He Kept Us Out Of War?

I.

Some of the best pushback I got on my election post yesterday was from people who thought Trump was a safer choice than Clinton because of the former’s isolationism and the latter’s interventionism. Since I glossed over that point yesterday, I want to explain why I don’t agree.

Trump has earned a reputation as an isolationist by criticizing the Iraq War. I don’t think that reputation is deserved. He’s said a lot of things which suggest he would go to war at the drop of a hat.

— He says he will “bomb the s#!t out of ISIS” and calls for sending 30,000 troops to destroy them. His campaign website says he will “pursue aggressive joint and coalition military operations to crush and destroy ISIS”.

— He is ambiguous about whether Obama should have intervened in Syria to depose dictator Bashar Assad. He complained “there is something missing from our president. Had he crossed the line and really gone in with force, done something to Assad – if he had gone in with tremendous force, you wouldn’t have millions of people displaced all over the world. ”

— Back during the rebellion in Libya, Trump seems to have been in favor of even more dramatic intervention than Obama eventually allowed. He said on his video blog “I can’t believe what our country is doing. Qaddafi in Libya is killing thousands of people, nobody knows how bad it is, and we’re sitting around we have soldiers all have the Middle East, and we’re not bringing them in to stop this horrible carnage and that’s what it is: It’s a carnage. You talk about things that have happened in history; this could be one of the worst. Now we should go in, we should stop this guy, which would be very easy and very quick. We could do it surgically, stop him from doing it, and save these lives. This is absolutely nuts. We don’t want to get involved and you’re gonna end up with something like you’ve never seen before. But we have go in to save these lives; these people are being slaughtered like animals. It’s horrible what’s going on; it has to be stopped. We should do on a humanitarian basis, immediately go into Libya, knock this guy out very quickly, very surgically, very effectively, and save the lives.”

— He thinks we should have “kept” Iraq’s oil. When pressed on how exactly one keeps billions of barrels of petroleum buried underneath a foreign country, he said he would get US troops to circle and defend the areas with the oil. The “areas with the oil” are about half of the country. This sounds a lot like he wants US troops to remain in Iraq indefinitely.

— He also wants to to keep Libya’s oil. As per National Review: “I would go in and take the oil — I would just go in and take the oil. We don’t know who the rebels are, we hear they come from Iran, we hear they’re influenced by Iran or al-Qaeda, and, frankly I would go in, I would take the oil — and stop this baby stuff.”

— He suggests declaring war on Iran as a response to them harassing US ships. During the debate, he said he would “shoot their ships out of the water.”

— In 2007, he he suggested “knocking the hell out of [Iran] and keeping their oil”, though in his (sort of) defense he might have been confusing them with ISIS at the time.

— In his 2000 book The America We Deserve he suggested a preemptive strike on North Korea: “[If I were President], North Korea would suddenly discover that its worthless promises of civilized behavior would cut no ice. I would let Pyongyang know in no uncertain terms that it can either get out of the nuclear arms race or expect a rebuke similar to the one Ronald Reagan delivered to Ghadhafi in 1986. [Reagan bombed Libya]. I don’t think anybody is going to accuse me of tiptoeing through the issues or tap-dancing around them either. Who else in public life has called for a pre-emptive strike on North Korea?”

— During a town hall meeting, when host Chris Matthews asked Trump when he would use nuclear weapons, he answered “Somebody hits us within ISIS — you wouldn`t fight back with a nuke?” When Matthews reminded him that most people try to avoid ever using nuclear weapons, he answered “Then why are we making them? Why do we make them?”

II.

Some writers have called the period since World War II the “Pax Americana”. Although there have been some deadly local wars, there’s been relative peace between great powers. A big part of this is America’s promise to defend its allies. This both prevents other countries from attacking America’s allies and prevents America’s allies from building big militaries and launching attacks of their own. The whole system is cemented by America-centric trade organizations which make war unprofitable and incentivize countries to stay in America’s orbit.

Trump wants to destroy this system because it costs money, even though it doesn’t really cost that much money compared to anything else we do and Trump intends to increase the defense budget anyway. It’s possible a post-Trump world might find some other way to maintain peace. It’s also possible that it wouldn’t, or that the process of finding that alternative way would be really bloody.

— In March, Trump said “I think NATO may be obsolete. NATO was set up a long time ago — many, many years ago when things were different. Things are different now. We were a rich nation then. We had nothing but money. We had nothing but power. And you know, far more than we have today, in a true sense. And I think NATO — you have to really examine NATO. And it doesn’t really help us, it’s helping other countries. And I don’t think those other countries appreciate what we’re doing.” Although this isn’t the worst opinion, most foreign policy scholars think that our policy of defending our allies is necessary to prevent global arms races and random regional wars.

— In July, he publicly admitted he wasn’t sure he would protect the Baltic states if Russia attacked, something we’re currently obligated to do. The Atlantic calls this “a marked departure from the security policy of every presidential nominee from either of the two major parties since NATO’s founding in 1949”. It’s especially worrying because even if you’re not going to protect the Baltic states from Russia, you shouldn’t openly say so where Russians can hear you!

— And throughout the race, Trump has campaigned on a platform that would effectively end American participation in the World Trade Organization. Trump understands that this would probably start a global trade war, but asks “who the hell cares if there’s a trade war?” I care for two reasons. First, because free trade has produced decades of sustained economic growth and the most successful poverty alleviation in human history. Second, this would probably crash the world economy, creating exactly the sort of depression that tends to produce instability (most famously Hitler’s rise during Germany’s interwar stagnation) or which drives countries toward regional hegemons willing to trade with them or just plain bribe them.

III.

Hillary’s foreign policy isn’t great either, but it doesn’t seem as bad as some people are making it out to be.

— Hillary will probably continue US intervention in Syria; here she is more interventionist than Obama. But her intervention would probably be smaller-scale than Trump’s. She wants to arm “friendly” rebel groups and enforce a no-fly zone, but she has ruled out sending ground troops into Iraq or Syria, something Trump has promised to do. Likely she would focus on keeping enough of Syria safe to protect some civilians and prevent more refugees, then use indirect methods to make life miserable for Assad. This seems like as good a plan as any other.

— The main concern I’ve heard is that the no-fly zone might lead to conflict (war?) with Russia. Declaring a no-fly zone would mean a commitment to shoot down any plane that flies through the zone. Russia is currently flying planes through Syria, and if they tried to call Hillary’s bluff she would have to shoot down Russian planes or lose credibility; shooting down a foreign plane could obviously lead to war. Many different news sources make this point (1, 2, 3, etc). But the clearest description she’s given of what she wants suggests a no-fly zone with Russian cooperation and support. Last October, she said of her no-fly zone proposal that “I think it’s complicated and the Russians would have to be part of it, or it wouldn’t work.” There’s some good discussion of this on Reddit (see especially this comment) where most people end up agreeing that this is the heart of her plan – something like the US agreeing it won’t bomb Russian allies if Russia doesn’t bomb our allies.

— Hillary has said she will “treat cyberattacks just like any other attack”, which could mean that if Russia launches a cyberattack on the US (for example hacking the DNC’s emails) Hillary would treat it as an act of war. I think this requires a stretch. She did mention the possibility of a military response, but only in the context of possible “serious political, economic, and military responses”. My guess is we should interpret this in a non-crazy way – if Russia hacks our emails, we condemn them and maybe hack some of their stuff. If Iran hacks a dam and causes it to fail, then maybe we start thinking airstrikes. Shooting down an airliner is an act of war, but countries have shot down other countries’ airliners a bunch of times and usually people posture a bit and then let it slide. I don’t think it makes sense to think Hillary will treat cyber-attacks more seriously than that.

IV.

A lot of this has a lot of room for interpretation. I’m totally ready to believe that when Trump said he would shoot any Iranian ship that annoyed US vessels, he just meant generic macho posturing and expected everyone to hear it that way. He might even be cunningly pursuing a North Korean – style “mad dog” strategy where he tries to sound so dangerous and unpredictable that nobody dares call his bluff, and so his enemies never mess with him in any way.

Or he might mean everything he says. After all, a lot of it has been pretty consistent since long before he was running for president. There’s no point in saying things to send a game theoretic signal to Iran if you’re a random New York real estate developer and Iran isn’t listening. If he understood the theory behind sounding trigger-happy to intimidate our enemies, he probably wouldn’t have openly admitted he wouldn’t respond to a Russian invasion of the Baltics. And he does seem kind of 100% like a loose cannon in every way, to the point where trying to explain away loose-cannon-like statements as part of a deeper plan seems overly complex.

(Actually, I have a theory which I think explains a lot about Trump’s foreign policy positions: he doesn’t like losers. He supported the Iraq War and the Libya intervention when it looked like we would probably win. Then we lost, and he said they were stupid and bungled. He supports counterfactual invasions of Iraq and Libya where we “kept the oil” because that would have counted as winning. He supports invading ISIS because he expects to be in charge of the invasion and he expects to win. Under this theory, Trump’s retrospective non-support for failed wars doesn’t predict that he won’t start new ones.)

In the end it all comes back to the argument from variance. Maybe Trump is secretly a principled isolationist, and he’s only saying he’ll shoot at Iran and invade Libya and first-strike North Korea and steal oil from Iraq and send troops against ISIS and remove Assad in order to scare people into cooperating with him. Or maybe he’ll actually shoot at Iran and invade Libya and first-strike North Korea and steal oil from Iraq and send troops against ISIS and try to remove Assad. Who knows? He’s said a thousand times now that he’s totally different from the usual politicians, and I believe him. He could do pretty much anything.

(I’d like to think his advisors would rein him in before that point, but when asked which advisors he would consult before a major foreign policy decision, Trump could only think of one person, and he does not exactly inspire confidence.)

I am not qualified to judge Hillary’s work as Secretary of State, but I expect her to play by the book. I’m not sure if Hillary will be more aggressive or more peaceful than the last few presidents, but I don’t expect her to be a wild outlier totally beyond comparison to any previous president. I expect her to consult the foreign policy community on anything important she does, and take some advice relatively within their Overton Window. If she comes to the brink of nuclear war with Russia, I expect her to de-escalate for the same reason I expect Putin to de-escalate; they’re both rationally self-interested people who want to continue being alive and ruling their respective countries, and they value that more than any particular principle or any opportunity to prove their machismo.

I think she remains the low-variance choice for president.

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1,241 Responses to He Kept Us Out Of War?

  1. E. Harding says:

    “— He says he will “bomb the s#!t out of ISIS” and calls for sending 30,000 troops to destroy them. His campaign website says he will “pursue aggressive joint and coalition military operations to crush and destroy ISIS”.”

    -Nothing wrong with that, though I’m pretty sure a mere 5000 combat troops would do the job. Meanwhile, Clinton said she’d send no ground troops, and pointed to the existence of ground troops currently, but didn’t say what she’d do with them.

    ““there is something missing from our president. Had he crossed the line and really gone in with force, done something to Assad – if he had gone in with tremendous force, you wouldn’t have millions of people displaced all over the world. ””

    -He is, of course, right on this, that was one option. But it wasn’t the best option. Trump came out against the Syrian airstrikes trial balloon in August 2013 (check his tweets).

    “Trump seems to have been in favor of even more dramatic intervention than Obama eventually allowed.”

    -No; Obama did everything Trump described then except keep and protect the oil.

    “He suggests declaring war on Iran as a response to them harassing US ships. During the debate, he said he would “shoot their ships out of the water.””

    -Meanwhile, Bush I shot one of their civilian planes out of the air and, in a spirit of Trumpism, never apologized for it. Did that lead to war with Iran? Iran’s not a nuclear power. It’s not gonna risk it.

    “He thinks we should have “kept” Iraq’s oil. When pressed on how exactly one keeps billions of barrels of petroleum buried underneath a foreign country, he said he would get US troops to circle and defend the areas with the oil. The “areas with the oil” are about half of the country. This sounds a lot like he wants US troops to remain in Iraq indefinitely.”

    -Pretty smart.

    “In 2007”

    -The link’s from 2015.
    In 2016, after Trump got four presidential terms’ worth of years to think about these issues, he suggested China and, to a lesser extent, Iran, pressure North Korea over their missile testing. It was “sane” (not really) candidates Bush and Kasich who suggested pre-emptive strikes on North Korea. Not Trump.

    “Then why are we making them? Why do we make them?”

    -Good answer. In another interview, he suggested he’d support nuclear disarmament if it was truly multilateral. Have I heard that talk from Clinton?

    “It’s also possible that it wouldn’t, or that the process of finding that alternative way would be really bloody.”

    -How possible? Be Bayesian, man. Don’t use arguments from fictional evidence.

    “Although this isn’t the worst opinion, most foreign policy scholars think that our policy of defending our allies is necessary to prevent global arms races and random regional wars.”

    -Didn’t NATO effectively result in a global arms race which only ended with the end of the Cold War? Getting allies to pay for their defence is hardly a stupid idea.

    “It’s especially worrying because even if you’re not going to protect the Baltic states from Russia, you shouldn’t openly say so where Russians can hear you!”
    -Why not? In any case, the intended recipient of the message is the Baltic States, not Russia. It’s a wise message to send. In any case, Russia isn’t gonna do anything to the Baltic States (if it wanted to, it could have done something in 2003) and Trump is right to bring up a debate as to the proper extent of US defence obligations.

    “Second, this would probably crash the world economy, creating exactly the sort of depression that tends to produce instability (most famously Hitler’s rise during Germany’s interwar stagnation) or which drives countries toward regional hegemons willing to trade with them or just plain bribe them”

    -Ridiculous. What does a trade war even mean? What was the actual (i.e., not imaginary) effect of the Tariff of Abominations, Lincoln’s tariffs, and similar measures, on the U.S. economy? Remember, Trump is simply parroting standard 1860s-1930s Republican and 1980s Democratic economic dogma. Would President Mondale have caused another Great Depression? And AH didn’t rise during Germany’s interwar stagnation, but during the Great Depression, something which would certainly be averted by central banker action today.

    “She wants to arm “friendly” rebel groups and enforce a no-fly zone,”

    -Worse than anything Trump has proposed. The “moderate rebel” areas in Syria have, thanks to Obama, existed for years, and are not places you want to live.

    “Likely she would focus on keeping enough of Syria safe to protect some civilians and prevent more refugees, then use indirect methods to make life miserable for Assad.”

    -Contradiction in terms. There is no way of making life miserable for Assad without making life miserable for the Syrian people. Check out Edward Dark’s twitter account sometime.

    “no-fly zone with Russian cooperation and support.”

    -Putin, unlike Medvedev, isn’t stupid. He knows a trap when he sees it, and will not cooperate. He understands Clinton is incapable of keeping agreements.

    “something like the US agreeing it won’t bomb Russian allies if Russia doesn’t bomb our allies.”

    -This is a one-sided and unequal agreement just begging the Syrian rebels to do what they did in August. It is well-known the SAA has an air power advantage and a manpower disadvantage in this fight.

    “admitted he wouldn’t respond to a Russian invasion of the Baltics”

    -He didn’t definitively say he would or wouldn’t. He admitted he mightn’t respond, not “wouldn’t”. Classic example of strategic unpredictability to benefit the US.

    “And he does seem kind of 100% like a loose cannon in every way”

    -I.e., unlike Clinton, he changes his mind in response to new evidence. I prefer that to changing your mind about the benefit of any foreign policy intervention you helped out in, whether directly or indirectly, only a decade after it has passed (as is true for Clinton).

    “and take some advice relatively within their Overton Window”

    -Thus Her Iraq War vote. In her speech on that vote, she said she didn’t want unilateral action, but trusted the president to make his choice. LOL. At least Trump has some critical thinking skills (e.g., on Russia) and is a puppet of noone.

    “Actually, I have a theory which I think explains a lot about Trump’s foreign policy positions: he doesn’t like losers.”

    -Bingo.

    “they’re both rationally self-interested people who want to continue being alive and ruling their respective countries, and they value that more than any particular principle or any opportunity to prove their machismo.”

    -Even more the case with Trump and Khamenei. Fundamentally, Trump wants everything he does to look good. Clinton has never showed such instinct.

    In short, Scott ignores the necessity of critical thinking in evaluating foreign policy advice. Trump clearly has it. He’s not simply a puppet of his incompetent advisors. Does Clinton? Is Clinton? Does Scott know?

    • E. Harding says:

      Cross-posted from the other thread, as I do not think there are nearly enough straight answers to a question of similar vein ( https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/09/28/ssc-endorses-clinton-johnson-or-stein/#comment-416688 ) and would like for it to take center stage here.

      Guys, this is a pretty important question that must be asked, but so far hasn’t been: what would it take for you (including our good host) to change their minds about whom to vote for? For me, it would be Trump advocating something more evil than what Obama has actually done. So, something more evil than “let ISIS take out Assad” (Trump meant it both ways, then said “let Russia take out ISIS” in the course of the same interview a year ago). If the dangerous Christie has gotten to him (so far, he hasn’t, though the less dangerous Pence clearly has), it’s time to consider a vote for Clinton. I do not expect Clinton to change Her mind on the Supreme Court, the NSA, e-mail practices, https://twitter.com/mcurryfelidae07/status/776101739300786176 , and Russia-baiting, but if she does, and Trump does not change his positions, to me, they’d be more comparable candidates than they presently are.

      How ’bout you?

      • herbert herbertson says:

        Absolutely nothing. The changes in his personality and approach to thinking about things would have to be so sudden and dramatic–compared not only to his campaign, but his entire life in the public eye, including but not limited to actions such as creating a sham university, direct bribery via a personal foundation he didn’t even have the grace to donate to, years of promoting a conspiracy theory to delegitimize a president without reason, several bankruptcies, two divorces, raping one of his wives, bragging about his daughter’s bangability, taking out a full-page ad in the NYT using charges against people later found to be innocent as a basis to advocate for the abrogation of civil liberties, destroying architectural treasures out of avarice after promising not to, discriminating against black tenants, and shaving off poor Vince McMahon’s beautiful tresses–that I’d only believe they could come from dissembling or a brain tumor.

        What of it?

      • Alsadius says:

        My support in this election is based mostly on my belief that Trump is literally mentally ill(he’s a narcissist and a pathological liar at minimum), that he is running for the Presidency just to spite his critics without any concept of what the job entails, and that he’s a loose cannon who cannot be trusted with control of a military. Until those beliefs have changed, or the candidate has, I cannot in good conscience support him. It’s not about policy at this point – maybe a year ago I’d have said that he could win me back with policy changes, but at this point, he can’t. The Presidency sees too many unforeseeable events, and I don’t trust him being in charge of any of them. The only way I’d consider supporting him is if he was terminally ill and was going to die before January 20th – Pence is a perfectly acceptable candidate, even if he’s keeping poor company these days.

        Let me put this bluntly: If Hillary Clinton strangled someone with her bare hands on live television the day before the election, I would still vote for her. Again, and I know I need to say this a lot when discussing Trump, I mean that literally – it is not hyperbole. I already know Clinton is a crook. I want her to win despite that, because Trump is still worse than a criminal who hates everything I believe in. And I’m the sort of person who’d be a diehard Republican in any other election, I am not a lefty.

        (Two caveats. 1: I am not a US citizen, and thus I cannot vote in this election, so my discussions of who I’d vote for are hypotheticals. 2: I love Gary Johnson, and would support him in a second if I thought he had a chance of winning the state where I hypothetically had a vote, but at this point he’s out of serious contention)

        • cassander says:

          >(he’s a narcissist and a pathological liar at minimum

          and hillary is not?

          >he’s a loose cannon who cannot be trusted with control of a military.

          what does this mean, exactly? what do you think he will, or might, do?

          >Trump is still worse than a criminal who hates everything I believe in

          again, can you expand?

          • Alsadius says:

            No, she’s not. She lies, certainly, but she lies for the sake of having other people believe her as part of a plan to advance her interests. She’s rational about it. Trump lies about stupid, worthless things, just because he enjoys lying, or because he redefines truth in his head to be whatever suits him most at this particular instant. When I say “pathological”, I don’t mean that he does it a lot, I mean it’s a genuine illness. Likewise, Clinton is self-interested, certainly, but she’s nowhere near the level of actual narcissism. She understands that a world outside of her desires exists, if nothing else.

            I think the most likely failure mode of Trump is a trade war. Given that the last serious trade war caused the Great Depression, this is not a small concern. I’d put odds of that around 60% if he’s elected, though a majority of those cases will leave the rest of the world with functional free trade and thus mitigate the harm. The next most likely failure mode is abandonment of NATO and other similar alliances, which have kept the world safe for generations. This gives a free hand to expansionist foreign governments, and that sort of thing leads to arms races, wars, and general chaos. I’d put odds of NATO functionally dying around 40%, though the worst effects of that probably won’t be felt until after he leaves office. The least likely, but worst, failure mode is an overreaction to a foreign crisis leading to a war with a major foreign power. Odds of this are maybe 15%, but it could kill hundreds of millions if things get really ugly.

            Note that none of these failure modes are risks with Clinton – the worst she can really do is set US jurisprudence back a couple decades with bad SCOTUS nominees. She’s awful, but if she ever nuked someone, you’d at least know that she did so intentionally.

          • cassander says:

            >Likewise, Clinton is self-interested, certainly, but she’s nowhere near the level of actual narcissism. She understands that a world outside of her desires exists, if nothing else.

            That trump has been as successful as he has been seems to a pretty good argument against him being as delusional as you portray.

            >I think the most likely failure mode of Trump is a trade war. Given that the last serious trade war caused the Great Depression, this is not a small concern. I’d put odds of that around 60% if he’s elected, though a majority of those cases will leave the rest of the world with functional free trade and thus mitigate the harm. The next most likely failure mode is abandonment of NATO and other similar alliances, which have kept the world safe for generations.

            I agree on both of those failure modes, though not their likelihood. The permanent state will fiercely resist trump on both of those fronts. That same state will exacerbate clinton’s worst tendencies.

            >Note that none of these failure modes are risks with Clinton – the worst she can really do is set US jurisprudence back a couple decades with bad SCOTUS nominees.

            THe court only moves one direction. Any damage clinton does there will be permanent.

            >She’s awful, but if she ever nuked someone, you’d at least know that she did so intentionally.

            See my post below for my assessment of hillary clinton’s foreign policy. It’s not pretty.

          • Civilis says:

            She lies, certainly, but she lies for the sake of having other people believe her as part of a plan to advance her interests. She’s rational about it.

            “I dodged sniper fire in Bosnia”? “I was named after Edmund Hillary”? “I wanted to join the Marines”? “That ‘C’ in front of the paragraph isn’t an indicator it’s classified”?

            If those are rational lies, I’d hate to see what irrational looks like.

          • E. Harding says:

            “Given that the last serious trade war caused the Great Depression,”

            -No. What caused the great depression was everybody trying to grab gold for themselves in order to maintain their credibility as a debtor, thus causing the real price of gold to soar and nominal GDP to consequently collapse. Trump is, if anything, more likely to prevent this than Clinton. No, Smoot-Hawley didn’t help. But the Tariff of Abominations, the McKinley tariff, and Lincoln’s tariffs did not lead to economic disaster in the U.S. Trade in duty-free goods collapsed during the Great Depression just as badly as trade in goods with duties on them. Tariffs don’t help much, but they’ve done a lot less institutional damage to the U.S. from the 1810s onward than the mere appointment of Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg.

            “The next most likely failure mode is abandonment of NATO and other similar alliances,”

            -That’s a success mode.

            “This gives a free hand to expansionist foreign governments, and that sort of thing leads to arms races, wars, and general chaos.”

            -“General chaos” is what NATO caused in Libya and Syria. It’s also what the breakup of NATO would prevent in the future.

            “The least likely, but worst, failure mode is an overreaction to a foreign crisis leading to a war with a major foreign power.”

            -Much more likely under a Clinton presidency. Remember, Clinton does not change Her mind in any period of time less than a decade. She waited until 2013 to endorse same-sex marriage. Meanwhile, Trump apparently had no problems with Elton John’s marriage in 2005.

            “She’s awful, but if she ever nuked someone, you’d at least know that she did so intentionally.”

            -No. Just the reverse.

            Armchair psychologizing does not make you credible.

            “which have kept the world safe for generations.”

            -NATO is little more than an Islamist terrorist organization. If it is destroyed, it would be a great achievement for the cause of world peace.

          • onyomi says:

            I don’t think a trade war caused the Great Depression, though the Smoot-Hawley Tariff probably deepened and lengthened it unnecessarily. My view is it was more a result of inflation to pay for WWI, resulting in a bubble in the late 20s, and subsequent collapse due to an attempt to restore monetary discipline without awareness of how much the piper still hadn’t been paid for WWI. There are other interpretations, of course, but it’s certainly not a settled issue.

          • Alsadius says:

            Cassander: Trump’s success has mostly come from investing with massive leverage in New York real estate in the 80s, when it was going through the roof as the city recovered, and from being a blustery publicity-obsessed reality star. One of these was effectively luck, and the other is perfectly compatible with him being a delusional fool. Everything else he’s ever touched has gone straight to the dogs.

            Also, I strongly disagree that the court only moves in one direction. It has been moving appreciably to the right in recent decades – ever since Scalia joined, really. Heller would have been inconceivable in the 70s. It’s not perfect, but there’s actual competition now.

            Civilis: The biggest difference with those is that they’re all fairly minor incidents(except classified documents), and all years later. It’s easy to have false memories on that stuff. In particular:

            * The Edmund Hillary thing felt like an honest mistake to me. It’s not like she was aware of the world at the time – it could easily have been a misunderstanding or a cutesy story her mom said that she remembered and never checked.

            * Sniper fire, that’s certainly more suspicious. Maybe she got warned of it and then embellished, or thought it was something else? That one feels the most like a Trump-esque lie to me of those four.

            * The Marine thing I hadn’t heard of before, but from a quick Google, it sounds like it’s not obviously a lie. It seems like a weird thing for her to have done, but in the 70s, military service was still seen as a big plus for seeking political office, so perhaps she thought of a stint with the military lawyers as a way to advance her career. There’s also some suggestion that she did it as a feminist test, to see whether women were actually able to get into certain careers as easily as they were officially supposed to be able to. It could also be a total fabrication, but if so, it serves an obvious purpose as well – it paints the military in a bad light, which an anti-war(at least somewhat) Democrat has some obvious interest in.

            * C for classified, that one’s obvious. When you’ve been caught with your pants down, you throw out whatever excuse you can, because it’s better than taking the hit. Your supporters will eat up whatever BS you care to feed them, so you might as well at least get a few people in your corner.

          • cassander says:

            @Alsadius

            >Trump’s success has mostly come from investing with massive leverage in New York real estate in the 80s, when it was going through the roof as the city recovered, and from being a blustery publicity-obsessed reality star. One of these was effectively luck, and the other is perfectly compatible with him being a delusional fool. Everything else he’s ever touched has gone straight to the dogs.

            I was referring more to his success in the campaign.

            >Heller would have been inconceivable in the 70s. It’s not perfect, but there’s actual competition now.

            There has been rightward movement in criminal policy and gun control over the last 3 decades. You can make get a half issue on welfare reform in that it was a rightward shift, but other areas of the welfare state have moved left. That’s it. On every other dimension, we’ve either stayed put or moved left.

            >* Sniper fire, that’s certainly more suspicious. Maybe she got warned of it and then embellished, or thought it was something else? That one feels the most like a Trump-esque lie to me of those four.

            I believe her official story is that she “misspoke” and really meant to talk about the security briefing they got on the plane. That version of evens is disputed as well.

          • Alsadius says:

            Cassander: Success in a campaign depends only on convincing people to like you. That requires no particular lucidity. And again, once her Bosnia story had been revealed as a lie, what better story did she have to give? It may be true, but even if it was false, she’d still say it.

        • Alexandre Zani says:

          “-NATO is little more than an Islamist terrorist organization. If it is destroyed, it would be a great achievement for the cause of world peace”

          In what world is an alliance led by the United States and composed primarily of Western European countries “an Islamic terrorist organization”? It has exactly one majority Muslim country as a member and it is a country which historically has been fighting for secularism more than pretty much any other. This a truly absurd statement.

          • Anonymous says:

            He’s alluding to the results of NATO interventions.

          • E. Harding says:

            “It has exactly one majority Muslim country as a member”

            -Wrong; there are two. Turkey and Albania.

            “and it is a country which historically has been fighting for secularism more than pretty much any other”

            -And now it’s one of the largest state sponsors of Islamic terrorism on the globe and is unable to have a competent pro-secularism coup with the support of the general public.

            Anonymous is correct.

        • Pathologizing people you dislike as the explanation for their negative traits is often a sign that you’re interacting with an imaginary world, rather than the real one.

        • LPSP says:

          I’m pretty sure the lowest common denominator of all arguments, the hallmark of steadfast refusal to even consider someone with opposing views as a human, is to label them “mentally ill”. It’s a bigger threat to reasoned debate than reductio ad hitlerum.

      • blacktrance says:

        At this point, nothing. He’d have to change so many of his positions that he’d either look extremely dishonest or prone to massive shifts on a whim.

        • Ali Baba says:

          Considering Trump’s wild flip flopping of positions, this is hilarious.

          • Jill says:

            I guess some people have been getting their news from Hannity on Fox, so they don’t realize that Trump has been wildly flip flopping in his positions plus lying constantly.

      • Cord Shirt says:

        I kinda went into that in my top-level comments on this and the earlier thread…

        Someone might convince me to change my “heavy emphasis on policy positions” to something else by giving good general arguments for this. “Character is both important in a candidate and reliably detectable by the average voter and here’s why (and how to detect it),” for example. Or, perhaps, “Here’s proof I’m really not just falling victim to fear-mongering, and that this specific candidate truly is uniquely bad.”

        I haven’t decided who to vote for, but I have ruled out Clinton. Now, I don’t like her platform, and I weight that more heavily than anything else…but I do have less specifically policy related reasons too. In fact I have a long ah “chain of inferences” leading me to believe that the USA is an empire or hegemon in decline, the establishment is not coping well, establishment leaders of empires in decline tend to lash out…and Clinton represents the establishment.

        At this point, even if she changed her positions and announced that she’d seen the light and would no longer listen to the New American Century people and so on, it would be hard to believe she’d *really* changed her mind.

        And me? Could someone make me “see the light” and change my mind about the current state of the USA and the likely future and so on?

        …probably not in time for the election. 😉

        It’s a long chain of inferences. Took me years to come to this conclusion, and would probably take me years to rethink as well.

        Anyone who’d like to is welcome to try, though. 😉

      • boy says:

        If somehow I became very confident that some form of the vast conspiracy theory was true, i.e. that the president is a puppet of sorts with little real power who is controlled by an arcane system outside of the public’s eye, then I would probably vote for Trump because he wouldn’t have the power to do anything catastrophic and could expose this system a little bit. Other than that and other very far-fetched scenarios, I can’t think of anything.

        • cassander says:

          >i.e. that the president is a puppet of sorts with little real power who is controlled by an arcane system outside of the public’s eye

          You mean like the courts, civil service, military services, legislature, and the influence of other countries? granted, they don’t control the president, but they drastically limit him.

          • Gabe says:

            All of that limits the president mainly because the president consents to it. Do you really want to see what happens when he decides that, as commander of our military, he’d rather not?

            We simply have never had a president as crazy as Trump.

          • E. Harding says:

            “We simply have never had a president as crazy as Trump.”

            -What’s crazy about border security and getting along with Russia? You have a huge double standard here.

            The most crazy president was probably FDR.

          • John Schilling says:

            The most crazy president was probably FDR.

            Yeah, stopping the Nazis from taking over the world; what was he thinking? Should have just focused on securing the borders and getting along with Hitler.

          • E. Harding says:

            “Yeah, stopping the Nazis from taking over the world; what was he thinking?”

            -Any president would have declared war on Germany as a result of Germany declaring war on the U.S. It’s nothing complicated. I meant mostly the huge rash of government programs resulting from FDR’s presidency.

            I kinda understand what you tried to do there, John, but it wasn’t effective.

          • cassander says:

            >All of that limits the president mainly because the president consents to it. Do you really want to see what happens when he decides that, as commander of our military, he’d rather not?

            I’m not sure why you think Hillary has any more respect for law than trump does. Both clearly treat it with contempt.

          • John Schilling says:

            Any president would have declared war on Germany as a result of Germany declaring war on the U.S.

            Would any other President have offered Lend-Lease and signed the Atlantic Charter?

          • E. Harding says:

            “Would any other President have offered Lend-Lease and signed the Atlantic Charter?”

            -Those were not good ideas, as they went outside the boundaries of America’s national interests before Germany’s declaration of war on the US. Britain had the capability to fight off Germany without U.S. aid.

          • John Schilling says:

            The most crazy president was probably FDR … Britain had the capability to fight off Germany without U.S. aid.

            Well, at least one of you (E. Harding and FDR) is clearly delusional.

          • E. Harding says:

            “Well, at least one of you (E. Harding and FDR) is clearly delusional.”

            -Why do you think I’m “clearly delusional”, John? England had the whole British Empire to help defend itself.

        • E. Harding says:

          Can you name a Republican presidential nominee you’d vote for? If so, what distinguishes him or her from Trump to make him worthy of your vote?

          • Alsadius says:

            I can’t speak for him, but since this question seems to be a generic one aimed at #NeverTrump in general, I’ll answer for myself. I’d have supported the Republican in every election since certainly 1952, and most of them before that as well. I’d happily have supported most of the other candidates in the nomination – maybe not Carson/Huckabee/Santorum(I’m no bible-thumper), but even then I’d probably have taken them over Clinton. The rest were certainly all tolerable.

            I never got the impression from any of the aforementioned people, from Ike Eisenhower down to Jim Gilmore, that they were anything other than serious people who intended to treat the nation’s problems with respect. Many had and have the usual vices of politicians – being power-hungry, dishonest, egotistical, amoral, and so on – but they took the responsibility seriously, they thought about issues, and they cared about the nation. I don’t think any of those things are true of Trump. He cares about very little besides himself, he has no observable interest in or expertise with public policy, no externally observable ideology or principles, and by all accounts he ran mostly to spite his opponents and show off a bit. Someone who is that cavalier about the job of being commander-in-chief of the most powerful force in human history should not have the job.

          • E. Harding says:

            “but they took the responsibility seriously, they thought about issues, and they cared about the nation”

            -I think the same is true of Trump.

            “He cares about very little besides himself,”

            -I think Trump cares at least a bit about the country. He suffered a great deal financially from running, and has talked about America being a losing country that needs to start winning since forever.

            “he has no observable interest in or expertise with public policy,”

            -Clearly not the case; his remarks are peppered with unconventional thoughts about public policy.

            “no externally observable ideology or principles,”

            -Same for Richard Nixon, Dwight Eisenhower, and George H.W. Bush.

            “and by all accounts he ran mostly to spite his opponents and show off a bit.”

            -What accounts? Given the fact Trump is the Republican nominee, I’m pretty certain he ran to win.

            “Someone who is that cavalier about the job of being commander-in-chief of the most powerful force in human history should not have the job.”

            -I don’t see Trump as particularly cavalier about the job of President.

            You focus entirely on stylistic issues here.

          • blacktrance says:

            I’d enthusiastically vote for Gary Johnson, if he counts – he started out as a Republican in 2012. I’d also vote for Ron Paul (with some reservations) and Rand Paul (with strong reservations). The differences between them and Trump are relatively obvious.

          • E. Harding says:

            Why Gary enthusiastically, but Rand with strong reservations?

          • anon says:

            I can guess why some people (generally left-libertarians of a squishier bent) have reservations about the Pauls, compared to Gary.

            First, Gary is genuinely socially liberal in a way the Pauls are not, to the point where it sometimes brings him into tension with actual libertarian beliefs (gay cakes, etc.) I’m not sure what Gary’s stated position on abortion is, but I think he’s probably pretty far — in his heart of hearts — from either the elder or the younger Paul.

            Second, Ron Paul’s published skepticism about the Civil Rights Act (which I think is actually a well-thought out and quite possibly correct position, and maybe even correct from both deontological *and* consequentialist philosophical perspectives on libertarianism), together with his decades-long presence on the political fringes, has given the Paul brand an undeserved association with racism.

            Third, liberaltarian-types are mostly insufficiently radical by nature to question the very foundations of modern monetary policy, so Ron Paul’s Fed-skepticism makes them uneasy. (This is a case where I am personally divided. I’m very skeptical about the Fed’s actual performance, but for some reason when it comes to macroeconomics I am instinctively more open to a “variance-based” argument of the sort SSC attempted to make in the OP regarding foreign policy. I think this might be simple irrationality on my part, though.)

            Finally, for some left-libertarians, the fact that Rand Paul has chosen to work firmly within the GOP (while still fighting them on a number of libertarian-important issues, especially civil liberties) sullies his brand. Even Ron Paul is less damaged by GOP-association since he was never really cooperative with the party leadership on anything.

            Suffice it to say, I personally think most of these arguments against the Pauls actually aren’t that convincing. If Rand had chosen to run on the LP ticket it would have been risky for his future career int he GOP, but he’d probably be polling considerably higher than Gary right now.

          • blacktrance says:

            Not a complete list, and not in order of importance: Rand Paul is pro-life, wouldn’t pardon Snowden, is too anti-Fed, opposes same-sex marriage, and favors a more restrictive immigration policy than Johnson. In general, he’s too conservative, though still much better than most Republicans, and preferable to Clinton.

          • boy says:

            Literally any of the other Republican nominees would be vastly better than Trump and I would seriously consider voting for Jeb or Kasich because of the shady stuff going on around Hillary. Trump is probably the worst presidential candidate it’s possible to have. He appears to be completely incompetent, ignorant and totally lacking a moral compass. He does not seem to be a rational actor with any sort of understanding of reality.

          • E. Harding says:

            “I would seriously consider voting for Jeb or Kasich because of the shady stuff going on around Hillary”

            -Unlike Trump, these people actually advocated for pre-emptive strikes on North Korea not over a dozen years ago, but this year. Both of them also advocated overthrowing the Syrian government and “punch[ing] Russia in the nose” (Kasich’s phrase) not hypothetically, but in reality. Are you really comfortable with that? Or do you just hate their substance, but love their maternal style? I find this modal college-educated focus on style over substance to be truly childish.

            “He does not seem to be a rational actor with any sort of understanding of reality.”

            -His understanding of reality led him to win the Republican nomination with massive competition. I say that’s a sufficient understanding. Trump also seems a reasonably rational actor in foreign policy, more so than any other GOP candidate.

            “incompetent, ignorant and totally lacking a moral compass”

            -That fairly describes most politicians. What’s your point?

          • Jill says:

            Almost all of the “shady stuff going on around Hillary” never happened. There is no evidence for most of it. Most of it is just accusations made by Right Wing media to smear her. She’s been bashed by Right Wing media 24/7/365 for decades, as well as by supposedly Left Wing media like the NYT. Because Left Wing media is actually media that contains a few articles/programs that are Left Wing and lots of Right Wing ones.

            Even an actual criminal, which Hillary certainly is not, couldn’t provide that much material for bashing. So most of it had to be made up.

          • E. Harding says:

            I repeat my call for Jill and TheWorst to be banned. They are blind partisans who have shown no respect for reason and evidence.

            How many pro-Trump editorials and op-eds has the NYT published this year? One? Two? How many pro-Clinton editorials and op-eds has the NYT published this year? Several dozen.

          • Dr Dealgood says:

            That’s a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

            You’re not a bad poster most of the time, but you’re the last person who gets to label others as blind partisans. You do the same thing Jill does: go into turbo-overdrive posting mode, repeating the same points over and over, until people are sick of responding.

            It’s really annoying even to those who agree with you. Once you’ve gotten first post, you don’t have to worry that other people missed your point. It’s literally at the top of the page.

            Edit: Ok, see E Harding? That’s you right now ↓↓↓↓

          • Jill says:

            “How many pro-Trump editorials and op-eds has the NYT published this year? One? Two? How many pro-Clinton editorials and op-eds has the NYT published this year? Several dozen.”

            True. I don’t deny that. But Trump has gotten billions of dollars of free media coverage. How much has Hillary gotten? And the Trump free media coverage just lets him spout off however he wants, almost never challenging him on his constant lying. So it’s basically giving him free advertising and acting as if his lies are true.

            http://politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/

            And the NYT probably has published MORE articles critical of Clinton than articles that are positive about her. The NYT, like everyone else, publishes articles about rumor and innuendo, with no substance and no evidence. Hillary has gotten far far more negative coverage from the press than Trump has. The NYT publishes numerous Right Wing editorials and articles, as does just about every other media outlet.

            There is virtually NO Left Wing media.

            http://www.mediaite.com/online/msnbc-now-openly-bragging-about-abandoning-its-liberal-brand-in-new-ad/

          • E. Harding says:

            “but you’re the last person who gets to label others as blind partisans.”

            -You may call me chronically wrong, but I do not think you can ever fairly call me a blind partisan. I supported Kerry in 2004, Clinton on the Democratic and Paul on the Republican side in 2008, then McCain because I thought he would result in endless gridlock, Paul, then Obama in 2012, and Trump in 2016 (there’s a greater than 50% chance I would not have supported Rubio had he been the nominee). I’m considering voting for the Democratic representative in my congressional district because I don’t like the establishment Republican who’s currently occupying it. I do agree, though, that every Trump supporting Republican or Republican-leaner should support the Republican candidate in every U.S. Senate race this year, no matter if he or she is a serial child rapist or worse. The House is much less worrisome, and Ryan deserves to be pressured.

            “You’re not a bad poster most of the time,”

            -Thanks.

            @Jill

            “But Trump has gotten billions of dollars of free media coverage.”

            -Do you understand that quite a bit of this was free negative advertising against him?

            “And the Trump free media coverage just lets him spout off however he wants, almost never challenging him on his constant lying.”

            -Just the opposite. When has Clinton been called out for lying for saying trickle-down economics led to the housing crash? CNN is notorious for its chyrons which say that Obama didn’t found the Islamic State (fact-check: he did).

            “And the NYT probably has published MORE articles critical of Clinton than articles that are positive about her.”

            -Go ahead; check.

            “Hillary has gotten far far more negative coverage from the press than Trump has.”

            -Fact-check: false.

            “Ok, see E Harding? That’s you right now ↓↓↓↓”

            -[shrugs.] Better to have gotten my point across fully than not have gotten it across at all.

          • “They are blind partisans who have shown no respect for reason and evidence.”

            Not a sufficient reason for banning.

          • Jill says:

            “They are blind partisans who have shown no respect for reason and evidence.”

            If everyone was banned who someone else characterized in this way, the comment board would be completely empty. LOL.

          • Jill wrote:

            “supposedly Left Wing media like the NYT. Because Left Wing media is actually media that contains a few articles/programs that are Left Wing and lots of Right Wing ones.”

            E. Harding responded:

            “How many pro-Trump editorials and op-eds has the NYT published this year? One? Two? How many pro-Clinton editorials and op-eds has the NYT published this year? Several dozen.”

            Jill responded:

            “True. I don’t deny that. But Trump has gotten billions of dollars of free media coverage.”

            Or in other words, confronted with the evidence, you admit that your claim (“contains a few articles/programs that are Left Wing and lots of Right Wing ones.”) was false. But instead of saying so you replace it with a different claim.

            Incidentally, an irrelevant one. Trump is good at getting media attention. That says nothing about whether the media are right wing, left wing, or neither.

          • Jill says:

            LOL, E. Harding. Next you are going to say”

            We live on earth.

            Fact check, FALSE

            Where do you get your fact checks from– Hannity on Fox?

          • Jill says:

            Or in other words, confronted with the evidence, you admit that your claim (“contains a few articles/programs that are Left Wing and lots of Right Wing ones.”) was false. But instead of saying so you replace it with a different claim.

            No, my original claim was true. That was an additional claim, not a replacement claim. If you don’t think the NYT has lots of Right Wing economics and other Right Wing articles, then you must not read it. I do.

          • Jill says:

            “incompetent, ignorant and totally lacking a moral compass”

            “-That fairly describes most politicians. What’s your point?”

            That’s a false equivalence. That doesn’t describe Hillary in the least. She’s highly competent, knowledgeable, and has a moral compass, though she is not perfect.

            People who are not fundamentalist believers in the First Church of Trump find it obvious that Hillary is at least 10X more competent, knowledgeable, and moral than Trump, with respect to matters of economics and politics.

          • E. Harding says:

            “She’s highly competent, knowledgeable, and has a moral compass, though she is not perfect.”

            -I’ve seen zero evidence for even the least bit of any of this. She has a high IQ and is good at debate. That’s it. No competence (look at Her handling of healthcare reform, Her refusal to renounce Her Iraq War vote in 2008, etc.), no real knowledge, and absolutely no moral compass known to man. Trump may not have a moral compass, but he is fairly competent for his lack of knowledge.

          • Stav says:

            Evidence for HRC’s competency:

            “Of course, as Colin Powell and Cordell Hull learned, a secretary of state without presidential support has trouble getting much done. How successful was Clinton in winning and holding the confidence of her chief and in persuading Obama to accept her ideas as the basis for foreign policy?

            While she did not win all the battles she fought — the president resisted her counsel on Syria, and she failed to persuade him to back Richard Holbrooke’s diplomatic efforts in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region — she managed the relationship successfully and won his trust, to the point that the president wanted her to stay on the job well into his second term. This outcome was not a given; Clinton’s association with Obama began in their bitter 2008 Democratic nominating contest, and her success at building a strong relationship with a president not known for embracing new friends or Washington insiders testifies to her formidable interpersonal skills.

            Similarly, her strong ties with former defense secretary Robert M. Gates and former CIA chief David H. Petraeus ensured that the State Department was rarely isolated in the policy process. And while other Cabinet departments sometimes resisted her efforts to assert State’s primacy on issues of interest to them, she was more successful than many of her recent predecessors at ensuring that her agency had a voice at the table for key discussions on economic diplomacy and counterterrorism.” (WP, “Was Hillary Clinton a good secretary of state?”)

          • E. Harding says:

            So, competent at increasing Her influence? That’s very much a double-edged sword, and I meant something a tad more concrete than something so broad. I’m not feeling any increase in confidence in Her potential presidency by reading that.

          • bean says:

            @Jill:

            But Trump has gotten billions of dollars of free media coverage.

            How much free media coverage did Nixon get during Watergate?

          • LPSP says:

            So, competent at increasing Her influence? That’s very much a double-edged sword

            I’ve been largely aligned with your stance in these last two threads, but uh, isn’t this largely one of your props for why Trump is rational and sane, that he competently increased his self-influence in business and the Republican nomination?

          • E. Harding says:

            “I’ve been largely aligned with your stance in these last two threads, but uh, isn’t this largely one of your props for why Trump is rational and sane, that he competently increased his self-influence in business and the Republican nomination?”

            -Yes, but I’ve never denied Clinton is “rational and sane”. I still strongly doubt Her competence.

      • Theo Jones says:

        I think Trump has opinions on a wide range of issue (military policy, trade,immigration, domestic economic policy…) that fundamentally contradict what I think good policy is. So, it would take a lot of convincing on those issues. Plus Trump has been pretty good at demonstrating erratic behaviour, so , you would have to demonstrate that he actually has sufficient self-control and restraint to effectively govern.

        • E. Harding says:

          The test is multiple choice, man. Politics is the art of the possible. The question is, is any other candidate’s policies superior? Scott casts Trump as the worst of the four significant party nominees. I consider him to be the best of the four significant party nominees.

          BTW, Scott should have been doing this during the primary.

          • Theo Jones says:

            “The question is, is any other candidate’s policies superior? ”

            Yes. Hillary wants to keep with the current trade policy (although, unfortunately she backed away from the TPP during the primary), making her policy preferences on this issue better than both Trump and Stein. She wants to keep largely the status quo on immigration instead of radically tightening policy. (making her policy positions better than everyone except Johnson. She hasn’t had the erratic behaviour of Trump that would make him ineffective at best at diplomacy. Nor does she have the extreme anti-war at all cost isolationist views of Stein or Johnson.

          • E. Harding says:

            Theo, are you some kind of parody? Your supposed views seem like a stereotype of DC insider viewpoints made up one Saturday evening by Ricky_Vaughn99. In any case, Clinton does not want the status quo on immigration; she explicitly rejects it. She says illegals should be considered Americans, too, and that she would only deport the most violent criminals. She also supported Obama’s executive action.

            “She hasn’t had the erratic behaviour of Trump that would make him ineffective at best at diplomacy.”

            -I’m sure calling Putin the great godfather of Brexit and Trump, as well as saying she’d call the 1980s and the 1940s and ask for their foreign policy back, is not exactly the most diplomatic language as it relates to the second-largest nuclear power on earth.

      • (I agree with you)

        White people refuse to love anyone except for Blacks and Hispanics, and as soon as the broad asian diaspora realizes that left-wing white people refuse to protect any one except for the “bad kids”, there will be a mass defection. Hopefully war,

        (small minority of politically powerful leftist whites holding down every one, we have a common enemy, hopefully a war is en route, they are too old to fight a war)

        I’m voting for Trump because he is not Anglo-Saxon(moms) politically, and he refuses to put the priorities of the ‘bad kids’ before the good kids. It’s well known in the bay area among asian kids that they say “Don’t hang out with white people,” or “White people only care about themselves”, “White people are just using us”, there’s already tons of resentment.

        At least he will equalize racial relations. I have high hopes for him invigorating a reinvigorated movement. I wish he would just say Leftists just prefer black people over asian people, and he could potentially win all asian states. For god fucking sake if only he would do this.

        Trump would reduce the demand for anti-white racism from POV of asians (Loyal allies) as opposed to the bad kids that say they want to kill you, actually dislike you, DO try to kill you, and physically intimidate, and riot against white people. White progressives are losing the only allies they had.

        • Anonymous says:

          You could have just said you are voting for Trump because NOWAG. It would have saved a bunch of typing.

          • I’m not attracted to white girls at all. How to defeat white people (notice they’re too old to fight a war)

            A) Protect jewish/southerners/irish people B) All non-white ethnic groups will side w/ each-other with us making deals for the honest white races who have been genuinely left out.

            C) Let jewish people use propaganda & be special forces , max asymptotic damage
            D) European states will ally with us against their degenerate progressives anyways. /done deal.

            E) Import Dutch/Germans people (my favorite white people)

          • Your best white men decided to love me, a foreigner, over you. They would rather die for me, than their own middle class, I love them too. girls, are just a bunch of hoes, your best men sold you, your country, your traditions, your descendents, your hopes for a better life out, and all your ancestors out for me. I love them.

            If it makes you feel better, gay white men, which their are shockingly a lot of, are attracted to middle eastern men the most. The sad reality is that every gay male are attracted to middle eastern men, so the sad look of these white men as they strike out with those damn middle easterners. What a shame. If you argue that standard sexuality has higher % so your argument wins out, I would argue that gay white men are proportionally that much more powerful than the quantitative ratio preferring your argument, in fact it just might put me in the lead.

            White women sold their own men out and destroyed their country by attraction to socialism, feminism(destroying white families), communism, marxism, and other B.S. destabilizing the white family. They might be attracted to you sexually, but they weren’t mentally, they chose us too. Now immigrants make your women into sex slaves. Good job retards, but you’re getting laid(not). It’ll all be over soon.

          • Skef says:

            @SanguineEmpiricist: “gay white men, which their are shockingly a lot of, are attracted to middle eastern men the most. The sad reality is that every gay male are attracted to middle eastern men, so the sad look of these white men as they strike out with those damn middle easterners.”

            I dunno, a lot of the studies establishing primary attraction to middle easterners were retrospective, so …

          • Sandy says:

            Ok, I am finally onboard with the accusation that Scott has let too many crazies in here.

          • Clearly a left winger this pretending to be crazy to smear Trump supporters…

          • Scott Alexander says:

            I have no idea what SanguineEmpiricist is saying, but fine, whatever, banned for three months

        • Sandy says:

          I wish he would just say Leftists just prefer black people over asian people, and he could potentially win all asian states.

          There is a grand total of one Asian state.

          • That state tends to be an important one, and even better, we’re willing to kill them to just move on, and we’ll cut the deal to protect all white people who have been left out of the current discourse. Unbelievable we would have to protect their own lower/middle class from their own treasonous elite, but white people never cared too much about family anyways.

        • You’re trying way too hard to mash up some heterodox sentimental/ethical argument with modern racial dynamics. Just because you’ve read very non-PC (but perhaps true) outlines of current race dynamics, and are also smart enough to put together crafty moral arguments unrelated to mainstream views, doesn’t make you right. It’s fun to concoct strange clever arguments no one else holds — it’s often unrelated to reality.

          The way you casually write about white men, Jews, Asians, gay men, competing sexual interests, and a desire for war, as though it encompasses and captures the primary parameters of our current nation, issues, and future, is absurd.

      • Galle says:

        For me? Trump would basically have to say “Psyche!” and then start openly mocking his supporters for thinking that any presidential candidate could REALLY be as terrible as he was pretending to be before I could even consider it.

      • TheWorst says:

        Remember in 2012, when Trump ran for president but everyone–including yourself, I strongly suspect–noticed that he is a clown?

        Nothing has changed outside of the tribal signalling complex. Anyone who’s even mildly rational won’t have changed their opinion about him since then, because he hasn’t changed in the slightest.

        • E. Harding says:

          “Anyone who’s even mildly rational won’t have changed their opinion about him since then, because he hasn’t changed in the slightest.”

          -He’s substantially changed his mind on the Libya intervention, has become a big immigration hawk, ended his friendship with Mitt (in fact, he became an enemy), helped crush political correctness, and has stopped his birtherism. That’s enough for me.

          • TheWorst says:

            There’s no evidence he’s done any of those; the details of the flimflam he’s marketing are slightly different, but I was talking about the man, not his marketing ploy. Since he’s the same person now that he was in 2012, there’s no reason to support him now that didn’t exist in 2012. Did you do so?

            If so, can you provide some evidence of it? If not, will you admit that everything you’re doing here is empty tribal signalling?

      • LPSP says:

        What I think the response to this indicates is that – at least for this demographic – Trump has already converted everyone who can be converted. All that’s left are those innately unamenable to what he stands for.

      • Titanium Dragon says:

        There’s nothing that could make me vote for Trump. Actions speak louder than words, and his actions and words are both absolutely awful.

        Same goes for Johnson and Stein.

        Clinton is competent and close to my political stances on many things. She isn’t perfectly aligned with them, but she’s as closely aligned as I can reasonably hope any president to be. And again, Clinton’s actions inspire confidence that she’ll be a boring-but-effective president.

    • E. Harding says:

      Overall, I think the summary on Trump at least attempted to be thorough and skeptical (though sometimes it did have some misleading omissions). Hillary’s foreign policy is under-analyzed here (only three bullet points for Her; 12 points for Trump) and it often veers into

      I am not qualified to judge Hillary’s work as Secretary of State, but I expect her to play by the book.

      -Which sounds a lot like

      Just replace the assumption that everything will work itself out once power is in the hands of the workers, with the assumption that everything will work itself out once power is in the hands of “people who play by the book and consult the foreign policy community”. Just replace the hand-waving lack of plans with what to do after the Revolution with a hand-waving lack of plans what to do after the election.

      -Of course, that’s assuming the “foreign policy community” is not systemically erroneous, or that it’s something that’s worth listening to without a sound Trumpian, or at least Obamaite skepticism (personally, I’d prefer if Trump had an even greater level of skepticism of it). It assumes Hillary Clinton does not have advisors this shockingly ignorant (she does):
      https://twitter.com/rosenbergerlm/status/773684010526601216

      All in all, it ignores too much of the Obama administration’s and the foreign policy establishment’s past failures and present dubious ideas. It expects the “foreign policy community” to somehow behave differently once they have a president who’s far more ready to listen to them than Barack Obama (who has repeatedly ignored them, preferring to go by his own version of Trumpian/Putinist realism) has. It puts far too much faith in it, and does not thoroughly examine the accomplishments and failures of the Obama administration. It has a reasonable standard for Trump, but a much lower standard for establishment thinkers.

      And it omits the crucial issues of Ukraine, the South China Sea, Her plans for North Korea, and only touches on Clinton’s roles in Libya and Syria as Secretary of State. It doesn’t even discuss U.S.-Iranian relations under a potential Clinton presidency or the candidates’ statements on Cuba. So I think this post should have been more focused on Clinton and have covered more than three foreign policy issues on her side.

      • Jiro says:

        And let’s count some non-foreign policy issues. TPP (actually, I guess that’s foreign policy, although not military foreign policy). Citizens United (and the general question of nominating another Supreme Court justice). Immigration. And I’m far more ready to believe Trump is better on gun rights than Hillary, no-fly list notwithstanding.

        I also think that Scott is too quick to say “sure, it could be macho posturing, but Trump is a high variance candidate so I have to worry about it just in case.” It fails to take into account differences in speaking style between both 1) lower-class and upper-class, and 2) reds and blues. Scott needs to take that into account and discount the variance.

        • herbert herbertson says:

          Is Trump lower class? Does he have any Red State bonafides beyond some involvement in professional wrestling and the overwhelming hatred he receives from the Blue?

          • The Nybbler says:

            He also used to own the Miss Universe pageant. Given his background, it certainly makes no sense for Trump to be culturally Red or even anti-Blue. But he is. If it’s mere affectation, it’s one he’s been maintaining for decades.

          • herbert herbertson says:

            And yet Mr. Dilbert tells me that the reason Trump sounds like a crazy prick to me is that I don’t understand the particularities of New York City’s culture.

          • Jiro says:

            Actually, Trump has struck me as acting like what a lower class person would act if he came into a lot of money.

          • Fahundo says:

            As an uneducated red-stater, I resent the insinuation that we speak like Trump does.

          • LPSP says:

            Trump is a pretty even mix of Reaver and Cavalier in style (to use these labels very broadly – Trump is notably german in descent, which probably deserves further division in analysis than the British migrants did). Reavers outnumber Cavaliers and thus Trump shapes his rhetoric to them, but his lifestyle is cavalier-core.

      • Alsadius says:

        The foreign policy community has made some blunders over the years, but they’ve generally been in charge of American foreign policy since at least WW2, and they haven’t blown up the world yet. They’re a known commodity – you’ll get a major local war every couple decades, a brushfire intervention every few years, and nothing worse. I can live with that. Preemptive strikes on nations that can wipe major parts of important allies off the map in an hour or two? That’s not a mistake that the mandarins would ever make.

    • Alsadius says:

      > Nothing wrong with [destroying ISIS], though I’m pretty sure a mere 5000 combat troops would do the job

      You know that the last time the US fought a serious campaign against ISIS, we had 150,000 troops on the job, they were weaker than they are now, we had more public support and better logistical agreements with the Iraqis, and it still took years to destroy them, right?

    • Ryan Beren says:

      > -I.e., unlike Clinton, he changes his mind in response to new evidence.

      LOL. Given how disconnected this statement appears to be from reality, I’m inclined to reject the points you had made up to that howler as likely suffering from the same disconnect. But I’d like to verify. Is there some justification for the idea that Trump changes his mind in response to evidence?

      • Alsadius says:

        Well he changes his mind in response to being asked exactly the same question a second time, so presumably he does it for evidence too…

      • E. Harding says:

        Yes. First he said that, as a result of the start of the Iraq War, the stock market would go up like a rocket. A few days after that, he expressed doubt about the success of how the Iraq War was going. By the 9/11/03, he was saying “It wasn’t a mistake to fight terrorism and fight it hard, and I guess maybe if I had to do it, I would have fought terrorism but not necessarily Iraq.”, which is far less supportive of the Iraq War than most Republicans at the time, certainly less supportive of the Iraq War than Mike Pence.

        http://www.factcheck.org/2016/02/donald-trump-and-the-iraq-war/

      • cassander says:

        He radically re-organized his campaign a month ago after losing a lot of ground post convention.

        • Alsadius says:

          Fair point – he’s certainly done well with reorganizing his campaign, at least by comparison to where it was before. Does raise some questions about his ability to hire “the best people” that he had to sack two campaign managers in the space of a few months, of course, but Conway seems to actually be doing well for him.

          • Alraune says:

            Paul Manafort was very much considered a “best person” by political insiders. (Also not uncommonly compared to Mephistopheles.) Apparently they were wrong, at least once the convention was over, but he was following best practices in making that hire.

          • cassander says:

            I think the likeliest story is that he assumed what worked in the primary would work in the general. Sure, plenty of people said this was wrong, but they were the same people (and I was one of them), who said he’d never get the nomination in the first place. So he didn’t change, it didn’t work, and so he re-organized. No one hires the right people every time, what’s important is the ability and willingness to replace people who don’t work out.

          • Alsadius says:

            Alraune: Of course he tries to hire the best people – everyone tries. But given that a big part of his self-described brand is hiring the best, the fact that his first campaign manager assaulted a reporter and his second was in the pay of a foreign dictator is hardly a great sign of his skills in this field. It’d be one thing if these were random minions, but these are the campaign managers, the #1 most important spot he can hire at this point. Just how bad are his down-ticket picks?

          • Alraune says:

            Oh for christ’s sake. Manafort is a snake and was working to subvert democracy in the Ukraine, but he was working to subvert democracy on behalf of the US government. Enough with the red-baiting.

          • E. Harding says:

            “was working to subvert democracy in the Ukraine”

            -[citation needed]

    • MugaSofer says:

      “Trump seems to have been in favor of even more dramatic intervention than Obama eventually allowed.”

      -No; Obama did everything Trump described then except keep and protect the oil.

      In what way is “maintain a permanent military presence across most of the country, with the explicit purpose of looting them” not “more dramatic” than what we did?

      In any event, given that Trump now claims that removing Gadaffi was a massive mistake and blames it on Clinton (which is reasonable), it follows that he would have made the same massive mistake – hardly a ringing endorsement of his peaceloving ways.

      • E. Harding says:

        Ah; but he would have kept the oil, and, presumably, in order to protect the oil, protected the post-Gaddafi Libyan democratic government (which was surprisingly successful for its year and a half or so of rough control over the country) from falling into instability. So he might have made different mistakes, but not the exact same ones as the Clinton/Obama team actually made.

        • Julian says:

          Why is the oil so important?

          The US is the third largest producer of oil in the world (and essentially tied with Saudi Arabia who is number 1).

          Oil’s importance on the global stage has never been lower since human started using it for fuel. Every time you or Trump bring this up I imagine you have been transported fr0m 1978 to 2016.

          • John Schilling says:

            Be fair; he could have been transported from as recently as 2007. But I agree that the current round of crises all occurred in an environment where we’d be perfectly fine with all of the affected oil left inaccessibly buried under a permanent war zone.

          • TheWorst says:

            Every time you or Trump bring this up I imagine you have been transported fr0m 1978 to 2016.

            I think the simpler, likelier answer is that he is either stupid or lying… or just so heavily invested in the right-wing fever swamp that he’s panicking when his false beliefs are called into question.

            A wiser person would think the proper response was to adopt non-false beliefs, but I guess panicking is more human.

        • Jon D says:

          On “keeping the oil”: this is a point I’ve seen made many times in these comments, but “taking the oil” is “pillage” which is a war crime. Not that the US military involvement in the Middle East since 2003 has been free of war crime (both Bush and Obama Administrations are guilty), but hey. Let’s not add another one to the pile.

          • E. Harding says:

            Another example of what our host claims may be the worst argument in the world:

            http://lesswrong.com/lw/e95/the_noncentral_fallacy_the_worst_argument_in_the/

          • Fahundo says:

            Invading and taking the oil strikes me as a central example of pillaging. Unless you mean to say that pillaging is a particularly inoffensive war crime? Might need to show the work on that one.

          • Jon D says:

            Another example of what our host claims may be the worst argument in the world:

            http://lesswrong.com/lw/e95/the_noncentral_fallacy_the_worst_argument_in_the/

            Fair! To make long-hand what I had presumed, incorrectly, was adequate in the short:

            1. Taking Iraq as case-study here, and taking as assumption that the majority of oil fields in the country are leased to private corporations (they are), then forcibly taking the oil from the ground as an invading and conquering force constitutes what is internationally agreed upon as “pillage”, which is internationally agreed upon to be a “war crime”. I’m not saying this for emotional effect, i.e. “taking the oil would be racist”. I’m saying that an international court would be well within its legal bounds to call such an action a war crime, which would be a violation of multiple international agreements, including the Geneva Convention and the Charter of the International Military Tribunal of Nuremburg. I believe that these international agreements do global good, and explicit American support for these international agreements to that extent is valuable. I believe that openly advocating pillage undermines these institutions, which I believe does more harm globally than the degree to which whatever recompense we would find in “taking the oil” would be of global benefit. If we disagree here I’m afraid we’ll be at an impasse. I will admit here again that previous and recent Administrations have committed war-crime in the very same region, but I stand in opposition to these cases as well.

            2. I will admit to an appeal to emotion in equating “taking the oil” to “war crime”, but I do not believe that is out of bounds. As Fahundo points to, pillage is a fairly central war crime. I understand the appeal of liberating the oil fields of Daesh and using those funds to scour out the nihilist insurgency. However, if we are to cling to whatever shred of purpose we have for being in the region in the first place — stabilizing the region — then that oil rightfully belongs to the Iraqi people. To reach an agreement with the Iraqi government to subcontract those oil fields for American extraction would be one thing; but to take the oil by force directly from the cold dead hands of ISIL would be a betrayal of the Iraqi people, whose lives we are ostensibly there to improve.

      • cassander says:

        >In what way is “maintain a permanent military presence across most of the country, with the explicit purpose of looting them” not “more dramatic” than what we did?

        At the very least, there would be one group in charge of the country, not several fighting for control.

        >In any event, given that Trump now claims that removing Gadaffi was a massive mistake and blames it on Clinton (which is reasonable), it follows that he would have made the same massive mistake – hardly a ringing endorsement of his peaceloving ways.

        Clinton is still claiming it was a successs.

        • radmonger says:

          Relatively speaking, Libya _was_ a success; which out of Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria would you rather live in?

          Pretty sure it was cheaper than Syria in terms of cost to the taxpayer too, and certainly several orders of magnitude under the other two.

          Is there some objective, fact-based argument to the contrary? Or it is a matter of abstract principles being correct leading to a party that supports those principles being correct leading to whatever they do being correct?

          • anon says:

            One point to make is that your accounting might be leaving out the European migrant crisis, which has certainly cost lots of money and political headaches. (Hard to imagine that those add up to anything approaching Iraq, but still. Also I grant that Syria and Turkish politics play some role in the migrant crisis as well. But some part of it is genuinely Libya-related.)

            Another point to make is that even if Afghanistan, Syria, and (some parts of) Iraq may be worse places to live right now, Libya is still not a place you want to live right now.

            Your arguments are damning the policy with *extremely* faint praise.

          • cassander says:

            >Relatively speaking, Libya _was_ a success; which out of Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria would you rather live in?

            No, it wasn’t. A country was destroyed. the international non-proliferation regimes was undermined. the syrian civil war was exacerbated. Tens of thousands are dead in a civil war that shows no signs of ending. chaos and refugees have spread. Nothing useful was accomplished. That it was relatively cheap is irrelevant. Libya today is as bad off as Syria, just on a smaller scale because there are fewer people.

          • radmonger says:

            > Libya today is as bad off as Syria,

            Sorry, this is simply an indication you are either using strongly motivated reasoning, or have utterly no idea what you are talking about. Over the period of the war, Syria has dropped in population from 22 million to 16 million. Heavy military air strikes that destroy all the hospitals in a (former) city of 2 million barely make the news. And if someone said they had a plan to bring it to an end within 3 years they’d be an optimist.

            Meanwhile, in Libya there was a ceasefire late last year, which has held since. It might break, and 3 sets of foreign powers might back 4 different factions trying to massacre their way to power. If that happens, and keeps on happening for 5 years, then Libya would be as bad as Syria.

          • cassander says:

            @radmonger

            >Sorry, this is simply an indication you are either using strongly motivated reasoning, or have utterly no idea what you are talking about. Over the period of the war, Syria has dropped in population from 22 million to 16

            Of a population of 6 million, Libya had internal displacement of at least a million 2 years ago. More accurate numbers are had to come by because libya receives much less international attention, the sheer size of the size and, and the low population density. There is a multi-sided civil war going on that has killed tens of thousands. Fewer than in syria, true, but from a much smaller population

            >Meanwhile, in Libya there was a ceasefire late last year, which has held since. It might break, and 3 sets of foreign powers might back 4 different factions trying to massacre their way to

            a ceasefire that doesn’t actually stop the fighting is not much of a ceasefire.

            Libya is a less important country than syria, with fewer important neighbors, and fewer people. But it’s just as fucked up as Syria is.

    • Vilgot Huhn says:

      “Unlike Clinton, he changes his mind in response to new evidence. I prefer that to changing your mind about the benefit of any foreign policy intervention you helped out in, whether directly or indirectly, only a decade after it has passed (as is true for Clinton).”
      When saying stupid things Trump has often responded with denying having said the stupid things he has previously said. On confrontation on him saying that “climate change is a hoax perpetuated by the Chinese” he has not responded with “I used to believe that, but now I have changed my mind”, he instead responded with “I never said that”. There are several other examples. I am convinced you, E. Harding, would be able to name 15 if you actually tried.

      • AnonBosch says:

        An simpler question would be to ask: where has Trump explicitly changed his mind and discussed his reasons for doing so? As far as I know (and I would seriously welcome correction, as it’s one of my largest worries about the ~25-40% probability he gets elected) he simply adopts a new position and denies he ever held the old one, while waiting for his surrogates and the Red Tribe to crowdsource a rationale for why the two are totally consistent + a false equivalency for Hillary.

        • Jill says:

          You are correct. That’s what he does. If we weren’t immersed in Right Wing propaganda, everyone would be aware that Trump does this. But we are immersed in Right Wing propaganda that keeps telling us that the media is overwhelmingly Left biased.

          I guess it helps convince people to believe your propaganda, if you convince them that the other side is lying and is also overwhelming in its size and power.

        • TheWorst says:

          I don’t know of any time when he’s admitted to changing his mind, but it’s certainly true that he’s been for and against basically any position you can be for or against.

          Which is why, I suspect, talk about his “policies” is senseless posturing–I don’t think that, in reality, anyone has any idea what his personal policies as President would be. The safe bet seems to be that he’d attempt to swindle as much of other people’s money into his own pocket as possible–it’s essentially the only thing he’s ever done in his life, whether as a candidate, head of a fraudulent charitable institution, or a fraudulent college, or as a real estate developer.

          What would Trump do as president? Aside from trying to spend lots of money on Trump properties, no one has much evidence in any direction. It seems unlikely that he has any idea, either.

          • mtraven says:

            Amen. Scott is being charitable in giving serious consideration to Trump’s alleged policy preferences, but there is such a thing as too much epistemic charity.

    • JShots says:

      E. Harding is inferring a lot of nuance from a person who so incredibly lacks any understanding of nuance. Also this line – “unlike Clinton, he changes his mind in response to new evidence”. How many times have we heard Trump defiantly hold his stance on topics that he was unequivocally proven wrong about? Or there’s also the times where he tweets out statements or “facts” when there is an absolute lack of evidence. All it should really take with any sane voter is to go into google and search “dumb Trump tweets” to realize he’s unfit. I feel like I need to state that this is no defense of Clinton, just a rebuff of Trump. Anyways, I can hardly think of this post as being the new vein of critical thought on foreign policy advice that is hinted at the end.

  2. Richard says:

    I’m less worried about going to war than about going to war incompetently.

    By all means, I think the US would have been better off without all the wars after 2001, and that one should only go to war for extremely good reasons, but when you do, you need to leave it to the professionals and not mess it all up with political interference.

    Trump has a long history of hiring the best people for the job at hand and leaving the details to them, Hillary has not.

    • Zombielicious says:

      Trump has a long history of hiring the best people for the job at hand and leaving the details to them, Hillary has not.

      Can you provide some credible evidence for this? I would think the opposite is true. As pointed out previously, look at stuff like his campaign and charity, which seem to be consistently incompetent and with high turnover rates. Without even getting in to stuff like Trump University – why resort to borderline (or actual) fraud when you have a talent for “hiring the best people” and can create a business producing actual value?

      I’ve seen no evidence that Trump actually has a talent for surrounding himself with a network of talented people. He simply repeats the statement often. But I’m willing to reconsider if I’ve simply missed a boatload of evidence that this is his talent.

      • pku says:

        More generally, something that bothers me about assuming Trump’s business success will make him a good president (and in particular, a good negotiator with other countries) is his manner of business: His businesses all seem to rely on selling to poorer people (often selling scam goods or unrealistic dreams, like casinos or reality TV. Even in his buildings, it seems like half the value is in the brand.) His money doesn’t come from making profitable deals with other rich people. Actually, other rich people (and definitely other politicians) seem to despise him.
        If we assume that he presides (presidents?) like he does business (which seems a questionable assumption at best), we would expect his marketing to voters to be significantly better than his actual quality as president, and have no reason to expect he’d be effective at negotiating good trade deals and the like.

        • Chalid says:

          I feel like the only reason to think he surrounds himself with good people is that people assume that

          a) he is successful in business
          b) the only way to succeed in business is to surround yourself with good people

          (and to a lesser extent, you can make similar statements by substituting “politics” for “business”)

          I don’t think we know that either of these is true. For a) he’s certainly rich but given our lack of information about his finances it’s hard to tell to what extent this is because he started off rich (he did not build everything from a $1 million loan) versus that he was lucky versus him being skilled. For b) I’m willing to believe that running a real estate empire successfully requires good people. But if his wealth comes primarily from self-promotion (TV shows, branding) then I’m not so sure that that’s the case.

          • mjg235 says:

            Trump’s wealth isn’t really primarily from branding. He gets a good bit of royalty income from branded products, but he is still raking in a few hundred million a year from his real estate income (which definitely involves selling to rich people, unless somehow poor people are buying condos on Fifth Avenue). No matter how you value his brand, he still has billions in solid real estate assets. You can look them up on the Forbes or Bloomberg writeups and do the basic back-of-the-envelope valuations.

            I am actually of the camp that Trump is a very competent businessman. He seems to have successfully used leverage to multiply his assets a few orders of magnitude through the mid 80s. Then he farted around on vanity projects, like owning USFL teams, the Plaza, and the Miss Universe pageants. The vanity projects were predictable money losers, but the initial surge to get him there was definitely masterful.

          • Chalid says:

            Given what has happened to NYC real estate prices, I’m not sure that we should say that making money as an investor in NYC real estate over the past few decades is due to skill rather than being lucky enough to be in the right market.

            No matter how you value his brand, he still has billions in solid real estate assets.

            But we don’t know the full extent of his debts. The NYT sums up what is known, putting a lower bound of $650 million in debt by companies he owns.

            One thing that I keep coming back to is Trump steaks. It’s hard to imagine a guy worth several billion messing around with such a penny-ante BS scheme.

          • TheWorst says:

            As a real estate developer, Trump’s success came from ripping off his contractors, figuring that–after doing the work out of their own pocket, expecting to be paid later–the small businesses he was destroying wouldn’t have enough money to sue him for it.

            There’s a reason banks won’t loan him money, and a reason for the “Trump Tax” (where Atlantic City’s contractors decided, since Trump only paid half of the stated price, to just state massively-inflated prices up front, so that he only thought he was ripping them off).

            His shtick wasn’t about being good at business, it was about being a defect-bot in a place with cooperative norms… and then being too well-connected to be prosecuted for it.

        • Chirag Neb says:

          Selling to poor people is akin to selling to poor countries/ less strong countries. In that way it works perfectly since America is the most richest country still!

      • Corey says:

        I’ve seen no evidence that Trump actually has a talent for surrounding himself with a network of talented people. He simply repeats the statement often. But I’m willing to reconsider if I’ve simply missed a boatload of evidence that this is his talent.

        The stuff I’ve seen suggests the reverse, that he tends to surround himself with yes-men and/or ignore any advice he doesn’t like, e.g. this article.

    • BBA says:

      The “best people” running the Trump Foundation can’t even fill out a form properly and risk the foundation being dissolved as a result.

    • Nicholas says:

      It was Trump’s Atlantic City misadventures that convinced me that he’s actually in the habit of ignoring his advisors.

  3. The Voracious Observer says:

    How is Trump differing from Reagon in his bravado? In particular, I am thinking of the “We begin bombing in five minutes” moment with Reagon, in addition to Reagon’s policies to outspend the USSR on STAR WARS, etc. In negotiation, there is an advantage to being seen as the unstable force that needs to be appeased, instead of the other way around. There does not seem to be much evidence that Trump has personally done crazy things in his real business dealings. Sure, it’s silly to outsiders and I find it off-putting, but the venn-diagram of the actions that are effective, and the actions I prefer be effective are separate entities. I hate networking too, but humans are social creatures, and we have social weaknesses.

    On the Libya & Iraq Oil – if we were going to invade, we should take their resources. Why should America protect the world for free? I don’t agree with the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, nor our interventions in Syria and Libya, but if they have to happen, the US should annex countries too broken to run a government. Iraq should be a US territory now, not the war-torn wasteland it has collapsed into. Iraq would be significantly better off with American soldiers, American laws, American justice, and American taxes there, permanently.

    • birdboy2000 says:

      Reagan brought us way too close for comfort to World War 3 – Able Archer 83 led to a pretty serious war scare. Trump not being worse is not exactly a ringing endorsement.

      • Deiseach says:

        The whole system is cemented by America-centric trade organizations which make war unprofitable and incentivize countries to stay in America’s orbit.

        Oh, banjos! Trump is right in this much*: why are you (or any other country) making nuclear weapons just to sit there? There has to at least be the appearance of threat: attack us and remember what we did to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, friend?

        I very much doubt any potential enemy sat down and said “Well, if we attack America, they won’t sell us shiny gadgets any more, so we’d better not”. They said “The so-and-sos have 22,217** nuclear weapons deployed or in storage, they have military bases in Europe, they demonstrated in 1945 that they’re willing to use them”.

        I didn’t and don’t think that’s any kind of strategy to prevent some nutcase from going “Well, I’m going to gamble they won’t because they’ve gone soft!” and I very much dislike hawkishness of whatever era, but I’m damn sure trade was less of a deterrent than things that can go “boom”. And I’m old enough to remember the “Evil Empire” and the Star Wars Missile Defense Initiative and Russia in Afghanistan, and thinking that this would be it, this would be the moment the rhetoric had ramped up to the level that somebody would push the button and launch at least one missile. I genuinely did not expect that we’d get out of the late 80s/early 90s without a lead-in to the Third World War.

        *Obligatory disclaimer: this does not indicate support of Trump’s warmongering rhetoric, anybody’s warmongering rhetoric, or Trump in either general or particular. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, as they say. You only make such weapons to at least appear as a threat; if everyone knows and is fully confident you are never, ever under any circumstances whatsoever going to use them, you might as well fill the silos with Chupa Chups.

        **1989 figures according to Wikipedia.

        • Iain says:

          If you are old enough to remember Russian in Afghanistan, then surely at some point you have encountered the principle of mutually assured destruction. You make nuclear weapons because there are other countries out there with nuclear weapons, and you want to be clear that they can’t get away with using them on you. If you ever have to launch a nuke, your nuclear program has already failed.

