I'm not convinced Elon is a super-genius playing dumb for MAGA's support. When he does things like lie about being a world class Path of Exile player, and then stream himself playing the game, failing to complete the most basic in game tasks, there seems to be something seriously idiotic and wrong with him. He engages with magat slop 24/7 on twitter, I don't think he's faking that dedication. When he crashes out on Trump and calls him a pedophile, it's like he has the mind of a toddler. When he goes on Rogan, he lies about the most inconsequential things, like reaction time in gamers, of course the alternative is that he's not lying and is just completely stupid. I think the ketamine severely damaged his cognitive abilities.
People and especially his followers seem to have a profound misunderstanding of what his role is in any of his companies. He's not an engineer and I don't know why his fanboys think he is. His job is to be a hype-man, to convince rich people, govts, and capital allocators to give him lots of money, and to crack the whip and scare/generate/motivate performance from his employees and the actual engineers that work for him. He has always, his entire public career, made ridiculous over the top promises and projections that don't pan out, but it also doesn't matter bc he's got the hype-skills and fanboys he's cultivated with his engineer-brand. Which is a talent, to be sure, but it's much closer to the talents of PT Barnum than whatever it is his fanboys seem to think it is. Tesla has never been a viable business absent massive govt subsidies, and now that they're going away he's practically abandoning that business. SpaceX which is also solely viable via govt contract is the most successful business and he's busy trying to combine it with the dumpster fire that is X/AI.
Seems like he definitely gets involved with at least some of the engineering at least some of the time.
Don't know much about Tesla, but per here https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/how-much-money-did-spacex-make-2024 SpaceX made ~$1.2 Billion from commercial launches, ~$3 Billion from Government launch contracts, ~$0.7 Billion from non-core contracts (mostly government things like lunar lander) and ~$8 Billion from Starlink
According to Wikipedia they had an EBITDA of $4.5 Billion that year, so even if they lost all income from government contracts while still paying the costs for them, they would still be profitable - they are not solely viable via government contract. They were only able to launch because of government's role, but its not true nowadays.
In addition to this outstanding comment, there's also a fundamental difference between a company getting the government to start subsidizing them, and a company that notices that current government suppliers appear extremely inefficient and so go and create a literally 100x better product and take over the contracts.
Seems like Scott thinks he's pretty smart, I really don't know what to make of it all. Maybe he's great at math and physics, but he has a very narrow area of expertise, I'm really not sure why his politics and 99% of his twitter posts are so stupid, he just really comes off as low intelligence, so Scott's take is interesting and just confused me more.
There's also the possibility of some deterioration? As in maybe his use of Twitter has done some sort of harm (sleep deprivation perhaps?) that could explain it. I doubt it, probably narrow expertise or deliberate messaging strategy makes more sense, but I don't think it's impossible.
And when you own the company you can give yourself any title you like and make any claim you like about what you do or don't do, it's basically meaningless. What he calls himself and what his employees would describe if they weren't all under NDA is entirely different. All that said, SpaceX is a legitimate well run business, but also the one he has least control over and the only one with an actually independent board. Tesla's board is just his friends and that company would not hve gotten anywhere without him convincing Obama admin to give them gigantic subsidies and then give their customers huge tax deductions for buying his cars.
I find it supremely ironic that the people who go on and on about Musk’s lack of epistemic humility (which is a fair criticism, to be sure) entirely lack it themselves, at least when it comes to their pronouncements about what Musk does and doesn’t do and know.
But given that Richard is the Substack king of lack of all epistemic humility, it should not be all the surprising that the large majority of commenters on his posts more or less share that trait.
I suspect one piece of the tech right puzzle is that they are disproportionately autistic with "spiky" cognitive profiles - world-class in some ways, borderline impaired in others. Musk strikes me as an extreme example of this type.
I think Musk is the kind of CEO that you get in a mixed economy. His businesses are the result of government regulations, subsidy and political connection. In a free market capitalist system, he'd be in a cubicle somewhere, in a very junior role.
This has been made worse by a lot of his peers, who are actually much more serious professionals, treating him as an equal. They're doing this out of benevolence, but they really should've known better. IMO this gives him a lot of unearned clout in business circles.
I think it is more likely Nuvigil. I had a family member fry their brain on Nuvigil and Adderall and ironically they thought it was making them smarter…it definitely helped them score 20% higher on a very important standardized test but in the end they definitely aren’t smarter!
Nobody said that he is playing dumb. He was a genius but due to long spanning association/interaction with idiots and idiotic content he became dumb himself.
Richard said they either have to hide their smart ideas, or they have to subconsciously become dumber. I'm not sure which one he thinks Musk is doing, but he at least suggested he might be playing dumb. I've heard it before from people like Mike Israetel that Elon is hiding his real beliefs in order to get some benefit for his companies from the Trump admin, an idea I'm unconvinced of.
"Musk is another example of a smart person who operates under circumstances in which the pull of the low human capital horde is so overwhelming that he has become like his fans. "
But you might be right. If I did not have a prior belief of him having been smart and becoming dumb recently I may have understood it that him pretending is still an option.
