Il Douché and His Discontents: The 2016 Primary Voting Thread, Part 4

I'll just chime in that I think Ted Cruz could probably make seven figures as a scumbag corporate lawyer none of us have ever heard of, but he seems to find being a scumbag Senator from Texas who has alienated ALL of his colleagues to be a much more exciting career. If that equates to "off the charts brilliance", then he certainly qualifies.

For comparison, Nixon was reputed to be extremely brilliant when talking foreign policy and Nixon was clearly a more talented politician than Cruz. At this early point in Cruz's career, it is hard to say which is the greater scumbag though. Nixon is pretty lofty competition.

how many innocent civilians has Cruz murdered by giving orders in a drunken rage

Nixon's foreign policy chops vastly overrated imo

I've never seen Nixon's foreign policy bonafides. Cambodians and Chileans sure are grateful though!

he was even wrong about Yeltsin!

xps How many? None, afaik. Why else do you think Cruz chafes at the limitations of the Senate and longs for executive power?

I've never seen Nixon's foreign policy bonafides. Cambodians and Chileans sure are grateful though!

^^^ every time some talking head starts prattling on as if Nixon's foreign policy skills are beyond dispute it's rmde time. Vietnam was a disaster, his China visit was 0 for 3 of its stated goals, etc.

straining to think of a single foreign policy crisis that he successfully resolved

i think people just like delivering some kind of counter-conventional wisdom when it comes to nixon, makes them feel wonkish, as it were.

kind of like rock critics rehabilitating the osmonds

they would be better served by citing his successful domestic policies

If cruz is so brilliant, why does he believe so many stupid things?

SALT?

(Nixon was horrible)

If cruz is so brilliant, why does he believe so many stupid things?

= zen koan least likely to result in enlightenment

why smart people believe stupid things is the second most important theological query after why bad things happen to good ppl

with the possible exception of johnson, nixon was prob the single worst foreign policy prez of the cold war era

Bad things happen everybody. It's only worth further thought when they happen to good ppl.

not even then. but then again, i'm not much for theology!

Smart ppl believe stupid things because u gotta have a mental comfort blanket in a crul world where bad things happen to good ppl (and to bad ppl but as covered wgaf)

What's the third big one I got two mins

And yet, both Cruz and Nixon have/had reputations for brilliance. This probably says quite a bit about the general quality of judgment among very powerful people. I expect there is a presumption that acquiring great power and wielding great power automatically impresses those who value power.

they would be better served by citing his successful domestic policies

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, April 5, 2016

"Soldier of Love" was a big American hit.

(I also despise the word "wonkish"; it's Beltway contempt for someone who actually reads)

Since 'wonk' is 'know' backwards, I've always assumed the term started as a compliment.

The nature of brilliance is worthy of a big thread, gut feeling is that you prob need to be very brilliant indeed to perform even reasonably well at even reasonably low levels of political complexity, which is why predictability, ability to navigate the structures and tendency to avoid landmines trump brilliance ten times out of ten

what does trump have to do with it?

have to do with it

Ted Turner

The nature of brilliance is worthy of a big thread, gut feeling is that you prob need to be very brilliant indeed to perform even reasonably well at even reasonably low levels of political complexity,

i.e. Reagan was Metternich?

Can never manage to remember Reagan's position on the Napoleonic exile, remind me again

7,300+ posts. Post-Wisconsin would be a good time for Part 5.

It is a new month after all

frederick was right that the podcast had no really brilliant take on the enthusiasm numbers. however harry entin (i think) had a really interesting point - he said that some studies are showing that trump is doing really poorly in places w/ strong social cohesion / sense of community and really well in places where ppl feel alienated / alone. i'd like to find what he was referring to but that tracks w/ my gut about trump's appeal and also would literally make him the divisive candidate.

new thread could just be called "feel the nedmentum"

trump below 50% for the nom on predictwise for the first time since iowa

would watch the best man with goole and alfred

have had empire in my amazon shopping cart for ~3 years. maybe now is a good time finally buy it.

