Post

Paul-tergeist Crider
@paulcrider.liberalcurrents.com

This, but also, as a liberal I believe in freedom and human rights for all people, all around the world. That translates into rooting interests in elections where freedoms and rights are on the ballot, as they often are.

Dan Mauler 🎃@meelar.bsky.social

I just think Matt's wrong about this. We're at a point in our technological development where a ton of problems spill over national borders--if Flavio Bolsonaro burns down the Amazon, that will flood houses in Miami.

42 reposts364 likes

trruhnke.bsky.social
@trruhnke.bsky.social

I am on the Americans know shit about geography and stuff about other countries channel, and there is nothing wrong with taking an interest in elections taking place elsewhere. It might be educational. Perhaps Americans will see that there are political assholes everywhere.

H R Pickens
@hrpickens.bsky.social

Is he such a cynic that he just can't get his head around the idea that some Americans actually did care about promoting democracy and human rights abroad?

Rob Tracinski
@tracinski.bsky.social

It's even more blinkered than that. The Trumpist model of authoritarianism is a total foreign import, developed by Putin in the 2000s and modified by Orban after that. Political models from elsewhere are deployed here. If Bolsonaro won, Trump would take that as a green light for another coup.

Jonquil B.
@jonquil.bsky.social

I'm saying there is nothing foreign about the way Trump does things, and that the only real difference between him and GWB is an extra 20 years of institutional rot allowing him to get away with more

Rob Tracinski
@tracinski.bsky.social

But also, this neo-isolotionist idea has never been true. Did we have a rooting interest in the German elections of 1933? (Yes, but few knew it.) At what point in this nation's history have elections and internal politics in the rest of the world been irrelevant to us?

Ianrobo
@ianrobo.bsky.social

well a few did and yes Churchill was one of them but siren noises who did not want war ignored it almost to the point of being too late

Rob Tracinski
@tracinski.bsky.social

I haven't followed Yglesias enough to know if he's always been this blinkered, or if this is some kind of "reactionary centrist" brain worm at work. Maybe it's an artifact of the Substack era, where you can make good money writing independently, but only if you keep churning out the Takes.

Paul-tergeist Crider
@paulcrider.liberalcurrents.com

I think it's a case of brain worms. It's always hard to tell how much people have shifted in their politics when my own politics have also shifted over the years. But this is a guy who wrote One Billion Americans in 2020.

Matt Darling
@besttrousers.bsky.social

I think the person Matt has in mind here is not a "Lula won, nice"-poster, but the "I am tracking the early returns in Brazil and having big emotional swings based on the drop"-poster.

Will Lowe
@conjugateprior.org

Maybe he does. But look, I'll stop having strong rooting interests in US elections when it stops pursuing its strong rooting interests in mine. That is, maybe never, because the emotions are from its elections mattering, and dealing with what matters is what democratic self-government is for.

Will Lowe
@conjugateprior.org

I get that interest in others' elections, as if they were relevant to outcomes about which I have principled views, and the emotional engagement from seeing those principles realized or violated, regardless of where it happens, is probably just an enlightenment tick. But Matt's jabs are up to date.

Alex Sutherland
@criminologist.bsky.social

It's...Matt Y saying stuff. And sure, I'll stop taking an interest when a specific country's leader isnt spiking trade and fuel prices globally. And him and his pals aren't trying to undermine democracy and science.

Clutch
@clutch3-16.bsky.social

At some point this is just encouraging well-meaning people to hand their wallets over to people who claim to be wallet inspectors

Dave Lundeen
@dmlundeen.bsky.social

I’m not sure this is exactly what Donald Davidson and others had in mind-more an epistemic guideline about trying to make others’ statements intelligible.

Clutch
@clutch3-16.bsky.social

It’s all just a bit to him. He likes being The Contrarian (and is well rewarded for it both financially and in terms of access to power). Actual beliefs don’t remotely factor in for him, as believing in anything at all would hinder the bit.

Bell 🔔
@bellpei.bsky.social

I'd also consider... Have not other countries' citizens had interest in US elections for... at least all my life? It matters to people in all over who is the US president. Why wouldn't some foreign elections matter to the US citzenry?

J.E. Turcotte, re: Valjurai
@valjurai.bsky.social

it's in our best interest to care about the wellbeing of all people ... the planet is far too small ... and far too near the edge ... to tolerate a number of ongoing evils, though local solutions ( as opposed to overly-central controls ) will always be best.