Twigs and branches

Another extra-judicial lynching by Glock 17 wielding MN police officer:
https://www.rawstory.com/minnesota-police-shoot-another-man/ (links to an NYT piece with video.)
A bit early, so there will likely be more detail later on, but it looks pretty f***ing egregious so far.

I have a fuzzy Eeyore and an air freshener hanging from the mirror of my Chrysler 300, but I’m an old white man so probably safe. /s

and as our Resident ”Russian”? (Petrovna) reminded US about something which bothers me now – for a long time
that:
@nastywoman,
”If you have ever bought something produced offshore, for a fraction of the price you would have to pay to a unionized local producer, then perhaps you’re right: not unionization but you, possessed by GREED, are a factor leading to offshoring”.

Why are some people believing that the victims of outsourcing – are the instigators of outsourcing?
And not only Anglo Economists – who think it’s consumers – who force producers to be Greedy Rapture Capitalists by not willing to pay the prize for something like ”unionisation”?

I mean there is this ”Schwäbisch Unternehmer” who NEVER thought about ”outsourcing” or firing his (unionised) workers just because some consumers thought the underwear and shirts he produced in Germany with the highest (unionized) – labour costs were too expensive?

And that’s why he always was so successful – as that’s why the people always bought his underwear and shirts and NOT some ”crap” produced by some company wich outsourced to ”Slave Labour”!

So why in the World – did especially the Anglo-World outsource in such a GREEDY and stupid matter – and even a ”Perhaps Russian” also believes in such… weird economical (Anglo) Rules?

Is there a ”good” answer for this question from our Resident Economists?

Just a brief comment on moderation:

The practice of automatically placing every comment into moderation doesn’t work for open threads. The main idea of the open thread is t0 allow conversations among commenters on any topic. This is virtually impossible with the 100% pre-moderation.

There’s also an issue of timeliness. I made a time-sensitive comment last night which, as of this writing, hasn’t appeared yet. Today, the police murder of Daunte Wright is a top national news story. It would serve little purpose to post a link to an early news story about it now.

I suggest post-moderation just for these open threads. Otherwise, they’re basically pointless.

Just my NSHO.

Some years ago, maybe around the time Henry Louis Gates was arrested trying to get into his own house, Crooked Timber had a guest post by someone connected with the police — a policeman who was studying for a PhD in some related field? — also a friend or acquaintance of one of the CT crew?

Can anyone who remembers that post (and there may have been more than one) point me to it?

I came up with a list of 11 reasons a person could be negatively affected by relative income effects to dispel the idea that they just represent “envy”. Can anyone think of any additional cases?

A) Alexandria is less happy due to relative income effects. Because she is poorer than most of her neighbours, the thinning of the bottom section of the market for many commodities has reduced the variety of goods available for her to purchase. A greater portion of products sold in her area (or perhaps even her country) is aimed at the top of the market. For example, she can’t find many restaurants or clothes shops in her area that cater to her price bracket. She is particularly worried about gentrification. If her neighborhood becomes further gentrified, she may be pushed out of her home of many years, unable to afford the rent.

B) Jason is unhappy because his low relative income means that he is regularly disrespected for the “shabby” standards of his clothes, house, absence of bed-frame, etc.

C) Ebony is upset by relative income effects because she believes that income is a form of social recognition. Her relatively low income means she is not being justly recognized by society. In particular, she works as a hospital cleaner and does a lot of unpaid reproductive labour at home as well. Ebony feels that the millions of people like her deserve more. What she perceives as unjust pay stings her sense of self-worth.

D) Xi is upset by the high relative income of others because he believes these incomes give the rich disproportionate power, undermining democratic decision-making. If this hunch is right, he may be impacted by decision-making which actually does favour the rich- even when it doesn’t show up in changes to absolute income.

E) Marco is upset by certain very high incomes because he feels they have not been justly earned. He feels that the real contribution of, say, advertising executives to society – which may even be negative at the margin- is not at all proportional to their large salaries.

F) Theodora feels that huge disparities in income, and a focus on the top end of the market, mean she doesn’t see enough depictions of people like her in the media.

G) Bob is concerned that the low relative income of his ethnic group contributes to stereotyping and prejudice against them.

