He’s an anti-system candidate in an anti-system moment. Plus: What does his campaign tell us about the future of American politics? And will he take more votes from Biden or Trump?
most proposed reforms (popular vote, ending gerrymandering, Supreme Court) are precluded by zero-sum thinking. Both parties, and all voters, are exhausted by the endless fundraising and bombardment of ads. I'd predict that will be the area, and it will open things for third parties. Both sides fear it, but parties are weak vessels these days. The office-holders might go for it, if they are persuaded they will not lose their incumbency advantages.
The other might be easier access to ballot initiatives, which won't work out the way we might think.
Question: What is the overlap between undecided voters, as you’ve defined the term here, and voters who have registered as unaffiliated/independent?
Do you have a research article published that covers this research? I guess I need to do a quick lit review of what the current state of understanding is regarding unaffiliated and “undecided” voters.
I’m not sure it’s accurate to say that Democrats think that institutions under Republican control are illegitimate. In my experience, they argue against specific aims of the institutions, e.g., to impose theocratic approaches to U.S. governance. So they don’t say, “The Heritage Foundation is illegitimate.” They say that the Project 2025 report includes specific aims that are in opposition to founding principles, e.g., that the state will not establish a particular religion, e.g., Christianity, over other faiths. They don’t say the “The State Department or the Dept of Education under Trump is illegitimate.” They say that NATO is important and they object to statements like “I’ll tell Putin to do whatever he wants if they don’t pay up.” Or, they say, “I object to DeVos’s position on school vouchers and defunding public schools.” They don’t say DoE, as an institution, should not exist.
"If we’re going to get out of this doom loop, we need..." What? What do we need? First, we need the truth about how we got here. Correct diagnosis is a prerequisite to successful treatment.
The ears of the tear-down-the-system-to-start-from-scratch portion of the public that Kennedy appeals to will remain closed until they finally hear Biden shift from bragging to confessing plainly about how and why we got into our situation.
The Democrats have been as constrained by our campaign finance system as the Republicans. The Democrats felt trapped into policies that caused damage and left people behind: the Great Recession, a retirement system that only works for the successful, destruction of "welfare," weak pushback on tax giveaways (bringing about the transfer of most wealth to the rich and successful), a bad health system, vast increases in public/personal/corporate debt, and the financial challenges faced by most young families.
Lee follows this with some specific fixes, all of which I agree with. Unfortunately, absent a radical change in approach by the Democrats, I do not see any of those fixes emerging.
We left ourselves open to a Kennedy. He, like Trump, has no ability to fix things.
Biden can lead us out of this mess if he is seen as truthful. That will be painful. So is dental surgery. But it can save one's life.
Since then, I've been reading. It turns out that trying to "do good" can be turned into "a truly bad" (as in the 2008 Great Recession) if the players and the public are not educated to understand how the world really works. I just read Ed Kane's classic 1989 analysis of how a banking system can be tripped up: "The S&L Insurance Mess" (out of print and hard to find). And read the just released update of “The Banker’s New Clothes” ($10 for Kindle edition) by economists Anat Admati and Martin Hellwig. Like many (perhaps most), I had assumed that the Great Recession (and its continuation in the 2023 bank failures) was mainly a reflection of the corruption inherent in our campaign finance system. Aided by a plentiful supply of bad actors. Oh, were it that simple! No, it is an inherent risk of misdoing the nice concept called "deposit insurance."
I'm struggling to bring those insights into a unified story.
Meanwhile, I pray that someone convinces Biden to break free of his reassuring advisors and forcefully engage with his many doubters. The full story is not pretty but it can be understood and forgiven if put in context.
I guess I'm confused. Wasn't Trump elected to be the Outsider who Smashed the System and Drained the Swamp and Restored Power to the People? Have those who voted for him on that score just given up on him already as their messiah? Or am I wrong that that's what drove a lot of his support in the first place? I just don't see what RFK offers that Trump isn't also offering but with the added bonus of a very real chance of victory.
Trump ran as the GOP outsider who would beat back the immigrant invasion. RFK offers a different target when he argues for smashing the system: big pharma/corporate interests and how those intersect with state interests. So it appears Trump doesn’t speak to the same grievances & distrust that motivate RFK supporters.
One RFK supporter, a 37yo woman, believes her eggs may have been compromised by the covid vaccine—for the sake of big pharma—and that her already slim chances of bearing healthy children are now further diminished. Others think he is anti-war.
Trump supporters are more tuned into anti-immigrant rhetoric and/or pro-Christian Nationalist rhetoric. They don’t seem to care about corporate greed or wealth inequality.
