"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux
Ancient & military historian specializing in the Roman economy and military. PhD from UNC History. More impressive credential is that I have beaten both Dark Souls and Elden Ring.
Blogs at acoup.blog
- Final note on this, I'm seeing people responding, "Stancil with communication skills!? LOLz" and...my dude. You know his name. You know what he stands for. You know what town he calls home and what he wants to do for it. He has annoyed you into winning. Communication skills.
- I find the @whstancil.bsky.social backlash strangely fascinating. At its core it seems to be a desperate effort by folks further to the left to avoid having a liberal (with communication skills) become the face of their movement. But, to be honest, winning was always going to require that.
- "This nationally recognized figure who lands major podcast appearances and gets his message into the Atlantic has bad communication skills" has to go right next to "Donald Trump is an uncharismatic politician" on the 'demonstratively untrue statements' board.
- A 'bad strategy' that achieves its goals is not a bad strategy.
- Somewhat ironically, this is a problem that both some leftist and populist-rightist movements share: their ideology *requires* them to believe that they are the authentic voice of The People and so they are ideologically constrained from recognizing that their ideas are not, in fact, popular.
- I want to be clear here though with 'some' because of course you have your AOC/Mamdani/(Warren-though-she-doesn't-take-the-label) left-aligned politicians who do recognize this reality and adopt alternate strategies (incrementalism, 'sewer socialism,' etc) to try to shift the public to their side.
- I find the @whstancil.bsky.social backlash strangely fascinating. At its core it seems to be a desperate effort by folks further to the left to avoid having a liberal (with communication skills) become the face of their movement. But, to be honest, winning was always going to require that.
- In that there's an outcome where the anti-MAGA movement appears broadly liberal and thus broadly popular (there are a lot of liberals) and so wins and there is an outcome where the anti-MAGA movement looks radical and leftist and thus unpopular (there are not a lot of radical leftists) and so loses.
- The irony here is that I think the only way one plausibly achieves truly leftist goals in the United States is by using some milquetoast-seeming Will-Stancil-esque liberal as a trojan horse for them. I am not particularly a socialist, but the only way to socialism in America is 'Sewer socialism.'
- My goodness, what a map.
- The Utah Historical Society just produced a new, excellent map of "The Peoples of North America in 1776." Great resource for anyone teaching, writing, presenting about Native peoples as part of their 250th work. america250.utah.gov/power-of-pla...
- We've entered the 'one weird trick' phase of the national budget, because both of the actual solutions - raising taxes and/or cutting spending - are unpopular. We will try to do neither for as long as possible, with the result that we will have to do both far more than we'd like.
- And to take my own medicine here, I would prefer that we: 1) Raises taxes on the upper two income quintiles 2) Move capital gains onto the income tax schedule for calculating marginal rates 3) Expand estate taxes substantially. 4) Roll medicare and medicaid into a single, means-tested program.
- 5) Un-cap FICA taxes, but also set the social security eligibility age to automatically increase in six-month-per-year-increments until it balances long-term. My program would win zero votes, of course. But that's what I'd support.
- The question is what precautions here look like. To me, it seems clear there needs to be an effort to track DHS goons close to the election and to be prepared to put (lawful!) crowds outside of (the legal limit of) polling places in key districts to discourage any ICE shenanigans or intimidation.
- We've seen that crowds - even modest ones - of observers substantially limit the ability of DHS goons to do anything and dozens of cameras trained on them will help ensure that if they do try to rough up voters, it goes viral long before polls close. The same may be necessary during vote counting.
- After that, it seems obvious that you will want a No Kings style large-scale rally in DC covering the first days when the new Congress convenes to ensure no January 6th-style effort to disrupt Congress before it can sit, esp. if/when Dems have won one or both houses.
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View full threadAnd finally, all of that needs to be steadily communicated to pro-democracy Americans so that they have a sense when it comes time to 'do something!' what the something is to do. For political reasons, that communication is going to have to happen mostly outside official Democratic Party channels.
- True, of course - the Med being the Med - but I want to say how much 'gutter racist' is a fitting term. It is appropriately low, vile, base. The gutter racist, however rich he may be, is lower and dirtier than the poorest upright working fellow who cares for his neighbors regardless of color.
- There is, ofc, no 'non-gutter' form of overt racism (it can, I suppose, contrast with the unintentional racism of a person who means well but struggles with unquestioned assumptions), but it captures that - yes! - I do look down my nose at racists. They are unworthy creatures, the gutter racists.
- Anyway, I wrote a long series on the remarkable ethnic diversity of Rome and the Roman world here: acoup.blog/2021/06/11/c...
- One downside of winter is my that home office is in the basement and when it gets cold the cats abandon this floor. Alas, older (1970s) house struggles with temperature differentials between floors.
- So believe me I understand this is deeply frustrating and unfair, but a march that does everything right and still gets tear gassed is a successful march that is winning. A lot of the strategy of protest is luring the authorities into engaging in obviously, transparently unjust uses of force.
- A reader (who wished to remain anonymous for reasons of naturalization status) passed along to me their version of a Battle Hymn of Minneapolis, which I now share with you. 'Tis, as they say, a banger. justpaste.it/battle-hymn-...
