I was listening to Bannon’s radio show and few things are more annoying, to me at least, than pundits and commentators lying or spreading misinformation, either intentionally or not. It’s insulting to the intelligence of the audience and it does not do anyone (or ‘the cause’) any favors. As much as we may ridicule the left for such concepts as ‘gender fluidity’ and the like, left does not have a monopoly on having a selective interpretation of reality. A few weeks ago I remember Bannon talking about how Biden’s approval rankings are tanking, and how his presidency is ‘in flames’. He cites Rasmussen, but this is obvious cherry picking. 538, which aggregates and weighs pollsters based on sampling size and reliably, shows Biden’s approval rating to be very stable, and solidly above 50%. He’s even polling better than Obama was at this stage of his presidency. ‘We’ have to confront the reality that Biden economy is not tanking, that the stock market is rising, and if these continue that Biden will likely be reelected if history is any guide (unless Covid relapses in major way and vaccines don’t work anymore, tanking the economy in 2023-2024 in time for the election, but more lockdowns and other bullshit in exchange for Biden losing sounds like a wash anyway). Trump running is the best shot we have. But a strong Biden economy will still prove to be hard to overcome no matter how popular Trump is.
Biden is the epitome of the ‘normie president’. The cognitive barriers of entry to being a Biden supporter are non-existent (if having pulse or fogging a mirror counted as a vote, dems would probably be on board), requiring no intellectual inquiry at all or any critical thinking. At least Trump challenged the status quo (until being subsumed by it) and made Republican voters question what conservatism actually meant, but Biden both embodies the status quo and is a product of it. Much like how TV executives use focus groups to optimize ratings, Biden’s polities are optimized in a similar way. His apparent feeble-mindedness and inarticulateness, whether intentional or not, is part of the act by being ‘relatable’, in much the same way as George W. Bush strategically downplayed his intelligence, beating Gore who boasted about his. He’s copying this same anti-intellectualism playbook of past Republicans, which worked (and of course highly-educated liberals will vote for him anyway). For the above reasons, this makes Biden tough to beat. At the rate things are going, he’s not going to be another Carter, but rather is trajectory is simialr that of Clinton in his first term.
And also, as Scott Adams has discussed, it’s reasonable to assume that social networks will be working overtime ‘curate’ content for key voter demographics. Given the apparent ubiquity of cable TV, it’s somewhat surprising how political TV is not that popular relative to the population of the country. Fox’s most popular pundit, Tucker Carlson, averages just 3 million daily viewers out of an adult American population of 200+ million. By comparison, 220 million Americans have a Facebook account, about 200 million watch YouTube, and 70 million use Twitter.
Few are called to change the course of history, so at least have a fallback plan. Nassim Taleb, even though he is wrong about IQ, is right about being anti-fragile: have systems in place in which any outcome can yield some upside. For example, buy stocks and ‘guns and ammo’. If things go to shit, you will at least be better prepared than someone who does nothing. If the economy keeps, you will make money and this can be used to improve your own situation and people important to you.