Waterlooing Trump
December 19, 2015 9:12 AM Subscribe
"Despite Trump’s apparent strength in national polls, Cruz’s targeting of Iowa focuses on the most logical schwerpunkt for defeating Trump (puncturing his air of being a winner) by using the sequential nature of primaries to hand him a defeat in the first state to actually vote."
Applying the theories of military strategist John Boyd to explain why Donald Trump has proven so successful in the primary so far, and why he will fail. Also, schwerpunkt!
More on the "OODA loop" or "Boyd Loop".
More on the "OODA loop" or "Boyd Loop".
You know, this is a cogent analysis and probably right, but we've had so many "Trump will never last", "Trump's time is clearly over now", "Trump is finally failing", "here's why Trump's momentum is gone", etc moments and predictions at this point that it's hard not to maintain some skepticism about this latest one, however intelligent it may be.
posted by Sangermaine at 9:35 AM on December 19, 2015 [12 favorites]
posted by Sangermaine at 9:35 AM on December 19, 2015 [12 favorites]
From what I can see, Trump is the master of inserting OODA loops into the political landscape.
posted by mygoditsbob at 9:39 AM on December 19, 2015 [9 favorites]
posted by mygoditsbob at 9:39 AM on December 19, 2015 [9 favorites]
When combined with speed, ambiguity plays a crucial role in the OODA Loop in keeping the opponent from becoming oriented as a result of his observations.
To be fair, it is one hell of a drug.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:40 AM on December 19, 2015 [2 favorites]
To be fair, it is one hell of a drug.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:40 AM on December 19, 2015 [2 favorites]
Well, good luck to him.
/looks up literally anything about Cruz.
Okay, maybe not.
/looks down list of contenders. Looks down a LONG way.
posted by Artw at 9:42 AM on December 19, 2015 [6 favorites]
/looks up literally anything about Cruz.
Okay, maybe not.
/looks down list of contenders. Looks down a LONG way.
posted by Artw at 9:42 AM on December 19, 2015 [6 favorites]
OODA stands for "Observe, Orient, Decide, Act". It is a model of the decision-making process where you first gather information, you consider what your options are to respond, you decide on one of the options, then you take action. Boyd's insight is not that it is good to USE an OODA loop, because as we said, basically every decision-making process boils down to an OODA loop. The insight is that you can achieve an advantage by moving through your OODA loop faster than your opponents, because if you do, you will either prevent them from taking actions, or you will render their actions less relevant to the current conditions.
posted by rustcrumb at 9:51 AM on December 19, 2015 [31 favorites]
posted by rustcrumb at 9:51 AM on December 19, 2015 [31 favorites]
How would one perceive whether a candidate is an ooda master or an unhinged bullshitter?
posted by mikek at 9:52 AM on December 19, 2015 [20 favorites]
posted by mikek at 9:52 AM on December 19, 2015 [20 favorites]
Trump is no military theorist. He's a troll. Fucker can't even spell OODA.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:55 AM on December 19, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:55 AM on December 19, 2015 [3 favorites]
"So, what do you think about X?"
"Well, I think X is—"
"Why are you talking about X? We're talking about Y now."
"I think that Y—"
"Are you still talking about Y? We need to worry about Z!"
It's stupid and it's cheating. Any rhetorical victory obtained through this strategy is a Pyrrhic one.
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:55 AM on December 19, 2015 [6 favorites]
"Well, I think X is—"
"Why are you talking about X? We're talking about Y now."
"I think that Y—"
"Are you still talking about Y? We need to worry about Z!"
It's stupid and it's cheating. Any rhetorical victory obtained through this strategy is a Pyrrhic one.
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:55 AM on December 19, 2015 [6 favorites]
How would one perceive whether a candidate is an ooda master or an unhinged bullshitter?
Turns out it's the same thing
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 9:58 AM on December 19, 2015 [4 favorites]
Turns out it's the same thing
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 9:58 AM on December 19, 2015 [4 favorites]
The insight is that you can achieve an advantage by moving through your OODA loop faster than your opponents,
This is not the insight. previously
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:00 AM on December 19, 2015 [3 favorites]
This is not the insight. previously
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:00 AM on December 19, 2015 [3 favorites]
I'd also be quite wary of taking a theory seriously that appeals to Godel, Heisenberg, and the laws of thermodynamics.
posted by mikek at 10:00 AM on December 19, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by mikek at 10:00 AM on December 19, 2015 [5 favorites]
> If the only way to defeat Trump is introducing OODA loops into national politics, IT IS NOT WORTH IT. These things turn politics into a fucking hellscape of nonsense that is, I shit you not, less comprehensible and more frustrating than Fox News. Their whole purpose is to render the process unintelligible and therefore impossible; it's effective and it's terrible. Don't do it.
Once institutions run by elected officials have been OODA-looped into ineffectuality, to whom does power actually devolve? Secondarily, how do we make ourselves sufficiently ambiguous to whoever those people or institutions are, so that we can get inside their OODA loops? I mean I feel you on wishing that we had a functional public sphere where we could come together as equals and reason together about how we want to govern ourselves, but wishing that we had that won't make it real. Maybe politics really is an underhanded knife-fight by nature; maybe we should try to make it the best underhanded knife-fight we can instead of treating it as something it's not.
One advantage of this frame is that it points up the problems with the evergreen "speak truth to power" slogan. Power already knows the truth. If we really want to change things, we should speak confusing nonsense to power, and then take advantage of its confusion. Save all the truth-telling for conversations with friends.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 10:04 AM on December 19, 2015 [19 favorites]
Once institutions run by elected officials have been OODA-looped into ineffectuality, to whom does power actually devolve? Secondarily, how do we make ourselves sufficiently ambiguous to whoever those people or institutions are, so that we can get inside their OODA loops? I mean I feel you on wishing that we had a functional public sphere where we could come together as equals and reason together about how we want to govern ourselves, but wishing that we had that won't make it real. Maybe politics really is an underhanded knife-fight by nature; maybe we should try to make it the best underhanded knife-fight we can instead of treating it as something it's not.
One advantage of this frame is that it points up the problems with the evergreen "speak truth to power" slogan. Power already knows the truth. If we really want to change things, we should speak confusing nonsense to power, and then take advantage of its confusion. Save all the truth-telling for conversations with friends.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 10:04 AM on December 19, 2015 [19 favorites]
This is not the insight.
Would you care to offer your interpretation?
posted by rustcrumb at 10:07 AM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
Would you care to offer your interpretation?
posted by rustcrumb at 10:07 AM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
‘This Will Be The End Of Trump’s Campaign,’ Says Increasingly Nervous Man For Seventh Time This Year
posted by Ian A.T. at 10:09 AM on December 19, 2015 [20 favorites]
posted by Ian A.T. at 10:09 AM on December 19, 2015 [20 favorites]
> I'd also be quite wary of taking a theory seriously that appeals to Godel, Heisenberg, and the laws of thermodynamics.
posted by mikek at 10:00 AM on December 19 [+] [!]
For reals. When I got to the mention of Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems, I was reminded of the maxim (from xkcd?) that you shouldn't trust claims about quantum mechanics wherein "quantum mechanics" is the most technical term used. By analogy, if the only complicated math you're talking about is Gödel's, likely you're not actually doing anything that's really related to complicated math.
that said: Just because the mid-20th century cybernetics guys were for the most part loons, and just because their ideas didn't work the way that they described them as working, doesn't mean their ideas are necessarily therefore not useful. I get the strong sense that Boyd had deep practical expertise on how to be productively confusing (at least, in martial contexts), but didn't quite have the language to explain that practical expertise.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 10:10 AM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by mikek at 10:00 AM on December 19 [+] [!]
For reals. When I got to the mention of Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems, I was reminded of the maxim (from xkcd?) that you shouldn't trust claims about quantum mechanics wherein "quantum mechanics" is the most technical term used. By analogy, if the only complicated math you're talking about is Gödel's, likely you're not actually doing anything that's really related to complicated math.
that said: Just because the mid-20th century cybernetics guys were for the most part loons, and just because their ideas didn't work the way that they described them as working, doesn't mean their ideas are necessarily therefore not useful. I get the strong sense that Boyd had deep practical expertise on how to be productively confusing (at least, in martial contexts), but didn't quite have the language to explain that practical expertise.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 10:10 AM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
Cruz for Trump is a lateral move at best.
posted by dirigibleman at 10:11 AM on December 19, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by dirigibleman at 10:11 AM on December 19, 2015 [4 favorites]
Your Brain Is Hard-Wired to Love Trump- "How our stone-age psychology explains our love for lies and demagoguery in modern politics."
Lotta cycles being expended on avoiding (and not refuting) the obvious conclusion.
Would you care to offer your interpretation?
Please see referenced material.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:19 AM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
Lotta cycles being expended on avoiding (and not refuting) the obvious conclusion.
Would you care to offer your interpretation?
Please see referenced material.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:19 AM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
But ... Cruz can't be President 'cause he was born in Canada.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 10:25 AM on December 19, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by ZenMasterThis at 10:25 AM on December 19, 2015 [4 favorites]
It's terrifying how prescient the primary and presidential election storyline in Transmetropolitan seems this year.
