Read Alex Sheremet's essay on why Donald Trump was poised to win: www.automachination.com/joy-kamala-harris-lose-2024/ Buy Benjamin Studebaker's "Legitimacy in Liberal Democracies": www.amazon.com/Legitimacy-Liberal-Democracies-Benjamin-Studebaker/dp/1399534688/ Donald Trump's 2024 win surprised many pundits, but not Benjamin Studebaker, who had assumed the worldwide incumbency crisis in 2024 would ultimately come for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. His newest book, "Legitimacy in Liberal Democracies", builds on his previous work on the chronic crisis of liberal democracy. In ArtiFact 64, Benjamin Studebaker and author/filmmaker Alex Sheremet discuss their reasons for expecting a Trump victory, the question of political polarization, and where liberal democracy goes from here. Get the B Side to this conversation: www.patreon.com/automachination B Side Topics: Why Allan Lichtman's "Keys to the White House" failed; pollsters had no courage; modeling presidential elections on fundamentals; the psychology of modeling; how blame is shifted on to the electorate; assessing a very mixed economy; did white collar workers punish Kamala Harris for 2023-24 layoffs; the housing market as independent of inflation metrics; why voters assess incumbents on a purely relative basis; politics of memory; inflation-adjusted median family income has not returned to Trump-era benchmarks; are liberals dropping out of politics after Trump's win; why MSNBC and other outlets are losing subscribers; why the fear narratives failed; the story of 2024 is a racial shift towards the GOP; Benjamin Studebaker on what sort of disagreement nation-states tolerate; the nature of political polarization; how political leadership has ceased to lead; folk legitimation vs. official legitimation; expanding notions of inequality Learn about and contribute to our film, "From There To There: Bruce Ario, the Minneapolis Poet": www.gofundme.com/f/new-film-the-minneapolis-poet-bruce-ario Subscribe to the ArtiFact podcast on Spotify: spoti.fi/3xw2M4D Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3wLpqEV Amazon Music: amzn.to/2SVJIxB Podbean: bit.ly/3yzLuUo iHeartRadio: ihr.fm/3AK942L Read more from the automachination universe: automachination.com Read Alex Sheremet’s (archived) essays: alexsheremet.com Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/automachination Timestamps 0:00 - Alex Sheremet's new film is out; introducing Benjamin Studebaker and his new book; why we expected Donald Trump to win 4:39 - Benjamin Studebaker on Democrats' headwinds; COVID & inflation; Democrats destroyed their chances years ago 8:13 - Alex: Democrats who sound/act like Kamala Harris NEVER get elected; there are no Liz Cheney/Alberto Gonzalez voters; polling was stable and consistent in favor of Trump 15:52 - sexism & the Kamala Harris campaign; many voters saw Kamala Harris as a weak woman, whereas few voters would dare think of Hillary Clinton as weak; why Kamala Harris was seen as a "DEI candidate" 20:45 - the global anti-incumbent bias in 2024; Mexico's AMLO and Claudia Steinbaum as exceptions to this backlash 25:20 - Trump's racism surrounding Haitian migrants vs. Kamala's racism in using, then ignoring migrants; Kamala's identitarian failures; Democrats are behaving like mob bosses, and voters don't want it 34:22 - Democrats assume voters accept their racial narratives about the GOP; why Democrats dehumanize non-party voters; previewing Allan Lichtman's Keys to the White House 36:36 - Benjamin Studebaker's thesis on the legitimation strategies of liberal democracies; the nature of escalating disagreements in embedded democracies; Trump and Obama as the aesthetic trappings of change; Studebaker's conception of a legitimation hydra in deep pluralism 48:25 - Kamala Harris taps the legitimation hydra with her contradictory promises; Trump has power as a non-incumbent, but loses as an incumbent; incumbency is increasingly a disadvantage for politicians 53:37 - defining deep pluralism; does it necessarily lead to polarization; deep pluralism creates issues for state capacities; embedded democracies imply no living memory of previous systems; the limits of an electorate's imagination 01:03:05 - legitimation in illiberal, authoritarian states 01:08:30 - amoral political theories leading to emergent morality; John J. Mearsheimer and state survival; survival is yet another key human value; how Israel partisans can come to exactly opposite conclusions with identical values; although everyone is watching Iran, Egypt and Jordan can just as easily collapse 01:18:20 - the role of art in politics, politics in art; art and infantilization; corporatist art; genuine art vs. fandom; fandom in politics; art as needling the status quo; Alex: art is a NECESSARY retreat; how great art is a service; Bruce Ario as a service-oriented artist Tags: #election2024 #politics #trump
This conversation was a cut above the usual UA-cam content. Thanks to both of you for offering takes on timely matters well worth pondering. Might the heads of the hydra, stuck in the tar pit, start to attack and feed on each other, gradually eliminating opposing viewpoints until only one remains snapping/standing? I remember when the personal computer first became affordable, and how magazine pages were filled with the ads and products of a myriad of computer manufacturers. But it didn't take all that long until home computer purchasers were limited to choosing among a handful of brands that survived the chaotic competition, that were able to kill or consume their rivals. Might the same not happen with the current swarm of ideas, values, and worldviews jockeying for position in the marketplace of the mind, otherwise known as the internet? Might not some sort of broad consensus or strong majority position, in the realm of ideas and ideals, be imperceptibly yet inescapably emerging before our confused and over-strained eyes? Are we not in uncharted waters, where it is prudent to expect the unexpected?
