“The Indigo Blob can weave superficially compelling narratives, often involving a lot of whataboutism. Biden pardoned Hunter? Well, what about Trump pardoning Paul Manafort? Those school closures were bad? Well, what about anti-vaxxers? Not on board with full-blown wokeness? Well, then you’re in league with the fascists. But these stories have become increasingly desperate and implausible. The Indigo Blob suggested that it was “ageist” to be concerned about Biden wanting to be president until he was 86. It said that educated white men brought about Trump’s victory, even though college-educated whites were actually the only group of men who didn’t swing heavily MAGA.”
you’re literally combatting whataboutism with whataboutism. The inverse where you pull equally fringe stories from right wing publications would read like “they said sandy hook was a hoax, they said to inject yourself with bleach, they said vaccines are a hoax” like come on
yeah i kinda knew what I was in for once the buzzwords came into play. “Superficially compelling”, how is a feeling superficial? Something’s either compelling or it’s not. Reeks of thesaurus writing
"Something's either compelling or it's not" is academic posturing, drawing on sterile dictionary based nit-picking. Very evidently something can have a 'superficial' feeling and the assertion compelling or not is just simply classic fallacious excluded middle logical fallacy being used as a mode of arch criticism
"reeks of thesaurus writing" in fact reeks of academic snobbishness gussied up to pretend to be a criticism of substance rather than essentially an ad hominem.
Whether Silver is correct in his judgment here is another matter - maybe yes, maybe no (personally not per se convinced but worth its airing), but this kind of assertion is the very illustration of the effect Silver (and Musa Al Gharbi in a different flavor) have put their fingers on.
Splitting people up into broad categories that lumps southern black democrats or LGBT people with people on the coasts is silly. I reject that there’s any merit to it 🤷🏼♀️
Would the merit not come from the exact fact you share - that there is diversity in those groups and thus change would come from them? Diversity's purpose is evolutionary pathways opening up which allow for change. It sounds to me like saying maga has a low deviation and thus less open to an evolution, in contrast to The Village.
Calling the Democratic party the party of the "educated" should be corrected to "college graduates." Neither my husband, a carpenter, or my father, an electrician, went to college, but were much more aware of physics and electronics and allied sciences than most of the "educated." They were both Democrats. I would not call either of these men not "educated." But Democrats today would find them unacceptable as, like you, they would be characterized as "uneducated."
Did I say they were? I think they're important, valuable skills.
I'm just pointing out that you're language policing Nate for using pretty standard language to describe people who went through higher education as "educated." I'm guessing your politics are conservative, and conservatives typically excoriate the left for its insistence on language policing and identity politics. And, then you come around and say "Actually, they're not 'educated' they're 'people who have experienced college educations.'" It's pretty funny to me, honestly.
Thank you. Anybody who doesn't know how judgmental "The Village" can be about your "official" level of education, hasn't spent any time around the "The Village."
I heard someone in my Ivy-educated circle once say "I would never move to San Diego--I would be the only educated person there!". That's the level of snobbery possible.
Most of the people getting college degrees these days are not scholars, stop acting like they are. We have been pumping midwits through the system in record numbers for decades.
I'm reminded of that poll that Loewen pulls out in his "Lies My Teacher Told Me" about opinions on Vietnam in a post-Tet environment. It turns out that the more advanced your degree was, the more you believed the government line about Vietnam, in the same timeframe and environment that Johnson ended his re-election bid in 1968. Loewen's point was that the more college you had, the better indoctrinated you were to accept the signals from on high.
Keep in mind that a very likely factor with that was who was being sent to the war, as conscription had a college student exemption. There was a strong degree’s parents had kids that went to college bias, still.
I think this is dismissal of an important point in how people are characterized as "educated." If college graduate is meant to equal educated, then say that.
Then that isn't education, it's knowledge and experience. Educated specifically refers to having gone to a school and received formal lessons and instruction. Being educated correlates with being knowledgeable, but it's not the same thing. You can be educated and still not knowledgeable, and you can be knowledgeable without education.
I don't think all college graduates should be lumped together as Dems and Kamala voters, either. My husband and I were both college graduates (and so on), but like many others like us, we're Trump voters. Too much over-generalization going on.
Terms like "educated" and "uneducated" are just categories that political hacks and pollsters use to ply their pundit trade. Nobody IRL thinks about people this way and everybody recognizes how intelligent one has to be to excel at a trade. Don't let this silly article make you feel that your husband or father are not appreciated.
Thank you so much. Both are dead now but skills I watched and learned from them have stood me in good stead, probably more in daily life than my college degree. My husband got me a tool box for a birthday present and made sure I knew how to use each tool as he built me many book shelves.
I'm with you there-the people I know who think pretty deeply about the issues and are big-picture types definitely lean either blue or libertarian. It doesn't really matter their education: they "get it". If you think correlation = causation, you aren't a thinker, period. I don't care where you went to school.
I got through about half of this before realizing it was just another smear-the-left post and dropped it. This is why I dropped my subscription… so much idiocy about what the “left” cares about.
If anyone says a frigging thing about Biden pardoning his son, with the pardons Trump pulled in his first presidency, they are just part of the group that has turned a blind eye to Trump’s behaviors. Spare me.
I guess you didn't get to the part where Nate called out this precise response to the Hunter Biden pardon as an example of the sort of whataboutism that is handicapping the expert class. Good job embodying the flaws identified in the article!
Yeah it's not a great one. Most people really don't care about Biden pardoning his son. He is on the way out anyway. And it is understandable. There is just no comparison between this and pardoning actual violent criminals from J6 (if it happens).
I've been a fan of Nate back from the firedoglake days, and I so deeply wish that Nate had more non-Riverians helping him form his worldview.
In my view, Trump's victory was a repudiation of institutions, not the left, and certainly not the far left, who also critique some of those very same institutions. Trump's victory IS a vote for "burn it all down" and chaos, because as Nate has pointed out, when you are far behind in a game, chaos is a logical choice - high potential downside but also probably the only potential for high upside.
As but one example, take schools reopening. The same "illiberal academics" he is critiquing so much were probably the loudest voices calling for schools reopening - see Emily Oster's heroic data gathering work at Brown to prove that teachers were dying at the same rate in places schools reopened vs schools remained closed, or Thomas Kane's work at Harvard demonstrating early and often the negative academic effects of school closures, especially on elementary school students. The "Bernie Sanders/labor" wing that Nate says he "doesn't fight with" were the ones who fought the longest and hardest to keep schools closed - the length of time schools were closed were directly related to the strength of the unions, NOT the blueness of the states (which is hard to disentangle but not impossible). For example, San Francisco and Denver are both very very blue, but Denver has much less strong teacher's unions, and the schools there reopened 10 months earlier.
I could continue for quite some time, point by point, but my overall point is that I think the River has dangerous blind spots, as I think we'll see in this next administration with Elon Musk at the helm of so much power. I hope Nate is open to re-evaluating his current worldview, because I think he is missing quite a bit.
On the other hand look at the extent to which moderate liberals have been excommunicated from the modern Democratic party. Trump represents the first time that Elon Musk has voted for a Republican in recent memory.
Thanks for replying. In my first read, your two sentences seem to be two disconnected points, because I don't see tremendous evidence that Elon Musk was ever a "moderate liberal". A few more thoughts below explaining more:
I am not sure who you mean by "moderate liberals" - eg, the former Blue Dog caucus in Congress? People with 90s Clintonian beliefs about racial politics? People who would have called themselves "pro-life"? I think some of those groups have changed as the world has changed (eg, some who would have been Blue Dogs are now in the Sanders wing of the party), but am curious to know who you are referring to more specifically.
Any other unpopular issues you'd like the Democrats to adopt? With respect to the last two those are issues that old school Democrats used to push for but which they have since given up on--because they are not popular with the median voters
Exactly. Slaw needs to look up the definition for progressive. It means to move forward, step by step. Of course the civil rights fights of today are not the same as they were 30 years ago. That's the point.
Thanks for clarifying. I suspect we'd have to agree to disagree here; I'm not sure 100% of the current Democratic coalition OR the current Democratic party leadership believes in these things, either. Of course some do, and some make speeches and policy pronouncements to that effect. But I don't think a very large number of people have been barred from either for disagreeing.
I think currently, being pro his business interests has led him to be pro-Trump, because he is annoyed by the guardrails on SpaceX and his internet satellite interests. I also think he has cultural sympathies with many in Trump's circle (see: Joshua Benton's 10000 word essay on Musk in the Atlantic, among others)
I think Musk has always somewhat libertarian in wanting fewer regulations, but also been pro HIS businesses (not the same as the "pro-business" vote), and while Tesla was one of his big projects and Democrats were more "pro-green" than Republicans, he was vaguely Democratic.
Thank you for saying what's on my heart. And I just want to point out that as a PhD neuroscientist, I took my lumps in this article along with the rest.
On the advice of my therapist (literally, and non-ironically), I've decided to close my circle of influence to the 200-300 people I see on a daily basis, and have completely cut myself off from the Purple Blob. No WaPo, no NYT, no MSNBC, no CNN, no social media whatsoever.
Nate, you're all I have left to connect me to the larger world and I'm actually pretty happy about that right now.
I don’t see at all why it would be a bad decision, in consultation with one’s therapist, to go cold turkey for a while and focus on people one knows personally.
I'm assuming these are people encountered during the course of work. A teacher, retail worker, food service worker, or receptionist would easily encounter a few hundred people daily.
