Tuesday’s Forum

FILED UNDER: Open Forum
Steven L. Taylor
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog). Follow Steven on Twitter

Comments

  1. Lounsbury says:

    You may as Political Science specialists find this development of interest. The slow bleed out of Tunisia… The oped in the Washington Post seems to me to miss the fundamental issue of the economic failure, treating democracy and free speech as seperated issues from the economic.

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  2. Kylopod says:

    Anyone following the recent controversy over Pennsylvania GOP gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano’s involvement in Gab, the “free speech” social media platform known for being a cesspool of anti-Semitism and other bigotry, and which was where the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooter posted his manifesto?

    Even Jewish Republicans are reportedly not happy.

    The Republican Jewish Coalition has joined the chorus calling on Pennsylvania’s far-right Republican gubernatorial candidate to stop promoting his campaign on Gab, a social media network favored by extremists.

    Doug Mastriano has 38,000 followers on Gab, a self-proclaimed “free speech” platform that hosts content prohibited on more mainstream sites. It grew in popularity after Twitter and other networks cracked down on extremists in recent years. Mastriano has also reportedly paid for “campaign consulting,” which makes new Gab users automatically follow him.

    Gab is well known as a hospitable place for antisemitic, racist and anti-LGBTQ content. Gab’s founder, Andrew Torba, left Twitter after posting antisemitic content there.

    In one notable case, the shooter who killed 11 Jews in their synagogue on Shabbat in 2018 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, regularly used the network.

    “Jewish voters expect candidates to condemn antisemitism, whether it comes from the far-left or the far-right — and to shun those who espouse it,” Matt Brooks, the Republican Jewish Coalition’s executive director, told the Philadelphia Inquirer on Thursday.

    “We strongly urge Doug Mastriano to end his association with Gab, a social network rightly seen by Jewish Americans as a cesspool of bigotry and antisemitism,” he said.

    Is it too much to ask that the RJC refuse to support Mastriano, let alone that they endorse the (Jewish) Democratic nominee?

    Just for the record, here are some of Andrew Torba’s nuggets:

    * Torba reposted a conspiracy theory video attacking Jewish people for “white genocide,” including through the Jewish nonprofit HIAS — the same conspiracy theory the alleged Gab mass shooter referenced.
    * Torba reposted another Gab user who said he made a “very good and true tweet” attacking “subversive Jewish lawyers and propagandists.”
    * Torba reposted a Gab user claiming that “there has never been a more privileged and protected group than the modern jew, and unlike talking about ‘globalists’ or the ‘NWO,’ if you speak out about them, you will be attacked.”
    * Torba reposted a user’s praise of Gab for showcasing “differing opinions” on the Holocaust.
    * Torba reposted a user complaining about Jewish influence in government, business, and the media.
    * Torba reposted a user (“Racial Consciousness”) complaining about a U.S. House measure that condemned antisemitism and suggesting it shows Jews are “ruling over you.”
    * Torba reposted an attack on Jewish people over abortion.
    * Torba reposted a Gab user arguing that Jews are responsible for antisemitism against them.
    * Torba reposted a Gab user writing: “The Jews killed Christ.”
    * Torba reposted a user stating that “Ukraine’s ‘democracy’ is just as jewish, fake, and gay as ours is.”
    * Torba reposted a user attacking Ben Shapiro and Dennis Prager for being Jewish.

    Responding to some of the criticisms, he clarified the other day that he is not against Jewish conservatives like Ben Shapiro as long as they repent and accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and savior.

    I’ve been following Gab-related controversies for years. Shortly after the Pittsburgh shooting, the site was shut down for several weeks due to mainstream domain-name companies fleeing the site. They finally got back online after signing up with Epik, a far-right domain provider. Two years later, a similar thing happened to Parler (another “free speech” platform for rightists) following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

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  3. BugManDan says:

    I am currently reading Dr. Taylor’s book A Different Democracy. And have a question for him or anyone else that might know the answer.

    In Single Transferable Vote system, a candidates excess votes (those higher than the threshold to get elected) are transferred to the voters second choice candidate. How do they determine which voters are the excess voters? Is it just random? Do they do some kind of averaging? It seems like this would be a point at which shenanigans might happen by holding back ballots that had second place votes for the counters preferred candidate.

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  4. BugManDan says:

    @BugManDan: By the way, I would recommend the book. It is packed full of structural differences between the US and the rest of the world.

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  5. Jim Brown 32 says:

    Question for anyone with understanding of monetary policy:

    Wouldn’t a combination of increased taxes combined with increased capital reserve requirements at banks sop up alot of the excess cash chasing goods in the economy?

    Further, of the plethora of political narratives Democrats could take up to help “the little guy” they claim to fight for… reseting the consumer banking system to reward savers with fair market interest returns on their savings would be a winner in rural and urban area with the perfect foil in banks.

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  6. Jen says:
  7. OzarkHillbilly says:

    A New York City preacher was robbed of more than $1m worth of jewellery while delivering a livestreamed sermon on Sunday when armed bandits crashed his Brooklyn church.

    Bishop Lamor Miller-Whitehead, a Rolls-Royce-driving preacher known for his flamboyant style and friendship with Mayor Eric Adams, was delivering a sermon at his Leaders of Tomorrow International Ministries when police say three robbers walked in. They flashed guns and demanded property from Miller-Whitehead and his wife, Asia K DosReis-Whitehead, police said.

    Hillbilly’s Rule #1 in robbery avoidance: Don’t advertise. Never occurred to me to add, “especially on the internet or TV.”

    Miller-Whitehead, 44, formed Leaders of Tomorrow International Ministries in 2013, after serving a five-year prison sentence for identity theft and grand larceny. Miller-Whitehead claims he was illegally convicted.

    The picture is coming into focus…

    In an Instagram post Sunday, Miller-Whitehead defended his lavish lifestyle, saying he’s “going to live his life the way God has it set up for him”.

    Yeah, I think it’s safe to say he and Jesus are not on a first name basis.

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  8. steve says:

    I live in PA. Driving to work this morning local radio station had a nice piece on how Republicans in the state are falling in line behind Mastriano. After voicing “concerns” during the primaries that he is so extreme it might make for an easy victory for Dems they are finding ways to overlook or justify Mastriano’s positions. Exactly what I predicted. It is almost impossible to be too extreme or too crazy to not have conservatives vote for you.

    Steve

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  9. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @steve: It is almost impossible to be too extreme or too crazy to not have conservatives vote for you.

    Actually, it’s really easy. All you need is a (D) after your name.

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  10. Jim Brown 32 says:

    @Lounsbury: Free Speech….indeed democracy itself are merely tools of governance. Specifically, participatory self governance.

    All but a few factions of any citizenry are pragmatic about the governance system they inhabit. Most of this pragmatic group has a government satisfaction rubric that’s pretty simple: What did I need to go today that the government prevented? If nothing or n/a…move on with life. If something…accept, go around, and/or complain in a way that brings the least threat to current life situation. Its why the Chinese people tolerate Communism–it mostly stays out of their way by providing what they want for their standard of living: Employment and Governance. In exchange, the regular people have to STFU and let the Communist Party members engage in politics and technocratic sausage making.

    This is why I’ve said a Democracy that does nothing is more dangerous than a Democracy that does the wrong things.

    Citizens of Democracies around the world are flirting with Autocracy because of stagnation more than anything else. As tools, Western Democracy is not holding up its end of the bargain– which is to provide RESPONSIVE governance to the People. The only people that REALLY about Freedom of Speech in a vacuum are politicians, activists, pundits, and journalists. Its fungible with most other people.

    The stagnation of Congress is EXACTLY the reason people on both sides are pining for a Strongman to fix everything. Trump would have ZERO chance in an environment where Congress responded to problems…even bad responses.