          • Deiseach says:

            Which only leads to escalation: we’re the only country with nuclear weapons! Ha, that’s what you thought – we have them now, too! Well, we have more! No, we do!

            And you end up with more and more of the “we’ll never use these but we need them anyway” sitting around. And the possession of a weapon makes its use more likely than if you don’t have it. And if the threat is not perceived to be a genuine threat, what use is it? “Yeah, the next time you steal the money out of my pocket, I’m going to punch you in the nose! Unlike the last ten times I said I would and then didn’t!”

          • baconbacon says:

            “Yeah, the next time you steal the money out of my pocket, I’m going to punch you in the nose! Unlike the last ten times I said I would and then didn’t!”

            I am not in general in favor of nuclear proliferation, but this isn’t much of an argument, it is easily countered by building both nukes and a conventional army. Use the army to “punch people in the nose” while keeping nukes in your back pocket should you ever decided to also burn down their house.

          • John Schilling says:

            Use the army to “punch people in the nose” while keeping nukes in your back pocket should you ever decided to also burn down their house.

            Except that everybody else does the same thing, and the difference between “punch people in the nose” and “burn down their house” is not so clearly defined in the reality of international relations as it is in the imagination.

            You wind up staring at the smoking, radioactive craters that are San Diego, Seoul, Tokyo, and Pyongyang, whining “…but I just gave Kim Jong-Un a well-deserved punch in the nose; how did it come to this? It’s NOT MY FAULT!”

          • “You wind up staring at the smoking, radioactive craters that are San Diego, Seoul, Tokyo, and Pyongyang, whining “…but I just gave Kim Jong-Un a well-deserved punch in the nose; how did it come to this? It’s NOT MY FAULT!””

            If what you are imagining is an exchange between the U.S. and North Korea, I think you are considerably exaggerating how much damage Korea’s current arsenal could do.

            Of course, if you somehow pull in China or Russia it’s another story.

          • John Schilling says:

            If what you are imagining is an exchange between the U.S. and North Korea, I think you are considerably exaggerating how much damage Korea’s current arsenal could do.

            North Korea’s current arsenal can almost certainly destroy Seoul and Tokyo, and probably half a dozen or so other cities in the region, despite the limited missile defenses presently deployed in the region. Possibly also the US territory and critical military base of Guam.

            By the end of the next US president’s term in office, the North Korean arsenal will probably also be able to destroy US west coast cities (and they’ve specifically called out San Diego), and possibly Washington DC, in spite of the missile defenses we are planning to deploy in that period.

            This is something I do professionally. Applying the Buck Turgidson “ignorant peons” threat assessment to 21st-century North Korea is a common annoyance, but a dangerous one. More so for Korea and Japan than for you or I, but Los Angeles and San Francisco are probably on North Korea’s secondary target list and their missiles might not actually have the range to reach all their primary targets.

          • @John Schilling:

            I gather you do rockets professionally. Also nuclear weapons?

            I ask, because my impression is that taking out all of a large city requires more than the sort of atomic bomb that a country relatively new to making both atomic bombs and delivery systems can expect to deliver. Am I mistaken?

          • cassander says:

            @David Friedman

            You are correct n. North Korea is still in the fission weapon stage with most estimates putting their maximum yield around that of a Hiroshima sized bomb. My understanding, though, is that the step from fission to fusion is considerably smaller than the step to fission.

          • John Schilling says:

            North Korea has demonstrated weapons of Nagasaki-esque yield but almost certainly greater technological sophistication, e.g. levitated composite pits. They will probably be able to build deliverable weapons of 100+ kilotons yield by 2020 if they want, though I believe that for defense and/or “liberation” of the Korean peninsula they genuinely prefer 5-10 kt weapons targeted at specific military and logistics facilities. Still, they really hate the Japanese, they aren’t too fond of us, and high-yield weapons for deterrence or vengeance are probably somewhere on their wish list.

            You can play with the effects of a hundred-kiloton warhead, or a 5-10 kt one, here. Against a city like San Francisco, you can point to the outlying residential districts where the buildings are still standing and unburnt; I’ll leave it to the professional economist here as to whether what is left would be an economically viable city.

            Any foreign policy based on “Ha ha! Your puny atom bombs are no match for our mighty hydrogen bombs! You could barely kill a million of us!”, is IMO a sign that we have chosen our president very poorly indeed.

          • @ John Schilling:

            What you wrote was:

            “You wind up staring at the smoking, radioactive craters that are San Diego, Seoul, Tokyo, and Pyongyang, ”

            To which I responded:

            “I think you are considerably exaggerating how much damage Korea’s current arsenal could do.”

            You respond with:

            ” They will probably be able to build deliverable weapons of 100+ kilotons yield by 2020 if they want”

            Not their current arsenal

            And:

            “Against a city like San Francisco, you can point to the outlying residential districts where the buildings are still standing and unburnt; I’ll leave it to the professional economist here as to whether what is left would be an economically viable city.”

            Possibly not. But neither is it a “smoking, radioactive crater.”

            I was not offering an opinion on the wisdom of provoking a nuclear exchange, merely on the accuracy of your portrayal of the consequences.

          • John Schilling says:

            @David Friedman:

            We are in this context talking about events that could plausibly occur in the years 2017 through 2020, not right this instant. And if literal crater dimensions are really the nit you feel is worth picking, fine, I apologize for using the term “smoking craters” when I should have said “burnt-out wastelands constituting the mass graves of a million pointlessly-slaughtered innocents”. I guess you really put me in my place on that one.

          • ” I apologize for using the term “smoking craters” when I should have said “burnt-out wastelands constituting the mass graves of a million pointlessly-slaughtered innocents”. I guess you really put me in my place on that one.”

            Both Tokyo and Seoul have populations of over ten million. The difference between killing some of them and killing all of them matters.

            My reaction goes far back, to the “nuclear war is the end of the world” meme which was and is still widespread. A Hiroshima sized bomb is more powerful than any single weapon that existed before it but it isn’t infinitely powerful and comparable amounts of damage can be and have been done by the use of conventional weapons.

          • Tibor says:

            @David: I had a discussion on this topic with a friend recently. He basically used the same argument as you do. I think it is partially true – people care about Hiroshima because it was spectacular, they care much less about the allied carpet bombing of Dresden which had a death toll comparable to Nagasaki. Also, one could at least argue that the Japanese atomic bombs helped end the war which would have otherwise dragged on thus indirectly saving some lives as well. As far as I can tell Dresden was a pure act of revenge which did not help anyone (I heard some theories that since Dresden was to become a part of the Soviet occupation zone, Churchill wanted to destroy it so that the Soviets don’t get anything good. I don’t know how true it is, although Churchill did do a lot of questionable stuff in India for example where he disregarded the local population entirely, so it is at least possible). The same holds true of chemical warfare. Way more people were killed by machine-gun fire during WW1 than by chemical agents. And while I’d probably prefer to be shot than to be killed by a poisonous gas (I image it is faster and less painful), I’d rather have one person killed by poisonous gas than two people by gunshots.

            But I think there is a reason behind the view of these weapons. They are particularly nasty and kill quickly (nuclear weapons especially) on a large scale. But most importantly, they seem to have only a very limited use against the opponents military. After a nuclear strike cannot send your troops to the area afterwards for some time…unless you are Russian and don’t care that some of them die of radiation poisoning (Warsaw pact WW3 plans actually counted with preemptive nuclear bombing of western Europe followed by a Blitzkrieg spearheaded by the East German and Czechoslovak troops who were pretty much expected to die…but to get to Paris first). With chemical weapons the problem is that it is hard to use them in any directed way, so even when you plan to hit the enemy’s military, if the wind turns you might end up either killing your own troops or some unlucky civilians.

            And so these weapons’ main (non-determent) uses are anti-civilian and that is I think what makes them uniquely scary. I think the argument is a bit stronger in the case of nuclear weapons than for the chemical ones.

          • “And so these weapons’ main (non-determent) uses are anti-civilian”

            Isn’t that largely true of aerial bombing, especially high altitude bombing, as well? I’m not sure to what extent that provoked the same reactions.

          • Tibor says:

            @David: I guess that Dresden would have been a much bigger story worldwide had it been hit by a nuclear bomb like Nagasaki, keeping the number of casualties and the level of destruction the same (not hard, because Dresden was almost completely destroyed by the carpet bombing, the only thing missing was the radiation poisoning). So that is evidence against my claim.

            Maybe it is a combination of two factors First, nuclear weapons (just as chemical weapons) are somehow more scary. First, one bomb that erases half of a city has a stronger emotional impact than hundreds of bombs released on the same day with the same effect. And then there is the radiation poisoning. That is scary because it cannot be seen (even though it can be measured) and has effect which are similar to a disease. Again, more scary than just explosions, even if the explosions are just as deadly.

            And secondly, even though you can cause the same amount of destruction with conventional weapons, it is harder to pull it off and it takes more time to do so. So there is the MAD scenario where using a nuclear weapon simply starts a quick chain of nuclear strikes which kill a lot of people before everyone gets a chance to cool down. The same thing cannot happen on the same scale with conventional weapons.

          • John Schilling says:

            And secondly, even though you can cause the same amount of destruction with conventional weapons, it is harder to pull it off and it takes more time to do so.

            This, I think, is critical. We’ve had the ability to destroy cities since the invention of the firebrand, and we’ve done so since there were cities to destroy. But the logistical requirements were always such that it couldn’t be done without deliberation, and it couldn’t be done without giving the target a reasonable chance to either disrupt the attack or surrender. And, psychologically, you needed people who were willing to look at a half-ruined city and the corpses of half its population and say “yeah, I’m going to help finish the job” even at risk of their own life.

            Nuclear missiles are a qualitative transformation on all of those fronts.

          • keranih says:

            If we’re going to be talking about relative destruction, let’s not forget to remember that the Tokyo fireraids were more destructive than either Hiroshima or Nagasaki – both in terms of materials and deaths.

            This is something that is frequently glossed over in popular culture – one of the worst examples was in the otherwise exceptional Daredevil mini-series “Born Again”, in a series of pages centered on Captain American – where Cap who went into the ice long before Fat Man & Little Boy were constructed – thinks of choppers as having an evil sound, unlike airplanes, and thinks of bombers as good, unlike the nukes that killed “millions in atomic flame.”

            (/soapbox)

            What we remember is not what happened, it is what we tell ourselves, that happened.

          • SUT says:

            > You wind up staring at the smoking, radioactive craters that are San Diego, Seoul, Tokyo, and Pyongyang, whining

            I want to smugly add in here that this is not the conversation we’re currently having about Iraq.

            Specifically, how to counter a nuclear armed anti-American nation led by a dictator operating under extreme moral hazard. Post nuclear weapons the baseline scenario becomes a THEATRE of warfare – the pacific ocean. All coming from the already most isolated, United Nation condemned and sanctioned into impoverishment nation on Earth.

            Now the cost of regime change is 3-4 orders of magnitude greater in lives[0] because we waited and will continue to wait for their nuclear arsenal to develop however clumsily. And this is all done without hundreds of billions of oil revenue available every year to put into R&D.

            Our refusal to intervene cost us 1,000X the severity in the case of an event that pulls the trigger. That is not say it increased the likelihood of the trigger-event, infact it decreased as the west has rationally pulled back and sought to appease. But that reduction in likelihood is nothing close to offsetting 1,000X increase in severity. And every year, we have to occur that non-zero probability, with a running cumulative time-to-ruin probability distribution.

            When arguing about X-risk probability increase/reduction of a particular president, as Scott does, it is naive to focus mainly on the time during his tenure. No president, not even the character Morgan Freeman plays could diffuse every scenario and agenda that comes out of Pyonyang in the next decade.

            I’d argue as in the example case of NK that a president’s ultimate contribution to 1st world security is to the landscape of nuclear proliferation he leaves to his successors. And that success there does come at the cost of conventional military forays, frayed alliances and brinksmanship with Russia/China.

            [0]: ~5,000 allied conventional casualties vs. 50,000,000 for worst case Korea + Japan + West coast strike which is worst case, but 5,000,000 just Seoul and Tokyo isn’t implausible.

          • Tibor says:

            @keranih: Yeah, that was the example my friend made when we were talking about this (I forgot it and you just reminded me of it). Still, I think the point holds that this is still logistically more complicated and takes more time than nukes. It is probably as close as you can come to it with conventional weapons though.

        • baconbacon says:

          I very much doubt any potential enemy sat down and said “Well, if we attack America, they won’t sell us shiny gadgets any more, so we’d better not”. They said “The so-and-sos have 22,217** nuclear weapons deployed or in storage, they have military bases in Europe, they demonstrated in 1945 that they’re willing to use them”.

          The point about Pax Americana is not about “no one attacked the US”, it is the observation that quite a few places that had historically a good amount of infighting (Like Britain/France/Germany/Italy), took a long break from their wars.

    • E. Harding says:

      Kennedy also had a fair deal of bravado, which I don’t think helped the cause of peace.

    • Anonymous says:

      On the Libya & Iraq Oil – if we were going to invade, we should take their resources. Why should America protect the world for free?

      Even if you were, burning the oil would be preferable to just leaving it there so it can fuel the next mess.

    • John Schilling says:

      In particular, I am thinking of the “We begin bombing in five minutes” moment with Reagan

      You understand that was a stupid joke made before what he thought was a dead mike, right?

    • Alsadius says:

      The biggest difference is that Reagan was joking when he said that he had passed legislation outlawing Russia. I’m not convinced Trump has ever intentionally said something funny in his life.

      • E. Harding says:

        Donald Trump is very self-aware about his funniness, though he pretends not to be:

        http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/trump-motorboats-giuliani-insane-clip-unearthed-late-show-article-1.2763880

        • Alsadius says:

          Huh. Well, I can’t say I was ever expecting to see that, for all sorts of reasons.

          • Anonymous says:

            Trump is a crypto-liberal when it comes to all that, we don’t like saying it too much because it spooks the retrograde voters… It should be obvious for anyone who isn’t a rabid SJW or is kind of brainwashed by their ideology. He made the red tribe cheer for homosexuals in the convention, has been employing women since before it was cool, drops lines like “Women are smarter than men these days, they haven’t figured it out but they will, they will.” etc.

            He’s ultimately a good man, not unlike Obama.

          • Alsadius says:

            Accusations of racism is one of the few things I will defend Trump against. I really think he doesn’t care about race, religion, etc. – he doesn’t subscribe to modern leftist notions of strict identical equality, and will happily talk of how group X is different than group Y – but he doesn’t seem to really think any group is meaningfully better or worse. I will say, his efforts to make Republicans less likely to be jerks on those particular topics are good.

          • anaon says:

            @Alsadius

            This is utterly wrong. Trump is substantially more racist than e.g. every other republican candidate in the Primaries. If you want to make that he was denying black people apartments and accusing a Mexican-American judge of bias because of the judge’s Mexicanness as cynical appeal to other people’s racial animus, you can do that. But he’s still doing that shit. Trumps personal opinions on minorities aren’t any more important than George Wallaces. What matters is what he says and does.

            Like, there’s a reason why Daily Stormer endorsed Donald Trump and it’s not because they think he’s going to make the Republican party less racist.

          • SpoopySkellington says:

            That Mexican-American judge you mentioned (Curiel) is a member of a latino ethnic politics organization (San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association). Trump is not a member of any white ethnic politics organizations, unless you’re arguing that the implicitly white Republican party counts. White people are becoming increasingly aware that they are not allowed to practice ethnic politics, while every other group is, and they’re starting to get pretty pissed off about it, and I think Trump is aware of that growing sentiment and was playing to it with his comments about Curiel.

            The main reason that white nationalists like Trump is because he’s offering them a chance to keep the U.S. from becoming a majority non-white country, rather than the typical cuckolded GOP “non-white immigrants offer the answer to a declining population” platform. WNs are looking to eventually turn Trump’s implicitly white civic nationalism into ethnic nationalism, something they cannot do using the political process if it’s not a majority white country. They don’t see Trump as Hitler 2.0, but as a stepping stone to something like that (eventually).

            And for what it’s worth, the arguments WNs put forth to justify their positions are not without merit. They argue that living in an ethnically and culturally diverse place is profoundly alienating. They have data to back this up, too. Ever hear of Bowling Alone? It’s a case of a liberal sociologist coming to grips with his own research shows that trust and social capital declines sharply in ethnically diverse communities.

            http://bowlingalone.com/

          • Anonymous says:

            denying black people apartments

            Nothing wrong with that, communities like that should be possible for any race or configuration, it’s not racism really.

            Mexican-American judge of bias because of the judge’s Mexicanness

            Everybody accuses people of bias because of their whatever, they are especially fond of doing it to white people. Maybe he was right and the mexican judge was biased?

          • Theo Jones says:

            “‘denying black people apartments’ Nothing wrong with that, communities like that should be possible for any race or configuration, it’s not racism really.”

            These Trump threads have really brought out the high-quality anons.

          • anaon says:

            These Trump threads have really brought out the high-quality anons.

            It is always nice when you make a claim and someone comes along to provide evidence for you immediately afterwards.

          • Anonymous says:

            I see so many comments angry at the amount of rightists, conservatives etc daring to voice their opinions, sneering at them… The red tribe isn’t doing that for some reason, just talking about stuff.

            Please consider being more civil.

          • TheWorst says:

            Defect-bot demands that other player cooperates. Shocking.

    • Julian says:

      I thought we didnt want all those crazy muslims in our country! If Iraq was a US territory then all those moolams would have US passports and be free travel here!

  4. tcheasdfjkl says:

    This is a really informative and useful writeup, thank you.

    • Zombielicious says:

      I agree – I was already pretty anti-Trump, but this has made me raise my confidence for Clinton votes in swing states (versus third-parties) more than yesterday’s post. Particularly the explanation of the advantages of providing military support to the rest of the world, which I’d previously thought of more as subsidizing their economies at the expense of our own.

      • E. Harding says:

        “which I’d previously thought of more as subsidizing their economies at the expense of our own.”

        -It is.

          • E. Harding says:

            What’s your point?

          • Autolykos says:

            Any theory based on the assumption that every single US government since WW2 was subsidizing the other NATO members without gaining anything in return is very likely wrong. Nobody is stupid that consistently and yet manages to remain a superpower.

          • E. Harding says:

            “every single US government since WW2”

            -Since 1992. Try starting from there.

        • Andrew says:

          You seem to think it a bad thing that we’re making it profitable for other economies to divert their money from swords to plowshares.

          I call it some of the best money our government spends, because it makes for a world with a hell of a lot less war.

          • E. Harding says:

            “I call it some of the best money our government spends, because it makes for a world with a hell of a lot less war.”

            -Baseless statement is baseless.

            “You seem to think it a bad thing that we’re making it profitable for other economies to divert their money from swords to plowshares.”

            -Countries should be responsible for their own defence, especially if they can afford it. Why should the U.S. subsidize the defence of so many countries that are of no help in the defence of the U.S. itself?

          • Zombielicious says:

            @E Harding:
            Massive military spending is one of my least favorite things the U.S. government does, but you’re pretending like you didn’t even read Scott’s post. The advantages are stuff like preventing the world from becoming a pre-WW1 style web of twisted alliances between different militaries, economies of scale from having one country managing a disproportionately large military, and increasing the U.S. influence and negotiating position by providing such a valuable service. See Scott’s entire paragraph on Pax Americana. Plus the part where Trump wants to, for some inexplicable reason, increase U.S. military spending but still give up all these advantages of doing so. It’s irrational.

            Personally I’d still rather see the military budget drastically reduced and the savings funneled into scientific research, social welfare, and infrastructure, but there’s at least a decent argument for why we do what we do. That’s what I meant above about “policy debates shouldn’t be one-sided.” It’s the mark of simple-minded, conspiratorial thinking to think large, complex issues have simple explanations like “my opponents are evil and want to hurt people” or “I know better than the tens of thousands of policy wonks and scholars who spend most of their lives debating this stuff” while refusing to acknowledge there are even reasonable counterarguments against your own position. That may be true for very simple issues, like “this rider to this obscure bill only benefits this one company that donated a bunch to incumbent’s campaigns,” but not for massive stuff like “what’s the optimal distribution of military spending” and “what should America’s place in NATO be?”

          • E. Harding says:

            “See Scott’s entire paragraph on Pax Americana.”

            -The Pax Americana doesn’t disappear just because Europe gets to pay for its own defence, man. In fact, there are numerous European countries that haven’t ever been part of NATO. The very risk of failure is what keeps European countries from fighting each other these days.

            How’s NATO different from a “web of twisted alliances between different militaries”?

            “It’s the mark of simple-minded, conspiratorial thinking”

            -I care if I’m right. I don’t care the least bit whether my thinking is marked by anything other than incorrectness, least of all simple-mindedness and conspiracy theory.

          • Zombielicious says:

            @E Harding:
            It’s possible that NATO could collapse and something similar or better would replace it which would be a better option for the U.S. and the rest of the world as well, but it’s basically wild speculation that that would actually occur. Hence the “high-variance vs low-variance” argument. Just because it’s hypothetically possible a better result might materialize, in a reasonable timeframe, without things getting a lot worse first, doesn’t mean everyone should gamble global stability on it.

            NATO is a single military alliance largely reliant on the backing of the world’s largest superpower and with more or less common goals. That gives the U.S. a lot of room to act as global hegemon and force its influence on everyone else, but at the same time prevents a lot of the infighting that would occur in a group of 28(?) separate states of approximately equal power all forming separate systems of alliances and constantly threatening to pull out or compete with each other because there’s no central leadership for them to orbit. The Pax Americana argument is that one situation is inherently more stable than the other (with pre-WW1 as an example of the worst possible outcome of a big decentralized web of military alliances holding each other in check – what could possibly go wrong? And that was before nukes and bioweapons).

            Again, this stuff was already a major point of Scott’s original post, so it really shouldn’t be necessary to have to re-explain it here like everyone just skipped or ignored it and went straight to arguing their own speculative version of reality in the comments.

  5. Thursday says:

    This post actually makes a lot of sense, but I’m wondering why you didn’t lead with this stuff yesterday. The stuff there came off as rationalizing an aesthetic judgment. I’m still not as confident as you are that Hillary can keep things from spiralling out of control with Russia, but Trump has made some troubling statements.

    • Scott Alexander says:

      Because I didn’t realize that there was a big contingent of people who believed Trump was the less-danger-of-war candidate and considered that important.

      • Deiseach says:

        Because I didn’t realize that there was a big contingent of people who believed Trump was the less-danger-of-war candidate and considered that important.

        Trump bloviates, and American voters like the Tough Man approach. Would he really start wars if elected? I have no idea, and I’m not willing to gamble he won’t.

        Hillary in office as Secretary of State, however, has been quite happy to use force and be part of “track ’em down and bring ’em back dead or alive (preferably dead)” as we saw with the famous Situation Room photo of the bin Laden operation. Even peace-loving liberal dove President Obama was happy to garner the good public image of “I’m the Tough Man president who oversaw the taking out of our national enemy” with those pictures being released and his address to the nation:

        Good evening. Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda, and a terrorist who’s responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.

        So if I am being asked my opinion: which of these two do you think more likely to go for the Armalite rather than the ballot box – Trump I don’t know what he’ll do but Hillary I do know from the evidence of her time in office, and she’s not been squeamish about the use of force before.

        • TheWorst says:

          So if I am being asked my opinion: which of these two do you think more likely to go for the Armalite rather than the ballot box – Trump I don’t know what he’ll do but Hillary I do know from the evidence of her time in office, and she’s not been squeamish about the use of force before.

          The only way I can make sense of this is if you’re from a universe where Hillary led an armed revolution when George W. Bush was inaugurated.

          You know for a fact that Hillary doesn’t go for the Armalite rather than the ballot box. That theory has been tested and found false.

          • I think it’s obvious that the comment was about foreign policy not domestic insurrection. See, for example:

            “Trump bloviates, and American voters like the Tough Man approach. Would he really start wars if elected?”

            I can’t tell if you were unable to follow the clear meaning of Deiseach’s comment or if you don’t care.

            You do a pretty good job of living up to your chosen name.

          • mtraven says:

            @Friedman, read the link at Armalite and the ballot box if you aren’t familiar with it, it is a clear reference to armed insurrection in the face of electoral failure.

          • TheWorst says:

            David, I think it’s clear you didn’t read the link, and either can’t follow the clear meaning of the comment or are pretending you can’t–or are indulging in a bit of motivated reasoning.

            I suspect it’s not that you’re unable to grasp the meaning. And yes, I understand that you’re offended when someone points out when your tribe is wrong about something, but I suggest either getting over it, or choosing a tribe less prone to being wrong.

            If you can’t handle having it pointed out that someone has made a false statement about Hillary Clinton, you have a lot of options. Whining about it is the wrong choice, as is endlessly reiterating your personal dislike for people who have the temerity to be right when you’d prefer to have everyone be wrong.

          • You are correct that I didn’t read the link and that it explains your interpretation, but I am not convinced by it. Perhaps Deiseach can tell us whether she was talking about the risk that one of the candidates would get us into a foreign war or that one of them would try to seize power in the U.S. by force.

      • Jiro says:

        Because I didn’t realize that there was a big contingent of people who believed Trump was the less-danger-of-war candidate and considered that important.

        If you didn’t mention it much before, that implies that you don’t weight it highly. Deciding to weight it highly now that you believe that weighting it highly will convince people seems disingenuous–you yourself think the danger isn’t great, and you would personally consider emphasizing it to be skewed against Trump by your own standards.

        Also, it’s hard to distinguish that from “oops, you caught me when I made my best argument and packed it full of flaws, let me try something else”. “Trump will be good for social justice” is a terrible argument. It is likely to be motivated reasoning, and it involves selectively picking plausible-sounding scenarios without even trying to claim they are more likely than other plausible scenarios that suggest the opposite course of action.

        • Tedd says:

          If you didn’t mention it much before, that implies that you don’t weight it highly.

          … No? When writing for an audience, you focus on things your audience cares about, not things you care about.

          • Jiro says:

            … and if you do that, and one audience tells the other audience what you said, or if it otherwise gets out that you tailored your argument for your audience, you deserve whatever loss in credibility you get.

          • Luke Somers says:

            Jiro, I am utterly baffled at the state of mind that could have led you to think that failure to address something because it was not considered an issue, being informed that it is an issue, and then addressing it, should result in a loss of credibility.

        • Aaron Brown says:

          Consider that if he didn’t mention it much before, maybe that’s because he didn’t realize that there was a big contingent of people who believed Trump was the less-danger-of-war candidate and considered that important.

          The worst you can say is that Scott showed a poor knowledge of Trump supporters’ beliefs. (I doubt, though, that Trump’s supposed dovishness is a strong reason that the median Trump supporter supports him.)

          • Jiro says:

            Having a major risk of starting a war is something that most people would consider a big strike against a candidate even starting from a position of neutrality, so Scott should be using that against Trump even if he doesn’t know that Trump supporters think he’s a lesser danger of war.

            The most likely reason not to do this is that he is aware that the argument is shaky, and its shakiness balances out its negative nature. Only if he has an additional reason to use the argument will he ignore its shakiness and use it anyway.

          • houseboatonstyxb says:

            @ Aaron Brown
            The worst you can say is that Scott showed a poor knowledge of Trump supporters’ beliefs.

            It would make sense that Scott’s regular readers might have not mentioned their hawk/dove opinions here, till that issue got brought up just now.

            It would also make sense that some people who already had those opinions had not posted here before.

            Cf ‘entryism’.

          • TheWorst says:

            In fairness, I think his first assessment was correct: there is no one likely to vote for Trump out of concern that Hillary’s the one more likely to start a war.

          • AnonBosch says:

            Trump’s supposed dovishness is something I mainly see when Trump supporters pitch to libertarians or liberals. Realistically, it’s 100% immigration.

          • E. Harding says:

            “Realistically, it’s 100% immigration.”

            -A big reason I didn’t vote for Ted Cruz was his PC foreign policy.

            “There is no one likely to vote for Trump out of concern that Hillary’s the one more likely to start a war.”

            https://twitter.com/Sarah__Reynolds

            TheWorst and Jill should be banned. They have no respect for facts.

          • “TheWorst and Jill should be banned. They have no respect for facts.”

            Neither of them should be banned, nor should you. Respect for facts is not a requirements for posters here–and what the facts are is one of the things people disagree about.

            The Worst bothers me more than Jill does. As best I can tell she is a reasonably honest person living in a fantasy and doing her best to explain away contrary evidence.

          • E. Harding says:

            “Respect for facts is not a requirements for posters here–and what the facts are is one of the things people disagree about.”

            -So what is? Threats definitely seem to be out, but what else? After being confronted by a particularly reality-detached commenter at my Against Jebel al-Lawz blog, I made respect for facts a requirement of my comment policy. Then again, our good host Scott’s banning preferences almost never seem to line up with mine. I would not have banned most of the people that had actually been banned and I would have banned some people that remain unbanned.

          • Whatever Happened to Anonymous says:

            So what is?

            It used to be the whole gates thing in theory (and not being a massive dick all the time in practice), now it’s just not pissing Scott enough to get banned.

          • TheWorst says:

            Harding, that you’re still here makes it obvious that respect for facts isn’t a prerequisite–and that (since everything you say is unnecessary and untrue, and often unkind) the rules don’t really apply to you.

            In this case, you’re demonstrating your poor regard for facts again. My statement was:

            there is no one likely to vote for Trump out of concern that Hillary’s the one more likely to start a war.

            It was not that there is no one who claims they’re likely to vote for Trump out of concern that Hillary’s the one more likely to start a war.

          • LPSP says:

            Having a major risk of starting a war is something that most people would consider a big strike against a candidate even starting from a position of neutrality

            Hawkishness is the backbone of both the disgruntled Trump-supporting masses AND SJWs. These groups are neither small nor insignificant or irrelevent. I sincerely think it’s the sign of operating within limited or closed spheres that people can believe in this. Lots of people, for whatever reason or motive, are happy to start fights.

      • I was surprised that Trump supporters at ssc put so much emphasis on risk of war– I thought most Trump supporters were primarily concerned about loss of American jobs. Of course, ssc commenters may not be typical. When I phrase it that way, it seems obvious that they aren’t going to be typical.

        • FacelessCraven says:

          What surprised me was how many pro-trump people in these threads mention that they voted for Obama. E. Harding was a particular surprise on that point, given his rhetoric.

          • E. Harding says:

            I didn’t vote for Obama; I supported him over Romney in 2012 and didn’t vote since I hated my options. There were no Supreme Court seats up for grabs, Romney was totally bought by all the special interests in existence and was the guy who signed Romneycare (so the election was a false choice), gridlock in Congress would be reduced under him, leading to expansion of executive power, and his foreign policy was nothing to commend. I supported McCain over Obama in 2008 because McCain was so godawful, he’d guarantee gridlock throughout his term. Fortunately, Obama managed to flub up healthcare so badly, more Republicans gained seats in the House in 2010 than during the Republican Revolution. He didn’t do all that badly during his first term, pulling the U.S. out of Iraq, for one, and killing Bin Laden and revealing his birth certificate in one week for another (only later would we find out he only did so in order to take control of the global jihadist movement himself).

            BTW, if inferior Romney replica Rubio was the nominee, I may well be reluctantly supporting Clinton today due to Rubio’s dangerous foreign policy stances and his being totally bought by the special interests. I really hate bought robots; i.e., candidates whose support is heavily concentrated in Dallas County in the Iowa Republican Caucus.

          • Gazeboist says:

            only later would we find out he only did so in order to take control of the global jihadist movement himself

            Dang, man, you were on a roll. I was rooting for you.

          • E. Harding says:

            “Dang, man, you were on a roll. I was rooting for you.”

            -Do you have a better explanation for the events in the Muslim world during Obama’s second term? Obama’s clearly not an idiot and shows understanding of foreign policy I’ve never seen Clinton have.

          • cassander says:

            @harding

            >Do you have a better explanation for the events in the Muslim world during Obama’s second term?

            I do. Obama is not much interested in foreign policy and would rather not do it. While a fan of Wilsonian rhetoric, he’s a Jeffersonian at heart. He instinctively resists foreign engagement. Once in office he discovered that there is often great pressure for such engagement. When pressed hard enough, he gives into those pressures, and throws the pro-engagement crowd as small a bone as he think he can get away with. These bones are not enough to end the conflicts, so several months later the process repeats, and a new bone is tossed. This is a terrible way to run foreign policy, but the story Obama tells himself is not of ineffectual incrementalism, but of wisely and calculatingly holding back the tide of do gooders and warmongers that assails him.

          • E. Harding says:

            I think Obama ignores and accepts advice as he sees fit. I don’t see any real pressure on him that he can’t reject. If he was a Jeffersonian, he really didn’t need to start showy, but largely ineffective airstrikes on the Islamic State. And if you look at Obama’s various comments to the press, he clearly sees his foreign policy as wildly successful at making America’s foes weak. Because, in some senses, it is. I think he has the same basic understanding of foreign policy as Putin and Trump, but is simply much more subtle about achieving his goals. Where Putin would do a showy intervention with lots of cheering in Russia, Obama would do the same thing with layer upon layer of plausible deniability, thus being perfectly free of having to grapple with the consequences.

          • cassander says:

            @E. Harding

            >I think Obama ignores and accepts advice as he sees fit. I don’t see any real pressure on him that he can’t reject.

            Then you should read more about the administration. I’d start with Robert Gates’ account of the afghan surge or some of the more detailed accounts of the libya intervention. No president is immune to pressure, and both of those events show how obama was pressured into acting.

            > he clearly sees his foreign policy as wildly successful at making America’s foes weak.

            well he certainly isn’t going to say anything else.

        • E. Harding says:

          “I thought most Trump supporters were primarily concerned about loss of American jobs”

          -What loss of American jobs? Unemployment is 5%. It’s not certain to what extent a revival of 1950s-style manufacturing jobs can help with the alleviation of the very real problem of long-term unemployment in America. NAFTA was mostly a good deal and, hopefully, in the long run, manufacturing will be considered as irrelevant to the U.S. economy as agriculture (though automation in the US seems to have, for some reason, stopped in 2011). Trump’s proposed measures are just a way of distributing economic gains to loser industries. The real problem isn’t “loss of American jobs” -it’s sclerotic labor market institutions and 1970s-style productivity growth. Trump might help around the margins in reducing regulation, but ultimately, neither presidential candidate has proposed serious policies likely to restore both long-term unemployment and productivity growth to twentieth century historic norms.

          • Ralf says:

            Wait. … you supported McCain because you _want_ gridlock? What is your rationale for that? In my gridlock and subsequent nothinggetsdone/peoplegetdisillusionedbypolitics is one of the biggest risks of American politics.

          • E. Harding says:

            “What is your rationale for that?”

            -I support limited government. Gridlock is one of the best ways to keep that dream alive. When you don’t have gridlock, you get the PATRIOT Act, Omnibus spending bills, the Tariff of Abominations, the New Deal, the Great Society, and Medicare Part D.

        • Wency says:

          Death Eaters and sympathizers probably represent over 50% of Trump support on SSC and probably less than 1% of Trump support in the electorate, speeches from Hillary aside.

          “Muh jerb!” is not a core Death Eater talking point.

    • Thursday says:

      By this I mean that you spent a lot of time arguing that Trump was more millenarian than Clinton, which I don’t really buy.

      The argument that the best way to fight the SJWs was to elect an proSJW president was risible. Pushback against these people is going to need to be hard. Rational argument ain’t gonna cut it. So, at some point your going to need somebody fairly thuggish to do the job.

      The argument that millennials are more conservative was extremely misleading.

      The argument that we don’t know anything about what Trump will do was also overstated: he very likely will build a wall and push hard for more immigration restriction.

      Why lead with such dubious stuff?

      • Dyfed says:

        The argument that the best way to fight the SJWs was to elect an proSJW president was risible.

        That wasn’t his argument. His argument was that Trump’s obvious amiability with extremists was an obvious gift to SJWs and that a President Trump, successful or not, would drive many more Americans into their camp than would otherwise be there.

        Is Hillary the best choice for ending the SJW circus? No, she’s a bad one. Would a generic Republican nominee be better? Almost certainly. Would Trump be better? Certainly not: he’s one of their best recruiters.

        • Thursday says:

          Would a generic Republican nominee be better? Almost certainly.

          Risible. A generic Republican would do absolutely nothing.

          • Kala says:

            Absolutely nothing is good, in this context. You don’t pass new laws to increase the authority of SJWs, and you also don’t give them the international attention they desire by persecuting them openly. Mitt Romney or another semi-respectable republican is who I would pick, if anti SJ was my primary goal.

          • Wency says:

            Risible. A generic Republican would do absolutely nothing.

            A generic Republican would:

            — Not hand the Supreme Court over to the Left.
            — Not use the power of the executive to accelerate open borders.
            — Maybe not start a war.

            Which, in a sense, is nothing. But in truth, it would probably be the extent of what Trump could accomplish for conservatism, when all is said and done.

            If you expect any massive legislative successes from Trump, for good or ill, you are dreaming. Unless there’s a Senate supermajority, The Democrats will block everything he tries to do, just as the Republicans will do the same to Hillary.

            Either president will probably be among the most hated by the other party in U.S. history.

        • E. Harding says:

          “Would a generic Republican nominee be better? Almost certainly.”

          -The first wave of SJWry occurred during the presidency of Bush I (about as generic a Republican as you can get) and ended under Bill, a Democrat who could win Louisiana. I’m pretty certain Trump would reduce, not increase, SJW power. Obama’s re-election certainly caused it to soar to never-before-seen heights.

          • SpoopySkellington says:

            I’m pretty certain Trump would reduce, not increase, SJW power.

            Wasn’t Trump proposing to reform government-provided student loans so that they would only go to majors that give the borrower a snowball’s chance in hell of being able to repay the loan (e.g. STEM fields)?

            I know he opposes Common Core and the Dept. of Education as well. David Pook says “ending white privilege” was part of the reason he worked on Common Core, and K-12 education has been pretty turbo-leftist for decades.

            If Trump does that, he will be effectively countering the Frankfurt school’s long march through the institutions by cutting off their funding and creating a generation of children who grow up without exposure to cultural marxism.

            I’m hoping Trump smugly reduces the Dept. of Education’s budget to $1 a year if they don’t play ball with him, tbh. It functions as a reversal of participatory democracy; telling people what to think and (in the process) subverting what is ostensibly a bottom-up decision-making process.

          • TheAncientGeek says:

            Frankfurt school’s long march through the institutions

            Ahem.

            http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/cultural-marxism

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @TheAncientGeek – Cultural Marxism.

            Near as I can tell, the Conspiracy Theory is that “cultural marxism” exists and is effective. If is not hard to notice the basic framework underlying the various forms of Social Justice theory, and to note that they essentially match the basic framework of Marxism, just with the group names switched out.

          • Luke Somers says:

            Only, like, it’s not trying to destroy the economic and governmental systems by revolution, and magically start having incentiveless labor’s fruits fairly distributed according to need.

        • Anonymous says:

          His argument was that Trump’s obvious amiability with extremists was an obvious gift to SJWs and that a President Trump, successful or not, would drive many more Americans into their camp than would otherwise be there.

          Nonsense. SJWs can only be countered by actually being politically incorrect and fostering a narrative that makes that acceptable at every level. They’re going to get rabid if Clinton wins, intensify their bullshit a lot. They’re not a problem even for propagandistic purposes when they’re shaking and whining, far less damaging than what they do with the state behind their backs.

          Trump’s SJWs would do the same, of course, but the difference is that Clinton’s variety is already incredibly ingrained, a victory for the other side would just start to swing the pendulum in the other direction. Even if one is not anti-SJW in particular and merely desires balance, Trump would be the right choice imho.

        • Deiseach says:

          Is Hillary the best choice for ending the SJW circus? No, she’s a bad one. Would a generic Republican nominee be better? Almost certainly. Would Trump be better? Certainly not: he’s one of their best recruiters.

          What about the ones currently in office? The US Commission on Civil Rights released a Briefing Report on “Peaceful Co-existence: Reconciling Nondiscrimination Principles with Civil Liberty”.

          Statement of the chairman of the Commission, Martin Castro:

          “The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” —John Adams

          The phrases “religious liberty” and “religious freedom” will stand for nothing except hypocrisy so long as they remain code words for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy or any form of intolerance.

          Religious liberty was never intended to give one religion dominion over other religions, or a veto power over the civil rights and civil liberties of others. However, today, as in the past, religion is being used as both a weapon and a shield by those seeking to deny others equality. In our nation’s past religion has been used to justify slavery and later, Jim Crow laws. We now see “religious liberty” arguments sneaking their way back into our political and constitutional discourse (just like the concept of “state rights”) in an effort to undermine the rights of some Americans. This generation of Americans must stand up and speak out to ensure that religion never again be twisted to deny others the full promise of America.

          “Sneaking their way back in”, eh? Oooh, those cunning Christian supremacists! So much for the First Amendment!

          • Sandy says:

            Amazing how this sort of person embraced “state’s rights” as a cherished constitutional concept when blue states wanted to legalize gay marriage ahead of the federal government.

          • TheWorst says:

            Further supporting one of the key heuristics for American politics: Assign no weight to “states’ rights” arguments, because no one makes them in good faith. Everyone claims to support states’ rights when they think doing so will help them achieve some other, minimally-related goal; no one supports them in any other circumstance.

            There have been, as far as I’m aware, approximately zero instances where this would’ve caused someone to make an incorrect prediction.

          • John Schilling says:

            Everyone claims to support states’ rights when they think doing so will help them achieve some other, minimally-related goal; no one supports them in any other circumstance.

            I support states’ rights even when I think they will hurt my chances of achieving other terminal goals. I am not the only person here who does this. There are places where you can get away with that particular falsehood; this isn’t one of them.

          • E. Harding says:

            “There have been, as far as I’m aware, approximately zero instances where this would’ve caused someone to make an incorrect prediction.”

            -Wrong, as usual:
            https://www.amazon.com/Politically-Incorrect-Constitution-Guides-Paperback/dp/1596985054

          • TheWorst says:

            John Schilling: I did not assert that there was no one who claimed to care about states’ rights. That’s an entirely different assertion, and one I did not make. And I know you know this, because we’ve had this conversation before; then, too, you replied by falsely claiming that asserting a belief was dispositive of my claim that the belief is not sincerely held.

          • John Schilling says:

            I did not assert that there was no one who claimed to care about states’ rights

            I understand this. You assert that there was no one who truly cares about states’ rights. You assert that people who claim to care about states’ rights exist, but that all of them are liars and hypocrites. That assertion is false, and it will be false no matter how many times we have to discuss this.

          • TheWorst says:

            I’m not sure why you think repeatedly asserting this is convincing. I pointed out that assertion isn’t made in good faith, and that US history is full of examples demonstrating that no one gives a damn about states’ rights.

            You made the assertion again, and again with no supporting evidence. Has yelling “The sky is orange!” repeatedly ever convinced anyone who looked up and saw that it’s blue?

          • As best I can tell, both of you are simply arguing by assertion.

            Can John offer an example of someone who argued against doing something he was otherwise in favor of doing on the grounds that it would be a violation of states rights? One example should be enough to refute The Wrong’s very strong claim.

          • TheWorst says:

            I’m making a pretty broad claim, and I’m aware of it. It should be very easy to point to an action taken for states rights and against tribal interests, if any has happened.

            I’ll back up my assertion: The people who most loudly claim to support states’ rights also supported the Fugitive Slave Act, so that’s out. Then the Blues took their turn at pretending to care about states’ rights when doing so was useful for legalizing gay marriage. Does that leave anybody out?

            States’ rights is what people pretend to care about when they can’t control the federal government. As soon as someone’s party wins control at the national level, they suddenly start seeing states’ rights as a pointless inconvenience.

            I suspect that once demographics and changing culture mean that getting state-government support for bigotry becomes too difficult, we’ll start hearing about “county rights” or “town rights.”

          • Whatever Happened To Anonymous says:

            I think you’re holding “caring about states’ rights” to an impossible standard. A lot of people (most of them, perhaps?) are varying degrees of hypocritical and/or inconsistent about many of their views, yet >we manage to find a threshold of hypocrisy in which it’s still believed these people hold the views they claim to hold.

            How consistent would a person have to be in their defense of state rights for you to accept that they honestly care about them?

          • TheWorst says:

            There would have to be actions that looked like a concern for states’ rights that weren’t more easily explained by normal tribal behavior.

            Every tribe I’m aware of has enthusiastically demonstrated that this concern doesn’t exist, so when someone asserts otherwise, it’s most predictively useful to assume that they’re engaged in empty virtue signalling.

            All of the available evidence is that “States’ Rights!” is an argument of convenience, adopted when a given group can’t win enough support at the national level for the policy they want–or empty virtue signalling aimed at buying a tiny scrap of credibility for when they use it as an argument of convenience.

            Evidence of sincerity would look like a reluctance to trample these supposedly-important rights when doing so would further the normal tribal goals. As far as I’m aware, no such reluctance has ever been evidenced by any tribe which found itself (even briefly) in control of federal power.

          • Whatever Happened To Anonymous says:

            I can’t think of an example on a tribe level, but I’d say Ron Paul, weird as he might be, has been pretty consistent on his defense of state rights, even against his stated views on abortion and gay marriage.

          • E. Harding says:

            This is a good piece on a topic relating to states’ rights:

            https://theanti-puritan.blogspot.com/2016/10/chapter-4a-exitocracy.html

          • TheWorst says:

            Has Ron Paul ever done anything that looked like valuing states’ rights over his object-level goals?

            My point is that empty posturing isn’t proof of commitment to an ideal. The empty posturing is extremely common; actually making good on that commitment seems to have never happened.

          • Whatever Happened to Anonymous says:

            Has Ron Paul ever done anything that looked like valuing states’ rights over his object-level goals?

            http://www.ontheissues.org/TX/Ron_Paul_Abortion.htm

            Shows a distinct pro-life record, yet he also voted against federal restrictions on abortion, and against restricting people from going to other states to get abortions.

            I’d say that is fairly consistent with a “States Rights'” position, unless you think that he doesn’t really care about abortion.

          • TheWorst says:

            “I consider it a state-level responsibility to restrain violence against any human being. I disagree with the nationalization of the issue and reject the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion in all 50 states. Legislation that I have proposed would limit fe4deral court jurisdiction of abortion, and allow state prohibition of abortion on demand as well as in all trimesters. It will not stop all abortions. Only a truly moral society can do that.”

            Abortion became legal at the federal level, and Ron Paul later declared that abortion was a state issue. That’s consistent with deciding that “state issues” are issues where the national consensus is against you.

            Instead of admitting that my position allows the states to minimize or ban abortions, they claim that my position supports the legalization of abortion by the states. This is twisted logic.

            Ron Paul, in the link you provided, says that your interpretation is incorrect. He admits that his use of the “states’ rights” argument is a tactic to push his anti-abortion views, and that he’s using it because it gives him more space to argue for banning abortion, and he calls your interpretation “twisted logic.” He clearly does not think abortion should be legal in New York, which (among many others) is a belief absolutely essential to anyone who actually did believe in states’ rights.

            But he does at least consistently talk the talk, which just-now caused me to update in favor of Ron Paul. Huh. I wouldn’t have expected to say that today.

          • The original Mr. X says:

            The idea that nobody really cares about states’ rights is obviously far too broad a claim to be accepted; however, the notion that, in general, people or movements don’t really care about states’ rights is far more plausible.

          • TheWorst says:

            At first, my point was that–as a predictive tool–your prior should be to dismiss all arguments based on states’-rights as insincere, and that doing the opposite would lead you to make false predictions.

            Since then, it’s become more clear that no one can find an instance of any person or group actually behaving as if they cared about states’ rights, which suggests that the (much) stronger claim is in fact true.

            Which makes sense, since the proposition that people care about states rights is absurd on its face, has extensive evidence against it, and no evidence for it.

            It’s the same as the proposition that the moon is made of cheese: The idea sounds silly–how and why would it be made of cheese?–and there’s extensive evidence for it not being made of cheese (i.e., we’ve gone there and checked, and found out that it is not made of cheese), and no evidence whatsoever that it’s made of cheese.

            The same applies to the issue of states rights. It’s absurd to think there’s someone, somewhere who thinks abortion should be legal in New York but not in New Jersey, or that gay marriage is a basic human right in one state but not in another, which is the only position on either issue that’s consistent with a belief in states’ rights. We’ve also put each tribe to the test to determine whether their belief was sincere, and in every instance we’ve found that it was not.

            So: Sounds absurd, plenty of evidence against it, no evidence for it. That’s an excellent proxy for “is false.”

          • houseboatonstyxb says:

            @ The Worst
            It’s absurd to think there’s someone, somewhere who thinks abortion should be legal in New York but not in New Jersey, or that gay marriage is a basic human right in one state but not in another, which is the only position on either issue that’s consistent with a belief in states’ rights.

            * raises hand * Me.

            Laboratory of Democracy and all that. Also, if, for example, gay marriage is important enough to my partnership, I know which states we should choose to live in (it’s proxy for other things that make a state more or less attractive to gays, too).

            If anti-gay people gather in another state, that’s fine too. Both groups get the kind of neighbors and culture they like. Yay Balkanizing!

          • Iain says:

            @houseboatonstyxb:

            I agree that the laboratory of democracy point is the best argument for states’ rights. That said, I think you’re addressing a slight strawman of TheWorst’s argument (or else I am about to present a steelman). This is the key phrase:

            It’s absurd to think there’s someone, somewhere who thinks […] that gay marriage is a basic human right in one state but not in another.

            It’s very reasonable to have Kansas explore one end of the Laffer curve, and California the other. If you are personally ambivalent about gay marriage, or abortion, then it might also seem reasonable to have states vary on the issue. On the other hand, if you think that gay marriage is a basic human right (under the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause), then it doesn’t make any sense to allow that right to be violated in some states but not in others. Similarly, if abortion is murder, it is murder everywhere, not just in Texas.

            When it comes down to it, support for states’ rights is really just support for federalism. That’s an entirely respectable stance, as far as it goes, but limits the degree to which a states’ rights argument can be compelling in a controversial case. By arguing that states’ rights are important in a given situation, you are implicitly claiming that human rights do not come into play on your opponent’s side. (Assuming, of course, that you are arguing in good faith.)

            And from a completely different angle: one of the current problems in American politics is the significant gap between the leftmost Republicans and the rightmost Democrats, making it nearly impossible to work across the aisle and get anything done. To the extent that the states’ rights argument makes it easier to segregate like-minded individuals geographically, it risks further polarization, making the task of effectively governing the country that much harder. I’m not sure to what extent I think that’s important; I do believe that polarization is a big problem, but I’m not sure that states’ rights actually deserve any blame.

          • houseboatonstyxb says:

            @ Iain
            That said, I think you’re addressing a slight strawman of TheWorst’s argument (or else I am about to present a steelman). This is the key phrase:

            It’s absurd to think there’s someone, somewhere who thinks […] that gay marriage is a basic human right in one state but not in another.

            I considered cutting the “basic human right” and the “murder” — because imo that’s a very dangerous level to make decisions from. It’s above anybody’s pay grade. All we can do on that level, is clash by night.

            A state’s voters can peacefully compromise (at least temporarily) on ‘No abortion after X weeks’ or ‘Gays can get a legal marriage certificate but no one has to bake cakes for them’. But if voters take too seriously the ‘basic human right’ or ‘don’t murder zygotes’ — well, that brings a lot more disagreements, which don’t stop at the water’s edge.

            You are drawing lines well. I see “segregat[ing] like-minded individuals geographically”, as a good thing for the individuals involved. You see it contributing to polarization which elects extreme congressmen who cannot agree across the aisle. (They may agree more on the golf course.)

            Back to cases. I agree that the term ‘states’ rights’ has been ruined, so we Ecotopians would need a new term if we use that idea.

          • The original Mr. X says:

            And from a completely different angle: one of the current problems in American politics is the significant gap between the leftmost Republicans and the rightmost Democrats, making it nearly impossible to work across the aisle and get anything done. To the extent that the states’ rights argument makes it easier to segregate like-minded individuals geographically, it risks further polarization, making the task of effectively governing the country that much harder.

            That’s certainly a risk, but I think it would be largely (entirely?) offset by the fact that in a decentralised country the central government would do very little. If for example gay marriage were left entirely up to the states, it wouldn’t matter what your Congressman thought about the issue, because Congress simply wouldn’t have anything to do with it.

        • Wrong Species says:

          I can’t stand Trump but I have to disagree. If you want to fight SJWs then electing Trump is clearly the better option. It’s like saying “if you want a more European government, Bernie Sanders is clearly the inferior option. You should vote Republican.” It was the weakest point in Scotts essays.

          • Fahundo says:

            The idea is that Trump is such an obvious buffoon he undermines anti-SJW positions by making them look worse than they are.

            I don’t think many people make similar claims about Sanders.

        • Jaskologist says:

          Any chance we could keep this thread from derailing into the SJWs? My personal preference would be for this one to stay on-topic about foreign policy and then see Scott answer the SJW concerns in yet another post.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            Seems like a reasonable request. Deleted a reply elsewhere in the thread on the subject.

            I would be very surprised if scott wrote one of these specifically about SJWs.

          • Jaskologist says:

            I would be surprised too, which is shame, because I think that’s the much harder one to argue. But there’s still the previous thread for such things.

          • TheWorst says:

            I think the SJW concerns are likely the most interesting ones to the largest number of readers, but I’d be very surprised if Scott writes a post on that aspect–because I can’t imagine that the cost/benefit ratio works out to anything other than it being a really bad idea for him.

          • houseboatonstyxb says:

            @ Jaskologist
            Any chance we could keep this thread from derailing into the SJWs? My personal preference would be for this one to stay on-topic about foreign policy [….]

            Well, about election-focused things, anyway. I hope the election discussion/s can continue through Election Day, one place or another. The more input from Scott, the better, of course, including any more top articles he feels like doing.

        • Jiro says:

          His argument was that Trump’s obvious amiability with extremists was an obvious gift to SJWs

          Then he should be arguing that SJWs ought to vote for Trump.

          Also, he’s ignoring scenarios. Yes, one scenario is that SJWs gain more power if they have an obvious extremist target. But another scenario is that SJWs lose power because they have a president who was attacked by SJWs, but managed to survive and get elected, and this demonstrates that standing up to SJWs is possible. Yet another scenario is that SJWs lose power because they no longer have a president on their side to rally around, and because it becomes harder to accuse their opponents of -ism in a way that they could with a black president and can with a female president. Or it may be that SJWs need to use their influence to stop some bad policy of Trump’s and are limited in other areas–if you’re not a SJW but don’t like some of Trump’s ideas it could be win-win; SJWs keep Trump from building a wall, which you don’t want anyway, but can’t do much else. It may also be that with Trump as president, some of the gifts to SJWs we have now may be cut down–I can’t imagine Trump keeping the Title IX “Dear Colleague” letter.

          • herbert herbertson says:

            I’m a liberal in the materialist sense. I have a good life and ultimately/honestly I’d rather not see it disrupted. Intellectually, though, I’ve found the hard left very appealing for a long time. More Marxist than SJW, but sufficiently anti-imperialist to be similar in a lot of ways relevant here.

            The liberal in me is absolutely terrified of Trump, but the leftist? Actually kind of ambivalent. For one thing, the leftist absolutely hates Hillary. But, moreover, if Trump wins, I’ll not only be able to oppose everything he does without any reservation or holding back, but all the nice liberals will join me–and with four years of that obnoxious asshole on our screens, I expect more than a few of those liberals will join me in being willing to embrace some very serious and unflinching critiques of the troops and the country they fight for.

          • MugaSofer says:

            >Then he should be arguing that SJWs ought to vote for Trump.

            Why? SJWs are defined as exactly the sort of people Scott wants to see fail on the Left. Why would he give them advice?

          • Jiro says:

            Why? SJWs are defined as exactly the sort of people Scott wants to see fail on the Left. Why would he give them advice?

            Scott wants to see the right fail, and he’s giving *them* advice.

          • wintermute92 says:

            Or it may be that SJWs need to use their influence to stop some bad policy of Trump’s and are limited in other areas

            There are quite a few political movements that I prefer maintain real-but-marginal amounts of power. Just about any well-intentioned movement can benefit the country by pouring all their social capital into stopping some blatant horror, even if they would be disastrous when actually in charge.

            Regardless of which groups you actually like, it seems reasonable to appreciate a fringe presence for all of ancaps, far leftists, sjws, radical privacy advocates, etc. Having those preexisting structures is quite nice when someone turns up a monumentally dangerous idea, but it doesn’t mean I want them to have mainstream control.

          • TheWorst says:

            Also, he’s ignoring scenarios.

            This part’s interesting. There are a lot of possible scenarios, but do we have evidence to believe any more likely than the others?

            Speaking as someone who’d prefer the “SJW” faction either become much less rabid or much less pervasive, I don’t really see a reason to think a Trump victory’s more likely to bring that about than a Trump defeat.
            The arguments for both outcomes seem about equally valid to me, which is usually a red flag for a situation where we don’t know any (enough?) of the variables.

      • Thursday says:

        I also have to note the argument that U.S. politics couldn’t get any more ethnically balkanized. Hell yeah it can!

        • wintermute92 says:

          That line, and the few other “it can hardly get worse” bits (e.g. on immigration, regardless of your stance) felt like the weakest part of these essays. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone argue from “nowhere to go but up” and not get badly burned by it.

      • Autolykos says:

        Please do not make this election about SJWs. They may be very annoying*, but they are far from an existential threat. Idiots shouting irritating nonsense on the Internet is simply a fact of life that is completely independent from the state of the world (as long as it contains an Internet). But they are way too engaged in infighting to get anything done. This whale will not die from cancer.

        *one of the articles here argues that they are even optimized to be maximally annoying by nameless, unseen forces

        • The Nybbler says:

          They are an existential threat. They represent an end to freedom of speech, an end to the antidiscrimination principles brought forth in the civil rights era, and in general an end to the Enlightenment (which they feel is racist, sexist, and homophobic just like everything else). They are not merely idiots shouting irritating nonsense on the Internet; they have influential positions in academia, in government, and in industry (at least _some_ industries). There’s even at least one on the Supreme Court. They engage in infighting but so far it isn’t nearly severe enough to bring them down or weaken them significantly.

          • What freedom of speech? The US have food libel laws, treat whistleblowers like terrorists, have legislation that make independent radio stations illegal in many places, and have generally always been fine with big oligopolies, powerful lobbies, large morality groups and angry lynch mobs harassing everyone else into shutting up as long as they were doing it on their own (rather through the government). Censorship exists and has always existed in the US. Just like it has everywhere else.

          • Agreed. Our best chance of avoiding an unfriendly AI apocalypse is to use genetic engineering to greatly enhance human intelligence and morality. Alas, SJWs greatly inhibit research into the genetic basis of human intelligence.

          • Anonymous says:

            ^^
            Poe’s law?

          • herbert herbertson says:

            I’ve actually received that exact line from Scott Alexander himself.

          • Zombielicious says:

            I’ve actually received that exact line from Scott Alexander himself.

            That’s, uh, depressing. Social justice -> limiting research into genetics -> slowing down human augmentation -> AI catastrophe seems like some serious conjunction fallacy. Two reasons it’s not a serious issue:

            I tend to think there’s a hierarchy of how change occurs, loosely something like: technological change > economic change > social change. Social movements are the weakest of the three. Women didn’t enter the workforce because everyone woke up one day and said, “Hey guys lets all stop oppressing women!” It was facilitated by larger technological developments like automation of household chores (washing machine, vacuums, etc), proliferation of jobs that didn’t involve stuff like working in a coal mine until you died of lung disease, rising productivity decoupling economic success from “how many kids can we produce to work the fields,” etc. To give another example, you might point to Communism as a place where social movements overpowered economic forces, except that Soviet-style Communism collapsed largely because it failed to overpower technological and economic forces in the long run.

            The other, somewhat related, reason: does anyone really think aversion to studying racial differences in IQ is going to be so strong as to completely outdo the financial motives for studying genetics? No one wants to study “is there a link between skin color and IQ,” but it hasn’t really prevented the entire rest of genetics research from going forward. Any influence the anti-genetic-basis-of-racial-IQ-differences crowd has had on limiting research in medicine and genetics pales in comparison to the limitations put on it by the religious right, but we don’t see the conservosphere at war with them because they’re going to limit stem-cell research and genetic engineering, thereby bringing on the AIpocalypse by failing to start embryo selection and related technologies soon enough. At the very least, it’s kind of weird to obsess over the hindrance possibly caused by SJWs when the elephant in the room is the religious right and anti-GMO/vaccines/anything-not-“natural” crowds.

          • keranih says:

            Women didn’t enter the workforce because everyone woke up one day and said, “Hey guys lets all stop oppressing women!”

            Of course not – and we didn’t shift to “middle/upper class women don’t work outside the home” because everyone woke up one day and said “Hey, guys, let’s all start oppressing women” either. There was a lot of tech and economic issues at play, there, too.

            Any influence the anti-genetic-basis-of-racial-IQ-differences crowd has had on limiting research in medicine and genetics pales in comparison to the limitations put on it by the religious right,

            Can you unpack this a bit? Just which lines of research are not being followed, regarding research into existing human genetics? And where are we actually doing trials of disease cures and preventions?

            Because we’ve had GMO insulin for decades now, and it seems at least monthly that someone is attempting another retrovirus trial on a child patient. Has some new rule come down that I missed?

            It’s also worthy of noting that the anti-racial-genetics crowd hasn’t been actually using destructive testing on racial minorities, as opposed to research into human embryo manipulations.

          • Zombielicious

            “does anyone really think aversion to studying racial differences in IQ is going to be so strong as to completely outdo the financial motives for studying genetics?”

            It is already happening. I’ve interviewed a few experts on the genetics of intelligence on my podcast Future Strategist.

          • James D. Miller:
            “Agreed. Our best chance of avoiding an unfriendly AI apocalypse is to use genetic engineering to greatly enhance human intelligence and morality. Alas, SJWs greatly inhibit research into the genetic basis of human intelligence.”

            Aside from the question of the genetic basis of human intelligence, as far as I can tell, practically everyone is opposed to increasing human intelligence, or at least everyone where I hang out. Maybe it’s different in China.

            SJWs aren’t *especially* a problem.

            This being said, research into the physical basis of intelligence would be a lot more savory if it focused on the differences between individuals which obviously exist rather than the differences between races which are rather vaguer.

          • Nancy,

            “as far as I can tell, practically everyone is opposed to increasing human intelligence, or at least everyone where I hang out.” Well, when couples seek donor eggs they pay more for eggs from women who attend colleges that have high SAT scores.

            “This being said, research into the physical basis of intelligence would be a lot more savory if it focused on the differences between individuals which obviously exist rather than the differences between races which are rather vaguer.” Agreed, but the political problem is that finding one would give you the other, if the other exists. I wonder if the people who most fear IQ research are liberals who place a very high probability on group differences existing.

          • Zombielicious says:

            @keranih:
            The ban on stem cell research (at institutions receiving federal funds, or was it just research actually using federal funds?) under Bush is the most obvious example. Also the opposition to savior siblings and similar scenarios, though I don’t know much about that. Same for abortion, which isn’t exactly genetics research, but imo sits in the same boat.

            I guess we can debate how much they’ve actually been successful holding back research that would have furthered medicine and genetics, but my point is that the core of the right’s base for the past ~35 years has been opposed to much of the kind of research that would have facilitated human augmentation.

            A lot of the stuff just has broad disapproval from most of society, even scientists – e.g. cloning-related technologies, and the recent calls for banning human germ-line modifications. Plus other stuff like anti-GMOs and anti-vaccines, which gets a lot of populist support from both right and left. I have trouble seeing social justice as being a uniquely threatening opponent of such technologies.

            It’s also worthy of noting that the anti-racial-genetics crowd hasn’t been actually using destructive testing on racial minorities, as opposed to research into human embryo manipulations.

            Sure, but this kind of comes down to your opinion on “is destroying a blastocyte equivalent to murder,” and similarly the stem cell research crowd doesn’t have a history of their research being used to justify stuff like colonialism, segregation, and force sterilization programs.

            @James D Miller:

            It is already happening. I’ve interviewed a few experts on the genetics of intelligence on my podcast Future Strategist.

            Which interviews are those? Do they actually provide evidence that the aversion to studying racial differences in IQ is holding back the field of genetics, particularly related to human augmentation, outside of that specific subfield? Because it seems kind of odd, since you’d think it’d be pretty easy to study the genetic basis of intelligence without having to first study it’s relationship to ethnicity. Meaning you can run a GWAS on a bunch of people to see which genes correlate with intelligence, and I don’t see where dividing them up by skin color to determine which group has a slightly higher average is a necessity in that.

            I wonder if the people who most fear IQ research are liberals who place a very high probability on group differences existing.

            It seems more likely that they think the potential dangers of it being used to justify disenfranchising various groups outweigh whatever potential benefits, especially since it’s not really required to develop medicinal therapies and such. Especially given the past history of it being used to justify such things, and contemporary support from a lot of less savory groups, it’s not like the worry is without basis. It’s not necessarily that different from the AI-risk discussion: even given a low probability of the risk being realized, potentially very large damage resulting from it (e.g. another Holocaust or 20th-century-style eugenics program) could make the research not worth the risk.

            Even more likely is just that people see hundreds of years of pseudoscientific research into racial differences in IQ being used to justify oppression of minorities, so have a high prior that any similar research chosen is likely to have the same lack of credibility and nefarious motivations.

          • I’m not sure that SJW’s are the most serious barrier to genetic research, but I think they may be hostile to it for a reason unrelated to concerns about human diversity.

            In trying to figure out what “social justice” means, one answer I have come up with is “that approach to justice whose first question, with regard to any issue at all, is ‘how does it affect the poor’?”

            One result is to be skeptical of any form of progress that doesn’t benefit poor people at least as much as others. The early stages of genetic research are likely to fit that.

          • Zombielicious says:

            Well, that seems to be one of the most common objections to human augmentation – the first people to afford it will have a huge productivity advantage, accelerate ahead of everyone else, and Gattaca ends up becoming historical fiction.

            I don’t think that’s really a social justice issue, though, at least not in the narrow sense of the term. For one, it’s an objection made by everyone, including the professional researchers using the technologies who are against near-term human augmentation (see my previous Nature link). For the other, the social justice and economic egalitarianism movements aren’t completely equivalent at all. See the animosity between the Clinton and Sanders campaigns – feminists and minorities pretty clearly chose Clinton, while the “eat the rich” and anti-war crowds seemed to lean pretty heavily Sanders. With plenty of infighting along the way.

            Then again I’m not really sure how “social justice” was intended to be used here. It gets kind of hard to have a discussion about what a broad, informal coalition of groups thinks or wants when it can mean anything from “people whose major priority is positive rights for minorities” to “anyone to the left of my own views.” It would be like talking about what “conservatives think” while failing to distinguish any difference between libertarians and ancaps, religious fundamentalists, neoconservatives, random small business owners, etc.

          • Wency says:

            @David Friedman

            As the term is used here, I think SJWs are more likely to ask, “How does this affect the portrayal of persons other than straight cis-gendered non-Hispanic white [insert 1 additional adjective per decade] males?”

            “Social justice” used to mean concern for the poor, including a focus on practical results rather than controlling speech, but that definition is fading, at least here on the Internet.

          • @Wency:

            I was talking about “social justice” not SJW’s. I’m a law professor, I see lots of references to “social justice,” most or all of which have nothing to do with online campaigns to stamp out bad thought and the like.

            The question I naturally ask is what “social” adds to “justice.” The closest I can come to an answer is either the one I offered above or “views of justice held by people on the left.”

          • keranih says:

            @ Zombielicious –

            The debate and limits of funding are pretty well summarized here at WP. In short, Bill Clinton had banned funding earlier, Bush actually allowed more research to be funded, Obama tried to increase the cell lines that could be funded but was overrulled by Congress.

            Private funding was never an issue, and states are able to raise funds to support embryo-destroying research if they so choose.

            So blaming Bush for stopping research seems a bit much.

            It also seems unreasonable to blame “the Religious Right” for stances that are commonly held by broad swathes of the population.

            similarly the stem cell research crowd doesn’t have a history of their research being used to justify stuff like colonialism, segregation, and force sterilization programs

            Why, certainly, you’re correct that a sector of research that would benefit from legal elective abortion isn’t being subjected to media scrutiny and isn’t being linked to various nefarious organizations who conducted other research or pursued other objectives in other eras.

            Odd how that happens.

          • The original Mr. X says:

            I guess we can debate how much they’ve actually been successful holding back research that would have furthered medicine and genetics, but my point is that the core of the right’s base for the past ~35 years has been opposed to much of the kind of research that would have facilitated human augmentation.

            Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the record of discoveries made using adult stem cells much better than that of foetal ones?

        • The original Mr. X says:

          Please do not make this election about SJWs. They may be very annoying*, but they are far from an existential threat.

          That depends on who you are/what you believe, doesn’t it? Deiseach has already quoted the USCCR’s report on religious freedom. If I lived in the US I’d consider talk about how religious freedom “stand[s] for nothing except hypocrisy” and is merely a code for “discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy or any form of intolerance” to be an existential threat to me and people like me.

      • Urstoff says:

        If you’re voting based on who will fight the SJW’s, maybe you should spend less time on the internet.

        • Alexp says:

          Ha, exactly.

        • wintermute92 says:

          I’m constantly confused by this argument. Leave aside for a second how any of us feel about SJ(W), it just seems inaccurate?

          People widely avowed as SJ activists got to hold their own sessions on privacy and censorship with the UN. Hillary’s DNC speech called for advancing Social Justice (ambiguously distinct from the internet incarnation, but not unrelated). The most rabid, irrational progressive-left people I know I met in college, not on the internet. The only times I have ever appreciably self-censored for fear of “Teh SJWs” were in college, not on the internet.

          If SJW was going to determine my vote this election (it isn’t), time on the internet wouldn’t be a major factor in fueling that fire.

      • “We don’t know what Trump will do ” means some of his actions will be reckless and unpredictable, not that some of his actions will be predictable..

        On a different theme , I am not seeing the SJW thing s all that apocalyptic. It barely exists outside the campus and SV. Of course, the campus and SV are where the SSC readership congregate., so it seems big because it’s close.

      • houseboatonstyxb says:

        @ Thursday
        By this I mean that you spent a lot of time arguing that Trump was more millenarian than Clinton, which I don’t really buy.

        No, Trump is 70 years old.
        No, he does not expect Utopia.
        No, Trump does not live in a basement, nor support Sanders.

  6. pku says:

    On the one hand, I absolutely agree with everything you say in this post. Especially the “Trump doesn’t like losers” bit, which is a great description of him in terms of kolmogorov complexity.

    On the other hand, I worry when things get political. I really like this blog and the community here (except for the people who categorically hate liberals, immigrants/foreigners/eurotrash, and people with fancy ivy-league degrees, on account of my belonging to all three groups). And one of the most common failure modes for nice communities is that they get political and turn into giant flame wars. (Of course, there’s the optimistic option that the aforementioned people I dislike leave and everyone I like stays, but this seems risky).

    But it is your blog, and I don’t think I really have a right to criticize what you choose to put in it. Especially when it’s content I agree with.

    • This is *just* Scott’s blog, which I think will make it harder for a flame war to erupt too badly. If there are problems, then (temporary or permanent) bans can be handed out to the people who can’t be nice. Scott has shown a willingness to ban in the past, so I don’t think that we have to worry about a failure in that regard either.

      • Deiseach says:

        I would probably disagree with some of Scott’s political/cultural/economic views, and I certainly disagree with his rosy view of how nice Blue Tribe – and I’m extending “Blue Tribe” to mean similar views in my own country* – would be if only Red Tribe would play nicely with them. Then again, I disagree withthe other right-wing/conservative commenters here on some of their cultural/political/economic views, as well.

        But I very much appreciate what Scott is doing with this blog, and I don’t get this kind of stimulating conversation on a multiplicity of topics elsewhere. By expressing disagreement with what he thinks, I don’t mean any kind of personal attack on him and certainly not that he’s stupid, ignorant or mistaken (merely that I don’t interpret it the way he does). And I’d hate to see us all go down in a flame war.

        I think, if we can acknowledge we all have a range of very different and very sincerely held political/cultural views, without getting bogged down in “well, you’re stupid/you’re evil!”, then we can get the political hair-pulling off our collective chests and calm down after the election (elections are the worst, because they do fan the flames of partisanship).

        I’ve been a recipient of Scott’s mercy re: banning and I am grateful for it, and I hope nobody in these particular discussions trigger any more bans.

        *We’re gearing up for a Repeal the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution campaign in my country, and already all the national media are well in the tank for the pro-repeal side. Which means the anti-repeal side are going to be (in some instances, are already being) portrayed as knuckle-dragging Neanderthal mouth-breathing redneck religious zealot bigots who want to punish women for daring to be sexually active, lacking all compassion for hard cases, and forcing women to continue with non-viable pregnancies because they value a clump of cells over a woman’s life – sounding familiar? Oh, this is going to be so much fun! 🙁

        • LifeOnAFarm says:

          “Are You A Baby Killer Or A Religious Fascist?”

          • Deiseach says:

            Oh, it’ll be that level of dispassionate reasoning and appeal to principle, I have no doubts about it 🙁

        • TheWorst says:

          and I’m extending “Blue Tribe” to mean similar views in my own country*

          I thought the point was that they can’t really be extended that way–because our tribes consist mostly of the people you guys decided were just too odious to keep around. Which is why we have them (us?) and you don’t.

          I’m not saying you were wrong, to be fair. I might have evicted us too.

    • Scott Alexander says:

      On the other hand, I worry that by writing some conservative stuff I’ve made this community too conservative, so I’m making it a point that when I agree with leftists on something, I’m going to write about it, in order to drive some conservatives away and attract some leftists and restore balance.

      • keranih says:

        I’m going to write about it, in order to drive some conservatives away and attract some leftists and restore balance.

        It’ll be interesting to see if your efforts get the result you want…but I’d really like to see what metrics you’re using to define “balance.”

        • MugaSofer says:

          Probably “actually in the same area of the political spectrum as Scott” rather than, for example, acting shocked when he fails to endorse Donald Trump.

          • Theo Jones says:

            I’m thinking he means something like “has roughly the same partizan divide as the U.S population as a whole but with more rigorously considered opinions”.

      • Jaskologist says:

        Won’t work. Your righties experience intelligent disagreement as utility; it’s a fun opportunity to mix it up in the comments section. The tumblr communists will then look at those comment sections and tut-tut all the more.

        The solution is either to avoid all hot-button topics entirely or turn the blog into a series of reblogs of Daily Show clips.

        • Andrew says:

          Are all lefties tumblr communists?

          • Sandy says:

            If he’s talking about the disapproving comments on Scott’s tumblr, I believe some of those people literally are communists.

          • Theo Jones says:

            @Sandy

            As far as I know, Multiheaded is pretty much the only Marxist in rationalist tumblr.

          • Eli says:

            I’m a Communist and have a Tumblr. I don’t really spend a lot of time on it, though.

          • wintermute92 says:

            Depending on how you define “communist” and “in rationalist tumblr” there are between one and way more.

            If you broaden those to “radical leftist calling for revolution with state ownership of production, but unwilling to use the word” and “vocally hates, but relentlessly engages with and uses the terminology of rationalist tumblr”, you pick up several.

        • Spot says:

          Well, I do agree that centrist spaces that extend any sympathy at all to right-wing views tend to accrue an audience that swings rightward, especially if the culture wars are a frequent subject of discussion. To keep a healthy liberal audience, it seems like you have to more or less adopt a total or near-total allegiance to the Blue narrative.

          But I think you can derive different conclusions from this dynamic. Some might say that liberals are intolerant weenies who can’t deal with a space that doesn’t cater exclusively to them. On the other hand, some might say that conservatives are aggressive imperialists who will take a mile if you give them an inch. I think both of those are uncharitable ways of putting it, but they probably also both contain a grain of truth. The point is that it seems very difficult to have a genuinely “balanced” audience due to this asymmetry. In my opinion, this blog does it better than almost any other place on the Internet, though the dynamic seems to be exacerbated when the subject is the 2016 election.

          • Corey says:

            Reality bubbles make this difficult also; it’s difficult to productively discuss anything with someone from another reality, you’ll just talk past one another. I can’t give examples for obvious reasons.

          • Adam says:

            Therese the argument that lefties are spoiled for choice and thus can pick and choose their fora, whereas righties who want a good community are a bit starved and thus will take what they can get, but that’s probably also an oversimplification

          • The Most Conservative says:

            Well, I do agree that centrist spaces that extend any sympathy at all to right-wing views tend to accrue an audience that swings rightward, especially if the culture wars are a frequent subject of discussion.

            One (self-serving) explanation is simply that when right-wing and left-wing ideas meet on a level playing field, the right-wing ideas tend to win.

          • pku says:

            Inconsistent with our situation – the right-wingers here were all right-wingers before they came here. It’s not a case of convincing former left-wingers with the strength of their ideas.

          • TheWorst says:

            It seems as though, when confronted with someone who is so unconscionably rude as to mention facts that aren’t consistent with their (our?) (inaccurate) worldview, Blue Tribers tend to drift back to the spaces where no one would be so offensive (and it’s easy for them, because there’s no shortage of blue-tribe-compatible places with reasonably high standards of intellectualism).
            In the same circumstance, apparently, the Red Tribe response is to freak the fuck out (presumably because they’ve claimed this as the one “safe space” where smart people gather without driving out all the Red Tribers first). At least, that’s what seems to happen here (see: lefties performing The Flounce, and E. Harding’s vomiting up clouds of squid ink in these threads).

            This ends up meaning that centrist spaces–or paying-attention-to-reality spaces (they’re not quite the same thing)–tend to gradually lose all of the lefties, and draw a large group of fever-swamp-regurgitates.
            The sad thing is that the rightists in question come here because it’s essentially the only place where they can find intelligent discussion without being ostracized, but don’t realize that this means they shouldn’t defect from the norms–they cluster in the living room because it’s the only place where no one’s yet pooped on the carpet, but don’t realize that this means they should maybe not poop on it.

            A place where people can safely talk about reality without having to kowtow to popular myths is nice, but this also means you may need to just cope with the fact that it’s not going to endorse your myths either.

        • Harry says:

          I am proudly left-wing, but I am emphatically not a communist. I value rigorous, logical assessment of my own political ideas (though I think “rationality” as a movement is suspect) and I enjoy debate with people from the other end of the political spectrum.

          I’ve only recently started commenting on this blog – I read through the archives with interest and I’ve enjoyed most of Scott’s articles, but until now I’ve avoided the comment section because as far as I could tell it consisted entirely of very right-wing people. While I enjoy debate, I don’t enjoy being dogpiled.

          Obviously I am just one example, but we do exist. And I appreciate Scott extending an olive branch.

