Curb Your Authoritarianism? The 2016 Conventional Wisdom Thread (Elections, Part 6)

Decades of progress made in bringing down crime are now being reversed by this Administration’s rollback of criminal enforcement...

The number of police officers killed in the line of duty has risen by almost 50% compared to this point last year.

so yeah things were getting better, but then black

Is HRC's VP press conference scheduled yet

this is one of those times where 'statistics' is an unfortunate term since it means something like 'counting the things that happened'

That Mark Burns speech fucking ruled

The number of police officers killed in the line of duty has risen by almost 50% compared to this point last year.

this isn't true though. they're up 8% from 62 to 67.

shh they'll hear you!

"though"

Vintage Sullivan panic on his live-blog:

If you wonder what it was like in the 1930s for ordinary people to flock to demagogues, tune in tonight. America has thrown up an extremely talented one. I fear that Hillary Clinton has no idea what is about to hit her.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/07/andrew-sullivan-liveblogs-the-rnc-night-4.html

Fuck, if that's the transcript he should pack in the Queen song and walk out tonight to Pink Floyd's "In the Flesh."

he was fun to read the last two nights cuz he kept garbage like this at a minimum:

It seems to me that the right bears the hefty majority of responsibility, moving from principled opposition to outright nullification of a presidency, trashing every important neutral institution, and now bad-mouthing the country they hope to “govern.” But the left’s abandonment of empiricism and liberalism – its rapid descent into neo-Marxist dogma, its portrayal of American history as a long unending story of white supremacy, its coarse impugning of political compromise and incrementalism, its facile equation of disagreement with bigotry – has also played a part. Liberal democracy needs liberal norms and manners to survive. Which is why it is now on life-support.

In between, moderate Christianity, once a unifying cultural fabric creating a fragile civil discourse, has evaporated into disparate spirituality on one side and fundamentalist dogma on the other, leaving us with little in the center to hold us morally together

moderate Christianity, a unifying cultural fabric, available at a Target near you.

i remember when sullivan watched the first debate in 2012 and declared that obama had lost the election

I never wanted so much to approach a homo, slap him and say, "Bitch, man the fuck up and take a shot."

I abandoned empiricism the day I realized I was a little hazy on what that actually meant.

I look out at this wasteland and see, in part, what Ross Douthat sees

If they ever publish a book (or a microchip, or whatever) called This Was the Internet 100 years from now, The Debate-Freakout blog needs to be in there.

http://67.media.tumblr.com/823939834007d25057f527190a4134e8/tumblr_oahzzfxROB1rionq1o1_500.gif

peter thiel :]

10.31 pm. Look: you know how much I love the guy, and you know how much of a high information viewer I am, and I can see the logic of some of Obama's meandering, weak, professorial arguments. But this was a disaster for the president for the key people he needs to reach, and his effete, wonkish lectures may have jolted a lot of independents into giving Romney a second look.

Thiel, understandably, seems nervous about how the crowd will react to the excerpt I read earlier.

you know how much of a high information viewer I am

board descrip

I had to google "Peter Thiel." I'm a low info voter.

its portrayal of American history as a long unending story of white supremacy

Well, yes

https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/756298762117455872

I'm listening to him. On behalf of gay entrepreneurial low info voters, I apologize to y'all for giving you Peter Thiel.

crawl into a dead asshole and die, you sniveling quisling

osmosis.

earlier i heard clips of the band playing this special "make america great again" song i wonder if we're gonna hear it

Good. No matter how camera-targeted the cheering was, any vocal booing would have been ugly.

CSPAN ‏@cspan 1h1 hour ago
.@JerryJrFalwell: "I truly believe Mr. Trump is America's blue-collar billionaire."

this guy is mad creepy

this is the guy who's gonna convince you that the trumps will help the middle class

because abortion, bathroom rights, and gay marriage aren't economic issues

Thiel:

The Seasteading Institute (TSI), founded by Wayne Gramlich and Patri Friedman on April 15, 2008, is an organization formed to facilitate the establishment of autonomous, mobile communities on seaborne platforms operating in international waters.[5][8][9] Gramlich’s 1998 article "SeaSteading – Homesteading on the High Seas" outlined the notion of affordable steading, and attracted the attention of Friedman with his proposal for a small-scale project.[3] The two began working together and posted their first collaborative book online in 2001, which explored aspects of seasteading from waste disposal to flags of convenience.

The project picked up mainstream exposure in 2008 after having been brought to the attention of PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel, who contributed $500,000 to fund the creation of The Seasteading Institute and has since spoken out on behalf of its viability, as seen in his essay "The Education of a Libertarian",[10] published online by Cato Unbound. The Seasteading Institute has received widespread media attention from sources such as CNN, Wired,[5] Prospect,[11] The Economist[9] Business Insider,[12] and BBC[13] American journalist John Stossel wrote an article about seasteading in February 2011 and hosted Friedman on his show on the Fox Business Network.[

to quote Harry Lime: "Free of income tax! Free of income tax!"

"blue-collar billionaire" imo means that basically he acts the way you imagine all billionaires act if you are from small town middle america where there are maybe a couple families in the county who make 1/100th of that

in other words could believably (and has) played the role of a billionaire on the WWE

"Befriends the bewildered"--weird!

Watching the PBS commentary, it's funny that David Brooks is supposed to be the token conservative on the panel, and yet his disdain for Trump is palpable.

this guy is killing everyone's energy right before Trump

uh.. i'm not really listening to the words but the vibe i'm getting is rich weird creepy guy hangin with other rich weird creepy guys behaving like gross jerks + oblivious about it

Is this a filibuster?

Michener reference is appropriate

The North Carolina delegates were pissed about Thiel bagging on the culture wars.

Wow, that footage of New York in the early '70s--should have snuck in a shot of Joe Buck and Ratso Rizzo.

there were rumors going around that a bunch of cruz delegates etc were going to have a staged walkout during trump speech, i wonder if that will happen

xpost Joe Buck's narrating!

oh good Larry Kudlow

"Playing on the floor by my father's desk"--right from The Godfather! They're doing it again.

(MVB--hence the reference...)

does she have a fan in her face?

(she looks p good tbh)