    Why? Because most Americans actually like committees and panels, etc. They don’t like one person with all the decision-making authority. But they hate stagnation and indecision worse.

    If Democrats want to save Democracy, eliminate the need for it to disappear.: Get rid of the Fillibuster at all costs, hand Republicans a loaded gun and watch them shoot themselves into a minority party for 50 years again. How? Because their governance policies will clash with the simple voter’s Democracy utility rubric mentioned above. And since they understand that whoever is in Congress will do something…one way or another,,,they’ll come out to weight in.

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  11. Jim Brown 32 says:

    I was driving through some Hwy projects in rural South Carolina yesterday and, after passing the 10th or FJB yard sign (and the Joe Biden “I DID THAT” sign at the gas pump.), wondered WTF Kamala Harris isn’t traveling to all the BBB projects in the old South saying: “I effin did that!”

    Good governance people….Weak Politicans…

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  12. JohnSF says:

    @Jim Brown 32:

    Wouldn’t … increased taxes … sop up alot of the excess cash chasing goods in the economy?

    It would, but you’d need to focus the taxes on the area of demand you want to mop up.
    As high earners have different spending/saving patterns, and assuming you’re not that worried about e.g. the asset inflation of e.g. fine art.
    So taxes must hit the broadly middle income groups (assuming taxing the poor is out).
    They are unlikely to be happy about that.

    On bank capital requirement, I haven’t much of idea.
    Depends a lot on specific US banking setup, I’d think.
    Would also guess it would have a credit restrictive effect; which might or might not work as you want. Need real knowledge here, not me. 🙂

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  13. JohnSF says:

    @Jim Brown 32:

    …a Democracy that does nothing is more dangerous than a Democracy that does the wrong things.

    The problem is:
    What if there is not much that can be done (at least quickly, easily and without trade-offs hurt people who’ll yell about it), and trying to create an appearance of action just makes things worse?

    That doesn’t always happen; sometimes democracy can address an actual issue.
    But sometimes not.

    It’s the trap that the (Conservatives in the) UK fell into with Brexit.
    “Vote Leave” was supposed to be the answer/response, or at least enable implementing solutions, to all the things that were giving “ordinary folk” the grumps.
    In practice: not.
    But because it has become a shibboleth of “democratic action” it’s become almost taboo for politicians to say it’s just making things worse.

    I have a nagging feeling that sometimes democracy itself can be a big part of the problem.
    (But as a Brit I’m probably a bit more inclined to be a demo-sceptic than most Americans likely are)

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  14. CSK says:

    @Jen:
    That is interesting.

    In a somewhat related issue, a membership at Mar-a-Lago now costs one million dollars. I don’t know if that’s the initiation fee or the yearly dues. Even so, it’s amusing that the vast majority of Trumpkins could never get near the place. But they still think of him fondly as their “blue collar billionaire.”

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  15. Scott says:

    @CSK: But don’t call it Pay to Play.

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  16. Jen says:

    @CSK: I found this particularly amusing:

    Exacerbating the fund-raising problems for Republicans is that Mr. Trump continues to be the party’s dominant fund-raiser and yet virtually none of the tens of millions of dollars he has raised has gone toward defeating Democrats. Instead, the money has funded his political team and retribution agenda against Republicans who have crossed him.

    Their best fundraiser, who has NO interest in helping them out.

    I’m not surprised that small-dollar donations are drying up, with prices going up everywhere even the little stuff counts.

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  17. Kathy says:

    So, the snarky comments on Spiderman: No Way Home.

    **SPOILER ALERT**

    1) As our latest Peter never left NYC, I wonder why there was “no way home.” He was home all along.

    2) Interesting to see a major character who has two movies of his own used as a plot device.

    3) What happened to Peter’s other superpower? You know, “The kid’s seen more movies”. He should have recognized not only the other versions of him but all the villains as well, because he would have seen their movies 😛

    4) Between the fan service and reset button, can an Avengers/Trek mash up be too far behind? If they go that way, I nominate Lower Decks for Trek’s representative. Get Mariner, Spiderman, and Deadpool together, and they’ll take over the universe as a joke.

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  18. CSK says:
  19. CSK says:

    @Jen:
    Wdell, I supposed the small-dollar idiots who still continue to subsidize Trump would cheer on his efforts to destroy his RINO enemies, on the grounds that Trump’s enemies are their enemies.

  20. @BugManDan: There are several different processes that could be adopted. I will honestly say that I could not detail them without refreshing my own memory.

    They can be complex and, indeed, one of the criticisms of STV is that the vote reallocation process can be a bit impenetrable for the public to understand.

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  21. @BugManDan: I appreciate the plug and I am pleased to know you are finding it useful!

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  22. @Kathy: More Spoilers.

    Coincidentally, I finally watched this one this weekend as well.

    Ah, but he wasn’t able to go home at the end! Even though he was still in NYC.

    I must confess, while I enjoyed the film, I did not understand the ending in the sense that it was utterly unclear to me why everyone had to forget not just that Peter was Spider-Man, but Peter himself. Indeed, does he no longer exist (legally speaking). No SSN? No birth certificate? He clearly wasn’t going to get a HS diploma, given the GED book.

    People clearly remember Spider-Man, so why did they utterly forget Peter?

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  23. gVOR08 says:

    @JohnSF:

    It’s the trap that the (Conservatives in the) UK fell into with Brexit.
    “Vote Leave” was supposed to be the answer/response, or at least enable implementing solutions, to all the things that were giving “ordinary folk” the grumps.

    I’m not sure how snarky to take that “supposed”. I’m far away and don’t particularly follow UK politics, but the only sense I could make of Brexit was that a lot of very wealthy people wanted to escape EU regulation, especially tax regulation. It all smelled like a con funded by people like Robert Mercer who brought in Cambridge Analytica to run data driven voter manipulation.

    The Republican Party is the way it is because at it’s heart is a lie, that the oligarchs who fund it give a damn about the little people they depend on for votes, except as marks. That leaves them constantly lying to defend the indefensible. The Conservative Party strikes me as being in very much the same place.

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  24. Kathy says:

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    Yeah, that puzzled me as well.

    It doesn’t help that when the plot device formerly known as The Sorcerer Supreme first came up with his plan, the whole set up was a comedy of omissions. I mean, he gave Peter an incomplete explanation, then Peter kept asking for exceptions, then everything was, somehow, screwed up.

    BTW, even his Stark branded super suit went away.

    I forgot to mention this movie, and the latest Dr. Strange offering, both seem to try to emulate the better film Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse

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  25. gVOR08 says:

    Via LGM, a credible accusation of who leaked Alito’s draft Dobbs opinion. I may well have been Sammy Alito hisself.

    2
  26. Michael Reynolds says:

    @Kathy:
    Somewhere out there is an equation that will reveal the maximum limit of remakes, re-imaginings, spin-offs, brand extensions and so on to be derived from a given IP. I don’t know what the number is, but it is finite, and Disney needs it to be infinite.

    It’s like starting with barrel proof whiskey at 120 proof, then you step on it to get to 100 proof for people like me who enjoy the burn, then a bit more for the standard 80 proof for the civilians and then comes the vermouth and then the ginger ale. . . basically Marvel and Star Wars are down to wine coolers at this point.

    3
  27. Michael Reynolds says:

    @Steven L. Taylor:
    Why? To steal Ryan George’s line: so the movie can happen. The formula seems to be, 1) Think of cool action set pieces. 2) Sketch a story that sort of explains the action set pieces. 3) Insist it makes sense.

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  28. Kathy says:

    On other things, I’ve gone COVID-free after one week sharing an apartment with a COVID positive person. No small feat. I’ve tested once thus far, last Saturday. I plan another test tomorrow.

