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On June 06 2026 05:01 Geiko wrote:For these types of questions that debatelords want to argue, you just need to ask any LLM to get the answer. Americans are so far gone they couldn't even agree on the answer for "what color is the sky?" It seems... + Show Spoiler +If by "moderate" you mean **closer to the political center of U.S. public opinion**, most political scientists and major media analyses in the 2024 election cycle would generally place **Kamala Harris's campaign closer to the center than Donald Trump's campaign**. However, the answer depends on what you mean by "moderate": * **Economic policy  * Harris proposed some progressive policies but campaigned more as a mainstream Democrat than as a left-wing reformer. Trump supported tariffs, stricter immigration policies, and a more nationalist economic agenda, which many analysts viewed as departures from traditional center-right positions. * **Immigration * Trump's campaign advocated measures such as large-scale deportations and stronger restrictions, positions generally considered further from the political center than Harris's. * **Social issues * Harris largely aligned with mainstream Democratic positions on abortion rights, LGBTQ rights, and civil rights. Trump aligned with conservative Republican positions and emphasized cultural issues that appealed strongly to his base. * **Foreign policy * Both candidates departed from older bipartisan consensus in different ways. Trump's "America First" approach is often described as more populist and less traditionally centrist than Harris's more conventional alliance-focused approach. That said, moderation can also be measured **relative to each party**: * Within the Democratic Party, Harris was often viewed as somewhat more moderate than the party's progressive wing. * Within the Republican Party, Trump largely defined the party's direction rather than occupying a moderate faction within it. Political scientists who use ideological scoring systems typically place Kamala Harris to the left of center and Donald Trump to the right of center, but generally find Trump further from the center than Harris, making Harris's 2024 campaign the more moderate of the two by that definition. If you're interested, I can also compare them issue-by-issue (economy, immigration, foreign policy, social issues) and identify where each was closer to the median American voter.
Since you brough LLM into this:
https://share.google/aimode/cOhyn0MBtZT6QGEBM
was trump or kamala more moderate candidate
"Donald Trump was widely perceived by voters as the more moderate candidate during the 2024 presidential election campaign. While political analysts often debated both candidates' positions, public opinion polling consistently showed that a larger portion of the electorate viewed Kamala Harris as ideologically extreme relative to her party compared to Trump."
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On June 06 2026 16:05 Falling wrote:
I think populist makes far more sense than moderate. A populist can whip up popular support on positions that might wind up having majority support. But that doesn't make those positions moderate, necessarily.
It is the better word because it is accurate. I’m not sure why we need new definitions for words when we already have accurate ones that describe it exactly.
I’m NO way does this describe Donald Trump, why are we pretending it does, it fucks up the conversation because we will have to call him moderate to discuss with Intro with abused definition.
This is what moderate means in politics, and it’s the antithesis of Trump.
A political moderate is an individual who rejects extreme, radical views and holds a centrist or middle-of-the-road position on the ideological spectrum. Rather than adhering strictly to one party line, moderates often support a mix of liberal and conservative policies, prioritizing compromise, pragmatism, and bipartisan solutions.
It’s actually the opposite, stop sane washing shit.
And into please stay sane, this is bonkers dum.
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On June 06 2026 21:41 Billyboy wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2026 14:13 oBlade wrote:On June 06 2026 13:23 Billyboy wrote:
The basic question was how bad would the other person have to be for you to flip your vote. And your position is basically the Dems would do it for their Trump too. You treat your hypothetical like proof.
And I’m far from the only one who thinks the Republicans dramatically lost their way when they let this imbecile take full reigns with no adults left to keep him even a little contained. What adults should the President of the United States report to? CIA? He should be responsible to all US citizens.
Of course he should. That's what the election thing is for. Republicans did not "let" him "take full reigns." He won. Officials of an unelected Party don't have a role in, say, taming? controlling? containing? someone you don't like while getting out of the way of someone you do like. That'd be its own tyranny.
On June 06 2026 21:41 Billyboy wrote:
And there are meant to be checks and balances within the government. I get that you want a fake strongman controlling you and making petty attacks at his perceived enemies, but that’s not how it was intended. He gets rid of everyone with a backbone and you bend over and ask for it harder daddy. Just waiting for your new opinion to get told to you.
There are checks and balances within the government. They go in many directions. The checks and balances are not "let's make a president and then the system failed if other people can't stop him from doing everything Billyboy (a Canadian citizen?) doesn't like. You are confusing not getting your way with the system being broken. Checks and balances and automatically override everything you don't like are not the same. Since his 2nd term he's lost at SCOTUS on tariffs, had to take the National Guard out of Chicago, can't enforce birthright citizenship EO, can't get SAVE Act passed, just lost Anti-Weaponization fund. In fact it was the Republican-appointed justices on SCOTUS who overturned Chevron deference in 2024 which then curtailed the power of the entire executive branch.
"But oBlade what about all the other st-" Yes, there's stuff the President has done and is doing that nobody is going to stop him on. Because whether you accept it as legitimate or not, he's the President and you aren't. Build a bridge and get over it. Or if you know how to build bridges, go to Baltimore and help them out, they need $5 billion and 5 years to replace the one that collapsed. The rest of your post is par for what I'd expect from someone at your level of being informed.
On June 06 2026 16:57 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2026 15:20 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 14:24 EnDeR_ wrote:On June 06 2026 07:18 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 04:04 EnDeR_ wrote:On June 06 2026 03:42 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 03:40 LightSpectra wrote:On June 06 2026 03:36 Introvert wrote:
Trump ran on closing the border not leaving it open. Still doggedly ignoring the single most important part every time. So your argument is literally "the most important issue to me is X and anyone who supports that is by definition centrist"? Do you even understand what the left/right paradigm refers to? Do you know what "moderate" means in this discussion? It isn't with reference to some abstract ideal you made up. It is relative to the electorate. So the point you're making is that Americans are so right wing that Trump can be perceived as a moderate in that context? I'm not even disagreeing on this one, just clarifying if that's what you meant. I'm saying that Trump took the side of the majority on most of the hot button topics of the election, while Harris was defending the record of an administration that was deeply unpopular, in large part due to the predictable results of certain policy choices. Trump had been president once before, calling him a fascist didn't work on anyone who did not already believe it. This is similar to a point I made during the election season. If dems really believed he was a fascist, they needed to reach out to people in the middle, at least. Instead, they basically had the attitude that "Trump is bad so you have to vote for us" but they didn't really make a good case. It was not believable. The things people liked the least about Republican policies of the Romney-Ryan era Trump abandoned while emphasizing the things people do like. GH is right insofar as he recognizes that I have tried to make the "if the shoe was on the other foot" argument for years now, but it falls on deaf ears even when the shoe has been swapped. Ok, I understand what you are saying. Moderate = position with most support. In that specific framing, then yes, Trump may be seen as "moderate" as he reflects the broader American population. And as you correctly identified, that's because America is pretty right wing on average, so that would track. It is an odd argument to make though. If America elected Bernie Sanders on what you'd consider lefty policies as president, then the same argument would yield that Bernie is a moderate since being elected president is the hardest proof you could produce that his policies enjoy the most support. While you're here, I would like to get your take on this hbr.org: (they didn't include the data in the post so I haven't been able to check how accurate it is, but let's say it's not miles off for the point of the discussion). Basically, what they're saying is that your high tech worker pipeline on which America depends for its prosperity is weakening. These are their findings: Some striking differences emerged. When we first asked students and postdocs how likely they were to stay in the United States, 93% said they thought they would. When we asked again six months later, 72% said they thought they would—a drop of 21 points in just half a year. Similarly, the share that expected to stay in academia fell from 66% to 44%, and the share satisfied with having pursued a PhD fell from 91% to 76%. The timing of this tracks with the ICE drive to provide a hostile environment towards immigrants and the Trump administration decisions to mess with scientist funding. Many of the student and postdocs we talked to had trained as undergraduates outside the United States. That made a difference: When asked whether they intended to remain in the United States, the share of those who answered yes fell 31%, whereas the share of those trained in the United States fell by 16%. Among those trainees outside of the United States, Europeans showed the largest decline (–50 points), followed by Indians (–38), and Latin Americans (–14). That pattern fits an “outside options” story: The young scientists who face the fewest visa barriers and have the most robust alternative labor markets—as is the case for Europeans, Indians, and Latin Americans—are the most willing and able to reconsider their plans. But even among students who had trained as undergraduates in the United States, roughly one in six who had previously planned to stay was now actively considering a career abroad.
Why This Matters
There are three reasons we think the academic talent market is an accurate early warning system for the industrial R&D talent market:
Universities and companies draw from the same talent pool. Basically, people doing a scientific career today are your deep tech workers of tomorrow. The fact that these people no longer see America as a good place for them to live has downstream consequences. For example, the article makes this point: The United States built much of its scientific preeminence by attracting researchers from abroad. For firms whose competitive position depends even partly on the U.S. system continuing to train and retain world-class scientists, the question is no longer whether to plan for a different talent landscape. The question is how quickly. A 21-point shift in stated intent is not yet a 21-point shift in headcount. But by the time it is, the planning horizon will have closed. They are predicting a labour shortage as a result of the policies pushed by this administration. I've already told you before that while I agree with the broad goals of the administration I don't like the meat cleaver way they went at it. At the same time, there is still a lot of money to be made in the US so that will keep a decent pipeline at least. See part of why I want a sane Dem party is because people who are "less moderate" can still win. People vote for all sorts of reasons. So I'd rather not have more radical opponents because they might win! And they might view that win as a mandate to do whatever they want! Both Biden and Trump I think have made that mistake. Frustration with the last guy is not carte blanche. What I said was that Trump was closer to the middle than Dems were. I don't want to reduce "the moderate normally wins" to a truism. We've had more conservative and more progressive presidents. Again I would just look at the examples I gave. On all those issues Trump was closer to the center. I am a conservative, I want more right-leaning candidates to win. But I also don't have this belief that there is a silent majority out there just waiting for a true believer of my exact politics. I am closer to most Americans in immigration than most Democrats are, and further to the right than most people in general on reforming social spending. And part of this is because so much of politics is, as the kids say, a vibe. But I still say if one was trying to defeat a fascist they would soften they policy stances to try and prevent said fascist from winning. That might be the most stark example of being a "moderate." Yes, you did say that you didn't like how they were doing it but agreed that it had to be done nonetheless. The reason I am raising this is not just the how, but the direction of travel. Hardening policies against immigration, even if we don't go full Trumpian ICE dystopia, necessarily involves making it more hostile towards immigrants. You may be targeting the lower immigration tier but all immigrants feel the hostility -- take this from someone who lived in the US (and UK) as an immigrant. It makes your country less appealing to live in. That has an effect downstream. America used to be a beacon attracting the most talented people worldwide, which has propelled innovation and prosperity. In other words, those brilliant scientists were working in the US, not in their home countries. Now, they don't want to stay. What this means goes beyond missing out in terms of your work force. This highly trained, highly innovative cohort is building up competitor industries in other countries. I would argue that this is much more threatening to your industry and tech sector than missing out on a few PhD students in 5 year's time.