I think we're entering a stage of diminishing returns in the West, where markets, much white collar work, etc. returns less, while one gets less for more sacrifice. Might be harder for stranger values and political combinations to find niches, but then again, maybe this is exactly why we get them in the first place. Thanks for watching.
_”why didn’t the presidential candidate campaign with migrants who don’t speak english”_ There are no historical examples of this ever working. There is no idea even to indicate that this would. The world is differentiated within itself for obvious reasons. Those reasons are good reasons. Like philosophically defined as good and true everywhere. Democracy in Athens would find these two people absurd on all levels. The Venetian oligarchs, on the other hand, would pat them on the head.
As stated in the video, Kamala "knew better" than to do this, as she recognizes migrants would be a liability for her despite pretending to stick up for them in zero-stakes environments. All this parsing of Western civilization, but no ability to read nor understand words.
Athens was also an oligarchy. Representative democracy is inherently oligarchical, a flaw that has been understood since at least the time of *Plato*. If you’re still not catching on: Kamala effectively campaigned as the protector of people like the Haitian migrant community in Springfield, Ohio, yet demurred from actually standing up for them in a robust way, despite being personally connected to the region they migrated from. The point is that Dems talk a big game but show themselves to be classic liberal phonies at every turn. It’s not that it would have been good for Kamala to do a campaign event denouncing Trump’s “eating the dogs, eating the cats” rhetoric, but it *was* bad for her *not* to do such an event because a campaign that doesn’t draw hard lines gets habitually line-stepped.
This is actually one of the worst takes i have seen so far. The politics of cutting off ones nose to spite ones face is... Absurd. Yes there's a problem of elite capture of the party. It's our job to fix that. But this aint it chief. We need to focus on local organization on a national scale.
"The politics of cutting off one's nose to spite one's face" = running on celebrity & war-criminal endorsements, proudly funding genocide while telling Muslim voters they're expendable, raking in $2+ billion from oligarchs & expecting that is more important than policy.
@@automachination The reason I cannot take you seriously is because you are clearly unserious. Let's grant all of that is true, it's not but lets grant that it is for the sake of the argument. If anything it would be equally true of both candidates with the exception that he actually is a war criminal and she is not. So there is that. She could also be pressured to end the genocide and the funding of genocide where as he will give netanyahu his blessing. Let's get it clear. Primaries are for principles, general elections are always for the lesser of two evils. and I hate to have to be the one to point this out to you but she was the lesser evil. Frankly I feel no sympathy for any Muslim that voted for him or who stayed home. The blood is on their hands. If you can't be a responsible adult who realizes that hard decisions have to be made and that we have to work within reality as given, then maybe you don't deserve a seat at the adult table.
