That was an interesting read. Thanks for sharing @b_b.
Yes, I think it's well worth a read. I wouldn't say that he convinced me of anything, but it's nice that someone is trying to make an intellectual case for tariffs and lack of support for Ukraine. Typically the GOP relies solely on id, not logic. Vance, whatever else anyone might think of him or his positions, is a very smart and logical human.
JD Vance spent 4 years as a PR Flack for the Marines in an air conditioned office in the Green Zone. While that definitely makes him a veteran? It doesn't really entitle him to assume the mantle of someone who stormed Mosul or some shit. If you were to read Hillbilly Elegy, you would read 300-odd pages of "here's some lies about my past" with occasional breaks to vomit pablum about low-information voters. The two are completely disconnected from each other other than the fact that both touch reality in very few points. JD Vance believes whatever it is expedient to believe. He believed whatever was necessary to attract the Eye of Thielron, then believed whatever was necessary to proxy Thiel's ideas to popular regard, then believed whatever was necessary to win election, and will now believe whatever is necessary to increase his stature. Ross Douchehat putting forth a "what J. D. Vance Believes" piece is so cynically en pointe for 2024 New York Times that it reads like parody news from Cyberpunk 2077. Do not for a minute think that anything in this article reflects reality in any way shape or form. The subject knows it, the interviewer knows it, the editorial board knows it. JD Vance has never not shit on liberals, despite his book largely being about liberals accepting him and helping him out and providing him with protection and food. There isn't even a calculation to JD Vance's lying - he knows he can say whatever the fuck he wants and the chinstrokers of the center-left will go "he grew up in Appalachia therefore we must listen."The people on the left, I would say, whose politics I’m open to — it’s the Bernie Bros.
It's really good to see you, yo. :) I'd love to be a fly on the wall and watch his body language when he said that. It was probably a statement made in subtle jest, and Douchehat (stealing that) is too socially inept to pick up on it. Doubt that this is related, but one of Bernie's head PR/comms directors (BJG) was recently fired from The Hill for what I agree was extremely insensitive behavior, but it was still at least somewhat controversial. All doubt was removed when she went on Candace fucking Owens' show to commiserate during a team meeting of "Hosts Too Rotten Even For Rotten Outlets". Disqualifying. Meanwhile, TYT is melting down. Feels like a huge portion of ex-Bernie bros have transited the political horshoe, and I'm left wondering if they ever really understood Bernie, or if they have become radically anti-American in the last few years. I also have no interest in interacting with them. They'll just accuse you of loving genocide if you say you'll vote for Biden, while Bibi stalls out the war to preserve himself from consequence and wait for Trump to possibly get back in office and give him carte blanche. It's like, yeah, maybe some of you, your heart's in the right place, but you're kinda... dumb. Maybe Vance is making a small nod to them..? Again, doubt it, it's probably a joke that flew over Ross's head. Couldn't pay me to read Hillbillly Elegy. Thanks for taking that bullet. btw the biggest hurdle to moving was recently solved when mrs. am_U went with me to Colorado for a week during the summer. Woo!The people on the left, I would say, whose politics I’m open to — it’s the Bernie Bros.