US can lose appeal relative to itself without long term harm. The supply of people who want to go, including skilled, is greater than the demand. Not because of whether the US is more or less "appealing" than in 2022. Because its appeal outweighs competitors. It's generally appealing relative to communist China or other destinations. To the extent it isn't, that is the exact margin of people that the US can not only afford to lose, but should actively lose.
So far the administration has put fees on H1B to make sure it's more expensive than hiring an American so you're not going to hire someone else unless out of REAL necessity and not corporatist convenience. And they have actually started enforcing H1B rules like actually having to look for American workers, not just having fake impossible to find non-applyable job listings, having the jobs be actual professional jobs and not bodega franchises (this is called Project Firewall at DOL). If people don't like that, yeah they don't need to pursue their education/career/life in the US.
For example, one in six previously planning to stay undergraduates now looking at other options? Good for them! US doesn't need every undergraduate to stay. Undergraduates are not a particularly valuable form of human capital. The fact of so many undergraduates coming to begin with has made elite institutions cater to them because they are a lucrative extra market of payers of full tuition which inverts the incentive structure of who American universities are supposed to benefit first (Americans).
The fact of people getting an "ick" over US immigration policies that don't even apply to them, and not immigrating to the US over it is not a negative side effect of harsher enforcement. You want them to come to that realization, so the more appreciative take their place instead.
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On June 06 2026 16:57 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2026 15:20 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 14:24 EnDeR_ wrote:On June 06 2026 07:18 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 04:04 EnDeR_ wrote:On June 06 2026 03:42 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 03:40 LightSpectra wrote:On June 06 2026 03:36 Introvert wrote:
Trump ran on closing the border not leaving it open. Still doggedly ignoring the single most important part every time. So your argument is literally "the most important issue to me is X and anyone who supports that is by definition centrist"? Do you even understand what the left/right paradigm refers to? Do you know what "moderate" means in this discussion? It isn't with reference to some abstract ideal you made up. It is relative to the electorate. So the point you're making is that Americans are so right wing that Trump can be perceived as a moderate in that context? I'm not even disagreeing on this one, just clarifying if that's what you meant. I'm saying that Trump took the side of the majority on most of the hot button topics of the election, while Harris was defending the record of an administration that was deeply unpopular, in large part due to the predictable results of certain policy choices. Trump had been president once before, calling him a fascist didn't work on anyone who did not already believe it. This is similar to a point I made during the election season. If dems really believed he was a fascist, they needed to reach out to people in the middle, at least. Instead, they basically had the attitude that "Trump is bad so you have to vote for us" but they didn't really make a good case. It was not believable. The things people liked the least about Republican policies of the Romney-Ryan era Trump abandoned while emphasizing the things people do like. GH is right insofar as he recognizes that I have tried to make the "if the shoe was on the other foot" argument for years now, but it falls on deaf ears even when the shoe has been swapped. Ok, I understand what you are saying. Moderate = position with most support. In that specific framing, then yes, Trump may be seen as "moderate" as he reflects the broader American population. And as you correctly identified, that's because America is pretty right wing on average, so that would track. It is an odd argument to make though. If America elected Bernie Sanders on what you'd consider lefty policies as president, then the same argument would yield that Bernie is a moderate since being elected president is the hardest proof you could produce that his policies enjoy the most support. While you're here, I would like to get your take on this hbr.org: (they didn't include the data in the post so I haven't been able to check how accurate it is, but let's say it's not miles off for the point of the discussion). Basically, what they're saying is that your high tech worker pipeline on which America depends for its prosperity is weakening. These are their findings: Some striking differences emerged. When we first asked students and postdocs how likely they were to stay in the United States, 93% said they thought they would. When we asked again six months later, 72% said they thought they would—a drop of 21 points in just half a year. Similarly, the share that expected to stay in academia fell from 66% to 44%, and the share satisfied with having pursued a PhD fell from 91% to 76%. The timing of this tracks with the ICE drive to provide a hostile environment towards immigrants and the Trump administration decisions to mess with scientist funding. Many of the student and postdocs we talked to had trained as undergraduates outside the United States. That made a difference: When asked whether they intended to remain in the United States, the share of those who answered yes fell 31%, whereas the share of those trained in the United States fell by 16%. Among those trainees outside of the United States, Europeans showed the largest decline (–50 points), followed by Indians (–38), and Latin Americans (–14). That pattern fits an “outside options” story: The young scientists who face the fewest visa barriers and have the most robust alternative labor markets—as is the case for Europeans, Indians, and Latin Americans—are the most willing and able to reconsider their plans. But even among students who had trained as undergraduates in the United States, roughly one in six who had previously planned to stay was now actively considering a career abroad.
Why This Matters
There are three reasons we think the academic talent market is an accurate early warning system for the industrial R&D talent market:
Universities and companies draw from the same talent pool. Basically, people doing a scientific career today are your deep tech workers of tomorrow. The fact that these people no longer see America as a good place for them to live has downstream consequences. For example, the article makes this point: The United States built much of its scientific preeminence by attracting researchers from abroad. For firms whose competitive position depends even partly on the U.S. system continuing to train and retain world-class scientists, the question is no longer whether to plan for a different talent landscape. The question is how quickly. A 21-point shift in stated intent is not yet a 21-point shift in headcount. But by the time it is, the planning horizon will have closed. They are predicting a labour shortage as a result of the policies pushed by this administration. I've already told you before that while I agree with the broad goals of the administration I don't like the meat cleaver way they went at it. At the same time, there is still a lot of money to be made in the US so that will keep a decent pipeline at least. See part of why I want a sane Dem party is because people who are "less moderate" can still win. People vote for all sorts of reasons. So I'd rather not have more radical opponents because they might win! And they might view that win as a mandate to do whatever they want! Both Biden and Trump I think have made that mistake. Frustration with the last guy is not carte blanche. What I said was that Trump was closer to the middle than Dems were. I don't want to reduce "the moderate normally wins" to a truism. We've had more conservative and more progressive presidents. Again I would just look at the examples I gave. On all those issues Trump was closer to the center. I am a conservative, I want more right-leaning candidates to win. But I also don't have this belief that there is a silent majority out there just waiting for a true believer of my exact politics. I am closer to most Americans in immigration than most Democrats are, and further to the right than most people in general on reforming social spending. And part of this is because so much of politics is, as the kids say, a vibe. But I still say if one was trying to defeat a fascist they would soften they policy stances to try and prevent said fascist from winning. That might be the most stark example of being a "moderate." Yes, you did say that you didn't like how they were doing it but agreed that it had to be done nonetheless. The reason I am raising this is not just the how, but the direction of travel. Hardening policies against immigration, even if we don't go full Trumpian ICE dystopia, necessarily involves making it more hostile towards immigrants. You may be targeting the lower immigration tier but all immigrants feel the hostility -- take this from someone who lived in the US (and UK) as an immigrant. It makes your country less appealing to live in. That has an effect downstream. America used to be a beacon attracting the most talented people worldwide, which has propelled innovation and prosperity. In other words, those brilliant scientists were working in the US, not in their home countries. Now, they don't want to stay. What this means goes beyond missing out in terms of your work force. This highly trained, highly innovative cohort is building up competitor industries in other countries. I would argue that this is much more threatening to your industry and tech sector than missing out on a few PhD students in 5 year's time.
I don't know what more to say. The article says their results which have "not yet translated into headcount" or something like that didn't have anything to do with funding. The broad cuts in those areas is one of the main things that concerned me.
In some ways, given the culture on many campuses, probably any attempt to restore the university's relationship to the country writ large would be met with consternation. Some of the people these places host or pump out of the system will do more damage to the US long term than a reduction (for however long) of STEM PhDs. Should never have gotten to this point.
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Northern Ireland26955 Posts
On June 06 2026 12:09 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2026 07:41 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 06 2026 07:22 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 05:34 RenSC2 wrote:On June 06 2026 03:42 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 03:40 LightSpectra wrote:On June 06 2026 03:36 Introvert wrote:
Trump ran on closing the border not leaving it open. Still doggedly ignoring the single most important part every time. So your argument is literally "the most important issue to me is X and anyone who supports that is by definition centrist"? Do you even understand what the left/right paradigm refers to? Do you know what "moderate" means in this discussion? It isn't with reference to some abstract ideal you made up. It is relative to the electorate. Let's watch how quickly this argument falls apart. Is your argument that whatever is popular must be the "moderate" position? That's what your argument sounds like. Do polls matter? If so, then Abolishing ICE is the moderate position. So anyone on the streets screaming to abolish ICE is actually a moderate. People who support ICE are radicals... do you support abolishing ICE or are you a radical? I assume you're also pro-choice and accept it as the moderate position since that one consistently polls higher than pro-life. So Democrats actually have the moderate position on that one and the lack of diversity on that position is a forced moderation by the party to get in line with what's popular. So maybe polls don't matter, just elections? I would assume you now consider Mamdani to be the moderate mayor of New York, right? He won, he was the most popular, therefore (according to your logic) he must be moderate. Bernie Sanders is the moderate senator from Vermont. Do you see how quickly this line of thinking falls apart? The left-right spectrum is not about popularity. It's about looking at the range of possibilities with the moderate position falling somewhere in the middle. However, there should also be a weighting towards objective truth. If the far left says 2+2 is negative infinity and the far right says it's positive infinity, we don't just average it out and make the moderate position 0. There are some objective truths and the moderate answer to 2+2 should always be 4, no matter what's popular or what is being pushed by each side. The Overton Window is a useful tool for finding moderation, but still flawed. It expresses the range of currently acceptable policies so that some might say 2+2 = 0 and others say 2+2 = 10, but nobody seriously proposes that 2+2 = infinity. Splitting the window can direct us towards moderation, but is far from perfect. It could make the moderate position 5, which is close to 4, but still misses the mark. We can use the Overton Window as a guide, but should still point to objective truths as much as possible to find moderate positions. Real politics are much murkier and harder to find an objective truth, so I can understand your confusion about what's moderate. Should the government serve the people? Modern good governance says yes, but that wasn't always true in human history. Many Kings, Emperors, and other totalitarians through history have used the government to serve themselves. In modern times, we would not call those people moderates... but there was a time when that was normal. Trump blatantly uses the government to serve himself and his cronies at the expense of the people. I'd say that's a radical departure from what has been the moderate viewpoint for my entire lifetime. It's the reason why you can get millions of people out on the streets for "No Kings" protests. "No Kings" has been the moderate position for quite some time. Trump is trying to change that and that's a radical departure from moderate. + Show Spoiler +
The thing about stuff like ICE is that dems confuse "abolish ICE" which might poll well for a while, with the policies they are associated with e.g. basically open borders for 4 years. The American people did not stop wanting deportations or border security, the same polls showed that.