          • Ildanach says:

            I think this may be largely the case. Several times I’ve thought about commenting on an article, scrolled down to the comments and seen nothing but hard right-wing tedium, and thought better of it. At least one other person I know who reads this blog feels the same. I would predict that, like many places on the internet, the general readership veers left of the comments section. I do feel that Scott panders a bit to the right wing in his posts (e.g. the random unproductive jabs at left wing politics in the last two political posts) just to make them palatable and, I imagine, to stop the comments section from being drowned in complaints.

          • Luke Somers says:

            Which jabs are you thinking of in the previous post? If it’s about SJW, that’s not random for him at all.

            I don’t remember and didn’t see upon quick review any jabs at left-ish politics in this post.

      • FacelessCraven says:

        If the reply thread to your last post wasn’t what you want your comment section to look like, I think you should seriously consider a fairly thorough purge of the most frequent and prolific right-wing commenters. You can start with me, if you like. I wouldn’t take it personally, and there’s a fair probability that me being banned would be a net positive for my personal values. I think the current political situation is unhinging us more than a little, and we’re likely to get worse, not better.

        • anaon says:

          I’m going to toss in a request that if you do ban right-wing commenters you skip Faceless Craven. While right-wing, they’ve been a model of the kind of open-mindedness to differing beliefs that make this a interesting place.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            While very flattering, I don’t think you appreciate how much of my time this place burns. It’s basically a superstimulus. I’ve been thinking about requesting a ban anyway just so I can get more actual work done.

          • anaon says:

            @Faceless Craven

            Oh if being banned would be good for you then go ahead. I just wanted to point out that you weren’t one of the people making things worse.

          • Zombielicious says:

            I find just blocking the site in my hosts file every once in a while works well enough, and is less permanent than requesting a ban. The minimal level of trouble required to open the file and comment/uncomment two lines is enough to break the cycle of needing to read and respond to every new comment. Later when you have more time on your hands, or want to see what new posts you missed, you can just remove the block in < 15 seconds.

            There are add-ons that will accomplish the same thing, e.g. only let you access a site during certain times of the day.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @FacelessCraven:
            This space needs more of your approach, not less.

            EDIT: Not that I’m saying you shouldn’t do what you need from a time management perspective, just that I find your contribution valuable and enjoyable.

          • TheWorst says:

            Seconded. Purging the loudest and most-bullshit-prone rightists would dramatically improve the comments page without losing anything of value, but I don’t think FacelessCraven is one of those.

            Purging E. Harding basically seems like a necessity, banning anonymous (as opposed to pseudonymous–the hassle of having to set up a dummy email account would probably discourage the trolls from elsewhere) seems the same, but I think losing FC wouldn’t be a positive. In all honesty, I’d ban me before I’d ban him.

          • ” In all honesty, I’d ban me before I’d ban him.”

            So far as maintaining the quality of conversation, I would ban you before either Harding or Jill, let alone FC, since I think you contribute less than either of them.

            But I’m not in favor of banning people for merely lowering the average quality of discourse.

            I am a little puzzled by the combination of your choice of a label and your apparent blindness to how well others see you as fitting it.

          • TheWorst says:

            David, why do you think I don’t post on your blog? Why would I want to interact with only the people you consider tolerable?
            I’m quite aware that you and your fellow-travelers are wildly offended at seeing viewpoints that aren’t alt-right, yes. I’m mystified why you think I don’t know that; it’s not like any of you have been at-all shy about saying just how triggered your precious feeeeeelings are at seeing your safe space not being respected.

          • JHC says:

            Wife: What are you doing, hon.

            Self: Watching Machinations of the Friedman. He plays the manager of a computer forum of insanely-defensive millenial trump supporters.

          • “Why would I want to interact with only the people you consider tolerable?”

            Are you assuming I censor my comment threads? I don’t, aside from spam intended to direct people to car rental firms in Delhi and the like.

            “I’m quite aware that you and your fellow-travelers are wildly offended at seeing viewpoints that aren’t alt-right, yes. ”

            At various points on my blog I had extended and civil exchanges with Robert Frank and Robert Altemeyer. Presumably you think they are alt right?

            There is a real world out there. You don’t get to create it out of your imagination.

          • Good Burning Plastic says:

            @various people about not wasting too much time here:

            I just use LeechBlock.

          • Whatever Happened To Anonymous says:

            Leechblock is great, but it’s browser specific, the Chrome versions are pretty bad.

            I’d say the hosts file is the best approach, assuming you’re not entering from a work proxy.

      • Tekhno says:

        Another option is ignoring the comment section and just writing articles with yourself in mind.

      • Urstoff says:

        It might be a bit too late for that, Scott. Your anti-SJW tactics posts have seem to build a commentariat that view the culture war as a grand Manichean struggle. Your active involvement of the comments seems to moderate this place a bit, but I’m worried that it’s going to end up like MR.

        • Anonymous says:

          What a horrible mess that is. I don’t know why he doesn’t just shut them. Well I have a theory, but I hope it isn’t true.

          Is E. Harding still evading his ban there?

          • Urstoff says:

            I don’t know why MR still has comments. If you can’t moderate with an iron fist, it’s probably best just not to have a comments section at all. And I do think (((E. Harding))) shows up there from time to time, but I don’t check the comments much these days.

          • E. Harding says:

            How dare you call me a Jew, Urstoff? That’s uncalled for. I have, to my knowledge, no Jewish or Muslim ancestry.

            Thing is, Cowen, as in my case, in which he deletes every one of my comments when he looks at them, can moderate with an iron fist. He just doesn’t want to, as he cares much more about the commenter than the what any one comment says.

  7. tumteetum says:

    Agreed, excellent post.

    >failure modes for nice communities

    Dont they always eventually fail tho? I’ve been on the net since 19bow-and-arrow and I’ve seen it happen over and over again. It used to really get to me, now I just think of them as a kind of TAZ and try to keep an eye out for the next new place.

    Edit: Woops, this was meant to be a reply to pku above!

    • pku says:

      Yeah, I’ve been through a few (the worst was probably my time on the xkcd forums). This is my favourite one so far though, I hope it sticks around.

      Also, what’s 19bow-and-arrow? Googling it just led me to this, which, um… leaves some questions.

      • tumteetum says:

        >favourite

        Yes I like it very much too, another good place at the moment is soylentnews.org, a (mostly) technical/science news aggregation site run by volunteers, the discussion is perhaps a bit earthier than here but all views are allowed.

        >19bow-and-arrow

        A joke (sort of), it was something my father used to say when he wanted to indicate something in the distant past, but couldnt remember the exact date.

    • Deiseach says:

      I’ve seen it mostly in fandoms: starts off with people saying “This is the nicest community I’ve ever been in, everyone is so polite and supportive, it’s not like those other fandoms that get crazy!”

      And then three months later the ship wars start, or duelling interpretations of characters, and the whole place is up in flames 🙂

      • houseboatonstyxb says:

        How were those groups moderated? Scott’s Reign of Terror with instant bans (some indefinite) and his sometimes putting a subject off-limits for a thread or two, may keep SSC cooler.

  8. Thursday says:

    I have to say though, that it’s a hell of a lot easier to occupy oilfields than it is to occupy areas with lots of people. Lots of troops would have to stay in Iraq, but they wouldn’t be in harms way to nearly the same extent as troops trying to keep the peace in populated areas.

    • Matthew says:

      Yeah, but you think this wouldn’t have an effect on the other 100 some nations where the US keeps forces?

      No one is going to want to host US troops if it means that the US has the right to take your national resources if they don’t like your government.

    • AnonBosch says:

      I have to say though, that it’s a hell of a lot easier to occupy oilfields than it is to occupy areas with lots of people.

      Occupying oilfields is useless without also occupying port terminals. These are usually located in or near major coastal cities.

    • John Schilling says:

      If what you want to claim is nominal ownership of oil buried underground, sure. If you want to sell and/or use that oil, you also need to control the transport infrastucture. T. E. Lawrence would like to have a chat with you about the sort of wackiness that ensues when you try to control transport infrastructure running through barren deserts and port cities populated with even a smattering of people who don’t like you and have guns. Well, guns, dynamite, and capable leaders.

      For that matter, you could just look at what is happening in Libya today, though I don’t think any of the factions have a leader quite in Lawrence’s class.

    • Thursday says:

      So, you’d have to build your own port, staff it with Americans and keep the locals away. Very doable. The only question is whether it is worth it economically. We also easily have the tech to defend transport through the countryside.

      • Julian says:

        This is not “very doable”. Building oil wells, pipelines, ports and other infrastructure is extremely difficult and time consuming when its done in Kansas and Texas. Add in a population of fanatical terrorists dead set on killing you and what you propose is damn near impossible.

        Your cavalier attitude to this demonstrates that you have no knowledge of the oil industry, foreign policy, or modern military strategy (just like Trump).

        Chevron recently completed the Gorgon gas project in Australia. It pumps 15 million tons of natural gas per year. Ground breaking occurred in 2009 and the first gas was pumped this year. The entire project cost $53 BILLION dollars. That is the scale of project you are proposing.

        Is it “do able”? In theory yes, as Chevron has just done it. But they didnt do in in a war zone or under the incompetent management of the federal government. The gorgon project pumps the equivalent of 2 million barrels of oil per year (not a perfect equivalent between LNG and oil). There are 140 billion barrels of proven reserves in Iraq. Are you prepared to invest tax dollars in multiple Gorgon size projects and pump oil from them for decades? Iraq’s current oil production is approx. 3.3 million barrels per day. It would take 116 years to pump all of its proven reserves at current capacity.

  9. Texas says:

    Part 2 in a 60 part SSC series on voting for Hillary Clinton.

    • Deiseach says:

      Hillary’s his preferred candidate, he’s perfectly entitled on his own blog to say why he thinks she’d be good in the job and why people should vote for her.

      And he’s letting us who disagree or are less than enthusiastic about how much better she would be put our views, instead of shutting down all comments for this (as I have seen other sites do when they anticipated something that would get very heated in discussion) or deleting comments disagreeing with him.

      Scott is putting his money where his mouth is in regard to free speech and I respect that.

    • The Nybbler says:

      I’m hoping by part 20 or so we can sway him to the anybody-but-Hillary camp.

      • cassander says:

        I don’t want trump to win, but I definitely want hillary to lose. Maybe we can arrange to have their campaign busses crash into each other? then fall off a cliff? Then nuke the site from orbit, just to be sure?

      • Deiseach says:

        In part 40 we get him to advocate for Jill Stein, because she’s a doctor, you know! A fully-trained medical professional who has been exposed to the best of science! No crazy ideas likely there! 🙂

        • Zombielicious says:

          There’s been literally no one in this race who didn’t have completely crazy ideas in some area or another.

    • sohois says:

      Whilst it is possible that Scott reply to every comment in the ‘SSC endorses…’ replies, it probably wouldn’t be the best use of time for him. Far better, I feel, to make some general purpose blog posts that address concerns addressed by a large number of people, than trying to answer everyone’s individual concerns one by one.

    • TheWorst says:

      I don’t recall Scott promising that this would be a safe space from having to hear political opinions that don’t consist solely of wingnut nonsense.

      Intellectual diversity doesn’t just mean alt-rightists. Sometimes it means you get exposed to viewpoints that aren’t 100% identical to your own. It’s like free speech: it protects you from being silenced for saying something unpopular, but sometimes it also protects other people when you want to silence them for doing the same.

      • “It’s like free speech: it protects you from being silenced for saying something unpopular, but sometimes it also protects other people when you want to silence them for doing the same.”

        A bit odd from someone who has repeatedly argued for purging someone whose views he dislikes.

        At a slight tangent, can you tell us how long you have read and posted here? I’m curious, with regard to both you and some of the other posters who seem interested only in the election battle, whether they are regulars, possibly posting under different names, or new additions attracted by the current controversy.

        I checked back in the archives for Harding, and he has been posting under that name at least since last year. I couldn’t find you in a few of the comment threads from then, but that doesn’t prove you didn’t post in others.

        It would be interesting if someone with more of the relevant skills than I have would figure out an easy way of searching the archives and producing something like a pattern of past comments for each name–not content but how many and when.

        • TheWorst says:

          A bit odd from someone who has repeatedly argued for purging someone whose views he dislikes.

          E. Harding started calling for banning everyone who admitted to living in a world where alt-right myths aren’t true, so I pointed out that if we’re calling for bannings, his name should be at the top of the list. He also posts prolifically, at great length, and seems unaware of any methods of holding a conversation other than the gish gallop. I see why he and his type are useful to you and yours, but I’m not fortunate enough to have the same incentives.

        • Whatever Happened to Anonymous says:

          I checked back in the archives for Harding, and he has been posting under that name at least since last year. I couldn’t find you in a few of the comment threads from then, but that doesn’t prove you didn’t post in others.

          The first time I’ve seen TheWorst commenting was around the Albion’s Seed review.

          Even if I agree with what they say often, they’ve been an asshole since the beggining, if that’s what you’re wondering.

          • Jiro says:

            The problem is that Scott is reluctant to ban left-wing posters because there are too many right-wing ones and this brings balance. Unfortunately, that means that right-wing assholes get banned, but left-wing ones don’t.

          • TheWorst says:

            The last two comment pages make it exceedingly clear that not all right-wing assholes get banned. If they did, there would be fewer of them. Some of them get banned, but not enough to put a dent in the population.

      • ChetC3 says:

        Since it’s well-known that alt-right viewpoints prevail wherever they’re allowed to meet other political views on a level playing field, in logically follows that all level playing fields must converge towards alt-right echo chambers over time.

  10. Alex Richard says:

    > Trump has earned a reputation as an isolationist by criticizing the Iraq War.

    This is flatly inaccurate; Trump did not consistently oppose the Iraq war before it began.

    > The main concern I’ve heard is that the no-fly zone might lead to conflict (war?) with Russia.

    The idea that a this scenario would cause a war with Russia is hilariously conjunctive; it relies on a long series of things occurring in a row, several of which are individually unlikely:

    1) Syria looks like it does today after Clinton takes office
    2) Clinton actually means to go through with her no-fly zone, even though her explicit justification for it was that it would help in negotiations with Russia, and even though this is all based on a single throwaway comment from one interview
    3) Russia will refuse any concessions, resulting in Clinton going through with the no-fly zone
    4) Clinton intends to include Russian planes in the no-fly zone (zero reason to believe this- Clinton never mentioned Russia, and per her publicly released emails, her briefings encouraging a no-fly zone were solely against Assad)
    5) Clinton will enforce a no-fly zone by shooting down Russian places, even though she’s never said anything like this, and even though no proposal for a Syria no-fly zone has proposed attacking Russia
    6) Russia will then respond by declaring war, even though they would obviously lose either a convention or a nuclear war, and even though they’ve already ignored a NATO country shooting down their plane

    ***

    I don’t see why you’re ignoring the general question of temperament. It seems obvious that the main factor in whether Trump would start a war is his tendency to respond to any opposition with an attack, whether or not it makes any sense.

    • pku says:

      1) seems pretty likely. 2) is a misconception he corrects later – so when raising this issue, he still assumes Clinton plans to unilaterally initiate a no-fly zone. 3) is unlikely but not totally crazy – Putin isn’t known for making concessions when threatened. 4/5) again, unlikely but not crazy – She might want to target Russian planes (to maintain authority), or accidentally shoot them down if they refuse to identify (which they have in the past). 6) is… very very unlikely, but getting to that position is bad enough that we should try hard to avoid significant risk of it.

      • Alex Richard says:

        > 1) seems pretty likely.

        My concern is the conjunction of these claims.

        > 2) is a misconception he corrects later – so when raising this issue, he still assumes Clinton plans to unilaterally initiate a no-fly zone.

        No sure what you mean here- who is he? If you’re talking about Scott, then I’m saying he’s wrong to assert that with any degree of confidence, i.e. his assumption is wrong. (Clinton doesn’t appear to mention a no-fly zone on the issues page of her website, or at least I couldn’t find it.)

        > 3) is unlikely but not totally crazy – Putin isn’t known for making concessions when threatened.

        Just talking about US military action, he gave assent to Libya, he support for previous/current Syrian ceasefires, and he proposed Syrian chemical disarmament. This was all under significantly less threat- mostly displomatic, or to his proxies.

        > 4/5) again, unlikely but not crazy – She might want to target Russian planes (to maintain authority), or accidentally shoot them down if they refuse to identify (which they have in the past).

        Not sure what you mean by refuse to identify.

        Your argument more broadly is basically my point- there’s zero reason to think that this is true. If you think Clinton would chose to start shooting down Russian planes for no rational reason, this specific scenario is irrelevant, your concern is Clinton’s personality, there will be war regardless of the specific precipitating factors. (Reminder: Clinton led the reset with Russia; out of every major US political figure, she is probably the least accusable of being irrationally anti-Russian.)

        > 6) is… very very unlikely, but getting to that position is bad enough that we should try hard to avoid significant risk of it.

        I disagree that there is significant risk of this scenario.

        • pku says:

          To clarify what I meant by 2: You said there was no risk that Clinton intended to go through a unilateral no-fly zone which may include shooting down russian planes. This is true, and Scott explains it later. But the people who raised the worry weren’t aware of this correction – so the right answer is to begin by explaining the misconception, which Scott did later.

          By refuse to identify, I meant the scenario where they don’t broadcast their russianness on the radio and get shot down because they’re mistaken for Syrian planes. I don’t know enough about AA weapons to tell how likely this is.

          • Alex Richard says:

            2) Gotcha, sorry for misunderstanding you.

            > refuse to identify

            Essentially all planes, including Russian ones, have IFF transponders. Modern US radar can differentiate between different types of aircraft. Russian planes fly from a their own airfield, and can be tracked. There are countermeasures to all of these (e.g. flying similar models close together), but it would take active effort on the part of Russia, and wouldn’t be guaranteed to succeed. This would also be obvious to US, making an accidental attack unlikely; the US attacking in this situation would have to be deliberate.

      • Deiseach says:

        Hillary would negotiate with Russia/Putin and agree a no-fly zone with Russian co-operation? Well, that would entail that the US and Russia are still talking to one another by the time she’s elected.

        This is part of why I am hammering Gary Johnson on his “Aleppo moment” (he seems to have decided to dig himself deeper: “Johnson then proceeded to say that just “because a politician can dot the I’s and cross the T’s on some geographic location” does not mean that he or she should be trusted on the question of foreign interventions.” Sorry, Mr Johnson, but geographic locations do matter, especially if it’s tricky things like five miles this side of the border we bombed murderous terrorists, five miles that side of the border we bombed civilians of our allied country!)

        I fully accept that Al Jazeera may not be the most neutral news source out there, but all the reports I’m seeing (at least on this side of the Atlantic) are pretty much “Russia is doing what the hell it likes in Syria and thumbing its nose at the Americans”.

        • Alex Richard says:

          Is there any particular reason to doubt that the US would still be talking to Russia? We had regular talks during the Cold War, and the Democrats have long supported diplomacy with American enemies.

        • houseboatonstyxb says:

          @ Deiseach
          Hillary would negotiate with Russia/Putin and agree a no-fly zone with Russian co-operation? Well, that would entail that the US and Russia are still talking to one another by the time she’s elected.

          Hm, by November 8? Who would stop talking first, and why? I’d think both leaders would keep options open til Nov 8 (unless Russia wanted to affect our election by some stunt).

          ETA. Maybe I’m numb to sarcasm at this point. I feel like the US has got into a Star Trek alt timeline written in the 60s. The ‘Better Dead than Red’ crowd, which now complains about Communists on Tumblr, is attacking Hillary for being insufficiently scared of annoying Putin?

          I mean, fresh popcorn is nice, but this is blowing my Suspension of Disbelief.

        • E. Harding says:

          “ETA. Maybe I’m numb to sarcasm at this point. I feel like the US has got into a Star Trek alt timeline written in the 60s. The ‘Better Dead than Red’ crowd, which now complains about Communists on Tumblr, is attacking Hillary for being insufficiently scared of annoying Putin?”

          No wonder:
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS2a44F5TgM
          Obama was right in that clip. Now it’s Hillary being all Russophobic, like the bought robot Romney, whom I did not support at any point in the 2012 campaign.

          Hillary Clinton explicitly wants to import the foreign policy of the 1980s:

          Trump himself heaps praise on Putin and embraces pro-Russian policies.

          He talks casually of abandoning our NATO allies, recognizing Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and of giving the Kremlin a free hand in Eastern Europe more generally.

          American presidents from Truman to Reagan have rejected the kind of approach Trump is taking on Russia.
          We should, too.

    • E. Harding says:

      “I don’t see why you’re ignoring the general question of temperament.”

      -Because it’s total BS, confusing, as Scott Adams points out, typical New Yorker verbal style with inability to control one’s thoughts.

      “This is flatly inaccurate”

      -No, it’s not; Scott didn’t say Trump was against the war before it started. Trump was, indeed, a huge critic of the war from 2004 onward, even calling for Bush’s impeachment by 2008.

      “Syria looks like it does today after Clinton takes office”

      -It will.

      “even though her explicit justification for it was that it would help in negotiations with Russia, and even though this is all based on a single throwaway comment from one interview”

      -Not the case.

      The latter steps are, if not likely, certainly much more likely under a Clinton presidency than a Trump presidency.

      • Alex Richard says:

        > Because it’s total BS, confusing, as Scott Adams points out, typical New Yorker verbal style with inability to control one’s thoughts.

        If Trump was able to control his thoughts, he wouldn’t have repeatedly picked stupid and self-damaging fights that no other politician would- Curiel, Khan, Machado, etc.

        > No, it’s not; Scott didn’t say Trump was against the war before it started. Trump was, indeed, a huge critic of the war from 2004 onward, even calling for Bush’s impeachment by 2008.

        Opposing wars that you initially supported after it turns they’re going poorly doesn’t mean that you’re isolationist. That’s doesn’t show he’s unlikely to support future wars.

        > It will.

        Are you really meaning to claim that there is a 100% chance that Syria looks that way it does today next year?

        > Not the case.

        Here’s Clinton’s discussion of a no-fly zone. The relevant quote is:

        RADDATZ: Secretary Clinton, I’d like to go back to that if I could. ISIS doesn’t have aircraft, Al Qaida doesn’t have aircraft. So would you shoot down a Syrian military aircraft or a Russian airplane?

        CLINTON: I do not think it would come to that. We are already de-conflicting airspace. […] I am advocating the no-fly zone both because I think it would help us on the ground to protect Syrians; I’m also advocating it because I think it gives us some leverage in our conversations with Russia […] The no-fly zone, I would hope, would be also shared by Russia.

        >The latter steps are, if not likely, certainly much more likely under a Clinton presidency than a Trump presidency.

        As I said, this argument is the conjunctive fallacy. I can give you really specific scenarios where Trump leads to global nuclear war too; that doesn’t mean that we should reason based on pretty stories.

      • herbert herbertson says:

        I know several born-and-raised New Yorkers, with a couple more from Long Island and New Jersey to boot. None of them sound or act like Trump.

        Similarly, Scott Dilbert is not an linguist, a historian or an American Studies scholar. He’s not even a New Yorker–according to Wikipedia, he grew up in a small town in the Catskills, moved to California when he graduated from high school, and has stayed there ever since. That doesn’t mean he’s wrong, but it does suggest his claims need additional evidence. So is there any? Are there any people at least claiming the above expertise who are backing him up on that point? Did Trump overperform in NYC in a way that’s difficult to otherwise explain? Are there significant regional variations in how focus groups describe his temperament and use of language?

        • Simon says:

          Who is Scott Dilbert?

          • herbert herbertson says:

            He is the author of a syndicated comic strip called “Dilbert” who has gained recent prominence through correctly predicting Trump’s primary victory and through an unorthodox analysis of contemporary politics based primarily on what he calls “persecution techniques.” His given name is “Scott Adams” but as he has heartily endorsed Trump’s practice of applying grade-school tier insulting nicknames calculated to highlight the flaws of his opponents, I prefer to refer to him by a name that highlights the fact that his only actual claim to fame is a corny G-rated comic about the foibles of white-collar office workers.

          • TheWorst says:

            Referring to him as “Scott Dilbert” seems–demonstrably–to have negative communication value. That’s worth noticing.

            but as he has heartily endorsed Trump’s practice of applying grade-school tier insulting nicknames…

            Do you think he was right to do so? If you think that’s the wrong choice, why are you doing it? If you think it’s the right choice, why are you criticizing him?

            Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

          • This may be the first TheWorst post yet that I actually enjoyed reading.

          • TheWorst says:

            Of course. Everyone likes it when I point out when the other tribe is contradicting its own stated values.

          • Luke Somers says:

            I am left. I liked it too. Our side should keep itself clean when possible, and it is definitely possible now. Especially when being clean is a part of the core message.

          • herbert herbertson says:

            Do you think he was right to do so? If you think that’s the wrong choice, why are you doing it? If you think it’s the right choice, why are you criticizing him?

            The former. I’m willing to take the hit against myself for using childish rhetoric–particularly in my capacity as a pseudonym–if it successfully highlights both the childishness of that approach and the utter lack of Mr. Dilbert qualifications.

            (Also, I’m not a liberal, I’m a leftist, so I’m not intrinsically opposed to that sort of argument. Emotional propaganda is a natural part of politics, as is ridiculing the emotional propaganda from opposing camps)

          • TheWorst says:

            if it successfully highlights both the childishness of that approach and the utter lack of Mr. Dilbert qualifications.

            The evidence is that it didn’t do that–it instead just made people wonder who you were talking about, and/or whether you knew who you were talking about.

            But if you really think he was right to do it, why are you criticizing him? Why do you want to demonstrate the childishness of that approach if you think it was the right approach?

          • herbert herbertson says:

            The evidence is that it didn’t do that–it instead just made people wonder who you were talking about, and/or whether you knew who you were talking about.

            But that suggests that the person asking didn’t know who Scott Adams was, either, which means it was a good idea to at least bring up the fact that he’s a comic strip author rather than some kind of respected intellectual.

            I’d add that the top result for “scott dilbert” and “scott adams” is the same blog, so I’m not sure how substantive/genuine that confusion was.

            But if you really think he was right to do it, why are you criticizing him? Why do you want to demonstrate the childishness of that approach if you think it was the right approach?

            Taking an action that simultaneously reduces the prestige of both my one-off pseudonym and of a moderately influential blogger and comic strip author who is vigorously advocating various things I dislike seems like a good deal for me to make. That’s doubly true when my viewpoint is in the minority here–my name is already mud. Triply true when you compare the implications of me, a random internet commenter who neither has nor is seeking power, indulging in a little bit of smarmy assholery vs. a presidential candidate or aspiring national-level political commentator doing so. Quadruply so when you add in the fact that “dilbert” isn’t actually a general purpose insult like “little/low-energy/crooked,” and its author is probably reasonably proud of his work even as he tries to rebrand himself as a “persuasion” “expert.”

          • TheWorst says:

            But that suggests that the person asking didn’t know who Scott Adams was, either…

            No, it suggests that the person didn’t know if you knew that Scott Adams’ last name is Adams, and/or if you were referring to some other person. I had a similar confusion myself.

            Taking an action that simultaneously reduces the prestige of both my one-off pseudonym and of a moderately influential blogger and comic strip author…

            What I was pointing out is that it only did one of those things, and made at least two people–which is, I should note, the sum total of the people who responded to you directly–somewhat confused about what you were talking about.

            The point here, though, is that if you think Scott Adams is doing something wrong, then obviously you wouldn’t want to be like him and you’d know that you shouldn’t do what he’s doing. And if you think he’s doing something right, then why on Earth would you want to reduce his prestige?

            Is Scott Adams a good person to imitate, or isn’t he? It seems like at least one of us is very confused on that subject.

          • herbert herbertson says:

            No, it suggests that the person didn’t know if you knew that Scott Adams’ last name is Adams, and/or if you were referring to some other person. I had a similar confusion myself.

            I don’t really understand this. If you know who Scott Adams is, then you know he’s the author of Dilbert, and if you know he’s the author of Dilbert, how could you be confused at someone talking about “Scott Dilbert” in direct response to a post referencing Scott Adams?

            The point here, though, is that if you think Scott Adams is doing something wrong, then obviously you wouldn’t want to be like him and you’d know that you shouldn’t do what he’s doing. And if you think he’s doing something right, then why on Earth would you want to reduce his prestige?

            I think that making up nicknames instead of calling people by their actual name is the move of a smarmy, arrogant asshole. I have a natural human inclination to sometimes be a smarmy, arrogant asshole. If I were a bodhisattva, I would completely suppress that impulse; if I were a sociopathic prick, I would always indulge it. Since I happen to be something in between, I mostly fight it but occasionally let loose on the targets who I feel deserve it by, e.g., outright advocating the behavior in question.

          • Artificirius says:

            Taking an action that simultaneously reduces the prestige of both my one-off pseudonym and of a moderately influential blogger and comic strip author who is vigorously advocating various things I dislike seems like a good deal for me to make.

            As would making a variety of accusations, or posing as him whilst behaving badly, doxxing, or any umber of similar tactics. Yet I think most people would argue this is something that should not be done. Why?

          • “but occasionally let loose on the targets who I feel deserve it by, e.g., outright advocating the behavior in question.”

            On you, for instance?

          • herbert herbertson says:

            Oh, for fuck’s sake, I’m not going to apologize for making extremely light fun of a mediocre cartoonist who is pretending expertise and accordingly supplying bullshit talking points to Trump’s internet defenders. Let go of your pearls.

          • TheWorst says:

            Is Scott Adams a good person to imitate, or is he not a good person to imitate?

            Flouncingly refusing to apologize and accusing everyone else of taking him too seriously is another of his routine behaviors.

      • Corey says:

        “I don’t see why you’re ignoring the general question of temperament.”

        -Because it’s total BS, confusing, as Scott Adams points out, typical New Yorker verbal style with inability to control one’s thoughts.

        Is this an argument *for* putting him in charge of a nation’s diplomacy?

      • neonwattagelimit says:

        Because it’s total BS, confusing, as Scott Adams points out, typical New Yorker verbal style with inability to control one’s thoughts.

        I am from New York and I know many other people from New York and none of them speak like Donald Trump, unless by “verbal style” you are simply referring to the pronunciation of the word “yuge.” As someone else has already pointed out, Scott Adams is not a linguist or historian nor does he have any particular connection to New York City and so it seems weird to cite him on this subject as though he were some kind of expert.

        • E. Harding says:

          So who does speak like Mr. Trump?

          • neonwattagelimit says:

            So who does speak like Mr. Trump?

            Donald Trump?

            Being a bit more serious, I think his “style” such as it is – including, but not limited, to his verbal style – is highly reminiscent of reality television. The bombast, the boastfulness, the disregard for decorum in the interest if gaining attention, etc. Although Trump was like this before reality television was a thing. He’s sort of like P.T. Barnum for the internet age, maybe?

            I’m really just speculating here, though. While I’m probably more qualified than Scott Adams to opine on the speech patterns of New Yorkers, I’m not really more qualified than anyone else to say who speaks like Trump or why.

    • Zakharov says:

      > This is flatly inaccurate; Trump did not consistently oppose the Iraq war before it began.

      It’s how he earned the reputation, even if the reputation is inaccurate.

      > I don’t see why you’re ignoring the general question of temperament.

      Scott covered that pretty thoroughly yesterday.

    • Urstoff says:

      Right. It’s probably not smart to elect a president who is more thin-skinned than a four year old.

    • Scott Alexander says:

      Trump has earned a reputation for isolationism by criticizing the Iraq War today. I neither said nor implied he criticized it at the time, and I think later I mention offhand that he didn’t. I didn’t make a big deal out of this because his early support of it was weak and lukewarm and he didn’t talk about it much, so it doesn’t seem fair to make it into a big deal.

    • onyomi says:

      More general question re. “temperament,” since it seems to be pretty key for Scott’s argument here: can we point to any historical examples where a president’s bad “temperament,” as opposed to much bigger considerations and motivations on the part of many people (whether noble or nefarious) actually got us into a war? I’m not saying it’s never happened, just that nothing obvious comes to mind.

      Wars seem generally to be the result of long buildup of a bunch of rhetoric coming from a big political faction. Bush Jr, for example, had to make a big deal of WMDs for a time and with support from a sizable segment of his party (and in the wake of a terror attack which made Americans in general much more receptive to such things than normal). He couldn’t just get triggered by a mean tweet from Saddam and hit the “WAR!” button.

      I can’t think of any examples where a president, on his own initiative, and because of say, a personal sleight, just took us into war. Of course, it’s possible Trump will be the most uniquely unstable and awful president ever, but if it’s never happened before, it seems less likely Trump would succeed in doing it, even if he wanted to.

      • Sandy says:

        It’s not an American example, but Kaiser Wilhelm II’s poor temperament was considered one of the factors that aggravated the balance of power in Europe and tipped the continent toward World War I.

        • mjg235 says:

          But there is no historically credible explanation that Kaiser Wilhelm’s temperament caused it. The assassination of Franz Ferdinand, and the accumulated mutual protection treaties precipitated the whole thing. So his point still stands.

          • Sandy says:

            A lot of tension in Europe and the surrounding areas came about as a result of Wilhelm’s attitude towards the balance of power. He refused to renew vital treaties that Bismarck had established to keep Germany at peace with Russia and hold France at bay, both because he disliked Bismarck and also because he felt his personal diplomatic skills were sufficient. He antagonized France by trying to push German influence in French Africa, and a large part of his decision to openly encourage Austria to destroy Serbia was rooted in bluster about wanting to appear tough in front of the Russians.

            He did not cause World War I by himself, but he aggravated existing tensions.

          • neonwattagelimit says:

            I’m kind of repeating Sandy’s point here but it seems reasonable to argue that Kaiser Wilhelm’s temperament created the conditions in which a small disruption such as the assassination of Franz Ferdinand could trigger a massive global conflict.

            Also, modern military technology means that it’s possible for a leader to inflict significant damage without mass mobilization. Trump could launch a bunch of missiles toward somewhere that hurt his feelings without getting Congressional approval or undertaking significant mobilization of ground forces. It’s not too hard to imagine a scenario in which such an action quickly escalates into all-out conflict.

            Really, this is probably the single most important argument against Trump: Even if the odds of him doing something like this are only double those of Clinton (and that’s being conservative, in my view), it’s too much of a risk.

          • E. Harding says:

            “Really, this is probably the single most important argument against Trump: Even if the odds of him doing something like this are only double those of Clinton (and that’s being conservative, in my view), it’s too much of a risk.”

            -As I have repeatedly pointed out above, the odds of Trump doing something like this are less than a third of those of Clinton.

            “was rooted in bluster about wanting to appear tough in front of the Russians.”

            -Seems especially pertinent, doesn’t it?

            “Trump could launch a bunch of missiles toward somewhere that hurt his feelings without getting Congressional approval or undertaking significant mobilization of ground forces.”

            -Far more likely with Clinton, given the Republican House and Pence’s support for getting congressional approval for interventions.

            All you have, neonwattagelimit are arguments from fictional evidence. I have arguments from real evidence.

            http://lesswrong.com/lw/k9/the_logical_fallacy_of_generalization_from/

            Clinton is too much of a risk. Rubio is far too much of a risk. Tom Cotton is basically Hitler (and I mean it). Christie is very dangerous and ignorant. Trump is the safest pick the Republicans could have made.

          • neonwattagelimit says:

            All you have, neonwattagelimit are arguments from fictional evidence. I have arguments from real evidence.

            No, I don’t, and no, you don’t.

            1) Your standard for “fictional evidence” here appears to extend to “any hypothetical scenario which extrapolates from existing information.” This is what I was doing. The LW link appears to be a warning against using actual fiction, as in, like, a movie, as evidence in an argument. These two things are not the same.

            2) If we were to accept the “any hypothetical scenario counts as fictional evidence” standard, your argument makes no sense because Trump has no real foreign policy record. He has said some things, but he has never engaged in the development or implementation of foreign policy or diplomacy or war at all. He hasn’t carefully studied it. So if we were to apply that standard, this entire discussion is pointless because all evidence regarding Trump is, in effect, fictional.

            3) I know what you believe. I’ve read your posts here and in the other thread. The mental gymnastics that you have done to justify your support for Trump in this area are truly a thing to behold; you are quite intellectually creative. I don’t expect that I will be able to convince you that you are wrong. Other posters have successfully pointed out holes in your argument; you do not appear interested in considering them. You may want to consider why this is.

            4) What do I believe about Trump and foreign policy? Re-read Scott’s original post.

          • E. Harding says:

            “So if we were to apply that standard, this entire discussion is pointless because all evidence regarding Trump is, in effect, fictional.”

            -No.

            Stuff Trump has actually said:
            “The last person to use nuclear would be Donald Trump. That’s the way I feel. I think it’s a horrible thing.”

            Now here’s what you said:
            “Trump could launch a bunch of missiles toward somewhere that hurt his feelings”

            -Has Trump even remotely indicated that? Anywhere? You should cite evidence from this campaign season, not the Bush era. If anything, he’s been more cautious towards launching a bunch of missiles toward somewhere that hurt his feelings than Clinton.

            “Re-read Scott’s original post.”

            -I was the first person to respond to Scott’s original post and refute many of its points. I know what it says.

            “as in, like, a movie, as evidence in an argument”

            -And what do those sci-fi movies do? They invent hypothetical scenarios which extrapolate from existing information. Just like you did.

            “Other posters have successfully pointed out holes in your argument;”

            -What posters? What holes successfully pointed out?

            “you do not appear interested in considering them.”

            -Quite the contrary. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have commented so much here.

    • onyomi says:

      Re. opposing the Iraq War, this sort of video before the invasion seems to reflect his ambivalence prior to the invasion in a way which can’t be described as “Trump hates being a loser.” He wouldn’t yet know how successful an Iraq intervention would be at that time, and, as for a strong, consistent, principled stance, I’m not sure why one would expect that of him given he wasn’t holding or running for any office at the time.

      His main point seems to be “focus on the economy here at home and not on this war, which I’m not sure is a good idea.” He does, somewhat worrisomely, imply that the problem is the debate about whether or not to go to war is going on too long, which could be an argument for him being temperamentally inclined to rushing into war if he’s going to do so, but I think the whole “go in, win, leave,” is a very typical line since Vietnam, more typical of those less inclined toward intervention and nation building.

      Overall, to my mind, this 2003 video supports the “more interested in focusing at home, talking and trading with e. g. Putin, and not getting involved in unnecessary international imbroglio” interpretation of Trump than the reverse.

      • jsmith says:

        sad that the most informed comments get ignored, and instead everyone just argues with harding.

        • E. Harding says:

          Not true, my comments are well-informed, maybe the most informed, and I argue with everyone apparently more than the reverse.

          • TheWorst says:

            If you were an equally-vociferous Trump supporter in 2012, there would be a chance that your output here was anything other than mindless tribal cheerleading. And if you were, it’d be easy to link us to an equivalent amount of your pro-Trump posts from that time. Got any?

            Given that Trump is in no way a different person than he was in 2012, the only difference is that Red Tribe picked him as their figurehead. There’s no actual reason to support him now that didn’t exist in 2012. Did you do so then?

          • E. Harding says:

            “Given that Trump is in no way a different person than he was in 2012,”

            -Fact-check: false. In so many ways.

        • Jill says:

          Word. You are absolutely right, jsmith. What is it about his and other iron clad Trump supporters that makes us want to argue with him? What is it about ourselves that makes us want to argue with such a person? I did it a lot, and it got me nowhere.

          Maybe we can have a 12 Step group.

          “My name is Jill and I’m a compulsive arguer with iron clad Trump supporters. I have come to accept that I am powerless over my compulsion to argue with iron clad Trump supporters. I give myself up to my Higher Power or my Rationality or something, and ask for its help in overcoming this compulsion. Let go and let God, or let go and let rationality… or whatever.”

          • Corey says:

            SSC definitely activates my “someone is wrong on the Internet!” syndrome. I don’t know if there are any online support groups for SIWOTI; if there are they probably get bogged down in flamewars and interminable arguments.

      • Iain says:

        To the extent that Trump has a consistent stance in that interview, it is that the president should stop waffling and make up his mind. He is extremely non-committal about whether or not the war is a good idea. He does mention that perhaps it would be good to wait for the UN, which I would count as a point in his favour. On the other hand, he also asks why we don’t just pull a MacArthur and attack already. (I don’t think you can read much into his discussion of the economy; “We should improve the economy” is the safest thing you can say in American politics, and in any case the interviewer is the one who brings up the economy in the first place.)

        The interview is strong evidence for neither hawkish Trump nor non-interventionist Trump. I would argue that the main take-away here, in terms of Trump’s temperament, is his impatience. He wants a decision to be made, he doesn’t particularly care which way it goes, and – importantly – he does not provide any insight into the grounds on which he thinks that decision should be based.

        I would also point out that the only two pieces of information I can discern that he brings into the conversation that are not explicitly mentioned in the questions he is asked are a) waiting for the UN is one of the options on the table and b) polls show people are getting impatient. (I don’t even know whether the second one is true, but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.)

        To be clear, I think almost none of this counts as a point against Trump. He is, as you say, not running for or holding office. But I don’t see much here that would count in his favour, either.

        PS: Viewed through the lens of not wanting to be a loser, you could see this as Trump hedging his bets in a way that will allow him to take partial credit, no matter what ends up happening.

    • akarlin says:

      6) Russia will then respond by declaring war, even though they would obviously lose either a convention or a nuclear war, and even though they’ve already ignored a NATO country shooting down their plane

      This is assuming that Russia will foolishly decide to try to fight a war in Syria, where CENTCOM is dominant, as opposed to Ukraine or even the Baltics, where the balance of forces is in its favor.

      The Turkish situation is completely incomparable because the Russian plane did violate its border however briefly. The US doing the same over the skies of Syria will be completely illegal and if Putin fails to credibly retaliate, his domestic position will be under threat.

  11. zz says:

    You can’t get paid if you’re dead.

    If Clinton is really in the pocket of big corporations, then she will do things that won’t lead to nuclear war, because big corporations can’t make money if they’ve been blown up.

    (No clue to what degree Clinton is in the pockets of big corporations; I’m pretty good about not coming within 100 metres of politics. But my understanding is that she’s the establishment candidate. The establishment has the most to lose from MAD.)

    • E. Harding says:

      “If Clinton is really in the pocket of big corporations, then she will do things that won’t lead to nuclear war, because big corporations can’t make money if they’ve been blown up.”

      -That’s what you might think, but, for some reason, the White college-educated generally tend to favor more risky candidates on foreign policy, like Goldwater and Rubio.

      “The establishment has the most to lose from MAD.”

      -Thus said the Englishman of 1913. Sometimes the establishment just doesn’t know it’s nuts.

      • Harry says:

        Don’t be disingenuous, please. The Englishmen of 1913 did not worry about MAD because MAD, as a concept, did not exist until nuclear weapons were invented. WW1 was a brutal and bloody war, but it killed fewer people than the Spanish flu a couple years later, and most of the dead were soldiers. The survival of entire countries and civilian populations was never at risk.

        Corporations worldwide ultimately profited from World War 1, and were never at risk of being destroyed. Conversely, corporations do not make a lot of money when their country is nuked into a radioactive wasteland.

        • The original Mr. X says:

          People didn’t worry about MAD specifically, but there were people who thought that any likely war between the great powers would be so big and costly that the powers would avoid going to war. Many people thought similar things during the inter-war period. So no, I don’t think E. Harding’s argument can reasonably be described as disingenuous.

          • Harry says:

            People were proved wrong about this once, yes. That was before nuclear weapons existed. Now that nuclear weapons exist, we have had a 70-year era of peace unmatched by any before it.

            MAD is very different from “big and costly.” The war in Iraq was “big and costly,” but it didn’t involve 1-2 billion deaths, the collapse of Western civilization, and a century of winter. The slightly more sensible (read: not Trump) parts of the establishment have proven themselves entirely willing to embark on “big and costly” military ventures, but not ones that involve MAD.

            Citing an example from over 100 years ago is absolutely disingenuous when it’s not backed up by any additional context or attempt to make it relevant to 2016.

        • >Corporations worldwide ultimately profited from World War 1

          I bet British corporations didn’t. And even if they did many sons of British corporate executives died in WWI, and many daughters of these executives died from the Spanish flu. I doubt you believe that Russian corporations benefited from the war.

      • Wrong Species says:

        That comparison doesn’t do you any favors. Nationalists were to blame for WW1, not corporations.

  12. 27chaos says:

    Trump’s remarks on nuclear weapons use are being taken out of context here and generally are misunderstood. In context, he was saying that he is unwilling to commit the US to a No First Use policy, because we want to keep all our options on the table. This is consistent with standard US policy for the last sixty years.

    However, it’s worth noting that if Trump is bad at clearly communicating his intentions for our nuclear weapons to the public, that is its own strike against him, even if he does not intend to use them first.

    • E. Harding says:

      Trump actually remarked on the no-first-use policy in one of the last questions on the debate.

    • qwints says:

      Watch the response from the debate – he first said he liked a no first use policy then said all options were on the table.

  13. Sandy says:

    I’ve said on the latest OT that I think the next President has to handle Syria anyway, and I’d honestly prefer *doing it right* to doing it halfheartedly. If that requires troops, overwhelming force and a sustained presence while the country is rebuilt from the ground up, so be it. Hopefully we’ve learned something from Iraq. Half-measures won’t do it. The alternative is to leave it to Russia and Iran to finish off ISIS (frankly I think Assad needs to stay) which I’m fine with, but most liberals will be aghast about Assad getting away with “war crimes!” or whatever.

    I say “half-measures won’t do it” because I think that’s been the source of a lot of Middle East chaos over the last few years — the American government hesitating and dithering and taking half-hearted measures has emboldened insurgent groups and put the pressure to act on local allies, an onus that sounds good on paper (as Bernie Sanders thought) but turns out to be a bad idea when you consider that these allies run delicate systems prone to collapse in the face of such pressure. Quote from King Abdullah of Jordan, one of those “moderate allies” in the Middle East — “I think I believe in American power more than Obama does.”

    I’m not sure why people get so worked up over the “Let’s take Libya’s oil” idea, as if it is some uniquely awful thing that could only have come out of Trump’s mind — Neera Tanden advocated exactly the same thing back in 2011 with the argument that the American government could either take Libya’s oil as payment for intervention or be forced to start cutting social programs back home. “We live in deficit politics so we either take the oil or cut Head Start and Medicaid” was her quote, or something of that sort. Tanden is one of Clinton’s closest advisers and her thinking chimes pretty closely to Hillary’s “It’s time to start thinking of Iraq as a business opportunity.” I don’t know how Woke it is to fund Great Society programs by pillaging African nations, but the Left is the authority on wokeness so I’ll defer to their expertise. This might be the sort of thing that happens regardless of who wins the 2016 election. Might as well get reconciled to the idea.

    I think Russia and China are two of the best rivals you could hope for under the circumstances, because even though they have a lot of regional power and are opposed to a lot of American interests in their spheres of influence, they are for the most part run by rational people. This has never been true for the Arab world. To some extent it is true for Iran, in that their siege mentality has made them a lot more pragmatic than the rest of the Middle East, but I do not think the Fertile Crescent and its surrounding areas are ever going to be fit for anything more than autocrats and intermittent genocides. The American government should just let the dictators have free rein over their turf and stay out of it as much as possible. Your fantasies of liberal democracy will not play out there.

    I haven’t seen anything from the Democrats this cycle that has made me hopeful for US-Russia relations. They are openly hostile to Russia and it seems they have given up on seeking a deescalation of tensions. Hillary’s website mostly brags up about how she’s faced down Putin before and is ready to do so again.

    • E. Harding says:

      Bingo, bingo, bingo.

    • Zakharov says:

      *Can* you even profitably pillage oil? Wouldn’t the cost of protecting the oil from an extremely angry population (oil being extremely flammable) be greater than the value of the oil?

      I think the sensible approach in Syria, and the approach Clinton’s most likely to take, is to stop ISIS from attacking Rojava.

      • Sandy says:

        The logistics are a mystery to me, although it seems there are already some in the USG who think it can be done.

        Oh yes, the sensible approach to stop ISIS is to wade into the Kurdish issue. That definitely won’t devolve into a standoff with the Turks.

        • Julian says:

          The current oil production of Iraq is 3.3 million barrels per day (this about 1/3 of US production).

          Iraq has 140 BILLION barrels in proven reserves. It would take 116 years at current production to “pillage” the oil in Iraq.

          If you double production thats still over 50 years. To get production high enough to grab all the oil in less than 20 years you are talking about making Iraq the world largest oil producer. Not to mention that building up that capacity would take 20 years or more to begin with.

      • anon says:

        The mere fact that you are using the term “Rojava” is laden with political significance that is worth at least remarking upon.

      • Tekhno says:

        Focusing on protecting Rojava and the National-Anarcho-Syndicalist Kurds is the feel good version of fighting ISIS.

        The realist version is letting Assad take back his country by not enforcing a NFZ and helping him annihilate ISIS along with Russia. Of course… we need to help the people of Syria/Libya/Iraq overthrow Assad/Gadaffi/Saddam because this is the “best way to help Israel deal with Iran’s growing nuclear capability”, so this isn’t actually going to happen.

        Instead, we’ll get some humanist propaganda about the feminist-syndicalist-democratic-nationalist-somethingist Kurdtopia and how we need to protect the pretty women and throw all of our resources at the Kurds, who will promptly fail, be swamped by ISIS, and have all of the weapons and resources we gave them confiscated.

        • E. Harding says:

          Kurds have been more successful than the largely ineffective Syrian government in terms of winning over the past couple years. But, thing is, they’re not gonna take Raqqa. They’re probably not going to take Deir-ez-Zor, either. Only the Syrian government is a realistic candidate for eradicating the Islamic State in these cities and the villages surrounding them.

      • Adam says:

        I mean, if one were to build new pumps, pipeline corridors, and ports, and establish 1km+ killzones around them, plus some air strikes to take care of mortars and artillery, it should be doable.

        Most of the challenges we’ve faced in the middle east could have been avoided if we were willing to kill a couple million civilians.

        Mostly a devils advocate comment, but yeah.

      • Theo Jones says:

        “*Can* you even profitably pillage oil? Wouldn’t the cost of protecting the oil from an extremely angry population (oil being extremely flammable) be greater than the value of the oil?”

        Lots of resource-curse type dictatorships manage to pull it off.

      • mjg235 says:

        So, an interesting thing I have learned since investing in oil companies in the downturn is that Iraq’s oil production has increasingly been developed by independent oil companies like ExxonMobil. The fact is the nation is drained of capital since the war, and petroleum production is massively capital intensive. They can’t spend the > $2 million dollars to drill and complete each well, and then the considerable variable costs to operate them. So they start allowing external companies to establish operating interests in the fields.

        What will happen is not the military swooping in, dismantling the Iraqi National Oil Corporation (or the equivalent for Libya), and claiming the oilfields for the US. We will simply destroy the economy of the country involved, and then be the most viable option when they want to rebuild.

    • Deiseach says:

      The problem with pragmatic backing of the strong man dictator is when the US changes its mind. The Shah was America’s man due to the US and UK-backed coup which overthrew the democratically elected president who had nationalised the Iranian oil industry; the coup allowed foreign firms back in to take over the oil industry. See how well that turned out.

      Hussein himself was the US’s strong man in the region until he fell out of favour. Look at the outcome there.

      And now you’re seriously saying “Let’s back Assad as our strong man in the region”? Unless you mean to prop him up until he dies of old age (and isn’t executed or driven into exile by a popular rebellion, or you change your minds about supporting him), that isn’t going to work any better.

      Putin would probably be more pragmatically brutal about telling Assad (and letting the rest of the world know) that “You’re our guy now. Do as we say in stuff that concerns us, and we’ll support you with arms and the back-up of Russian troops on the ground should that be needed. Cross us, and we’ll let the crows pick your bones” with no pretence that this was about democracy or nation-building (the fig-leaf American politics needs to sell their interventions for their own interests to their public).

      • Sandy says:

        Overthrowing Mossadegh was a bad idea because Iran was fine when he was running it. The motive there was just needless greed. Overthrowing Gaddafi was an even worse idea because the motive there was “human rights”, which is harder to argue against except in hindsight when everything goes to hell. However bad Gaddafi was, he kept an iron order in a violent part of the world, and the UN and NATO replaced that order with unending chaos. They intervened because Gaddafi was going to slaughter those who rebelled against him; they saw it as their duty to prevent this slaughter, and as a result they destabilized the entire country and paved the way for butchers even Gaddafi would have balked at.

        This was Gaddafi in a recorded video to NATO and the EU the day before he was killed:

        “You’re bombing a wall which stood in the way of African migration to Europe, and in the way of Al Qaeda terrorists. This wall was Libya. You‘re breaking it. You’re idiots, and you will burn in Hell for thousands of migrants from Africa and for supporting Al Qaeda. It will be so. I never lie. And I do not lie now.”

        The man knew how his country worked and what the role he played in the region was. Those who yearned to be on the right side of history knew neither of these things.

        To be clear — I am not talking about backing strongmen. I am talking about leaving strongmen to their own devices.

      • Steven says:

        The Shah was America’s man due to the US and UK-backed coup which overthrew the democratically elected president who had nationalised the Iranian oil industry

        Um, no.

        Moaddesgh was neither a president (he was the prime minister; the Shah was still the head of state) nor at the time of his removal a democratically-elected anything (he had illegally suspended parliamentary elections in order to retain power, then run a blatantly fixed referendum — 99.9% to 0.1% — to suspend the Iranian Parliament and give himself the power to rule by decree).

        The subsequent “coup” was the Shah exercising his constitutional prerogative to remove a prime minister and the army subsequently enforcing the Iranian Constitution against Moaddesgh’s efforts to retain power illegally.

        • anon says:

          While I do not know the fine points of Iranian law, it’s odd to use scare quotes to minimize a coup that even the CIA now admits it played an active role in promoting. See, for example, https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/19/cia-admits-it-was-behind-irans-coup/ (hardly a fringe source).

          So fine, go ahead and argue — if you must — that 1950s US policy towards Iran was wise, despite decades of blowback that it caused. But don’t play Orwellian word games.

      • Tekhno says:

        The problem with pragmatic backing of the strong man dictator is when the US changes its mind.

        Then the US should stop changing its mind. Strong institutions and established powers are better for Middle Eastern stability and anti-terrorism than trying to spread democracy, which usually ends up with Islamist parties being elected, and confused Westerners going “I thought democracy meant what we have?”

        • Garrett says:

          The poli-sci term for what we have in the West is a “liberal democracy”. Unfortunately, that liberal part is rarely emphasized and involves the technical/philosophical understanding of liberalism. This is in contrast to various forms of Liberal parties or “liberal” when trying to contrast a political candidate.

  14. Dr Dealgood says:

    One thing I’m curious about, given the spotlight on Trump’s “keep the oil” mantra:

    What would an Iraq explicitly occupied for the purpose of oil extraction look like relative to the real-world nation-building in Iraq? What would the Syrian civil war look like now if it had been promise of oil and not democracy which motivated American intervention?

    I’m hard-pressed to say it sounds worse. If nothing else there would be an achievable goal.

    America shouldn’t be in the buisness of running a global empire. Knocking over tin-pot dictators on the opposite side of the globe doesn’t do a damn bit of good for the American people. But if that’s going to happen anyway, why not turn it into a source of revenue rather than an endless black hole of debt?

    • Zombielicious says:

      I expect it would actually be far worse. You can see how things turned out when we went in, destroyed most of their institutions, then put in a half-hearted effort to rebuilding them ourselves (the Vice documentary This is What Winning Looks Like is good for this). Now imagine that we destroyed all the institutions, didn’t even make the half-hearted effort at replacing them, and impoverished the country further by stealing their most valuable natural resources. Think of how much stronger the domestic opposition to the war would have been, how much stronger the narrative about the U.S. as an imperialist power out to destroy and impoverish the Arab world for its own gain would be, and how much stronger terrorist and insurgent recruitment would be as a result of all that. Also how other countries would react in the future when there was even the slightest possibility that the U.S. might want to “get involved.”

      So yeah, I expect things would have been substantially worse (ignoring whatever selfish gains the U.S. got out of the theft). This also serves as a reply to Sandy’s comment above about why people get so upset about the “take the oil” narrative.

      • E. Harding says:

        “Think of how much stronger the domestic opposition to”

        -You did mean support for?

        “how much stronger the narrative about the U.S. as an imperialist power out to destroy and impoverish the Arab world for its own gain would be”

        -Narratives with what stronger armies?

        “and how much stronger terrorist and insurgent recruitment would be as a result of all that.”

        -It was already pretty strong, and the U.S. could have used the oil revenue to weaken it.

        • Matthew says:

          Narratives where the rest of the world doesn’t think that Islamic terrorists are insane killers but actually legit freedom fighters.

          The US would be like apartheid South Africa in the late 80’s as far as our international standing went.

      • Wency says:

        Indeed. In some circles, I think there is a certain nostalgia for the Age of Imperialism:

        “If they’re going to hate us anyway, we might as well take their stuff and use it to fund an occupation.”

        But whatever the merits of imperialism might be, that age is over, at least for the West. The entire culture revolts against it, even if we technically still have the material resources to make it happen (though the West was a much larger share of world population in those days).

        If there is ever another Age of Imperialism, it will be another civilization that leads it.

    • Deiseach says:

      What would an Iraq explicitly occupied for the purpose of oil extraction look like relative to the real-world nation-building in Iraq?

      See the 1953 coup in Iran which brought back the Pahlavi Shahs in return for access to the previously nationalised oil industry (though to be fair, fears about Communist influence were also involved on the part of the US):

      As a condition for restoring the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, in 1954 the U.S. required removal of the AIOC’s monopoly; five American petroleum companies, Royal Dutch Shell, and the Compagnie Française des Pétroles, were to draw Iran’s petroleum after the successful coup d’état —Operation Ajax. The Shah declared this to be a “victory” for Iranians, with the massive influx of money from this agreement resolving the economic collapse from the last three years, and allowing him to carry out his planned modernization projects.

      The New York Times approved! And indeed the part I’ve bolded below could be easily re-purposed for the Trump campaign:

      “Costly as the dispute over Iranian oil has been to all concerned, the affair may yet be proved worthwhile if lessons are learned from it: Underdeveloped countries with rich resources now have an object lesson in the heavy cost that must be paid by one of their number which goes berserk with fanatical nationalism. It is perhaps too much to hope that Iran’s experience will prevent the rise of Mossadeghs in other countries, but that experience may at least strengthen the hands of more reasonable and more far-seeing leaders. In some circles in Great Britain the charge will be pushed that American ‘imperialism’ — in the shape of the American oil firms in the consortium!—has once again elbowed Britain from a historic stronghold.”

      Worked okay for a while (nearly thirty years in fact), but the programme of secularisation (presumably on the model of what Kemal Attaturk did in Turkey) provoked resentment amongst the rural and lower classes, and there were opposition forces in exile and in the country waiting, willing and able to take advantage. Half-arsed incompetent repression only stoked further grievance and open rebellion, the US and UK didn’t for various reasons send military aid to their man on the throne, and appeasement such as inviting back the Ayatollah Khomeini eventually ended up as we all know in the 1979 Revolution.

      Then Iraq and Hussein became America’s allies against the Iranians, and away we go.

      • Jaskologist says:

        Worked okay for a while (nearly thirty years in fact), but the programme of secularisation provoked resentment amongst the rural and lower classes, and there were opposition forces in exile and in the country waiting, willing and able to take advantage. Half-arsed incompetent repression only stoked further grievance …

        My, doesn’t that sound familiar?

    • keranih says:

      Leaving aside the responsibility of the big ape in the room to make other apes stop beating the weak one to death…

      What would an Iraq explicitly occupied for the purpose of oil extraction look like relative to the real-world nation-building in Iraq?

      I suggest that our initial movement into Iraq would be as it was, because –

      – bananna-nation bombings aside –

      – the USA doesn’t spend money and lives on material treasures. We like to use them to buy moral superiority, a fair better – if more fleeting – high. So we would not have gone into Iraq for oil, but we certainly could have decided to reform its petrolum sector while we were there, with an eye to getting a share of the profits.

      A true reform/rebuilding of the sector would have required repair and construct of a lot of infrastructure – including roads and admin buildings. It would have required building schools for training locals as oil workers – which would have been a decade long process at the least. It would have meant shifting large parts of the population into emperical, science-based thinking, and that would have taken even longer. It would have meant shifting the whole region away from tribal/clan loyalties and towards merit based promotions, and that would have taken until never.

      Along the way, Iraqis would have been re-inventing their local elections, changing how they deal with utilities (they still haven’t convinced the low-wage worker that electricity costs money, and isn’t something the state provides for free) and trying hard to change their environmental codes.

      And all of this would have been in the context of an Iran that hates the idea of a powerful & wealthy Iraq, and of a Syria upstream that was still imploding. And at some point – after the yearly profits from the oil outstripped the yearly American investment, but before the US had recooped any more than a fraction of the trillions they had invested – the Iraqis would have nationalized the industries again, and told the Americans to bugger off. Because that’s what happens.

      So, had we decided to stay and put in the work to get the oil out of the ground, we’d still be there, Iraq would be more wealthy, safe, and stable, our relations with Iran would be far closer to “open shooting war” and Syria would not be much better.

      The one upside is that with the USA still invested in Iraqi, so that we looked like a going concern, Turkey might have been persuaded to ignore the development of a Kurdish state outside its borders, in return for keeping the Syrian mess sorta contained.

      And with the example of Iraq voting freely & effectively, we might have had a more lasting outcome from the Arab Spring. The downside is that Iraqi oil could have prevented the oil spike that allowed American fracking to take off, which has broken a couple of the petrol states and threatens others.

      Wheels and wheels and wheels.

    • Tekhno says:

      @Dr Dealgood

      America shouldn’t be in the buisness of running a global empire. Knocking over tin-pot dictators on the opposite side of the globe doesn’t do a damn bit of good for the American people. But if that’s going to happen anyway, why not turn it into a source of revenue rather than an endless black hole of debt?

      This is exactly why all the people saying that America is a closet Empire are wrong; if the United States were a real Empire it wouldn’t be having these kinds of problems (it would be having whole new ones, but that’s another story…). Instead, the USA is not an Empire, it is a large and powerful nation that blunders around projecting its strength without actually controlling or ruling anything. If the USA decided to stop blundering around smashing things it would have to let war crimes happen, but if the USA wants to continue blundering around smashing things, then it should probably stay and fix them afterwards and get a little revenue for itself so the job doesn’t turn into a money sink.

      This is why a lot of Bush era critiques about the Iraq War being for oil are wrong. If the Iraq War was really done for oil then it wouldn’t have been such a gigantic money sink and cause of chaos and disorder in the region. The Iraq War was done for exactly the humanitarian reasons its architects claimed it was done for. The USA cannot be an Empire because that would require it to do nasty colonial things like permanently occupying and governing territories while exploiting their resources to pay for it. The USA cannot do these things for the exact same humanitarian reasons that it blunders about the world attacking dictators for being dictators. The USA can prop up countries for realpolitik reasons, but only for so long, only until public opinion turns, because deontological humanism requires that realpolitik be sacrificed at the altar of feelings. Those very same feelings then prevent the United States from actually running the countries it destroys, leaving the same power vacuums, time after time after time, with extremely predictable results.

      The USA has three things it can do:
      1: What the USA is doing now. Continue toppling dictators in the name of enlightenment ideals and then in the name of those very same ideals, refusing to occupy the territories afterwards. This means you get increasing chaos and more groups like ISIS. Out of all the options this leads to the most death.
      2: Stop toppling dictators in the name of enlightenment ideals. This would mean that you’d have to resist your populace’s calls for war when they see burnt babies on the nightly news. You’d have to be able to tell the public that, yes, it’s horrible, but that whole region is filled with bad ideas, and this terrible guy who’s in now is actually preferable to the kinds of people likely to replace him. You’d have to do this without being voted out of power.
      3: Become an actual Empire, topple the dictators, and replace them with a permanent US administration. This would mean you’d have to oppress the indigenous populations by taking away the political freedoms they already don’t have, but you’d presumably be oppressing them less than ISIS in option 1, and less than Saddam/Assad/Gadaffi in option 2. People will complain about you being colonialist and racist and you might still get voted out of power. Good luck!

      • Alraune says:

        This would mean that you’d have to resist your populace’s calls for war when they see burnt babies on the nightly news.

        …Which is actually extremely easy to do, because the public and media have a combined attention span of LOOK AT TAYLOR SWIFT’S NEW DRESS. The government only is “forced to react” in response to humanitarian outcry when the response conveniently also serves existing interests.

      • herbert herbertson says:

        This misreads the situation entirely. When you have the world’s largest/second largest economy and are home to the capital of world finance and the great bulk of the world’s largest multinational corporations, you don’t need to be so crass as to go in and directly steal resources to be added to the general funds of your nation. You just make sure the markets of your subjects are “free” and “open,” make sure your local compradores understand that your continued support is dependent on not changing that, maybe impose the odd trade deal exporting your legal regime as it applies to commerce and property (e.g., TPP) and let the rest play itself out. You might have to share the spoils a little with the odd Brit or German, but for the most part it does the job of getting the resources to you without having to worry about organizing a Raj or fighting any Mau Maus.

        This is the essence of neoconservatism and neoliberalism, the most effective way by far of running a capitalist superpower without significant opposition. AFIAK, the best technical definitions of this put us in the role of “hegemon” rather than “empire,” but that’s pretty much a distinction of semantics and history rather than of substance.

    • pku says:

      Specifics aside, “How much worse could it be” is one of those questions you never want to ask. It can always, always be worse.

  15. Douglas Knight says:

    Likely she would focus on keeping enough of Syria safe to protect some civilians and prevent more refugees, then use indirect methods to make life miserable for Assad. This seems like as good a plan as any other.

    No, there is a better plan: support Assad. Or just pull out, which amounts to the same thing. Really, there are only two options: Assad or war unending. If Clinton is in favor of war and Trump might or might be in favor of war, that is a case where more variance is better than less variance.

  16. One thing I’m confused about is why Russia seems to prefer Trump to Clinton. Some press converage implies its because they think Clinton will be crazy and start a war. Doesn’t seem especially plausible given this. Is it just because Trump is somewhat friendly to Russian interests? I’m surprised that kind of thing could happen. Thoughts?

    • Anonymous says:

      Clinton wants to mess with Russia’s interests, not to speak of the people she represents and enables. Trump doesn’t and Putin knows that he could handle Trump without much problem if he ever got annoying (Showman vs KGB Vampire.) Neocons have always hated Russia, there’s personal animosity between Clinton and Putin, depending which side one believes, either Clinton is falsely accusing the russians of cyberwarfare for the purposes of election tampering or, well, the russians actually did just that. Trump offers a safer narrative. They’re both aligned with some elements of “tradition”, the SJW left (Which Clinton probably sneers at but definitely empowers.) says that “no gay marriage” = Hitler and the Russians want to keep homosexuality taboo, etc. I believe Russia favours “no half measures” style military interventions in a way the american establishment doesn’t, Trump is flirting with the idea so who knows, one might even see cooperation and actually effective warfare for a change.

      Also, Trump is an ally of Putin by default when it comes to establishing narratives, which is one of the most important aspects of politics. A trump victory helps Putin with his own people, legitimizes him in a way.

      Also, if Trump ends up being a total mess and can’t help Russia directly, it wouldn’t have much of an effect on the world at large (Paranoid liberal hysteria besides… They’re not that important anymore) but it would definitely hurt the legitimacy and stability of the US government, which is always desired by any other power that is not an ally or a parasite, for obvious reasons.

      There’s no real chance of serious war with any candidate, of course. That people are seriously talking about nuclear weapons is hilarious.

      • Deiseach says:

        One thing I’m confused about is why Russia seems to prefer Trump to Clinton.

        I could well see Trump agreeing to take the US out of Syria and let Russia have a free hand there (in return for some kind of trade agreement or other juicy tid-bit). This would serve Trump’s campaigning on “no American blood, no American dollars spent on foreign wars, let the Russians be the ones fighting and dying for a change” and would serve Putin’s interests in making Assad his bitch.

    • Zakharov says:

      If Putin’s worried about Trump starting a nuclear war, he wants to stay on Trump’s good side. It’s unclear whether Putin’s support for Trump helps or hurts Trump.

    • E. Harding says:

      The public statements are pretty big here: Trump’s “wouldn’t it be great if we could get along with Russia” line has been a feature of his campaign for something like a year. Clinton’s language regarding Russia during this presidential campaign has been, to say the least, undiplomatic.

    • Autolykos says:

      My guess is that Putin has pegged Trump as an easily manipulated buffoon. As long as Putin allows Trump to look strong to the public, he can get away with absolutely anything.
      Clinton is a much tougher customer, since she is actually hell-bent on weakening Russia. Way less room for Putin to give her what she wants and still come out on top.

      • FacelessCraven says:

        …What is it you think Putin wants that is worth fighting him over?

        • keranih says:

          …What is it you think Putin wants that is worth fighting him over?

          The same thing Stalin, Khrushchev, and all the rest wanted – control of local populations that didn’t want to be controlled.

          Call me crazy, but I do still hold that the USA has a responsibility to exert itself in the effort of bringing both peace and liberty to those parts of the world that ain’t got them.

          How much effort, and where, and whether we should be aiming more at peace or liberty in a particular moment – sure, we can argue about what is the right answer to all of those. But when the question is should we oppose tyranny I think the American answer should always be hell, yes!

          • FacelessCraven says:

            How many Tyrannies are there in the world right now? How many countries have we tried to “fix”? How many people died in the process, and how many stable, prosperous states resulted?

          • keranih says:

            How many Tyrannies are there in the world right now?

            A hell of a lot fewer than in 1776.

            How many people died in the process

            …we are all going to die sometime, FC. The US army is all volunteer, and we have greatly reduced the impact on civilians vs that in WWII (which I will point out was fought by draftees.)

            how many stable, prosperous states resulted?

            I dunno, all of them?

            You can say that the American process of fixing countries/regions/situations by military force fails a lot, and I would agree. You can say that it seems we do better when we infiltrate their markets and use capitalism, and I would agree. But I disagree when you say that Putin’s actions are not worth opposing with military force when our economic & McHollycola social tools aren’t working.

            And in this case, they aren’t.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            kerinah – “…we are all going to die sometime, FC. The US army is all volunteer, and we have greatly reduced the impact on civilians vs that in WWII (which I will point out was fought by draftees.)”

            Not to be callous, but I wasn’t referring to US military deaths. I was asking about how many natives die when we decide to ship them a big steaming heap of Democracy.

            “I dunno, all of them?”

            …Are you serious?

            “You can say that the American process of fixing countries/regions/situations by military force fails a lot, and I would agree.”

            I would not say this. I would say that I am not aware of a single post-Korea intervention by the US that left the locals unquestionably better off than we found them. I sure as hell don’t buy that Iraq and Afghanistan qualify, to say nothing of Vietnam. I am tired of my tax dollars being turned into big heaps of dead foreigners.

            Putin is not our problem to solve. This obsession of ours with policing the world is madness.

          • Tekhno says:

            @keranih

            But when the question is should we oppose tyranny I think the American answer should always be hell, yes!

            If tyranny means that the people are starving or being genocided, then yes, perhaps.

            If tyranny means invading some country when the West does the same, then maybe if the result is a worse country where people are starving or being genocided, but in almost all cases no.

            If tyranny means not having democracy, or having an economic system you don’t like, then hell, no!

          • nimim. k.m. says:

            >how many stable, prosperous states resulted

            The whole of EU? South America isn’t still a great place, but it has also improved in the recent decades?

            And one could argue that Russia, even if it’s a autocratic state that has anti-Western policy goals to the foreseeable future, is likely to be more stable (as in not-failed) in the future than than the Soviet Union ever was. Putin needs far less oppressive policies to maintain the continued existence of state apparatus of “Russian Federation” than any of the previous Soviet leaders (or czars, to mention that) their respective empires (that did eventually fail).

            I personally think it’s a serious mistake that you can maintain a free, democratic society in a world where tyranny prospers. You need a community of democratic and free societies to compare yourself against to see how democratic and free you really are and how you can realistically improve. You make serious mistake if you don’t regard the continued existence of countries like Germany, Norway, Canada, or Estonia advantageous to you if you really value living a free society for its freedoms and just not tribal pride.

            And on the other hand, tyrannies don’t care about stuff like free press and they have habit of suppressing everybody who complains, so surprise, they can fool your populace to thinking that a tyranny is a nice way to run things. More of that around you, and suddenly you’ll find that crushing the critical opposition is considered more “business as usual” than “travesty” in your country, too.

          • keranih says:

            @ Tenko –

            If tyranny means not having democracy, or having an economic system you don’t like, then hell, no!

            …if you’re going to argue that communism is really just an economic system, and that the people are just as free in communism as they are in a liberal democracy, then I don’t know if our dialects overlap enough to debate this.

            invading a country when the West does the same

            Can you give an example of this?

            @Faceless Craven –

            I would say that I am not aware of a single post-Korea intervention by the US that left the locals unquestionably better off than we found them.

            …really. Kuwait? Bosnia? Granted, there are a great number of actions listed on this page, but that you don’t recall Kuwait or Bosnia is a bit telling.

            IMO, most of our errors have been from not staying long enough, rather than from going in at all. As for “how many people died” – it’s not like Saddam was a benevolent dictator.

            While I would really appreciate a great deal more competence on our part, I completely disagree with the idea that the world would be better off if we didn’t get involved.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @keranih – Saddam was our puppet, near as I can tell. We installed him, we armed him, and we did nothing to reign him in while he killed a ton of Iranians and then a bunch of his own people. He came to us for permission to invade Kuwait in the first place; you can call our neutral message to him as incompetence or malice, it doesn’t really make a difference. having defeated his army, we called on his citizens to overthrow him, then walked away when they tried to, and let him slaughter them unimpeded. Then we slapped crippling sanctions on his country for a decade, then invaded, smashing the country and plunging it into guerrilla war. Then we left and let the guerrilla war turn into open civil war. That’s how I understand the sequence, anyway; appologies if I’ve got my facts wrong.

            Out of that picture, the Gulf War is definately the brightest part, but I have a hard time calling it a “good outcome” in context.

            Bosnia I remember as another messy, inconclusive Clinton peacekeeping farce. I freely admit that I could very well be selling it short and we did good work there.

          • John Schilling says:

            Saddam was our puppet, near as I can tell. We installed him, we armed him, and we did nothing to reign him in while he killed a ton of Iranians and then a bunch of his own people.

            Who is this “we” of which you speak? Looking at the Iraqi order of battle in 1981, 1988, and 1991, I see a whole lot of Soviet military hardware, a fair bit of French stuff, and essentially nothing from the United States. Looking at the history of the Iraqi chemical weapons program, I see substantial German contributions, a little bit from the UK, nothing from the United States. Iraq’s nuclear arms program, to the extent that it ever existed, was based on a French-supplied breeder reactor. Iraq’s long-range missiles were all of Russian origin. If Iraq had ever had a biological weapons program worth mentioning, it might have made use of samples of anthrax delivered by the United States for defensive biowarfare research, but it turns out the idea that Iraq ever had a biological weapons program was mostly paranoid fantasy.

            So who is the “we” that allegedly armed Iraq, and on what evidence? The United States of America, perhaps cheered a bit too gleefully at the prospect of Iraq and Iran pummeling each other to oblivion, but AFIK the only arms we ever delivered to that end were to Iran.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @John Schilling – United States support for Iraq during the Iran–Iraq war

            …On the other hand, the wikipedia article for Saddam Hussein himself did not corroborate my memory; I thought we’d been specifically involved in his rise to power prior to the Iran/Iraq war as well. Regarding the equipment, I was given to understand that we helped him broker arms deals, and provided funding for the weapons.

            [T]he United States actively supported the Iraqi war effort by supplying the Iraqis with billions of dollars of credits, by providing U.S. military intelligence and advice to the Iraqis, and by closely monitoring third country arms sales to Iraq to make sure that Iraq had the military weaponry required. The United States also provided strategic operational advice to the Iraqis to better use their assets in combat… The CIA, including both CIA Director Casey and Deputy Director Gates, knew of, approved of, and assisted in the sale of non-U.S. origin military weapons, ammunition and vehicles to Iraq. My notes, memoranda and other documents in my NSC files show or tend to show that the CIA knew of, approved of, and assisted in the sale of non-U.S. origin military weapons, munitions and vehicles to Iraq[11][…]

            The United States assisted Iraq through a military aid program known as “Bear Spares”, whereby the U.S. military “made sure that spare parts and ammunition for Soviet or Soviet-style weaponry were available to countries which sought to reduce their dependence on the Soviets for defense needs.”[11] According to Howard Teicher’s court sworn declaration:

            If the “Bear Spares” were manufactured outside the United States, then the U.S. could arrange for the provision of these weapons to a third country without direct involvement. Israel, for example, had a very large stockpile of Soviet weaponry and ammunition captured during its various wars. At the suggestion of the United States, the Israelis would transfer the spare parts and weapons to third countries… Similarly, Egypt manufactured weapons and spare parts from Soviet designs and provided these weapons and ammunition to the Iraqis and other countries.

            Note also the information on that page of transfers of biological weapons. I’ve also heard that we were involved in Iraq’s chemical weapons program, but don’t remember the sources.

          • John Schilling says:

            So, biological samples that could theoretically have been turned into weapons but weren’t intended to be weapons and weren’t turned into weapons, and a program about which “little today is known … details remain scarce” but involved selling unspecified spare parts to Russian weapons to probably Iraq among others.

            As compare to the Russians who sold Iraq all of the weapons for which such spare parts might have been used. If that’s your case for Iraq being “our puppet” because “we armed him”, that’s looking mighty weak to me.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @John Schilling – “So, biological samples that could theoretically have been turned into weapons but weren’t intended to be weapons and weren’t turned into weapons…”

            On February 9, 1994, Senator Riegle delivered a report -commonly known as the Riegle Report- in which it was stated that “pathogenic (meaning ‘disease producing’), toxigenic (meaning ‘poisonous’), and other biological research materials were exported to Iraq pursuant to application and licensing by the U.S. Department of Commerce.” It added: “These exported biological materials were not attenuated or weakened and were capable of reproduction.”[22]

            The report then detailed 70 shipments (including Bacillus anthracis) from the United States to Iraqi government agencies over three years, concluding “It was later learned that these microorganisms exported by the United States were identical to those the UN inspectors found and recovered from the Iraqi biological warfare program.”[23]

            “…and a program about which “Little today is known … details remain scarce” but involved selling unspecified spare parts to Russian weapons to probably Iraq among others.”

            …and “billions of dollars of credits, by providing U.S. military intelligence and advice to the Iraqis, and by closely monitoring third country arms sales to Iraq to make sure that Iraq had the military weaponry required,” from that first paragraph?

            The above was my understanding of our history with Iraq. Part of the reason I’m interested in this thread is because I’m aware that I acquired much of this history when I was a rabid leftist during the Bush years, and if I got fed a load of bull you guys seem like the ones who’d probably be able to correct me. That being said, I feel your assessment doesn’t seem like it fully covers what I cited.

            Are we just talking past each other?