I've limited my news content considerably with positive outcomes.
1) Most news content is not germane to my life. I read economic data religiously as it applies to my work, but I have little need to read most political and national news.
2) Much of the news is intended to play off of emotions. Humans aren't designed to engage in all of the most emotional content globally. It either desensitizes or overwhelms. I don't need to know about every school shooting and actor that dies, especially when it is sensationalized for maximum views.
3) To understand an opinion writer you need to read them enough to have deeper context of their perspective and values. I'd rather have a few writer I understand and respect than taking all comers. There are too many ignorant views.
My mind (and yours) is an amalgamation of the idea we receive and synthesize. If you improve the relevance of the incoming signal, the quality of your thoughts and fruits of your actions will be better. You need to curate to avoid echo chambers and allow diversity, but news consumption should not be open ended.
I didn't take it as reducing consumption is problematic, I took it that reducing consumption to the point where you only get your information from a single source is problematic. I would say it is very problematic.
I would suggest you at least find two sources that don't agree all the time. Winnowing yourself down to a single source of information is very problematic, it should be obvious why.
Good move. I used to tell myself a story that I kept myself informed so that 'they' couldn't do their sh*t without me at least knowing what was what. It was a fallacy. I became better informed through less emotional contagion.
After repeatedly assuring the public that he had no intention of either pardoning or commuting his son's sentence
I'm not convinced that this is the biggest story ever--surely most people aren't surprised that politicians lie. But on the other hand the idea that it can be dismissed or waved away is just as flawed. At the very least it reinforces public sentiments that there is one system of justice for the little people and another for the people that matter.
If he wasn't Biden's son, he almost certainly would never have been prosecuted in the first place. So, in a sense, you're correct that there are different standards for different people (and, in fact, Trump is now benefitting from that fact with the suspension of all the various prosecutions he was facing).
Quite a while before hunters tax fraud was referred for prosecution, it started with tax audit by the IRS. From all available evidence, it’s established well beyond any reasonable doubt that Hunter did in fact commit several different types of financial and tax fraud on over $7 million in income.
The assertion that “Hunter would never have been prosecuted if he was not the President’s son” relies fundamentally on asserting that either:
(A) “the initial examination by the IRS of Hunter’s tax filings of $2.3M, $2.1M, and $1.1M in 2017-2018 would not have occurred if you were not the president’s son,” or
(B) “After having been audited after an initial examination, and evidence of tax fraud having been committed on millions of dollars in income, Hunter’s tax case would not have been referred for prosecution if he were not the President’s son.”
People reporting over $1 million in taxable income have an average chance of 1.1% of being audited for any given fiscal year. But the probability of an audit being triggered, rises a lot if you have any of the following circumstances (and Hunter’s situation involved every one of these, nearly maximizing his chances of being examined if not directly audited):
1. Disproportionate or Unusual Deductions
2. Use of Complex Tax Shelters
3. Offshore Accounts and Foreign Income
4. Luxury Asset Purchases
5. Repeated Losses in Hobby-Like Activities
For anybody with that level of income and circumstances reported on their filings, the baseline for being examined was at least 5% in every tax year from at least 2010. The cumulative probability of a random examination by the IRS by the time that the examination actually started is around 33% - if we exclude the most significant trigger for an investigation, which is under reporting income. Although honestly, some of “goods and services” that he listed as business expenses deducted from his personal income, probably drove the likelihood of an examination to 100%.
Your argument, as well as Joe’s argument this prosecution was politically motivated “war politics” does not bear up under cursory scrutiny of the facts.
Hunter Biden was prosecuted for breaking the law. He failed to declare his income from his dealings with the Chinese and on the board of Bursima from 2016 - 2019 and filed a false tax return in 2018. He owed $1.4 million in unpaid taxes. If anything being Joe Biden's son probably kept him from going to jail sooner.
Wake up to reality. He was continually protected as Biden’s son. The whole of the National Security apparatus brazenly lied to the public about his laptop to protect him and his father and perhaps alter the 2020 election outcome.
Yes, Trump has a habit of accusing others of doing things that he and his team are actually doing. Or, even if he himself isn't doing the bad thing, if he observes that it happens to anyone, he often asserts it is also happening to him.
I think in this case its the reverse. When Trump’s legal problems started a few years ago, he and many on the right shouted politically motived, and that others are not prosecuted for the same things. The left were up in arms about due process, and the law is the same for everyone. Now Biden and many on the left have taken a leaf from Trump and are claiming politically motivated.
Do you think it matters that Trump just selected a completely unqualified lunatic to serve as FBI director who is obsessed with going after Hunter Biden. Kash Patel has made it clear that he wants to use his position to punish political enemies. Not pursue justice. I would do whatever I could to protect my son from that.
Yeah, that's why they won't prosecute him, not because this was all a complete circus in the first place. Trump sold state secrets and is advocating for the death penalty for Hunter for lying on a gun permit. This has nothing to do with justice and everything to do with enraging his base. As we have discussed, your propaganda machine is robust. It should be with all that Russian funding.
The big story here, to me, is not the pardon. To me, the story is the level of political malpractice. This was just plain dumb.
The reason why is this: Biden's legacy is tarnished for no real reason. Hunter is an addict. He's going to get in trouble again if you know anything about addicts. That pardon won't help him one bit when that happens. They'll throw the book at him out of spite at that time.
Instead, Biden should have asked Trump to grant clemency after he took his convictions. He would have done it i'm quite sure. It's very in character for him and i'm sure some kind of handshake deal could have been worked out. Then, Biden's legacy is clear, Hunter doesn't have to go through vengeance prosecution later, and all is laid to rest.
This just keeps the running sore running for no good reason. This is more proof to me that Jill Biden is running things. She's the Edith Wilson of our generation, after Woodrow had his stroke. This is just not smart politics. Which has been the hallmark of the Biden administration, and Joe didn't show many signs of not being a smart politician before that.
Democrats have spent nearly a decade misjudging Trump. They could have come to him with a deal at any moment and he'd have bargained with them. All he ever wanted was to be shown a little respect. They could have had the de facto third Obama term if they'd been willing to kiss his ring and play nice, letting him strut around like a little emperor. But they assume he's a spiteful, stubborn ass like they are, so it didn't even occur to them. And now they have lost again to the faction they detest, but which was willing to kowtow.
You'd think *one* person in the Democratic party would have realized this by now. Someone, anyone. They watched him in action for 30 years before he ran, it should have been really obvious. But they were trying to somehow avoid this.
I'm reminded of my mom breaking her humerus and screwing up her shoulder joint last year. She tripped and fell on her way back into the house after being out one night, and instead of falling on her ass, she took the whole weight in her arm and shoulder trying to break her fall. Therefore, she had to undergo a shoulder (and half her humerus) replacement and 11 months of painful therapy. Great metaphor for the Democratic Party. Just fall on your ass and it's all over with faster.
They’ll back the candidate that makes the most $$ in donations. If changing policy or candidate means less money then they won’t do it, if it means more then yes. There’s nothing genuine in this game.
This is all engineered. The elites maneuvered trump to win the primary making sure the trials came to a head just at the right time, then suddenly vanished when the job was done. Democrat elites didn’t actually care if trump got in. They did care about the gravy train continuing. Biden had to go because after the debate he couldn’t fundraise anymore. I wonder how much money Kamala made out of the billion that poured in. Four years of trump = a lot of donations. A lot of people seem to think they all hate each other. They all know the game. It’s about the money. Each side knows what to say to their team to get them to hate each other and donate.
The list of controversial pardons in the modern era is LONG: Nixon, Iran-contra, Marc Rich’s, Roger Clinton and add all of trumps. Yes they’re in the minority but they’re not small. This is a huge power, either reform it or expect family and close supporters to be pardoned in the future.
The problem is that a lot of the corruption allegations ultimately go straight back to Joe himself. He is, infamously and obviously, “the big guy” of Hunter's bribe-seeking emails; that was confirmed by IRS whistleblowers. This was while Joe was Vice President: the second most senior officer of state, accepting bribes via an intermediary from a foreign power. So the pardon of Hunter is not just a dad taking care of his son, it's a Mafia don taking care of his consigliere. And you may be a father, but I doubt you're a Godfather.
You can empathize with him and fully understand his reasoning while still noting it's a huge fuck you to the people in the party he nominally represents.
We already had one transparently corrupt and transactional party in this country. To the extent that the Democrats want any kind of moral authority they should call out the bad actors within their own party rather than excuse them, and Biden is among the worst.
The best time to throw Biden under the bus was about two years ago. The next best time is right now.
The President is supposed to make decisions in the best interests of the country and not from a narrow, personal angle. Biden has been a total disappointment so this is nothing new. The scope of the pardon is so broad that it's almost incriminating.
You better watch Trump's appointments - they are the definition of a narrow, personal angle. At least in this case it is clear that Biden cares for his son and not himself.
Biden actually got a lot done, economy is doing great, what is your problem with him?
I voted for Trump 0 out 3 times not because Democrats have great policies that personally benefit me in any way but he's one of the most unethical candidates ever. If Democrats want to use him as the bar for ethical standards, that's their choice but that makes it easy for me to justify voting for Republicans to get a tax cut.
I am also a parent, but since long before I became one, I have always hated the common notion that "doing anything to protect your kids..." is somehow virtuous. I will always love both of my kids, but loving someone does not mean shielding them from the consequences of their mistakes. Wanting the justice system to treat your kid differently than it does everyone else isn't love, it's selfishness.
