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1. From convo on @Morning_Joe today about @DrIbram's new article which asks that progressive policy not be blamed for D losses/underperformance.

One of my main concerns is intraparty factionalism/fighting. Everything a "moderate" & "progressive"

 2. D fights- a R gets a vote. Certainly radical (and yes, defunding police departments IS radical) policy proposals that fall on the outside bands of the distribution are less attractive to this idealized "swing" voter who is, in our minds eye" always a high info, high reasoning.
3. I guess you'd call them a "fine dining" type voter. But we KNOW that actually, most swing voters are NOT like this. Don't believe me- check out @axios Swing Voter Project, which ran focus groups with Obama to Trump voters through the whole cycle. https://t.co/B3WEyCLZF9
4. Indeed, what @richthau learned about America's "deciders" is likely to haunt his sleep for ever as it personified a sticker I keep in my office which is a quote from George Carlin: "Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups." (K.I.M. when we talk "stupid"
5. on my threads about people, we're not talking IQ, or overall stupid. We're talking civics. We're talking about political literacy. Very smart, successful people can't name their senators or their governor & are thus, civically stupid. And I'm sorry, not sorry for labeling them
6. as such. As a country, as a political culture, we're big on rights, but not on responsibilities that come with them. In other words, we're shirkers. Now, to be fair, its not really our fault. Once it became clear that grifting was a lot easier with a dumb public, the dumbing
7. of the public became a feature, not a bug. We basically have no political culture, certainly not one that tells citizens "you must tend to the gardens of your democracy to ensure it grows strong & stays healthy" and that is something we need to start fixing NOW so that in
8. 30 years, we can start to yield some benefits. But I digress. The political commentary/analysis has one frame, one paradigm to discuss political phenomena under, and like many things in the polarized era, it is no longer applicable- but the analysis forges on anyway. Here's a
9. a counterfactual that will demonstrate how little issues matter to election outcomes. The entire GOP has shifted far to the Right & is running on defund the police. I mean think about the GOP platform this fall. That platform, which they didn't bother to pen, was "whatever our
10. aspiring dictator says. And what WAS the aspiring dictator saying? He was saying he planned to restart the family separation program on the border and orphan MORE children heartlessly to join the 600+ already in the fed gov's permanent custody. If you are raped or dying of
11. cancer MAYBE we'll let you get an abortion to save your own life. Maybe. Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act- all gutted. I could keep going. Did I mention that the modal position of your average congressional/Senate Republican on the question of "what
12. should the federal gov do to help Americans survive economic disruption from COVID?" is NOTHING. The modal position of Senate Rs- 30+ of them is NO AID. That's bc the entire Republican Party is a party of extremists. All of its positions are now extreme. Its radical wing
13. started to take control of the party in 2010, exerted real influence- I mean enough where the party was radicalized & holding the control hostage- shutting it down over symbolic debt ceiling raises & forces fed workers to go w/o pay, closing down DC, for what amounts to a
14. policy temper-tantrum over Obamacare (they were so upset that 23 million people GOT insurance for the 1st time AND that 100 million of us, for the 1st time got GOOD insurance, insurance that actually paid for everything, that covered preventative shit instead of telling you,
15. if you want mammograms or colonoscopies- pay for it out of pocket. THIS is what had the GOP all a twitter, the biggest irony, of course, being that it was THEIR DAMN PLAN!!! But so extremist & radical was the Republican Party becoming that they shut down the entire country
16. trying to force Obama to veto his own healthcare law. BC THAT's normal behavior from a serious, governing party that appeals to the median voter.

And yet, do you know what happened? In those 2014 Midterms- they GAINED SEATS!!

They completely abandoned the middle of the
17. electorate, they didn't just touch a third rail of American Politics- they RODE that rail like a wave at Mavericks and yet they wiped out the entire Blue Dog Caucus of the Democrats (but only gained a couple more House seats bc @MichaelSteele only left a few behind in his net
18. 63 seat route in the 2010 Midterms, when again, right after destroying the American middle class, as the American economy was still sliding down from their previous management, their superior electioneering led to their 2010 pounding of the Ds by turning centrist policy
19. Obamacare/ACA) into RADICAL policy.