Moderate is relative, but sometimes it does slide around, thats true This is a rational application of the thinking that MAGA could be considered "left wing" under the right conditions. That Trump won the popular vote by moving some less popular Republican positions toward the "moderate" position is reasonable under that fungible framework. It's part of the reason I suggested it probably isn't really a desirable way to frame politics. Well it's like taking anything to absurdity. People like Wombat say "why do people on ask the Dems to moderate?!" and the two part answer to that is 1) a lot of internet discourse is among people on the left and 2) they don't see how Trump did. If we want to make some distinction between "he is a moderate" and "he moderated his position" then fine. And of course we could build on what dyhb said and ask if being a moderate is someone who takes positions on certain issues that are to the right and some to the left, or someone who broadly falls into the center on many issues? And no, I'm not going to answer all those lol. But I think across the examples I gave (immigration/the border, Social security, abortion, trans issues) there's no question the Democratic party is perceived as more to one side than Donald Trump is the other side, with the possible exception of trans issues. But on that he takes the 80% position so who is to say? I totally understand the discomfort with this ambiguous word "moderate" but yet it is a powerfully descriptive word in American politics and I don't think there's any doubt that in 2024 Trump was, on the whole, the "moderate" option. People focusing on his rhetoric to this day are missing that voters priced in his words a long time ago. It's hurt him, but it's a known quantity and they didn't rate it nearly as highly as their dissatisfaction with the Biden admin.
It depends what Trump, it also depends what policies.
It depends what moderate even means here, but let’s not get into the weeds on that one!
Immigration, mechanics aside, I’d concede that some kind of border/deportation enforcement is something of the moderate position.
On say trans rights, somewhere between a ban on such therapies, and enabling anyone to self-identify legally would be something of a moderate spot.
Also while head of a broad coalition that does include some pretty restrictive views, I think it’s fair to say 2016 Trump, pretty moderate on various social issues.
There is however a whole bunch of things I’d argue are more moderate (and poll with good support) on various Dem tickets as well. It feels you’re picking some valid examples of the inverse, but perhaps neglecting others.
To go back to why I don’t think Dems should pivot hard moderate (specifically in a Presidential election), is alienating some existing strong pillars of support, without compensating sufficiently elsewhere. Additionally full disclosure, personal preference as well!
Who is left to grab? What do you drop or alter in your platform to grab somebody who might have voted Trump 3 times, what’s the carrot you can offer that won’t alienate your own existing base?
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Northern Ireland26955 Posts
On June 06 2026 22:05 Razyda wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2026 05:01 Geiko wrote:For these types of questions that debatelords want to argue, you just need to ask any LLM to get the answer. Americans are so far gone they couldn't even agree on the answer for "what color is the sky?" It seems... + Show Spoiler +If by "moderate" you mean **closer to the political center of U.S. public opinion**, most political scientists and major media analyses in the 2024 election cycle would generally place **Kamala Harris's campaign closer to the center than Donald Trump's campaign**. However, the answer depends on what you mean by "moderate": * **Economic policy * Harris proposed some progressive policies but campaigned more as a mainstream Democrat than as a left-wing reformer. Trump supported tariffs, stricter immigration policies, and a more nationalist economic agenda, which many analysts viewed as departures from traditional center-right positions. * **Immigration * Trump's campaign advocated measures such as large-scale deportations and stronger restrictions, positions generally considered further from the political center than Harris's. * **Social issues * Harris largely aligned with mainstream Democratic positions on abortion rights, LGBTQ rights, and civil rights. Trump aligned with conservative Republican positions and emphasized cultural issues that appealed strongly to his base. * **Foreign policy * Both candidates departed from older bipartisan consensus in different ways. Trump's "America First" approach is often described as more populist and less traditionally centrist than Harris's more conventional alliance-focused approach. That said, moderation can also be measured **relative to each party**: * Within the Democratic Party, Harris was often viewed as somewhat more moderate than the party's progressive wing. * Within the Republican Party, Trump largely defined the party's direction rather than occupying a moderate faction within it. Political scientists who use ideological scoring systems typically place Kamala Harris to the left of center and Donald Trump to the right of center, but generally find Trump further from the center than Harris, making Harris's 2024 campaign the more moderate of the two by that definition. If you're interested, I can also compare them issue-by-issue (economy, immigration, foreign policy, social issues) and identify where each was closer to the median American voter. Since you brough LLM into this: https://share.google/aimode/cOhyn0MBtZT6QGEBMwas trump or kamala more moderate candidate "Donald Trump was widely perceived by voters as the more moderate candidate during the 2024 presidential election campaign. While political analysts often debated both candidates' positions, public opinion polling consistently showed that a larger portion of the electorate viewed Kamala Harris as ideologically extreme relative to her party compared to Trump."
‘Relative to the party’ is quite an important part of that summation
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On June 06 2026 07:22 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2026 05:34 RenSC2 wrote:On June 06 2026 03:42 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 03:40 LightSpectra wrote:On June 06 2026 03:36 Introvert wrote:
Trump ran on closing the border not leaving it open. Still doggedly ignoring the single most important part every time. So your argument is literally "the most important issue to me is X and anyone who supports that is by definition centrist"? Do you even understand what the left/right paradigm refers to? Do you know what "moderate" means in this discussion? It isn't with reference to some abstract ideal you made up. It is relative to the electorate. Let's watch how quickly this argument falls apart. Is your argument that whatever is popular must be the "moderate" position? That's what your argument sounds like. Do polls matter? If so, then Abolishing ICE is the moderate position. So anyone on the streets screaming to abolish ICE is actually a moderate. People who support ICE are radicals... do you support abolishing ICE or are you a radical? I assume you're also pro-choice and accept it as the moderate position since that one consistently polls higher than pro-life. So Democrats actually have the moderate position on that one and the lack of diversity on that position is a forced moderation by the party to get in line with what's popular. So maybe polls don't matter, just elections? I would assume you now consider Mamdani to be the moderate mayor of New York, right? He won, he was the most popular, therefore (according to your logic) he must be moderate. Bernie Sanders is the moderate senator from Vermont. Do you see how quickly this line of thinking falls apart? The left-right spectrum is not about popularity. It's about looking at the range of possibilities with the moderate position falling somewhere in the middle. However, there should also be a weighting towards objective truth. If the far left says 2+2 is negative infinity and the far right says it's positive infinity, we don't just average it out and make the moderate position 0. There are some objective truths and the moderate answer to 2+2 should always be 4, no matter what's popular or what is being pushed by each side. The Overton Window is a useful tool for finding moderation, but still flawed. It expresses the range of currently acceptable policies so that some might say 2+2 = 0 and others say 2+2 = 10, but nobody seriously proposes that 2+2 = infinity. Splitting the window can direct us towards moderation, but is far from perfect. It could make the moderate position 5, which is close to 4, but still misses the mark. We can use the Overton Window as a guide, but should still point to objective truths as much as possible to find moderate positions. Real politics are much murkier and harder to find an objective truth, so I can understand your confusion about what's moderate. Should the government serve the people? Modern good governance says yes, but that wasn't always true in human history. Many Kings, Emperors, and other totalitarians through history have used the government to serve themselves. In modern times, we would not call those people moderates... but there was a time when that was normal. Trump blatantly uses the government to serve himself and his cronies at the expense of the people. I'd say that's a radical departure from what has been the moderate viewpoint for my entire lifetime. It's the reason why you can get millions of people out on the streets for "No Kings" protests. "No Kings" has been the moderate position for quite some time. Trump is trying to change that and that's a radical departure from moderate. The thing about stuff like ICE is that dems confuse "abolish ICE" which might poll well for a while, with the policies they are associated with e.g. basically open borders for 4 years.
Rogue paramilitary or open borders. There is no middle ground.
"moderate" lol
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On June 06 2026 23:54 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2026 21:41 Billyboy wrote:On June 06 2026 14:13 oBlade wrote:On June 06 2026 13:23 Billyboy wrote:
The basic question was how bad would the other person have to be for you to flip your vote. And your position is basically the Dems would do it for their Trump too. You treat your hypothetical like proof.
