I’ve spent my whole life in AZ and it’s been interesting seeing the change from country club republicans like Jan Brewer and Ducey to Kari Lake.
The most eye opening experience was reading how Ducey left Katie Hobbs a really nice note on her first day of being governor while Kari Lake decided to start calling herself the “ real governor”.
Up north you have the oath keepers and they think Jan 6 was a psy-op by the government.
> Surely, as the less educated party, Republicans will still have a lot of crazy people around, but it seems that loyalty toward one man is doing a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of energizing and mobilizing them, and consolidating their efforts.
Hope springs eternal.
I think that Trump has done serious psychic damage to the Republican base, which it will take quite a few cycles for them to recover from. There are several major causes, which overlap and reinforce each other:
1. Trump comes off as "an extremist," but in terms of policy positions, he often tacks towards the center: giving up on federal abortion legislation, leaving Social Security to run hot, etc. Trump is an extremist in that he wants to (and has actively tried to) dismantle American democracy, not in that he wants to get rid of gay marriage, etc. This does not seem to be true of MAGA politicians, who tend to be extreme on political issues. The MAGA base seems to perceive Trump as far right, and thus votes for far right politicians (who tend to lose, as the median American is in the political center).
2. Ordinarily, parties respond to losing elections by pausing, taking stock, and trying to find a better path forward in the next election. To some extent, this applies even to the (less plugged in) party base. But in 2024, the base literally nominated the guy who just lost his last election to run it again. The GOP base now believes every single election they lose - including insane ones, like fucking LOS ANGELES - is actually due to voter fraud.
3. There is now a massive media ecosystem, reinforced by the voters themselves, that feeds them total slop and idiocy. Fox News tried to hold out for reason and logic in 2020, and got its lunch eaten by OANN - nowadays, if you go to the Fox News website and highlight "U.S." you get to see the four options: Blue City Crime, Campus Radicals, Border Crisis, and True Crime.
They’ve nominated election deniers for governor, Secretary of State and attorney general this year. The secretary of state nominee represented the slate of fake electors.
The income graph is interesting. Arizona has a bit less than 4 times the population of New Mexico and a bit less than 4 times the personal income. Republican leadership is obviously of no great benefit.
It’s because of oil and gas and high skilled government workers. Not drawing any new business to your state and seeing the population stagnate is not a victory.
Drawing people to your state when you don't have the water resources and infrastructure -- Arizona -- is simply foolish. And our roads are better in New Mexico. But I digress, because I lived in AZ for 20 years before moving to NM 3 years ago and I enjoyed my time there until the cost of living (housing and gas are more expensive) drove me out.
Thank you for the point. Arizona is more urban than New Mexico because of Phoenix and urban folks make about 15 to 20 percent more than rural folks. Having a big city in your state helps your numbers and New Mexico does not have that. Good stewardship and many years could change those numbers but Richard is a bit flippant about that stuff and wants to get into writing about cuckcoldery. I imagine there are a lot of people interested in moving to Arizona for its social scene and not necessarily it tax policy if they read Richard.
Phoenix isn't a natural city. It is a city built in explicit defiance of god. It only grows because it's business-friendly.
I moved to it-- from the Seattle area-- because Amazon was only willing to offer me a promotion at that time conditional upon moving (despite being a Seattle company, Amazon has gradually been shrinking its Seattle headcount as a share of overall headcount in recent years). Of course, it's a slow process.
Seattle tax policy is explicitly a big part of why.
Arizona has a population of 7.6 million people. The natural geology of the area would support maybe 760,000 humans. 20th century technology made possible that ridiculous number of people living in the desert with enough water that they even have golf course!
Obviously, something has gone horribly wrong with this unnatural abomination. There's something wrong with that imported water.