I'd rather Trump was the candidate than Cruz, but only because he'd have less chance of winning an election. I don't think he has much chance of getting the nomination, though.
posted by howfar at 10:26 AM on December 19, 2015 [3 favorites]
I'd rather Trump was the candidate than Cruz, but only because he'd have less chance of winning an election. I don't think he has much chance of getting the nomination, though.
posted by howfar at 10:26 AM on December 19, 2015 [3 favorites]
"Once institutions run by elected officials have been OODA-looped into ineffectuality, to whom does power actually devolve? Secondarily, how do we make ourselves sufficiently ambiguous to whoever those people or institutions are, so that we can get inside their OODA loops? I mean I feel you on wishing that we had a functional public sphere where we could come together as equals and reason together about how we want to govern ourselves, but wishing that we had that won't make it real."
Neither does OODA looping it. Right now, we're throwing people out of public housing, not paying for health care for the indigent or for state employees (the state owes me $2,000 as we speak and is busy accruing interest on that because they have to pay me interest whenever they get around to paying their medical bills), and turning off traffic lights in rural areas because the state literally can't pay for electricity. Some of the state universities may shut down after spring. Students are not being allowed to graduate because the state won't pay their MAP grants (state financial aid) and therefore they appear in arrears on student loans and are not granted diplomas. Students who graduated this semester using state financial aid or grant programs are not receiving diplomas and are being prevented from enrolling in graduate schools or further training (like ATC training programs) because the state university system won't graduate them. State parks are closed. State employees are being laid off. The state is more than nine months in arrears on education payments to K-12 districts and has warned districts it may just not pay them. Which will mean tens of thousands of teachers just not getting paid. Autism services have been halted. Psychiatric care has been halted. Child care assistance payments for low-income families have been halted. Single mothers have had to quit their jobs because they lost their child care. Our worst-in-the-nation, state-bankrupting unfunded pension debt is climbing every day and interest continues to compound.
The whole point of rendering government totally incomprehensible is that it "starves the beast" because if nobody's being paid and infrastructure is crumbling and government is collapsing, that's good for people WHO WANT GOVERNMENT TO DISAPPEAR. The power "devolves" to people who can afford to buy their way out of public services and don't NEED public schools or public parks or public health care or public stoplights. It's not a good thing that you can turn to the benefit of the governed; it's a tool of the rich to dismantle public services. And it's a NOTABLY EFFECTIVE one, especially if you're a multimillionaire with zero shame (as per Illinois's governor ... and Trump). He's beholden to literally no one -- he doesn't even need their campaign cash -- and he doesn't need any of the things he's destroying.
If you can pay privately, it now takes close to 12 months to get in for a pediatric autism diagnostic in Illinois, because so many state-funded or non-profit (state-grant-using) autism service providers have shut down; the private ones are drowning in demand. So IF you can afford $3500 to get your child privately seen by pediatric diagnosticians, you're looking at a 12 to 18 month waiting list. If you can't, and you have to use insurance, you'll have to use a state-related provider (the places private insurance covers are partly funded through federal EI grants that pass through the state). Some of them have just closed their wait lists because they're over 2 years and they don't even know if they'll still be open in six months. The brave new world of incomprehensible government!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:26 AM on December 19, 2015 [57 favorites]
Neither does OODA looping it. Right now, we're throwing people out of public housing, not paying for health care for the indigent or for state employees (the state owes me $2,000 as we speak and is busy accruing interest on that because they have to pay me interest whenever they get around to paying their medical bills), and turning off traffic lights in rural areas because the state literally can't pay for electricity. Some of the state universities may shut down after spring. Students are not being allowed to graduate because the state won't pay their MAP grants (state financial aid) and therefore they appear in arrears on student loans and are not granted diplomas. Students who graduated this semester using state financial aid or grant programs are not receiving diplomas and are being prevented from enrolling in graduate schools or further training (like ATC training programs) because the state university system won't graduate them. State parks are closed. State employees are being laid off. The state is more than nine months in arrears on education payments to K-12 districts and has warned districts it may just not pay them. Which will mean tens of thousands of teachers just not getting paid. Autism services have been halted. Psychiatric care has been halted. Child care assistance payments for low-income families have been halted. Single mothers have had to quit their jobs because they lost their child care. Our worst-in-the-nation, state-bankrupting unfunded pension debt is climbing every day and interest continues to compound.
The whole point of rendering government totally incomprehensible is that it "starves the beast" because if nobody's being paid and infrastructure is crumbling and government is collapsing, that's good for people WHO WANT GOVERNMENT TO DISAPPEAR. The power "devolves" to people who can afford to buy their way out of public services and don't NEED public schools or public parks or public health care or public stoplights. It's not a good thing that you can turn to the benefit of the governed; it's a tool of the rich to dismantle public services. And it's a NOTABLY EFFECTIVE one, especially if you're a multimillionaire with zero shame (as per Illinois's governor ... and Trump). He's beholden to literally no one -- he doesn't even need their campaign cash -- and he doesn't need any of the things he's destroying.
If you can pay privately, it now takes close to 12 months to get in for a pediatric autism diagnostic in Illinois, because so many state-funded or non-profit (state-grant-using) autism service providers have shut down; the private ones are drowning in demand. So IF you can afford $3500 to get your child privately seen by pediatric diagnosticians, you're looking at a 12 to 18 month waiting list. If you can't, and you have to use insurance, you'll have to use a state-related provider (the places private insurance covers are partly funded through federal EI grants that pass through the state). Some of them have just closed their wait lists because they're over 2 years and they don't even know if they'll still be open in six months. The brave new world of incomprehensible government!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:26 AM on December 19, 2015 [57 favorites]
It's stupid and it's cheating. Any rhetorical victory obtained through this strategy is a Pyrrhic one.
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:55 AM on December 19 [1 favorite +] [!]
Who cares about rhetorical victories, though? This is a method for achieving material victories — shooting down a plane, winning a military campaign, gaining more authenticated slips of paper or digital files that say you should govern. It's not a strategy for winning debates, or changing minds, it's a strategy for winning things.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 10:27 AM on December 19, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:55 AM on December 19 [1 favorite +] [!]
Who cares about rhetorical victories, though? This is a method for achieving material victories — shooting down a plane, winning a military campaign, gaining more authenticated slips of paper or digital files that say you should govern. It's not a strategy for winning debates, or changing minds, it's a strategy for winning things.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 10:27 AM on December 19, 2015 [7 favorites]
Trump hasn't won anything yet. Nobody has won anything yet. There is nothing to have been won.
The first primary -- the event in which delegates are claimed, which is the only relevant scoring system -- does not happen for another six weeks.
Up until then, there is nothing but posturing, endless high-school level debates, and opinion polls.
posted by ardgedee at 10:27 AM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
The first primary -- the event in which delegates are claimed, which is the only relevant scoring system -- does not happen for another six weeks.
Up until then, there is nothing but posturing, endless high-school level debates, and opinion polls.
posted by ardgedee at 10:27 AM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
The betting odds still favor Rubio. And if so, Rubio takes Florida as the giver-in-chief, while Hillary is running against someone's ambitious son. Contrast this to running against Cruz's image as a mortician caught selling body parts, or Trump's image as someone whose business model is to exploit political status.
posted by Brian B. at 10:29 AM on December 19, 2015
posted by Brian B. at 10:29 AM on December 19, 2015
I am happy that Trump continues to humiliatingly crush Jeb Bush, regardless of what else happens.
posted by Drinky Die at 10:33 AM on December 19, 2015 [8 favorites]
posted by Drinky Die at 10:33 AM on December 19, 2015 [8 favorites]
Meta: This is not the insight. previously
this is why this place is best of the web
posted by infini at 10:41 AM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
this is why this place is best of the web
posted by infini at 10:41 AM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
> The power "devolves" to people who can afford to buy their way out of public services and don't NEED public schools or public parks or public health care or public stoplights. It's not a good thing that you can turn to the benefit of the governed; it's a tool of the rich to dismantle public services. And it's a NOTABLY EFFECTIVE one, especially if you're a multimillionaire with zero shame (as per Illinois's governor ... and Trump). He's beholden to literally no one -- he doesn't even need their campaign cash -- and he doesn't need any of the things he's destroying.
I agree wholeheartedly — I just don't think there's any available rhetorical method to break this process down. I mean I guess what I was implying with the "to whom does power devolve" stuff is that of course it devolves to the rich and connected, which, yeah, is why they're spamming nonsense throughout our governing institutions in the interest of breaking them.
I just don't think that appealing to the benefits of good government and imploring the powerful to stop gaslighting us — and really, all OODA-loop-disruption really is is advanced applied gaslighting — is a way toward getting them to stop gaslighting us. They know what they're doing — they know about the starving children and freezing elders and sick people being left to die and all of it — and they like it that way.
And now that I've typed that out I realize that all of this stuff right from the start — right from the concept of OODA-loop-disruption — is too abstract by far. Like, I typed out a thing (that I deleted; it wasn't worth reading) about establishing "counter-institutions," and then I realized that the first place I saw the phrase "counter-institution" was in the last half of Gravity's Rainbow. Which is a really fun book and all but not really useful for keeping from freezing to death in the winter after some yahoo has taken over and/or broken the government to make sure you don't have heat. I mean you could burn it, sure, it's a thick book and there's a lot of paper there, but that will only keep you warm for a little while.
