We don’t talk much about the 1908 presidential election, but that I think it was fascinating. The race featured William Howard Taft for the GOP against William Jennings Bryan for the Democrats. By nominating Bryan, a candidate who had already run and lost on two previous occasions, the Democrats were practically throwing this election to the GOP. His signature issue in the 1896 (opposing the gold standard) didn’t really make sense in the context of 1908. And while his populist broadsides against the economic elite of the Gilded Age had a certain durable appeal, the economy was doing fine. Worse for Bryan, the incumbent president Theodore Roosevelt had already pivoted the Republicans in a progressive/reformist direction. This was an era of close elections, but Bryan lost by a larger margin than in 1896 or 1900, and Republicans won big majorities in the House and Senate as well.
The smart set on substack just doesn't get Ol Middle Class Kitchen Table Scranton Joe Biden with his humble Syracuse law degree and his visceral unshakable bond with voters in swing states..
I know the focus on this article was contingency by choice, which I agree is incredibly important. The assassination of Franz Ferdidnand is a bit of a mixed case, because while there was a ton of contingency, the choices made by Ferdinand and his driver were not purposful toward the actual outcome. I think they were closer to pure random.
Theodore Roosevelt gives us another example. In 1912 an assassin shot him in the chest, but a folded copy of a speech probably slowed the bullet enough to save him from major injury or death. Had he died Taft would have had a much better chance (I don't know the ins and outs of 1912 to say for certain).
We have important agency, but the randomness of a few inches has also had a tremendous impact on history and what choices people have to make.
I have been a registered Democrat since my first election. I swear I will unregister from the party out of embarrassment if the Dems fuck this up. I'm not sure who to communicate this to (already wrote to my elected officials twice). I'm sure any comment submission form for the national party will do nothing but sign me up for spam.
It's just so damn frustrating that they can't accept that the cover-up failed before the convention.
Just read another depressing NYT story about Biden's circle narrowing. The bad political optics of having Hunter Biden constantly and visibly in contact with and advising his father is reason enough for Democrats to give Joe the boot. Are we nearing 25th amendment territory?
I would love to see an article that looks at the 1892 election, the result of which was the only non-consecutive second presidential term in American history.
imo, the belief that everything is inevitable ergo there's no point making risky choices is very religious, and aside from the racial factor (Black voters saved Biden's candidacy in 2020 so they're most loyal to him now), it makes sense that some of the most religious people in the Democratic Party are least likely to want him gone, they believe in predetermination and are skeptical of free will in a way that people like me, a radical atheist who's rational to a fault, are not.
"they believe in predetermination and are skeptical of free will in a way that people like me, a radical atheist who's rational to a fault, are not"
I find this statement odd because, in my experience, the belief in predestination is dramatically higher amongst self-identified atheistic/non-religious people than people who would identify as being part of most Christian denominations.
Personally, as an atheist, I believe strongly in free will and agency and self-determination. Religious people believe in a higher power and they often use that power as a moral compass and I just don't have that in my life.
Completely agree. In a way, this has to do with the whole argument over great-man theory. I've always felt that both systemic forces and individual choices matter, but just as with the argument of nature vs nurture, what people really want to know is, which is the more significant cause? I'm tempted to stick with great-man theory but it sounds like MY would disagree, despite his argument here that systemic forces are not inevitable.
Matt left out a huge contingency. The Great Depressing was an incredibly sequence of monetary policy decisions, more understandable than Bernanke's in 2008, but sill highly contingent.
Bidens actions are what they are. But every democrat who has resigned themselves to defeat is far far worse. Biden believes he can win. Maybe he’s wrong. Fine to push for him to step aside (to maximize chances) but I know the future is unpredictable, and if Biden stays, we should, we must fight with everything we’ve got to keep Trump and Vance out of office. The fascists are in their endgame and we have to do everything we can to keep them out.
What if the kind of person who reaches political heights in this moment is either such a product of various pipelines or such a wacko that they lack substantial agency? The former would lack it from want of exercising it in lieu of sticking to the pipeline. The latter would lack it from want of a cohesive self that can be said to choose.
Please excuse my ignorance but can someone explain why the Russian revolution doesn’t happen if WWI ends quicker, or if Germany wins? I don’t know enough of that history to understand the causes and sequence of events.
