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Save Us, Don!
"Voters aren't stupid."
So said SocGen's Albert Edwards on Thursday.
I can't speak for voters in the UK (actually I can, because these are the same people who gambled their economic future on "Brexit," a made-up word which a simple Google Trends analysis strongly suggested half the country couldn't even define when they voted in favor of it), but I can certainly speak for US voters, and Albert, let me tell you: Our voters aren't just stupid, they're wholesale dumbasses. Proudly, by the way. Am
I saw a tiny measure of justice in the world today. Infowars assets were purchased by The Onion. They effectively stated afterwards, ‘we will continue the tradition of scaring listeners until they fork over cold hard cash.’
Maybe the Heisenberg Report could learn a thing or two from that statement, or maybe The Heisenberg Report already has sussed it out.
That The Onion news was the best news I’d heard all week. At least we’ll be able to laugh at the daily failing of a nation too stupid to realize what made it great in the first place.
Spit out my coffee this morn, your dark humor is killing me!
Upon seeing Moscow Tulsi nominated to DNI, I found a John Bolton article where he is demanding an FBI investigation into Gaetz and Gabbard before they appear before the Senate.
I looked Bolton up since after watching Sarah Paine’s excellent interview with Dwarkesh Patel I developed a better appreciation for Bolton’s views as Grand Strategy in the legal gray of international relations and law. It’s very stressful watching this clown show about to make the US a vassal of pip-squeak Russia.
Yeah, I mean John Bolton’s like Liz Cheney: A heinous villain, but one who happens to be right this time. I mean when you’re right, you’re right. Cheney’s right about Trump. And Bolton’s right about Gaetz and Gabbard. Just like Trump’s right about some things and just like Harris is right about some things. I don’t know why it’s so hard for people to concede that reality’s messy. There aren’t “good” people and “bad” people, there are just people and you have to assess their concerns and positions on the merits. It’s entirely possible that Mussolini liked some of the same food that I like. If that’s the case, is Mussolini wrong to like a dish that’s objectively delicious just because he’s Mussolini? No.
To quote The Simpsons:
“Perhaps there is no moral to this story”.
“Exactly. It’s just a bunch of stuff that happened.”
“why it’s so hard for people to concede that reality’s messy” maybe the answer’s intuitive cognition?
Don’t get me wrong. I am not defending Bolton. He serves the sovereign nation. Not necessarily the Constitution nor the people. Giving power or secrets to China-Russia is a failure to protect the sovereign’s advantages and national security from the point of view of grand strategy. Lawfulness isn’t something that career needs to consider of necessity. That’s the sovereigns job. Autocrat or otherwise.
“Martha would get off her ass and go fold towels at the local Holiday Inn Express instead of sitting at home washing down percocet with Mountain Dew and screaming through the trailer park window at five muddy children rolling around in a plastic kiddie pool”
Wow! Humorous yet poignant. And a more widespread belief than many may realize when you add in the idea that thanks to overly generous welfare benefits there are millions of able-bodied guys sitting on home playing video games rather than seeking gainful employment at minimum wage jobs.
In Martha’s case, many states have started to add work requirements if she wishes to continue being given “medical welfare” (Medicaid) for herself or even her three children.
“Joseph, if you heet yur seester again, daddy’s gon’ woop you when he gets home from the bar!”
Which daddy?
From an article about GOP proposals to cut Medicaid to help fund tax cuts in Marketwatch today:
“Cuts to Medicaid, however, could be very costly for low-income Americans. Medicaid covered more than 40% of births in the U.S. in 2021, according to government statistics. It also covers, along with the Children’s Health Insurance Program, more than 30% of the population in 11 states, including Republican strongholds like Louisiana, Arkansas, Kentucky, West Virginia, Oklahoma and Alaska.”
Many rural hospitals rely on Medicaid patients to stay open. We may see the trend of rural healthcare facilities closures accelerate. But thanks to tax cuts, folks in those areas will be able to chopper over to see their concierge doctors if remote telemedicine is not sufficient.
I am waiting for the $60k per year work-from-home fruit-picking jobs to open up. Perhaps a supervisory position for an extra 10k.
If normal people struggle with what is going on in this country, they should take some and read this book.
The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control by Steven Hansan.
It will make you, at least make sense of the stupidity with a better understanding of what is going on in the minds of our fellow citizens, and then scare the shit out of you as to the probabilities of what is and can happen.
I’m effing tired.
Third Law of Motion Meets Politics Over and Over
Certain policies must be progressively introduced for the public to accept and internalize them; otherwise, they provoke resistance. In democratic nations, this resistance often manifests through via negativa, meaning voters support anything that rejects the proposed changes.
Affirmative action is fundamentally flawed because it reduces individuals to arbitrarily defined categories, undermining personal accountability. It demands that the average voter consistently act against their own interests in favor of a so-called “greater good,” which remains abstract and unperceivable, while its consequences are tangible and immediate.
