Alternative history: Ronnie runs in 1964, not 1980

Note: This and other counterfactual histories ahead are stimulated by the new bio, "Reagan: An American Journey." I will have a review soon.

Picture Ronald Reagan first giving his famous "A Time for a Decision" speech not in October 1964 as a Barry Goldwater fundraiser but a year earlier, for whatever reason, but it getting just as much attention then as in reality.

Many of the SoCal conservatives who backed Goldwater might never have jumped on that train. They would have seen Reagan right then as both more packageable and more charismatic than Goldy. As to people saying he was a political novice? One answer would be the rhetorical "So was Ike." Another would point at his Screen Actors Guild presidency and related items.

How would Reagan have fared?

In my opinion, he would have bombed even worse than Goldwater.

First, he would have made some of the same gaffes as Goldwater.

Remember, he worried that GE would fire him, years before GE Theater's ratings slid and they mutually separated, over his attacks on the TVA — attacks just like Goldwater made.

Remember, already by this time, Reagan had mentioned voluntary Social Security.

And, parallelling Goldy's "Let's lob one in the men's room of the Kremlin," just move back 20 years Reagan's open mic mic-check of "The bombing begins in 5 minutes."

And, Reagan, just like Goldy, opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

With no presidential debates, Reagan's 1980 "There you go again" to Carter would not have been heard. And, had he tried something like that, LBJ would have clobbered him over that.

Assuming he did something like his mic check or even close, LBJ would have run the Daisy commercial. He also would have run some sort of "affable doofus" commercial.

At some point he would have gotten under Reagan's skin, and a public blow-up by St. Ronald would have finished things off.

He would have lost at least as bad as Goldwater.

What if he then tried to repair things by a 1966 gubernatorial run?

Pat Brown — who should have taken him more seriously in the real world — would have been encouraged by LBJ to go for the kill in hopes of kayoing the entire California GOP. So, Reagan loses again.

That means, in 1968, he's not in competition with Nixon for the GOP nomination. He's a frustrated has-been. And American history changes a lot. He fails more than in reality in trying to get the 1976 Republican nomination. He's not even in the picture for 1980. And U.S. conservativism is forced to adapt, as Republicans and Democrats drift closer into neoliberal nuancings.

Time for another blogroll cleanup — bye, people

The biggest deletion? Since Massimo Pigliucci has gone to Patreon, which doesn't have an RSS, his old Plato's Footnote is out of the blogroll. That also said, his Patreon site is NOT going into my links list as of this time. A number of small comments issues over the past several months have become enough. That history of comments issues and related items is here. (That said, Dan Kaufman may read and comment less there, too, a silver lining.)

I'll still read him from time to time, since Patreon has email notices. But ... not gonna link him. Not right now. That may change in the future, but not now.

Beyond that, I had usually, on average, already read half or so the Friday links roundup he posted, so,  unless something new popped up, I found it less stimulating than years ago. Also — and I know that, as a blogger, it's hard to avoid this entirely — he's starting to recycle stuff. In August, he wrote his third piece in less than 18 months about what's wrong, in his estimation, with informal fallacies of classical logic.

One linked almost as long?

3 Quarks Daily had been in a bit of suspension in my mind for a few months. Posting a 15-year-old Harvard Magazine story about Egyptology is the latest in my craw of how it at times is pretentious about how it "curates" seven or eight things daily — then asks for money for this task of awesomeness, then pulls crap like that. (This is the first time I've seen anything THAT old, but I've seen stuff more than a year old before, and from my perspective on matters philosophical, I've seen more crap there — including two Alex Rosenberg pieces in less than a month. More recently, it ran with a piece claiming "lefties are dissing evolution." The piece was actually about ev psych, not evolutionary biology, which is a pseudoscience.

And, it has now blocked me from commenting there, since I voiced these complaints there. And Twitter and FB. So, it's deleted. (It was the comment I had on the ev psych piece, which was total bullshit, plus a followup comment to another commenter about the Egyptology piece, that got me blocked. At least I went out in style.)

I deleted The North Star because, while the previous incarnation of the site had great info from a leftist but not extremist POV, it's been more than 90 days since they started on a promised overhaul and the organizers still have nothing but an "about" / placeholder home page up. I'll add it back if and when the website is actually up and running.

And, I've deleted another. And done other things related to that. And that's that.

One I have added is Carl Beijer. He blogs but occasionally, but, is usually at least half as snarky as he is on Twitter. At the same time ... for someone who worked for Nader twice, but doesn't note in a blog post that the reason Dems flipped so many Republican seats is that they ran a lot of military-industrial complex or spying-snooping complex ConservaDems is a bit of an eyebrow raiser. (Maybe he thinks those people don't go against Democrats' core values; to the degree the Doinks DO have core values, I'd agree with him, but ... he doesn't spell that out.) OTOH,  I would support Beijer's idea of a more socialist Green New Deal than the Roses (or the US Green Party, I think he's right) have offered. Anyway ... he's his own person.

Related? I've added Corey Robin, who is somewhere between left-liberal and leftist. He remains more accommodating of DSA Dems than I am, and somewhat more accommodating of the "internal reform" idea, but, he certainly doesn't write blank checks.

