Varieties of anti-politics
3/4

Nobody Gives A Shit Who You're Voting For
2000 wasn't pre-internet, but it was proto-internet, and one genre it gave birth to was the long essay about WHY I AM VOTING FOR X (usually Nader). These weren't persuasion pieces, these were ME pieces. I question the effectiveness of most persuasion pieces at this point, but they're still a different genre. The ME pieces are just navel-gazers. Nobody cares. They're boring. Vote for who you want.

related/repeats

2/28

I suppose it's weird to be a political blogger and not have all that much to say about the Democratic primary. I just don't have any deep analysis that people who read this blog can't figure out by themselves. I don't like discussions of "momentum" or how candidate X needs to be up 5 points (or whatever) in Colorado (or wherever) in order to "remain viable." It all starts to sound like sports commentary (they really need to get some points on the board! he's got a hot hand!).

I don't really find any electability arguments to be particularly persuasive. That doesn't mean they're wrong, and you might find them persuasive, but I don't have much interest in engaging them. Clinton will likely win, Sanders will likely lose, and while anything is still possible, that's always been the case, though that is not an argument to stop working for either candidate if you are doing that.

God this blog sucks.

"pathologically opposed to ambiguity" "throw/s up his hands" "pathologically anti-intellectual" "know-nothing" Do a site search if you want.

I like Hillary Clinton. I worried a bit about some of the idiots she has surrounded herself with. But happy for her to run.

If he imagines it as cut and dried, he's happy to show contempt; if he imagines it isn't, he'll hedge. And then if he likes someone it all goes out the window.

DeLong on Jeane Kirkpatrick

her counsel--even at its most boneheaded--was always devoted to advancing the security of the United States and the cause of liberty and prosperity around the world.

Todd

The powerful negative effect of the variable 'proportion of workers' on the number of demonstrators indicates, on the other hand, that the lower classes have now completely escaped from the ideological control of the culturally dominant classes. The geographical organization of society largely explains this negative liberty. With great realism, Christophe Guilluy has centred his depiction of French society on the way the lower classes have been relegated to the periphery. Forced out into the geographical margins of urban areas, the workers no longer turn out to demonstrate in the hearts of town and cities. They can no longer be mobilized on an ad hoc basis, just as they can no longer be controlled ideologically: witness the way large numbers of them vote for the National Front. It is true that Francois Hollande and the Socialist Party had, by refusing the National Front any place in the 'great republican demonstrations', implicitly designated NF voters as non-desirables in the heart of our cities. At a time when the neo-republican pact is being sealed, the perfectly real category of `workers' is no more welcome than the imaginary category of 'Muslims'.