They violated Boasberg's order to turn the 2 planes around and return the deportees that didn't get due process, plus there was a 3rd plane that took off after his order. The DoJ lawyers' arguments are insane, saying they followed the written order but not the verbal one, and that courts don't have jurisdiction outside the country, and they're still refusing to share facts about the flights.
In the Abrego Garcia case the DoJ is still not reporting status updates about him and even though the Supreme Court unanimously stated that they must facilitate Abrego Garcia's return and share what they have with the courts, there was a status update filed last night that said the DoJ thinks the Supreme Court decision should be interpreted to mean that the court can only order them to do things domestically - which is insane. They are still not following the simple parts of the court order like providing status updates, even though they could plausibly win the appeal since if El Salvador refuses to give Abrego Garcia back, there's no way for even the SC to order the President to commit e.g. an invasiom to get him back. But they're not even complying by sharing details, which is setting them up for criminal contempt and referrals to the Bar. Which again, is insane that DoJ lawyers are acting this corruptly and refusing to answer to judge's orders.
You laid out an incredibly detailed, prescient, and original argument for Harris over Trump. It may have been the best one leading up to the 2024 election. Excellent job, Mathew!
As someone who sincerely supported Trump during the 2024 election, I'll admit you make some good points. I hate war and one thing I loved about Trump's first term was that he was good at not starting wars. His second term, however, has been a complete about-face. I have no idea why he is acting in such an unstable manner. The talk about invading Greenland is very strange, and the talk about a third term legitimately makes me sick. I definitely appreciate some of Trump's second term policies -- I agree with his views on DEI, transgenderism, and I also appreciate his defense of pro-lifers, although I really don't think he has any sincere commitment to the pro-life movement. As someone who cares very deeply about social conservatism and traditional moral values, it's also been disappointing to see Trump totally abandon the conservative agenda with regards to issues like opposition to gay marriage and defense of the natural law. Admittedly, Trump's personal life hasn't exactly been lived in accord with the natural law either, so that's hardly surprising.
I am not an expert in economics by any means, but the tariffs seem like a bad idea according to basically every expert on the planet, so I'll take their word for it. Even Ben Shapiro, who is a Trump supporter and whose opinion I greatly respect, recognizes that they are a bad idea.
I would point out, however, that Kamala Harris would have probably caused even more problems (I don't really like fighting about politics with people though so I don't mind if you disagree). I'll be writing an article next Monday that will address what I think the solution to this problem is. Both the Democratic and Republican parties are failing Americans very badly right now. The only solution is to get rid of the two-party system.
In general, I think that people focus too much on politics. I don't base my identity or my value on my political affiliation -- that comes from God alone, who loves me infinitely even though I don't even remotely deserve it. Instead of fighting about politics, I think it'd be better if people spent more time talking about the issues that underlie these political disputes. These are the issues of philosophy and religion, from which a great many political disagreements flow. And those are issues are much more interesting to talk about anyways.
I agree with what you say that's critical of Trump but disagree about many of the supposed positives. I also agree that people get way too polarized about politics. I'm quite happy to have friends who disagree with me about politics.
Regarding wars: while Trump did not start a new war, he did have an often disastrous foreign policy. He totally abandoned the Kurds and funded, even over the protestations of congress, a horrifying war in Yemen, carried out with U.S. arms, that killed over half a million people. 61% of the Saudi's arms came from the U.S.. The war was an utter failure, doing nothing but reducing most of Yemen to rebel and giving the Houthis greater legitimacy.
On transgenderism, even if one holds your positions, almost no children get transgender surgeries. A few thousand people get puberty blockers, which are reversible, and the number of genuine surgeries is around 1,000 https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-transyouth-data/number-of-transgender-children-seeking-treatment-surges-in-u-s-idUKL1N3142UU/. Trump probably won't reduce those numbers much, and many of those people would have gotten treatment anyway later, so even these numbers are childsplay compared to the number that Trump directly has killed.
On abortion, Trump has fully embraced IVF to compensate for his abortion policy, which kills more fetuses than abortion. Thus, even on the issue of murdering fetuses, Trump is totally terrible from a conservative perspective.
Agree that tariffs are bad. There's been a broad consensus in economics for centuries that tariffs are terrible on both the left and right. One of the best predictors of economic prosperity is free trade, as Garrett Jones describes in his book The Culture Transplant. The tariffs are particularly pernicious because Trump is imposing them on desperately poor countries like Vietnam. Imposing massive taxes on people earning a few dollars a day is completely the opposite. A major theme of the Bible is that it's evil to mistreat the poor--tariffing the poorest people on Earth and abruptly cutting off their life-saving medicine is wretched.
Hard agree. Trump’s nature has been obvious since his efforts to steal 2020 election. Killing PEPFAR off the bat just made it more obvious. Silver lining: at least his awful econ policy will ruin him in the midterms. Hope we get an impeachment and conviction after that.
