I don’t think we’ll get as many comments today as we have the last few days, so today’s piece may not be seen as performing as well at driving engagement. But in my view, this is Yglesias at his best: clearly and plainly teasing out issues of policy and politics in a way that makes this generally-reflexive-Democratic-partisan develop a deeper and more nuanced view of the issues at hand
As a former data scientist, I would strongly discourage majoring in such a program. It’s a highly nebulous title that means different things at different firms. For the mass majority of roles, it’s just better marketing for a data analyst position. For a small number of roles, it entails CS PhDs doing actually sophisticated work. Unfortunately, many people in the former role delude themselves into thinking they’re in the later role.
Worse, there was a huge explosion in data science positions throughout the 2010’s as firms wanted to do something with data and machine learning. Commonly, business value was poorly defined and useful results were rare. I’d expect a large correction in this field as tech firms tighten their belts.
FWIW I’m planning to double major in Economics & History with a certificate* in S&DS
* Yale technically doesn’t offer minors; it does offer “certificates” which it says are totally not minors but which are, to the best of my understanding, basically minors; for more information see https://statistics.yale.edu/academics/certificate-data-science
Sick double major. Not studying economics formally in university is a regret of mine. What's your focus within the history major? Mine was medieval Europe, and I ended up writing my honors thesis on Sephardic Jews in medieval Spain.
No idea but I'm taking two history classes on medieval Europe next year, one of which is taught by a guy named Hussein Fancy who focuses on Islam in medieval Europe IIRC.
Yeah, I worked in data science-ish for 7 years, and my sense is that there's very little actually useful data science. Where it's actually useful, it's great, and a brilliant data scientist (I've worked with a few!) can be super valuable, especially when it comes to fields where you can turn insight into business/customer value in consistent ways (high frequency trading, detecting anomalies in data collection, detecting jumps in phenomena like wastewater viral loads, etc.). But so much of the time, companies think "if we do some data science, we'll find a lot of valuable info!" but almost all of the time, the info they find just looks like info -- "hm, seems like we had a decline of 4% among women two years ago, then an increase of 6% last year" -- and there's just no suggestion at all of anything actionable that comes out of it. "Data" seems like it will provide an answer in and of itself, but all the most important answers have to be made outside of the data; e.g., if you want to do an A/B test, well, *what* are you going to test? The data themselves won't tell you that.
Interesting. For what it is worth, I had a buddy in undergrad who majored in brewing science. He got sick of brewing beer a couple years ago and went to an intensive 10 week data science boot camp. Now he has a good consulting job in NYC and seems really happy.
I agree that tech is currently tightening their belts but tons of other industries want people who know R and python to do statistical analysis
Gotta say Matt -- I'm a little surprised by this. Just thinking about use case and value creation here ... Are you familiar with any of these companies? The tech works on all of them. Probably a winner-takes-most-outcome and CCC has a huge advantage with their existing market share but right now there's no question that the entire industry is moving to photo only or at least photo first estimating. This is a $100M+ annual cost savings opportunity and then apply a market multiple to that for value. Hence why there's at least 4 players right now chasing it. This is just one I'm close to but I'd be shocked if this isn't happening in every industry.
What's the business value here? Is the idea that, say, a car rental company currently pays people $15/hr to make these estimates, and with this tech they wouldn't have to?
No. Use case is insurance company adjuster inspections post-accident. This is during the claims cycle. At least $750 of cost is tied up in physical adjusters inspecting a vehicle. Cycle time is ~ 10 days for a repair vs. total loss determination. During which if the vehicle is non-drivable they are paying rental car days as well as storage costs.
Matt. Sincerely thank you for this input. What would your recommendations be for growing fields? Right now her major is going to be biosystems engineering and microbiology with an eye on medical school. But she also has a strong interests in computers. Should I just encourage her to take decent electives?
Once again. I really appreciate you taking time to answer.
For someone with an interest in computers, I’d recommend computer engineering or computer science. Hard to say what the trajectory of the tech field looks like, but there appears to be an ever growing application of computers and software, even outside of tech firms.
If she goes that way, the important thing for a tech career is internships. Can commonly provide a direct pathway to a full-time role after graduation, and is a big strength on resumes for a junior role.
Can also do a CS minor while focusing on another science or engineering degree. That minor pairs quite well with other science and engineering roles since there is a lot of interdisciplinary work between software, science, and engineering. Eg, using computers to automate processes, simulate systems, or collect and process data.
Biology + CS/CE is a *very* solid combo. Genetics (which can lead to big data, as it did for one of my colleagues), health devices, instrumentation, etc. all flow naturally out of that background.
The data scientists I work alongside in big tech all trained as actual scientists in some discipline, i.e. they have a track record of designing, conducting, analyzing, and publishing experiments in a way that passes muster in academia. I don’t think a “data science” credential would impress anyone. Never hurts to master R or SQL though.
As someone that helps hire quants, I'd stay away from the major if not necessarily the classes. Returns to being able to code are very high when paired with in-demand related skills, but random data science programs do not seem to ensure meeting minimum requirements on that front. Idk about individual classes or programs though, and being forced to learn the analysis part probably has some benefit.
It would be far better to get the basics strong in college, such as linear algebra, statistics and probabilities, and machine learning algorithms. That will provide all the tooling one needs for a career in data science. This coming from someone who has been in the data science industry (started out in consulting, then financial services) for 18 years.
The class I’m taking isn’t great but then again I haven’t gone to lecture for 2 months so a lot of that is on me. But I’m gonna lock in and grind out the lecture recordings during reading week so hopefully it will be fine.
Only jumping in here because I see a bit differently than Matt and would encourage your daughter to dive deeply into the program / course work to gauge her personal interest. It might be a rewarding fit. As a 2nd major or minor or even just free electives -- I don't see a downside.
Current background, I run Data Science and Data Analytics for a medium size public company. As Matt says, there is a strong distinction between "real data science" (e.g., computer vision models) and analytics (e.g., data visualization, reporting). But - in my experience - the analytics roles can be stepping stone roles to the more technical, modeling roles if that's a career goal. There's definitely "commodification" going on but that's also opening up new "decision science" pathways that are more focused on implementation, customer adoption, value creation, etc. for the reasons Matt says. What's clear is this is a macro-trend and there's a lot of career path flexibility and growth tailwinds. Those a good things early in a career. Obviously less so if the path turns out to be medical school. But in a business setting -- for sure. Just generally -- getting comfortable pulling your own data, cleaning it, modeling it, understanding what it means -- those are differentiated capabilities for ~ any career path.
Thanks for your input. My take away is that data science is a good field when paired with other knowledge skills. Perhaps as a minor or as electives. Is that accurate?
Probably hard to generalize that much. For example, if she's on the med school track ... there might be better minors or electives that make her more competitive for MCATs and applications. But on most other paths -- the ability to work with relatively large datasets (i.e., larger than Excel) is a differentiator.