    But then yesterday one of the managers come into the office coughing up a storm. The boss tells him to go home, or at least get tested. His answer? “I got tested last week and it was negative.” He then admits he began coughing on Saturday, and he’s been feeling feverish. But, hey! he tested negative last week!

    Back in the hopeful period when the phase 3 results from Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech were published, I recall some CDC of FDA official saying “the best vaccine is a mask.” I still wanted a vaccine ASAP, and felt masks were a stopgap at best.

    I think I’ve changed my mind since then. Masks seem better for preventing infection.

    1
  29. JohnSF says:

    @gVOR08:

    I’m not sure how snarky to take that “supposed”

    Plenty snarky. 🙂
    (Do you not know me yet?)
    But on various levels.
    At least some promulgators of Leave genuinely believed their b.s. that it would improve things for “the country”; albeit with an “underpants gnomes” degree of actually planning out the how.
    (And not all them were either clinically insane or possesed of the IQ of the average sea-squirt.)

    For the “Tufton Street Mob” the loobyis/media/political advisor nexus that’s the centre of the Mercer/Elliott connections, it was always primarily about their dream of a “Tory Libertarian Singapore in the North Sea.”

    The Conservative Party is showing increasing worrying resemblances to the Republicans.
    Especially since the ascendancy of Johsnon and the purge of the “Remainer 22”.
    Conservatives have always been, well, conservative.
    But generally pragmatic; the current iteration are showing signs of either wanting to take up residence in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.
    Or being signed up to the Republican insider agenda of pander to the ultra-rich and screw everything else.

    It is a long way from the party of John Major, Harold Macmillan etc.

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  30. Tony W says:

    @Kathy: Masks to prevent infection, vaccines to minimize the effects if an infection happens.

    The best security is layered.

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  31. Lounsbury says:

    @Jim Brown 32: Ceteris paribus, yes. However increased capital reserves are not the most efficient method and will have a distorting effect because non-bank lenders are not subject to such, interest rate (which effect all lenders) and other tools are preferable. That is why all developed world central banks use preferentially other tools than the blunt and partial instrument of commercial bank reserves, which are better used as prudential risk mitigation rather than inflation mitigation mechanisms.

    Taxation will certainly soak up excess liquidity so long as it is not converted into spending, and is used to pay-down outstanding government debt issuances. The focus of said taxation (which income levels) may have differing impacts as middle income and lower with less excess liquidity to tax will generally generate rather more direct demand reduction that higher income (which may then be useful, depending on the taxation goal).

    Further, of the plethora of political narratives Democrats could take up to help “the little guy” they claim to fight for… reseting the consumer banking system to reward savers with fair market interest returns on their savings would be a winner in rural and urban area with the perfect foil in banks.

    This is a terrible idea that is at once inflationary and second distortionary. Second, mandating higher interest rates on deposits mechanically results in higher borrowing rates for borrowers, which is generally a negative for lower to lower-middle income households. Bank deposits are the fundamanetal base for bank lending, although this relationship generally escapes populists who want contraditory results.

    @JohnSF: capital reserves are applicable in almost all systems to deposit taking commercial banks, and are principally a tool for prudential (failure) risk management. Non-Bank lenders who fund themselves off of the money markets or via bond issuances (etc) are not – the logic of the why not being there (protection of depositors from bank failure being a principle origin of regulatory capital reserves), as they don’t have depositors. It is more efficient to manage borrowing rates via the reference rate and thus effect all lenders (via well-developed mechanisms). Developing markets more purely dependent on the commercial bank model and having rather less developed money markets do tend to have more recourse to changing reserve requirements, but it is a very blunt instrument, expensive to excute on – better even in those markets to work the interest rate.

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  32. grumpy realist says:

    Has anyone been taking a peek at the new version of TAC? They seem to have turned into a complete circle-jerk of incompetent writers who continually whine about how MEEEAN the world in to them. And now that the comments are behind a paywall, they don’t even get the necessary feedback from people who can criticise them (I really doubt that the regulars like myself are willing to cough up the dineros to comment on a bunch of harangues generated by a group of self-satisfied nitwits.)

    Basically, they don’t have anyone around to keep them honest. Larrison has left, and so have the other irregulars who had the guts and self-control to double-check their sources.

    Alas, poor TAC, we knew you well….as you are now, good riddance.

    4
  33. Jen says:

    @CSK: I read some excerpt of Don Jr.’s speech and it was well into WTAF territory. Then I got to the “Ivanka, you need to wear shorter skirts” and “she must really love Jared if she’s willing to give up lobster” comments and honestly, I hope all of these kids are in therapy.

    The whole family is so, so weird.

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  34. Jay L Gischer says:

    Interestingly enough, as a programmer, the end of No Way Home made some sense to me. Granted it made “Marvel Sense”. Not “Real World” sense. Because we’re dealing here not with Marvel Physics, but Marvel Sorcery. Sorcery/Magic works any way the writer says it works. However, I have long thought certain types of spellcasting as being closely akin to weaving magic spells.

    But in any case, the problem was that certain individuals in the universe knew Spiderman’s secret identity and so on, and were using it to make trouble. We would like to erase that. Believe it or not, Steven Strange made a mistake the first time around, because of the constant interruptions and change orders. As a programmer, I deeply empathize with this.

    So the second time around, they agree on some very simple code that looks like:

    for (s in SentientBeings) do {forgetAboutPeterParker(s)}

    It’s very simple, it can’t have bugs, per se. It has some undesirable qualities, but they were willing to live with them.

    That’s my in-story explanation.

    My meta explanation is that they gave this Peter Parker a complete reset before handing him back to Sony, which I can only imagine that Sony agreed to, if not demanded.

    2
  35. Lounsbury says:

    @gVOR08:

    the only sense I could make of Brexit was that a lot of very wealthy people wanted to escape EU regulation, especially tax regulation.

    Then you made no sense at all of it but merely applied Leftist prejudice to pre-conceive notions.

    The largest body of Very Wealthy people, the City, were and are Remainers. EU overall is very profitable deal. Very Wealthy people have about zero concern for EU regs (and national taxation is not within the remit of EU), and on taxation, Very Wealthy People do not need Brexit, there is Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey and Gibralter crown dependencies to provide all the dreamed advantages one might desire.

    Brexit was rather more a Little England reactionary response – in which domestic “middling wealthy” and traditionally Labour voting working class combo of backlash against immigration and change – and resentment against the South East won. Aside from outliers like the mutant-creature Farage…. the horse was ridden by populist opportunists (see BoJo). The reactionary base of this looking rather similiar in broad socioeconomic profiling terms to an English version of the Trump reaction – the sort of middle country down-wardly mobile middling old-industry wealthy who actually think Trump really is a billionnaire, not the actually wealthy and actual billionnaires.

    My dear cousins and friends in the City were all aghast at the whole thing. Remain so.

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  36. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Jim Brown 32: You’re assuming that people within the corridors of governmental power have a vested interest in “help[ing] the little guy” that outweighs their interest in the “too big to fail” banks maintaining their status quo. I see no evidence that “help the little guy” is anything beyond the kind of campaign promise that “close Gitmo” or “enact a right to life amendment to the Constitution” turned out to be.

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  37. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Jim Brown 32: I Bing-ed “build back better projects” looking for what they might be and where they are. Found couple dozen links to news stories talking about various people objecting to BBB, but no articles outlining projects that are actually in progress (other than BBB-World projects happening in developing nations, but I don’t think that’s the same project if for no other reason than its internet postscript/tag is go.nz). I’ma have to reach out to you for information. Especially since BBB is dead thanks to the good works of 2 Democratic Senators who shall remain unnamed.

    What projects where in the South?