It doesn't take an FBI profiler to see that JD Vance is a bad liar. He makes Ted Cruz look charismatic. The NYT doesn't care, though. They will bothsides any issue, regardless of how one-sided it is. The principle reason I decided to show up and get yelled at for having any optimism is that fuckin' bullshit laserpin thing. I needed the gift link for that bullshit article because the NYT, true to form, wrote a sweeping, allegorical narrative about transformative tech with a couple casual asides about potential difficulties at some hypothetical point down the road. In real life, of course, it's the stupidest, most terrible product since lawn darts which was immediately obvious to anyone with any appreciation for human interaction, let alone human interaction with technology. There was a time when politics was liberals vs conservatives, Republicans vs Democrats, young vs old, capital vs labor. But because of Douchehat and his ilk, it's become oppositionals vs apologists. There's the people who fucking hate whatever is going on now and there's the people who know whatever everyone is howling for, it'll likely be worse than what we have. And it fucking sucks that anyone who thinks is automatically an apologist whether they like it or not. Bernie Sanders' politics are probably closer to my own than any other politician. On this test? I'm out in the Aleutians somewhere. I'm so left that I gotta swim to find the rest of my liberal friends. But because I also recognize that Bernie Sanders has never been a particularly effective legislator all the Bernie Bros consider me a zionist shitlib capitalist shill. It's so. Fucking. Exhausting. Meanwhile the NYT, the WaPo, the Journal, the Guardian, the Economist, the Financial Times, Mother Jones and Pro Publica are all about "there are two sides and both sides are very normal, full stop." They don't have any other framework. Whatever Democrats are doing is normal, whatever Republicans are doing is normal. Obviously the middle is somewhere between an executive order granting citizenship amnesty for spouses of citizens and a governor declaring all classrooms must display the Ten Commandments (Hollywood Version). DoucheHat? Fuck yeah everything is normal, let's stroke our chin at JD Vance even though he's the most unconvincingly cynical political creature ever crafted. A democratic comms director showing up on Candace Owens? Well of course they're just here to tear shit down, that's all they've ever been here to do. You're sitting here going "but what does JD Vance really believe" and holy fuck bro, he believes in personal advancement. That is the extent of his ethics. Every single politician on the right at this moment is there for personal advancement. They have made the calculus that they can get ahead by pandering to the right so they are pandering to the right. And since the right only cares about tearing shit down, they have correctly surmised that they can say any fuckin' thing they want because nobody on the right gives a shit. They're here to own the libs. Reagan/Thatcher era popular conservatism held that if Western culture were wound back to 1954 it would lead to a new era of peace and prosperity for aggrieved white people. But after 50 years of declining standards of living and cultural influence, not a single one of these fucktards has looked around and gone "huh, maybe it isn't working." Especially not when Bothsides Media gives Newt Gingrich a platform to go "it's because we're not owning the libs hard enough." Fast forward fifteen years and we're at "yeah, Donald Trump can't form a coherent sentence with eight aides and a teleprompter but People Are Talking about Joe Biden's mental acuity that one time." And then you dare to say something like "the CHIPS act was good, actually" and some mutherfucker decides to hold you personally responsible for a Supreme Court decision. You don't have to read Hillbilly Elegy. Ron Howard put fucking Glenn Close in it. Because whatever Nazi bullshit the right pulls, they're one of our Both Sides.
Any optimism is 100% welcomed, and if you have some to spare, I might apply directly to forehead. I'm sorry about that blowup, and my general pessimism. Still honing my ability to channel things into an absurdist stoicism instead of defeatist nihilism. A lifetime endeavor, for sure. Which article? (update: nvm) I've recently found that archive.is seems to work quite nicely if you're not looking to distribute a NYTimes-friendly link past their paywall. We are in total agreement about Vance. When I pontificate on what he "actually" believes, yes, the infinitely more likely scenario is that he "actually" believes nothing. Sad to say, but our not feeling remotely owned is an abject MAGA policy failure. Not that I'm a lib. I'm worse. I'm flirting with going full card-toting DSA even after Nolan re-tells the story of Oppenheimer. Definitely also agree with the "oppositionalists vs. apologists" lens. I'm very much inclined to support some pretty drastic institutional reform, but I'm not going to attempt compromise with a cult of serial liars. Over on the more "leftist" contrarian side of things, it's hard to accept being labeled a "genocide apologist" when my current position is "imprison Netanyahu