While I think some of your complaints are wrong or overstated, and others are simply beyond my scope of concern entirely, I agree with the basic observation that Trump has been a lot worse than pretty much anyone thought he would be. The mistake that Richard Hanania made is that he expected this Trump term to resemble the first one. I made the same error in judgment--while I still refused to vote for Trump, I also dismissed the doomsayers by pointing to his first term. The doomsayers are definitely vindicated to some extent. With that said:
>When they supported killing people, they at least had some justification for it.<
This hints at the reason we are here to begin with. The "competent people running things" actually have been getting less and less competent over time, and they got really really incompetent just now. Joe Biden was not competent. More competent than Trump? Perhaps, but not by enough to convince the voters. The weakness, stupidity and constant lies from the Biden administration are what drove a critical mass of people to support Trump in the first place.
When you say "If Harris had been elected, she would have listened to smart people," I disagree. She might have listened to smart people if they happened to be far leftists. Other than that, not so much. There is actually an angle by which you could argue that, for all his flaws, Trump is still more responsive to reality than someone like Kamala Harris--because he has no real ideology, his actions are malleable based on their results. In the span of a couple weeks he has already reversed course on his absurd tariff policy due to the backlash.
Woke-left actors behave in a rigidly ideological fashion and as such are completely immune to reality. This faction completely failed to read the writing on the wall until it was far too late and now we're here. We got this election outcome because the undying devotion to woke dogma allowed Donald Trump to take the 80% position on a bunch of really obvious 80-20 issues. If you're letting Donald Trump outflank you that easily because you are determined to keep denying reality at any cost, you are not "competent." Even now, it is unclear whether or not Democrats will be capable of doing any form of politics that is not centered on woke insanity. Will this Trump term finally be enough to get their heads out of their asses? Hopefully so, but no one knows.
I don't agree that Hanania is intelligent. Apart from that everything written here is obviously true, although anyone non-braindead could have predicated that
You seem to have a high bar for intelligence. Do you not consider his BA, JD, or PhD strong demonstrations of intelligence? Do you at least consider his admission of fault a sign of good faith?
Obviously having a PhD is some indication that someone is intelligent, if you know nothing else about them. But I know many things about Hanania, e.g. that he has never presented any genuinely interesting original thought or that only a few months ago he made some of the dumbest arguments imagineable when debating Matthew. Also that he failed to foresee something that even a 15-year old could have predicted. He's an average mind if I've ever seen one.
Surely you don't think every single PhD holder is intelligent, right?
I'm confident that the median PhD holder is more intelligent than the median U.S. citizen, likely around a 120 IQ, and I don't think a Trump vote from Hanania is enough to revise that prior. It's hyperbolic and uncharitable to characterize Hanania like this (or PhD holders).
"I'm confident that the median PhD holder is more intelligent than the median U.S. citizen, likely around a 120 IQ" - agreed.
"and I don't think a Trump vote from Hanania is enough to revise that prior." - thankfully I am not appealing just to that, but also to his lack of originality, his astonishingly racist past (the average racist is very dumb, since you care about averages so much) and his constantly stupid articles (which include hilarious gems such as claims that one shouldn't attend college if one wants to maximise life-time earnings)
I agree that the arguments from Caplan et al. about college being a waste are flawed, but I can see how there is some truth to the critique. I see a libertarian through line in Hanania's analysis, and that seems much more relevant to intelligence than getting the practical voting issue correct. Republicans do have a natural opposition to regulation, which aligns with this philosophy. I think Hanania's critique of civil rights is not entirely original, but it is a niche position he holds to score originality points. Also, the emphasis on IQ and its potential biological component is unique in political discourse. However, these types of guys focus on it too much and, ironically, end up joining the low-IQ electorate and voting for low-IQ leadership. I think he's a valuable contributor to the online political discourse because he's truly independent and not a shill for either side.
Nothing about this article is good. You’re building a premise on a premise on a premise, but they’re all bad premises loosely attached to reality. Shitlibs having crash outs indicates how compromised they are as managerial class. There is ultimately no substance to the criticisms of the administration. It seems Substack has caught the problem that the mainstream media has where it can’t keep up with all the information flow and it’s taking a toll on the creators - they can’t possibly collate and digest it all to form a bigger picture.
It’s trained people to view things in a very limited way and lead the frustration that not everything is revealed to them. A humble perspective would say maybe I don’t know everything or I’m just being outplayed or I’m not equipped to opine on the things that I’m opining. The victim and the victimizer look at each other in the mirror every morning…but no, it must be some fascist out there!
Firstly, the stock market is not "the economy". Secondly, S&P500 is up 6.35% year-to-date. Tell me, were you this concerned when the S&P500 was down 20% YTD after 3 years of Biden's term? No of course not. The faux outrage is so predictable and so boring.
