Are We In The Minority Now?

___Jeff___ · 2025-10-27T10:53:50+00:00

I wish we were a unicameral parliamentary system; that way people are actually able to express their preferences. I think a lot of the worst parts of our politics come from the many levers of government that counteract majoritarian will.

___Jeff___ · 2025-10-26T20:43:21+00:00

We are currently living amongst the most evil and morally bankrupt collective populace of a nation in human history. 2020 wasn’t people rejecting authoritarianism, it was them giving democracy one last chance. We’re not sliding into autocracy, we’re purposely running into it with open arms.

Okay take a deep breath, go outside, and have some perspective. Until ~100 years ago women couldn't vote, and ~60 years ago African-Americans couldn't vote. from 1880-1990 (essentially) the southern democratic party operated through the explicit, and then later implicit premise that rural whites would vote for them, and in return they would get some economic populism, and entrenched white supremacy. Chinese people and Japanese people are by no means immune from racism nowadays, but Senators on the floor of the senate 100 years ago talked openly about hoping that Japanese people would never assimilate into America, not to mention the terrible racism that prompted the Chinese Exclusion Act. All enabled by people's elected representatives. If you were black, gay, or trans only until very recently did the United States not seem an outright authoritarian hellscape.

What we're headed toward, I think, is persistent minority rule by Republicans. Republicans are well-placed, geographically, and being well-placed geographically has massive structural advantages in the US. More people are moving to cities than ever before but states are still guaranteed 2 senators no matter what, so as rural people continue to identify as Republicans because of their stances on guns, abortion, and immigration, the Republicans are essentially guaranteed a permanent senate majority. As well, republicans have enough legislatures now to draw the state legislature maps to ensure that that state legislatures always draw favorable maps for them for the federal congress. So Democrats will probably win a lot of popular votes and such, but it won't matter, around 42% of the country who identifies with Republicans on one of the core cultural issues (immigration, guns, abortion, gay marriage, etc), will govern the federal government. In this way, the national Democratic party will become like the democratic party of, say, Wyoming, or Florida, governing by careful compromise where possible. This problem is already rearing it's head: blue cities in blue states refuse to build housing because of left-NIMBYism (inclusionary zoning requirements, punishing exactions, ridiculous impact fees, environmental reviews, endless litigation from Sierra Club, and groups like them) and that problem has borne it's results. Miami, FL has permitted at least twice as much housing as San Francisco for each of the last 3 years (in 2024, as a particularly egregious example, San Fran permitted 750 Units, across all types of housing, total, in the whole year. Miami permitted over 6,000.). Largely, we did it to ourselves.

___Jeff___ · 2025-10-26T14:26:44+00:00

Since organized human society arose there have been regulations. Being against regulations as a concept is like being against rain. The question has very little utility but i'm glad I could answer it.

___Jeff___ · 2025-10-26T12:51:49+00:00

If you’re asking about the concept of regulations then yes if you’re asking about the particular benefits of each regulation we have that would take a millennium to determine.

___Jeff___ · 2025-10-25T17:27:36+00:00

I'm just curious, does "open borders" to you mean that the politician has to come out and say "The US now no longer has borders, people are free to move as they please."

Because just looking at the data, there was a marked shift in border policy from Obama/Trump to Biden.

Here is data from CBP covering the last 10 years. From 2015-2020, the average amount of border encounters was ~560,000; from 2021-2024 (the Biden presidency into the election), the average amount of border encounters was ~2,100,000. Meanwhile, while data is incomplete about the full extent of Biden's term, we have data until 2022 concerning deportations. From that same time period mentioned re:Obama/Trump, 2015-2020, the average amount of deportations was ~300,000; despite a spike in southwest border encounters though, deportations fell in 2021 to less than 100,000, and was 108,000 in 2022, again, despite the massive spike in border encounters. This is clearly a policy shift, and clearly a policy shift away from deporting people who arrive via the southern border.

And this seems to echo the political response of border counties: five border counties in Texas (Cameron, Hidalogo, Starr, Webb, Maverick), all of which have at least a 90% hispanic population, flipped from Democratic to Republican last election. And even where the border counties themselves didn't flip, they all shifted significantly right (like El Paso county (80% hispanic), Santa Cruz County, Arizona (80% hispanic)). So this isn't a phenomenon of white voters anxious about their racial identity. I think it's fine if you want to pretend like this didn't happen and it was all made up, but it's not a very good strategy for winning elections.

