War Room Lounge Thread v120: My threads are in the 93rd percentile. Ask my kids.

[Jack V Savage]

Got some CTers who think both parties are the same in a tizzy about this in another thread, but there's a lot of interesting stuff in this study that is beyond the scope of that discussion:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3288862

Yet, even as influential theories express concern about partisan donors’ influence (e.g., Hacker and Pierson 2011), we know remarkably little about what they actually want from government. To inform theoretical and substantive research on donor influence, this note provides a more detailed account of partisan donors’ policy preferences.

...

Our data documents extremely large differences between partisan donors and mass partisans—however, these differences dramatically vary by party and policy domain in a manner not previously documented and in line with our hypotheses. We consider three domains: economic policy, social policy, and globalism (e.g., immigration and free trade). We find that Republican donors’ views are especially conservative on economic issues relative to Republican citizens, but are closer to Republican citizens’ views on social issues. By contrast, Democratic donors’ views are especially liberal on social issues relative to Democratic citizens, whereas their views on economic issues are closer to Democratic citizens’ views. Finally, both groups of donors are more pro-globalism than citizens. These differences are very large: for example, the gap between Republican donors’ and Republican citizens’ views on economic issues is as large as the gap between Republican citizens’ and Democratic citizens’ views. We also replicated our findings in a pre-registered analysis of an independent dataset gathered by other scholars.

...

Our results may therefore be relevant to understanding a variety of puzzles in contemporary American politics, including: the Republican Party passing fiscally conservative policies that we show donors favor but that are unpopular even with Republican citizens; the focus of many Democratic party campaigns on progressive social policies popular with donors but that are less publicly popular than classic New Deal economic policies (Bartels 2018; Nyhan 2016)

So maybe by looking more closely at what it is that donors want, we can find evidence of influence by them that has eluded previous researchers. And a big part of what they want is for Republicans to move right on economic issues and for Democrats to move left on social issues (note that Republican donors are about the same as Republican voters on social issues but they have a large difference on economic issues, while Democratic donors are a little to the left of Democratic voters on economics, but far to their left on social issues).

There's something in there to challenge and to support everyone in these discussions (obviously, this is assuming the findings hold up). Right-wingers who think that Democrats are obsessed with identity politics are wrong as it relates to voters, but not as it relates to donors. Left-wing nutters who think the Democratic donors are dragging the party to the right on economics are wrong, but they also believe that donors are dragging the party left on social issues, which could be right. I've pointed out that the right is far more interested in identity politics than the left (that even Republican voters don't agree with their party's policy platform), which is right as it relates to voters but not as it relates to donors. Also, I've been swayed by research on the effectiveness of donors at moving the views of politicians, but this provides some level of challenge to that. The globalization stuff isn't really surprising or interesting, IMO, but to people who care about that, it's in there, too.

 

[Sketch]

A like from @Turtle Up should count has twice the likes.

 

[Fawlty]

Philosophical question:
Can a protest be considered "peaceful" if the protesters are armed?

No.

 

[nac386]

Raccoon is bigger, no?

I don't know, I've never measured small mammal skulls against one another. This one is about the size of a beer can.

 

[tonni]

A like from @Turtle Up should count has twice the likes.

Maybe he took a vow of silence until he avenges his twin but unfortunately crippled brother?

 

[irish_thug]

Raccoon is bigger, no?

Much

 

[Da Speeit]

'Sunday afternoon marmalade on the porch' pace is my preferred speed.

I was in a blitz tourney a couple weeks ago, the pace made me do some really dumb shit but it’s fun to do really dumb shit and try to dig out of it


My bjj game in a nutshell

 

[tonni]

I don't know, I've never measured small mammal skulls against one another. This one is about the size of a beer can.

Could be a chupacabra,

 

[Quipling]

You sound like a guy who would fair well in a karate forum hosted chess tournament. I know of one you could sign up for if interested.

I'm on track for a 70-80 hour work week so nope. (My focus is government fraud/whistleblower litigation, and you can imagine how much that's popping off right now).

 

[Quipling]

Philosophical question:
Can a protest be considered "peaceful" if the protesters are armed?

What if the protestors do bjj?

 

[nac386]

Much

I have no evidence this was an adult animal.

Could be a chupacabra,

It likely is.

 

[weed]

who knew Alex Jones was into eating ass

 

[PolishHeadlock2]

 

[AnGrYcRoW]

No.

I'm wrestling with that one , can you elaborate your position

 

[Higus]

What if the protestors do bjj?

Are they wearing Tap Out shirts to the protest?

 

[Higus]

No.

Yeah, that was my conclusion, but I wondered if people had a good argument otherwise.

 

[irish_thug]

Are they wearing Tap Out shirts to the protest?

Bad boy tattoos

 

[kpt018]

Oh lord he’s still fucking terrifying.

 

[Andy Capp]

It’s almost like these inconsistencies are between totally separate departments in places with entirely different laws and policies. Inconsistency within a department or municipality should rightly be pointed out. Otherwise you might as well complain about inconsistency between American and British laws.

You’re not going to have consistency in a federalist government with such strong state’s rights. Particularly when there is no universal training standards for policing (something I harp about constantly btw, and wish to change).

When you can’t even expect consistency between two McDonald’s that get everything shipped from a central location, idk why you would expect NYPD to be consistent with the Ogden County Sheriff’s Office. I think it’s pretty obvious why rural areas with lax gun laws don’t respond the same way as busy city forces with high crime rates and strict gun laws.


See above. In some areas you can legally brandish firearms with impunity, in others you can’t. It’s one of the wacky things about this country. I’m not denying there isn’t a racial factor to some of it, though.

No. I’m Mr. Clean. Without the earring.

The ring goes in a different place, I guess, hm?

 

[AnGrYcRoW]

He seems to have been training for awhile , I wonder if he plans on pulling a George Foreman ?

 

[PolishHeadlock2]

He seems to have been training for awhile , I wonder if he plans on pulling a George Foreman ?

That would be fucking awesome