Elon Musk is probably the greatest example of the importance of domain expertise in history. He has led successful companies in not one, but two frontier fields (SpaceX and Tesla), due to a mix of management style and domain expertise (he is very obviously interested in rockets and electric vehicles).
DOGE was also an obviously-moronic effort that wildly overpromised ($2T cuts!) and delivered nothing but dead African kids. His posts on Xitter routinely veer into nonsensical white nationalism (I have him muted but nevertheless got to see him talking about how whites will be targeted if they become the minority - while living in Texas, a majority-minority state, where whites are absolutely not targeted). His politics is spastic and reactionary in the dumbest way possible.
Perhaps Musk has some particular talents at management and engineering, or at least a mix of above-average ability and drive in those fields, without any similar ability in other fields - but more importantly, his decision-making in SpaceX and Tesla have been based on a background of domain expertise. You cannot know without learning, and there is no sign that at any point in DOGE did he try to consult with people who have spent years and years studying the budget, nor does he show any sign of trying to filter for better news sources or political science than viral clips on Xitter, etc.
That's what mild neurodivergence does to you. He has a vertical form intelligence which allows him to build vertically integrated logistically complex businesses with impressive excellence. Outside of that niche, his lack of natural intuitive aptitude causes him nothing but embarrassment.
My prediction for a while now is that Trump & MAGA are going to take conservatism into the toilet (arguably they are already there), much in the way that wokeness & unhinged progressivism made Democrats nearly unelectable. A new Democratic leader, probably Newsom, will arise and make centrism sexy again - and the Republicans will lose big time. And much in the same way as happened on the left, the right will begin to purge the MAGA freak show from their ranks.
This will happen just in time to see a neo-woke resurgence after Newsom leaves office, with the formerly Democratic centrists jumping the unbearably left-wing ship to join the newly centrist Republicans under a delightfully boring Rubio-like character.
I've been saying for a while now, I'm not really a liberal, I'm just a 2040's conservative.
But the left-wing and right-wing freakshows never go away, they just alternate power with the centrists, in the same way that Democrats and Republicans alternate power. American government is no longer a pendulum, it is a Rubik's Cube.
Do you actually think Newsom is a good candidate? If so, why? Why does anyone? I can't think of a single positive quality he has for a general election candidate.
Have you watched interviews of him? He's very much not like other Democrats in terms of vibes. He definately gives off that "President on TV" vibe, but also a kind of "very masculine, but not a douchebag" vibe. Like the cool kid in school who stood up for the bullied kids.
He also is an abundance champion and has spent the last several years fighting the behemoth of California state government in order to actually get things done. He comes across as pragmatic and reasonable.
And as an anti-Trump combatant he is top notch. Instead of getting quiet or paranoid, he pushes back, he trolls, he fights back. It's refreshing to see someone like him in a sea of emotionally fragile Democrats. He is the best Anti-Trump that the Democrats have, at least with a big enough profile.
I'm not necesarily in love with him, but I do like his vibes. I think he's the best chance Democrats have unless they can somehow boost the profile of a Beshear or Gallego type. There are two years left so anything can happen.
If his vibes are so good, why isn't this reflected in his election results? If he is good at appealing to voters, why hasn't this led to more people voting for him?
And as far as being a "combatant", that was the argument for why Tim Walz was so dang great. Remember when he swung the election by calling Trump and Vance "weird"? I sure do!
I also remember Harris getting combative with Trump in their debate and making him look like a jackass on TV. And I remember how much it mattered.
Newsom doesn't address any of the Dems weaknesses, and his strengths are in things that don't seem to matter much with voters.
But what if Rubio gets his nomination in 2028 against Newsom (not AOC). That would create a more rational debate all around and purge the toxic minorities just by keeping Bluesky and Twitter as containment domes for both the left and the right that do not influence the public discourse anymore
I do not see a compelling reason to believe Rubio has a sincere commitment to economic conservatism. He is a midwit. He was a fast riser because he's Hispanic and somewhat charismatic. He mostly cares about foreign policy and he's a neocon.
Rubio would absolutely be an improvement over Trump and Vance, because I believe he is not a completely shameless demagogue without respect for the Constitution and rule of law, but he would be a shift back to the Bush2-era GOP, and that wasn't exactly a recipe for success.
MAGA has not been defeated yet, so there is no way that Little Marco could gain power, unless he is somehow elevated to VP or else is left over in some kind of "designated survivor" situation. The median Republican voter is still MAGA-aligned and will continue to be so until MAGA-ism is defeated.
If MAGA-ism is indeed never defeated, then RH is correct and the Republicans will be permanently MAGA forever. I just don't think this is going to happen because MAGA policies are pretty stupid and will eventually have disasterous results - and if the whole GOP turned MAGA quickly, it also means it can turn away quickly.
The first party to return to centrist normalcy will be the first to reap the rewards. I think that will be the Democrats. The Republicans will then follow suit because it makes sense - and since they always follow whatever the Democrats were doing ____ years ago.
“Republicans will then follow suit since they always follow whatever Democrats were doing years ago”… makes me think of Curtis Yarvin recently explaining on PBD podcast that America has always been to the left politically but most people aren’t ready or (willing?) to hear about such discourse.
