Good essay....raises the question of the relative value of all the think tank pontifications about policy positions of this or that candidate as the election nears. Which then also should make us ask: what are the best means of bridging the divide of opposing "vibes" if we want democracy to survive?
I’ve thought about this piece a lot, because I couldn’t figure out what I think about Shadi’s thesis. And the conclusion I have come to is … I think Shadi is wrong. The campaign is indeed riding on vibes and betting on vibes, at least right now. But those vibes are prepackaged with ideas.
Or better, the progressive ideology that fuels the democratic base is still operative in such a way that the party cultivates the ideology and communicates it through vibes. In other words, people like the vibes because the vibes suggest, hint, promise the advancement of certain progressive ideas.
OK, now back to reality...The two parties have no governmental authority whatsoever. None.
They are not branches of government; they are special interest groups. They are special interest groups that force people who aren't interested in them into complying with the Partys' interests.
All of you who want to belong to something, go join and ashram of some such. Quit thinking that screwing over innocent people who want nothing to do with you is justifiable, as long as you have good 'vibes'.
This seems to be a very “seat of your pants” way of approaching something that should be pretty important - namely deciding who will wield a significant amount of power over us all for the coming 4-8 years. Ceding that decision over to a certain gestalt or vibe, I don’t know - call me old-fashioned, but it feels a little like turning on the cruise control on the Winnebago, then heading to the back to mix yourself a drink.
I’ve heard Quentin Tarantino suggest she should just remain incommunicado until the election because: 1.)”It’s all about winning at this point”, and 2.)”She’d just f*ck it up”.
Just doesn’t seem like a reasoned approach, that’s all.
If this line of thought is true, then there is no policy that is not justifiable. I'd be curious if Russia, China, or Iran has put forth this line of thinking. It's certainly the first time I've heard it in America.
Enjoyed the podcast…the informality almost led to a degree of Damir enthusiasm? It wasn’t quite his heart growing bigger like the Grinch…but the vibes were having a positive effect!
Well said… “Vibes” is another word for the spirit or soul of a nation. Personally I despair the loss of an optimistic American spirit for the nation beginning with the Vietnamese war and highlighted by the 9-11 attacks against the prominent symbols of the nation. Witnessing Trump’s urging of insurrection and the vicious attack on the Capitol was a blatant display of how lost and divided our nation has become. Threats of a Civil War were too real to be dismissed, the nation is clearly at a pivotal point.
A nation’s spirit is the foundation that its policies are built upon. Without a secure sense of what we collectively are about weakens our standing and inevitably leads to chaos and collapse. Joe Biden in his calm, assured way began the repair to the nation’s foundation methodically clearing the destruction left behind from Trump’s wrecking ball of a Presidency. Trump’s spirit of hate, fear and cruelty infected the lifeblood of the entire nation. “American first” is a death rattle of a dying nation bleeding out the energy needed to be great.
Like a physical body, a nation’s body can heal if its spirit is strong enough. We need soul medicine now and to excise the Trump cancer so we can begin to heal. The wholesomeness at the core of both Harris and Walz is the ‘vibe tonic’ we need to energize our collective will to survive and to thrive. Elect two candidates and call me in the morning…
A "wholesomeness" that will yet again guarantee that the United States' regime will treat the Indians, Chinese, Libyans, Palestinians, Nigeriens, Afghanisthanis, and others as subhumans. The "wholesomeness" associated with Universal Human Rights is, as Taleb stated, for White and White-adjacent people.
“Universal Human Rights” is certainly a goal to be hoped for and certainly a work in progress. You malign the U.S. and the West in general, but please name any nation or group of nations working towards this goal. The UN is the international agency charged with such a task and it is badly in need of revision since its founding midst the devastation of WWII. The West gifted the world with the initial framework,now it is time for the East to restructure it to fit the realities of the current world power.