There's a difference between protecting your family and nepotism. Using one's power to work around inconvenient laws -- especially when it's been used by the ATF during both Republican and Democratic administrations -- would constitute abuse when he isn't also pardoning other individuals who had been prosecuted by the same rules.
I agree with Biden that the rules are unfair, but honestly Democrats should have been working to correct this from ages ago. The problem is that, even though it's unjust, Republicans haven't cared to overturn this because they don't care about drug users, and Democrats haven't cared because they don't care about gun owners. And the ATF has been using this for years to target folks on their radar that they dislike.
I agree with most of your sentiment but using the lens of the Hunter Biden pardons is just a garbage example.
Who ever is actually taken to court for lying about Drug use on gun purchase forms? That prosecution was just so obviously political and meant to create Republicans own what-about-isms that's its insane that anybody should actually care about these pardons.
The Manefold pardons obviously have political ramifications, it's not a what-about-isms to compare them, Hunters crimes literally had absolutely nothing to do with politics and wouldn't have even been allowed to be prosecuted if it was a Trump child in a Trump administration.
Biden should have dropped out, the village covers stuff up, yeah obviously that's true. Is every news article just going to strain to connect to that thesis?
Trying to connect these pardons to this thesis just has nothing to do with politics and is just magnifies a "everybody is corrupt and bad" Russian style misinformation.
The IRS whistleblowers claimed that Hunter Biden wrote off airline tickets for prostitutes as a business expense. Let's not forget that he was also nailed for tax evasion.
Just like trump was in the hush money case! I'd like to hear you say "yes I agree Trump was guilty in the hush money case, just like Hunter Biden was". I have no problem saying that.
For writing it off as a business expense instead of a campaign contribution. Not exactly tax evasion but the logic is the same, it was an illegal campaign contribution made by lying about the purpose.
He… doesn’t use the pardons as a lens? He says that it’s a “small log on a large fire” and then proceeds to talk about what he sees the big logs as…
And I imagine plenty of people get taken to court for lying about drug use on their background checks for guns, it’s probably a charge tacked on to anybody caught in possession of a legally purchased firearm with drugs in their system. It would just be a underclass of people that nobody ever pays attention to, the type of average criminal that makes their way through the system without you noticing every day. But this time it’s the powerful son of the President of the United States and so people are paying attention and are letting their politics, on both sides, influence their opinion of the case.
I agree most of the article isn't about it, but it is in the article and is the title of the article. Sure he has a thesis to argue and a book to sell (ok - probably unfair, and it's a good book), but at some point if every news story connects to your "unifying theory of political alignment" things are going to come off as contrived.
Generally the "lying on the form" charge is one tacked on to other gun crimes in court having it be the sole conviction (for the gun cases) weird and screams of "well it at least should seem fair that he gets found guilty of something out of these leaks". It just seems insane that anything to do with that charge or it's pardon and it's coverage has literally anything to do with the relationship between the village and the river or whatever.
Sure if on of Trump's kids was found guilty of snorting coke while owning a gun or something and was pardoned by him the media would probably cover it move and more harshly (and again the media isn't sweeping the Hunter stuff completely away), but I would argue in that Trump case it also would be something the media should care about less (just based on the circumstance of the weird ass/abnormal/insignificant crime he was found guilty of)
Re the article: yeah, it’s in the subtitle, but, to be fair, generating clicks is still kind of his business. I agree that the Hunter Biden stuff doesn’t really fit well into the back half of the article, but if you accept the thrust of the article as Biden burning down his legacy and Hunter’s pardon being (a minor, but not insignificant) part of that, I think that it’s inclusion was fair. The optics aren’t really about what Hunter did/did not do, it’s a President preempting his own justice department and a special counsel by giving a blanket pardon to his son. It’s not like he just washed away the gun charge, he scrubbed anything he may have done.
And, it’s convenient to say “it’s only a gun charge” but it was tacked on to the original tax charges that Hunter pleaded guilty to. The gun charge was just the last thing left to adjudicate. That’s like somebody with a small amount of marijuana in the car pleading guilty to reckless driving and then complaining that he was just being prosecuted for simple possession, maybe the state doesn’t frequently just bring people up for simple possession, but they’re not necessarily just going to absolve the crime already charged because it’s the last one left after the defendant pleads out.
Obviously this is probably coloured by opinions on the original plea deal, but the form seems like less of a gothcha charge than you’re painting it as. He was charged with the form and tax evasion, reached a deal on the tax evasion and was left to adjudicate the gun charge.
I appreciate that your views are consistent though, I think a lot of people jumping to Biden’s defence here would probably fail the “swap Biden with Trump” test
“Who ever is actually taken to court for lying about Drug use on gun purchase forms?”
It's disingenuous to complain about this. As everyone is aware, this prosecution was the equivalent of jailing Al Capone for tax evasion. The Biden Crime Family needed to be tackled by law enforcement, and this was the crack in the armour they managed to find.
The Biden Crime Family primarily receives corrupt payments from foreign countries, especially Ukraine, in exchange for influence over US government policy. The head of the crime family, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr, co-ordinates this criminal activity remotely by placing his family members in corrupt foreign sinecures, and then delivering on the policy requests. E.g., Robert Hunter Biden was installed on the board of a Ukrainian gas monopoly and several Chinese firms.
In addition to this general activity, Robert Hunter Biden is known to be involved in drugs and prostitution, including allegedly being linked to the deaths of sex workers who overdosed while entertaining him.
Talk about value for money: Ukraine got a whole entire war out of us, or at least all the weapons for it. They are still working on getting us to fight the war for them. This was a bribe that seriously, no fooling, worked.
The issue is that the military aid had little to do with Biden. Lethal aid started under Trump. Then the 24 Feb invasion happened. But aid only continued at a trickle until the US recognized that Ukraine wasn’t collapsing as expected. Anyone can take a few anecdotes and build a story around them, but Ukraine didn’t want a war.
I don't care if Ukraine wanted a war or not; common sense must assume it didn't, since it's losing and never prepared for the Russian invasion because they were hoping it wouldn't happen. That the Bidens were given big bribes to get the United States to provide the weapons for Ukraine's war is obvious, and the Ukies keep on and on asking us to provide the soldiers, too. Macron of France even said they'd provide Frenchmen to fight --- for about 20 minutes, till his sanity returned. I'm going to guess however large Hunter's and "big guy's" bribe, it was not even a tiny part of one percentage of the American tax dollars that have been poured down a rathole over there. Now THAT is a well-worthwhile bribe, from Ukraine's perspective. The faster Trump gets us out of that stupid situation, the happier I'll be.
What money has Joe Biden personally received from foreign countries?
Since the only evidence is that Hunter (or rather Hunter and his associates) get paid for their job on those boards (everything legal, although I'll concede it isn't the best optics) what policies have been impacted by the money? $24 Million also really isn't that much (see the recent Russian Tenet media payouts), I would expect the "Biden Crime Family" windfall to be more than Hunter could probably make in a couple years on some BS consultant job other politician family members tend to do.
The prostitute death stuff is just pure conspiracy.
Hunter gets invited onto these boards and positions because he is the vice presidents son with the intention from those companies that they could potentially get the ear off (advertise) to people close to policy makers.
This stuff isn't good, it leans oligarchical, it is classic Village, but it's not illegal, and not particularly high in importance (you can see in a comment below, I would be consistent with this on Trump. Kushner, although unqualified imo, like Hunter, also largely was put in positions that were largely above board and over scrutinized).
There is no evidence linking any of this stuff to actual policy, the monetary incentives don't even come close to worth it, and none of what you mentioned is what is connected to what Hunter is charged with.
So surely then all the law enforcement actions against trump were also perfectly legitimate for all the stuff he's done, and the crack in the armor they found was the hush money case? (And the rape case and the trump university case etc etc)
That was a similar logic, yes. They recognised that no one else would have been prosecuted for what he did (especially in the infamous Deutsche Bank case), but believed that violating the law was necessary in order to save the Republic.
Which you feel more sympathetic to will mostly depend on whether you are more concerned about the corruption and allegedly deaths caused by the Biden Crime Family, or about the populist rhetoric and policies of Trump.
You can’t grant what was said, and pretend that the issue was “populist rhetoric and policies” of Trump.
For instance, Trump’s wish for another 12k votes in Georgia, coupled with the insinuation of possible legal action against Raffensperger should be fail to “find” them, is neither populist policy nor is it populist rhetoric. It’s corruption. “I just want to find 11,780 votes” is the sort of language you actually would expect to come from a mob boss.
On the other hand, selling access, while despicable, has been a part of our politics since its inception. It’s good to see people learning to hate it, but sad that people think Hunter Biden’s behavior in this respect was either remarkable or criminal.
You realize you're proving the point made in the comment you're replying to, right? (maybe you're sarcastically agreeing with him, in which case, carry on)
No, I think there's a subtle distinction you've missed.
Xavier is saying that normally no one is prosecuted for the precise thing Hunter did, therefore Hunter should not have been prosecuted.
I am saying that normally no one is prosecuted for the precise thing Hunter did, but that's reasonable in this case because it is analogous to jailing Al Capone for tax evasion. I.e., sometimes the only way for the forces of law and order to take down a crime family, such as the Capone Crime Family or the Biden Crime Family, is to over-enforce lesser laws so that justice is served de facto for the greater crimes they committed but which they keep wriggling out of on technicalities.