An old ACLU colleague shared this video the other day, and one of the panelists crystallizes the power of anti-system and how it can connect to self-worth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMBgLUtzTXc
most proposed reforms (popular vote, ending gerrymandering, Supreme Court) are precluded by zero-sum thinking. Both parties, and all voters, are exhausted by the endless fundraising and bombardment of ads. I'd predict that will be the area, and it will open things for third parties. Both sides fear it, but parties are weak vessels these days. The office-holders might go for it, if they are persuaded they will not lose their incumbency advantages.
The other might be easier access to ballot initiatives, which won't work out the way we might think.
Question: What is the overlap between undecided voters, as you’ve defined the term here, and voters who have registered as unaffiliated/independent?
Do you have a research article published that covers this research? I guess I need to do a quick lit review of what the current state of understanding is regarding unaffiliated and “undecided” voters.
I’m not sure it’s accurate to say that Democrats think that institutions under Republican control are illegitimate. In my experience, they argue against specific aims of the institutions, e.g., to impose theocratic approaches to U.S. governance. So they don’t say, “The Heritage Foundation is illegitimate.” They say that the Project 2025 report includes specific aims that are in opposition to founding principles, e.g., that the state will not establish a particular religion, e.g., Christianity, over other faiths. They don’t say the “The State Department or the Dept of Education under Trump is illegitimate.” They say that NATO is important and they object to statements like “I’ll tell Putin to do whatever he wants if they don’t pay up.” Or, they say, “I object to DeVos’s position on school vouchers and defunding public schools.” They don’t say DoE, as an institution, should not exist.
This seems to be an important distinction to me.
"If we’re going to get out of this doom loop, we need..." What? What do we need? First, we need the truth about how we got here. Correct diagnosis is a prerequisite to successful treatment.
The ears of the tear-down-the-system-to-start-from-scratch portion of the public that Kennedy appeals to will remain closed until they finally hear Biden shift from bragging to confessing plainly about how and why we got into our situation.
The Democrats have been as constrained by our campaign finance system as the Republicans. The Democrats felt trapped into policies that caused damage and left people behind: the Great Recession, a retirement system that only works for the successful, destruction of "welfare," weak pushback on tax giveaways (bringing about the transfer of most wealth to the rich and successful), a bad health system, vast increases in public/personal/corporate debt, and the financial challenges faced by most young families.
Lee follows this with some specific fixes, all of which I agree with. Unfortunately, absent a radical change in approach by the Democrats, I do not see any of those fixes emerging.
We left ourselves open to a Kennedy. He, like Trump, has no ability to fix things.
Biden can lead us out of this mess if he is seen as truthful. That will be painful. So is dental surgery. But it can save one's life.
I tried to address this in my first essay (and some Youtube videos) https://michaelfoxworth.substack.com/p/achilles-heel-of-control-by-big-campaign.
Since then, I've been reading. It turns out that trying to "do good" can be turned into "a truly bad" (as in the 2008 Great Recession) if the players and the public are not educated to understand how the world really works. I just read Ed Kane's classic 1989 analysis of how a banking system can be tripped up: "The S&L Insurance Mess" (out of print and hard to find). And read the just released update of “The Banker’s New Clothes” ($10 for Kindle edition) by economists Anat Admati and Martin Hellwig. Like many (perhaps most), I had assumed that the Great Recession (and its continuation in the 2023 bank failures) was mainly a reflection of the corruption inherent in our campaign finance system. Aided by a plentiful supply of bad actors. Oh, were it that simple! No, it is an inherent risk of misdoing the nice concept called "deposit insurance."
I'm struggling to bring those insights into a unified story.
Meanwhile, I pray that someone convinces Biden to break free of his reassuring advisors and forcefully engage with his many doubters. The full story is not pretty but it can be understood and forgiven if put in context.
I guess I'm confused. Wasn't Trump elected to be the Outsider who Smashed the System and Drained the Swamp and Restored Power to the People? Have those who voted for him on that score just given up on him already as their messiah? Or am I wrong that that's what drove a lot of his support in the first place? I just don't see what RFK offers that Trump isn't also offering but with the added bonus of a very real chance of victory.
Trump ran as the GOP outsider who would beat back the immigrant invasion. RFK offers a different target when he argues for smashing the system: big pharma/corporate interests and how those intersect with state interests. So it appears Trump doesn’t speak to the same grievances & distrust that motivate RFK supporters.
One RFK supporter, a 37yo woman, believes her eggs may have been compromised by the covid vaccine—for the sake of big pharma—and that her already slim chances of bearing healthy children are now further diminished. Others think he is anti-war.
Trump supporters are more tuned into anti-immigrant rhetoric and/or pro-Christian Nationalist rhetoric. They don’t seem to care about corporate greed or wealth inequality.
An old ACLU colleague shared this video the other day, and one of the panelists crystallizes the power of anti-system and how it can connect to self-worth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMBgLUtzTXc