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Thread: Conservative Policy and the Trump Presidency

On the last full day of the Trump administration, I think it's useful to examine why he accomplished so little legislatively. TLDR version: American conservatism has almost no policy program.

 The most important thing to know about conservative politicking is that people do not vote FOR Republicans, they vote AGAINST Democrats.

The GOP is dominated by a minority of far-right activists and wealthy donors who have views that their own voters don't support.
American conservatism is premised on the twin ideas that the New Deal & Great Society were immoral and that God himself created America and that we should honor this creation by establishing full Christian supremacism in which LGBT people, atheists, and Muslims have fewer rights.
Because God created America, this means that conservatives believe in essentially no domestic policy of any kind. If it wasn't literally in the Constitution, then the feds shouldn't be doing it is their opinion.

This is not, however, how things used to be in the GOP.
For much of its history, American conservatism was a sort of intellectual parasite on the Republican party which was run by a mix of moderates and liberals. They actually had domestic policies. Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon had many policies that actually helped America.
Over time, however, conservative activists, whose domestic policy was to have no policies began to displace and "cancel" the moderates in Congress and elsewhere. This process is detailed by @RuleandRuin https://t.co/kOxRHics63
Once the Cold War ended, the conservative parasite began consuming the brain of its Republican Party host. The process accelerated with the emergence of the Tea Party and the vice presidential nomination of Sarah Palin.
Donald Trump's victory marked the definitive death of Republican intellectualism. Conservative intellectual parasitism had fully consumed it.

Next, with Trump's encouragement, it began trying to consume the brains of marginally attached Republicans and other low-info citizens.
I talked about right-wing epistemology and intellectual history in detail with @willwilkinson on his latest podcast episode which you can listen to here: https://t.co/SrUYkG65eY
When Trump came into office, because the American right had become so completely intellectually vacant, he actually could not fill many top-level executive positions. There simply were not enough people who had domestic policy experience or even ideas about policy.
Let me modulate that a bit to say that there actually are conservative policy thinkers but because they focus on achieving conservative values rather than adhering to the right's minimalistic view of government, they had no influence or cachet in the Trump WH.
Despite having total control of the lawmaking branches of government, Trump and his conservative allies were not able to pass any major domestic policy laws except for the one thing on which they all agreed: giving tax breaks to wealthy people.
So while Trump/the right have no affirmative agenda, their negative agenda has been an astounding success: coarsening politics, dismantling regulations on corporations, reducing oversight of law enforcement, and appointing judges who will rule against regulations and programs.
And of course, the biggest "achievement" of Trump has been to poison the minds of millions of Americans into believing pathetic lies about fraudulent elections, imaginary pedophiles, and a nefarious "Deep State" that somehow hates Republicans but never can actually stop them.
The Big Lie campaign against Biden's legitimate victory will not die easily. And it will continue to radicalize conservatives long after Trump is evicted.

This is why it's so extremely critical that media, businesses, and educators publicly reject these toxic lies.
There is still hope for many people who have only recently been bitten by right-wing intellectual parasitism. Here's my working list of some steps that can be taken to make our country healthier: https://t.co/5RAUT1mywE
Thanks for reading down to the end. If you liked it, please share the first post. I hope you'll follow me as well if you are not already. Cheers!
PS: There is a very small subset of ultra-ideologues on the right who actually loved Trump's incompetence such as Grover Norquist

To them, a dolt who ruins things is their fantasy because he makes it easier for the public to hate government like they do. https://t.co/hhVg8KjExc
PPS: The policy & politicking nihilism of the U.S. right has effectively made it so that the GOP became motivated solely by will to power. But now that it has no power, all that's left is a violent thanatos instinct.

Thread for those interested: https://t.co/wztIp5PZUz

More from Matthew Sheffield

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Thread: People love to rag on Nate Silver for his arrogance & they should, but he's merely an example of a larger issue that the web has made it easy to draw inferences from data without knowing the context in which it lives. 1/x

Alexander Pope's warning that "a little learning is a dangerous thing" has never been more true than an age in which we can obtain information about anything without being able to understand it.

Having data doesn't mean you can use it.

Western society has a very significant problem that expertise in one area is often conflated with expertise in others.

Men are the main culprit. We have been socialized to think we know more than we do. There are many studies showing this. Here's one:

Not only do men think we're smarter than we are, we also overestimate our own attractiveness:

Male overconfidence has lots of negative implications for society. The biggest is that too many men in media have amassed followings by speaking confidently about subjects they don't understand.

