I am getting kinda burned out of all the coverage of GPT-4 (and AI in general). I have never seen a story or topic dominate discussion and headlines as thoroughly and as long as with GPT. Maybe Jan 6th or the overturn of Roe v. Wade, but that was just a few days. This has become constant. The marketing behind it is genius though, which is to make it quasi-open source and let people try it out and share it, hence creating virality organically without ads or a beta release. It also helps greatly that it lives up to its hype and works as well as it does. It has almost gotten to the point now where I should just stop updating the blog until it dies down, because anything that is unrelated to GPT will be drowned out.
I keep seeing the likes of Cernovich and Richard Hanania trying to draw comparisons between how DeSantis is much more effective at ‘getting things done’ compared to Trump. It’s like “look at all the things DeSantis is doing”:
DeSantis is enacting universal school choice, banning CRT, attacking ESG, literally taking over a university and letting Chris Rufo run it.
If his campaign loses to Trump commemorative knives, conservatives will have some soul searching to do. pic.twitter.com/4YrSZhCaJS
— Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) March 26, 2023
There is really no comparison between the two though. Being a state governor is not at all like being the president: the latter has way more obstacles, way more delegation, much slower, etc. The Constitution is designed to severely restrict the President’s power, except for crisis. Executive powers are typically limited to confirmations, appointments, pardons, and executive orders, not policy. Some of these are easily overturned, challenged, or expire. Creating lasting policy is way harder at national level than state, especially when the House and Senate are so divided and neither side can get a supermajority. It’s not like President DeSantis can ban CRT or affirmative action by decree, as these are handled at a state level. [This would run up against the 10th Amendment, as explained in more detail here.]
The Florida Legislature has just 160 voting members, which Republicans have a supermajority, compared to 545 for Congress:
By comparison, at a national level it’s way more split:
This makes it way easier for DeSantis to pass legislation at a state level compared to, hypothetically, at a national one.
It did not help either that a lot Trump’s term was wasted fending off legal challenges because of the inability of the losing side to accept defeat, and I think Covid was handled poorly, too, by giving Fauci a platform. I agree that DeSantis would have handled Covid better compared to Trump.
DeSantis has not even won, yet he already found a way to disappoint Cernovich.
It’s embarrassing and low brow, was bummed to see DeSantis debase himself.
— Cernovich (@Cernovich) March 24, 2023
It’s always the same pattern. Politicians will always disappoint and will always fall short, especially compared to people in the private sector. It does not matter what side they are on. Obama disappointed leftists by failing to create ‘single payer’, failing to close Guantanamo, failing to do anything about student loan debt, being too soft on Wall St., etc. Elon Musk can unveil a cool robot that can do stuff, and then a self-driving car, and then a truck, and a rocket, etc. Bezos can create a network of trucks and drivers that can deliver goods anywhere in the US hours after the order is placed online. The President can give a speech of things he hopes to accomplish, and if he’s lucky get maybe one or two of them done in 4 years.