The River makes its money and draws its power from voluntary consumption of its products and services by individuals. If the dogs won't eat the dog food, you fix the food. You don't blame the dogs.
The Village uses expert authority to persuade the gatekeepers of law and economics to admit or bar individuals regardless their actual success or validity of their ideas. When those choices, made for the larger population without their express consent mostly, go south the natural inclination is to double down. Eventually, the River floods the Village as has happened this cycle.
Except here Nate is blaming the dogs for fleeing X when the product is obviously inferior from a technical perspective. I still have an account and use it. But the user experience has certainly diminished.
There we go, that's the primal scream I was expecting about a month ago.
This is also why I was hoping for the Democrats to lose, right up until the Conservatives nominated Trump. This is the pent up rage I've seen in the blue class who've felt like the calls for 'unity' overruled the *discussion they needed to have back in 2016, Because they didn't have a serious one back in 2000.*
I'm just so used to this mess from being a frustrated and aggravated libertarian who's watched this back and forth for decades. I have the benefit of having given up on my party after trying to be the treasurer for the local party for a decade and the continued gaslighting that entailed.
So on that front, feel you 100% Nate.
Yes, Trump and Biden are both hypocrites with variations of the same problem from the same Era. Trump's pardons his financier inlaws, Biden pardons his druggy of a son. Democrats spoke of how 2020 was going to be the dawn of a new day of Liberalism, Republicans speak of how this new alliance will birth a new republican era.
Hopefully one day they will both evolve into something useful, but people once people put on blinders it's hard to convince them to take them off.
Everyone tries to fit it into their narrative, but it's never as clean as the narrative devices we build in our head. Everyone retreats into the woods after a defeat, because the crowing of the victors pisses them off. Doesn't matter if you are the Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, or Greens, you do the same. Everyone is shocked when a year later the parties emerge from the woods and come forth and start winning, to the point it's abnormal when they don't.
The Democrats have just been overdue for a major retooling away from the Clinton Era globalism and performative politics with a side of palace politics and no-effort pandering. I hope they find their way out of the woods to something better. I wish them luck.
I think the Hunter Biden thing is disappointing, but I also sort of get it. Biden will get literally 0 credit for doing the right thing from anyone, is about the be replaced by someone who will get 0 blowback for pardoning far more people who committed far more series crimes, and probably wants to be able to spend what few years he has left with his remaining. At that point it's hard not to just say fuck it and throw in the towel.
Dems should still criticise him for it, but ultimately I think by the end of the year, critical attention really needs to start being pointed more at the guy who is in power and controls both houses of Congress, and the people who put him there, even if you do live in liberal circles.
Don't agree with every word here, but mostly you're right on, and where I do disagree, I do so thoughtfully and respectfully. My family is pretty indigoed and one relative actually got angry because I said we don't actually know the exact origins of COVID. I'm so tired of people replacing thought with echo chamber!
Hey, Nate -- as a political commentator, you make a great paperweight (with apologies to Mark Twain and Oscar Wilde). I suggest you stick to stats -- but lose the illusion that such expertise confers political insight.
David, if you were open to discussing ideas you would probably have enjoyed this article a lot more. I suggest you open your “village doors” to some concepts that you are not familiar with, who knows, an educated person such as yourself might end up learning something new.
I have always thought somebody with a good argument does not need a PhD behind his name to make a point (I am not downplaying subject matter expertise, I am sure you know your village ways well).
Overall I felt the article captured many of the frustrations of those stuck in the middle.
I don't think this is a very good forum for discussing politics -- same reason Nate isn't particularly qualified as a political observer, though he is certainly entitled to his opinion and perch on his rather large soapbox.
Yes, it's on my "side" in terms of ideology. But at least I'm up-front about it, rather than claiming some special insight based on my technical skills and background (which I also have aplenty).
See that is half the issue I have with your argument. I follow a wide range of commentators, some with the obvious qualifications, some with a different background but having arguments grounded in the data and well reasoned, and then what I term the “bat-shit-crazy” on the far left and right, to see what the fringes are thinking.
And throughout the last election cycle guys (and girls) like Nate got an earful on their comments and predictions. Nate was scaremongering, blowing up the issue on Bidens age, and “didn’t understand how politics work”. And yet, he was pretty damn close to understanding and predicting a lot of what was happing, along with several other “unqualified” authors.
I would have expected some admission of getting the whole thing wrong from the experts, but looks like you guys have already pinned this one down.
You're not obligated to read opinions of people you don't respect. Some people like Nate's views because they come from a relatively intelligent person who has no commitment to a party line or institutions. I get the sense that many academics and insoders are frustrated that baseball nerd kid became more influential than them through untraditional paths.
Hey Nate, I've been following you a long time! I found this article to be one of your best. Please keep calling out us Dems. I find myself in a funny place in Politics and History, I am a 48 year old college educated union member; I find myself in both the workers movement and the progressive movement. I'm a Latte Sippin Liberal but I'm also a working class Schmuck! My hope is that these 2 tracks will prevail in the Dem Party in a genuine way. Hope this comment makes any kind of sense.
No, it doesn’t contradict itself since that’s how the question was phrased in the poll, people just have contradictory inner thoughts. If it said “Americans approve of sandwiches, but their support drops for BLTs, poll shows” I think it would be obvious that most Americans like sandwiches, but that the BLT is among the least favored of the lot.
I think it’s fair to say the further along the ROYGBIV we go in the rainbow spectrum, the farther we get from a wavelength that Americans actually understand or support ‘affirming treatment’ or their kids being exposed to.
I’d bet a lot of money that if you asked 100 people on the street of say, Chicago, what the Queer / Q even means, you wouldn’t get a coherent or consistent answer. Not to pick on Chicago.
T is the only one where we are talking about permanent physical changes requiring surgery and a presumptive loss of bodily function. Not surprising that people have legit concerns when it comes to minors or public funding.
There's an irony in this essay because it's framed around the pardon (I'm guessing thrown in at the end) but that doesn't fit with the condemnation of the expert class because only the expert class has a problem with it. Keeping your kid out of jail for buying a gun while being a drug user is something that most parents would do, and most parents know they would do it. So the condemnations are either the same sanctimonious crap you are correctly complaining about in the essay or cynical opportunism from the right.
The perception is that there's two systems: one for the little guy and one for the people that matter.
In other words, if you're poor and black and your kid gets busted on gun charges, good luck. Assuming that he makes it past the arrest process and gets to trial. On the other hand if you vacation in the Hamptons community service is probably in your future.
well I mean that's obviously true so I don't think anyone is shocked by it. The real moral of the story though is even if you are powerful, you might want your kid to face consequences early so they don't turn into Hunter Biden.
“The Indigo Blob can weave superficially compelling narratives, often involving a lot of whataboutism. Biden pardoned Hunter? Well, what about Trump pardoning Paul Manafort? Those school closures were bad? Well, what about anti-vaxxers? Not on board with full-blown wokeness? Well, then you’re in league with the fascists. But these stories have become increasingly desperate and implausible. The Indigo Blob suggested that it was “ageist” to be concerned about Biden wanting to be president until he was 86. It said that educated white men brought about Trump’s victory, even though college-educated whites were actually the only group of men who didn’t swing heavily MAGA.”
you’re literally combatting whataboutism with whataboutism. The inverse where you pull equally fringe stories from right wing publications would read like “they said sandy hook was a hoax, they said to inject yourself with bleach, they said vaccines are a hoax” like come on
Thought the same thing reading the post. Right-wing media would cease to exist if they couldn’t use whataboutism to ‘justify’ everything.
yeah i kinda knew what I was in for once the buzzwords came into play. “Superficially compelling”, how is a feeling superficial? Something’s either compelling or it’s not. Reeks of thesaurus writing
"Something's either compelling or it's not" is academic posturing, drawing on sterile dictionary based nit-picking. Very evidently something can have a 'superficial' feeling and the assertion compelling or not is just simply classic fallacious excluded middle logical fallacy being used as a mode of arch criticism
"reeks of thesaurus writing" in fact reeks of academic snobbishness gussied up to pretend to be a criticism of substance rather than essentially an ad hominem.
Whether Silver is correct in his judgment here is another matter - maybe yes, maybe no (personally not per se convinced but worth its airing), but this kind of assertion is the very illustration of the effect Silver (and Musa Al Gharbi in a different flavor) have put their fingers on.
"MAGA is too far gone"
"The Village has more capacity for self-correction, by contrast."
Splitting people up into broad categories that lumps southern black democrats or LGBT people with people on the coasts is silly. I reject that there’s any merit to it 🤷🏼♀️
Would the merit not come from the exact fact you share - that there is diversity in those groups and thus change would come from them? Diversity's purpose is evolutionary pathways opening up which allow for change. It sounds to me like saying maga has a low deviation and thus less open to an evolution, in contrast to The Village.
So far it has been MAGA that has evolved with the inclusion of more of The River while The Village is stuck in quicksand
i don’t really understand your point
Calling the Democratic party the party of the "educated" should be corrected to "college graduates." Neither my husband, a carpenter, or my father, an electrician, went to college, but were much more aware of physics and electronics and allied sciences than most of the "educated." They were both Democrats. I would not call either of these men not "educated." But Democrats today would find them unacceptable as, like you, they would be characterized as "uneducated."
This comment is the equivalent of the people who put "school of life" in the education section of their facebook bio.
I don't think building houses (UBC) or wiring schools (IBEW) are the simple skills you assume they are.
Did I say they were? I think they're important, valuable skills.