My bad broski. Didn’t mean YTD. Meant since 1 year ago today. 1) I never claimed that you claimed that. The essay does though. 2) yes in 2023 it was down 20% from 2022. The point is—everyone was fine back then after a much larger and more drawn out drop. Hence “faux outrage”.
If you’re going to cherry-pick stock market stats, here’s one for you: 9th April was the single largest single day gain in the history of the Nasdaq.
1) i never claimed that, 2) wtf are you talking about, S&P500 is down 9.98% YTD, 3) the S&P500 was not down 20% after 3 years of Biden's term, it was up ~58% after Biden’s full term, 4) I presume you're referencing the ~19% drop in 2022, which was caused largely by external factors whereas this drop under the Trump admin was largely self-inflicted and on a far shorter timescale!
if the "faux outrage" is truly as predictable as you say, I suspect you wouldn't have to lie so blatantly to counter it.
Well if you’re concerned that the race for AGI is existential then you might have really dumb priors and it’s not a big surprise that you’d support a dummy.
For measles, without looking into the epidemiology and practices, the uptick in cases could be just due to selection forces. An antivaxxer got into office so there will be more resources and attention dedicated to monitoring outbreaks of diseases that people are supposed to be vaccinated against. With increased reporting, there will probably also be increased flexibility in how disease concepts are utilized in order to develop a more holistic picture of related symptoms and possible transfers of the disease - which is the right way to do things but will increase errors due to selection effects. E.g. the uptick in VAERS reports by itself is very weak evidence the covid vaccines are toxic because the system has been abused due to sociological selection effects spurred by the increased attention it's received from antivaxxers. Could develop a better understanding by studying the epidemiology but I'm too lazy and distracted by everything else going on.
RFK Jr is definitely an anti vaxxer and overall conspiracy brained retard. I was just pushing back on the a priori analysis of uptick in recorded measles cases implying abnormality in measles occurrences vs abnormality in how we're tracking it.
No, I didn't, because even if that article contained a complete disavowal of his previous views, RFK Jr has done immense harm by being an overall conspiracy brained retard. One of the highlights from his confirmation hearing was when he traveled to Samoa and produced and advertised various videos and made statements to leaders about how vaccines are dangerous, and after multiple children died due to not taking the measles vaccine, RFK Jr said it was probably because the children weren't taking vitamin A and C. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/rfk-jr-samoa-measles-vaccine-crisis-rcna187787
As it stands, I have now read your article and he makes the same misinformation claims.
>Studies have found that vitamin A can dramatically reduce measles mortality.
>Good nutrition remains a best defense against most chronic and infectious illnesses.
This is only the case in countries where deaths due to malnutrition are common. As it happens, those are also the countries where poverty makes it not just unlikely for nutritious food to be distributed, but also for vaccines and other lifesaving medicine to be distributed. Vitamin A doesn't reduce measles mortality all things being equal - it only does so when measles infection is confounded with malnutrition.
>By 1960 -- before the vaccine’s introduction -- improvements in sanitation and nutrition had eliminated 98% of measles deaths.
This is just not true. Measles deaths were eliminated due to antibiotics that could minimize symptoms of the infection. The vaccine further eliminated deaths by decreasing the odds that your body wouldn't be able to quickly identify and kill the virus before it spread so far into your body it caused you to experience life threatening symptoms due to the infection or spread to other people.
Thanks for your good-faith response. I think we can agree that both sanitation, nutrition, and antibiotics all helped reduce measles deaths pre-1960. It would be impossible to determine the relative contribution of each of these. The point about antibiotics is a good one to include though.
Sadly when RFK says something, it triggers an automatic opposite response even if RFK is right. If you google “measles vitamin A” you’ll see a swathe of reactionary articles claiming that RFK is wrong. This reeks of politics, not science. The same is true for the case for fluoride in water, for example.
>I think we can agree that both sanitation, nutrition, and antibiotics all helped reduce measles deaths pre-1960. It would be impossible to determine the relative contribution of each of these.
No, I definitely wouldn't agree with this, this is a retarded claim with various ways to test and disprove competing hypotheses - and the work has already been done, although I haven't reviewed it all. For one you can just give antibiotics to African countries that have shitty sanitation and no hope of developing clean infrastructure to isolate the independent variables. You can observe different outcomes in malnourished vs normal people. You can observe different outcomes in global trends and use a time index to determine the most likely causal variable. There is an unlimited way to test these and there's no ambiguity that antibiotics in this case and in general are effective at fighting diseases and reducing lethal symptoms.