I mean, everything bagels are delicious and I would read that piece. But I actually think he made his point really well - “everything” bagels don’t actually have everything on them. You can have a “more than one thing” policy that has different, contrasting flavors that work well together - better, perhaps, than they would work individually. But you can’t literally put everything on a bagel. And you can’t try to accomplish every policy goal all at once. It won’t work.
The metaphor really worked for me. But now that it’s 8:30 my time and I haven’t eaten yet, it’s making me hungry.
The problem with an entire article about everything bagels is that it would make me want to go get an everything bagel and I don't really feel like leaving the house right now.
I have some homemade lox that I need to finish off soon, and I was planning to go on a bike ride anyway, so I should swing by the new bagel shop. Perhaps I'll make it an everything bagel today!
Politically backing down over student loan forgiveness isn't really an option.
Besides, getting SCOTUS to strike it down for them really is brilliant. And since I'm not a fan of the program but I worry a fair bit about unconstrained executive discretion (eg Trump's border wall funding) this is a triple win. Biden doesn't bear the costs of the program, he gets to blame the conservatives for it not happening and the court commits to a relatively expansive view about standing to challenge agency spending/forgiveness that will make it harder to swat away challenges to executive action by the next republican president.
In the long term there may be costs to making the court do the dirty work but as long as it doesn't become a regular thing.
I think you are right. I really enjoy the discussions around policy on this site. But your comment reminds me of why I dislike politics so much. Yes, you have to win at politics in order to implement policy, but the lies, misdirections and unprincipled actions required to get votes is really unappealing.
I need to get better at ignoring the politically driven messaging & tactics to see the real-world policy implementations.
Fwiw I don’t think the program was setup to be blocked by the court. It’s just a fortunate potential outcome that an inflationary program could be blocked now that inflation is what matters.
> You have asked whether the HEROES Act authorizes the Secretary to address the financial hardship arising out of the COVID -19 pandemic by reducing or canceling the principal balances of student loans for a broad class of borrowers. We conclude that the Act grants that authority. The plain text of the HEROES Act authorizes the Secretary to “waive or modify any statutory or regulatory provision applicable to” the federal student loan program, 20 U.S.C. § 1098bb(a)(1) (emphasis added), an authority that encompasses provisions applicable to the repayment of the principal balances of loans, provided certain conditions are met.
Coming back to this just to say that Occam’s razor was right again and the Biden administration didn’t intentionally get its own student loan forgiveness program blocked by the courts
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that the Biden admin wanted it blocked (I just meant brilliant in the sense of it's a great political outcome for them). I think they'd still like to see it suceed because they believe in it. I don't so I'm happy about the outcome but if I was president I'd have never launched the program.
To the extent there is something slimey and political here I think it's forgiving the debts of the people who got to go to school (and are Dem leaning but unmotivated voters) even though school is a large net positive to lifetime earnings.
Sure, maybe college should have been government funded the whole time. But that's like looking back and saying: oops we should have had government funded contributions to your retirement accounts the whole time so we're going to cut everyone who contributed to their 401k a check equal to that amount. You're giving the money to the people who could afford to make themselves better off and not the people who decided they couldn't afford college and are poorer as a result.
But since I can't seem to convince anyone else on the left of that I'm pretty sure the Biden admin really believes in doing this and was hoping it wouldn't be challenged (even if this works out for them).
That's understandable but I fear that the fact that more moderate views don't get represented online is skewing the politics of our next generation of leaders, wonks and activists.
Or I just want to tell myself I'm doing something noble when I post my moderate left views on social media.
The issue with real world implications is they are often only on the margins. And it’s rarely a direct line from Policy A to outcome B. I despise Trump. Think he is unstable, but I doubt my life will change materially in any way given two alternative realities where he wins vs Biden winning. I know that sounds flippant. But short of World War 3, Im not sure what will really change. Convince me otherwise:
While I think that's true for most leaders Trump particularly seemed to cause a change in the level of vitriol and willingness to consider arguments on the other side. That affected my day to day experience.
Suddenly pointing out that an argument by the left against the right wasn't very compelling got you labeled a heritic not just someone you disagreed with and my experience talking with conservatives got worse too.
The main reason I hate the very idea of Trump running again - let alone winning - is basically this. Everything he touches turns hateful, simplistic and dumb (which is not to say that I think Trump personally is dumb). I cannot stand the thought of four more years of endless debate about his verbal diarrhea, #Resistance pearl-clutching, and MAGA bullshit. I really can't.
That said, it's true that the best argument against Trump is basically about tail risks. What happens if China invades Taiwan with Trump in the White House? Or if another 9/11 happens? I think we got really lucky during Trump's term in that the late 2010s were - although nobody realized it at the time, because Trump - a pretty benign period geopolitically and economically. Nothing much happened until Covid, and Covid wasn't the kind of emergency that played neatly into Trump's worst impulses. (He said a lot of dumb stuff about Covid, but policy-wise he was fine-to-good.)
Well, that and the fact that he tried to stage a coup to stay in office. I do think it is almost certain the he will try to remain in office past January 2029 if he is in, or that he will try to turn the Presidency - or at least the Republican Party - into the Trump family's personal fiefdom. I'm not sure I like his odds of succeeding in this, but I really don't want to find out what happens when he tries it, even if he fails. The potential for large-scale civil unrest around this sort of thing - which could materially impact day-to-day life, albeit maybe not yours personally - is there; the odds of it are impossible to say but much higher than anything I would be comfortable with.
I think there's a real risk that he decides to negotiate a deal with Putin over Ukraine's head and then tells Zelensky that he can accept the deal or have all US assistance pulled and face US diplomacy trying to stop Europeans helping Ukraine. And I think the deal would massively favour Putin - something like accepting the annexations of Crimea and the four southern oblasts, and neutralising Ukraine (ie no alliance and no arms exports to Ukraine from anyone).
I might be off the track here, but we already have large-scale civil unrest; large-scale being defined as happening everywhere, all the time, albeit by individuals and small groups. People are angry and have no idea of how to get rid of it.
Most policy implications in today's world are only on the margins. We've been tweaking our system for 250 years and most of the big changes are either baked in already or unattainable due to system design choices made long ago. Plus, it's a really good system -- richest country, most powerful military, yadda, yadda -- so most people only want marginal changes.
Agree, and this is especially true on the federal level because of the veto power on federal power that the States have in our system. Democrats need to get better at understanding that and stop whining, tilting against windmills, and daydreaming about what if we had a unitary parliamentary system.
We have a republican federal system, and that's not changing. Get used to it and learn to work with it instead of constantly banging your head against it.
If you were a woman I could tell you one thing that would effect your life forever because of Trumps win in 2016. You would have had a previously guaranteed constitutional right taken away from you. Now, you may be glad it was taken away (depending on your position) but lots of women are unhappy about it. It’s a big material change to the lives of women in America.
So, I have a story. My wife had an abortion at the age of 20. She now regrets it. Would make a different decision. (She isn’t anti-choice it’s a personal thing).