          • keranih says:

            Iraqi order of battle in 1981, 1988, and 1991, I see a whole lot of Soviet military hardware, a fair bit of French stuff, and essentially nothing from the United States.

            The French built a lot of air assets throughout the region, including airfields and bases in Iraq, Lebanon, and Kuwait. In fact –

            – okay, this is not researched, this is the story as it was told to me, and I can’t do the accents like the Brit who told me the story –

            – it was a French company who built the bunkers at the air bases in Kuwait. For the time, they were actually *overbuilt*, as was a great deal in those heady days when Kuwait was just figuring out what it meant to be “a hundred square miles of oil lightly covered with sand.” They evidently wanted “whatever anyone can throw against us” and the French signed a deal swearing that was what they got – these bunkers would stand up to the armament of Kuwait’s current and potential advisories. (Which, in the 1980s, really wasn’t *anyone*.)

            Go on to 1990, and these airstrips, and airfields, were seized by SH in the Kuwait invasion like everything else, when SH was threatening Saudi Arabia. And SH parked *his* jets in those bunkers.

            And he figured they were safe, no? All his captured Kuwaiti airfield people were promising that the bunkers (which looked like mini pyramids) were impenetrable, would shrug off anything, no problem. Look, here, signed promise by the French, must be good, right?

            So SH continues his saber rattling, and, very quietly, a couple of state-sponsored construction companies in France starts getting really tight around the nose. And then the Americans say, ok, roll. And send in the bunker-busters against all of SH’s air assets.

            Now, they tore hell out of the retreating tanks and trucks on the highway (there is only one) north back to Iraq. But they also punched very neat, very tidy, very complete holes in all those bunkers hiding the fighter aircraft. And blew the aircraft to smitherins.

            Upshot of it all – Operation GULF STORM is over, Kuwait is handed back to the Kuwaitis, the Emir takes over and the parliament goes back to the squabbling that they do, Red Adiar (among many others) showed up to cap wells and put out the fires that the Iraqi army ignited as they lit out…and Kuwait starts looking for someone to pay for all this.

            Along the way, they send a dunning notice to the company in France who built their airfield bunkers, wanting a full refund (or at least repairs) for breech of contract, because, obviously their “unpenitratiable” bunkers weren’t all that unpenitratiable, having gotten ventilated quite well, thank you.

            The French company sent back the polite version of frothing Gallic insistence that NO, the bunkers had NO been promised to be resistant to AMERICAN bombs, there ain’t no such critter, besides this was clearly SH’s fault for acts of war, and oh, bugger off.

            Several rounds of “Oh yes you did so promise!” and “OH HELL NO WHAT KINDA IDIOT INSURES AGAINST PISSED OFF YANKS” ensued, and last I heard, in 2011 or so, the case had been appealed, again.

            The Brit who told me this story did both the Kuwaiti accents and the French accents, and the bombing noises, and it was several years before I laughed quite so hard.

        • The Nybbler says:

          He wants мир, as his name would suggest.

        • Nicholas says:

          Okay, so you know how the equilibrium of a market is disrupted by government regulation? And that international”free” trade is something of a misnomer, because companies and actors are biased by the local government, and those biasing disruptions can be provoked by diplomacy? And that the majority of Americans’ asymmetric trades result from local governments kneecapping the domestic competition?
          Putin wants those governments to rewrite their laws to systematically give an advantage to Russian corporations, instead of American ones.

        • Autolykos says:

          Keranih and Nicholas already nailed most of it. Putin wants the US out of his hair while pursuing regional hegemony, and he wants the NATO to stop encroaching on him. It’s been the theme of both the wars in Georgia and Ukraine, as well as with the dispute about missile defense in Poland.
          I guess he would also very much like the EU to be less friendly to the US (and thus more friendly to Russia), which is another thing Trump is likely to achieve, even without any prodding from Putin’s side.

    • Civilis says:

      There’s a massive assumption behind this, normally that what the Russians seem to be saying they want is actually what they want.

      Putin’s got a reputation as a bad guy. Any Russian endorsement may very well have the opposite effect. If Putin wants Clinton to win, the best way to do so may be to endorse Trump and let Clinton use that to attack Trump, then make up when Clinton wins the election.

      An alternative is that Russia’s real goal could be politically destabilizing the US, thinking that a domestically divided US may be less of a threat. The best way to do that would be to support the underdog in the race, currently Trump. Given that much of Russia’s support is under the table, such as conveniently timed leaks by supposed third parties, if Trump gets too strong they can arrange for under the table support to Clinton.

      • Cord Shirt says:

        An alternative is that Russia’s real goal could be politically destabilizing the US, thinking that a domestically divided US may be less of a threat.

        On that note: Moscow welcomes the (would-be) sovereign nations of California and Texas

        Moscow uses these gatherings to promote its political agenda, gain more political leverage in the West and push for the lifting of Western sanctions imposed on Moscow after its 2014 annexation of Crimea and support of the separatists in eastern Ukraine, a former lawmaker with the ruling United Russia party said.

        “The more the West is disunited, the more beneficial it is to Russia,” Sergei Markov said, adding that the secession of California and Texas — a prospect that would appear to be something of a long shot — would “undoubtedly benefit” the Kremlin.

        • Lysenko says:

          Ehhh, until their support grows a lot more fungible or comes packed in cosmoline, chalk that one up as posturing…and at $55K of grant money not much of that.

  17. Jack says:

    I don’t support Trump and I’m not saying he won’t mess up foreign policy, but I seriously have to wonder where SSC comes up with some of these statements.

    “Hillary will probably continue US intervention in Syria; here she is more interventionist than Obama. But her intervention would probably be smaller-scale than Trump’s. She wants to arm “friendly” rebel groups and enforce a no-fly zone, but she has ruled out sending ground troops into Iraq or Syria, something Trump has promised to do. Likely she would focus on keeping enough of Syria safe to protect some civilians and prevent more refugees, then use indirect methods to make life miserable for Assad. This seems like as good a plan as any other.”

    I don’t understand why we would take Hillary’s word for it. Firstly, considering how the rise of ISIS is heavily due to arming “friendly” rebels groups to try to overthrow Assad, I don’t quite understand how Hillary wanting to arm them inspires any confidence whatsoever. People who actually follow this kind of stuff for a living (e.g. Joshua Landis, Max Abrahms) doubts the very existence of these so called “friendly” “moderate” rebels. Secondly, there is an assumption that Hillary actually cares about human rights. This is false. Libya is not about human rights, and we can tell from these Hillary email where it is outright stated that France went into Libya to try to expand power into North Africa and to neutralize Libya’s gold. As of Syria, we know for a fact that Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Israel tried very very hard to get rid of Assad. Unless we’re seriously to believe Saudi Arabia cares about human rights, there are probably some alternate reasons for their support of the rebels and funding jihadis to go fight there (aka geopolitics vs Iran). Again, it is easy to make statements such as “Likely she would focus on keeping enough of Syria safe to protect some civilians and prevent more refugees, then use indirect methods to make life miserable for Assad” even when it makes no sense and is contrary to all evidence. For example.

    Regarding the whole Hillary/Russia no fly zone thing, I’ll bring this up again since people don’t know recent history. Russia and China ALLOWED the no fly zone on Libya to pass in the UN. NATO then used it as an opportunity to kill Gaddafi for the rebels, which majorly pissed off Putin and burned through tons of good will. Russia basically views US support for Syrian rebels as a Great Game proxy war for influence (which it is). Hillary can quite clearly say one thing about wanting a no fly zone with Russia and then do something entirely differet. There is really no reason to take this point seriously.

    I could go on and on with tons of links and evidence about how Syria is just a proxy battleground for US, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Iran, and how it has nothing to do with human rights and how it is currently a giant mess that created a refugee crisis, ISIS, a coup in Turkey, a Cold War with Russia, Turkish anger with NATO, EU, and US, a resurgent Iran, enormous loss of US influence in the Mid East etc. etc. but that would produce a giant blogpost with tons of explaining and it is getting late. All I’ll say is that I like SSC because most posts back up the statements with loads of evidence and rational analysis. RealClearPolitics and r/neutraltalk are not good sources for topics such as the Mid East and SSC clearly has no idea about this topic.

    If people are against Trump, go for it, but please actually read up on the Syrian and Libyan conflict before commenting on it. And not just the crap NYT writes.

    • Anonymous says:

      Thank you.

    • Lurker says:

      Good points. This underlies my main concern about Hillary – like her neoconservative allies she has consistently been pushing against Russian interests and should be expected to continue doing that. If optimizing for reducing existential risk, to a first approximation, the only war that matters is a nuclear war between Russia and USA. Prima facie we should expect a policy of pushing against Russia to increase this risk more than a neutral or friendly policy – which Trump would seem more likely to follow. Since it is unclear to me whether this risk increase is worse than whatever risks Trumpian variance might cause it is also unclear that Trump is a worse candidate from a pure existential risk perspective.

    • Deiseach says:

      She wants to arm “friendly” rebel groups

      Because that worked out so well with the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, correct? Funnelling money and arms to a plethora of small, perhaps mutually antagonistic groups that are going to turn on one another when the Strong Man in charge is overthrown can’t have any downsides!

      • The Nybbler says:

        Yes, there seems to be a strong line of thought among conservative groups that democracy and freedom in the Middle East are just plain impossible; better to have a strongman keep the warring groups in line and to understand that if he does anything to the US (or allows the warring groups to do anything to the US), we can discard him.

      • Tekhno says:

        Well, not neocons. Their whole pitch was that not only is democracy and freedom possible in the Middle East, it should be forced upon them. Back then, the left (and some libertarians) were the ones making the argument that it was better to leave the dictators in power. What happened is that neoconservatism went bipartisan and now mainstream liberals look like neocons, particularly Hillary, and then we have a small number of naysayer conservatives, mostly paleocon types.

    • Deiseach says:

      Completely agree Syria is a proxy battleground. Syria is not just an isolated incidence, it’s tied-in to the whole aftermath of the “Arab Spring”, the Turkish push against the Kurds, etc. etc. etc. Pushing for a naive American policy of “pick one guy to back as the moderate leader who will introduce democracy and be sympathetic to our interests” is only going to prolong the unholy mess.

      • Jack says:

        I think a bigger problem is that America’s policy is not “pick one guy to back as the moderate leader who will introduce democracy and be sympathetic to our interests” even though that’s what a lot of people believe it is. If we can’t find any “friendly moderate” rebels among the people fighting Assad, chances are the CIA knew they weren’t friendly and moderate to begin with, but supported them anyways because they wanted to weaken Iran. The mujahideens were not “friendly” and “moderate” either but it was quite obvious why the US supported them. Saudi Arabia has jihadi assets across the world and everyone knows this, the US let them entered Syria anyways. The filter between geopolitical reality and the news we get from MSM is so ridiculous that the actual news we get from MSM regarding Syria is completely worthless. Of course, I’m not pointing fingers at US being the sole culprit of supporting the “bad guys”. Every country do this. But there is no point pretending that US policy is actually to “pick one guy to back as the moderate leader who will introduce democracy and be sympathetic to our interests”. People will have a much better understanding of the Mid East if they just view it as a geopolitical great game rather than some protecting human rights nonsense.

      • Tekhno says:

        @Jack

        But the general public do believe in human rights nonsense. I always thought the most parsimonious explanation was that the elites did too, but under the great game theory the elites are beyond ideology. Are we being controlled by Nietzscheans?

        • Jack says:

          @Tekhno

          I think it is a matter of degree. As TheAncientGreek said, elites might have a different view on human rights than everyone else. For example, they might no consider any of the plebians outside of their ingroup “human” in the same sense hardcore Hillary supporters and hardcore Trump supporters don’t consider each other “human”. On the other hand, I think the individual elite also matter. Hillary is definitely more Nietzschean than Obama and the directors of the CIA and NSA are probably much more Nietzschean than everyone else.

      • It’s not black and white. The elites would be probably be fine with human rights gains if they didn’t incur other losses it’s not that elites have a different view from everyone else, it’s more that they are juggling many different balls.

    • wtvb says:

      The coup in Turkey is largely unrelated to Syria and closely related to “Pennsylvania”.

      Arming “friendly” rebels has a huge positive correlation with terrorist attacks though, so I’m still very inclined to stand with *not* Hillary.

      • hyperboloid says:

        The coup in Turkey is largely unrelated to Syria and closely related to “Pennsylvania”.

        Aside from Erdogan’s very unreliable word, we have no evidence to support that. Since 1960 Turkey has had three military coups, and one incident in which the army was able to force the resignation of a civilian government without actually seizing power; and all without the help of Fethullah Gulen.

    • Tekhno says:

      The “friendly” rebels were groups like Al Nusra, right?

      I would argue that there’s a strong ideological component to this war where we want to project badness onto established dictators and project goodness onto rebels. Our leaders watched Star Wars as kids and it left an impression.

    • anaon says:

      Firstly, considering how the rise of ISIS is heavily due to arming “friendly” rebels groups to try to overthrow Assad,

      Unless you meant arming of friendly rebels by Arab states this is wrong. One of the biggest boosts that ISIS got was that the U.S. was lousy at actually arming the rebels. The (understandable) amount of vetting that was required before any arms were released, and the conditions they were under, meant that any U.S. friendly rebels either got blown up, or got sick of waiting for american bullets and joined up with more openly Islamist groups.

  18. Deiseach says:

    Well, just throwing more fuel on the fire here but the change in attitude is interesting.

    New York Times, start of the month: Ohio is really really important and if Trump doesn’t win here (and he won’t) then his campaign is toast, ha ha ha!

    Several strategists said Mr. Trump’s fate in Ohio would turn less on the absence of Kasich operatives than on the fundamentals of the campaign. No candidate since 1960 has made it to the White House without winning Ohio. And while Mrs. Clinton could afford to lose there given her advantage in other battlegrounds like Virginia and Colorado, Ohio is a must-win for Mr. Trump.

    He is doing well with white working-class voters in Democratic strongholds like Youngstown, where industrial jobs have vanished, and in rural counties along the Ohio River. President Obama won Youngstown’s Mahoning County in 2012, but Mr. Trump is expected to convert many voters to his cause.

    But the populations in these counties are relatively small. Mr. Trump’s gains there would be outweighed by the significant losses he is expected to face in the suburbs of major cities, especially Columbus, strategists said

    New York Times, end of the month: So Trump won in Ohio, big deal! Ohio doesn’t matter! “Ohio has not fallen into step with the demographic changes transforming the United States, growing older, whiter and less educated than the nation at large.”

    After decades as one of America’s most reliable political bellwethers, an inevitable presidential battleground that closely mirrored the mood and makeup of the country, Ohio is suddenly fading in importance this year.

    Hillary Clinton has not been to the state since Labor Day, and her aides said Thursday that she would not be back until next week, after a monthlong absence, effectively acknowledging how difficult they think it will be to defeat Donald J. Trump here. Ohio has not fallen into step with the demographic changes transforming the United States, growing older, whiter and less educated than the nation at large.

    Does that sound a bit like desperation, denial of reality and sticking their head in the sand? Or is it a sober, objective analysis of the situation? Ohio really did go from “must-win” to “irrelevant” in thirty days?

    • Chalid says:

      It’s must-win for Trump but not Clinton, in the sense that it’s very hard to assemble a plausible electoral map for Trump without including Ohio, but there are plausible electoral maps for Clinton that don’t include it. (Which is right there in the first quoted paragraph.)

      Like, if suddenly polls showed that New York was close for some reason, it would suddenly become a Clinton must-win state.

    • Corey says:

      What’s a “swing state” depends on who’s in the lead. When Trump was way behind, the usual swing states (NC, OH, etc.) were likely Dem. So we got situations like *Georgia* becoming a swing state.

      Since the race narrowed now we’re back to about the usual splits.

  19. Levantine says:

    I sense this debate boils down to falling in one of at least two groups

    Do you find the ongoing course of the country disastrous – in the sense of being fatal

    Do you find the course a rough ride, merely, toward better pastures, hopefully?

    If the latter, you take the stance of Never-Trump.
    If the former, you take the stance of Not-Hillary.

    • Deiseach says:

      I can’t believe we’re seriously discussing Trump as possible next President of the United States. I suppose that means he has made fools of us all.

      Hillary would be “more of the same” except perhaps dialled up to eleven on certain things. I don’t think she’s a SJW, they’re ‘useful idiots’ for posting “Vote for our progressive Hillary who will oversee the land of rainbows and lollipops!” appeals on Tumblr and Facebook and mobilising the vote, but I don’t think she cares tuppence about their causes except as the results of “focus groups say move X inches left, right or centre for a bounce in the polls” – her campaign allegedly is living or dying on big data crunching.

      I do think she is interested in foreign policy from her Secretary of State days, and in standing up to Russia, possibly for personal reasons. (I’m smiling at the irony of a Democrat using “unpatriotic” as a criticism after all the lectures about how patriotism is the same as nationalism is terribad and racist and exclusionary). Does this reassure you anymore than “Trump is volatile and responds by attacking when he feels criticised or insulted” re: chances for breaking off relations and/or getting into a second cold war/shooting war via proxies?

      Am I saying vote for Trump? Dear God, no, but I can understand why people might do so, and I don’t really have great confidence in Hillary as being anything more than “four years overseeing more of the same”. If I thought she’d stick to that, I’d be a bit more reassured, but it’s the nagging suspicion that she has Plans for when she gets into office – and I don’t mean SJW type plans, I mean economic or security or something – that troubles me. I don’t know why I get that impression, simply that I don’t think she’s been fighting and scrapping for this just to simply sit back and do nothing more than glad-handing press and photo ops when she gets into office as “The First Woman President”.

      • hyperboloid says:

        I’m smiling at the irony of a Democrat using “unpatriotic” as a criticism after all the lectures about how patriotism is the same as nationalism is terribad and racist and exclusionary

        Has any elected democrat ever said that?
        There is a habit around here of talking about positions popular with far left academia as if they were the platform of the Democratic party.

        • Luung Hawl says:

          Worse. She takes the idea that a Democrat would criticize something as “unpatriotic” to be so far-fetched as ludicrous to imagine.

          A lot of the slander of the left that goes on here, I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s so radically distorted.

      • 27chaos says:

        “Staff in Clinton’s analytics department sit under a sign that hangs from the ceiling with the words “statistically significant” printed on it.”

        I just gagged a bit.

      • The original Mr. X says:

        I’m smiling at the irony of a Democrat using “unpatriotic” as a criticism after all the lectures about how patriotism is the same as nationalism is terribad and racist and exclusionary

        Dissent is only the highest form of patriotism when the other guy is in charge.

  20. Mathamatical says:

    page views are important but also please give us a good skyscraper facts style post in near future if you could, scott

  21. Jack V says:

    My impression is that Trump criticises the Iraq war because it turned out badly, and threatens ill-considered violent reprisals because he’s angry and hadn’t really thought about what might be practical foreign policy. Lots of people are randomly anti “every country vaguely Muslim” although I don’t think that’s ok.

    I don’t know what policy he would follow when he HAS thought about it. My expectation is that he would try to take an isolationist stance but as soon as someone pisses him off, he will want to react violently.

  22. Aluren says:

    I don’t know it’s been said before, I don’t know if it’s futile and/or preposterous, but I’ll go ahead and say it anyway: Scott, as crazy as it sounds, could you please shift your focus away from American politics and try to adopt a less American-centric worldview? And I’m not asking it just because I’m in Europe where the whole US presidential debate looks like an enormous, hilariously scary farce (like that fiction trope where some violent death takes place on stage and spectators happily clap away at the “realism” and “shocking value” and it turns out this wasn’t just a play and people start screaming when they realize the murder was real), though that may well have motivated me to comment in the first place, I’m just suggesting you consider the very temporary value aspect of these blog posts.

    Sure, the points you raise are valid. Sure, the debates going on are constructive. But will they matter even only one day past the presidential election? Most of the more interesting pieces you write are the ones that are less affected by the impermanent relevance of the subject matter, such as your top posts like the one that summarizes reactionary philosophy or your fiction pieces. Reactionary thought is always relevant no matter how far you go into the future, that’s kind of the point. Fiction is always enjoyable to read and reread. More generally, anyone can go back and read these posts even three or four years later. But there is nothing as impermanent as the ebb and flow of political figures. Who is going to go back and read your post about Trump in a couple of months, after he’s elected? Or in a couple years (presumably after the nuclear war just to type in between two radioactive waste cleaning shifts “Hah, told you so” on a scrap-built mesh-based teletype terminal, I guess)?

    As for your worldviews being too American-centric, I do realize that’s only to be expected given the demographics of your blog’s community (or pretty much any anglophone internet community for that matter), and I know this kind of request is quite a stretch, but one can always ask.

    • houseboatonstyxb says:

      @ Aluren

      Unfortunately, when the US elects the wrong President (eg Bush in 2000), his blunders damage other nations too. Your suggestion might be better received about six weeks from now.

      • Aluren says:

        I’m not questioning the relevance of the US presidential election, however farcical it looks like. What is questionable is the long-term value of debating who should be elected on November 8th when this time could be spent discussing matters that will (presumably) stay relevant after November 8th. Of course, not my blog, yadda, yadda. Just asking, it can’t hurt.

        On second insight it could be that Scott genuinely believes he can change the minds of some would-be Trump voters that read his blog. If true, that is very commendable of him, though I doubt his political articles are efficient in that regard. People are people, and people rarely change their minds this suddenly. But then he probably knows his own community better than me.

        • FacelessCraven says:

          The last two articles have done more to make me consider not voting Trump than anything I’ve seen in the last year.

          • I do not understand how one can support Pax Americana and say Trump is a YUGGGEEEE danger to it, then endorse Jill Stein and Gary Johnson.

            This is like saying I hate Communism, but I’ll endorse Stalin as a third party candidate (because Donald Trump said mean things).

            ?????

          • herbert herbertson says:

            Personally, I think the liberal capitalist hegemony of America is a malign influence on the world. However, I think a fascist empire of America would be considerably worse, and I put the odds of Trump implementing such a thing around 15% percent. To me, its an easy choice.

            As for Scott, I think he correctly intuits that Gary Johnson and Jill Stein will not win the presidency, and choosing to vote for them means a very different thing than voting for one of the candidates who could.

            Also, Johnson was a governor for 8 years. His platform is radical, but his actual experience of governing wasn’t. Given how little power his party has in the other branches of gov’t, if something crazy were to happen and he actually did find himself taking the oath of office, that experience it probably a more reliable predictor than the platform.

          • Tekhno says:

            @A Definite Beta Guy

            Scott is endorsing Jill Stein and Gary Johnson as forms of appeasement. He really wants Hillary, but he’s saying “Look. If you really hate Hillary and can’t vote for her, then vote for these guys, but for the love of God, DON’T VOTE TRUMP!”

      • keranih says:

        Houseboat –

        (I did see your other post, I’m still thinking.)

        when the US elects the wrong President (eg Bush in 2000), his blunders damage other nations too.

        Were all of Bush’s international actions blunders, in your opinion?

        And how do you think the rest of the world is doing now, eight years on? Getting better? Worse? Same trend?

    • Stefan Drinic says:

      I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.

  23. Jugemu Chousuke says:

    I think this post is focusing too much on relatively minor issues and not enough on the big one, Russia. As others have pointed out in this thread, that’s the strongest reason to believe that Hillary is more existentially threatening and there seems to be more of a trend to it than a momentary squabble over a no-fly zone.

    In general a policy of “stay home or go in hard” seems better to me than the current policy of half-heartedly intervening in everything and creating a big mess of interminable civil conflict and former-allies-of-convenience-turned-enemies in the process.

    (Not that I think Trump is perfect – he’s clearly not a deep thinker. But a bunch of deep thinking policy wonking has seemingly just created a bunch of messes anyway, so…).

  24. Nope says:

    “In 2007, he he suggested “knocking the hell out of [Iran] and keeping their oil”, though in his (sort of) defense he might have been confusing them with ISIS at the time.”

    I assume you meant Iraq? ISIS didn’t exist at the time.

  25. FacelessCraven says:

    @Scott Alexander – “Some writers have called the period since World War II the “Pax Americana”. Although there have been some deadly local wars, there’s been relative peace between great powers. A big part of this is America’s promise to defend its allies.”

    Do you think that if we stay the current course, the Pax Americana lasts another fifty years? If it fails in that time, what are the likely failure modes?

    Militarily, I’m most worried about our long-term strategy of containment against Russia. It seems needlessly hostile and provocative, and has resulted in multiple proxy wars over the last few decades. I think Russia’s current belligerence is a rational response to this strategy, and I think the US specifically and the world generally would be a lot better off if we had never started down this road. Having started, the best available course now is to stop and turn around. Unfortunately, the establishment seems entirely committed to doubling down; having provoked Russia for decades, when Russia responds they claim they were right to provoke all along. This is madness and stupidity.

    Containment of Russia has been the establishment consensus since the fall of the USSR, and as far as I’m aware Hillary has worked to advance that consensus throughout her career. The concern is not that she will escalate conflict over Syria, or over a hacking attempt. The concern is that she appears to hold Russia in contempt and has established a long-term pattern of actively provoking conflict with them. This pattern of behavior seems likely to bite us in a serious way; one of the more plausible ones is that we get tangled up in a fight with Russian conventional forces via one of our proxies, win the conventional fight, and Russia negates that win via battlefield use of tactical nuclear weapons. At that point, the pressure to escalate is overwhelming no matter who is president.

    You point out that Trump postures arrogance and strength toward Iran, Syria, Iraq and North Korea, and I agree that posturing is highly worrying, as well as revolting. But Clinton and the establishment consensus she represents have done a hell of a lot more than posture, they’ve taken action in multiple countries over two or three decades. If she wins, conflict with Russia is going to get worse, and I am worried that we can’t afford that.

    • Alex S says:

      I agree Russia policy is a weakness of the establishment and a plus for Trump, but there is still a lot more to foreign policy than Russia. There are so many issues that I defer to the reasoning that in very complex matters, the person who listens to their advisors is best because nobody knows enough to make good decisions on their own.

      • The Most Conservative says:

        The US and Russia combined have over 90% of the world’s nukes:

        http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/fact-sheet-who-has-nuclear-weapons-how-many-do-they-n548481

        It’s unclear how much additional nukes matter after the first fifty or so though. You only need a few nukes to get Americans dwelling near city centers, but many live in suburbs or rural areas. Check out this tool: http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

        If Hillary’s establishment advisors are going to get something simple wrong, like being needlessly belligerent with Russia, why do we trust them with complex matters? (Also what did these people advise with regard to Syria and Libya?) They might have prestigious credentials, but I’m unconvinced they have a legitimate claim to expertise in guiding a ship of state.

        One possible advantage to Trump: Since foreign leaders know that many Americans hate him (based on how the American press treats him), they might be more willing to assassinate Trump if he pisses them off, and leave the rest of us alone. (I suppose the Secret Service is pretty good at ensconcing the president if they have a nontrivial chance to be assassinated though?)

  26. Neanderthal From Mordor says:

    Trump largely says he wants a foreign policy that achieves more while costing less. That’s why he wants the NATO allies to increase their own spending more in line with the US, something that all US presidents said, and he is also willing to threaten them a bit to make them do it.
    That’s why he rants about making conquests pay and he wants to use the weight of the US to get better trade deals, that is to get a dividend from all that military spending.
    That’s also why he is willing to strike deals with Russia, so both can pool resources against islamists while avoiding an arms race.
    At the same time he has to continue the republican tradition of looking tougher than the democrats (pretty hard when you run against a sincere hawk like Hillary), to reassure a public afraid of terrorism and to court the military types, an important republican constituency.
    In the end I doubt that his foreign policy would be much different than that of Obama who also tried to get a peace dividend, but kept being drawn into Middle East wars.
    On the other side Hillary is closely connected with neocons, likudniks, liberal interventionists and other groups of interest that profit from war and she will be quick to engage in wars.

    • Alraune says:

      At the same time he has to continue the republican tradition of looking tougher than the democrats

      That’s where the credible immigration restrictionism comes in, as we saw in… I have no idea which primary debate it was. The one where Ted Cruz proposed a no-control-group experiment in making “sand glow” and Kasich suggested assassinating Kim Jong-Un. GOP voters want your total hawk stance on Immigration + War to sum to 10. Trump goes 5 and 5, everyone else had to push for 11 on War to compensate.

  27. candles says:

    I think one of the tensions in how you write here is that you, personally, don’t have to bear almost any of the cost of Pax Americana and the global police state (aside from a theoretical tax burden), and so it’s easy for you to talk about the consequences of Pax Americana from a certain kind of disinterested theoretical global view. I’m not saying this as a slur – I don’t have to much bear it either.

    But that’s not true for everyone. And specifically, it’s not true for a lot of people who are American citizens and who have the right to vote…. which Vietnamese people being lifted out of poverty do not.

    Which is to say, our current military arrangement, in a post-draft world, is heavily dependent on an all-volunteer army, and many of those volunteers are coming from the communities that are bearing most of the worst downsides of globalization from every direction. Trump is talking directly to them when he critiques NATO or sounds isolationist themes. I think on some level, it’s useful short-hand to recognize that what Vietnam was to a sizable portion of the liberal base, Iraq and Afghanistan have been to a sizable portion of the conservative base (which is hard to see if you don’t have a lot of contact with those people). They express it differently, because they have different values, but the effect has been searing.

    If you are truly lower variance, it’s incoherent to say “NATO is good, and Pax Americana is good, and globalization is good, so those hillbilly’s who keep having their communities disintegrating from closing coal mines and closing factories should just keep volunteering to get their arms blown off overseas”, because THAT’S NOT A SUSTAINABLE PROPOSITION. It’s not low variance to count on that, because that is a thing that is very much in flux, even if you can’t see it.

    This is part of why I see Clinton as substantially higher variance than you – there are changes baked into the cake no matter what. We don’t have stasis.

    • herbert herbertson says:

      . Trump is talking directly to them when he critiques NATO or sounds isolationist themes. I think on some level, it’s useful short-hand to recognize that what Vietnam was to a sizable portion of the liberal base, Iraq and Afghanistan have been to a sizable portion of the conservative base (which is hard to see if you don’t have a lot of contact with those people). They express it differently, because they have different values, but the effect has been searing.

      If you’re qualified, I’d love to see you expand on it. I’ve been guessing it (seems like the most likely answer to “why have we gotten the most anti-Islamic presidential candidate now, 15 years after 9/11,” also explains that time an argument with some friend-of-friend Iraq War vets over waterboarding ended with rape threats against me) but I have no real insider view

  28. Stefan Drinic says:

    Good post overall, just.. Uh.

    In 2007, he […] might have been confusing them with ISIS at the time.

    I can’t really tell if this is a joke or a genuine mishap. It left me confused in either case.

    • sohois says:

      One could conceivably simply replace ‘ISIS’ with ‘Al-Qaeda’ without altering the impact of the sentence whatsoever, though I do think that, yes, Scott did make a mistake there.

    • anaon says:

      It’s a typo, the comment actually came from August 2015

  29. AnonBosch says:

    This is essentially a far better version of my comment in the earlier thread, which I probably could’ve done better and with more links if it hadn’t been tossed off in between work tasks. So I endorse it without much reservation.

    But I think it’s also important to hammer home the analogy to GW Bush. Trump has harshly and repeatedly criticized Bush, but that’s with the benefit of hindsight. Those of us with long memories have noted that Trump seems to be setting himself up for the exact same failure mode as Bush, by promising a “humble” foreign policy while surrounding himself with hawkish advisors, where his lack of foreign policy experience and general ignorance would make him extremely reliant on said hawkish advisors.

    Clinton’s intervention in Libya was ill-considered and probably a net negative. But it wasn’t as large a net negative as Bush’s intervention in Iraq because she was at least cognizant of the costs of a ground presence and the limits of our ability (we didn’t attempt to purge former Qaddafi loyalists in the same way we de-Baathified Iraq, which was probably the largest single contributing factor to its failure beyond the decision to invade itself). The fact that Trump supported both Iraq and Libya without the benefit of hindsight (I’m unwilling to credit him much for the tepidity of his Iraq support, see in re: hawkish advisors), and refuses to acknowledge his error, and has endorsed a bunch of hypothetical wars against North Korea and Somali pirates leads me to believe he would err on the side of war both more easily and more stupidly than Clinton.

    In conclusion, vote for Johnson. His skeptical instinct goes a very long way in this calculus even in the face of an inability to find countries on a map. (Or perhaps even enhanced by it, as long as a country doesn’t share a name with a popular marijuana strain.)

  30. The Nybbler says:

    Better land war against ISIS than land war in Ukraine.

  31. Jaskologist says:

    The Bush Doctrine was basically the idea that terrorist threats are incubated by repressive governments. If we get rid of those governments and replace them with liberal democracies, terrorist groups will lose their backing and eventually dissipate. We need not debate the wisdom of that right now, merely agree that it was the unifying theme behind the Bush administration’s foreign actions.

    What is the Hillary Doctrine? Can anybody tell me what her principles are, such that we can make good guesses about how she’d react to different situations?

  32. JonCB says:

    “I am not qualified to judge Hillary’s work as Secretary of State, but I expect her to play by the book.”

    Why do you expect that? While the FBI may have called it “Gray enough to not be a crime”, there was very little about that email thing that was “by the book”. I expect Hillary to do what Hillary thinks is best for Hillary just like I expect Trump to do what Trump thinks is best for Trump.

  33. onyomi says:

    On domestic policy, for me, it’s an absolute no-brainer: I prefer Trump to Hillary. The question then is: is the likely variance between Trump and HRC foreign policy outcomes big enough to justify voting for someone vastly inferior on domestic policy? Honestly not sure.

    Related, I certainly agree that, on foreign policy, HRC largely represents the status quo of the past sixteen years. Question is, have the past sixteen years moved us farther from, or closer to, WWIII? It feels like closer to me, but I could be wrong. I’m certainly not happy with post-9/11 US foreign policy, but since we haven’t yet had a nuclear war, it could always be worse.

    Other point: in US history, who has gotten us involved in really bad wars? Has it been irascible, erratic populists? Conservatives? Or has it been cool-headed, liberal, globalists? (Wilson, FDR, Truman (only pres. to order nuclear strike), Kennedy; FDR was a bit fascist, though). Of course, one could say that it was hands-off conservatives who necessitated us eventually getting into big wars due to failure to e. g. stop Hitler sooner, but I’m not entirely sure about that. I think the world would have been fine if we hadn’t gotten into WWI or Vietnam. Probably better. And if we hadn’t gotten into WWI, WWII might not have happened, so again, point goes to the conservatives, not the globalists (Hillary is the more Woodrow Wilson-esque of the candidates by a mile).

    Question then is: is Trump truly an unprecedented candidate? I’m not sure. In personal style, yeah, kind of. In terms of what he’d actually do, I’m less convinced, though it’s possible. I said in the last thread that he seems to me like a dumber, louder Pat Buchanan (noting that Pat Buchanan is very smart), and there’s no question in my mind that a Pat Buchanan foreign policy is less likely to result in WWIII than an HRC policy. But am I giving Trump too much credit here? Maybe. But generally, when one thinks so-and-so or such-and-such is totally sui generis and brakes the mold and cannot be judged according to any historical precedent… that tends to be wrong?

    • The Nybbler says:

      Not unprecedented in personal style, I don’t think. Harry Truman and Andrew Jackson come to mind.

    • herbert herbertson says:

      But generally, when one thinks so-and-so or such-and-such is totally sui generis and brakes the mold and cannot be judged according to any historical precedent… that tends to be wrong?

      Depends on whether or not they’re pointing to a technological innovation. Personally I’m not sure it’s possible to imagine Trump without social media.

    • Stefan Drinic says:

      Some of the historical analysis here doesn’t quite seem right to me.

      Some people may point to the Lusitania having been sunk as a ways for Wilson to not really ‘count’ as getting the US involved, but there was some Tonkin-level political games involved there, some say; either way, I will note that Wilson was very much willing to get the US involved internationally..

      FDR is a tougher case for you to make. The man funded much of the Axis’ enemies even before Pearl Harbor, but it’s unclear to me that you can blame him for getting the US involved in WW2. I’m not even sure it’s ever helpful to look at a President alone if you want to know why a country goes to war, but that’s up to you.

      Truman defended the US’ sphere of influence in Korea after it was assaulted. Some ten thousand of your troops did die, but otherwise things ended up according to Cold War consensus, which really is the best you could’ve hoped for.

      Kennedy is one thing, but I’m a touch disappointed by Lyndon Johnson not getting a mention for Tonkin being an admitted hoax. No question about that.

      The US not getting involved in Vietnam would probably have done the world much good; WWI, not terribly relevant. Certainly the effect there wasn’t large enough to stave of WW2, which would have required the signing of Versailles to have been something akin to the Congress of Vienna in forgiveness, rather than the treaty the Germans actually got.

      Regardless, Hegel’s old quote is very relevant here – history doesn’t allow for us to experiment on it. What ifs are a lot of fun, but trying to pick modern day candidates based on how things might have gone a century ago is.. Dangerous.

      • cassander says:

        >FDR is a tougher case for you to make.

        FDR signed the atlantic charter in August of 41 calling for, among other things “the final destruction of Nazi tyranny”. There’s no question on FDR’s actions deliberately and knowingly provoked both Japan and Germany.

      • onyomi says:

        I certainly don’t give LBJ a pass. Though he’s a bit of a mixed case in being ideologically similar to HRC, but closer to Trump in terms of personal presentation.

      • cassander says:

        Oh, one other thing. There were two gulf of tonkin incidents, one of which was unquestionably real. The north claimed that they hit the USS Maddox with a torpedo, which was not true, but the definitely fired torpedoes at a US ship. The second incident was less a hoax than the maddox, understandably on alert after the first, firing at radar shadows in the fog.

    • Nicholas says:

      Contemporary sources considered FDR to be an irascible, erratic populist, and a traitor to his class.

      • onyomi says:

        This makes for an argument one’s not likely to hear elsewhere: “don’t vote for Trump! He’s the next FDR!” That would actually convince me, but probably not many others (to vote against him).

        • E. Harding says:

          Yeah; protectionism, cutting taxes, reducing regulations, and appointing someone with similar views to Scalia to the Supreme Court does not sound like FDR. But the massive infrastructure spending and support for universal healthcare does.

    • Civilis says:

      Question is, have the past sixteen years moved us farther from, or closer to, WWIII?

      I think things have moved us closer to WWIII over the past 16 years, but I’m more interventionist than most SSC commenters and I feel that paradoxically, the less interventionist the US is, the more likely WWIII is. Therefore, the biggest risk I have with Trump is his foreign policy, which may be too isolationist. It shouldn’t be that way; Trump seems far more Jacksonian than Bush, Obama or Clinton, which to me is the safest of the political foreign policy traditions (not necessarily the best, just the safest for the US). While that’s fine for the US, I don’t want to sit by and watch millions of non-Americans die on the news because some idiot knows the US will sit by and watch as long as the US isn’t threatened.

      The US intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11 failed (to my eyes) because it was a poorly thought out combination of Jacksonian, Hamiltonian and Wilsonian objectives. We wanted to deter state sponsors of terrorism by making an example of the worst (Jacksonian), enable long-term American power projection in the Middle East to prop up friendly governments (Hamiltonian) and do it all under an international human rights framework (Wilsonian). All of those are at cross-purposes. It didn’t help that the Democrats in prominent positions at the time (including Clinton) started Wilsonian and switched to Jeffersonian when the inevitable problems arose, further causing the issues to snowball into bigger and bigger ones (ex. terrorists see US support for occupation faltering and step up their resistance).

      I sympathize with the more Jeffersonian SSC commentariat, even as I reluctantly say ‘I told you so’. Obama ran as if he were a Jeffersonian, and I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he thought he would be able to roll back the mess in Iraq and Afghanistan. He couldn’t, and his Democratic administration has become more and more Wilsonian with each ‘humanitarian disaster’ the media picks up on. First it’s Boko Haram kidnapping schoolgirls, then Ghadaffi shooting protesters (and the Europeans calling for help), then it’s ISIS beheading people and Assad gassing his own population.

      The fundamental issue is one of variance. Will Clinton be Jefforsonian or Wilsonian? The current bouncing back and forth between the two positions makes the situation worse, because other international players don’t know what we’ll do. If Trump is indeed Jacksonian (don’t make us angry and we don’t care what you do), it will at least have the virtue of being consistent.

      Ultimately, it’s beyond the current election. Either the US/Western population is going to have to learn to ignore the front page photos of the latest ‘humanitarian disasters’, or we’re going to get stuck doing something, and that’s going to require a stick. If we’re going to use a stick, we’re either going to have to let someone else determine what stick we use, or do it ourselves; and we’re going to have to realize that if we let someone else make that determination, it will be in their best interests, not ours.

      • cassander says:

        >I sympathize with the more Jeffersonian SSC commentariat, even as I reluctantly say ‘I told you so’. Obama ran as if he were a Jeffersonian, and I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he thought he would be able to roll back the mess in Iraq and Afghanistan.

        Obama is clearly a Jeffersonian at heart, but he’s demonstrated that he lacks the resolve to stick to those principles when it’s politically costly to do so. That, plus his affection for soaring rhetoric, has resulted in a confused muddle of incremental (and thus ineffective) Wilsonianism.

        >Will Clinton be Jefforsonian or Wilsonian?

        There is no Jeffersonianism in Hillary. She’s never seen a conflict she didn’t want to get involved with.

        The question of whether she’s more Wilsonian or Hamiltonian is an interesting one. I’d say she’s actually similar to the elder bush in her conflation of the two, that she believes a moderate amount of Wilsonianism is in American’s Hamiltonian interests. The difference between her and the elder bush is that he understood that wilsonianism was difficult and expensive, and was willing to invest what was needed to make his wilsonian forays work. Clinton shows no such understanding, and often tries to do wilsonianism on the cheap, with ugly consequences.

        • Civilis says:

          Obama and Clinton are both Democrats, going along with the current of the Democratic party (although both tack in their own personal directions).

          Your mileage may vary in what counts as Hamiltonian/Wilsonian. I don’t see anything for the US in any of the foreign policy initiatives of the current administration, many spearheaded by Hillary. What did we get out of Libya? What do we get out of fighting Assad? Nothing we’ve done this administration benefits the US as a nation in any way; it’s all done in the name of Human Rights.

          I also see Hillary’s fingers in a lot of the 2009-2012 foreign policy stupidity. Pretending that Benghazi was all about a video is a classic Jeffersonian attempt to sweep a problem we’d otherwise have to deal with under the rug. Same with the ‘reset button’ to Russia. None of that advances the international order, advances the US as a world power, or secures National Security for the US or our allies.

          • cassander says:

            >I don’t see anything for the US in any of the foreign policy initiatives of the current administration, many spearheaded by Hillary

            In Syria, in theory, we’re trying to replace a Russian and Iranian backed state with an American one. Note, I think the chances of this happening are basically zero.

            >pretending that Benghazi was all about a video is a classic Jeffersonian attempt to sweep a problem we’d otherwise have to deal with under the rug

            I see that as pure spin and deflection to shift blame with little ideological content.

            > Same with the ‘reset button’ to Russia. None of that advances the international order, advances the US as a world power, or secures National Security for the US or our allies.

            Reset and Re-engagement is classic Hamiltonianism. Wilsonians don’t reset, they crusade against their enemies. Jeffersonians disengage. It’s Hamiltonians that say let’s let bygones be bygones and cut a deal.

          • Civilis says:

            In Syria, in theory, we’re trying to replace a Russian and Iranian backed state with an American one. Note, I think the chances of this happening are basically zero.

            You’re giving the US government too much credit for having a master plan. We could care less about who runs Syria, just as long as it doesn’t make the news for killing civilians (or people that, when killed and photographed, look like civilians).

            Assad was a ‘nice guy’ until pictures of civilians killed by the Syrian military made the news. And even then we went out of our way to give him chance after chance (setting the red line, then ignoring it, for example). Assad can’t really win without using the elite parts of his military, the helicopters and fighter bombers, and using those against guerillas in civilian territories invariably leads to civilian casualties even if you do everything right with state of the art equipment.

            If Assad uses just his army, it’s a guerilla war, and he doesn’t have enough troops to control all of Syria against rebels supported by a good chunk of the local population. He needs to hit the rebels and the civilians that back them in a way that doesn’t risk his troops in rebel-dominated territory. Hence the helicopters and air strikes.

            That’s also why the Syrian loyalists attack aid convoys. Assad needs to convince the Syrian public that the only way they have any chance is to support the regime.

            It’s Hamiltonians that say let’s let bygones be bygones and cut a deal.

            There’s no deal involved. Russia didn’t do anything or change their goals as a result of the US reset button. The US just declared that the animosity was over. (Iran did release hostages, but they were only barganing chips to force a deal to begin with.) A Hamiltonian deal would have had benefits for the US. There have been some Hamiltonian deals recently. The renewed ties between the US and Vietnam which have led to joint exercises, for example, are a deal where both sides got something.

          • cassander says:

            >You’re giving the US government too much credit for having a master plan. We could care less about who runs Syria, just as long as it doesn’t make the news for killing civilians (or people that, when killed and photographed, look like civilians).

            You misunderstand me. The government as a whole certainly has no master plan. I was merely giving the argument a pro-syrian intervention Hamiltonian would give, someone like Dick Cheney.

            >We could care less about who runs Syria, just as long as it doesn’t make the news for killing civilians (or people that, when killed and photographed, look like civilians).

            That’s true for some people, not others. I guarantee you Dick Cheney cares more about who runs Syria than how many civilians get killed.

            >There’s no deal involved. Russia didn’t do anything or change their goals as a result of the US reset button.

            That the effort didn’t work out doesn’t mean that the impulse behind it wasn’t Hamiltonian, at least for some people.

        • E. Harding says:

          Obama’s no Jeffersonian; he’s a cold-hearted realist, much like Trump. The main difference is Trump is actually more likely to defeat ISIS, as he didn’t deliberately create it and has some interest in destroying it for the sake of his base (and due to renewed left-wing agitation about White House foreign policy failures).

          • onyomi says:

            I’m pretty sure Obama didn’t intend to create ISIS.

          • E. Harding says:

            I’m pretty sure he did. Obama is many things, but he isn’t stupid or particularly ignorant. He has a very realist understanding of how the world works. I’m confident he understands the consequences of his actions.

          • onyomi says:

            Why on earth would he want that? It makes him look bad, if nothing else. I’m not saying there’s no argument to be made that he left a power vacuum for them to thrive in as an unintended consequence of his only semi-realized Jeffersonian inclinations, but I don’t see how their thriving could have been a goal of his, unless you think him a real Manchurian candidate for, I don’t even know who.

          • Nicholas says:

            Syria is a dyed in the wool Russian ally and client state. If weakening Russian control in the Middle East is a policy goal, destroying his allies’ countries is a reasonable move.

          • Anonymous says:

            Right, it’s not a stretch to say he intentionally sent weapons to some rebel moderates to help them out. And unless US intelligence is incompetent, he was told exactly how moderate the rebels were. “Obama intentionally created ISIS” makes it sound like Obama is maximizing for beheadings/year, but there are non-beheading, realpolitik reasons to create ISIS too.

          • TheAncientGeek says:

            I’m pretty sure he did. Obama is many things, but he isn’t stupid or particularly ignorant. He has a very realist understanding of how the world works. I’m confident he understands the consequences of his actions

            I’m pretty sure that understanding how the world works up to the level of being able to get exactly the desired result in international relations is very difficult, and most politicians aren’t up to it, including most of the smarter ones.

  34. Deiseach says:

    Lord God Almighty, after these two posts, we need a “Puppies and Kitties and Pretty Flowers and Chocolate and Nice Things Thread” just to let us all reclaim our sanity.

    • keranih says:

      Oh, so you’re into exploiting young babies of other species for the vain emotional satisfaction of humans who can’t handle their own problems? Nice.

      The SSC commentariant really is a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

      • Deiseach says:

        you’re into exploiting young babies of other species for the vain emotional satisfaction of humans

        On treadmills. With buckets to catch their tears for us to bathe in. 🙂

      • A nice things thread would be both a relief and something this blog hasn’t done before.

    • Stefan Drinic says:

      Heh. Yes, please.

  35. “If she comes to the brink of nuclear war with Russia, I expect her to de-escalate for the same reason I expect Putin to de-escalate; they’re both rationally self-interested people who want to continue being alive and ruling their respective countries”

    That same reasoning can be applied to “prove” that World War I couldn’t possibly have happened. It was a ruinous war whose outcome was disastrous for all sides, and has been called the suicide of Europe. Yet overconfidence and arrogance led all sides to keep pushing forward when they should have de-escalated. The same kind of thing could happen again.

    • herbert herbertson says:

      Sure, technocratic competence is not even close to a guarantee against dumb, disastrous wars. You don’t have to reach back to WWI to find that (and, indeed, I think it hurts your case to do so–the aristocratic and romantic ruling class of that time probably was a lot closer to the mold of Trump than of Hildog)–you can just point to Iraq.

      But a guarantee from dumb, disastrous wars is not the alternative on deck here.

    • Simon says:

      Well, it’s not hard to figure out. Each side thought that the other would choose the rational course and disengage.

  36. Ilya Shpitser says:

    Yeah. The last two posts and the comment tire fire afterwards was very informative for me because it helped me understand how someone like Trump could even be playing in the “try to be President” stadium in any sort of credible way. And the answer, sadly, is people are willing to use basically anybody as a tool in a culture war. The larger culture war is, to them, more important than the quality of the person sitting in the Oval office today, no matter how low it might be.

    The larger takeaway, to me, is having a flaring culture war is an existential risk for the US, and we need to learn to find a way to wind it down. Even if Trump loses, unless we address the underlying cause of Trump, he and his equivalence class of clowns isn’t going away from the national stage.

    • FacelessCraven says:

      This is the correct lesson to take away. I wish more people got it.

    • Sebastian H says:

      Yes a thousand times yes.

    • Anatoly says:

      I’m also endorsing this.

      The way I’ve been thinking about this lately is, we need to find a way to turn the 60ies into the 70ies. The late 60ies saw a culture war in some ways fiercer than the one flaring now (takeovers of campuses, MLK assassination…). The 70ies saw it all wound down and replaced by disco. How and why did that happen?

      One answer is “the US ended the draft” and if that’s closest to the truth, I think we’re screwed. But I think that’s too shallow. The protests in the 60ies were not a US-only thing and they wound down in the 70ies globally as well.

      Another possible answer “just wait for the culture to do its pendulum thing”, which may be too complacent.

      • John Schilling says:

        That’s a surprisingly promising line of thought. I agree with Ilya’s sentiment, and generally despair at achieving any sort of peaceful resolution to the Culture War. But the ’60s did beget the ’70s, and largely because the actual war behind much of the culture war finally ended.

        So how do we end the War on Terror? We’re going to need an answer that isn’t, “Everyone suddenly realizes that terrorist attacks are no worse than car accidents”, because the fraction of humanity that are practicing Rationalists is approximately nil.

        And I’m afraid we’re going to need a president who isn’t Trump or Clinton, so 2020 at the earliest. Can we hold out that long? Probably.

        • pku says:

          the actual war behind much of the culture war

          To what extent was this true? The obvious argument against this was that a lot of the culture war was civil rights, which weren’t directly related to the war. Also, to what degree was the war a rallying flag (like gender bathrooms) as opposed to a practical concern?
          I can imagine a possibility where enough people went to war that veterans were directly influencing the national discussion. But I’m not sure about this – the war protestors were stereotypically not drafted, and my impression is that the people who actually were in Vietnam were mostly volunteers – draftees generally ended up doing office work in West Germany or something.

        • ThirteenthLetter says:

          I really don’t see the causality here, given that the effect of the War on Terror on the people who are actually doing the culture warring is minimal. It’s certainly plausible that the War on Terror is a useful pretext to freak out about the right in order to gain power, but the thing about pretexts is that one can always find another.

      • cassander says:

        the 70s were basically one side of the culture war surrendering to the other. Since a huge part of that surrender was over overt racial and sexual discrimination, I’m glad that happened, but I’m much less sanguine about the prospects (both in terms utilitarian calculus and political viability) of a future surrender.

      • nimim. k.m. says:

        >One answer is “the US ended the draft” and if that’s closest to the truth, I think we’re screwed.

        I have a pet theory that major problem with the US draft system was that you could avoid it by going to college.

        You need a conscription that drafts the poor and the uneducated and the college liberals and the offspring of the senators and the millionaires. And then you consider very, very carefully whether the next war you will enter is going to be another WWII or another Vietnam.

        • anon says:

          Obligatory comment (that is worth making on SSC comment threads and few other places) pointing out that the draft was literally a form of slavery (in fact a particularly brutal form of it) and calling for its restoration is really kind of extreme.

          • The Nybbler says:

            Obligatory comment (that is worth making on SSC comment threads and few other places) pointing out that the draft was literally a form of slavery

            Oliver Wendell Holmes famously decided (in Schenck v. US) that you’re not allowed to say that.

          • anon says:

            I respectfully disagree with Justice Holmes and also doubt that he actually questioned my first amendment right to assert the position I expounded.

          • anon says:

            I think it’s quite clear that if HRC pursued a policy agenda that involved going to war with Russia, a significant contingent within the US military (which currently support Johnson and Trump over Clinton at roughly 35% to 35% to 15%) would regard the president’s policies as treasonous. If, moreover, the President were to attempt to impose a draft, public opposition would immediate go through the roof. Even if the administration were to attempt to maintain control over the situation using influence over the media, any uppity serviceman could immediately start an insurrection by singing a slave song in the company mess hall.

            I submit that the US military in fact lacks the popular support required to impose a draft in any near-term-conceivable military circumstances. Ergo even discussing it is non-germane because TPBT are aware of this fact. Probably this has been the case since Vietnam, even if the military brass haven’t really internalized the fact that this hasn’t changed, regardless of whether “Vietnam syndrome” was ended by Gulf War I.

          • keranih says:

            I submit that the US military in fact lacks the popular support required to impose a draft in any near-term-conceivable military circumstances.

            The US military remains one of the nation’s most trusted institutions.

            It would be an error to think that the US military leadership wants a draft. Anyone who tells you so is talking out of their hat. Leaders at all levels want nothing to do with the morale and behavior issues that come from draftees who don’t want to be there and lack the talent to get out of the draft.

            Pro-draft movements and legislature generally come out of Democrat politicos trying to make some sort of point, and get no where.

          • anon says:

            @keranih thanks for your observation. I agree that the US military is a highly trusted institution and I doubt anyone within its leadership wants to reinstate the draft. But I’d only emphasize that those two things *are related*. I still think it’s worth calling out that a renewed conscription policy is morally and economically equivalent to calling for slavery, and highlighting that part of the reason that US military leadership retains the trust of the nation is that its institutional structures somehow have internalized this fact in a way that civilians with military influence seem to have missed.

          • keranih says:

            part of the reason that US military leadership retains the trust of the nation is that its institutional structures somehow have internalized this fact in a way that civilians with military influence seem to have missed.

            …I’m not sure how well “civilians with military influence” fits as a descriptor of people actually advocating for a return to the draft.

      • Paul Brinkley says:

        “The way I’ve been thinking about this lately is, we need to find a way to turn the 60ies into the 70ies. The late 60ies saw a culture war in some ways fiercer than the one flaring now (takeovers of campuses, MLK assassination…). The 70ies saw it all wound down and replaced by disco. How and why did that happen?”

        If the only way out of the culture war is through disco, then I’ll be crawling back in with the tunnel rats.

        Seriously though, I see signs that the pendulum is swinging. Lots of people tire of it. This subthread is evidence.

        I don’t see the War on Terror ending any time soon, so long as people keep getting shot or blown up in Europe. There’s a threat there that Americans simply don’t control, and its perpetrators don’t care about our culture war.

        But I don’t think WoT needs to end in order for Americans to notice the pattern of destruction at home and develop a way of defusing it. I see the battle shifting from the main arguments in the culture war to attacks on those arguments, and then analysis of all arguments as people recognize a set of shared truths about validity. Even now, I’m seeing less yelling about oppression and aggression and more talking about goalpost shifting and prisoner’s dilemmeas and steelmanning and motte-and-bailey. The more people learn about these concepts, the more sober they get, and the better their arguments get, and the more universally appealing their viewpoints become.

        • ThirteenthLetter says:

          Seriously though, I see signs that the pendulum is swinging. Lots of people tire of it. This subthread is evidence.

          I’d love it if that was true, but are you sure you’re not just hanging around with more people who are tired of it?

      • houseboatonstyxb says:

        @ Paul Brinkley
        we need to find a way to turn the 60ies into the 70ies. The late 60ies saw a culture war in some ways fiercer than the one flaring now (takeovers of campuses, MLK assassination…). The 70ies saw it all wound down and replaced by disco. How and why did that happen?

        The rest of us hippies got busy cultivating our organic homesteads and inventing off-grid energy stuff.

    • Simon says:

      The answer couldn’t possibly be that we loathe the proposition of Hillary taking office even more than Trump due to Her corruption?

      • Ilya Shpitser says:

        Not interested in engaging in a H vs T slog, but yes, I think this is not your true rejection. Trump has a long long history that does not paint him as an honest dealer.

    • Garrett says:

      I have come to some sort of conclusion myself over the past few weeks. Unfortunately, that’s more easily said than done. Granted, there are lots of organizations which derive their existence on the strife and they will be opposed to letting go of that fundraising source.
      So – how do we solve this?

    • Luung Hawl says:

      Unbelievably, people here will say anything to defend a man, their younger selves, to a person, to a person, would have laughed at the idea of voting for-
      because of what happened to …….Brendan Eich.

      I keep expecting one or two to wake up.

      • Anonymous says:

        Man, people sure have a nasty tendency of remembering the worse excesses of any movement, don’t they?

      • The original Mr. X says:

        Unbelievably, it turns out that if Group A launches a nationwide smear campaign to force a prominent member of Group B out of his job merely for being part of Group B, members of Group B tend to remember that and decide that they don’t really want Group A in charge. Funny how that works.

      • hyperboloid says:

        I have never been sure how serious people who say that really are. It’s a level of vindictive tribal stupidity I have difficulty understanding. If you work in the tech sector you really have delude yourself about Trump’s trade policy to think his presidency will not have very bad consequences for your economic future.

        At any rate why don’t we at SSC just set up a Patreon, or Kickstarter account to support Brendan Eich’s work? The money can go to Brave software, or directly to Eich himself I don’t really care. If you want to stick it to the evil SJW’s, put your money where your mouth is instead of whining and playing footsie with fascists.

        • John Schilling says:

          At any rate why don’t we at SSC just set up a Patreon, or Kickstarter account to support Brendan Eich’s work

          Because Brendan Eich is not the sum total of our cares in this area, or even a majority of them. At this point, Eich is being invoked here mostly by the left, as a strawman to dismiss our broader concerns by saying or implying that it’s only one (rich white cis-hetero) guy being placed above all of Social Justice.

          • hyperboloid says:

            It doesn’t just have to be Eich personally who benefits, we could start a general fund to support people who we feel are being unfairly bullied.

            Every time someone tells you to check your privilege tell them you just gave fifty dollars to the society for the promotion of political incorrectness. if they call you a white male cis-gendered oppressor tell them you just gave one hundred.

            It would be a lot more productive then voting for the human equivalent of William S. Burroughs’ talking asshole .

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @hyperboloid – “If you want to stick it to the evil SJW’s, put your money where your mouth is instead of whining and playing footsie with fascists.”

            Hurting people is easy and fun for SJWs. Fixing what they break is expensive, hard, incredibly frustrating, and often not possible.

            “Every time someone tells you to check your privilege tell them you just gave fifty dollars to the society for the promotion of political incorrectness.”

            That is exactly what Trump’s campaign is. Before Trump it was the Puppies, before the puppies it was the Ants. Every step of the way, anyone who made any sort of effective counter-move was instantly the Talking Asshole. We don’t care any more.

          • Ilya Shpitser says:

            I think what I was trying to say is going with Trump is only an effective countermove in a “race to the bottom” type of Moloch game. I am not saying it’s not an effective move, only that it’s a bad game to play, and we should stop. But that requires some coordination/multilateral disarmanent.

            My intuition is the moderate left and moderate right need to learn to talk and wind their crazies down. But, you know, easier said than done. One thing that would help is the right getting some sort of intellectual center that’s free from attack.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            Ilya Shpitser – “My intuition is the moderate left and moderate right need to learn to talk and wind their crazies down. But, you know, easier said than done. ”

            More likely, I think, the Right collapses generally, the moderate left is left alone to deal with their crazies for a while, and pulls the moderate right back out of hiding to help.

          • The Nybbler says:

            @Ilya Shipster

            You don’t understand. Trump IS the moderate right. He’s immoderate on one position only, immigration.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @The Nybbler – Obama was the moderate left in a lot of ways as well. It didn’t help him much with the far right.

          • “One thing that would help is the right getting some sort of intellectual center that’s free from attack.”

            What counts as “the right?” There are a fair number of libertarian intellectuals out there. Do we count?

            And for that matter, what’s an “intellectual center?”

          • Ilya Shpitser says:

            > “What is an intellectual center?”

            What I mean is a more equitable split between the left and the right among public intellectuals, where we have a mutual respect/disarmament norm for intellectuals across the political divide. In that utopian setup, the left and the right positions are grounded in real things they can retreat to, and there is a balance of power, and each side can check each other’s bullshit.

            We have neither (libertarians aren’t influential enough to just carry all of the right, and there are sensible ways to steelman a lot of the ideas on the right that are not really libertarian in nature. For example, being empiricist about the progressive program, and rigorously testing proposed changes of any kind. That’s just small c conservativism grounded in empiricism, not libertarianism). And intellectuals on the right who do exist have to be very careful indeed these days with how they conduct themselves in public.

            Folks may say that the uneven split among intellectuals is the result of the inherent merit of stuff on the left, but they would be wrong.

        • keranih says:

          Because it’s the system that’s broke –

          – or maybe humans

          and funding this one guy won’t mend that.

        • ChetC3 says:

          How would that help stoke the fires of the culture war? The point is crushing the SJWs, not some guy’s career.

  37. Alraune says:

    “She wants to arm “friendly” rebel groups and enforce a no-fly zone”

    Yup. That’s the problem right there. Enforcing a no-fly zone in Syria means you are now at war with Russia. Not even at proxy war with Russia. You and Russian jets are shooting at each other now. You are asking us to vote for a candidate who has credibly committed to starting World War III on the basis that she is “low variance.”

    Even if you rule out that scenario –which you absolutely should not, Russia is convinced she wants a war, and Clinton’s been boosting the views of the most unhinged knock-over-Baghdad-on-the-way-to-Tehran Iraq War architects all summer– and assume she will “just” pursue regime change in some less lunatic manner, you are unleashing anarchy in the back yards of Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Iran: 4 of the most (increasingly rightfully) paranoid, mutually hostile, armed-to-the-teeth states that exist on this earth. Even in the ideal situation* the chaos is going to leak enough arms, terrorists, and mercenaries to fuel several more revolutions that a Clinton administration would gleefully gallivant off to meddle in.

    I’ve been racking my brain for a year now trying to think of a proper historical parallel for just how bad the destabilization risked by overthrowing Assad is. As far as I can tell, there is none. The only way overthrowing Assad could be a worse idea would be if Syria also shared a border with North Korea.

    *Ideal situation: The Trump/Putin conspiracy theorists are right, and on assuming power Trump fulfills his 50-year plan as a KGB sleeper agent by immediately ceding control of the entire Syrian theater to Russia.

    • FacelessCraven says:

      …and this is being done with the explicit goal of screwing with Russia!

    • The Nybbler says:

      *Ideal situation: The Trump/Putin conspiracy theorists are right, and on assuming power Trump fulfills his 50-year plan as a KGB sleeper agent by immediately ceding control of the entire Syrian theater to Russia.

      You think they’d take Afghanistan too, or is that a “fool me once” kind of thing?

    • Deiseach says:

      Oh God, Turkey! Given what went down there recently, do we really want President Erdogan deciding “Russia is taking over Syria, they’re moving in on us, the Americans are worse than useless, I need to do something about this”?

      Or possibly even worse, now they seem to be BFFs, “My dear and good friend Vlad sorted out Syria and showed those useless Americans what’s what; now we can co-operate on sorting out my little Kurdish independence problem”.

      I don’t want Turkey in the EU because, frankly, I think the Western-style secular veneer is very thin (and that it relies heavily on the support of the army, of all things, to keep the Ataturk-legacy in place should scare the pants off everyone) and I especially don’t like the notion of Turkey under Erdogan getting his feet under the table. Him becoming palsy-walsy with Putin doesn’t make me any happier, and the US letting Russia have it all its own way in Syria is about the worst of all the bad cases for what is going on in the region.

      • E. Harding says:

        “and the US letting Russia have it all its own way in Syria is about the worst of all the bad cases for what is going on in the region.”

        -Why do you think so?

  38. Ari says:

    As non-American, I find really sad quite many intellectual people would vote for Trump. I feel like you are being manipulated. I understand the masses but smart people arguing for this PERSON just saddens me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a big HRC fan either. Like David Brooks (who is a conservative), I miss Obama already. Tyler Cowen who I also deeply respect, doesn’t want Trump either and he is probably one of the greatest thinkers alive.

    I’m mainly concerned about foreign policy. If there was an Ukraine conflict, what would Trump do? You need someone like Obama with nerves, not someone who acts on gut instinct (his biographer made quite good remark on this).

    Domestic policy I don’t care and not really my business. HRC to me seems more rational though

    Even though I think presidents should have their flaws as well, I think president should be someone people could look up to as a role model.

    I feel like signalling loyalties leads people to pick suboptimal choices. Conservatives or like-minded want their tribe to win. Think about this way, who would you Americans want as German president? Probably you wouldn’t emotionally care either way. Contrast this to US. I’m sure theres somewhere in rationality training about this. Perhaps in the sequences.

    • Alraune says:

      As I’m relatively ignorant of the German political structure, I would pick Volker Kauder and hope that your current problems are specific to Merkel rather than baked into the system.

      As an American who’s seen the US government change hands repeatedly, however, I know our foreign policy problems are not specific to Obama (or Bush, or Clinton I), but rather have been a matter of bipartisan consensus, and therefore take the pick that has the possible upside of purging the evil viziers.

    • E. Harding says:

      “I miss Obama already”

      -We can start to miss Obama if Clinton wins.

      “Tyler Cowen who I also deeply respect”

      -Why???

      “If there was an Ukraine conflict, what would Trump do?”

      -He said that it would be great if the U.S. could get along with Russia and that, while he loves Ukraine and its people, the Europeans are most at risk of this, and they don’t seem to be doing much of anything about it, indicating it’s a low priority for Trump. His team also slightly watered down a particularly dangerous plank to the GOP platform calling for the provision of “lethal defensive weapons” to Ukraine’s wildly unpopular government.
      https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/trump-campaign-guts-gops-anti-russia-stance-on-ukraine/2016/07/18/98adb3b0-4cf3-11e6-a7d8-13d06b37f256_story.html?utm_term=.e0c560d7b4f0

      In response, Clinton’s campaign did a lot of red-baiting.

      Compare Clinton’s stance on this issue.

      “HRC to me seems more rational though”

      -How? Many people, including most of the college-educated, are just focusing on style instead of substance. Sad.

      “I think president should be someone people could look up to as a role model.”

      -So, not one of the current major-party nominees for president.

      “I feel like signalling loyalties leads people to pick suboptimal choices.”

      -Totally agreed.

      “and therefore take the pick that has the possible upside of purging the evil viziers.”

      -Bingo.

    • Luung Hawl says:

      ” I’m sure there’s somewhere in rationality training about this.”

      Be scared. These people are not reachable.

      • E. Harding says:

        Hm…

        http://www.gallup.com/poll/191855/russians-approval-leadership-drops-record.aspx

        Asking the people of the countries within the U.S. sphere of influence about who would make the best president adds no evidence either way about who would make the best president. It’s the people of the countries outside the U.S. sphere of influence which are best to consult about this.

        • Jiro says:

          It’s the people of the countries outside the U.S. sphere of influence which are best to consult about this.

          Why? For one thing, they’re very likely to be in countries with non-free presses full of propaganda which makes it harder for them to get an accurate picture than even Americans can.

        • E. Harding says:

          “For one thing, they’re very likely to be in countries with non-free presses full of propaganda which makes it harder for them to get an accurate picture than even Americans can.”

          -The U.S. has as much, and probably more, Russophobic propaganda than Russia has Ameriphobic propaganda. And the Russophobic propaganda in the U.S. is thoroughly MSM-wide and bipartisan. At least the propaganda in the countries outside the U.S. sphere of influence does not come directly out of DC and NYC, as the propaganda in the countries within the U.S. sphere of influence does. I think people not subject to U.S. propaganda can recognize what’s going on in their home countries and how U.S. foreign policy affects their home countries better than DC/NYC elites can.

          • Ilya Shpitser says:

            You should hang out in Russia for a while. I know a way you could get cheap airfare there, let me know if interested! You can get much better data for comparing US and Russian propaganda that way!

          • akarlin says:

            E. Harding is basically correct.

            There are no or next to no MSM Russian newspaper articles calling the US an “outlaw state” (mafia state, etc) such as the ones that appear in the NYT and WaPo literally every week.

            There are also some pro-Western newspapers such as Vedomosti and Novaya Gazeta which take a more or less consistently line against the Russian government.

            The only media that perform a similar function in the West are either Russian themselves (e.g. RT) or part of the altsphere.

          • Ilya Shpitser says:

            Dear self-described crazed Russian nationalist, Russia barely showed up on US news until their 19th century style land grab in Crimea, and even _now_ barely shows up. The US cares about Russia much less than Russia cares about the US. Official state media in Russia has a very specific consistent line about the US (they don’t call the US a “mafia state,” but sure call it a lot of other things, and insinuate a lot more). Russia has a very active online troll program, and in general their hostile propaganda game (and spy game) is miles ahead of the US, and has been since the Soviet days.

  39. Jaskologist says:

    A big part of this is America’s promise to defend its allies. This both prevents other countries from attacking America’s allies and prevents America’s allies from building big militaries and launching attacks of their own.

    I think you’re trying to conserve an institution that is already dead. Believe me, I can sympathize.

    Way back in 94, the US convinced Ukraine to disarm in exchange for security guarantees. This was an ongoing effort on our part; we stuck to the “disarm Ukraine” portion of that treaty in the following decades. There are some nice photos of Senator Obama personally inspected stockpiles in the Ukraine that he pushed to decommission. Dick Lugar (R) is right alongside him.

    So, at the time of Russia’s invasion, Ukraine had a guarantee from the US of protection, with bipartisan support including personal interest taken by the now-president of the United States.

    How did that work out for them? If you’re a head of state, what lesson do you take away?

    • Alraune says:

      Lesson? Keep your nukes.

      The annexation of Crimea is one of the more annoying things to judge out of the 2012 election even in hindsight. Romney was right about Russian ambitions, but Obama’s policy of lackadaisical footdragging (and the moderating influence of the Clinton->Kerry transition at State) seems to be the only thing that’s kept Syria from escalating further than it has already.

      The correct choice was obviously to support Ukraine and leave Syria the hell alone, but the choice was probably both vs. neither, meaning Obama was probably the better pick despite/because of being wrong about Russia in east europe.

      • cassander says:

        The correct thing to do in syria was stay out completely and let assad win. There was never any hope that any new syrian regime would be liberal (in the traditional sense) or our friend, so nothing good would come from getting rid of assad even if we succeeded. Instead the administration did the worst possible thing, investing enough to prolong the conflict and make the US seem involved, but not nearly enough to come close to winning.

        • Alraune says:

          I agree with that general assessment, but I’m specifically considering the counterfactual where instead of Obama’s second term we had Romney with a cabinet of Bush admin veterans. They would, I expect, have done even worse with Syria.

          • cassander says:

            at worst, we’d have gotten to the level of involvement we’re at now a lot sooner, which would mean many fewer dead and a better bargaining position. The obama administration’s incrementalism is disastrous because it doesn’t keep us out and it doesn’t win, so we end up both involved and looking weak. when it comes to war, go big or go home. either extreme is usually preferable to muddling. At the very least, a Romney administration would have had far more robust anti-ISIS operations, so while syria would probably have remained a disaster in general, it would only be one disaster, not two.

          • hlynkacg says:

            Agreed.

    • Stefan Drinic says:

      This kinda goes both ways, though. When the pro-Russian government there was being overthrown, the US never came in either,

      • Adam says:

        Cruz: “We told Ukraine we’d ensure (its) territorial integrity from Russia.”
        Politifact: “those were assurances, not guarantees. FALSE!”

        And some people still wonder why politifact is regarded as a joke by half the electorate.

        • hlynkacg says:

          IKR?

        • From the Budapest Memorandum:

          “1. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.”

          • John Schilling says:

            “Guarantee” and “assure” may be close to synonymous, but “respect” is not even close. There is language in the Budapest Memorandum that might reasonably be construed as an assurance that we would protect Ukraine from Russian nuclear attack, but if the contention is that there was any guarantee of protection against insurgency or invasion, I haven’t seen anything to support that.

          • “to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.”

            You could argue that only Russia is in violation of the agreement, but surely it is clear that it is–you can’t respect the existing borders while annexing territory that was within them. And the other signatories did nothing to prevent it.

            Would you have read the initial document as “each country agrees to respect the existing borders, but none of them has any obligation to make sure the other signatories do?” Do you think the Ukrainians would have thought that assurance of much value?

          • Jaskologist says:

            Having been fact-checked by Schilling, I’ve dug deeper and found this article by a Ukrainian ambassador involved in the Budapest Memorandum. This was written before the late unpleasantness.

            As it follows from the Memorandum and the above-mentioned unilateral acts, the five nuclear states, permanent members of the UN Security Council, did not make any special commitments with respect to Ukraine … The only specific obligation that the three nuclear states – the US, Russia, and the UK – took was that they “will consult in the event a situation arises which raises a question concerning these commitments.”

            So it looks like they did indeed understand that we promised them very little in return.

            I still think Pax Americana is in decline, but no fair bringing up other examples when my first one turns out wrong. We did not renege on our treaty with Ukraine.

        • cassander says:

          If you want a good fact checker, I’d suggest checking out the Washington Posts’s.

    • John Schilling says:

      Way back in 94, the US convinced Ukraine to disarm in exchange for security guarantees.

      Reality check: Ukraine was never armed, at least not in the nuclear sense. Ukraine had physical but not legal possession of some elements of former Soviet nuclear weapons systems, but did not at any point have even physical possession of a complete nuclear weapons system capable of conducting a nuclear attack (or even a credible bluff). Ukraine did and does have a capable aerospace industry, some of whose engineers are not Russian and which could eventually have built an operational nuclear weapons system using ex-Soviet hardware, but not before the Russians could and would have said, “Hey, rest of world: the new post-cold-war era still has a norm that responsible nations Don’t Steal Other Countries’ Nuclear Weapons, right? We’ll be sending in the cruise missiles and/or special forces shortly; please stay out of the way”. Any perception that something dangerously provocative going on, would have fallen on the Ukranians rather than the Russians.

      The discussion was about whether Russia would have use of the missiles positioned in Ukraine, or nobody. There was never a possibility of Ukraine having use of those missiles. In exchange for Ukraine allowing Russia to have use of Russian nuclear missiles in Ukranian possession, Russia agreed not to use any nuclear missiles against Ukraine and the rest of the world agreed to complain Do Something via the UN Security Council if the Russians ever did nuke Ukraine.

      This agreement has been consistently upheld from 1991 to the present. Ukraine’s substantial conventional arsenal and arms industry was unaffected by any of this, and remains intact (but apparently of limited utility against somewhat better equipped and much better trained Russian conventional military forces).

      • ” Ukraine had physical but not legal possession of some elements of former Soviet nuclear weapons systems, but did not at any point have even physical possession of a complete nuclear weapons system capable of conducting a nuclear attack (or even a credible bluff). ”

        Could you expand on that a little? Given physical possession of the missiles and launch sites, what more does it take to be able to reprogram the targets and launch?

        • John Schilling says:

          Among other things, “reprogramming the targets” means providing the missile with a set of very precise, detailed instructions in a unique format that is almost certainly classified but really doesn’t need to be given its technical obscurity. Generating those instructions requires dedicated software running on a dedicated computer.

          It is not clear that any such computer ever existed within the borders of Ukraine. When the United States deployed 108 Pershing II nuclear-armed ballistic missiles to West Germany, we sent I believe all of six mobile command centers capable of generating target cartridges that would then be distributed to the actual missile firing units. The former Soviet Union favored more centralized command of its strategic forces, and very likely kept that capability at home.

          If the missile regiments in Ukraine were issued any such systems, they would have been among the most closely-held military secrets in the country, in the joint custody of military and political officers of unquestioned loyalty to Moscow, and if they couldn’t be evacuated on the eve of Ukrainian independence they would have been wiped and/or slagged.

          Absent that capability, the missiles can only be fired against targets for which the firing units have target cartridges. Which, for Soviet ICBMs, would have meant targets in the United States or Western Europe. And firing blind, because the target cartridges almost certainly do not have labels like “Whiteman Air Force Base” but rather “MD634W-A9” with the index being in the General’s pocket as he flies back to Moscow.

          Also, the warheads won’t detonate and the missiles probably won’t even launch without the PAL codes, or whatever the Russians call their equivalent. And that’s usually integral to the guidance and fuzing hardware, so until you can reverse-engineer those systems there’s no way around that.

          • pku says:

            Thank you for reminding me that whatever else can be said about them, nuclear weapons are really friggin cool.

          • Jiro says:

            Building weapons from scratch requires computers too. And having the refined uranium, bomb casings, etc. and basically everything except the computer and software is still a heck of a leg up compared to starting from scratch.

  40. John Schilling says:

    The main concern I’ve heard is that the no-fly zone might lead to conflict (war?) with Russia. […] But the clearest description she’s given of what she wants suggests a no-fly zone with Russian cooperation and support.

    Isn’t this rather like saying that Chamberlain et al wanted a Central European No-Invasion Zone with German cooperation and support? It is at best meaningless fluff to say that, gosh, it would be nice if the Russians and their allies stopped bombing people we like, so we want the Russians to support the no-bombing-people-we-like plan. It is dangerous to make this a centerpiece of your public doctrine unless you’ve got some way of actually bringing the Russians on board, and if you do that’s the part you need to talk about. Otherwise you’re going to look like an impotent loser when the Russians go right on bombing people that we like, and as politicians are loathe to look like impotent losers in public, I fear that you might indeed wind up shooting down a Russian plane to prove you’re not a loser.

    I agree that Trump is the higher-variance candidate in this election, particularly on foreign policy. That’s dangerous, and I’ve argued against supporting him on that basis among others.

    But he and Hillary seem to be coming from the same, dangerous, place – a perception that because the USA is mighty, the #1 priority of every foreign leader is to not find themselves on the wrong side of a war with the USA, and if we are simply firm and tough they will do what we say. Trump doesn’t contemplate waging a twenty-year war with Iraqi insurgents to “take the oil”, and Hillary doesn’t contemplate shooting down Russian planes to end the fighting in Syria. Both of them seriously believe that if they are Firm and Tough in stating their positions, a magic formula that has somehow escaped all previous Presidents, our various adversaries will quietly stand down and say, “Yes sir, take what you want, please don’t bomb us!”.