Nate Silver finds Donald Trump appalling, but his shtick isn't all that different.
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For the past 6 years, I & a few other journalists have been trying to get the mainstream press and political elites realize the major danger posed by the radical right. Unfortunately, moderate and liberal elites deluded themselves into thinking that conservatism wasn't a cult.

There is no secretly powerful "Republican establishment" that will fix things. There are thugs, deluded people, and there are quislings. There is no one else in the GOP. Instead of focusing on the radical right's danger, editors wanted stories about Trump tweets.

Instead of calling out the dangerous radicalism of the GOP, television debate shows and opinion pages invited the enablers of fascism to speak and write about how we all needed to give powerful insane people the benefit of the doubt.

Unlike Trump, who walled off the White House months ago into a fortress, Nancy Pelosi did not take the terrorist threat seriously enough to demand better security. She has the budget and the authority and did nothing similar. Now, fascists are on the floor of Congress.

Of course, it is Trump who bears the responsibility for this but the Capitol Police have totally disgraced themselves by not fortifying the building the way that the Secret Service did to the WH.

This is the view of numerous congressional staffers of both parties.
JOURNALISM
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Matthew Sheffield
Matthew Sheffield
@mattsheffield
Conservatives love to complain that everyone is against them: professors, journalists, intelligence officers, social media companies, and so on.

I used to as well until I considered that maybe having problems with everyone else isn't their fault, it's yours.

I was reminded of that realization when I read this important NYT article about how Facebook keeps weakening news source quality controls because conservative content gets disproportionately effected by them.

Unfortunately, this great piece of reporting by @MikeIsaac, @sheeraf, & @kevinroose didn't mention the greatest challenge in AI news signal processing: Humans can barely separate conservative & far-right content. Which means computers can't either.

This techno-semiotic conundrum originates from the fact that in the US, because there is no moderate conservative tradition, the gravitational center of the right is far removed from the political center.

More plainly, this means that almost all the energy and organizing on the right exists on the far right.

This is not the case on the US left where there is a strong moderate tradition capable of organization and force projection. Ask Bernie Sanders if you disbelieve.
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Matthew Sheffield
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@mattsheffield
Thread: Meaning and loss in American conservatism

I've written a lot about how Christian supremacism (expressed and implicit) is the underlying objective of most Trump supporters but the psychology of American conservatism is very important in its descent into madness.

We're seeing it manifested heavily in the present moment as Trump and his followers are forced to contemplate the loss of the presidency but it's important to realize that losing is the psychic core of the U.S. right.

Trump's repugnant demeanor and prior history of political moderation is what made him so reviled by conservative activists and donors in 2015 but his angry victim complex so deeply resonated with the GOP base that this is why he won the primary.

American conservatism has been obsessed with death and loss since it emerged in the 1940s. The utter humiliation of Herbert Hoover and the rapid growth of federal spending and regulation under FDR was an existential moment for the corporate barons who started the U.S. right.

The rise of explicitly atheist Marxist-Leninism was also immensely triggering of long-time fundamentalist fantasies of persecution and death before the return of Christ. Most Christians don't see John's Apocalypse as a literal text but fundamentalists do.
GOVERNMENT
Matthew Sheffield
Matthew Sheffield
@mattsheffield
As a former conservative activist and journalist, it has been so frustrating to see my former compatriots spreading wild and unchecked claims about "voter fraud." @jacknicas of the NYT took a deep look at claims of "dead" people in Michigan voting. Link in next tweet.

While examining claims made by right-wing activists who are not credible individuals is a thankless task which elite media editors despise, this is vital and important work in this age of fake news. Here's the link:

As the co-creator of NewsBusters, the most prominent anti-media website, I was part of a decades-long tradition of complaining about media elites being "unfair" to conservative views. There is still much to that argument, but eventually I saw that I was missing context.

What I did not realize until I began expanding my work into creating actual media and reporting institutions such as the Washington Examiner (I was the founding online editor) was that U.S. conservatives do not understand the purpose of journalism.

This became evident to me as I saw that conservative-dominated media outlets were MUCH more biased than outlets run by liberals. The latter had flaws that arose from a lack of diversities (note plural) but they operated mostly in good faith. That's not how the former operated.
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Violent Trump Supporters and other Right Wing Violence.


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Bombshell My Friends💣

You probably will want to read this all.

Right now Trump is sitting on a stack of Trump cards that he's just waiting to lay down like a Royal Flush.