My take is that Republicans (aside from a few pet issues like abortion and guns) have historically based their policy & beliefs on whatever the Democrats were doing 20-30 years ago. This is one of the reasons I stopped being a Republican - you can't hold back the tide of history.
But I also recognize that this trend has come apart in recent years. I think what happened is that Liberalism as an ideology has pretty much run its course. All of us, even Republicans, are liberals now. Liberalism already won! We all believe in human rights, equality, etc. There is nothing really left except for botique issues like abortion, guns, trans, etc.
Liberalism is sort of lost because it doesn't really know what it is fighting for and needs to be reminded. Fighting against the cultural appropriation of Disneyland or oppressive coffee shops is essentially tilting at windmills. Victory has defeated liberals. And since conservatives have never had an idea that liberals didn't have first, they are lost too.
And so then....Trump.
The whole far right resurgence is really just a last gasp of old conservatism and its racial anxiety. But it is a charade. There is no going back to despotism or monarchy or any of this nonsense. Americans would be in revolt after 5 minutes of a real dictator/monarch. What conservatives really want is for liberals to lead them again. When these RW internet trolls say they want to go back to medieval times they are just lying. It's RH's based ritual in play. It's a shibboleth.
But there is nothing there. It's all fake. But conservatives aren't alone as liberals are lost too. No one knows what is going to happen with deglobalization or AI. Trump is literally just a self-interested grifter who believes in nothing.
The only hope is that the threat of Trump will rouse liberals out of their compalcency, so they can once again lead.
You say, “ten years ago, anti-vaxxers did not have any role in national politics.” That’s not because our politics was healthier, but because the focus was on climate alarmism instead. Today, even as living standards fall, costs rise, and infrastructure visibly degrades, these policies are treated as self-evidently correct by mainstream political professionals. Serious dissent is dismissed rather than answered. On what basis, then, can the mainstream credibly dispute anti-vaxxers?
This isn’t a failure of polling, or a lack of studies, or a problem with “democratizing the public square.” Ideas don’t originate in the public square. Ideas are produced and communicated by our political experts and the real issue is that our political class increasingly lacks any real familiarity with the subject of politics.
This failure of expertise is what's allowed nonsense ideas to take over the mainstream. What we’re seeing now is the predictable result of professional collapse within the field of politics. It's not "us" that is the problem, it's not the voters. It's our political experts.
You write that good ideas have staying power. Yes, but where are these good ideas in today’s mainstream? Who is advocating them?
Sobering article but it assumes that the train stays on the track. While I agree that the left is moderating, and that more effective leadership (than Biden, Schumer et al.) is likely, the folks on the right are agressively trying to derail the train. Repeated violations of the Constitution and court orders. Threats to future elections. Destruction of government capacity. Teaching Americans to love autocracy because they hate the left more. Pushing policies that make climate change worse in the face of a 1.7C estimate temperature rise over preindustrial for 2027. Destabilizing both the American and the world economy, as well as international relations, through the use of tarrifs and hostility to other countries. How do you alienate Canada? So I get this theory but the obvious question is what happens if the train is derailed. That's ommitted from the article but seems like a very possible scenario.
Gavin Newsom is kind of a dyslexic idiot, but he is also obviously a cool dude with a good sense of humor. If he stops combing his hair backwards like Christian Bale in American Psycho, he could be a lock.
Delightful essay, thanks. You may underestimate the median stupidity of voters in the past, but still. As a Democrat, I feel my limited persuasive abilities should be directed towards progressives with foolish ideas (who possibly might listen), rather than true-believing MAGAs (who certainly would not).
Yeah there's a small group of people who it's worth reasoning with, even most "centrists" are super biased in favour of trump, which makes sense as its probably necessary in order to be a centrist in todays America. The true believing MAGA's are people who can only be appealed to through optics, slogans, & cultures wars, there's a battle to be fought there, but I'm completely uninterested in engaging with such low human capital. Ironically the epstein stuff is the first thing that might be shifting some of them, it's ironic as "Trump is a pedo" likely isn't the rational conclusion, but like I said they don't deal in rationality.
As mentioned in the article, there is a populist strain in the left as well, it's just less popular politically than in the right in the US right now for whatever reason. I don't think there's anything intrinsic about this though, I can imagine a Trumpian left figure taking advantage of this, there is some money left on the table for that for a charismatic enough individual. I think the common feature of populism on the right and left is a tendency to scapegoat, on the right it is the foreigner or maybe trans people or the Jews, on the populist left it is rich people, or in the case of Hasan Piker whatever the US supports as well (although in that world view they ultimately serve rich people).
“Ezra and Derek are winning the debate on the left now”
There is simply no evidence that this is actually true.
They are winning the debate only within the reasonable center-left.
But said “wing” of the left has no power and is not getting bigger and more influential.
Richard’s “The left is EHC” has now given way to the reality that “the left is dominated by midwits”, but his continued repeated repudiation of his own past through selective “reading” of the right and claiming it is entirely controlled by its “stupid” MAGA wing is simply Richard tripling down on his own delusions.
As evidenced by his false quoted claim at the top for which he can provide no evidence whatsoever.
> They are winning the debate only within the reasonable center-left.
