Great analysis Tom. For Christian conservatives this election was (as all elections are) a choice between the lesser of two evils. I'm pleased with the outcome but already troubled by a couple of nominees. There is a clear element of "rationalism" (really should be called "subjectivism") replacing empiricism (rooted in the Judeo-Christian presumption of an intelligent and rational Creator) in some of these candidates. But the solution to progressive junk science is not libertarian junk science. We should be replacing looney progressives with SANE CONSERVATIVES.
It will be interesting to see what happens. It will be a key test of my hypothesis that the system does a poor job of identifying and promoting talent. If a "crazy" nominee does a great job as an outsider candidate that will tend to support my idea.
I think you're really on to something with the blitzkrieg metaphor.
Mean tweets aside, he played it reasonably straight as President the first term. All it got him was double-crossed by RINO's in Congress and increasingly egregious attacks from the Deep State and the MSM (one in the same, really). But the thing low-agency normies (even Deep State ones) don't understand about high-agency hyper-succeeders like Trump (and Musk, Thiel, Vivek, etc.) is they never stop, they never give up, and everything, win or loss, is a learning experience for making their next step.
So for the last eight years the public has seen Trump is not some power-crazed, Latin America Caudillo, but the entire establishment attacking him has, in fact, acted like one. Now the public is going to cut him a lot of slack, and ignore any gas-lighting from the MSM.
The tell the Deep State is scared, lying low, and still trying to figure out what to do was there was no coordinated talking points (hit jobs) in the media for over a week straight. Only in the last couple days with these over-the-top cabinet nominations did we finally see some push back that these weren't "serious" nominations. Serious, being defined as geriatric deep state functionaries that have gotten the country into the mess that everyone that voted for Trump feels it is in today.
The nominations themselves suggest the Deep State's worst-fears are true: the house-cleaning is real, it's coming fast, and the paybacks will be vicious.
The next tell will be instead of a double-cross, RINO's in Congress will roll-over this time in exchange for their own skins being spared. I think we saw the first instance of it today when Thune came out and expressed support for Trump's nominations, indicating if the Senate won't approve then Trump would be justified in recess appointments. Blitzkrieg Baby!
The Progressive Left for some reason cannot wrap their minds around the fact that a large swath of the American public was not buying what they were selling, and the only solution is to scream louder and shame the public more.
Then again, it's quiet out there. Too quiet.
We could be seeing a backroom fight between the (progressive ideological) Groups and the (more normie) Funders who want ROI.
I’d like to see more supporting evidence for your abortion commentary that this is actually the real issue. Pro-lifers have been outspent 20 to one by some of the most well-funded, murderous liars, in human history. And the media, far from refuting those lies is actively promoting them.
Also, while most pro-lifers would happily compromise on those tragic cases that make up less than a percent of abortions, there’s a very real risk that would essentially turn into exceptions that swallow the law, given the dishonesty and malice we’re dealing with.
I'm not super knowledgable about the spending here and relative ratios, but if someone is spending millions to promote abortion that's quite demonic. However, on other issues, like affirmative action, conservative positions universally win out in initiatives despite huge spending gaps.
One problem with the pro-life movement is a dogmatism that contradicts moral intuitions, and frankly a lot of vagueness about what they mean when they say life begins at conception. I cover this extensively in my article in IVF linked in the article. The classic scenario that illustrates this is to imagine you find yourself in an IVF facility and a fire breaks out. There's a two-year-old toddler in the room and 3,000 embryos in the freezer, and you can either rescue the two year old or grab some vials with maybe 30-50 embryos (assume they would survive, perhaps by being placed in another freezer in time). We all universally feel the moral intuition to rescue the two-year-old, not the embryos, and that calls into question the idea that the embryos are equally human. It's a very technical discussion morally and pro-lifers seem to have little precision on defining their terms on what they mean by human, what it means to be a person, etc.
If you take positions at odds with moral intuition, where the Bible is silent (miscarried babies at minimum are considered persons, but no mention of embryos or earlier stages of development), then it's possible you're getting it wrong and thus voters don't trust you.
