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Optimism is not rational
America had three good years under Trump, until COVID hit. Domestic policy, foreign policy, economic policy – pick your metric, and things were going very well. The Biden / Harris administration has made things worse. Nearly all of those things. Some of them much worse. So if Americans simply look at past results, and make a rational deduction of who is likely to make things better for Americans, they will choose Trump. So we have nothing to worry about. Right?
Americans spent $108 billion on lottery tickets last year. There are about 250 million Americans between the ages of 19 and 80 years old. Figure half of those people never buy lottery tickets. That means the rest of them are spending nearly $1,000 per year on lottery tickets. Adjust my ham-fisted estimates however you like. But Americans spend A LOT of money on lottery tickets, trying to get rich.
Kamala Harris is running a campaign based on emotional appeal to our hopes and fears. She is avoiding discussions of policy, economics, and reality. It sounds, well, silly. But I think she may be taking the right approach.
I know what you’re thinking: With her record, what else can she do?
But I think it’s the right approach, regardless.
This is one of the flaws of democracy. This is one of the flaws of placing our country’s destiny in the hands of people who pause “Bachelorette” so they can go buy lottery tickets. This is why Democrats want easy, hassle-free, widespread voting, among people who don’t really think about things all that much.
That’s their market.
I doubt that Kamala Harris is as stupid as she pretends to be. I just think she understands her market. Or perhaps she just happens to fit in perfectly with her market. I suppose it doesn’t matter which one is true. Whatever.
Anyone who thinks they can get rich by buying a lottery ticket has got to like the odds of making America better by voting Democrat.
And any Republican who thinks they can get the votes of such people by discussing tax policy is just as delusional as the lottery ticket buyers.
But we believe. The lottery ticket buyers, the Republicans, all of them – they believe. They believe in the irrational. “It didn’t work before? Well, let’s try it again! And again and again and again! The next one will be a winner!” You’ve got to admire their optimism.
Maybe not their rational decision-making. But at least their optimism…
Published in General
I like your total lack of a solution. I tend to agree.
I’m here to help.
And it is huge.
I played golf today with my brother (who is a very good golfer – I’m OK but not on his level) and I have that optimism – or maybe it is naïveté – to think like the voters you talk about – that when I start with a birdie like I did today the great round will continue – but of course it didn’t. And being a conservative I also am able to see what has transpired under Biden/Harris, unburdened by the total idiocy they spout. That is the difference. Apparently libs believe her – or at least bet on believing her – and think her
optimismfantasy will be realized. As my brother said, we have a lot of stupid voters.John Hinderacker at Powerline makes a similar point: democrats appeal to emotion, we must learn to as well.
I reckon the nearest thing to a solution is good old-fashioned Aristotley rhetoric.
Use logic and emotion and good character. And do whatever else helps to make the truth look good, helps make our position clear, and helps make tricky things simple.
Maybe I’ll get back to you just as soon as I learn how to do that effectively. Maybe in about a hundred years or so.
Concur. I don’t type this as a self-medicating whine among a friendly crowd.
It is simply so, that the vapidity of today’s cultural currency coupled with how her opponents run their campaign, Harris’s schtick might get her across the finish line first.
Is she kooky? Yes! Is her strategy rational? Also, yes.
The Gods of the Copybook Headings
As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
— Rudyard Kipling
I always thought she was an actual dimwit. I mean close to one standard deviation below the mean, no matter how one objectively measures. Not a moron (a person of mild mental retardation), but a low-functioning midwit.
Eric Weinstein agrees with you. He thinks she’s intelligent too. He said “130” which is basically two std. dev. above the mean. He only said it in passing, so I don’t know how he supports that.
I have not stopped to consider the implications if you guys are right, probably because I am stupid and afraid.
Lotteries were made illegal or unconstitutional in nearly every state beginning in the 1830s because it was thought that they are immoral because they encourage people to look to chance instead of hard work for success. It wasn’t until 1964 that New Hampshire had the first state-approved lottery.