The Orange Haired Monstrosity does not have innocent Afghanisthani and Palestinian infants' blood on his hands, like Genocide Joe has. Indeed, the quickening of multipolarity is an indictment of Joe Biden and your tribe. We now recognize that Universal Human Rights is only for and by White people. Like, Madeleine Albright you say, "The price (of those innocent Brown deaths) was worth it!"
Maybe the Orange Haired Monstrosity who is also sometimes called Orange Jesus does have blood-soaked Palestinian blood on his hands. Such is the case argued in this essay:
I also vaguely remember an essay posited the thesis that the half-baked "plan" proposed by the Orange Man re the dreadful situation in Afghanistan was a causative factor in the subsequent disaster.
Of course we should ever have been there in the first place.
I worry that a political system where the divides are about "who we are" is a lot less stable, a lot more dangerous deep down, than one where the divides are more about policy specifics, where there is more room for compromise and less existential dread.
I think it would be healthy if 2028, 2032, and 2036 were all landslide victories for the same party. A period of one-party dominance, one that created more of a political center and pulled both parties toward it (one by the desire to keep its big majority, the other by the need to stay competitive) would be a lot better for America than the current deep polarization. After Trump is gone, I think I will be increasingly agnostic as to which party captures the center that way.
Reminds me of the Leo McGarry west wing quote 'campaign in poetry and govern in prose'. I'm not sure if I agree though... it depends on why you think we vote in irrational ways I guess. Is it because we are inherently irrational? Is it because people are too busy to care about politics? Is it because of the sources they receive? If it's the first one then i think vibes makes the most sense but even then if we are irrational about policy it also means we'll be irrational about ideology. If our value sets are irrational then they'll likely be mutually conflicting and we will struggle to make much sense of them ourselves. If it's because of the latter things then we need to work out what we need to do to clean up the contextual problems creating such a situation.
I do expect Kamila, if she wins to go down in history as a pretty awful president. She will be a puppet for her administration, and she may make some calls but her ability to lead/communicate without a script will be non-existent. 'Vibes' have helped us forget this and forced us to lean into what her administration stands for, rather than who she is. I do think a lot of this policy urgency is difficult to pin on her. I swear Ezra Klien had an article explaining how long it takes for a campaign to work through its policy positions, But I can't find it... but the point was that it's not like she just took over Biden's campaign, she's starting at the ground floor, hard positions will take time and will also require extensive polling. Yay Democracy.
Politicians have to survive to keep playing politics, so perhaps her values are as plastic as they need to be to stay in the game. Right now, that means less woke stuff so I'm alright with that.
I think this is quite right--we intuit a sense of who a candidate or party is, and align or not on that basis--and somewhat wrong--that therefore it doesn't matter what the candidate's going to actually do.
Of course we don't know what they'll do in many cases. Nor do they. How can Harris know what she'll do on "day one" when we don't know what will be occuring on "day one"? Perhaps the world economy will have collapsed, or we'll be in a "Civil War" (the 2024 film) -like scenario, or maybe Israel will have used a nuke on Iran, or who knows? The presidency--like government--is more about sailing the ship of state through a series of crises and challenges than it is about implementing Five Year Plans.
When they asked George W. Bush what his foreign policy would be in 2000, he was sure of one thing: He wouldn't be doing "nation-building." And he was sincere about that. But then events changed his calculus.
Much of what we vote on is, whose ox do we suspect is going to get gored when we have situation. With George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Biden and Harris, I was and am reasonably they aren't going to demonize minorities to distract from whatever problem is afflicting us: they aren't going to blame Islam in general for a terrorist attack, or insinuate Asians are cooking up a pandemic, and etc.
My "team" is the folk who care about things like that, among others. My party alignment is governed by such loose--and not entirely certain--judgments.
Good essay....raises the question of the relative value of all the think tank pontifications about policy positions of this or that candidate as the election nears. Which then also should make us ask: what are the best means of bridging the divide of opposing "vibes" if we want democracy to survive?
I’ve thought about this piece a lot, because I couldn’t figure out what I think about Shadi’s thesis. And the conclusion I have come to is … I think Shadi is wrong. The campaign is indeed riding on vibes and betting on vibes, at least right now. But those vibes are prepackaged with ideas.