H) Jessica is concerned about her low relative income because it means that she can only afford to put her children in a residualised school. Since schooling is more stratified by income in more unequal societies, and more prestigious tertiary education institutions tend to select students from more prestigious secondary schools, this will put her children at a disadvantage. Note that this is strictly about relative income- it’s about the quality of the schools relative to each other, not their absolute quality. (Morgan 2021- personal communication)

I) Jennifer is lonely because she can’t afford to participate in the social activities of their peer group. When they go out drinking, her low relative income means she can’t join them. (Dannaher 2021- personal communication)

J) Simae feels instinctively humiliated by seeing many people of a much higher status than her, through a kind of automatic evolutionary reflex, or perhaps a response developed in early childhood. Noble or not, she can’t control this reflex.

K) Lisa is concerned about her low relative income because she believes that her unique entrepreneurial genius in starting a jet ski dealership in Florida has not been recognized.

( Originally posted here: https://philosophybear.substack.com/p/what-are-relative-income-effects . Very happy to talk with anyone who has thoughts on the relationship between envy and relative income effects. )

Hidari @ 5

Sure.

The US spends far too much on its military, with huge amounts wasted on vanity projects, unnecessary excess, and ridiculous toys[1]. AFAIK, this has been the case for longer than I’ve been alive, and unfortunately I doubt it will change any time soon. While I’m not sure the “1.7% increase in military spending” is cause for the sort of hysterical histrionics you usually indulge yourself in, I would say that the US (much like many other countries, though to a vastly inflated degree) spends far too much (particularly given how much of this spending is pretty much unsupervised and unquestioned).

Indeed, many Democrat politicians have pointed this out and are arguing for cuts[2]; and while Biden should be commended for making moves towards ending some of the US’s military adventurism, should this budget pass he will also deserve criticism for this sort of bloat. While some argument could be made that this is a way to stimulate the economy that Republicans will find difficult to oppose (you know, like they have opposed raising minimum wage, abolishing “right to work laws”, stimulous checks for those in need, etc.), evidence suggests military spending is often the least efficient route to this (but then again, Biden may very well be pushing for money to spend in as many directions as possible, in order to protect against the Republican obstruction we are likely to see over the next 4 years).

Of course, it will be important to see how this shakes out in the specifics (for example, military spending can support other more important fields often otherwise neglected – even in my own field, my counterparts in US energy labs are often supported via DOD R&D). For example, if the money goes towards pork spending (to bribe future votes), improving R&D (in, for example, energy or monitoring climate change), or other such “military-but-not-really” spending, it may well be a positive move given the political realities of the US. Alternatively, if it goes towards more toys so that “top brass” can continue making “pew pew” laser noises, it will just be a continuation of the US’s disappointing record (worth criticising and opposing, but hardly something new).

Having said all that, I imagine there will be things to criticise during Biden’s presidency and I imagine there will be things to welcome. So long as there is more to welcome than criticise, he will have done vastly better than most of the presidents of the last 30+ years.

[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-time-to-rein-in-inflated-military-budgets/
[2] https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/biden-military-budget/

That’s interesting. Sort of like referring to the House of Commons as the House of Representatives. I wasn’t aware that this was a common practice.

My impression of how common it is may be exaggerated, but I’m reasonably confident that it is at least more common than it used to be.

A related example which has (at least, this is my impression) been common for much longer is the use of the expression ‘Prime Minister’. For example, the Spanish-language title of the position currently held by Pedro Sánchez is Presidente del Gobierno, so it’s natural for Spanish people to refer to him in Spanish as Presidente and in English as ‘President’; but in English-language sources the position is routinely referred to as ‘Prime Minister’ and not as ‘President of the Government’. The Swedish-language title of the position currently held by Stefan Löfven isStatsminister, but in English-language sources the position is routinely referred to as ‘Prime Minister’ and not as ‘Minister of State’. English-language sources routinely refer to the position currently held by Benjamin Netanyahu as ‘Prime Minister’ and not as ‘Head of Government’, and so on. The only exception I can think of is that it is not routine in English to substitute ‘Prime Minister’ for ‘Chancellor’ (representing the German-language Kanzler) when referring to the positions currently held by Angela Merkel and Sebastian Kurz.