This brings to bear something a lot of people don’t think about. Some percentage of abortions are out of conveniences. In other words the child if born would turn out just fine.
Given that Matt just talked about trade offs.
I posit that there will be some children born in the future who wouldn’t have. Kids who parents live them. Who grow up to be successful.
Now there will also be kids who are born into poverty whose parents lives are materially worse off.
My personal philosophy is to have less restrictions so in that way I am more pro-choice, but at the same time I believe in Federalism in which states should be able to govern in their own way.
But I also think that it’s naive to pretend that their will be zero good outcomes from abortion restrictions. The real question is will there be more bad outcomes?
Remember, I have raised 8-daughters. One of my daughters is struggling because she is a single mother.
I am a personal pro-lifer. To the extent that I am against the death penalty (no I am not religious).
But at the same time, I am pro morning after pill. I’ve have driven to Oregon to pick up for daughters before.
Given all my conflicting views on this issue, I’ve come down on the side of Democracy. If people elect bad politicians who make bad laws, then they will be replaced.
I also acknowledge that I am not a woman.
I may delete this comment. I do not want to degrade anyone who feels passionately on this issue. Just explain why I personally am not passionate about it.
It’s a fair point your making, in that what happens to women’s ability to make certain health care decision do not effect you directly in ways that matter to you.
Im just trying to point out that whether or not policies directly impact you or me, the fact they impact large numbers of Americans means they are due considerations when thinking about outcomes/trade offs.
Cards on the table, I think the way many European counties run their abortion policies tends to strike the right balance of trade offs. I think no restrictions and no abortions are very bad in the trade offs game.
I agree: bear in mind that the whole European system is more than just a 12-20 week limit on abortions: the typical approach is:
Universal health care (of some description) and abortions are included, so there's no fees and abortion is available at every hospital (and abortion pills from just about any doctor's office).
Abortion on request up to the gestational limit (there may be a reconsideration requirement or a counselling requirement, but note that doesn't require staying in a hotel because it will be available at a convenient location).
Beyond the limit, abortion for medical reasons (fetus has no or minimal chance of becoming viable, continuing pregnancy is harmful to the mother's health, mother has another medical condition that requires teratogenic treatments) is available and the decision process on the medical reasons is routine and quick.
One of the features of the US regimes that have exceptions (either beyond a gestational limit, or for all abortions) is that they are difficult to obtain (often requiring an application to a court), and that abortions are only available in a small number of clinics/hospitals, rather than nearly everywhere.
For instance, abortions after 12 weeks in Norway require approval by an abortion board (two doctors, working in the hospital). Out of "about 600" applications per year, "20-40" are rejected and then automatically appealed (I couldn't find exact numbers, but these are from official documentation). Norway had 10,800 abortions in 2021 - so we're talking about 6% or so that need an application to the abortion board.
I think this is a perfectly reasonable fear for women, but it's worth bearing a couple of things in mind:
-A national abortion ban at this point isn't really contingent on Trump *per se.* It is contingent on Republicans winning the Presidency and big majorities in Congress. [1] Whether or not Trump is in the Oval Office doesn't matter particularly for the outcome vis-a-vis another Republican. [2]
-A national ban would be deeply unpopular. I think it would be repealed within ten years, and quite possibly within five or six.
I'll add here that while I am personally quite pro-choice the case that abortion is a "constitutional right" has always been very shaky at best (it's not, like, free speech), and I don't really have a problem with states banning it if that is what their voters want [3], provided they a) allow for the usual exceptions, which includes not writing statutes that could be read as banning necessary medical procedures, and b) do not attempt to penalize women who travel to other jurisdictions for abortions. I realize, of course, that some state laws do not fit these parameters; I *do* have problems with those laws.
1. You could say "big majorities or eliminating the filibuster," I suppose, but I am personally somewhat skeptical that Republicans would eliminate the filibuster to pass a law that would generate immediate and severe public backlash. It's certainly not inconceivable - which is why I said this is a reasonable fear - but Republicans aren't stupid, at least about politics. I further suspect that enough Rs would cling to a states-rights argument so as not to have pass a deeply unpopular policy to kill a ban if their majorities were relatively narrow.
2. If anything, the odds of a national abortion ban are slightly *lower* under Trump than another Republican. Trump has staked out a relatively moderate position on abortion and I don't think he gives a crap about abortion or about the interest groups clamoring for a ban. I'm not sure he'd veto one if it passed Congress, but I'm also not sure he wouldn't.
3. It is true that most voters, even in red states, want abortion to be legal for at least some period of time. I hope we eventually get policies that reflect this.
Trump winning in 2016 definitely affects a lot of things just because of his SCOTUS appointments. Likely harder to make the case that 2024 will be as contingent of an election, but I don’t plan to take my chances so I will be voting for — and donating to — Brandon.
I get that. But unless you are going to get a girl pregnant in Idaho that has no access to drive across the border, I’m still going to wager your personal life hasn’t and won’t be materially changed.
Rory what do you think of the ~vibes~ having a material impact on your life? During the Trump admin society seemed to overcompensate by going further left on social/culture issues, and now there seems to be a center-right backlash (a halting of the drift left at least) during the Biden admin
I tend to agree with this backlash theory. People are naturally rebellious or at least motivated by fear of the enemy.
I don’t disagree that elections change vibes (especially with someone as polarizing as Trump). But vibes don’t necessarily equal change.
I’m going to use the example of gay marriage. Gay marriage would’ve happened no matter what. Perhaps the election of George W. Bush and Obama, and whoever changed the date it happen by a couple of years, but we still would of ended up there.
Overturning of Roe is a big deal, and much more damage will continue for years to come due to SCOTUS extremist composition. HOWEVER in the post Jan 6th world I really really think all of this is dwarfed by the danger to democracy itself should Trump ever return to power. That he was not convicted by the senate following Jan 6th is a failure of the first rate. It literally imperils the future the republic.
Frankly anyone sensible should have known electing Trump in 2016 was a terrible idea, but any self-interested self-delusional naive doubt that could have somehow been conceivable back then is totally impossible now. Electing Trump is borderline suicidal. The stakes have never been higher.
President Marco Rubio would have made the same SCOTUS nominations. Because I'm a Democrat, I didn't like them, but they had nothing to do with Trump per se.
I think there’s a pretty good argument that if the nativists really do win out over federal immigration policy, the economy is going to suffer hugely relative to its potential over the medium term. Which is going to constrain the return of every investment you or I might use to build a stable retirement and likely badly punish our kids.
Devils advocate: perhaps an immigrant replaces you at your job and you have to take a pay cut.
Note: I am very pro immigration, but like all things the benefits of immigration are net positive, but there will be individuals who may suffer negative consequences.
But honestly, immigration is one of those things that I see changing the least.
Ehh, that’s why you craft immigration policy to bring in a balanced group of immigrants, tilted even a bit in favor of high-skilled folks. There won’t be any job taking if aggregate demand is systemically and uniformly rising for basically all industries.
