Sorry but acting like AES and Paxton are at all comparable is a huge stretch even from a center right perspective. Notice how you have to say AES campaigned with "X" while with Paxton its "Paxton is X". Theres a huge difference between these two things, especially when you consider that Hasan larps as a Bernie kind of socialist when he does these IRL political interactions.
I know this is opening a can of worms, but how bad are the socialists?
I'm in favor of capitalism generally speaking, and free trade between countries mostly. I'm also in favor of monopoly busting, and universal healthcare because I don't think the free market is a good fit for healthcare. I want higher taxes for more income redistribution and better safety nets (eg job hunting shouldn't be so scary when your industry dies and you very laid off). I don't want "communism" but I think the things I'm describing are generally "socialist"?
"The median voter is actually better than the more mobilized part of the public..."
This is the key to everything. Median voters are demoralized, while the cranks are excited.
The only way to reverse this is the second coming of Bill Clinton (without the sex stuff): a moderate Democrat with energy and excitment that appeals to the median voter, and is not afraid to triangulate and throw his own party's sacred cows under the bus to score wins.
Here's to hoping that Mark Kelly or Andy Beshear or Josh Shapiro are up to this!
So you're 12 years old? Well I have to say it's really grown up of you to be interested in political articles on substack. Keep reading and learning. One day you and your generation will be the ones in charge. I wish you the best.
1. This seems like a piece that was written for a Talarico-Collins endorsement before Platner dropped out. Platner is a much better comparison to Paxton — both are bad on character on top of being populists, while AES seems to be a normal, capable, and well-adjusted individual despite being a socialist.
2. What makes it less of an equal bargain is the fact that the Republicans have an advantage in the Senate, so each unlikely victory has more value for the Democrats. Republicans can afford to lose a few races, but Democrats really can't if they want to win.
Piker is doing a bit with Mao thing, he's said that many times. I think you guys that he's trolling and he literally announces he's trolling you njt getting it doesn't bode well for you guys here.
He said Crimea is irreversible and that it is Russia now currently as far as i recall.
AES isn't a socialist, the closest to socialism he advocates for is M4A. He didn't advocate for defund or a lot of other stuff like DSA members in 2020.
And i think you are being very disingenuous doing this crime by association thing. You supposedly hate it but now you are doing it so blatantly and hypocritically. AES doesn't even hold Hasan view on Ukraine, he has veen asked about a bunch of stuff Hasan said that he disagrees with (and we can see they were consistent with what he was saying even before the campaign and not just doing it to save face)
I promise not to vote for Hasan Piker for Senate, or House, or President.
If you're going to do guilt by association, then nobody should vote for any Republican since they basically all campaign with/on Trump and he attempted to coup the government, much worse than Hasan's idiotic comments about Mao.
I'm not taking it as indicative of how likely Trump/AES is to commit genocide or ship ideological enemies out to the countryside. Trump *still* isn't committing genocide or locking up Hilary Clinton, despite tolerating any number of frog Nazis in his administration. I'm taking it as how friendly he is with extremely stupid populist economics and whackdoodle foreign policy. As it turns out, Trump was very friendly to these things, and I see 0 reason to think AES isn't too.
If Trump said on his stuff he would do a bit and then he did the bit and people were taking it seriously by clipping him doing the bit, yeah, you should treat that as what it is, a bit.
And this is bullshit, how does someone doing a Mao bit advertise “nativist slopulism” and a certain kind of geopolitics?
Mao is not the only person he does a bit of, he's not the first to do bits od various historical people especially on streams and influencer speheres. Acting like someone doing a bit is “advertising” is plain motivated, intellectually lazy bullshit.
Every lib that ever did a Trump bit, I'm gonna use that to claim it's “advertising “ a bunch of mostly unrelated things by association with Trump.
No, this is you cherrypicking stuff, you could disqualify almost the entirety of both parties with this including AES opponents who is crazy conspiracist. Trump wasn't openly opposing all the bad stuff the nativist populists were saying, AES clearly is.
Interesting political trade off, which I’d be ok with.
Paxton is totally lacking in personal integrity. AES is a far left populist espousing bad ideologies. Neither one should be trusted with any position of power, much less a vote in the US Senate. But unfortunately we don’t live in a world where such a bargain is possible. The two party system has inflamed and polarized our society beyond the ability to choose moderate collaborative candidates. We are ruled by fringe right/left politicians while the clear plurality (trending towards outright majority!) of voters are left to pick between bad or worse nominees. D’s & R’s will vote their tribe. Independents and moderate D’s and R’s will just hold their noses and vote “against” whichever they consider the “worst”.
Under different conditions I would favor this. But the Democrats need 51 Senate seats to block more MAGA executive and judicial nominations.
Winning Texas and losing Michigan means a loss on the scale that matters. Only Democrat wins in both states (plus others) will make a positive difference to the actual situation nationally. Republicans by contrast only need to win one of these states to effectively hold power.
The moderate wing of the Democrats and (what's left of) the moderate wing of the Republicans share more in common than they do with the populists in their own party.