> But said “wing” of the left has no power and is not getting bigger and more influential.
Gavin Newsom, the governor of the most infamously blue state, is passing YIMBY laws like CEQA reform and Senate Bill 79 (which, while good, are also very politically difficult - NIMBYism defies left-right conventions because it is broadly popular) and explicitly calling out YIMBYism and Ezra Klein. Zohran Mamdani, literal Democratic Socialists of America member, immediately signed an executive order to cut fees and fines for small businesses.
These are very left-wing politicians who recognize that being allowed to hold power relies on governing well. Right-wing politicians, OTOH, are the only politicians on the planet who become less likely to continue to hold power if they stand up to Donald Trump.
Your critique of the anti-monopolist, wealth inequality-focused Left is half-baked at best. More accurately, it shows your own bitterness, bias, and lack of original thinking ability. There is no future for the Democratic Party unless the populists of AOC, Bernie, More Perfect Union, the Majority Report, and Breaking Points win and bring their fresh, exciting ideas to the fore. Abundance is an absolute grift- it has no bearing on federal governance and inspires only elites who fear change. It would take us back to the failed neoliberal governing style of Clinton/Obama/Biden. The sooner people like Hanania (who is correct about so much), the better!
Intelligent and reasonably well read people were always well aware that living standards exploded between the dawn of the industrial revolution and now. I don’t think this owes to our current information age.
Pinker’s main contribution was describing the extent to which *so many different things* have been getting better and that it is still happening.
"The infamous George Floyd letter, in which a lot of people with advanced degrees said you shouldn’t protest unless it is against racism, in which case being out in the streets could be justified on public health grounds, might have been the worst moment for the reputation of official experts in a generation."
Ah, hindsight. I guess you forget what was happening in summer 2020, post George Floyd's unnecessary killing by cops. The exception was premised on the belief that, I quote, "White supremacy is a lethal public health issue that predates and contributes to COVID-19." COVID rates in Black communities themselves were seen as evidence. Anti-black racism was simply seen as an overriding issue.
*If* you accepted this premise, one brought into sharp focus by a series of police actions, it's logical to countenance open-air anti-racism protesting, coupled with recomendations to mitigate COVID spread and prepare to treat cases arising from it (which are also in the letter). You won't countenance protests that you don't think are as important, and which you think may have racist consequences.
If you don't accept the premise, it seems totally hypocritical. If you find it farcical that 1,288 health professionals (a somewhat broadly defined category, including degree candidates, anonymous signees, advocacy groups, but curiously, no one named Fauci or Birx) could at the time, you are being obtuse.
There is a huge amount of history revisionism going on around COVID, often manifesting as triumphalist narratives from the right and some in the 'center'. The actual history was messy and requires detailed telling to get right.
Interesting take, though I'm somewhat annoyed with the overall classist tone ("despicables", anyone?). Emmanuel Todd says that what's endangering democracy the most is the separation of the educated from the rest of the population. Democracy was born with global literacy, when everyone but a minuscule fringe could read and write but not much more. Nowadays, people with a college degree are about 30% of the population in the US, and can basically live without any contact with the uneducated populace, which feeds resentment and populism.
Add to this the crazy separatism of the techno-billionaires (I think that Thiel is honestly mad as a hatter now, and Musk probably too) and we're off toward a pretty bumpy ride overall.
It's pretty easy to convince MAGA that the government should use Bayesian statistical models. Just say, "For years the WOKE MOB has been forcing scientists to use cringe and bluepilled statistics for globalists, now we have a chance to use Bayesian statistics for BASED GIGACHADS."
I remember Bryan Caplan making the point that voters being generally ignorant could actually ALLOW for good policy, if politicians just say what they need to say to get elected and then do the good policy. The very same ignorance that leads voters to vote for bad policies also means they don't pay attention to whether those policies are actually implemented. That's ignorance.
So basically, a politician who wants to implement good policies that are unpopular should just "lie" and say she'll implement bad polices that are popular in order to get elected. And then once she's in power, she can just ignore what she said and implement the actual good policies, and most people won't even notice because most people don't actually pay attention to what politicians do. And, if anyone does ask, she can just lie and say she's implementing the bad policies. It's surprisingly not that difficult to spin one's actions however you want, even in the opposite direction.
I'm not saying it's "good" or "desirable" to lie, I'm just saying that the general ignorance of voters could leave an opportunity for someone who wants to implement good policy to actually implement good policy, as long as they say the "right things" to get elected.
I'm not convinced Elon is a super-genius playing dumb for MAGA's support. When he does things like lie about being a world class Path of Exile player, and then stream himself playing the game, failing to complete the most basic in game tasks, there seems to be something seriously idiotic and wrong with him. He engages with magat slop 24/7 on twitter, I don't think he's faking that dedication. When he crashes out on Trump and calls him a pedophile, it's like he has the mind of a toddler. When he goes on Rogan, he lies about the most inconsequential things, like reaction time in gamers, of course the alternative is that he's not lying and is just completely stupid. I think the ketamine severely damaged his cognitive abilities.