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President-Elect Catswhiskas
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@Catswhiskas2
Ok. I began this journey because of Pizz'gat3, deehate cabal, Trump etc. Now it has led to RH- bloodtypes, (of which I am one). This is another rabbit hole, and suddenly close to home. Joining the dots of info I have read so far, other RH- stories and my own history (pt1)

-putting aside all of the theories of Nephilim, reptilians, aliens, etc. I think I was an experiment as a child. I was adopted by a military person and had an extremely traumatic and abusive upbringing. Watching trans videos has made me remember how I was forced to dress (pt2)

in boy clothes as a child. My hair was always cut off short. My sister wore all of the pink clothes, long hair & ribbons. I had the blue, the dungarees, the shit hacked off hair cut, and was given marbles, train sets, and racing cars to play with. I was effectively a tomboy (pt3)

This remained with me through to this day. I am still largely interested in male activities. But I did get ridiculously into pink and all girly things, to the point of now being awake and realising it is childish and mkultra programming. I was sexually and physically abused (pt4)

I also wonder, as I have medical issues and was given meds my whole life and only ever visited military hospitals & medical healthcare in my childhood, what meds was I given? I do have an extremely strong physique for a female. It is often commented on how unnatural it is (pt 5)
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@HeathMayo
Trump’s belief that he will be reinstated, alongside Flynn’s hope for a coup underscores how patently absurd these 2024’ers sound when they say what we really need is some sterilized version of Trumpism, or Trumpism with a smile.

A smile won’t fix it. There’s no silver lining.

Trumpism threatens our constitutional system by its nature—the threat is what fuels it. There is no “middle way.” You are either with it or against it. It doesn’t offer ideas. It doesn’t want a debate. It doesn’t even want an election. It just wants power at any cost. Defeat it.
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(THREAD) Independent journalists have already created a comprehensive list of impeachment trial witnesses who can *confirm* Team Trump helped plan the insurrection. Those witnesses can now be called. This thread lists the proof. Please RETWEET this widely.

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The article is, at heart, deeply weird, even essentialist. Here, for example, is the claim that proposing climate engineering is a "man" thing. Also a "man" thing: attempting to get distance from a topic, approaching it in a disinterested fashion.


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LING PURANA: IMPORTANCE AND CHARACTERISTICS

Reading Ling Purana provides bhog and moksha to the reader and listeners. It is about Shiva's sermon to Brahma when Shiva entered the Agni Ling and preached about Dharma sidhhi through the stories of Agni Kalp.


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Then there is description of Yog and Kalp. Next is the evolution of Ling and its puja Vidhi. It consists of dialogue between Sanat Kumar and Shail etc. It also mentions the character of Dadhichi, the dharma representation of that yug, Bhuvan kosh description,

Chandravansh and Surya vansh. Next there is elaborate description of Shrishti, story of Tripur, Ling and Pashu Paash vimoksha, Vrats for Shiva, Discipline, Repentance, Arisht, description of Shri Shail. Next is the story of Andhakasur, Varah, Narsingh,

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Mr. Vijay Kedia built a net worth of over Rs. 800 crores.

But you probably never read past that headline.

So I binged hours of interviews to learn his investing principles and strategies.

Here are 20 lessons on investing from @VijayKedia1 Sir:

Collaborated with @AdityaTodmal


Before I start, a quick disclaimer, please don't ape his portfolio.

As the entry price, horizon and risk appetite would be far different than yours.

Rather lets draw inspiration and try to learn his stock picking skills.

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Arif Hasan\U0001f1ee\U0001f1f3
Arif Hasan🇮🇳...
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5 star RSI Strategy by @VishalMalkan

Unconventional approach of 60-40 RSI and range shift concept.

According to him,
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and whenever in a bullish trend,
it won’t be able to cross 40.

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When the
Monthly and Weekly RSI<40,
& when the RSI takes resistance at 60 in the daily chart,
it may bounce back and most probably it will not go above 60

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the prices may bounce back from there, & 1 can enter the stock 4 shorting

The stoploss can be placed at the high of that bearish candlestick, and the target can be the 40 RSI levels.

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Surendra Ananth @surendraananth, you violated my conditional consent. I assented to unprotected intimate relations with you on the STRICT condition that you tell me if you have relations with anyone else. You failed to do so, and I became ill as a direct consequence.

You refused to reveal your own STI results to me, but claimed to others they were negative and alleged I had multiple other partners, slut-shaming me. You gaslit me saying you had told me about your other partners.

You called up @justice_sisters and @SistersinIslam to tell them I was crazy, jilted. You rebuffed attempts to organise a community mediation so we could address matters. You said I was crazy for speaking to your boss and father in an attempt to keep other women safe.

You have a PATTERN OF BEHAVIOUR of misogyny, harassment and sheer disrespect for women. This was sent to a friend of mine who has never expressed interest in you and has a partner.


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