Per my question above about an old post on policing — my first attempts to find it via Google failed. But since it took almost two days for my comment to get through moderation, and who knows when the replies (if any) will get posted, I tried again.

I found references to the post in two places:

https://blogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/blog/2009/07/27/arresting-power/

http://aphilosopher.drmcl.com/2009/07/23/obama-the-professors-arrest/

They both link here:

https://crookedtimber.org/2009/07/23/police-discretion-a-different-perspective/

But that link gives me a 404 error, even though an earlier, at least loosely related post comes through just fine:

https://crookedtimber.org/2009/07/20/skip-gates-arrested/

Google gives me a lot of results about Brandon del Pozo, the police officer who wrote, or was prominently featured in, the missing 7/23/2009 piece. Since I remember his thoughts on the power and place of the police in our society to be extremely if subtly chilling, and implacably unbending, I’ll be curious to see what he’s been up to since then. (A checkered career, it looks like, just from skimming Google headlines.)

Funny that the post has disappeared.

and @
”Perhaps, now that Biden has asked for (and will get) the highest military budget for any country or state or organisation in human history, we could have a discussion about this”?

agreed –
if we first discuss that Biden has asked for (and got) the highest amount of dough for families with children and reducing poverty in my homeland –
AND
that he has asked for (and hopefully will get) the highest infrastructure budget for any country or state or organisation in human history?

How about that?
(as Biden – at the same – really wants to end the war in Afghanistan)

JanieM @ 16

I´m not sure if this will be helpful, but perhaps use of the “wayback machine” (internet archiving) might support your endeavors? There I found several examples of the post I believe you are referring to, e.g.:

https://web.archive.org/web/20100206103113/https://crookedtimber.org/2009/07/23/police-discretion-a-different-perspective/

I hope this is of use to you – nG

@14 I suppose the difficulty for Anglos is that Spain is a monarchy and thus not supposed to have a president. The commonly used German equivalent for the Spanish head of government is Ministerpräsident, which is closer to the original but not an exact translation either. It is however a commonly used title in German, and it sems to convey the correct meaning, but doesn’t have a good English translation. Wikipedia has an entry for it (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minister-president) but that isn’t commonly used in English language news; BBC just uses “premier”.

notGoodenough @20 — Thanks! I never thought of the Wayback Machine, but that is indeed the post I remembered.

@21 “has the advantage of an overwhelmingly favourable press corps (which, to put it mildly, Trump did not have)”

Oh sure, our resident Trumpontrarian. Trump himself boasted that the press coverage of every fart of his was worth billions in campaign spending. And a picture says more than a thousand words: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/9/13570724/media-obsession-emails

Shall we have a philosophical debate of what it means to have a “favourable press”?
For example: Is it “favourable press” or just fact-based news reporting when Biden’s popular and verifiable accomplishments get reported as accomplishments?
Or: Is it favourable or unfavourable when a politician who lies on average ten times a day gets tons of press coverage for every single one of his lies, some of it – but only some of it – pointing out accurately that they are lies? Professional con-men like Trump know the answer to these questions and it’s not what naive media bashers think it is.

I like that this new administration keeps in place the tariffs introduced by the previous administration. Except for ‘pausing’ tariffs on imports from the EU.

I don’t like the return of imperialist rhetoric (the Anchorage talks) and escalation of imperialist bullying (vis-a-vis Russia-Ukraine relations, recently). The tiresome white-man’s-burden lecturing about ‘advancing democracy and human rights’. There’s going to be a whole lot of it now, I guess. Although, to be fair, some of it started during the last days of the previous administration.
Oh, and the escalation in Syria, of course.

Fascinating fact: ‘In a February poll by Gallup a record 62 percent agreed that “the (established) parties do such a poor job representing the American people that a third party is needed.”

Interesting then that the HR1 bill, currently being mindlessly cheered on by the corporate media, will make it ‘ harder for third-party presidential candidates to get federal financing, because it increases the amount of support candidates have to demonstrate to qualify. ‘ (although to be fair, it will make third party contests easier for other elections).

