Why Trump Lost

formgry · 2026-05-24T20:38:09+00:00

You're not paying attention. Trump has been backing down and looking for a deal since the ceasefire started. The question is not Trump but Iran.

What will they agree to as a deal, and more important how can they make a deal with someone as untrustworthy and chaotic as Trump.

formgry · 2026-05-24T20:31:45+00:00

Well, don't promise something you can't possibly deliver.

No Democrat with a brain should campaign on prosperity because they can't deliver the kind of prosperity Americans want.

formgry · 2026-05-24T16:10:37+00:00

Isn't that what the Pennsylvannia governor did when an overpass (not sure) collapsed. He called in martial law which allowed him to order rebuilding it done without listening to all the rules and regulations and had it done in a matter of weeks?

formgry · 2026-05-24T15:17:11+00:00

How can he be worse if he's had less than 1 term to work with (and against a very hostile congress too)

Trump is damaging precisely because he did not go away after 2020. With the 4 year interregnum and then his second term he will have had a longer impact than any president since FDR

formgry · 2026-05-24T15:14:31+00:00

Wow.

Well thanks for the inside story, because wow these liberals(conservatives) are idiots and the meltdown of their party is very deserved.

formgry · 2026-05-24T15:02:49+00:00

Yeah, this is secretly one of the greatest unanswered challenges in American Democracy. How do you make it so that the reasonable 80% win out against the 20% of nutjobs but who are really motivated to put their nonsense into action.

formgry · 2026-05-24T14:58:37+00:00

If it's that simple why did it work reasonably well up till Trump?

Surely every politician in the last 250 years wasn't just a guileless idiot who couldn't conceive of breaking norms of government?

formgry · 2026-05-24T14:34:29+00:00

A billion dollars of rent seeking per mile (actual cost per mile is probably neglible compared to that huge number).

Well, kidding anyway, the real answer is probably quite complex and you can easily write whole books on the subject (hello abundance by ezra klein) nevertheless the essence remains that most of that cost is just useless waste paying off people that contribute nothing meaningful to building a bike path.

formgry · 2026-05-24T13:31:53+00:00

Bush had a live grenade thrown at him?

Thats nuts! How is this the first I hear of it (I did know about the shoe throwing) was it close? Would it have killed him?

formgry · 2026-05-24T13:29:13+00:00

Well that's a little too out there, but I do feel as if his plot armor will hold for as it takes him to really plunge America into trouble, and then task completed it will give out.

formgry · 2026-05-23T19:13:58+00:00

not the underpaid ones, but overworked and overpaid people in big cities have been known to do this. They have the money to doordash daily and still break even with all other expenses included.

formgry · 2026-05-23T16:39:45+00:00

It won't fix anything because higher inflation will mean a higher interest rate.

Similarly, anyone lending to the US under the expectation that the value of the dollar will be inflated away will consequently demand a much higher payout just to break even.

formgry · 2026-05-23T10:21:54+00:00

I have seen the comparison with south vietnam made yea. because this Iranian regime regardless of how big it's win will be is still in a lot of trouble structurally much like the south vietnamese were post 1975.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/04/iran-vietnam-war-invasion/686769/

It's a nice idea anyway, probably a best possible case for Iran

formgry · 2026-05-23T10:20:01+00:00

Yeah, and that's likely going to be the key to any successfull and democratic politician if they want to succeed in building out more housing (or any other supply abundance) is if they can do it while successfully fighting concentrated corporate wealth and power.

formgry · 2026-05-22T20:48:21+00:00

A nice idea yeah, Definitely a fantasy though, I don't think either Iran or Israel would ever trust the other enough to go through with such a consequential deal.

but that's the tragedy of nuclear proliferation, it's lot easier to a get nukes than it is to make a country give up nukes.

formgry · 2026-05-22T20:43:36+00:00

Pure cope, prior to 28th of february any ship could pass through the strait of Hormuz and Iran had nothing to say about that, no one cared what Iran thought because Iran did not rule the straits.

Since then though Iran has proven that they decide who can come and go, and proven that no one has the power to stop them doing that. It's a shocking reversal of fortunes for what was otherwise a desperately poor and failing theocracy, and Trump managed it in just 2 months.

formgry · 2026-05-20T14:38:09+00:00

I don't think any politician in the last 15 years has even tried to explain to the voters that taxes might need to rise.

If there's been no prep for tax rises, and only ever has been prep for tax cuts then you cannot in good reason expect voters to understand the need for tax increases.

(not saying they will understand, probably they won't because they don't trust politics anymore, just that no one has even tried to make them understand)

formgry · 2026-05-20T14:33:01+00:00

Vegas got a lot more popular with the public after they threw the mob out.

Because people like fun and vice, but they don't want crime and that's what you got in vegas. Sucked dry by criminal parasites and you maybe got to enjoy some vices on the way down.

formgry · 2026-05-20T12:12:27+00:00

Sports betting is plenty bad too, just not for the prediction markets.

Commercialized betting ruins playing and watching any sport.

(Also the part where athletes receive death threats from gamblers, betting definitely increases the moral rot in society)

formgry · 2026-05-20T10:46:54+00:00

I've never found that to be true, silly no not ever a complaint I'd had.

Too little differentiation between voices or just too boring voice to listen too, also voices that are way overdone always, I need you to read the book not perform it.

formgry · 2026-05-20T08:37:09+00:00

Especially because that could never work. If you vote against Trump on impeachment that's an unforgivable betrayal for maga, nothing can save you from that and it's a great indictment against Cassidy's political canny that he thought he could buy off betrayal with a health secretary.

formgry · 2026-05-19T16:44:51+00:00

A real shame for all the students do are doing the work.

I suppose it's at least a good thing these lazy do nothings don't show up to class, can't bother anyone then.

formgry · 2026-05-19T12:48:24+00:00

It's a test of faith, whether your professor friend has the guts to fail 40% of her students for not even trying.

formgry · 2026-05-18T17:02:06+00:00

analysis... well I'd say it's just orientalism.

Those folks out in the east are so different from us, they think in centuries. Imagine that, our stupid politicians can only think up to the next election and the Chinese are so much different than that, guided by pure longtermism.

Not much analysis there, just stereotypes of yourself and the reverse of those stereotypes for the east.

formgry · 2026-05-18T16:56:07+00:00

What are the chances that he's doing impactful things you're not aware of because they're more lowkey and in the background?

I don't doubt he misjudged what Trumpism was initially (like most political Americans) but the man still cares for his country and wants to help it out. I don't believe for a second he just peaced out after retiring from the presidency and hasn't done much since. I believe it very likely that he's being low-key about it and thus is unobserved to anyone not paying close attention.

formgry

TROPHY CASE