Or better, the progressive ideology that fuels the democratic base is still operative in such a way that the party cultivates the ideology and communicates it through vibes. In other words, people like the vibes because the vibes suggest, hint, promise the advancement of certain progressive ideas.
OK, now back to reality...The two parties have no governmental authority whatsoever. None.
They are not branches of government; they are special interest groups. They are special interest groups that force people who aren't interested in them into complying with the Partys' interests.
All of you who want to belong to something, go join and ashram of some such. Quit thinking that screwing over innocent people who want nothing to do with you is justifiable, as long as you have good 'vibes'.
This seems to be a very “seat of your pants” way of approaching something that should be pretty important - namely deciding who will wield a significant amount of power over us all for the coming 4-8 years. Ceding that decision over to a certain gestalt or vibe, I don’t know - call me old-fashioned, but it feels a little like turning on the cruise control on the Winnebago, then heading to the back to mix yourself a drink.
I’ve heard Quentin Tarantino suggest she should just remain incommunicado until the election because: 1.)”It’s all about winning at this point”, and 2.)”She’d just f*ck it up”.
Just doesn’t seem like a reasoned approach, that’s all.
If this line of thought is true, then there is no policy that is not justifiable. I'd be curious if Russia, China, or Iran has put forth this line of thinking. It's certainly the first time I've heard it in America.
Enjoyed the podcast…the informality almost led to a degree of Damir enthusiasm? It wasn’t quite his heart growing bigger like the Grinch…but the vibes were having a positive effect!
Well said… “Vibes” is another word for the spirit or soul of a nation. Personally I despair the loss of an optimistic American spirit for the nation beginning with the Vietnamese war and highlighted by the 9-11 attacks against the prominent symbols of the nation. Witnessing Trump’s urging of insurrection and the vicious attack on the Capitol was a blatant display of how lost and divided our nation has become. Threats of a Civil War were too real to be dismissed, the nation is clearly at a pivotal point.
A nation’s spirit is the foundation that its policies are built upon. Without a secure sense of what we collectively are about weakens our standing and inevitably leads to chaos and collapse. Joe Biden in his calm, assured way began the repair to the nation’s foundation methodically clearing the destruction left behind from Trump’s wrecking ball of a Presidency. Trump’s spirit of hate, fear and cruelty infected the lifeblood of the entire nation. “American first” is a death rattle of a dying nation bleeding out the energy needed to be great.
Like a physical body, a nation’s body can heal if its spirit is strong enough. We need soul medicine now and to excise the Trump cancer so we can begin to heal. The wholesomeness at the core of both Harris and Walz is the ‘vibe tonic’ we need to energize our collective will to survive and to thrive. Elect two candidates and call me in the morning…
A "wholesomeness" that will yet again guarantee that the United States' regime will treat the Indians, Chinese, Libyans, Palestinians, Nigeriens, Afghanisthanis, and others as subhumans. The "wholesomeness" associated with Universal Human Rights is, as Taleb stated, for White and White-adjacent people.
“Universal Human Rights” is certainly a goal to be hoped for and certainly a work in progress. You malign the U.S. and the West in general, but please name any nation or group of nations working towards this goal. The UN is the international agency charged with such a task and it is badly in need of revision since its founding midst the devastation of WWII. The West gifted the world with the initial framework,now it is time for the East to restructure it to fit the realities of the current world power.
Poe's Law?
A more pertinent question should be what does Donald Trump believe?
He is a sociopath, a pathological liar, a life-long professional grifter plus a culturally and religiously illiterate nihilistic barbarian.
Speaking of vibes, what kind of vibe does Donald Trump communicate?
Every time he opens his mouth he spews out a torrent of toxic and toxifying sludge.
It is said that a fish rots from the head down.
Such is also the case with groups of all kinds and sizes.
If the head of any human group is corrupt the corruption seeps even pours down through the ranks.