Given this context, the narrative that was spun and created by the corporate media (i.e. it’s Weimar in 1932, Trump is Hitler, Biden is FDR)* which had the desired effect of increasing voting for the establishment parties and decreasing them for the non-establishment parties, makes perfect sense.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/03/16/hr1-public-funding-third-parties/

*Fascinating fact: I was watching old editions of Firing Line with William F. Buckley on Youtube, which, despite his ghastly politics, is a concrete indicator of how much the media and intellectual life in general has degenerated since the ’60s. Anyways, there was a ‘student revolutionary’ on, and almost the first words that came out of his mouth were that the US in 1968 was exactly like Weimar Germany in 1932, and Buckley nodded sagely: he obviously didn’t think this was an outrageous thing to say. So it’s been Weimar in 1932 (in the US) for a while. I’m willing to bet that in 50 years time, assuming the Republicrats still control the US and the US Empire still straddles the globe, the chief topic of intellectual discussion will still be how close we are to ‘dictatorship’ and it will still be Weimar in 1932. In the United States, it seems, it will always be Weimar in 1932, even unto the end of the world.

I suppose the difficulty for Anglos is that Spain is a monarchy and thus not supposed to have a president. The commonly used German equivalent for the Spanish head of government is Ministerpräsident, which is closer to the original but not an exact translation either. It is however a commonly used title in German, and it sems to convey the correct meaning, but doesn’t have a good English translation. Wikipedia has an entry for it (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minister-president) but that isn’t commonly used in English language news; BBC just uses “premier”.

Here’s a Dutch-language source using, interchangeably, both premier and (the official) minister-president:
https://www.businessinsider.nl/sigrid-kaag-premier-nederland/

In English, ‘Minister-President’ seems odd, or perhaps it would be better to describe it as exotic, and so does ‘President of the Government’. But there’s nothing exotic in English about Chancellor (which is actually used for German-language Kanzler) or Premier, or Head of Government, which would be a more direct translation (than Prime Minister) of titles used in a number of countries (of which Israel, as I mentioned, is one example).

Circling back to the Dutch Tweede Kamer, even if referring to it in English as the Second Chamber would seem exotic, calling it the lower house (of Parliament) would be more neutral and less reflective of an apparent Americanising influence than calling it the House of Representatives; or the name could simply be left untranslated in Dutch, in the way that (at least sometimes) English-language sources refer to Germany’s Bundestag, or Israel’s Knesset, or Iceland’s Althing. I feel as if both of these were more common in the past: if I’m right, what’s changed?

@nastywoman
“Is there a ”good” answer for this question from our Resident Economists?”

I recall one answer; it goes like this: ‘offshoring is a good thing, leading to greater global equality and global justice’.

What say you?

J-D 31: I’m curious why you think “lower house” is a more neutral term. The distinction of lower and upper house historically reflects a system with one chamber for commoners and one for aristocrats. To my knowledge, it only still exists in the UK. Although the first chamber of the Dutch General States (Eerste Kamer der Staten-Generaal) initially was composed of aristocrats appointed by the king, it was democratized a long time ago and apparently is today also referred to as Senate.

Hidari @ 29

Yet another new topic – how fun!

So, yes – it is fascinating that “In a February poll by Gallup a record 62 percent agreed that “the (established) parties do such a poor job representing the American people that a third party is needed.”

Even more fascinating is when you look further into the Gallup poll details (note: usual caveat re polls and the usefulness thereof). For example, the choice of February (actually Jan21-Feb2) is a rather interesting one, for if you look at the data (R, republican; I, independent; D, democrat [1]):

Date : R/I/D
5-19 Nov 20 : 30/38/31
1-17 Dec 20 : 25/41/31 (Note: the increase in I correlates with a decrease in R)
4-15 Jan 21 : 24/45/30
21 Jan – 2 Feb 21 : 25/50/25 (this is the data @29 refers to)
3-18 Feb 21 : 26/41/32
1-15 March 21 : 25/41/32

Likely the astute commentators of CT will notice that while D remains relatively stable at ca. 30-32%, R decreased from 30 to 25 (with a correlated increase in I) in December – with one exception which is a brief spike (coincidentally this is the data the poll @29 refers to). Even more interestingly, R and I are the most likely to favour a 3rd party [2] at 63 and 70%; by contrast D favour a 3rd party 46% (an actual downturn since September). So, to summarise, the people most favouring a 3rd party are R and I (with I potentially having increased its share of R), while D seem relatively happy (and indeed, happier than before Biden was elected).