    That plan never works. Most national leaders have higher priorities than not being bombed by the United States. If nothing else, being bombed by the United States is an eminently survivable experience for foreign strongmen. Losing the confidence of your own people, gets you raped to death with bayonets.

    Russia isn’t going to sign on to a no-fly zone in Syria, unless we give Putin something that is more valuable to him than Syria. What is Hillary planning to give him, that is more valuable to him than Syria, and how valuable is that thing to us? If the planned concession is something along the lines of a trade agreement, that plan also never works – we care far more about free trade than most of our adversaries; they care far more about hegemonic control of neighboring territories than us, and they care still more about looking strong in front of their own people.

    So the next question is, what is Hillary going to do when Russia doesn’t sign on to the no-fly zone, or to any other plan that doesn’t involve killing a few hundred thousand Syrians and displacing millions more so that Assad can rule securely as a Russian puppet? Again, she’s less likely to start a war than Trump is. But Trump seems likely to start a war against someone like Iran or North Korea; Clinton is flirting with a Russian war. So maybe I’m going to back away from my claim that Trump is the high-variance candidate here.

    • Scott Alexander says:

      I’m not totally sure Russia would never support a no-fly zone. Both us and Russia want to bomb our enemies in Syria; if we both agree to stop then it becomes just another form of cease-fire, which Russia has agreed to in some cases. If Assad seems to be doing well, it might even be a way to protect a favorable status quo. And depending on where the no-fly zone is, it might be possible to negotiate a region that protects some civilians without sacrificing Russian interests in the area.

      But even if this proves impossible, Hillary saying that her plan is a no-fly zone with Russian cooperation means that she’s not explicitly recommending a no-fly zone without Russian cooperation. In other words, when she says “I want a no-fly zone” she doesn’t mean “I am an idiot who doesn’t care if I cause WWIII”.

      I don’t know, maybe the no-fly zone idea is a campaign point that she knows won’t work. The point is, it gives us a scenario where Hillary isn’t stupider than the average journalist or commenter here (which I think is a reasonable prior). Hillary asks Russia for a no-fly zone, Russia says no, and Hillary gives up and tries something else instead of enforcing a no-fly zone anyway.

      • cassander says:

        Russia has invested heavily in preserving the Assad regime. They are not going to abandon support for him that they think is important, so for them to accept a no-fly zone, you have argue that russian bombing is either objectively ineffective or the russians don’t think it’s important. Neither seems to be the case.

        And even if it came to pass what would a no-fly zone accomplish? A no-fly zone in syria is a typical washington solution, it sounds like doing something without sounding expensive. Thinking about its efficacy, though, is practically non-existent. So Assad Russia and Assad stop bombing their enemies, and we stop bombing their friends. At best, that PROLONGS the syrian civil war, which means more death, more refugees, most chaos. how does that help anyone besides ISIS, who don’t have planes to drop bombs anyway? And what does it say about hillary that she either thinks this aggressive, hard to achieve proposal is a good idea, or doesn’t but is willing to demagogue on a terrible idea to get votes?

        • Alraune says:

          You can’t demagogue on creating a No-Fly Zone. “No-Fly Zone” is a euphemism specifically designed to sound unexciting. The options are Genuinely Wants to Antagonize Russia vs. Wants to Demagogue Antagonizing Russia.

          • cassander says:

            demagogue is perhaps the wrong term, “say silly, potentially dangerous things to signal toughness” is more apt, though it doesn’t roll off the tongue.

      • Sandy says:

        Russia allowed the Libyan no-fly zone. NATO used that to destroy Libya. Russia thus no longer has any reason to trust the US on the issue of no-fly zones, even if Assad wasn’t an ally of the Kremlin. It’s already been established that you can get a no-fly zone with Russian cooperation and use that to do something that infuriates Russia. As for not sacrificing Russian interests in the area, Assad *is* the Russian interest in the area, and Hillary crowing about Gaddafi’s death (“We came, we saw, he died!”) does not inspire confidence in that regard.

        Hillary asks Russia for a no-fly zone, Russia says no, and Hillary gives up and tries something else instead of enforcing a no-fly zone anyway.

        As long as the something else isn’t further antagonizing Russia by lobbying for Security Council reforms that weaken Moscow’s veto power. Oh wait, the US is already doing that.

        • AnonBosch says:

          Russia allowed the Libyan no-fly zone. NATO used that to destroy Libya. Russia thus no longer has any reason to trust the US on the issue of no-fly zones, even if Assad wasn’t an ally of the Kremlin.

          Was Russia under the impression at the time that we weren’t going to aid in the overthrow of Qaddafi? It seemed pretty clear to me just from casually following the news.

          • Sandy says:

            They were under the impression that NATO wasn’t going to effectively join forces with the National Transitional Council and help the rebels sodomize Gaddafi with a bayonet and leave his corpse by the side of the road, yes. Putin was pretty mad about how quickly Libya disintegrated and how Gaddafi met his end. This was not helped when John McCain tweeted that Gaddafi’s demise should make Putin feel nervous.

          • cassander says:

            The decision was made by Medvedev, not Putin. Medvedev was generally much more in favor of accommodation with the west. By several accounts, this decision is what made putin decide to ditch medvedev.

          • Ilya Shpitser says:

            Medvedev had no power to make decisions like this at any point.

          • cassander says:

            >Medvedev had no power to make decisions like this at any point.

            that was true after libya. Not before.

          • Ilya Shpitser says:

            No, it’s just true full stop. Medvedev was always a puppet.

      • Deiseach says:

        Hillary asks Russia for a no-fly zone, Russia says no, and Hillary gives up and tries something else instead of enforcing a no-fly zone anyway.

        Then that makes her look weak, if she’s been saying all along “My plan is a no-fly zone (with Russian co-operation)”. What’s her Plan B in this case? How does she avoid looking like either (a) she wanted this, the Russians told her go chase herself, she had to roll over and take it – something I don’t think Hillary takes very kindly or (b) she had something else in mind all along so why the insistence on the no-fly zone or (c) she has no fall-back so she has to pretend she likes rolling over for the Russians and scraping together a last-minute alternative, so the Russians effectively have a veto on American foreign policy because she’ll back off if they stick to their guns (literally and metaphorically)?

        She needs to say “My first choice is the no-fly zone, if I can’t get that, then Number Two choice is [whatever]”. Because she does not strike me as someone who takes kindly to being made look weak – Trump may be the kind to more immediately flare up and take offence and bluster loudly, but I think Hillary holds grudges and waits her time to hit back – and what is she going to do if Putin challenges her? How is she going to implement American foreign policy, whatever it may be under her administration?

        It’s a difficult question, and I don’t envy her trying to keep all the balls in the air, but if we’re questioning Trump’s lack of ability to cope, we have to ask Hillary the same thing: if Putin starts pushing, what are you going to do – push back, with the risk of escalating things to a degree of hotness nobody wants, or have you some other means of reining him in?

      • John Schilling says:

        I’m not totally sure Russia would never support a no-fly zone. Both us and Russia want to bomb our enemies in Syria

        You understand the difference between US and Russian perceptions of “our enemies in Syria”, right? To us, the enemies are ISIS and Assad, because they do grievous harm to e.g. the telegenic and sympathetic moppets of Aleppo. But we’ve agreed to bomb only ISIS and not Assad. Because Russia’s enemies are ISIS and the moppets of Aleppo, who prevent the Assad regime from securing Syria as a Russian puppet state. And it turns out the Russians and their Syrian allies can bomb all of their enemies, while we are limited to also bombing some of Russia’s enemies for them. Why would they want a no-fly zone?

        If we both agree to stop then it becomes just another form of cease-fire, which Russia has agreed to in some cases. If Assad seems to be doing well, it might even be a way to protect a favorable status quo.

        If Assad is doing well, it is because of Russian and Syrian air support. And if Russia and Assad favor a cease fire while the outcome of the conflict is in any way in doubt, while Assad’s regime is less than secure, it will be for short-term tactical advantage and it will end as soon as it is no longer to their advantage.

        If they wanted a no-fly zone, they could have one any time they wanted, with or without our cooperation. The Assad regime is still the internationally-recognized legitimate government of Syria, and with that government’s permission Russia has deployed modern air defense systems in Syria. “We will provide our Syrian allies with full technical support in securing the sovereignty of Syrian airspace. Effective immediately, any aircraft entering the Syrian ADIZ without clearance from Damascus will be ordered to leave and may be fired upon if it does not”. Bam, done, nothing we can do about it without shooting at Russians (or being shot by Russians and doing nothing in return).

        But again, why would they want a no-fly zone, when it is already the case that the only planes flying over Syria are Russian planes bombing Russia’s enemies, Syrian planes bombing Russia’s enemies, and American planes bombing Russia’s enemies?

        I don’t know, maybe the no-fly zone idea is a campaign point that she knows won’t work […]. Hillary asks Russia for a no-fly zone, Russia says no, and Hillary gives up and tries something else instead of enforcing a no-fly zone anyway.

        That makes Hillary look weak and/or stupid, and by extension the US looks weak and/or stupid, to no purpose. In this hypothetical, not raising the issue of a no-fly zone at all has the same material end result, with less apparent weakness and much less apparent stupidity. So, if she understands now that it won’t work, what’s her possible upside in proposing it at all?

        If she thinks she has a clever plan to make it work, what happens when it doesn’t and how far does she go to avoid looking weak and/or stupid? Because we know Hillary does stupid things to avoid looking weak almost on instinct, e.g. trying to pass off pneumonia as simple fatigue. I think she’s better than Trump at avoiding the sort of stupid things that start wars, but she’s flirting with a much bigger war than Trump.

  41. cassander says:

    Clinton combines a few traits that, on their own, are either neutral or bad, but together ensure disaster. One, she has a very expansive view of american interest. Two, she is very aggressive about pursuing them. Three, despite one and two she seems unwilling (though less unwilling than the obama administration has been) to actually stick her neck out for these interests on principle and invest considerably effort behind them.

    The combination of these three factors results in a “strategy”, I use that term very loosely, of what I call aggressive minimalism. She is quick to invest american power in situations, but invests only the absolute minimum believed needed to obtain them. And that works fine, as long as everything goes according to plan. When things don’t go according to plan, it results in either disaster(libya), creeping incrementalism (Syria), or embarrassing failure (Somalia). And the world being what it is, things don’t go according to plan more often than not. Worse, the more important the objective in question is to the enemy, the more likely they are to either figure out this minimalism and respond accordingly (something I think putin did in crimea) or simply call our bet and raise the stakes.

    On a more philosophical level, one of the biggest hurdles the US Government faces is the limits on the time and attention of senior leadership. For good or ill, the US has global responsibilities and commitments, and there are only 24 hours a day. On virtually every issue the US is involved in, the local leadership will care more, have more time, and devote more effort to the problem than US leadership will. To take syria as an example, the leaders of the Turks, iraqis, iranians, etc. know more about the issue than the US president will, spend more time on it than he will, and care more about it. Aggressive minimalism makes this problem worse. It multiplies american commitments and increases the size of those commitments in a way that minimizes the time and attention leadership will devote to them.

    There’s no better example of how her minimalism causes problems than her Libya adventure. Hillary’s summation of “we came, we saw, he died” perfectly sums up her attitude towards the effort. A bombing campaign that the US didn’t even officially lead (unofficially, of course, we were indispensable) removed gaddafi, prevented a massacre, and put a bunch of “freedom loving” rebels in charge of the country. The sole casualty was a british airman slain not by libyan air defenses but italian traffic. We celebrated victory, and assumed that libya was solved forever.. Of course it wasn’t, and I won’t take the time here to elucidate how things have continually gotten worse. I will simply point out that the low level of american investment meant that this decline has been continually ignored.

    US policy should be based around a strategy of overcommitment. We should carefully choose where we decide to invest time and attention. When we do commit (or, 9 time out of 10, where we decide to increase our commitment) we should commit much more effort than we think strictly necessary, for a couple reasons. First, it increases the odds of success. There is a story told of planning the invasion of grenada that is probably apocryphal but illustrates the point well. At the end of the planning brief, Reagan says “everything looks good, just send twice as many troops.” When asked why he said “because if you’d sent 12 helicopters instead of 6, Jimmy Carter would still be president.” The US’ greatest advantage over all rivals is its massively greater resources. We should take advantage of this as much as possible. Second, and this is perhaps more important, overcommitment forces a highly distractible political system to pay more attention to the issue in question. Libya is allowed to be a never ending catastrophe because there are no americans there. Iraq was not.

    Successful strategy requires understanding your strengths and weaknesses, then acting in a way that magnifies the former and mitigates the latter. Clinton has a long history of doing the opposite. Her foreign policy will be a disaster. Given world conditions, it will literally get hundreds of thousands of people killed, though few of those will be american.

    Trump is, of course, a wildcard. he has no record, and his statements are inconsistent. But on the whole, I see none of the aggressive minimalism of hillary. Any war he starts he will certainly want to finish, if only for reasons of pure ego. I can’t say if trump is less likely to start wars than hillary (it is hard to be more likely than her, given that there’s not one conflict of the past 25 years she hasn’t supported) but I think he is far more likely to actually win the wars he does start, and that is a good thing.

    • ThirteenthLetter says:

      Presidential politics aside, this comment did a really good job of summarizing the problems with the sort of half-assed incrementalism that’s been in vogue with American warfighting for the past couple decades. I’d argue that Bush suffered from it too, although his motivations were different from HRC’s — consider how long it took to properly oppose the Sunni militias in Iraq, for instance.

      • cassander says:

        I’d say Bush was considerably less prone to the problem than is usual, but that’s definitely damning with faint praise. The problem is definitely not unique to Clinton, though I do feel she displays it to an unusual degree.

      • Edward Scizorhands says:

        It also makes Clinton guilty of the problem Scott pointed out. Destroying Libya was 1% of the work, rebuilding it was 99% of the work, and Clinton acted like it would just happen. This is just what he accused Trump (correctly, I think) of doing with institutions. Although Clinton is doing it to other countries, which I guess is better for the US.

        Politically, you can see how it worked. The average American on the street doesn’t think the US got sucked into Libya or Syria, so who cares? It doesn’t reflect badly on Obama at all.

    • O says:

      While I don’t think Hillary’s “aggressive minimalism” is ideal foreign policy, I don’t see it as clearly worse than many of the alternatives. As an example, I am not convinced that Hillary, had she been President, would have gotten us into Iraq. Yes, she voted for it, as did 77% of the Senate, in a post-9/11 climate of intense political demagoguery by the Bush administration. But by no means was she as obsessed with military intervention as the actual neocons Cheney/Wolfowitz/Rumsfeld et al. And it’s not as though the Bush administration fully committed to Iraq or Afghanistan. This is only one example, but I think it serves to illustrate the hyperbole here; Hillary is not exactly an outlier when it comes to aggressiveness and minimalism, so it seems extreme to paint her stance in such a catastrophic light. Further, it’s not obvious to me that the alternatives here are better. Is an “aggressive maximalism” or “isolationism” better? If historical example is a guide, I would say “not obviously.” Foreign policy is a deeply complex topic with non-obvious answers, requiring substantive contact with canonical examples of moral questions for which there is no academic consensus, history, military strategy, realpolitik, game theory, sociology of foreign culture and religion and politics and blowback, integration of ramifications of political fallout and short-term vs long-term goals, and so on and so forth. I think it’s a mistake to hand-wave Trump’s wildcard/no record/inconsistent statements as a vague positive, as though any bumbling fool making blustery claims about annihilating our enemies is a better alternative to a seasoned professional who is more-or-less a nuanced centrist on foreign policy.

  42. Houshalter says:

    You are making arguments about probability and prediction. I think this is a perfect case for prediction markets or predictionbook. I can’t find any relevant predictions posted yet, so I am thinking about how to create one. I find it difficult to define precisely “Probability starts a war”, because I want to exclude small scale military actions but include larger scale ones.

  43. I’ll try to keep this brief, and hasten to add I have not read the comments.

    1. This is a misreading of US foreign policy.
    2. This is a misreading of the Cold War.
    3. This is a misreading of the state of US dominance.
    4. This is a misreading of the two candidates.

    I’ll start with 4, since that’s simplest.

    Trump is a bully and is threatening tiny nations seen as threatening American interests. To the extent he supports violence, it is attacking with overwhelming force, with limited objectives, and securing American interests.

    This is fundamentally different from saber-rattling with another Great Power, or committing ourselves to relatively lengthy nation-building conflicts.

    To this extent, Trump is vastly more likely to bomb the shit out of Iran or North Korea, but he is vastly less likely to commit US troops to a lengthy occupation of Iraq. He is also vastly less likely to deliberately provoke

    Also, you suggested in the last post that you took Trump seriously, but not literally. This is certainly incorrect if you think Trump is actually going to blow Iranian ships out of the water for taunting US sailors. This statement is in the same category as “I will default on the debt.”
    The same applies to NATO. The same applies to nuclear weapons. Apparently you did not watch the debate where Trump said NATO was key US security, AND Trump stupidly disavowed nuclear first strike (which we absolutely will do if we ever find ourselves in a conflict with another nuclear power).

    So Trump is certainly the high-variance choice WRT bombing crappy nations, but I’d say he’s definitely the low-variance choice WRT lengthy nation-building enterprises or foolishly challenging Russia or China.

    WRT Pax Americana:
    WTF? There was no “Pax Americana” after WWII. There was a Cold War. The US and the USSR were moments away from blowing each other out of the water. At multiple times the USSR invaded its satellite nations to suppress rebellions.
    Just ask Afghanistan, Czechoslovakia, or Hungary if the Cold War was an awesome, peaceful time. There wasn’t Pax anything, there was a global confrontation in which each side was afraid to challenge the other.
    Had there been no nukes, there CERTAINLY would have been a WWIII, and there is a HIGH probability of US defeat. We simply didn’t have enough forces in Europe to stop the Soviets WITHOUT nukes.
    Note: The US had scaled back commitments to Europe before, even in the midst of the Cold War. LBJ I believe withdrew several American divisions from Europe at the height of the Cold War. I believe this was also the start of the REFORGER exercises.
    Anecdotally, the 60s and the 70s saw dramatic decreases in American readiness and capability in Europe. Now I don’t know this aspect too well, but the army buddies I read say the US Army essentially skipped an entire generation of modernization in this period and was severely lagging. This was the case across ALL NATO nations (except Great Britain).
    The US had a few modernized weapons in the 70s like the -teen fighter series and some good attack helicopters, but dramatically under-funded European defense. The army buddies I read think that even with the use of tactical nukes NATO would not have been able to stop the USSR in this period (they also think the idea of Limited Nuclear War is stupid, but that’s besides the point).
    I won’t stand by the point, because I don’t know enough to defend it.

    Basically, yes, we have short-changed Europe in the past, even at the height of the Cold War.

    Anyways,
    The Cold War was a special period in history that absolutely required US leadership. That period is now over. There is no looming ideological superpower that tomorrow can launch simultaneous invasions on Western Europe, the Middle East, China, and Japan, and probably defeat them all in a single campaign season with fewer casualties than they endured in WWII.

    Is the world still dangerous and does it still require US leadership? I’d actually argue yes and Trump is too much of an idiot to run good foreign policy. However, he certainly has a point about our allies pitching in for their own freakin’ defense.
    US defense posture has never been about taking the ENTIRE burden. We will provide the heavy-lifting and augment the capability of our local allies. But local allies need to pitch in.

    Europe is particularly bad about this. Most nations do not meet their defense expenditure guidelines. Several nations ran out of smart munitions while attacking Libya (presumably they maintained some level of war-stock). France and Britain combined struggled to run a proper operation in Mali, which required Britain to bring certain war essentials out of retirement to maintain an intelligence advantage and logistics train.

    We aren’t staying in Europe forever. It’s ahistorical. We’ve already withdrawn all our heavy combat forces from the continent. The US forces rushing to the Baltic border will be Stryker IFVs.
    In the long-run, the check to Russia cannot be the US. It has to be Poland and Germany.
    This should be a trivial exercise. Europe is theoretically united in this, and is dramatically richer and more powerful than Russia. The US should not have to provide the heavy-lifting in this arena.

    There’s other institutions where European policy is counter to US policy and actively undermining the Francis Fukuyama “end of history” mechanisms. Chinese SDRs in the IMF are one such thing. The Chinese investment bank in Asia, which the US did not participate in despite our European allies providing capital to this bank.

    There’s also a broad degree of sheer incompetence in global policy outlook. Adding India to the Nuclear Supplier Group is one such incident: the NSG was formed specifically in reaction to India developing atomic bombs, now we are adding them to the group despite not ratifying the Non-Proliferation treaty and giving up their weapons? What kind of message does THAT send? That’s about as bad as anything Trump has said, but that position is supported by a large number of “intelligent” Westerners, including the British government.

    The Iran deal is a shit deal that entirely undermines our nuclear non-proliferation goals. Gold standard nuclear deals are augmented deals that prohibit uranium enrichment and provide various methods to prevent indigenous nuclear development. The UAE nuclear deal is one such standard. We are currently trying to secure augmented nuclear deals with Jordan and Saudi Arabia: what realistic chance do we have now that we basically gave the farm away in the Iran deal?
    This is a nation that deliberately created highly enriched uranium for no purpose other than to blackmail the world.
    Asinine!
    People will ask me what my alternative is. The alternative is to choke the nation with sanctions and destroy the national infrastructure as much as possible with air strikes. It is impossible to stymie the nation’s nuclear ambitions, but you absolutely can destroy dams, power stations, shut down key highways, destroy tunnels, block harbors, and the like.

    Basically:
    1. You are drawing a false parallel between the Cold War and the current world. That danger doesn’t exist anymore.
    2. Other nations really do need to start pulling their weight.
    3. In many cases our allies are actively undermining our attempts to build good international institutions.
    4. World leaders make all sorts of colossal mistakes anyways and this system is not as stable or as safe as you think it is in the long-term.
    5. Trump wanted to blow the crap out of a small nation is not the same as Hillary saber-rattling with a great power.

    Note: I still think Trump is a bad FP candidate. This is absolutely accurate. We’ve had bad FP Presidents before, though. Most notably the early years of Carter, the early years of Clinton, the entire Obama presidency, and the Ford presidency (IMHO). By common consensus (to which I do not agree) the Dubya Presidency as well.

    • Anonymous says:

      dramatically under-funded European defense

      Offtopic, but I remember seeing a picture posted on the chans of Cold War tank numbers in Europe. In the USSR alone, not counting stuff stationed in satellite states, there were more tanks (twice as many? more? I don’t remember) than in all of blue Europe.

      The comment for the picture was: “The reason why the USSR went bankrupt”

      • baconbacon says:

        The USSR went bankrupt because Communism is a failed economic system, the US has spent enormous sums on its military without going broke thanks to a far superior economic system.

    • baconbacon says:

      I am generally against Pax Americana as an argument because people have a misguided notion of how much violence it saved, but you are going way to far in the other direction.

  44. Alexp says:

    I haven’t commented here in a while but I’ll leave this here:

    For the last few decades, since the end of the Cold War the range of sanctioned opinions on foreign policy has essentially been on a one dimensional axis: neocon v. not-neocon. The terminology wasn’t always there or popular, but it was essentially people who believed that America should use military force to solve the world’s problems/spread Liberal Democracy, and those who don’t. Now sometimes, there are kickbacks like Halliburton winning that no-bid contract in Iraq (realistically, Halliburton was one of two companies that could have realistically fulfilled the terms of that contract though), but that’s just a side benefit. The main goal is to spread Western Style Democracy.

    Hillary Clinton is more of a Neocon than most Democrats, but less than most Establishment Republicans. That’s more than I’m comfortable with, but still nothing crazy.

    Trump, however, is not a Neocon at all. This causes some people to think that he’s therefore an isolationist or dove, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. He wants to aggressively crush ISIS. You think he’s going to do that by asking nicely? He threatens to start wars over minor insults and rude gestures. He wants to permanently occupy foreign countries in order to take their resources.

    Really, the closest analogue I could think of for Trump’s foreign policy positions is the mid-late Roman Republic. Think Marcus Licinius Crassus.

    • cassander says:

      >Hillary Clinton is more of a Neocon than most Democrats, but less than most Establishment Republicans. That’s more than I’m comfortable with, but still nothing crazy.

      There hasn’t been a war of the last 25 years that hillary hasn’t supported. Hillary is as hawkish as hawks get.

      • hyperboloid says:

        There hasn’t been a war of the last 25 years that Hillary hasn’t supported. Hillary is as hawkish as hawks get.

        The second part of that does not follow logically from the first. In the period form 1991 to 2016 there have been six major US military interventions overseas. I am not sure there is a public record of what she thought at the time about the first Persian gulf war, I assume the she supported her husband’s intervention in Yugoslavia, she voted in favor of the Iraq and Afghan wars (she has since said she regrets the Iraq vote), and she supported the interventions in Libya and against ISIS. Expanding the time frame a bit, she opposed the war in Vietnam, and has said very negative things about US intervention in central America in the 1980s. Is this as is as hawkish as hawks get?

        To say so seems to forget that the Bush administration and the neo-cons were ever a thing. Compare her to Dick Cheney who unrepeatability supports every intervention on that list plus many more including being very serious about action against Iran. Hillary’s attitude seems to be about the average of the us foreign policy elite.

        • cassander says:

          > In the period form 1991 to 2016 there have been six major US military interventions overseas.

          There have definitely been more than 6. There have been at least 4 just in the obama administration (Syria, ISIS, Libya, Yemen). 5 if you count the afghan surge.

          >I am not sure there is a public record of what she thought at the time about the first Persian gulf war

          I have looked, and not found any, which I find odd.

          >Is this as is as hawkish as hawks get?

          You counted 5 major conflicts. She supported all 5. So, sort of by definition, yes. And if you broaden the definition of conflict, her record doesn’t get less hawkish. She rattled sabres with John Mccain over Georgia, supported the afghan surge (and told Robert Gates that she supported the iraq surge in private, though said otherwise in public) persistently advocated for more US involvement in Syria, was the key player in bringing around the Libya intervention, and so on.

          >Compare her to Dick Cheney who unrepeatability supports every intervention on that list plus many more including being very serious about action against Iran. Hillary’s attitude seems to be about the average of the us foreign policy elite.

          I seem to recall that Cheney was critical of Clinton sending troops to Bosnia, but putting that aside, but Hillary also “supports every intervention on that list plus many more.” Slightly less hawkish than dick cheney is still extremely hawkish, and far from about average by any standard.

          • hyperboloid says:

            Defining major military interventions is obviously subjective, but I was counting the first Persian gulf war, the former Yugoslavia (I suppose you could count Bosnia and Kosovo separately), Afghanistan, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the intervention in Libya, and the intervention against ISIS. If I was to go by the number of separate congressional authorizations for the use of military force I would have to remove ISIS from that list.

            You counted 5 major conflicts. She supported all 5. So, sort of by definition, yes

            First of all I counted six. With five votes in favor, one abstention, and one ex post facto recantation. And Second, actually by definition no, she is not actually exceptionally hawkish.

            contrary to what some people seem to believe Hillary Clinton has not been running the government for the past thirty years, before being secretary of state her total record of public service consisted in being first lady and senator form New York.

            Those interventions happened because they had the support of the majority of US foreign policy elites. There have also been many proposals for foreign adventures that have been rejected by that elite; for instance war with Iran.

            In the period were discussing Clinton also supported Obama’s outreach to Iran, for which he was excoriated by the right, the “reset” with Russia that resulted in the new START treaty, and if we assume that Hillary supported her husbands actions as president, former president Clinton’s initiatives for a two state solution in the middle east, and the START III negotiations with Yeltsin.

            Hillary Clinton is more keen on foreign intervention then me, and most Democrats , but less so then every republican nominee for president in the last thirty years, with the possible exception of Bob Dole.

            One of the talents of most great politicians is the ability to say things in such a way that everybody hears what they want to hear. Obama and Reagan did it by spouting vague feel good platitudes and allowing voters to project there own desires on to their agendas.

            Trump has found an entirely novel way of being all things to all people. Just say things so insane that nobody believes you mean them.

            To believe that l’éminence orange is less hawkish then Hillary is to conjurer a fictional Trump of the imagination with no relation to reality.

            Trump’s objection to American intervention is not that we are to imperialist but that we are not imperialist enough. He supported the interventions in Iraq and Libya with the added caveat that we should “take the oil”.

            By saying that we should “take out the families” of terrorists he has made clear that his problem with Obama’s targeted killing programs is the targeted part not the killing part.

            Nothing good can come of this.

            Alexp compared him to to that other great real estate developer turned politician Marcus Crassus. But that is unfair on Crassus; say what you want about Rome wealthiest citizen, but he spent his own money raising legions and died leading them in battle against Parthia. Trump will risk only the lives of others.

          • cassander says:

            >Those interventions happened because they had the support of the majority of US foreign policy elites. There have also been many proposals for foreign adventures that have been rejected by that elite; for instance war with Iran.

            And hillary was one of those elites, and supported every one of those conflicts. She also supported a number of conflicts that did not happen.

            >Hillary Clinton is more keen on foreign intervention then me,

            this is demonstrably false. As I have pointed out, there is only one conflict of the last 30 years you can say she didn’t support, the first gulf war, and then only because there is no record of her views, not that she was against it.

            >In the period were discussing Clinton also supported Obama’s outreach to Iran, for which he was excoriated by the right,

            No, he was excoriated for the final deal, not trying to get a deal. Outreach to iran was started under bush ii, after all.

            > the “reset” with Russia that resulted in the new START treaty,

            and you think that proves what, exactly? that clinton was against war with russia? Because in 2008 she threatened war with russia over georgia.

            >and if we assume that Hillary supported her husbands actions as president, former president Clinton’s initiatives for a two state solution in the middle east,

            What on earth does that have to do with the subject at hand?

            >and the START III negotiations with Yeltsin.

            Again, on earth does that have to do with the subject at hand?

            >To believe that l’éminence orange is less hawkish then Hillary is to conjurer a fictional Trump of the imagination with no relation to reality.

            No, it’s to look at Hillary’s actual record, both in power and out of it, of supporting every single US intervention anyone has ever asked her about going back to 1992. To believe anything else is willful ignorance.

          • hyperboloid says:

            Your argument appears to have three parts: First, Hillary has supported every major US military intervention since the end of the cold war. Second, this demonstrates that she is an extremist who is likely to start a war with Russia.
            And third; Trump is an anti-interventionist who will avoid unnecessary foreign entanglements.

            While I concede the first, I’m not sure how this implies that her views are so reckless or extreme that she might seek a conflict with another nuclear power. Her publicly stated positions on foreign policy are less aggressive then most of the republican party, including their recent presidential nominees.

            Do you believe that George W. Bush, Dick Dick Cheney, or Mitt Romney desired war with Russia? If not, why would Clinton?

            Hillary’s record as secretary of state includes an important effort at outreach to the Russian federation, one that resulted in a major arms reduction treaty. It is irrational to consider only Clinton’s support for military action and not her support for peace initiatives.

            in 2008 she threatened war with russia over georgia.

            Do you have a source for this claim?

            Your initial contention was that she “rattled the sword” alongside John Mccain, in response to the 2008 conflict in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. I did find a transcript of Senator Mccain’s statement after the Russian intervention, and he clearly stops short of suggesting military force.

            Furthermore, as I have said before, when Clinton became secretary of state she did not peruse an aggressive policy against Russia , in fact she did the exact opposite.

            The last, and by far the weakest,part of your argument, is that Trump is some kind of isolationist, or something.

            The man has supported many of the interventions you criticize, though he now lies about it, since they did not turn out well.

            In addition he has repeatedly advocated deranged imperialist that would make even Cheney blush, such as openly seizing the oil producing areas of several middle eastern countries.

            let me ask you something what are your politics, generally speaking, left wing, alt-right, libertarian maybe?

            If foreign policy were not an issue would you still be sympathetic to Trump?

            I just cant help but feel that there is some kind of motivated reasoning going on here, as you seem to be willing yourself to see a Trump who simply is not there.

          • Jill says:

            LOL, EVERY Trump supporter sees a Trump who is not there. As I mentioned elsewhere Trump is an inkblot test where you can see what you want. Trump changes his mind constantly, and lies constantly. There is no one home. He’s simply a salesman telling people what he thinks they want to hear. He’s incompetent at absolutely everything but selling, and stiffing his contractors and creditors.

            http://politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/

          • cassander says:

            >Your argument appears to have three parts: First, Hillary has supported every major US military intervention since the end of the cold war.

            This is not an argument, this is a fact

            >Second, this demonstrates that she is an extremist who is likely to start a war with Russia.

            No, I did not say that. I said she, at one point, went so far as to rattle sabers at Russia as a way of demonstrating her extreme hawkishness. I do not think it is likely that she would start a war with Russia. I do not think it is likely that anyone would do so.

            >And third; Trump is an anti-interventionist who will avoid unnecessary foreign entanglements.

            Again, I made no such claim. What I said was that it is basically impossible to have a more hawkish record than Hillary Clinton.

            >Furthermore, as I have said before, when Clinton became secretary of state she did not peruse an aggressive policy against Russia , in fact she did the exact opposite.

            No, she didn’t. And after she didn’t do that, she championed US intervention or troop deployments in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syia, Libya, and Yemen, and those are just the places I can think of off the top of my head.

            >The last, and by far the weakest,part of your argument, is that Trump is some kind of isolationist, or something.

            Again, not a claim I have EVER made.

            >I just cant help but feel that there is some kind of motivated reasoning going on here, as you seem to be willing yourself to see a Hillary who simply is not there.

            Pot, this is kettle. You’re black.

          • hyperboloid says:

            We agree the Hillary Clinton is part of a foreign policy establishment in Washington that has perused an often aggressive policy of foreign intervention. We agree that she has supported this policy.

            But you also say that it is basically impossible to have a more hawkish record than Hillary Clinton.

            Now are you claiming that Hillary Clinton’s record is more Hawkish then John Mcain, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, John Bolton, Paul wolfowitz, Doug Feith, Tom Cotton, Donald Rumsfeld, Elliot Abrams and Mitt Romney?

            Because ever one off those men have criticized Hillary for not being aggressive enough.

            I have said that as secretary of state
            Clinton pursued a policy of diplomatic engagement with Russia (the so called reset). To refute this point you claim that Hillary “rattled sabers” over the Russian intervention intervention in Georgia, to support this you link to an article titled “Hillary Clinton slams Russia over Georgia: Why Russia shrugs.” An article that contains the following quote from the deputy chair of the Duma’s foreign affairs committee.

            We understand that the Obama administration has to save face and head off its domestic critics on the right.

            Under the previous administration, the US took positions that are hard to back away from.

            But it’s mostly just words.

            Your source seems to make my point pretty well, it does not sound like the Russians took the rattling of any hypothetical sabers very seriously.

            You also said that she threated war with Russia in 2008, but you seem to have now dropped that claim.

            Moving on from Clinton’s record, there are two major party candidates in this race; to advocate against Clinton because she is a hawk you must believe that, by implication, Trump is a dove.

            But to thinks this is to ignore almost everything Trump has said about foreign policy. There is nothing dovish about committing war crimes and launching imperialist wars to seize natural resources.

            You could claim that Trump did not mean to seriously propose doing these things, and that it was all just macho posturing. And perhaps It was. But by voting for him you are picking one hell of a way of finding out.

            Or are you arguing for a third party candidate?

            If so, go ahead and vote for Gary Johnson, or Evan Mcmullin, or write in the Cookie Monster if you want to.

            Just don’t vote for Trump .

          • cassander says:

            Now are you claiming that Hillary Clinton’s record is more Hawkish then John Mcain, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, John Bolton, Paul wolfowitz, Doug Feith, Tom Cotton, Donald Rumsfeld, Elliot Abrams and Mitt Romney?

            Feel free to name a war or two those people supported that Hillary opposed. The closest I can think of is could claim the Iraq surge, but given that Hillary told people that she supported that in private and only condemned in it public, that’s a hard sell.

            >Your source seems to make my point pretty well, it does not sound like the Russians took the rattling of any hypothetical sabers very seriously.

            I doubt they did. So what? You don’t condemn the actions of people you’re reaching out to. The reset, if it ever was serious, lasted less than a year before hillary was aggressively posturing against Russia again. And I supported that move, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t aggressive posturing.

            >Moving on from Clinton’s record, there are two major party candidates in this race; to advocate against Clinton because she is a hawk you must believe that, by implication, Trump is a dove.

            By that logic, if you aren’t a car, you must be a pigeon. No. I have never claimed Trump was a dove. He is not. That does not mean hillary is not a hawk.

            >Or are you arguing for a third party candidate?

            I am arguing for an accurate assessment of the candidates we have.

    • Deiseach says:

      Think Marcus Licinius Crassus.

      That’s very good 🙂

      • a non mouse says:

        Following his second Consulship, Crassus was appointed as the Governor of Roman Syria. Crassus used Syria as the launchpad for a military campaign against the Parthian Empire, Rome’s long-time Eastern enemy. Crassus’ campaign was a disastrous failure, resulting in his defeat and death at the Battle of Carrhae.

        (wikipedia)

        That’s got some similarities to one of the presidential candidates but not Trump.

        Seeing as how Hillary’s wealth comes from selling the foreign policy of the country in whose name she’s been empowered to act and the massive amounts of wealth she’s taken from the Middle East in exchange for using that influence to benefit her patrons there’s another similarity between her and Crassus.

        We can only hope she meets with a similarly dignified end.

  45. Galton says:

    The primary advisory he would consult is presumably Senator Jeff Sessions, who is very much an America-First non-interventionist.

    I agree most of Scott’s points are valid reasons to think Trump’s actual policy will be high variance, but the first moment is clearly less intervention.

    • E. Harding says:

      Sessions, as did Pence, supported the Iraq War throughout much of the period Trump was in opposition to it. He also cautiously supported the Libya intervention in 2011, though complained about lack of congressional debate (Pence expressed opposition to its lack of clarity in goals and lack of Congressional consent). He also voted in favor of continuing selling weapons to Saudi Arabia. I don’t see an anti-interventionist streak in him.

      • Cthulhu Rae Jepsen says:

        When there are unpopular wars going on, there is every incentive for interventionists to pretend that they do not favor intervention.

  46. Amanda says:

    Well, the last couple days of discussion on here have probably moved me from “Won’t vote for Hillary; haven’t decided for sure about Trump” to “Won’t vote Hillary; won’t vote for Trump.” Which is, I suppose, an improvement from your point of view, but the whole thing is just a huge bummer. I’ve never resorted to not voting before.

    The other day when we noticed the flag flying at half mast, and didn’t initially know why, a friend and I joked that it was just in anticipation of the election–either way it goes.

    • herbert herbertson says:

      Please don’t waste your non-vote! In addition to the obvious (downballot), I think there’s some value in signaling your disgust with the main two candidates to the media and to posterity by getting those Johnson/Stein numbers up as high as possible.

      • ChillyWilly says:

        Yeah, and there’s a not-completely-unreasonable chance of reaching the 5% popular vote needed to get federal election funds next time (if that’s a thing you want).

        • Nope says:

          Sending the 3rd party of your choice 5 or 10 bucks would be much more effective than voting for it, if improving its finances is a priority for you.

          Watching what third parties do with the money they do get, I’d keep the fiver. Running for president is incredibly hard if you do it seriously, but if you do it unseriously, it’s a pretty cush gig.

          Actually running candidates in the kinds of local elections 3rd parties might possibly win? Or advocating for electoral reform that might give your voters real influence? So not sexy, when there’s a presidential race you might be able to spoil!

      • Amanda says:

        I wouldn’t stay home. I’d just skip that contest on the ballot. Stein’s not going to work for me, but I can give Johnson another look.

      • Nope says:

        I think there’s some value in signaling your disgust with the main two candidates to the media and to posterity by getting those Johnson/Stein numbers up as high as possible.

        Did amazingly successful (that’s not snark) third-party candidate Ross Perot, and his disgust-signaling voters, have much effect on the media? Does posterity look back at the 1992 election in wonder at the blow struck against Bill Clinton’s and GHW Bush’s reputations?

        • John Schilling says:

          Ross Perot ran an amazingly successful independent candidacy in 1992. That’s not quite the same thing as a third-party run, particularly if you are trying to build on it for the future,

          • Nope says:

            He was the Reform Party candidate. The party pretty much died when he lost interest – not surprising, since he bankrolled its operations. But I think the Green and Libertarian parties are much more akin to the Perot-style vanity project than the two major parties.

            I don’t foresee anything like that level of success in the Green or Libertarian parties’ futures. Even if they get a wacky-but-charismatic tech billionaire at the helm.

            If you want to argue that the Green or Libertarian parties have a long-term strategy for growth, go for it. I don’t think “act as a long-shot-potential-spoiler every four years” is much of a strategy for building a movement – but it’s your vote.

          • John Schilling says:

            He (Ross Perot) was the Reform Party candidate.

            He was the Reform Party candidate in 1996. The Reform Party did not exist in 1992. It was created after Perot’s 1992 campaign precisely because that run highlighted the difficulty of building anything of enduring value out of an “amazingly successful” campaign by a lone individual who didn’t actually win election. And Perot never had enough of an interest in party politics to make anything of it.

          • Nope says:

            Mea culpa- had forgotten about the details there! You are absolutely right.

            Can I ask, though – do you disagree with my larger point that neither the Libertarians nor the Greens (nor the Constitution party, nor…) have demonstrated much ability or affinity to build a serious alternative to the duopoly? It’s a bit sad for fans of multiparty systems (like me) to see (relative) electoral success claimed by rich cranks or/and nominal independents.

        • Edward Scizorhands says:

          Ross Perot was screaming about the deficit. Clinton and the Republican Congress followed fiscal discipline for the 90s. Those probably aren’t unrelated.

          • Nope says:

            I’d posit that Perot rode the wave of anti-deficit sentiment to his amazing success. I highly doubt that Perot’s success in 1992 influenced Bill Clinton or the congressional GOP more than a flea bite.

            (Perot’s voters may have had influence – but it wasn’t by voting for Perot.)

    • E. Harding says:

      I still suggest voting for Trump. I have to say this post is somewhat more substantive and superior to the first one, as this one’s filled more with more concrete statements and fewer unfalsifiable broad generalizations (though still too many).

    • Soy Lecithin says:

      Consider Evan McMullin, if that’s your jam. He’s beating Stein in at least one national poll.

  47. baconbacon says:

    I renew my objection to “Pax Americana” from the previous thread. For the majority of that period Eastern Europe was under Russia’s thumb, of course there are no wars if there is only 1 “country”, and all the death and suffering that happens gets slapped under another label. Assuming that Pax Americana can have similar results without also ceding half of Europe to Russia again is unsupported. I would also note that the two of the major conflicts of that period (Vietnam and Korea) involved the US defending territories for no reason other than to stop the spread of influence of Communist countries. For those wars we got millions dead, one reasonably well off country (28th in the world in per capita GDP), one horrific outcome (one of the poorest countries in the world) and one poor, but not crazily poor, developing country that only made progress after the US pulled out. This is not track record to support the idea that “we have to defend the Baltic states” would lead to good outcomes.

    She wants to arm “friendly” rebel groups

    Does anyone have an example of this working well over a long time frame? Is there any outcome other than A. Rebel group losses anyway, B. long protracted Civil war or C. End up fighting that same rebel group 20 years later?

    • Civilis says:

      Do you see any difference between the citizens of the Western Europe under the ‘Pax Americana’ and the citizens of Eastern Europe under Soviet Dominance?

      Do the words ‘Iron Curtain’ ring a bell?

      I would also note that the two of the major conflicts of that period (Vietnam and Korea) involved the US defending territories for no reason other than to stop the spread of influence of Communist countries.

      I can give you 50 million reasons for defending South Korea from North Korea. That’s the current population of the country.

      • baconbacon says:

        Do the words ‘Iron Curtain’ ring a bell?

        That is pretty much the whole point, Pax Americana came with ceding Eastern Europe to the Russians. It is a major assumption that it can/will continue while simultaneously trying to keep Russian influence out of those states.

        I can give you 50 million reasons for defending South Korea from North Korea. That’s the current population of the country.

        And I can give you 91 million reasons not to (the population of Vietnam).

        • Civilis says:

          South Korea is a place where we can see the difference between ‘communist controlled’ and ‘not communist controlled’. The government of South Korea post war was not perfect. But we can see the long term results, and those that we saved did better than those we couldn’t save.

          We can’t do the same for Vietnam. We can compare South Vietnam and North Vietnam pre-fall of Saigon and see that South Vietnam was, again not perfect, but better. We can also see how many people risked (and in some cases gave) their lives to escape.

          Likewise, the former East Germany still lags behind the West. Eastern Europe lags behind Western Europe. People are still dying to escape Cuba.

          The reason we had the holocaust at the time there was ‘no reason’ to save the Jews. We saw how that ended up. We can’t save everyone, admittedly. We have to triage. But denying that the lives of the people of South Korea and South Vietnam was a reason to try to save them is madness.

          • baconbacon says:

            To get South Korea the US (functionally) sacrificed North Korea for what is now over 60 years. To get West Germany/Berlin the US (and Allies) functionally sacrificed East Germany/Berlin along with Eastern Europe for about 50 years. There might even be a case that to get Japan the US had to concede China to communism.

            The bag is very mixed, and it is non obvious what the best long term strategy is for getting these satellite countries out from under the oppression of the USSRs/PROCs of the world.

          • baconbacon says:

            The reason we had the holocaust at the time there was ‘no reason’ to save the Jews.

            ??? The holocaust didn’t happen because the US had a referendum on if it should save the Jews that failed. The holocaust had its roots in the Versailles treaty, which occurred after an idealist decided that he could end the Great War and shape European history only to find out that he was mistaken about half of his calculation.

          • hyperboloid says:

            I’m going to push back just a little bit on the communism issue. Europe and South Korea are places where the US obviously did a lot of good, but that is less true in some other parts of the world.

            You say that People are still dying to escape Cuba, this is true as far as it goes, but people are dying to escape Guatemala and Honduras as well. Cuba is no workers paradise, but I would rather live there than either of the aforementioned countries.

            As for south Vietnam, really?

            During the war the north organized itself as a ruthlessly totalitarian state to wage a total war for reunification, but that came to and end when the war came to an end, and the communist party allowed more personal freedom and implemented market reforms.

            The south on the other hand was a colonial oligarchy, with islands of urban privilege surrounded by a sea feudal tyranny. Emphasis is often put on US atrocities like Mi Lai, but some of the worst things happened before American troops ever arrived in mass.

            The “strategic hamlet” program
            was particularly ugly with millions of peasants forced off their land without compensation and much of the country declared a free fire zone where anybody remaining was liable to be killed on sight. It was the sort of thing you would expect from the most rabid Bolshevik checkist, not the front line defenders of the free world.

            And given that south Vietnam was ruled by a a small elite who was loathed by the peasantry for their collaboration with the French, Americans, and worst of all the Japanese, I cant see any reason why this would have changed.

            Communism varied a lot across different times and places, the communism of Stalin was not the communism of Khrushchev, and Castro is not Pol Pot.

            It should be possible to hold two ideas in one’s head at the same time; one, that Marxism-Leninism is a blood stained and odious system of government, far worse then western capitalist democracy; and two, that at least in some cases, there are things worse then communism.

          • Civilis says:

            “Functionally sacrificed”? We had a choice: defend South Korea (current situation) or not (entire peninsula ends up a totalitarian hellhole). There was no realistic option that would have allowed us to liberate North Korea once the Chinese got involved or liberate Eastern Europe at the close of World War II. There are no options at all that give us a liberated Eastern Europe or China while having a Soviet dominated Western Europe or Japan. Our choice was simple: half of Korea left as a totalitarian hellhole or all of it. If you think that half we managed to save isn’t worth a single American life, fine, but many people disagree.

            During the war the north organized itself as a ruthlessly totalitarian state to wage a total war for reunification, but that came to and end when the war came to an end, and the communist party allowed more personal freedom and implemented market reforms.

            And still, people died in mass in labor camps in a unified communist Vietnam. It’s amazing that North Vietnam’s ugliness can be chalked up to ‘they did it because they had to to wage war (ie, conquer the South)’ and South Vietnam’s ugliness is just that, they were horrible people and not, say, defending themselves from an invasion. North Vietnam had a choice: stay separate or conquer the south. South Vietnam didn’t have any choice.

            As far as ‘people escaping from Guatemala and Honduras’, people are willing to risk their lives for the possibility of a better life, I get that. The difference is that a handful of places are so dedicated to keeping their slaves that they’re willing to kill them rather than let them leave. We tolerate it because there’s no easy solution, but we shouldn’t be pretending those people are nice.

          • baconbacon says:

            Our choice was simple: half of Korea left as a totalitarian hellhole or all of it.

            So what was claimed about Vietnam? We have to defend Vietnam or (it becomes a totalitarian hellhole, or the dominos of communism spread across Asia and eventually the world) X happens. Eventually the US pulls out of Vietnam and X never happens.

            This has nothing to do with “is it worth a single american life to prevent communism from turning South Korea into a hell hole” and everything to do with the fact that no one has ever consistently predicted the outcomes of major military actions on a long time frame. Find me one person who was able to project in 1916 the future of Europe over the next 20 years with any kind of useful predictions. Find me a person who reasonably described the outcomes for Vietnam should the US pull out in 1974-75.

          • Ilya Shpitser says:

            I suppose conditional on military action taking place, the outcome is probably not very predictable in advance. Conflicts with predictable outcomes tend to not happen at all.

          • cassander says:

            @baconbacon says

            So what was claimed about Vietnam? We have to defend Vietnam or (it becomes a totalitarian hellhole, or the dominos of communism spread across Asia and eventually the world)

            Those are the same claim. If you don’t stop communism it will spread, and communism creates totalitarian hell holes.

            >X happens. Eventually the US pulls out of Vietnam and X never happens.

            Except for Laos and Cambodia, you mean?

            >. Find me a person who reasonably described the outcomes for Vietnam should the US pull out in 1974-75.

            It was predicted that the North would kill millions of southern citizens. it did. It was predicted it would support communists movements in its neighbors. It did. It was predicted that our would try to finished southeast Asia. It did.

          • baconbacon says:

            If you don’t stop communism it will spread

            Who stopped communism in China? What outside force cut back the USSR?

          • baconbacon says:

            If you don’t stop communism it will spread

            Who stopped communism in China? What outside force cut back the USSR?

            Except for Laos and Cambodia, you mean?

            The civil war in Laos started in 1953, the Vietnam war started in 1955. Cambodia had a coup in 1970, 5 years before the US pulled out of Vietnam. The predictions being made were not “If Vietnam falls, the Laos and Cambodia fall”, they were “If Vietnam falls then all of South East Asia will fall. Communist forces will spread south out of Vietnam into Malaysia, Indonesia and perhaps into Australia.” It was a variation of the “We have to fight them there to avoid fighting them here” bullshit that is espoused against Islamic states today. It turned out that Vietnam and Laos had no aspirations of shoving the Communist ideology forward, and Vietnam specifically moved away from Communism reasonably quickly. No experts agitating for the war predicted these outcomes.

          • “Except for Laos and Cambodia, you mean?”

            The Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia was the most extreme example of a Communist hell hole that has yet occurred. It was ended by an invasion from Communist Vietnam.

          • onyomi says:

            A thought about the “if you don’t stop communism it will spread,” theory. It smacks a bit of “methinks he doth protest too much” phenomenon whereby some really fundamentalist preacher has to fervently condemn the sinful pleasures of gay sex. But as Bill Maher says, “if you have to struggle with the temptation to give into the pleasures of gay sex, it’s because you’re gay.”

            My point being, I feel like Western politicians, probably even many right-wing politicians, being, after all, politicians, didn’t truly have full faith that capitalism worked better than communism. If you think the temptation of communism is so great that it will spread like a virus if not contained then you must, on some level, think it is attractive, and worse, might work out.

            I mean, I guess one could just fear “wave of peasant uprisings against established order,” but if you truly believed communism was unworkable, it seems like you might not be that worried about it spreading to e. g. Australia.

          • cassander says:

            @onyomi

            >My point being, I feel like Western politicians, probably even many right-wing politicians, being, after all, politicians, didn’t truly have full faith that capitalism worked better than communism. If you think the temptation of communism is so great that it will spread like a virus if not contained then you must, on some level, think it is attractive, and worse, might work out.

            If communism was spread by people peaceful deciding to live in communes, I wouldn’t be opposed to it. But it wasn’t, it was spread by extremely violent revolutionaries and civil warriors who forcibly overthrew societies and imposed it on whole countries.

          • “Western politicians, probably even many right-wing politicians, being, after all, politicians, didn’t truly have full faith that capitalism worked better than communism. ”

            Some pretty clear evidence is the pattern of western foreign economic aid. The U.S. and other western governments subsidized India and other countries in trying to develop their economies via central planning–Stalin’s approach without Stalin’s politics. Presumably they did so because they, like the rulers of those countries, believed that was the way that worked.

            And entirely respectable western economists, such as Samuelson, believed and repeatedly wrote that the USSR was catching up with the U.S.

        • Jiro says:

          And I can give you 91 million reasons not to (the population of Vietnam).

          Unless you assume that the population of Vietnam is 100% opposed to the US down to every single person, no you can’t.

        • cassander says:

          @baconbacon

          Cambodia had a coup in 1970, 5 years before the US pulled out of Vietnam.

          US force levels reached a peak in 68, and the last troops left in 72. The intervening years saw continual, accelerating withdrawal. The Khmer Rouge had a coup in 70, but didn’t control the country until 73. In other words, they came to power precisely as the US was leaving.

          Saigon finally fell in 75, 3 years after the US left. Facts matter.

          > It turned out that Vietnam and Laos had no aspirations of shoving the Communist ideology forward, and Vietnam specifically moved away from Communism reasonably quickly.

          Vietnam explicitly promoted communism in multiple countries, and made efforts to push itself forward. They only got stopped once Deng decided to launch a massive punitive expedition.

          @David Friedman

          >The Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia was the most extreme example of a Communist hell hole that has yet occurred. It was ended by an invasion from Communist Vietnam.

          That’s true, but it was also started by vietnam, who helped them to power.

          • baconbacon says:

            Lets grant Cambodia- Laos shows the exact opposite. The civil war was starting just as the Korean War was ending. The US stepped in and “successfully” stopped communism’s march into South Korea, and “dominos” still fell in SE Asia. At best you have 1 point for and 1 point against this theory, which would, you know, not at all justify a major military intervention.

            Saigon finally fell in 75, 3 years after the US left. Facts matter.

            You say facts matter, but making that mistake destroy my point? No. There is still no accurate prediction by the pro war sector. “if we lose Vietnam then we lose Cambodia and then we lose…… nothing else” doesn’t exactly get the war juices flowing, and then you have to grapple with the fact that Vietnam has been effectively moving away from communism for years now, as has China. No one in favor of military intervention in Vietnam predicted these things (I am not sure that anyone has a great tract record on either side of the prediction ledger)

          • cassander says:

            >. The US stepped in and “successfully” stopped communism’s march into South Korea, and “dominos” still fell in SE Asia. At best you have 1 point for and 1 point against this theory, which would, you know, not at all justify a major military intervention.

            for this argument to hold, the US would have had to win in south vietnam and still see cambodia fall to communism. That’s not what we saw. What we saw was vietnam fall, cambodia fall, and then the US open with china and put pressure on vietnam, which kiboshed any broader ambitions they might have held.

  48. I would like to raise a question that goes well beyond the current election.

    Which is more dangerous, a two power world or a multi-power world?

    Scott seems to think that a two power world, which we had from the end of WWII until at least the collapse of the Soviet Union, is more stable. I’m not sure. The way I put the argument on the other side a very long time ago was that the Soviet Union might reasonably doubt the willingness of the U.S. to set off a nuclear war in defense of Germany. They would not doubt the willingness of Germany to do so. The important U.S. allies, the ones that the Soviets would have gotten a large advantage by conquering, were countries such as Germany, Japan, and France. Each of them was, economically speaking, only a little weaker than the USSR, and any reasonable group of them considerably stronger.

    The sample size for evidence on a two power world with nuclear weapons is a bit small to draw conclusions from. If I look at previous two power worlds without nuclear weapons, they seem to involve quite a lot of warfare. Rome and Parthia. The Byzantine Empire and the Sassanid Empire. The Byzantine Empire and the Umayyad and then Abbasid Caliphates. I expect people with different historical interests could offer other examples.

    The obvious problem with a two power world is the inherent instability–the temptation for each power to think it can win. In a many power world, country A, faced with the opportunity of defeating country B, has to worry both that C might come to B’s aid and that, even if A wins, it will be weakened against D, E and F. I would be interested in comments from those with historical interests as to whether this does, in practice, provide a significant degree of stability, and how it compares to the two power cases.

    • baconbacon says:

      How would you categorize the buildup to WW1? That seemed like a many powers situation which fell into the largest scale war then known.

      • cassander says:

        By the eve of the war, the powers were largely locked into two hostile, inflexible blocs.

        • baconbacon says:

          But that point grew from a multi power arrangement. By the eve of war it was highly likely there would be war. It wasn’t a group of smaller powers merging into two powers AND THEN the probability of war increased.

    • keranih says:

      Emm. A good question, I think.

      I think that a two power system can be very stable while it lasts, but that once it collapses, it will be very unstable. (Consider, for a moment, what would have been the result of a Cold War where it was the USA, not the USSR, that came apart at the seams…)

      A multi power system, in contrast, would be constant flux as one power rose and others formed and broke alliances in response. The variation – as Scott emphasizes – would be less, but the mean instability greater.

      It would be interesting to see several such systems, and compare results.

      (I think our perception of the Cold War and its outcome is as tainted as the America view of revolution, and for much the same reason. It’s all well and good to advocate nonviolent (or limited-violence) resistance as a viable tool when one is trying to shove out the British. Against them, it works.

      Other, less civilized cultures, NSM.)

    • cassander says:

      “stable” and “less dangerous” are not the same. A highly changeable situation might be less dangerous precisely because the players are able to quickly adjust to new circumstances. A bi-polar world might be stable for a long time, but if a conflict does occur, it will be very large and painful. A multi-polar world will have more small clashes but a reduced chance for large ones.

    • Stefan Drinic says:

      A one-power world is more safe, undoubtedly. It also won’t last. Essentially, one-power situations to be better for as long as they last, but far, far worse when things go sour.

      Generally speaking, China and its surrounding area was the sorts of thing you could call a one-power world, where anyone minding their own business lived at peace. It is also an example of a place where the times of it fracturing are those of the most devastating wars humanity has ever seen, and which managed to annul that peace for decades at an end until a new equilibrium was found.

      Another problem with preferring worlds with an X amount of power, is that restricting such power is generally not done. My earlier example of China happened to be so because China happens to have extremely arable land by two long rivers, allowing for anyone controlling it to have a strong power base. The modern world isn’t one where rivers will determine your country’s strength, but I’m not sure there’s very much we can do to somehow keep other powers from growing without either making the world a terrible place or turning it against those who do have power instead.

      It is, if nothing else, an interesting question to ask.

      • onyomi says:

        Though some of China’s best cultural and scientific innovations did arise during periods of relative disunity. Wei, Jin, Liang, Liao, Southern Song, don’t get enough credit, culturally and commercially.

        Though the Han and the Tang are justly considered golden ages, they were also very “open” empires, whereas much of the Ming, the last great Han-administered empire, was shut down and relatively stagnant (even with commercial boom toward the end).

        And if the bloodiest civil war in world history took place on the Qing empire’s watch, that has to at least partially be blamed on that empire, not just its breakdown (if, like you say, one-power worlds are more peaceful while they last, but the tradeoff is relative economic and cultural stagnation and, when they fall apart, the Taiping Rebellion, well then that’s a pretty questionable tradeoff).

        There’s even an argument to be made that the reason China fell behind the west, despite a head start, an early modern commercial economy, and seemingly the potential for an industrial revolution, is precisely because its geography, compared to Europe’s lent itself too easily to grand-scale despotism.

        • Tibor says:

          I’ve been wondering about this. Had the Roman Empire succeeded fending of the barbarians to the north and crushing the Persians to the east for good, would have Europe eventually outpaced China in technology? It seems to me like the rapid rate of innovation in Europe once it emerged from the post-Western Roman “dark ages” was largely caused by competition. If I come up with a way to build durable cannons which can fire bigger projectiles faster, I will smash your castle’s walls. If I can come up with better ships and navigation technology I will control the seas and lay waste to your fleet (unless you outnumber me significantly like the English did against the Spanish – the Spanish armada was actually more technologically advanced).

          On the other hand in a parallel history where somehow Rome solves its infighting, changes the Limes into a Great Wall of Rome and turns inwards, you might have a lot of interesting culture but you won’t have that much invention. At least not as long as you don’t also reform your social system to a more capitalism-like where you have a lot of incentives to innovate because it will make you rich. But that does not work so well in a system with guilds, feudalism etc (although at least earlier Roman Empire seemed to be closer to being “capitalist” than the late one which was turning feudalist…but I am not sure how much capitalist is a right description, I don’t know what their laws so well).

          • onyomi says:

            Interesting counterfactual. And, counterintuitively, yes: I think if Rome had not fallen it would have slowed down Western civilization, long-run. Might even have gone more in the direction of China and Edo Japan, which was to refine existing arts, traditions, and techniques to a very high level, but seemingly somewhat at the cost of bigger innovation (of the sort which may need contact with the outside world) and economic dynamism.

            Yes, I think the competition is key, and certainly military needs have spurred a lot of innovation, though I think it’s also about competition for citizenry: when you have a bunch of little princelings and fiefdoms and small kingdoms, all competing with each other and the vatican, there’s a limit to how much they can control or tax or demand of their citizens before the citizens/serfs leave or the Pope excommunicates you.

            Grim and anti-Julian Simon-ish (who I normally agree with) as this may sound, the Black Death may even have helped: I recently heard a theory that it helped end feudalism by creating a shortage of labor meaning lords essentially had to “compete” for serfs much more than in the past. One could do this simply by paying more/taking less of course, but presumably could also offer more flexibility, freedom of mobility and trade, etc.

          • “It seems to me like the rapid rate of innovation in Europe once it emerged from the post-Western Roman “dark ages” was largely caused by competition.”

            There was technological progress during the Early Middle Ages, one of multiple reasons why historians stopped calling them the Dark Ages. The Horse Collar. The mantel and chimney fireplace.

          • Tibor says:

            @David: Yes, that is partly why I used the quotation marks. But still, the level of innovation increased afterwards, didn’t it? Definitely during the renaissance, I am not sure about the 12th century or so.

            And the life really did become more basic and isolated after the fall of the western roman empire in the regions it once controlled, didn’t it? I think it is hard to argue that there was no temporary societal decline (a few hundred years) in most places (maybe not Venice for example).

          • houseboatonstyxb says:

            @ David Friedman
            The Horse Collar. The mantel and chimney fireplace.

            Scrolling from the bottom up, I thought this comment was going to be about Chekov on literary devices.

          • keranih says:

            We could make it about Chekhov and literary devices.

            “Never put a horse collar on the mantelpiece in the first act if you don’t take it down and plow two acres in the last act.”

    • radmonger says:

      A two-power world has 1 war that can happen. A 3-power world has 3. A 5-power world has 10. That number only keeps getting bigger. Bigger still if you count power-versus non-power.

      And I don’t think you can really call the current world 2-power, if by that you mean that Russia seriously thinks it could directly fight NATO and have there be uncertaintly about the outcome.

      • John Schilling says:

        Crudely speaking, in a two-power world, winning the one war that can happen means one gets to Rule The World. Mwuhahahahaha. Haha. In a three-power world, winning any of the three wars that could happen means the power that was sensible enough to stay out of the war gets to rule the world. In a five-power world, ruling the world is pretty much off the table and any lesser gains are subject to interventionist veto.

        Incentives matter.

      • “And I don’t think you can really call the current world 2-power”

        Which is why I said “until at least the breakup of the Soviet Union.”

    • Ilya Shpitser says:

      History and the outside view are on Scott’s side. Both WW1 and WW2 were started in a multipolar world. Any destructive war you might think of (for example the Thirty Years’ War in Europe) generally took place in a multipolar world. Very large empires like SPQR did not have this.

      Even longish conflicts with two majors sides (e.g. Hapsburgs vs Ottomans) were not entirely two sided. The French kings played the Ottomans against the Hapsburg emperors, and dealing with France was a big issue for the HRE.

      • TheWorst says:

        Very large empires like SPQR did not have this.

        Are you sure? I keep seeing people say this was a misconception, and that Rome wasn’t unipolar because of the Parthians and/or the Persians. This being SSC, my guess is that there’s at least a 50% chance that you’ve got an exceedingly well-thought-out reason for excluding those, and if so I’d love to hear it (if not, then never mind, I was randomly curious).

        • Ilya Shpitser says:

          Sure, I will concede this.

          SPQR was not entirely unipolar even at close to maximum extent. Still, SPQR made a huge impression on the middle eastern states, they kept trying to recreate it, and generally referred to European stuff as “Roman.” And SPQR generally did pretty well against the Persians, etc. They just stopped pushing in that direction, for a variety of reasons.

          I suppose SPQR was not truly global, like Spanish or British empires later. The technology wasn’t there. Around their Mediterranian pond, they had no rivals, and that was their center of gravity. On the (from their point of view) periphery there were other powers.

          It isn’t possible to be entirely unipolar on the global stage without technology of global empire (long range ships and communication).

          • My amateur historian son argues that the Byzantine world wasn’t even two power, let alone one power, that there were generally other external threats at least as serious as the Sassanids.

          • Ilya Shpitser says:

            Yeah, ERE was different, especially later. They lasted a long time, but increasingly had to pay people off. That’s not a hegemonic relationship anymore.

          • TheWorst says:

            Ah. Yeah, I agree with your point, I was just curious about the Parthians/Persians (there’s a lot I don’t know). I agree that it basically comes down to technology, as well–Rome basically controlled everything you could control from one city, given what they had at the time.

            Especially once you start looking at the Middle East–Rome itself is pretty remote from anything useful, and I’m not sure it’s even possible to control something if it takes you that long to get a message there.

            Spain and England managed something like that, but it sounds like they weren’t aiming for the same degree of centralized control.

      • pku says:

        Good point about the world wars, but I’m a bit skeptical about the second paragraph – aren’t you likely to see any situation as more than two-sided if you look close enough?

  49. Cord Shirt says:

    On the one hand, I got a laugh out of the post title. Nice one! 🙂

    On the other hand…Scott, my friend, first you referenced WWI…and then you went on about the necessity of having and obeying mutual defense treaties. Not like those caused the exact war you’d just referenced or anything! 😉

    “she has ruled out sending ground troops into Iraq or Syria, something Trump has promised to do.”

    Right before the debate, my local newspaper was trumpeting a claim from Clinton that the only way to defeat ISIS was to send ground troops into Syria, and a claim from Trump that he’d be really reluctant to do that.

    This is why I try to ignore candidates’ “silly season” remarks, statements in interviews, etc. In the heat of electioneering, candidates are all over the place. They *routinely* say one thing one day and the opposite the next.

    Such statements are all too easy to cherry-pick. I say just go with the position paper and call it a day. 😉

    Moving on, a question for you: What if something that we may all agree is *necessary*…is still not *possible*? Then what?

    I think that applies to a few aspects of the current situation for the USA.

    IMO we are an empire in decline, and no longer have the wherewithal to be World Police. It doesn’t matter if a continued Pax Americana is *necessary* if it’s not *possible*. And it’s not possible.

    I would rather peacefully wind down mutual defense treaties than wind up in–I’d say World War III, but that’s not precise enough. World War II was very different from World War I, and I’m talking about another World War I. I’m talking about an unnecessary global war that ends empires.

    What can’t go on, won’t. If we don’t choose when and how to back off from our unsustainable foreign entanglements, circumstances will choose for us. At that point we can only hope it’ll be “just” another Suez Crisis instead of another World War I.

    Oh, right, political candidates. 😉

    Yeah neither Clinton nor Trump seems like a good bet here. However, Trump seems rather more likely to move in the direction we unfortunately need to go. I could worry about his vulgar, excuse me, “frighteningly impulsive” 😉 personality, except I don’t think politicians’ personalities are accurately observable by voters.

    On this issue, whether I choose Trump or Stein depends on exactly how bad I think Clinton would be. IOW, exactly how bull-headedly committed she would be to the dangerously overconfident and bellicose establishment consensus.

    But she *is* backed by all those same people who were behind the “Project for a New American Century” back when they were advising W. You know. The “regime change in Iraq” people.

    Similarly…what John Schilling said.

    On trade:

    First–

    Most people don’t place “free trade” above everything else. Many people think it’s a good, but one to be traded off against other goods. Such as sovereignty–which in a democracy is another word for “the creation of rules and laws being in the hands of the people rather than of a non-governmental organization.”

    Scott, my model of you would dismiss this point as incoherent foolishness. So let me remind you that it seems to be human nature for many people to find “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” a powerful motivator. Even if you don’t think it important, many people do, and I hope you can see why that might motivate them to make different choices than you.

    Second–

    “free trade has produced decades of sustained economic growth and the most successful poverty alleviation in human history.”

    I’d say it’s the industrial revolution that did that–Buckminster Fuller’s “energy slaves.” (As well as free trade.) And…infinite growth is not possible on a finite planet. We’d do better to move away from systems that are based on the assumption of constant growth.

    Finally–

    “[A global trade war] would probably crash the world economy,”

    Could you be more specific? If we were betting on whether something would “crash the world economy,” what would have to happen for us to agree the “yes it will” person had won the bet?

    “creating exactly the sort of depression that tends to produce instability (most famously Hitler’s rise during Germany’s interwar stagnation)”

    Job losses from free trade agreements also tend to produce instability.

    The USA’s ruling class has a history of making free trade agreements, claiming there will be help for dispossessed workers, and then never actually providing that help. And/or promising to pull out of the agreement if there are job losses and then not doing so, as with Bill Clinton and NAFTA.

    (And it may not actually be possible to ever provide effective help anyway. Maybe the only way for a human to be an effective worker at a given job is to train *for a long time* and *when young*–maybe retraining programs are a fool’s errand. Maybe the only effective “help” for dispossessed workers involves “supporting them and their families for the rest of the ex-workers’ lives.”)

    Pulling it all together…what candles said:

    If you are truly lower variance, it’s incoherent to say “NATO is good, and Pax Americana is good, and globalization is good, so those hillbillies who keep having their communities disintegrating from closing coal mines and closing factories should just keep volunteering to get their arms blown off overseas”, because THAT’S NOT A SUSTAINABLE PROPOSITION. It’s not low variance to count on that, because that is a thing that is very much in flux, even if you can’t see it.

    I’m reminded of this blast from the past by the writer of the better-known “Little Boxes” (as in “on a hillside made of ticky-tacky”).

    The bankers and the diplomats are going in the army,
    It seemed too bad to keep them from the wars they love to plan.
    We’re all of us contented that they’ll fight a dandy war,
    They don’t need propaganda, they know what they’re fighting for.
    They’ll march away with dignity and in the best of form,
    And we’ll just keep the laddies here to keep the lassies warm.

    …OK so. The thing is, the rulers did used to fight in the wars alongside the common men. That…was maybe a good idea.

  50. Alex S says:

    After this discussion I think as an undecided voter that I moved a little closer to voting for Clinton. I have been a Democrat for a while, but lately I am feeling like a foreign policy hawk. But I agree Trump is higher variance than the average Republican nominee. He doesn’t seem to listen much to advisors. Any old nominee ought to be a hawk, and if I just want to be a hawk, maybe I should postpone voting for a Republican president until 2020.

    • E. Harding says:

      Why would you want to be a hawk?

      • Alex S says:

        Robust powers ought to be able to promote their interests abroad. It’s not a pleasant thought, but America would not exist unless it had conquered the natives.

        • Jill says:

          Interesting viewpoint.

          The Devil is in the details here. Under what circumstances do you think the U.S. should intervene in other countries’ affairs?

          • Alex S says:

            On the margin, we should do more that gets good stuff for Americans. Maybe, as Trump says, we should take Iraq’s oil.

    • cassander says:

      An incompetent hawk is a dangerous thing. Trump might prove to be such, but hillary already is.

      • Alex S says:

        I think competence is more likely when you listen to advisors, so I think Hillary is more competent.

        • E. Harding says:

          NO:

          https://twitter.com/rosenbergerlm/status/773684010526601216

          If a Clinton advisor is able to make an error of this magnitude, and there’s no reason to suspect this is not just the tip of the iceberg, there’s no real reason to believe Clinton’s advisors are even remotely competent unless proven otherwise.

          Listening to incompetent advisors -lacking critical thinking- is a dangerous thing in foreign policy. Kennedy’s critical thinking regarding his advisors’ advice may have saved the U.S.: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/08/jfk-vs-the-military/309496/

          Hitler’s generals also believed the USSR would be defeated quickly, and Hitler acted on those beliefs.

          • Alex S says:

            There’s a difference between being able to think critically and trying to craft your own policies in a vacuum. There are reasons in some cases why advisors may be biased, but things being equal, they know useful stuff. I don’t think Trump knows who the most knowledgeable advisors are. His foreign policy advisors seem to be nobodies. I could excuse that: I might be persuadable that the foreign policy establishment is rotten. But it’s tougher to excuse his near-zero support among economists. I can’t figure any reason why economists would be almost totally wrong about what’s good for the economy.

          • E. Harding says:

            “But it’s tougher to excuse his near-zero support among economists.”

            -Because academics are image-conscious and Trump refuses to listen to them on anything, even on matters of image (which, again, they see as most important). Even if this was the Harding-Coolidge era and Trump could find a lot of economists agreeing with him on trade (BTW, Trump’s policy on China trade is mostly copied from Mitt Romney’s), the vast majority still wouldn’t endorse him, as he isn’t bought or a robot. He’s idiosyncratic, not somebody malleable by those higher up. This makes Trump a great candidate, as he is, perhaps, the first candidate since McGovern to be capable of making real change if elected. But the experts, filled with envy at his success while refusing to listen to them, hate those unbought men not malleable to their will. This leads to them supporting oblivious dupes who are clearly fed lines by their puppet masters in the service of evil, like Rubio. The experts don’t care, since at least they’d have a good chance of getting a hearing in a Rubio administration, no matter how unsafe he makes the U.S. and the world, and no matter to what extent Syria and Ukraine are destroyed.

          • onyomi says:

            “I can’t figure any reason why economists would be almost totally wrong about what’s good for the economy.”

            Because politicians support and help fund economists who tell them what they want to hear, which isn’t necessarily what’s actually good for the economy (often the opposite is true).

          • E. Harding says:

            “Because politicians support and help fund economists who tell them what they want to hear, which isn’t necessarily what’s actually good for the economy (often the opposite is true).”

            -No; I don’t think it’s that. Scott Sumner’s Trump derangement syndrome cannot be explained this way even remotely.

          • onyomi says:

            I wasn’t trying to explain why economists don’t support Trump, but why they might be wrong about what’s good for the economy.

            They don’t support Trump because they are academics. One can easily come up with arguments to justify not alienating all your colleagues.

          • E. Harding says:

            “I wasn’t trying to explain why economists don’t support Trump, but why they might be wrong about what’s good for the economy.”

            -Oh; OK. Now your comment makes sense.

          • Alex S says:

            Even if the economists are all wrong, Trump still has to govern once he is elected and you need experts on your team to run the machinery of the state. He seems short of experts. He has never held government office, so I am concerned there is something bad about his temperament that we have not had any opportunity to see the effects of. The high variance is not just on policy but on execution.

          • onyomi says:

            @Alex S

            The Douthat piece, and, indeed, Scott, are assuming that the way Trump campaigns will be the way he governs. That is possible, but I don’t think it can at all be taken as a given. It’s also possible that the way the does business will be the way he governs. And Trump has been in business for what, four decades? And in politics for a year or two? Maybe four if you count the birther thing as his foray.

            So it seems like observing how he’s behaved as a businessman is a much better indicator of how he’d behave as president (unless the skill set for being president has a lot more overlap with campaigning for president than with being a businessman; maybe it does, honestly not sure). So, as I said in an earlier thread, if we want to say his temperament disqualifies him from being president, then point me to an example where his bad attitude e. g. ruined a perfectly good business deal.

            Of course the NYT wants to undermine it, but Trump is a successful businessman. Maybe if Mark Cuban wants to say he isn’t, as a fellow billionaire, then I’ll listen to him, but the judgment of newspaper editors and academics on who is and isn’t a successful businessman is worth precisely nothing compared to the judgment of the market itself, which shows Trump to be a success (you might say a dishonest success, but a success; we’re talking about whether he’d be a successful president, not whether he’d be an honest one).

            And, in any case, even if we judge his likely presidential success on the basis of his campaigning, there’s no denying that his campaigning thus far has, to everyone’s surprise, been a huge success. Yes, he’s seemingly shot himself in the foot and/or gotten lucky many times, but the fact remains that he beat a crowded field of experienced, talented Republicans, many of whom I, frankly, would have picked ahead of him, and now is neck-and-neck with someone with 30+ years experience in government and decades’ worth of experience campaigning. Even if he loses his campaign will have been a success relative to almost all reasonable expectations.

            So, what objective, historical reason is there to assume, as Douthat does here, that his presidency would be a trainwreck, other than we assume you can’t be a good president while tweeting lame insults at 3 am? If he wins, he will have become president despite doing so, so why expect him to fail only at that point?

          • Jill says:

            These are the kinds of advisers Trump surrounds himself with.

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEsP4_1ImUI

            Does anyone really think these folks are superior to Hillary’s advisors?

          • E. Harding says:

            “Does anyone really think these folks are superior to Hillary’s advisors?”

            -I don’t. I think both the candidates’ advisors have a strong tendency to be ignorant blowhards who shouldn’t be so near as ten miles from the White House. The thing is, though, Hillary actually “listens” to Her ignorant blowhard advisors.
            http://www.vox.com/a/hillary-clinton-interview/the-gap-listener-leadership-quality
            Trump’s tendency is to sideline them and go by his brain. That’s a better way of approaching things.

          • Alex S says:

            @onyomi I think I may have gotten off track about my true rejection. My biggest concern is that he has too many idiosyncratic ideas and seems too willing to cling to those. If you read The America We Deserve, there’s stuff that’s been consistent for a long time, like dismantling alliances.

            I don’t buy that he has the expertise to know that those are good ideas. I don’t understand why dismantling alliances is a good idea, either. I am more comfortable with a leader who says, these are the moral priorities and how you fulfill those priorities is flexible, rather than giving stable, specific ideas, because maybe those ideas are bad. Or if there are specific ideas, they need to have been vetted and approved by organizations to weed out bad ones.

        • cassander says:

          Hillary had a long public record of foreign policy decisions. whatever her process, her record is bad. You can argue trump will be worse, but you do so largely in the absence of evidence.