And I’m far from the only one who thinks the Republicans dramatically lost their way when they let this imbecile take full reigns with no adults left to keep him even a little contained. What adults should the President of the United States report to? CIA? He should be responsible to all US citizens. Of course he should. That's what the election thing is for. Republicans did not "let" him "take full reigns." He won. Officials of an unelected Party don't have a role in, say, taming? controlling? containing? someone you don't like while getting out of the way of someone you do like. That'd be its own tyranny. Show nested quote +On June 06 2026 21:41 Billyboy wrote:
And there are meant to be checks and balances within the government. I get that you want a fake strongman controlling you and making petty attacks at his perceived enemies, but that’s not how it was intended. He gets rid of everyone with a backbone and you bend over and ask for it harder daddy. Just waiting for your new opinion to get told to you. There are checks and balances within the government. They go in many directions. The checks and balances are not "let's make a president and then the system failed if other people can't stop him from doing everything Billyboy (a Canadian citizen?) doesn't like. You are confusing not getting your way with the system being broken. Checks and balances and automatically override everything you don't like are not the same. Since his 2nd term he's lost at SCOTUS on tariffs, had to take the National Guard out of Chicago, can't enforce birthright citizenship EO, can't get SAVE Act passed, just lost Anti-Weaponization fund. In fact it was the Republican-appointed justices on SCOTUS who overturned Chevron deference in 2024 which then curtailed the power of the entire executive branch. "But oBlade what about all the other st-" Yes, there's stuff the President has done and is doing that nobody is going to stop him on. Because whether you accept it as legitimate or not, he's the President and you aren't. Build a bridge and get over it. Or if you know how to build bridges, go to Baltimore and help them out, they need $5 billion and 5 years to replace the one that collapsed. The rest of your post is par for what I'd expect from someone at your level of being informed. Show nested quote +On June 06 2026 16:57 EnDeR_ wrote:On June 06 2026 15:20 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 14:24 EnDeR_ wrote:On June 06 2026 07:18 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 04:04 EnDeR_ wrote:On June 06 2026 03:42 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 03:40 LightSpectra wrote:On June 06 2026 03:36 Introvert wrote:
Trump ran on closing the border not leaving it open. Still doggedly ignoring the single most important part every time. So your argument is literally "the most important issue to me is X and anyone who supports that is by definition centrist"? Do you even understand what the left/right paradigm refers to? Do you know what "moderate" means in this discussion? It isn't with reference to some abstract ideal you made up. It is relative to the electorate. So the point you're making is that Americans are so right wing that Trump can be perceived as a moderate in that context? I'm not even disagreeing on this one, just clarifying if that's what you meant. I'm saying that Trump took the side of the majority on most of the hot button topics of the election, while Harris was defending the record of an administration that was deeply unpopular, in large part due to the predictable results of certain policy choices. Trump had been president once before, calling him a fascist didn't work on anyone who did not already believe it. This is similar to a point I made during the election season. If dems really believed he was a fascist, they needed to reach out to people in the middle, at least. Instead, they basically had the attitude that "Trump is bad so you have to vote for us" but they didn't really make a good case. It was not believable. The things people liked the least about Republican policies of the Romney-Ryan era Trump abandoned while emphasizing the things people do like. GH is right insofar as he recognizes that I have tried to make the "if the shoe was on the other foot" argument for years now, but it falls on deaf ears even when the shoe has been swapped. Ok, I understand what you are saying. Moderate = position with most support. In that specific framing, then yes, Trump may be seen as "moderate" as he reflects the broader American population. And as you correctly identified, that's because America is pretty right wing on average, so that would track. It is an odd argument to make though. If America elected Bernie Sanders on what you'd consider lefty policies as president, then the same argument would yield that Bernie is a moderate since being elected president is the hardest proof you could produce that his policies enjoy the most support. While you're here, I would like to get your take on this hbr.org: (they didn't include the data in the post so I haven't been able to check how accurate it is, but let's say it's not miles off for the point of the discussion). Basically, what they're saying is that your high tech worker pipeline on which America depends for its prosperity is weakening. These are their findings: Some striking differences emerged. When we first asked students and postdocs how likely they were to stay in the United States, 93% said they thought they would. When we asked again six months later, 72% said they thought they would—a drop of 21 points in just half a year. Similarly, the share that expected to stay in academia fell from 66% to 44%, and the share satisfied with having pursued a PhD fell from 91% to 76%. The timing of this tracks with the ICE drive to provide a hostile environment towards immigrants and the Trump administration decisions to mess with scientist funding. Many of the student and postdocs we talked to had trained as undergraduates outside the United States. That made a difference: When asked whether they intended to remain in the United States, the share of those who answered yes fell 31%, whereas the share of those trained in the United States fell by 16%. Among those trainees outside of the United States, Europeans showed the largest decline (–50 points), followed by Indians (–38), and Latin Americans (–14). That pattern fits an “outside options” story: The young scientists who face the fewest visa barriers and have the most robust alternative labor markets—as is the case for Europeans, Indians, and Latin Americans—are the most willing and able to reconsider their plans. But even among students who had trained as undergraduates in the United States, roughly one in six who had previously planned to stay was now actively considering a career abroad.
Why This Matters
There are three reasons we think the academic talent market is an accurate early warning system for the industrial R&D talent market:
Universities and companies draw from the same talent pool. Basically, people doing a scientific career today are your deep tech workers of tomorrow. The fact that these people no longer see America as a good place for them to live has downstream consequences. For example, the article makes this point: The United States built much of its scientific preeminence by attracting researchers from abroad. For firms whose competitive position depends even partly on the U.S. system continuing to train and retain world-class scientists, the question is no longer whether to plan for a different talent landscape. The question is how quickly. A 21-point shift in stated intent is not yet a 21-point shift in headcount. But by the time it is, the planning horizon will have closed. They are predicting a labour shortage as a result of the policies pushed by this administration. I've already told you before that while I agree with the broad goals of the administration I don't like the meat cleaver way they went at it. At the same time, there is still a lot of money to be made in the US so that will keep a decent pipeline at least. See part of why I want a sane Dem party is because people who are "less moderate" can still win. People vote for all sorts of reasons. So I'd rather not have more radical opponents because they might win! And they might view that win as a mandate to do whatever they want! Both Biden and Trump I think have made that mistake. Frustration with the last guy is not carte blanche. What I said was that Trump was closer to the middle than Dems were. I don't want to reduce "the moderate normally wins" to a truism. We've had more conservative and more progressive presidents. Again I would just look at the examples I gave. On all those issues Trump was closer to the center. I am a conservative, I want more right-leaning candidates to win. But I also don't have this belief that there is a silent majority out there just waiting for a true believer of my exact politics. I am closer to most Americans in immigration than most Democrats are, and further to the right than most people in general on reforming social spending. And part of this is because so much of politics is, as the kids say, a vibe. But I still say if one was trying to defeat a fascist they would soften they policy stances to try and prevent said fascist from winning. That might be the most stark example of being a "moderate." Yes, you did say that you didn't like how they were doing it but agreed that it had to be done nonetheless. The reason I am raising this is not just the how, but the direction of travel. Hardening policies against immigration, even if we don't go full Trumpian ICE dystopia, necessarily involves making it more hostile towards immigrants. You may be targeting the lower immigration tier but all immigrants feel the hostility -- take this from someone who lived in the US (and UK) as an immigrant. It makes your country less appealing to live in. That has an effect downstream. America used to be a beacon attracting the most talented people worldwide, which has propelled innovation and prosperity. In other words, those brilliant scientists were working in the US, not in their home countries. Now, they don't want to stay. What this means goes beyond missing out in terms of your work force. This highly trained, highly innovative cohort is building up competitor industries in other countries. I would argue that this is much more threatening to your industry and tech sector than missing out on a few PhD students in 5 year's time. US can lose appeal relative to itself without long term harm. The supply of people who want to go, including skilled, is greater than the demand. Not because of whether the US is more or less "appealing" than in 2022. Because its appeal outweighs competitors. It's generally appealing relative to communist China or other destinations. To the extent it isn't, that is the exact margin of people that the US can not only afford to lose, but should actively lose. So far the administration has put fees on H1B to make sure it's more expensive than hiring an American so you're not going to hire someone else unless out of REAL necessity and not corporatist convenience. And they have actually started enforcing H1B rules like actually having to look for American workers, not just having fake impossible to find non-applyable job listings, having the jobs be actual professional jobs and not bodega franchises (this is called Project Firewall at DOL). If people don't like that, yeah they don't need to pursue their education/career/life in the US. For example, one in six previously planning to stay undergraduates now looking at other options? Good for them! US doesn't need every undergraduate to stay. Undergraduates are not a particularly valuable form of human capital. The fact of so many undergraduates coming to begin with has made elite institutions cater to them because they are a lucrative extra market of payers of full tuition which inverts the incentive structure of who American universities are supposed to benefit first (Americans). The fact of people getting an "ick" over US immigration policies that don't even apply to them, and not immigrating to the US over it is not a negative side effect of harsher enforcement. You want them to come to that realization, so the more appreciative take their place instead.
Yes he did, and is actively primaring anyone with a spine. Republican Party is no longer conservative its populist slop from Trumps feeble brain. And no matter how dum his shit is, his loyalists (only important characteristic to be part of the admin).
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United States44038 Posts
You can tell if a system is broken by looking at it. Insisting that it is functioning within a set of rules (and in this case that's actually also a lie) and therefore cannot be broken is the kind of argument only oblade would make.
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On June 07 2026 00:15 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2026 07:22 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 05:34 RenSC2 wrote:On June 06 2026 03:42 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 03:40 LightSpectra wrote:On June 06 2026 03:36 Introvert wrote:
Trump ran on closing the border not leaving it open. Still doggedly ignoring the single most important part every time. So your argument is literally "the most important issue to me is X and anyone who supports that is by definition centrist"? Do you even understand what the left/right paradigm refers to? Do you know what "moderate" means in this discussion? It isn't with reference to some abstract ideal you made up. It is relative to the electorate. Let's watch how quickly this argument falls apart. Is your argument that whatever is popular must be the "moderate" position? That's what your argument sounds like. Do polls matter? If so, then Abolishing ICE is the moderate position. So anyone on the streets screaming to abolish ICE is actually a moderate. People who support ICE are radicals... do you support abolishing ICE or are you a radical? I assume you're also pro-choice and accept it as the moderate position since that one consistently polls higher than pro-life. So Democrats actually have the moderate position on that one and the lack of diversity on that position is a forced moderation by the party to get in line with what's popular. So maybe polls don't matter, just elections? I would assume you now consider Mamdani to be the moderate mayor of New York, right? He won, he was the most popular, therefore (according to your logic) he must be moderate. Bernie Sanders is the moderate senator from Vermont. Do you see how quickly this line of thinking falls apart? The left-right spectrum is not about popularity. It's about looking at the range of possibilities with the moderate position falling somewhere in the middle. However, there should also be a weighting towards objective truth. If the far left says 2+2 is negative infinity and the far right says it's positive infinity, we don't just average it out and make the moderate position 0. There are some objective truths and the moderate answer to 2+2 should always be 4, no matter what's popular or what is being pushed by each side. The Overton Window is a useful tool for finding moderation, but still flawed. It expresses the range of currently acceptable policies so that some might say 2+2 = 0 and others say 2+2 = 10, but nobody seriously proposes that 2+2 = infinity. Splitting the window can direct us towards moderation, but is far from perfect. It could make the moderate position 5, which is close to 4, but still misses the mark. We can use the Overton Window as a guide, but should still point to objective truths as much as possible to find moderate positions. Real politics are much murkier and harder to find an objective truth, so I can understand your confusion about what's moderate. Should the government serve the people? Modern good governance says yes, but that wasn't always true in human history. Many Kings, Emperors, and other totalitarians through history have used the government to serve themselves. In modern times, we would not call those people moderates... but there was a time when that was normal. Trump blatantly uses the government to serve himself and his cronies at the expense of the people. I'd say that's a radical departure from what has been the moderate viewpoint for my entire lifetime. It's the reason why you can get millions of people out on the streets for "No Kings" protests. "No Kings" has been the moderate position for quite some time. Trump is trying to change that and that's a radical departure from moderate. The thing about stuff like ICE is that dems confuse "abolish ICE" which might poll well for a while, with the policies they are associated with e.g. basically open borders for 4 years. Rogue paramilitary or open borders. There is no middle ground. "moderate" lol
"Rogue" how? ICE was 1) established by law and funded by Congress, and 2) follows the chain of command obeying director Todd Lyons, then, DHS Sec Mullin, then the commander-in-chief. "Rogue" is nowhere in the equation but admitting open borders is a good concession.
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United States44038 Posts
"I challenge anyone on TL to name a single paramilitary organization that had a chain of command that also went rogue. No organization with a chain of command has ever gone rogue. It simply doesn't happen."