et al. for genocide and give Gaza statehood to hold Hamas accountable", but I know how it is out there. It gets easier to ignore when you see the same people doing the labeling e.g. blaming the democrats for politicizing masks by... wearing masks and advocating mask use. I mean, I'm "am_Unition", and I filmed a video on 1/9/2021 pointing out that Joe Biden calling for unity would be used to discredit the idea of unity. I'm wayyyyyy fuckin' done with calls for unity. Nowadays, I will happily shout any neo-Nazi shitstain back down into the lower rungs of society where they belong. Buncha motherfuckers who just figured out in Season 4 that The Boys was making fun of them the entire time aren't hard to clown on. Yes, many of them are no longer capable of experiencing shame, but a relatively unbiased observer knows when someone's had circles run around them, and the dems would be wise to embrace satire and humor as a potent weapon against the right-wing. Instead, it's still "they go low, we go high (read: lose)". You can't turn the other cheek to a Nazi. They will strike as many cheeks as they are presented with. After thinking "how've I never heard about this?", I've read some reviews. Ah, I see now. How hilarious to have that come out in 2020, really. I still might watch it someday soon while keeping in mind the relationship between Hollywood and the left-behinds (oh this is ripe for puns with the cheek-turning of yesterparagraph) of rural America. For sure, I'm not going to give JD any book money, and I would personally consider checking out "Hillbilly Elegy" from a public library to be a criminal offense. And not just for this content, but increasingly, the torrent scene is beckoning me back towards it. A few years ago, I was pretty convinced the "mainstream liberal media" would rally to Biden's support, and instead we're out here with twelve hundred thousand twenty two thinkpieces doing almost anything except supporting Biden. Dem messaging is poor, yes, but it exists. It does not, however, sell clicks and subscriptions. And it damn sure doesn't extend the Trump tax cuts for the wealthy. What a big, oligarchical surprise. As NYTimes pitchbot is increasingly finding, it's very difficult to out-satirize our current reality. But I'll try.The principle reason I decided to show up and get yelled at for having any optimism is that fuckin' bullshit laserpin thing. I needed the gift link for that bullshit article because the NYT, true to form, wrote a sweeping, allegorical narrative about transformative tech with a couple casual asides about potential difficulties at some hypothetical point down the road.
Hillbilly Elegy. Ron Howard
Fast forward fifteen years and we're at "yeah, Donald Trump can't form a coherent sentence with eight aides and a teleprompter but People Are Talking about Joe Biden's mental acuity that one time."
Vance, like SCOTUS, begins from an endpoint of what he wants, and then backtracks in his justifications of it using pseudo-intellectualism, jargon, and selective facts. There is nothing admirable about him. JD Vance hates JD Vance. He'll be Trump's VP nominee, too.
I didn’t say admirable. I said it’s “nice” to read an articulate human trying to mount a defense of policies I fundamentally disagree with. Frankly, the tariff thing, when articulated in this way, makes him sound like a left wing unionist, which is surprising. I truly believe that it’s in all of our best interests to try to understand positions we disagree with, and to me, there just aren’t ideas that are too dangerous to talk about. Trump articulates literally nothing, and neither do the Bannons and Millers of the world, so I thought it was very insightful to finally find an individual trying to make a case.
I think acknowledging that we are reading the words of someone generally approaching the debate table in bad faith is important. He's definitely a slippery weasel, much more clever than Trump when it comes to policy minutiae (and, I guess, anything else, really), thank god he doesn't have the charisma. I wonder if a vial of Novichok with a pair of tighty-whities in Trump's size showed up in four or eight months from now, what he'd do with it. OK but let's pretend that there was a magically smooth transition to tariffs that perfectly replaced income tax for the median or the below-median voter. There goes a massive chunk of the gov't income from anyone making more than the median, where people are only paying tariffs at maybe a slightly higher rate than lower income Americans, on account of only slightly higher day-to-day expenditures. And I think obviously adjusting tariffs to suit the wealthy, or... maybe requiring someone to submit proof of their income bracket at the sales register(?) for adjustable consumer tariffs.... are both non-starters. Trying to keep total tax revenue steady with a flat rate tariff looks at least something like this. Love that he's "not as Putin first" as some might allege, and then recommends, verbatim, imposing the most recent conditions for a Ukraine peace treaty Putin has authored. "OK, why are we doing this?" in regards to arming Ukraine if they "can't mount a successful counter-offensive". Uhhh maybe to just hold the line? Duh? It would feel