Which brings me to my point. The GOP has been able to fall into total control of extremists (the metamorphosis completed when Trump became the nominee & then cemented the GOP --> MAGA version of the GOP with his "thread the needle" 2016
20. which was accomplished in no small part by the Rep Party's strategic efforts to get Dems to beat themselves (a strategy they are keen to deploy on Dems again for the 2022 Midterms) and PAY NO PENALTY WITH THE MIDDLE OF THE ELECTORATE. Yet, at the same time, the Democrats have
21. taken great pains to be as appealing to moderates/the middle as possible & have made, arguably no gains. They won the presidency, yes, but not just bc of "moderates." They won bc of massive participation surges of Dem coalition voters- in order of surge size-college ed whites
22. Latinos, and Black voters. And its easy to point at the surge size adv of college ed whites & say "see, its not worth investing in voters of color its too hard to turn them out" but what you're doing there (@davidshor) is voters of color are by & large (outside of GA & THANK
23. GOD, the state party chairs in MI, WI, PA, & AZ which themselves ran field on low propensity voters of color) ignored by campaigns- not invested in, or dramatically underinvested in, and then their low turnout is pointed at for justification of low investment. Meanwhile, the
24. 1 group, college ed voters most likely to surge on their own, get the most heavy investment. I mean ludicrous investment. So it should be no surprise that they bury everyone else (it wasn't to me- I predicted it, as well as yuge GOP turnout). Again, to win, you have to match
25. the GOP's ballot %. You can win the "ideas" war, but if the GOP outvotes you, you're losing the race. THIS is one reason why they pay no price for their extremism.

The other is that Dems have never bothered to tie the GOP to their extremism.

Again, we'll be changing that.
26. I want to add- if you enjoy these threads, soon they'll be moving to The Cycle, which will be hosted on @SubstackInc. After a few years of doing everything for free (I could afford to, I had W-2 jobs to support my family!) I am now transitioning to trying my hand at
27. media/writing/podcasting/lectures/etc as a career (as well as Super Pac work) in a weird fusion that I believe no one has ever really done at the same time before. I'm excited about it, bc my vision is that my work the Super Pac (I can't wait to reveal the name- its so hard
28. to keep it a secret from y'all!) will inform my writing/reporting/podcast over on The Cycle, and that I can use The Cycle to bring YOU into the Super Pac, and esp into the creative process of the ad creation room and stuff like that. Why? BC that's what I would want if I was
29. you and not me. When I was a prof- I always tried to make my classes my dream class. Something that would have knocked my socks off when I was an undergrad. I will bring the same mentality to The Cycle. Given this is something I am hoping you will be monetarily invested in
30. I very much want it to deliver for you and give you "value added." So, my goal will be to create a substack that gives as much as it takes and makes you feel like you are learning. Believe it or not, I'm actually very risk adverse. I rem how surprised @OldBullTV was to find
31. that out when he 1st reached out about doing a show. Yes, the lady who twice now has proclaimed w no equivocation that Ds would win the House & then then the presidency months ahead of both contests HATES taking risks. And yet here I am, now shoulders deep into launching not
32. one, but TWO W-9 style gigs that will compromise the whole of her financial future: its terrifying! I know I'm the one that's supposed to be uber confident & bad ass-so I'll def not going to admit that I'm terrified. Like getting a root canal- I just want to get it over with!