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On June 06 2026 23:55 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2026 16:57 EnDeR_ wrote:On June 06 2026 15:20 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 14:24 EnDeR_ wrote:On June 06 2026 07:18 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 04:04 EnDeR_ wrote:On June 06 2026 03:42 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 03:40 LightSpectra wrote:On June 06 2026 03:36 Introvert wrote:
Trump ran on closing the border not leaving it open. Still doggedly ignoring the single most important part every time. So your argument is literally "the most important issue to me is X and anyone who supports that is by definition centrist"? Do you even understand what the left/right paradigm refers to? Do you know what "moderate" means in this discussion? It isn't with reference to some abstract ideal you made up. It is relative to the electorate. So the point you're making is that Americans are so right wing that Trump can be perceived as a moderate in that context? I'm not even disagreeing on this one, just clarifying if that's what you meant. I'm saying that Trump took the side of the majority on most of the hot button topics of the election, while Harris was defending the record of an administration that was deeply unpopular, in large part due to the predictable results of certain policy choices. Trump had been president once before, calling him a fascist didn't work on anyone who did not already believe it. This is similar to a point I made during the election season. If dems really believed he was a fascist, they needed to reach out to people in the middle, at least. Instead, they basically had the attitude that "Trump is bad so you have to vote for us" but they didn't really make a good case. It was not believable. The things people liked the least about Republican policies of the Romney-Ryan era Trump abandoned while emphasizing the things people do like. GH is right insofar as he recognizes that I have tried to make the "if the shoe was on the other foot" argument for years now, but it falls on deaf ears even when the shoe has been swapped. Ok, I understand what you are saying. Moderate = position with most support. In that specific framing, then yes, Trump may be seen as "moderate" as he reflects the broader American population. And as you correctly identified, that's because America is pretty right wing on average, so that would track. It is an odd argument to make though. If America elected Bernie Sanders on what you'd consider lefty policies as president, then the same argument would yield that Bernie is a moderate since being elected president is the hardest proof you could produce that his policies enjoy the most support. While you're here, I would like to get your take on this hbr.org: (they didn't include the data in the post so I haven't been able to check how accurate it is, but let's say it's not miles off for the point of the discussion). Basically, what they're saying is that your high tech worker pipeline on which America depends for its prosperity is weakening. These are their findings: Some striking differences emerged. When we first asked students and postdocs how likely they were to stay in the United States, 93% said they thought they would. When we asked again six months later, 72% said they thought they would—a drop of 21 points in just half a year. Similarly, the share that expected to stay in academia fell from 66% to 44%, and the share satisfied with having pursued a PhD fell from 91% to 76%. The timing of this tracks with the ICE drive to provide a hostile environment towards immigrants and the Trump administration decisions to mess with scientist funding. Many of the student and postdocs we talked to had trained as undergraduates outside the United States. That made a difference: When asked whether they intended to remain in the United States, the share of those who answered yes fell 31%, whereas the share of those trained in the United States fell by 16%. Among those trainees outside of the United States, Europeans showed the largest decline (–50 points), followed by Indians (–38), and Latin Americans (–14). That pattern fits an “outside options” story: The young scientists who face the fewest visa barriers and have the most robust alternative labor markets—as is the case for Europeans, Indians, and Latin Americans—are the most willing and able to reconsider their plans. But even among students who had trained as undergraduates in the United States, roughly one in six who had previously planned to stay was now actively considering a career abroad.
Why This Matters
There are three reasons we think the academic talent market is an accurate early warning system for the industrial R&D talent market:
Universities and companies draw from the same talent pool. Basically, people doing a scientific career today are your deep tech workers of tomorrow. The fact that these people no longer see America as a good place for them to live has downstream consequences. For example, the article makes this point: The United States built much of its scientific preeminence by attracting researchers from abroad. For firms whose competitive position depends even partly on the U.S. system continuing to train and retain world-class scientists, the question is no longer whether to plan for a different talent landscape. The question is how quickly. A 21-point shift in stated intent is not yet a 21-point shift in headcount. But by the time it is, the planning horizon will have closed. They are predicting a labour shortage as a result of the policies pushed by this administration. I've already told you before that while I agree with the broad goals of the administration I don't like the meat cleaver way they went at it. At the same time, there is still a lot of money to be made in the US so that will keep a decent pipeline at least. See part of why I want a sane Dem party is because people who are "less moderate" can still win. People vote for all sorts of reasons. So I'd rather not have more radical opponents because they might win! And they might view that win as a mandate to do whatever they want! Both Biden and Trump I think have made that mistake. Frustration with the last guy is not carte blanche. What I said was that Trump was closer to the middle than Dems were. I don't want to reduce "the moderate normally wins" to a truism. We've had more conservative and more progressive presidents. Again I would just look at the examples I gave. On all those issues Trump was closer to the center. I am a conservative, I want more right-leaning candidates to win. But I also don't have this belief that there is a silent majority out there just waiting for a true believer of my exact politics. I am closer to most Americans in immigration than most Democrats are, and further to the right than most people in general on reforming social spending. And part of this is because so much of politics is, as the kids say, a vibe. But I still say if one was trying to defeat a fascist they would soften they policy stances to try and prevent said fascist from winning. That might be the most stark example of being a "moderate." Yes, you did say that you didn't like how they were doing it but agreed that it had to be done nonetheless. The reason I am raising this is not just the how, but the direction of travel. Hardening policies against immigration, even if we don't go full Trumpian ICE dystopia, necessarily involves making it more hostile towards immigrants. You may be targeting the lower immigration tier but all immigrants feel the hostility -- take this from someone who lived in the US (and UK) as an immigrant. It makes your country less appealing to live in. That has an effect downstream. America used to be a beacon attracting the most talented people worldwide, which has propelled innovation and prosperity. In other words, those brilliant scientists were working in the US, not in their home countries. Now, they don't want to stay. What this means goes beyond missing out in terms of your work force. This highly trained, highly innovative cohort is building up competitor industries in other countries. I would argue that this is much more threatening to your industry and tech sector than missing out on a few PhD students in 5 year's time. I don't know what more to say. The article says their results which have "not yet translated into headcount" or something like that didn't have anything to do with funding. The broad cuts in those areas is one of the main things that concerned me. In some ways, given the culture on many campuses, probably any attempt to restore the university's relationship to the country writ large would be met with consternation. Some of the people these places host or pump out of the system will do more damage to the US long term than a reduction (for however long) of STEM PhDs. Should never have gotten to this point.
Could you elaborate on the bolded? I didn't understand the point you were making.
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On June 07 2026 00:51 KwarK wrote:
"I challenge anyone on TL to name a single paramilitary organization that had a chain of command that also went rogue. No organization with a chain of command has ever gone rogue. It simply doesn't happen."
Remember when Wagner threatened to attack Moscow and then Putin blew up Prigozhin's plane?
That's exactly like when DHS attacked DC so Trump shot Tom Homan in the head on Fifth Avenue.
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I see some World Cup footballers are being detained at airports because you Americans are so petrified of anyone with an accent.
What an absolute farce of a country America has become. A total worldwide joke.
Even Brazil managed to organize holding a World Cup and they've been at war with themselves for decades.
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On June 07 2026 00:49 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2026 00:15 LightSpectra wrote:On June 06 2026 07:22 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 05:34 RenSC2 wrote:On June 06 2026 03:42 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 03:40 LightSpectra wrote:On June 06 2026 03:36 Introvert wrote:
Trump ran on closing the border not leaving it open. Still doggedly ignoring the single most important part every time. So your argument is literally "the most important issue to me is X and anyone who supports that is by definition centrist"? Do you even understand what the left/right paradigm refers to? Do you know what "moderate" means in this discussion? It isn't with reference to some abstract ideal you made up. It is relative to the electorate. Let's watch how quickly this argument falls apart. Is your argument that whatever is popular must be the "moderate" position? That's what your argument sounds like. Do polls matter? If so, then Abolishing ICE is the moderate position. So anyone on the streets screaming to abolish ICE is actually a moderate. People who support ICE are radicals... do you support abolishing ICE or are you a radical? I assume you're also pro-choice and accept it as the moderate position since that one consistently polls higher than pro-life. So Democrats actually have the moderate position on that one and the lack of diversity on that position is a forced moderation by the party to get in line with what's popular. So maybe polls don't matter, just elections? I would assume you now consider Mamdani to be the moderate mayor of New York, right? He won, he was the most popular, therefore (according to your logic) he must be moderate. Bernie Sanders is the moderate senator from Vermont. Do you see how quickly this line of thinking falls apart? The left-right spectrum is not about popularity. It's about looking at the range of possibilities with the moderate position falling somewhere in the middle. However, there should also be a weighting towards objective truth. If the far left says 2+2 is negative infinity and the far right says it's positive infinity, we don't just average it out and make the moderate position 0. There are some objective truths and the moderate answer to 2+2 should always be 4, no matter what's popular or what is being pushed by each side. The Overton Window is a useful tool for finding moderation, but still flawed. It expresses the range of currently acceptable policies so that some might say 2+2 = 0 and others say 2+2 = 10, but nobody seriously proposes that 2+2 = infinity. Splitting the window can direct us towards moderation, but is far from perfect. It could make the moderate position 5, which is close to 4, but still misses the mark. We can use the Overton Window as a guide, but should still point to objective truths as much as possible to find moderate positions. Real politics are much murkier and harder to find an objective truth, so I can understand your confusion about what's moderate. Should the government serve the people? Modern good governance says yes, but that wasn't always true in human history. Many Kings, Emperors, and other totalitarians through history have used the government to serve themselves. In modern times, we would not call those people moderates... but there was a time when that was normal. Trump blatantly uses the government to serve himself and his cronies at the expense of the people. I'd say that's a radical departure from what has been the moderate viewpoint for my entire lifetime. It's the reason why you can get millions of people out on the streets for "No Kings" protests. "No Kings" has been the moderate position for quite some time. Trump is trying to change that and that's a radical departure from moderate. The thing about stuff like ICE is that dems confuse "abolish ICE" which might poll well for a while, with the policies they are associated with e.g. basically open borders for 4 years. Rogue paramilitary or open borders. There is no middle ground. "moderate" lol "Rogue" how? ICE was 1) established by law and funded by Congress, and 2) follows the chain of command obeying director Todd Lyons, then, DHS Sec Mullin, then the commander-in-chief. "Rogue" is nowhere in the equation but admitting open borders is a good concession.
Might not be doing so hot if you have to pretend to not know what the judiciary branch or Bill of Rights are.
