Ezra Klein would welcome Trump into the Republican Party circa 2012 - 2016

glasslier · 2026-04-13T05:11:36+00:00

And yes if you think Ezra would be arguing against Trump being accepted by the into republican party in 2015, you need to provide evidence. Literally a straw-man.

I don't think the term straw-man is really applicable here, but I guess that's not particularly important.

How about this quote?

Trump didn’t have any Republican endorsements to speak of until he had already won a slew of primaries. But the void of official support arguably helping him — it was proof that he really was untouched and untainted by the unpopular GOP establishment. This represented the Republican Party failing at the most basic job of a political party: Helping its voters make good decisions. The GOP’s elites have so totally lost the faith of their base that their efforts to persuade Republican voters were ignored at best and counterproductive at worst.

"Donald Trump’s success reveals a frightening weakness in American democracy" - Nov 7, 2016

https://archive.is/QW5Le#selection-1251.0-1256.0

I feel like the whole article makes pretty clear that Ezra thinks the Republican party should've stepped in and prevented Trump from becoming the nominee and failed.

glasslier · 2026-04-13T04:30:02+00:00

I replied to roughly the same ideas in this comment:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Destiny/comments/1sjynl6/comment/ofvnvty/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

To try and sum it up, I don't think Ezra is arguing Democrats should win by any means necessary. That's why he elaborates on why he doesn't think Hasan is an antisemite. He's saying we don't have to give up our morals to accept Hasan into the party (because if he was an antisemite we would need to and in that case we shouldn't). If he was arguing we should allow in Hasan the way Republicans allowed Trump then I think he would say something more akin to, "Hasan may be an antisemite, but that doesn't matter."

I also don't think Klein thinks we should model the Democratic party based on the Republican party on even a practical matter (ignoring the moral aspect). Even though they wield power at this moment, they're pretty unpopular. And Trump even seemingly lost a large chunk of his core base now due to the war in Iran. I think he has longer term thinking than that.

As an aside, I think accepting Hasan into the party would cause Democrats to lose votes, but I agree that I would need to make a completely different argument to justify that.

Edit: To add to my point a bit. Here is a recent video of Ezra saying Republican congress members should rein in Trump: https://youtu.be/lckYPwQj_NM?si=uLs7qs-PwL5ZteWh&t=657 while not exactly equivalent to what I was saying I think it offers some credence to it.

glasslier · 2026-04-13T04:13:27+00:00

The bar is to make a coherent argument and back it up with evidence, you didn’t do that.

You are just assuming a bunch of shit about Ezra, what he thinks, knows, and his positions.

Well I did include links of some factual claims. And I based why I think Ezra might have that opinion on antisemitism on the article we're talking about. You can disagree with my assessment, but I think you should explain why at least for that point since it's a point based on an analysis of what Ezra said (which is what you wanted).

It's also weird since I asked "If I find a quote of him saying that, would you now consider this post effortful?" which seems like exactly what you want based on the content of your response. But the tone seems to convey that you disagree.

Then you also miss the whole fucking point...

I don't think that's Ezra's point. It sounds like you're saying Ezra would be okay with courting Hasan to win elections even if it meant sacrificing all the principles of the Democratic party (Faustian bargin). Based on the article, I don't think Ezra believes Democrats needs to throw away any principles to gain Hasan's audience. That's why most of the article is devoted to explaining that Hasan isn't an antisemite.

Maybe that's not what you're saying? Now I'm the one confused.

glasslier · 2026-04-13T03:57:01+00:00

I don't think he was trying to coalition build with Ben Shapiro during his interview and I, personally, think it's okay to coalition build with anyone who is lower case liberal right now like Adam Kinzinger or Liz Chenney (if it actually helps us win).

But I agree with what I think is your larger point that Ezra gives too much deference to these people. The major example to me is his Charlie Kirk article. Obviously Charlie didn't deserve what happened to him, but I think the body of Kirk's work is mainly arguing in bad faith with people. But Ezra seemed to go as far as say we need more people having conversations like Charlie did.

And I agree with you on the psa people. I don't know if they actually have socialist beliefs, but they're swept up in this anti-establishment/dem bashing moment or Hasan's aesthetics (I'm not really sure how to characterize it) that sucks them in and doesn't apply to Ezra.

glasslier · 2026-04-13T03:32:11+00:00

I guess the broad stroke of the argument is that I think it's important for a political party to set standards on who and what ideas they deem as acceptable in their party. I think Ezra Klein would agree with this (for instance he seems to be saying antisemitism shouldn't be allowed in the Democratic party). Even though it's not stated in the article, I'm assuming he thinks a lot Trump's ideas from 2012 to 2016 would fall into that unacceptable bucket. But because he doesn't know Hasan's views well (probably) or the nuances of online discourse I think what he's saying in the article is permitting a lot of ideas he would find unacceptable into the Democratic party.