More from Rachel "The Doc" Bitecofer 📈🔭🍌

Rachel "The Doc" Bitecofer \U0001f4c8\U0001f52d\U0001f34c
Rachel "The Doc" Bitec...
@RachelBitecofer
1. "They're leaving! They're leaving!"" yell seditionist as they watch House members fleeing the floor through the glass doors the only thing (+ some under-armed officers + office furniture" that protected our elected REPs (same ballot as Trump, each & everyone

@McConnellPress

2. of them felt so inclined towards martyrdom and/or possessed the weapons (Jesus, what if they'd has a grenade & guess what, in America, yes, you can come up w functional equivalents of that bc barring people from them is a betrayal of freedom so great we must simply acquiesce

3. their eventual death tolls. One functional "freedom grenade" down that hallway, tossed w ease through a hole in the glass door, could have easily hit anyone fleeing.Unless it was Mo Brooks, MTG, or one of their well-known crazy boosters, here's a thing @LeaderMcConnell ought

4. to reflect upon as he makes his CRITCAL pivot decision, which he could rally 17 people & start a fight for control of the party that rest of the country will help him with,EVEN AFTER ALL THE SHIT HE'S DONE TO PEOPLE, YES, THE REST OF THE COUNTRY WOULD HELP HIM IF HE WAS TO

5. RALLY 17 SENATORS FOR IMPEACHMENT, he'd find his whole 🌎awakened. And Mitch, as far as I understand it, you could do it anonymously!! How much would THAT fuck w them?? How great would it be, for the 1st time in 5 yrs, to be the one w power- you LOVE power! Think of the FUN!
POLITICS
Rachel "The Doc" Bitecofer \U0001f4c8\U0001f52d\U0001f34c
Rachel "The Doc" Bitec...
@RachelBitecofer
1. Ok, I'm liking @RepSeanMaloney

"I sure as hell didn't win 5 Xs as a gay guy in a Trump district"

Much more imp he just correctly pointed out that even liberal MSNBC gives the GOP a major assist by constantly talking about Defund the Police, socialism, & intraparty fighting

2. and @JoeNBC is right, in my "modernized moderates" plan, you have to have these candidates go on offense. Its CRAZY that @SpanbergerVA07 is defending her record as a moderate when she's running against an ideologue in Nick Freitas.

If you ask the wrong questions & ask them

3. the wrong way, the evidence & data will screw you. Such as it did in 2020 because there is no reality in which Dem congressional/senate candidates were well-served by pulling out all their registration and in-person voter contact while the GOP was doing it. It was a bold

4. decision that someone, looking at the weak or inconsistent findings of research on effects of GOTV and esp the diff between in-person and "remote" forms and decided "you know, there is likely no diff from in-person and remote & in fact, remote you can contact WAY more people."

5. And the fact is, maybe this is right. Maybe the Ds total bomb on the congressional map has nothing to do with the decision to suspend the field programs of the House & Senate campaigns. Maybe. I'll be interested in the analysis when the voter file is updated I'll be looking at
TRUMP
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Rachel "The Doc" Bitecofer \U0001f4c8\U0001f52d\U0001f34c
Rachel "The Doc" Bitec...
@RachelBitecofer
1. SO MUCH more than that. What Barr & the GOP pulled off w the release of the Mueller Report was demonstrated mastery of the American media & the news cycle.

They manipulated both brilliantly.

The reason reporters are conditioned to report a stalled bill as "Congress failing


2. to pass a covid relief bill"- the norm of objectivity- has allowed the RNC/GOP/Trump to develop a system to manipulate the media into doing their dirty work. But never have we seen it orchestrated so deliberately & cleanly as it was to neutralize the Mueller Report. By his

3. "Letter to Congress" where he intentional mispresented the findings of the report on 2 crucial areas- the investigation's conclusions regarding the activities of the Trump campaign and Russia and whether or not the President's actions to damage/disrupt the investigation

4. constitutes obstruction of justice, Barr & the GOP team understood that if the report was released, the media would likely get out on its own this meaning: Trump campaign's contacts with Russia did not rise to criminal charges and that Trump can not be charges w obstruction