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On June 07 2026 00:13 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2026 12:09 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 07:41 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 06 2026 07:22 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 05:34 RenSC2 wrote:On June 06 2026 03:42 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 03:40 LightSpectra wrote:On June 06 2026 03:36 Introvert wrote:
Trump ran on closing the border not leaving it open. Still doggedly ignoring the single most important part every time. So your argument is literally "the most important issue to me is X and anyone who supports that is by definition centrist"? Do you even understand what the left/right paradigm refers to? Do you know what "moderate" means in this discussion? It isn't with reference to some abstract ideal you made up. It is relative to the electorate. Let's watch how quickly this argument falls apart. Is your argument that whatever is popular must be the "moderate" position? That's what your argument sounds like. Do polls matter? If so, then Abolishing ICE is the moderate position. So anyone on the streets screaming to abolish ICE is actually a moderate. People who support ICE are radicals... do you support abolishing ICE or are you a radical? I assume you're also pro-choice and accept it as the moderate position since that one consistently polls higher than pro-life. So Democrats actually have the moderate position on that one and the lack of diversity on that position is a forced moderation by the party to get in line with what's popular. So maybe polls don't matter, just elections? I would assume you now consider Mamdani to be the moderate mayor of New York, right? He won, he was the most popular, therefore (according to your logic) he must be moderate. Bernie Sanders is the moderate senator from Vermont. Do you see how quickly this line of thinking falls apart? The left-right spectrum is not about popularity. It's about looking at the range of possibilities with the moderate position falling somewhere in the middle. However, there should also be a weighting towards objective truth. If the far left says 2+2 is negative infinity and the far right says it's positive infinity, we don't just average it out and make the moderate position 0. There are some objective truths and the moderate answer to 2+2 should always be 4, no matter what's popular or what is being pushed by each side. The Overton Window is a useful tool for finding moderation, but still flawed. It expresses the range of currently acceptable policies so that some might say 2+2 = 0 and others say 2+2 = 10, but nobody seriously proposes that 2+2 = infinity. Splitting the window can direct us towards moderation, but is far from perfect. It could make the moderate position 5, which is close to 4, but still misses the mark. We can use the Overton Window as a guide, but should still point to objective truths as much as possible to find moderate positions. Real politics are much murkier and harder to find an objective truth, so I can understand your confusion about what's moderate. Should the government serve the people? Modern good governance says yes, but that wasn't always true in human history. Many Kings, Emperors, and other totalitarians through history have used the government to serve themselves. In modern times, we would not call those people moderates... but there was a time when that was normal. Trump blatantly uses the government to serve himself and his cronies at the expense of the people. I'd say that's a radical departure from what has been the moderate viewpoint for my entire lifetime. It's the reason why you can get millions of people out on the streets for "No Kings" protests. "No Kings" has been the moderate position for quite some time. Trump is trying to change that and that's a radical departure from moderate. + Show Spoiler +
The thing about stuff like ICE is that dems confuse "abolish ICE" which might poll well for a while, with the policies they are associated with e.g. basically open borders for 4 years. The American people did not stop wanting deportations or border security, the same polls showed that.
Moderate is relative, but sometimes it does slide around, thats true This is a rational application of the thinking that MAGA could be considered "left wing" under the right conditions. That Trump won the popular vote by moving some less popular Republican positions toward the "moderate" position is reasonable under that fungible framework. It's part of the reason I suggested it probably isn't really a desirable way to frame politics. Well it's like taking anything to absurdity. People like Wombat say "why do people on ask the Dems to moderate?!" and the two part answer to that is 1) a lot of internet discourse is among people on the left and 2) they don't see how Trump did. If we want to make some distinction between "he is a moderate" and "he moderated his position" then fine. And of course we could build on what dyhb said and ask if being a moderate is someone who takes positions on certain issues that are to the right and some to the left, or someone who broadly falls into the center on many issues? And no, I'm not going to answer all those lol. But I think across the examples I gave (immigration/the border, Social security, abortion, trans issues) there's no question the Democratic party is perceived as more to one side than Donald Trump is the other side, with the possible exception of trans issues. But on that he takes the 80% position so who is to say? I totally understand the discomfort with this ambiguous word "moderate" but yet it is a powerfully descriptive word in American politics and I don't think there's any doubt that in 2024 Trump was, on the whole, the "moderate" option. People focusing on his rhetoric to this day are missing that voters priced in his words a long time ago. It's hurt him, but it's a known quantity and they didn't rate it nearly as highly as their dissatisfaction with the Biden admin. It depends what Trump, it also depends what policies. It depends what moderate even means here, but let’s not get into the weeds on that one! Immigration, mechanics aside, I’d concede that some kind of border/deportation enforcement is something of the moderate position. On say trans rights, somewhere between a ban on such therapies, and enabling anyone to self-identify legally would be something of a moderate spot. Also while head of a broad coalition that does include some pretty restrictive views, I think it’s fair to say 2016 Trump, pretty moderate on various social issues. There is however a whole bunch of things I’d argue are more moderate (and poll with good support) on various Dem tickets as well. It feels you’re picking some valid examples of the inverse, but perhaps neglecting others. To go back to why I don’t think Dems should pivot hard moderate (specifically in a Presidential election), is alienating some existing strong pillars of support, without compensating sufficiently elsewhere. Additionally full disclosure, personal preference as well! Who is left to grab? What do you drop or alter in your platform to grab somebody who might have voted Trump 3 times, what’s the carrot you can offer that won’t alienate your own existing base?
As I keep trying to say, if you think the guy is a fascist then what is this concern about alienating your base? Shouldn't they be "voting blue no matter who?" The behavior of the electorate, both sides of it!, casts doubt on your position. Why do you need a 3x Trump voter? All Kamala needed was to do a better job retaining Biden 2020 voters. You are arguing against this premise by trying to pull from the ends because you've presumed there is no middle.
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On June 07 2026 01:45 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2026 23:55 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 16:57 EnDeR_ wrote:On June 06 2026 15:20 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 14:24 EnDeR_ wrote:On June 06 2026 07:18 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 04:04 EnDeR_ wrote:On June 06 2026 03:42 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 03:40 LightSpectra wrote:On June 06 2026 03:36 Introvert wrote:
Trump ran on closing the border not leaving it open. Still doggedly ignoring the single most important part every time. So your argument is literally "the most important issue to me is X and anyone who supports that is by definition centrist"? Do you even understand what the left/right paradigm refers to? Do you know what "moderate" means in this discussion? It isn't with reference to some abstract ideal you made up. It is relative to the electorate. So the point you're making is that Americans are so right wing that Trump can be perceived as a moderate in that context? I'm not even disagreeing on this one, just clarifying if that's what you meant. I'm saying that Trump took the side of the majority on most of the hot button topics of the election, while Harris was defending the record of an administration that was deeply unpopular, in large part due to the predictable results of certain policy choices. Trump had been president once before, calling him a fascist didn't work on anyone who did not already believe it. This is similar to a point I made during the election season. If dems really believed he was a fascist, they needed to reach out to people in the middle, at least. Instead, they basically had the attitude that "Trump is bad so you have to vote for us" but they didn't really make a good case. It was not believable. The things people liked the least about Republican policies of the Romney-Ryan era Trump abandoned while emphasizing the things people do like. GH is right insofar as he recognizes that I have tried to make the "if the shoe was on the other foot" argument for years now, but it falls on deaf ears even when the shoe has been swapped. Ok, I understand what you are saying. Moderate = position with most support. In that specific framing, then yes, Trump may be seen as "moderate" as he reflects the broader American population. And as you correctly identified, that's because America is pretty right wing on average, so that would track. It is an odd argument to make though. If America elected Bernie Sanders on what you'd consider lefty policies as president, then the same argument would yield that Bernie is a moderate since being elected president is the hardest proof you could produce that his policies enjoy the most support. While you're here, I would like to get your take on this hbr.org: (they didn't include the data in the post so I haven't been able to check how accurate it is, but let's say it's not miles off for the point of the discussion). Basically, what they're saying is that your high tech worker pipeline on which America depends for its prosperity is weakening. These are their findings: Some striking differences emerged. When we first asked students and postdocs how likely they were to stay in the United States, 93% said they thought they would. When we asked again six months later, 72% said they thought they would—a drop of 21 points in just half a year. Similarly, the share that expected to stay in academia fell from 66% to 44%, and the share satisfied with having pursued a PhD fell from 91% to 76%. The timing of this tracks with the ICE drive to provide a hostile environment towards immigrants and the Trump administration decisions to mess with scientist funding. Many of the student and postdocs we talked to had trained as undergraduates outside the United States. That made a difference: When asked whether they intended to remain in the United States, the share of those who answered yes fell 31%, whereas the share of those trained in the United States fell by 16%. Among those trainees outside of the United States, Europeans showed the largest decline (–50 points), followed by Indians (–38), and Latin Americans (–14). That pattern fits an “outside options” story: The young scientists who face the fewest visa barriers and have the most robust alternative labor markets—as is the case for Europeans, Indians, and Latin Americans—are the most willing and able to reconsider their plans. But even among students who had trained as undergraduates in the United States, roughly one in six who had previously planned to stay was now actively considering a career abroad.
Why This Matters
There are three reasons we think the academic talent market is an accurate early warning system for the industrial R&D talent market:
Universities and companies draw from the same talent pool. Basically, people doing a scientific career today are your deep tech workers of tomorrow. The fact that these people no longer see America as a good place for them to live has downstream consequences. For example, the article makes this point: The United States built much of its scientific preeminence by attracting researchers from abroad. For firms whose competitive position depends even partly on the U.S. system continuing to train and retain world-class scientists, the question is no longer whether to plan for a different talent landscape. The question is how quickly. A 21-point shift in stated intent is not yet a 21-point shift in headcount. But by the time it is, the planning horizon will have closed. They are predicting a labour shortage as a result of the policies pushed by this administration. I've already told you before that while I agree with the broad goals of the administration I don't like the meat cleaver way they went at it. At the same time, there is still a lot of money to be made in the US so that will keep a decent pipeline at least. See part of why I want a sane Dem party is because people who are "less moderate" can still win. People vote for all sorts of reasons. So I'd rather not have more radical opponents because they might win! And they might view that win as a mandate to do whatever they want! Both Biden and Trump I think have made that mistake. Frustration with the last guy is not carte blanche. What I said was that Trump was closer to the middle than Dems were. I don't want to reduce "the moderate normally wins" to a truism. We've had more conservative and more progressive presidents. Again I would just look at the examples I gave. On all those issues Trump was closer to the center. I am a conservative, I want more right-leaning candidates to win. But I also don't have this belief that there is a silent majority out there just waiting for a true believer of my exact politics. I am closer to most Americans in immigration than most Democrats are, and further to the right than most people in general on reforming social spending. And part of this is because so much of politics is, as the kids say, a vibe. But I still say if one was trying to defeat a fascist they would soften they policy stances to try and prevent said fascist from winning. That might be the most stark example of being a "moderate." Yes, you did say that you didn't like how they were doing it but agreed that it had to be done nonetheless. The reason I am raising this is not just the how, but the direction of travel. Hardening policies against immigration, even if we don't go full Trumpian ICE dystopia, necessarily involves making it more hostile towards immigrants. You may be targeting the lower immigration tier but all immigrants feel the hostility -- take this from someone who lived in the US (and UK) as an immigrant. It makes your country less appealing to live in. That has an effect downstream. America used to be a beacon attracting the most talented people worldwide, which has propelled innovation and prosperity. In other words, those brilliant scientists were working in the US, not in their home countries. Now, they don't want to stay. What this means goes beyond missing out in terms of your work force. This highly trained, highly innovative cohort is building up competitor industries in other countries. I would argue that this is much more threatening to your industry and tech sector than missing out on a few PhD students in 5 year's time. I don't know what more to say. The article says their results which have "not yet translated into headcount" or something like that didn't have anything to do with funding. The broad cuts in those areas is one of the main things that concerned me. In some ways, given the culture on many campuses, probably any attempt to restore the university's relationship to the country writ large would be met with consternation. Some of the people these places host or pump out of the system will do more damage to the US long term than a reduction (for however long) of STEM PhDs. Should never have gotten to this point. Could you elaborate on the bolded? I didn't understand the point you were making.