Presidents don't typically have that much impact on ordinary citizens' lives. But we rent a President for four years to handle the big, daunting crises that *may* come during their term. It was good we had Lincoln and FDR when our nation had to fight existential challenges.
If we put Trump in office for four years, it would obviously be unpleasant and bad for the political culture, but it might be survivable if conditions were otherwise peaceful. But how would he deal with a supremely demanding crisis? I suspect not very well at all. Obviously, we did face one with COVID and he should get some credit for expediting the vaccines, while on the other hand his rhetoric and some of his actions created permissions for people to take awful actions during the crisis. So not an A or an F; call it a C.
I'd like better than a C during our next great crisis, however.
When Trump was first elected I remember my brother saying that given our position in society, relatively well off, middle age white guys we would certainly be fine, but that we should be worried about other folks. But I think you hit it when you list him as unstable. A president can take quick actions with terrible consequences, and the correctives to them take years. Trump is, I believe, uniquely unmoored from any consideration for anyone's well being beyond his own, and is capable of performing terribly counter to everyone's interest except his own poorly conceived interests.
I would again probably be OK, but with more than any President in my now longish lifetime, that might not be true.
Given everything we now know, that's an extreme understatement. Nuclear war becomes a realistic possibility under Trump, constitutional crisis a high probability. The post WWII era of peace and prosperity created a very dangerous failure of the imagination in too many people.
I think the current situation in Ukraine, which we ignore because it has settled into what looks like stalemate for now, still has potential to develop into something worse were the US to elect an unstable person as President, so World War 3” is not entirely off the table. As for the rest, it depends who you are--lots of people would probably be unaffected if we did devolve into a dictatorship (not saying that’s happening, just that it happens in lots of places and life goes on).
The situation Ukraine with Trump as President would be that he and his buddy Putin could work a amicable partition of the country with the rump not able to be part of the EU. It would save the Chinese a lot of money.
I think you're really underestimating how much long term damage having more Trump judges sitting on circuit courts can do. There are many Matthew J. Kacsmaryks out there and there will likely be even more lunatic judges if he's President again.
I think you really need to recognize too that overturning Dobbs basically affects every single woman in this country on a personal level. And if Trump is re-elected, it is likely with a Trifecta and there is a huge likelihood that a full abortion ban passes if there is a Trifecta (I think we've all come to realize how much the religious right is driving the bus right now when it comes to GOP policy).
Seriously? Trump actively attempted to subvert democracy and steal the elections. He'll try again next time, being more prepared. A non-negligible contingent on the right is enthusiastically pro-authoritarian. Trump can and will test the very fiber of the republic's being and its democratic nature. It withstood the test once—not without casualties— but can you guarantee it will again? Trump being reelected is playing Russian roulette with everyone's freedom, let alone world peace and the economy. Your complacence is incredible.
2. He failed miserably the 1st time. Will fail even harder the 2nd time.
3. I’m not complacent. I will vote against Trump. I try and sway other people to vote against him, while not alienating them. The bigger danger is Democrats that alienate swing voters.
1. I certainly hope not (though apparently less confident than you) but our debate is about the consequences if he does.
2. He failed the first time mostly thanks to principled repulicans + judges who stopped him. The GOP has since undergone a purge and is more radical. The people willing to serve under his second admin are surely likely to be far more similar minded to him. His lack of experience was a blessing. As for the judiciary, its harder to say, but presumably its deterioration will significantly accelerate under a second trump term. He is unlikely to be forgiving of the appointees who "betrayed" him and may not be as willing to simply outsource the appointments to the Federalist Society this time round (and the FedSoc itself btw is soul searching at the moment and may not continue to promote very conservative, yet mostly principled, judges in future).
3. How to defeat Trump is separate question. Your ARE complacent in so far as you don't think his election will affect you personally and seem to me to treat it as somehow "normal" and not as the historic aberration of strategic proportions that I consider it to be.
P.S.
I certainly very very much hope you're right and I'm wrong. I hope even more that we'll never find out.
On Number 3. Even though I’m not a gambler I am treating it like a bet. The outraged people will be outraged and motivated to vote against. I don’t think I can make anyone even more outraged. The swing voters whether u can understand them, exist. These are the ones who can go either way or stay home. These are the ones who are turned off by people yelling at them. Since I consider myself one of these swing voters, the best thing I can do is to put my efforts towards that.
Trump has said that if he wins again, he will essentially purge all government agencies and replace current people with ones selected for loyalty to MAGA/Trump rather than competence.
Of course Trump may have been talking out his a** when he said it, but assuming he meant it, I find this a horrifying prospect. Think how much the government does (or tries to do). What will happen to society when a large percentage of government employees is replaced with incompetent lackeys? Do you want to be in a natural disaster zone when FEMA is run by Trump appointees?
I look at voting for Democrats as having option value. Even though it's unlikely, Democrat's are more likely to liberalize immigration of skilled, educated people and require educated foreigners to return home after graduation. Democrat's are more likely to tax net emissions of CO2 and draft regulations that have somewhat the effect of such a tax. I expect Democrats at the national level to push a bit more for land use reform. [Why doesn't DoHUA do best practice research on land use regulations, and building codes and give grants to cities that experiment with them the way DoJ does for policing reform?] Democrats are more likely to reduce the structural deficit with taxes on high income people.
Republicans could always propose their own plan to end the debt peonage and make higher education more affordable! They don't have to be "principled!"
As it stands now, they can only manage to endorse this system that acts as a de facto tax on students smart and ambitious enough to get into college, but not rich enough to get mommy and daddy to pay for it.
I don’t think we’ll get as many comments today as we have the last few days, so today’s piece may not be seen as performing as well at driving engagement. But in my view, this is Yglesias at his best: clearly and plainly teasing out issues of policy and politics in a way that makes this generally-reflexive-Democratic-partisan develop a deeper and more nuanced view of the issues at hand
5 out of 5 slices.
Thank God I have to do my data science project today
What do you think of data science. I’ve been trying to get my daughter to consider it as a 2nd major b
As a former data scientist, I would strongly discourage majoring in such a program. It’s a highly nebulous title that means different things at different firms. For the mass majority of roles, it’s just better marketing for a data analyst position. For a small number of roles, it entails CS PhDs doing actually sophisticated work. Unfortunately, many people in the former role delude themselves into thinking they’re in the later role.
Worse, there was a huge explosion in data science positions throughout the 2010’s as firms wanted to do something with data and machine learning. Commonly, business value was poorly defined and useful results were rare. I’d expect a large correction in this field as tech firms tighten their belts.
Lastly, many common data science functions are being commoditized as I wrote about in 2019, https://liveramp.it/developers/blog/opinion-our-exciting-journey-as-data-scientists-onwards-to-higher-levels-of-abstraction/
FWIW I’m planning to double major in Economics & History with a certificate* in S&DS
* Yale technically doesn’t offer minors; it does offer “certificates” which it says are totally not minors but which are, to the best of my understanding, basically minors; for more information see https://statistics.yale.edu/academics/certificate-data-science
Sick double major. Not studying economics formally in university is a regret of mine. What's your focus within the history major? Mine was medieval Europe, and I ended up writing my honors thesis on Sephardic Jews in medieval Spain.
