u/Freenore

Karl Rove saying that the party he had built was meant to be inclusive irrespective of race or religion was hilarious. This is a pattern with the post-war Republican Party, it goes further and further to the right with each generation.

Goldwater and Nixon were significantly to the right of Eisenhower, Reagan was to the right of those two. And now Trump is more right-wing than Reagan. What Trump has done to the Reaganites was what Reagan did to Rockefeller Republicans. That brand of liberal conservatism pretty much died there. Earlier that was the moderate Republican, now the party has gone so far to the Right that Reaganites (or whatever is left of them) are the new moderate Republicans.

If the pattern holds then what will follow Trump will be even more extreme than him.

Classic AOC.

"capitalism is irredeemable"

proceeds to talk about social democracy; which is exactly that — redeeming capitalism by ensuring the generated wealth is distributed more fairly.

Classic FDR, he compartmentalised everything and knew how to manipulate others around him. Remember that he didn't think he would die, he wanted to resign after the war and become head of UN.

It could be that the reason why Truman was kept out of the loop was because FDR didn't expect him to become a wartime leader.

He served as an inspiration to other murderers in how to ethnically cleanse a population through legislation and get away with it. I imagine he's never rising up, even if he's one of the most consequential Presidents.

"The most Anglophobic President of 20th century" — Walter Russell Reed, historian.

People haven't fully comprehended just how much he hated the British Empire and its financial dominance. Roosevelt would've probably placed liquidating it just slightly lower down the aim of defeating Axis countries. India was often a source of irritation for Churchill as Roosevelt kept bringing it up, and its undemocratic state while they were seemingly fighting for democracy.

Unless the conservatives are authoritarians in disguise, I really think it could've been a lot worse.

It is nerves more than anything. He seems to get decent starts, just seems to lose it half-way through. I think this is the point when batters tend to play more for time than for runs, because their aim is to get a feel for the game and get back in rhythm.

It happens with some batters who excel really well in their first phase that lasts for 3-4 years. Teams discover some chink in their armour. Both Marnus and Babar have this in common, a great initial start but their 'second phase' (once their weakness became common knowledge) is them not being able to evolve to their new circumstances.

And then you get people like Kohli who did improve after his 2014 England tour, but couldn't do so for a second time (post 2020).

The next stage is probably where I'd put people like Tendulkar, Lara, Smith, etc. Batters who have had to evolve three or even four times in their career as they always remained one step ahead of the bowlers. Root is sort of going through something similar with the new keeper up tactic and it'll be interesting to see how he overcomes it.

For all the Cummins comparisons with Waugh and their similar belief in experience over youth, I can't see Waugh being so chaotic to the point of confusion and dismissing the importance of batting order.

In other words, governments need to dump neoliberalism, get the upper 1% under control, and rein their carbon emissions in while coaxing money out of them that goes into fighting climate change.

Because this is a fight made difficult almost single-handedly by the indifference of the rich.

When Taj Mahal was being built, there was a terrible famine in Deccan. In those days, relief programme weren't a thing and there was no precident for holding the Emperor response for his indifference.

Today, such a thing would be unthinkable, and it goes beyond something extreme like famines. See the various things in which the government spends, and you realise there's no money left for such intricate monuments anymore (unless money is specifically allocated for it).

The reason why grand monuments are no longer being built anymore is because in a democracy, that's not the priority. And when they are built, they're unproductive because there is always education or health that could've been a better use of that money.

The next Democratic President should nationalise all of his companies and be done with it.

At what point do we all just call a spade a spade? I still love and adore Natalie but it’s hard to not see that she’s turned into a cauldron of bitter resentment over the last year.

In her video about conspiracy, towards the end, she openly says that she isn't a virtuous person, she has self-interest of her own that drives her. In her I/P post, she once again said, something to the effect, that a better person wouldn't be bitter about how her efforts at getting Harris elected came to nothing, but she isn't such a person.

All of this has been out there for some time.

We can understand her while also seeing that this is counterproductive. I'm not sure this kind of thinking is going to achieve anything. Alas, that requires some measure of independence of mind and not think that Natalie is right on every thing or has to be defended on every thing she says. Some people in the audience have disregarded her own words about how she characterises herself and then act surprise when something like this happens.

Her anti-left phase has been many things, productive may not be one of them.

sigh

She's really on track to becoming another Sam Harris, isn't she? The anti-left liberal. As ever, she takes the online leftist people for the real thing. Expected as someone whose window of observation is 'online left'.

Can we somehow arrange an interview between the two? They're both thoughtful liberals.

From Chomsky to Obama, it also reflects Natalie's political trajectory.

Probably totalitarianism; see, for instance, Indira Gandhi, the Indian Prime Minister, suspending Constitution and ruling by decree from 1975 to 1977, throwing all opposition leaders in jail, press censored overnight, labour unions shut down, and mass sterilisation (stemming from overpopulation, and inability to eradicate poverty and develop urban cities to house poor).

She was voted out when she called elections when promised by intelligence agents of a victory. Interestingly enough, the new govt going after her in order to hold her responsible for her misdeeds allowed her to spin a narrative of herself as the victim of state persecution, and led to her comeback in 1980.

I guess the new government going after the defenestraded politician doesn't go well because you give them ammunition to make themselves seem like the victim.