Indeed, it is worth noting that support for a 3rd party has remained fairly stable (57-62%) since October 2013 (60%), with the previous highest point (61%) being in 2017 (one year after Trump´s presidency). The previous lowest point was (as far as I can tell) in Autumn 2012 (46%) prior to which it had been at 58%. In short, support for a 3rd party is hardly exceptionally high compared to the usual baseline (I would recommend looking that the graph [1,2] to see this more clearly), and I would certainly wait for the next result before drawing any conclusions.

Even more interestingly, I couldn´t help but notice how this relates to the comment [3]:

[“the corporate media narrative”]“which had the desired effect of increasing voting for the establishment parties and decreasing them for the non-establishment parties, makes perfect sense.”

As previously noted, if anything “the narrative” appear to have had little-to-no effect on D support (which admittedly fluctuates, but has been around 30% since 2010), arguably little on R/I (which again fluctuate, but should be noted that 25/41 and 30/38 are hardly exceptional outliers – R+I changes like these here are not exactly uncommon), and arguably little on that for a 3rd party (again, 62% is the highest, but it has also been 61% in 2017 and 60% in 2013 and 2015 – so changes leading to similar levels of support are not exactly strongly correlating with Trump´s presidency or any commentary thereof).

The idea that “the narrative” has had any significant effect on political opinions at all seems, therefore, somewhat at odds with the data. Of course, this is just “level of support” measure by a poll – but if there is evidence that there has been any significant change in “establishment votes” resulting from a “media narrative” I´ve yet to see it [4].

Amusingly, as a side note, from this poll an examination of independent voters who lean D reveal more actually want the party to move more moderate (42%) than liberal (35%), and when looking at those who lean R the majority want the party to move more conservative (36%) than moderate (30%).

In short, it seems that contra to @29 [5], far from the “corporate media” squashing a populist uprising it would instead seem that the media coverage of Trump has had little influence on variations in % of popular support. Even worse for the argument, it seems the high degree of support for a 3rd party is hardly unified regarding what people would want that 3rd party to look like. Indeed, the numbers might even seem to suggest that increasing political parties would either result in a 3rd more centrist party, or multiple additional parties across the political spectrum (garnering less support than the current “establishment”).

But, this is public opinion polling – let´s set that aside for no, for surely it is certainly worth examining HR1 (the nausea-inducingly titled “For the People Act 2021”) in a little more detail?

“Interesting then that the HR1 bill, currently being mindlessly cheered on by the corporate media, will make it ‘ harder for third-party presidential candidates to get federal financing, because it increases the amount of support candidates have to demonstrate to qualify.” [6]

This bill does indeed make it harder for 3rd party presidential candidates to qualify for federal funding – the amount goes from requiring them to raise $5000 per state to $25000 per state. Now personally I think the effect of campaign donations and the money spent in elections is highly corrosive (and that we should worry more about reducing the upper limit than increasing the lower), but the question should not be “is this a significant move wrt. nG´s ideal system?” (no, but that´s because my ideal system would be so radically different that this would be a drop in the ocean) but rather “is this a significant move wrt. the system as it currently exists in the US?”.

So, it is perhaps worth noting that this raises the qualifying bar from > $100,000 to > $500,000. Will this really prove to be an onerous obstetrical for political parties? Well, let´s take a look at how this stacks up for 3rd parties in the 2020 election. So, Libertarians (3rd highest number of votes, with 1,865,724) cleared the bar; according to the Green Party (4th highest, with 405,035 – i.e. 22% of the votes the Libertarians received, or 0.54% of those Trump received) they cleared the pre-HR1(2021) bar (but it is not clear that they would have with the introduced limits). The Green party in 2016 and 2012 would seem to have, by contrast, succeeded and been eligible (as would the Libertarians in those years). But I will certainly admit this move might well threaten the populist electoral juggernaut with the 5th most support (Alliance), with their staggering 88,234 votes (though I can´t be sure, I think they would also still pass due to self-funding – though I might be misreading this)…

Now I wish to be clear, I certainly wouldn´t say that this aspect of the bill is good by any means (again, I neither support this particular amendment, nor do I support “money in politics” in general), and I will say that I can imagine negatives – but given the numbers it is hard to conclude that the most significant problem is “lack of finance” rather than…well, “lack of voter support”.