No idea but I'm taking two history classes on medieval Europe next year, one of which is taught by a guy named Hussein Fancy who focuses on Islam in medieval Europe IIRC.
Politician for sure. I will be your blue collar fixer!
Where I work we have a “data scientist” who is really just a SQL programmer, which is a perfectly respectable thing to be, IMHO.
Yeah, I worked in data science-ish for 7 years, and my sense is that there's very little actually useful data science. Where it's actually useful, it's great, and a brilliant data scientist (I've worked with a few!) can be super valuable, especially when it comes to fields where you can turn insight into business/customer value in consistent ways (high frequency trading, detecting anomalies in data collection, detecting jumps in phenomena like wastewater viral loads, etc.). But so much of the time, companies think "if we do some data science, we'll find a lot of valuable info!" but almost all of the time, the info they find just looks like info -- "hm, seems like we had a decline of 4% among women two years ago, then an increase of 6% last year" -- and there's just no suggestion at all of anything actionable that comes out of it. "Data" seems like it will provide an answer in and of itself, but all the most important answers have to be made outside of the data; e.g., if you want to do an A/B test, well, *what* are you going to test? The data themselves won't tell you that.
Interesting. For what it is worth, I had a buddy in undergrad who majored in brewing science. He got sick of brewing beer a couple years ago and went to an intensive 10 week data science boot camp. Now he has a good consulting job in NYC and seems really happy.
I agree that tech is currently tightening their belts but tons of other industries want people who know R and python to do statistical analysis
Gotta say Matt -- I'm a little surprised by this. Just thinking about use case and value creation here ... Are you familiar with any of these companies? The tech works on all of them. Probably a winner-takes-most-outcome and CCC has a huge advantage with their existing market share but right now there's no question that the entire industry is moving to photo only or at least photo first estimating. This is a $100M+ annual cost savings opportunity and then apply a market multiple to that for value. Hence why there's at least 4 players right now chasing it. This is just one I'm close to but I'd be shocked if this isn't happening in every industry.
https://cccis.com/insurance-carriers/claims-solutions/apd/repair-management/estimate-stp/
https://claimgenius.com/geniusinspect-claims/
https://tractable.ai/en/products
https://monk.ai/use-cases/
What's the business value here? Is the idea that, say, a car rental company currently pays people $15/hr to make these estimates, and with this tech they wouldn't have to?
No. Use case is insurance company adjuster inspections post-accident. This is during the claims cycle. At least $750 of cost is tied up in physical adjusters inspecting a vehicle. Cycle time is ~ 10 days for a repair vs. total loss determination. During which if the vehicle is non-drivable they are paying rental car days as well as storage costs.
Matt. Sincerely thank you for this input. What would your recommendations be for growing fields? Right now her major is going to be biosystems engineering and microbiology with an eye on medical school. But she also has a strong interests in computers. Should I just encourage her to take decent electives?
Once again. I really appreciate you taking time to answer.
For someone with an interest in computers, I’d recommend computer engineering or computer science. Hard to say what the trajectory of the tech field looks like, but there appears to be an ever growing application of computers and software, even outside of tech firms.
If she goes that way, the important thing for a tech career is internships. Can commonly provide a direct pathway to a full-time role after graduation, and is a big strength on resumes for a junior role.
Can also do a CS minor while focusing on another science or engineering degree. That minor pairs quite well with other science and engineering roles since there is a lot of interdisciplinary work between software, science, and engineering. Eg, using computers to automate processes, simulate systems, or collect and process data.
Genetics + CS is the new hotness. Forget AI, computational genetics is going to change the world.
Biology + CS/CE is a *very* solid combo. Genetics (which can lead to big data, as it did for one of my colleagues), health devices, instrumentation, etc. all flow naturally out of that background.
The data scientists I work alongside in big tech all trained as actual scientists in some discipline, i.e. they have a track record of designing, conducting, analyzing, and publishing experiments in a way that passes muster in academia. I don’t think a “data science” credential would impress anyone. Never hurts to master R or SQL though.
As someone that helps hire quants, I'd stay away from the major if not necessarily the classes. Returns to being able to code are very high when paired with in-demand related skills, but random data science programs do not seem to ensure meeting minimum requirements on that front. Idk about individual classes or programs though, and being forced to learn the analysis part probably has some benefit.
It would be far better to get the basics strong in college, such as linear algebra, statistics and probabilities, and machine learning algorithms. That will provide all the tooling one needs for a career in data science. This coming from someone who has been in the data science industry (started out in consulting, then financial services) for 18 years.
The class I’m taking isn’t great but then again I haven’t gone to lecture for 2 months so a lot of that is on me. But I’m gonna lock in and grind out the lecture recordings during reading week so hopefully it will be fine.
As someone who got into the habit of not going to lectures in college, can confirm that it is a bad habit that snowballs.
This is the end of my lecture.
Yeah I’m definitely not going to repeat this mistake in the fall
On behalf of your father. Get your shit together dude. Step 1 to success is show the fuck up! (you have actually stressed me out!) Also, good luck.
Only jumping in here because I see a bit differently than Matt and would encourage your daughter to dive deeply into the program / course work to gauge her personal interest. It might be a rewarding fit. As a 2nd major or minor or even just free electives -- I don't see a downside.
Current background, I run Data Science and Data Analytics for a medium size public company. As Matt says, there is a strong distinction between "real data science" (e.g., computer vision models) and analytics (e.g., data visualization, reporting). But - in my experience - the analytics roles can be stepping stone roles to the more technical, modeling roles if that's a career goal. There's definitely "commodification" going on but that's also opening up new "decision science" pathways that are more focused on implementation, customer adoption, value creation, etc. for the reasons Matt says. What's clear is this is a macro-trend and there's a lot of career path flexibility and growth tailwinds. Those a good things early in a career. Obviously less so if the path turns out to be medical school. But in a business setting -- for sure. Just generally -- getting comfortable pulling your own data, cleaning it, modeling it, understanding what it means -- those are differentiated capabilities for ~ any career path.
Thanks for your input. My take away is that data science is a good field when paired with other knowledge skills. Perhaps as a minor or as electives. Is that accurate?
Probably hard to generalize that much. For example, if she's on the med school track ... there might be better minors or electives that make her more competitive for MCATs and applications. But on most other paths -- the ability to work with relatively large datasets (i.e., larger than Excel) is a differentiator.
Except for the first third where I was seriously concerned that he was going to write an entire piece solely on everything bagels.
I mean, everything bagels are delicious and I would read that piece. But I actually think he made his point really well - “everything” bagels don’t actually have everything on them. You can have a “more than one thing” policy that has different, contrasting flavors that work well together - better, perhaps, than they would work individually. But you can’t literally put everything on a bagel. And you can’t try to accomplish every policy goal all at once. It won’t work.
