswamy, whose whole thing was about ‘uplifting men’. After all, MAGA is well-calibrated to appeal to men in a society where their traditional stranglehold on power is being challenged by the rising influence and wealth of liberated women. “Remember when you were in charge and could do asshole bro-ish stuff without being criticized? Let’s go back to that.” To women, (obviously) not so much. Harris’s whole “we’re not going back” mantra is what speaks to them. Stack on top of that a growing educational divide—because, hey, who loses the most in a knowledge economy dominated by the college-educated professional class and its teeming ranks of liberated women? The non-college educated working class male. It’s no coincidence that ‘Big Tech’ is a big MAGA boogie man; the men who are best off right now are all working in tech, or at least working *with* it, and it’s hard to land the best tech gigs without a college degree. That might be what Trump’s political legacy ends up being, if he doesn’t get reelected and overturn American politics altogether. While I wouldn’t call him a ‘symptom not a cause’—that would downplay just how sociopathic and destructive he truly is—I would say he is *symptomatic* of trends that are not going away, and are likely to set the terms of politics for at least a generation. But, I would also note that, as I've mentioned before, there’s a broader technological context that’s reinforcing these trends. Trumpism is not just male—it is also paranoid and angry. It’s not just non-college educated—it is dismissive of the outside world. (Hence "fake news") And that comes from social media, its algorithmic reinforcement of ‘the paranoid style’, and the info-bubbles and echo-chambers it creates. I think Trump has only been able to get to 50% approval by way of social media completely replacing traditional media. It was a long-developing trend, but it’s reached critical mass in the past 10 years, and IMO it is this election in particular that signals the takeover is complete. It’s why nothing changes the polls—only truly exceptional events get past the info-bubble’s filter. Much of the 50% of the population that supports Trump simply doesn’t process all the crazy shit he does—the info-bubble either doesn’t inform them of it, or codes it as ‘fake’. That’s why, as classically American a figure as Trump is, you’re seeing similar figures showing up in Hungary, Turkey, Russia, etc. He’s one head on a global hydra that’s pushing back against globalization and liberalism, and the destabilization of traditional norms and categories it has created, empowered by a breakdown of the old infrastructure for disseminating information, and its replacement by one that naturally drives populations towards greater balkanization and extremism. TL;DR for everyone who doesn't have the time or energy to wade through the preceding paragraphs: MAGA men vs modern women will define the next political paradigm, social media is ascendant and pouring fuel on the fire, and it's very possible the crazy's just getting started.
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Just wanted to pass this big hulking bong of high-grade Pineapple Express copium to everyone who's supporting Harris, I know with four weeks to go our nerves are all fried. (and James Carville's cajun instincts are predicting more October surprises, god forbid) From the guy who not only predicted Trump's win in 2016, but knew the reasons why while the pundit class was overlooking them: "Do the Math: Trump is Toast" From the early returns in Pennsylvania: "Early Voting PA Trends - Could Harris/Walz outperform polls in a key battleground state?" Take a hit and don't think about the fact that truthfully nothing can consistently be gleaned from early voting patterns, and that Moore produces one batshit take to go with every spot-on one on a regular basis. (including, IMO, the latter half of that post) Oh, and for anyone in an early voting state...vote. VOTE, damn you!
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You know, at least Marj makes it cute. It actually seems like she believes the totally insane things she posts…she’s kind of like a not-so-bright eleven-year-old running around spewing lessons in naïveté with that dumb preteen confidence. What makes JD Vance and Trump so much more nauseating is that they’re spewing the bullshit not because they believe it, but just to get ahead. Not that all of them aren’t dangerous as hell. But, again…at least MTG is dangerous in a quaint way.
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@Commissar SFLUFAN Can you elaborate any more on the early voting arrangements in the Virginia urban centers? Early voting tallies in the R-leaning, rural congressional districts are continuing to for the most part outpace the tallies in the D-leaning districts, was wondering if that had anything to do with many early voting polling places not having opened yet in major cities or something, like the one you mentioned before? (Or could it be something more ominous?) Here’s the state’s early voting dashboard: Early Voting in 2024 November General Election WWW.VPAP.ORG Your Window into Virginia Politics
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More evidence we are living in the end times. Polls Find Trump Shows Signs of Strength in Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina - The New York Times WWW.NYTIMES.COM New polls from The New York Times and Siena College showed Donald J. Trump ahead in Arizona and leading in tight races in Georgia and North Carolina. The polls in these states are fluctuating wildly, and there's some copium in the fact that the averages on 538 and Nate Silver's models still favor Harris but seriously after everything Trump's done, just in the past few weeks, this is looney tunes.