The climate crisis originated in the West, but its zenith lies in Asia. The transition to address this crisis is inflationary, impacting not just productivity but entire ways of life. This shift is being challenged on multiple fronts—through taxation, behaviorism, and assaults on free speech. Meanwhile, the public has become increasingly aware of the political biases within mainstream media, leading to a widespread credibility crisis.
Voting for figures like Donald Trump, Geert Wilders, Boris Johnson, Sebastian Kurz, or Jair Bolsonaro, among others, is not an affirmation of their policies but a rejection of the status quo.
I think the status quo rejection argument is too strong lately. The real issue to me is that many people voted for him thinking it would not make a difference. However enough did just that creating a scenario they never imagined.
What was going on during Trump’s first term? Looks like progress was being made for workers.
Yeah buddy. You can tell because some guy circled it on a chart he drew. Ffs.
Do you folks not get the joke by now? Jesus. I feed you sell-side quotes and charts because you eat it. That stuff’s all terrible. Another spoiler alert: Top-notch research comes from academics and, you know, researchers. i.e., people who dedicate their lives to learning, not bankers and not portfolio managers and not any hedge funders who fancy themselves philosophers. You can’t take any of that stuff seriously. You want serious? Read a book. Or The New Yorker. Christ.
Great writing as always. Accent spot on
Two good books if anyone is interested in history of South Korea and surrounding region. David Halberstam’s The Coldest Winter and Han Kang’s Human Acts. Hopefully, SK continues it’s remarkable shift from the 20th century.
Many voters choose Trump as a reaction to their economic plight. Those same voters preferred Harris’ economic policies over Trump’s, when those were read to them. However, they couldn’t add 2 + 2.
Two summers ago, I found myself hiking the “Coast to Coast” on a guided hiking trip across England. After the first 120 miles of that hike (80 left to go), we had all bonded- as a result of the difficulty/blisters we had survived and the fact that we were gaining confidence that we actually would finish (it is true-the English take great pride and joy from physical suffering!). As the normal social barriers of acceptable conversation topics began to dissipate (due to hiking 10 hour days together, day after day); we started discussing politics with each other, which is normally a very dangerous topic.
When I asked a fellow hiker (English) how it was possible that the British had approved Brexit- she gave me a very “British” response, which I also believe is accurate.
Her explanation was basically this: On the day of the vote, the weather was unusually sunny and warm in the northern British Isles, where most retirees live, and the weather was dreadfully rainy and cold in London. According to her, the Londoners were far more educated about the implications of Brexit and were largely against Brexit; while the retirees, who were primarily focused on illegal immigration aspect of Brexit, were largely in favor of Brexit. So the final vote came down to a much higher turnout in the north- due to the weather.
It does seem crazy that the fate of civilization is often decided by people who are not educated on a given matter and can also come down to the impact of weather conditions.
Help us!
Thanks for sharing, that explanation resonates with the core idea of a book called Fluke by Brian Klaas. Despite all the theories and modeling used in analysis and forecasts, there are always random stuff out of nowhere that become pivotal in the turning points of history, both social and natural.
Donald and Bobby will cut NIH research, chop CDC, cut ACA subsidies, defund vaccines, and open the door to untested “cures”, just in time for H5 to take off. (First severe NorAm case in this wave, in Canada.) Let’s see – should I stock up on ivermectin, bleach, or TamiFlu?
Yeah, as I’ve said for years, we can all get lucky, and lucky, and lucky some more, but eventually, putting people we know are clownish in charge of important things will end in some kind of clownish disaster. It’s just inevitable, and I think most people actually understand that, but they’re willing to take the risk for whatever reason. Trump’s supporters rightly suggest he probably won’t get us into a war or at least not on purpose (which is great) and that economists overstate the risks from his economic policies (which they probably do) and that Democrats overstate the risk to democracy (I don’t know on that one, but let’s just say, for argument’s sake, that that risk is overstated too). It doesn’t change the fact that we’re putting Donald Trump in the White House. There are risks (self-evident risks) associated with that. Does it have to go wrong? No. It’s not like mixing ammonia and bleach (or injecting them). There isn’t anything chiseled into any stone tablets anywhere that says “Thou shalt not make Donald Trump president.” But if you put a chimpanzee in charge of handing people their orders at the checkout counter in Wendy’s, it’s highly likely that something’s going to go wrong eventually. It might be something as harmless as someone getting a drink thrown in their face, but it might also be that somebody gets pulled over the counter and beaten to death. It’s hard to know. Which is one reason — although there are others — why you don’t put a chimpanzee at the checkout counter in a Wendy’s. Could it be fun? Yes! Absolutely it could. Would a lot people (kids especially) get a lot of joy out of being served their burgers and fries by a chimp? Yes. Surely. Are there scenarios where the chimp would actually contribute to the safety of workers and customers? Yes. If it’s a big chimp and you try to rob that Wendy’s with anything less than a .45, you are very unlikely to kill that chimp before it kills you. And yet, despite all the ways it could go right, staffing Wendy’s with chimps isn’t something we should try.