Indeed, surely it is worth noting that this change impacts presidential campaigns and not congressional campaigns – if one is interested in changing US politics, I can´t help but suspect 3rd parties would do better directing their attention to the latter than the former (given the limitations on Presidential power – even supposing a party is somehow incapable of getting a congressperson elected but can win a presidential election).

But could a system be arranged which negates this disadvantage and makes 3rd party (and 4th, 5th, 6th, etc.) politics more viable? Absolutely. But I see little reason to think (a) it would involve anything other than a huge redesign of the US political system from the ground up (not a bad thing – but were I overhauling US politics I can think of better hills to die on than “there is an increase in required funds raised to qualify for federal support of a presidential campaign”) or (b) it would result in much in the way of a dramatic change in politics in general anyway. Indeed, I suspect that if effective change is what is desired, it would have to start with an actual organised movement with popular support first before it got anywhere near the “presidential election stage” [7].

Thus, it seems to me that this particular alteration will hardly shift the needle at all compared to what would be needed. I´m not supporting it, of course, but it is hard to see why this is eliciting the degree of concern it is – unless the point were not to advocate for actual change but instead to find excuses to rail against the effect of the Democrats on politics while ignoring that of the Republicans (similar to, picking an example purely at random, promulgating in bad faith the notion that this relatively small change in finance is a greater problem for US politics than the Republican voter suppression – not, I´m sure, that anyone would ever do such a thing).

I would also like to note that there are things I found objectionable in this bill [8], and things that I think are very good. But as this post is already long enough, I will merely finish with a hope that should anyone read my comment (and well done if you do – I know my prose is hardly the most interesting or significant), they respond to what I´ve actually said (and not what they think I´ve said) [9].

References and footnotes:
[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/Party-Affiliation.aspx

[2] https://news.gallup.com/poll/329639/support-third-political-party-high-point.aspx

[3] https://crookedtimber.org/2021/04/11/twigs-and-branches-8/#comment-810054

[4] comparing elections with % popular vote R/D:
2020 46.9/51.3; 2016 46.1/48.2; 2012 47.2/51.1; 2008 45.7/52.9; 2004 50.7/48.3; 2000 47.9/48.4
This neglects, of course, the fine details, but it seems 100-(R+D) gives 1.8, 5.7, 1.7, 1.4, 1, 3.7. I should note that this is a very rough analysis – and certainly I welcome correction from anyone offering supporting data – but there seems little reason to conclude that there had been a massive shift away from 3rd party votes due to “media narrative” (if anything, it would seem Clinton was the exception rather than the rule – but speculation as to why that might be is beyond the scope of this comment).

[5] And again, I would like to emphasise that I would by no means posit my rough and ready analysis as particularly definitive, but it is – I would humbly suggest – slightly better than mere assertion. However, if there is data to support @29 (or in opposition to what I´ve stated), I would certainly welcome seeing it – I always appreciate an opportunity to improve my understanding.

[6] I could note that the use of “mindlessly cheered on by the corporate media” is interesting, given that Fox news opposes the bill. This perhaps gives yet another quanta of insight regarding a somewhat idiosyncratic approach to determining which media are “biased corporate stooges” and which are…er…”fair and balanced”, so to speak…

[7] Not to rehash the same tired arguments again, but I will say I think “coalition of progressive movements broadly aligned with left-wing socialist/social democrat ideals” is more likely to succeed at this than “let´s form a party which prioritises my specific interests in the exact order I prioritise them, and opposes anyone who differs from my exact ordering of interests by even the slightest degree”. Of course, this is purely personal conjecture, so I will leave it there.