People and especially his followers seem to have a profound misunderstanding of what his role is in any of his companies. He's not an engineer and I don't know why his fanboys think he is. His job is to be a hype-man, to convince rich people, govts, and capital allocators to give him lots of money, and to crack the whip and scare/generate/motivate performance from his employees and the actual engineers that work for him. He has always, his entire public career, made ridiculous over the top promises and projections that don't pan out, but it also doesn't matter bc he's got the hype-skills and fanboys he's cultivated with his engineer-brand. Which is a talent, to be sure, but it's much closer to the talents of PT Barnum than whatever it is his fanboys seem to think it is. Tesla has never been a viable business absent massive govt subsidies, and now that they're going away he's practically abandoning that business. SpaceX which is also solely viable via govt contract is the most successful business and he's busy trying to combine it with the dumpster fire that is X/AI.
As to his role at his companies see here for the Scott Alexander take:
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-elon-musk
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-elon
Seems like he definitely gets involved with at least some of the engineering at least some of the time.
Don't know much about Tesla, but per here https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/how-much-money-did-spacex-make-2024 SpaceX made ~$1.2 Billion from commercial launches, ~$3 Billion from Government launch contracts, ~$0.7 Billion from non-core contracts (mostly government things like lunar lander) and ~$8 Billion from Starlink
According to Wikipedia they had an EBITDA of $4.5 Billion that year, so even if they lost all income from government contracts while still paying the costs for them, they would still be profitable - they are not solely viable via government contract. They were only able to launch because of government's role, but its not true nowadays.
In addition to this outstanding comment, there's also a fundamental difference between a company getting the government to start subsidizing them, and a company that notices that current government suppliers appear extremely inefficient and so go and create a literally 100x better product and take over the contracts.
Seems like Scott thinks he's pretty smart, I really don't know what to make of it all. Maybe he's great at math and physics, but he has a very narrow area of expertise, I'm really not sure why his politics and 99% of his twitter posts are so stupid, he just really comes off as low intelligence, so Scott's take is interesting and just confused me more.
There's also the possibility of some deterioration? As in maybe his use of Twitter has done some sort of harm (sleep deprivation perhaps?) that could explain it. I doubt it, probably narrow expertise or deliberate messaging strategy makes more sense, but I don't think it's impossible.
Actually, he's the head of engineering for Tesla and SpaceX even though he doesn't have even the most basic of engineering degrees.
When government starts getting involved in economics, these are the kinds of people that start taking over.
And when you own the company you can give yourself any title you like and make any claim you like about what you do or don't do, it's basically meaningless. What he calls himself and what his employees would describe if they weren't all under NDA is entirely different. All that said, SpaceX is a legitimate well run business, but also the one he has least control over and the only one with an actually independent board. Tesla's board is just his friends and that company would not hve gotten anywhere without him convincing Obama admin to give them gigantic subsidies and then give their customers huge tax deductions for buying his cars.
I find it supremely ironic that the people who go on and on about Musk’s lack of epistemic humility (which is a fair criticism, to be sure) entirely lack it themselves, at least when it comes to their pronouncements about what Musk does and doesn’t do and know.
But given that Richard is the Substack king of lack of all epistemic humility, it should not be all the surprising that the large majority of commenters on his posts more or less share that trait.
I suspect one piece of the tech right puzzle is that they are disproportionately autistic with "spiky" cognitive profiles - world-class in some ways, borderline impaired in others. Musk strikes me as an extreme example of this type.
I think Musk is the kind of CEO that you get in a mixed economy. His businesses are the result of government regulations, subsidy and political connection. In a free market capitalist system, he'd be in a cubicle somewhere, in a very junior role.
This has been made worse by a lot of his peers, who are actually much more serious professionals, treating him as an equal. They're doing this out of benevolence, but they really should've known better. IMO this gives him a lot of unearned clout in business circles.
I think it is more likely Nuvigil. I had a family member fry their brain on Nuvigil and Adderall and ironically they thought it was making them smarter…it definitely helped them score 20% higher on a very important standardized test but in the end they definitely aren’t smarter!
Nobody said that he is playing dumb. He was a genius but due to long spanning association/interaction with idiots and idiotic content he became dumb himself.
Richard said they either have to hide their smart ideas, or they have to subconsciously become dumber. I'm not sure which one he thinks Musk is doing, but he at least suggested he might be playing dumb. I've heard it before from people like Mike Israetel that Elon is hiding his real beliefs in order to get some benefit for his companies from the Trump admin, an idea I'm unconvinced of.
I think this part implied what I wrote above:
"Musk is another example of a smart person who operates under circumstances in which the pull of the low human capital horde is so overwhelming that he has become like his fans. "
But you might be right. If I did not have a prior belief of him having been smart and becoming dumb recently I may have understood it that him pretending is still an option.
Yeah I think It was a mistake on my end, it seems like Richard thinks he has mentally deteriorated
Elon Musk is probably the greatest example of the importance of domain expertise in history. He has led successful companies in not one, but two frontier fields (SpaceX and Tesla), due to a mix of management style and domain expertise (he is very obviously interested in rockets and electric vehicles).