It's not that the Russian Revolution in general doesn't happen, it's specifically that the Bolsheviks don't win. Here's the rationale as I've always seen it expressed:
The "Russian Revolution" actually happens in March 1917 and is NOT led by the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks were poorly positioned and basically started "behind" a number of other factions in terms of power and influence -- Lenin and many other senior Bolsheviks weren't even in Russia at the time. The Bolsheviks were able to advance into a position of greater strength over the course of 1917 in very large part because the various liberal and more moderate socialist factions that actually controlled the government in the immediate wake of the revolution continued fighting against the Germans despite that being unpopular with the general Russian public. If by mid-1917 or earlier Germany is either defeated OR Germany scores a complete knockout of Russia (either of which might plausibly have happened depending on the breaks), then the Bolsheviks almost certainly are not in a position to successfully launch the November 1917 Bolshevik Revolution (which is what Matt was referring to).
Cosmically speaking, keep in mind that Lenin gets to Russia in April 1917 only because the *Germans* helped him get there because they thought the Bolsheviks would undermine the Russian war effort!
This article is well-timed given that Democratic US Senator Bob Menendez has been found guilty of all corruption charges. Of course, the reason Democrats will now have egg on their face over having a sitting Senator convicted is because they chose to stand by the obviously corrupt Menendez in 2018 even though they didn't have to. Democrats, both in the state party in NJ and in the Senate, could have shown some spine and backed a challenger and we would have been spared this embarrassment. After all, it probably would've worked. In 2018, a nobody barely running a campaign managed to get 38% of the vote against Menendez in the Dem primary. A real challenger almost certainly would have beat him.
Thankfully, we do have Andy Kim, a Democrat who was unafraid to challenge the machine (that tried to push Phil Murphy's wife as a contingency in place of Menendez) and New Jersey Democrats will have a Senator who could one day be a serious contender for the presidency or vice presidency or will at the very least end up being a high-ranking Senator.
It's amazing what can happen when you realize you don't have to stick with some old, arrogant prick due to outdated concepts of "incumbency advantage" or "party unity" and are willing to take some risk and try to aim for something better.
If history had bounced a different way, World War II as we know it might not have occurred, and my dad, a returning vet, would not have randomly met my mom in 1946. And I wouldn't be here. And I suspect something like that would be the case for most people.
So, for completely selfish reasons, let's all be glad that history turned out exactly the way that it did.
The smart set on substack just doesn't get Ol Middle Class Kitchen Table Scranton Joe Biden with his humble Syracuse law degree and his visceral unshakable bond with voters in swing states..
I know the focus on this article was contingency by choice, which I agree is incredibly important. The assassination of Franz Ferdidnand is a bit of a mixed case, because while there was a ton of contingency, the choices made by Ferdinand and his driver were not purposful toward the actual outcome. I think they were closer to pure random.
Theodore Roosevelt gives us another example. In 1912 an assassin shot him in the chest, but a folded copy of a speech probably slowed the bullet enough to save him from major injury or death. Had he died Taft would have had a much better chance (I don't know the ins and outs of 1912 to say for certain).
We have important agency, but the randomness of a few inches has also had a tremendous impact on history and what choices people have to make.
I have been a registered Democrat since my first election. I swear I will unregister from the party out of embarrassment if the Dems fuck this up. I'm not sure who to communicate this to (already wrote to my elected officials twice). I'm sure any comment submission form for the national party will do nothing but sign me up for spam.
It's just so damn frustrating that they can't accept that the cover-up failed before the convention.
Just read another depressing NYT story about Biden's circle narrowing. The bad political optics of having Hunter Biden constantly and visibly in contact with and advising his father is reason enough for Democrats to give Joe the boot. Are we nearing 25th amendment territory?
Probably not. He'd likely need to have a stroke or something to trigger that.
I would love to see an article that looks at the 1892 election, the result of which was the only non-consecutive second presidential term in American history.
imo, the belief that everything is inevitable ergo there's no point making risky choices is very religious, and aside from the racial factor (Black voters saved Biden's candidacy in 2020 so they're most loyal to him now), it makes sense that some of the most religious people in the Democratic Party are least likely to want him gone, they believe in predetermination and are skeptical of free will in a way that people like me, a radical atheist who's rational to a fault, are not.