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  38. Michael Reynolds says:

    @Jay L Gischer:
    Magic and multiverses will be the death of the MCU. They’re get-out-of-jail free cards. Magic destroys limitations and without limitations story tends to dissolve. A painting needs a frame. And multiverses subvert jeopardy. If there’s an endless number of Drs. Strange, then WGAF if one ‘dies?’ Add Disney’s bait-and-switch tactics (Hawkeye, Boba Fett), its inexplicable subversion of established characters (Loki, Last Jedi), its laziness in setting up new characters (Reva) its moral blindness (Wandavision), and its flatly wrong notion that women have the same hero fantasies as men, (Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk, FFS) and I think they’re eating the seed corn.

    I call it ‘voguing’ when I get to a place where my characters are sort of marking time, wandering around in search of a story, striking poses rather than telling a story. When that happens, I rewrite; Disney greenlights.

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  39. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @CSK: Brings up an interesting question: Why are the younger Trumps so awful, nature or nurture? (Asked without having read the article BTW; even less interest in the spawn of FG than in FG himself.)

  40. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @CSK: It’s a “fight for the soul of the party;” so far, the undead are winning. 😀

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  41. CSK says:

    @Just nutha ignint cracker:
    Probably a combination of nature and nurture. First, they have their father’s appalling genetic legacy. Second, the experience of being materially spoiled, physically and mentally abused, and neglected can’t have been good for any of them.

    You can add to that Trump’s blatant letching after Ivanka, which had to have been damaging for her and her brothers.

  42. Stormy Dragon says:

    @Kathy:

    I forgot to mention this movie, and the latest Dr. Strange offering, both seem to try to emulate the better film Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse

    If you have not yet seen “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once”, you need to do so with all immediate haste

    It was far and away the best movie I’ve seen in more than a decade

  43. Kathy says:

    @Michael Reynolds:

    Parallel universe stories can be fun and a nice break, but this means they shouldn’t be used often. Trek, I hope, learned this when it overused the Mirror universe in DS9. IMO, they handled the Mirror universe well in Discovery. But then they did something similar but just different enough: jumped a millennium ahead.

    The latter gives you a different Starfleet, different Vulcans and Romulans, etc. But also new tech, new ships, new everything. Hopefully they won’t go jumping back and forth in time next season (is there a next season, even?)

    BTW, the one flaw in superhero fiction is the serial nature of it, coming as it does form comics, which have a frantic publishing schedule. Ultimately superheros are strong, powerful, smart, inspirational, and utterly futile.

    Whatever they do, however they do it, whatever they suffer, however they triumph, the super villains will return, or new ones will take their place. It never ends.

    Mind, this is rather true to life. history never ends, and neither does life. Something always happens, crises come and go, etc. But fiction is set apart from reality for a reason.

    1
  44. Stormy Dragon says:

    @Michael Reynolds:

    and its flatly wrong notion that women have the same hero fantasies as men, (Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk, FFS) and I think they’re eating the seed corn

    One thing I realized a few days ago is that the death of Chadwick Boseman has unintentionally turned Black Panther into a female-driven franchise. It will be interesting to see what the effect of that happening organically rather than as an intentional marketing ploy is.

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  45. grumpy realist says:

    @Just nutha ignint cracker: Considering that Tiffany is the only one of Trump’s offspring who seems to be normal AND she’s the only one who was raised separate from Dear Old Dad I think we have a pretty good answer already….

    A malignant narcissist wrecking his trail of corruption through the psyches of his traumatized offspring. Yup, I think we’ve got it.

    (If you read the postings of /raisedbynarcissists, /raisedbyborderlines, and /bpdlovedones over at Reddit, you’ll see how damaging people with personality disorders can be to the people around them. Especially their children.)

    1
  46. Stormy Dragon says:

    @Lounsbury:

    The largest body of Very Wealthy people, the City, were and are Remainers.

    One thing that’s been pointed out is that in the US, there’s a split forming in the wealthy between the wealthy that became so through selling a skill or craft to the public (doctors, lawyers, accountants, athletes, etc.) who are increasingly becoming more Democratic and the wealthy that became so through collecting revenues from capital ownership (financial types, small business owners, land lords, etc.) who are increasingly becoming more Republican.

    I wouldn’t be surprised to see a similar split in the UK between remain and leave supporters.

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  47. Kathy says:

    @Stormy Dragon:

    I’m waiting for it to stream somewhere.

    1
  48. JohnSF says:

    @Lounsbury:
    @gVOR08:
    It’s correct the City, and most of the “very comfortably off”, were and remain Remain 🙂

    But there was a specific minority sub-set that were convinced Leavers; mostly concentrated in certain types of hedge fund/private wealth management.

    Their motivation was not, generally, tax enforcement as a primary matter, as with a massive distaste for “excessive” regulation.
    Excessive frequently translating as “any”: the Tory Libertarian types.
    Some on principle, and as a economic benefit; others at least in part because certain types of regulation threatened their own income streams.
    Not usually for them to avoid taxes, so much as the possible effect on their providing “tax efficiency”services for others; very often non-domestic others.

    For a good number, the direct impact of EU regulation was a side issue to ensuring the Conservative Party shared their attitudes, and to establishing a dominant conservative voting coalition.
    This was vital because a “friendly” Conservative Party could be relied on to veto any EU proposals that damaged their financial interests.
    Indeed, the more sensible for this reason preferred being inside the EU.
    But, massive caveat, so long as Conservatives were in office.
    Post financial crash 2008 the Labour Party, and latterly the LibDems, have moved steadily towards favouring tighter regulation and proposals for “tax transparency”.
    Thence the possibility of the Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey, Gibraltar, Caymans, Br. Virgin Is, Belize, could shrivel like a moth in a blowtorch flame.

    There was a coalition of various elements: UKIP Little Englanders, Tuftonite Torybertarians, the Fundmasters, the Conservative “Eurosceptic” Headbangers dating their origins to the defenestration of Margaret Thatcher, etc. etc.
    All contributed to the Brexiteer/Leave campaigns (plural).

    And it’s that very multiplicity that has led to the Conservatives post-2016 repeatedly tripping over their own feet.
    The champions of the “Red Wall” ex-Labour voters have increasingly been at odds with the proponents of tax cuts, spending limits, privatization and deregulation.

    It’s interesting that in the current Conservative leadership contest, both Sunak and Truss are pitching their offer to the tax cut base.
    Their difference being over fiscal conditions:
    Sunak wants to cut only when reasonable from POV spending, debt , inflation.
    While Truss thinks (if she thinks at all) that we should all live on Planet Zarg, cut taxes now, and de’il tak’ the hindmost.

    Analysing the Leave vote is complex, but it’s core was of existing Conservative voters, with numbers made up by UKIP and some Labour, outweighing the Conservative Remainers.
    A demographic analysis showed the most typical Leave voter was a retired, reasonably well off, not very well educated, habitual Tory voter in the small er towns and outer suburbs of the South East:

    “Affluent Eurosceptics”, comprising 23% of the electorate, delivered almost half of the total Leave vote.”

    1
  49. Mu Yixiao says:

    @Michael Reynolds:

    You might want to rethink your stance on Ms. Marvel.

    Ms. Marvel Volume 1: No Normal was the best-selling graphic novel in October 2014,[133] and by November 2014, it reached No. 2 on The New York Times Best Seller list of paperback graphic books.[134] In April 2015, Ms. Marvel Volume 2: Generation Why debuted at #4 on The New York Times Best Seller list of paperback graphic books.[135] In July 2015, Ms. Marvel Volume 3: Crushed debuted at #3 on The New York Times Best Seller list of paperback graphic books.[136] In July 2016, Ms. Marvel Volume 5: Super Famous debuted at #3 on The New York Times Best Seller list of paperback graphic books.[137] As of August 2018, Ms. Marvel has sold half a million trade paperbacks, not including digital sales.[138][139]

    Seems a whole lot of people like her. 🙂

    1
  50. EddieInCA says:

    @grumpy realist:

    I am going to sign up for the $60 option, just to be able to post. I was banned previously, so I’m curious if:

    A) they’ll let me sign up, given I was banned.