They were aristocratic in their sensibilities, and the traditional idea of strong farmers appealed to them. Also both were politician, they knew the opposition would use Jefferson as a weapon more than anyone else so they pre-empted that by appropriating him themselves.

Jefferson believed in a small government and leaving most of the power in the states, fearing that having too much power in one office makes tyranny easy. He also said a President cannot do anything unless the Constitution explicitly allows him to do so.

Theodore Roosevelt flipped this adage on its head, believing the President can do anything so long as the Constitution doesn't explicitly forbids it. He needed the might of the state to reign in the Gilded Age corruption but this began the enlargement of the state, which both Wilson and FDR made bigger.

I'll always remember the 2015-2019 period when Musk was practically adored by the internet for being so futuristic and cool. He was presented as an example of a cool billionaire who uses his money to further space exploration and whatnot. Musk certainly knew how to play the part, doing things like sending a car to space and selling flamethrower.

MKBHD, among others, was one of his most enthusiastic admirers. If you were a YouTuber in that period, you loved Elon Musk.

In hindsight, the flamethrower seems quite trivial now but back then, it had made him something of a memelord. You can even make a case that Musk is the first of this kind — a businessman who isn't content with merely making money but wants to be tapped into the pop culture and be seen as a guru on the right way to live life. Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, and other Gilded Age businessmen were not interested in pop culture. Musk began this trend of tech bros — Thiel, Altman, Karp, with oldies like Bezos and Zuckerberg adapting — who want to be seen as relatable despite the absurdity inherent in any comparison between them and the common person.

They're so bad at winning over the unconvinced. It is telling that Congress' vote % has been stuck at ~20% in all three 2014, 2019, and 2024 general elections. Even Modi put Hindutva on the back burner and campaigned in 2014 on an economically progressive message about inflation, jobs, and development.

Just as an example, the Civil Rights Movement picked MLK to lead the movement because a Church Minister negated any accusations of communism and Soviet agents (this was the age of McCarthyism). Also, a preacher won over more people than a communist would've ever done.

They made sure to never be photographed in anything but trousers and suits because it would've taken away their seriousness, and spoke in democratic language about demanding their rightful rights.

The police brutality on 20th July was BJP's hubris destroying them because they galvanised the public opinion against them by beating innocent children so badly. There was no way BJP could've saved Pradhan after that. This is what public sentiment does.

Politicians and activists who are leading a movement have to pay attention to optics and how it shapes public sentiment. No smart leader would've ever used 'regime change'; what is even more worse is everyone from activists to Congress members are doubling down on this instead of realising just how terribly this would be used for propaganda by BJP.

One hopes they're trying to convince TDP and JDU to pull their support from NDA. All of this could end now. They surely cannot be blind to the implications of voting not being free and fair anymore.

They just like shooting themselves in the foot, don't they? They keep using a phrase that the public thinks is akin to insurrection. They keep thinking this post-modernist act of changing definition relative to the circumstances in a country that is not even fully modernist is the right strategy.

Godi Media has probably never had greater ammunition. The protesters need to seriously reframe the debate in democratic language. This isn't helping, nor is this going to help change the minds of the unconverted. Every public protest depends on the favour of the public. With statements like these, they're bound to lose them.

As per Oxford Dictionary:

regime change

​the situation when one government is replaced by another, especially using military force

This is not what they want to be arguing in favour of.

No "voodoo economics"?

It was either him or Eugene McCarthy, both from Minnesota. Johnson had promised McCarthy that he would be the running mate but changed his mind at the last minute. I think the reason was simple, Johnson was a Southerner and needed to balance the ticket.

He was a liberal icon in his time. As mayor, he transformed Minneapolis from a city that was quite horrible for Black people and where anti-Semitism was quite powerful into one of the freest and most progressive cities for Blacks and Jews (at least for that time). His passionate speech at 1948 DNC convinced Truman to include a Civil Rights plank (and drove Thurmond out of the party to run as a Dixiecrat).

He did all this while being the party man. If you were a party functionary then you utterly respected him for how he had time for everyone and seemed to have good relations with everyone. How many progressives are also a great party man? That is rare.

The 1968 primaries were a foregone conclusion for this reason. The party wanted Humphrey to be their candidate, McCarthy and RFK never really had a realistic chance. In a parallel world where McCarthy is picked and Humphrey isn't a part of the Johnson Administration and hence free to break from his Vietnam policy, he'd probably have won.

What was US supposed to do about Kerala and West Bengal democratically electing Communists? That's just democracy.

Besides, it didn't really harm US barring Bengal govt renaming the US consulate in Calcutta after Ho Chi Minh during Vietnam war.

If there's one thing I've picked up, it is that people who believe in the Lost Cause/Confederacy are using those as shorthand for expressing their affection for the Southern way of living. Southerns feel there is a distinct Southern culture that cannot be found anywhere else in the US, and certainly not in the North. A sense of courtesy and tradition that is unique to South.

So for many of them, championing the Lost Cause is another way of cherishing the South and its culture. In this way, you can both be a Southern enthusiast and also a Lincoln admirer since your belief in the South goes beyond winning or losing. They didn't mind Lincoln defeating the Confederacy since their affection for it permeates loss and win.