5. while being president. BUT, by sending out this letter that interprets the report for the media in advance (well in advance!) of the actual report- Barr can instead tell the media a different narrative, far more favorable to Trump. These, of course, go on to become the
MEDIA
Rachel "The Doc" Bitecofer \U0001f4c8\U0001f52d\U0001f34c
Rachel "The Doc" Bitec...
@RachelBitecofer
1. Been excited about @JoeNBC's sustained convo today about @KBAndersen's new book Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America which explains how the Republican Party radicalized OVER ECONOMICS over the past 30 years. It was launched w the radical tax cuts in Reagan's presidency, but

2. as the GOP evolved through the 90s & 2000s they became dogmatic about their economic philosophy- until it became a radical litmus test/position the party followed even when conditions screamed for different policy. It was a MIRACLE the party acted to stabilize the economy at

3. at the end of 2008 when it was crashing down around us (though they just barely did & some didn't and that's bc it was before the Great Purges of 2010,2012, & 2014). America doesn't know the hit job the GOP did on the American economy as they dogmatically pursued tax cuts to

4. the exclusion of everything else while denying any policy that could grow wages or improve the economic lives of the bottom 80% aside from the 2 or 3 times Ds managed to squeeze through policy while in charge (minimum wage increase in 2007-which was the 1st time in a decade

5. and now, of course, its been another decade. It's actually a miracle wages (all wages bc when the min wage is artificially low it affects all the wages above it, that's how you end up w $10 per hr EMTs & teachers) aren't even more out of wack w inflation. As @JoeNBC points out
ECONOMY
Rachel "The Doc" Bitecofer \U0001f4c8\U0001f52d\U0001f34c
Rachel "The Doc" Bitec...
@RachelBitecofer
1. The hot take that "D's need to learn to talk to the other side of the electorate" is absolutely the WRONG take.

I mean my god. Biden, Lincoln, the outside groups: they threw the best persuasion messaging in the history of persuasion campaigns at them.

What Ds need to do is
POLITICS

More from For later read

Rob Henderson
Rob Henderson
@robkhenderson
The common understanding of propaganda is that it is intended to brainwash the masses. Supposedly, people get exposed to the same message repeatedly and over time come to believe in whatever nonsense authoritarians want them to believe /1

And yet authoritarians often broadcast silly, unpersuasive propaganda.

Political scientist Haifeng Huang writes that the purpose of propaganda is not to brainwash people, but to instill fear in them /2


When people are bombarded with propaganda everywhere they look, they are reminded of the strength of the regime.

The vast amount of resources authoritarians spend to display their message in every corner of the public square is a costly demonstration of their power /3

In fact, the overt silliness of authoritarian propaganda is part of the point. Propaganda is designed to be silly so that people can instantly recognize it when they see it


Propaganda is intended to instill fear in people, not brainwash them.

The message is: You might not believe in pro-regime values or attitudes. But we will make sure you are too frightened to do anything about it.
FOR LATER READ , ALL
\U0001f1fa\U0001f1f8 Jules \U0001f1fa\U0001f1f8
🇺🇸 Jules 🇺🇸...
@mayweliveasONE
2021 Predictions‼️

Made by James Howard Kunstler

👇🏻👀

Kunstler is said to be one of the best thinkers and authors of our modern era. He’s well known as an expert in energy economics, among other topics.

He is NOT a fan of Trump which makes his predictions even more interesting.

1) The election is re-adjudicated, fraud subtracted from the tally, and President Trump is declared the winner.

2) The mail-in vote for the Georgia Senate seat runoff is disqualified as systematic fraud is revealed. Stacy Abrams is indicted for organizing the fraud.

3) A number of political celebrities, DC swamp rats, K-Street hustlers, media figures, and tech company executives are arrested and charged with serious crimes around election fraud.

4) The CIA is purged and reduced to a strictly analytical role for advising the executive.
FOR LATER READ
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John Hayward
John Hayward
@Doc_0
Time once again to emphasize the differences between totalitarianism, authoritarianism, and fascism. They're often used as synonyms but they are different, although they do tend to lead to each other. Order one, and the other two are usually delivered soon enough.

