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Chris Schuck's avatar

So, this feels like a much richer and less reductive explication of "It's the economy, stupid," where "economy" is only one example of policy more broadly conceived. In what ways would you say that popular aphorism is still appropriate here, and in what ways does it fail to capture what you're saying?

"The personal is political but all politics isn’t always that personal" is a lovely turn of phrase; hard to believe someone hasn't used that already. I wonder if there's a way in which we are predisposed to elevate and idealize the "personal transformation" narrative, or at least fantasize that politics *is* more personal than it really is (perhaps because that implies we can change people's minds through the sheer power and rightness of our own values?).

P.S. Hate to be the annoying typo-spotter but: "I've seen commentators say the aid *was* pathetic.."

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collin's avatar

Whenever I hear someone argue that there's no hope to appeal to person X for reason Y, all I can think of are those tiny little barriers that are enough to stop suicides. The most impactful decision you will make in your life and you'll put it off if 10 seconds of effort get put in the way. It feels like sometimes there's an implicit assumption that the *impact* of a belief is correlated with the "strength that it's held*, and that the large impact of a Trump presidency means that people who vote for Trump must really care about him. But people do enormously consequential stuff for tiny stupid reasons all the time, so I'm with you that there's no sense in trying to discretely put voters in one bucket vs. another.

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