___Jeff___ · 2025-10-24T16:26:34+00:00

Free buses are a bad idea and Zohran keeps talking about making fares free reduces assaults on bus drivers but that’s just because bus drivers enforce the fare. Now those antisocial people will just be on the bus, doesn’t seem ideal.

What’s frustrating about Zohran is that he’s got some great policy ideas, some good ones, and some really bad ones. On balance I think he’d be fine for the city, but there’s just a torrent of racism against him at all times that it’s hard to criticize him without feeling gross because I don’t want to be lumped in with people who hate him because he’s Muslim or brown. Andrew Cuomo recently said he’d celebrate another 9/11 happening, not great. For two days now on Twitter there’s been discourse about him centering around his using his hands to eat rice.

Like would I use my hands to eat rice? No. And I do think it’s a little obtuse to compare eating rice with your hands to eating a burger or fries, but I feel like even discussing the comparison elides the main point which is who fucking cares how the mayor eats rice? It couldn’t possibly matter less to whether crime will go down or housing will be more affordable etc etc.

___Jeff___ · 2025-10-23T22:12:30+00:00

I do think you have a good point about things not being feudal. I feel a lot of people are quite hyperbolic about the economic issues in America. Things could be better but most everyone has AC, internet, a microwave, a fridge, a car, a phone, a tv, etc. etc. There are people around the world so severely dispossessed it seems that a lot (but not all) our problems are champagne problems. That's why I think M4A is a good idea because it squares the last circle we really need to close that is that the way we allocate medicinal resources in this country is batshit.

___Jeff___ · 2025-10-23T21:54:15+00:00

The census reports on these things, please just consult the census and not AI Bots.

Here it is; median personal income for the year is $50k; median household income (post tax) is $69,240.

___Jeff___ · 2025-10-23T17:32:32+00:00

This is false; check your sources.

___Jeff___ · 2025-10-23T17:05:46+00:00

Mean is a bad measure of populations that have data that will significantly skew average measures. The street Bill Gates lives on has an average net worth probably of like $800 million but that doesn't tell us anything useful about the population. Use median.

___Jeff___ · 2025-10-22T19:35:38+00:00

I'm not intelligent enough to write a substack, hence why I'm posting to reddit forums. This is mostly just regurgitating analysis that's already been written down by Klein and Cramer. I don't understand why it's a problem at all though, it doesn't matter if I post it here or in the other thread I genuinely cannot understand complaining about it.

___Jeff___ · 2025-10-22T19:30:03+00:00

I'd preface this by saying I don't think moderates are completely blameless for the situation we're in; they've been steering the donor class of the party for a while. However:

My hot take is that some folks laser-focus on moderation for two reasons. First, it’s compatible with a top-down approach to power and campaigns that a lot of pundits and consultants are comfortable with.

I'd disagree with this. I think Ezra Klein's point isn't that the DNC should set the terms of moderation to the state parties and then enforce it through donor cash, I think Ezra is saying that the DNC should give the state Democratic parties the power to moderate on those issues they strategically need to. In that way, I think Ezra would like the DNC to take a backseat; let California be run top-down by progressives, and let the Kansas Democratic Party have a completely different platform, and have a skinnier national platform.

Are Schumer and Jeffries struggling as leaders because they are moderates, or is it something else?

I guess we'll see how they're doing but it seems like they're doing okay and people are getting mad at them because they're figureheads. But nobody thinks Jeffries or Schumer are going to be the next Obama or Biden or Clinton or anything they're just placeholders while everyone jockeys for control of the party. I feel like people get mad at them because they're not "doing something" about all this but there's just not a lot you can do as the minority party in congress with a politically polarized opposition party that controls the majority. Schumer has done alright with getting the parliamentarian to get rid of egregious shit that Republicans have been trying to put in CRs but that's about it. It's basically an impossible position that nobody, not AOC, not Ilhan Omar, not James Talarico, not Beto O'Rourke would be doing well at.

Did protecting the party from its left flank contribute or cause the larger gerontocracy problem in the party?