          • Jill says:

            Yes, Hillary’s record on everything she’s ever done is terrible, if believe Right Wing media “facts.” If you ever consume any other media though, you will find a different story.

          • E. Harding says:

            Jill, tell us what Hillary has done that most people here can agree is both good and important.

          • cassander says:

            Jill, don’t refuse to answer my questions, harass me in comments, and then accuse me of stalking you. You get to do two of those things at most.

  51. Nevertaken says:

    It is not obvious to me that Trump would be the higher variance choice. In a vacuum, just looking at the two candidates, he is obviously the high variance pick, but these two candidates are not running in a vacuum, they are running in the United States in 2016.

    And the United States in 2016 is in the midst of a political realignment of some kind. The political culture is moving very fast right now – what is happening now would be strange and alien to someone from eight, or even four years ago. Something happened during Obama’s presidency – something that had probably been building for a while, which came to a head during this administration; something which has a nature that is not really apparent and probably won’t be properly understood until historians call look back on all of this from a safe distance.

    But whatever that something is, one of its core characteristics is a large and bi-partisan (or more properly bi-ideological, or if you prefer for this blog, bi-red and blue tribe) discontent with the established elite. Hillary Clinton is pretty much the walking incarnation of the establishment elite. If she were elected we should expect all sorts of things which this new political reality abhors to not only continue, but to accelerate. She will of course empower SJWs, who will run with the ball she gives them to places that will seem at least as absurd to us today as a ban on having separate male and female toilets would seem to a 2008 John McCain voter. But she would also empower the likes of Goldman Sachs – even more so than they are empowered today. And she would do this – and much more – with the full aid, support, and comfort of the establishment. Of the media; of the courts; of politically active celebrities; of the academy. Of all the established institutions of government and culture.

    She will also, with all this support, and especially if she faces a Republican Congress, further tear down or weaken any remaining checks there are on the federal executive power.

    What do we suppose is going to happen with the tens of millions of Trump and Bernie supporters while all of that is going on? They’ll shrug and go back to a-political apathy? Or will we be looking at an unstoppable political juggernaut that will be there for anyone with some political talent and an appetite for ‘burn it all down’ rhetoric to pick up and wield? Or some other, not now foreseeable, but high variance outcome that will be set up by that political dynamic?

    But a Trump presidency wouldn’t be like that. Trump would not have the support of the establishment. He would be blocked and mocked throughout his presidency. The more high variance his random acts are, the more resistance there will be to them. John Roberts, Sam Alito, Clarence Thomas, are not going to line up in lockstep behind whatever Trump wants to do; neither is Paul Ryan. The establishment will pick up the tools the Constitution has and check Trump in a way it never would with Hillary. This will force a rapprochement between the newly rising political forces and the establishment, leading to a new, but relatively stable political environment.

    Or maybe not. Maybe Trump will be unchecked, and his random utterances will be put into motion, leading to high variance misery for everyone. That might be the more likely possibility compared to what I’ve suggested here, but that is not obviously so.

  52. keranih says:

    My problem with the high/low variance equation that Scott puts forth is that he puts too much faith in the power of the POTUS.

    Global politics is not a one-man show, it’s a multi-factor system. The actions of the USA were much more significant in the 80’s and 90’s, when we were first the counter to the USSR and then the last superpower standing. Since 2000, the US’s ability to force huge shifts in global power has declined, from a combination of lack of respect (“everyone knows Bush is an idiot”), circumspect behavior (we went into Iraq, and then left, and turned both Afghanistan and Iraq back over to their citizens) and deliberate efforts on the part of President Obama to decrease the span of American influence.(*)

    Instead of us running the show, we are engaged with a number of other power players. In this case, sustaining the status quo isn’t just what we do, but also what we do when other players act. Scott gives a great deal of credit to the rest of the world in assuming they will engage in rational self-reflection and not take risky action that might provoke violent reaction.

    If the world was as Scott thinks it is – run by rationalists – then having a person willing to step out of the usual rut would be destabilizing, because that person (ie, Trump) would be the only one rocking the boat. However, if the world was full of independent actors with warped povs and an inclination towards taking risks, then a person who would only respond with “measured” reactions will result in other nations taking that and running with it.

    People don’t think Hillary will do crazy things – and I agree. It would be fairly easy to push her into a corner and restrict her actions to easily predicted options.

    People think Trump might do crazy things – and I agree. Trump will be harder to predict, more likely to move outside the box, and far more likely to encourage our enemies to avoid pissing off the wolverine.

    Urging stability and the status quo is all well and good when you are dealing with stable people. In a roomful of people looking for an opportunity to knock you down, a little rep for crazy can be a benefit.

    I sometimes wonder if people whose memory doesn’t actually go to the other side of the fall of the Berlin Wall can really appreciate the complete failure of Really Smart People to predict the future.

    We had a stable status quo for 40, maybe 45 years. And then a stable peace for another decade. *shrugs* It was nice while it lasted.

    (*) I think Obama did this because he thinks it’s best for the world and for the USA, more or less in that order. I think he’s wrong and badly informed for even entertaining that notion, but I reject the idea that he’s deliberately sabotaging America. Always pick incompetence over malice.

    • Eli says:

      When it comes to scaring the shit out of your own allies and enemies, I usually trust the advice of the Mossad and Shabak (“General Security Service” of Israel — and exactly as creepy as you think they are). Those guys don’t seem to be making Trump-y mouth-noises these days, so I don’t really trust that Trump actually scares people all that much, at least not in such a way that he can use that fear to influence people.

      (I realize this undermines the Clintonite “OMFG TRUMP IS SO SCARY” arguments, but I don’t care about those.)

      • Saudi Arabia and Israel would both be quite vocal if they thought Trump was about to kill their security. They certainly don’t hesitate to scream bloody murder about anything else we do.

      • dsotm says:

        I usually trust the advice of the Mossad and Shabak (“General Security Service” of Israel — and exactly as creepy as you think they are). Those guys don’t seem to be making Trump-y mouth-noises these days

        As opposed to the frequent mouth-noises they usually make?

        Don’t know about Saudi Arabia but Israel’s security doctrine does not generally* rely on active US military intervention in the style of NATO but rather on US economic aid which it has just recently secured for the next ten years in spite of some republican congress leaders insisting that it should wait until after the elections and get a better deal, now this insistence was probably dominated by the desire to deprive Obama/democrats of the political capital associated with providing the aid but still Israel chose to sign it now and at the cost of a rather painful concession (losing the ability to use part of the aid in the domestic market).

        * Except maybe in case of a regional war, ISIS getting out of hand, Iran etc.

    • Scott Alexander says:

      I’m not sure this is true. My impression is that low-variance geopolitics is played for low stakes – if we screw up Syria, then Russia gets an extra base on the Mediterranean; if we screw up Iran, then they get nuclear weapons that they’ll never use but which make them more of a regional player, et cetera. If Hillary plays the game but does poorly, then that looks like American power slowly eroding around the world on a timescale of decades – which I think I’m okay with as long as it’s replaced with something else stable like Russian or Chinese power working on the same principles. If Trump refuses to play the game and tries something crazy, then that looks more like a war or an economic collapse.

      • E. Harding says:

        “If Trump refuses to play the game and tries something crazy, then that looks more like a war or an economic collapse.”

        -A war with whom and an economic collapse where? What does “trying something crazy” mean? What does “refusing to play the game” mean? You have to be specific on these things; otherwise, you risk total detachment of your critique with reality. I can say lots of things about lots of people in very broad, non-falsifiable terms; that doesn’t make any of them true.

        • Ben says:

          Why does he need specific hypotheses? His point is that Trump has proven to quickly switch positions (or perhaps revealed to never have had a real position to start with), become extremely caught up in egotistical dickwaving contests, make grand threatening show-of-power gestures (“bomb them all to hell” “you have to go after their families”)… all the while clearly having no concrete plans other than “make government more efficient through unspecified or infeasible means” and “win”.

          This is an unstable presidency in the making, even if the exact manifestation of that instability will remain to be seen. As Scott says, even if we assume a good percentage of his statements here are to attract voter support or just seem threatening despite no intent to execute, the chance of an international incident going very bad is absolutely higher with Trump vs. Clinton.

          Even if Clinton has 10 more Libya-like situations throughout her presidency, I’d much rather take that with 100% certainty than a 20% certainty Trump causes a devastating event or dramatically reshapes US diplomacy (losing allies; gaining Russia as an ally; etc.). Trump is unpredictable by nature. The chance of a world-changing event being caused by him is low, but still far, far higher than most other presidential candidates.

          • E. Harding says:

            “grand threatening show-of-power gestures (“bomb them all to hell” “you have to go after their families”)”

            -These are credible policy pronouncements I expect him to follow.

            “This is an unstable presidency in the making, even if the exact manifestation of that instability will remain to be seen.”

            -Unlike Clinton’s, this is a presidency that takes evidence into account. I see no virtue in a foolish consistency.

            “the chance of an international incident going very bad is absolutely higher with Trump vs. Clinton.”

            -You provide zero evidence for this.

            “Trump is unpredictable by nature.”

            -Is Clinton? Again, you focus on generalities, not specifics. Trump’s foreign policies are fairly easy to predict if you actually listen to what he says.

            “a devastating event or dramatically reshapes US diplomacy (losing allies; gaining Russia as an ally; etc.”

            -One of these things is not like the other. And you seem to be grading the Obama administration with pretty low standards.

            “The chance of a world-changing event being caused by him is low, but still far, far higher than most other presidential candidates.”

            -Assuming Trump sticks to the general policies and goals outlined during his campaign and does so, then great.

      • pku says:

        if we screw up Iran, then they get nuclear weapons that they’ll never use

        Something I don’t think americans realise is that many Israelis (as in, probably a majority) are sure that the moment Iran gets nukes, they’ll use them against Israel. This is why Obama’s Iran deal was a Really Big Deal: Without it, Israel could have ended up trying a pre-emptive strike – definitely conventional, and maybe nuclear (I doubt Netanyahu would go for the nuclear option, but if Iran got nuclear weapons, Israelis might get scared enough to replace him with someone more militant).
        Even if that conflict didn’t turn nuclear, it could easily lead to another Israel-Hezbollah war and the like, which could get huge. So Iran was, in fact, a case where conventional establishment diplomacy may well have averted anything between a Syria-style and an actual nuclear war.
        Conclusion: Don’t knock conventional diplomacy.

        • American Jew says:

          What the hell happened to Israel? Granted the whole socialist messianism of the early days was a little strange, but at least it was intelligent and hopeful and charming.

          Now it seems like the secular parts of the country are filled with querulous, inward focused, cynical paranoids. And let’s not even talk about the non-secular parts.

          Was it the post-Soviet Russian influx? The downfall of the Ashkenazis as a cultural elite? Something else?

          • Sandy says:

            The environment was not conducive to socialist messianism, and after Menachem Begin (arguably the archetype for the cynical paranoid Israeli) left his mark on Israeli foreign policy, I don’t think there was any going back because that style was more realistic than the early ideas.

          • Garrett says:

            Something of an issue that’s been bothering me for some time that I suppose now is an appropriate time to ask: why are so many Jews left wing/socialists?
            Israel was founded originally with socialist principles. Jews in New York are notably on the left. Same for the “Hollywood Jew”. Most people of Jewish decent I happen to know personally who live in swing states are notably to the left as well.
            My first thought was that in-general Jews tend to have higher IQs and that correlates with socialist tendencies. But other non-Jewish-specific high-IQ groups (eg. tech-sector workers) tend more towards the libertarian side of things.
            What’s up?

          • American Jew says:

            It’s something of hornet’s nest. For myself I think the answer is mostly down to 1) historical contingency and 2) natural tendency of immigrants.

            The source population for most American Jews and a significant fraction of Israeli Jews (but less so now) is 1850-1950 Eastern Europe. Socialism was all the rage and its brotherhood of all men rhetoric and revolutionary aims naturally appealed to the Jewish underclass. When they came to the US and Israel they brought those ideologies with them and passed them on in diluted form to their children and even more diluted form to their grandchildren.

            The other part is that immigrants in general tend to be left wing, at least for a certain definition of left wing. For example, they are likely to be repelled by ethnic nationalism given that they probably don’t share the dominant ethnicity and they tend to be poor, which means they probably aren’t going to be attracted to the politics of the rich. Again these are things that fade over a few generations but continue to have some pull. This factor obviously applies more to the US (and Canada, etc) than it does to Israel.

            There are other, more totalizing, explanations out there, but I think those two are most of it.

          • pku says:

            When you say immigrants tend to be left-wing, I don’t think that really applies to people whose families immigrated around 1800 (i.e. the vast majority of americans). The other counterargument is that ex-soviet Israeli Jews tend to be very libertarian.

            And don’t tech-sector workers lean massively to the left (if in a libertarian-ish way)?
            The obvious just-so story here is that tech workers come from a background of being the smartest guys in the room and thus want to be left alone to do their own stuff, while Jews are used to being part of an intelligent community and thus fundamentally believe in teamwork.

          • The Nybbler says:

            Tech workers used to lean left in a libertarianish way (though with plenty of actual communists too). Now they typically lean left in an SJ way, though there’s still a fair number of Euro-style Social Democrats.

          • American Jew says:

            When you say immigrants tend to be left-wing, I don’t think that really applies to people whose families immigrated around 1800 (i.e. the vast majority of americans).

            Like I said it fades after several generations. But I think the original immigrants back then were left-wing, just on different issues than were relevant later. Things like reform of indentured servitude laws, expanding the franchise beyond landowners, and so on.

            The other counterargument is that ex-soviet Israeli Jews tend to be very libertarian.

            Yeah, I don’t think the same analysis applies to Israel as it does to the anglosphere. It’s a different type of immigration.

          • ThirteenthLetter says:

            Now it seems like the secular parts of the country are filled with querulous, inward focused, cynical paranoids. And let’s not even talk about the non-secular parts.

            Gee, it’s almost as if all their neighbors have been trying to murder them for the past eighty years, in coordinated with a massive and explicitly anti-Semitic delegitimization campaign and the mainstreaming of the idea that attacking random Jews is a rational response to any political complaint. Seriously, have you been in a coma since 1948?

          • John Schilling says:

            He might have woken up in, say, 1982. Most of Israel’s immediate neighbors have stopped trying to kill them, the danger of the country actually being overrun by an invading army has greatly receded, none of the people who still hate them seem to have nuclear weapons, and Israel now has extremely formidable defensive and deterrence capabilities against the immediately existential sorts of military threats.

          • ThirteenthLetter says:

            Perhaps he woke up in 1982 and then fell asleep again the day the Oslo Accords were signed, creating a brand new and international community-funded set of neighbors who want the Israelis dead and frequently act immune to deterrence.

        • pku says:

          I think it’s a mix of fatigue of the peace process never getting anywhere, and feeling more entitled to safety (Stronger militarily compared to the neighbors nowadays, a population that mostly hasn’t lived through real wars, etc.)

          One of the things that struck me the first year or two after moving to America was just how big a deal 9/11 was here. It wasn’t taken the way Israel would take a major terrorist attack at the time, because america didn’t consider terrorist attacks an everyday part of life. And Israel’s becoming more like that nowadays, which means it’s less calm and rational in how it responds to attacks.

          The other factor is just demographic shifting – Secular Israel’s still relatively moderate and reasonable, but religious Israel’s almost all right-wing and is on the cusp of becoming a majority. Russians immigration probably made Israel more trigger-happy too (in that most Russian Israelis I know are incredibly hawkish). But it’s hard to tell how big a deal it is – Liberman at his height commanded most of it and was influential but not decisive in Israeli politics.

          Edit: Another factor is that unlike in america (where voters don’t usually know or care much about diplomacy), in Israel diplomacy/security is the one thing almost everyone votes based on – voting based on the economy only started being a thing recently, and it’s still unusual. Which means that instead of being handled by experienced officials, it gets handled on the street.

          • American Jew says:

            Thanks for the reply. I wasn’t thinking about politics specifically so much as the general zeitgeist, but I suppose they are intertwined.

            Even the start up guys I met there didn’t have the manic start up energy and we-are-going-to-change-the-world optimism you in SF.

          • pku says:

            Now that is interesting (and surprising). Possibly because they tend to be older (post-military, and usually post-degree as well, putting them at around thirty I’d guess), and thus more cynical?
            Like, generally I feel like Israeli culture is still more start-upy than american culture (In the sense of being hopeful and intelligent and wanting to build new things), even if not as much as it used to be. But it’s also more cynical/practical, in some ways, which would put a damper on that.
            (I may be having a case of graduation goggles here; it’s been awhile since I’ve been home and I’m starting to miss it).

            Something else I’ll add to the original statement: Israelis do have some reason to believe Iran wants to nuke them: In the last seventy years there’ve been three wars and two intifadas with the stated purpose of destroying Israel, and Ahmajinedad has at least heavily implied he’d like to see it destroyed.

      • Steve Sailer says:

        Merkel’s Boner is an interesting example of a high stakes mistake.

        Merkel herself is embarrassed by her own goal a year ago inviting in the million refugee mob. It was an out-of-character snap decision on her part that she has been paying a price for ever since.

        Trump this week said Merkel was a good leader until that mistake.

        Hillary went out of her way this week to praise Merkel, especially Merkel’s unforced error on refugees.

        I have a real concern that as she ages, Hillary is becoming more extremist about the Establishment conventional wisdom of Invade-the-World / Invite-the-World.

        • E. Harding says:

          Steve, any comments on Her remarks about basement-dwellers and supposedly being a centrist?

          https://theintercept.com/2016/09/30/hillary-clinton-center-right/

          • Ben says:

            CLINTON: Some are new to politics completely. They’re children of the Great Recession. And they are living in their parents’ basement. They feel they got their education and the jobs that are available to them are not at all what they envisioned for themselves. And they don’t see much of a future. I met with a group of young black millennials today and you know one of the young women said, “You know, none of us feel that we have the job that we should have gotten out of college. And we don’t believe the job market is going to give us much of a chance.” So that is a mindset that is really affecting their politics. And so if you’re feeling like you’re consigned to, you know, being a barista, or you know, some other job that doesn’t pay a lot, and doesn’t have some other ladder of opportunity attached to it, then the idea that maybe, just maybe, you could be part of a political revolution is pretty appealing.

            To preface, I am certainly no fan of Clinton (no fan of Trump, either), but given the full context she clearly did not intend “and they are living in their parents’ basement” to mean “they’re lazy basement-dwellers”. She meant they’re young and unemployed and still live with their parents, and they want better opportunities.

            As for supposedly being a centrist, she obviously is one relative to the current left- and right-wing sentiment in this country (perhaps excluding some of the more SJW-type rhetoric she’s adopted lately, though that very well may just be to gain more votes from groups she thinks are particularly hostile to Trump).

          • E. Harding says:

            Clinton’s Senate record was slightly to the Left of Obama’s. Kaine’s, though, was noticeably to Obama’s right. Sotomayor, the Obama SCOTUS pick we know most about, is no centrist. The fact Clinton’s still spending Her time appealing to Kasich voters is hilarious.

          • onyomi says:

            Her basement-dweller comment actually improved my opinion of her slightly because it demonstrated two things:

            1. She is aware of millenials’ justifiable economic anxieties

            2. Whatever she says to try to attract the Bernie crowd, she doesn’t take their ideas seriously

      • keranih says:

        Scott, thanks for the reply, but this is a whole list of assumptions I don’t think are actually well founded.

        The worst case for a screwed up Syria is not Russia with access to the Med, but a destabilized Turkey and a Levant full of refugees pushing against Israeli borders.

        I do not trust Iran to not use nukes – they already used chemical weapons against other Muslims in the Iran/Iraq war.

        I think you underestimate the possibility that slow erosions of power are unlikely in the modern world – nations seem to fall apart much faster now.

        And given how much effort you extended to get multiheaded out of Russia, I am a little surprised that you’re equating Russian and Chinese influence/power with American influence/power. In general terms, population flows seem to indicate that one of these is not like others, and is to be preferred. I’m curious about why you don’t share the same discrimination.

        • John Schilling says:

          I do not trust Iran to not use nukes – they already used chemical weapons against other Muslims in the Iran/Iraq war.

          Cite, please. Iraq used chemical weapons extensively against Iran during that war; I am not aware of any use of chemical weapons by Iran in any war.

          • keranih says:

            @ John Schilling –

            I stand corrected. I don’t know where I got that impression but it was evidently wrong.

            …however, having done a thirty minute refresher on the I/I war, I really regret having done so. Jesus, that was a meat grinder. And the kids in the mine fields…

          • Wency says:

            It’s also worth noting that the classification of chemical weapons as WMDs is essentially arbitrary. Nuclear weapons don’t belong in the same category. The fact that you are undeterred from using chemical weapons and the resulting global “Tsk tsk” does not suggest that you will be undeterred from using nuclear weapons and the presumably much larger condemnation/retaliation that would follow.

            I’ve never read a good explanation for why chemical weapons receive unique treatment. My best take is that soldiers hate them, and the countermeasures for them are easily implemented but inconvenient and uncomfortable. So it’s better if we can agree to not use them rather than to force our soldiers to wear gas masks all the time, thereby raising the tolerability of infantry warfare to a slightly higher equilibrium.

            Using them breaks this equilibrium, so it’s a jerk move, but it’s not genocidal in and of itself. Civilians don’t have countermeasures against chemical weapons, so chemical weapons are useful on them, but then so are bombs, shells, and bullets. I guess they could in theory be useful if you wanted to wipe out a village but leave the structures physically intact for future settlement. Or preserve infrastructure for military use.

          • keranih says:

            I’ve never read a good explanation for why chemical weapons receive unique treatment.

            They’re not unique – they are lumped in with bioweapons, which are lumped in with nukes for the same reason as chems:

            Chemical & bioweapons are asymetrical and imprecise, and cheaper to develop than a standing army of the same capability. They’re a bitch to defend against and annoying to clean up after, and they cause a lot of excitement.

            The USA has large sunk costs in its standing army (to include its reputation) and a civilian population that is notoriously not under the control of its government nor its military. Chem & bio weapons would be extremely effective – at the very least, explaining how such an attack was “allowed” to happen would be devastatingly distracting from a sustained counter attack effort.

            The USA happens to have, right here in its back pocket, a large number of nukes. By justifying a nuke response to a chem attack, the USA saves itself from the (minor) cost of developing chemical weapons, the (more significant) cost of storing them, and the (rather considerable) cost of figuring out how to effectively fight in a chem/bio environment. Also a non-zero number of people who would be tempted to use chem/bio warfare if they thought they could get a leg up on their competitors in that field would be dissuaded from doing so.

          • Wency says:

            Chemical & bioweapons are asymetrical and imprecise, and cheaper to develop than a standing army of the same capability.

            This is the part I’m questioning. And I’m not interested in lumping chemical weapons in with bioweapons. Reintroducing smallpox to the world is categorically different from bombarding a local area with a different kind of munitions.

            And while chemical weapons are imprecise, it’s not clear to me that they’re dramatically less precise than, say, artillery bombardment in a populated area. After tens of thousands of Syrian dead, probably mostly civilians, I don’t understand why a few hundred dead from chemical weapons raises such an alarm.

            Chemical weapons only seem to have been used effectively a handful of times, and the effectiveness seems to be a product of their rarity, as the enemy didn’t seem to see it coming.

            According to the British in WW1:
            “gas achieved but local success, nothing decisive; it made war uncomfortable, to no purpose”

      • Nevertaken says:

        “…if we screw up Iran, then they get nuclear weapons that they’ll never use but which make them more of a regional player, et cetera.”

        For someone who just set ‘variance’ as the standard by which we should judge and assess political affairs, you seem way too chill about the prospect of Iran getting nukes. The best plausible outcome of that is a period of Mutual Assured Destruction with a bunch of theocrats who have vowed to their people and the world that they will wipe another nearby nuclear power off the map.

        Maybe they are kidding, and maybe Iran is full of Stanislav Petrovs who will keep everything calm whenever Israel fires a rocket or puts planes in the air that may or may not be carrying nukes from Iran’s point of view.

        But as far as variance goes, I would be way more concerned to hear in the news that Iran had done a successful test explosion than I would to hear that Trump (or anyone else who plausibly could) had won the presidency.

  53. Bugmaster says:

    By “Pax Americana”, do you mean “The Cold War” ? You know, that period in history when people sincerely believed that they were living on the brink of annihilation — and that belief was most likely correct ? Irrespective of your other points, I don’t think it would be a great idea to go back to that again.

  54. Jill says:

    Here are some video clips of some Trump surrogates being interviewed– the type of people who might make up the cabinet if Trump were elected.

    Trump’s Basket of Inexplicables | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEsP4_1ImUI

  55. Eli says:

    (Actually, I have a theory which I think explains a lot about Trump’s foreign policy positions: he doesn’t like losers. He supported the Iraq War and the Libya intervention when it looked like we would probably win. Then we lost, and he said they were stupid and bungled. He supports counterfactual invasions of Iraq and Libya where we “kept the oil” because that would have counted as winning. He supports invading ISIS because he expects to be in charge of the invasion and he expects to win. Under this theory, Trump’s retrospective non-support for failed wars doesn’t predict that he won’t start new ones.)

    I think Trump just has a compulsive need to be the “winner” in any and all situations, and doesn’t give half a damn if it means his behavior in different situations is inconsistent. From his point of view, as long as he knows he won, he got it right.

    He doesn’t have a politics; he has an ego. That’s the strength of his campaign: his supporters get to share in the feelings of “power” and “winning”. I use scare-quotes because, well, I expect that if you really suffer from a lack of agency in your own life, then you will continue to do so under a President Trump. Eventually vicarious agency will not be enough for you, so you should just find some other candidate (or skip voting for President at all and vote down-ballot, where you really do have more of an impact) whose policies really will increase your agency.

  56. Jill says:

    The whole thing is about trust and wanting a leader who’ll be on your side and take care of stuff competently. And people who decide to trust a certain leader to be on their side and to take care of stuff competently for them and their tribe, are like teenagers who decide that some guy or gal is the love of their life. They’re not likely to be talked out of it, no matter how good the would-be persuader’s arguments are. They won’t let any rational arguer take away their good feelings.

    • E. Harding says:

      Sad, but, for the majority of voters, true.

    • baconbacon says:

      The whole thing is about trust and wanting a leader who’ll be on your side and take care of stuff competently.

      Here is all the mistakes in politics summed up in a single sentence. Competence assumes capability. Wal-Mart has annual revenues of less than $500 billion, the US government has annual revenues of ~ 3.5 trillion. The assumption that an individual with some good (even great!) advisors can run an organization that is almost an order of magnitude larger in terms of revenue than the largest corporations in the world, that is probably an order of magnitude larger in terms of complexity, and that has a much broader range of (claimed) responsibilities competently has just leaked into the national consciousness. Hillary is smart and capable and wants to do good- even if true isn’t enough, you have to assume that handling the US government is within ANYONE’s ability, let alone her’s specifically.

      Gary Johnson is the only remotely acceptable candidate, and it isn’t because he is the smartest, or the best human being, it is because he is the only one who has even hinted that perhaps we should scale this monster back a little bit.

  57. I really can’t for the life of me understand anyone who would use foreign policy as a defining factor in election choices.

    But if that’s what floats your boat, then consider this: whatever his other issues, Trump won’t continue the “invade the world, invite the world” policy that has plagued us for lo these 40 years. All the crap about defending or not defending NATO, bombing the shit out of ISIS, or whatever else people want to find shocking, is just miniscule stuff.

    The important thing is immigration and stopping as much of it as we possibly can. Trump probably won’t go as far as he should, but he’ll go further than anyone else right now.

    • Theo Jones says:

      “I really can’t for the life of me understand anyone who would use foreign policy as a defining factor in election choices.”

      I find it pretty much the most important issue on deciding the president because it’s one of the few issues where the President pretty much has unilateral power to make country changing decisions without needing to get the approval of Congress/the courts/administrative bureaucracies/state governments.

      Fiscal policy is largely Congress’ thing. Most other areas of domestic policy are divided between Congress/courts/administrative agencies, with the president’s role being a mix of bully pulpit and veto power. If the president comes up with a stream of idiot ideas on these matters, there are plenty of checks to prevent them from coming into effect, if the other parts of government disagree.

      Foreign policy is different. With war the president can decide to send armies places, and for all intensive purposes start a war on his own. With trade he can cancel all of our trade agreements , or change the stance of immigration policy greatly.

      • anon says:

        The president cannot, legally, unilaterally cancel trade agreements or change the stance of immigration policy. (That’s why many object to Obama’s immigration enforcement policies.)

        • E. Harding says:

          If Clinton wins, and wins the Senate, she will be able to unilaterally change the stance of immigration policy. That’s another reason why Trump is clearly the more sensible candidate.

        • Stopping Obama’s immigration policy is pretty important. Moreover, the president can create different…priorities for the INS. Can slow down the issuance of visas and green cards. He can probably have some impact on whether the US takes in refugees or not, or insisting that countries take their criminal citizens back. Just for starters.

          He can also use the bully pulpit to argue for things like restricting public education to citizens only (again, not on Trump horizon).

          But mostly, Trump’s ability to hold very near level with Clinton despite open media and establishment hostility shows that immigration is very important to a lot of people. Politicians might even start to get the idea they can get elected on the topic.

          • Theo Jones says:

            “He can also use the bully pulpit to argue for things like restricting public education to citizens only (again, not on Trump horizon).”

            But in the end the Supreme Court decides that issue. And there is little indication that the justices are interested in changing the precident in that matter.
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plyler_v._Doe

            “Stopping Obama’s immigration policy is pretty important.”

            I actually think the executive action on immigration was good policy

        • Theo Jones says:

          “The president cannot, legally, unilaterally cancel trade agreements”

          The president has the ability to cancel treaties without congressional approval, as Supreme Court precedent indicates that the courts will not block such actions.

          “That’s why many object to Obama’s immigration enforcement policies”

          The executive action on immigration is still being litigated, but there is a very good chance the courts will uphold it. And there are other areas where the president has a lot of control, for instance the discretion to admit up to 100,000 refugees per year (relevant part mid article, but its a cap that has not been hit recently, but that allows for a substantial relaxment in immigration restrictions, or the possibility to help relieve some of the European refugee crisis issues). But the president has great discretion in who gets admitted.

          • “but there is a very good chance the courts will uphold it.”

            It would almost certainly have been overturned if Scalia had lived, which suggests that courts are another big reason to worry about a Clinton win.

            BTW, I ‘m well aware of Plyler, and the link goes through the Court’s reasoning. Plyler involved only illegal immigrants, and a key aspect of the Court’s reasoning was that the state hadn’t provided any reason why illegal aliens should be treated differently than legal ones. Thus, any law making K-12 education citizen only would make Plyler’s ruling largely irrelevant. The other key issue in Plyler was that the state couldn’t prove it was a hardship to citizens, something that would be much easier to prove today. Plyler explicitly did *not* declare education a right.

          • anon says:

            Interesting, thanks for the link to the Goldwater v Carter case. But I’m not sure I read the conclusion as strongly as you do; it seems quite clear that had the Senate voted to oppose Carter’s action, the Court would have been forced to confront the underlying Constitutional question.

            So maybe I was misinterpreting your actual reasoning. I thought you were mistakingly conflating the Executive’s wide, essentially unilateral authority to conduct foreign relations (to which the War Powers and Treaty clauses constitute important but more or less rare exceptions), with Executive supremacy in the areas of immigration *policy* (governed by normal legislative processes) and trade (which falls under the purview of the Treaty clause). But from your reply, it sounds like you’re actually saying — correctly, I guess — that recently Congress has gone beyond abdicating its war powers and reached a point of such complete dysfunction that we should now (for the purposes of making political decisions) view trade and immigration as essentially executive in nature. In both cases, there is a limited but intrinsic role for the executive (trade negotiation, immigration enforcement), which gives the executive branch *practical* control over the issue, up and to the point where Congress is willing to provide meaningful resistance and SCOTUS can’t ignore the Constitutional tension.

            Like I said, this seems to be a basically correct analysis of the current state of US politics, but it’s still a disgusting bastardization of the intended constitutional order of things.

          • Cord Shirt says:

            @education realist:

            Plyler explicitly did *not* declare education a right.

            No, but it did say that the state has an interest in educating all children under its jurisdiction. (And, as you note, decided that immigrants both legal and not are under its jurisdiction.)

            Public education is not a “right” granted to individuals by the Constitution. [San Antonio Independent School Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 1, 35 (1973).] But neither is it merely some governmental “benefit” indistinguishable from other forms of social welfare legislation. Both the importance of education in maintaining our basic institutions, and the lasting impact of its deprivation on the life of the child, mark the distinction. The “American people have always regarded education and [the] acquisition of knowledge as matters of supreme importance.” [Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390, 400 (1923).] We have recognized “the public schools as a most vital civic institution for the preservation of a democratic system of government,” [Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203, 230 (1963)], and as the primary vehicle for transmitting “the values on which our society rests.” [Ambach v. Norwick, 441 U. S. 68, 76 (1979).] “[A]s…pointed out early in our history,…some degree of education is necessary to prepare citizens to participate effectively and intelligently in our open political system if we are to preserve freedom and independence.” [Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U. S. 205, 221 (1972).] And these historic “perceptions of the public schools as inculcating fundamental values necessary to the maintenance of a democratic political system have been confirmed by the observations of social scientists.” [Ambach v. Norwick, supra, at 77.] In addition, education provides the basic tools by which individuals might lead economically productive lives to the benefit of us all. In sum, education has a fundamental role in maintaining the fabric of our society. We cannot ignore the significant social costs borne by our Nation when select groups are denied the means to absorb the values and skills upon which our social order rests.

            In addition to the pivotal role of education in sustaining our political and cultural heritage, denial of education to some isolated group of children poses an affront to one of the goals of the Equal Protection Clause: the abolition of governmental barriers presenting unreasonable obstacles to advancement on the basis of individual merit.

            And:

            other aliens are admitted “on an equality of legal privileges with all citizens under non-discriminatory laws,” [Takahashi v. Fish & Game Comm’n, 334 U. S. 410, 420 (1948)]

            That is a bit of a precedent that “free education is not only for citizens.”

            I can see some possible lines of argument but…IMO not an open and shut case.

          • Wency says:

            Congress has gone beyond abdicating its war powers and reached a point of such complete dysfunction that we should now (for the purposes of making political decisions) view trade and immigration as essentially executive in nature.

            Expect the scope of executive power to widen, especially if the Democrats end up with mostly-permanent control of both the executive and judicial branches but more sporadic control of the legislature, which seems likely.

            This is the most plausible scenario that I see for the general breakdown of American democracy. Congress becomes essentially a debating body, while the real work is performed by the Executive, granted carte blanche by the SC. This has already been the long-term trend, and I think it accelerates if an activist SC sees that there is always a Democrat in the White House.

          • anon says:

            Wency, I’m not sure I share your degree of pessimism. That said, your position is an argument for doubling down on the Tea Party’s (original, Constitutionalist) frame of the Great Debate between left and right.

            Personally, I don’t hold our precise constitutional framework in particularly high esteem. I suspect that I would be in favor of a majority of “reasonable” revisions to said framework. (Eliminate the senate and electoral college, change the voting algorithm, etc. etc. maybe even pass a few more specific amendments, and more importantly perhaps change the amendment mechanism to one more flexible.) That said, I feel pretty strongly that any such changes would be illegitimate if not brought about via mechanisms specified in the existing framework. (I recently learned that this makes me a positivist and perhaps a formalist.)

            I’m curious about how most Americans feel about these underlying institutional and philosophical questions, which seem to me to be both more fundamental to, and at the same time somewhat orthogonal to, other culture war divides.

            For example, my guess is that
            * the Grey Tribe is formalist and textualist.
            * the Blue Tribe is neither formalist nor textualist.

            But I’m not confident on these judgments and I’m uncertain about what Red Tribers think.

  58. Lila says:

    “America’s promise to defend its allies … prevents America’s allies from building big militaries.”

    Not exactly. NATO requires that members spend at least 2% of GDP on defense (though most members don’t meet this standard).

  59. Jill says:

    Here’s an article below that might concern you if you prefer Hillary. But if you prefer Trump, you probably have explanations for why Trump’s man crush on Putin would be the best thing that ever happened to the U.S. if Trump were elected.

    Maybe this whole anti-Trump thing of Scott’s, will finally convince Scott and some others here, that almost no one is very rational. And everyone is emotional. If someone values rationality, they do seem rational to themselves. But to others, they seem like they are cherry picking their examples and arguments, and being vague in their arguments, and then nitpicking the arguments of the arguers who disagree.

    Putin’s Puppet

    If the Russian president could design a candidate to undermine American interests—and advance his own—he’d look a lot like Donald Trump.
    http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2016/07/vladimir_putin_has_a_plan_for_destroying_the_west_and_it_looks_a_lot_like.html

    • E. Harding says:

      “Here’s an article below that might concern you if you prefer Hillary.

      https://twitter.com/mcurryfelidae07/status/776101739300786176

      Why would a typical Hillary supporter want a higher risk of nuclear war? Why would they call the 1980s and the 1940s for their foreign policy, as Clinton admitted she does?

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS2a44F5TgM

      If Clinton was pro-Putin, that would change my assessment of Her in a positive direction. It would not change the vast majority of Clinton supporters’ assessment of Her by a nose hair. They don’t care. They just pretend they do. If the election was between Putin and Trump, they would gladly choose Putin. Just as if the election was between Putin and Obama, Republicans would gladly choose Putin.

      • Deiseach says:

        If the election was between Putin and Trump, they would gladly choose Putin.

        If the election was between Putin and Trump, I’d vote for Putin (had I a vote). At least you’d get some topless horse-riding photo-ops out of it 🙂

  60. Steve Sailer says:

    Something that nobody seems to have noticed is that Obama, in his interview with Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, was brutally critical of the results of Hillary’s advice on Libya.

  61. vV_Vv says:

    He says he will “bomb the s#!t out of ISIS” and calls for sending 30,000 troops to destroy them. His campaign website says he will “pursue aggressive joint and coalition military operations to crush and destroy ISIS”.

    This is the one war that should be fought. The Obama-Clinton policy is to let ISIS exist since it is an annoyance to Assad. Probably the plan is to wipe ISIS out once it has outlived its usefulness, but given the abysmal record that the US has in doing regime change in the Middle East, what makes you think that this is a realistic plan? There is a risk that ISIS entrenches itself as a North Korea of the Middle East, with the addition of controlling a world-wide terrorist network. Is this the low-variance scenario you are hoping for?

    He is ambiguous about whether Obama should have intervened in Syria to depose dictator Bashar Assad. He complained “there is something missing from our president. Had he crossed the line and really gone in with force, done something to Assad – if he had gone in with tremendous force, you wouldn’t have millions of people displaced all over the world. ”

    I don’t see the ambiguity. He is saying that if you want to depose a regime, either do it with overwhelming force to make sure that you will succeed, or don’t do it. Indeed, the Obama-Clinton strategy of arming local rebels to fight proxy wars has been disastrous so far.

    But the clearest description she’s given of what she wants suggests a no-fly zone with Russian cooperation and support. Last October, she said of her no-fly zone proposal that “I think it’s complicated and the Russians would have to be part of it, or it wouldn’t work.” There’s some good discussion of this on Reddit (see especially this comment) where most people end up agreeing that this is the heart of her plan – something like the US agreeing it won’t bomb Russian allies if Russia doesn’t bomb our allies.

    Why would Russia agree to anything like that? They want Assad to remain in power and regain control of the whole Syria, why would they agree to anything that helps his enemies?
    They have made it clear that they are ready to wage a full scale war against the US if the US takes direct military action against Assad or (obviously) against them. Maybe Putin is bluffing, and he would back off if facing the choice to directly fight the US. But is this an hypothesis you want to test?

    As for the other points, I agree that Trump said some stupid shit. But Tump has at least the excuse that he said most of that stupid shit as a television personality with no real power, while Clinton has a track record of actually implementing harmful and dangerous foreign policies. Under Obama as President and Clinton as Secretary of State, the world has become a more violent, more dangerous place. With her as President, I expect things to get worse, since she is more hawkish than Obama.

    • Theo Jones says:

      “This is the one war that should be fought. The Obama-Clinton policy is to let ISIS exist since it is an annoyance to Assad.”

      I agree that the U.S really should intervene more aggressively in Syria. But the reason why the Obama administration hasn’t done this is less that they want ISIS and Assad to have at it, and more because of the very negative response by the public to the (succesful and good in retrospect) Libya intervention.

      • E. Harding says:

        “But the reason why the Obama administration hasn’t done this is less that they want ISIS and Assad to have at it,”

        -No; it is just that.

        “and more because of the very negative response by the public”

        -I honestly don’t think they care about that. The rise of ISIS helped lead to 2014, which had a good economy, being an excellent year for the GOP.

    • William O. B'Livion says:

      > but given the abysmal record that the US has in doing regime change in the Middle East,

      We were mostly on track in 2009 when I was in Baghdad.

      The thing is that changing a societies structures takes AT LEAST 2 generations, maybe 3. The Neocons didn’t want to bother (they wanted to knock over the ant hill, shoot Saddam and get out.). The Left didn’t want Bush to be seen as winning, so they would do *anything* to sabotage the reconstruction (and really the state department did NOT cover itself in glory over there. Bunch of buffoons).

      By 2009 *most* of the problem children we were “detaining” in Iraq were foreign nationals, and most of the Iraqi people just wanted to go back to living their lives. The US “occupation” (such that it was) was, for most of the country, a softer touch than the previous government (yeah, not hard). Violence generally was down, mortality rates were lower than pre-war levels etc.

      But Obama didn’t feel like talking to Jawad al-Maliki, didn’t feel like negotiating the SOFA agreements, and so we were asked to leave. And we did.

      Yup, Obama got us out of Iraq. For about 5 years. Dude’s got the anti-midas touch.

      And who was Secretary of State during that time?

      Yeah, SSC’s endorsed (sort of) candidate.

      Ok, that was probably snarkier than it needed to be.

      • Deiseach says:

        The Neocons didn’t want to bother (they wanted to knock over the ant hill, shoot Saddam and get out.

        The one thing I would like to see someone, preferably a lot of someones, on trial for (and swinging from gallows a la Nuremberg?) is the whole Chalabi [expletive expletive expletive] nonsense. “We’ll go in, kill Hussein and all resistance will collapse because we’ve cut off the snake’s head, instal Chalabi as the president everyone loves and wants – we know this is true because he told us everyone loves and wants him – and head back home by Christmas, with a happy democratic prosperous nation which is grateful to us and mindful of our interests left behind!” So they tore the country apart for the sake of a con-man who managed to feather his own nest and achieve personal power, which is what he was after all along, and the results are still being borne by Iraq and by yourselves and by the region.

        Not at all helped by the fingers in the pie by the likes of Blackwater; to this day I am confused as to what “contractors” were mercenaries and heavies-for-hire and who were actual civil engineers and the like over to help reconstruct and set up businesses.

        • anon says:

          It’s an interesting question that I defer to people more knowledgable than myself. But I’d make the observation that in their readiness to install a new, hopefully-more-cooperative, (strongman?) ruler, neocons were not necessarily acting “irrationally” (from a certain point of view) or contrary to past US experience. Indeed, this particularly hypocritical component of “hawkish” post-WWII US foreign policy (which predates Bush II and will outlast HRC) is especially worthy of criticism.

          It would all be much less hypocritical — although perhaps no less objectionable — if advocates of “muscular” foreign interventions were willing to be transparent about their views on US foreign policy objectives and the degree to which various potential rulers in unstable states would further such objectives. Such transparency has absent since the first signs of Indochinese instability in the 1950s, if not earlier.

          In that sense, the fundamental problem is really that the conduct of US foreign policy has been (in the post-war era) essentially undemocratic.

          • Deiseach says:

            But I’d make the observation that in their readiness to install a new, hopefully-more-cooperative, (strongman?) ruler, neocons were not necessarily acting “irrationally”

            Except Chalabi was no-one’s idea of a strongman (he had influence and tribal ties but no muscle, which is why he needed the USA backing) and he bloody well played them like a fiddle. Pragmatic ruthless “yeah we’re replacing one dictator who grew too big for his boots with another who’s going to remember who holds his leash, whaddya gonna do about it?” would have been one thing, harsh and ignoble as it might have been it would have been admirably clear in intent and execution – but the ones who got dazzled by the bullshit and ignored all the warnings that this guy was not what he was claiming to be – ach, it’s a disgrace! Incompetence is one thing, pragmatism is another, but incompetent pragmatism is the worst of all worlds.

            I would prefer principle and some scrap of honour, but if you’re going to stomp in with your army, at least make sure the place will run as smoothly after your puppet has won his ‘democratic election will of the people’ mandate as it did before, not worse.

        • keranih says:

          D –

          I wouldn’t spend that much energy on Blackwater, et al – that was pretty much a Western boogie-man that was easy meat for the consumers of Western media, rather than that much of an issue there.

          (Slightly longer version – armed bodyguards were a necessity for most of the non-Iraqi personnel, as without body guards the NGO and coalition-sponsored personnel were targets for kidnapping and worse, and while there were good engineers who went in to build good stuff, there were also crap engineers. Same-same with the security crews.)

          (A great deal of the issues with armed bodyguards was that generally, reconstruction doesn’t happen in environments as unstable as Iraq was when reconstruction started. Usually invading armies are much more heavy handed than the coalition was in Iraq. So there were a lot of people in dangerous situations when normally they’d have avoided the place for several years until stuff settled down again.)

          • Deiseach says:

            If they’d admitted that was what they were – private security – it would have starved the conspiracy theories. But saying “nope, nope, civilian contractors” – the same as the civil engineers etc who really were what most people understood by the term “civilian contractors” – made it sound shadier than it (already) was.

      • AnonBosch says:

        But Obama didn’t feel like talking to Jawad al-Maliki, didn’t feel like negotiating the SOFA agreements, and so we were asked to leave. And we did.

        Where is the evidence that Maliki wanted a residual force? His behavior in the wake of our withdrawal was that of a Shia strongman beholden to Iranian interests. Every anti-Obama counterfactual seems to depend on some kind of magical thinking where “negotiating better” could have made him accept a continued troop presence. But in the real world, what he actually wanted was a free hand to dispense sectarian patronage and oppress the Sunni minority (in my view, Maliki bears at least as much responsibility for ISIS as anyone). Where is the evidence that this was possible, short of a soft coup where we installed Allawi by force (which brings its own problems)?

        • cassander says:

          >Where is the evidence that Maliki wanted a residual force?

          He said it at the time. His ambassador said it. The US ambassador to Iraq said he wanted it. The secretary of defense said it. what more do you need? Everyone involved at the time thought that a deal was possible, and was shocked by the Obama administration’s decision to take their ball and go home.

          http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/10/21/how-the-obama-administration-bungled-the-iraq-withdrawal-negotiations/

          • AnonBosch says:

            He said it at the time. His ambassador said it. The US ambassador to Iraq said he wanted it. what more do you need?

            Well, contemporaneous citations for all of those would be a good start. I honestly had no idea and I’ve asked this question of many people.

          • cassander says:

            @AnonBosch

            The quotes from those people are in that FP article, or articles that it links to.

  62. Steve Sailer says:

    One interesting example on Libya is that Berlusconi, a man not too different from Trump, had a policy of bribing Col. Gadaffi to keep refugees from flooding into Italy. Hillary blew up Qaffaffee, setting off the vast refugee crisis for the continent of Europe that hasn’t been solved yet.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/08/22/the-race-realist-theory-of-how-trump-can-win-explained/

    • AnonBosch says:

      One interesting example on Libya is that Berlusconi, a man not too different from Trump, had a policy of bribing Col. Gadaffi to keep refugees from flooding into Italy. Hillary blew up Qaffaffee, setting off the vast refugee crisis for the continent of Europe that hasn’t been solved yet.

      This pat story of cause and effect seems unconvincing. Syrians, Iraqis, and Afghans account for more than 3/4 of the refugee population and have no need to transit through Libya, they mostly arrive through Turkey and Greece. Very few Libyan nationals are among the refugees; there’s a lesser flow Eritreans, Sudanese, and other Africans crossing through Libya to Italy, but even if we assume that 100% of that outflow wouldn’t have been able to transit through some other route, Gaddafi’s absence is a minor contributing factor at worst.

      • vV_Vv says:

        If I understand correctly, that deal was before the refugee crisis (when there was still a Gadaffi to negotiate with), and it was intended to keep the “normal” illegal immigrants out.

        • Steve Sailer says:

          Right, in the very long run, the biggest threat to Europe isn’t the Middle Eastern population, whose growth is starting to moderate, but the sub-Saharan population. The UN forecasts that will grow from half a billion in 1990 to four billion in 2100.

  63. William O. B'Livion says:

    Trump is a mildly corrupt[1] douchenozzle, but he is a douchenozzle that the press (and half the republican establishment) hates. He has only the basic constitutional qualifications to be president. I do NOT want him to win the election.

    Clinton OTOH is massively corrupt, criminal and incompetent. However she is of the same tribe as most of the major newspaper, TV and internet reporters, and is much beloved by most of them, and most of her party can at least tolerate her presence. She is unfit to be president. I want her to LOSE the election.

    Whatever agenda, policy or law Trump wants will be fought over, examined, assumed to be a bad thing.

    Whatever agenda, policy, or law Clinton wants will be assumed to be the desires of all right thinking people, will only be opposed by “deplorables” (I’m not sure I’m in that category, because I’m not a Trump supporter, but I’m a conservative, libertarian, gun owning (super gun owner), hetro middle class white male so I’m clearly not “right minded), bigots and Republicans who clearly know better but are pandering to their base.

    The also rans–Stein and Johnson have demonstrated a dismally loose grasp on world affairs, and Johnson is at odds with his parties philosophy on several fronts.

    And more of the world falls under the shadow of “militant” Islam. And more of America grows used to “entitlements” and our debt as a portion of the GDP continues to grow.

    And all right minded people endorse Hillary because Trump is a sexist prick.

    This is truly a pathetic election.

    [1] You pretty much have to be to be successful in real estate in any major city these days. Saw some of this first hand in Chicago. But in this case people like Trump are living in a system designed and run by people like Clinton for the advantage of people like Clinton. Yeah, he could have chose a cleaner line or work, like maybe making movies?

    • cassander says:

      You have, to a frightening degree, outlined my exact position on this election.

    • Lysenko says:

      Pretty much. Johnson’s disappointed me badly of late (add him to the list under Colin Powell), but I’m holding my nose enough to vote for him anyway because it seems marginally possible to do some good in the long term in terms of raising visibility/viability of third party candidates. I used to want to spend my life working on ballot access and electoral reform to make it easier to get independents and third parties elected at the local and state levels when I was young, naive, and too stupid for words.

      These days I just wonder if I’m going to die -before- we get to box number four, during, or after.

  64. Steve Sailer says:

    A more plausible argument against Trump on foreign policy is that his urge to offer public opinions on everything could cause trouble where trouble is currently fudged and buried under ambiguous formulations.

    For example, in 1972 Kissinger and Chou En-lai worked out a logically ridiculous formulation on Taiwan that has endured ever since. The less said on the subject, the better.

    • E. Harding says:

      I think Trump would know when to keep his mouth shut when he’s president and not TV commentator. He’s repeatedly said that the U.S. government should more often keep to secrecy on what it’s doing to confuse enemies and not cause commotion. Thus, his hatred of Snowden. He’s also successfully refused to disclose what’s in his tax returns. But at least yours is a more plausible argument than the typical one Scott has offered here.

      • Steve Sailer says:

        “I think Trump would know when to keep his mouth shut when he’s president and not TV commentator.”

        Maybe, maybe not. Trump hasn’t changed all that much in the 30+ years he’s been a national celebrity, other than that he’s gotten gruffer and less suave. He’s a pretty distinctive personality.

        • So far as I know, he hasn’t blabbed his national security briefings.

          • houseboatonstyxb says:

            Didn’t he say he had seen a classified film — people said he was making it up — but then the briefers said it was true. And recently he described the briefers’ body language as showing them sad and contemptuous of Obama. (I would guess sad at having to brief Trump. Holding their noses, though not literally, I suppose.)

    • The Nybbler says:

      Fortunately he typically offers multiple contradictory public opinions, which preserves the requisite ambiguity.

      • Steve Sailer says:

        But there are foreign policy situations where the U.S. doesn’t want ambiguity over its policy, it wants to maintain a steady, boring course.

        Trump, however, really likes being interesting.

        Obama would like to be interesting, but he’s not. That’s probably why he couldn’t write the nonfiction public policy book he was given $140k to write and instead wrote an autobiography. Obama is a smart guy and an adept writer, except for his complete lack of interesting original ideas.

        But there are advantages to a President who isn’t interesting.

  65. While on the subject of how bad both major party candidates are, it is worth mentioning again that while there is no chance that Gary Johnson will get a majority of the electoral vote there is a low but not zero probability way he could become President.

    Suppose he carries one or two states, say Utah and New Mexico. The other two candidates split the rest of the vote pretty evenly, giving nobody a majority. Congress gets to choose among the three. The Republicans hate Hilary and at least a minority of them don’t like Trump. The Democrats hate Trump worse than they hate Johnson. Johnson is a two term Republican governor.

    So if the low probability first step happens, I think there is a substantial probability of the second step.

    From which it follows that any SSC readers who happen to live in a state where Johnson has even a tiny chance of getting electoral votes … .

    • The days when the House could elect someone their voters rejected ended a few months after the Corrupt Bargain.

    • E. Harding says:

      “The Republicans hate Hilary and at least a minority of them don’t like Trump.”

      -No; in that case, the House vote will be determined on the basis of blind partisanship. Any campaign to get Johnson president is doomed to crash on the rocks of neither Paul Ryan nor Nancy Pelosi agreeing with most of the libertarian platform. And I do think Johnson is likely (though by no means certain) to be a worse president than Trump.

    • Deiseach says:

      Dear sir, now you have me in a quandary: which of the two do I think is worse, Johnson or Trump? This is a fiendish dilemma to plunge me into, I feel like emulating a lemming and heading for the nearest cliff! 🙂

      I would have picked Johnson over Trump, save that in interviews he keeps punching himself in the face. After his Aleppo moment, which was forgivable (but I still think indicative of his general mindset re: foreign policy), he did it again with the “name a foreign leader you admire”. He eventually picked a former Mexican president but couldn’t even remember the guy’s name.

      Now, remember what I said previously about drip-drip-drip? All these little moments in themselves aren’t much, but taken together – Trump, God between us and all harm, at least has a policy (of sorts) about Syria. It may be bat-shit insane (to use the vernacular) but he has one.

      Johnson, on the other hand, sounds as if he is incapable of learning by experience. That he is coasting on his fixed line of “I was two-term governor of New Mexico, I have the administrative experience”. His campaign team – does he have one? on this evidence, I’m starting to doubt it- should have prepared canned foreign policy answers and drilled him in them after the Aleppo thing.

      If he’d said in reply “No, there’s no foreign leader I admire, and I’ll tell you why Chris – [launch into Libertarian Party talking points]” that would have been something. Sure, he might have been portrayed in the press afterwards as unnecessarily antagonistic to other leaders in Europe etc. with whom the US will have to work, or isolationist, or something but at least he would not have sounded as if his brain can’t get out of idle or that he’s too inflexible to be able to switch gears when he gets an unexpected question, that he’s stuck in local-level political thinking and has not moved up to national-level, which includes international-level by the very nature of the position.

      Either his team let him down badly, or he refuses to take their advice. Neither sounds very good when you’re talking about electing the guy in charge of the country for four years. If Trump is the type not to listen to any other than his own views, what about Johnson in that case?

      • Tibor says:

        If he were not a politician I’d say that he seems really nervous when talking in public. Nothing bad about that. But it is not a trait you usually see in politicians.

        By the way the former German Kanzler Helmut Kohl, when he did not have a canned answer, simply said this:”Well, I have to think about this for a bit”. And then he would just sit there thinking in silence for a few moments before answering. I find that actually really likable. I don’t know how well that would fare with Americans though.

      • Squirrel of Doom says:

        All campaigning politicians get thousands if questions. When they answer one badly, it makes the news. This says a lot more about the news than about the candidate.

        • Deiseach says:

          Yeah, but this wasn’t just answering one question badly. When you’ve had an “oops” moment that shows you’re weak in one particular area, you bone up on that area and get your team to throw surprise questions at you. Johnson’s weakness (or one of them) appears to be foreign policy: at least learn off a list of “names of foreign leaders like whoever is president of Mexico, you know, the guy in the photo op with Trudeau and Obama that had all the girlies swooning”

          Saying “I don’t have a favourite foreign leader” would have spared his blushes, particularly if he’s going for “independent America not beholden to anyone and considering its own interests first” (is that what his foreign policy is?). “Er, um, that guy, whatsisname, I kinda like him” – not the most confidence-inspiring answer. If he can’t remember the name of someone he allegedly admires, what other little details would slip his mind if he gets into power – “Aw, darn it, did I just push the button they specifically told me not to push?”

    • AnonBosch says:

      The (lack of) courage shown by Ryan and other House Republicans suggests they would elect Trump without thinking twice.

    • Nope says:

      I think there is a substantial probability of the second step.

      In this ridiculously unlikely base scenario, Johnson has a substantial chance to win a majority of state congressional delegations?

      I am surprised you believe this. If we’re remaking the season finale of “Veep,” Gary Johnson is not going to be able to play Tom James and engineer the kind of vote trading to make this happen. Look at him. And the Democrats are not going to help him get those votes together.

      Mike Pence would have a much better chance than Johnson in this scenario – get a few electors to vote for him, he’s eligible, bam! – but I doubt Trump would even lose enough GOP congressional votes to make it an issue. He has to keep the loyalty of a majority of state delegations. That will not be hard – anti-Trump congressional Republicans are rare critters, and they tend to be in blue states.

  66. AnonBosch says:

    Trump’s tax returns are starting to leak. I am guessing many of them contain embarrassing stuff like this that isn’t illegal but should probably result in revising one’s estimation of Trump’s business acumen. The economy was doing pretty well in 1995.

    • pku says:

      Interesting. Any idea how this came out? (Also, apparently that loss was so big it overflowed in the tax prep software :\ ).

      Questions for anyone with a better understanding of this stuff, who also feels like explaining things on the internet:
      1) why does losing money one year wipe out paying taxes for later income? And can you use that to avoid all taxes by intentionally losing tons of money, declaring bankruptcy, than being exempt from taxes until you make that amount in positive numbers? (I suspect bankruptcy doesn’t work that way. If it does, I have a bunch more zany producers-esque schemes I kinda want to try).

      2) Does this (directly) explain why he wouldn’t want to release his current tax returns? Seems like they wouldn’t show his 1995 losses.

      • Unfailingly Inamorate Killogie says:

        pku is Trump-inspired: “I have a bunch more zany Producers-esque schemes I kinda want to try.”

        LOL … that makes you Trump-smart! (best comedy ever, save for Wilder’s Young Frankenstein) 🙂

      • keranih says:

        1) why does losing money one year wipe out paying taxes for later income?

        It’s not universal, but the way our (really really complex) tax law is written, specific types of losses in specific businesses can be written off over multiple years. (If you guessed that this was an area subject to regulatory capture, you’d be absolutely right.) You’d have to get a tax nerd to explain the hows and whys.

        And can you use that to avoid all taxes by intentionally losing tons of money, declaring bankruptcy, than being exempt from taxes until you make that amount in positive numbers?

        No, bankruptcy doesn’t work like that. What did used to work is a “tax shelter” business – horse farms were really good at this. You set up a side business that continuously lost money, and supported that enterprise by shifting funds from another (profitable) business. This would lower the total profit on the second business, so that other tax advantages could be taken advantage of. Now there are requirements that the company make money at least some of the time, and the advantages of the write off have gone (mostly) away.

        • Deiseach says:

          What did used to work is a “tax shelter” business – horse farms were really good at this.

          Like the old joke: How do you make a small fortune in racing? You start off with a large fortune 🙂

          • keranih says:

            So George the farmer won the lottery draw – umpteen million dollars! The newspaper sent a fellow around, asked George what he was gonna do with all that money. Old George spits off the edge of the porch and sez, “Well, I guess I’ll keep on farmin’, lest til the money runs out.”

      • CatCube says:

        I think the theory is that losing your shirt on some types of high-volatility assets is basically treated as a deductible “cost of business.” Since you have literally less than zero income for that year, carrying it over to subsequent years is really the only way you could actually make use of such a deduction. That you can carry at least some of it forward for some number of years should not, I think, be controversial. If you think that “almost a billion” carried forward for “the rest of your life” is too much of either, I can be convinced. However, “you’ve had negative income this year? Suck on this, baby!” isn’t just.

        A while back, I was reading a blog post by an investment banker, and came away with the impression that it wasn’t uncommon to spend most of the year $30 million in the hole, then getting a surprise upswing in December putting you $5 million in the black–or vice versa.

        • pku says:

          On a moral level, it seems perfectly fair to count your losses that way, unless it can be used for tax-evasion shenanigans of some kind.
          Trump is apparently several billion dollars richer now than in 1994, implying he should only have been able to use his 1995 losses to counter business expenses until he broke even (which must have been a while ago), unless there was some kind of shenanigans going on. Now I’m curious to see the rest of his tax returns just from a gaming-the-system perspective – it sounds interesting.

          • Deiseach says:

            I imagine real estate is probably a volatile or uncertain market as well, so even if everyone else were doing well in 1995 that doesn’t mean his property speculation would be – from the economic crash here in Ireland, a lot of that was centred around the construction industry/property development and the banks, where developers were taking out crazy money amounts of loans (and being facilitated) to buy speculative land banks, engage in big vanity projects and the like. Property bubble burst, and suddenly that acre of land you bought for €10 million hoping to sell it for office development for €30 million couldn’t be given away*. Construction works on very tight margins, one big project going belly-up could really hit the entire business hard with knock-on effects for the rest of the empire.

            I also imagine that if there are loopholes to let you carry forward losses for as long as God spares you, Trump and every other business will take advantage of the legal tax avoidance. If people are going to cry foul over that, they should be agitating for changing the tax laws, which is a tricky and delicate and long-winded matter.

            *We had to set up a national agency to take over the bad loans and the management of the assets – property and land – that were collateral for the loans. This has been controversial, not least because we’re now in the middle of a housing crisis – or at least, now the government has recognised this – and American vulture funds are buying up those loans and there is the alleged threat of people being evicted from homes because the new foreign owners will hike up rents, and small businesses being likewise squeezed out.

          • Deiseach says:

            Re: gaming the system, you Americans really do it well 🙂

            Mr Donnelly said that Mars Capital structured their affairs to ensure the only amount of income exposed to tax was €1,000.

            “An examination of Mars Capital’s accounts is a master class in tax avoidance,” Mr Donnelly told the Dáil.

            Mr Donnelly said their interest income was €4,559,904 and their administrative costs were €4,558,904 – a difference of just €1,000.

          • brad says:

            That’s the real problem. Tax losses aren’t the same as real losses.

    • Cerebral Paul Z. says:

      Doxxing: It’s not just for SJWs or GGers any more.

      • AnonBosch says:

        I don’t think the “doxxing” concept is central when you’re talking about a Presidential candidate who has also consciously striven to be a public figure.

        • FacelessCraven says:

          more to the point, I had zero problems with the DNC email hacks, so it would be hypocritical to object to someone leaking Trump’s doxx.

          • Cerebral Paul Z. says:

            That surprises me a bit. I’d taken it for granted that everyone pretty much agreed that the DNC leak was the work of criminals, so there was no need to belabor the point. Of course once you’ve got the fait accompli there’s no point in objecting to people talking about the contents, either then or now.

          • E. Harding says:

            Same here, Faceless.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @Cerebral Paul Z – Generally speaking, I do not feel that privacy and secrecy are assets that our leaders use responsibly, and I do not mourn when they lose those assets. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. I would object more if, say, one side always got hacked and the other didn’t, but data breaches seem to be fairly bipartisan at the moment.

      • CatCube says:

        For me, it depends on where it came from. If it was leaked from his own offices, or maybe the state government, I’m not going to lose sleep.

        If it came from the federal government, on the other hand, that’s another matter. Speaking as a federal bureaucrat (though an engineer, not a financial guy), if you’re going to require that somebody give you paperwork with private information on the pain of perjury, you have a responsibility to safeguard it even if you don’t like the guy. If it came out of the IRS, somebody should be going to jail. Maybe it’s my little military mind poking through, but it’s dangerous for people on the government payroll to be involving themselves in the election other than through voting. There’s an argument that a whistleblower like Snowden should be protected (though I don’t agree in his particular case), but there’s no question that publishing Trump’s tax returns is exposing some kind of illegality.

        I’m not from the state of NY, but I’d imagine that people from there would have similar feelings about their own state tax administration, if it came from there. Since I’m not, I’ll reserve judgement on that.

  67. Albatross says:

    With the choice being between two hawks, chose the more cautious one. Hillary is an interventionist. But Libya (and Bosnia) are her type of war: overwhelming air attacks in support of locals lead by US military advisers on the ground.

    I’ll also note she lined up Europe to fight in Libya and Bill did the same in Bosnia. She plans, builds coalitions, and aims for max effect/min casualties. Obama sorta does this but he goes it alone a lot, preferring a “kill list” small scale strike instead of mobilizing the entire air force.

    500 former generals endorsed Romney. Only 88 endorsed Trump. Meaning 412 generals find his strategy suspect. Trump, and Gary “IDK” Johnson have no strategy, while the Clinton doctrine has evolved for the past couple decades into a shrewd strategy. Hybrid warfare is forcing adjustments, and Hillary is slow to change. But she has experiences good and bad to draw on. Nobody in their right mind expected smooth sailing in Libya after the war. And we don’t expect it in Syria either. But tens of thousands of deaths is better than millions of deaths.

    I liked Obama’s first term foreign policy. But it fell apart after Hillary left State and his second term has been one blunder to the next. Tough environment, but still he has been ineffective with Kerry.

    Syria is already World War 3. And it WILL get much worse before it gets better. And we need a cautious hawk in the White House to meet that threat.

    • Sandy says:

      I liked Obama’s first term foreign policy. But it fell apart after Hillary left State and his second term has been one blunder to the next. Tough environment, but still he has been ineffective with Kerry.

      This is a strange interpretation of how things stand given that Obama regrets ever getting involved in Libya and much of the blame for the US intervention fell to Clinton and her cronies (Power, Rhodes et al). Obama did not want to get involved. Biden did not want to get involved. Rumsfeld advised them not to get involved. Hillary pushed America to get involved, and by all accounts her mindset is that of a great crusading hawk who believes justice is on her side and therefore her decisions are correct. Hardly a cautious hawk. Sample quote from Biden: “Hillary just wants to be Golda Meir.”

    • E. Harding says:

      “But tens of thousands of deaths is better than millions of deaths.”

      -True; but “millions of deaths” here is purely unsubstantiated for Trump. On its face, Hillary’s Russophobia is more likely to lead to millions of deaths than Trump’s evident lack of it.

    • cassander says:

      >overwhelming air attacks in support of locals lead by US military advisers on the ground.

      That does not describe libya at all. there were no US military advisers. And post-war in bosnia, there was a large UN ground contingent to support order, there was none of that in Libya. Hillary literally thought that she could bomb the country into democracy, and the outcome has been disastrous.

      Hillary is not a cautious hawk, she is a minimalist hawk. she uses the minimum amount of force she think can work because she is unwilling to take domestic political risks. Instead, she takes massive international risks, like in libya, because the world rarely goes according to her plans. She will be a disaster as president, eager to get involved everywhere, but no where sending enough force to actually win.

      • E. Harding says:

        “there were no US military advisers”

        -How do you know?

        “She will be a disaster as president, eager to get involved everywhere, but no where sending enough force to actually win.”

        -That seems a reasonable conclusion from the weight of Her statements on the campaign trail, as well as Her previous foreign policy statements.

  68. (Actually, I have a theory which I think explains a lot about Trump’s foreign policy positions: he doesn’t like losers. He supported the Iraq War and the Libya intervention when it looked like we would probably win. Then we lost, and he said they were stupid and bungled. He supports counterfactual invasions of Iraq and Libya where we “kept the oil” because that would have counted as winning. He supports invading ISIS because he expects to be in charge of the invasion and he expects to win. Under this theory, Trump’s retrospective non-support for failed wars doesn’t predict that he won’t start new ones.)

    In a Quora answer a few weeks ago, I suggested that Trump’s core political beliefs are “Government succeeds by appearing unchallengeably strong” and “All political, economic, and diplomatic transactions are zero-sum”. What you’re suggesting here is a facet of the first belief: Iraq and Libya were failures because we showed ourselves to not be strong enough to win, but if we’d taken the oil, then they would have sent the right message.

  69. Federico_V says:

    Hi,

    great posts Scott. I am incredibly surprised that this second entry was necessary: considering Trump the safer option when it comes to war and foreign policy is something that didn’t even occur to me. Even if you believe he is the better option, he is definitely the higher variance option: the entire foreign policy establishment (both left and right wing) have come out publicly against him.

    That said – I usually read everything posted by Scott, but very rarely venture into the comment section, and usually only do when there is a technical discussion I find interesting. Is this my own bias or is the level of comments much worse than usual? There were several incredibly racist comments (and I don’t mean microaggression level racism) and several posters try to dominate the conversation by posting huge volumes of garbage.

    • Unfailingly Inamorate Killogie says:

      SSC readers who prefer fact-driven discourse-sans-snark — discource in particular relating to state-sponsored terrorism originating the Middle East — will find ample material in the syllabus to (UW Law) Prof. Clark Lombardi’s two-quarter sequence “Islamic Law” (autumn 2016-7) and “Seminar in Contemporary Muslim Legal Systems” (winter 2016-7).

      These courses are appreciated by an international cohort of Lombardi students, who collectively tackle questions like “In what sense(s) are US municipal codes already sharia laws?”.

      Lombardi essays like “The Marvelous Life of Paul Steven Miller” (2011) further illuminate the social, moral, and legal overlap of social justice concerns with sharia-based justice concerns (and “medicalized” justice concerns too).
      — — — — —
      Alt*trigger warning:  Prof. Lombardi’s course materials are not recommended to those SSC readers — residing equally on the left and the right — who seek to preserve their ignorance undiluted, history imagined, science fallacious, policies ineffectual, anger privileged, prejudice unleavened, and social justice unrealized.

    • Luung Hawl says:

      It’s funny. I dont believe Trump is a nazi anymore than Reagan was a nazi. I knew a couple of skinheads in the eighties who read Tom Metzger’s fanzines but i always wondered what the completely locked down political brain looked like. It took forty years, but here we are.
      I’ll be banned for this but I believe that many people here have proved they will say anything. They have exposed themselves to a kind of madness that will end in murder. Trump is no Hitler, but I have more sympathy for an intelligent German that voted for Hitler in 1932, than I do for the fucking monsters on this site.

      • anon says:

        Yep, I agree you should be banned for this.

      • Unfailingly Inamorate Killogie says:

        Yes, far-left and far-right rhetoric equally provide no shortage of content-free abuse that serves chiefly to poison the well of public discourse. Call it out, and provide better.

      • The Nybbler says:

        Keep it up, you’re providing stronger arguments for Trump (in the context of the here and now) than any rationalist could dream of providing for Hillary.

      • E. Harding says:

        [refutes most of Scott’s points on Trump]

        [gives numerous reasons for voting Trump]

        [TheWorst, Hawl, Federico_V, Landru, proceed to insult Trump supporters only with completely substanceless and unspecific allegations while ignoring all the above and refusing to give even a whit of a reason for why people should vote Clinton while noticeably acting morally superior to Trump supporters for their having done so].

        Fun!

      • Anonymous says:

        For me it’s been quite revealing in the opposite direction. I always assumed most leftist SSC readers weren’t bullies. Both here and in the subreddit, yet I’ve seen hundreds (No hyperbole) of comments from leftists that are essentially sneering and nothing else. People saying they’ll stay away from the comments until the red tribe is gone, proposals to ban rightists to foster some kind of “balance”, all kinds of condemnations and personal insults, shock. “Red tribe” comments on this vein are sparse in comparison. People are daring to voice their opinions and getting a straight fascist response. It’s depressing.

        Please stop acting as if the Overton window had to stay locked at the far “left” because anything else would be nazi. The organic response to such position is to move the Overton window in the direction of nazism and nobody really wants that. Don’t keep pushing the pendulum so high, a 95/5 Overton window Ultimatum game offer is going to get rejected even if would be so rational to just take 5.

        • Jill says:

          “Both here and in the subreddit, yet I’ve seen hundreds (No hyperbole) of comments from leftists that are essentially sneering and nothing else.”

          I would be surprised if there were hundreds of comments from Leftists at all, much less of a particular type.

          I’ve found you to be among the rudest people on the board and that’s a high bar to jump over. So I can imagine you get pushed back at, more than most.

          The board here is on average far to the Right. And the few people who are Left of Center here and dare to comment, get bashed a lot. If you’re complaining about bias against Right Wingers like yourself, when you are on on a vast majority Right Wing board where Left people routinely get bashed— then that certainly says something about you.

    • Deiseach says:

      Is this my own bias or is the level of comments much worse than usual?

      Politics is always a morass. This time, both parties have picked about the worst candidates possible (I’d have been happy to see Hillary as Obama’s VP in his first term, but obviously he was smarter on that than me) and the alternatives, God help us, haven’t covered themselves in glory either; at this stage, Stein is doing slightly better than Johnson by virtue of the fact that she hasn’t scored a big media opportunity to make a fool of herself.

      People on every side are feeling angry, anxious, worried, disconnected, unrepresented, threatened, concerned and not very hopeful, and people outside of America are concerned because the USA is the eight-hundred pound gorilla so it does matter to us who is your leader. Political rhetoric hasn’t helped (Trump every time he opens his mouth, Hillary and writing off a chunk of the nation as a basket of irredeemable deplorables) and it’s not going to get any better until after the election. If it ever does.

      The thing is, I think this site is – ironically – a safe space. A lot of us who are conservative or on the right have to grit our teeth, shut up and keep smiling when at work or elsewhere as people express opinions we disagree with – and it’s not confined to only that, ‘I think A while you think B’, it’s the assumption that anyone holding the opposite opinion is subhuman or motivated by hate etc. Not 100% box-ticking every box on the company diversity policy can get you into serious trouble or even fired. Expressing anything but the acceptable view will mark you out as questionable and untrustworthy. But we can come on here, express our opinions, explain why we think the way we think on that side of a question, and unless we transgress the bounds (mea culpa!) we won’t get kicked off for it. A lot of pent-up steam is being vented here, and that is bound to scald somebody.

      And naturally that invites people who want to troll or simply kick the hornet’s nest and watch everyone running around beating at the air. I don’t know how Scott has the patience to put up with the lot of us!

    • Anatoly says:

      I agree the level of comments has been lower than usual. I happen to think it was at least partly due to right wing commenters having seemingly adopted an implicit no-enemy-to-the-right policy. I only saw keranih offer a mild rebuke, once, to an offensively stupid claim that its author hadn’t seen even one good reason offered why Clinton might be better than Trump. I apologize if I missed more, I stopped reading threads started by that commenter at some point, they were too depressingly trashy.

      There are Trump supporters here who offered valuable arguments of their own and intelligent criticism of many of Scott’s points. You know who you are; but you’re being swamped by E. Harding who shits all over epistemic charity and trumpets Breibart-style propaganda. Because you didn’t care to draw a line (niceness! community! civilization!), he gets to define what being pro-Trump at SSC looks like, and it ain’t pretty.

      • E. Harding says:

        I only saw keranih offer a mild rebuke, once, to an offensively stupid claim that its author hadn’t seen even one good reason offered why Clinton might be better than Trump.

        -There certainly might be scattered issues on which Clinton is better than Trump. What I said was that I had never seen

        a single good reason for why Trump was not the best candidate during the primaries from either side of the aisle, nor have I seen a single good reason for why Clinton is preferable over Trump

        https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/09/28/ssc-endorses-clinton-johnson-or-stein/#comment-417251

        I stand by those claims. Noticed I used the words “best” and “preferable over”, not “better”. Clinton might be “better” than Trump in some respects, but those respects would have to affect my voting decisions, even slightly, to be an argument Clinton is preferable over Trump for the position of President of the United States.

        -keranih gave some experience and personality-related replies for a bunch of primary candidates, which I didn’t bother to reply to (as I thought someone else would reply to them; turned out I was wrong). In any case, I do not value personality traits people find likeable and experience all that highly, and I would much rather have preferred keranih had given a response filled with substance on important (i.e., that could have actually changed my vote) policies.

        “I stopped reading threads started by that commenter at some point, they were too depressingly trashy.”

        -Poor choice. Some comment threads by me might end up trashy; others yield good insights.

        “but you’re being swamped by E. Harding who shits all over epistemic charity and trumpets Breibart-style propaganda”

        -Give me two examples of each. I hardly ever look at Breitbart. When did I shit all over epistemic charity? When did I engage in Breitbart-style propaganda? Both these charges I consider laughably unfair.

        “There are Trump supporters here who offered valuable arguments of their own and intelligent criticism of many of Scott’s points.”

        -If you don’t consider me as one of them, who do you consider them to have been?

      • FacelessCraven says:

        There is no good* way to register disagreement with low-quality posts. The “true, kind, necessary” callout got burned out from overuse quite a while back, and there’s been nothing really to replace it. Egregiously low-quality content used to draw accusations of trolling, but that turned out to be a worse solution than the original problem in the long run.

        One part of the problem, I think, is that bad arguments for my side usually don’t generate enough interesting ideas to compel a post; I just frown and move on. Nor do I particularly want to get in an argument with the author about whether or not their argument was bad; if it was bad enough that I considered reading it a complete waste of time, why do I want to spend *more* time arguing with the author?

        The other part of the problem is that a bunch of us have worn ourselves out trying to figure out a way to deal with other comments we considered low-quality and annoying, found no good way to do so, and have settled for just ignoring them and moving on. At this stage, pointing out issues one has with other posters has become obviously counterproductive.

        Not sure what the solution to this is. Maybe there isn’t one, but if you have any ideas, we could use them. There is a subthread autohider thingy available; that might be the best solution.

        *low-effort, abuse-resistant, polite seem like basic requirements.

      • Theo Jones says:

        @Anatoly

        On tumblr Scott suggested that a lot of the traffic on the last post were people linked to it from outside, and not usual readers.

        But, yah, between the annons/fresh posters, the Harding-style right-wing shitposters, and the Jill-style left-wing shitposters this thread has gone to hell.

        • Jill says:

          So nice to be bashed on a thread in which I have not even participated. Just like Hillary, I get to be constantly bashed for not being Right Wing, even when I am not around. There are hardly any Left Wing commenters here, for good reason. I see that out of the 90% of comments here that are Right Wing, you managed to find a Right Winger whom you can bash too– just to make it seem like you are neutral. But no one who has read this comment board could be fooled into thinking you are being neutral here. You’re just doing a false equivalence.