@@alananimus9145 You are a zero-accomplishment rando talking to the guy who's been giving you the 2024 outcome for a year now, while "pragmatic" types such as yourself drove your party off of a cliff. A nearly 100 EC loss & -1.5% popular vote margin against "a convicted felon" & "sex abuser" & "war criminal" who murdered 400,000 Americans in broad daylight during his last term. You dopes really need to absorb that, first, before lashing out against your betters. Kamala Harris isn't a war criminal because she did jack shit during her term as VP, & did not technically sign away on genocide. Then she ran as a genocidaire, promised to continue the slush fund, promised to continue to murder Slavs, promised to make zero concessions whatsoever to voters who would prefer to just be Dems without the drama. So you idiots lost 7 MILLION votes vs. 2024, yet are so full of sage advice again. Do you freaks not understand how merit works. The only thing you are entitled to is a changed diaper, while the rest of us get ear plugs. Keep "voting for the lesser of two evils", you are sure to get somewhere winning less than 50% of the time as the GOP rolls back decades of your much-vaunted "progress" every 4 years. No red lines, either! Give the Party everything it wants. That's how you win, guys- just scold louder & louder from your ever-shrinking cult. If KKKamala launched a missile into your wife's/girlfriend's/mother's forehead, no doubt you'd dutifully pull the lever like a good boy after scooping their brains off of the floor. Pacing around with a doggy-bag of body parts while murmuring "I am a serious person" 😆
@@alananimus9145 Hey, genius, there *was* no primary, at least not a serious one. The Party covered for Joe Biden’s clear and obvious decline for years, then got behind his hand-picked endorsement who had to have known about and at least tacitly assisted the coverup. The Dems lost because they’ve constitutes d themselves in such a way that they have no leverage over an 81-year-old coot who was determined to drag the party along with him in his repudiation. I *respect* Muslim voters precisely because they are the first marginalized group that has realized, even at the expense of their overall goals, that the Democrats need to die for a decent politics to develop. The only unserious people are the ones acting like there isn’t something fundamentally wrong with the Dems to have lost as badly as they did. Thus far, all they can come up with is they the party is being blamed for every cultural excess of the last decade. Maybe you can do better!
![Understanding Marxism: Q&A with Richard D. Wolff [June 2019]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/eU-AkeOyiOQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Read Alex Sheremet's essay on why Donald Trump was poised to win: www.automachination.com/joy-kamala-harris-lose-2024/
Buy Benjamin Studebaker's "Legitimacy in Liberal Democracies": www.amazon.com/Legitimacy-Liberal-Democracies-Benjamin-Studebaker/dp/1399534688/
Donald Trump's 2024 win surprised many pundits, but not Benjamin Studebaker, who had assumed the worldwide incumbency crisis in 2024 would ultimately come for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
His newest book, "Legitimacy in Liberal Democracies", builds on his previous work on the chronic crisis of liberal democracy. In ArtiFact 64, Benjamin Studebaker and author/filmmaker Alex Sheremet discuss their reasons for expecting a Trump victory, the question of political polarization, and where liberal democracy goes from here.
Get the B Side to this conversation: www.patreon.com/automachination
B Side Topics: Why Allan Lichtman's "Keys to the White House" failed; pollsters had no courage; modeling presidential elections on fundamentals; the psychology of modeling; how blame is shifted on to the electorate; assessing a very mixed economy; did white collar workers punish Kamala Harris for 2023-24 layoffs; the housing market as independent of inflation metrics; why voters assess incumbents on a purely relative basis; politics of memory; inflation-adjusted median family income has not returned to Trump-era benchmarks; are liberals dropping out of politics after Trump's win; why MSNBC and other outlets are losing subscribers; why the fear narratives failed; the story of 2024 is a racial shift towards the GOP; Benjamin Studebaker on what sort of disagreement nation-states tolerate; the nature of political polarization; how political leadership has ceased to lead; folk legitimation vs. official legitimation; expanding notions of inequality
Learn about and contribute to our film, "From There To There: Bruce Ario, the Minneapolis Poet": www.gofundme.com/f/new-film-the-minneapolis-poet-bruce-ario
Subscribe to the ArtiFact podcast on Spotify: spoti.fi/3xw2M4D
Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3wLpqEV
Amazon Music: amzn.to/2SVJIxB
Podbean: bit.ly/3yzLuUo
iHeartRadio: ihr.fm/3AK942L
Read more from the automachination universe: automachination.com
Read Alex Sheremet’s (archived) essays: alexsheremet.com