The metaphor really worked for me. But now that it’s 8:30 my time and I haven’t eaten yet, it’s making me hungry.
The problem with an entire article about everything bagels is that it would make me want to go get an everything bagel and I don't really feel like leaving the house right now.
I have some homemade lox that I need to finish off soon, and I was planning to go on a bike ride anyway, so I should swing by the new bagel shop. Perhaps I'll make it an everything bagel today!
"Everything bagels, explained."
"1. What are everything bagels?"
"5. This is exhausting, can we get a music break?"
the cutesy part went on too long
Someone does, the cream cheese is in the middle, and they're not very good.
If someone starts selling everything bagel holes my weight loss plans are going to take a serious beating.
Politically backing down over student loan forgiveness isn't really an option.
Besides, getting SCOTUS to strike it down for them really is brilliant. And since I'm not a fan of the program but I worry a fair bit about unconstrained executive discretion (eg Trump's border wall funding) this is a triple win. Biden doesn't bear the costs of the program, he gets to blame the conservatives for it not happening and the court commits to a relatively expansive view about standing to challenge agency spending/forgiveness that will make it harder to swat away challenges to executive action by the next republican president.
In the long term there may be costs to making the court do the dirty work but as long as it doesn't become a regular thing.
I think you are right. I really enjoy the discussions around policy on this site. But your comment reminds me of why I dislike politics so much. Yes, you have to win at politics in order to implement policy, but the lies, misdirections and unprincipled actions required to get votes is really unappealing.
I need to get better at ignoring the politically driven messaging & tactics to see the real-world policy implementations.
Fwiw I don’t think the program was setup to be blocked by the court. It’s just a fortunate potential outcome that an inflationary program could be blocked now that inflation is what matters.
The program doesn't comply with the Biden OLC's own memo about the parameters within which such a program would be legal, so I'm less sure about that
> You have asked whether the HEROES Act authorizes the Secretary to address the financial hardship arising out of the COVID -19 pandemic by reducing or canceling the principal balances of student loans for a broad class of borrowers. We conclude that the Act grants that authority. The plain text of the HEROES Act authorizes the Secretary to “waive or modify any statutory or regulatory provision applicable to” the federal student loan program, 20 U.S.C. § 1098bb(a)(1) (emphasis added), an authority that encompasses provisions applicable to the repayment of the principal balances of loans, provided certain conditions are met.
https://www.justice.gov/olc/file/1528451/download#page=20
“Provided certain conditions are met.” The Biden program does not meet the conditions the OLC identified.
Coming back to this just to say that Occam’s razor was right again and the Biden administration didn’t intentionally get its own student loan forgiveness program blocked by the courts
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that the Biden admin wanted it blocked (I just meant brilliant in the sense of it's a great political outcome for them). I think they'd still like to see it suceed because they believe in it. I don't so I'm happy about the outcome but if I was president I'd have never launched the program.
To the extent there is something slimey and political here I think it's forgiving the debts of the people who got to go to school (and are Dem leaning but unmotivated voters) even though school is a large net positive to lifetime earnings.
Sure, maybe college should have been government funded the whole time. But that's like looking back and saying: oops we should have had government funded contributions to your retirement accounts the whole time so we're going to cut everyone who contributed to their 401k a check equal to that amount. You're giving the money to the people who could afford to make themselves better off and not the people who decided they couldn't afford college and are poorer as a result.
But since I can't seem to convince anyone else on the left of that I'm pretty sure the Biden admin really believes in doing this and was hoping it wouldn't be challenged (even if this works out for them).
I think your attitude is not uncommon in the offline normie Democratic voting constituency (what "left" means anymore, I dunno).
It's just we don't like getting constantly shouted at about it.
That's understandable but I fear that the fact that more moderate views don't get represented online is skewing the politics of our next generation of leaders, wonks and activists.
Or I just want to tell myself I'm doing something noble when I post my moderate left views on social media.
The issue with real world implications is they are often only on the margins. And it’s rarely a direct line from Policy A to outcome B. I despise Trump. Think he is unstable, but I doubt my life will change materially in any way given two alternative realities where he wins vs Biden winning. I know that sounds flippant. But short of World War 3, Im not sure what will really change. Convince me otherwise:
While I think that's true for most leaders Trump particularly seemed to cause a change in the level of vitriol and willingness to consider arguments on the other side. That affected my day to day experience.
Suddenly pointing out that an argument by the left against the right wasn't very compelling got you labeled a heritic not just someone you disagreed with and my experience talking with conservatives got worse too.
This is an excellent point. I actually agree. Trump brings out the worst in everyone.
The main reason I hate the very idea of Trump running again - let alone winning - is basically this. Everything he touches turns hateful, simplistic and dumb (which is not to say that I think Trump personally is dumb). I cannot stand the thought of four more years of endless debate about his verbal diarrhea, #Resistance pearl-clutching, and MAGA bullshit. I really can't.
That said, it's true that the best argument against Trump is basically about tail risks. What happens if China invades Taiwan with Trump in the White House? Or if another 9/11 happens? I think we got really lucky during Trump's term in that the late 2010s were - although nobody realized it at the time, because Trump - a pretty benign period geopolitically and economically. Nothing much happened until Covid, and Covid wasn't the kind of emergency that played neatly into Trump's worst impulses. (He said a lot of dumb stuff about Covid, but policy-wise he was fine-to-good.)
Well, that and the fact that he tried to stage a coup to stay in office. I do think it is almost certain the he will try to remain in office past January 2029 if he is in, or that he will try to turn the Presidency - or at least the Republican Party - into the Trump family's personal fiefdom. I'm not sure I like his odds of succeeding in this, but I really don't want to find out what happens when he tries it, even if he fails. The potential for large-scale civil unrest around this sort of thing - which could materially impact day-to-day life, albeit maybe not yours personally - is there; the odds of it are impossible to say but much higher than anything I would be comfortable with.
I think there's a real risk that he decides to negotiate a deal with Putin over Ukraine's head and then tells Zelensky that he can accept the deal or have all US assistance pulled and face US diplomacy trying to stop Europeans helping Ukraine. And I think the deal would massively favour Putin - something like accepting the annexations of Crimea and the four southern oblasts, and neutralising Ukraine (ie no alliance and no arms exports to Ukraine from anyone).
I might be off the track here, but we already have large-scale civil unrest; large-scale being defined as happening everywhere, all the time, albeit by individuals and small groups. People are angry and have no idea of how to get rid of it.
Most policy implications in today's world are only on the margins. We've been tweaking our system for 250 years and most of the big changes are either baked in already or unattainable due to system design choices made long ago. Plus, it's a really good system -- richest country, most powerful military, yadda, yadda -- so most people only want marginal changes.
Agree, and this is especially true on the federal level because of the veto power on federal power that the States have in our system. Democrats need to get better at understanding that and stop whining, tilting against windmills, and daydreaming about what if we had a unitary parliamentary system.