Great analysis Tom. For Christian conservatives this election was (as all elections are) a choice between the lesser of two evils. I'm pleased with the outcome but already troubled by a couple of nominees. There is a clear element of "rationalism" (really should be called "subjectivism") replacing empiricism (rooted in the Judeo-Christian presumption of an intelligent and rational Creator) in some of these candidates. But the solution to progressive junk science is not libertarian junk science. We should be replacing looney progressives with SANE CONSERVATIVES.
It will be interesting to see what happens. It will be a key test of my hypothesis that the system does a poor job of identifying and promoting talent. If a "crazy" nominee does a great job as an outsider candidate that will tend to support my idea.
I think you're really on to something with the blitzkrieg metaphor.
Mean tweets aside, he played it reasonably straight as President the first term. All it got him was double-crossed by RINO's in Congress and increasingly egregious attacks from the Deep State and the MSM (one in the same, really). But the thing low-agency normies (even Deep State ones) don't understand about high-agency hyper-succeeders like Trump (and Musk, Thiel, Vivek, etc.) is they never stop, they never give up, and everything, win or loss, is a learning experience for making their next step.
So for the last eight years the public has seen Trump is not some power-crazed, Latin America Caudillo, but the entire establishment attacking him has, in fact, acted like one. Now the public is going to cut him a lot of slack, and ignore any gas-lighting from the MSM.
The tell the Deep State is scared, lying low, and still trying to figure out what to do was there was no coordinated talking points (hit jobs) in the media for over a week straight. Only in the last couple days with these over-the-top cabinet nominations did we finally see some push back that these weren't "serious" nominations. Serious, being defined as geriatric deep state functionaries that have gotten the country into the mess that everyone that voted for Trump feels it is in today.
The nominations themselves suggest the Deep State's worst-fears are true: the house-cleaning is real, it's coming fast, and the paybacks will be vicious.
The next tell will be instead of a double-cross, RINO's in Congress will roll-over this time in exchange for their own skins being spared. I think we saw the first instance of it today when Thune came out and expressed support for Trump's nominations, indicating if the Senate won't approve then Trump would be justified in recess appointments. Blitzkrieg Baby!
The Progressive Left for some reason cannot wrap their minds around the fact that a large swath of the American public was not buying what they were selling, and the only solution is to scream louder and shame the public more.
Then again, it's quiet out there. Too quiet.
We could be seeing a backroom fight between the (progressive ideological) Groups and the (more normie) Funders who want ROI.
That said, it’s very clear that the pro-life movement’s old playbook is failing severely right now, so there will need to be very significant shifts.
I’d like to see more supporting evidence for your abortion commentary that this is actually the real issue. Pro-lifers have been outspent 20 to one by some of the most well-funded, murderous liars, in human history. And the media, far from refuting those lies is actively promoting them.
Also, while most pro-lifers would happily compromise on those tragic cases that make up less than a percent of abortions, there’s a very real risk that would essentially turn into exceptions that swallow the law, given the dishonesty and malice we’re dealing with.
I'm not super knowledgable about the spending here and relative ratios, but if someone is spending millions to promote abortion that's quite demonic. However, on other issues, like affirmative action, conservative positions universally win out in initiatives despite huge spending gaps.
One problem with the pro-life movement is a dogmatism that contradicts moral intuitions, and frankly a lot of vagueness about what they mean when they say life begins at conception. I cover this extensively in my article in IVF linked in the article. The classic scenario that illustrates this is to imagine you find yourself in an IVF facility and a fire breaks out. There's a two-year-old toddler in the room and 3,000 embryos in the freezer, and you can either rescue the two year old or grab some vials with maybe 30-50 embryos (assume they would survive, perhaps by being placed in another freezer in time). We all universally feel the moral intuition to rescue the two-year-old, not the embryos, and that calls into question the idea that the embryos are equally human. It's a very technical discussion morally and pro-lifers seem to have little precision on defining their terms on what they mean by human, what it means to be a person, etc.
If you take positions at odds with moral intuition, where the Bible is silent (miscarried babies at minimum are considered persons, but no mention of embryos or earlier stages of development), then it's possible you're getting it wrong and thus voters don't trust you.
Link:
https://tomowens.substack.com/p/the-ethics-of-ivf