Instead of abstract management techniques adapted from military strategy, we maybe just need to help each other as much as we can and let each other know that helping each other is a good thing. the idea of counter-gaslighting the gaslighters feels fun in an adolescent way, but maybe it's a distraction from what's real.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 10:46 AM on December 19, 2015 [10 favorites]
I agree wholeheartedly — I just don't think there's any available rhetorical method to break this process down. I mean I guess what I was implying with the "to whom does power devolve" stuff is that of course it devolves to the rich and connected, which, yeah, is why they're spamming nonsense throughout our governing institutions in the interest of breaking them.
I just don't think that appealing to the benefits of good government and imploring the powerful to stop gaslighting us — and really, all OODA-loop-disruption really is is advanced applied gaslighting — is a way toward getting them to stop gaslighting us. They know what they're doing — they know about the starving children and freezing elders and sick people being left to die and all of it — and they like it that way.
And now that I've typed that out I realize that all of this stuff right from the start — right from the concept of OODA-loop-disruption — is too abstract by far. Like, I typed out a thing (that I deleted; it wasn't worth reading) about establishing "counter-institutions," and then I realized that the first place I saw the phrase "counter-institution" was in the last half of Gravity's Rainbow. Which is a really fun book and all but not really useful for keeping from freezing to death in the winter after some yahoo has taken over and/or broken the government to make sure you don't have heat. I mean you could burn it, sure, it's a thick book and there's a lot of paper there, but that will only keep you warm for a little while.
Instead of abstract management techniques adapted from military strategy, we maybe just need to help each other as much as we can and let each other know that helping each other is a good thing. the idea of counter-gaslighting the gaslighters feels fun in an adolescent way, but maybe it's a distraction from what's real.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 10:46 AM on December 19, 2015 [10 favorites]
Haven't we seen this before? OODA loops were basically what McCain tried to do to Obama in 2008. He did all kinds of random weird shit and sudden swings, like when he announced he was suspending his campaign to deal with the financial crisis. People said he was campaigning like a fighter pilot, trying to keep his opponent off balance and always moving on to the next thing before anyone else. But it didn't work - Obama said 'actually a President has to be able to do more than one thing at a time,' kept his campaign running, and came out looking much more stable and reasonable.
posted by echo target at 10:58 AM on December 19, 2015 [16 favorites]
posted by echo target at 10:58 AM on December 19, 2015 [16 favorites]
I've thought for some time that there was a deliberate campaign by the GOP to make people check out of listening to the news. The eight billion repetitions of "fiscal cliff" seemed designed to do that, for example. It's easier to do whatever the 1% wants if the 99% doesn't pay attention.
This is a whole new level of propaganda though. Thanks for posting!
posted by Bee'sWing at 11:08 AM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
This is a whole new level of propaganda though. Thanks for posting!
posted by Bee'sWing at 11:08 AM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
The governor of Illinois admitted a couple weeks ago that his entire strategy for governing is to constantly attack the supermajority Democrats with OODA loops, incessantly shifting the ground of the debate, so that all of their responses are irrelevant to whatever he's already inexplicably moved on to, and to try to OODA loop them into generating gaffes he can put in campaign commercials. We've been budgetless for six months and he may be admitting he's not going to even try to pass a budget until after the midterm elections.
I think this story was just so much right wing pseudo military macho posturing B.S. meant to distract from the fact that 5 billionaire men are flooding Illinois state politics with money. They want to appear to be super clever military strategists but they are really just oligarchs buying votes at a couple thousand percent above what their supposedly less savvy and fiscally ignorant competition spend.
Ditto for this story of Cruz 'focusing on the focal point' strategy. These are some clever campaign advising con men playing into the right wing military fetish and gambling on a Trump collapse, that might happen even without them, trying to insert themselves as causal agents.
posted by srboisvert at 11:24 AM on December 19, 2015 [6 favorites]
I think this story was just so much right wing pseudo military macho posturing B.S. meant to distract from the fact that 5 billionaire men are flooding Illinois state politics with money. They want to appear to be super clever military strategists but they are really just oligarchs buying votes at a couple thousand percent above what their supposedly less savvy and fiscally ignorant competition spend.
Ditto for this story of Cruz 'focusing on the focal point' strategy. These are some clever campaign advising con men playing into the right wing military fetish and gambling on a Trump collapse, that might happen even without them, trying to insert themselves as causal agents.
posted by srboisvert at 11:24 AM on December 19, 2015 [6 favorites]
In other news, this latest comment from Cruz is less of a white supremacist dogwhistle and more of a blaring white supremacist klaxon.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 11:35 AM on December 19, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 11:35 AM on December 19, 2015 [3 favorites]
Ohio SoS sez Trump can't run as a third-party candidate
Not that it matters. I honestly believe he'll win the nom, as long as the GOP hierarchy doesn't do some serious monkeywrenching.
posted by Thorzdad at 11:43 AM on December 19, 2015 [2 favorites]
Not that it matters. I honestly believe he'll win the nom, as long as the GOP hierarchy doesn't do some serious monkeywrenching.
posted by Thorzdad at 11:43 AM on December 19, 2015 [2 favorites]
I know I feel like this every 4 years, but somehow each of the GOP candidates are worse than all the others, and it's the worst batch ever.
posted by Cookiebastard at 11:56 AM on December 19, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Cookiebastard at 11:56 AM on December 19, 2015 [3 favorites]
It's almost as if the GOP has realized they can't win the game in the long term, so they've decided to burn the house down on their way out, out of sheer spite.
posted by gottabefunky at 11:57 AM on December 19, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by gottabefunky at 11:57 AM on December 19, 2015 [4 favorites]
I know I feel like this every 4 years, but somehow each of the GOP candidates are worse than all the others, and it's the worst batch ever.
I don't think it's an illusion, they are getting worse because the Republican primary electorate is getting more and more extreme and uncompromising.
posted by Drinky Die at 11:57 AM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
I don't think it's an illusion, they are getting worse because the Republican primary electorate is getting more and more extreme and uncompromising.
posted by Drinky Die at 11:57 AM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
> I think this story was just so much right wing pseudo military macho posturing B.S.
Speaking of which, I stopped reading the second link at this point:
posted by languagehat at 12:00 PM on December 19, 2015 [3 favorites]
Speaking of which, I stopped reading the second link at this point:
I’ve taken to following General James Mattis’s advice to Marines: “Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.”Uh-huh.
posted by languagehat at 12:00 PM on December 19, 2015 [3 favorites]
> I don't think it's an illusion, they are getting worse because the Republican primary electorate is getting more and more extreme and uncompromising.
Or the Republican primary electorate is exactly as extreme and uncompromising as they've always been, but/and they've figured out how to make the party itself reflect their real views.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 12:05 PM on December 19, 2015 [2 favorites]
Or the Republican primary electorate is exactly as extreme and uncompromising as they've always been, but/and they've figured out how to make the party itself reflect their real views.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 12:05 PM on December 19, 2015 [2 favorites]
I'm not at all convinced that OODA loops are relevant to primary campaigns. The article gives several good reasons for Trump's success that are nothing to do with them: his name recognition, a desperate media in need of outrage, a further swing to extremes in primary voters, the flexibility of his third party option. OODA loops may be great in a fighter plane dogfight, but they're not much use in a blackberry picking competition. I suspect a primary campaign is more like the latter. Sure Trump's gathered the blackberries of media attention before the others can get to them, but that's not necessarily anything to do with confusing their strategies or controlling their information.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 12:15 PM on December 19, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by TheophileEscargot at 12:15 PM on December 19, 2015 [3 favorites]
Look, Trump isn't going to win the GOP nomination, so everyone chill out about that. It's probably Rubio or Bush.
Primarys are always where crazy gets to shine but rarley do they go on to what win.
This is just a ridiculous sideshow.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:37 PM on December 19, 2015
Primarys are always where crazy gets to shine but rarley do they go on to what win.
This is just a ridiculous sideshow.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:37 PM on December 19, 2015
It's not gonna be Bush. If not Trump, Rubio or Cruz. Rubio would be the compromising choice here, which is who they would usually pick, but they may not be willing to compromise any more.
Trump will be competitive in Iowa and will likely win New Hampshire. I think it's past the point to consider his winning the nomination out of the question.
posted by Drinky Die at 12:42 PM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
Trump will be competitive in Iowa and will likely win New Hampshire. I think it's past the point to consider his winning the nomination out of the question.
posted by Drinky Die at 12:42 PM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
Metafilter: Cruz's image as a mortician caught selling body parts
posted by sammyo at 1:15 PM on December 19, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by sammyo at 1:15 PM on December 19, 2015 [2 favorites]
Donald Trump Campaign Lags in Mobilizing Iowa Caucus Voters (NYT).
posted by plastic_animals at 1:24 PM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by plastic_animals at 1:24 PM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
okay I'm just brainstorming and in brainstorming there are no bad ideas so maybe the way we can disrupt Trump's OODA and make him meet his Waterloo is by forcing him to listen to ABBA's Waterloo over and over again just spitballin' here...
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 1:42 PM on December 19, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 1:42 PM on December 19, 2015 [5 favorites]
Or by keying his car, duh. Get your head in the game, YCTAB!
posted by aka burlap at 1:54 PM on December 19, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by aka burlap at 1:54 PM on December 19, 2015 [5 favorites]
*More on the “OODA loop” or “Boyd Loop”.*
Is it wrong that I pre-judge a website called “Art of Manliness”?
posted by Going To Maine at 2:16 PM on December 19, 2015 [9 favorites]
Is it wrong that I pre-judge a website called “Art of Manliness”?
posted by Going To Maine at 2:16 PM on December 19, 2015 [9 favorites]
Does it try to sell you tactical soap?
posted by Artw at 2:22 PM on December 19, 2015 [8 favorites]
posted by Artw at 2:22 PM on December 19, 2015 [8 favorites]
I think it's past the point to consider his winning the nomination out of the question.