Really? The single driving factor behind the poor state of our politics is that our mainstream political professionals are utterly ignorant of basic political concepts (such as individual rights, or rights-protecting government). I think everything else stems from this single factor.
"One problem our politics has faced in recent years has been the difficulty of inspiring moderate and independent voters who are sick of partisanship, corruption, and politicians embracing the most odious figures on the left and right."
The public recognizes that something is deeply wrong, but because our political establishment lacks the vocabulary to diagnose the actual illness, vague catchalls like "partisanship" and "corruption" are all they can offer.
The only problem we face in politics is a lack of expertise in politics.
"But I’ve realized that practical politics has to at this moment involve a defense of the establishment, since any attempt to use populism to remake society will take us further away from the kind of country I want to live in."
Then I don't think figures like Talarico are the solution. From what I can tell, he's a big government leftist, a religious collectivist and a populist.
We're in a structural crisis caused by a total lack of political literacy among our political experts. Voting and elections cannot fix this. We don't even understand the purpose of these things today because that requires an understanding of the proper role of government which is a concept no mainstream voice is currently equipped to articulate.
The problem is that James "God is nonbinary" Talarico is no Mike Rogers. Only in a party with AES and Mamdani can he be considered any kind of "moderate." Talk about defining deviance down! I'd be all for this if we could reincarnate Lloyd Bentsen (or prop him up if he's still alive) and run him again in Texas. And don't get me wrong: I'm a Republican who would NEVER vote for Paxton. But I couldn't vote for Talarico either, or ask others to.
He didn't say that God is non-binary but merely beyond gender. I dunno how it "officially" works for the other Abrahamic religions, but this is the technically correct interpretation in Islam. We (and I suspect most people) call God a he because we anthropomorphized him as being an Old Man in Sky.
I have voted against Paxton every election he was up even when I was at my most postliberal and mostly voted for Republicans. The man is just a crook. I have no particular desire for Texas to turn blue, but I'm hoping the anti-Trump backlash is enough to finally send him down the river.
Sorry but acting like AES and Paxton are at all comparable is a huge stretch even from a center right perspective. Notice how you have to say AES campaigned with "X" while with Paxton its "Paxton is X". Theres a huge difference between these two things, especially when you consider that Hasan larps as a Bernie kind of socialist when he does these IRL political interactions.
The issue at hand is that AES represents and is part of the socialist takeover of the Democratic Party and should therefore be fought against.
I know this is opening a can of worms, but how bad are the socialists?
I'm in favor of capitalism generally speaking, and free trade between countries mostly. I'm also in favor of monopoly busting, and universal healthcare because I don't think the free market is a good fit for healthcare. I want higher taxes for more income redistribution and better safety nets (eg job hunting shouldn't be so scary when your industry dies and you very laid off). I don't want "communism" but I think the things I'm describing are generally "socialist"?
Yes, Richard is spending more time these days daydreaming about changing his image to be the next David Brooks.
"The median voter is actually better than the more mobilized part of the public..."
This is the key to everything. Median voters are demoralized, while the cranks are excited.
The only way to reverse this is the second coming of Bill Clinton (without the sex stuff): a moderate Democrat with energy and excitment that appeals to the median voter, and is not afraid to triangulate and throw his own party's sacred cows under the bus to score wins.
Here's to hoping that Mark Kelly or Andy Beshear or Josh Shapiro are up to this!
Nah, triple the sex stuff, I need my gooner in chief. But otherwise you’re right.
So you're 12 years old? Well I have to say it's really grown up of you to be interested in political articles on substack. Keep reading and learning. One day you and your generation will be the ones in charge. I wish you the best.
1. This seems like a piece that was written for a Talarico-Collins endorsement before Platner dropped out. Platner is a much better comparison to Paxton — both are bad on character on top of being populists, while AES seems to be a normal, capable, and well-adjusted individual despite being a socialist.
2. What makes it less of an equal bargain is the fact that the Republicans have an advantage in the Senate, so each unlikely victory has more value for the Democrats. Republicans can afford to lose a few races, but Democrats really can't if they want to win.
AES is a self described capitalist not socialist. He's also clearly much smarter than everyone being compared here
Piker is doing a bit with Mao thing, he's said that many times. I think you guys that he's trolling and he literally announces he's trolling you njt getting it doesn't bode well for you guys here.
He said Crimea is irreversible and that it is Russia now currently as far as i recall.
AES isn't a socialist, the closest to socialism he advocates for is M4A. He didn't advocate for defund or a lot of other stuff like DSA members in 2020.
And i think you are being very disingenuous doing this crime by association thing. You supposedly hate it but now you are doing it so blatantly and hypocritically. AES doesn't even hold Hasan view on Ukraine, he has veen asked about a bunch of stuff Hasan said that he disagrees with (and we can see they were consistent with what he was saying even before the campaign and not just doing it to save face)
On Piker and Mao: "Take Trump seriously, but not literally." Yeah, that worked out well.
