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EAll@ealluia.bsky.social |
149 followers 12 following 1264 posts
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EAll
@ealluia.bsky.social
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This would be bad if it meant electing Bob Dole, but the fact that this is happening when there is a real, honest to goodness authoritarian threat to the democratic order standing to take power from this is almost too much for words to capture.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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There is a large contingent of people who collectively are powerful enough to make Biden's election untenable, and that's what their efforts are directed towards. I am willing to bet their efforts likely will be successful, but they're offering an alternative that doesn't reduce risk
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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It wasn't *that* long ago that slip-ups like this were used to argue that Obama was an empty suit whose lack of intelligence was being masked by the liberal media - a theory that had a teeny tiny bit of racist subtext if you look closely. The difference is mainstream media didn't bite on that.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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This is why Biden is in such trouble. The gates are open and behavior that you'd expect as reasonably likely to see out of him will feed into a vortex of negative coverage. I'm pretty pessimistic about him getting out of this, but I'm also pessimistic about a last minute ticket shift going well.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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Yeah. Not doing events after 8pm unless it is necessary and going to bed early is normal for 81, not a dementia red flag. If you think this is a trait that a President shouldn't have - OK - but you probably should apply some scrutiny to the other guy's notoriously light work schedule when President.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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Doctors won't diagnose Biden from afar because you can't, it is unethical to do so, and it's professionally frowned upon. Soliciting that kind of opinion is begging for Leana Wen types to come out of the woodwork. But you *could* have more responsible coverage of what symptoms do and don't mean.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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Countless hours and column inches and I don't think anyone glued to it would walk away with a better understanding of what supposedly is the central topic. It's lurid, suggestive, and largely empty of meaningful content.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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Adding to this, what else is notably absent is any real attempt to bring in a grasp of neuropsychology, neurology, or speech-language pathology despite this all being about what Biden's debate performance tells us about his health. It's *still* in "You know... Do you deny it?" mode.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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I think Biden should've done things like this, but also think none of this would actually be reassuring in a way you could count on for his viability as a candidate. Another moment of visible frailty where he struggles to get out a coherent sentence and it's off to the races again.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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The plausible deniability reading he was going for is that what they're doing is very legal and very cool, and will happen unless the left tries to illicitly use violence against them to stop it. But it was a little naked in the "oppose us and we will put you down with force" intent.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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Specializing in American government shouldn't preclude a person from forgetting everything they know about comparative poli sci.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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It's shocking. I was one of the people who guessed wrong about how far the SCOTUS would go on this case, so I was surprised and shocked. I do not think the comparisons to the enabling acts are glib. I'm further depressed by how muted the media response is to the decision relative to its importance.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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What they mean is that something like aptitude tests is the best measure of the "most qualified person" and they bristle at the notion that anyone should try to curve their assessment of "qualified" based on advantages and disadvantages a person might have, especially related to race.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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It's astonishing the degree to which major conservative leaders close to achieving power are talking openly in the language of tyranny while that fact struggles to get anything close to the attention that is proportionate to what that means.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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I think there is substantial downside risk to Biden dropping, but now there's also substantial downside risk to him not. The situation is not looking all that great all around, especially given that there is a would-be vengeful autocrat who stands to benefit from this.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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Mainstream media is clearly out for blood with Biden on the age issue and more than a few journalists are staking their reputation/personal pride on what they've said. Biden being fine in actuality isn't sufficient to stop repeated cycles of freakouts over his behavior that are misread or overread.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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Local politics are affected insofar as the national stories feed into partisan cues. People's attentiveness to screens that mostly cover the national as local news collapses is probably why we're ending up with very weak parties and very high partisanship.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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It's a collective action problem. You leave, but people who are there to get NBA wire service news and to chat about basketball don't. And while you're gone, they get their brains pumped full of fash-adjacent macho meme work.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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They type of people they are's MO is to try to cut down the tall grass to intimidate the rest into silence. I wish I could say they'll never act out what they're trying to whip each other up with, but I know that's not necessarily true.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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You can be pessimistic as all get out and recognize that you have no choice but to move forward with whatever means are at your disposal for positive change because it's the only path to improvement.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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An official act is whatever the Roberts court says it is. The barrier here is, "Will you actually try to do this? Do you think you can get away with it? Will you?"