    B) they’ll ever ban paying members? Because I’m not going to stop calling out Dreher on his bullshit. His latest post on Viktor Orban is a perfect example.

    Orban: “This is why we have always fought: we are willing to mix with one another, but we do not want to become peoples of mixed-race. “

    Dreher: Ignore what he says, this is what he really means….

    Ugh.

    Per Dreher “Ignore what he actually said. This is what he meant.”

    1
  51. Lounsbury says:

    @Stormy Dragon: The City is the home of the Barons of Private Equity etc. and London and its districts were resounding Remain. So no, utterly wrong.

    Although if you lump “financial types” with “small business owners” and “land lords” you are committing a fundamental category error driven by Left political misunderstanding of “capital ownership’ and confusing fundamentall different economic interests. And as I both see in my professional circles and from wider data, in the USA venture financing, PE and related professional investment class people, heavily urban, heavily well-educated trend to social liberalism and centrist economic conservatism, and by political giving are not Trumpist, as illustrated by the balance on this industry table. Rather “financial types” to the extent that makes sense as a category trend in the similar direction to liberal professions professionals, which given the similar socio-economic background would not be surprising. The understanding is wrong and misframed (as any confusing of small business and land lords with ‘financial types’ is bound to be given utterly different socio-economic interests). The fundamental differentiation one observes is between middlestand-like old industry and family business versus new tech-oriented industry and professional investment.

  52. Beth says:

    @Michael Reynolds:

    basically… Star Wars [is] down to wine coolers at this point.

    GASP! Daddy! how could you! How can our love endure with such mockery! Star Wars Forever!

    Full disclosure, I cried through the last episode of Kenobi, Rogue One is the movie ever made period, and I’m probably going to get a Star Wars themed tattoo in the next couple of weeks.

    @Jay L Gischer:

    For me I think its some combination of gender dysphoria and childhood trauma, but its very easy for me to make sense out of the Marvel weirdness. For me I think it comes from a place where, internally to me nothing ever made sense, so why should comic books or movies. Reality is fundamentally nonsensical and absurd, so why should fake reality be any different.

    @Kathy:

    I think what makes Spider-verse so amazing is just how the actors inhabit the characters. To the point I want to see Jake Johnson play Peter B. in a live action movie. That would be wonderful. I do wonder if they are going to be able to get any where near how good the first movie was with the sequels.

    3
  53. Lounsbury says:

    @JohnSF:

    he most typical Leave voter was a retired, reasonably well off, not very well educated, habitual Tory voter in the small er towns and outer suburbs of the South East:

    In essence, old little Englander view people largely of a British kind of Mittelstand kind of biz background, not City people. The kind of people who regard my people as suspicious rootless cosmopolitans and foreign moles. Of course they perhaps are right on that last point.

    The sort one would run into at certain events who’d go and and on about some EU registration requirement and mountains of red-tape, for their business which never exported (actually it did but they didn’t even grasp that well, and in fact the cited EU requirement was nothing more than a centralising site drawing on an actual British agency…. (but this was the gravest offence ever…) – I have a tedious memory of such horrid conversations).

    1
  54. Stormy Dragon says:

    @Beth:

    I do wonder if they are going to be able to get any where near how good the first movie was with the sequels.

    I’m reminded of Guardians of the Galaxy vs. Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2. Vol 2. is a better movie, but the original is remembered more fondly because it was such a surprise seeing it the first time. Is suspect a similar issue will face Spiderverse 2: even if it’s just as good, it won’t be the surprise the original was

  55. Michael Reynolds says:

    @Beth:
    I may be wrong but to the best of my knowledge there are now zero Star Wars movies in the works. Benioff and Weiss bailed. Patty Jenkins bailed. Taika Waititi is sending the message he DGAF and is not working on an SW movie. SW is in trouble.

    @Mu Yixiao:
    Half a million comics sounds like a lot. That’s about 8% of the sales for my GONE series and you’ll notice I have no movie. A niche audience can get you to half a million. That said I’d be really interested to see the numbers on the show – I liked the first ep but didn’t watch more because it’s skewed quite young.

    In fact I’d love to see a breakdown of numbers between female-led and male-led fantasy/sci fi/superhero content generally. My personal experience is that ensembles that are male-heavy (Animorphs, Gone) have outperformed female led (Front Lines, Messenger of Fear, Endling*) series. But there are way too many other factors at play there to reach any sort of conclusion.

    But my instinct is that superheroes are not and never going to be as big a thing with women. They have not generally been raised on the hero fantasy that is the core of all those stories.

    *My wife’s but I’m an uncredited co-author.

  56. JohnSF says:

    Argh! I just went to edit my comment and it’s replaced it with a previous comment!
    🙁
    Dammit!

  57. Barry says:

    @steve: ‘Democrats fall in love. Republicans fall in line.’

    That was before Trump.

    1
  58. Scott says:

    @Stormy Dragon:

    If you have not yet seen “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once”, you need to do so with all immediate haste

    I completely agree. BTW, plan on seeing it twice. There is just that much there. How they did it for $25M, I’ll never know.

  59. Michael Reynolds says:

    @Stormy Dragon:

    One thing I realized a few days ago is that the death of Chadwick Boseman has unintentionally turned Black Panther into a female-driven franchise. It will be interesting to see what the effect of that happening organically rather than as an intentional marketing ploy is.

    Yep, that will be an interesting set of numbers. Like some of our commenters here who torture themselves reading comments at Lucianne (you know who you are) I’ve been watching the toxic/entitled fans. Some are just racist and/or misogynist assholes who barely pretend otherwise. Some are the same but hide it better. And some are actually pretty good critics.

    They aren’t wrong that Disney (and Trek) handle diversity and inclusion in the most ham-fisted, performatively virtuous ways possible, and that helps to fuel the resentment. This’ll be interesting given, as you say, that there was a genuine act-of-god reason for the change.

    Something that will change: if Netflix goes with an ad-supported tier they’ll have to be a lot less cute with their viewer numbers – advertisers won’t put up with it.

  60. Mu Yixiao says:

    @Michael Reynolds:

    From 2021:

    Probably the most fascinating research done recently on comics demographics is by comics blogger Brett Schenker. In a post at The Beat, Schenker said that 40 percent of comics fans are women.

    industry surveys show that the fastest growing demographic — there’s that word again — of comics readers are women aged 17-33.

    From back in 2014

    But what Alonso and Marvel is seeing shouldn’t be a shock at all when it comes to women and what interests them. In a September breakdown, I looked at just female comic book characters and who were fans of them. Exhausting a few lists online of every female comic book character, I found every term I could on Facebook for these stats. While the amount of people who like female comic characters was about 5.8 million, women made up a majority 62.07% of those fans.

    Seriously… The answer was just down the street from you this weekend. Take a look at photos from ComiCon and see what the demographics look like.

    4
  61. JohnSF says:

    @Lounsbury:

    … I have a tedious memory of such horrid conversations

    I can imagine.
    And now the same silly twits are moaning that they still need to have EU certification for the products they supply who is, or even just may, export to the EU.
    And also the new, separate British regulations, seeing as the government is not insane enough to throw consumer protection and product standards to the wind.
    “But why…” comes the bleat.
    By now I just sigh, wander off, and get another beer.

    1
  62. Gustopher says:

    @Jim Brown 32:

    Wouldn’t a combination of increased taxes combined with increased capital reserve requirements at banks sop up alot of the excess cash chasing goods in the economy?

    Congratulations, you have just rediscovered Modern Monetary Theory. A problem with MMT is that is that no one ever wants to raise taxes, so we have never really seen it in practice.*

    Instead, we leave vast amounts of money sloshing around at the high end, which needs somewhere to go, and often ends up becoming speculative investments that price middle class and lower income folks out of things.

