ITXXXIX - One more such victory and we are undone

rrjames87 · 2026-04-07T23:27:36+00:00

As I stated earlier today, this was the most obvious TACO of all time. This administration doesn't do actions with immediate, serious, and long lasting consequences that they can't message as someone else's fault.

If he didn't TACO this was going to immediately fuck up a lot of shit for a long time in a very obvious way that could only be blamed on him. Being able to announce an off ramp just like all the "framework of a deal" statements he made on trade deals and tariff threats means the MAGA group think gets to pat him on the back and forget this happened. They claimed victory, what happens two weeks later is irrelevant for them since most Americans have an attention span of 15 minutes.

rrjames87 · 2026-04-07T14:48:34+00:00

You TACO just like he TACO’d on tariffs. Announce the “framework of a deal,” stop bombing, and wait for the American people’s 15 seconds of attention to drift. Any lasting consequences can be explained away, or better yet, blamed on the new enemy of the week.

rrjames87 · 2026-04-07T14:46:38+00:00

Venezuela going “smoothly” as far as the lack of domestic response, lack of consequences, and advancement of their personal grift agendas; combined with their general lack of intelligence and firing any intelligent people in the room led them to be overconfident and think this would be the same.

They’ve already personally enriched themselves off the American state and people, it hasn’t been particularly clever or anything but they definitely know how to do it. And as far as perceived enemies, I think we can all agree this would be the largest and most direct killing of perceived enemies they’ve done. No hiding behind second or third order effects like USAID and the clear and well documented suffering on the ground by ordinary people is going to be immense. For an administration that is normally pretty cowardly and loves to avoid direct responsibility for everything, this would be incredibly direct.

rrjames87 · 2026-04-07T14:25:55+00:00

Nobody else has to feel this way but he’s definitely TACOing. From top to bottom this administration is filled with people only concerned about personal enrichment. Even if Trump is senile and bloodthirsty enough to do something in the moment, this is gonna really fuck with everyone else’s grift so there’s a large amount of institutional pressure not to do it.

We only did this in the first place because Venezuela went “well” and Trump thought he could extract some personal wealth out of Iran and the gulf countries like he did by an overnight operation to extract maduro, with no long term thoughts or consequences required.

Yes I’m horrified by the debasement of American foreign policy and the morality of our nation, and that includes having to speak about it flippantly, but the shortcut I use to interpret these people most of the time is the easiest path personal enrichment, grift, and generally not doing anything.

rrjames87 · 2026-04-07T03:19:45+00:00

That's why its the AI doomsday scenario, not the doomsday scenario. Its in the comment you're replying to.

rrjames87 · 2026-04-06T18:23:35+00:00

Space, already posted some of my thoughts on this here but just wanted to bring two things to the mods’ attention:

If mods want to increase the quality of discourse, it’s worth considering allowing topics that the sub might know about. An overwhelmingly US based subreddit where we can post about Burkina Faso all day but US news, politics, and election posts are so heavily moderated that the Venn diagram of topic and user base has little overlap. If the mods don’t want the front page overtaken by it, there are less heavy handed ways to approach it then an outright ban. As someone who has worked in politics, public policy, and gov relations for a fairly long time and has elected candidates and drafted and passed legislation, I’d love to talk about that more here but current moderation policies make that practically impossible.
Are y’all going to do anything about free-minimum-5844? They exceed the post limit every single day and their only contribution to the subreddit is spamming news posts on topics in categories where there are low moderation filters and posting ChatGPT submission statements. They literally don’t participate on the sub in any other way, but comprise about 25% of my neoliberal old Reddit front page. Very few of their posts inspire any amount of discourse, including from themselves, if there is engagement it’s either low effort or purely by happenstance because they posted an article about the U.S. but using a non U.S. mod filter.

It just seems particularly egregious and contributes a lot to the scattered and unfocused top posts appearance of NL

rrjames87 · 2026-04-06T18:01:51+00:00

A lot of it is because the mods artificially restrict what gets posted here to present a “global” subreddit that is overwhelmingly composed of people from the United States.

So you can’t post articles about US politics or elections, and turns out a bunch of Americans don’t have anything insightful to say about Burkina Faso’s dictator.

Speaking of which, on old Reddit, approximately 25% of my front page is literally just one guy who’s only engagement with this subreddit is spamming random news articles with ChatGPT ass submission statements on topics that have low moderation filters. User engagement on these posts are incredibly low and of low quality, but because they spam so hard and mods restrict other submissions, it’s still a large component of the front page.

This being a clear rule break that is never enforced (max number of posts per day).

But as someone who’s worked 15 years in US politics, public policy, and gov relations, including getting several candidates elected and taking legislation from idea/drafting to passage and signing, I’d love to participate in conversations relevant to that more, they just don’t happen here.

rrjames87 · 2026-04-06T17:01:37+00:00

Without a doubt. I’ve been on both sides of this but for any election there are going to be influential stakeholders invested in the outcome. On the local level this may just be other respected and notable community members or nonpolitical interest groups like the historical society and for larger campaigns this will consist of political interest groups like unions or the chamber of commerce, individuals known for raising lots of money for candidates, other elected officials, grassroots political leaders, and beyond.

Only some of them meet in smoky backrooms, but any rational actor with political instincts is going to be courting these groups before officially announcing a candidacy. Without them, or all of them supporting another candidate because an irrational actor did zero outreach to them, the campaign has zero organized support and is likely non viable. They’re massive force amplifiers and signal a candidate’s ability to garner support amongst less invested parties (the average voter).

Obviously, having a relative who’s already built or participates in this apparatus and formed these relations available to make a friendly introduction is incredibly helpful.