you can buy shares that bernie won't be the dem nominee at predictit for 80c, which is insane, but with their $850 cap and 5% fee for withdrawals it's not really worth it. maybe if it goes down to 75c

unexpected post!

ha i thought i've been pretty clear that while i'm rooting for bernie i don't think it's likely he's gonna win. certainly his odds are worse than 4:1, however you feel about hm

wonkish doesn't mean "intellectual" it means obsessive about the details of policy. It is associated with a type of intelligence but not necessarily grand strategy, long view or vision.

i can buy that cruz is brilliant even though i've never been sadistic enough to seek out any evidence

i didn't just mean wonkish when i said bernie doesn't seem smart (although i find the 'don't ask for specifics, we're gonna figure out how to do it once we get elected' attitude arrogant and also weirdly lazy of the campaign? like there's tonnes of progressive/socdem policy people who could write him up some stuff, it's not like he's the first person to have thought of how to make college free or break up banks), to me he seems like an incurious old hippie. not an idiot, but just, you know, someone with a smug bumper sticker. like he believes in alternative medicine and shit. or like, despite being the guy who brings up the 1% at every opportunity i read somewhere some close friend of his saying he never read a page of Capital in the 21st Century and never would (ok granted it's a punchline how long and boring the book is but like, you could probably read the one book ever written that exists about the one topic you talk about, you know?)

it's awesome that an old hippie dude like that became senator and was on the right side of history while america was doing some dark shit, and he's a strangely enchanting orator who can bring a tear to my eye at his best. i don't think 'smart' is a necessary condition to be a politician, but it's definitely a quality i want leftist candidates to have. people already think all leftists are dumb idealists, i think it helps to have some public figures who can offset the image deficit. plus, like, we may just have one shot to bring social democracy to america, you don't wanna fuck it up

Admittedly this is one thing I do find frustrating about Sanders -- I think he IS smart enough to just suck it up and memorize a little more detail fed to him by policy people the way most candidates do it. The Daily News interview was frustrating, because it wasn't like his answers were really that bad if you dissected them but he sounded so unprepared on things that he actually DOES have opinions about. I don't actually care if he read Capital in the 21st Century (a lot of people who claim to have done so have only read small excerpts), but he could easily read a few articles about it and have some talking points.

I took what he said about too big to fail institutions, for example -- if you take out some confusion that was actually caused by the questioner moving the ball (he kept switching from the executive to the fed in a way that made no sense and did not respond to what Bernie was saying), his answer was perfectly right. But he does need to be able to do better on the spot answering -- I don't need him to be an expert on the details, many presidents and governors are not, but I kind of want to feel that he cares about knowing the details a little more.

Lol Trump

More and more thinking my comment way upthread about him being slightly W-like in his simplicity was right. And I don't think that's per se a bad thing -- W was, unfortunately, a very effective president in a lot of ways. I think Sanders has good instincts and common sense and the right beliefs, so I'm ok with him not knowing every detail of what a post-breakup JPMorgan Chase would look like, I just want him to try a little harder, at very least to quiet the doubters, since this is so obviously a weakness for his campaign.

ap call wisconsin for cruz

The Republican side is so uninteresting when Cruz does well.

AP calls Wisconsin for Sanders

That was painful. "This election is about God, freedom, and security." Give me Trump's bluster and complete lack of conviction about anything any day.

not an idiot, but just, you know, someone with a smug bumper sticker. like he believes in alternative medicine and shit.

tbh i think that he kind of does? seems irrelevant but i think there's some stuff he said and wrote about it back in the day that the republicans would happily circulate if they had a reason to

he's said some dumb shit about medicine but nothing that would ever hurt him in an election

not an idiot, but just, you know, someone with a smug bumper sticker. like he believes in alternative medicine and shit.

tbh i think that he kind of does? seems irrelevant but i think there's some stuff he said and wrote about it back in the day that the republicans would happily circulate if they had a reason to

― arts and crafts THIS GUY (daria-g)

the GOP believes in alternative medicine too: if you're poor and have no insurance, you die.