    Fine for oil paintings, less fine for real estate.

    ——
    *: we have seen the “deficits don’t matter” phase in practice. How would it work out if we actually tried the full thing? You will get various guesses, ranging (roughly) from free ponies to everyone resorting to cannibalism.

    I don’t guess, as I’m not sure how controlling the supply of dollars would affect things domestically in a global economy where there are lots of other currencies. I think the “raise taxes” phase would strengthen the dollar too much — making goods made elsewhere cheap, but costs of domestic manufacturing high, resulting in a nasty recession. Taxes are slower to affect the economy than interest rates, so I think we would keep overshooting with adjustments.

    4
  63. Kathy says:

    @Beth:
    @Stormy Dragon:

    Part of what works for me when it comes to superhero movies, is that I’ve never read a single superhero comic book (really, not one), so almost everything I see is new to me. Mor important, I’ve no point of comparison as to how any given character is portrayed.

    Of course, this decreases with time, especially with so many movies coming out. And I also watch a lot of superhero animation, especially now that a lot of DC wound up on HBO Max.

  64. Michael Reynolds says:

    @Mu Yixiao:
    But are they Marvel/DC superhero fans? There was an article I’m too lazy to look up in either Wapo or NYT about online comics by women with presumably mostly female readership. Were those superhero stories? Don’t know.

    The lack of hard data is very frustrating. I had a YA publisher tell me flat out ‘we don’t sell books to boys.’ Wrong of course, as to my own work, but also as to Percy Jackson, Hunger Games, etc… Publishers are wholesalers not retailers, so they know fuck all about their end users. Writers are left to read tea leaves, while movie and TV people get granular, detailed data.

  65. Kathy says:

    @Tony W:

    I’ve been wearing masks so long, I really got used to it. Even wearing one at home all of last week wasn’t much of a stretch. Just the same, I’d hoped a couple of shots would be enough.

  66. Gustopher says:

    @Kathy:

    As our latest Peter never left NYC, I wonder why there was “no way home.” He was home all along.

    This is the “home” trilogy and they had to work it into the title. I assume Spider-Man: Home Is Anywhere You Hang Your Head either did poorly in focus groups, or doesn’t fit the movie (which I haven’t seen).

    Pity, because Elvis Costello wrote what could have been a theme song. https://youtu.be/04RM_Co3fDw

  67. Michael Reynolds says:

    @Stormy Dragon: @Scott:

    Everything, Everywhere is a fantastic movie. Not often that I can watch a movie and simultaneously think ‘I have no idea where this weird-ass thing is going,’ and, ‘but I’m fascinated.’ Very smart writing, bold casting decisions (a middle-aged laundress is our hero? WTF?) and brilliant editing.

  68. CSK says:

    @Michael Reynolds:

    “…who torture themselves reading comments at Lucianne…”

    Sigh. I know who I am. I look at it as my responsibility to keep an eye on the crazies.

    3
  69. JohnSF says:

    @Gustopher:
    An interesting aspect to the dollar: as it is the international reserve currency and the currency in which oil (and other stuff but especially oil) is traded, and the money from oil (etc) sales recycled, the US can comfortably run deficits and sustain debts that would have a lot of other countries either crashing into default or saying “Why, hi, Weimar, how are ya?” (And never mind MMT)

    OTOH it also means that control of the currency is not entirely within the purview of the US either by credit controls or by taxation.

    You win something, you lose something…

    4
  70. Michael Reynolds says:

    @JohnSF:
    I am still bitter that when we lived in Italy it was $1.60 to the Euro. Timing!

    And now, when I could be using my magic dollars to lord it around Europe, fucking Covid, again.

    1
  71. Gustopher says:

    @Michael Reynolds:

    Somewhere out there is an equation that will reveal the maximum limit of remakes, re-imaginings, spin-offs, brand extensions and so on to be derived from a given IP. I don’t know what the number is, but it is finite, and Disney needs it to be infinite.

    The folks adapting Shakespeare 500 years later would beg to differ. But more relevantly, so would the folks who made soap operas.

    The MCU is a soap opera with spandex and cgi. This can get tedious if it’s not what you’re looking for.

    It requires remembering far more details and characters than people are used to, and the slow pace (compared to daily soap operas) means things will be forgotten and need to be reintroduced. They seem to be doing an ok job of juggling that.

    It actually captures the experience of comics well, for better or worse. I’m impressed the whole thing hasn’t collapsed already.

    It’s worth noting that people traditionally would grow out of comic books. And the readership would just be replaced with the next batch of kids.

    I wouldn’t be shocked if there was a steady state of audience numbers that it settles into — less than the initial burst of excitement, but a perfectly serviceable number to keep Disney content-ish while looking for the next big breakout hit. (Spoiler, it was not Morbius)

    1
  72. Stormy Dragon says:

    @Michael Reynolds:

    At risk of outing myself, I spent the last half hour of “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once” hard crying in the theater, then drove home and spent another two hours crying on my couch.

    3
  73. Mu Yixiao says:

    @Michael Reynolds:

    But are they Marvel/DC superhero fans?

    More Marvel than DC (because, I’m assuming, Marvel has been more progressive about bringing in new characters that fit the young female demographic). It’s been a while since I’ve been to a con (and those were for games, not comics), but casual observation shows that Marvel tends to be much more encouraging of things like gender-bending characters (Loki even swapped genders in the comics) in cos-play, and creating characters like Miles Morales to take over for Peter Parker, X-23 as a young female Wolverine, and Kamala Kahn to be “the new Spider-man” for a generation of young Arab/Middle-eastern girls.

    Thor: Love and Thunder is a tweak on a comic storyline where Jane Foster takes over the role of Thor when Odinson is no longer worthy to wield Mjolnir. Spider Gwen–starting as a parody–was so popular that she became a regular character.

    Marvel’s approach of “regular people given special powers” resonates with young, modern audiences (as opposed to DC’s “Gods Among Us” approach), and they’ve been pretty good about listening to the feedback and working with it. Getting people like Hemsworth and Evans in their roles certainly didn’t hurt their appeal with young women. 🙂

    It’s also helped that Marvel has brought in very talented women writers to helm the female characters. Captain Marvel went from being a “copy in a speedo” to being a character that brought in a lot of female readers once she’d been handed over to Kelly Sue DeConnick.

    The various surveys and market studies I’ve seen show that 40-45% of super-hero* comic readers are women. It’s a long way from what it was in the 80’s and before, when comics were almost exclusively the arena of 12-20 year old males.

    ===========
    * For a broad definition of “super-hero”

  74. EddieInCA says:

    @Michael Reynolds:

    Something that will change: if Netflix goes with an ad-supported tier they’ll have to be a lot less cute with their viewer numbers – advertisers won’t put up with it.

    It’s an open secret in “Hollywood” that it’s just a matter of time before Netflix stock tanks even more (it’s down 64% since Jan 1), and it’s purchased by either Apple, Meta, or Google.

    They’ve always spent more than they take in. And getting an actual profit number from the company has been maddening. If advertisers get involved, the whole house of cards will collapse.

    4
  75. JohnSF says:

    @Stormy Dragon:

    …similar split in the UK between remain and leave supporters

    Not so much, IMHO.
    Look at, say Cameron and Osborne, both Remainers, both from landed “old gentry”, and inheritors of enough wealth to buy Johnson or Gove out of petty cash.
    Or a fair chunk of the hereditaries in the Lords.

    The leadership of Leave seems to me to have been more a mix of types, but especially politician/media columnist types like Johnson and Gove, plus new money” libertarians, but very mixed.
    There is an element of the rentier Tory vs professional Liberal, but its hazy as yet.