Those 7.7 million people use ~22% of Arizona's total water. The vast majority of water is used for agriculture (72%) with a smaller share used by other industries. Arizona can and will support a much larger population. Consider that, since 2000, the population of the Phoenix metro area has gone up ~56% but residential water use is essentially unchanged. It's a case of a very urban state (90% of the population) still in many ways seeing itself as an agricultural frontier state and apportioning water accordingly. That agriculture drinking up 72% of the Colorado River allotment accounts for 0.5% of Arizona's GDP.
Yeah - The stupid little island of 22.8 square miles could naturally only support about 4,000 people, yet they have 1.6 million on it. Manhattan is an even bigger unnatural abomination.
You failed to consider the technology, geology, and location advantages. If you like golf, come and play now; the rounds are cheaper in summer, if you can take the heat.
The real story here is *both* Democrat and Republican Parties being destroyed by Populism; and I'm not sure who comes out on top in that fight. I'm not sure if it really matters - in a world where the Chief ideological influence is a Tucker, Rogan, or Candice on one side, or the Social Democrats on the Left, there are no winners.
The institutional barriers are the same that made the American Revolution so different from the French; limited government, checks and balances, giving popular but stupid policies a chance to fail locally rather than destroying the entire country. For example, the backlash against Democrats after 2020. People could clearly see for themselves that Texas and Florida and the Carolinas were preferable to lockdowns in New York, California, and Chicago (including, hysterically enough, remember AOC enjoying the sun in Florida at a bar/Cafe- something she ironically could not have down in shut down NY).
I hope the Constitutional framework holds. But how long can it, when both sides stated goals are to destroy the Constitution- one side explicitly, the other by reducing it to a patriotic totem they no longer adhere to.
Don't get me wrong- I agree that (as Ben Shapiro said) - Trump is the coroner not the killer in this case. It was dead before he got elected. But Republicans once *defended limited government, free markets, and individual rights* (I know, it's been a long time). The destruction of *that* party is a sad thing, and if the result is 2 emotionalist, populist parties, then ether something has to change or we will not last.
I’ve spent my whole life in AZ and it’s been interesting seeing the change from country club republicans like Jan Brewer and Ducey to Kari Lake.
The most eye opening experience was reading how Ducey left Katie Hobbs a really nice note on her first day of being governor while Kari Lake decided to start calling herself the “ real governor”.
Up north you have the oath keepers and they think Jan 6 was a psy-op by the government.
State GOP is fucking crazy.
The Republican Party is the only reason Freud is still relevant.
You believe MAGA made conservatives something they are not, when in reality MAGA revealed conservatives for what they’ve always been.
> Surely, as the less educated party, Republicans will still have a lot of crazy people around, but it seems that loyalty toward one man is doing a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of energizing and mobilizing them, and consolidating their efforts.
Hope springs eternal.
I think that Trump has done serious psychic damage to the Republican base, which it will take quite a few cycles for them to recover from. There are several major causes, which overlap and reinforce each other:
1. Trump comes off as "an extremist," but in terms of policy positions, he often tacks towards the center: giving up on federal abortion legislation, leaving Social Security to run hot, etc. Trump is an extremist in that he wants to (and has actively tried to) dismantle American democracy, not in that he wants to get rid of gay marriage, etc. This does not seem to be true of MAGA politicians, who tend to be extreme on political issues. The MAGA base seems to perceive Trump as far right, and thus votes for far right politicians (who tend to lose, as the median American is in the political center).
2. Ordinarily, parties respond to losing elections by pausing, taking stock, and trying to find a better path forward in the next election. To some extent, this applies even to the (less plugged in) party base. But in 2024, the base literally nominated the guy who just lost his last election to run it again. The GOP base now believes every single election they lose - including insane ones, like fucking LOS ANGELES - is actually due to voter fraud.
3. There is now a massive media ecosystem, reinforced by the voters themselves, that feeds them total slop and idiocy. Fox News tried to hold out for reason and logic in 2020, and got its lunch eaten by OANN - nowadays, if you go to the Fox News website and highlight "U.S." you get to see the four options: Blue City Crime, Campus Radicals, Border Crisis, and True Crime.