DOGE was also an obviously-moronic effort that wildly overpromised ($2T cuts!) and delivered nothing but dead African kids. His posts on Xitter routinely veer into nonsensical white nationalism (I have him muted but nevertheless got to see him talking about how whites will be targeted if they become the minority - while living in Texas, a majority-minority state, where whites are absolutely not targeted). His politics is spastic and reactionary in the dumbest way possible.
Perhaps Musk has some particular talents at management and engineering, or at least a mix of above-average ability and drive in those fields, without any similar ability in other fields - but more importantly, his decision-making in SpaceX and Tesla have been based on a background of domain expertise. You cannot know without learning, and there is no sign that at any point in DOGE did he try to consult with people who have spent years and years studying the budget, nor does he show any sign of trying to filter for better news sources or political science than viral clips on Xitter, etc.
That's what mild neurodivergence does to you. He has a vertical form intelligence which allows him to build vertically integrated logistically complex businesses with impressive excellence. Outside of that niche, his lack of natural intuitive aptitude causes him nothing but embarrassment.
My prediction for a while now is that Trump & MAGA are going to take conservatism into the toilet (arguably they are already there), much in the way that wokeness & unhinged progressivism made Democrats nearly unelectable. A new Democratic leader, probably Newsom, will arise and make centrism sexy again - and the Republicans will lose big time. And much in the same way as happened on the left, the right will begin to purge the MAGA freak show from their ranks.
This will happen just in time to see a neo-woke resurgence after Newsom leaves office, with the formerly Democratic centrists jumping the unbearably left-wing ship to join the newly centrist Republicans under a delightfully boring Rubio-like character.
I've been saying for a while now, I'm not really a liberal, I'm just a 2040's conservative.
But the left-wing and right-wing freakshows never go away, they just alternate power with the centrists, in the same way that Democrats and Republicans alternate power. American government is no longer a pendulum, it is a Rubik's Cube.
Maybe you can help me out.
Do you actually think Newsom is a good candidate? If so, why? Why does anyone? I can't think of a single positive quality he has for a general election candidate.
Have you watched interviews of him? He's very much not like other Democrats in terms of vibes. He definately gives off that "President on TV" vibe, but also a kind of "very masculine, but not a douchebag" vibe. Like the cool kid in school who stood up for the bullied kids.
He also is an abundance champion and has spent the last several years fighting the behemoth of California state government in order to actually get things done. He comes across as pragmatic and reasonable.
And as an anti-Trump combatant he is top notch. Instead of getting quiet or paranoid, he pushes back, he trolls, he fights back. It's refreshing to see someone like him in a sea of emotionally fragile Democrats. He is the best Anti-Trump that the Democrats have, at least with a big enough profile.
I'm not necesarily in love with him, but I do like his vibes. I think he's the best chance Democrats have unless they can somehow boost the profile of a Beshear or Gallego type. There are two years left so anything can happen.
If his vibes are so good, why isn't this reflected in his election results? If he is good at appealing to voters, why hasn't this led to more people voting for him?
And as far as being a "combatant", that was the argument for why Tim Walz was so dang great. Remember when he swung the election by calling Trump and Vance "weird"? I sure do!
I also remember Harris getting combative with Trump in their debate and making him look like a jackass on TV. And I remember how much it mattered.
Newsom doesn't address any of the Dems weaknesses, and his strengths are in things that don't seem to matter much with voters.
Omg, Nostradamus predicted a new leader with some great ideas would rise up. “New”….”some”…freaky!!
But what if Rubio gets his nomination in 2028 against Newsom (not AOC). That would create a more rational debate all around and purge the toxic minorities just by keeping Bluesky and Twitter as containment domes for both the left and the right that do not influence the public discourse anymore
I do not see a compelling reason to believe Rubio has a sincere commitment to economic conservatism. He is a midwit. He was a fast riser because he's Hispanic and somewhat charismatic. He mostly cares about foreign policy and he's a neocon.
Rubio would absolutely be an improvement over Trump and Vance, because I believe he is not a completely shameless demagogue without respect for the Constitution and rule of law, but he would be a shift back to the Bush2-era GOP, and that wasn't exactly a recipe for success.
MAGA has not been defeated yet, so there is no way that Little Marco could gain power, unless he is somehow elevated to VP or else is left over in some kind of "designated survivor" situation. The median Republican voter is still MAGA-aligned and will continue to be so until MAGA-ism is defeated.
If MAGA-ism is indeed never defeated, then RH is correct and the Republicans will be permanently MAGA forever. I just don't think this is going to happen because MAGA policies are pretty stupid and will eventually have disasterous results - and if the whole GOP turned MAGA quickly, it also means it can turn away quickly.
The first party to return to centrist normalcy will be the first to reap the rewards. I think that will be the Democrats. The Republicans will then follow suit because it makes sense - and since they always follow whatever the Democrats were doing ____ years ago.
“Republicans will then follow suit since they always follow whatever Democrats were doing years ago”… makes me think of Curtis Yarvin recently explaining on PBD podcast that America has always been to the left politically but most people aren’t ready or (willing?) to hear about such discourse.
My take is that Republicans (aside from a few pet issues like abortion and guns) have historically based their policy & beliefs on whatever the Democrats were doing 20-30 years ago. This is one of the reasons I stopped being a Republican - you can't hold back the tide of history.