Totalitarianism is best understood as the politicization of everything. Every facet of life is infused with political meaning... and subjected to political control. There is little room for privacy or individualism. Every word and deed is seen as a political action.

Totalitarianism does *not* require authoritarian government, although it usually leads to such. You can be totalitarian without having any real government power at all, enforcing your political will through mob actions and corporate power. Examples from recent history abound.

Totalitarianism is the easiest of the three deadly "isms" to slide into, because it can easily be disguised with claims of its good intentions. Totalitarians usually claim to be motivated by the Greater Good. They claim to represent the interests of sympathetic victims.

Totalitarians claim that society is unjust and must be corrected by force. Before they gain the power to become authoritarians, they often assert the right to use force outside of the law because the government is corrupt or serves the interests of their ideological enemies.
FOR LATER READ
The Reckoning \U0001f4a5
The Reckoning 💥...
@sethjlevy
1/ The reality is that when Boehner and McConnell joined the Democrats in 2010, to thwart the impact of the tea party, they broke trust with the base.
FOR LATER READ
David Roberts
David Roberts
@drvolts
It's a slow, snowy afternoon. How about a 🧵 on "rationalists" & "rationalism"? I want to talk about what real rationalism might look like & what people devoted to rationalism might actually behave like--and how that differs from what you often see from self-styled rationalists.

Caveat up front: this is not about Slate Star Codex, which I haven't read regularly enough to have an opinion on, or about the recent controversy between SSC & the NYT. I'm more interested in the *idea* of rationalism (vs. the practice).

The core premise of rationalism, as I understand it, is simply that humans' cognitive machinery was not designed by evolution to find truth, but rather to advance the interests & welfare of the collective -- a Venn overlap, but not the same thing. Therefore ...

... reasoning well, both individually & as groups, requires special effort. It requires consciously trying to set aside the parochialism, biases, & other distortions that typically characterize our thinking -- resisting, to some extent, the dynamics of group membership/welfare.

That's all fine. I agree entirely that we should make special effort to reason well & to guard against the typical failures of reasoning to which we humans are prone. I believe it's the best (maybe only) way forward as a species. So far so good.
FOR LATER READ

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Anshul Pandey
Anshul Pandey
@Anshulspiritual
THE NOTICEABLE SIGNS OBSERVED ON IMPENDING DEATH(मृत्यु के संकेत या चिन्ह)

As per Skanda Puran, Kartikeya had narrated to Muni Agastya about the signs of the coming death. This is as per this ancient scripture.


If one experiences the air coming out of right nostril continuously then it is observed that the person dies within three years. If the breathing is continuous towards upper side from both the nostrils, then the person can die within two three days.

If the breathing is through the mouth instead of the nostrils then the person may live only for two days. The person should take into coignance these signs of the occurance of any sudden death.

As per astrology when the Surya is in the 7th house and Chandrama is in its own house and the breathing is only through the right nostril then the danger exists. If you see a yellow black coloured figure who becomes invisible immediately then the life span is limited to 2 years.

If any person sneezes, passes urine, stool and semen all together he has only a year more to live. If a person sees blue coloured snakes flying in the sky then he has only six more months to live. If a person sees any thing opposite to its real self like colours
RELIGION
Novid Houellebecq (That's Hollaback)
Novid Houellebecq (Tha...
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Ok, here is a thread for you.
What happens when you have:
Netflix
Apple
Amazon
WarnerMedia +
Disney+
SonyCrackle (Reboot)
Verizon All Access (after they buy CBS/Viacom)
UniversalSkyMedia
By 2021
Answer? Internet Slows To A Craw and Dies.
Why?
Bandwidth.

Netflix's gets 35% of all internet traffic.
Now we all know Apple Coming to Netflix Corner.
We know that WarnerMedia Planning One
We Know about Disney+
Now how will the net handle 8 Streaming Platforms all at once?
Answer - IT CANT.