    Leave voters overall were marked by being less educated, better off than average (albeit with a fair number of less prosperous), property owning, older than average, whiter than average (but remember UK is far less diverse than USA: 87% white, 78.4% white British).

    Incidentally religion, which might be a relevant factor in the US; in the UK I don’t think anyone has ever bothered to analyse it, it’s so irrelevant. 🙂

    Also, a lot of professionals come from either “old upper middle class”, or else from gentry, families, and quite often have a fair bit of inherited money in addition to personal earnings.

  76. Gustopher says:

    @Michael Reynolds:

    its laziness in setting up new characters (Reva)

    If she were a white man, or a more fetish-friendly woman, she would have been loved.

    Every complaint about her exists for basically every character in Star Wars. People only looked and complained because she had the temerity to be a black woman.

    Maybe they made a mistake in having a black woman in that role, given their audience and the generally shaky foundation that is Star Wars. But that’s a different argument.

    She has a backstory, motivations, a nice costume, and the actor was great.

    (The costume is Vader-lite, and the darker skin replaces the mask — I expect that was very intentional)

    The Kenobi show has lots of problems (will someone please die from a lightsaber wound?) but her character is not one of them.

    2
  77. grumpy realist says:

    @Gustopher: If you want a wonderful analysis of literary (particularly modern popular literary) tropes, saunter over to YouTube and watch the dissection by Red at Overly Sarcastic Productions. (She’s great at the myth analysis as well. I never knew there was a version of Aphrodite who was a war goddess.)

    Blue does the history, Red does everything else. Go listen to Blue’s explanation of the Ptolemies. And Red’s breakdown of H.P. Lovecraft.

    1
  78. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @grumpy realist: Alas, I’m old enough, and have been around enough dysfunctional people, that I already knew the degree to which malfunctioning families do damage to people even before Reditt came along. It isn’t new, and FGs kids aren’t the first.

    1
  79. Beth says:

    @Michael Reynolds:

    Movies? We don’t need no stinking movies. I’m getting Andor in a month to drool over, Ashoka sometime after that, Mando, Boba, I’m pretty well set.

    Yep, that will be an interesting set of numbers. Like some of our commenters here who torture themselves reading comments at Lucianne (you know who you are) I’ve been watching the toxic/entitled fans. Some are just racist and/or misogynist assholes who barely pretend otherwise. Some are the same but hide it better. And some are actually pretty good critics.

    No one hates Star Wars quite like Star Wars fans. I love the meme of the two girls fighting while a third sits in a chair watching and all three are labeled “Star Wars Fans”. The most accurate meme ever.

    Also, out of curiosity, and not snark, do you ever wonder how many people have Animorphs tattoos or lines that you’ve written tattoo’d on them? Like, I’m seriously considering a Star Wars tattoo because Star Wars has brought me so much joy and comfort. I find it amusing and sad how awful some of these toxic fans are. Like so full of hate, but have decided that they absolutely would be part of the Rebellion or the Federation to the exclusion of those they hate.

    1
  80. Kurtz says:

    @JohnSF:

    At least some promulgators of Leave genuinely believed their b.s. that it would improve things for “the country”

    From what I can tell, that happens here as well. As time goes on, cynical tactics become sincere beliefs of people who subsequently come of age.

    Choosing pity or contempt for a prominent person publicly expressing views can be difficult.

  81. Gustopher says:

    @Kathy:

    Parallel universe stories can be fun and a nice break, but this means they shouldn’t be used often. Trek, I hope, learned this when it overused the Mirror universe in DS9.

    There were one or two episodes a season, and could be safely ignored. I’d put them the same as the Ferrengi episodes — utterly inessential, completely shippable, and fun for those who like it.

    I think they used it well.

    Had anything hinged on it — if the Dominion was moving a fleet through the mirror universe to pop up behind the lines (add technobabble to change the rules and make that possible), and the federation needed to go over and make common cause with the Terran Empire… that would have been awful.

    A silly throwaway thing that overstays it’s welcome for some… totally harmless. Enjoy the other 20 episodes per season (skip the ferrengi too)

    Counter-example: Voyager overused the Borg. But that’s because the Borg episodes mattered.

  82. Jen says:
  83. Beth says:

    @Gustopher:

    I have a good friend that started shouting at me about how Reva sucked and something something, woke bs.

    I calmly replied something to the effect that I hear what your saying, Black Women can’t be in Star Wars, noted.

    He looked at me, looked through me and was like, you’re right and then went back to bitching about something else. He needs his Trans sister to shake the cage that holds the hamster in his brain. I’m not losing him to the righties too. Now if I can get him to go to therapy, I’ll be sooo happy.

    3
  84. Gustopher says:

    @Beth:

    I’m probably going to get a Star Wars themed tattoo in the next couple of weeks.

    If it is not the circuit lines going down the arms that Doctor Aphra has, may I recommend hastily reading the Doctor Aphra comics before your appointment?

    A queer, female, morally-dubious Indiana Jones* anti-hero set in the Star Wars universe, with a couple of murder droid sidekicks.

    ——
    *: and a post-modern take on Indians Jones, as thief of cultural artifacts. Which often turn out to be horrible death traps themselves, as cultural artifacts in Star Wars are often force things.

  85. Mister Bluster says:

    @Barry:..Democrats fall in love. Republicans fall in line.

    TRUMP on Kim Jong Un (2018): “He’s the head of a country, and I mean he’s the strong head. Don’t let anyone think anything different. He speaks and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.”
    Mother Jones

    1
  86. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Mu Yixiao: I suspect that MR is thinking pretty exclusively about Marvel as a CU and a block in the monster edifice that is Disney+. On that issue, he’s probably got a point, but the MCU is not about people who read/read (past or present for clarity) comic books. It’s about people who vaguely remember various Marvel comic characters and so can be hooked into watching television shows about Wanda and Vision, Ms. Marvel, Moon Knight (who I never cared for–Batman was always a better character), and whoever else the F/X teams can build CGIs (or whatever they’re called) for.

  87. CSK says:
  88. dazedandconfused says:

    Binged the first three episodes of HBOs “Anarchists” last night. Starts slow and seems predictable but what stuns is how fast and spectacularly that community melted down. Fascinating tale of naive idealism meets greed meets Crypto currency boom meets insanity (but I repeat myself) is unfolding in this documentary. Anthropologists should find it interesting.

  89. Lounsbury says:

    @JohnSF: As a matter of precision, if one exits quasi-Marxist influenced categories – the false Professionals Doing Actual Things versus Those Living off of Capital, and rather look at the socio-economics from a market perspective, the profiles look to me quite similar.

    Actual data shows that aside from a Loony Libertarian (which USA land is of course the birthing place and home of the looniest of the Libertarian Loons, see Thiel) wing, the Professional Investor class as seen in the world of VC and PE – the types who go for the grueling CFA death march – and whose social-educational profile is really fundamentally mega-Uni education and professional schools, really only marginally distinguishable from the Doctors and Lawyers etc – are giving political money to Democrats rather much more.

    The break-down really is more social than capital – what type of market they are in. Is it Old(er) Economy or is it newer economy that is more knowledge / tech driven. The later profiles trend high-education and socio-economic profile that is more Liberal in our sense while the former trend social conservatism to outrigh xenophobia – and are also of course those under heavy economic stress if not outright decline in modern trading. (for whom on this side of the Atlantic, the EU is the great bogeyman upon which they can pin all commercial troubles)

    Of course small business owners in traditional sectors has always had this kind of tendancy – a Poujadist tendancy not unique to the French…

    @Gustopher: for precision nothing in what he mentioned is specific to that theory. It is quite standard financial economic tools.

    1
  90. Beth says:

    @Gustopher:

    That would be pretty cool, but no, I’m going for a Rebellion Starbird on a field of pride colors with a line from Rogue One in Auberesh. Cause I’m that kind of nerd.