But I also recognize that this trend has come apart in recent years. I think what happened is that Liberalism as an ideology has pretty much run its course. All of us, even Republicans, are liberals now. Liberalism already won! We all believe in human rights, equality, etc. There is nothing really left except for botique issues like abortion, guns, trans, etc.
Liberalism is sort of lost because it doesn't really know what it is fighting for and needs to be reminded. Fighting against the cultural appropriation of Disneyland or oppressive coffee shops is essentially tilting at windmills. Victory has defeated liberals. And since conservatives have never had an idea that liberals didn't have first, they are lost too.
And so then....Trump.
The whole far right resurgence is really just a last gasp of old conservatism and its racial anxiety. But it is a charade. There is no going back to despotism or monarchy or any of this nonsense. Americans would be in revolt after 5 minutes of a real dictator/monarch. What conservatives really want is for liberals to lead them again. When these RW internet trolls say they want to go back to medieval times they are just lying. It's RH's based ritual in play. It's a shibboleth.
But there is nothing there. It's all fake. But conservatives aren't alone as liberals are lost too. No one knows what is going to happen with deglobalization or AI. Trump is literally just a self-interested grifter who believes in nothing.
The only hope is that the threat of Trump will rouse liberals out of their compalcency, so they can once again lead.
Thank you for elaborating. I can see what you’re saying.
I think this article gets the fundamentals wrong.
You say, “ten years ago, anti-vaxxers did not have any role in national politics.” That’s not because our politics was healthier, but because the focus was on climate alarmism instead. Today, even as living standards fall, costs rise, and infrastructure visibly degrades, these policies are treated as self-evidently correct by mainstream political professionals. Serious dissent is dismissed rather than answered. On what basis, then, can the mainstream credibly dispute anti-vaxxers?
This isn’t a failure of polling, or a lack of studies, or a problem with “democratizing the public square.” Ideas don’t originate in the public square. Ideas are produced and communicated by our political experts and the real issue is that our political class increasingly lacks any real familiarity with the subject of politics.
This failure of expertise is what's allowed nonsense ideas to take over the mainstream. What we’re seeing now is the predictable result of professional collapse within the field of politics. It's not "us" that is the problem, it's not the voters. It's our political experts.
You write that good ideas have staying power. Yes, but where are these good ideas in today’s mainstream? Who is advocating them?
Sobering article but it assumes that the train stays on the track. While I agree that the left is moderating, and that more effective leadership (than Biden, Schumer et al.) is likely, the folks on the right are agressively trying to derail the train. Repeated violations of the Constitution and court orders. Threats to future elections. Destruction of government capacity. Teaching Americans to love autocracy because they hate the left more. Pushing policies that make climate change worse in the face of a 1.7C estimate temperature rise over preindustrial for 2027. Destabilizing both the American and the world economy, as well as international relations, through the use of tarrifs and hostility to other countries. How do you alienate Canada? So I get this theory but the obvious question is what happens if the train is derailed. That's ommitted from the article but seems like a very possible scenario.
David French -- essentially making the same point.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/01/opinion/midterms-election-influence-trump.html
Gavin Newsom is kind of a dyslexic idiot, but he is also obviously a cool dude with a good sense of humor. If he stops combing his hair backwards like Christian Bale in American Psycho, he could be a lock.
Delightful essay, thanks. You may underestimate the median stupidity of voters in the past, but still. As a Democrat, I feel my limited persuasive abilities should be directed towards progressives with foolish ideas (who possibly might listen), rather than true-believing MAGAs (who certainly would not).
Yeah there's a small group of people who it's worth reasoning with, even most "centrists" are super biased in favour of trump, which makes sense as its probably necessary in order to be a centrist in todays America. The true believing MAGA's are people who can only be appealed to through optics, slogans, & cultures wars, there's a battle to be fought there, but I'm completely uninterested in engaging with such low human capital. Ironically the epstein stuff is the first thing that might be shifting some of them, it's ironic as "Trump is a pedo" likely isn't the rational conclusion, but like I said they don't deal in rationality.
As mentioned in the article, there is a populist strain in the left as well, it's just less popular politically than in the right in the US right now for whatever reason. I don't think there's anything intrinsic about this though, I can imagine a Trumpian left figure taking advantage of this, there is some money left on the table for that for a charismatic enough individual. I think the common feature of populism on the right and left is a tendency to scapegoat, on the right it is the foreigner or maybe trans people or the Jews, on the populist left it is rich people, or in the case of Hasan Piker whatever the US supports as well (although in that world view they ultimately serve rich people).
“Ezra and Derek are winning the debate on the left now”
There is simply no evidence that this is actually true.
They are winning the debate only within the reasonable center-left.
But said “wing” of the left has no power and is not getting bigger and more influential.
Richard’s “The left is EHC” has now given way to the reality that “the left is dominated by midwits”, but his continued repeated repudiation of his own past through selective “reading” of the right and claiming it is entirely controlled by its “stupid” MAGA wing is simply Richard tripling down on his own delusions.
As evidenced by his false quoted claim at the top for which he can provide no evidence whatsoever.