I know I’m being a dick, but I can’t wait till my 96 year old’s mother’s social security and Medicare benefits get cut and I get to explain why. She was warned.
I look forward to begging the H5 vaccine from China.
If we do have another pandemic on Trump’s watch, maybe Christians will recognize it as a sign from their god that she might not be too pleased with their politics. Then again, it’s easier to just blame the Chinese.
See Dr. Timothy Snyder’s Substack this morning entitled “Decapitation Strike”. The only way to understand the nominations of Hegseth, Gaetz, Gabbard, and Kennedy is in the context of a foreign attack on the top of our government.
You guys should see the hate mail in my inbox from the past four days. You’d think Trump lost as mad as his folks are. It’s almost like they wanted to storm the Capitol again and then when he won they didn’t know what to do.
LOLOLOLOL
To me, this is one of the scariest thoughts to ponder. That pent up rage that Trump cultivated and encouraged is there for the tweaking at his disposal. And as you’ve said many, many times, most of his followers won’t benefit financially and likely will suffer more during his term. So restive they will remain. The difference now, is that their bigotry, misogyny, and hatred toward anyone “different” has been provided massive cover, and acceptance with his win at the polls. I imagine it feels great to be a bigot or misogynist right now in the US. “Finally, validation!” And since they still won’t be getting ahead financially, when they decide to take out their frustrations on anyone they feel is standing in their way, they can take comfort in knowing the law will be on their side.
How long before Trump and Miller get frustrated by the slow pace of deportations and enable local authorities to create and operate citizen posses to find and root out immigrants regardless of status? I’m sure there will be plenty of volunteers.
Posse is a fantasy of some who prefer anarchy. Be careful what you ask for. Anarchy does not always favor strong man wealthy evil doers.
Tell us what you really think. Great article.
I have to do this for a few weeks around election cycles to shake out subscribers who didn’t read the “About Us” section and thereby don’t understand that the site’s avowedly political in-between market coverage and that the coverage mix depends entirely on the news flow.
I get a lot of people coming in during calm political waters who don’t get that, and then there are these confused emails where they try to tell me who I am, which invariably entails total strangers explaining to me that I’m a retired hedge fund manager living in Hawaii or something. When I tell them that isn’t true, that I never said anything to that effect, that their version of me is a figment of their imagination and that if they’re interested to know what the site does and who I might be, they should read the “About Us” section and the Monthly Letters, they tend to lose it.
Last night I had an elderly man in Florida call me an “insane, Kamalatoe-worshipping c-nt” at 1:30 in the morning. And I’m sitting there thinking, “My friend, you’ve got a big day tomorrow. Water aerobics at 8:30, Bingo at 1:00, pickleball at 2:00, an over-70s singles mixer at 3:15 and dinner at 4:00, you better take your old ass to bed.”
Point being: Yeah, I turn up the snark to a Spinal Tap-ish “11” around elections just to shake out the people who shouldn’t be here.
I mean they should be here, but when it comes to grifters, they have an old saying: fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.
Here’s your “Huzzah!” for putting up with all that crap and pressing on. Thanks!
The lack of self-awareness and introspection from that crowd is astounding. Take the guy I mentioned above. So here’s a man in his 70s, up at almost 2 in the morning looking for a political argument online, and sending wild, disjointed, profanity-laced, diatribes to people he doesn’t know, the overarching message of which was that everyone’s angry and hateful except him. And you know, he probably stayed up for another hour tilting at other windmills (sending letters to the Times, threatening Mother Jones or whatever else) and then eventually rode one of those stairlifts for the feeble up to bed just as the sun was coming up, never once thinking, “Gosh, you know, here I am in the twilight of my life and I just spent six hours cursing like a beer-drunk 16-year-old at five people I don’t know in 24-point font because my eyes can’t read anything below 18-point anymore. Maybe — just maybe — I’m the angry one.” Admittedly, I wasn’t exactly cordial with him for waking me up in the middle of the night to scream at me, but I’m not sure what he expected on that score. If you presume to lecture me on politics and instruct me, at 2 in the morning, about what I should and shouldn’t think, and how I should and shouldn’t run my website, you should be prepared to get the same earful you just gave me. But that’s just one example. I’ve seen some version of that guy’s unhinged mail from at least eight or 10 other people since last Wednesday which, again, is nuts because they won! What the hell are they so mad about?
Came across an old piece on my bookshelf( yup still have one of those) on an interpretation of Plato, Republic VIII, 562a-568a .. not going to paste that huge old thing here .
But Donny and crew, sure to support that old adage of “History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes,”
makes one think, take out the tech, have we really advanced as a species in 2500 years of trying
That’s why (one of the reasons) Plato hated democracy “the ship of fools” book 6
Personally, I think even 2500 years ago they’d regressed from Heraclitus, and it’s only continued downhill since!
Makes you think of a new definition of “Artificial Intelligence”!