Not out of the question, but still very unlikely, I think. I can't find a way to make never cracking 35% of the vote, with effectively 100% name recognition, read well for Trump. Are people really going to switch to Trump at this stage? It seems deeply unlikely. And as others drop out of the race, the "never going to vote Trump" majority will start to shift toward a candidate. I don't think that a Trump candidacy is impossible, but it's reliant on the GOP massively fucking up the task of preventing it.
I think there are two likely scenarios: (1) Cruz sucks away enough of Trump's support early on to marginalise him, leading to a Cruz / Rubio contest, (2) Cruz doesn't do that, and the narrative becomes Trump v Cruz, with Rubio a relatively distant third.
(I agree that it is clear that Bush is not getting the nomination. He fucked up very badly.)
posted by howfar at 2:30 PM on December 19, 2015
Not out of the question, but still very unlikely, I think. I can't find a way to make never cracking 35% of the vote, with effectively 100% name recognition, read well for Trump. Are people really going to switch to Trump at this stage? It seems deeply unlikely. And as others drop out of the race, the "never going to vote Trump" majority will start to shift toward a candidate. I don't think that a Trump candidacy is impossible, but it's reliant on the GOP massively fucking up the task of preventing it.
I think there are two likely scenarios: (1) Cruz sucks away enough of Trump's support early on to marginalise him, leading to a Cruz / Rubio contest, (2) Cruz doesn't do that, and the narrative becomes Trump v Cruz, with Rubio a relatively distant third.
(I agree that it is clear that Bush is not getting the nomination. He fucked up very badly.)
posted by howfar at 2:30 PM on December 19, 2015
Are people really going to switch to Trump at this stage? It seems deeply unlikely.
To comment on myself, here, I should add that I'm assuming that Carson's support will largely disperse evenly, rather than shifting to Trump. Recent polls indicate that this might assumption may be only partly sound. So Trump might well crack 35% polling average in the near future.
posted by howfar at 2:34 PM on December 19, 2015
To comment on myself, here, I should add that I'm assuming that Carson's support will largely disperse evenly, rather than shifting to Trump. Recent polls indicate that this might assumption may be only partly sound. So Trump might well crack 35% polling average in the near future.
posted by howfar at 2:34 PM on December 19, 2015
“Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.”
Bobby De Niro's line in Ronin is much better:
"Lady, I never walk into a place I don't know how to walk out of."
I've been thinking about this ooda stuff all day, and the trick, as I see it, is more about constantly changing the reality so the enemy is off target. I get it, but when this Boyd guy starts pulling in physics and anthropology to explain why he was such a hot shot flight jockey, I start rolling my eyes. I especially like the part where the one journalist explained that Boyd didn't write anything down because he preferred to be Socrates rather than Plato, so that's why so few people have heard of him. Yeah. Okay.
There's a whiff of Tom Cruise here. Why am I a millionaire actor when so many people suffer? Cuz, space religion explains that I am truly a higher involved entity. Why am I such a good strategist? Cuz ooda. Reading that ooda diagram, I mean, yeah maybe, but it seems to me like Boyd was just trying to diagram how he deserved to be so lucky.
posted by valkane at 2:38 PM on December 19, 2015 [3 favorites]
Bobby De Niro's line in Ronin is much better:
"Lady, I never walk into a place I don't know how to walk out of."
I've been thinking about this ooda stuff all day, and the trick, as I see it, is more about constantly changing the reality so the enemy is off target. I get it, but when this Boyd guy starts pulling in physics and anthropology to explain why he was such a hot shot flight jockey, I start rolling my eyes. I especially like the part where the one journalist explained that Boyd didn't write anything down because he preferred to be Socrates rather than Plato, so that's why so few people have heard of him. Yeah. Okay.
There's a whiff of Tom Cruise here. Why am I a millionaire actor when so many people suffer? Cuz, space religion explains that I am truly a higher involved entity. Why am I such a good strategist? Cuz ooda. Reading that ooda diagram, I mean, yeah maybe, but it seems to me like Boyd was just trying to diagram how he deserved to be so lucky.
posted by valkane at 2:38 PM on December 19, 2015 [3 favorites]
> I'm not at all convinced that OODA loops are relevant to primary campaigns. ... Sure Trump's gathered the blackberries of media attention before the others can get to them, but that's not necessarily anything to do with confusing their strategies or controlling their information.
I agree; it seems like the real "technique" in play is the political version of keeping up with the Joneses: "oh my, someone has gained an advantage on us using complicated tactical strategies—I feel so small!"
(And that's the whiff I got from the second link, where I felt like I was reading arbitrary business-strategy language, a good part of which has often seemed designed to encourage the same feeling, and then to get Company to pay for the leveling-up it needs. It's funny in that way to watch business use its create-a-need tactics against itself.)
Edit: by that analysis, the best OODA-loop Action is to just fucking not worry about it.
posted by sylvanshine at 2:45 PM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
I agree; it seems like the real "technique" in play is the political version of keeping up with the Joneses: "oh my, someone has gained an advantage on us using complicated tactical strategies—I feel so small!"
(And that's the whiff I got from the second link, where I felt like I was reading arbitrary business-strategy language, a good part of which has often seemed designed to encourage the same feeling, and then to get Company to pay for the leveling-up it needs. It's funny in that way to watch business use its create-a-need tactics against itself.)
Edit: by that analysis, the best OODA-loop Action is to just fucking not worry about it.
posted by sylvanshine at 2:45 PM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
Not out of the question, but still very unlikely, I think. I can't find a way to make never cracking 35% of the vote, with effectively 100% name recognition, read well for Trump.
Yeah, he's at 40% last I heard. That uptick likely came from Carson voters switching as he collapses. There is a ceiling somewhere but it's an open question on if he found it yet. Any of the supporters of the other anti-establishment candidates is someone who might switch to Trump if their candidate drops. Then it's a question of if the establishment candidate can win head to head against Trump. With this crop of candidates, I can't be sure that they can.
I think Cruz probably has to seduce away Trump's supporters by pointing out he has much better conservative bona fides and is every bit the same racist shitbag as Trump anyway. Cruz so far has not shown a willingness to go directly at Trump though.
posted by Drinky Die at 2:47 PM on December 19, 2015
Yeah, he's at 40% last I heard. That uptick likely came from Carson voters switching as he collapses. There is a ceiling somewhere but it's an open question on if he found it yet. Any of the supporters of the other anti-establishment candidates is someone who might switch to Trump if their candidate drops. Then it's a question of if the establishment candidate can win head to head against Trump. With this crop of candidates, I can't be sure that they can.
I think Cruz probably has to seduce away Trump's supporters by pointing out he has much better conservative bona fides and is every bit the same racist shitbag as Trump anyway. Cruz so far has not shown a willingness to go directly at Trump though.
posted by Drinky Die at 2:47 PM on December 19, 2015
As far as Trump is concerned, the guy that wrote Black Hawk Down nailed it.
posted by valkane at 2:51 PM on December 19, 2015 [15 favorites]
posted by valkane at 2:51 PM on December 19, 2015 [15 favorites]
After slogging through the links this ooda business sounds like so much else else that catches the imagination but says essentially nothing: the hypermasculinity, the Taoist reasoning, the origin story, the everything simple is complex / everything complex is simple ontology etc. Witness inspirational business/entrepreneurship books, the seduction community, strategy writers like Robert Greene.
posted by mikek at 2:52 PM on December 19, 2015 [9 favorites]
posted by mikek at 2:52 PM on December 19, 2015 [9 favorites]
Yeah, he's at 40% last I heard.
Personally, given the general poor quality of poll data at this point, I don't think individual polls are really worth looking at. Polling average is about 35% at the moment, although who knows what that actually means.
I think Cruz probably has to seduce away Trump's supporters by pointing out he has much better conservative bona fides and is every bit the same racist shitbag as Trump anyway.
This is definitely true. I can't imagine that Cruz doesn't know it, and I think ultimately he will act on it if he has to. The strategy outlined in the linked article would definitely be preferable from the GOP's point of view.
posted by howfar at 2:55 PM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
Personally, given the general poor quality of poll data at this point, I don't think individual polls are really worth looking at. Polling average is about 35% at the moment, although who knows what that actually means.
I think Cruz probably has to seduce away Trump's supporters by pointing out he has much better conservative bona fides and is every bit the same racist shitbag as Trump anyway.
This is definitely true. I can't imagine that Cruz doesn't know it, and I think ultimately he will act on it if he has to. The strategy outlined in the linked article would definitely be preferable from the GOP's point of view.
posted by howfar at 2:55 PM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
I would not go toe to toe with the Trump in a made up business theory fight.
posted by Artw at 2:56 PM on December 19, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Artw at 2:56 PM on December 19, 2015 [3 favorites]
Personally I'm still praying for Trump. He's no more disgusting than Cruz (by which I mean he is entirely and irredeemably disgusting), although he is more open about it, and he's less electable (not necessarily in himself, but definitely given what his candidacy would do the GOP).
posted by howfar at 2:58 PM on December 19, 2015
posted by howfar at 2:58 PM on December 19, 2015
It's pretty amazing to see a race where Clinton is ardently defending the corporate status quo and a unquestioning obeisance to whatever Twitter says is politically correct this week, while her two leading Republicans opponents are running as free-speaking defiant populists. It won't be hard for a lot of Bernie Sanders supporters to go Trump in the general. But boy those Jeb Bush or John Kasich supporter(s) -- where do they go? Clinton, I guess.
posted by MattD at 3:04 PM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by MattD at 3:04 PM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
It won't be hard for a lot of Bernie Sanders supporters to go Trump in the general.
