i think the funniest thing about Matty Y thought is that while triangulating on some issues might be a way to win votes, Matty's "popularism" is entirely built around the elite punditsphere and not actual polling
Comments
Log in with your Bluesky account to leave a comment
Yglesias has written about moderating on gun rights repeatedly fwiw (and I think the Revolving Door Project guy's hostile paraphrase is likely misleading, though I'm not there)
It would be extremely difficult for me to compromise on guns given the bloodletting that happens in my city, all for the interest of fake hobbyists, would-be murders, and school shooters. But the concentration of guns is already so extreme that deregulating them seems almost trivial.
tbh you also run into an issue where people have Guns™ as a core identity trait are probably gonna be so negatively polarized against libs that you'd be trying to draw votes from a stone
There was a very brief period years ago where pro gun people recognized being socially liberal was going to be important for preserving gun rights but that petered out.
Yeah, my preferred angle would be running against bubba-fication, tacticool stuff, and range toys, and I'm not sure that would even sway an electorally significant proportion of gun owners.
My one policy suggestion is that the ATF should cook up a way so that you can do universal backgrounds checks but make it where you don’t have to go to the FFL and pay them whatever fee they want. Like that is an example of a win win where you get universal background and guy buyers don’t pay more
Big fan of just mandating FFLs do it at some fixed cost.
And giving state law enforcement agencies the option to run the paperwork. "Go to your FFL, or the State Troopers and pay $10" is a fix that a sane gun lobby would advocate for.
Too much friction when the alternative is just hand the guy some cash for his gun and bet on the ATF not being interested. Let people download and app and upload the serial number front and back of the drivers license, and SSN and do it for no fee
Yeah, the problem with it is that most of the reasonable solutions are unworkable because chuds shout "shall not be infringed" at you and a lot of libs treat guns the same way chuds treat sex ed
I dearly wish they would as many of their claims aren't based on solid evidence, plus it diverts both attention and resources away from actual solutions to solving gun violence, but alas. Though I find many dumb claims by Dems on guns a whole lot less offensive than what many gun owners say!
My take is still that popularism is mostly right but MattY's current version of it is very, very wrong.
The median voter theorem isn't everything but it is mostly right. It doesn't mean that attacking Trump for sending innocent to prison in El Salvador is a politically bad idea.
Yes, the only argument against fighting him on this is "it raises the salience of immigration" but I think it's a bit silly to be worrying about second order effects like that. Deporting people to Salvadorean gulags against court orders is not popular.
It’s also not especially consistent on Matt’s part (he’s happy to raise the salience on issues that poll poorly for democrats if he is against the democratic position on it)
Peter Theil is a die-hard “libertarian” who is literally going to take your guns away, and track your every move via satellite, and pre-emptively execute you with a kill switch, minority-report style, while instituting an American monarchy. 😆😂🤣😭😢
Comments
To be clear, moderating *in substance* and not message. (Biden and Harris *did* moderate on message, and Kander also tried this)
And giving state law enforcement agencies the option to run the paperwork. "Go to your FFL, or the State Troopers and pay $10" is a fix that a sane gun lobby would advocate for.
The median voter theorem isn't everything but it is mostly right. It doesn't mean that attacking Trump for sending innocent to prison in El Salvador is a politically bad idea.