I think right now our higher education system is doing great damage to this country. The scientists not so much, but the entire apparatus that exists around and alongside it is in serious need of reform. The US will suffer if the universities continue on as they are anyways.
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On June 07 2026 04:24 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2026 01:45 EnDeR_ wrote:On June 06 2026 23:55 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 16:57 EnDeR_ wrote:On June 06 2026 15:20 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 14:24 EnDeR_ wrote:On June 06 2026 07:18 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 04:04 EnDeR_ wrote:On June 06 2026 03:42 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 03:40 LightSpectra wrote:
[quote]
So your argument is literally "the most important issue to me is X and anyone who supports that is by definition centrist"? Do you even understand what the left/right paradigm refers to? Do you know what "moderate" means in this discussion? It isn't with reference to some abstract ideal you made up. It is relative to the electorate. So the point you're making is that Americans are so right wing that Trump can be perceived as a moderate in that context? I'm not even disagreeing on this one, just clarifying if that's what you meant. I'm saying that Trump took the side of the majority on most of the hot button topics of the election, while Harris was defending the record of an administration that was deeply unpopular, in large part due to the predictable results of certain policy choices. Trump had been president once before, calling him a fascist didn't work on anyone who did not already believe it. This is similar to a point I made during the election season. If dems really believed he was a fascist, they needed to reach out to people in the middle, at least. Instead, they basically had the attitude that "Trump is bad so you have to vote for us" but they didn't really make a good case. It was not believable. The things people liked the least about Republican policies of the Romney-Ryan era Trump abandoned while emphasizing the things people do like. GH is right insofar as he recognizes that I have tried to make the "if the shoe was on the other foot" argument for years now, but it falls on deaf ears even when the shoe has been swapped. Ok, I understand what you are saying. Moderate = position with most support. In that specific framing, then yes, Trump may be seen as "moderate" as he reflects the broader American population. And as you correctly identified, that's because America is pretty right wing on average, so that would track. It is an odd argument to make though. If America elected Bernie Sanders on what you'd consider lefty policies as president, then the same argument would yield that Bernie is a moderate since being elected president is the hardest proof you could produce that his policies enjoy the most support. While you're here, I would like to get your take on this hbr.org: (they didn't include the data in the post so I haven't been able to check how accurate it is, but let's say it's not miles off for the point of the discussion). Basically, what they're saying is that your high tech worker pipeline on which America depends for its prosperity is weakening. These are their findings: Some striking differences emerged. When we first asked students and postdocs how likely they were to stay in the United States, 93% said they thought they would. When we asked again six months later, 72% said they thought they would—a drop of 21 points in just half a year. Similarly, the share that expected to stay in academia fell from 66% to 44%, and the share satisfied with having pursued a PhD fell from 91% to 76%. The timing of this tracks with the ICE drive to provide a hostile environment towards immigrants and the Trump administration decisions to mess with scientist funding. Many of the student and postdocs we talked to had trained as undergraduates outside the United States. That made a difference: When asked whether they intended to remain in the United States, the share of those who answered yes fell 31%, whereas the share of those trained in the United States fell by 16%. Among those trainees outside of the United States, Europeans showed the largest decline (–50 points), followed by Indians (–38), and Latin Americans (–14). That pattern fits an “outside options” story: The young scientists who face the fewest visa barriers and have the most robust alternative labor markets—as is the case for Europeans, Indians, and Latin Americans—are the most willing and able to reconsider their plans. But even among students who had trained as undergraduates in the United States, roughly one in six who had previously planned to stay was now actively considering a career abroad.
Why This Matters
There are three reasons we think the academic talent market is an accurate early warning system for the industrial R&D talent market:
Universities and companies draw from the same talent pool. Basically, people doing a scientific career today are your deep tech workers of tomorrow. The fact that these people no longer see America as a good place for them to live has downstream consequences. For example, the article makes this point: The United States built much of its scientific preeminence by attracting researchers from abroad. For firms whose competitive position depends even partly on the U.S. system continuing to train and retain world-class scientists, the question is no longer whether to plan for a different talent landscape. The question is how quickly. A 21-point shift in stated intent is not yet a 21-point shift in headcount. But by the time it is, the planning horizon will have closed. They are predicting a labour shortage as a result of the policies pushed by this administration. I've already told you before that while I agree with the broad goals of the administration I don't like the meat cleaver way they went at it. At the same time, there is still a lot of money to be made in the US so that will keep a decent pipeline at least. See part of why I want a sane Dem party is because people who are "less moderate" can still win. People vote for all sorts of reasons. So I'd rather not have more radical opponents because they might win! And they might view that win as a mandate to do whatever they want! Both Biden and Trump I think have made that mistake. Frustration with the last guy is not carte blanche. What I said was that Trump was closer to the middle than Dems were. I don't want to reduce "the moderate normally wins" to a truism. We've had more conservative and more progressive presidents. Again I would just look at the examples I gave. On all those issues Trump was closer to the center. I am a conservative, I want more right-leaning candidates to win. But I also don't have this belief that there is a silent majority out there just waiting for a true believer of my exact politics. I am closer to most Americans in immigration than most Democrats are, and further to the right than most people in general on reforming social spending. And part of this is because so much of politics is, as the kids say, a vibe. But I still say if one was trying to defeat a fascist they would soften they policy stances to try and prevent said fascist from winning. That might be the most stark example of being a "moderate." Yes, you did say that you didn't like how they were doing it but agreed that it had to be done nonetheless. The reason I am raising this is not just the how, but the direction of travel. Hardening policies against immigration, even if we don't go full Trumpian ICE dystopia, necessarily involves making it more hostile towards immigrants. You may be targeting the lower immigration tier but all immigrants feel the hostility -- take this from someone who lived in the US (and UK) as an immigrant. It makes your country less appealing to live in. That has an effect downstream. America used to be a beacon attracting the most talented people worldwide, which has propelled innovation and prosperity. In other words, those brilliant scientists were working in the US, not in their home countries. Now, they don't want to stay. What this means goes beyond missing out in terms of your work force. This highly trained, highly innovative cohort is building up competitor industries in other countries. I would argue that this is much more threatening to your industry and tech sector than missing out on a few PhD students in 5 year's time. I don't know what more to say. The article says their results which have "not yet translated into headcount" or something like that didn't have anything to do with funding. The broad cuts in those areas is one of the main things that concerned me. In some ways, given the culture on many campuses, probably any attempt to restore the university's relationship to the country writ large would be met with consternation. Some of the people these places host or pump out of the system will do more damage to the US long term than a reduction (for however long) of STEM PhDs. Should never have gotten to this point. Could you elaborate on the bolded? I didn't understand the point you were making. I think right now our higher education system is doing great damage to this country. The scientists not so much, but the entire apparatus that exists around and alongside it is in serious need of reform. The US will suffer if the universities continue on as they are anyways.
You must be 65+. So full of bullshit, full of spite for the younger people and their way of life. You are actually willing to destroy the world rather then let them live as they please. "Land of the free". Every day you people go lower. Its fucking amazing.
Also congrats to team liquid, from hosting the spread of fascistic propaganda, you are now culpable to whitewashing fascism as "moderate". Of course they meant median, but fascists twisting meaning of words is par for the course. How the mighty have fallen...
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On June 07 2026 04:47 Oleo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2026 04:24 Introvert wrote:On June 07 2026 01:45 EnDeR_ wrote:On June 06 2026 23:55 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 16:57 EnDeR_ wrote:On June 06 2026 15:20 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 14:24 EnDeR_ wrote:On June 06 2026 07:18 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 04:04 EnDeR_ wrote:On June 06 2026 03:42 Introvert wrote:
[quote]
Do you know what "moderate" means in this discussion? It isn't with reference to some abstract ideal you made up. It is relative to the electorate. So the point you're making is that Americans are so right wing that Trump can be perceived as a moderate in that context? I'm not even disagreeing on this one, just clarifying if that's what you meant. I'm saying that Trump took the side of the majority on most of the hot button topics of the election, while Harris was defending the record of an administration that was deeply unpopular, in large part due to the predictable results of certain policy choices. Trump had been president once before, calling him a fascist didn't work on anyone who did not already believe it. This is similar to a point I made during the election season. If dems really believed he was a fascist, they needed to reach out to people in the middle, at least. Instead, they basically had the attitude that "Trump is bad so you have to vote for us" but they didn't really make a good case. It was not believable. The things people liked the least about Republican policies of the Romney-Ryan era Trump abandoned while emphasizing the things people do like. GH is right insofar as he recognizes that I have tried to make the "if the shoe was on the other foot" argument for years now, but it falls on deaf ears even when the shoe has been swapped. Ok, I understand what you are saying. Moderate = position with most support. In that specific framing, then yes, Trump may be seen as "moderate" as he reflects the broader American population. And as you correctly identified, that's because America is pretty right wing on average, so that would track. It is an odd argument to make though. If America elected Bernie Sanders on what you'd consider lefty policies as president, then the same argument would yield that Bernie is a moderate since being elected president is the hardest proof you could produce that his policies enjoy the most support. While you're here, I would like to get your take on this hbr.org: (they didn't include the data in the post so I haven't been able to check how accurate it is, but let's say it's not miles off for the point of the discussion). Basically, what they're saying is that your high tech worker pipeline on which America depends for its prosperity is weakening. These are their findings: Some striking differences emerged. When we first asked students and postdocs how likely they were to stay in the United States, 93% said they thought they would. When we asked again six months later, 72% said they thought they would—a drop of 21 points in just half a year. Similarly, the share that expected to stay in academia fell from 66% to 44%, and the share satisfied with having pursued a PhD fell from 91% to 76%. The timing of this tracks with the ICE drive to provide a hostile environment towards immigrants and the Trump administration decisions to mess with scientist funding. Many of the student and postdocs we talked to had trained as undergraduates outside the United States. That made a difference: When asked whether they intended to remain in the United States, the share of those who answered yes fell 31%, whereas the share of those trained in the United States fell by 16%. Among those trainees outside of the United States, Europeans showed the largest decline (–50 points), followed by Indians (–38), and Latin Americans (–14). That pattern fits an “outside options” story: The young scientists who face the fewest visa barriers and have the most robust alternative labor markets—as is the case for Europeans, Indians, and Latin Americans—are the most willing and able to reconsider their plans. But even among students who had trained as undergraduates in the United States, roughly one in six who had previously planned to stay was now actively considering a career abroad.