Because it doesn’t exist.
It is simply his wishful thinking.
> They are winning the debate only within the reasonable center-left.
> But said “wing” of the left has no power and is not getting bigger and more influential.
Gavin Newsom, the governor of the most infamously blue state, is passing YIMBY laws like CEQA reform and Senate Bill 79 (which, while good, are also very politically difficult - NIMBYism defies left-right conventions because it is broadly popular) and explicitly calling out YIMBYism and Ezra Klein. Zohran Mamdani, literal Democratic Socialists of America member, immediately signed an executive order to cut fees and fines for small businesses.
These are very left-wing politicians who recognize that being allowed to hold power relies on governing well. Right-wing politicians, OTOH, are the only politicians on the planet who become less likely to continue to hold power if they stand up to Donald Trump.
Shirley is very dumb but I did chuckle at your pronunciation of “ennui” during a podcast recently.
I for one will choose the freedom of the wilderness over the tyranny of the midwit any day of the week.
Your critique of the anti-monopolist, wealth inequality-focused Left is half-baked at best. More accurately, it shows your own bitterness, bias, and lack of original thinking ability. There is no future for the Democratic Party unless the populists of AOC, Bernie, More Perfect Union, the Majority Report, and Breaking Points win and bring their fresh, exciting ideas to the fore. Abundance is an absolute grift- it has no bearing on federal governance and inspires only elites who fear change. It would take us back to the failed neoliberal governing style of Clinton/Obama/Biden. The sooner people like Hanania (who is correct about so much), the better!
More evidence that Richard’s claim that “Ezra and Derek and Abundance” are winning on the left is absurdly untrue.
Intelligent and reasonably well read people were always well aware that living standards exploded between the dawn of the industrial revolution and now. I don’t think this owes to our current information age.
Pinker’s main contribution was describing the extent to which *so many different things* have been getting better and that it is still happening.
"The infamous George Floyd letter, in which a lot of people with advanced degrees said you shouldn’t protest unless it is against racism, in which case being out in the streets could be justified on public health grounds, might have been the worst moment for the reputation of official experts in a generation."
Ah, hindsight. I guess you forget what was happening in summer 2020, post George Floyd's unnecessary killing by cops. The exception was premised on the belief that, I quote, "White supremacy is a lethal public health issue that predates and contributes to COVID-19." COVID rates in Black communities themselves were seen as evidence. Anti-black racism was simply seen as an overriding issue.
*If* you accepted this premise, one brought into sharp focus by a series of police actions, it's logical to countenance open-air anti-racism protesting, coupled with recomendations to mitigate COVID spread and prepare to treat cases arising from it (which are also in the letter). You won't countenance protests that you don't think are as important, and which you think may have racist consequences.
If you don't accept the premise, it seems totally hypocritical. If you find it farcical that 1,288 health professionals (a somewhat broadly defined category, including degree candidates, anonymous signees, advocacy groups, but curiously, no one named Fauci or Birx) could at the time, you are being obtuse.
It's almost as if the smart Center-Left Establishment went insane in the spring of 2020...
You beat them by decades in that department.
Exactly! They explained their assumption pretty clearly in the letter:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/05/health/health-care-open-letter-protests-coronavirus-trnd
It's the same logic used to justify why essential workers were still expected to work, despite the danger.
There is a huge amount of history revisionism going on around COVID, often manifesting as triumphalist narratives from the right and some in the 'center'. The actual history was messy and requires detailed telling to get right.
Interesting take, though I'm somewhat annoyed with the overall classist tone ("despicables", anyone?). Emmanuel Todd says that what's endangering democracy the most is the separation of the educated from the rest of the population. Democracy was born with global literacy, when everyone but a minuscule fringe could read and write but not much more. Nowadays, people with a college degree are about 30% of the population in the US, and can basically live without any contact with the uneducated populace, which feeds resentment and populism.
Add to this the crazy separatism of the techno-billionaires (I think that Thiel is honestly mad as a hatter now, and Musk probably too) and we're off toward a pretty bumpy ride overall.
It's pretty easy to convince MAGA that the government should use Bayesian statistical models. Just say, "For years the WOKE MOB has been forcing scientists to use cringe and bluepilled statistics for globalists, now we have a chance to use Bayesian statistics for BASED GIGACHADS."
I remember Bryan Caplan making the point that voters being generally ignorant could actually ALLOW for good policy, if politicians just say what they need to say to get elected and then do the good policy. The very same ignorance that leads voters to vote for bad policies also means they don't pay attention to whether those policies are actually implemented. That's ignorance.
So basically, a politician who wants to implement good policies that are unpopular should just "lie" and say she'll implement bad polices that are popular in order to get elected. And then once she's in power, she can just ignore what she said and implement the actual good policies, and most people won't even notice because most people don't actually pay attention to what politicians do. And, if anyone does ask, she can just lie and say she's implementing the bad policies. It's surprisingly not that difficult to spin one's actions however you want, even in the opposite direction.
I'm not saying it's "good" or "desirable" to lie, I'm just saying that the general ignorance of voters could leave an opportunity for someone who wants to implement good policy to actually implement good policy, as long as they say the "right things" to get elected.