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/automachination
Timestamps
0:00 - Alex Sheremet's new film is out; introducing Benjamin Studebaker and his new book; why we expected Donald Trump to win
4:39 - Benjamin Studebaker on Democrats' headwinds; COVID & inflation; Democrats destroyed their chances years ago
8:13 - Alex: Democrats who sound/act like Kamala Harris NEVER get elected; there are no Liz Cheney/Alberto Gonzalez voters; polling was stable and consistent in favor of Trump
15:52 - sexism & the Kamala Harris campaign; many voters saw Kamala Harris as a weak woman, whereas few voters would dare think of Hillary Clinton as weak; why Kamala Harris was seen as a "DEI candidate"
20:45 - the global anti-incumbent bias in 2024; Mexico's AMLO and Claudia Steinbaum as exceptions to this backlash
25:20 - Trump's racism surrounding Haitian migrants vs. Kamala's racism in using, then ignoring migrants; Kamala's identitarian failures; Democrats are behaving like mob bosses, and voters don't want it
34:22 - Democrats assume voters accept their racial narratives about the GOP; why Democrats dehumanize non-party voters; previewing Allan Lichtman's Keys to the White House
36:36 - Benjamin Studebaker's thesis on the legitimation strategies of liberal democracies; the nature of escalating disagreements in embedded democracies; Trump and Obama as the aesthetic trappings of change; Studebaker's conception of a legitimation hydra in deep pluralism
48:25 - Kamala Harris taps the legitimation hydra with her contradictory promises; Trump has power as a non-incumbent, but loses as an incumbent; incumbency is increasingly a disadvantage for politicians
53:37 - defining deep pluralism; does it necessarily lead to polarization; deep pluralism creates issues for state capacities; embedded democracies imply no living memory of previous systems; the limits of an electorate's imagination
01:03:05 - legitimation in illiberal, authoritarian states
01:08:30 - amoral political theories leading to emergent morality; John J. Mearsheimer and state survival; survival is yet another key human value; how Israel partisans can come to exactly opposite conclusions with identical values; although everyone is watching Iran, Egypt and Jordan can just as easily collapse
01:18:20 - the role of art in politics, politics in art; art and infantilization; corporatist art; genuine art vs. fandom; fandom in politics; art as needling the status quo; Alex: art is a NECESSARY retreat; how great art is a service; Bruce Ario as a service-oriented artist
Tags: #election2024 #politics #trump
I gotta check out more of Studebaker's work. A lot of solid analysis from him here on why Harris lost.
This conversation was a cut above the usual UA-cam content. Thanks to both of you for offering takes on timely matters well worth pondering. Might the heads of the hydra, stuck in the tar pit, start to attack and feed on each other, gradually eliminating opposing viewpoints until only one remains snapping/standing? I remember when the personal computer first became affordable, and how magazine pages were filled with the ads and products of a myriad of computer manufacturers. But it didn't take all that long until home computer purchasers were limited to choosing among a handful of brands that survived the chaotic competition, that were able to kill or consume their rivals. Might the same not happen with the current swarm of ideas, values, and worldviews jockeying for position in the marketplace of the mind, otherwise known as the internet? Might not some sort of broad consensus or strong majority position, in the realm of ideas and ideals, be imperceptibly yet inescapably emerging before our confused and over-strained eyes? Are we not in uncharted waters, where it is prudent to expect the unexpected?
I think we're entering a stage of diminishing returns in the West, where markets, much white collar work, etc. returns less, while one gets less for more sacrifice. Might be harder for stranger values and political combinations to find niches, but then again, maybe this is exactly why we get them in the first place. Thanks for watching.
great conversation!
_”why didn’t the presidential candidate campaign with migrants who don’t speak english”_
There are no historical examples of this ever working. There is no idea even to indicate that this would. The world is differentiated within itself for obvious reasons. Those reasons are good reasons. Like philosophically defined as good and true everywhere. Democracy in Athens would find these two people absurd on all levels. The Venetian oligarchs, on the other hand, would pat them on the head.
As stated in the video, Kamala "knew better" than to do this, as she recognizes migrants would be a liability for her despite pretending to stick up for them in zero-stakes environments. All this parsing of Western civilization, but no ability to read nor understand words.
Athens was also an oligarchy. Representative democracy is inherently oligarchical, a flaw that has been understood since at least the time of *Plato*.
