It seems like there's a lot more going on than just faster dissemination, and the way information travels these days might have introduced new asymmetries and inefficiencies.
We’re still figuring out how to find the pearls but giving carte blanche to a handful of tech monopolies is definitely not going to work.
America used to be about quality. Sure, quantity was still a thing but the "shining city on the hill" image of America was about quality.
We've lost our way.
America has never been about quality. Quality is a result of vigorous and excessive competition.
I think we’re overestimating the effect of social media. A certain group of highly educated urban liberals is shocked by Trump. (And I don’t say this pejoratively. My college educated friends were literally despondent after he was elected.) And they’re looking for an explanation. And it so happened that social media became a major force around the same time. But I think that’s mostly, though not completely, a coincidence.
Social media didn’t create Trump. Right wing populism is happening all over the world, in Europe, India, etc. Its a reaction to liberalism and globalism that’s been brewing for decades. And social media didn’t create Trump’s audience. My mom, a 70-year old Bangladeshi woman who has voted straight ticket Democrat since she was naturalized, thinks Trump is too unpolished, but loves his “energy” and “vigor.” She thinks he would be a “great President” if he could “implement his ideas.” My mom doesn’t have a Twitter account. (I think she’d love Boris Johnson, i.e. Trump with a bit more polish and competent.) She didn’t get this from Breitbart. She watches CNN in a loop all day.
Social media isn’t not a factor, but I think folks overestimate how much of a factor.
With stickier ideas, the marketplace becomes worse, because nothing ever gets pruned out of it. Too much energy is spent on limiting the growth of bad ideas than can be spent on refining the better ideas.
Have you ever entertained the idea that perhaps you're wrong and they're right? I mean it's at least possible that you've been lead to the wrong conclusion by systemic errors that have yet to be identified, and perhaps wont be for many years into the future.
Social media is happening all over the world.
> A certain group of highly educated urban liberals is shocked by Trump.
3 million more people voted for Hillary than Trump. Biden is polling 10 points ahead of Trump.
Switching to a popular vote could lessen the current extremism.
That’s absolutely ridiculous. Apparently you’ve never been to Wyoming, population 550,000. Pennsylvania has 12.8 million.
Thank you for affirming my belief that a popular vote system is just as ridiculous for America.
> 3 million more people voted for Hillary than Trump.
As I said, I’m not using this as a pejorative. I’m not just talking about folks who voted for Hillary, but ones who were despondent when Trump won. I worked late on election night and got home to an election watching party with DC yuppies and when I walked in the door I thought someone had died. These are the folks who were so stunned the started looking around for an explanation. And social media just happened to be rising at the same time.
Not all Hillary voters reacted that way. My mom and dad voted for Hillary. But they weren’t shocked by the existence of Trump. They didn’t see it as an indictment of the system. They didn’t go on the whole Russia collusion ride like all of my friends. (Not coincidentally, they supported Biden from the start. Meanwhile, I was shocked when Warren and Harris did so poorly, when it came to voting, because that’s who all my grad-school educated urban friends supported.)
And don’t get me wrong, he’s not fit for office, but the idea that there is anything “radical” about his agenda, before or after the election, is pure gaslighting.
He actually ran on a moderate Republican platform. He committed to protecting Social Security and Medicare off the bat. (Remember Bush and Gore fighting over the “lock box?” Even fricking Sweden has partislly privatized their social security.) Even though it was right after Obergefell he said pretty much nothing about same-sex marriage. He criticized Clinton for her past criminal justice stances. Bluster aside, even his immigration platform wasn’t nuts. Liberal darling Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand became prime minister by campaigning on cutting legal immigration by half. Trump didn’t even do that. He focused on stopping illegal immigration, which 60% of Americans worry about: https://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Pro....
His agenda also hasn’t been “radical.” What has he done? He has banned refugees and immigrants from certain countries—all ones you would expect given the political status, such as North Korea and Yemen. The only one on the current list that looks odd is Nigeria, but Trump instituted that ban at the same as the EU imposed Visa restrictions on Nigeria (February 2020): https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/news/eu-plans-to-impose-vis...
He had a corporate tax cut, which is consistent with what the UK and Sweden had been doing, and Merkel suggested Germany follow suit: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-davos-meeting-merkel-tax-...
He repealed a bunch of unpopular environmental regulations Obama pushed through in the last couple of years of his final term. This was after his 2012 campaign, where Obama criticized Romney for standing in front of a coal plant and saying “this kills.” https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2012/oct/16/barack-oba...
> Governor, when you were governor of Massachusetts, you stood in front of a coal plant and pointed at it and said, ‘This plant kills,’ and took great pride in shutting it down. And now suddenly you're a big champion of coal," Obama said.
See also: https://apnews.com/article/5dfbc1aa17701ae219239caad0bfefb2
> You wouldn’t always know it ,but it went up every year I was president,” he said to applause. “That whole, suddenly America’s like the biggest oil producer and the biggest gas that was me, people.”
So yeah, Obama waited until the last couple of years of his term to push through some unpopular environments rules such as changes to that would require farmers to get federal permits to drain ponds in their land, and things like that. And Trump repealed them just as easily. That’s what happens between administrations.
Then you had the First Step Act, which was a progressive step.
He appointed three justices who were prominent in conservative legal circles long before Trump came in the scene.
So what exactly about his agenda was “radical?” Even if he had succeeded in things like repealing the ACA, that would have taken us back to 2008? (And Trump genuinely didn’t want the total repeal option without any replacement. He was the one who crafted the repeal and replace idea, while previously republicans had just wanted to repeal.)
