Me on USAnian politics, 2024

So another election looms. I find my words from 2020 are weirdly recyclable: Well, there's an election coming up - you may have noticed - so it is Time to Opine, thereby fixing my words in stone for posterity to hold against me. Just like last time the presidential choice is unappealling. Trump is, obviously, horrible: personally, and in many but not all policies. By contrast Biden Kamala is a nice enough std.pol, or at least projects that as an image, but it is hard to get enthused over his her policies. Last time I continued Given his opponent I hope he wins; and given a choice I'd hold my nose and vote for him but I find that harder to do this time; read on.

As a reminder of how different things can look in retrospect, the Economist has Angela who? Merkel’s legacy looks increasingly terrible.

If you want to believe that the election is about character, then you'll vote for Harris, obvs. Here for example is Paul Graham saying so. Or in Supreme Court Refuses to Remove RFK Jr. from Wisconsin and Michigan Ballots I can find "I'm going to let [RFK] go wild on health. I'm going to let him go wild on the food. I'm going to let him go wild on the medicines," Trump told supporters at Madison Square Garden; and RFK is a nutter. Or you can listen to Arnie^3,4.

The case against Harris - as far as I am concerned - is that she is a low-grade generic Dem Pol with precious little to recommend her. You might well say - and you'd be correct - that in most respects that puts her far ahead of the Mango Mussolini. But all her policies and instincts are bad; see e.g. the price-gouging stuff.

The case for Trump is the one I need to make. And it isn't for Trump himself, obvs, no it is for the people he'd bring in. Not Vance either, obvs. It's effectively Richard Hanania's Hating Modern Conservatism While Voting Republican¹. Here's a bad answer to Hanania; if you want to say that again, please don't. I should also point out that many of Harris's stupid economic ideas require Congress to pass them, so will likely not happen; Trump's stupid ideas on tariffs can likely be done via executive action, so might happen. Trump is more hawkish for Israel, which is good, but less for Ukraine, which is bad and more important.

The point of this post, though, is to write down my thoughts now so I can't pretend they were different later, not to offer you advice that you'll ignore. In brief, I think it amounts to: Harris is a bland non-entity who will hopefully do very little²; Trump is everything you think he is, and unacceptable. In the end I would cast a vote, if I had one, against Trump and therefore for Harris.

A couple of other thoughts: firstly, I don't see much if anything said about Harris being female, or being "of colour". Which is good, obvs; such properties are irrelevant to the role. I also see little about abortion, which is similarly good; the much-reviled-by-the Progressives Dobbs seems to have had the desired effect of drawing some poison from national poitics. Secondly, I don't see anyone (credible) endorsing Harris as a good candidate; only as "Trump is worse". So we perhaps think about her selection process. I discard the last-minute nature of the choice, because I think we'd likely have had the same result regardless: so we're left with the totally unsurprising result that the Dem machine has chosen someone so unappealling. Which tells you a lot about the said Dem machine prioritising its own interests above those of the country.

Update: the result

Trump won, fairly strongly. To find out what this means we'll need to wait, especially in the Ukraine. If I were the MMs, I'd be keeping very quiet. Initial S+P reaction is up, modestly, by ~100 aka ~2% to 5900. I take that to be a good sign.

David Broockman: This is how I’ve always understood the Biden administration: a million little decisions that made small interest groups much better off and most people a tiny bit worse off. Do enough of that and you lose. Or, put another way, you have to have principles.

Refs

* Elon Musk's Story Highlights Harm Caused by Immigration Restrictions.

* Mission unaccomplished: The British budget combines large numbers and a narrow vision. A bigger state but an irrational way to fund it. Or, the govt as bandits (my take). But on the scale of USAnian politics, just a ripple; the AIM market even rose a little.

* El Econo explains why they (unlike WaPo) do endorse candidates. Their reasoning is somewhat obscure; in their words "To give opinions on policies but not politicians would be odd".

* Noah Smith is sad that "Trumpism systematically appoints the worst people to positions of power, since it prizes *loyalty to a personality cult* above competence and principle". But he doesn't really explain why it is a personality cult. Part is easy: thinking about policy is hard, supporting or hating people is easy. But the hard part - that he doesn't really want to talk about - is the people that see <someone, anyone, oh very well Trump> as a bulwark against the woke-that-is-evil.

* Living in a Post-truth World - Peter Woit.

* Conservatism in Crisis: Rise of the Bureaucratic Class; Kemi Badenoch.

* Johnny Cash - God's Gonna Cut You Down (h/t).

* Just one of many bad takes: Welcome to the American petrostate, Michael E. Mann. Or None of this is meant to imply that most progressive causes are mistaken... in the Graun. Stefan Rahmstorf: it's all the fault of the right wing meeja.

* A collection of great hang-wringing: Trump Didn't Deserve to Win, But We Deserved to Lose.

* Journal of Free Speech Law: "Corporate Speech and Corporate Purpose: A Theory of Corporate First Amendment Rights," by Sean J. Griffith.

* PG: Socialists... cherish the idea that the game is rigged so much that they'd rather talk about that than about how to improve their situation.

* The Graun flounces out: Why the Guardian is no longer posting on X.

* Sam Harris on why critique of the media and the establishment must not turn into nihilism, though I now rather regret linking because of his use of "coronated".

* Dear Journalists: Stop Trying to Save Democracy.

* Economath Fails the Cost-Benefit Test.

* The best-case scenario for Trump's second term.

* Disproportionate elite influence saves us from many destructive public opinions (Robin Hanson).

* Why You Should Feel Good About Liberalism (Jonathan Rauch).

* Biden pardons Hunter. Bad; but the kind of thing you expect from pols. I think Biden should have pardoned Trump at the same time, to draw the sting and provide some semblance of impartiality; all the reasons re politically-motivated-prosecution that he gives as excuses apply to the Trump case. Although... Trump is a State crime and the pardon may or may not apply there; the Supremes have never ruled on it. To be fair to Biden though, stuff like Biden professed a willingness to abide by the results of the justice system as a matter of principle is nonsense; he has pardoned a pile of other people already, though fewer than others so far. See-also How To Ban Lame-Duck Pardons. In an effort to pretend that this is nothing unusual, some progressives are just making shit up (and then, when caught, are in the usual way failing to apologise).

Notes

1. "Cut the applause and dim the light".

2. Although it is arguably in the spirit of the framer's intent, I find it... well, not amusing, but whatevs... that a better candidate than either on offer can be constructed by simply offering to do nothing. I should probably also point out that I've paid very little attention to anything she has said.

3. Or ACX Endorses Harris, Oliver, Or Stein. But that brings in some problems: it reminds me that Trump, if he won, would have had his two terms and not be up for re-election (if you doubt that you need to explicitly argue against it). And it also asserts that Repubs are typically-Trump, which I doubt.

4. Or A second Trump term comes with unacceptable risks: if The Economist had a vote, we would cast it for Kamala Harris.