That doesn’t say anything good about Berners.
posted by Going To Maine at 3:22 PM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
That doesn’t say anything good about Berners.
posted by Going To Maine at 3:22 PM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
If it ends up being Clinton vs. Trump, here are my predictions for Sanders supporters:
80% Hold their noses and vote for Clinton
19% Stay home and don't vote
1% Vote for Trump out of a desire to burn it all down and hasten the eschaton
posted by Faint of Butt at 3:29 PM on December 19, 2015 [10 favorites]
80% Hold their noses and vote for Clinton
19% Stay home and don't vote
1% Vote for Trump out of a desire to burn it all down and hasten the eschaton
posted by Faint of Butt at 3:29 PM on December 19, 2015 [10 favorites]
It won't be hard for a lot of Bernie Sanders supporters to go Trump in the general.
I don't really get that. I heard people months ago saying stuff like they were just Ron Paul voters who will go for any outsider. I don't see anything to back that up. Every Bernie supporter I know has been a committed liberal for years and just doesn't feel that Hillary expresses their political values as well as Bernie does, but maybe that's just anecdote.
posted by Drinky Die at 3:31 PM on December 19, 2015 [9 favorites]
I don't really get that. I heard people months ago saying stuff like they were just Ron Paul voters who will go for any outsider. I don't see anything to back that up. Every Bernie supporter I know has been a committed liberal for years and just doesn't feel that Hillary expresses their political values as well as Bernie does, but maybe that's just anecdote.
posted by Drinky Die at 3:31 PM on December 19, 2015 [9 favorites]
(The Paul voters I know are all true believers too, they would never vote for a socialist.)
posted by Drinky Die at 3:36 PM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Drinky Die at 3:36 PM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
“Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.”
When you know that this plan includes things like denying climate change and opposing workplace-safety regulations, it becomes somewhat less intimidating.
posted by box at 3:54 PM on December 19, 2015 [2 favorites]
When you know that this plan includes things like denying climate change and opposing workplace-safety regulations, it becomes somewhat less intimidating.
posted by box at 3:54 PM on December 19, 2015 [2 favorites]
Trump is no military theorist. He's a troll. Fucker can't even spell OODA.
Trump does have an MBA from Wharton and lots of business experience, which means he probably has the same familiarity with generic "strategy" concepts that most businessmen of his ilk would have. In addition, Trump has the bearing and temperament of a bully, and a lot of bullies intuitively know how to get into their target's heads, even if they don't know an OODA loop from a hole in the ground.
posted by jonp72 at 4:00 PM on December 19, 2015 [3 favorites]
Trump does have an MBA from Wharton and lots of business experience, which means he probably has the same familiarity with generic "strategy" concepts that most businessmen of his ilk would have. In addition, Trump has the bearing and temperament of a bully, and a lot of bullies intuitively know how to get into their target's heads, even if they don't know an OODA loop from a hole in the ground.
posted by jonp72 at 4:00 PM on December 19, 2015 [3 favorites]
If the only way to defeat Trump is introducing OODA loops into national politics, IT IS NOT WORTH IT.
The genie is already out of that bottle. OODA loops in politics are probably here to stay whether we like them or not. Politics is not about "ought," but what is. Personally, I think progressives, liberal, the Left whatever you want to call them should embrace these tactical paradigms and start winning some real victories, instead of just limiting themselves to victories of the "symbolic" or "moral" kind.
posted by jonp72 at 4:04 PM on December 19, 2015 [2 favorites]
The genie is already out of that bottle. OODA loops in politics are probably here to stay whether we like them or not. Politics is not about "ought," but what is. Personally, I think progressives, liberal, the Left whatever you want to call them should embrace these tactical paradigms and start winning some real victories, instead of just limiting themselves to victories of the "symbolic" or "moral" kind.
posted by jonp72 at 4:04 PM on December 19, 2015 [2 favorites]
Bernie supporter anger is different from Trump/Cruz supporter anger. I mean, the core of it is similar -- feeling marginalized and without meaningful representation where it counts -- but the difference is degree. Bernouts want a seat at the table; the hard right wants the whole table and the room and building it's in.
To put it another way, the modern fiscal negotiation process is "the left takes two steps right, the right takes two steps right, and both sides declare the midpoint the new center." Bernie wants the left to hold its ground and step back to the left; Cruz is furious that the right even lets the left participate.
posted by delfin at 4:17 PM on December 19, 2015 [11 favorites]
To put it another way, the modern fiscal negotiation process is "the left takes two steps right, the right takes two steps right, and both sides declare the midpoint the new center." Bernie wants the left to hold its ground and step back to the left; Cruz is furious that the right even lets the left participate.
posted by delfin at 4:17 PM on December 19, 2015 [11 favorites]
Personally, I think progressives, liberal, the Left whatever you want to call them should embrace these tactical paradigms and start winning some real victories
The problem is that real victories are enduring policy programmes that change people's lives for the better. This sort of tactical politics is great for disrupting the effective functioning of government and seizing enough power to make bad policy, but making good policy and implementing good law is a strategic process that requires a stable political environment and consensus building both within and across parties. The approaches discussed here are actively counter-productive if you actually want to make the world a better run place.
Also, I do wish that those on the American Left would disabuse themselves of the myth of the cunning efficiency of the Right. The Republican party is a basket-case, with almost nothing holding it together. These are not the people you want to be emulating. A race to the bottom is not what will fix American politics.
posted by howfar at 4:22 PM on December 19, 2015 [15 favorites]
The problem is that real victories are enduring policy programmes that change people's lives for the better. This sort of tactical politics is great for disrupting the effective functioning of government and seizing enough power to make bad policy, but making good policy and implementing good law is a strategic process that requires a stable political environment and consensus building both within and across parties. The approaches discussed here are actively counter-productive if you actually want to make the world a better run place.
Also, I do wish that those on the American Left would disabuse themselves of the myth of the cunning efficiency of the Right. The Republican party is a basket-case, with almost nothing holding it together. These are not the people you want to be emulating. A race to the bottom is not what will fix American politics.
posted by howfar at 4:22 PM on December 19, 2015 [15 favorites]
ooda will win of course, as this election is not happening in a vacuum - there's a fairly good chance of major things happening in our world before election day and some of those could completely upset the apple cart
as things stand right now, trump won't get the nomination, because the GOP elite will have a brokered convention to elect a candidate they want - trump probably won't be able to put together a 3rd party run in time, but his followers will be so pissed off, they'll run away from the election or find already registered alternatives
if an economic crash or war develops, all bets are off
we will discover one thing about donald trump if he does somehow get elected - he will not be able to govern
posted by pyramid termite at 4:31 PM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
as things stand right now, trump won't get the nomination, because the GOP elite will have a brokered convention to elect a candidate they want - trump probably won't be able to put together a 3rd party run in time, but his followers will be so pissed off, they'll run away from the election or find already registered alternatives
if an economic crash or war develops, all bets are off
we will discover one thing about donald trump if he does somehow get elected - he will not be able to govern
posted by pyramid termite at 4:31 PM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
> Or by keying his car, duh. Get your head in the game, YCTAB!
oh em gee though, if someone successfully keyed one of Trump's classy cars he might die of sheer apoplectic rage right there on the spot. like he'd get so mad his heart would actually burst.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 4:34 PM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
oh em gee though, if someone successfully keyed one of Trump's classy cars he might die of sheer apoplectic rage right there on the spot. like he'd get so mad his heart would actually burst.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 4:34 PM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
he'd get so mad, his heart would actually burst.
Polish this Tony. Today.
okay, i'll stop trying to get you guys to read this.
posted by valkane at 4:41 PM on December 19, 2015 [7 favorites]
Polish this Tony. Today.
okay, i'll stop trying to get you guys to read this.
posted by valkane at 4:41 PM on December 19, 2015 [7 favorites]
oh em gee though, if someone successfully keyed one of Trump's classy cars he might die of sheer apoplectic rage right there on the spot. like he'd get so mad his heart would actually burst.
It's the 21st century now. Keying cars is old-fashioned.
Fly a drone into it.
posted by Faint of Butt at 4:41 PM on December 19, 2015 [3 favorites]
It's the 21st century now. Keying cars is old-fashioned.
Fly a drone into it.
posted by Faint of Butt at 4:41 PM on December 19, 2015 [3 favorites]
> But boy those Jeb Bush or John Kasich supporter(s) -- where do they go? Clinton, I guess.