I would say that lottery-mania is a sign of sickness in society. Just like voting for Kamala.
Ronald Reagan had a knack for appealing with both emotion and conservative principles, like his iconic “Morning in America” ads. His indignant or smooth delivery even in debates (“I am paying for this microphone!” in the NH primary, and “There you go, again” in the debate with Carter) of takedowns resonated emotionally as well as substantively. President Trump is great with welcoming audiences like his rally-goers, but bristles when up against opponents. Comes off “hot” in the old-style TV media terms. Will we see Reagan’s like again?
Kamala lives in a resistance free world. If the interviewer in Philly said something like “everybody has grown up. That doesn’t mean they have a plan for the economy.” Or if the debate moderators pointed out that, “Despite what you just said, there’s no record of Trump advocating for banning birth control, or imposing a 20% federal sales tax, or intention of following Project 2025. Those are fabrications. Quit evading and answer the question.”
Some, any, public pushback sinks her. “Well I haven’t been to Europe either. What’s your point?” All Lester Holt had to do to wreck her career is to point out that she wasn’t the Europe Czar. Just as Joe trotted out his sharp-as-a-tack side, she must be put on the spot and called out for for dissembling. It’s not going to take much, but it has to happen.
You simply don’t treat the disadvantaged that way. It is cruel and reinforces generations of unfairness. Can you imagine how many times this woman has been physically struck just to stop the awful cackling?
I don’t care about the people wasting money on lottery tickets, but I am very worried about the 28% of Democrats that say the US would be better off, if the Sunday shooter would have been successful. It is hard to share to a country with so many lemmings.
Tell me more of this striking.
Half of them wouldn’t think that if they weren’t told to by their idols.
That 28% includes all of the Democrats in public office, of course.
It’s not just lottery tickets…all of Las Vegas and Atlantic City…the entire gaming industry is based on games where the odds are with the house and against the players. Actually, the lottery, once it reaches a sufficiently large prize level becomes a ‘better than fair’ bet.
A fair bet is one where the amount spent on a ticket equals the probability of winning X the prize. So, if the probability of winning is 1 in 100 million and the prize is $100 million, then the probability of winning X the prize = $1. So if, in this example, if the prize is bigger than $100,000,000 then the bet is better than fair … the probability of winning X the value of the prize is greater than the price of a ticket. This situation is not unusual in lottery-land. But it’s rare in the casino gaming industry.
Or a much smaller cadre of either stupid or maybe smart but with their own interests, casting ballots for them.
Seems unlikely, at least for a long time to come. A Reagan today would be roasted on a spit by the left, which is way different than it was then.
Fair can still be stupid, of course: a near-impossible chance of winning a bundle and a 100% chance of losing one dollar.
I get shivers down my spine every time I think of listening to that cackling for four years (May it never come to pass.)
Then reflect on what Putin will talk her into and out of.
I think Harris is a lot smarter than she appears to be. She doesn’t say anything about what she plans to do because she doesn’t want to be held accountable for anything. Avoiding commitments gives her a lot of power. That’s not good for our country.
But I don’t think someone needs to be particularly smart for that.
Please read, Witness by Whittaker Chambers. He explains why Communism is so emotionally appealing even though it doesn’t work.
All Marci said was that Harris is a lot smarter than she appears to be.
A large majority of Americans are a lot smarter than Harris appears to be. So maybe she is too. Perhaps.
“a lot” ? She’s a midwit, which is OK for cogs in government, but not leadership. She doesn’t say anything, because it is easier to prolong a lie (that she is not a commie) when you say less. The more she talks the more the truth of her being a commie would come through.
I sometimes think the most destructive trend in American history has been the gradual expansion of the voting franchise. How different would things be if our government was elected only by people who actually think about things and have a genuine stake in the economy (other than getting handouts)?
I found buying lottery tickets is a great way to get rid of your loose pocket change . . .
and many in corporate media