>NFID issued a call to action for vitamin A to be used in treated measles in the US back in 2020 because the evidence was so strong
From the pdf in the link: "In the US, studies have shown that hospitalized measles patients are frequently vitamin A deficient, with low serum vitamin A levels correlating with the severity of measles disease.12,13,14" Vitamin A therapy is only useful as a supplement to vaccination if you're deficient, like I said. From further in the pdf:
"Regarding the use of vitamin A, some members of the Orthodox Jewish community began to rely on recommendations from families who gave their children a spoonful of cod liver oil daily, which contains vitamin A, irrespective of measles exposure and as an alternative to MMR vaccination. Other members of the community began circulating their own guidance on dosage of vitamin A maintaining that “people who took vitamin A got the measles much later” than those who did not.25 It should be noted that vitamin A does not prevent measles. It is not appropriate for parents to use vitamin A as a preventive measure."
Hilariously, the next paragraph literally references what RFK Jr was involved in:
"Additionally, a 2019 outbreak of measles in the island nation of Samoa that has caused more than 82 deaths26 has drastically increased social media commentary regarding vitamin use in measles prevention and management. Comments on social media have suggested the use of vitamin A, vitamin C, or selenium to prevent measles. Further education aimed at the general public is required to help distinguish effective vs. ineffective measures in measles management."
RFK Jr's article does not "help distinguish effective vs. ineffective measures in measles management."
It's interesting I've never seen you write about AI. Now that the AI 2027 forecast came out, I've a feeling politics are on track to becoming irrelevant.
I do not have remotely as positive a view of who Harris would have listened to as you do. I got the distinct impression that progressives would be getting everything they ever wanted. What do you think of MMT?
Anyway, at decivitate, Heaney rightly points out that project 2025 would have been much better than what has been happening. (It's not surprising that I like project 2025, considering that I'm conservative, but I bet you would also agree.)
In what ways do you believe Harris would have been economically destructive? If possible, could you outline it concretely? Keep in mind that Republicans control both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate, which was also the most likely outcome in the run-up to the 2024 election.
She wanted to crack down on price-gouging. Price controls would be disastrous. I feel like there were more things, but I don't remember concretely. I assume a big push for more spending (but who knows whether that will happen anyway).
If Harris won, then the prediction markets at the time were putting it at about a 50% chance she'd have the Senate, and basically certain that she'd have the house (these all correlate, of course). Also, both Manchin and Sinema, who were the main ones obstructing anything, would both be gone; the filibuster would be repealed, and all sorts of bills would start to be passed.
The big push for more spending is not unique, as Trump will also increase the deficit through tax cuts. Price gouging is not going to have the negative market impact that tariffs have.
The filibuster would not and will not be repealed.
The correlation point is moot, as at the individual level, you could vote for Harris and, if possible, a Republican for the legislature.
>The filibuster would not and will not be repealed.
Uh, do you have any reason to think that? There were a bunch of democrats campaigning on that explicitly, and in the past, the only two senators willing to resist that were both gone. Sinema was gone in large part because she refused to do things like scrap the filibuster.
>The correlation point is moot, as at the individual level, you could vote for Harris and, if possible, a Republican for the legislature.
No, that's absurd. The case where my vote is relevant is the one where it's the deciding vote. It's extremely unlikely that both your votes will matter. So what matters is what does that scenario look like? I'm saying that when your particular vote matters, the prediction markets thought that there was a 50% chance in that situation that you'd be electing Harris into a situation where she had the Senate under her control.
"He’s repeatedly antagonized Europe and Canada and has ended U.S. participation in the world health organization—a decision that will massively increase existential risks. We no longer have the capacity for an effective global response to pandemics and bioterrorism."
After seeing the shitshow that was the global response to COVID, who would want any more effective global responses to pandemics? Lol. Good riddance to you experts.
They have violated two court orders at this time.
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69741724/jgg-v-trump/#minute-entry-420862452
They violated Boasberg's order to turn the 2 planes around and return the deportees that didn't get due process, plus there was a 3rd plane that took off after his order. The DoJ lawyers' arguments are insane, saying they followed the written order but not the verbal one, and that courts don't have jurisdiction outside the country, and they're still refusing to share facts about the flights.
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69777799/abrego-garcia-v-noem/#entry-61
In the Abrego Garcia case the DoJ is still not reporting status updates about him and even though the Supreme Court unanimously stated that they must facilitate Abrego Garcia's return and share what they have with the courts, there was a status update filed last night that said the DoJ thinks the Supreme Court decision should be interpreted to mean that the court can only order them to do things domestically - which is insane. They are still not following the simple parts of the court order like providing status updates, even though they could plausibly win the appeal since if El Salvador refuses to give Abrego Garcia back, there's no way for even the SC to order the President to commit e.g. an invasiom to get him back. But they're not even complying by sharing details, which is setting them up for criminal contempt and referrals to the Bar. Which again, is insane that DoJ lawyers are acting this corruptly and refusing to answer to judge's orders.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/14/el-salvador-president-return-wrongly-deported-trump-00289234
The outright corruption is insane
At least Rubio recently has the occasional pained expression.
