Favorite Panda

Former lurker

[Favorite Panda @TheGoodTwee7s]

The funny thing is that Dems have inflated the expectations so much that anything other than a once in a generation blue wave will leave their supporters dejected and feel like an energizing victory for Republicans.

[Politics & Poll Tracker 📡 @PollTracker2024]

NYT: Why Democrats Could Find It Hard to Win the Senate Despite Their Strong Polls

Democrats have a hefty advantage in national polls. President Trump is playing defense, campaigning through deep-red corners of the country that he won by overwhelming margins just two years ago. And assumptions that Democrats will win control of Congress have become conventional wisdom in many quarters, from longtime political observers to social media to the oddsmakers in prediction markets.

But as Democratic dreams of midterm victories grow bigger, some strategists quietly worry that expanding expectations are crowding out signs of a more challenging political reality.

Control of the Senate hinges on victories in red states that favored Mr. Trump by significant margins in 2024, including some that Democrats have not won in decades. Republicans are outspending them by eye-popping amounts in key races. And after its performance in 2024, the Democratic Party as a brand still remains unpopular among voters.

https://t.co/jXO8n2aJgX

[Favorite Panda @TheGoodTwee7s]

@Empty_America When people think about boomer divorce and remarriage, they overlook the fact that they were often married with children in their mid twenties. Bob getting divorced at 29 after a 6 year marriage was a completely different thing from what happens nowadays among UMC.

[Favorite Panda @TheGoodTwee7s]

Today you are 5 times more likely to be a victim of felony assault in the NYC subway than before the pandemic.

[Nicole @nicolegelinas]

Per million rides on the subway, riders and workers (although this only tracks riders) are at greater per-ride risk of a violent assault, with a small percentage of those in turn escalating to murder. This is not a "feeling." And this has been consistent since 2020. Both raw #s and per-ride #s remain up compared to 2019. Per-ride #s are improving way too slowly. The risk per ride is both absolutely low and also consistently higher than it has ever been in most people's living memory.

[Favorite Panda @TheGoodTwee7s]

@conorsen Pollsters underestimating GOP support in the upper Midwest. A classic since 2016.

[Favorite Panda @TheGoodTwee7s]

Yes, ultimately as part of the detente smart people on the left need to understand that blaming whites will just result in the hereditarian explanation becoming more mainstream.

However, it’s also unrealistic to expect confinement of ideas to esoteric corners of academia. Woke is a good example, a lot of crazy woke ideas were intended for intra academic consumption. Then they broke containment and the broader public was like “WTH are birthing bodies”.

[Favorite Panda @TheGoodTwee7s]

All you say is true, but the hereditarian right also needs to be realistic about what would be the social implications of openly getting rid of all traces of blank slate noble lies. People cautious of the ugliness that could be laid out in the open have a real point.

The 90s-00s colorblind detente seems like the better choice. It mostly operated under a “don’t ask don’t tell” framework for group differences.

[Favorite Panda @TheGoodTwee7s]

@Empty_America This is true, but the opposite might also happen. A good but not great performance for Dems where they take the House but not the Senate, which is objectively a rebuke for Trump but given how much Dems have inflated expectations, it feels like a massive GOP victory.

[Butler’s Ranger @ButlersRanger]

“International Law” is just how we explain the United States Navy to children and invalids

Lmaoo

[Favorite Panda @TheGoodTwee7s]

Educated immigrants voting Dem is a sign that they are assimilated into their class cohort, not the opposite. Ironically, some of the most GOP leaning diasporas are the least assimilated that still hold anti communist grudges from the old country, or have views on crime that offend elite American sensitivities.

[Favorite Panda @TheGoodTwee7s]

Educated immigrants voting Dem is a sign that they are assimilated into their class cohort, not the opposite. Ironically, some of the most GOP leaning diasporas are the least assimilated that still hold anti communist grudges from the old country.

[Christian Heiens 🏛 @ChristianHeiens]

High income, highly educated minority groups in the US like East Asians vote Democrat because it’s a status signaler that you belong to the ruling class in this country.

Liberals have long since hijacked all the elite institutions in America, so aligning yourself with these people is the best chance one has at upward mobility if they’re not interested in waging a long and drawn out culture war.

Koreans, Japanese, and Chinese voters are (largely but not uniformly) loyal Democrats for completely different reasons than other elements of the Democratic coalition.

[Favorite Panda @TheGoodTwee7s]

@soblackandblue Crazy thing is that before 2020 it’s not like they actually put disorderly people in jail for any amount of time, just the threat of arrest and spending the night at the police station was effective. If we actually put them in jail on top of that, NYC would be paradise.

[Ben Smith @semaforben]

If you think Midtown Manhattan in the afternoon is much, much sketchier than it used to be, you're right https://t.co/tQEU8ZOtJR

[Favorite Panda @TheGoodTwee7s]

@ElSteelTortoise @shagbark_hick Yes and Bogota has orders of magnitude more people than the hotter places.

[Favorite Panda @TheGoodTwee7s]

@FreeSoilAndrew @lymanstoneky Yes, but all people on these chart are younger than 39. If you’re in the 30-39 cohort and have been married for 15-19 years then…?

[Favorite Panda @TheGoodTwee7s]

@Max_V_S23 @afcrubi @shagbark_hick

[Favorite Panda @TheGoodTwee7s]

@ojblanchard1 California is already a high tax state that has distinguished itself as a very poor steward of taxpayers’ money (HSR anyone?). That explains a lot of the pushback.

[Favorite Panda @TheGoodTwee7s]

@LinkofSunshine 10, not particularly close.

[Favorite Panda @TheGoodTwee7s]

There’s no reason to believe that technical experts have special insights about anything other than their narrow technical domain. Being able to code an AI doesn’t mean anything about being able to regulate an AI wisely.

[Richard Hanania @RichardHanania]

When I listen to tech people talk about economics and politics, I'm increasingly reminded of public health experts on Covid.

The experts on Covid knew a lot about biology. They could tell us how the disease could spread, explain the concept of R₀, and tell us that vaccines would be good for us. They were "right" about a lot when they stuck to what they knew.

But when epidemiologists started talking about politics and what to do about covid, they were completely out of their depth. They didn't have the tools to do cost-benefit analysis regarding policies like mask mandates, school closures, and lockdowns. They had half-baked theories about human psychology and could justify lying because they didn't understand that this might cause a political backlash.

Tech people know a lot about AI. But then I hear them talk about all jobs going extinct and hyper charged growth. They have crackpot ideas about political economy, and predict that the welfare state will disappear as the value of labor declines. And yet you don't find AI leading to supercharged growth, and the unemployment rate hasn't changed. Their predictions that the welfare state might wither away and a few rich people might capture all the gains show no signs of being true. They're just speculation, and the kinds of ideas that people who study economics and political science generally find a lot less plausible.

Another parallel is that the tech industry is experiencing a political backlash, just as the public health establishment did. I don't want to stretch this analogy too far, but I think that the common theme is that both communities were way too overconfident about their understanding of politics and social dynamics.

[Favorite Panda @TheGoodTwee7s]

@Max_V_S23 @shagbark_hick 1. Overlay a population density map (that’s why I said “most Mexicans” not “most of Mexico”)
2. Mean annual temperature isn’t the relevant metric for sweltering heat, “mean May-September” temperature is more relevant. This map just shows that winters in the US South are cooler.

[Mike Solana @micsolana]

third world country shit