volkris @volkris@qoto.org

One step forward: mainstream conservatives today intensely criticizing last night's Republican debate as a mess of people yelling over each other instead of expressing positions and exploring matters of substance.

Two steps backwards: the exact same individuals celebrating that it's the rolling around in the mud moments that let you really figure out who the candidate really is.

Well, it's not just conservatives of the moment: throughout the political environment, across the political spectrum we see people bashing bad outcomes before supporting exactly the elements that brought us to the place and promote it into the future.

We get the government we ask for. We need to stop asking for such socially unhealthy things.

We can't put all the blame on politicians for doing what we empowered them to do, and reelected them for doing.

The dysfunction will continue so long as we keep reelecting politicians promising dysfunction.

#USPolitics #Republicans #republicandebate #voting

Never forget the feedback effect of negative things filling a vacuum when positive things are removed.

Whether that's in politics or business or information platforms.

So many good people left #Twitter and demanded that other good people also leave the platform, so there should be no surprise that the platform shows more bad actors now.

But it's a case of complaining how the game is going after deciding not to play anymore.

Sounds like the #Hollywood writer's strike is raising the issue of requiring an arbitrary minimal number of writers to be involved in a production, which just makes me think about the phrase "designed by committee."

It's not supposed to be a positive phrase, so making the committee arbitrarily larger doesn't inspire confidence in the eventual work.

#writersstrike

Contrary to news reports, according to the CRS status table, no, the #Senate hasn't passed its appropriations bills while the #House dilly-dallies.

https://crsreports.congress.gov/AppropriationsStatusTable

#USPolitics #press

It seems the story that #Musk disabled #Starlink to sabotage #Ukraine has been disputed by the author who was the original source for the whole thing.

This is why rushes to judgment based on sensational headlines are so unhealthy.

https://twitter.com/WalterIsaacson/status/1700342242290901361

Tapper declaring that it sounds like the Secretary of State is engaging in drama doesn't make it true, but it does create plenty of clickbait in the press.

It should always be a red flag when a reporter or a reporter's actions or statements get more coverage than the actual officials or experts they're supposedly reporting on.

Sadly, reporters like this have found profit in doing that stuff, promoting drama where it doesn't exist, and generally misleading news consumers.

If it really sounds to Tapper that #Blinken doesn't want to risk offending #Musk over #Starlink then I'm thinking Tapper might be in the wrong job, because he seems to be projecting his own drama into the reporting.

#journalism

For people interested in #USPolitics this episode of #Cato Daily Podcast is pretty short and informative.

Briefly, it looks at the evolving divide among #conservatives / #Republican party members and notably how the more #Trump aligned side has come to focus on politics primarily as a tool for attacking enemies, not building anything up.

This is important for a few reasons, both to understand them so as to figure out how to react to them AND as a way of predicting how things will work out, since that approach has little traction in the broader public.

Trump was elected by a coalition of different groups with vastly different, often contradictory interests. This evolution utterly breaks the coalition, though.

https://www.cato.org/multimedia/cato-daily-podcast/natcons-vs-freecons

#politicalscience

I'm not surprised to hear a report like this...

#Mastodon #coding

There's an old idea of fairness that when cutting a cake between two people one person cuts and the other picks the piece they want.

This method aligns the interests of both parties, no matter how corruptible and *human* they may be.

I think it's underappreciated how often the US government design has a similar method in its checks and balances: one group can reject an official, but they don't get to choose the replacement.

See, for example, impeachment proceedings.

After all: "This policy of supplying, by opposite and rival interests, the defect of better motives, might be traced through the whole system of human affairs, private as well as public."

--Hamilton (maybe)

#USPolitics #politicalscience #federalistpapers #hamilton

While The Guardian and ProPublica put out their increasingly dramatic stories about webs of associates surrounding #SCOTUS sometimes I end up wondering if those reporters have undisclosed investments in red yarn and thumbtack suppliers.

It's like, their bulletin boards still have some extra room, so let's grab more yarn and add the cashier who served the driver who drove the... and on and on.

It comes across as a bit nutty.

A Scanner Darkly vibes to this one