I'm just pointing out that you're language policing Nate for using pretty standard language to describe people who went through higher education as "educated." I'm guessing your politics are conservative, and conservatives typically excoriate the left for its insistence on language policing and identity politics. And, then you come around and say "Actually, they're not 'educated' they're 'people who have experienced college educations.'" It's pretty funny to me, honestly.
No. I am a lifelong registered Democrat who finds that dismissal of the working class by my party has been a terrible shift in their stance.
Thank you. Anybody who doesn't know how judgmental "The Village" can be about your "official" level of education, hasn't spent any time around the "The Village."
I heard someone in my Ivy-educated circle once say "I would never move to San Diego--I would be the only educated person there!". That's the level of snobbery possible.
Most of the people getting college degrees these days are not scholars, stop acting like they are. We have been pumping midwits through the system in record numbers for decades.
"Excellent Sheep".
I'm reminded of that poll that Loewen pulls out in his "Lies My Teacher Told Me" about opinions on Vietnam in a post-Tet environment. It turns out that the more advanced your degree was, the more you believed the government line about Vietnam, in the same timeframe and environment that Johnson ended his re-election bid in 1968. Loewen's point was that the more college you had, the better indoctrinated you were to accept the signals from on high.
Keep in mind that a very likely factor with that was who was being sent to the war, as conscription had a college student exemption. There was a strong degree’s parents had kids that went to college bias, still.
My how times changed, huh?
Is it though? How is learning a trade not 'education'?
'School of Life' is vague and doesn't imply you have learnt anything of substance. Being qualified in a trade does.
So...do you look down on people who put "school of life" in that section?
Yeah not because they didn't go to college but because feeling the need to put something there reveals self-consciousness, which is embarrassing.
This is the conservative version of demanding that people call you "xe/xir".
The whole damn country's come down with Little Guy Syndrome. Anything that can be taken as a slight, will be.
I think this is dismissal of an important point in how people are characterized as "educated." If college graduate is meant to equal educated, then say that.
Then that isn't education, it's knowledge and experience. Educated specifically refers to having gone to a school and received formal lessons and instruction. Being educated correlates with being knowledgeable, but it's not the same thing. You can be educated and still not knowledgeable, and you can be knowledgeable without education.
UBC and IBEW apprenticeships are rigorous and formal.
And the most obvious case in point is Trump. He has a college degree, but knows virtually nothing other than self-interest.
I think he is using it pejoratively on purpose to call out Democrats for thinking the way you are pointing out.
I don't think all college graduates should be lumped together as Dems and Kamala voters, either. My husband and I were both college graduates (and so on), but like many others like us, we're Trump voters. Too much over-generalization going on.
Terms like "educated" and "uneducated" are just categories that political hacks and pollsters use to ply their pundit trade. Nobody IRL thinks about people this way and everybody recognizes how intelligent one has to be to excel at a trade. Don't let this silly article make you feel that your husband or father are not appreciated.
Thank you so much. Both are dead now but skills I watched and learned from them have stood me in good stead, probably more in daily life than my college degree. My husband got me a tool box for a birthday present and made sure I knew how to use each tool as he built me many book shelves.
I'm with you there-the people I know who think pretty deeply about the issues and are big-picture types definitely lean either blue or libertarian. It doesn't really matter their education: they "get it". If you think correlation = causation, you aren't a thinker, period. I don't care where you went to school.
LOL
I got through about half of this before realizing it was just another smear-the-left post and dropped it. This is why I dropped my subscription… so much idiocy about what the “left” cares about.
If anyone says a frigging thing about Biden pardoning his son, with the pardons Trump pulled in his first presidency, they are just part of the group that has turned a blind eye to Trump’s behaviors. Spare me.
This isn’t an airport you don’t have to announce your departure.
I’m looking forward to you silently heading off to go pound sand 👍🏼
I guess you didn't get to the part where Nate called out this precise response to the Hunter Biden pardon as an example of the sort of whataboutism that is handicapping the expert class. Good job embodying the flaws identified in the article!
Whataboutism is a major part of Silver's article. Just saying.
Whataboutism was the entire Harris message. What about Trump.
Worked great for her too.
Yeah it's not a great one. Most people really don't care about Biden pardoning his son. He is on the way out anyway. And it is understandable. There is just no comparison between this and pardoning actual violent criminals from J6 (if it happens).
So the logic is we shouldn’t hold Democrats to any standards at all because Trump is worse?
Bye!
Don't let the door hit you on the a$$.
I've been a fan of Nate back from the firedoglake days, and I so deeply wish that Nate had more non-Riverians helping him form his worldview.
In my view, Trump's victory was a repudiation of institutions, not the left, and certainly not the far left, who also critique some of those very same institutions. Trump's victory IS a vote for "burn it all down" and chaos, because as Nate has pointed out, when you are far behind in a game, chaos is a logical choice - high potential downside but also probably the only potential for high upside.
As but one example, take schools reopening. The same "illiberal academics" he is critiquing so much were probably the loudest voices calling for schools reopening - see Emily Oster's heroic data gathering work at Brown to prove that teachers were dying at the same rate in places schools reopened vs schools remained closed, or Thomas Kane's work at Harvard demonstrating early and often the negative academic effects of school closures, especially on elementary school students. The "Bernie Sanders/labor" wing that Nate says he "doesn't fight with" were the ones who fought the longest and hardest to keep schools closed - the length of time schools were closed were directly related to the strength of the unions, NOT the blueness of the states (which is hard to disentangle but not impossible). For example, San Francisco and Denver are both very very blue, but Denver has much less strong teacher's unions, and the schools there reopened 10 months earlier.
I could continue for quite some time, point by point, but my overall point is that I think the River has dangerous blind spots, as I think we'll see in this next administration with Elon Musk at the helm of so much power. I hope Nate is open to re-evaluating his current worldview, because I think he is missing quite a bit.
On the other hand look at the extent to which moderate liberals have been excommunicated from the modern Democratic party. Trump represents the first time that Elon Musk has voted for a Republican in recent memory.
Thanks for replying. In my first read, your two sentences seem to be two disconnected points, because I don't see tremendous evidence that Elon Musk was ever a "moderate liberal". A few more thoughts below explaining more:
I am not sure who you mean by "moderate liberals" - eg, the former Blue Dog caucus in Congress? People with 90s Clintonian beliefs about racial politics? People who would have called themselves "pro-life"? I think some of those groups have changed as the world has changed (eg, some who would have been Blue Dogs are now in the Sanders wing of the party), but am curious to know who you are referring to more specifically.
The old Democratic coalition did not believe in microaggressions or men competing in women's sports leagues.
The old Democratic coalition also didn't believe in gay marriage or legalized weed. Culture evolves.
How about open borders or defund the police?
Or how about gun control and the death penalty?
Any other unpopular issues you'd like the Democrats to adopt? With respect to the last two those are issues that old school Democrats used to push for but which they have since given up on--because they are not popular with the median voters
Exactly. Slaw needs to look up the definition for progressive. It means to move forward, step by step. Of course the civil rights fights of today are not the same as they were 30 years ago. That's the point.
Culture evolved badly in every one of the points both of you bring up.
Thanks for clarifying. I suspect we'd have to agree to disagree here; I'm not sure 100% of the current Democratic coalition OR the current Democratic party leadership believes in these things, either. Of course some do, and some make speeches and policy pronouncements to that effect. But I don't think a very large number of people have been barred from either for disagreeing.
Seth Moulton.
I think currently, being pro his business interests has led him to be pro-Trump, because he is annoyed by the guardrails on SpaceX and his internet satellite interests. I also think he has cultural sympathies with many in Trump's circle (see: Joshua Benton's 10000 word essay on Musk in the Atlantic, among others)
I think Musk has always somewhat libertarian in wanting fewer regulations, but also been pro HIS businesses (not the same as the "pro-business" vote), and while Tesla was one of his big projects and Democrats were more "pro-green" than Republicans, he was vaguely Democratic.
By his own account he voted almost exclusively for Democrats, until 2024. And you're familiar with that comic strip he posted from Colin Wright?
Oh, I'm not! I'll look it up, thanks.
Thank you for saying what's on my heart. And I just want to point out that as a PhD neuroscientist, I took my lumps in this article along with the rest.
On the advice of my therapist (literally, and non-ironically), I've decided to close my circle of influence to the 200-300 people I see on a daily basis, and have completely cut myself off from the Purple Blob. No WaPo, no NYT, no MSNBC, no CNN, no social media whatsoever.
Nate, you're all I have left to connect me to the larger world and I'm actually pretty happy about that right now.
What an astonishingly bad decision.
Many people overindulge in online content.
I don’t see at all why it would be a bad decision, in consultation with one’s therapist, to go cold turkey for a while and focus on people one knows personally.
The bad decision is not limiting ones online content. The bad decision is limiting ones online content to just Nate Silver.
My first thought was the bad decision was having 200--300 people you know and meet with frequently!!!
I'm assuming these are people encountered during the course of work. A teacher, retail worker, food service worker, or receptionist would easily encounter a few hundred people daily.
Sounds exhausting.
Welcome to my life, Ross.
I've limited my news content considerably with positive outcomes.
1) Most news content is not germane to my life. I read economic data religiously as it applies to my work, but I have little need to read most political and national news.
2) Much of the news is intended to play off of emotions. Humans aren't designed to engage in all of the most emotional content globally. It either desensitizes or overwhelms. I don't need to know about every school shooting and actor that dies, especially when it is sensationalized for maximum views.