a little more sincere if he feigned the slightest bit of admiration for the Ukrainians, but I guess there's no room for that in a Trump VP bid. No, he's not as Putin first as you might think, possibly. Maybe like third or fourth, by Trump pecking order. Re: the 2020 election, the "big tech censorship", as Matt Taibbi was able to breathlessly reveal, per the information fed to him by Elon Musk in "the Twitter files" (LOL), that the Biden campaign asked Twitter to remove Hunter's dick pics from their website, or something. All you really need to read is the third paragraph here. And if you want more, a refresher. But anyway, these aren't really policies to disagree with, they are tired lies in service of that one Big Lie that discredit the seriousness of Vance's other statements, which were, y'know, well I don't consider too serious anyway. Do the dems have a terrible hand in the cheap and un-taxed immigrant labor powering the domestic neoliberal hellscape (experiences may vary)? Absolutely. We should fix that and call them out. But this guy, JD Vance, yesterday, just tacitly endorsed the Project 2025 dream of the deportation of 20 million migrants, and acted like it's a pro-housing policy. Do I really need to get into the absolute absurdity of that? Douthat's attempt to whitewash Vance for the centrist-dem NYTimes readership is fuckin' garbage. I appreciate you posting the unlocked article, I wish I could put it on a sky-message plane banner QR code with "F U C K. Y O U." across Manhattan, for all those dipshit editors and managers who are like "well, I don't see anything ethically wrong with presenting the better sides of a man vying to be VP for a POTUS who once tried to order the military to shoot racial justice protestors in the knees while he semi-intentionally fucked up a pandemic response. I say we focus on the horse race like always". Oh that reminds me I'm like 2 months late to cancel my WaPo membership
To commemorate Putin groveling before one of North Korea's Kims in exchange for weapons and the phonetic part of my username, I'm back to celebrate. I have spared the homepage activity ticker, because people generally hate anything political from me. This is what Putin has asked, and a strange thing to ask of a country, to return to the geopolitical state it was in before Russia attacked in the classic "preemptive defense" manner. Finland obviously had the right idea. But I was partially wrong, in my post above, because Putin obviously didn't ask for Uhhhh JD? JD, what do you think NATO is? This is either him showing his whole ass, or giving the NYTimes audience a pat on the head for now but then waffling and backing out should it ever actually come to "long term security assistance" during a Trump admin. Probably the latter. Contentious opinion. But, regardless of outcome, if the Ukrainians want to cripple a geopolitical antagonist, an antagonist worse than perhaps even us, for a remarkably small amount of money, in a righteous defense after an essentially unprovoked attack on their sovereign land, for which they sacrificed nuclear weapons to be given, you let them. You thank them. The idea that reminding Russia about the logistical troubles of subjugating the Ukrainian people would help deter Putin from seizing the country is pretty funny. Like "ah yeah, JD, Putin might set aside his deeply-ingrained expansionist ambitions if he really thinks about some minor drawbacks of the aftermath to a victorious glorywar". This, from the man of staunch free market convictions only two press conferences ago or so. This, from the man in lockstep with Project 2025, which, instead of an economic motivation, is mostly a plan for creating a white, Christian theocracy designed to wed an anti-human rights "god" to the federal state, in between dismantling those blasted deep state orgs, like NOAA. Boy, that's gonna really juice the economy, when weather forecasts go to shit after Fox Weather (linking to remind everyone that this is already a thing!) can't find any more meteorologists because it fired the last batch for daring to mention climate change and they all got death threats for contradicting the wishes and authority of a tyrant. See: Anthony Fauci's House hearing last week. New paragraph for emphasis: Ross does not once bring up the GOP's Project 2025, the party's instruction manual for a possible future Trump executive, and it's probably an intentional omission. I suspect that the more people know about Project 2025, the lower Trump's odds of re-election. It is a collection of the most sweeping anti-science US policy ambitions in the modern era. Easily. Forget about even being able to debate appropriate political responses to scientific insight, they're going to handicap our very ability to do and discuss science. JD, I am making this post. Please, JD, just read the first sentence. Even the 7% GDP hasn't been enough. Putin is in trouble at this very moment. Long term concerns for the Russian people are something I do actually have, but unfortunately, the Russian people have been taken hostage by a dictator and developed severe Stockholm syndrome. It's in everybody's interest, including the hostages', to disrupt this relationship immediately. I understand, though, JD, I