You laid out an incredibly detailed, prescient, and original argument for Harris over Trump. It may have been the best one leading up to the 2024 election. Excellent job, Mathew!
Another clear banger, Bentham! This is indeed the correct level of analysis, and all the "more complicated" cases perpetually mistake that.
As someone who sincerely supported Trump during the 2024 election, I'll admit you make some good points. I hate war and one thing I loved about Trump's first term was that he was good at not starting wars. His second term, however, has been a complete about-face. I have no idea why he is acting in such an unstable manner. The talk about invading Greenland is very strange, and the talk about a third term legitimately makes me sick. I definitely appreciate some of Trump's second term policies -- I agree with his views on DEI, transgenderism, and I also appreciate his defense of pro-lifers, although I really don't think he has any sincere commitment to the pro-life movement. As someone who cares very deeply about social conservatism and traditional moral values, it's also been disappointing to see Trump totally abandon the conservative agenda with regards to issues like opposition to gay marriage and defense of the natural law. Admittedly, Trump's personal life hasn't exactly been lived in accord with the natural law either, so that's hardly surprising.
I am not an expert in economics by any means, but the tariffs seem like a bad idea according to basically every expert on the planet, so I'll take their word for it. Even Ben Shapiro, who is a Trump supporter and whose opinion I greatly respect, recognizes that they are a bad idea.
I would point out, however, that Kamala Harris would have probably caused even more problems (I don't really like fighting about politics with people though so I don't mind if you disagree). I'll be writing an article next Monday that will address what I think the solution to this problem is. Both the Democratic and Republican parties are failing Americans very badly right now. The only solution is to get rid of the two-party system.
In general, I think that people focus too much on politics. I don't base my identity or my value on my political affiliation -- that comes from God alone, who loves me infinitely even though I don't even remotely deserve it. Instead of fighting about politics, I think it'd be better if people spent more time talking about the issues that underlie these political disputes. These are the issues of philosophy and religion, from which a great many political disagreements flow. And those are issues are much more interesting to talk about anyways.
I agree with what you say that's critical of Trump but disagree about many of the supposed positives. I also agree that people get way too polarized about politics. I'm quite happy to have friends who disagree with me about politics.
Regarding wars: while Trump did not start a new war, he did have an often disastrous foreign policy. He totally abandoned the Kurds and funded, even over the protestations of congress, a horrifying war in Yemen, carried out with U.S. arms, that killed over half a million people. 61% of the Saudi's arms came from the U.S.. The war was an utter failure, doing nothing but reducing most of Yemen to rebel and giving the Houthis greater legitimacy.
On DEI, I share some of your concern about DEI overreach. But I think Trump's policies on this front have mostly done more harm than good. Many of the programs he axes aren't actually DEI programs, and are just ones that have a few DEI code words https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/only-about-40-of-the-cruz-woke-science?utm_source=publication-search. Among other things, with the aim of fighting DEI, the Trump administration has cut foreign aid programs including PEPFAR, which has saved about 25 million lives. https://x.com/KelseyTuoc/status/1889166677801406615 https://www.brookings.edu/articles/pepfar-delivers-outsized-returns-it-deserves-more-funding/. Killing millions of people--and this is not hyperbole--is a much bigger deal than basically anything else.
On transgenderism, even if one holds your positions, almost no children get transgender surgeries. A few thousand people get puberty blockers, which are reversible, and the number of genuine surgeries is around 1,000 https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-transyouth-data/number-of-transgender-children-seeking-treatment-surges-in-u-s-idUKL1N3142UU/. Trump probably won't reduce those numbers much, and many of those people would have gotten treatment anyway later, so even these numbers are childsplay compared to the number that Trump directly has killed.
On abortion, Trump has fully embraced IVF to compensate for his abortion policy, which kills more fetuses than abortion. Thus, even on the issue of murdering fetuses, Trump is totally terrible from a conservative perspective.
Agree that tariffs are bad. There's been a broad consensus in economics for centuries that tariffs are terrible on both the left and right. One of the best predictors of economic prosperity is free trade, as Garrett Jones describes in his book The Culture Transplant. The tariffs are particularly pernicious because Trump is imposing them on desperately poor countries like Vietnam. Imposing massive taxes on people earning a few dollars a day is completely the opposite. A major theme of the Bible is that it's evil to mistreat the poor--tariffing the poorest people on Earth and abruptly cutting off their life-saving medicine is wretched.
You're a culture warrior. That's why you got duped. You voted for an incredibly unstable human being who is also very, very dumb.
But hey, at least there aren't trans women getting 3rd place ribbons in the 200 meter medley at the JUCO national championships or whatever.
Good job.
Hard agree. Trump’s nature has been obvious since his efforts to steal 2020 election. Killing PEPFAR off the bat just made it more obvious. Silver lining: at least his awful econ policy will ruin him in the midterms. Hope we get an impeachment and conviction after that.