"they believe in predetermination and are skeptical of free will in a way that people like me, a radical atheist who's rational to a fault, are not"
I find this statement odd because, in my experience, the belief in predestination is dramatically higher amongst self-identified atheistic/non-religious people than people who would identify as being part of most Christian denominations.
Personally, as an atheist, I believe strongly in free will and agency and self-determination. Religious people believe in a higher power and they often use that power as a moral compass and I just don't have that in my life.
Completely agree. In a way, this has to do with the whole argument over great-man theory. I've always felt that both systemic forces and individual choices matter, but just as with the argument of nature vs nurture, what people really want to know is, which is the more significant cause? I'm tempted to stick with great-man theory but it sounds like MY would disagree, despite his argument here that systemic forces are not inevitable.
Matt left out a huge contingency. The Great Depressing was an incredibly sequence of monetary policy decisions, more understandable than Bernanke's in 2008, but sill highly contingent.
Like "environmentalists" who think that taxing net CO2 is politically impossible.
Bidens actions are what they are. But every democrat who has resigned themselves to defeat is far far worse. Biden believes he can win. Maybe he’s wrong. Fine to push for him to step aside (to maximize chances) but I know the future is unpredictable, and if Biden stays, we should, we must fight with everything we’ve got to keep Trump and Vance out of office. The fascists are in their endgame and we have to do everything we can to keep them out.
What if our politicians don’t have agency?
What if the kind of person who reaches political heights in this moment is either such a product of various pipelines or such a wacko that they lack substantial agency? The former would lack it from want of exercising it in lieu of sticking to the pipeline. The latter would lack it from want of a cohesive self that can be said to choose.
Like, what if they’re pretty much just p-zombies?
So no psychohistory for you huh Matt?
Please excuse my ignorance but can someone explain why the Russian revolution doesn’t happen if WWI ends quicker, or if Germany wins? I don’t know enough of that history to understand the causes and sequence of events.
It's not that the Russian Revolution in general doesn't happen, it's specifically that the Bolsheviks don't win. Here's the rationale as I've always seen it expressed:
The "Russian Revolution" actually happens in March 1917 and is NOT led by the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks were poorly positioned and basically started "behind" a number of other factions in terms of power and influence -- Lenin and many other senior Bolsheviks weren't even in Russia at the time. The Bolsheviks were able to advance into a position of greater strength over the course of 1917 in very large part because the various liberal and more moderate socialist factions that actually controlled the government in the immediate wake of the revolution continued fighting against the Germans despite that being unpopular with the general Russian public. If by mid-1917 or earlier Germany is either defeated OR Germany scores a complete knockout of Russia (either of which might plausibly have happened depending on the breaks), then the Bolsheviks almost certainly are not in a position to successfully launch the November 1917 Bolshevik Revolution (which is what Matt was referring to).
Cosmically speaking, keep in mind that Lenin gets to Russia in April 1917 only because the *Germans* helped him get there because they thought the Bolsheviks would undermine the Russian war effort!
Thank you for this explanation!!
This article is well-timed given that Democratic US Senator Bob Menendez has been found guilty of all corruption charges. Of course, the reason Democrats will now have egg on their face over having a sitting Senator convicted is because they chose to stand by the obviously corrupt Menendez in 2018 even though they didn't have to. Democrats, both in the state party in NJ and in the Senate, could have shown some spine and backed a challenger and we would have been spared this embarrassment. After all, it probably would've worked. In 2018, a nobody barely running a campaign managed to get 38% of the vote against Menendez in the Dem primary. A real challenger almost certainly would have beat him.
Thankfully, we do have Andy Kim, a Democrat who was unafraid to challenge the machine (that tried to push Phil Murphy's wife as a contingency in place of Menendez) and New Jersey Democrats will have a Senator who could one day be a serious contender for the presidency or vice presidency or will at the very least end up being a high-ranking Senator.
It's amazing what can happen when you realize you don't have to stick with some old, arrogant prick due to outdated concepts of "incumbency advantage" or "party unity" and are willing to take some risk and try to aim for something better.
My mentor is a firm believer that judgment, more than IQ or EQ, is what makes good leaders
If history had bounced a different way, World War II as we know it might not have occurred, and my dad, a returning vet, would not have randomly met my mom in 1946. And I wouldn't be here. And I suspect something like that would be the case for most people.
So, for completely selfish reasons, let's all be glad that history turned out exactly the way that it did.