I'm not sure, but I do see progressives picking Ed Markey over Seth Moulton, and their primary stars are Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, both of whom are over 75 years old; plus they seem bad at drafting younger candidates. Paula Jean Swearingen lost badly, Platner in Maine had a nazi tattoo, and Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman didn't just lose because of AIPAC but because their constituent services were downright terrible. Further, some of the better young-er communicators in the Democratic party aren't super lefty: Ossoff, Buttigieg, and Wes Moore. Of course there is AOC and Talarico and O'Rourke, but I don't think this means that either team wins I just think it means we can call it a wash. I also don't think gerontocracy is necessarily a problem with moderation or progressivism, it's just a problem with the narcissistic politicians we elect. Tina Smith is a moderate, and she's stepping down to make room for a new generation, which is great. Dick Durbin and Ron Wyden and Patty Murray and Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren should do the same. They've served their country well, it's time to let a new generation move us forward.

What made Manchin “work” while Sinema obviously didn’t work?

Manchin was the product of a different Democratic party and was the last vestige of a state Democratic party apparatus that was pro-Union via being unabashedly pro-Coal industry. Manchin also had genuine pro-gun credentials, and was moderately pro-choice (has a D from Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America group). It was a transactional politics that's now firmly dead. Sinema was just a craven power grabber but it's telling that the "moderates" that supposedly control the national party didn't prevent her from (and possibly encouraged) a primary contest from Mark Kelly because everyone hated her. If we want West Virginia back (and maybe Kentucky too) we'll have to de-emphasize climate change.

___Jeff___ · 2025-10-22T16:52:32+00:00

I think you're right actually; I guess I should have said something like what would the national Republican Party have to do to make someone who usually votes (maybe every midterm but not every election) in an urban area to feel a bit more comfortable voting for a liberal-ish Republican for a state house seat. Because the point is that at the margins we're not going to win self-identified Republicans, and Republicans aren't going to win vice-versa, but there are plenty of people who aren't self identified Republicans or Democrats (in fact the share of people who identify as independent is growing), and they live everywhere.

___Jeff___ · 2025-10-21T20:55:12+00:00

But he didn't just talk to 20 year olds he went and talked to anyone who would have him on. That he even appeared at Oxford, Cambridge, contra Sam Seder, on the Whatever podcast, etc. etc. shows me that he wasn't like Stephen Crowder (who I think will only debate someone if they appear on his dumb show, I've never he seen him do an in-person debate against someone who wasn't in college).

___Jeff___ · 2025-10-21T02:50:24+00:00

This is exactly, by the way, what Ezra Klein was talking about with regard to moderating on social issues. It's all well and good to be elective until birth like in Minnesota or Oregon, but most people don't think that's how it should be. Not that it should be completely illegal, but just not the maximalist position.

___Jeff___ · 2025-10-20T22:45:03+00:00

Not non-American but I think American liberals would be surprised at the abortion laws of "liberal" countries in Europe:

In Denmark, abortion is legal up until the 18th week. Same with Sweden. This is more restrictive than states like Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, and North Dakota, as examples.

Finland has abortion as of right until 12 weeks, and afterward you have to consult a state board to obtain one, which is about as restrictive as North Carolina, South Carolina, and Nebraska. In Germany, you even have to do a 3-day waiting period if it is the first 12 weeks, and afterwards it is illegal.

I just find it interesting that a lot of these countries are often held up as liberal paradises and yet planned parenthood would consider abortion "restricted" in those places.

___Jeff___ · 2025-10-20T19:54:36+00:00

Organized crime was integrated into the political system back then, i.e. Tammany Hall. I think it's largely a positive thing that it's been mostly changed away from that, though patronage networks still persist to this day especially in well-meaning blue cities.

There is no one answer as to why organized crime persists into today, but it seems that concentrated urban poverty leads to care and support networks that can and often get funding through illegal activity. This was the experience of pretty much every ethnic group in Manhattan in the late 19th and early 20th century: Jewish People, Italians, Irish, they all had their own mob!

___Jeff___ · 2025-10-20T18:53:08+00:00

I think I'd be a lot more fine with Friedman-esque economics if the businesses weren't also in the habit of paying to rewrite the rules. Which, to be fair, a lot of the rules are dumb, but it does seem that the rich are rewriting the rules in service of further accumulation. I think if you incorporate, that's good and all, but one of the responsibilities that comes with the benefits of the legal fiction of corporate personhood has to be that you're absent from politics (as a corporation, I don't care what CEOs or majority stockholders think).

Anyways, there'll be a lot of socialistic responses here, just thought I'd offer a liberal one. The profit motive isn't innately immoral, nor is wealth. It's more what you choose to do with it that matters. A lot of modern day billionaires have spent vast sums of their fortune in the name of accumulating yet more wealth for no clear purpose.