Your analysis on the whole tends to be... idiosyncratic... but you've sort of hit on something here: in more politically regular times, with more regular political institutions, Clinton would be the obvious choice for the Republican nomination. Of all of the people in the campaign with classically Republican political positions, Clinton is far and away the most competent.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 4:42 PM on December 19, 2015 [7 favorites]
Your analysis on the whole tends to be... idiosyncratic... but you've sort of hit on something here: in more politically regular times, with more regular political institutions, Clinton would be the obvious choice for the Republican nomination. Of all of the people in the campaign with classically Republican political positions, Clinton is far and away the most competent.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 4:42 PM on December 19, 2015 [7 favorites]
This whole OODA thing is a few thousand wasted words about a triviality. OODA is just a made up name for classical control theory as used in electrical and mechanical engineering. It was mathematically formalized by James Clerk Maxwell back in the 1860s, but is a fundamental characteristic of every living thing, plant or animal. Politicians do it, CEOs do it, generals do it and even 1-month old babies.
So this idea that Trump has added OODA to politics is silly. Control theory mechanisms have always been in politics as well as just about everything else you do in life.
Take a month-old baby. You shake a rattle in front of the baby.
1. The baby observes it through sight and sound.
2. The baby orients by realizing this information is something new.
3. The baby decides that these inputs are interesting and worth pursuing.
4. The baby acts to turn their head and eyes to center on the source of stimulus.
5. Through feedback baby figures out if they turned their head in the right direction and sufficiently to center their focus.
6. Go back to 1.
That's "OODA", or more properly control theory. It's not some invention by politicians or fighter pilots.
So how do you disrupt this process. The evil uncle enters the room, takes the rattle, shakes is first on the left side of baby's head. Then on the right side of baby's head. Then again on the left. Baby tries to follow the rattle but its poor little head can't keep up and baby starts to cry. That's Trump's great invention according to the author. Confuse the baby and make it cry.
So Boyd's strategy to disrupt the system is simply what in control theory is called exceeding the bandwidth of the control loop. If inputs occur too quickly for the control loop to adapt, beyond its bandwidth, the system can go out of control.
There are two strategies in control theory for avoiding this disruption. The first is to increase the bandwidth of the control loop so that it can respond more quickly. For example, as the baby gets older, its brain and neck muscles become quicker and it can keep up with evil uncle's game.
The second strategy is to filter the inputs so that they don't exceed the bandwidth of the control loop. Maybe you decide that these rapid inputs are of little consequence so you ignore them. Baby just closes its eyes because it is bored with the evil uncle's little game.
So forget the idea that Trump has invented OODA loops. Control loops have always been a part of political campaigns and a major job for press secretaries in reacting to the opposition. What Trump is doing is keeping them off balance by applying classic control theory and exceeding the bandwidth of opponents. Nothing new here. For decades this has simply been called "winning the news cycle" where the speed of the news cycle is the bandwidth of the system.
posted by JackFlash at 4:44 PM on December 19, 2015 [27 favorites]
So this idea that Trump has added OODA to politics is silly. Control theory mechanisms have always been in politics as well as just about everything else you do in life.
Take a month-old baby. You shake a rattle in front of the baby.
1. The baby observes it through sight and sound.
2. The baby orients by realizing this information is something new.
3. The baby decides that these inputs are interesting and worth pursuing.
4. The baby acts to turn their head and eyes to center on the source of stimulus.
5. Through feedback baby figures out if they turned their head in the right direction and sufficiently to center their focus.
6. Go back to 1.
That's "OODA", or more properly control theory. It's not some invention by politicians or fighter pilots.
So how do you disrupt this process. The evil uncle enters the room, takes the rattle, shakes is first on the left side of baby's head. Then on the right side of baby's head. Then again on the left. Baby tries to follow the rattle but its poor little head can't keep up and baby starts to cry. That's Trump's great invention according to the author. Confuse the baby and make it cry.
So Boyd's strategy to disrupt the system is simply what in control theory is called exceeding the bandwidth of the control loop. If inputs occur too quickly for the control loop to adapt, beyond its bandwidth, the system can go out of control.
There are two strategies in control theory for avoiding this disruption. The first is to increase the bandwidth of the control loop so that it can respond more quickly. For example, as the baby gets older, its brain and neck muscles become quicker and it can keep up with evil uncle's game.
The second strategy is to filter the inputs so that they don't exceed the bandwidth of the control loop. Maybe you decide that these rapid inputs are of little consequence so you ignore them. Baby just closes its eyes because it is bored with the evil uncle's little game.
So forget the idea that Trump has invented OODA loops. Control loops have always been a part of political campaigns and a major job for press secretaries in reacting to the opposition. What Trump is doing is keeping them off balance by applying classic control theory and exceeding the bandwidth of opponents. Nothing new here. For decades this has simply been called "winning the news cycle" where the speed of the news cycle is the bandwidth of the system.
posted by JackFlash at 4:44 PM on December 19, 2015 [27 favorites]
holy crap, valkane, thank you for that link. everyone listen to valkane. this article is incredible. Quote:
I watched as Trump strutted around the beautifully groomed clay tennis courts on his estate, managed by noted tennis pro Anthony Boulle. The courts had been prepped meticulously for a full day of scheduled matches. Trump took exception to the design of the spaces between courts. In particular, he didn’t like a small metal box—a pump and cooler for the water fountain alongside—which he thought looked ugly. He first questioned its placement, then crudely disparaged it, then kicked the box, which didn’t budge, and then stooped—red-faced and fuming—to tear it loose from its moorings, rupturing a water line and sending a geyser to soak the courts. Boulle looked horrified, a weekend of tennis abruptly drowned. Catching a glimpse of me watching, Trump grimaced.posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 6:30 PM on December 19, 2015 [9 favorites]
He fucked up very badly.
Some can fuck up fucking up, which is also a requirement of the Republican party in our demented world. In a sensible place, everyone of these candidates would be laughed out of every town they tried to swindle. Instead we're living in this communal nightmare.
posted by juiceCake at 7:11 PM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
Some can fuck up fucking up, which is also a requirement of the Republican party in our demented world. In a sensible place, everyone of these candidates would be laughed out of every town they tried to swindle. Instead we're living in this communal nightmare.
posted by juiceCake at 7:11 PM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
Someone please find a link to May 1997 Playboy interview. I found the first ten paragraphs but not the whole thing.
(mefi-mail me if your source can't stand the traffic and I'll sort something out for mefites)
posted by ryanrs at 7:41 PM on December 19, 2015 [4 favorites]
(mefi-mail me if your source can't stand the traffic and I'll sort something out for mefites)
posted by ryanrs at 7:41 PM on December 19, 2015 [4 favorites]
Huckabee won Iowa in 2008. Santorum won it in 2012. Does that state really matter?
posted by Apocryphon at 8:30 PM on December 19, 2015
posted by Apocryphon at 8:30 PM on December 19, 2015
It won't be hard for a lot of Bernie Sanders supporters to go Trump in the general.
I could say something here but I just wanted to quote that for its entertainment value; it's a true pearl.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 8:40 PM on December 19, 2015 [7 favorites]
I could say something here but I just wanted to quote that for its entertainment value; it's a true pearl.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 8:40 PM on December 19, 2015 [7 favorites]
Huckabee won Iowa in 2008. Santorum won it in 2012. Does that state really matter?
It can. What you're skipping about both Huckabee and Santorum's campaigns is that neither of them had great funding. Huckabee won Iowa with only about $500,000 of campaign funding total, and he didn't get a lot of money after his Iowa win because, well, he's a wackadoodle lunatic. He still managed to win seven states, mostly because Iowa positioned him as the so-con alternative to John McCain. Santorum went from having next to no money to raising $18 million post-Iowa. He won eleven states and was the second-highest votegetter in the primaries overall after Romney.
Also, both Huckabee and Santorum were terrible candidates. Huckabee is a pseudo-folksy speaker who says horrible, awful things and then gloats about it. Santorum is a wooden board of a human being, if wooden boards could also be bigots. Trump and Cruz are much, much better speakers than either of them.
Neither Huckabee nor Santorum is in Trump or Cruz' league. Trump has spent practically no money on his campaign - he's still under a million because the media does his campaign job for him, unfortunately, and he can self-fund if he needs to. And Cruz has lots and lots of money lined up that he's been saving for post-Iowa; he's spent much, much less than, say, Marco Rubio. They've both got the ability to capitalize on an early win in a way that Huckabee and Santorum didn't.
posted by mightygodking at 9:17 PM on December 19, 2015 [3 favorites]
It can. What you're skipping about both Huckabee and Santorum's campaigns is that neither of them had great funding. Huckabee won Iowa with only about $500,000 of campaign funding total, and he didn't get a lot of money after his Iowa win because, well, he's a wackadoodle lunatic. He still managed to win seven states, mostly because Iowa positioned him as the so-con alternative to John McCain. Santorum went from having next to no money to raising $18 million post-Iowa. He won eleven states and was the second-highest votegetter in the primaries overall after Romney.
Also, both Huckabee and Santorum were terrible candidates. Huckabee is a pseudo-folksy speaker who says horrible, awful things and then gloats about it. Santorum is a wooden board of a human being, if wooden boards could also be bigots. Trump and Cruz are much, much better speakers than either of them.
Neither Huckabee nor Santorum is in Trump or Cruz' league. Trump has spent practically no money on his campaign - he's still under a million because the media does his campaign job for him, unfortunately, and he can self-fund if he needs to. And Cruz has lots and lots of money lined up that he's been saving for post-Iowa; he's spent much, much less than, say, Marco Rubio. They've both got the ability to capitalize on an early win in a way that Huckabee and Santorum didn't.
posted by mightygodking at 9:17 PM on December 19, 2015 [3 favorites]
The list of people who won Iowa also includes our last two Presidents. And they both went on to lose New Hampshire too. So, it's no guarantee of anything at all, but it's definitely a good start if, like MGK explained, you are in a position to capitalize off it.
posted by Drinky Die at 9:21 PM on December 19, 2015
posted by Drinky Die at 9:21 PM on December 19, 2015
When the Democrats had a majority in the house and the senate and wanted to play compromise with the Republicans and the Republicans just kept moving the goal line, I thought that was the worst.