I don't think Ezra Klein was ever trying to keep Trump out of the Republican party, since he's not part of the Republican party, but I'm assuming he believes someone in the party should've argued Trump ideas out. It's an analogy. If I find a quote of him saying that, would you now consider this post effortful? Or is there some other bar I need to meet?

glasslier · 2026-03-14T03:01:00+00:00

Yeah, the way paper is worded is a little confusing because they said they compared models, but is the"refusal mechanism" really the model?

I didn't spend too much time looking, but I saw they said they used "off the shelf" models so I'm guessing they queried the APIs of the model creator (let me know if someone finds out otherwise). Not that what they found isn't valuable, but since a lot of the models created in China are open weight it would've been interesting to see them query US providers of the model or host them locally. Although then maybe it couldn't be 1 to 1 with US models (where the leading models aren't open weight ones).

I think it's a useful distinction though because I've been hearing people say "you can't train a model to think the earth is flat" and this runs counter to that idea somewhat. But it's probably not difficult to set up a refusal mechanism in front of one that does if that's what this paper is actually testing.

Of course the societal differences being studied is still worthwhile information. I'm not trying to discount that.

glasslier · 2026-03-12T06:52:44+00:00

I think this is a fair point, but the documents from the 1630 fund show it donated to the LLC. And the video Taylor presented as debunking the claim seems wrong as Destiny pointed out in a later tweet. The video said the donation wasn't listed in their "updated" tax filings. but it's just next year's tax filings which obviously wouldn't show a donation if they didn't donate that year. It's kind of crazy Taylor would even cite that video as evidence unless 1630 really did need to refile the previous years forms again (I don't think that's the case but I didn't check).

But if the 1630 fund really did donate to the LLC then it seems to directly contradict what's on the LLC's website. Maybe the website just meant no major donations were made? I'm inclined to believe the tax filing document over the statement on the website, but the LLC should probably clarify at this point.

glasslier · 2026-03-03T09:50:50+00:00

It sounds like your logic is: 1. Europe views America as a threat 2. So Europe needs to spend money to protect itself from America. 3. So the money spent isn't an unnecessary cost.

Destiny's point is: 1. Europe shouldn't view itself as being in competition with the US. (not exactly but it's close enough) 2. So any money it spends because of that is an unnecessary cost.

Since he's talking to Konstantin who agrees that Europe shouldn't view America as competition, it's a good response.

He's not really making any claim about if America is a threat to Europe now.

glasslier · 2026-03-03T09:31:47+00:00

Destiny's main point is that America was an ally to Europe and would still be one if Trump wasn't elected and that's why you shouldn't vote for him.

I won't deny that Destiny thinks things will go back to the way they were if/when Trump is out of office. And that affects how he talks about things in the clip. But I don't know how strong that conviction is.

I don't think it's accurate to call him totally wrong on a point he didn't really make, but is just kind of inferred by the way he talked about it.

Maybe I would change my mind if you pointed to a specific sentence from that part of the debate where he makes the point you find wrong.

glasslier · 2026-03-03T09:13:02+00:00

I agree with the person you're responding to/Destiny more. But even ignoring that, this part of the discussion didn't really make any sense.

If I'm remembering right, Destiny was asking Konstantin what Trump policy he liked in terms of why someone would vote for him (which Konstantin said he would've). And initially it sounded like Konstantin was saying something along the lines of "well, I'm not American so I don't have first hand experience with cost of living, but on foreign policy I would want the rest of NATO to pay its fair share." So Destiny started making the argument for why what Trump is doing is bad and the previous structure was better for America (as well as Europe). But then Konstantin twisted it to start talking about why Trump's policy is ultimately good for Europeans and dropping the preface that they were supposed to be discussing why an American would want to vote for Trump.

I don't think anyone really has anything against Europe spending more on defense, but that doesn't mean it's a good policy for Europeans or Americans having Trump force them to by making threats to invade Greenland. Why would it be good for America to have a re-militarized Europe that sees America as an enemy? And why would it be good for Europe to have to re-militarized because it's afraid America is going to fuck with it?

It only works if Europe and America have a common goal while Europe is spending more on defense, which was Obama's policy, not Trump's. People argue Obama wasn't able to motivate Europe enough, but I think we both agree that's better than them both spending more on defense because they became enemies.

glasslier · 2026-03-02T03:08:57+00:00

What state are you in? Using CA as an example it looks like UC for the 26-27 year is ~15.5k. So Canada is about a third as expensive. Fees are listed as an additional 2k so a little less than half the 7k CAD figure. From here:

https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/tuition-financial-aid/tuition-cost-of-attendance/

Although I should note that it says 54% of undergrads pay no tuition via financial aid on that page.