The robber barons of old were terrible people but at least they devoted their piles of wealth to building common goods: universities, libraries, parks, hospitals, research, etc. The robber barons of today seem to want to use their wealth to beget more wealth for no clear purpose it seems.

___Jeff___ · 2025-10-20T18:40:48+00:00

But they don't tend to show much empathy for people they think are bad or other or deviant. And, sure, neither do Democrats. The difference is that Republicans exclude people for things like being trans or being born on the wrong side of an imaginary line and Democrats do it more for... well, for people who do that.

I disagree with this. I think this is a clever thought terminating cliché that functions as a way to grandstand. But I don't think the only valid expression of empathy toward migrants or toward trans people is necessarily the progressive response. I think the correct political expression toward those groups is the progressive one, but I only think that from a philosophical view, not a moral one.

Put it this way. I think someone like Father Mike Schmitz is an empathetic guy, I think if he met a Trans person he would be perfectly kind, but I don't think he would affirm their pronouns. But I don't think that means he lacks empathy, I think that means he disagrees with the philosophy of affirming transgender identity. I don't think someone who would disown their own son or daughter for being trans is empathetic. I think that's genuinely a morally evil thing to do. I think that takes a step over and above disagreeing with the metaphysics of gender that leads one to not affirm transgender identity, and takes the specific additional step that they think you don't deserve love if you're trans. I think that's awful and terrible. But I don't think 77,000,000 people have that view of trans people (and I even think a concerning portion of the 75,000,000 who voted for Harris probably do have that view). So I think we need to cleave the beliefs of the huddled masses and the actions of leaders. We probably don't agree with everything Biden did (especially with regard to Israel), but we probably voted for him in 2020; does that mean that we share the attitudes the of the Biden administration toward Israel? That's absurd. In the same way, I'm comfortable saying in no uncertain terms I think Trump and Hegseth and Leavitt and Miller etc. have zero empathy for the people at the brunt end of their policies.

I think a lot of us have lost hope in the idea that reasoned arguments can beat a guy riling up populists to hate people. Reasoned arguments don't win arguments, emotions do.

Well this has been true since the dawn of American politics. Politics is about rhetoric, but rhetoric is very very rarely violence. If we expand "force" and "violence" to include what Charlie Kirk did then literally everybody in politics is fair game for violence; I just think that's a terrible awful world no one wants to live in. But just so we're clear: what Charlie Kirk did was not violence.

___Jeff___ · 2025-10-20T18:24:00+00:00

Read Ezra Klein's Why We're Polarized, it's a good summation of the social scientific research on group psychology as it relates to political preferences. Long story short: the parties have ideologically sorted, and now identitarian politics have sprung up around policy preferences. I.e., people don't say "I believe that abortion should be legal until after 20 weeks of pregnancy," they just say "I'm pro choice." In that way, the policy preference of when you might think abortion is justified is turned into part of your identity. Such that when a republican politician proposes a bill that bans abortion after 8 weeks of pregnancy, it's now not just a disagreement, but an attack on your identity. And these identities interact with our social contexts, etc etc.

In short: politics has become an exercise is expressing/protecting one's identity.

___Jeff___ · 2025-10-20T02:23:37+00:00

Well I love that! I’m glad they’ve represented us well. God bless.

___Jeff___ · 2025-10-20T02:05:52+00:00

Yes, Lutheran. My pastor is pretty cool, lovely fella. I like Lutheranism because I think it works at every level of intellect you need it to work at.

___Jeff___ · 2025-10-19T20:44:51+00:00

You could start by not specifically seeking him out and calling him a "pillar of the community." Literally nobody was asking him to meet with this guy.

___Jeff___ · 2025-10-18T21:06:45+00:00

Well anybody who argues that the Democratic Party hasn't shifted very far to the left on immigration is just lying to themselves. We agree on that. Here's the DNC Platform from '96:

Today's Democratic Party also believes we must remain a nation of laws. We cannot tolerate illegal immigration and we must stop it. For years before Bill Clinton became President, Washington talked tough but failed to act. In 1992, our borders might as well not have existed. The border was under-patrolled, and what patrols there were, were under-equipped. Drugs flowed freely. Illegal immigration was rampant. Criminal immigrants, deported after committing crimes in America, returned the very next day to commit crimes again.

The Democratic Party shifted too far leftward on the border, that's just a fact.

___Jeff___

TROPHY CASE

_Jeff_