We have a republican federal system, and that's not changing. Get used to it and learn to work with it instead of constantly banging your head against it.
A man's (carefully considered, cost benefit analysis vetted) reach should exceed his (politically constrained) grasp, else what's there politics for?
If you were a woman I could tell you one thing that would effect your life forever because of Trumps win in 2016. You would have had a previously guaranteed constitutional right taken away from you. Now, you may be glad it was taken away (depending on your position) but lots of women are unhappy about it. It’s a big material change to the lives of women in America.
So, I have a story. My wife had an abortion at the age of 20. She now regrets it. Would make a different decision. (She isn’t anti-choice it’s a personal thing).
This brings to bear something a lot of people don’t think about. Some percentage of abortions are out of conveniences. In other words the child if born would turn out just fine.
Given that Matt just talked about trade offs.
I posit that there will be some children born in the future who wouldn’t have. Kids who parents live them. Who grow up to be successful.
Now there will also be kids who are born into poverty whose parents lives are materially worse off.
My personal philosophy is to have less restrictions so in that way I am more pro-choice, but at the same time I believe in Federalism in which states should be able to govern in their own way.
But I also think that it’s naive to pretend that their will be zero good outcomes from abortion restrictions. The real question is will there be more bad outcomes?
Remember, I have raised 8-daughters. One of my daughters is struggling because she is a single mother.
I am a personal pro-lifer. To the extent that I am against the death penalty (no I am not religious).
But at the same time, I am pro morning after pill. I’ve have driven to Oregon to pick up for daughters before.
Given all my conflicting views on this issue, I’ve come down on the side of Democracy. If people elect bad politicians who make bad laws, then they will be replaced.
I also acknowledge that I am not a woman.
I may delete this comment. I do not want to degrade anyone who feels passionately on this issue. Just explain why I personally am not passionate about it.
It’s a fair point your making, in that what happens to women’s ability to make certain health care decision do not effect you directly in ways that matter to you.
Im just trying to point out that whether or not policies directly impact you or me, the fact they impact large numbers of Americans means they are due considerations when thinking about outcomes/trade offs.
Cards on the table, I think the way many European counties run their abortion policies tends to strike the right balance of trade offs. I think no restrictions and no abortions are very bad in the trade offs game.
I agree: bear in mind that the whole European system is more than just a 12-20 week limit on abortions: the typical approach is:
Universal health care (of some description) and abortions are included, so there's no fees and abortion is available at every hospital (and abortion pills from just about any doctor's office).
Abortion on request up to the gestational limit (there may be a reconsideration requirement or a counselling requirement, but note that doesn't require staying in a hotel because it will be available at a convenient location).
Beyond the limit, abortion for medical reasons (fetus has no or minimal chance of becoming viable, continuing pregnancy is harmful to the mother's health, mother has another medical condition that requires teratogenic treatments) is available and the decision process on the medical reasons is routine and quick.
One of the features of the US regimes that have exceptions (either beyond a gestational limit, or for all abortions) is that they are difficult to obtain (often requiring an application to a court), and that abortions are only available in a small number of clinics/hospitals, rather than nearly everywhere.
For instance, abortions after 12 weeks in Norway require approval by an abortion board (two doctors, working in the hospital). Out of "about 600" applications per year, "20-40" are rejected and then automatically appealed (I couldn't find exact numbers, but these are from official documentation). Norway had 10,800 abortions in 2021 - so we're talking about 6% or so that need an application to the abortion board.
I think this is a perfectly reasonable fear for women, but it's worth bearing a couple of things in mind:
-A national abortion ban at this point isn't really contingent on Trump *per se.* It is contingent on Republicans winning the Presidency and big majorities in Congress. [1] Whether or not Trump is in the Oval Office doesn't matter particularly for the outcome vis-a-vis another Republican. [2]
-A national ban would be deeply unpopular. I think it would be repealed within ten years, and quite possibly within five or six.
I'll add here that while I am personally quite pro-choice the case that abortion is a "constitutional right" has always been very shaky at best (it's not, like, free speech), and I don't really have a problem with states banning it if that is what their voters want [3], provided they a) allow for the usual exceptions, which includes not writing statutes that could be read as banning necessary medical procedures, and b) do not attempt to penalize women who travel to other jurisdictions for abortions. I realize, of course, that some state laws do not fit these parameters; I *do* have problems with those laws.
1. You could say "big majorities or eliminating the filibuster," I suppose, but I am personally somewhat skeptical that Republicans would eliminate the filibuster to pass a law that would generate immediate and severe public backlash. It's certainly not inconceivable - which is why I said this is a reasonable fear - but Republicans aren't stupid, at least about politics. I further suspect that enough Rs would cling to a states-rights argument so as not to have pass a deeply unpopular policy to kill a ban if their majorities were relatively narrow.
2. If anything, the odds of a national abortion ban are slightly *lower* under Trump than another Republican. Trump has staked out a relatively moderate position on abortion and I don't think he gives a crap about abortion or about the interest groups clamoring for a ban. I'm not sure he'd veto one if it passed Congress, but I'm also not sure he wouldn't.
3. It is true that most voters, even in red states, want abortion to be legal for at least some period of time. I hope we eventually get policies that reflect this.
Trump winning in 2016 definitely affects a lot of things just because of his SCOTUS appointments. Likely harder to make the case that 2024 will be as contingent of an election, but I don’t plan to take my chances so I will be voting for — and donating to — Brandon.
I get that. But unless you are going to get a girl pregnant in Idaho that has no access to drive across the border, I’m still going to wager your personal life hasn’t and won’t be materially changed.
But if u are in Idaho, come say hi!
Rory what do you think of the ~vibes~ having a material impact on your life? During the Trump admin society seemed to overcompensate by going further left on social/culture issues, and now there seems to be a center-right backlash (a halting of the drift left at least) during the Biden admin
I tend to agree with this backlash theory. People are naturally rebellious or at least motivated by fear of the enemy.
I don’t disagree that elections change vibes (especially with someone as polarizing as Trump). But vibes don’t necessarily equal change.
I’m going to use the example of gay marriage. Gay marriage would’ve happened no matter what. Perhaps the election of George W. Bush and Obama, and whoever changed the date it happen by a couple of years, but we still would of ended up there.
I sort of think that most things are like that.
Did this answer your question?
I had to Google it. But I think PSLF should be a non-controversial issue. I’ve read about how dodgy some companies are. Sincere wish u best if luck.
Overturning of Roe is a big deal, and much more damage will continue for years to come due to SCOTUS extremist composition. HOWEVER in the post Jan 6th world I really really think all of this is dwarfed by the danger to democracy itself should Trump ever return to power. That he was not convicted by the senate following Jan 6th is a failure of the first rate. It literally imperils the future the republic.
Frankly anyone sensible should have known electing Trump in 2016 was a terrible idea, but any self-interested self-delusional naive doubt that could have somehow been conceivable back then is totally impossible now. Electing Trump is borderline suicidal. The stakes have never been higher.