Only big thing you forgot was not starting any new wars and getting two more Arab states to formalize peace with Israel.
- increased military spending to Iraq war levels during peace time - trillion dollar deficits during boom times - fired dozens of cabinet members and other top officials whenever they didn't display dictator levels of obsequience to him - got impeached for using US diplomacy for personal political gains - tried to kick millions off of SNAP - had DOJ help states kick people off voter roles - reduced confidence in the election process - changed DOJ's long standing definition of civil rights to instead protect religious people and white and asian discrimination - pulled out of major international agreements with little notice including the Paris Agreement and the Iran deal - attacked european allieas and weakened NATO - cut legal immigration in a bunch of ways including cut refugee by 80% and cut H1B. And implemented draconian inhumane policies on illegal immigrants. - appointed hundreds of extremely ideological judges
(hopefully d ang doesn't slap us down for discussing politics)
> - increased military spending to Iraq war levels during peace time
The defense budget is significantly smaller as a percentage of GDP than under Obama: https://www.factcheck.org/2018/07/trumps-defense-spending-ex...
> - trillion dollar deficits during boom times
Bad, but not radical.
> - fired dozens of cabinet members and other top officials whenever they didn't display dictator levels of obsequience to him
> - got impeached for using US diplomacy for personal political gains
Bad, but not radical.
> - tried to kick millions off of SNAP
Clinton did way more welfare reform than Trump.
> - had DOJ help states kick people off voter roles
Cleaning up voter rolls is required by federal law.
> - reduced confidence in the election process
Bad, but not radical.
> - changed DOJ's long standing definition of civil rights to instead protect religious people and white and asian discrimination
Not radical. In Evanston, Illinois, Asian kids are now being held back from returning to in-class instruction: https://www.wsj.com/articles/can-school-be-antiracist-a-new-.... We can debate the merits of this, but it's not radical to suggest that discrimination against asians is a violation of civil rights laws.
> - pulled out of major international agreements with little notice including the Paris Agreement and the Iran deal
It's not "radical" to pull out of an agreement we had been part of for less than a year since its effective date: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Agreement
Presidents change course on foreign policy all the time. Trump's foreign policy has been relatively successful.
> - attacked european allieas and weakened NATO
Are you talking about a concrete policy?
> - cut legal immigration in a bunch of ways including cut refugee by 80% and cut H1B.
Not radical. European countries have done the same thing recently, after realizing their 2015 actions on refugees were ill-advised. Calling a cut to H1B "radical" is hard to credit. Is every small shift to the right from a Republican President "radical?"
> And implemented draconian inhumane policies on illegal immigrants.
Very bad, maybe radical.
> - appointed hundreds of extremely ideological judges
No, just normal conservative judges. The "extremely ideological judges" are ones that think you can look at a 230-year old document and find new things in it that nobody realized were there before. We have normalized that gaslighting, but taking a view that the words on the page mean what they say isn't "radical."
Hm so, building a wall with a neighbor and having the neighbor _pay for this wall_ is a moderate position? Or is this bluster?
I'm not sure what anything else in your post has to do with the quality of ideas being better. You claim that right wing populism is a reaction to liberalism and globalism, and that ideas are getting better. This leads me to connect the dots and think that your claim is that right wing populism is a good idea.
We know now, in hindsight, that the Treaty of Versailles and the Great Depression led directly to the circumstances that led to the rise of Hitler. And indeed, Hitler was not alone. Fascist dictators rose throughout this time period. Was the discourse worse then? Was it better then?
This feels disingenuous. "Ideas are getting better." "Fascism is a natural reaction." Please, if you are trying to make a political point, say it. Don't tiptoe around it.
> Reading a dry article on police brutality (which let’s face it, people just skipped over in the past) is a lot less impactful than seeing something shared by a friend.
Attitudes towards for example LGBT people and on racial issues are have advanced significantly since 2000, and I think social media has a lot to do with that. (One of the major issues cited by people for why they switched their opinion on same-sex marriage was knowing people in committed same-sex relationships. Social media makes those things more visible.)
As to right-wing populism: it is not fascism, any more than left-wing populism is Jacobinism or anarchy. I don't think it's a "good thing" necessarily, but predictable and possibly necessary. I think Boris Johnson, for example, is absolutely what the U.K. needed, before it got swallowed up by the EU.
>> Reading a dry article on police brutality (which let’s face it, people just skipped over in the past) is a lot less impactful than seeing something shared by a friend.
> Attitudes towards for example LGBT people and on racial issues are have advanced significantly since 2000, and I think social media has a lot to do with that. (One of the major issues cited by people for why they switched their opinion on same-sex marriage was knowing people in committed same-sex relationships. Social media makes those things more visible.)
Fair enough. I disagree. I think social media has also helped radicalize folks, though I feel that nothing has really changed (not a positive change either). The press was, after all, hopelessly partisan and sensational for most of the West's history. We just had a brief respite. But fair enough and thanks for clarifying.
> As to right-wing populism: it is not fascism, any more than left-wing populism is Jacobinism or anarchy.
What's the difference really? I'm not talking about the boogeyman "literally fascist" thing. Fascist regimes themselves frequently started out as right wing populist representative regimes. Hitler is a fantastic example of that transformation ad absurdum, but there are several other simpler ones, like Franco. And these fascist regimes often started out quite popular.
And likewise with left populism. Stalin and Napoleon are left populism ad absurdum, but we have several more "mundane" examples, such as Tito or Hoxa. I think extremism is bad because of its tendency to flout the rule of law. I see that happening around the world all over again.