see the business of dictator appeasement is a-boomin'. My doubts about the plausibility of Russia lasting another five years aside, I think we've already thoroughly tested out whether or not increased military expenditures directly influence relationships between existing nuclear superpowers, and the answer is "not really". Vance does have a point that with a boosted Russian military may be an increased likelihood of Russia conducting a new proxy war, or coup'ing another of the -stans, etc., but if you let a fascist (still!) generally adored by his serfdom run roughshod over another country, they won't stop after a single victory. Speaking of, what Ross and JD could be discussing is the information war front with Russia and China and the coordinated global push towards right-wing ethno-nationalism. Nah, it's probably too relevant. And I'm sure I can just shoot JD an email when he's on the inside about whether or not there are some undisclosed executive orders from 2018-ish about standing down in US intel apparatus attempts to counterprogram inside the Russian infosphere, and whether or not that's contributed to an almost un-moving needle of Putin's domestic approval. The only question I really have is: What is Vance's actual, his personal position towards Russia, in the possible event that Trump wins but croaks sometime in 2026 or something? Thanks in part to JD's demonstrable lack of consistent principles, there is no way to retrieve or infer that information, or even to determine if an "actual" position is well-formed. At least when I'm like "I think Joe Biden is currently complicit in a genocide", he'll grab the mic and say "I. am. a. Zionist!", and I'm all "Ahh yeah, that makes sense". With JD, I'm left hoping that it isn't politically advantageous for a pseudo-populist reactionary to conduct executive policy favorable towards Russia at an unspecified later date. With Joe Biden, there might be a chance to change his mind, like making him watch you get your face smashed in by local PD for putting up tents on a university lawn. With an opportunist reactionary, I'll find other ways to waste my time. No, fuck the entire notion of keeping columnists like Douthat employed at a large "liberal" "institution" in the name of perceived objectivity (both readers' perceptions and/or the perceptions of editors/managers/shareholders). Despite Joe Biden's apparent belief (or Garland's, or Durbin's, or really any elder dem/moderate), these are not the politics of the 1980's. In the history books, all of the scholars will wonder why anyone was stupid enough to think that MAGA's coup attempt stopped in the early evening of January 6th, 2021. It has continued to proceed the entire time since, and Douthat, here, gives it oxygen. If Douthat understands that, fuck him, I don't care how he's justified facilitating MAGA with some entirely fabricated fear of how terrible Joe Biden has made America* to himself. If he doesn't understand that, he lacks political astuteness, and has no business writing a column at the NYTimes. By the same logic, the entire company looks pathetic. Like Hollywood, too chickenshit to put out the Trump movie. Silenced into submission by a possible future presidency and the current threat of lawsuits, at best, knowingly complicit, at worst. *What are people complaining about? The majority of metrics besides Israel-Palestine policy that Joe Biden can reasonably be associated with are positive, and the very people JD is jonesing for love Israel's military actions, if only currently. I don't think Biden engineered a period of global inflation, but he might be at least partially responsible for how quickly the U.S. got out ahead of it, comparatively. Am I supposed to be upset at edited videos showing him being excessively old and ignore when he rode a bicycle two weeks ago? The fake urban crime wave? In a truly shocking turn of events, almost every branch of support for Trump is rooted in lies, ignorance, or craven pursuit of self-interest. And that is why I'm here today to endorse JD Vance for Trump's VP.No. 2 is you guarantee both Kyiv’s independence but also its neutrality.
some American security assistance over the long term.
The leverage that we have over the Russians is not, in my view, that we can indefinitely keep the Ukrainians in a successful defensive posture. Let me be clear about this: There is no way with our capacity and what Russia has been doing that we can hold off the Russians indefinitely.
There are two big points of leverage that we have. One, they could take over Ukraine, but they can’t govern Ukraine. We’re talking about multiple hundreds of thousands of troops to govern the country effectively as a Russian subsidiary.
The second point of leverage that we have is a war economy has its own internal momentum. They’re now at 7 percent of G.D.P. being spent on defense. They have re-engineered an economy around fighting a war instead of around improving the lives of your people. ...
... That has some real problems over the long term.
By the way, it’s not in our interest, either, for the Russians to have a war economy for the next five years, because then they’re going to be more militaristic and aggressive than they otherwise would be.