President Marco Rubio would have made the same SCOTUS nominations. Because I'm a Democrat, I didn't like them, but they had nothing to do with Trump per se.
Justice Jeannine Pirro would have been much worse.
I think there’s a pretty good argument that if the nativists really do win out over federal immigration policy, the economy is going to suffer hugely relative to its potential over the medium term. Which is going to constrain the return of every investment you or I might use to build a stable retirement and likely badly punish our kids.
Devils advocate: perhaps an immigrant replaces you at your job and you have to take a pay cut.
Note: I am very pro immigration, but like all things the benefits of immigration are net positive, but there will be individuals who may suffer negative consequences.
But honestly, immigration is one of those things that I see changing the least.
Ehh, that’s why you craft immigration policy to bring in a balanced group of immigrants, tilted even a bit in favor of high-skilled folks. There won’t be any job taking if aggregate demand is systemically and uniformly rising for basically all industries.
Boring reply: 100% agree. We need to adopt Canadian or New Zealand point system.
Presidents don't typically have that much impact on ordinary citizens' lives. But we rent a President for four years to handle the big, daunting crises that *may* come during their term. It was good we had Lincoln and FDR when our nation had to fight existential challenges.
If we put Trump in office for four years, it would obviously be unpleasant and bad for the political culture, but it might be survivable if conditions were otherwise peaceful. But how would he deal with a supremely demanding crisis? I suspect not very well at all. Obviously, we did face one with COVID and he should get some credit for expediting the vaccines, while on the other hand his rhetoric and some of his actions created permissions for people to take awful actions during the crisis. So not an A or an F; call it a C.
I'd like better than a C during our next great crisis, however.
When Trump was first elected I remember my brother saying that given our position in society, relatively well off, middle age white guys we would certainly be fine, but that we should be worried about other folks. But I think you hit it when you list him as unstable. A president can take quick actions with terrible consequences, and the correctives to them take years. Trump is, I believe, uniquely unmoored from any consideration for anyone's well being beyond his own, and is capable of performing terribly counter to everyone's interest except his own poorly conceived interests.
I would again probably be OK, but with more than any President in my now longish lifetime, that might not be true.
Given everything we now know, that's an extreme understatement. Nuclear war becomes a realistic possibility under Trump, constitutional crisis a high probability. The post WWII era of peace and prosperity created a very dangerous failure of the imagination in too many people.
I think the current situation in Ukraine, which we ignore because it has settled into what looks like stalemate for now, still has potential to develop into something worse were the US to elect an unstable person as President, so World War 3” is not entirely off the table. As for the rest, it depends who you are--lots of people would probably be unaffected if we did devolve into a dictatorship (not saying that’s happening, just that it happens in lots of places and life goes on).
The situation Ukraine with Trump as President would be that he and his buddy Putin could work a amicable partition of the country with the rump not able to be part of the EU. It would save the Chinese a lot of money.
I think you're really underestimating how much long term damage having more Trump judges sitting on circuit courts can do. There are many Matthew J. Kacsmaryks out there and there will likely be even more lunatic judges if he's President again.
I think you really need to recognize too that overturning Dobbs basically affects every single woman in this country on a personal level. And if Trump is re-elected, it is likely with a Trifecta and there is a huge likelihood that a full abortion ban passes if there is a Trifecta (I think we've all come to realize how much the religious right is driving the bus right now when it comes to GOP policy).
This has less to do with Trump than with electing any Republican. Which I would not like to see happen, but still . . .
Seriously? Trump actively attempted to subvert democracy and steal the elections. He'll try again next time, being more prepared. A non-negligible contingent on the right is enthusiastically pro-authoritarian. Trump can and will test the very fiber of the republic's being and its democratic nature. It withstood the test once—not without casualties— but can you guarantee it will again? Trump being reelected is playing Russian roulette with everyone's freedom, let alone world peace and the economy. Your complacence is incredible.
1. I don’t think Trump will win.
2. He failed miserably the 1st time. Will fail even harder the 2nd time.
3. I’m not complacent. I will vote against Trump. I try and sway other people to vote against him, while not alienating them. The bigger danger is Democrats that alienate swing voters.
1. I certainly hope not (though apparently less confident than you) but our debate is about the consequences if he does.
2. He failed the first time mostly thanks to principled repulicans + judges who stopped him. The GOP has since undergone a purge and is more radical. The people willing to serve under his second admin are surely likely to be far more similar minded to him. His lack of experience was a blessing. As for the judiciary, its harder to say, but presumably its deterioration will significantly accelerate under a second trump term. He is unlikely to be forgiving of the appointees who "betrayed" him and may not be as willing to simply outsource the appointments to the Federalist Society this time round (and the FedSoc itself btw is soul searching at the moment and may not continue to promote very conservative, yet mostly principled, judges in future).
3. How to defeat Trump is separate question. Your ARE complacent in so far as you don't think his election will affect you personally and seem to me to treat it as somehow "normal" and not as the historic aberration of strategic proportions that I consider it to be.
P.S.
I certainly very very much hope you're right and I'm wrong. I hope even more that we'll never find out.
On Number 3. Even though I’m not a gambler I am treating it like a bet. The outraged people will be outraged and motivated to vote against. I don’t think I can make anyone even more outraged. The swing voters whether u can understand them, exist. These are the ones who can go either way or stay home. These are the ones who are turned off by people yelling at them. Since I consider myself one of these swing voters, the best thing I can do is to put my efforts towards that.
Nothing complacent about "trying to sway other people to vote against him, while not alienating them".
"Convince me otherwise"
Trump has said that if he wins again, he will essentially purge all government agencies and replace current people with ones selected for loyalty to MAGA/Trump rather than competence.
Of course Trump may have been talking out his a** when he said it, but assuming he meant it, I find this a horrifying prospect. Think how much the government does (or tries to do). What will happen to society when a large percentage of government employees is replaced with incompetent lackeys? Do you want to be in a natural disaster zone when FEMA is run by Trump appointees?
I look at voting for Democrats as having option value. Even though it's unlikely, Democrat's are more likely to liberalize immigration of skilled, educated people and require educated foreigners to return home after graduation. Democrat's are more likely to tax net emissions of CO2 and draft regulations that have somewhat the effect of such a tax. I expect Democrats at the national level to push a bit more for land use reform. [Why doesn't DoHUA do best practice research on land use regulations, and building codes and give grants to cities that experiment with them the way DoJ does for policing reform?] Democrats are more likely to reduce the structural deficit with taxes on high income people.
Republicans could always propose their own plan to end the debt peonage and make higher education more affordable! They don't have to be "principled!"
As it stands now, they can only manage to endorse this system that acts as a de facto tax on students smart and ambitious enough to get into college, but not rich enough to get mommy and daddy to pay for it.
See, this is the thing I need to get better at ignoring. Thanks!
You're welcome! Ignorance is bliss!
I think it is fair to ask the other major party to also have opinions about solving major problems
I think it’s fair to ask whether there is actually a problem that needs to be solved by government.