If you’re still not catching on: Kamala effectively campaigned as the protector of people like the Haitian migrant community in Springfield, Ohio, yet demurred from actually standing up for them in a robust way, despite being personally connected to the region they migrated from. The point is that Dems talk a big game but show themselves to be classic liberal phonies at every turn. It’s not that it would have been good for Kamala to do a campaign event denouncing Trump’s “eating the dogs, eating the cats” rhetoric, but it *was* bad for her *not* to do such an event because a campaign that doesn’t draw hard lines gets habitually line-stepped.
@@keithjackewicz8423 The end of your world is upon you and here you are with your drawing room conversation points 😅
@@gauravtejpal8901 The end of my world ain’t anywhere in sight, brother.
@@automachination I apologize then if I misunderstood. I am rewatching it. Thanks for clarifying
This is actually one of the worst takes i have seen so far. The politics of cutting off ones nose to spite ones face is... Absurd.
Yes there's a problem of elite capture of the party. It's our job to fix that. But this aint it chief. We need to focus on local organization on a national scale.
"The politics of cutting off one's nose to spite one's face" = running on celebrity & war-criminal endorsements, proudly funding genocide while telling Muslim voters they're expendable, raking in $2+ billion from oligarchs & expecting that is more important than policy.
@@automachination The reason I cannot take you seriously is because you are clearly unserious. Let's grant all of that is true, it's not but lets grant that it is for the sake of the argument. If anything it would be equally true of both candidates with the exception that he actually is a war criminal and she is not. So there is that. She could also be pressured to end the genocide and the funding of genocide where as he will give netanyahu his blessing.
Let's get it clear. Primaries are for principles, general elections are always for the lesser of two evils. and I hate to have to be the one to point this out to you but she was the lesser evil.
Frankly I feel no sympathy for any Muslim that voted for him or who stayed home. The blood is on their hands.
If you can't be a responsible adult who realizes that hard decisions have to be made and that we have to work within reality as given, then maybe you don't deserve a seat at the adult table.
@@alananimus9145 You are a zero-accomplishment rando talking to the guy who's been giving you the 2024 outcome for a year now, while "pragmatic" types such as yourself drove your party off of a cliff. A nearly 100 EC loss & -1.5% popular vote margin against "a convicted felon" & "sex abuser" & "war criminal" who murdered 400,000 Americans in broad daylight during his last term. You dopes really need to absorb that, first, before lashing out against your betters.
Kamala Harris isn't a war criminal because she did jack shit during her term as VP, & did not technically sign away on genocide. Then she ran as a genocidaire, promised to continue the slush fund, promised to continue to murder Slavs, promised to make zero concessions whatsoever to voters who would prefer to just be Dems without the drama. So you idiots lost 7 MILLION votes vs. 2024, yet are so full of sage advice again. Do you freaks not understand how merit works. The only thing you are entitled to is a changed diaper, while the rest of us get ear plugs.
Keep "voting for the lesser of two evils", you are sure to get somewhere winning less than 50% of the time as the GOP rolls back decades of your much-vaunted "progress" every 4 years. No red lines, either! Give the Party everything it wants. That's how you win, guys- just scold louder & louder from your ever-shrinking cult. If KKKamala launched a missile into your wife's/girlfriend's/mother's forehead, no doubt you'd dutifully pull the lever like a good boy after scooping their brains off of the floor. Pacing around with a doggy-bag of body parts while murmuring "I am a serious person" 😆
@@alananimus9145 Hey, genius, there *was* no primary, at least not a serious one. The Party covered for Joe Biden’s clear and obvious decline for years, then got behind his hand-picked endorsement who had to have known about and at least tacitly assisted the coverup. The Dems lost because they’ve constitutes d themselves in such a way that they have no leverage over an 81-year-old coot who was determined to drag the party along with him in his repudiation. I *respect* Muslim voters precisely because they are the first marginalized group that has realized, even at the expense of their overall goals, that the Democrats need to die for a decent politics to develop. The only unserious people are the ones acting like there isn’t something fundamentally wrong with the Dems to have lost as badly as they did. Thus far, all they can come up with is they the party is being blamed for every cultural excess of the last decade. Maybe you can do better!