Author | Lightnews

Matthew Stockhausen @jmstockhausen.bsky.social · 1h

I feel like there's real money to be made selling huge santa hats, bunny ears, and miscellaneous funny outfits for those huge skeletons. After all, if you spend $150 or whatever on a huge skeleton you want to keep it up.

Matthew Stockhausen @jmstockhausen.bsky.social · 3h

I keep deleting eight reply posts from yesterday, and they won't stay dead.
I delete them, they disappear, i get the "post deleted" popup, i leave, i check back later, and theyyyyy're back

Matthew Stockhausen @jmstockhausen.bsky.social · 1d

And i was pointing out, as i said, that the reality of her campaign is extremely relevant in the context of the thread you were responding to.

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Matthew Stockhausen @jmstockhausen.bsky.social · 1d

It started with Welcome PAC's report on the 2024 election, Deciding to Win, issued last week by a host of influential Dems, and has continued since in a series of NYT op-eds.

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Matthew Stockhausen @jmstockhausen.bsky.social · 1d

No. Voters disliked a liberal Harris campaign that did not actually exist; they thought Harris' positions were far further left than they actually were. Now Dem insiders, asserting Harris *did* run as a leftist, are demanding the party moderate to positions similar to what Harris ran, and lost, on.

Matthew Stockhausen @jmstockhausen.bsky.social · 1d

Yes, there's a whole discussion on here right now, that Grossman's posts are part of, that the modal voter doesn't know what the candidates' positions are or were; these polls reflect a belief that Harris was running on trans rights & climate change. She wasn't.

Matthew Stockhausen @jmstockhausen.bsky.social · 1d

Ah. I came in through Hobbes' repost of Grossman. They're making the same point, though. Efforts to push Dems right are wrong b/c Harris already ran a moderate campaign. The media environment problem isn't relevant here b/c Grossman's target is Dems reacting to a nonexistent woke Harris campaign.

Matthew Stockhausen @jmstockhausen.bsky.social · 1d

The "voter perception" critique is about general election voters writ large. Hobbos has noted that problem elsewhere (as i pointrd out above), but has nothing to do with the current discussion about the pointlessness of the pundit & consultant efforts—based on a campaign Harris didn't run.

Matthew Stockhausen @jmstockhausen.bsky.social · 1d

You said the reality of Harris' campaign is irrelevant. That's not true, though, among the *liberals* Hobbes is speaking to here. Consultants are trying to push Dems into moving right. Harris actually ran where they're trying to push the party. The reality of her campaign is relevant in that context

Matthew Stockhausen @jmstockhausen.bsky.social · 1d

You said "the reality of their moderate campaign." "The fiction of their woke campaign" is a parallel phrase. The point of Hobbes' posts is that Harris ran a moderate campaign but these pundits & consultants are criticizing an imaginary ("fictional") woke Harris campaign, & advising Dems move right.

Matthew Stockhausen @jmstockhausen.bsky.social · 1d

Institutional PR for which an audience has ceased to exist

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Matthew Stockhausen @jmstockhausen.bsky.social · 1d

I think it's Spring roll, Fall down now.

Isn't it?

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Matthew Stockhausen @jmstockhausen.bsky.social · 2d

Why would we not suppose Higgins despises 1/6 of his constituents? Seems like a very low estimate to me

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Matthew Stockhausen @jmstockhausen.bsky.social · 2d

R's lost in 2012 & produced a postmortem about how they needed to moderate to win in the future, esp on immigration. They proceeded to win 2 of the next 3 by radicalizing, esp on immigration—attracting increased Hispanic support in the process. Douthat misses that, i guess b/c he wasn't born yet.

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Matthew Stockhausen @jmstockhausen.bsky.social · 3d

Very impressive!

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Matthew Stockhausen @jmstockhausen.bsky.social · 3d

Brave, indeed! It's a terrifying idea

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Matthew Stockhausen @jmstockhausen.bsky.social · 3d

That's great!

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Matthew Stockhausen @jmstockhausen.bsky.social · 3d

Exactly so! The US Right has been anti-Enlightenment for decades, at least since creationism became a popular position with the evangelical Right.

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Matthew Stockhausen @jmstockhausen.bsky.social · 3d

Yep. Unwisely, they have.

She's moved on to grad school (where the abuse continues, but she's handling it).

I preferred history. We had better things to do than kick students around :)

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Matthew Stockhausen @jmstockhausen.bsky.social · 3d

I'm happy if i can make your day a little bit brighter :)

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Matthew Stockhausen @jmstockhausen.bsky.social · 3d

Happy anniversary! And Happy Halloween!!

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Matthew Stockhausen @jmstockhausen.bsky.social · 3d

Every time i start to fear that we are at the end of days, i remind myself there's no way we're getting off that easy.

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Matthew Stockhausen @jmstockhausen.bsky.social · 3d

Yep. My daughter is in engineering, in which field course material seems secondary to a kind of endless hazing.

I always figured my job was to teach the kids. And i certainly hoped they had lives beyond coursework. In any case, making their lives miserable was both counterproductive and unethical.

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Matthew Stockhausen @jmstockhausen.bsky.social · 3d

Oh, jeez, i forgot to block him earlier

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Matthew Stockhausen @jmstockhausen.bsky.social · 3d

That is to say, the sticking point is they *like* the suffering, because the correct people are hurting.

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