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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The thing that I think is going to be hardest for some if that comes to pass is watching people "turn" who you wouldn't expect. Everyone is so used to Trump being a hated figure that I don't know if people have internalized what happens to public sentiment when authoritarians can close their fist.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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That's the wrong way to read this ruling, imo. Its primary effect is on whether the President will behave lawlessly because they feel empowered to do so. A senator can have reasonable confidence that courts still have his back. Other, more difficult actions that are hard to name can't be reversed.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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Even now, I think a lot of people are sleepwalking their way to the real worst time that might be happening in less than a year - like waiting on a biopsy that looks bad vaguely in denial.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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I don't think that works, because this court ruling attempts to give itself an out to play Calvinball against Dem presidents, or, perhaps, the last Dem President. You need to take more decisive action.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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Right. Our disagreement here is I do not think the Republican operatives on the court who have repeatedly shown a keen awareness of politics would've tried to author an imperial Presidency for Trump if he was prosecuted at his nadir.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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No, I don't see a viable path here that's not paved with luck or means justified by the ends reasoning. My comparison to the enabling acts is not meant to be glib. I see this ruling as a shot fired.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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Civil War is the only comparable example to what we're dancing around.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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Per recent developments, I think the President has the power to use a SWAT team to do this with a hair trigger and instructions to fire at the first sign of resistance for their personal safety.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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Why do you think it didn't occur until just now? The timing is the result of political factors that did not have to exist.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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I'm just saying there's no legislative route to pack the courts atm. There does seem to be a way to creatively deploy executive power to make sure the six GOP justices are no longer serving, but that would require admitting temporary defeat on the American experiment so that it might live again.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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Almost made it to 250 years.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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They don't have the votes for that. They do have the votes and legal precedent to "unpack" the court if they want, it seems.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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What other vehicle would present itself apart from Trump's conduct in attempting to subvert elections to install himself in power? Republican operatives on the court are sensitive to political calculations and have no desire to make Biden unaccountable to the law.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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If Trump was arrested in Jan 2021, I likewise do not think this would be happening. There was a wide perception he was damaged goods in conservative spaces at that time. We're getting enabling acts now because they see him as on the cusp of power.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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I struggle to think of examples of authoritarian slide where this hasn't happened. The specific form it takes - long knives, falling out of windows, etc. - varies, but the consolidation of power and petty retributions are common.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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It's by the numbers what happens in authoritarian takeover. Everyone knows that some of the vanguard who take power eventually are excised form the movement, often violently, but everyone is confident that it won't be *them.*
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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I think everyone expects that something like this, more carefully orchestrated to work within the confines of the ruling, is not going to happen. I think the SCOTUS just issued an American version of enabling acts, but it was done months in advance of those powers being taken. Use the time granted.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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Hopefully this doesn't sound melodramatic, but I think the die is cast and we're in a deadly-serious conflict at this point. The choice left is to fight it or not.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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This is playing out like migrant caravans and emails and ebola and swiftboats only with even more heat and on a subject I personally know a lot about and it's one of the most dispiriting political events I've ever seen.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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People are diagnosing him with dementia or other form of cognitive impairment on the basis of normal changes associated with aging and verbal fluency issues. The group-think is so large and robust and supported by ancillary conspiracy content that the fact that this is not how it works (!) is lost.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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My wife is convinced that basically everyone knows this is unreasonable, but people are cynically doing it because they want to "take out" Biden. I think that's this famous cartoon:
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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He's convinced Biden has dementia in the same way someone might be convinced of lab leak conspiracy theories. Everyone he trusts is behaving just like him in confidentially asserting it like they've done the research, and none of them can tell they don't have the ability or interest to do that.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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If Biden steps down, that is real "Dems in disarray" moment that will penetrate down to the most disconnected voter imaginable. It could get overwhelmed by other factors, but is clearly a negative signal about Dem leadership and most of the response I've seen about what to do about it is "Pfft."
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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Yeah, there's some exceptions. That's probably the strongest one. Total Recall has a lot of Dick's elements of storytelling nailed even though the adaptation is loose and wearing the jacket of an 80's action flick. But then there's Existenz, which is similar, but even more on that path.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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The most Philip K. Dick-esque films and shows aren't even adaptations of Dick. It's stuff like Brazil or The Game. Severance is an obvious example. Even the first season of Westworld has more of Dick's style in its bones than a lot of the formal adaptations.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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That's from Dick's best work, imo. He's one of the most adapted authors for TV and film, but that one has never been done. Michel Gondry was attached at one point, which on paper sounds like a solid fit, but that was abandoned a long time ago.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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He was semi-seriously thought-experimenting out the ideas of anarcho-capitalism in the style of cyber-punk. Co-ops and franchises is how anarcho-capitalists imagine core functions of government that require collective pooling of resources can be privatized.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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Ubik's humorous depiction of microtransactions and how they affect one's relationship to the world is more prescient than most hard-nosed sci fi ever got.
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@ealluia.bsky.social
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(You do see a fair amount of people responding to the newly minted WebMD docs who say things like, "I took care of my relative with Alzheimer's and what you're saying doesn't fit.")
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