3) To understand an opinion writer you need to read them enough to have deeper context of their perspective and values. I'd rather have a few writer I understand and respect than taking all comers. There are too many ignorant views.
My mind (and yours) is an amalgamation of the idea we receive and synthesize. If you improve the relevance of the incoming signal, the quality of your thoughts and fruits of your actions will be better. You need to curate to avoid echo chambers and allow diversity, but news consumption should not be open ended.
Reducing their consumption of online news media is an 'astonishingly bad decision'?
Why? What bad outcomes are you predicting will befall them as a result?
I didn't take it as reducing consumption is problematic, I took it that reducing consumption to the point where you only get your information from a single source is problematic. I would say it is very problematic.
Except for the 200-300 people I interact with on a daily basis. Other than that, a single source.
I would suggest you at least find two sources that don't agree all the time. Winnowing yourself down to a single source of information is very problematic, it should be obvious why.
What an astonishingly thoughtful & intentional response.
should we not write really mean Twitter type replies on here then!
You mean “𝕏” lol
Elon deadnames his own kid. We are certainly allowed to do it to his website.
Good move. I used to tell myself a story that I kept myself informed so that 'they' couldn't do their sh*t without me at least knowing what was what. It was a fallacy. I became better informed through less emotional contagion.
A dad took care of his son on the way out the door. Biden not my guy but I am a dad.
After repeatedly assuring the public that he had no intention of either pardoning or commuting his son's sentence
I'm not convinced that this is the biggest story ever--surely most people aren't surprised that politicians lie. But on the other hand the idea that it can be dismissed or waved away is just as flawed. At the very least it reinforces public sentiments that there is one system of justice for the little people and another for the people that matter.
If he wasn't Biden's son, he almost certainly would never have been prosecuted in the first place. So, in a sense, you're correct that there are different standards for different people (and, in fact, Trump is now benefitting from that fact with the suspension of all the various prosecutions he was facing).
Quite a while before hunters tax fraud was referred for prosecution, it started with tax audit by the IRS. From all available evidence, it’s established well beyond any reasonable doubt that Hunter did in fact commit several different types of financial and tax fraud on over $7 million in income.
The assertion that “Hunter would never have been prosecuted if he was not the President’s son” relies fundamentally on asserting that either:
(A) “the initial examination by the IRS of Hunter’s tax filings of $2.3M, $2.1M, and $1.1M in 2017-2018 would not have occurred if you were not the president’s son,” or
(B) “After having been audited after an initial examination, and evidence of tax fraud having been committed on millions of dollars in income, Hunter’s tax case would not have been referred for prosecution if he were not the President’s son.”
People reporting over $1 million in taxable income have an average chance of 1.1% of being audited for any given fiscal year. But the probability of an audit being triggered, rises a lot if you have any of the following circumstances (and Hunter’s situation involved every one of these, nearly maximizing his chances of being examined if not directly audited):
1. Disproportionate or Unusual Deductions
2. Use of Complex Tax Shelters
3. Offshore Accounts and Foreign Income
4. Luxury Asset Purchases
5. Repeated Losses in Hobby-Like Activities
For anybody with that level of income and circumstances reported on their filings, the baseline for being examined was at least 5% in every tax year from at least 2010. The cumulative probability of a random examination by the IRS by the time that the examination actually started is around 33% - if we exclude the most significant trigger for an investigation, which is under reporting income. Although honestly, some of “goods and services” that he listed as business expenses deducted from his personal income, probably drove the likelihood of an examination to 100%.
Your argument, as well as Joe’s argument this prosecution was politically motivated “war politics” does not bear up under cursory scrutiny of the facts.
👍👍👍👍👍👍
Google "IRS whistleblowers". It sure looks like there was a concerted attempt to protect Hunter Biden.
ROFL
Was there an argument in there somewhere?
Hunter Biden was prosecuted for breaking the law. He failed to declare his income from his dealings with the Chinese and on the board of Bursima from 2016 - 2019 and filed a false tax return in 2018. He owed $1.4 million in unpaid taxes. If anything being Joe Biden's son probably kept him from going to jail sooner.
Wake up to reality. He was continually protected as Biden’s son. The whole of the National Security apparatus brazenly lied to the public about his laptop to protect him and his father and perhaps alter the 2020 election outcome.
Ironically, that is the exact same argument Trump used.
Yes, Trump has a habit of accusing others of doing things that he and his team are actually doing. Or, even if he himself isn't doing the bad thing, if he observes that it happens to anyone, he often asserts it is also happening to him.
I think in this case its the reverse. When Trump’s legal problems started a few years ago, he and many on the right shouted politically motived, and that others are not prosecuted for the same things. The left were up in arms about due process, and the law is the same for everyone. Now Biden and many on the left have taken a leaf from Trump and are claiming politically motivated.
Do you think it matters that Trump just selected a completely unqualified lunatic to serve as FBI director who is obsessed with going after Hunter Biden. Kash Patel has made it clear that he wants to use his position to punish political enemies. Not pursue justice. I would do whatever I could to protect my son from that.
Otoh the Big Guy may be interested in concealing his role in the affair.
He didn't pardon himself....
How much longer is he going to be around? There's no need.
Yeah, that's why they won't prosecute him, not because this was all a complete circus in the first place. Trump sold state secrets and is advocating for the death penalty for Hunter for lying on a gun permit. This has nothing to do with justice and everything to do with enraging his base. As we have discussed, your propaganda machine is robust. It should be with all that Russian funding.
The big story here, to me, is not the pardon. To me, the story is the level of political malpractice. This was just plain dumb.
The reason why is this: Biden's legacy is tarnished for no real reason. Hunter is an addict. He's going to get in trouble again if you know anything about addicts. That pardon won't help him one bit when that happens. They'll throw the book at him out of spite at that time.
Instead, Biden should have asked Trump to grant clemency after he took his convictions. He would have done it i'm quite sure. It's very in character for him and i'm sure some kind of handshake deal could have been worked out. Then, Biden's legacy is clear, Hunter doesn't have to go through vengeance prosecution later, and all is laid to rest.
This just keeps the running sore running for no good reason. This is more proof to me that Jill Biden is running things. She's the Edith Wilson of our generation, after Woodrow had his stroke. This is just not smart politics. Which has been the hallmark of the Biden administration, and Joe didn't show many signs of not being a smart politician before that.
Democrats have spent nearly a decade misjudging Trump. They could have come to him with a deal at any moment and he'd have bargained with them. All he ever wanted was to be shown a little respect. They could have had the de facto third Obama term if they'd been willing to kiss his ring and play nice, letting him strut around like a little emperor. But they assume he's a spiteful, stubborn ass like they are, so it didn't even occur to them. And now they have lost again to the faction they detest, but which was willing to kowtow.
You'd think *one* person in the Democratic party would have realized this by now. Someone, anyone. They watched him in action for 30 years before he ran, it should have been really obvious. But they were trying to somehow avoid this.
I'm reminded of my mom breaking her humerus and screwing up her shoulder joint last year. She tripped and fell on her way back into the house after being out one night, and instead of falling on her ass, she took the whole weight in her arm and shoulder trying to break her fall. Therefore, she had to undergo a shoulder (and half her humerus) replacement and 11 months of painful therapy. Great metaphor for the Democratic Party. Just fall on your ass and it's all over with faster.
She is ok now. Almost 78 and still mobile.
They’ll back the candidate that makes the most $$ in donations. If changing policy or candidate means less money then they won’t do it, if it means more then yes. There’s nothing genuine in this game.
This is all engineered. The elites maneuvered trump to win the primary making sure the trials came to a head just at the right time, then suddenly vanished when the job was done. Democrat elites didn’t actually care if trump got in. They did care about the gravy train continuing. Biden had to go because after the debate he couldn’t fundraise anymore. I wonder how much money Kamala made out of the billion that poured in. Four years of trump = a lot of donations. A lot of people seem to think they all hate each other. They all know the game. It’s about the money. Each side knows what to say to their team to get them to hate each other and donate.
You could be right. But Jill Biden isn’t Hunter’s mother.
I still think she would do what she thought was Joe's will.
Then reform presidential pardons. Until then an outgoing president will pardon exactly who he wants to.
I am content to leave it as a question of character and let the American people make their own judgements.
Yeah it’s an official act. I’d be like Oprah for pardons…all of my friends: blanket pardons for anything you’ve done up to now.
Yet somehow over the history of the US pardons that violate decorum are the minority. Clearly most Presidents aren't like you.
The list of controversial pardons in the modern era is LONG: Nixon, Iran-contra, Marc Rich’s, Roger Clinton and add all of trumps. Yes they’re in the minority but they’re not small. This is a huge power, either reform it or expect family and close supporters to be pardoned in the future.
The problem is that a lot of the corruption allegations ultimately go straight back to Joe himself. He is, infamously and obviously, “the big guy” of Hunter's bribe-seeking emails; that was confirmed by IRS whistleblowers. This was while Joe was Vice President: the second most senior officer of state, accepting bribes via an intermediary from a foreign power. So the pardon of Hunter is not just a dad taking care of his son, it's a Mafia don taking care of his consigliere. And you may be a father, but I doubt you're a Godfather.
Luckily, if this idea was remotely true, it can still be prosecuted.
The reason it won’t be is because your representation of what happened isn’t serious.
You can empathize with him and fully understand his reasoning while still noting it's a huge fuck you to the people in the party he nominally represents.