          • Jill says:
            October 2, 2016 at 5:51 pm

            “So nice to be bashed on a thread in which I have not even participated.”

            I don’t know how narrowly you are defining “thread.” Following up from that post, there are only four until I get to one by Anatoly which seems to have started it. But I don’t see why not being one of those four would be relevant to people criticizing you.

            Looking at all comments in response to the post, I count fifteen that you made prior to this one.

      • keranih says:

        I stopped reading threads started by that commenter at some point

        Well, you were not exactly the only one.

        SSC is not its own thing, it is a part of larger society, and larger society ran the train off the rational debate tracks a long ways back on the top[ic of this election.

        I am about burnt out on this topic, but I did see a long of people actually trying to grapple with other people’s input here. Mostly to the effect of soundly rejecting that input, but still engaging.

        It’s not nothin’.

  70. Deiseach says:

    Stepping away from the war question for a bit, there’s been some remarks about Trump appealing to the religious right and that if he gets elected, some of his policies (e.g. abortion) will be capitulating to them.

    Well, here’s a question: do we want this person described below to be elected President? Lightly edited by me:

    The [person] spoke candidly about [their] Methodist upbringing, [their] core Christian beliefs and prayer habits, and how [they] frequently consulted the latest Methodist Book of Resolutions, the church’s official handbook on social and political issues, which [they] kept upstairs in the family quarters. Piety plus politics was [their] message.

    What kind of right-wing Bible-basher, who uses their denomination’s doctrines as guidance in political matters, is this?

    Hillary Rodham Clinton. The article is well worth reading for how the mainline denominations (and their adherents) have changed with the times, and the place of religion in appealing to American voters for both parties – and indeed the influence of religion on political culture and vice versa. I got a kick out of this bit:

    I asked her if she ever thought of becoming an ordained Methodist minister once her White House years were over. “I think about it all the time,” she instantly replied.

    Of course you do, Hillary, as we could see from your post-White House career trajectory 🙂 I think this remark is interesting, taken in conjunction with the “SJW crowd” we are talking about; that Hillary cuts her cloth according to her measure, as it were – she adopts careful signalling when the support of a particular group is useful. In the mid-90s, this was sending her instead of Bill to field questions from a reporter about religion, and modelling herself in the mould of genteel mainline religiosity, hence the quick agreement about going into the ministry; now it’s the Social Justice angle, and people urging others to vote for “our progressive president”.

    I’m not saying she’s insincere or lying, but that with Trump what you see is what you get (fortunately or unfortunately), but Hillary can strike a well-tuned note to resonate with the perceived inclinations of a particular audience (this can be an occasional stumble as with the hot sauce thing, where I saw some comments in essence saying “How dumb does she think we are, does she think all African-Americans go around with sachets of hot sauce, what kind of lame vote-grabbing tactic is this?” and others defending her on exactly this, that she genuinely likes it. I think she probably does and this is genuine, but it came across as trying too hard to be “I is down with the black yoot” after Beyoncé’s album).

    Just one caveat; Bill Clinton is described as a Southern Baptist. He used to be, but has now switched affiliations to the Baptists – presumably the American Baptist branch of the Baptists (this being America we’re talking about, there are a few branches calling themselves American Baptist what-nots), which is more liberal than its Southern sibling.

    • Unfailingly Inamorate Killogie says:

      HillaryCare” (of 1993) and “RomneyCare” (of 2006) share (a) moral foundations in Clinton’s Methodism and Romney’s Mormonism, with (b) political & economic foundations in the European healthcare experience.

      These two brainy-and-centrist yet religiously-grounded politicians, at least, cannot be accused of any very great philosophical or moral incompatibility.

      On the other hand, the gross incompatibility of Romney/Clinton healthcare policy with the present-day (incoherent? nonexistent? obstructionistic?) Trump/GOP healthcare policy calls to mind a celebrated Churchill/French military exchange: “‘Ou est la masse de manoeuvre?’  ‘Il n’y a aucune!'”

      I would conclude with a ” 🙂 “, were it not that Trumpish GOP healthcare obstructionism has generated a devastating multi-decade human and economic disaster.

      • E. Harding says:

        Trump supports some kind of universal health coverage, too, at least, when he’s speaking.

        • Unfailingly Inamorate Killogie says:

          “Some kind of universal health coverage” … but definitely not the (a) Clinton-kind, (b) Romney-kind, (c) Obama-kind, (d) Canada-kind, (e) British-kind, (f) German-kind, or (g) Swiss-kind. And the GOP’s “healthcare policy” is comparably vacuous to Trump’s, isn’t it?

          The electorate has grown impatient of the GOP’s persistant healthcare dementia … fortunately! 🙂

    • ThirteenthLetter says:

      This reinforces my view that HRC is a chameleon, not an ideologue: if the culture is religious, she’s religious, if it’s not, she’s not. For a person who doesn’t like the current state of American culture, that’s an argument in her favor: she’s not going to help you, but if you somehow start winning anyway she’s going to roll with it rather than spend years fighting an Obama-style guerilla campaign in the media and the bureaucracy to block you.

      • houseboatonstyxb says:

        @ ThirteenthLetter
        This reinforces my view that HRC is a chameleon, not an ideologue

        Yeah, something like that, depending on what you mean by ‘ideolog’.

        If by ideolog you mean, ‘Faced by any problem, large or small, the person talks about how it relates it to Communism/Capitalism/whateverism as its cause and its only solution — or considers the problem an egg that may be broken if the breaking might even minutely help his Communist/Capitalist cause’ — then she’s not.

        Which way the wind blows is a better metaphor than chameoleon. I’d say, she’s an admiral with a fleet of ships (ie causes and goals). Whatever wind is blowing, she forwards the ship that wind will help.

        But ‘chameleon’ suggests dishonesty, betraying the cause and people she pushed for last year. There’s no such reversal in pushing different ones at different times, according to which ones can make the most progress at the moment.

        • TheWorst says:

          It’s like accusing a firefighter of dishonesty for pouring water on whatever house is on fire today, rather than just pouring it on one house forever.

  71. buddyglass says:

    Some other options besides Johnson and Stein if you’re in a “safe” state and want to write someone in:

    1. Person of your choice that isn’t running in 2016 but that you like for 2020, e.g. Sasse, for some.

    2. Candidate of your choice who was eliminated in the primaries, e.g. Sanders, Kasich, etc.

    3. These guys: http://www.solidarity-party.org/

    4. This guy: https://kotlikoff2016.com/

    • anon says:

      To emphasize, *these are also perfectly valid options if you are not in a safe state*. Your individual vote does not matter very much, the two-party monopoly deserves to be questioned, the narrative that failing to vote for the lesser of evils is a moral crime is a false one, and anyone denying these facts (including our illustrious host) is falling prey to a cognitive illusion that is well worth calling out.

      In fact, arguably your vote is *most* valuable in contributing to a narrative of an historically thin margin of victory and lack of popular mandate. Setting aside any desire I have (to admit my bias) for Gary’s vote-share to entitle the Libertarian Party to millions of dollars in federal matching funds in 2020, I genuinely consider any vote for anyone other than Trump and Clinton to be a vote for the greater good. The Democratic and Republican parties have not served the American people well. Voting against them is a legitimate way of voicing grievance with the direction of governance. It is *in no way* a betrayal of anyone, if it represents your heartfelt belief about our shared polity.

      (ETA: In case it’s not clear from the above, I was attempting to make explicit my essential objection to the OP and Scott’s previous post. I would have felt a lot better about these posts if SSC had not asserted a moral obligation to vote for HRC if voting in an “unsafe” state. This imposed a strong philosophical obligation to prove that the downsides of a DJT presidency vastly outweighs the risk of an HRC presidency. So far, the comment threads here and there indicate that Scott managed to change the minds of approximately zero people regarding this claim. Which means that these posts amounted to little more than another venue for partisan vitriol. Ergo, their net effect will have been negative unless they be somehow salvaged. This is my attempt at such a a salvage: in the absence of a strong consequentialist argument for voting for the lesser of evils, there’s very good reason to vote against the two-party status quo.)

      • keranih says:

        FWIW, I agree that getting the Libertarian Party access to matching funds is a reasonable goal. I won’t be voting for them this year, but I am intrigued by what will happen if we have a third party to shake things up.

      • “Ergo, their net effect will have been negative”

        I can’t speak for anyone else, but I found it interesting to see the positions of the small minority here who actually offered coherent arguments in favor of one of the two major party candidates, rather than merely arguments against the other.

        On the other hand, it has been an awfully long comment thread to both posts.

        • E. Harding says:

          “I found it interesting to see the positions of the small minority here who actually offered coherent arguments in favor of one of the two major party candidates”

          -Was I one of them?

  72. keranih says:

    Sideways of this particular post, and hearkening back to Scott’s last post –

    I get the impression that bog-average Progressives are not terribly invested in local/city politics, and get far more worked up over the Presidential race. In contrast, bog-average Conservatives are more likely to vote in all the damn primaries, actually make a choice in the city council race, and are more engaged in the political process as a (very minor) part of everyday life. A third leg – young activists (who tend progressive, but I repeat myself) – tend to find partisan implications in everything, and live and breathe this stuff.

    It seems that the polls and surveys support this, and I think it points to some differences in preferred power balances – and maybe to some other preferences as well. And I wonder if any of the non-conservatives here could comment on this tendency, and if they think this is good, bad, or orange.

    • Unfailingly Inamorate Killogie says:

      keranih requests comments upon “preferred power balances”

      My personal experience of tactical matriarchal politics supports the proposition that basic primatology predictively explains this cycle’s electoral dynamics more accurately than any amount of ideological wrangling and rationalizing.

      Quick summary: don’t diss the alpha females.

      • Jill says:

        Thanks for the articles. Quite interesting. The primatologist is right that Trump does the macho display behaviors of the alpha ape well. The coalition forming, not so much.

        • Unfailingly Inamorate Killogie says:

          How many SSC viewers have actually watched Trump’s (unedited) post-debate live-streams? Trump’s display behaviors are (literally) primatological. Rationality, what’s that? Yikes.

          • Anonymous says:

            This comment is literally primatological. I mean both yours and mine, you can dress the monkey in silk but it will forever remain a monkey. Often the silk just gets in the way.

          • Unfailingly Inamorate Killogie says:
          • Jill says:

            LOL, people, I challenge people to watch that video you cited under “Or not, as the case may be” and see whether you think that it shows Trump falling below the apes, in his level of competence.

            Here is a video of a gorilla, for comparison.

            http://www.upworthy.com/watch-this-gorilla-use-sign-language-to-warn-humans-about-their-impact-on-the-earth

          • Anonymous says:

            Above and aligned as someone else said.

          • Deiseach says:

            Here is a video of a gorilla, for comparison.

            The Spirit of Gaia Herself is manifesting through this pure and superior creature! The primordial wisdom of Herstory is crying out via the tender loving rebuke signed to us by this representative of all animalkind! We must listen and obey before it is too late!

            To the folks who eat this kind of stuff up with a spoon – I’ve got some Authentic Ancient Irish Druidic Wisdom I can personally initiate you all into, for a modest fee* (and as soon as I’ve taken ten minutes to cook up any old nonsense). This will cleanse your chakras, uplift what’s sagging, and do better in giving you a pert bottom than all the power yoga in Los Angeles!

            *Permit me to relieve you of that excess of filthy lucre over braincells that is holding you all bound on the material plane and retarding your progress to the higher, better, consciousness-state where you will be talking with the beasts and suckling from the bountiful bosom of Mother Gaea Rhea Cybele Herself! I gladly make the sacrifice of taking on the dross of earthly wealth in order to help you ascend upon the Ever-Spiralling Path Upwards.

          • ThirteenthLetter says:

            Incoherent nonsense.

    • Jill says:

      Interesting, Keranih. It may be related to the fact that Republicans win elections more when fewer people vote. Since there is so much written about “Your vote doesn’t matter. Both parties are the same.” etc., this has its effects: Fewer people vote, and so more Republicans win. In fact there is so much written in articles, blogs etc. about “Your vote doesn’t matter. Both parties are the same.” etc., that it causes me to wonder if those articles are not intentional propaganda put out there for the purpose of persuading people not to vote.

      Also, many voters who are both poor and minority group members, who tend to vote Dem, face lots of obstacles to voting, in not being able to afford the time off of work on a Tuesday, or not being able to afford a baby sitter to watch their kids etc. In some states the lines at the polls are quite long, involving hours away from one’s work or kids. Perhaps people find a way to push past these obstacles only infrequently e.g. once every 4 years when there is a presidential election. I think a lot of poor black people found ways to make these sacrifices to vote for Obama, in order to elect the first black president. But they certainly won’t take time off of work and do without sorely needed income, for every little local election that comes along.

      So this tendency is great if you’re Republican, bad if you’re Democrat.

      • keranih says:

        it causes me to wonder if those articles are not intentional propaganda put out there for the purpose of persuading people not to vote.

        I am not quite that cynical, but I feel the temptation to agree.

        many voters [snip], face lots of obstacles to voting

        One of the things that has come out of early reporting voting is that day of the election, far more D’s vote during the day than R’s – R’s tend to go in the evening, when they have gotten off work, or early in the morning before work. Work is not as much an impediment to D voters – although I do wonder how much of this can also be linked to government jobs.

        I really don’t buy “I couldn’t take time off from work” as a systemic reason. And every voting line I’ve ever stood in has had women with kids in strollers or on their hips. Not saying these are not obstaticals for some people, but they surely are not universal, and in light of what a real voter suppression campaign looks like, not in the same ballpark as a real burden.

        And the long lines are…emmm. I really don’t know what to say about long lines, when the voting sets ups are so decentralized, and the political parties controlling each area (county, I mean, not state) run the show.

        Yet another reason to get involved – and stay involved – at the local level.

  73. Jill says:

    What could save the U.S. from Trump– Mussolini quoting Trump, Trump who has a copy of Mein Kampf next to his bed side, Trump so beloved by white supremacists, misogynistic bigoted Trump, Trump who plans to increase the tax burden on the middle class in order to lower taxes on billionaires like himself?

    What could save us? Why, the fact that he is not Right Wing enough for this Right Wing country of ours, that is forever moving further to the Right, except in a few random social issues. Our country where the Right Wing party dominates both Houses of Congress, most governorships and state legislatures, and SCOTUS until Scalia died. And where the Right Wing doesn’t have the presidency yet, but through Congress they do tie the president’s hands frequently e.g. by refusing to allow his SCOTUS nominee even a hearing, much less a vote. Thank Gawd Trump is too liberal to be elected in the US of A.

    • onyomi says:

      If he loses, it won’t be because he was perceived as not right-wing enough.

      • Jill says:

        That depends on how many people there are who are dissatisfied about Trump being “too liberal.” Those folks comment about this on the Internet a fair amount. There are some Republican voters who normally vote for the Republican nominee, but who think Trump is too liberal because he sometimes jawbones about being in favor of policies that benefit the working class types, rather than the wealthier people. If those voters all stay home on election day, and if there are enough of them, that could stop Trump from winning the election. OTOH, the votes of working class identified folks, who seem to think Trump is their Savior, could counterbalance that, resulting in a win for Trump.

        There’s an Internet board I’m on that’s not supposed to be about politics. It’s supposed to be about investing. But there’s a guy there with a biker looking avatar who regularly refers to Trump as “the God man.” Politics has become a fundamentalist religion to many people right now in the U.S.

      • E. Harding says:

        “it won’t be because he was perceived as not right-wing enough”

        -But that may well be the story the Cruzlims at the National Review will tell themselves.

    • Deiseach says:

      Jill, can you please explain to me how simultaneously the President (if they’re a Republican) is the most powerful person ever and (if a Democrat) is the least able to influence national policy? Because you keep doing that – on the one hand, don’t vote for anyone Republican because the Republicans are in control of everything and a Republican president will doom us all with their unlimited power! On the other hand, a Democrat president can only sit there and look pretty for the official photos because they can’t ever do anything.

      Okay, you say that’s because the evil Republicans control everything and block the nice Democrat president. But you also seem to say that a President can unilaterally, without taking account of Congress or whatever, make decisions – so which is it? The Magic Unilateral Powers only switch on for the Republicans? Because I think Obama and others used executive powers to get their way when Congress was blocking them, and I think that there have been Republican presidents with Democrat controlled Congress (correct me someone if I’m wrong on this), so were they blocked as well, or did the Evil Republican Control Powers kick in for them?

      I like having you here to comment but you always make this ‘heads I win, tails you lose’ argument about the Presidency – it’s all-powerful and a threat if the Wrong Guy gets in, but if the Right Guy gets in, they can’t do anything because it’s pretty much a figure-head position.

      • Jill says:

        Congress is GOP dominated and likely to remain so. If it does remain so, a GOP president could have almost unlimited power, if the GOP Congress were to back him up.

        The GOP has blocked Obama a lot more than Dem Congresses have blocked GOP presidents though. Articles about this:

        http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/nov/22/harry-reid/harry-reid-says-82-presidential-nominees-have-been/

        http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/republicans-legislation-obama-dccc-event-106481

        http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/senate-gops-unprecedented-obstruction-five-charts

        https://ourfuture.org/20140923/the-cost-to-our-economy-from-republican-obstruction-and-sabotage

        I realize that people haven’t been aware of this, as the U.S. is immersed in Right Wing media propaganda, which has managed to convince most people that the media is overwhelmingly liberal. That’s what happens. If you have a stranglehold on the nation through Right Wing propaganda, you can easily convince much of the nation that there is no Right Wing propaganda.

        • E. Harding says:

          Again, name ten newspapers which have endorsed the greatest Republican nominee since Reagan. Dozens have endorsed Her, including the NYT.

          • Jill says:

            Newspapers? You cherry pick your examples to show what you want them to show, ignoring any others.

            Newspapers are going out of business because no one reads them. The NYT is an exception and people do read it. But the NYT may endorse Hillary but it has published more negative articles about Hillary than positive, so its net effect has been to lower the number of people voting for Hillary. By contrast, Trump’s free billions of dollars of air time from TV media– usually done without fact checking or challenging his lies– has had a large positive effect on the number of people supporting him.

            Then there are Sean Hannity’s 2 million viewers. This is more than the circulation of the NYT– watching this one particular Trump loving TV guy.

            http://dailycaller.com/2016/06/02/sean-hannity-is-now-number-two-at-fox-news-ahead-of-megyn-kelly/

          • E. Harding says:

            “but it has published more negative articles about Hillary than positive”

            -[citation needed]

            “so its net effect has been to lower the number of people voting for Hillary”

            -Who knows? It could always get more biased.

          • Jill says:

            “but it has published more negative articles about Hillary than positive”

            -[citation needed]

            I’ll give you the citation, after you give me the citations to prove all the wonderful things you have been saying about Trump.

        • Deiseach says:

          I realise I’m beating my head against a wall here, but let’s try this one more time: where do Americans go for their news sources? Pew Research Center study tell us:

          Overall, the study finds that consistent conservatives:

          – Are tightly clustered around a single news source, far more than any other group in the survey, with (sic)
          – Express greater distrust than trust of 24 of the 36 news sources measured in the survey. At the same time, fully 88% of consistent conservatives trust Fox News.
          – Are, when on Facebook, more likely than those in other ideological groups to hear political opinions that are in line with their own views.
          – Are more likely to have friends who share their own political views. Two-thirds (66%) say most of their close friends share their views on government and politics.

          By contrast, those with consistently liberal views:

          – Are less unified in their media loyalty; they rely on a greater range of news outlets, including some – like NPR and the New York Times– that others use far less.
          – Express more trust than distrust of 28 of the 36 news outlets in the survey.
          – Are more likely than those in other ideological groups to block or “defriend” someone on a social network – as well as to end a personal friendship – because of politics.
          – Are more likely to follow issue-based groups, rather than political parties or candidates, in their Facebook feeds.

          When it comes to choosing a media source for political news, conservatives orient strongly around Fox News. Nearly half of consistent conservatives (47%) name it as their main source for government and political news, as do almost a third (31%) of those with mostly conservative views. No other sources come close.

          Consistent liberals, on the other hand, volunteer a wider range of main sources for political news – no source is named by more than 15% of consistent liberals and 20% of those who are mostly liberal. Still, consistent liberals are more than twice as likely as web-using adults overall to name NPR (13% vs. 5%), MSNBC (12% vs. 4%) and the New York Times (10% vs. 3%) as their top source for political news.

          Now, maybe the New York Times is part of the cabal of Right Wing Propaganda, but if so, you’d imagine the “consistent liberals” (ones most likely to vote for Hillary) would have noticed and dropped it, instead of keeping it as a news source?

  74. E. Harding says:

    Which blockquoted statement was said by whom? Hint: all of these are either the incumbent president or the Republican presidential nominee. Guess without looking it up first, and share your guesses below.

    https://marginalcounterrevolution.wordpress.com/2016/10/02/who-this/

    BTW, Scott should have endorsed candidates during the primaries. Did he even vote in the MI presidential primary this year?

    • Unfailingly Inamorate Killogie says:

      To avoid cherry-picking, simply attempt to watch any of Trump’s unedited hour-long post-debate live streams. Test question: how long did you last?
      * One minute or less
           Trump’s theme-music destroyed my sanity.
      * 1-5 minutes
           Please, make it stop.
      * 5-15 minutes
           No mas, no mas!
      * 15-58 minutes
           Stayed mainly for the NRA infomercials.
      * Watched the whole thing
           You’re the tip of the Trump-spear.
      * Watched it twice
           Kiss me like you did last night.
      * Watch it continuously, 24×7
           Not since Il Duce has there been such a speaker! 🙂

      • E. Harding says:

        I didn’t watch the Novi one (even though it was closest to Scott’s and my physical location), but I did watch the entirety of the Wisconsin and Pennsylvania ones.

    • The Most Conservative says:

      I read a few of your quotes. They didn’t seem very interesting. I didn’t bother to guess.

  75. Jill says:

    One interesting thing about Trump is that he is like an ink blot test where you can see whatever you want to see. Since he lies constantly, keeps changing his mind, says contradictory things etc., you can believe anything you want about him by just paying attention only to those statements you like, and either ignoring the rest, or else making excuses for why those other statements don’t matter. E.g. he was joking. Or he’s just saying that to get elected but he doesn’t mean it. etc.

    • Anonymous says:

      Feature. Trump is an empty vessel for the will of Kek.

    • Unfailingly Inamorate Killogie says:

      Anonymous notices “Trump is an empty vessel for the will of Kek.”

      ↑↑↑ This. ↑↑↑

      One of all-too-many Kek-agents in history, isn’t that so?

      • Anonymous says:

        Kek’s vessel vs. Moloch’s golem.

      • FacelessCraven says:

        That’s… man, that’s not near as good as the picture in my head for the death of Archimedes. For one thing, the way I always heard the story, he was way more outraged at the soldiers for trampling his diagram, which is what prompted their wrath.

      • Unfailingly Inamorate Killogie says:

        More aptly then,
            los kek-vuelos de la muerte?
                A.K.A. “Air Kek”?
        MSF illuminates “kek”, isn’t that so?

        • FacelessCraven says:

          Brekekekekekek koax koax!

          You talk about empathy a lot, but always on the assumption that other people need it, and gaining it would make them think the way you do. If you truly have empathy, shouldn’t that help you understand others? There’s too many people in the world to fit them all into your rigid categories. Shouldn’t the first lesson of empathy be that just because you don’t like someone, that doesn’t mean they’re defective?

          If you understood Kek, you’d also understand why those links with that text is as amusing as a mustache inked on the mona lisa.

        • Unfailingly Inamorate Killogie says:

          In regard to remediating alt*kek cognition in the grotesquely toxic form that has become kek’s public face

          As for the true face of the Alt*R*ght, we all know the correct answer is: “P*p*, and K*k is his Apotheosis.”

          Please reflect upon the comment below: “Bīmāristān models for medicalizing conflict.”

          • FacelessCraven says:

            I think Milo cuts a rather rakish figure, actually, but that’s beside the point. Milo is playing a game the left invented. I’m sure you’re familiar with Rules for Radicals, and I’m equally sure that you’d prefer that effective tactics worked only for your own side, but swords cut both ways, and those who live by them die by them also.

            But where did Milo come from? Why is a flamboyantly gay man the face for a right-wing populist movement? Shouldn’t his supporters be lynching him rather than cheering him?

            If it is the business of the future to be dangerous, why would you think the danger applies only to others and never to you?

            Kek is not going to throw anyone out of helicopters. If you understood why, you’d understand that the real reason it’s dangerous is that you’re stuck looking the wrong way.

          • Unfailingly Inamorate Killogie says:

            Comment restored (an offending DuffelBlog link has been redacted, who knew?) … and please let me say that your comments (which commonly are thoughtful and respectful) are appreciated, even when we don’t agree.

          • Unfailingly Inamorate Killogie says:

            PS: in regard to the various members of the alt*clown posse, the maxim

            “As for the true face of the Alt*R*ght, we all know the correct answer is: ‘P*p*, and K*k is his Apotheosis.'”

            emits not from the alt*clown “Milo”, but from some other alt*clown.

            Does it really matter which alt*clown? Aren’t the SPLC, JDL, ACLU (etc) well-justified to aggregate these P*p*-loving / K*k-loving alt*clowns? They all emerge from the same toxic alt*clown-cars as Trump, don’t they?

    • onyomi says:

      “an ink blot test where you can see whatever you want to see.”

      And this is different from “hope and change” how?

      • And this is different from “hope and change” how?

        As a Democrat who supported him, I had a lot of fairly specific expectations of what Obama would do as president, and he met almost all of them.

        And I don’t have any special insight or secret knowledge.

        • Odoacer says:

          I had a lot of fairly specific expectations of what Obama would do as president, and he met almost all of them.

          Would you share them? I have a lot of memories of people pouring their beliefs into Obama in 2008. “Yes We Can!”, “Hope and Change” rang loud then.

          IIRC, Obama ran on closing Gitmo, opposing the war in Iraq while supporting the one in Afghanistan, and universal healthcare. A big part of his appeal was that Obama was seen as a fresh, untainted candidate, who would be a big break from the previous 8 years. He was going to fix most things that were wrong and caused by the hated Bush administration.

          I do remember a good number of Obama supporters attributed many abilities and ideas to him that weren’t explicitly held by him or even possible. It reminds me of some of Trump’s supporters.

          Hell, some of the things I read/heard were a bit embarrassing in their fawning over Obama. Trump inspires similar responses in some people.

        • onyomi says:

          I’m not claiming it was impossible to know what Obama really wanted to do, only that Trump is hardly alone in using the “say sufficiently vague things that people can read whatever they want to hear into it” strategy.

          Effective political speech is much like fortune cookies, palmistry, astrology, etc. in this respect.

          I will agree, however, that for the small minority of voters who actually research what candidates actually want to do in any detail, Obama would have been easier to figure out in 2008 than Trump is now.

      • AnonBosch says:

        Probably the part where Obama had not had a 20-year career in public life in which he said a bunch of shit that contradicted what he said on the campaign trail (or even just earlier in the campaign trail). About the only 2008 campaign issue you can ride on him for being two-faced about is his delay on embracing gay marriage.

        More to the point, this is a tu quoque fallacy. Thought SSC was better than that.

      • Jill says:

        “an ink blot test where you can see whatever you want to see.”

        >And this is different from “hope and change” >how?

        No one imagined that Obama was Right Wing. With Trump there are tons of people who think he’s Right Wing, who think he isn’t, who think he’s a Democrat even though running as a Republican, who think he’s a safe isolationist, who think he’d start Nuclear WWII AKA the War of the Small Hands, who think he’s the hero of the working class, who think he’ll govern for the benefit of billionaires and screw over the middle class. Few people, if any thought as many different varieties of disparate things about Obama.

        • onyomi says:

          Can you point to any major pundits or articles which seriously suggest that Trump is too left wing to be president?

          • onyomi says:

            I was going to say “non-crazy, conspiracy theoristy” pundits, but decided against it…

          • anon says:

            The complaint that Trump is not a true conservative is *everywhere* on the right. One commentator I like who has made it is Matt Lewis (whom I think of as a Bloggingheads contributor, but I think his main shtick is CNN these days?).

            One of (I suspect) very many National Review articles making this claim.

          • onyomi says:

            That is right after the convention. Certainly during the nomination battle, and up to its end, there were many arguing that Trump was not really conservative. I, myself, would have preferred a candidate like Rand Paul or Ted Cruz, who, by many standards would have been much more right-wing than Trump.

            But since the convention, most of that criticism has faded as people have realized it’s basically Trump or Hillary. As criticism of Hillary not being left-wing enough has mostly faded, though a few disgruntled Bernie holdouts surely remain.

            I’m not trying to say that Trump is really right wing by Republican standards, though I do think there’s a sense in which he is more genuinely conservative than the neocons on many points, I’m simply saying that the debate right now is about whether or not Trump is a scary fascist or a potentially good president. There’s no serious debate over why he isn’t more right wing. That part of the election is over. As I said to Jill, of the people who won’t be voting for Trump, very, very few of them will be doing so because he seems insufficiently right-wing.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @onyomi:
            I think you are conflating two things here.

            Many, many, many, many (however many many you would like) conservative intellectuals criticize Trump on the basis of ideological unfitness, as well as other types of unfitness. Hence the recent spate of editorial boards that haven’t endorsed a Democrat in 100+ years endorsing Hillary or non-endorsing Trump.

            However elected Republicans, and the party machinery, primarily care about getting elected, and only secondarily care about ideology. Their interest is in trying to prevent the coalition from fracturing. What this all really shows is that Republican voters have not been very much interested in true conservatism in an intellectual sense. This has been apparent for quite a while.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @HeelBearCub – “What this all really shows is that Republican voters have not been very much interested in true conservatism in an intellectual sense. This has been apparent for quite a while.”

            What evidence would you cite to support this claim?

            My counterclaim would be that Republican voters cared a lot about true conservatism, but True conservatism failed. A large measure of why probably had to do with its alliance with the religious right.

            People point to Trump as proof that the Religious Right never really cared in a principled way about its stances. I think this is a foolish argument; Trump only happened after the Religious Right realized it had lost the fight forever. The Right generally was an uneasy coalition of incompatible interests, and their leaders played them against each other for cynical personal advancement. The fact that they have now turned on those leaders in desperation doesn’t seem like good evidence that they never held principles in the first place.

      • Corey says:

        That was indeed a failure mode of a good many Obama supporters – many saw him as more liberal than he actually presented himself during the campaign.

    • Cord Shirt says:

      Pretty true of most politicians. Like I said in my top-level comment, both Clinton and Trump have said they would and they wouldn’t send ground troops to Syria.

      That’s why I focus on actual platforms. 😉

  76. Tyrant Overlord Killidia says:

    The management of savagery is the next stage that the Umma will pass through and it is considered the most critical stage. If we succeed in the management of this savagery, that stage (by the permission of God) will be a bridge to the Islamic state which has been awaited since the fall of the caliphate. If we fail – we seek refuge with God from that – it does not mean end of the matter; rather, this failure will lead to an increase in savagery!!

    . . .

    A – The first goal: Destroy a large part of the respect for America and spread confidence in the souls of Muslims by means of:
    (1) Reveal the deceptive media to be a power without force.
    (2) Force America to abandon its war against Islam by proxy and force it to attack directly so that the noble ones among the masses and a few of the noble ones among the armies of apostasy will see that their fear of deposing the regimes because America is their protector is misplaced and that when they depose the regimes, they are capable of opposing America if it interferes.

    . . .

    B – The second goal: Replace the human casualties sustained by the renewal movement during the past thirty years by means of the human aid that will probably come for two reasons:

    (1) Being dazzled by the operations which will be undertaken in opposition to America.
    (2) Anger over the obvious, direct American interference in the Islamic world, such that that anger compounds the previous anger against America’s support for the Zionist entity. It also transforms the suppressed anger toward the regimes of apostasy and tyranny into a positive anger.

    . . .

    (C) – The third goal: Work to expose the weakness of America’s centralized power by pushing it to abandon the media psychological war and the war by proxy until it fights directly.

    This is from The Management of Savagery; “The Management of Savagery” is to ISIS what Mein Kampf is to Nazism.

    As to which candidate will play perfectly into ISIS’ plan that is left as an exercise for the reader.

    • Jill says:

      Clinton would likely be pretty close to Obama’s 3rd term, so whatever you think of what Obama has done, something like that will likely continue.

      As for Trump, since he lies constantly, there’s no telling what he would do as president for sure. But since he is incompetent at everything except selling and telling a certain segment of the voters what they want to hear, you can be pretty sure that whatever he does, it will be extremely incompetent.

    • E. Harding says:

      “As to which candidate will play perfectly into ISIS’ plan that is left as an exercise for the reader.”

      -You do realize Scott called this logical fallacy “the worst argument in the world”, right?

      http://lesswrong.com/lw/e95/the_noncentral_fallacy_the_worst_argument_in_the/

      Trump is the candidate in this race most likely to

      1. Keep Americans safe from Muslim terrorism and

      2. Defeat the Islamic State

      Unless the Islamic State’s plan is less of its terrorism and its own defeat (which I do not think its leadership wants), the candidate who is most likely to do what the Islamic State’s plan calls for is Clinton.

      • Jill says:

        I notice you didn’t give any reasons why you think
        Trump is the candidate in this race most likely to
        1. Keep Americans safe from Muslim terrorism and
        2. Defeat the Islamic State

        Do you have reasons? Or do you simply have a fundamentalist faith?

  77. onyomi says:

    Slightly tangential, but I would like to point out here the whole “boy who cried wolf” phenomenon with respect to the left’s treatment of Romney four years ago.

    Thinking back to what everyone was saying this time four years ago (the VP debates reminded me, specifically), I recall that Romney/Ryan were just as unthinkable, awful, etc. as Trump/Pence are now. True, they had more mainstream support from within their own party, but the left-wing commentators were just as apoplectic over the prospect of a Romney presidency. In retrospect, of course, they say that Romney, at least, was a competent, respectable alternative.

    When your default setting is 10 out of 10 on the outrage meter, it doesn’t leave you much space to go, though they have tried to turn it up to 11 at this point, with sometimes humorous results.

    I wasn’t reading Scott yet back then, I don’t think, so I’m not sure, but I doubt he had nearly as many qualms about Romney, which gives him more credibility now (though if he did vote for Obama the second time, I would be curious to hear why, given that he could not have had the same fears about Romney as expressed in this and the previous post).

    • E. Harding says:

      “I recall that Romney/Ryan were just as unthinkable, awful, etc. as Trump/Pence are now.”

      -I thought then, and still think now, they were worse. Both appeared to be and cultivated the appearance of being elitist lackeys who compromised all too much with the Left. Pence, meanwhile, was the 15th most conservative representative in the House back during the Great Recession:
      http://voteview.com/HOUSE_SORT110.html
      and Trump was the best foreign policy candidate from either side of the aisle during the presidential primaries, as well as the guy who did the most to explode political correctness. He’s no Ron Paul (see his tweets from the 2011-2012 primary season), but he’s a much better campaigner than Paul and much better than the typical establishment Republican in his foreign policy positions. He’s also not an elitist, which was one of my biggest turn-offs about Romney/Ryan. Back in 2008, Romney ran as a Bush replica. Trump, meanwhile, was advocating for pulling out of Iraq and impeaching Bush (which was the common anti-establishment strain of thought at the time). Both Romney and Ryan seemed like guys who wouldn’t change anything, had elitist and electorally poisonous policies toward entitlements (I didn’t and still don’t have a problem with reducing the scale and scope of entitlements in the long term, it was just that bringing the emblem of entitlement reform as your VP is a wildly electorally stupid move given the powerful leftist attacks that would result from that), and were probably untrustworthy. Mitt’s opinions were notorious for being roughly the opposite of what they were in 1994 and he signed Romneycare (a key inspiration for Obamacare) into law, and spoke in favor of it on the campaign trail, meaning he would have strong incentives to implement a similar program as president. I also didn’t trust Mitt’s wisdom in appointing Supreme Court justices, given that he was a governor of a very blue state. Romney also talked like a robot. Following the money:

      https://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/contrib.php?id=N00000286

      led to the conclusion that he was the favored candidate of the special interests and would not be able to exercise independence from them while in office. He worked at Bain Capital, and had money in Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, and Switzerland, meaning that he would be more likely to favor the interests of finance capital (in which there’s little naturally conservative) over the interests of the vast majority of the American people. This corruption is normally not good for governments -just look at Ukraine and Brazil- so I saw no good reason it would be, on net, good for America and, consequently, preferred the candidate (Obama) less bought by the special interests in 2012. I just didn’t think Romney would be able to understand the common people of America. Clearly, Trump does. Instead of raking in money from the big banks for the defence of the special interests, like Clinton does and Romney did, Trump actually lost a rather massive amount of money as a result of his presidential run. You can say anything you want about Trump, but you have to respect that.

      Notably, Trump differs little from Romney on many policies. But he has wildly different incentives than Romney while in office. He does not get his legitimacy from the establishment and his big donors, but from his base. That’s a pathway for a more accountable, responsible presidency.

      • Jill says:

        Trump is simultaneously the best everything and the worst everything– at least if you go by his statements— since he lies constantly and changes his mind constantly.

    • Jill says:

      There are indeed people who think that Romney and Ryan are awful. I do. But less horrible than Trump. They lie, but at least they don’t lie more than any politician ever checked by fact checkers in the U.S. before.

      I find it reasonable to think that Ryan’s magic asterisk budget that didn’t add up is pretty bad, and that governing for the benefit of the wealthiest Americans, and screwing over the poor by erasing the social safety net, is unconscionable. And that being a hawk is pretty bad– and I do have concerns about this about Hillary, although they don’t override Trump’s incompetence at economics and politics. Also, as a woman, I can’t stand politicians who want abortion to be illegal.

      Oh, and doing the bidding of the Kochs. If they had their way, the U.S. would be as polluted as China, and we’d all have to wear masks to breathe.

      Still, as awful as these things are, they don’t hold a candle to Trump’s antics, inability to focus his attention for more than a minute, and constant lying.

      I realize that Hillary has been bashed by media 24/7/365 for decades now though. And Trump hasn’t. So appearances make Trump look far less bad than he is. Which is why the race is so close.

      • E. Harding says:

        Jill, polls show time and time again most married women are in favor of banning almost all abortions, and that the two sexes don’t have a huge gap in opinions on what to do about abortion.

        “They lie, but at least they don’t lie more than any politician ever checked by fact checkers in the U.S. before.”

        -Trump never lets the truth get in the way of a good story. Sad, but not indicative of any fundamental difference here between him and Clinton, who does the same thing.

        “although they don’t override Trump’s incompetence at economics and politics.”

        -I don’t see how Trump is any more incompetent at economics and politics than Clinton.

        • Jill says:

          Look at politifact.com at Clinton and Trump. Clinton gets things wrong less than the average politician. Trump lies more than any other politician.

          -I don’t see how Trump is any more incompetent at economics and politics than Clinton.

          I’m not going to argue with that. Your eyes and ears would have to be always closed for you to not notice his ignorance on these matters.

          “Trump never lets the truth get in the way of a good story. ”

          Wow, you sure bend over backwards to make him sound reasonable.

      • onyomi says:

        “I realize that Hillary has been bashed by media 24/7/365 for decades now though. And Trump hasn’t.”

        Are you serious? I sometimes feel like you’re a very liberal democrat who, for some reason, gets 100% of her news from Fox.

    • cassander says:

      I would also point out that tou can find breathless articles from somewhere like salon that accuse every single republican running this cycle of being racist. Blue tribe just can’t help themselves.

      • Corey says:

        Surely there’s some evidence that one of the contenders for the GOP nom is not racist, then?

        • Gil says:

          It’s not an empirical question at all. More a matter of ‘you didn’t keep your powder dry’

        • Winfried says:

          Accusations of racism are an ideological superweapon that I’ve never seen an effective shield or deflection from.

          You either destroy the reputation of the accuser, bow to their demands, or laugh and keep walking.

          • Corey says:

            Accusations of racism are an ideological superweapon that I’ve never seen an effective shield or deflection from.

            I know of at least one counterexample: he’s the subject of this thread.

  78. Unfailingly Inamorate Killogie says:
    • pku says:

      The commentary on that is interesting. I’m used to Israel, where there isn’t really a veteran community since practically everyone* is a veteran. I’ve met american veterans, and even those who were liberal ivy-league students were still living with their veteran community to a large degree.

      *Except arabs, haredim, and, uh, me.

      • Lysenko says:

        Short version is something I concluded some time ago: Beware placing too much value on group identities, regardless of that group identity’s root (ethnic, religious, sexual, political, career, recreational).

        The poison is in the dose, and with group identities the LD50 is low.

        Yes, THAT group is a problem too. Yes, that one too. Yes, the one you’re thinking of. Uh huh, even THAT one. Period. Fucking. Dot.

        • I think the group I most strongly identify with is my family. It’s not poison.

          • Lysenko says:

            Once again, depends on the dose. Excessive familial sentiment (or elevating the value of family roles and/or unity) leads to all sorts of nasty and destructive emotional choices, starting with the people who make the decision not to dissolve marriages, cut horrible people out of their lives and social circles, and so on, often leading to bad consequences for not just themselves but their other friends and loved ones who are also family because “blood is thicker than water”.

            I’ll stand by what I said. Group affiliation is a dangerous drug. It may be one evolution hooked us all on, but we should still be aware of its pernicious effects on personality and judgement when over-indulged and try to keep them in check.

          • Psmith says:

            3. Most fundamentally, my critique is the one that I advanced in my review of Soumission, that niceness and conflict-avoidance are not the terminal goals of a good life. Family conflict is definitely a thing – I am certainly not without experience in this area – but part of the telos of a full life is to negotiate those conflicts, grow in empathy and patience, and grow as a person into the fullness of the roles of son, father, husband, and so on.

            There seems to be a sort of framework people carry around, myself often included, whereby the baseline of social groups like families is perfect harmony, and conflict is a sort of failure, a deviation from the true path. Meanwhile, bureaucracies like schools and nursing homes are presumed functional unless there are spectacular failures, and their predictable limitations are not considered failures, but are all part of the plan. This view is strangely compelling, not least because bureaucracies are very good at projecting an image of stability and authoritativeness. But it’s a double standard. Oddly enough, we don’t apply this double standard to friendships or dating – fights are considered part of the process. And only some people – childfree advocates – routinely apply this standard to childrearing. But elder care seems to be an area where “the beauty of the telos” is less culturally appreciated – maybe because it’s less sexy? I don’t know.

            I fully admit, though, that negotiating these conflicts is hard, especially in the context of a culture where both parties have a strong temptation to default to individualist assumptions, and don’t have a lot of friends and relatives’ examples to draw upon. But it has been done before, including in America, and I’m confident it can be done again.

            May be of interest.

          • “Excessive familial sentiment (or elevating the value of family roles and/or unity) leads to all sorts of nasty and destructive emotional choices”

            My statement was not about families in general, it was about my family.

          • Lysenko says:

            Psmith, I don’t see how that is in any way relevant to my conclusion. I’m not particularly concerned with what the baseline of any group is or isn’t. The fact that it is a group is sufficient grounds for precautions.

            And fair enough, David. Hopefully you are able to continue to keep that group identification within bounds, and/or aren’t faced with the sort of situations where the group identification leads to those bad choices. Bear in mind, though, that you cannot fully predict or control whether or not you do.

  79. @TheAncientGeek , all I see is my european friends destroying themselves and everything they held sacred. Sikh people were white too. Jatt Sikh, comes from ‘Goth’. So we were the old germanic tribes too, and it’s likely that way cause of lindy effect. So I have an interest in saving all my european friends from themselves.

    Why not move over to sane right-wing upper class politics? It doesn’t have to be racist, we can just have fun and kick it. We want a ‘late modern life’, we want a golden age/silver age in california. This cannot be achieved w/ leftist politics.

    Not everyone is a lunatic in NRx politics, the smartest african friends I have I met through there.

  80. Jill says:

    In answer to some of the questions in a thread up above about media bias against Clinton, even in the NYT

    Article about how even the NYT uses the “Clinton rules” resulting in bias against Clinton

    http://www.vox.com/2015/7/28/9059953/clinton-rules-new-york-times

    Some Krugman articles mentioning the bashing of Hillary by the press and the fact that she was treated worse than Trump.

    http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/09/27/how-did-the-race-get-close/

    http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/09/26/the-falsity-of-false-equivalence/

    And since facts have a well known Left of Center bias, why does almost everyone believe the Right Wing version instead?
    http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/05/09/the-facts-have-a-well-known-center-left-bias/

    • Alraune says:

      “I cite people who unironically use the word Berniebros, please take me seriously.”

    • Corey says:

      NYT’s a leader in Clinton Rules journalism; there’s an institutional beef there that goes way back.

  81. Lysenko says:

    Not sure if this is the best place to raise the point, but the latest OT is trying to stay politics-free, and I don’t know how many are tracking .25, so since the question was raised by talk about foreign policy here:

    Assuming, as I and apparently quite a few others reading SSC do, that the US’ position as paramount military force and guarantor of the world’s stability and security is unsustainable…is there any workable road back from that without:

    A) burning our bridges to various current NATO partners? Some I see as less important than others, but Poland has been a better ally than most on the military cooperation front for example and I don’t want to piss that away unless there’s no other choice. Think a series of exclusively bi-lateral treaties are feasible? ideally, ones with a minimum-GDP and readiness requirement and regular renewal/expiration intervals.

    B) crippling our own capability to project power? I know that for some of you that’s the whole point of the exercise, but it isn’t for me. I want the ability to start flattening a good-sized country with conventional forces anywhere in the world on 72-96 hours notice and complete the task successfully to be in our government’s arsenal. Scaling back is desirable to some extent (ideally trading quantity for quality and maximizing tooth:tail ratio as much as possible, though I know that’s FAR easier said than done), but we should NOT be looking at Switzerland or god help us someplace like Sweden as a model for our military affairs.

    Suggestions? Critiques?

    • pku says:

      Does reducing the american position as the world’s paramount military force necessarily entail abandoning NATO? Europe is relatively easy for america to keep a handle on – If we’re letting go of things, the first (and biggest) thing is probably letting China become the dominant power in east/central Asia, and the second would be withdrawing from the pacific. This seems to keep A and B.
      (Also, you posted this twice).

      • Lysenko says:

        @pku

        It means either abandoning NATO or figuring out a way to get other NATO partners serious about upgrading capabilities and commitments to take up any slack created by US demobilization and downsizing. I’d say we probably have more and more long-term diplomatic and military commitments in Europe than we do in SE Asia or the Pacific, and it’s also the area where the effective military “subsidy” is most apparent.

        That said, I also think it would be far easier to get our partners in the pacific to step up as well, where they haven’t already.

    • Unfailingly Inamorate Killogie says:

      Two words: medicalize conflict.

      This is not a transformation that’s someday going to happen … it’s a transformation that’s already underway.

      In 21st century conflicts, and in the long-run, superior medical capacity (both military and civil) conveys greater strategic potency than any number of nuclear weapons.

      Does the inexorable and irretrievable medicalizing of conflict entail too the inexorable and irretrievable medicalizing of politics? The plain answer is “yes”.

      At some level, most folks already understand this; hence the near-universal trans-national trans-cultural respect for NGOs like Médecins Sans Frontières

      For historical context, see for example (((Benjamin Z. Kedar’s))) “A note on Jerusalem’s Bīmāristān and Jerusalem’s Hospital” (2007). Middle East conquerors have come and gone, but the Bīmāristāns remain … and the potentialities for further progress are unbounded.

      • FacelessCraven says:

        “Does the inexorable and irretrievable medicalizing of conflict entail too the inexorable and irretrievable medicalizing of politics? The plain answer is “yes”.”

        And soon enough, the medicalization of dissent.

        • Unfailingly Inamorate Killogie says:

          Agreed that this is dangerous (Kaczynskian) territory.

          “It is the business of the future to be dangerous; and it is among the merits of science that it equips the future for its duties.”.
             — Alfred North Whitehead

          Medical science, especially.

          How many homicidal terrorists exhibit plain symptoms of personality disorder? How many political dissidents? How many poets?

          It would imperfectly suffice, and adequately respect human dignity and diversity, to help those people (and their families) who voluntarily seek to be helped, to restrain (fortunately rare) individuals who are compulsively homicidal, and to tolerate —or better, celebrate — everyone else’s diverse humanity.

          Particularly in helping troubled people (and troubled families) who seek to be helped, tremendous medical potentialities are latent.

          Here the common-sense point is that when it comes to medical matters — including especially psychiatric medical matters — pretty much everyone rightly trusts their own free will, and (commonly yet not invariably) their own family’s loving counsel and their own physicians scientifically informed advice, far more than they trust any corporate or governmental agency.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            “Particularly in helping troubled people (and troubled families) who seek to be helped, tremendous medical potentialities are latent.”

            on that, we can agree. But perhaps you could explain how superior medical capacity outweighs the viciousness of ISIS? It is easier to break than to fix, after all. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to put down the bandages and pick up the rifle, or else bow before the evil of man.

          • Unfailingly Inamorate Killogie says:

            Persons of my acquaintance who have served multiple combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan feel differently … in remote Afghan villages, access to first-world healthcare is a potent faith-building bargaining chip … and the decade-on-decade secular decline in combat mortality since WWII is a “Flynn Effect” whose potentialities are far from exhausted.

            It’s no accident that pretty much all religions associate miracles of healing with divinity … and modern medicine is increasingly able to deliver those miracles, much more so than modern military weapons or modern political ideologies.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            Fighting Afghanistan without doctors would be hard. fighting Afghanistan without soldiers would be harder.

          • Unfailingly Inamorate Killogie says:

            Insufficiently transgressive, FC. Much better:

            [<19th century weaponry> + <21st century medicine>] strategically defeats [<21st century weaponry> + <19st century medicine>]“.

            The strategic reason being, that 21st century medicine is “the point of the spear” of Enlightened Modernity in all its concrete aspects: aqueducts, sanitation, education, job creation, ecological restoration, democratic governance, social tolerance, and even religious toleratance.

            The objective reason being, that distant intercessory prayers demonstrably lack efficacy … while modern medical practices demonstrably work directly. Once the matriarchs of a community appreciate this reality — in respect to children’s healthcare especially — their support flows to the efficacious forces of healing modernity.

            So militarily speaking, things aren’t as they seem, are they? Don’t mess with the alpha females, right? Or their fathers, sons, brothers, and cousins?

          • keranih says:

            in remote Afghan villages, access to first-world healthcare is a potent faith-building bargaining chip

            …be careful with this argument. Showing up, handing out lollipops and hernia repairs, and then leaving again as soon as you have what you want is actually a pretty good way to build resentment and ingratitude. As has been learned by various organizations over the centuries.

          • Unfailingly Inamorate Killogie says:

            Keranih, in the absence of any references provided in your comment, just how highly do you regard your own appreciation of these matters, relative to the folks with boots on the ground?

          • keranih says:

            UIK –

            That comment doesn’t even make *sense*.

            I have to say, you manage to squeeze together more mistaken assumptions, bad faith, blatant insults, and factual errors into three lines than any *any* other commenter on this site. And *yes*, I’m including Jill, and E. Harding.

          • Lysenko says:

            Um, since MSF declared that the two main active AOs in the war on terror were too dangerous to operate in, I think you may want to recheck your assumptions there. I’m not exactly who your friends are, what they really said, or if you’re interpreting what they said correctly, but I suggest you go back and do a bit more research.

            Hospitals in fact do not necessarily endure without the capacity of their beneficiaries to fight to protect them, or the willingness of those same hospitals to buy off potential attackers by providing their services to the victimizers as well as the victims. If you prefer to think of that as the traditional neutrality of health care providers in many cultures, fine, but it doesn’t change the fact that health care providers who AREN’T neutral become targets who are protected only by A) the weapons of their allies, or B) the restraint/civilization of their enemies.

          • Unfailingly Inamorate Killogie says:

            keranih imagines “Showing up [in a Middle East combat zone], handing out lollipops and hernia repairs, and then leaving again as soon as you have what you want.”

            Not since the Bush / Cheney / Rumsfeld ideology-blinded poorly-planned neo-conservative invasion of Iraq has any Middle East stakeholder’s strategic vision been so fatuously delusional as that.

            Until Trump’s, isn’t that correct?

            Lysenko observes [correctly] “Health care providers who AREN’T neutral become targets who are protected only by A) the weapons of their allies, or B) the restraint/civilization of their enemies.”

            Indeed Middle East history provides multiple precedents for “the restraint/civilization of enemies“:

            “After legendary Kurdish warrior Salah al-Din captured Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187, he built a palace near the hospital. He renovated the [Knights Templar hospital] building, and allowed 10 Christian monks to stay in the hospital to serve the local population.”

            Thank you, Lysenko, for inspiring the recollection of this vivid example of the enduring power of the Middle East’s millennium-old traditions of medical humanism … traditions that President Obama has humbly and honorably respected, isn’t that so?

            Hopefully our next President, too, will be sufficiently wise, and sufficiently enlightened, and sufficiently humble, as to sustain this honorable thousand-year-old tradition.

          • keranih says:

            UIK, you’re impossible. You don’t even have the slightest grasp of the issues surrounding medical intervention – particularly not a trauma hospital, which is what the adrenaline junkies who staff MSF specialize in – in warzones or even peaceable impoverished areas.

            And I am not wasting the time or the electrons waiting on you to figure it out.

          • Unfailingly Inamorate Killogie says:

            President Barack Obama, and his predecessor President George W. Bush, both are intimately familiar with a certain aroma that is characteristic of a fresh traumatic amputation, in consequence of a long-standing tradition that wartime presidents are obligated to visit the nation’s wounded regularly — and privately, as press coverage is never permitted — at Walter Reed Army Hospital. Familiarity with this unforgettable aroma communicates both the intent and the motivating reality of my comments more profoundly than mere words or reason ever could.

          • hlynkacg says:

            President Barack Obama, doesn’t know shit about fresh traumatic amputation. Any amputation Obama has been intimate with would not have been fresh, and if it was fresh, it sure as hell would not have been traumatic. There are no such wounds at Walter Reed.

            George W. Bush On the other hand might recognize the smell to which you refer as he and the First Lady made several visit to troops in theater, including field hospitals.

            In any case it doesn’t matter, because your comment is a non-sequitur and there is no motivating reality behind it, profound or otherwise. Just some quack masturbating to the sound of his own voice.

            You see, I am familiar with that smell, and I can tell that you have no clue what you’re talking about.

          • Unfailingly Inamorate Killogie says:

            Balad / Baghdad to Landstuhl to Walter Reed commonly takes 7-21 days (depending on stabilization) … negative-pressure wound therapy (NPWT) lasts weeks or even months … the purring NPWT vacuum-pump sounds and the pervasive scent of the wound secretions reminds everyone constantly where they are.

            Trigger warnings, obviously. Quality of care, the highest. Respect for families, honored. CinC visits, regular. Opportunities for medical advances, unbounded. Consequences for peace-making, ultimately transformational.

            Hlynkacg, your remarks inspire the reflection, that no living CinC who has rounded on these wards, has ever endorsed Donald Trump.

          • hlynkacg says:

            Yes 7-21 days, and generally speaking the wound will loose it’s “unforgettable” fresh smell within the first week. If it doesn’t the patient has larger problems.

            Your own remarks, or rather the familiar attitude that inspires them, is a large part of why Trump is the nominee in the first place. If you had a 1/10th the empathy you habitually describe others as lacking you’d recognize that.

          • Unfailingly Inamorate Killogie says:

            hlynkacg reminds us that sometimes “the [combat trauma] patient has larger problems.”

            The number of such patients is not small, moreover revision limb reconstruction surgeries are common, are these two things not  true?

            Not uncommonly a residual limb “isn’t strong, can’t handle” — in Mr. Trump’s notably unempathic phrase — the activities of daily living, so as to require further revision surgeries, isn’t that so too?

            Because when there’s not much viable tissue left, you have to salvage all that you can, right? And limb salvage procedures don’t always smell real good, do they?

            As it seems to me, the comments upon this topic have the very considerable merit — after the abusively personalizing and dubiously quibbling alt*rhetoric is redacted — of assisting SSC readers (hopefully) to more humanistically “woke” reflections upon war-related medical realities.

          • hlynkacg says:

            Both are true neither are pertinent.

            Can you even describe the odor to which you you’ve ascribed such profound weight?

            There is a popular euphemism for it among military doctors and their patients that I am fairly certain you will not find on google. Do you know it?

          • Unfailingly Inamorate Killogie says:

            Tradition shields military moms from coarse language, it’s pathognomonic (as it seems to me) when the alt*trib doesn’t.

          • ThirteenthLetter says:

            May as well just give it up, hlynkacg. I’m fairly sure you’re arguing with one of those Chinese Room aliens from that Peter Watts novel.

          • JHC says:

            Fury failure.

          • hlynkacg says:

            @ UIK
            That would be a “no” then.

            PS: Shielding civilians’ delicate sensibilities from the “profound reality” is the whole point of using euphemism in the first place.

            @ ThirteenthLetter
            I know I should let it go, but he keeps showing up on forums I frequent and posting shit that seems specially tailored to infuriate me.

            The Rorschach comparison hadn’t occurred to me but now I find it hard to shake.

          • Unfailingly Inamorate Killogie says:

            hlynkacg rationalizes “PS: Shielding delicate sensibilities from ‘profound reality’ is the whole point of using euphemism in the first place.”

            The families of wounded soldiers — like the soldiers themselve — are in no meaningful sense shielded from “profound realities” are they?

            Neither do these families and soldiers require, or benefit from, rudely transgressive varieties of “euphemistic shielding”, do they?

            Particularly those toxic varieties of racial, social, and sexual “euphemism” that so commonly enter into pathological verbal abuse?

            That’s why non-abusive speech is morally, medically, philosophically, pedagogically, scientifically, socially, parentally, and maritally normative, right?

          • FacelessCraven says:

            Unfailing, maybe you fail to convince because you have forgotten what it is to doubt. You seem so certain in the rightness of your position that you are seeing the confirming patterns everywhere, whether they actually exist or not. You argue via free-association, and though the pattern you draw may be wondrous, you are the only one who can see it. If you think you have something worth sharing, you owe it to yourself to engage in a linear, cohesive exchange long enough to get it across to those of us too benighted to understand koans of obscure inference and terminology.

          • Unfailingly Inamorate Killogie says:

            FacelessCraven commends “a linear, cohesive exchange, long enough to get it [civility] across”

            That is good advice, and aren’t the celebrated “Goofus and Gallant” works of child psychologist Garry Cleveland Myers and artist Anni Matsic a concrete “linear, cohesive” start in remediating personalizing / dehumanizing / abusive discourse?

            At a more advanced level, aren’t Mr. Rogers’ “linear and cohesive” lessons for children worthy of our appreciation and highest respect? — for example, aren’t Mr. Rogers’ sustained jazz-accompaniments in the Neighborhood episode “Transformations” truly marvelous? — in that lessons not learned young, oftimes are learned later only slowly and painfully, and even the highest IQs afford little or no protection against social aspect-blindness.

            These principles of course are articulated in adult literature too. From Karl Marlantes’ Matterhorn:

            Mellas was amazed and ashamed. He realized that part of him would wish anything, and maybe even do anything, if it meant getting ahead or saving his own skin. He fought that part down. …

            He thought of the jungle, already regrowing around him to cover the scars they had created. He thought of the tiger, killing to eat. Was that evil? And ants? They killed. No, the jungle wasn’t evil. It was indifferent. So, too, was the world. Evil, then, must be the negation of something man had added to the world. Ultimately, it was caring about something that made the world liable to evil. Caring. And then the caring gets torn asunder. Everybody dies, but not everybody cares. It occurred to Mellas that he could create the possibility of good or evil through caring. He could nullify the indifferent world. But in so doing he opened himself up to the pain of watching it get blown away.

            Doesn’t that courageous openness to pain reside at the living transformative heart of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, and isn’t that what the transformative discarding of Matterhorn’s / Vancouver’s sword, and the transformative acceptance of Matterhorn’s / Hawke’s / Mellas’ pear-can cup — “the ever flowing source of all that’s good and the cure of all ills” — are chiefly all about?

          • Johnny says:

            I don’t understand why you all keep replying to a thrice banned troll that refuses to take no for an answer. That itself is at least aiding and abetting defection.

          • hlynkacg says:

            I don’t think he was ever perma-banned, (if he was I missed the thread) he just changes handles the way some of us change clothes.

            That said, he does habitually treat emotionally fraught issues with a cavalier disregard for others, and then follows it up by being condescending and abusive in chat so if Scott does decide to ban him I wont shed any tears, but there are others that I would eject first.

          • Whatever Happened to Anonymous says:

            He was banned indefinitely once as John Sidles

          • Unfailingly Inamorate Killogie says:

            hlynkacg deplores posts that “treat emotionally fraught issues with a cavalier disregard for others.”

            Hlynkacg, you are entirely right to deplore this. I’ll try to more conscientiously respect Fred Rogers’ example in this regard … in that Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood never shrinks from addressing “emotionally fraught issues” … yet neither does Mr. Rogers address these issues “with a cavalier disregard for others.”

            Mr. Roger’s principles are nobly respected even in (as I for one read them) such exceedingly difficult works as Karl Marlantes’ Matterhorn and Jonathan Shay’s Odysseus in America.

            That you and I both know, and both respect, works such as these, and thereby respect too the very difficult issues that these works address, provides us with a very substantial common ground, and so I sincerely hope that you and I can in this shared respect find good agreement, and mutually take better care never to address each other’s concerns “with cavalier disregard”.

          • hlynkacg says:

            The issue is that you don’t know, and that you are arrogant in your ignorance.

          • Unfailingly Inamorate Killogie says:

            If I am ignorant regarding these works, then how much more ignorant are the (many) SSC commenters who lack even the knowledge that these works exist, and that these works address — however imperfectly and incompletely — core SSC concerns?

            Your and my comments have the shared virtue at least, of helping to establish this existential awareness, don’t they?

          • hlynkacg says:

            Yes, but that doesn’t make your behavior any less infuriating.

          • Unfailingly Inamorate Killogie says:

            Ah well, even Fred Rogers was not universally appreciated. And neither you nor I are likely to do as well as him! 🙂

    • Alex S says:

      I don’t understand why our position is especially unsustainable.

      But the United States is providing a public good for the rest of the world and that does invite the question of why it should be the US providing this and why it cannot be done more equitably. If we stop, presumably there will be (as Scott says) more random regional wars, but maybe the US should simply not care, at least unless the wars will be big or nuclear and damage US trade and the environment so much that it’s cheaper for us to provide this global public good. I feel like there hasn’t been much of an answer to Trump’s critique, and although the logic that big random departures from the status quo are usually bad is sufficient to make me lean against them, it would be nice to understand this in more detail

      • Lysenko says:

        Several of the potential issues have been raised up-thread. I’ll add one more to that:

        Unless and until we get our shit together on the issue of obesity and general low levels of physical fitness in teens and twenty-somethings, it becomes more and more difficult to recruit and retain sufficient numbers of quality personnel without lowering standards. This is something that is already in progress, and to be clear I do NOT mean the opening of combat jobs to women or the possible changes to the US Army tape test, though I am more concerned that some that the first will lead to a lowering of readiness due to how it will be carried out.

        • The Nybbler says:

          It doesn’t take that long to get a modestly obese 18-year-old in shape. Seems to me this could be handled with a pre-boot physical fitness camp.

          • AnonBosch says:

            As long as those obese 18-year-olds haven’t seen Full Metal Jacket.

          • Lysenko says:

            Yes and no. The issue isn’t so much people who have recently gotten obese. AS you note, you can solve this with additional time in a separate physical fitness program, something the Army already does with the Fitness Training Unit you can end up in if you fail various milestone fitness tests during Basic. There are still problems with dragging out training like that in terms of cost and efficiency, but they’re manageable.

            However, people who are more than just moderately obese, and/or have spent years in that condition, have more issues than can be solved by a regimen of forced diet and exercise. They develop co-morbidities and chronic conditions that put them at high risk for future problems even after losing weight, and many of those conditions and/or risk factors are disqualifying for military service.

            Someone who got chunky at age 16 and joins the Army 50 lbs overweight isn’t too hard to turn around. Someone who’s been morbidly obese for a decade or more because they developed the problem in childhood, not so much…

  82. Lysenko says:

    Not sure if this is the best place to raise the point, but the latest OT is trying to stay politics-free, and I don’t know how many are tracking .25, so since the question was raised by talk about foreign policy here:

    Assuming, as I and apparently quite a few others reading SSC do, that the US’ position as paramount military force and guarantor of the world’s stability and security is unsustainable…is there any workable road back from that without:

    A) burning our bridges to various current NATO partners? Some I see as less important than others, but Poland has been a better ally than most on the military cooperation front for example and I don’t want to piss that away unless there’s no other choice. Think a series of exclusively bi-lateral treaties are feasible? ideally, ones with a minimum-GDP and readiness requirement.

    EDIT I initially suggested a short renewal period, but on consideration it would have to be long enough to be trusted to outlast short term whims or else it’s no -good-. Then again, after Crimea I feel like our word on the military front is pretty tarnished coin as is.

    B) crippling our own capability to project power? I know that for some of you that’s the whole point of the exercise, but it isn’t for me. I want the ability to start flattening a good-sized country with conventional forces anywhere in the world on 72-96 hours notice and complete the task successfully to be in our government’s arsenal. Scaling back is desirable to some extent (ideally trading quantity for quality and maximizing tooth:tail ratio as much as possible, though I know that’s FAR easier said than done), but we should NOT be looking at Switzerland or god help us someplace like Sweden as a model for our military affairs.

    Suggestions? Critiques?

    • Unfailingly Inamorate Killogie says:

      Duplicate post. Reply above.

    • houseboatonstyxb says:

      @ Lysenko
      Assuming, as I and apparently quite a few others reading SSC do, that the US’ position as paramount military force and guarantor of the world’s stability and security is unsustainable…is there any workable road back from that without:

      Rather than the US shrugging, or bluffing, there’s constructing a replacement. Patch up and build up the UN.

      • Lysenko says:

        I have a hard time seeing how that could be anything other than a road to farce, disaster, or both. You remember the nationality-based joke about heaven and hell. It sums up my view of a “built up” UN perfectly.

        One where the Internet regulated by the Chinese and the Saudis, Military Affairs by Russia, The Human Rights commission by…well, the people who run it now, The economic instruments by Venezuelans…

      • keranih says:

        Patch up and build up the UN.

        Ah. There’s a notion.

        So, *handwave* build up a functional GO structure sorta like the EU, but without the cultural unification, or common alphabet, or geographic linkage, or common developed nation status, or common penetration of literacy, basic math, and acceptance of the scientific method –

        I mean, seriously, *handwave* that.

        Then we agree on common moral standards for care of prisoners, respect (and disrespect) for authority, regular rations, bathrooms, whether or not to allow women in position to give orders to combat veterans, how to report abuse of authority, how to promote Private Backwoods Hillbilly over Private Upperclass Blueblood, what constitutes a capital crime, what humane execution looks like, what a polished soldier looks like, how far you can expect a solder to hump a load, what a standard load consists of, and other minor matters.

        (For the purposes of this exercise, we will assume that only infantry will be required. No artillery, no cav, and for god’s sake we aren’t even considering discussing the navy. Aircraft are right out.)

        (And forget pay. No way in hell we’re discussing a fair payment schedule for this multinational lot.)

        So we’ve gotten past that. We’ve got a novice nob of a functional military. We’re ready to put it into action against …

        Well. On the one hand, we really do have to pick an enemy that is not part of this multinational organization, right? Using soldiers on domestic affairs is Not A Good Idea. So who isn’t part of the UN, yet is seriously rattling sabers?

        *Sudden rushing sound as all the other nations join the UN. Including Hamas and Shining Path.*

        On the other hand, we could just declare a fiction that of course all the bad guys in country A are not actually citizens nor sworn military member of country A, but are clearly, err, bandits. That’s right, bandits. Not actually a military force. But we’re going to use military force against them. Because we’re the UN, and we can. And we have to, in order to take action against, oh, Saddam Hussein. Or Putin. Or anyone else.

        So now we’ve decided that the UN will take action against the, errr, bandits, and meet them on the field of battle. Which we will win because…errr

        (psssst – the righteous force of God supports us?) No, no, that’s not it – we will defeat them because the UN force is better than them! More capable! Better trained! Better equipped!

        Bandits: *fall over laughing*

        UN: What?

        Bandits: Surely you are joking.

        UN: I don’t think you’re taking us and our blue helmets seriously.

        Bandits: No, we’re not. Well, okay, we’re taking you as seriously as you deserve.

        UN:…explain yourselves, murderous barbarians.

        Bandits: So, we’re here, in Country A –

        Other Bandit: *points at map*

        Bandits: – okay, so *technically* we’re in Country B. Having, you know, invaded and all your base are ours. And we’re here. And Country B can’t do anything about it. Nor can C, D, E, who were swearing just last week that they were best buddies forever with B. Nor can –

        UN: Well, we’re here now.

        Bandits: Nor can the Yanks.

        UN: Didn’t you hear us? We’re here to throw you out.

        Bandits: We just said, we don’t see no fuckin’ Yanks, trying to throw us out. Now why do figure that?

        UN:…because they think the UN can handle it?

        Bandits: *fall over laughing again*

        UN: This isn’t funny.

        Bandits: Oh, no, it isn’t. God will have an account of me, for killing such stupid idiots as them what thought the Americans sent them to fight us because the Americans thought we were too easy to take. *shrugs* But that’s gonna be a long time from now.

        UN:…when you kill us?

        Bandits: When I die, and go before God. You, I kill now.

        ***

        I always knew the world was gonna miss us when we were gone. I just never figured to actually see the day.

  83. J Mann says:

    So after the last post, I engaged in a little WAG about the two candidates on this question.

    “What is the chance of a nuclear exchange (at least two parties using nuclear weapons) under each candidate?”

    My guess is that Hillary is somewhere between 0.5% and 2%, and Trump is about twice that. I don’t know if that convinces me to vote for Hillary, but it’s something to think about.

    • E. Harding says:

      “My guess is that Hillary is somewhere between 0.5% and 2%, and Trump is about twice that.”

      -On what basis? A Trumpian nuclear exchange with whom? Pakistan? Israel? North Korea? Trump seems to be favored by the leaderships of both the latter two. The Russian leadership clearly prefers Trump over Clinton. The Chinese leadership does not like Clinton or Trump. You’ve seen the fairly copious evidence regarding both Clinton’s and Trump’s foreign policy in this thread; what makes you think Trump’s is more prone to nuclear war?

      • J Mann says:

        Well, WAG stands for “wild a- guess,” so the basis is that I pulled it out of my a-. 🙂

        More generally, if we see a nuke used against us by an organization linked to a foreign power (say a militia or insurgency someplace where we have troops, or a terrorist organization on US or allied soil), I think Hillary is more likely to use words and conventional forces, and Trump is likely to to the same, but relatively more likely to respond with a nuke.

        I also think that his unpredictable foreign policy is relatively more likely to destabilize conflicts than to scare people straight (relative to Hillary), but I’m not super confident in either prediction.

        • houseboatonstyxb says:

          @ J Mann
          More generally, if we see a nuke used against us by an organization linked to a foreign power (say a militia or insurgency someplace where we have troops, or a terrorist organization on US or allied soil), I think Hillary is more likely to use words and conventional forces, and Trump is likely to to the same, but relatively more likely to respond with a nuke.

          Thank you for describing one type of path by which a nuclear conflct might begin.

          1) Call it a ‘hot trigger finger’? (The red phone better not have a button for ‘launch nukes now’.)

          2) The other path would go something like: Go along with 167 Senators and an other-party POTUS and SOS in getting into a project that leads to destabilizing X which eventually might escalate into the red phone ringing.

          H will not set off a nuclear war unintentionately, or on an impulse like: “Don’t tell me not to! I’m doing it right now, nya nya!”

          Your ambitious calculating POTUS Hillary would not risk losing her status in the DNC and in the Western world elites by going against what their consensus advice would be (especially Bill’s). Trump has no such status to lose.

      • John Schilling says:

        The phrase was “nuclear exchange”, not “Trumpian nuclear exchange”. A nuclear exchange between e.g. Japan and North Korea because Trump encouraged a regional nuclear arms race would presumably count. And might spread to the US even under an isolationist president.

        • At the moment, I think the two most likely nuclear exchanges are between India and Pakistan, the one pair of opponents (other than the U.S. and Russia) both of whom have nuclear weapons, or between Iran and Israel, assuming that Iran goes nuclear at some point in the not too distant future.

  84. Levantine says:

    My calculations ignore the speculative question “What would be the actual outcomes” and remain within the question:

    What does placing one person or another do to the current power constellations?

    The current power constellations present a virtual vehicle by which the nation and the world are headed toward a major disaster. The only way to change the course is to create changes in the structure of power, the configurations and relationships in general. So, that “the 1%” could get away with less.

    That very long-term and complex … goal is beyond any single plan. Presidential elections can only be one step, helping it or hindering it.

    I see one candidate as being so integrated within the current power structures, and so physically weak, to be a virtual Borg, a single tool in a hive mind.

    The other candidate is for a degree less integrated in the established power structures.

    This other candidate can order exactly my city to be bombed, I can imagine him. And I ignore that. because it’s such a narrow-minded, unqualified, ’emotional’ thinking. To avoid wars is beyond any conceivable scheme and system. That’s too complex / that’s God’s business, if you will.

    I have already been bombed, in the sense of bombers flying over my head for months, being left without electricity and water for months, and so on.

    It will be better to suffer or be killed by a crazy and vulgar man called Trump, than to suffer a weird collective “1%” power elite that everyone knows is corrupt and still for them to hold unchallenged power. Power corrupts and they can only get worse and worse and worse.

    If any candidate K is elected, he or she can be obstructed, eliminated, removed, manipulated, blackmailed, … the list is endless. It’s completely stupid to think in terms “what he or she would do.” It’s even more important to ask “What the rest of the powerful might do to her or him”, and how would the president react to that, and whether the outcome would be more orderly proceeding toward a disaster, or with more unevenness and disruption. The prospect of Trump promises a disruption.

    The globe is run by gangsters. You do *NOT* get out of this mess by making the ordinary “sensible” choice. Major troubles are ahead of us. Troubles and suffering are the fate of our generations just as they were the fate of virtually all the previous generations of humankind. Let’s avoid some ‘spoilt princess syndrome’ or a brain-in-a-vat attitude that is taken by too many intellectuals. Assuming the world is ‘finer’ than evidence shows is not reason or faith, it’s just silly.

    The United States … Titanic, – if I may make a metaphor – has been already severely damaged.

    When the cruiser Poseidon (link) capsized i.e. turned upside down, it was the wrong choice to listen to the expertly authorities and stay in place.
    In my society as well as in yours, many things are turned upside down: peoples’ values, the power relations… Nor is that new So the last will be first, and the first will be last.

    • AnonBosch says:

      The current power constellations present a virtual vehicle by which the nation and the world are headed toward a major disaster.

      A large part of the case for Trump seems to be based on asserting this and not remotely justifying it. The few times someone has tried to show their work for the “status quo = doom” premise, I’ve seen:

      (1) Zerohedge-style cherry picking of economic statistics
      (2) Elevating minor culture wars to the level of existential risk
      (3) Overconfident overestimates of a Clinton/Putin nuclear war

      This isn’t a Death Eater blog where Moldbuggery can be taken as read. Gotta show your work.

      • Dr Dealgood says:

        You missed the big one. Demographic replacement.

        People on the left haven’t been subtle about this. “Minority majority” has been a rallying cry for as long as I can remember, along with the Republican establishment’s sad desperate attempts to win Latino voters at the expense of their own base.

        Trump is promising to build a yuge wall, to deport illegal immigrants already here, and to end birthright citizenship. In all likelihood he will do none of those things. But what he can do is win the election, thereby proving that running a hardline anti-immigration platform is a winning strategy. Opening the door to more serious nationalist candidates in the future.

        That’s the best path forward we have right now. Currently, immigration as a substitute for births is a one-two punch killing the native population. Reversing that trend will be difficult but with sufficient will is not impossible.

        • AnonBosch says:

          Currently, immigration as a substitute for births is a one-two punch killing the native population.

          Where would I find a steelman version of this argument? Preferably one that provides a solid, evidence-based case for why we shouldn’t expect immigrants to assimilate within 3-4 generations as they have in the past, and acknowledges the productivity benefits of immigration while mounting a reasonable attempt at comparing them to the costs (citing Richwine-style bean counting is a good way to lose me).

          • Jiro says:

            why we shouldn’t expect immigrants to assimilate within 3-4 generations as they have in the past,

            If by “assimilate” you mean “eat apple pie and watch football games”, maybe. If by “assimilate” you mean “vote for the parties in similar proportions to natives”, it is known that immigrants don’t assimilate after several generations, particularly Hispanics.

            http://thealternativehypothesis.org/index.php/2016/09/02/non-whites-of-every-stripe-vote-democrat/

            http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/02/07/second-generation-americans/

            Also, someone already mentioned Jews, who again, assimilate by the “eat apple pie” standard, but not by the “vote in similar ways to the existing population” standard.

          • AnonBosch says:

            If by “assimilate” you mean “eat apple pie and watch football games”, maybe. If by “assimilate” you mean “vote for the parties in similar proportions to natives”, it is known that immigrants don’t assimilate after several generations, particularly Hispanics.

            It strikes me as circular to appeal to immigration issues to justify a Republican vote, and then adopt a definition of assimilation that consists of “vote Republican.” The original question of why this amounts to “killing the native population” remains unanswered.

            Additionally, your first link does not break down by generation and your second link only refers to second-generation immigrants, so “several generations” is unproven. Furthermore, Italians didn’t reach parity in voting patterns until the 1980s (4-5 generations removed from pre-WWI peak immigration), thus my sub-question remains unanswered as well.

          • Dr Dealgood says:

            Yeah, can’t speak for Jiro but I’m not weeping any tears for the GOP.

            The real issue is that “assimilation” only makes sense if you assume people are fungible meat-robots who you can reprogram at will. In reality, there is no blank slate. Human behavior is heritable just like everything else.

            Anyway I’m not going to argue the point further, mostly because I’m exhausted and it won’t do any good either way. I’m going to tap out of this discussion and go back to talking about radiotolerant micro-animals in the other thread.

          • AnonBosch says:

            The real issue is that “assimilation” only makes sense if you assume people are fungible meat-robots who you can reprogram at will. In reality, there is no blank slate. Human behavior is heritable just like everything else.

            I asked for a steelman, not a strawman. Observing that humans are not fully blank slates doesn’t get you to “immigration is an existential issue for America.” I am not unfamiliar with the broad strokes of this argument (immigrants are leftist, leftism is bad, immigration is bad), but I asked for a steelman because it has several obvious weaknesses which nobody seems to be inclined to address.