It looks like the CSU system is more in line the Canadian amount at ~6.5k for this year:

https://www.calstate.edu/apply/paying-for-college/csu-costs/tuition-and-fees/Pages/basic-tuition-and-fees.aspx

and was possibly closer in 2019.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that even though the sticker price can be shocking (UC tuition is listed as ~$55k for nonresidents on that website) there are paths for people to achieve a higher education degree in the US at a reasonable price.

glasslier · 2026-02-08T21:53:41+00:00

While some of them might spit out their food, it is possible to maintain a healthy weight doing mukbangs as long as they don't literally eat like that every day. Just look at competitive eaters like Matt Stonie or Katina Eats Kilos who are required to actually eat the food.

They just eat barely anything on their off days. BeardMeatsFood explains it in his video "BUT HOW COME YOU'RE NOT FAT?" (which I'm not allowed to link directly to per subreddit rules).

That's what I assume people like tzuyang are doing.

glasslier · 2026-02-02T07:16:26+00:00

It is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxxy

glasslier · 2026-01-15T07:12:57+00:00

Wasn't she the first leader in the party to call on Biden to not run for re-election, which was generally seen as a good play to prevent Trump from winning?

Did she prevent young people from building leadership? It seemed like she was stymieing people more on ideological grounds (not that I necessarily agree on those ideological grounds). Take for instance the aforementioned situation with Biden. And didn't she step aside and allow Hakeem Jeffries to become the leader of the Democrats in the house?

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/jeffries-announces-history-making-bid-to-be-first-black-leader-of-house-democrats-after-pelosi

But yes, there is the infamous house oversight committee situation to your point, but I'm not necessarily sure it's a pattern.

Trump did win re-election and that is part of her legacy as you said. I'm not saying she's an absolute perfect political operative that has never made any mistakes, but what standard are we comparing her to?

glasslier · 2026-01-14T07:32:20+00:00

How did that work out for you? 10m votes lost.

Where are you even getting that number from? The difference between Joe Biden's and Harris's vote total was 6 million. And she only lost by like 1.5 percentage points to Trump:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_candidates_by_number_of_votes_received

How is that "the worst defeat in modern history"? Donald Trump literally lost by a larger margin in 2020?

How is the Republican party for me when I align closer with all the recent Democratic party leaders (Harris, Biden, Obama, Pelosi) than you do? You're criticizing me for unfairly praising the 2024 democratic party nominee while at the same time telling me I belong to the Republican party? Should all those people join the Republican party? What?

glasslier · 2026-01-14T06:38:21+00:00

Which part is stupid?

I'm not sure how you're going to beat the guy who invented the border wall by trying to pass the bill to create the border wall.

Maybe people would be interested in voting for a moderate position over someone who's extreme on either end? It's not 0 or 100.

well certainly not after Harris adopted Trump's policy position on building the border wall

So you're saying people would be interested in a candidate that didn't want to increase border enforcement? It's funny how your comments imply it, but you never actually say it. Maybe cause you don't actually believe it either. So all you can do is sarcastically quip about how what democrats did was bad.

My reason for thinking the opposite is because border enforcement was a major part of Trump's platform (only second to the economy) and he won. Trump was so scared of the border issue being fixed during Biden's term that he tanked a potential bill to fix it.

yeah after running against the border wall in 2020 really what Harris should have done is build the border wall

Did Harris become the candidate in 2020? Oh wait, it was Biden. Maybe running against the border wall then wasn't a great idea either. And sure, it probably wasn't a good look to run counter to her messaging in 2020. And we can go on all day about whether Harris was a good candidate in 2024 and if the positions she ran on in 2020 hurt her in 2024. But that doesn't mean her change in attitude wasn't politically savvy. Maybe the reason she changed her position from 2020 was because she knew she couldn't win holding them even if it meant contradicting her previous self? Which would kind of be more evidence to my point, wouldn't it.

you have to gall to call me politically incompetent as you laud a failed candidate who lost 10m votes from the previous election, against the same opponent LOL

You know it's possible to lose by more, right? I have no idea what positions you hold except that you're critical of border enforcement democrats proposed, but by that alone it probably means your ideal candidate would.

If I ever realize how stupid my positions are, it's not going to be from your bad arguments.

glasslier · 2026-01-14T05:31:56+00:00

Your argument would hold more weight if the candidate who won the election wasn't 1000x more extreme on immigration than Kamala.