But Novid, the speed, the 4K the all everything?
NOOOOO BUDDY.
Even if you could do it and even if AWS ran six million clouds, The Net Will still slow to a crawl. 35%, goes to nearly 90% if any of the 8 or all of the 8 eat at netflix's numbers.

Oh, they wouldn't be running at once.
FOOL. You forget how bad things were when game of thrones season premieres came around. HBO SERVERS FALL DOWN GO BOOM!

Now see if a season like 2021 come around and they air shows on a same day. It gets crazy. AT&T and others gonna realize they cant build out forever. Something will give and it might be your entertainment consumption big time.
TECH
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Simon Wardley #EEA
Simon Wardley #EEA
@swardley
X : Our executive team is concerned that we need to up our game in order to out innovate Amazon.
Me : Do you map?
X : Yes
Me : Like this?
X : No. What's that?
Me : A map of a tea shop.


X : Why is that a map?
Me : Long story, all to do with how space has meaning. To keep it short, maps help people to focus on user needs, the components involved, to communicate missing components and scenario play ideas like staff becoming robots.


Me : They’re also good for measuring and managing capital flow, making investment decisions, removing bias and getting rid of duplication.
X : I don’t see how that helps with innovation?


Me : Well, innovation is a tricky word because we use it to describe many things. If you’re talking about differentiation with the adjacent unexplored then you’re experimenting in the “uncharted” space e.g. immortality with magic provided by the special custom built kettle.


X : That sounds like nonsense.
Me : A lot of what people think will be the next great innovation is nonsense. Actually, most of it is. That’s the nature of the uncharted space, it’s experimental, high risk and generally results in failure.
X : We need more reliable innovation.
TECH
Dr. Thomas Binder, MD
Dr. Thomas Binder, MD
@Thomas_Binder
1/12

RT-PCR corona (test) scam

Symptomatic people are tested for one and only one respiratory virus. This means that other acute respiratory infections are reclassified as


2/12

It is tested exquisitely with a hypersensitive non-specific RT-PCR test / Ct >35 (>30 is nonsense, >35 is madness), without considering Ct and clinical context. This means that more acute respiratory infections are reclassified as


3/12

The Drosten RT-PCR test is fabricated in a way that each country and laboratory perform it differently at too high Ct and that the high rate of false positives increases massively due to cross-reaction with other (corona) viruses in the "flu


4/12

Even asymptomatic, previously called healthy, people are tested (en masse) in this way, although there is no epidemiologically relevant asymptomatic transmission. This means that even healthy people are declared as COVID


5/12

Deaths within 28 days after a positive RT-PCR test from whatever cause are designated as deaths WITH COVID. This means that other causes of death are reclassified as
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Rudy Havenstein, listening to Nas all day.
Rudy Havenstein, liste...
@RudyHavenstein
I hate when I learn something new (to me) & stunning about the Jeff Epstein network (h/t MoodyKnowsNada.)

Where to begin?

So our new Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's stepfather, Samuel Pisar, was "longtime lawyer and confidant of...Robert Maxwell," Ghislaine Maxwell's Dad.


"Pisar was one of the last people to speak to Maxwell, by phone, probably an hour before the chairman of Mirror Group Newspapers fell off his luxury yacht the Lady Ghislaine on 5 November, 1991." https://t.co/DAEgchNyTP


OK, so that's just a coincidence. Moving on, Anthony Blinken "attended the prestigious Dalton School in New York City"...wait, what? https://t.co/DnE6AvHmJg

Dalton School...Dalton School...rings a

Oh that's right.

The dad of the U.S. Attorney General under both George W. Bush & Donald Trump, William Barr, was headmaster of the Dalton School.

Donald Barr was also quite a


I'm not going to even mention that Blinken's stepdad Sam Pisar's name was in Epstein's "black book."

Lots of names in that book. I mean, for example, Cuomo, Trump, Clinton, Prince Andrew, Bill Cosby, Woody Allen - all in that book, and their reputations are spotless.
EPSTEIN NETWORK