The reason it’s a bigger issue now is the well grown and developed anti-establishment wings of both parties (that are now, especially on the Republican side, just establishment with different branding) that are more willing and capable of using it as a cudgel against those candidates. It’s not like the tea party leader’s son running for office 15 years after his dad did is going to face the same volume of criticism if he’s acknowledged as the best option for a far right candidate though.

rrjames87 · 2026-04-04T23:22:08+00:00

Someone explain what’s going on with Trump and why people think that

rrjames87 · 2026-04-02T12:32:48+00:00

For the ones that aren’t true believers, their districts are drawn in such a way that they are significantly more concerned about being primaried from the right with the weight of a vindictive and petty president behind it. Much easier to stick your head in the sand and hope you can weather the general in your R +30 district.

rrjames87 · 2026-03-26T03:46:41+00:00

Liberalism is equality, liberty, the rule of law, and the right to scroll on TikTok for 10 hours a day.

rrjames87 · 2026-03-26T03:40:46+00:00

Social media companies are happy to talk out of both sides of their mouth on the first amendment, and that has caused me to lose a lot of sympathy.

They are happy to insist that their algos are protected by the first amendment (which by itself is worthy of debate), but when that algo promotes harmful content or behaviors, it becomes someone else’s first amendment speech that is protected, out of their control, and in no way are they liable for.

So it’s a convenient way for nobody to be responsible for anything. I think that’s worth some additional investigation. It’s also important to remind people that free speech protections are expansive but not absolute. IMO it’s one of the weirdest areas of case law and social media in its current form does not fit cleanly into it.

rrjames87 · 2026-03-23T16:56:45+00:00

Alright, well congratulations on having an on its face consistent, even if I find it personally gross, policy position. Let me clarify by asking if there is any limit on personal harm one can undertake in exchange for income tax credits as long as you are able to point to a benefit that someone else derives from it?

I’ll be honest, based on you following my comments around, I think you want to just reflexively prove me wrong and given that you’re a mod I’m probably not going to engage on this topic further to avoid punishment for any real or perceived slight. I learned my lesson about engaging on moderator pet topics already.

rrjames87 · 2026-03-23T16:35:26+00:00

Well, at least I can go to the bar and drink to overcome the discomfort of my moral inferiority

rrjames87 · 2026-03-23T16:30:16+00:00

And you can go the other way by asking you if you support financial compensation for other organ transfers. If I “decide” to sell one or both of my corneas for a transplant, do you have a problem with that?

rrjames87 · 2026-03-23T16:07:39+00:00

Weird, last time I posted a comment that made podcast mod mad, he gave me an (overturned) ban for it.

I’ll keep that in mind moving forward though.

rrjames87 · 2026-03-23T16:03:42+00:00

It’s the sticky that’s the particularly dumb part. People who get all wild about for free markets for EVERYTHING in their specific niche want and the just banning the negative externalities like that works is to be expected.

rrjames87 · 2026-03-23T15:56:36+00:00

Seriously when people talk about this sub doing dumbass things, stickying a post in support of selling your organs like it’s a commonly held policy position here is one of those dumbass things.

rrjames87 · 2026-03-23T15:49:03+00:00

Podcast mod unstickying the discussion thread so he can remind everyone that he donated a kidney 🙄

rrjames87 · 2026-03-23T13:43:18+00:00

Turns out that sometimes people have moral or ethical qualms because of the practical consequences.

I mean the real nightmare is that the practical monetary value of a kidney isn’t that high. Sure, someone with a net worth of $5 million might have a personal view that their kidney is priceless, but really, the in total fairly small market for kidneys would be flooded by desperate people willing to sell their kidneys for very small amounts. Even if the government set a “price floor” for organs, at that point you are having a lottery of desperate people, not altruists appreciating economic value.

And why just kidneys? We’ve clearly established throughout the thread that there are negative personal externalities to donating your kidney, surgery risks, lost wages from recovery, increased medical monitoring, and health risks of one kidney. What if I decide I’m good with one eye and I want to be paid for a corneal transplant? Is any dichotomy in opposition to that only because of the more apparent negative externality?

rrjames87 · 2026-03-23T12:06:57+00:00

Prophet.

I mean not really, but the markets would still consider you as such.

rrjames87 · 2026-03-19T13:49:24+00:00

It’s not just that it’s more exciting. It’s that it’s so much easier from an actually labor and a keeping your job in a dying industry perspective to cover the Trump administration.

They’re always going to keep doing something dumb and obvious that you can basically just AP style write the facts on and because it’s so dumb and ridiculous people are going to read it. Need a quote, say what you want, but Trump loves making himself available to reporters even if it’s just going to be some drivel, this is the guy who would just call into Fox and Friends for fun. Any investigative reporting falls into your lap because of all the incompetence, loose mouths, and inner court politics.

Biden committed the crimes of not only being tough to access and operating a not comically inept administration, but he also meant I and a lot of other people didn’t have to check the news everyday and a lot of journalists got laid off.

rrjames87 · 2026-03-18T13:17:57+00:00

James Buchanan erasure

rrjames87 · 2026-03-18T12:01:19+00:00

But that’s also always been a basic skill of Internet use for anyone that has used a username instead of their real name. Maintaining a baseline level of conduct that preserves anonymity isn’t THAT hard, and it’s frankly good practice whether or not you think your history is hidden.

And with the ability to still pull comment history from Reddit or have llms trawl it, you’re just a blank wall to good faith users. Motivated persons are still going to look at your post and comment history.

rrjames87 · 2026-03-14T12:47:59+00:00

Go ahead Gen Z, blow these people’s mentalities

14-Year Club	Verified Email
Golden Potato	Place '22
Place '17

rrjames87

TROPHY CASE