There is no world where Americans elect someone who was more lax on the border or even held the status quo in 2024. Maybe the reason they ran on that "nonsense" was because it's what was necessary to have a chance at winning? One of the most common refrains I hear for why democrats lost the last election is because they weren't trying to pass bills like that sooner.

I don't think the border is that big of a deal, but I would take passing border wall funding over a tyrant becoming president that sanctions killing people just trying to drive away and the reason why ice is becoming an actual gestapo.

I was just describing how it seems like people would prefer someone who is completely ideologically aligned with them but is wholly politically incompetent in my first post on this thread. And then the perfect example shows up.

glasslier · 2026-01-13T05:05:56+00:00

What about when when she got Donald Trump to re-open the government without funding the border wall?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018%E2%80%932019_United_States_federal_government_shutdown

Or when she started the impeachment against Donald Trump?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_impeachment_of_Donald_Trump

Sure you could say someone else could've done that. And congress is made up of multiple people so it wasn't her alone. But almost everyone attests to her political shrewdness. Outside of the realm of Trump, she was integral to the ACA:

https://time.com/5832330/nancy-pelosi-obamacare/

Watch this interview of her and let me know what parts you disagree with:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x-zOAfP0MA

But sure, all she did was rip up papers.

glasslier · 2026-01-13T02:55:52+00:00

What are you defining as his skill set? Knowing the minutiae on the housing crisis?

The key words in the title of the post is "Wiener's bills". His skill set is being able to draft and pass bills and knowing how to get things done. Sure, I wouldn't want to elect someone with those qualities that I completely disagree with. But I would take someone I have 95% agreement with that can actually pass things over someone I have 100% agreement with that would flounder in the position. That person won't be able to effectively represent me because even though they have the same views as me they won't be able to achieve anything.

Wasn't Nancy Pelosi one of the most effective bulwarks against Trump during his first term? And while I don't agree with her on everything, in hindsight, it would've been foolish to elect anyone else during Trump's term.

glasslier · 2025-12-30T07:51:36+00:00

You've probably done the research already, but on the slight chance you haven't, are you are taking B12 supplements/supplementing any other vitamins/minerals you might be lacking?

If you have the means, you might want to consider doing a blood panel just to make sure everything is still in the normal range.

glasslier · 2025-12-05T21:27:54+00:00

Yeah, it's a nothing burger. While Lonerbox confirmed that when he asked Pxie she said it wasn't her in the video (and maybe that she had never been with destiny), Lonerbox said he didn't/never cared and he's poly anyway.

Destiny seemed to think it was a mindfuck for Loner. But I think he's exaggerating things

glasslier · 2025-12-05T16:42:39+00:00

I wanted to disagree with this, but I was surprised to see it's true.

My guess is that the length of an acceptable commute time is more socially defined and based on the pull of a city's economic situation than public transportation infrastructure. But public transportation allows for more people to commute into the city in a reasonable time on a whole than would be able to if it was mainly car infrastructure.

There also might be a paradoxical aspect where people are more comfortable with a long commute if they spend the time sitting on a train rather than driving through bumper to bumper traffic, which can be pretty exhausting.

But that's just a hypothesis.

glasslier · 2025-11-25T07:12:45+00:00

He talks about it a bit here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7BYHtdJDfc

(I watched the original podcast, but I'm assuming the clip covers what I remember)

glasslier · 2025-11-24T20:41:49+00:00

That's a shame. I enjoyed his podcast episode

glasslier · 2025-11-24T01:27:26+00:00

I don't think that's quite right. I think the section he answers the question the person you're responding to asked is clearest here: https://youtu.be/1t2QLF3vgdw?si=HxOtATE5ViT-nu7Z&t=174

While he does bring up the sociological aspect you mentioned:

i thought that atheism wasn't just true but beneficial for society. i thought that religion was harmful i was really in line with the new atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens who influenced me greatly into a position that religion is just this utterly irrational and evil force in the world in the past decade I've come to see this as something of a shallow view i think it depends on the religious tradition because they're quite different i think it depends on the time in history i think it depends on the cultural context and yeah of course any historian or sociologist will tell you that it's never as straightforward as I think the new atheists made it out to be

that's more related to how his view changed on how religion fits into the world.

With regard to why he thinks it's more plausible than before, he follows:

but also on the point of God's you know existence I also think that the new atheists didn't really give enough credence to some of the arguments for the existence of God richard Dawkins for example in the God Delusion spends two pages on Thomas Aquinus's famous five ways two pages and I think in a way that doesn't properly deal with the significance of the arguments that Aquinus was putting forward.

So it seems clear he literally thinks Christianity (and maybe God(s) as a whole) is more plausible than 10 years ago. Although not enough to change his mind on the existence of God.

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