All this is just so nauseating.
posted by Belle O'Cosity at 11:59 PM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
All this is just so nauseating.
posted by Belle O'Cosity at 11:59 PM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
Every Bernie supporter I know has been a committed liberal for years and just doesn't feel that Hillary expresses their political values as well as Bernie does, but maybe that's just anecdote.
The Republicans Who Support Sanders
Also, if you believe Sanders can win the Democratic nomination, then he's bound to have more than just hardcore liberals supporting him. He will have some more moderate and even a few conservative voters as well.
posted by FJT at 12:20 AM on December 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
The Republicans Who Support Sanders
Also, if you believe Sanders can win the Democratic nomination, then he's bound to have more than just hardcore liberals supporting him. He will have some more moderate and even a few conservative voters as well.
posted by FJT at 12:20 AM on December 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
Also, if you believe Sanders can win the Democratic nomination
I do not. :)
posted by Drinky Die at 12:24 AM on December 20, 2015
I do not. :)
posted by Drinky Die at 12:24 AM on December 20, 2015
When the Democrats had a majority in the house and the senate and wanted to play compromise with the Republicans and the Republicans just kept moving the goal line, I thought that was the worst.
Even to an outside observer the number of worst things the Republican party has done over the last decade or so is sometimes literally nauseating. They are wreaking untold damage on your country and our planet for the sake of nothing but power to be employed for personal gain. And they aren't even very good at that.
One major problem is that first past the post electoral systems are particularly prone to this sort of abuse. Long-term incentives to compromise are limited, and potentially good policy is highly susceptible to being undone in a short period of time. It's not impossible for first past the post to deliver lasting policy progress, but it needs strong external checks if it is to do so. In particular, it needs a well functioning media to ensure that bad faith by politicians is duly noted, remembered, punished and deterred.
The absurd amount of power that a very limited number of wealthy individuals have obtained has, as everyone here knows, undermined the independence of all the institutions of democracy to an absurd extent. However, what is particularly worrying about where we in the US and UK find ourselves is the extent to which this capture is now encouraging policy that isn't even in the medium-term interests of the plutocrats. We're pissing limited time and money up against the wall because our institutions are not strong enough to protect society from the worst instincts of our ruling classes.
posted by howfar at 2:40 AM on December 20, 2015 [5 favorites]
Even to an outside observer the number of worst things the Republican party has done over the last decade or so is sometimes literally nauseating. They are wreaking untold damage on your country and our planet for the sake of nothing but power to be employed for personal gain. And they aren't even very good at that.
One major problem is that first past the post electoral systems are particularly prone to this sort of abuse. Long-term incentives to compromise are limited, and potentially good policy is highly susceptible to being undone in a short period of time. It's not impossible for first past the post to deliver lasting policy progress, but it needs strong external checks if it is to do so. In particular, it needs a well functioning media to ensure that bad faith by politicians is duly noted, remembered, punished and deterred.
The absurd amount of power that a very limited number of wealthy individuals have obtained has, as everyone here knows, undermined the independence of all the institutions of democracy to an absurd extent. However, what is particularly worrying about where we in the US and UK find ourselves is the extent to which this capture is now encouraging policy that isn't even in the medium-term interests of the plutocrats. We're pissing limited time and money up against the wall because our institutions are not strong enough to protect society from the worst instincts of our ruling classes.
posted by howfar at 2:40 AM on December 20, 2015 [5 favorites]
It's not our "ruling classes" screwing things up.
http://www.thisdayinquotes.com/2011/04/we-have-met-enemy-and-he-is-us.html
These people:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Little_Rock_integration_protest.jpg
are still with us, and vote, especially in GOP primaries.
Being a Japanese speaker, I was so hopeful back in 2008 when Obama won and then the centrist party won in Japan, too. But their vaguely center-left polity collapsed faster than ours did and their electorate sent the conservative party back into power.
The core conservative message of 'got ours fuck them' is good enough to win ~30% of any electorate. Throw in a couple of wedge issues --desegregation, immigrants, homophobia, abortion, gun rights, add in the necessary vote suppression and gerrymandering, et viola, here we are.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 9:00 AM on December 20, 2015
http://www.thisdayinquotes.com/2011/04/we-have-met-enemy-and-he-is-us.html
These people:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Little_Rock_integration_protest.jpg
are still with us, and vote, especially in GOP primaries.
Being a Japanese speaker, I was so hopeful back in 2008 when Obama won and then the centrist party won in Japan, too. But their vaguely center-left polity collapsed faster than ours did and their electorate sent the conservative party back into power.
The core conservative message of 'got ours fuck them' is good enough to win ~30% of any electorate. Throw in a couple of wedge issues --desegregation, immigrants, homophobia, abortion, gun rights, add in the necessary vote suppression and gerrymandering, et viola, here we are.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 9:00 AM on December 20, 2015
The core conservative message of 'got ours fuck them' is good enough to win ~30% of any electorate.
It probably is, at least a significant proportion of the time. Hence democracies need robust and well-constructed systems to stop those with wealth and power using these callous, cruel and stupid members of our electorate as a weapon to stop the rest of us getting the things we agree we need. +/- 30% isn't enough to prevent the development of a generally moderately productive consensus, if the institutional structure is effective enough at supporting that. That's not a blind declaration of optimism, rather the opposite in some ways - it's about recognising that it's not enough for centrists just to grab hold of power to keep the Right out. The task we have is a difficult one, and I'd suggest that it's more complex than your comment would indicate. The fact that there a a lot of bad people is not sufficient explanation for the state of politics as we find it.
posted by howfar at 11:27 AM on December 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
It probably is, at least a significant proportion of the time. Hence democracies need robust and well-constructed systems to stop those with wealth and power using these callous, cruel and stupid members of our electorate as a weapon to stop the rest of us getting the things we agree we need. +/- 30% isn't enough to prevent the development of a generally moderately productive consensus, if the institutional structure is effective enough at supporting that. That's not a blind declaration of optimism, rather the opposite in some ways - it's about recognising that it's not enough for centrists just to grab hold of power to keep the Right out. The task we have is a difficult one, and I'd suggest that it's more complex than your comment would indicate. The fact that there a a lot of bad people is not sufficient explanation for the state of politics as we find it.
posted by howfar at 11:27 AM on December 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
The problem is that real victories are enduring policy programmes that change people's lives for the better. This sort of tactical politics is great for disrupting the effective functioning of government and seizing enough power to make bad policy, but making good policy and implementing good law is a strategic process that requires a stable political environment and consensus building both within and across parties.
I think American history suggests otherwise. The three most consequential eras of liberal/progressive legislation in U.S. history (the post-Civil War Radical Republicans, the early New Deal, and LBJ's Great Society) all occurred in a relatively brief window of time when external events had knocked more reactionary forces off-balance. (Or in OODA terms, the liberals pulled off mobilizing themselves "inside the decision loop" of their opponents.) The Radical Republicans benefited from the complete military defeat of the Southern slave system and the exclusion of the ex-Confederate states from Congressional representation. FDR's New Deal Congress benefited from huge supermajorities of Democrats and a handful of liberal Republicans as well as a worldwide depression that had discredited American capitalism to a much greater extent than any previous American financial panic. Similarly, LBJ's Great Society had Democratic supermajorities that benefited from huge left-of-center mobilization on the civil rights issue, a landslide defeat of a right-wing Republican, and the afterglow of "Camelot" mythology in the aftermath of JFK's assassination. These victories were not always won through "consensus building both within and across parties," but through ramming through necessary legislation before opposition could mobilize.
posted by jonp72 at 3:46 PM on December 20, 2015 [7 favorites]
I think American history suggests otherwise. The three most consequential eras of liberal/progressive legislation in U.S. history (the post-Civil War Radical Republicans, the early New Deal, and LBJ's Great Society) all occurred in a relatively brief window of time when external events had knocked more reactionary forces off-balance. (Or in OODA terms, the liberals pulled off mobilizing themselves "inside the decision loop" of their opponents.) The Radical Republicans benefited from the complete military defeat of the Southern slave system and the exclusion of the ex-Confederate states from Congressional representation. FDR's New Deal Congress benefited from huge supermajorities of Democrats and a handful of liberal Republicans as well as a worldwide depression that had discredited American capitalism to a much greater extent than any previous American financial panic. Similarly, LBJ's Great Society had Democratic supermajorities that benefited from huge left-of-center mobilization on the civil rights issue, a landslide defeat of a right-wing Republican, and the afterglow of "Camelot" mythology in the aftermath of JFK's assassination. These victories were not always won through "consensus building both within and across parties," but through ramming through necessary legislation before opposition could mobilize.
posted by jonp72 at 3:46 PM on December 20, 2015 [7 favorites]
The fact that there a a lot of bad people is not sufficient explanation for the state of politics as we find it.
Conservative people translates into conservative votes. In early 2003 ~30% of this nation was gung-ho for taking out Saddam, which rose to 60% after Bush committed the troops.
