Do What You Believe In
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
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Third Way
1 min read
The article directly criticizes Third Way political centrism as ineffective against Trump's approach. Understanding the origins and philosophy of Third Way politics (Clinton, Blair, etc.) provides crucial context for the author's argument about why triangulation fails.
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Overton window
10 min read
The article's core argument about fighting for what you believe rather than pre-compromising directly relates to how the Overton window shifts. Trump's success at moving acceptable political discourse illustrates this concept perfectly.
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Triangulation (politics)
12 min read
The article repeatedly criticizes political triangulation as self-defeating. Understanding this specific strategy - associated with Dick Morris and Bill Clinton - illuminates exactly what the author argues against.
An enormous amount of analysis goes into politics. Some of it is strategic analysis: What should we do? How should we persuade people? What words should we use? What positions on what issues are electorally advantageous?
Some of it is insta-historic analysis: What happened? What happened in that election? What happened in that vote shift? What caused X to vote for Y? What mysterious process in the unknowable minds of others prodded them to go for this guy and not that guy?
Some of this analysis is conducted by professional pollsters and political consultants and campaign managers and candidates. Some of it is conducted by pundits and commentators and the press. Much of it, though, is conducted by regular voters. Conversations among political junkies become a mini-version of a Face The Nation panel. Discussions of who our preferred political party should nominate and what that candidate should say and how they should campaign and how they should win over other people take on the quality of an interminable Nate Silver post. Engaging with politics, to many voters, means stepping into the mind state of a political consultant and then imagining what tactical choices can dominate the 4-D chessboard of public opinion. Critiques of parties and candidates and issues are freighted with a meta-heaviness in which the things are judged not simply for what they are, but for how we think they will interact with the infinite other quantum ripples of the world to produce a political outcome.
At the risk of stepping too firmly on The Rake of Obviousness, I want to suggest a different mental model of politics—a different way of engaging with the political process. It is this: Think about what you want to happen. Then fight for that thing.
Note that this model of political engagement removes from you the burden of being an omniscient being with the ability to predict the future. Whereas in the other model you are required to spend a great deal of time gaming out probabilities about how each and every word and action and position will interact with every other word and action and position in the world and what thoughts those refractive combinations will produce inside the minds of people you don’t know, the model that I am suggesting does not require that. You can wipe that off
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