While I think some of your complaints are wrong or overstated, and others are simply beyond my scope of concern entirely, I agree with the basic observation that Trump has been a lot worse than pretty much anyone thought he would be. The mistake that Richard Hanania made is that he expected this Trump term to resemble the first one. I made the same error in judgment--while I still refused to vote for Trump, I also dismissed the doomsayers by pointing to his first term. The doomsayers are definitely vindicated to some extent. With that said:
>When they supported killing people, they at least had some justification for it.<
This hints at the reason we are here to begin with. The "competent people running things" actually have been getting less and less competent over time, and they got really really incompetent just now. Joe Biden was not competent. More competent than Trump? Perhaps, but not by enough to convince the voters. The weakness, stupidity and constant lies from the Biden administration are what drove a critical mass of people to support Trump in the first place.
When you say "If Harris had been elected, she would have listened to smart people," I disagree. She might have listened to smart people if they happened to be far leftists. Other than that, not so much. There is actually an angle by which you could argue that, for all his flaws, Trump is still more responsive to reality than someone like Kamala Harris--because he has no real ideology, his actions are malleable based on their results. In the span of a couple weeks he has already reversed course on his absurd tariff policy due to the backlash.
Woke-left actors behave in a rigidly ideological fashion and as such are completely immune to reality. This faction completely failed to read the writing on the wall until it was far too late and now we're here. We got this election outcome because the undying devotion to woke dogma allowed Donald Trump to take the 80% position on a bunch of really obvious 80-20 issues. If you're letting Donald Trump outflank you that easily because you are determined to keep denying reality at any cost, you are not "competent." Even now, it is unclear whether or not Democrats will be capable of doing any form of politics that is not centered on woke insanity. Will this Trump term finally be enough to get their heads out of their asses? Hopefully so, but no one knows.
I don't agree that Hanania is intelligent. Apart from that everything written here is obviously true, although anyone non-braindead could have predicated that
You seem to have a high bar for intelligence. Do you not consider his BA, JD, or PhD strong demonstrations of intelligence? Do you at least consider his admission of fault a sign of good faith?
Obviously having a PhD is some indication that someone is intelligent, if you know nothing else about them. But I know many things about Hanania, e.g. that he has never presented any genuinely interesting original thought or that only a few months ago he made some of the dumbest arguments imagineable when debating Matthew. Also that he failed to foresee something that even a 15-year old could have predicted. He's an average mind if I've ever seen one.
Surely you don't think every single PhD holder is intelligent, right?
I'm confident that the median PhD holder is more intelligent than the median U.S. citizen, likely around a 120 IQ, and I don't think a Trump vote from Hanania is enough to revise that prior. It's hyperbolic and uncharitable to characterize Hanania like this (or PhD holders).
"I'm confident that the median PhD holder is more intelligent than the median U.S. citizen, likely around a 120 IQ" - agreed.
"and I don't think a Trump vote from Hanania is enough to revise that prior." - thankfully I am not appealing just to that, but also to his lack of originality, his astonishingly racist past (the average racist is very dumb, since you care about averages so much) and his constantly stupid articles (which include hilarious gems such as claims that one shouldn't attend college if one wants to maximise life-time earnings)
I agree that the arguments from Caplan et al. about college being a waste are flawed, but I can see how there is some truth to the critique. I see a libertarian through line in Hanania's analysis, and that seems much more relevant to intelligence than getting the practical voting issue correct. Republicans do have a natural opposition to regulation, which aligns with this philosophy. I think Hanania's critique of civil rights is not entirely original, but it is a niche position he holds to score originality points. Also, the emphasis on IQ and its potential biological component is unique in political discourse. However, these types of guys focus on it too much and, ironically, end up joining the low-IQ electorate and voting for low-IQ leadership. I think he's a valuable contributor to the online political discourse because he's truly independent and not a shill for either side.
Well that he's a libertarian is even more evidence against his intelligence, for me.
Nothing about this article is good. You’re building a premise on a premise on a premise, but they’re all bad premises loosely attached to reality. Shitlibs having crash outs indicates how compromised they are as managerial class. There is ultimately no substance to the criticisms of the administration. It seems Substack has caught the problem that the mainstream media has where it can’t keep up with all the information flow and it’s taking a toll on the creators - they can’t possibly collate and digest it all to form a bigger picture.
It’s trained people to view things in a very limited way and lead the frustration that not everything is revealed to them. A humble perspective would say maybe I don’t know everything or I’m just being outplayed or I’m not equipped to opine on the things that I’m opining. The victim and the victimizer look at each other in the mirror every morning…but no, it must be some fascist out there!
As of today's close (4/14) the S&P500 is down 4.7% from its level before Liberation Day. I would hardly call that way down.