As of 2014 the pro-war contingent was down to its 30% hard core:
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/iraq-turmoil/not-worth-it-huge-majority-regret-iraq-war-exclusive-poll-n139686
~ 25% of the country is hard-case evangelical, hoping for a Cruz, Huckabee, Santorum, or Palin.
33% of the country is against further gun control, with a 10% hard-core there:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/1645/guns.aspx
44% of the country is 'pro life', with a 20% hard-core:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx
Along with longstanding race and economic issues, these are the strike-strip faultlines in our society; there is no compromise to be found on these issues, just battles, battles the plutocrats love to fund since it sidetracks our attention away from them.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 6:28 PM on December 20, 2015
Conservative people translates into conservative votes. In early 2003 ~30% of this nation was gung-ho for taking out Saddam, which rose to 60% after Bush committed the troops.
As of 2014 the pro-war contingent was down to its 30% hard core:
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/iraq-turmoil/not-worth-it-huge-majority-regret-iraq-war-exclusive-poll-n139686
~ 25% of the country is hard-case evangelical, hoping for a Cruz, Huckabee, Santorum, or Palin.
33% of the country is against further gun control, with a 10% hard-core there:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/1645/guns.aspx
44% of the country is 'pro life', with a 20% hard-core:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx
Along with longstanding race and economic issues, these are the strike-strip faultlines in our society; there is no compromise to be found on these issues, just battles, battles the plutocrats love to fund since it sidetracks our attention away from them.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 6:28 PM on December 20, 2015
through ramming through necessary legislation before opposition could mobilize
Case in point:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/operation-coffeecup-reaga_b_45444.html
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 6:32 PM on December 20, 2015
Case in point:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/operation-coffeecup-reaga_b_45444.html
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 6:32 PM on December 20, 2015
We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.
posted by flabdablet at 12:39 AM on December 21, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 12:39 AM on December 21, 2015 [3 favorites]
These victories were not always won through "consensus building both within and across parties," but through ramming through necessary legislation before opposition could mobilize.
This is a very good point. But, as you note, these are exceptional events created by external forces, in ways that benefit a progressive political platform. They are, I would argue, sustained by the centre ground of politics having shifted to encompass them. It's often noted that Nixon was more left-wing than Obama. "Moving the centre", absent an external force, is exceptionally difficult, and while it's fairly easy to manufacture crisis, as the GOP have shown, that crisis only entrenches positions, rather than shifting them.
posted by howfar at 12:58 AM on December 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
This is a very good point. But, as you note, these are exceptional events created by external forces, in ways that benefit a progressive political platform. They are, I would argue, sustained by the centre ground of politics having shifted to encompass them. It's often noted that Nixon was more left-wing than Obama. "Moving the centre", absent an external force, is exceptionally difficult, and while it's fairly easy to manufacture crisis, as the GOP have shown, that crisis only entrenches positions, rather than shifting them.
posted by howfar at 12:58 AM on December 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
So Boyd's strategy to disrupt the system is simply what in control theory is called exceeding the bandwidth of the control loop. If inputs occur too quickly for the control loop to adapt, beyond its bandwidth, the system can go out of control.
Also filed under: Parenting.
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:13 AM on December 21, 2015
Also filed under: Parenting.
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:13 AM on December 21, 2015
Lincoln, FDR, LBJ. It's almost as if leftish American presidents need to burnish their credentials with militarism abroad in order to project an image of strength.
posted by Apocryphon at 10:36 AM on December 21, 2015
posted by Apocryphon at 10:36 AM on December 21, 2015
In other news, this latest comment from Cruz is less of a white supremacist dogwhistle and more of a blaring white supremacist klaxon.
The hell you say. Yeah, that is about as unsubtle a rhetorical call-out as I can imagine.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:02 PM on December 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
The hell you say. Yeah, that is about as unsubtle a rhetorical call-out as I can imagine.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:02 PM on December 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
"The media needs to stop telling this lie about Donald Trump. I’m a Sanders supporter — and value honesty" by Alberto A. Martinez
posted by Apocryphon at 1:08 PM on December 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Apocryphon at 1:08 PM on December 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
This is the step that allows us to overcome the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.
Wait, what?
posted by salix at 2:52 AM on December 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
Wait, what?
posted by salix at 2:52 AM on December 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
sometimes people who aren't bright argue that (for example) evolution by natural selection can't be real, because it involves increasing order being made from disorder and therefore violates the second law of thermodynamics. The appropriate response to these people (provided it's not a cloudy day) is to just silently point at the sun until they realize that Earth isn't a closed system and living things here can only make order from disorder because of all the energy from the sun that gets pumped into the system every second.
Sometimes these people become half-bright and start thinking that turning closed systems into open ones is magic. These people can be easily recognized, because they say things like the quote above about how opening systems lets you "overcome" the laws of thermodynamics.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 2:15 PM on December 22, 2015 [7 favorites]
Sometimes these people become half-bright and start thinking that turning closed systems into open ones is magic. These people can be easily recognized, because they say things like the quote above about how opening systems lets you "overcome" the laws of thermodynamics.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 2:15 PM on December 22, 2015 [7 favorites]
(that's my guess for what's going on there, at least)
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 2:15 PM on December 22, 2015
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 2:15 PM on December 22, 2015
He also blames a lot of things on Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, at which points in the essay I imagined him shaking a tiny fist and saying, "Thanks a lot, Heisenberg!"
posted by salix at 3:06 PM on December 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by salix at 3:06 PM on December 22, 2015 [2 favorites]
the worst part is, we can never simultaneously determine the position and the velocity of the tiny fist he's shaking.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 4:36 PM on December 22, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 4:36 PM on December 22, 2015 [4 favorites]
Apparently Trump's proposal to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. is already being implemented informally (and the family is not even getting a refund.)
posted by homunculus at 3:37 PM on December 23, 2015
posted by homunculus at 3:37 PM on December 23, 2015
Talk around my house is that they’re all so marginal that Rubio just has to be the last men standing to get the nomination. No one else has a prayer, except that I think Trump is still the wild card. Who knows, it could be the end of days.
posted by bongo_x at 11:45 PM on December 23, 2015
posted by bongo_x at 11:45 PM on December 23, 2015
After a holiday visit with my conservative family (business owners who rail against the EPA and OSHA getting in their grill) I think Trump definitely doesn't have the support the polls suggest.
My rationalist aunt began complaining about what a horrible monster Trump was and asked who would support someone like that. I mentioned the only two people I knew via Facebook, a "kill-em-all" vet and a tough-guy who didn't think much about politics.
My father and others at the table announced it was about anger and gave a list of grievances against government in general, pointing out a feeling of betrayal about the recent budget deal as being most recent. They gave their full support to Trump and would tell anyone who asked that they supported him - but they wouldn't actually vote for him when the time came. He was too unpresidential and his ideas were bad. They just wanted him surging for now to let the world know how angry they were.
This is purely anecdote but the image I have now is of Trump being like David Banner at the end of Ang Lee's Hulk, being pumped full of everyone else's rage, only to be suddenly deflated when push comes to shove. Trump still has enough actual supporters to poison our politics and the damage will probably be lasting, but I don't think he'll get the nomination. Oddly enough I think he has more of a chance of winning the general (if nominated) than he does of actually being nominated.
(I am simply relaying what I heard and was told - I just keep my mouth shut and enjoy my pie when politics comes up with that side of the family. It upsets Grandma, otherwise.)
posted by charred husk at 6:44 AM on December 29, 2015
My rationalist aunt began complaining about what a horrible monster Trump was and asked who would support someone like that. I mentioned the only two people I knew via Facebook, a "kill-em-all" vet and a tough-guy who didn't think much about politics.
My father and others at the table announced it was about anger and gave a list of grievances against government in general, pointing out a feeling of betrayal about the recent budget deal as being most recent. They gave their full support to Trump and would tell anyone who asked that they supported him - but they wouldn't actually vote for him when the time came. He was too unpresidential and his ideas were bad. They just wanted him surging for now to let the world know how angry they were.
This is purely anecdote but the image I have now is of Trump being like David Banner at the end of Ang Lee's Hulk, being pumped full of everyone else's rage, only to be suddenly deflated when push comes to shove. Trump still has enough actual supporters to poison our politics and the damage will probably be lasting, but I don't think he'll get the nomination. Oddly enough I think he has more of a chance of winning the general (if nominated) than he does of actually being nominated.
(I am simply relaying what I heard and was told - I just keep my mouth shut and enjoy my pie when politics comes up with that side of the family. It upsets Grandma, otherwise.)
posted by charred husk at 6:44 AM on December 29, 2015
Trump says Cruz’s Canadian birth could be ‘very precarious’ for GOP
posted by homunculus at 4:17 PM on January 5, 2016
posted by homunculus at 4:17 PM on January 5, 2016
Donald Trump Once Revoked Medical Care for a Sick Baby To Get Back at His Family
What Sort of Man Is Donald Trump?
posted by homunculus at 4:18 PM on January 5, 2016
What Sort of Man Is Donald Trump?
posted by homunculus at 4:18 PM on January 5, 2016
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If the only way to defeat Trump is introducing OODA loops into national politics, IT IS NOT WORTH IT. These things turn politics into a fucking hellscape of nonsense that is, I shit you not, less comprehensible and more frustrating than Fox News. Their whole purpose is to render the process unintelligible and therefore impossible; it's effective and it's terrible. Don't do it.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:34 AM on December 19, 2015 [34 favorites]