I promise not to vote for Hasan Piker for Senate, or House, or President.
If you're going to do guilt by association, then nobody should vote for any Republican since they basically all campaign with/on Trump and he attempted to coup the government, much worse than Hasan's idiotic comments about Mao.
I'm not taking it as indicative of how likely Trump/AES is to commit genocide or ship ideological enemies out to the countryside. Trump *still* isn't committing genocide or locking up Hilary Clinton, despite tolerating any number of frog Nazis in his administration. I'm taking it as how friendly he is with extremely stupid populist economics and whackdoodle foreign policy. As it turns out, Trump was very friendly to these things, and I see 0 reason to think AES isn't too.
If Trump said on his stuff he would do a bit and then he did the bit and people were taking it seriously by clipping him doing the bit, yeah, you should treat that as what it is, a bit.
His stupid proclivity for nativist slopulism and anti-democratic geopolitics ended up being pretty much exactly as advertised.
And this is bullshit, how does someone doing a Mao bit advertise “nativist slopulism” and a certain kind of geopolitics?
Mao is not the only person he does a bit of, he's not the first to do bits od various historical people especially on streams and influencer speheres. Acting like someone doing a bit is “advertising” is plain motivated, intellectually lazy bullshit.
Every lib that ever did a Trump bit, I'm gonna use that to claim it's “advertising “ a bunch of mostly unrelated things by association with Trump.
No, this is you cherrypicking stuff, you could disqualify almost the entirety of both parties with this including AES opponents who is crazy conspiracist. Trump wasn't openly opposing all the bad stuff the nativist populists were saying, AES clearly is.
Interesting political trade off, which I’d be ok with.
Paxton is totally lacking in personal integrity. AES is a far left populist espousing bad ideologies. Neither one should be trusted with any position of power, much less a vote in the US Senate. But unfortunately we don’t live in a world where such a bargain is possible. The two party system has inflamed and polarized our society beyond the ability to choose moderate collaborative candidates. We are ruled by fringe right/left politicians while the clear plurality (trending towards outright majority!) of voters are left to pick between bad or worse nominees. D’s & R’s will vote their tribe. Independents and moderate D’s and R’s will just hold their noses and vote “against” whichever they consider the “worst”.
Under different conditions I would favor this. But the Democrats need 51 Senate seats to block more MAGA executive and judicial nominations.
Winning Texas and losing Michigan means a loss on the scale that matters. Only Democrat wins in both states (plus others) will make a positive difference to the actual situation nationally. Republicans by contrast only need to win one of these states to effectively hold power.
Thank you for trying. It would be nice if that worked.
Talarico is the "everyone with white skin spreads the virus of racism" guy right?
Are you publishing this or similar in any Michigan newspapers?
The moderate wing of the Democrats and (what's left of) the moderate wing of the Republicans share more in common than they do with the populists in their own party.
"No single factor caused this deterioration."
Really? The single driving factor behind the poor state of our politics is that our mainstream political professionals are utterly ignorant of basic political concepts (such as individual rights, or rights-protecting government). I think everything else stems from this single factor.
"One problem our politics has faced in recent years has been the difficulty of inspiring moderate and independent voters who are sick of partisanship, corruption, and politicians embracing the most odious figures on the left and right."
The public recognizes that something is deeply wrong, but because our political establishment lacks the vocabulary to diagnose the actual illness, vague catchalls like "partisanship" and "corruption" are all they can offer.
The only problem we face in politics is a lack of expertise in politics.
"But I’ve realized that practical politics has to at this moment involve a defense of the establishment, since any attempt to use populism to remake society will take us further away from the kind of country I want to live in."
Then I don't think figures like Talarico are the solution. From what I can tell, he's a big government leftist, a religious collectivist and a populist.
We're in a structural crisis caused by a total lack of political literacy among our political experts. Voting and elections cannot fix this. We don't even understand the purpose of these things today because that requires an understanding of the proper role of government which is a concept no mainstream voice is currently equipped to articulate.
The problem is that James "God is nonbinary" Talarico is no Mike Rogers. Only in a party with AES and Mamdani can he be considered any kind of "moderate." Talk about defining deviance down! I'd be all for this if we could reincarnate Lloyd Bentsen (or prop him up if he's still alive) and run him again in Texas. And don't get me wrong: I'm a Republican who would NEVER vote for Paxton. But I couldn't vote for Talarico either, or ask others to.
I mean, he's right. Do you think god has a big 'ol penis? You think he has a dick, and furthermore that the dick gets hard?
If god exists, god isn't just a guy but big and in the sky.
He didn't say that God is non-binary but merely beyond gender. I dunno how it "officially" works for the other Abrahamic religions, but this is the technically correct interpretation in Islam. We (and I suspect most people) call God a he because we anthropomorphized him as being an Old Man in Sky.
I have voted against Paxton every election he was up even when I was at my most postliberal and mostly voted for Republicans. The man is just a crook. I have no particular desire for Texas to turn blue, but I'm hoping the anti-Trump backlash is enough to finally send him down the river.