[8] I do find it interesting how differently concerns are prioritised when it comes to the effects of large amounts of money being interjected into campaign finance – personally I would like to see maximum limit sets as low as reasonably possible to reduce the money flowing into politics (which should not only make it easier to finance a campaign but also help reduce the political power wielded by donors), as opposed to being concerned that the bottom most politically successful parties won´t raise enough from who-knows-where. But different people have different perspectives, I suppose.

[9] I really should not have to say this, but I suspect I probably have to anyway: I would gently remind everyone that this comment is examining the claims @29 wrt. the US system – it is not a comment on whether or not I support this change or the current US system as it is (though as a non-USian my opinion here matters little, of course). I would also like to state again that I am personally a socialist, who thinks that the majority of countries in general could do with much stronger left-wing politics (and the US in particular) – and I do think the US political system is somewhat buggered as it stands, and I do have strong objections to the way US politics is conducted.

I just don´t think that the issues highlighted @29 are particularly significant with respect to all the rest of the problems, nor do I think the analysis given was particularly sound. And I think that if actual change is to be made, sound analysis and clear identification of the most impactful changes to be made would be critical.

@
”His stimulus bill has only just passed and has barely began to ‘function’ yet. Will it cut child poverty? We don’t know”.

Yes we do.

”Will it pull America out of the Covid recession? We don’t know”
BUT the bill cut Child Poverty by nearly half.

”Will it reduce unemployment? We don’t know”.
BUT the bill cut Child Poverty nearly by half.

And so we know – that this bill will cut child poverty nearly by have – even if we don’t know
if somebody who doesn’t know it – ever will know it?

And as I will get ”respect” –
if I just admit that I am biased in favour of a Party (nothing wrong with bias, everyone is biased) which cuts child poverty nearly by half and that I tend to like ‘news’ that flatters the Party which cuts child poverty nearly by half , and I tend to hate ‘news’ that flatters Trump and the Republicans – who didn’t cut child poverty by half –
and who
NEVER EVER WILL – that whether this news is true or not – as I just LOVE people who try to cut child poverty by nearly half.

And as I gather, that everyone here is interested in objective evidence,
I –
we offer Hidari a ticket from everywhere in the US to Miami next Friday in order to accompany US to families – who provide the ”objective evidence” for Hidari – that the bill cut child poverty nearly by half.

Final point: Everything else is ”Blablabla”

”This is great stuff – H – keep it coming.

So, yes – it is fascinating that “In a February poll by Gallup a record 62 percent agreed that “the (established) parties do such a poor job representing the American people that a third party is needed.”

That’s their declared preference but not their revealed preference. Given the choice, few Americans vote for third parties; nearly all American voters choose not to vote for third-party candidates. For the sake of contrast, compare the behaviour of American voters with the behaviour of Mexican voters; lots of Mexicans choose to vote for third-party candidates. The reasonable conclusion from the behaviour of voters is that lots of Mexicans want to vote for third parties while few Americans do. The fascinating question is why so many Americans say they want to vote for third-party candidates if in fact they don’t.

@
”We misjudged how many men, men without power but especially the powerful, admired Trump exactly for his unapologetic chauvinism”.

Not only for that – but generally for being a complete ”Stupid a-social a…hole –
while the signs were always there – like from the beginning in ”Social Network” –
(the movie) –
As when ”Social Network”-
(not only the movie) was… ”released’ I had some friends who had worked on ”Social Network” -(not only the movie) –
and they were worried that ”Social Network” showed -(not only) ”Zuck” as a complete A-social A…hole – and so they thought they should do everything to fight the release of ”Social Network” -(not only the movie) –
BUT
THEN!! Zuck was very, VERY surprised that so many of his fellow American really liked the A-social A…holiness he showed in Social Network -(not only the movie)
and he realised it was ”trending” –
and who wouldn’t ”like” anything which is…
”trending”?

One of the most disgusting trends of the Trump era was how elite intellectuals (a majority of whom, it must be stressed, were, and are, middle class, ‘educated’ white cis-males) used (and weaponised) the jargon of identity politics to mask their power-worship. I see this trend is going to continue for some time.