    Good call on Dr. Aphra though. I’m taking my son to a comic book store today and I’ll pick up a graphic novel if they have one. I’ve been meaning to check that out. As far as my son, he’ll be getting two Stranger Things Funco Pops. He’s 9, hasn’t seen Stranger Things and is obsessed with it.

    1
  91. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Jen: I think the key word is “son,” and the key concept is “carveouts in the laws for us, but not for you.” On the theme of who the law burdens but does not protect compared to who the law protects but does not burden.

  92. Michael Reynolds says:

    @Beth:

    Also, out of curiosity, and not snark, do you ever wonder how many people have Animorphs tattoos or lines that you’ve written tattoo’d on them?

    There are quite few.

    You’d think we’d be thrilled but at first we were sort of non-plussed at the idea of people marking a permanent connection to our books on their actual bodies. Our first reaction to devoted fans was, ‘Who, us?‘ We’ve gotten used to it but it sort of flies in the face of our never-take-yourself-seriously ethos. Fandoms didn’t exist in the 90’s they way they do now with the engine of social media, and the fan mail went to the publisher (we were not prepared to manage it) so we never had any idea who was reading, or why, or whether it mattered to them until years after we’d finished the series. Then it was like grown college kids approaching us literally with tears in their eyes, like we were holy relics. It was flattering obviously, but also daunting. We know who we are and icons we are not.

    1
  93. Beth says:

    @Just nutha ignint cracker:

    How can you look at your son after doing something like that though? “Hey Kiddo, I love you, I want to see you happy, but my fellow travelers want you dead and I need their votes.” How utterly barren and horrid. What is that guy going to do when SCOTUS not only overrules Obergafell, but decided that all the marriages since are invalid. How do you go to your kids and explain that you made their lives worse.

  94. Stormy Dragon says:

    @Beth:

    I also find myself wondering what the son and his husband actually think about all of this.

    1
  95. Jen says:

    @Beth:
    @Stormy Dragon:

    Exactly, what both of you are saying. One, I cannot fathom how you even look your kid in the eye after doing something like that, and my gawd that SIL must be wondering WTH he married into.

    It’s all so strange and duplicitous, with apparently not one iota of self-awareness.

  96. Kathy says:

    @Jen:

    Chances are the son and son in law would vote for Democrats anyway.

  97. CSK says:

    @Jen:
    At the wedding reception, Thompson said: “We’re just blessed to have a new son in the family.”

  98. Stormy Dragon says:

    @Kathy:

    Chances are the son and son in law would vote for Democrats anyway.

    They could be log cabin Republicans, which is part of why I wonder what they actually think of this.

    1
  99. Jim Brown 32 says:

    @JohnSF: Every system has its pros and cons. But the whole Brexit dichotomy is like the false dichotomies here….where one Party is making Political arguments and the other makes Governance arguments that goes over the heads of non-academic/Institutionalist voters. Id imagine all things being equal societies would find themselves trapped in different dichotomies. Maybe. Theres always a point beyomg which no system can completely insulate itself from base human nature.

  100. CSK says:

    @Stormy Dragon:
    Maybe Thompson took the couple aside and said: “Look, I have to do this shit because my moron constituents eat it up. You two know I don’t mean it.”

    2
  101. Jim Brown 32 says:

    @Jen: Interesting. Now then would be the time to unleash a butt ton of stories about Republicans and campaign cash misappropriations.

    We have to start playing chess with these people

    1
  102. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Jen: Thanksgiving/Xmas dinners will never be the same.

    1
  103. Jim Brown 32 says:

    @CSK: Im shocked only in the sense I thought Black People (at least Gen X and older) were the only people that reminisced of ass whipping at funerals.

  104. Stormy Dragon says:

    @CSK:

    Maybe Thompson took the couple aside and said: “Look, I have to do this shit because my moron constituents eat it up. You two know I don’t mean it.”

    1. When the bad stuff happens, Thompson not “meaning” it isn’t going to make it any less bad (Don’t forget this was in PA where a legal ban on gay marriage is still on the books, so if Obgerfell gets overturned, their marriage specifically instantly goes *poof*)
    2. In a way, not meaning it makes it even worse. If you’re willing to sell out your own kid just for votes, what kind of person are you?
    3. If this is a “Republican” family, it’s possible the kid actually agrees with this. It’s kinda like when I look at Dave Rubin and wonder how he manages to live with himself.

    2
  105. Barry says:

    @grumpy realist: TAC is pure Rod Dreher’s id.
    Apparently his wife is divorcing him. IMHO, given his extreme fascination with homosexuality and ‘grooming’,….I won’t go there.

    1
  106. CSK says:

    @Jim Brown 32:
    Apparently not.

    1
  107. Jim Brown 32 says:

    @Just nutha ignint cracker: This is why I like you Cracka

    Did some homework…the 1.2T appropriations bill is known as Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act (IIJA). Its designed as block grants that States have to apply and compete for. Best I could find…not a whole lot of applications and disbursement so far. Grant writing does, however, take time and the money has only been set aside since November.

    The larger point…is what a stupid program design. Grant applications depends on the willingness of a State to apply and the skill of Grant writers. Better to find existing projects in the States and plus up the funds to accelerate completion. Then, show up at the ribbon cutting to wave the Flag and promote Uncle Sam… IOWs politics.

    2
  108. Mister Bluster says:

    Not Dead Yet!

    Tony Dow Alive: Wife And Management Team Announced Death In Error; Son Says “He Has A Fighting Heart” – Update
    Deadline

  109. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Beth: My experience is that the truly privileged have no concept that their actions have consequences that affect them and their own. They really are the “I had no idea the leopard was going to eat my face” person from the meme. Additionally, because this douche is a legislator, there’s a certain amount of “it’s not personal, it’s only politics” that adds to the mix.

    I think that a lot of what’s been going on in the current administration’s reactions to Davis has at least a touch of “it’s just politics” in it. I mean, it’s not like they’re “the kind of people” who will need to terminate a pregnancy, is it? That may also be why some of the “solutions” (build clinics in national parks, anyone?) seemed so bizarre. In DC, they greet the decision with a shrug. It’s only politics after all.

  110. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Jim Brown 32:

    The larger point…is what a stupid program design.

    True enough. Then again, block grants came about back when I was in my late 2os or early 3os specifically the avoided the problem of not being able to provide funding for “that” highway because “nKKKLANNNGGGs gonna be using that road.” The program also gave cover to states that wanted money for social programs/didn’t want any of “the people’s money” going to x,y, or z depending on circumstances. It’s always been stupid and inefficent. But it’s popular with the taxation = confiscation crown (which predates libertarianism by decades, BTW).

    2
  111. wr says:

    @Kathy: ” As our latest Peter never left NYC, I wonder why there was “no way home.” He was home all along.”

    He was in Venice and London in the last movie.

    1
  112. gVOR08 says:

    @JohnSF: Thank you, more informative than most MSM articles were on Brexit. As was @Lounsbury: once you ignore the snark. It still strikes me that the Conservatives have gotten themselves into a position similar to the Republicans.

  113. Kurtz says:

    @gVOR08:

    I have a longer post about this Brexit discussion that I’ll likely post in the open thread tomorrow.

    One thing occurred to me when reading these posts. You and I have pretty similar views, but I’m not saying that we both mean the same thing when we use certain phrases.

    But I definitely make distinctions between ultra wealthy people, and I suspect you probably don’t see Koch as the same as Shad Kahn as the same as Jay-Z as the same as Musk.

    I have a general disdain for hedge fund managers, but I happily acknowledge the difference between Ackman and Mercer. I think the former would be much more useful to humanity if he applied that brain to something different, but he isn’t an all-around POS like the latter. I don’t take the sort of judgment I just made lightly–it’s reserved for some very special assholes.