            One is the long-term assimilation of other groups against which similar arguments were made at the time. Another is the fact that the non-shared environment still exerts a healthy effect even if that effect is not the 100% blank slaters imagine it to be. Still another is the poli sci literature which shows that support for the welfare state is negatively correlated with racial heterogeneity, a finding also supported by the historical record (the largest period of federal expansion in our nation’s history was bookended by Johnson-Reed and Hart-Celler.)

            If you’re exhausted, or feel this thread to be a sub-optimal venue, a decent link would suffice. But I am similarly exhausted of questioning what seems to be received Death Eater wisdom and immediately getting a bunch of unconvincing anti-Blue patter that fails to map onto my criticisms.

          • Iain says:

            It is not universally true that immigrants refuse to vote conservative. Take, for example, the 2011 Canadian election.

            The New Democratic Party, which won 30.6 per cent of the popular vote, scored highest among recent immigrants, taking 41 per cent of the vote of newcomers who have been in Canada less than a decade.

            But the Conservatives, who seized 39.6 per cent of the overall vote, won 43 per cent of immigrants who have been in the country longer than a decade.

            Prior to the election, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney openly campaigned to gain the Conservatives more votes among the religiously active and the roughly one out of five Canadians who were born outside the country.

            The Calgary MP’s efforts appeared to pay off. In general, the Conservatives did slightly better among those born outside Canada (42 per cent) than those born in Canada (37 per cent).

            If the Republican party can’t win immigrant votes after three generations, maybe that’s a feature of the Republican party, not the immigrants.

            Sometimes people on the left question why poor white voters act “against their own interests” by supporting Republican politicians who promise to (for example) cut entitlement spending. Part of the answer I’ve seen repeatedly in the comments here is an opposition to “sneering coastal elites” – very broadly, a perception that the thought leaders of the Democratic party do not respect poor white voters and are not on their side. If we are going to respect that position, then it seems strange to deny immigrant voters the right to be suspicious of whether the Republican party truly has their best interests at heart. Given the nomination of Trump and his embrace by white nationalists, it is hard to say that such suspicions would be unfounded.

          • Jiro says:

            It strikes me as circular to appeal to immigration issues to justify a Republican vote, and then adopt a definition of assimilation that consists of “vote Republican.”

            “Vote Republican” is not the same thing as “vote as proportionately Republican as everyone else does”.

            If the Republican party can’t win immigrant votes after three generations, maybe that’s a feature of the Republican party, not the immigrants.

            “The Republican party doesn’t do the same kind of race-baiting that the Democrats and SJWs do, nor does the Republican party cut special deals with races. And the Republicans aren’t very good at calling their opponents Hitler” is technically a feature of the Republican party, but not really the kind you are implying.

            Also, this comes close to making “immigrants assimilate” unfalsifiable. You’ve been given an obvious, statistically undeniable, description of a way in which immigrants don’t assimilate, and you’re saying that, well, it just doesn’t count.

          • Anonymous says:

            I wonder what counts as the “native population”. Apparently Jews don’t count. Italians? Irish Catholics? Germans? Scotch-Irish? African Americans?

            I’m guessing you don’t mean Native Americans, so just what is the Jiro litmus test for being a legitimate American?

          • AnonBosch says:

            “Vote Republican” is not the same thing as “vote as proportionately Republican as everyone else does”.

            The last Democrat to win the non-Hispanic white vote was LBJ in his blowout of Goldwater. So yes, if you’re talking about “everyone else,” it is.

            This disparity gets even wider if you exclude subgroups such as Italians who are largely balanced now but still Democratic compared to the broader white vote. Using Catholicism as a rough proxy for descendants of the early 20th century ethnic blocs, White Protestants start looking pretty damn monolithic themselves (70-30 for Romney!)

          • Iain says:

            Also, this comes close to making “immigrants assimilate” unfalsifiable. You’ve been given an obvious, statistically undeniable, description of a way in which immigrants don’t assimilate, and you’re saying that, well, it just doesn’t count.

            I’m unclear why your claim (“something inherent to immigrants makes them oppose conservative policies”) is the null hypothesis, and my claim (“immigrants, like everybody else, can discern which politicians respect them, and vote accordingly”) is not.

            One way to falsify my claim would be to test whether immigrants change their voting behaviour in response to changes in the parties they vote for. As a natural experiment, we might try taking an immigrant population that voted heavily Republican, turning the Republican party against them, and seeing whether their voting patterns changed. Specifically, let’s talk about the Muslim vote. In the 2000 election, approximately 70% of American Muslim voters voted for Bush. In the 2004 election, that number was 4%. (Here’s a great post about the change.)

            Did American Muslims somehow disassimilate?

          • Jiro says:

            I’m guessing you don’t mean Native Americans, so just what is the Jiro litmus test for being a legitimate American?

            “Assimilate” and “legitimate American” aren’t the same thing.

            Did American Muslims somehow disassimilate?

            A –> B doesn’t mean B –> A. Assimilation –> same voting patterns as everyone else doesn’t mean same voting patterns as everyone else –> assimilation.

            The obvious answer is “there is some way in which American Muslims weren’t assimilated in either year, but it didn’t manifest itself in voting patterns until 2004 because the circumstances changed between 2000 and 2004. (This doesn’t necessarily mean that the Republicans caused the changing circumstances; for instance, it may be that Democrats succeeded in playing on fears of Islamophobia to turn them against the Republicans regardless of what Republicans themselves did.)

            Also, since you’re specifically talking about Bush, I don’t recall Bush personally doing anything anti-Muslim. (If you say “Invading Iraq”, then you need to explain why the previous invasion didn’t also turn Muslims against the Republicans.)

          • Iain says:

            Wait – and my hypothesis is somehow the unfalsifiable one? I guess we can never tell if any group of immigrants has ever assimilated – after all, they might some day stop voting for Republicans in sufficient numbers.

            If you would like additional information about why many Muslims stopped voting for Republicans, maybe you should check to see what formerly Republican Muslims have to say about it. I have cleverly hidden an opportunity for you to do so in my previous post. Click on the underlined text to be whisked away to a land of magic! Here: I’ll even do it again!

          • Jiro says:

            You didn’t explain why “Muslims” aren’t Republican. You explained why one Muslim isn’t Republican.

          • Iain says:

            You’re not even trying any more.

            tl;dr: If you’re looking for a steelman of the anti-immigration position, AnonBosch, you will have to look elsewhere.

          • Anonymous says:

            I wonder what counts as the “native population”. Apparently Jews don’t count. Italians? Irish Catholics? Germans? Scotch-Irish? African Americans?

            I’m guessing you don’t mean Native Americans, so just what is the Jiro litmus test for being a legitimate American?

            “Assimilate” and “legitimate American” aren’t the same thing.

            I note well that you didn’t answer the actual question. Just what exactly is the reference population you measuring assimilation against?

          • AnonBosch says:

            I note well that you didn’t answer the actual question. Just what exactly is the reference population you measuring assimilation against?

            Yes, the evasiveness on this point is extremely telling.

            It’s also worth noting that as recently as 2004 we’ve had an election where Asians and Latinos were actually more evenly split than whites.

            The usual essentialist response is something like “of course that confirms the hypothesis, since Bush was a big-government squish” but that doesn’t explain why those groups rushed back to the Democrats in 2012, when Republicans also offered a big-government squish.

          • Jiro says:

            I still don’t see why you’re suddenly mentioning legitimate Americans, but as for assimilation, if you choose to argue that it doesn’t matter if Mexicans assimilate because there is no such thing as assimilation, go ahead. Everyone else understands that the baseline is somewhere between all citizens now and all citizens a couple of decades ago (and the baseline is not moved when talking about future assimilation).

            You can, of course, argue that everybody or nobody assimilates just by changing your baseline. (Obviously the original colonists didn’t assimilate to the existing Indian culture.) But at that point you’re no longer talking about the same thing as everyone else.

          • Anonymous says:

            But at that point you’re no longer talking about the same thing as everyone else.

            Since you seem to be having a lot of trouble even making your own position clear, maybe you should not try to speak for everyone else.

            as for assimilation, if you choose to argue that it doesn’t matter if Mexicans assimilate because there is no such thing as assimilation, go ahead.

            Nice strawman, no one is saying that.

            Everyone else understands that the baseline is somewhere between all citizens now and all citizens a couple of decades ago (and the baseline is not moved when talking about future assimilation).

            Again with the claims to speak for everyone. Some humility might be in order.

            Anyway, the vast majority of the Jews were here already a couple of decades ago and you’ve claimed that they aren’t assimilated. Want to try again?

          • erenold says:

            Iain:

            The essay you linked is phenomenal. Thank you for an excellent read, sir.

            I have nothing to add to your posts but anecdotal, fourth-hand accounts of another ethnic minority’s perception of the evolving Republican party. I hope they may offer another perspective on this matter. In this case, we shall speak of the Chinese.

            Members of my (massive) extended family – not myself, I stress, so take this account with sufficient salt to taste – on both sides have been trickling into America for more than fifty years now. They weren’t fleeing any kind of overt persecution I’m aware of other than that of my grandmother’s sharp tongue, as well as the feather-duster she liked to use as a cane, and they were mostly apolitical back home – that kind of thing can be bad for business – but they were mostly evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. I struggle to see any kind of correlation between expected confounding factors and how they eventually turned out. Cousin Albert (none of these are real names) is a gay primary school teacher, but he was a swing voter who usually voted Republican until 2008. Cousin Ben, his brother, is a registered Democrat voter, activist, and moderately well-to-do finance guy. He is one of the few Christians in the family. Uncle Chen is *also* gay, and somewhat closeted, but is a registered Republican with gun-rights as his pretty much single issue. He’s an IT worker who wanted Rubio. (Cousin Ben and Uncle Chen don’t get along, incidentally.) Aunt Denise, a realtor, doesn’t usually vote – people of her age, in our community, are usually completely apolitical – but she will this year. And Auntie and Uncle E and F (I gave up, sorry), and their two Harvard-educated neuroscientist children, G and H, all accelerated their plans to become citizens in order to vote.

            For the first time, every single one of them, including the registered Republican gun-owner, is going to vote Clinton. (Just in case anyone cares, they’re in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida, and Wisconsin, respectively – I gather that this will matter somehow.)

            I can’t tie their reasoning into any kind of neat narrative, sorry. Some common factors to consider – all but the 60+yos are college-educated, some Ivies. Most are pro-life, if you held a gun to their head, but mostly don’t really think about this. Muslims terrify the Republican but not the others. Family values matter a lot to them, followed closely by the economy (on which Trump, I think, is generally seen as superior). The older ones are – I’m just gonna go ahead and say this – pretty racist towards African American folks.

            But the one common thread I think I can discern, the one word they keep using, seems to be the idea that the Republican Party has become “chaotic” or “crazy” (乱), that they’ve lost any kind of respect for learning, knowledge and expertise, and started being the party for the know-nothing blowhard.

            It could be that American experts and universities are uniquely bad or biased and it is normatively wise to ignore their prescriptions. But this gradual perception that Republican politics is increasingly “dumbed” or populist, increasingly overtly targeted at a lesser and lesser-sophisticated audience matters a great deal, I think, to naturalized citizens of Asian descent in general. (How true this perception is, and how normatively ‘good’ or politically wise the Republican Party is to do such a thing – is, obviously, going to be way above my pay grade.) And generally I make no normative comment here except to say that things like this don’t really surprise me, because I see it happening right in front of my eyes in my own family. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/02/us/politics/trump-asian-american-voters.html?_r=0

          • AnonBosch says:

            Everyone else understands that the baseline is somewhere between all citizens now and all citizens a couple of decades ago

            The white vote in 1976 was +4 R in an election which was +2 D nationally.

            The white vote in 2012 was +20 R in an election which was +4 D nationally.

            Are white people becoming less assimilated? [chin-rub-emoji]

          • AnonBosch says:

            But the one common thread I think I can discern, the one word they keep using, seems to be the idea that the Republican Party has become “chaotic” or “crazy” (乱), that they’ve lost any kind of respect for learning, knowledge and expertise, and started being the party for the know-nothing blowhard.

            Charles Murray noted this in 2012. He said Asians were the canary in the coal mine, because their high concentration of entrepreneurs and professionals coupled with a culture of familial loyalty made them natural Republican voters. Thus, Asians drifting to the Democrats was evidence that Republicans were no longer associated predominantly with capitalism and family values, but with anti-intellectualism and bigotry.

          • hlynkacg says:

            @ erenold, thank you for that.

          • Iain says:

            @erenold: Yeah, he’s a great writer. If you have time, I also strongly recommend his post about Abd el-Kader.

          • erenold says:

            @AnonBosch

            Holy shit. That’s… that’s really damn good. That essay is basically perfect, it does a better job at describing my actual family than I myself could do. I started highlighting chunks of it I wanted to quote here, then realized that was basically all of it. In fact, I stopped reading the article half way to see if ‘Charles Murray’ was, for some reason, in fact an Asian himself. (He is not, lest anyone feel the need to click.)

            My only quibble is with his conclusion (though, I’m aware that he was writing in 2012.) I think the GOP are pushing the Pence/Ryan/Cruz-style SocialCon angle less hard nowadays with Trump (Pence and Ryan themselves notwithstanding), but, rightly or wrongly, have doubled down on the 乱, which in fact is probably worse, from the perspective of attracting Asian American votes.

          • E. Harding says:

            “For the first time, every single one of them, including the registered Republican gun-owner, is going to vote Clinton.”

            -Are you giving reasons the Chinese Exclusion Act was a good thing?

            “He’s an IT worker who wanted Rubio.”

            -Yes, yes you are. Rubio was a bought robot whose fundamentally anti-American and neoconservative foreign policy would be so inimical to world peace and the American people’s desires, I might be arguing for Clinton here if he was the nominee. Under Rubio’s reckless and dangerous foreign policy, I’d estimate the risk of nuclear war at over 10% -too high for my tastes.

            “that they’ve lost any kind of respect for learning, knowledge and expertise, and started being the party for the know-nothing blowhard.”

            -I.e., your relatives focus all on style and hardly at all on substance. Frankly, disgusting. If intellectuals tend in the direction of evil and blindness, the problem’s not with Trump – it’s with them.

            “because their high concentration of entrepreneurs and professionals coupled with a culture of familial loyalty made them natural Republican voters”

            -The party of the vast majority of Jews, who were brought into the Democratic coalition in the 1930s, was always destined to become the party of the college educated -and the evil party. The party that acted in reaction to the party of the vast majority of Jews was always destined to become the stupid party.

            “Thus, Asians drifting to the Democrats was evidence that Republicans were no longer associated predominantly with capitalism and family values, but with anti-intellectualism and bigotry.”

            -Trump is a capitalist. If only married people voted, Trump would win by a landslide. Asians in America, as a rule, never tended strongly towards either economic or social conservatism. Instead, they usually tended toward order. The LA riots really hurt the image of the Black party for them.

            And if intellectuals tend toward evil and invade-the-world, invite-the-world ideology plus SJWry, anti-intellectualism and bigotry is far preferable.

          • John Schilling says:

            -Are you giving reasons the Chinese Exclusion Act was a good thing?

            Pretty sure he isn’t, but you’re making a strong case for the Harding exclusion act and maybe for the Republican exclusion act.

          • Iain says:

            Pretty sure he isn’t, but you’re making a strong case for the Harding exclusion act and maybe for the Republican exclusion act.

            Completely agreed. That is beyond the pale.

            I’ve been avoiding interaction with E. Harding, on the basis of an incredibly low signal-to-noise ratio, but this is the first thing I can remember seeing that would push me to consider supporting a ban.

          • Anonymous says:

            Reported, and you should too.

          • AnonBosch says:

            In fact, I stopped reading the article half way to see if ‘Charles Murray’ was, for some reason, in fact an Asian himself. (He is not, lest anyone feel the need to click.)

            He spent a few years in Thailand as part of the Peace Corps and married a Thai woman, so I’m sure some of it is firsthand experience, at least to the extent a broader East Asian culture can be generalized from Thais and Chinese.

            -Are you giving reasons the Chinese Exclusion Act was a good thing?

            Fuck off, man.

            -The party of the vast majority of Jews, who were brought into the Democratic coalition in the 1930s, was always destined to become the party of the college educated -and the evil party.

            No, seriously. Fuck all the way off.

          • Jiro says:

            Nice strawman, no one is saying that.

            You weren’t very clear, but it seemed to be your implied argument. You wanted to know what I consider the baseline for assimilation. Presumably, you asked this because you thought that some baselines would show that either immigrants have assimilated, or not assimilated but nobody else has either. This would have the effect of making assimilation meaningless, since either nobody or everybody has assimilated.

            Anyway, the vast majority of the Jews were here already a couple of decades ago and you’ve claimed that they aren’t assimilated.

            They have assimilated in some ways but not in others. In the ways relevant to this argument, they haven’t.

          • Anonymous says:

            What about black people, not assimilated either “in ways relevant to this argument”?

            It’s funny that you attack others for not talking about the same thing as everyone else, when it is you that has a highly idiosyncratic definition of assimilate, viz. one obsessively focused on the fortunes of the Republican Party.

            To paraphrase you, everyone else means turkey on thanksgiving, football, and speaking American English.

          • Iain says:

            Jiro, the sticking point here is your assertion that support for Republicans is a necessary (if not sufficient) criterion for true assimilation. I think it is safe to say that the other participants in this conversation find that controversial. If you would like to convince us, you will need to support that claim.

            Does this work in the opposite direction? According to Pew, Mormons prefer Republicans by a 70-22 margin, while Hispanics support Democrats by a 56-26 margin. Should a non-partisan observer conclude that Hispanics are more assimilated than Mormons?

          • E. Harding says:

            Completely agreed. That is beyond the pale.

            I’ve been avoiding interaction with E. Harding, on the basis of an incredibly low signal-to-noise ratio, but this is the first thing I can remember seeing that would push me to consider supporting a ban.

            -Since when did advocating immigration restrictions exceed “the bounds of moderation” here? This is literally the least controversial aspect of Sailerism (and Sailer did come out in favor of the Chinese Exclusion Act on his blog). Even our good host has stated that immigration is the one case Trump supporters have that sounds even remotely persuasive to him. And, in any case, I wasn’t even arguing for the restoration of the Chinese Exclusion Act. I was pointing out the evidence erenold provided in his anecdote is good evidence in favor of opinion of the vast majority of Americans at the time of the signing of the Chinese Exclusion Act that the Chinese Exclusion Act was basically a good idea.

            @John Schilling, how so? I gave my reasons in my comment. Why didn’t you give your reasons to back up your statement?

            “No, seriously. Fuck all the way off.”

            -Am I not allowed to point out how 90% support for the Democrats of the ethnic group in the U.S. with the highest average IQ made the Eisenhower coalition unsustainable?

            BTW, Ed, don’t sockpuppet and stalk people↓↓↓

          • Jiro says:

            What about black people, not assimilated either “in ways relevant to this argument”?

            Black people have been here long enough that the political landscape was completely different when they arrived, so their different political preferences are not a question of assimilation (since when they arrived, the political landscape did not yet exist to assimilate into)

            (You could argue that Jewish people have been here long enough for that as well, in which case I won’t argue that. But it really wouldn’t help your argument.)

          • John Schilling says:

            @Harding:

            How so? […] I was pointing out the evidence erenold provided in his anecdote is good evidence in favor of opinion of the vast majority of Americans at the time of the signing of the Chinese Exclusion Act that the Chinese Exclusion Act was basically a good idea.

            Erenold provides a well-stated explanation why members of a particular culture would chose not to vote for a political party that supports policies they would favor but exhibits contempt for their culture and its values in a way that leads them to fear this party will make intolerably bad decisions in the future.

            Your response is to simply assert in passing that such behavior is cause to exclude pretty much an entire ethnic group from the political culture of the United States of America.

            That is the basest sort of bigotry, of the sort that makes it entirely rational for anyone who isn’t a WASP or at least a Caucasian to look upon the GOP and say, “Even though we agree with you on capitalism and family values and guns and abortion and most of the rest, no way in Hell are we voting for you guys”. Erenold and his extended family are the sort of people that pretty much everyone in this country who isn’t a white racist bigot, wants to have living in this country. You, aren’t.

          • Jiro says:

            Jiro, the sticking point here is your assertion that support for Republicans is a necessary (if not sufficient) criterion for true assimilation.

            Ignoring the case where the group was already here and so did not assimilate by definition, voting Republican isn’t a necessary condition for assimilation. Having a certain proportion of members voting Republican is.

            Anyway, that’s just a complaint about semantics. The question was whether there is such a thing as demographic replacement. If immigrants all vote Democratic and continue to do so in subsequent generations, that would be an example of demographic replacement–the non-immigrants’ political influence would decrease in favor of the immigrants. Whether you want to call this assimilation is besides the point.

          • E. Harding says:

            “Erenold provides a well-stated explanation why members of a particular culture would chose not to vote for a political party”

            -It’s not just about the party, more importantly, it’s also about the candidate. Rubio was a disaster of a candidate, who was dangerous to America and its people, and anyone’s choice to vote for him in a primary is, I think, totally disgraceful. And when it comes to a divergence between the demands of a small subgroup’s particular culture and the fate of the world and the American nation, I gladly pick the latter.

            “supports policies they would favor but exhibits contempt for their culture and its values in a way that leads them to fear this party will make intolerably bad decisions in the future.”

            -Look, I understand some of this. I’m an immigrant from Russia; Clinton’s Russophobia is personally offensive to me, as was that of Ted Cruz (his demagoguery, which was worse than Trump’s, also turned me off from him). I fully understand why an American Muslim would vote for Clinton; that doesn’t bother me, though I do agree with the necessity of Trump’s temporary shutdown on Muslims entering the United States until we can find out what’s going on, and I might propose its extension after. Same for a first-generation Mexican. But that people would vote blindly to policy, only focusing on style is, for me and many other people, disgusting. Trump is no more anti-Chinese than Obama, Romney, and Clinton. The fact all erenold’s Republican relatives preferred Clinton over Trump purely on the basis of personal style, not any substance, is quite worrying.

            “Your response is to simply assert in passing that such behavior is cause to exclude pretty much an entire ethnic group from the political culture of the United States of America.”

            -Erenold did say all his relatives are voting Clinton solely on the basis of style. I think it’s a reasonable conclusion.

            When it comes to whether the U.S. should inch itself even a foot towards disaster on the basis of immigrants voting purely on the basis of style over substance or whether such immigrants should be restricted from entering the country until such behavior stops is a no-brainer.

            “That is the basest sort of bigotry, of the sort that makes it entirely rational for anyone who isn’t a WASP or at least a Caucasian to look upon the GOP and say, “Even though we agree with you on capitalism and family values and guns and abortion and most of the rest, no way in Hell are we voting for you guys”.

            -No; it’s pretty far from that. If the vast majority of Russian immigrants behaved the way erenold describes, even at risk to the American nation, and there was some reason to believe this would continue in future generations, I, even as a Russian immigrant, would wholly agree that such behavior is a legitimate reason to be in favor of Russian Exclusion Act.

            “Erenold and his extended family are the sort of people that pretty much everyone in this country who isn’t a white racist bigot, wants to have living in this country. You, aren’t.”

            -Gimmee a break. Why the double standard?

            And as I’ve said, bigotry is far preferable to invade-the-world-invite-the-world ideology and SJWry.

          • AnonBosch says:

            -Am I not allowed to point out how 90% support for the Democrats of the ethnic group in the U.S. with the highest average IQ made the Eisenhower coalition unsustainable?

            This is an excellent example of how Death Eaters take advantage of Scott’s liberal comment policy. Let’s compare this post with the original reply I reacted to:

            The party of the vast majority of Jews, who were brought into the Democratic coalition in the 1930s, was always destined to become the party of the college educated -and the evil party.

            Having provoked an emotional reaction from this post, he simply needs to retreat and layer this charge through enough conceptual middlemen where he’s not literally saying “Jews are evil,” or something inadequately disguised like “Jews are educated and leftist and therefore evil,” instead he’s simply rationally observing that “Jews are highly educated and have particular political views, which [insert more cause/effect as needed with subsequent challenges], which upset the Eisenhower coalition of the mid-20th century, which [yada yada Great Society] leftism, and leftism is evil!”

            As long as you sufficiently launder the bigotry, you’re golden. It doesn’t matter if the links become too numerous, too tenuous, or are even inconsistent (first post: Jews were brought into the Democratic coalition in the 1930s; second post: this somehow caused the breakup of a political coalition which first formed 20 years later?) because his demonstrated stamina at Gish Galloping five new paragraphs out of every one replied to will hold the line no matter how many nonsensical curves and kinks that line picks up under repeated questioning.

            Eventually even the most reasonable, good-faith-assuming commenter will give up at which point you “win.” End result: Leftists, libertarians, and centrists drift away, leading to iterative reduction in the need for conceptual laundering, comments become /pol/-esque echo chamber of vulgar essentialism.

          • E. Harding says:

            @AnonBosch

            “this somehow caused the breakup of a political coalition which first formed 20 years later?)”

            -The Eisenhower coalition did not form ex nihilo under Eisenhower; if you look at the maps, you can see it as largely, though not entirely, a continuation of the old Hoover coalition, which itself was largely based on the traditional Reconstruction-era Republican coalition of U.S. Grant. Nevertheless, I chose the description “Eisenhower coalition” as this was the first time serious national polling of Americans by education level became available during a GOP presidential victory -and it showed a landslide Eisenhower performance among the college educated, while Jews voted 90% for Stevenson. As Larry Kesterbaum likes to point out around here, this performance among the college educated probably had strong precedent for the GOP- Washtenaw county, MI, didn’t vote for FDR at any point. The Eisenhower era was the last time the GOP put on its best performance in the country on the presidential level in the State of Vermont. The state was consistently the GOP’s best in the country on the presidential level during the third and fifth party systems and a little less consistently during the fourth party system.

            And, in any case, there is nothing logically implausible about my statement which you criticize, even if your weakman version of it was correct. Causation can be complicated.

            As for the rest of your comment, all I can say is, cool story, bro.

          • I’m curious about why adding to the Democratic coalition a group that made it less stupid would also make it more evil. It fits the jokes about the evil party vs the stupid party, but I don’t see what sense it makes beyond that.

            Explain.

          • erenold says:

            Usual caveat – everything below is descriptive, not normative. Where I deal with inferences and conclusions, my confidence is only moderate-to-low, as opposed to where I am straightforwardly paraphrasing and describing.

            -Erenold did say all his relatives are voting Clinton solely on the basis of style.

            I did not, in fact, say this, or anything like this, nor is it strictly clear to me where you inferred this from. If this is about the perception that the GOP is targeting lower-common-denominator voters, I think it’s important to note that their antipathy to this type of politics is instrumental, or inferential. That is, they have nothing against a politician consciously adopting Borderer mannerisms or speech patterns (why would they? The older, 1st-generation ones may not even be able to tell the difference). The concern is that the way Trump talks about politics suggests that there is nothing underneath – i.e., that his style implied his substance, or lack thereof. (Again – purely descriptive, not normative.)

            The one good point I think you brought up was this:

            Asians in America, as a rule, never tended strongly towards either economic or social conservatism. Instead, they usually tended toward order. The LA riots really hurt the image of the Black party for them.

            I think this may be correct. And in tandem with this, from Charles Murray:

            Asians who became successful because everyone in the family worked two or three jobs (a common strategy behind Asian success) are likely to be offended by the liberal “You didn’t build that” mentality. Unlike every other minority group, Asians owe nothing to the Democrats for affirmative action. On the contrary, Asians are penalized by affirmative action, especially in the universities, where discrimination against Asian applicants has been documented

            And this is definitely correct, coming close to a paraphrase of actual quotes, and thumbnail sketches of their lives, of actual people I know. It perplexes and confuses the older, 1st-gen ones that folks can seemingly just go to the government and get money ‘for nothing’, a sentiment with a distinct racial tinge to it. (As I mentioned, there is some degree of anti-African American racism on the part of the older ones.)

            These two observations lead me to the tentative conclusion that the Democratic Party’s hold on Asian America is, within the short run, by no means an immutable one. But characterising the problem as one of ‘stylistics’, to my mind, both deeply misapprehends the problem and is itself evidence of it.

          • E. Harding says:

            @David

            “It fits the jokes about the evil party vs the stupid party,”

            -Yes, that’s what I meant. The precise mechanism is too lengthy to explain here, but, suffice to say, there is good reason to believe the Democratic Party is, on net, more evil than the Republican Party at present. There is also good reason to believe that this is a result of the Democratic Party’s increasing dominance among the college-educated. How this came to be is a topic that will eventually be written about someday, possibly even by someone other than me. I see no point in explaining such a lengthy story in a dying comments section.

            @erenold

            -Thanks for replying.

            “That is, they have nothing against a politician consciously adopting Borderer mannerisms or speech patterns (why would they? The older, 1st-generation ones may not even be able to tell the difference). The concern is that the way Trump talks about politics suggests that there is nothing underneath – i.e., that his style implied his substance, or lack thereof.”

            -So you say that, for them, “his style implies his substance”. How does that contradict anything I’ve said? If they think the style implies lack of substance, they’re deriving their conclusions from the style. And, in any case, why would they think this is so bad that it’s a good idea to vote Her?

            “But characterising the problem as one of ‘stylistics’, to my mind, both deeply misapprehends the problem and is itself evidence of it.”

            -So would Jeb have fixed it?

          • vV_Vv says:

            referably one that provides a solid, evidence-based case for why we shouldn’t expect immigrants to assimilate within 3-4 generations as they have in the past,

            3-4 generation is 75-100 years. How much of your culture will be left by then?

            Also, Jews and Gypsies have been living in Western countries for more than a thousand years and never assimilated. Maybe the US can assimilate the Mexicans, but Europe may never assimilate the Muslims.

          • “Also, Jews and Gypsies have been living in Western countries for more than a thousand years and never assimilated.”

            For nearly two thousand years, most Jews in the diaspora were living in Jewish communities under Jewish law, the Christian and Muslim rulers having concluded that subcontracting the job of ruling their Jewish subjects to the Jewish communal authorities was the easiest way of dealing with them.

            That changed, starting in the late 18th century in Europe, as Jews were more and more treated as Frenchmen (et. al.) who happened to be Jewish rather than Jews who happened to live in France. Over a century or so, the result in most of Europe was to convert most of the Jews into an ethnicity rather than a separate nationality.

            The Romani maintained their cultural independence for about a thousand years. It is breaking down now, at least in North America. Part of what let them function as an independent legal/cultural system was the pattern of mutual hostility with non-Romani. Romani knew that Gaije were filthy, polluted, immoral people who no sensible Rom would want to associate closely with, non-Romani knew that gypsies were thieves, kidnappers, con men who no sensible person … .

            In the tolerant environment of North America that pattern is breaking down, and with it the Romani social system. For details, contrast Anne Sutherland’s two books on the American Vlach Rom. The first, published in 1975, portrays a foreign society within America, with its own language, medical system, legal system, family structure … . The second, which came out recently, describes the collapse of that society into ours, although the author never quite says so.

            Or in other words, assimilation depends a lot on the relation between the subgroup and the host society, and North America has in the past been an environment that encourages it.

            As to the idea that American Jews are not assimilated, that’s silly, unless you are talking about some relatively small subgroups.

          • vV_Vv says:

            For nearly two thousand years, most Jews in the diaspora were living in Jewish communities under Jewish law, the Christian and Muslim rulers having concluded that subcontracting the job of ruling their Jewish subjects to the Jewish communal authorities was the easiest way of dealing with them.

            So like modern European Muslims who live in the banlieues in France or Belgium, where the police avoids going and the Sharia law, rather than the law of the land, is the de facto rule.

            (And I believe that BLM is trying to implement essentially the same thing for urban Blacks in the US: semi-autonomous communities where the police doesn’t go and criminal gangs are the de facto government.)

            The Romani maintained their cultural independence for about a thousand years. It is breaking down now, at least in North America.

            There were never many Romani in North America. Those who went there probably wanted to escape the Romani culture in their home countries. Contrast with the Anabaptists (Amish, Mennonites, etc.) who instead migrated to North America specifically to maintain their culture, and managed to do so to this day.

            As to the idea that American Jews are not assimilated, that’s silly, unless you are talking about some relatively small subgroups.

            They are assimilated under certain aspects, but remain distinct enough in political relevant ways that they can, to some extent, bloc vote and lobby the government to support Israel despite being a very small fraction of the population.

            Imagine the American Hispanics or the European Muslims doing the same things that the Jews do. Even if they are less organized, and maybe less smart, their sheer numbers could give them a huge political weight in a society where the majority is not used to vote by ethnic identity.

            Moreover, Jews became productive members of Western societies because their base culture was similar to mainstream Christian culture and they are, on average, as smart or smarter than the general Western population, while integrating in a short time a large mass of people who come from much different cultures and have a lower average intelligence (for whatever reason, genetic, epigenetic, environmental, etc.), may be much more difficult. So far, the track record is poor.

          • “There were never many Romani in North America. Those who went there probably wanted to escape the Romani culture in their home countries. ”

            The estimate for Romani in America is about a million, so a substantial number. Judging by Sutherland’s account of Romani in the Bay Area in the seventies, they weren’t trying to escape their culture but to maintain it.

        • Corey says:

          Trump is promising to build a yuge wall, to deport illegal immigrants already here, and to end birthright citizenship. In all likelihood he will do none of those things.

          Is ending birthright citizenship even feasible? Amending the Constitution is a tough row to hoe, and getting a SCOTUS majority to ignore a very straightforward statement in the 14th Amendment seems like it would be even harder.

          • Dr Dealgood says:

            The 14th amendment, quite explicitly, applies exclusively to American citizens. So they don’t have to ignore anything. Just reading the plain language of the amendment is enough.

            That said, it’s currently totally infeasible for cultural reasons. One of the reasons why I doubt Trump would do it even if he was serious about it. But changing the cultural landscape is exactly why this election is important.

          • Anonymous says:

            “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”

            If the claim is that aliens aren’t subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, I’m sure a lot of people will be glad to know they can’t be sued or prosecuted by the US government. Or have to pay taxes for that matter.

          • The Nybbler says:

            He could grant all children of non-citizens automatic diplomatic immunity from birth to some young age, and deny them citizenship on the grounds of “not being subject to the jurisdiction of the United States”. They could then be expelled (not deported).

            I think this dodge wouldn’t work, because there’s no reason it couldn’t be applied it to _all_ children (including children of citizens).

          • AnonBosch says:

            He could grant all children of non-citizens automatic diplomatic immunity from birth to some young age, and deny them citizenship on the grounds of “not being subject to the jurisdiction of the United States”.

            I am pretty sure he could not. Diplomatic immunity is determined by statute (which as far as I know comports with the Vienna Convention), not by arbitrary executive designation.

          • @Dr. Dealgood:

            You wrote:

            “The 14th amendment, quite explicitly, applies exclusively to American citizens.

            The XIV Amendment says:

            “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

            What you wrote appears flatly false. Can you defend it? Was it an error, and if so would you like to correct it?

        • Alex S says:

          > Currently, immigration as a substitute for births is a one-two punch killing the native population.

          Why would reducing immigration have anything to do with the native birth rate?

          • Dr Dealgood says:

            The two play into one another.

            Politicians and the media justify immigration as necessary for “new blood” into an aging populace. And proposed efforts to stimulate birth rates hit the wall of people pointing at the growing third world population.

            Slamming the door shut on immigration would hopefully force people in power to think more seriously about the long-term viability of our country’s native population.

          • Alex S says:

            And more broadly, is there anything we can do to substantially increase the birth rate? It is more a function of how family-friendly society is overall, rather than policy.

          • Anonymous says:

            Why would we want to do that? If you want moar babbies start making some of your own.

          • Alex S says:

            @Dealgood Seems speculative
            @Anonymous At high GDP per capita, more people means more brains and more science, prosperity and national strength

          • houseboatonstyxb says:

            @ Dr Dealgood
            Politicians and the media justify immigration as necessary for “new blood” into an aging populace. And proposed efforts to stimulate birth rates hit the wall of people pointing at the growing third world population.

            A wall in the other direction, so to speak, is the time and expense of caring for a baby, vs the hassle of paperwork for keeping a foreign nanny legal.

        • E. Harding says:

          “Preferably one that provides a solid, evidence-based case for why we shouldn’t expect immigrants to assimilate within 3-4 generations as they have in the past,”

          -Neither Blacks nor Jews in the United States have, for the most part, done this.

          “and acknowledges the productivity benefits of immigration”

          -Trump also does this.

          • AnonBosch says:

            “Preferably one that provides a solid, evidence-based case for why we shouldn’t expect immigrants to assimilate within 3-4 generations as they have in the past,”

            -Neither Blacks nor Jews in the United States have, for the most part, done this.

            Setting aside for a moment the notion that Jews haven’t assimilated (if your standard of assimilation excludes them, I would consider their success evidence against the necessity of meeting such a standard) why would Hispanics end up closer to these populations than to Irish and Italians? Your post lacks any concrete reasoning, let alone evidence.

            I know politics is supposed to be the mind-killer, but even so. I don’t think I’m asking too much of the SSC commentariat.

          • E. Harding says:

            “why would Hispanics end up closer to these populations than to Irish and Italians?”

            -Mexico is nothing like Italy or Ireland. And yet, Mexico was as rich as Portugal as recently as 1980, so it’s showing no progress since then. The average PISA score of Mexico is much lower than that in Italy or Ireland.

            https://againstjebelallawz.wordpress.com/2015/07/24/map-of-the-world-mathematical-smart-fraction/

          • AnonBosch says:

            Mexico is nothing like Italy or Ireland. And yet, Mexico was as rich as Portugal as recently as 1980, so it’s showing no progress since then. The average PISA score of Mexico is much lower than that in Italy or Ireland.

            So let me make sure I have this sort-of-stab-at-an-argument straight. After asserting that Jews haven’t assimilated, you’re now touting PISA scores (which have been “adjusted” on the assumption that 100% of the non-tested population is not exceptional) as evidence that Mexican assimilation is doomed.

            Even if I accepted this incredibly crude adjustment, this doesn’t give me any correlation between PISA and [name-your-assimilation-criterion]. Do more intelligent immigrants assimilate more readily? You just got through telling me that Jews don’t assimilate, so at least one of these last two posts is full of shit. It also doesn’t tell me anything about the conditions of Italy in 1900-1910 compared to Mexico today; a genetics-only argument is every bit as worthless as an environment-only argument unless you want to explain to me why the Flynn effect isn’t a thing.

            You seem to be treating these comment threads as a contest one “wins” by virtue of quantity of refutations with no regard to quality, or even internal consistency.

          • E. Harding says:

            “Do more intelligent immigrants assimilate more readily?”

            -Poor strawman, AnonBosch. Immigrants whose descendants possess an IQ closer to that of the host population assimilate more easily.

            “which have been “adjusted” by a blogger on the assumption that 100% of the non-tested population is not exceptional”

            -That’s me, and there’s no real evidence to suggest that assumption is very far from the truth.

            “It also doesn’t tell me anything about the conditions of Italy in 1900-1910 compared to Mexico today”

            -Both have had time to catch up. It’s 2016.

            “a genetics-only argument is every bit as worthless as an environment-only argument unless you want to explain to me why the Flynn effect isn’t a thing”

            -The Flynn effect seems to be a worldwide phenomenon and one that affects every subgroup pretty much equally. It’s not an argument in favor of doing the same thing with Mexican immigration that’s been done since the 1970s, or, as Clinton advocates, fewer immigration restrictions and more amnesty.

            “by virtue of quantity of refutations with no regard to quality, or even internal consistency.”

            -You haven’t demonstrated any lack of the latter two in my comments.

          • AnonBosch says:

            -You haven’t demonstrated any lack of the latter two in my comments.

            Weird how you replied to every damn sentence in the post, except this one:

            You just got through telling me that Jews don’t assimilate, so at least one of these last two posts is full of shit.

            I’m just gonna write this subthread off. You can declare victory and pretend it’s because I can’t take the Hard Biotruths if you like. As far as I’m concerned it’s the parable of the pigeon and the chessboard.

          • E. Harding says:

            “You just got through telling me that Jews don’t assimilate,”

            -For the most part, they have not.

            “so at least one of these last two posts is full of shit.”

            -Not true.

            “As far as I’m concerned it’s the parable of the pigeon and the chessboard.”

            -The audience can decide if this was the case. Hint: it wasn’t.

          • Jiro says:

            Jews haven’t assimilated politically, even though Jews have assimilated in other ways.

            This really shouldn’t be happening, because the left is hardly even claiming to work for the benefit of Jews. At least blacks and Hispanics are being courted by the left and the left claims to support them.

          • ThirteenthLetter says:

            -The audience can decide if this was the case. Hint: it wasn’t.

            I suspect you are badly misreading your audience.

      • Anon says:

        I agree points 1 and 3 are bunk. Point 2 is a strawman. While not an *existential* risk, I think that anyone not deeply concerned about the culture wars is not paying enough attention.

        I’ll give you one example. Which is crazier, insisting evolution is false, or insisting the wage gap is caused by sexism? Perhaps I’m the one who is insane, but I found the first paragraph of the wage gap wikipedia article (which is all you need to know Clinton’s position is nonsense) easier to follow than On the Origin of the Species (to say nothing of post Mendelian works that explain the modern synthesis).

        Yet Carson was laughed out of the room by the media and mocked at water coolers the country over for his opinion while Hillary was met with murmurs of approval. Something is very, very wrong here. The cultural heuristic of “the academic elite know what they’re talking about” has been hijacked by placing gender studies professors in the same tier as evolutionary biologists.

        To be clear, I’m not saying I like Trump, or that I consider his epistemology to be any more sound than Clinton’s. He’s a useful idiot that can shift the Overton window and get people questioning leftist sacred cows.

        • vV_Vv says:

          I’ll give you one example. Which is crazier, insisting evolution is false, or insisting the wage gap is caused by sexism? Perhaps I’m the one who is insane, but I found the first paragraph of the wage gap wikipedia article (which is all you need to know Clinton’s position is nonsense) easier to follow than On the Origin of the Species (to say nothing of post Mendelian works that explain the modern synthesis).

          Not to mention the fact that believing that evolution is false hardly affects your ability to function as a productive member of the society, unless you are a biologist. Believing that the wage gap is caused by institutional sexism instead may cause you to support or implement policies that are actually harmful.

          But more than everything, what concerns me is the total lack of restraint that the SJWs show in pursuing their political goals: they will do whatever they can get away with to increase their power and punish those who oppose them.

          If they could send people to the gulag for wrongthink, I’m sure that they would, and given that they constantly scheme to increase their power by entryism, collusion and intimidation, unless they are stopped in their tracks they will eventually get to that point.

          If you think that I’m exaggerating then have a look at this, or the push to continuously expand the definition of “harassment”, “hate speech”, “cyber-violence” and so on.

          The SJWs are not an existential threat, but they are totalitarian regime threat.

          EDIT:

          To expand my point, the main issue is not that some people have incorrect beliefs (such as the wage gap caused by sexism): incorrect beliefs, in principle, can be changed by presenting arguments and evidence. The main issue occurs when certain beliefs are held as unquestionable dogma, and it becomes socially unacceptable or even illegal to publicly challenge them.

          The SJWs are less like the modern Creationists (pretty harmless folks who build Noah’s Ark museums), and more like the Holy Inquisition. Or at least this is what they aspire to.

          • The original Mr. X says:

            The SJWs are less like the modern Creationists (pretty harmless folks who build Noah’s Ark museums), and more like the Holy Inquisition.

            No, the Holy Inquisition used to give people trials before condemning them.

  85. DensityDuck says:

    A massive paraphrasing of your reasoning here might be “we know what Clinton would do, and God only knows what Trump would do, and even if it’s something good done for the right reasons we don’t live in a world of people who respond well to uncertainty”.

    No less a thinker than P. J. O’Rourke agrees.

  86. DensityDuck says:

    Also: Thank you for presenting well-reasoned, supported, actually good reasons to not vote for Trump. As opposed to “bububububub racism, sexism“, as though these things would somehow be lessened by appeasing the Woke God.

    • Jiro says:

      I don’t consider “Trump would be good for social justice, because I’ve come up with a scenario where Trump would be good for social justice” to be a good reason.

      Also, I wonder why Scott hasn’t bothered to mention TPP or Citizens United.

      • The Nybbler says:

        Both Trump and Hillary claim to be against TPP, but Hillary is obviously lying and Trump seems likely to be telling the truth.

      • keranih says:

        Scott did mention CU; he said that it was of less note than rulings on individual freedom of speech and that he felt that a liberal-leaning court would not be a significant threat to individual freedom of speech.

    • E. Harding says:

      I find none of those reasons to be particularly good or well-reasoned. Some of the evidence presented for them is extremely misleading. See my first comment here.

    • DensityDuck says:

      Remember the time Rick Perry got charged with a felony?

      Yeah, of course you don’t, and neither does anyone else because the whole thing turned out to be bullshit.

    • The Nybbler says:

      I wonder whether Trump deliberately failed to file the paperwork in order to provoke this so he could claim he was being persecuted.

      • BBA says:

        It’s such a fine line between clever and stupid.

        Mostly I posted this because there’s a government agency with “social justice” in its name and it’s going after Trump, which I’m sure will be taken to prove something.

  87. E. Harding says:

    Just like Trump called for Snowden’s execution unless he leaked stuff on Obama, Clinton asked about whether the U.S. could execute Assange:

    https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/782906224937410562

    • The Nybbler says:

      Can’t be. Snopes resident SJW says it’s unproven and therefore false.

      • E. Harding says:

        So, on the same level of Clinton’s claims Russia hacked the DNC and Putin timed the DNC leaks’ release, and more credible than Her statement Putin is the great-godfather of Brexit and Trump.

  88. Jill says:

    More info regarding the decades long media bashing of Hillary, including the “liberal” New York Times, for those of you who don’t believe this happened:

    The Numbers Behind Maureen Dowd’s 21-Year Long Campaign Against Hillary Clinton
    72 Percent Of Dowd Columns Negative Towards Clinton

    http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/06/18/the-numbers-behind-maureen-dowds-21-year-long-c/199752

  89. Jill says:

    Interesting that even though the media is so overwhelmingly liberal biased,
    that the Right Wing party dominates both Houses of Congress, most
    governorships and state legislatures, and SCOTUS until Scalia died. And
    where the Right Wing doesn’t have the presidency yet, but through Congress
    they do tie the president’s hands frequently e.g. by refusing to allow his
    SCOTUS nominee even a hearing, much less a vote.

    That a Left of Center president got impeached over a blow job. But when the
    Right Wing president led us into an expensive long bloody war based on lies
    about phony weapons of mass destruction, no problem there. And one of the
    chief war cheerleaders was the supposedly liberally biased NYT.

    Interesting that even though the media is supposedly so overwhelmingly
    liberal biased, that so many people so wisely and independently and
    correctly choose Right Wing or conservative values and policies and beliefs.
    Hillary has gotten only a low percentage of millennial voters because
    no matter how young people are, most of them are not too young or too
    naïve to choose Right Wing values. Despite the liberal biased media,
    young people are wisely and independently and correctly choosing to
    be Right Wing– and more conservative than previous generations at their age.

    Poor voters, uneducated voters, low I Q voters– no one is poor enough or
    ignorant enough to lack the wisdom and independence and intelligence
    necessary to correctly choose to be Right Wing and to vote mostly Right
    Wing on everything, except the most recent president.

    And have a look at the Internet. The vast majority of Internet trolls on
    comment boards are Right Wingers. So even the obnoxious people who
    roam the sewers of the Internet are wise, independent, and intelligent
    enough to correctly choose to be Right Wing, despite the pressures of
    the supposed Left Wing media bias.

    If there is a liberal media bias, it sure doesn’t seem to have affected many
    people. In fact, if you look at what people in the U.S. are like politically, it
    sure looks like the media is overwhelmingly Right Wing biased instead of
    Left Wing biased.

    When the media bashes Hillary 24/7/365 for decades, on the basis of
    unsubstantiated rumor and innuendo, is that liberal bias? When the media
    gives billions of dollars of free air time to Donald Trump, is that liberal
    bias?

    Even Hillary herself, though considered too far Left by the Right Wing media
    that supposedly isn’t the dominant media, is Right Wing enough to support
    crony capitalist welfare queens like mega- banks, who defraud the public, rather
    than to protect the citizenry against them, as I would expect a Left Wing politician
    would do.

    And even many of the people who are voting for Hillary, like Scott, are not liberal either. They’re just conservatives who have noticed how little Trump knows about government and economics and how problematic his temperament and character are.

    • a non mouse says:

      Interesting that even though the media is so overwhelmingly liberal biased, that the Right Wing party dominates both Houses of Congress, most governorships and state legislatures, and SCOTUS until Scalia died.

      Yes, that’s why they’re importing as many third worlders as they can as fast as they can.

    • a non mouse says:

      Even Hillary herself, though considered too far Left by the Right Wing media that supposedly isn’t the dominant media, is Right Wing enough to support crony capitalist welfare queens like mega- banks, who defraud the public, rather than to protect the citizenry against them, as I would expect a Left Wing politician would do.

      I don’t expect this or anything to penetrate your amazingly thick skull but Goldman Sachs has banned employees from contributing to Trump.

      Pre 2008 financial crisis only one major bank contributed more to Democrats than Republicans and gave crony jobs to establishment Republicans (like Jeb, frex) – Lehman. They, of course, weren’t bailed out while the banks that contributed more heavily to Democrats, were. That lesson has been well learned by the parasitic banking sector – you learned nothing from that because no one wrote an article in Slate about it.

      You are stupid and as a result your worldview has no sophistication.

      • E. Harding says:

        “I don’t expect this or anything to penetrate your amazingly thick skull but Goldman Sachs has banned employees from contributing to Trump.”

        -No; the Federal government has. That’s because Pence is a state official who can affect state pensions while Kaine isn’t.

        • a non mouse says:

          That’s not correct E. Harding.

          It’s an internal rule at GS that they set up after Trump announced his VP pick which “just happens” to block donations to one presidential candidate but not the other. It’s not a federal rule (or it would apply to the entire financial industry).

  90. Jill says:

    Like fundamentalist religion, no one ever changes anyone else’s mind about politics. People may change their minds, but only when/if they are ready to, for their own reasons.

    May the best woman win.

  91. Senjiu says:

    If you face a choice between two possible bad outcomes in an election, you start to wonder if the system is really that good.
    The fact that there are so many levels between the electorate and the candidates (I think there are districts and then states but I might be mistaken) with winner-takes-it-all on each of them sorta forces the choice between two candidates, I think.
    If it was simply “The one who gets the most votes wins” I think people might consider other candidates more but with this system you have to think “If I vote for candidate #3 and then the majority of my district doesn’t my vote is lost. Same on the state level.”

    I guess I might be biased but I like our system in germany sooooo much more. In theory Merkel’s CDU could get 45% of the votes and still lose to two other parties that get 30% and 20% of the votes each. It’s then about parties making compromises with each other. And while you still have one member of parlament from each little district (the one with the most votes in this district), the second vote that happens at the same time fills the other half of the parlament and that happens on the national level, so it really is about who gets the most votes (no matter where they come from – with the second vote).
    The main difference to me is that the vote is never lost if the party gets 5% of total votes (or enough candidates getting into parlament via direct vote in the districts).

    • Nope says:

      I like your system too. Local representation is preserved, but people have a chance to have their votes count towards the makeup of parliament.

      (ETA: Since this would increase the VIABLE options open to voters, it’s not only more small-d democratic, but more free-market, too.)

      Getting something remotely similar here in the States would be a hard slog, and I’m not sure how to even start beyond “convince a critical mass of people it would be better.”

      I am pretty sure that voting 3rd party in presidential elections and doing nothing else is actively counterproductive (in a tiny way) to that goal, though. If the system is stacked against you, much better to try to change the rules than to keep playing and showing the voters you can’t win.

  92. Jill says:

    Someone in one of these Trump threads said that Trump believes in HBD. I hadn’t heard that before. But this video certainly makes him look that way. His whole idea of “winners” and “losers” being all or mostly genetic should have clued me into this tendency of his before.

    http://www.examplesofglobalization.com/2016/10/god-hates-master-race-idea-donald-trump.html

    HBD is a strange way of naming this theory to me. It looks like an attempt to focus on some kind of theoretical academic type framework, so that the real world effects of such a theory and a movement can be covered up. You can say “Oh, I just didn’t notice what happens when you apply this theory in the real world.” Sort of like the person who loves Ayn Rand so much that they just don’t happen to notice that when you apply her theories in the real world, you get the most famous Libertarians and Randians being crony capitalists polluting our air and water incessantly, or robbing us all blind– or else you get politicians who are paid off by crony capitalists so that they can defraud people, pollute their communities etc. You get the most powerful and well known Libertarians being the Koch brothers.

    “Human biodiversity” sounds scientific and biological. But the way it looks to me, is that this theory and movement is really all about “Human Caste Systems”– assuming that average racial characteristics are all 100% genetically determined, so that you can categorize every individual according to their race, and can keep them stuck in castes and other categories for their whole lives.

    It sounds like the practical effects of this so-called HBD, would be to have people like Obama stuck in the mentally retarded class in school, and then mopping floors for a living all their adult lives, because they are categorized as belonging to the black race. The fact that most of them are mixtures of races doesn’t have to be considered, because one only gets scientific when it’s convenient, of course. I can see how, with such a system, one would never have to worry about having a black president, if such a scenario horrifies one.

    Sticking to theory while reality wreaks havoc, is yet another advantage of this rationality that allows iron clad Trump supporters to come up with tons of rational sounding (to themselves) reasons why everything Trump says and does is pure gold– unless it’s absolutely indefensible, in which case there is a logical (to themselves) reason excusing it.

    Rationality is a tool that can be applied in many ways, some good of course. Internet boards like this one, make me aware of some of the darker aspects of supposed rationality.

    There are many people on the board here who discuss with me and others in good faith. And then there are others who discuss only for the purpose of converting the other person, by the verbal sword, or else dismissing them as stupid, irrational etc.

    I’m sure I have a reputation here for being irrational. Because I have stopped wasting my time arguing with people who demand all kinds of proof and documentation of my arguments, while doing little or none of that themselves, who cherry pick their data, and who cherry pick their questions to me in such a way that the correct answer to their questions appears to confirm their own beliefs and opinions and to dis-confirm mine– and they expect me to use up my time looking up the answers to questions that they cherry picked to confirm their own beliefs. No amount of research is too much for them to expect ME to do. And no insult is too harsh for them to throw it at me, when I refuse to spend my time doing that.

    And no statement is too obvious that they don’t demand extensive proof. You say the earth isn’t flat? Prove it. The earth revolves around the sun? Prove it. They say they did a fact check (Where? They don’t say. Probably Fox News or a Right Wing conspiracy theory web site.) and found that those statements are false.

    Die Hard Trump supporters illustrate some of these kinds of uses of rationality well. When I make the mistake of getting sucked into arguing with them, they can argue back and forth forever with me, using Fox News type “facts”, none of which are true. If I come up with proof that those “facts” are not true, they just respond with more Fox News type “facts”– the same ones Fox News anchors respond with when they are confronted with objectively verifiable facts.

    So the argument goes on and on forever, with the same result that it would have if I stop participating immediately– that they insult me and say how stupid, irrational etc. I am, and that others pile on afterwards, agreeing with them. There is this assumption that I am wanting to spend great amounts of my time convincing hostile people on the Internet, who use Fox News “facts”, to believe I am intelligent and rational– as if that is even possible for a person who is not Right Wing to convince a fundamentalist Right Winger that their views are valid in any way. Right Wing fundamentalism is iron clad and totally sealed up, so that it can not be influenced by real world facts. Maybe someone else’s greatest desire in life is to impress such people, such that they are willing to argue on and on in this manner forever. But it’s not mine.

    For me, it’s like arguing with the Bible toting missionaries at my door who have come to convert me. No one would expect me to waste my time in discussions with those people, in person. But on the Internet, when the fundamentalism is political rather than religious, many people think this is different. It’s not.

    • TheWorst says:

      In fairness, Trump seems to be a pretty garden-variety racist, which is pretty easy to mistake for believing in HBD, especially for HBD-believers.

      On a different note, the dynamic you’re referring to is called the “isolated demand for rigor,” when they repeat whatever the latest Rush Limbaugh memo is unquestioned, but demand proof-in-triplicate for anything that isn’t a right-wing conspiracy theory.

      The hard part with that–like with all of these–is to notice when you’re doing it yourself, because it’s really easy to accidentally fall into a pattern of holding anti-tribal assertions to a higher standard of evidence than pro-tribal ones.

      The harder part is dealing with the fact that learning to spot bullshit makes it basically impossible to stay in a tribe, because there aren’t any that are free from bullshitters.

      • AnonBosch says:

        In fairness, Trump seems to be a pretty garden-variety racist, which is pretty easy to mistake for believing in HBD, especially for HBD-believers.

        I have to admit to some minor schadenfreude watching Charles Murray’s reaction to Trumpism.

        • Judging by as much of that video as I watched–it seemed pretty repetitive–Trump believes that some valuable characteristics are at least in part heritable and that he has had the good luck to inherit some. It seems odd to describe that as racism, since it has nothing to do with races. Trump almost certainly believes that he is genetically superior to the average member of his own race.

          What part of the claim do you (either Jill or AnonBosch) disagree with? Do you believe no desirable or undesirable characteristics are heritable? We could argue about whether Trump shows evidence of doing better than average in the genetic lottery, but one doesn’t usually define an exaggerated view of one’s own talents as racism.

          • AnonBosch says:

            What part of the claim do you (either Jill or AnonBosch) disagree with? Do you believe no desirable or undesirable characteristics are heritable?

            I was commenting on TheWorst’s observation about the ease with which HBD evangelists motte-and-bailey between “general intelligence is real and heritable” and garden variety racism.

            I haven’t seen the original video but obviously I do not deny some desirable characteristics are heritable. The CCR5-Δ32 allele is fully heritable. More general concepts such as intelligence seem to be substantially-but-not-fully heritable.

            Jill seems to be a garden variety Blue so I probably wouldn’t be inclined to defend the entirety of her post. I agree that Trump simply having an exaggerated view of his own talents and the extent to which they are inborn isn’t racism. But I also think that that attitude combined with the contexts in which Trump has exhibited racism shows potential of extreme toxicity.

    • Murphy says:

      You seem to be conflating different meanings of the word “theory” much like a creationist shouting that “evolution is just a theory”.

      You’re treating Rands *ideas* about how the world should be run as the same as statements like “water is made of hydrogen and oxygen” or “Nitroglycerin tends to explode violently when exposed to shocks” by using the term “theory” for both and ignoring that it has very different meanings in both contexts.

      Randian ideas about how the world should be run are largely not falsifiable. They are not exposing some true/false statement about the universe.

      Rand had some falsifiable hypothesis about how the world works but that’s a separate thing.

      Perhaps you believe that if we admit to ourselves that Nitroglycerin can explode it will lead to something terrible, that if we can keep it secret that it can explode then we can prevent terrorist attacks but that doesn’t change the objective physical reality that it’s an explosive compound.

      Pretty much exactly this happened in biology a few decades back. The soviet union disliked the idea of evolution and Lysenkoism was a much better fit with soviet ideology. The idea of “Survival of the fittest” was deemed to be too “capitalist”. Politicians treated objective physical reality as something that could be shouted down, they treated it as an idea like marxism or Ayan Rands ideas, not a scientific theory. They probably didn’t really understand the difference since political types don’t tend to have a very scientific way of looking at the world.

      Human populations aren’t all the same. Founder effects, different selective pressure and just simple randomness means that I can eat food that would make large fractions of some countries populations very sick and drugs which work for me don’t work so well for large fractions of the population of japan. If I go to my doctor with some symptoms the odds of them being related to various health problems vary massively depending on where my great great great grandparents were born. Height, weight, how well my muscles handle sprinting or weight lifting and yes, among all these variants there are ones which affect behavior and ability in various areas and they aren’t evenly distributed across humanity or distributed all in favor of one population.

      That is just physical reality.

      Denying it due to ideology puts you squarely in the camp with the born again types screaming that accepting “evolutionist” beliefs inevitably leads to acting like Hitler or the communists screaming that if we deny Lysenkoism then that means we must be in favor of starving the poor.

      “It sounds like the practical effects of this so-called HBD, would be to have people like Obama stuck in the mentally retarded class in school, and then mopping floors for a living all their adult lives, because they are categorized as belonging to the black race. ”

      You talk about the “practical effects” as if our only option is to act like monsters after we accept the physical realities of the universe. As if upon learning about the genetic basis for downs syndrome that our only option would be to start acting like Hitler and gassing downs babies.

      We can still be fucking decent human beings even if our beliefs about the universe are accurate.

      Particularly when most of those those realities are statistical, they tend to imply small differences that might show up when you stick the whole population on a bar chart( only devastating for political movements which rely purely on pointing to a bar chart… like yours) while it grants you very little information about any particular individual

      I’m a bioinformatician. My day job is to dig through peoples genomes for defects that have left them chewing their own fingers off, pissing themselves while staring into space or juddering unable to control their own muscles.

      Joining your belief system where you pretend nobody is born with massive advantages and genetic gifts or massive disadvantages before they’ve even left the womb would be like trying to pretend that “macroevolution” doesn’t exist while I generate alignment scores for homologous genes from different species. It would involve turning off part of my brain to try to pretend true things aren’t true.

      From my experience of you on this site: You tend to be an extremely insulting and hostile person on these boards. I think the period of time you had that snarky little “warning” prefacing every post was when you hit peak-asshat. You throw your insults at groups but then get surprised and pretend victimhood when people throw some back at you personally.

      I don’t even identify as a supporter of HBD but your beliefs are motivated by politics rather than physical reality and you seem to be proud of that.

    • The Nybbler says:

      Trump isn’t supporting HBD or racism or eugenics. He’s simply saying the same thing dynasts and would-be dynasts (not to mention millions of non-dynastic proud parents) have always said — that his family is superior due to inherited characteristics, or “breeding will out”.

  93. Sanja says:

    Just FYI, “defending the baltic states” is probably the most likely thing in our lifetime to lead to nuclear war, so maybe you should weigh that one differently?

    Something else I’d like to briefly comment about, I think Trump is significantly lower variance than you are insisting he is. He’s not blowing up our system of governance and then going “lol jobs a good un,” he’s at worst reshuffling the deck of people and interests at the top, and more than likely not really even doing that.

    • hlynkacg says:

      I still think India v Pakistan or Israel v Iran is a more likely scenario, but if we’re talking about strictly about the US using its nukes then yes Russia is still the natural target. That said I don’t see how Trump being all buddy-buddy with Putin is supposed to make this more likely.

  94. Grampy_Bone says:

    I suspect that the real fear of Trump is because he is very masculine, and American men have been trained since birth to fear and despise masculinity. This blog post is just rationalization for an emotional response.

    This post somehow assumes that everyone is itching for a fight with us at the slightest provocation. This is not the case, a war with America is the last thing anyone wants, and they will do a lot to avoid it. Trump’s problem with America’s foreign policy is that we’re the biggest dog in the room but we won’t throw our weight around. We are constantly told it is amoral for us to wield our power effectively while we actively encourage our enemies to wield their own power as much as possible (e.g. nukes to Iran). Everyone knows America will avoid a war at any cost so now our threats have no teeth. We won’t back up our allies and we won’t punish those who defy us.

    Hillary’s plan of using one group to fight another group and hoping they will do as we say is utter nonsense. This is exactly what has lead to widespread chaos and anarchy across the world. They always make promises to get our support, then do whatever they want. We can’t pretend we can play chessmaster with the whole world without getting our hands dirty. Trump knows this, so he knows to either act decisively or get out of the game. If he starts a bunch of Gulf war ’90’s-style interventions to spank dictators and establish order, fine. Much better than Hillary flooding the world with more unstable ideological dogmatic militias with American military hardware.

    • AnonBosch says:

      I suspect that the real fear of Trump is because he is very masculine, and American men have been trained since birth to fear and despise masculinity. This blog post is just rationalization for an emotional response.

      Speaking of rationalization, this is a perfect example of retrofitting a definition to the desired example. A spray-tanned fat-ass whose visual trademark is a combover that’s probably 75% dye and hairspray by volume, who wears suits two sizes too big, who eats KFC with a golden fork, whose tastes in decor fall between Louis XVI and Liberace, and whose rallies consist largely of whining to a friendly audience about how unfair the world is because of [insert last week of Breitbart headlines here] is threatening us with his masculinity? Even if this was a legitimate form of argument I wouldn’t buy the premise.

      • Jiro says:

        You have not described unmasculine things; you have described lower class things. Lower class does not equal unmasculine.

        • hlynkacg says:

          Ehh, even so, he has a point…

          As “threatening” characters go Trump aint exactly high end.

      • mtraven says:

        It’s a cartoon version of masculinity, which appeals to those who are having problems with the real kind. This seems to be 99% of Trump’s appeal; he enacts the role of domineering asshole for those who would like to be one themselves but can’t really pull it off.

        • E. Harding says:

          “It’s a cartoon version of masculinity, which appeals to those who are having problems with the real kind.”

          -If Trump didn’t exude genuine masculinity, he wouldn’t appeal disproportionately to men. Women, after all, have far less masculinity than men. The man who appealed most disproportionately to women in the New Hampshire primary was… Jeb Bush, man of low energy.

          Of course, this doesn’t work 100% of the time: Bill Clinton, who’s also pretty masculine, known for numerous affairs and descriptions of sexual harassment, appealed tremendously to women in the 1990s -but the biggest gender gap until this election was in 2000: Bush v. low-energy Gore.

          No; most of Trump’s appeal in the primary was based on this:
          http://www.gallup.com/poll/189731/economic-issues-trump-strong-suit-among-republicans.aspx

          • Jill says:

            Well, if Trump has masculinity, then he has a kind of masculinity that does not appeal to women.

            Trump has an exaggerated fake masculinity that appeals to those men who want a masculine role model who is larger than life and more confident than is realistic.

            But you CAN have too much exaggerated unrealistic masculinity. Ask the macho guys living out long sentences in prison who killed people because they felt dissed by them in some minor way. Of course if they had been billionaires, they might have found a way to get away with murder. But it still wouldn’t be healthy or moral.

            And you CAN have too much confidence– by having delusions of grandeur– where you think you know a lot about government and economics, when actually you know almost nothing. Bragging about all you supposedly know about economics can impress people who also know nothing about it, and who are looking for a braggart larger than life role model. But once elected, such a person is a disaster. Being good at bragging is not the top skill a president needs to have.

          • E. Harding says:

            “Being good at bragging is not the top skill a president needs to have.”

            -Agreed. It’s hiring the best people (no real advantage to either candidate) and knowing when to ignore advice (big advantage Trump).

          • Grampy_Bone says:

            Jill — Those “unrealistic exaggerated masculine” men who are in prison receive more love letters from women than nice-guy dweebs like Tim Kaine ever will. Evidence of women self-destructively throwing themselves at overtly masculine men is trivially easy to find. Every single person in America has a story about a friend or relative who inexplicably wasted huge amounts of time and money on disreputable, uncouth, boorish men–in total defiance of all logic and reason.

            Regardless, Trump himself has had four beautiful wives and a history of womanizing. Far from disqualifying, this puts him in the esteemed company of Bill Clinton and John Kennedy; even FDR had a mistress.

            E Harding — Polls like that are mostly post-hoc rationalizations. No one is going to say they like Trump because he feels strong and decisive and seems manly and powerful; it wouldn’t jive with our self-image as rational beings (which is mostly an illusion) and would be a thought-crime in our current anti-masculine society. I don’t doubt that those issues are important to people but facts and logic don’t persuade, emotions do.

          • TheWorst says:

            Those “unrealistic exaggerated masculine” men who are in prison receive more love letters from women than nice-guy dweebs like Tim Kaine ever will.

            In fairness, while that phenomenon is real, I’m not sure this part’s true. Tim Kaine’s been married a long time. More importantly, you’re not controlling for fame. Prisoners who are famous get love letters, but I suspect non-prisoners who are famous get more. Think Keanu Reeves is hurting for female attention?

            And there are probably far, far more women who’ll sleep with Kaine-like dweebs than imprisoned serial-killers, but no one notices when that happens because it’s not news.

        • hooniversalist says:

          It’s a cartoon version of masculinity, which appeals to those who are having problems with the real kind.

          Consider:
          1. Countersignaling is still a kind of signaling.
          2. Sufficiently advanced countersignaling is indistinguishable from first-level signaling.

        • The Nybbler says:

          I like this aspect of Trump because he anchors the far end of “domineering asshole”.

        • TheWorst says:

          It’s a cartoon version of masculinity, which appeals to those who are having problems with the real kind.

          I’ve been trying not to say that, out of charity, but it seems pretty clear. Trump is a way to ineptly signal masculinity–and all of those are very appealing for people looking to overcompensate. The problem is that pointing out insecure people’s insecurity-induced overcompensation doesn’t help it, because “not getting mocked enough for low masculinity” is not the problem they have.

          It’s like if someone’s limping offends you, kicking them in the broken leg isn’t going to make them limp less. I see things like this happen a lot, where a problem is caused by too much of $Thing, and everyone’s immediate response is to do more of $Thing, and then be confused when it doesn’t make the problem go away. You can’t punch bruises off of people.

          I’m not sure what the solution is, though, when $Thing is a fun thing to do to people who–due to being overThing’d–are widely seen as distasteful.

          • mtraven says:

            Yes, calling Trump supporters low-masculinity to their face is probably not an effective way of changing their minds.

            But I think anybody supporting Trump at this stage is probably too far gone to be reachable. I’m not interested in changing their minds, but it still is important to understand where this pathology is coming from.

          • TheWorst says:

            Fair enough. I was refraining from saying it because our host seems to prefer a norm against argumentum-ad-sissyhood, and I basically agree. Which leads me to refrain from making “you only think that because you’re a pussy” arguments even when I suspect that I might’ve happened across one of the rare instances where it’s true–to the extent that I’m only mentioning that because the thread seems to’ve died down enough that it won’t spread too far.

    • DISAPPOINTMENT says:

      WHERE DO YOU FIND THESE PEOPLE, SCOTT?????

  95. Bill Walker says:

    HIllary is the only guaranteed warmonger. Trump is probably controlled by the same people (his fundraising chief is from Goldman Sachs, after all), but there’s no absolute guarantee that he would keep invading random countries e.g. Libya. A vote for Hillary is a vote for war, plain and simple. It’s also a vote to continue the Drug War, and to continue the Obama anti-immigrant deportation policy.

    Gary Johnson is a guaranteed non-warmonger, and a moderate on domestic policy as well. Isn’t it time we dumped the Drug War? Can’t we just vote for someone sane, instead of picking which senile war hawk from the 1970s should be figurehead?

  96. Jill says:

    Here’s the reason Dems “cried wolf” and said that Romney/Ryan would be horrible in the White House. They would have been horrible– although Trump would be beyond horrible.

    Since the U.S. is immersed in Right Wing propaganda, Ryan always seems to everyone here and everywhere else, as if he is not a fraud. But the truth of the matter is that he is a fraud. His federal budget numbers he offered never even came close to adding up.

    The King of False Equivalence
    http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/10/04/the-king-of-false-equivalence/?module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog%20Main&contentCollection=Opinion&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs&region=Body&_r=0

  97. A cool cat says:

    Yeah, Scott kind of missed the mark with this post. I usually expect better. Then again, maybe that’s just because I disagree. Clinton clearly wants to go to war with Russia and her neocon advisors want to start more wars in the Mid East. Soros profits from more global conflicts.

    Scott is a soft person, but he’s smart enough to understand the rationale for Trump’s vindictiveness and how it could preclude conflict. Trump doesn’t understand the details but he clearly understands the nature of conflict. By showing strength early and “smashing ISIS”, future conflict may be avoided.

    I think Scott is able to keep an open mind about these things. However, commenters like Jill and mtraven are lifelong leftists and truly cannot be reached.

    • Nope says:

      Would you like to lay a bet on Clinton going to war with Russia (assuming she’s elected)? Not only do I doubt it would happen – I doubt you really think it would happen. But prove me wrong on both counts!

      Post if you want to bet. I’ll check back a couple times. We obviously need to agree on terms. Let me know what odds and time frame you’d like to go with.

  98. For those not thoroughly fed up with arguing about the candidates, a link to an interesting old piece by Brad DeLong.

    • Nope says:

      And a link to an old story by Fred Clark.

    • Iain says:

      I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you were not aware, but it looks a bit disingenuous to link to Brad DeLong’s 2003 assessment of Clinton, while leaving out his 2015 reassessment.

      • I was aware that he now supported her, was not aware of that particular text.

        Does such a switch raise or lower your opinion of DeLong? I don’t know him and haven’t followed him. But lots of people argue, not unreasonably, that Trump’s repeated switches are evidence against him. If he thought Hillary Clinton obviously shouldn’t be in the White House immediately after having dealt closely with her, says she should be at a later date when she is the obvious Democratic candidate, how do you interpret it?

        For a different case, consider Krugman and the minimum wage. Back when he was an academic economist he supported the same conventional account as the rest of us even after the Card and Krueger study, which is the main thing people use as evidence against that account, had been published. Now, when he is a professional public intellectual, he takes the opposite position. I take that as evidence against his honesty not in favor of his open mindedness.

        • Anonymous Bosch says:

          But lots of people argue, not unreasonably, that Trump’s repeated switches are evidence against him.

          DeLong’s 2015 endorsement links and directly engages with his 2003 comments and specifically points out what caused him to revise his opinion. This kind of self-reflection seems completely alien to Trump, whose approach is to insist to the ends of the earth that he’s always felt this way.

          • cassander says:

            I would note that his 2015 update is noticeably scanty on the details about Hillary’s tenure at state that demonstrate her supposed managerial competence, and it also seems to rely heavily on the sort of inside baseball that he condemned in 2003. The assertion that betting on obama’s lack of managerial experience has paid off seems almost laughably absurd.

          • Edward Scizorhands says:

            His 2003 column was based on the fact that there were other Democratic nominees.

            His 2015 column was based on the fact that Clinton was the presumed nominee.

            In fact, that’s not unreasonable. “First any Democrat, and second any Democrat but Clinton” is well understood. But deLong knows it sounds trite and simplistic, because it is, and so he wraps it up in a bunch of puffery.

        • Iain says:

          I am actively in favour of people changing their minds when presented with new evidence, particularly if they are willing to provide an explanation of what that evidence was, and why it changed their mind. I can see why DeLong’s change might look suspicious from across the aisle, but I personally find his explanation quite plausible. In particular, recognize that the middle chunk of his post, explaining that he has changed his mind about Clinton, is from 2008, in a post where he went on to explain why he was nevertheless supporting Obama.

          As for Krugman: I follow his blog and have a pretty high opinion of Krugman’s openness and honesty. In the post-Brexit aftermath, for example, he consistently went against the general consensus in questioning the short-term negative repercussions of the vote. He’s also had a set of posts questioning whether income inequality is in itself bad for growth. For reasons of intellectual hygiene, I’ve gone looking for reasons to distrust Krugman a few times in the past, and never come up with anything that I found compelling.

          His op-ed here cites Card and Krueger as the study that changed his mind. He could be wrong about the minimum wage, but there are enough cases where he’s questioned the left-wing consensus that I’m willing to trust that he means what he says about it.

        • Anonymous says:

          ^ This David Friedman comment screams partisan rationalization hiding itself from its speaker – to me.

          To grossly paraphrase, as I see it: Delong was anti-Clinton, now he’s for her; you should think the first opinion was truer/more correct. Ditto for Krugman on another issue.

          People change their minds because they’re sellouts.

          And oh by the way if you disagree with these examples, don’t dare criticize Trump for any inconsistencies. PS VOTE JOHNSON. HE COULD WIN. PPS I AM NOT A CRANK

          • “People change their minds because they’re sellouts.”

            More precisely, if people change their mind in the direction of what it has clearly become in their self interest to claim to believe one ought to be skeptical of the revised version.

  99. N.T.G. says:

    I’m not an American but I hope Trump will win (which is sadly unlikely) and I’d vote for him if I were from the US. You said you expect her “to play by the book” and I expect it too which is why I’m against her. Obviously, foreign policy is what matters to me the most and I base my opinion solely on it.
    Current US foreign policy is just pure evil and exploiting whatever they can without any respect for other people. It amazes me how anyone can say “there may be another Syria-style intervention” (I may be paraphrasing here, but I remember I read it somewhere in one of your posts) in such a light manner. Virtually any of those great humanitarian interventions where unjustified disasters from the get go. Situation in Syria was not so bad until US decided to arm “friendly rebels” and train volunteers to fight Assad. In Ukraine 2014 US were supporting ultra right-wing, fascist rebels (very friendly, of course) and now Ukraine has a fascist government that can barely keep the country going. Honduras, Libya, Iraq, you name it, similar stories with the same outcome – hell, destabilization of a region and deaths of thousands of people.
    And the thing is this – will Trump continue to do the same, I don’t know, maybe he will, maybe he won’t. In case of Clinton I’m 100% sure she will continue this absurd, because she is basically a property of Saudi Arabia, US best ally who is supporting all those terrorists groups and who also donates millions for Clinton’s campaign, so I don’t think she has any intentions to fight terrorism. She had all these years to fight it and they did nothing and helped to shape the new group – ISIS.
    When it comes to foreign affairs Trump’s statements, to me, were not so alarming (I’ve only seen the first debate and wasn’t interested about the election until recently, so I’m not very aware about all the “But back when he was 5 years old he supported annihilation of the whole planet – how about that?”) It’s true, though, that I treat his words very lightly because a) he is from outside and can’t have all the information, so if he supports some intervention, then, when elected and well informed can change his mind, b) he has to distinguish himself very much from Clinton and live to his image of being quite provoking and controversial.
    On a debate, he seemed more aware of whats really going on with other countries, he didn’t say the typical nonsense about Russia as Clinton and your media do (he even called her out on her bullshit about supposed Russian hack attacks).
    So in short, being worse for the world than Obama and Clinton will be very hard and I don’t think Trump will be able to beat them.

  100. Maven says:

    Trump would go in with overwhelming force against weak opponents to achieve clear objectives that are advantageous to the US, even if not always well grounded morally.

    Clinton would cut the defense budget at the same time as picking a fight with a nuclear superpower to protect America’s enemies in a country that contains nothing of value.

    • Fahundo says:

      overwhelming force against weak opponents

      I remember hearing this before, around 2002

      • Maven says:

        Was the mistake in 2003 using overwhelming force against weak opponents, or not choosing clear objectives advantageous to the US?

        Would it have been better to have invaded Russia instead of Iraq?

  101. Word says:

    Saying he’ll “bomb the shit out of ISIS” isn’t in conflict with the America-first rhetoric. Trump has run against nation-building and getting bogged down in the region, not refusing to target actual threats.

    Post overall seems like a typical case of someone who’s smart but gets too caught up in the details and misses the overall point. I don’t trust Trump to handle international crises well, but the campaign he’s run is the more “isolationist” / anti-optional humanitarian intervention of the two.

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  103. Anonymous says:

    i think if u think Russia would be less likely to go to war with us with Hillary than Trump, u arent very smart.