J-D 42 and others. Americans claim they are in favor of third parties but few vote for third party candidates, not even at the local or regional level where third parties arguably make more sense given the dumb electoral system. Re JQ 44 the UK and Canada also have FPTP but they do have more party diversity. Whether that is a good thing is a different question. The stability of the US two party system stands out. Americans suffer one of the dumbest political systems in the world and in 200+ years, there hasn’t even afaik any serious attempt at electoral reform. Perhaps we should conclude that despite the perennial complaints, Americans are really quite happy with their system, or simply don’t care?

Americans have been saying for decades how dissatisfied they are with their elected officials, and yet, and yet, every election they overwhelmingly return the very same incumbents they keep complaining about to office. The rate of incumbency is so high, with such a large share of uncontested races, that naive outside observers might be excused for thinking that US elections are merely for show.

I suggest to take the complaints Americans love to express in surveys with a grain of salt and give more credence to revealed preferences.

J-D @ 42

Just to clarify, the italic text is a quote from @29 to whom I was responding (I do later point out “note: usual caveat re polls and the usefulness thereof”; and, though admittedly only in a very rough and brief way, touch on the actual votes in footnote [4]). While I did consider going into more detail on this point, I think doing so was a little outside the scope of my comment.

In brief, I do agree that “why is there a difference between declared preference and actual action?” is an interesting question. There are, I would tentatively posit, a number of potential answers – for example, it might relate to one or more (or none) of: inherent limitations in the poll (e.g. phrasing of questions, group data is collected from, etc.); belief that declared preference is not possible (e.g. not wanting to “waste a vote” on a party with little chance of success under the current model); declared preference being hypothetical and not practical (someone might have this preference in theory, but not support any of the current 3rd parties due to differences between these and their theoretical 3rd party); declared preference not being actual preference (for various reasons asking people their views does not always elicit useful answers); belief (correct or not) that under the current US system it is highly implausible for 3rd parties to win in general. I’m sure there are many other possible reasons (list is not intended to be exhaustive or even representative), and perhaps it is possible to assign confidence levels to possible/probable causes.

The difference between declaration and action is indeed an important one, and one which (to the best of my understanding) people have been grappling with in many fields for a long time (e.g. consider Howard Moskowitz and his findings on spaghetti sauce). Sadly I doubt I could add much to such a discussion except additional speculation, but certainly I will be interested in comments from others.

Hidari 48: do you really want to go so far as to call Tucker Carlson and his fascist propagandist friends “elite intellectuals”? Elite, sure, super privileged, influential, rich, mouthpiece of the ruling class, – but intellectual?

“asked subjects to evaluate a government-funded job-training programme to help the poor. All subjects were liberal, so naturally the vast majority (76 per cent) favoured the policy. However, if subjects were told that Democrats didn’t support the programme, the results completely reversed: this time, 71 per cent opposed it”

Reasonable. If Democrats opposed it, Republicans must have proposed it and therefore it wouldn’t have helped the poor. Really, it wouldn’t have.

Returning to the military budget? I still think Biden increasing the budget is very much about trying to pacify the officer caste. Buying them was one of the reasons Trump raised military spending so much (and of course one reason why he hired so many generals.) The US military is not the Praetorian Guard of the Roman Principate. But it does have to be pacified.

On a closely related point, the urgent need to avoid the tankies’ Scylla when avoiding the Republican Charybdis, endorses the view that a powerful military is an urgent necessity for democracy, as it is a vital necessity in a threatening world. I wasn’t aware the tankies’ view of the US military as the sword and shield of imperialism had become an equal threat, though.

Last note on Hidari’s fury at how elitist PMCs are softening minds and hardening hearts, using the intellectual elite media (aka the MSM,) excusing their perfidy with nonsense about an attempted coup on January 6….the America First caucus is taking up the struggle. Though it may not become a real thing in practice, I believe it is portentous for the future.

Consider also this:
In the 1894 elections for the US House of Representatives, 13% of votes were cast for third-party candidates; in the 1914 elections, 14%. What’s changed to make the figures so much lower now? Comparing then to now, the system of simple-plurality single-member constituencies is a constant, not an explanatory variable. Is it unreasonable to conclude that the proportion of people with a genuine desire to vote third-party is lower now than it was back then (no matter what they tell the opinion pollsters)?