Yeah as I said in response to @filipecampante.bsky.social I don’t think they are necessarily right, just that they are highly motived, experienced, and successful, so whatever they think is smart shouldn’t be dismissed outright.
This strikes me as a good way to criticize Trump while keeping focusing on outcomes most voters care about. (Will leave it to @arpitrage.bsky.social to tell me if it’s actually accurate 😛) https://bsky.app/profile/wyden.senate.gov/post/3lgokormr5k2s
Everyone says “oh, the price of coffee will go up 25% with tariffs!”
But for a $3 coffee - cost of beans is maybe 45-60 cents. If that cost goes up 25% (assuming full passthrough), final coffee price increase is maybe 5%. Also assuming no substitution to coffee beans elsewhere, so overestimate
• there is surprisingly little evidence voters respond even to much larger inflation
• not obvious how tariffs generate pain (or general inflation) for consumers
• voters have high tolerance for pain if it hurts “enemies” more seems to me
(I mean, we know that messages work in general, we just don't know which ones work better or worse. But I agree 100% the volume of unsubstantiated causal discourse is too high out here)
Maybe D's should say stuff like this young firebrand: "more lawlessness and chaos in America as Donald Trump’s Administration blatantly disobeys the law by holding up virtually all vital funds that support programs in every community”
Schumer’s actual method is imagining what an imaginary couple from Long Island that he invented would want. So maybe academics introspecting isn’t so much worse?
This is a genuinely insightful point. I'm very much of the view that, when you see smart people acting in ways you consider dumb or crazy, it's usually bc you don't understand their optimization problem. So let me collect some thoughts based on how I view the Democrats' response. 1/
Observation 1: It looks a lot like the normal response of a defeated party in modern US politics. Think Bush reelection in 2004.
Observation 2: The resulting image, in the current media landscape, is indistinguishable from that of a pathetic loser opposition under competitive authoritarianism. 2/
1) The normal rules of US politics still apply, and Jeffries/Schumer/etc. are obviously great at navigating them. We should expect a thermostatic response translating into a D midterm triumph and a massively unpopular incumbent party going into 2028. 3/
2) We've already converged to a different regime, and they're optimally responding to the new set of incentives. They want to lay low and keep getting reelected, and leading the loser opposition under the new regime. 4/
3) We haven't converged yet, but are moving in that direction. Normal rules don't quite apply anymore, so there's no reason to believe that politicians raised under the old system are optimized for preventing the convergence to the new one. 5/
I know you place a relatively low probability on scenarios 2 and 3, so I can see why you give them the benefit of the doubt. But the fact is that one doesn't have to assume that they don't know what they're doing -- let alone that they are idiots/crazy/etc. -- or that one would do better... 6/
I strongly disagree. After an entire career devising message strategy for Dems at the highest levels I can report to you that there is chronic weakness and a general lack of aggression.
This is a wildly delusional take in describing Schumer
He gets elected as a D in NY out of a quarter century of inertia, and there's never been a policy that you could say "Thank god Chuck was there to push it through"
He is the walking embodiment of the Political Peter Principle
Come on man, try to watch any democrat give a speech speech the whole way through. No one can listen to that stuff. It's impossible. It's all phony, and none of the ideas they talk about would substantially improve anyone's life anyway. By the way I'm a registered democrat.
It's my understanding that the best social science on persuasion suggests the content of messages is basically irrelevant. It's valence and ubiquity that matters
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But for a $3 coffee - cost of beans is maybe 45-60 cents. If that cost goes up 25% (assuming full passthrough), final coffee price increase is maybe 5%. Also assuming no substitution to coffee beans elsewhere, so overestimate
Of course - lots of variation with raw beans consumers hit more than richer consumers who buy processed goods
• there is surprisingly little evidence voters respond even to much larger inflation
• not obvious how tariffs generate pain (or general inflation) for consumers
• voters have high tolerance for pain if it hurts “enemies” more seems to me
(Oh wait, that was Schumer)
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/27/trump-freezes-federal-aid-omb-00200891
Observation 2: The resulting image, in the current media landscape, is indistinguishable from that of a pathetic loser opposition under competitive authoritarianism. 2/
1) The normal rules of US politics still apply, and Jeffries/Schumer/etc. are obviously great at navigating them. We should expect a thermostatic response translating into a D midterm triumph and a massively unpopular incumbent party going into 2028. 3/
He gets elected as a D in NY out of a quarter century of inertia, and there's never been a policy that you could say "Thank god Chuck was there to push it through"
He is the walking embodiment of the Political Peter Principle
Schumer only knows how to do 1980’s politics and raise money for himself under the table.