Why This Matters
There are three reasons we think the academic talent market is an accurate early warning system for the industrial R&D talent market:
Universities and companies draw from the same talent pool. Basically, people doing a scientific career today are your deep tech workers of tomorrow. The fact that these people no longer see America as a good place for them to live has downstream consequences. For example, the article makes this point: The United States built much of its scientific preeminence by attracting researchers from abroad. For firms whose competitive position depends even partly on the U.S. system continuing to train and retain world-class scientists, the question is no longer whether to plan for a different talent landscape. The question is how quickly. A 21-point shift in stated intent is not yet a 21-point shift in headcount. But by the time it is, the planning horizon will have closed. They are predicting a labour shortage as a result of the policies pushed by this administration. I've already told you before that while I agree with the broad goals of the administration I don't like the meat cleaver way they went at it. At the same time, there is still a lot of money to be made in the US so that will keep a decent pipeline at least. See part of why I want a sane Dem party is because people who are "less moderate" can still win. People vote for all sorts of reasons. So I'd rather not have more radical opponents because they might win! And they might view that win as a mandate to do whatever they want! Both Biden and Trump I think have made that mistake. Frustration with the last guy is not carte blanche. What I said was that Trump was closer to the middle than Dems were. I don't want to reduce "the moderate normally wins" to a truism. We've had more conservative and more progressive presidents. Again I would just look at the examples I gave. On all those issues Trump was closer to the center. I am a conservative, I want more right-leaning candidates to win. But I also don't have this belief that there is a silent majority out there just waiting for a true believer of my exact politics. I am closer to most Americans in immigration than most Democrats are, and further to the right than most people in general on reforming social spending. And part of this is because so much of politics is, as the kids say, a vibe. But I still say if one was trying to defeat a fascist they would soften they policy stances to try and prevent said fascist from winning. That might be the most stark example of being a "moderate." Yes, you did say that you didn't like how they were doing it but agreed that it had to be done nonetheless. The reason I am raising this is not just the how, but the direction of travel. Hardening policies against immigration, even if we don't go full Trumpian ICE dystopia, necessarily involves making it more hostile towards immigrants. You may be targeting the lower immigration tier but all immigrants feel the hostility -- take this from someone who lived in the US (and UK) as an immigrant. It makes your country less appealing to live in. That has an effect downstream. America used to be a beacon attracting the most talented people worldwide, which has propelled innovation and prosperity. In other words, those brilliant scientists were working in the US, not in their home countries. Now, they don't want to stay. What this means goes beyond missing out in terms of your work force. This highly trained, highly innovative cohort is building up competitor industries in other countries. I would argue that this is much more threatening to your industry and tech sector than missing out on a few PhD students in 5 year's time. I don't know what more to say. The article says their results which have "not yet translated into headcount" or something like that didn't have anything to do with funding. The broad cuts in those areas is one of the main things that concerned me. In some ways, given the culture on many campuses, probably any attempt to restore the university's relationship to the country writ large would be met with consternation. Some of the people these places host or pump out of the system will do more damage to the US long term than a reduction (for however long) of STEM PhDs. Should never have gotten to this point. Could you elaborate on the bolded? I didn't understand the point you were making. I think right now our higher education system is doing great damage to this country. The scientists not so much, but the entire apparatus that exists around and alongside it is in serious need of reform. The US will suffer if the universities continue on as they are anyways. You must be 65+. So full of bullshit, full of spite for the younger people and their way of life. You are actually willing to destroy the world rather then let them live as they please. "Land of the free". Every day you people go lower. Its fucking amazing. Also congrats to team liquid, from hosting the spread of fascistic propaganda, you are now culpable to whitewashing fascism as "moderate". Of course they meant median, but fascists twisting meaning of words is par for the course. How the mighty have fallen...
Don't know if your definition of fascism is the usual one.
ICE comes pretty close to being a fascist structure. Secret police is a fascist structure. Companies that support them while funded by the state are a fascist structure.
The point is to (ideally peacefully or at least legally) opposing structures like those, when they are unaccountable.
In times of global security risks and wars, a military function will always gain precedence over the individual. It's kinda fuel to the dynamic when countries go around starting conflicts.
Kinda detecting a certain level of froth in your posts.
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United States44038 Posts
On June 07 2026 04:21 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2026 00:13 WombaT wrote:On June 06 2026 12:09 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 07:41 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 06 2026 07:22 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 05:34 RenSC2 wrote:On June 06 2026 03:42 Introvert wrote:On June 06 2026 03:40 LightSpectra wrote:On June 06 2026 03:36 Introvert wrote:
Trump ran on closing the border not leaving it open. Still doggedly ignoring the single most important part every time. So your argument is literally "the most important issue to me is X and anyone who supports that is by definition centrist"? Do you even understand what the left/right paradigm refers to? Do you know what "moderate" means in this discussion? It isn't with reference to some abstract ideal you made up. It is relative to the electorate. Let's watch how quickly this argument falls apart. Is your argument that whatever is popular must be the "moderate" position? That's what your argument sounds like. Do polls matter? If so, then Abolishing ICE is the moderate position. So anyone on the streets screaming to abolish ICE is actually a moderate. People who support ICE are radicals... do you support abolishing ICE or are you a radical? I assume you're also pro-choice and accept it as the moderate position since that one consistently polls higher than pro-life. So Democrats actually have the moderate position on that one and the lack of diversity on that position is a forced moderation by the party to get in line with what's popular. So maybe polls don't matter, just elections? I would assume you now consider Mamdani to be the moderate mayor of New York, right? He won, he was the most popular, therefore (according to your logic) he must be moderate. Bernie Sanders is the moderate senator from Vermont. Do you see how quickly this line of thinking falls apart? The left-right spectrum is not about popularity. It's about looking at the range of possibilities with the moderate position falling somewhere in the middle. However, there should also be a weighting towards objective truth. If the far left says 2+2 is negative infinity and the far right says it's positive infinity, we don't just average it out and make the moderate position 0. There are some objective truths and the moderate answer to 2+2 should always be 4, no matter what's popular or what is being pushed by each side. The Overton Window is a useful tool for finding moderation, but still flawed. It expresses the range of currently acceptable policies so that some might say 2+2 = 0 and others say 2+2 = 10, but nobody seriously proposes that 2+2 = infinity. Splitting the window can direct us towards moderation, but is far from perfect. It could make the moderate position 5, which is close to 4, but still misses the mark. We can use the Overton Window as a guide, but should still point to objective truths as much as possible to find moderate positions. Real politics are much murkier and harder to find an objective truth, so I can understand your confusion about what's moderate. Should the government serve the people? Modern good governance says yes, but that wasn't always true in human history. Many Kings, Emperors, and other totalitarians through history have used the government to serve themselves. In modern times, we would not call those people moderates... but there was a time when that was normal. Trump blatantly uses the government to serve himself and his cronies at the expense of the people. I'd say that's a radical departure from what has been the moderate viewpoint for my entire lifetime. It's the reason why you can get millions of people out on the streets for "No Kings" protests. "No Kings" has been the moderate position for quite some time. Trump is trying to change that and that's a radical departure from moderate. + Show Spoiler +
The thing about stuff like ICE is that dems confuse "abolish ICE" which might poll well for a while, with the policies they are associated with e.g. basically open borders for 4 years. The American people did not stop wanting deportations or border security, the same polls showed that.
Moderate is relative, but sometimes it does slide around, thats true This is a rational application of the thinking that MAGA could be considered "left wing" under the right conditions. That Trump won the popular vote by moving some less popular Republican positions toward the "moderate" position is reasonable under that fungible framework. It's part of the reason I suggested it probably isn't really a desirable way to frame politics. Well it's like taking anything to absurdity. People like Wombat say "why do people on ask the Dems to moderate?!" and the two part answer to that is 1) a lot of internet discourse is among people on the left and 2) they don't see how Trump did. If we want to make some distinction between "he is a moderate" and "he moderated his position" then fine. And of course we could build on what dyhb said and ask if being a moderate is someone who takes positions on certain issues that are to the right and some to the left, or someone who broadly falls into the center on many issues? And no, I'm not going to answer all those lol. But I think across the examples I gave (immigration/the border, Social security, abortion, trans issues) there's no question the Democratic party is perceived as more to one side than Donald Trump is the other side, with the possible exception of trans issues. But on that he takes the 80% position so who is to say? I totally understand the discomfort with this ambiguous word "moderate" but yet it is a powerfully descriptive word in American politics and I don't think there's any doubt that in 2024 Trump was, on the whole, the "moderate" option. People focusing on his rhetoric to this day are missing that voters priced in his words a long time ago. It's hurt him, but it's a known quantity and they didn't rate it nearly as highly as their dissatisfaction with the Biden admin. It depends what Trump, it also depends what policies. It depends what moderate even means here, but let’s not get into the weeds on that one! Immigration, mechanics aside, I’d concede that some kind of border/deportation enforcement is something of the moderate position. On say trans rights, somewhere between a ban on such therapies, and enabling anyone to self-identify legally would be something of a moderate spot. Also while head of a broad coalition that does include some pretty restrictive views, I think it’s fair to say 2016 Trump, pretty moderate on various social issues. There is however a whole bunch of things I’d argue are more moderate (and poll with good support) on various Dem tickets as well. It feels you’re picking some valid examples of the inverse, but perhaps neglecting others. To go back to why I don’t think Dems should pivot hard moderate (specifically in a Presidential election), is alienating some existing strong pillars of support, without compensating sufficiently elsewhere. Additionally full disclosure, personal preference as well! Who is left to grab? What do you drop or alter in your platform to grab somebody who might have voted Trump 3 times, what’s the carrot you can offer that won’t alienate your own existing base? As I keep trying to say, if you think the guy is a fascist then what is this concern about alienating your base? Shouldn't they be "voting blue no matter who?" The behavior of the electorate, both sides of it!, casts doubt on your position. Why do you need a 3x Trump voter? All Kamala needed was to do a better job retaining Biden 2020 voters. You are arguing against this premise by trying to pull from the ends because you've presumed there is no middle.
“If he’s a fascist then why would Americans not all vote against him. He can’t be a fascist because Americans would never support one.” is certainly some kind of take from a literal fascist American.
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