They’ve nominated election deniers for governor, Secretary of State and attorney general this year. The secretary of state nominee represented the slate of fake electors.
The income graph is interesting. Arizona has a bit less than 4 times the population of New Mexico and a bit less than 4 times the personal income. Republican leadership is obviously of no great benefit.
It’s because of oil and gas and high skilled government workers. Not drawing any new business to your state and seeing the population stagnate is not a victory.
Drawing people to your state when you don't have the water resources and infrastructure -- Arizona -- is simply foolish. And our roads are better in New Mexico. But I digress, because I lived in AZ for 20 years before moving to NM 3 years ago and I enjoyed my time there until the cost of living (housing and gas are more expensive) drove me out.
Thank you for the point. Arizona is more urban than New Mexico because of Phoenix and urban folks make about 15 to 20 percent more than rural folks. Having a big city in your state helps your numbers and New Mexico does not have that. Good stewardship and many years could change those numbers but Richard is a bit flippant about that stuff and wants to get into writing about cuckcoldery. I imagine there are a lot of people interested in moving to Arizona for its social scene and not necessarily it tax policy if they read Richard.
Phoenix isn't a natural city. It is a city built in explicit defiance of god. It only grows because it's business-friendly.
I moved to it-- from the Seattle area-- because Amazon was only willing to offer me a promotion at that time conditional upon moving (despite being a Seattle company, Amazon has gradually been shrinking its Seattle headcount as a share of overall headcount in recent years). Of course, it's a slow process.
Seattle tax policy is explicitly a big part of why.
On the cuckoldry point, MTG had some similar thing going on too
Arizona has a population of 7.6 million people. The natural geology of the area would support maybe 760,000 humans. 20th century technology made possible that ridiculous number of people living in the desert with enough water that they even have golf course!
Obviously, something has gone horribly wrong with this unnatural abomination. There's something wrong with that imported water.
Those 7.7 million people use ~22% of Arizona's total water. The vast majority of water is used for agriculture (72%) with a smaller share used by other industries. Arizona can and will support a much larger population. Consider that, since 2000, the population of the Phoenix metro area has gone up ~56% but residential water use is essentially unchanged. It's a case of a very urban state (90% of the population) still in many ways seeing itself as an agricultural frontier state and apportioning water accordingly. That agriculture drinking up 72% of the Colorado River allotment accounts for 0.5% of Arizona's GDP.
Yeah - The stupid little island of 22.8 square miles could naturally only support about 4,000 people, yet they have 1.6 million on it. Manhattan is an even bigger unnatural abomination.
You failed to consider the technology, geology, and location advantages. If you like golf, come and play now; the rounds are cheaper in summer, if you can take the heat.
An excellent analysis thank you.
Look at Heritage.
The real story here is *both* Democrat and Republican Parties being destroyed by Populism; and I'm not sure who comes out on top in that fight. I'm not sure if it really matters - in a world where the Chief ideological influence is a Tucker, Rogan, or Candice on one side, or the Social Democrats on the Left, there are no winners.
The institutional barriers are the same that made the American Revolution so different from the French; limited government, checks and balances, giving popular but stupid policies a chance to fail locally rather than destroying the entire country. For example, the backlash against Democrats after 2020. People could clearly see for themselves that Texas and Florida and the Carolinas were preferable to lockdowns in New York, California, and Chicago (including, hysterically enough, remember AOC enjoying the sun in Florida at a bar/Cafe- something she ironically could not have down in shut down NY).
I hope the Constitutional framework holds. But how long can it, when both sides stated goals are to destroy the Constitution- one side explicitly, the other by reducing it to a patriotic totem they no longer adhere to.
Don't get me wrong- I agree that (as Ben Shapiro said) - Trump is the coroner not the killer in this case. It was dead before he got elected. But Republicans once *defended limited government, free markets, and individual rights* (I know, it's been a long time). The destruction of *that* party is a sad thing, and if the result is 2 emotionalist, populist parties, then ether something has to change or we will not last.
Just look at what we’ve done to ourselves in Texas.