What then is happening to the integrity of the collective and individual psyche of the US in the case of the Orange Haired Monstrosity.
There is of course no difference because in this now quantum world everyone and everything is now instantaneously inter-connected.
The Orange Haired Monstrosity does not have innocent Afghanisthani and Palestinian infants' blood on his hands, like Genocide Joe has. Indeed, the quickening of multipolarity is an indictment of Joe Biden and your tribe. We now recognize that Universal Human Rights is only for and by White people. Like, Madeleine Albright you say, "The price (of those innocent Brown deaths) was worth it!"
Maybe the Orange Haired Monstrosity who is also sometimes called Orange Jesus does have blood-soaked Palestinian blood on his hands. Such is the case argued in this essay:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/blame-trump-october-7/5866959
I also vaguely remember an essay posited the thesis that the half-baked "plan" proposed by the Orange Man re the dreadful situation in Afghanistan was a causative factor in the subsequent disaster.
Of course we should ever have been there in the first place.
I worry that a political system where the divides are about "who we are" is a lot less stable, a lot more dangerous deep down, than one where the divides are more about policy specifics, where there is more room for compromise and less existential dread.
I think it would be healthy if 2028, 2032, and 2036 were all landslide victories for the same party. A period of one-party dominance, one that created more of a political center and pulled both parties toward it (one by the desire to keep its big majority, the other by the need to stay competitive) would be a lot better for America than the current deep polarization. After Trump is gone, I think I will be increasingly agnostic as to which party captures the center that way.
Reminds me of the Leo McGarry west wing quote 'campaign in poetry and govern in prose'. I'm not sure if I agree though... it depends on why you think we vote in irrational ways I guess. Is it because we are inherently irrational? Is it because people are too busy to care about politics? Is it because of the sources they receive? If it's the first one then i think vibes makes the most sense but even then if we are irrational about policy it also means we'll be irrational about ideology. If our value sets are irrational then they'll likely be mutually conflicting and we will struggle to make much sense of them ourselves. If it's because of the latter things then we need to work out what we need to do to clean up the contextual problems creating such a situation.
I do expect Kamila, if she wins to go down in history as a pretty awful president. She will be a puppet for her administration, and she may make some calls but her ability to lead/communicate without a script will be non-existent. 'Vibes' have helped us forget this and forced us to lean into what her administration stands for, rather than who she is. I do think a lot of this policy urgency is difficult to pin on her. I swear Ezra Klien had an article explaining how long it takes for a campaign to work through its policy positions, But I can't find it... but the point was that it's not like she just took over Biden's campaign, she's starting at the ground floor, hard positions will take time and will also require extensive polling. Yay Democracy.
Politicians have to survive to keep playing politics, so perhaps her values are as plastic as they need to be to stay in the game. Right now, that means less woke stuff so I'm alright with that.
I think this is quite right--we intuit a sense of who a candidate or party is, and align or not on that basis--and somewhat wrong--that therefore it doesn't matter what the candidate's going to actually do.
Of course we don't know what they'll do in many cases. Nor do they. How can Harris know what she'll do on "day one" when we don't know what will be occuring on "day one"? Perhaps the world economy will have collapsed, or we'll be in a "Civil War" (the 2024 film) -like scenario, or maybe Israel will have used a nuke on Iran, or who knows? The presidency--like government--is more about sailing the ship of state through a series of crises and challenges than it is about implementing Five Year Plans.
When they asked George W. Bush what his foreign policy would be in 2000, he was sure of one thing: He wouldn't be doing "nation-building." And he was sincere about that. But then events changed his calculus.
Much of what we vote on is, whose ox do we suspect is going to get gored when we have situation. With George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Biden and Harris, I was and am reasonably they aren't going to demonize minorities to distract from whatever problem is afflicting us: they aren't going to blame Islam in general for a terrorist attack, or insinuate Asians are cooking up a pandemic, and etc.
My "team" is the folk who care about things like that, among others. My party alignment is governed by such loose--and not entirely certain--judgments.