We already had one transparently corrupt and transactional party in this country. To the extent that the Democrats want any kind of moral authority they should call out the bad actors within their own party rather than excuse them, and Biden is among the worst.
The best time to throw Biden under the bus was about two years ago. The next best time is right now.
I'm a dad, too, and yet still manage to be bothered by the idea that people with powerful dads don't face the same consequences as the rest of us.
The President is supposed to make decisions in the best interests of the country and not from a narrow, personal angle. Biden has been a total disappointment so this is nothing new. The scope of the pardon is so broad that it's almost incriminating.
You better watch Trump's appointments - they are the definition of a narrow, personal angle. At least in this case it is clear that Biden cares for his son and not himself.
Biden actually got a lot done, economy is doing great, what is your problem with him?
I voted for Trump 0 out 3 times not because Democrats have great policies that personally benefit me in any way but he's one of the most unethical candidates ever. If Democrats want to use him as the bar for ethical standards, that's their choice but that makes it easy for me to justify voting for Republicans to get a tax cut.
I am also a parent, but since long before I became one, I have always hated the common notion that "doing anything to protect your kids..." is somehow virtuous. I will always love both of my kids, but loving someone does not mean shielding them from the consequences of their mistakes. Wanting the justice system to treat your kid differently than it does everyone else isn't love, it's selfishness.
There's a difference between protecting your family and nepotism. Using one's power to work around inconvenient laws -- especially when it's been used by the ATF during both Republican and Democratic administrations -- would constitute abuse when he isn't also pardoning other individuals who had been prosecuted by the same rules.
I agree with Biden that the rules are unfair, but honestly Democrats should have been working to correct this from ages ago. The problem is that, even though it's unjust, Republicans haven't cared to overturn this because they don't care about drug users, and Democrats haven't cared because they don't care about gun owners. And the ATF has been using this for years to target folks on their radar that they dislike.
It gives license for Trump to pardon people.
Proud Republican here. Not all that follow you are libtards.
Proud Democrat here. Not all that follow Silver are Republicons. Might be we have something in common.
I agree with most of your sentiment but using the lens of the Hunter Biden pardons is just a garbage example.
Who ever is actually taken to court for lying about Drug use on gun purchase forms? That prosecution was just so obviously political and meant to create Republicans own what-about-isms that's its insane that anybody should actually care about these pardons.
The Manefold pardons obviously have political ramifications, it's not a what-about-isms to compare them, Hunters crimes literally had absolutely nothing to do with politics and wouldn't have even been allowed to be prosecuted if it was a Trump child in a Trump administration.
Biden should have dropped out, the village covers stuff up, yeah obviously that's true. Is every news article just going to strain to connect to that thesis?
Trying to connect these pardons to this thesis just has nothing to do with politics and is just magnifies a "everybody is corrupt and bad" Russian style misinformation.
The IRS whistleblowers claimed that Hunter Biden wrote off airline tickets for prostitutes as a business expense. Let's not forget that he was also nailed for tax evasion.
Just like trump was in the hush money case! I'd like to hear you say "yes I agree Trump was guilty in the hush money case, just like Hunter Biden was". I have no problem saying that.
I have a stock question i bring out regarding the hush money charges: what exactly was Trump charged/convicted on?
For writing it off as a business expense instead of a campaign contribution. Not exactly tax evasion but the logic is the same, it was an illegal campaign contribution made by lying about the purpose.
You're completely, 100% wrong.
It would only be an illegal campaign expense if Trump used campaign contributions to make those payments.
Do you want another shot?
He was convicted for winning an election the Dems wanted to win, and being dangerously likely to win another one.
He… doesn’t use the pardons as a lens? He says that it’s a “small log on a large fire” and then proceeds to talk about what he sees the big logs as…
And I imagine plenty of people get taken to court for lying about drug use on their background checks for guns, it’s probably a charge tacked on to anybody caught in possession of a legally purchased firearm with drugs in their system. It would just be a underclass of people that nobody ever pays attention to, the type of average criminal that makes their way through the system without you noticing every day. But this time it’s the powerful son of the President of the United States and so people are paying attention and are letting their politics, on both sides, influence their opinion of the case.
I agree most of the article isn't about it, but it is in the article and is the title of the article. Sure he has a thesis to argue and a book to sell (ok - probably unfair, and it's a good book), but at some point if every news story connects to your "unifying theory of political alignment" things are going to come off as contrived.
Generally the "lying on the form" charge is one tacked on to other gun crimes in court having it be the sole conviction (for the gun cases) weird and screams of "well it at least should seem fair that he gets found guilty of something out of these leaks". It just seems insane that anything to do with that charge or it's pardon and it's coverage has literally anything to do with the relationship between the village and the river or whatever.
Sure if on of Trump's kids was found guilty of snorting coke while owning a gun or something and was pardoned by him the media would probably cover it move and more harshly (and again the media isn't sweeping the Hunter stuff completely away), but I would argue in that Trump case it also would be something the media should care about less (just based on the circumstance of the weird ass/abnormal/insignificant crime he was found guilty of)
Re the article: yeah, it’s in the subtitle, but, to be fair, generating clicks is still kind of his business. I agree that the Hunter Biden stuff doesn’t really fit well into the back half of the article, but if you accept the thrust of the article as Biden burning down his legacy and Hunter’s pardon being (a minor, but not insignificant) part of that, I think that it’s inclusion was fair. The optics aren’t really about what Hunter did/did not do, it’s a President preempting his own justice department and a special counsel by giving a blanket pardon to his son. It’s not like he just washed away the gun charge, he scrubbed anything he may have done.
And, it’s convenient to say “it’s only a gun charge” but it was tacked on to the original tax charges that Hunter pleaded guilty to. The gun charge was just the last thing left to adjudicate. That’s like somebody with a small amount of marijuana in the car pleading guilty to reckless driving and then complaining that he was just being prosecuted for simple possession, maybe the state doesn’t frequently just bring people up for simple possession, but they’re not necessarily just going to absolve the crime already charged because it’s the last one left after the defendant pleads out.
Obviously this is probably coloured by opinions on the original plea deal, but the form seems like less of a gothcha charge than you’re painting it as. He was charged with the form and tax evasion, reached a deal on the tax evasion and was left to adjudicate the gun charge.
I appreciate that your views are consistent though, I think a lot of people jumping to Biden’s defence here would probably fail the “swap Biden with Trump” test
“Who ever is actually taken to court for lying about Drug use on gun purchase forms?”
It's disingenuous to complain about this. As everyone is aware, this prosecution was the equivalent of jailing Al Capone for tax evasion. The Biden Crime Family needed to be tackled by law enforcement, and this was the crack in the armour they managed to find.
I'd ask for what you actually think the "Biden Crime Family" does but I'm worried the response would be a "Clinton Kill List" type schizo-rant
The Biden Crime Family primarily receives corrupt payments from foreign countries, especially Ukraine, in exchange for influence over US government policy. The head of the crime family, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr, co-ordinates this criminal activity remotely by placing his family members in corrupt foreign sinecures, and then delivering on the policy requests. E.g., Robert Hunter Biden was installed on the board of a Ukrainian gas monopoly and several Chinese firms.
In addition to this general activity, Robert Hunter Biden is known to be involved in drugs and prostitution, including allegedly being linked to the deaths of sex workers who overdosed while entertaining him.
Talk about value for money: Ukraine got a whole entire war out of us, or at least all the weapons for it. They are still working on getting us to fight the war for them. This was a bribe that seriously, no fooling, worked.
Best money anyone has ever spent!
If only the same could be said for Biden's regular salary from the American people.
The issue is that the military aid had little to do with Biden. Lethal aid started under Trump. Then the 24 Feb invasion happened. But aid only continued at a trickle until the US recognized that Ukraine wasn’t collapsing as expected. Anyone can take a few anecdotes and build a story around them, but Ukraine didn’t want a war.
I don't care if Ukraine wanted a war or not; common sense must assume it didn't, since it's losing and never prepared for the Russian invasion because they were hoping it wouldn't happen. That the Bidens were given big bribes to get the United States to provide the weapons for Ukraine's war is obvious, and the Ukies keep on and on asking us to provide the soldiers, too. Macron of France even said they'd provide Frenchmen to fight --- for about 20 minutes, till his sanity returned. I'm going to guess however large Hunter's and "big guy's" bribe, it was not even a tiny part of one percentage of the American tax dollars that have been poured down a rathole over there. Now THAT is a well-worthwhile bribe, from Ukraine's perspective. The faster Trump gets us out of that stupid situation, the happier I'll be.
What money has Joe Biden personally received from foreign countries?
Since the only evidence is that Hunter (or rather Hunter and his associates) get paid for their job on those boards (everything legal, although I'll concede it isn't the best optics) what policies have been impacted by the money? $24 Million also really isn't that much (see the recent Russian Tenet media payouts), I would expect the "Biden Crime Family" windfall to be more than Hunter could probably make in a couple years on some BS consultant job other politician family members tend to do.
The prostitute death stuff is just pure conspiracy.
Hunter gets invited onto these boards and positions because he is the vice presidents son with the intention from those companies that they could potentially get the ear off (advertise) to people close to policy makers.
This stuff isn't good, it leans oligarchical, it is classic Village, but it's not illegal, and not particularly high in importance (you can see in a comment below, I would be consistent with this on Trump. Kushner, although unqualified imo, like Hunter, also largely was put in positions that were largely above board and over scrutinized).