Since inauguration day, the stock market is down 15.6%
Firstly, the stock market is not "the economy". Secondly, S&P500 is up 6.35% year-to-date. Tell me, were you this concerned when the S&P500 was down 20% YTD after 3 years of Biden's term? No of course not. The faux outrage is so predictable and so boring.
My bad broski. Didn’t mean YTD. Meant since 1 year ago today. 1) I never claimed that you claimed that. The essay does though. 2) yes in 2023 it was down 20% from 2022. The point is—everyone was fine back then after a much larger and more drawn out drop. Hence “faux outrage”.
If you’re going to cherry-pick stock market stats, here’s one for you: 9th April was the single largest single day gain in the history of the Nasdaq.
1) i never claimed that, 2) wtf are you talking about, S&P500 is down 9.98% YTD, 3) the S&P500 was not down 20% after 3 years of Biden's term, it was up ~58% after Biden’s full term, 4) I presume you're referencing the ~19% drop in 2022, which was caused largely by external factors whereas this drop under the Trump admin was largely self-inflicted and on a far shorter timescale!
if the "faux outrage" is truly as predictable as you say, I suspect you wouldn't have to lie so blatantly to counter it.
He might still die from physical causes, and we can pivot
Well if you’re concerned that the race for AGI is existential then you might have really dumb priors and it’s not a big surprise that you’d support a dummy.
For measles, without looking into the epidemiology and practices, the uptick in cases could be just due to selection forces. An antivaxxer got into office so there will be more resources and attention dedicated to monitoring outbreaks of diseases that people are supposed to be vaccinated against. With increased reporting, there will probably also be increased flexibility in how disease concepts are utilized in order to develop a more holistic picture of related symptoms and possible transfers of the disease - which is the right way to do things but will increase errors due to selection effects. E.g. the uptick in VAERS reports by itself is very weak evidence the covid vaccines are toxic because the system has been abused due to sociological selection effects spurred by the increased attention it's received from antivaxxers. Could develop a better understanding by studying the epidemiology but I'm too lazy and distracted by everything else going on.
Yeah I just have no idea how you can read this opinion piece: https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/robert-f-kennedy-jr-measles-outbreak-call-action-all-us and claim RFK jr is an "anti-vaxxer"
RFK Jr is definitely an anti vaxxer and overall conspiracy brained retard. I was just pushing back on the a priori analysis of uptick in recorded measles cases implying abnormality in measles occurrences vs abnormality in how we're tracking it.
Did you read the article I linked?
No, I didn't, because even if that article contained a complete disavowal of his previous views, RFK Jr has done immense harm by being an overall conspiracy brained retard. One of the highlights from his confirmation hearing was when he traveled to Samoa and produced and advertised various videos and made statements to leaders about how vaccines are dangerous, and after multiple children died due to not taking the measles vaccine, RFK Jr said it was probably because the children weren't taking vitamin A and C. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/rfk-jr-samoa-measles-vaccine-crisis-rcna187787
As it stands, I have now read your article and he makes the same misinformation claims.
>Studies have found that vitamin A can dramatically reduce measles mortality.
>Good nutrition remains a best defense against most chronic and infectious illnesses.
This is only the case in countries where deaths due to malnutrition are common. As it happens, those are also the countries where poverty makes it not just unlikely for nutritious food to be distributed, but also for vaccines and other lifesaving medicine to be distributed. Vitamin A doesn't reduce measles mortality all things being equal - it only does so when measles infection is confounded with malnutrition.
>By 1960 -- before the vaccine’s introduction -- improvements in sanitation and nutrition had eliminated 98% of measles deaths.
This is just not true. Measles deaths were eliminated due to antibiotics that could minimize symptoms of the infection. The vaccine further eliminated deaths by decreasing the odds that your body wouldn't be able to quickly identify and kill the virus before it spread so far into your body it caused you to experience life threatening symptoms due to the infection or spread to other people.
Thanks for your good-faith response. I think we can agree that both sanitation, nutrition, and antibiotics all helped reduce measles deaths pre-1960. It would be impossible to determine the relative contribution of each of these. The point about antibiotics is a good one to include though.
Regarding vitamin A, I believe you may be mistaken. NFID issued a call to action for vitamin A to be used in treated measles in the US back in 2020 because the evidence was so strong: https://www.nfid.org/resource/vitamin-a-for-the-management-of-measles-in-the-us/
Sadly when RFK says something, it triggers an automatic opposite response even if RFK is right. If you google “measles vitamin A” you’ll see a swathe of reactionary articles claiming that RFK is wrong. This reeks of politics, not science. The same is true for the case for fluoride in water, for example.
>I think we can agree that both sanitation, nutrition, and antibiotics all helped reduce measles deaths pre-1960. It would be impossible to determine the relative contribution of each of these.