There is no evidence linking any of this stuff to actual policy, the monetary incentives don't even come close to worth it, and none of what you mentioned is what is connected to what Hunter is charged with.
So surely then all the law enforcement actions against trump were also perfectly legitimate for all the stuff he's done, and the crack in the armor they found was the hush money case? (And the rape case and the trump university case etc etc)
That was a similar logic, yes. They recognised that no one else would have been prosecuted for what he did (especially in the infamous Deutsche Bank case), but believed that violating the law was necessary in order to save the Republic.
Which you feel more sympathetic to will mostly depend on whether you are more concerned about the corruption and allegedly deaths caused by the Biden Crime Family, or about the populist rhetoric and policies of Trump.
You can’t grant what was said, and pretend that the issue was “populist rhetoric and policies” of Trump.
For instance, Trump’s wish for another 12k votes in Georgia, coupled with the insinuation of possible legal action against Raffensperger should be fail to “find” them, is neither populist policy nor is it populist rhetoric. It’s corruption. “I just want to find 11,780 votes” is the sort of language you actually would expect to come from a mob boss.
On the other hand, selling access, while despicable, has been a part of our politics since its inception. It’s good to see people learning to hate it, but sad that people think Hunter Biden’s behavior in this respect was either remarkable or criminal.
You realize you're proving the point made in the comment you're replying to, right? (maybe you're sarcastically agreeing with him, in which case, carry on)
No, I think there's a subtle distinction you've missed.
Xavier is saying that normally no one is prosecuted for the precise thing Hunter did, therefore Hunter should not have been prosecuted.
I am saying that normally no one is prosecuted for the precise thing Hunter did, but that's reasonable in this case because it is analogous to jailing Al Capone for tax evasion. I.e., sometimes the only way for the forces of law and order to take down a crime family, such as the Capone Crime Family or the Biden Crime Family, is to over-enforce lesser laws so that justice is served de facto for the greater crimes they committed but which they keep wriggling out of on technicalities.
Your argument provoked in me the first sympathy I've ever felt for Al Capone:
He was framed. I see that now that they are trying to do it to Trump --- and anyone else they can catch up in their perfidious net.
The River makes its money and draws its power from voluntary consumption of its products and services by individuals. If the dogs won't eat the dog food, you fix the food. You don't blame the dogs.
The Village uses expert authority to persuade the gatekeepers of law and economics to admit or bar individuals regardless their actual success or validity of their ideas. When those choices, made for the larger population without their express consent mostly, go south the natural inclination is to double down. Eventually, the River floods the Village as has happened this cycle.
Except here Nate is blaming the dogs for fleeing X when the product is obviously inferior from a technical perspective. I still have an account and use it. But the user experience has certainly diminished.
Exactly. The market decides.
There we go, that's the primal scream I was expecting about a month ago.
This is also why I was hoping for the Democrats to lose, right up until the Conservatives nominated Trump. This is the pent up rage I've seen in the blue class who've felt like the calls for 'unity' overruled the *discussion they needed to have back in 2016, Because they didn't have a serious one back in 2000.*
I'm just so used to this mess from being a frustrated and aggravated libertarian who's watched this back and forth for decades. I have the benefit of having given up on my party after trying to be the treasurer for the local party for a decade and the continued gaslighting that entailed.
So on that front, feel you 100% Nate.
Yes, Trump and Biden are both hypocrites with variations of the same problem from the same Era. Trump's pardons his financier inlaws, Biden pardons his druggy of a son. Democrats spoke of how 2020 was going to be the dawn of a new day of Liberalism, Republicans speak of how this new alliance will birth a new republican era.
Hopefully one day they will both evolve into something useful, but people once people put on blinders it's hard to convince them to take them off.
Everyone tries to fit it into their narrative, but it's never as clean as the narrative devices we build in our head. Everyone retreats into the woods after a defeat, because the crowing of the victors pisses them off. Doesn't matter if you are the Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, or Greens, you do the same. Everyone is shocked when a year later the parties emerge from the woods and come forth and start winning, to the point it's abnormal when they don't.
The Democrats have just been overdue for a major retooling away from the Clinton Era globalism and performative politics with a side of palace politics and no-effort pandering. I hope they find their way out of the woods to something better. I wish them luck.
I think the Hunter Biden thing is disappointing, but I also sort of get it. Biden will get literally 0 credit for doing the right thing from anyone, is about the be replaced by someone who will get 0 blowback for pardoning far more people who committed far more series crimes, and probably wants to be able to spend what few years he has left with his remaining. At that point it's hard not to just say fuck it and throw in the towel.
Dems should still criticise him for it, but ultimately I think by the end of the year, critical attention really needs to start being pointed more at the guy who is in power and controls both houses of Congress, and the people who put him there, even if you do live in liberal circles.
Me, for instance, among "people who put him there." That'll really work for you, and so efficacious!!
Not.
Don't agree with every word here, but mostly you're right on, and where I do disagree, I do so thoughtfully and respectfully. My family is pretty indigoed and one relative actually got angry because I said we don't actually know the exact origins of COVID. I'm so tired of people replacing thought with echo chamber!
Hey, Nate -- as a political commentator, you make a great paperweight (with apologies to Mark Twain and Oscar Wilde). I suggest you stick to stats -- but lose the illusion that such expertise confers political insight.
David, if you were open to discussing ideas you would probably have enjoyed this article a lot more. I suggest you open your “village doors” to some concepts that you are not familiar with, who knows, an educated person such as yourself might end up learning something new.
I have always thought somebody with a good argument does not need a PhD behind his name to make a point (I am not downplaying subject matter expertise, I am sure you know your village ways well).
Overall I felt the article captured many of the frustrations of those stuck in the middle.
I don't think this is a very good forum for discussing politics -- same reason Nate isn't particularly qualified as a political observer, though he is certainly entitled to his opinion and perch on his rather large soapbox.
For a meaningful, insightful analysis of what is going on, here is a good place to start -- https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/nov/28/the-message-to-democrats-is-clear-you-must-dump-neoliberal-economics
Yes, it's on my "side" in terms of ideology. But at least I'm up-front about it, rather than claiming some special insight based on my technical skills and background (which I also have aplenty).
If you think moving economically to the left will help the Democrats sweep, I don't know what to tell you. This wasn't about concrete policy.
See that is half the issue I have with your argument. I follow a wide range of commentators, some with the obvious qualifications, some with a different background but having arguments grounded in the data and well reasoned, and then what I term the “bat-shit-crazy” on the far left and right, to see what the fringes are thinking.
And throughout the last election cycle guys (and girls) like Nate got an earful on their comments and predictions. Nate was scaremongering, blowing up the issue on Bidens age, and “didn’t understand how politics work”. And yet, he was pretty damn close to understanding and predicting a lot of what was happing, along with several other “unqualified” authors.
I would have expected some admission of getting the whole thing wrong from the experts, but looks like you guys have already pinned this one down.
You're not obligated to read opinions of people you don't respect. Some people like Nate's views because they come from a relatively intelligent person who has no commitment to a party line or institutions. I get the sense that many academics and insoders are frustrated that baseball nerd kid became more influential than them through untraditional paths.
Hey Nate, I've been following you a long time! I found this article to be one of your best. Please keep calling out us Dems. I find myself in a funny place in Politics and History, I am a 48 year old college educated union member; I find myself in both the workers movement and the progressive movement. I'm a Latte Sippin Liberal but I'm also a working class Schmuck! My hope is that these 2 tracks will prevail in the Dem Party in a genuine way. Hope this comment makes any kind of sense.
“Americans approve of LGBTQ+ people living as they wish, but their support drops for trans people, poll shows”
Me when i type a headline that contradicts itself
No, it doesn’t contradict itself since that’s how the question was phrased in the poll, people just have contradictory inner thoughts. If it said “Americans approve of sandwiches, but their support drops for BLTs, poll shows” I think it would be obvious that most Americans like sandwiches, but that the BLT is among the least favored of the lot.
I think it’s fair to say the further along the ROYGBIV we go in the rainbow spectrum, the farther we get from a wavelength that Americans actually understand or support ‘affirming treatment’ or their kids being exposed to.
not really. it’s just trans people. Queer and bi people don’t have the backlash trans people do. Not asexuals or intersex people either.
I’d bet a lot of money that if you asked 100 people on the street of say, Chicago, what the Queer / Q even means, you wouldn’t get a coherent or consistent answer. Not to pick on Chicago.
T is the only one where we are talking about permanent physical changes requiring surgery and a presumptive loss of bodily function. Not surprising that people have legit concerns when it comes to minors or public funding.
There's an irony in this essay because it's framed around the pardon (I'm guessing thrown in at the end) but that doesn't fit with the condemnation of the expert class because only the expert class has a problem with it. Keeping your kid out of jail for buying a gun while being a drug user is something that most parents would do, and most parents know they would do it. So the condemnations are either the same sanctimonious crap you are correctly complaining about in the essay or cynical opportunism from the right.
The perception is that there's two systems: one for the little guy and one for the people that matter.
In other words, if you're poor and black and your kid gets busted on gun charges, good luck. Assuming that he makes it past the arrest process and gets to trial. On the other hand if you vacation in the Hamptons community service is probably in your future.
"The system is rigged".
well I mean that's obviously true so I don't think anyone is shocked by it. The real moral of the story though is even if you are powerful, you might want your kid to face consequences early so they don't turn into Hunter Biden.
Nobody is shocked by it, but the lesson of 2024 is that there are still plenty of people who are mad about it.