No, I definitely wouldn't agree with this, this is a retarded claim with various ways to test and disprove competing hypotheses - and the work has already been done, although I haven't reviewed it all. For one you can just give antibiotics to African countries that have shitty sanitation and no hope of developing clean infrastructure to isolate the independent variables. You can observe different outcomes in malnourished vs normal people. You can observe different outcomes in global trends and use a time index to determine the most likely causal variable. There is an unlimited way to test these and there's no ambiguity that antibiotics in this case and in general are effective at fighting diseases and reducing lethal symptoms.
>NFID issued a call to action for vitamin A to be used in treated measles in the US back in 2020 because the evidence was so strong
From the pdf in the link: "In the US, studies have shown that hospitalized measles patients are frequently vitamin A deficient, with low serum vitamin A levels correlating with the severity of measles disease.12,13,14" Vitamin A therapy is only useful as a supplement to vaccination if you're deficient, like I said. From further in the pdf:
"Regarding the use of vitamin A, some members of the Orthodox Jewish community began to rely on recommendations from families who gave their children a spoonful of cod liver oil daily, which contains vitamin A, irrespective of measles exposure and as an alternative to MMR vaccination. Other members of the community began circulating their own guidance on dosage of vitamin A maintaining that “people who took vitamin A got the measles much later” than those who did not.25 It should be noted that vitamin A does not prevent measles. It is not appropriate for parents to use vitamin A as a preventive measure."
Hilariously, the next paragraph literally references what RFK Jr was involved in:
"Additionally, a 2019 outbreak of measles in the island nation of Samoa that has caused more than 82 deaths26 has drastically increased social media commentary regarding vitamin use in measles prevention and management. Comments on social media have suggested the use of vitamin A, vitamin C, or selenium to prevent measles. Further education aimed at the general public is required to help distinguish effective vs. ineffective measures in measles management."
RFK Jr's article does not "help distinguish effective vs. ineffective measures in measles management."
It's interesting I've never seen you write about AI. Now that the AI 2027 forecast came out, I've a feeling politics are on track to becoming irrelevant.
I do not have remotely as positive a view of who Harris would have listened to as you do. I got the distinct impression that progressives would be getting everything they ever wanted. What do you think of MMT?
Anyway, at decivitate, Heaney rightly points out that project 2025 would have been much better than what has been happening. (It's not surprising that I like project 2025, considering that I'm conservative, but I bet you would also agree.)
https://decivitate.substack.com/i/160878913/the-children-long-for-the-mines-project
In what ways do you believe Harris would have been economically destructive? If possible, could you outline it concretely? Keep in mind that Republicans control both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate, which was also the most likely outcome in the run-up to the 2024 election.
She wanted to crack down on price-gouging. Price controls would be disastrous. I feel like there were more things, but I don't remember concretely. I assume a big push for more spending (but who knows whether that will happen anyway).
If Harris won, then the prediction markets at the time were putting it at about a 50% chance she'd have the Senate, and basically certain that she'd have the house (these all correlate, of course). Also, both Manchin and Sinema, who were the main ones obstructing anything, would both be gone; the filibuster would be repealed, and all sorts of bills would start to be passed.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/03/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-will-end-price-gouging-by-middlemen-in-the-entertainment-industry/
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/combating-unfair-practices-in-the-live-entertainment-market/
Seems like Trump has imposed price controls!
I'm not a fan. Thankfully, it's not on groceries.
The big push for more spending is not unique, as Trump will also increase the deficit through tax cuts. Price gouging is not going to have the negative market impact that tariffs have.
The filibuster would not and will not be repealed.
The correlation point is moot, as at the individual level, you could vote for Harris and, if possible, a Republican for the legislature.
>The filibuster would not and will not be repealed.
Uh, do you have any reason to think that? There were a bunch of democrats campaigning on that explicitly, and in the past, the only two senators willing to resist that were both gone. Sinema was gone in large part because she refused to do things like scrap the filibuster.
>The correlation point is moot, as at the individual level, you could vote for Harris and, if possible, a Republican for the legislature.
No, that's absurd. The case where my vote is relevant is the one where it's the deciding vote. It's extremely unlikely that both your votes will matter. So what matters is what does that scenario look like? I'm saying that when your particular vote matters, the prediction markets thought that there was a 50% chance in that situation that you'd be electing Harris into a situation where she had the Senate under her control.
"He’s repeatedly antagonized Europe and Canada and has ended U.S. participation in the world health organization—a decision that will massively increase existential risks. We no longer have the capacity for an effective global response to pandemics and bioterrorism."
After seeing the shitshow that was the global response to COVID, who would want any more effective global responses to pandemics? Lol. Good riddance to you experts.
Who was president when COVID struck in 2020?
Trump. I think it was bad that he listened to Dr. Fauci then. By gutting the WHO now, he is correcting the mistake from his previous term.
This is just not an impactful voting issue for the President.
Are you that confident there won’t be a pandemic any time soon?
Then it's a happy coincidence