Another add is PsyPost. It's pop psychology in reading level, but reasonably rigorous in what it reports. And very interesting

A third, which I have read for years, is John Horgan's blog at SciAm.

A fourth is Schneier on Security, who covers all sorts of cybersecurity issues.

A fifth is Smokey the Cat, a Twitter friend and yinzer who is in my general neck of the world politically and has started into the blog world.

A sixth is Bosque Bill. It's not entirely about New Mexico, and it's not entirely about nature, but it's primarily pretty much about one or the other of those.

A seventh addition is connected to the last deletion.

Otherwise, I in general don't keep a long, large blogroll. Seriously, who has time to track 50 or more different ones? Especially if they're all ones about politics? (You'll notice that's not the case with mine.)

Texas Progressives talk Betomania and the Texas Lege

The Texas Progressive Alliance hopes all its readers have a safe and sane run-up to Christmas as it presents this week’s roundup.

Off the Kuff looked at how statewide candidates performed in Harris County.

SocraticGadfly takes a skeptical look at the Betomania 2020 Kool-Aid.

(David Bruce Collilns takes his own piñata whacks at both Beto and centrist Democrats.)

Texas Leftist notes the worries of the Texas Vietnamese community in the wake of the latest Trump administration deportation threats.

 

And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs and news sites.

The Texas Observer's Joe Nick Patoski has a long-form piece about the idea that, as nationally with the National Park Service, Texans are loving state parks to death. The Observer notes that many of the problems started after 2000, which is a political dividing point in the state, of course. (Editor’s note: A new TPWD system, which will allow reservations for parks, even down to time of entry, will only shuffle the problem around, not make it better, and it may make it worse.)

The Chron notes that many Houston-area residents are NOT sold on an Ike Dike.

A speech language pathologist has lost her job over Texas' most-certainly unconstitutional anti-BDS law; the ACLU is suing in a similar case involving an NPR station employee right here at KETR in Northeast Texas, per Mondoweiss.

The Texas Trib has a news analysis piece on school finance in the coming Lege.

At the Dallas Observer, Jim Schutze has a news analysis piece does a call-out of Julian Castro and his presidential plans, and also calls out Dallas’ old black establishment.

Texas Vox analyzes environmental bills filed so far in the Lege.

The Bloggess presents the Ninth Annual James Garfield Christmas Miracle.

Elise Hu reported on brain-machine interfaces at the University of Houston.

Swamplot has the perfect present for the Astrodome-lover in your life.

Better Texas Blog updates us on where we stand with school finance.

Dan Solomon ponders the demise of the breastaurant.

Should the Cardinals just say no to Bryce Harper?

Let's assume the final contract numbers in the Bryce Harper free agency derby are 10/$350.

Do you look at the guy with the 10-WAR year and say, yeah, we hope we get even close to that?

Or do you look at the guy with the THREE sub-2 WAR years (and only one of those due primarily to injury) and say "Too much risk factor"?

I am hoping the Cardinals, John Mozeliak and Mike Girsch do the latter.

Especially with the recent trade for Paul Goldschmidt, of which I approve, meaning the Birds have less of a need for Bryce and can focus on their pitching.

So ...

Let's compare Harper to a big contract the Cards were willing to take on in trade just 12 months ago, namely, Giancarlo Stanton, as I've already done this on Twitter in exchange with Bill James.

The 10 years left on his contract, at $285 million, are actually "just" $28.5 million AAV. (Take away his option year, and 9/$260 is approximately $29M AAV.) But, you'd pay him 10/$350 if Bryce is getting that, right? Even if Bryce is 3 years younger?

So, let's look at WAR.

Harper, seven years, 27.4 WAR is 3.9 per year. Stanton, nine years at 39.2, is 4.35 per year.

Let's throw out best and worst years of both and check that.

Harper? 16.3/5=3.26. Stanton? 27/7=3.85.

You've still got that one-half WAR per year difference.

Add in that Harper has, in the past, been valued more highly on defense than Stanton and B-Ref putting him at -3.0 on dWAR in 2018 should be of some concern.

Besides Stanton, the Cards have shown that they're not always cheapskates.

They offered Jason Heyward the highest AAV of any bidder, but lost in part (thanks for bailing us out, Cubs) due to no opt-out. They pursued David Price hard. They offered Phat Albert Pujols 8/$198 (thanks Arte for bailing us out). Just a friendly reminder on that: The Cards could still have him on the books for one more year had the Angels not stepped in.

So, Mo will pay. And overpay. IF he decides to pay.

Hey overpaid for Dexter Fowler, not taking into account how having Heyward next to him inflated his defensive stats. He had a lesser overpay for Mike Leake. He had an overpay in trade for Marcell Ozuna, rather than waiting out Derek Jeter, offering additional players, or whatever was needed, for NL MVP Christian Yelich, who, if he was in St. Louis, would mean we wouldn't be talking about Bryce Harper. And, I thought it was the wrong trade even before Yelich won the MVP, and thought it was wrong WELL before knowing Mo willingly traded for a player with a known bum shoulder. (And, Derek Goold, who I consider a team fluffer even more than Bernie Miklasz was when he was still at the Post-Dispatch, has never given me a convincing background story on that.)

What I am getting at is that Mo could be dumb enough to overpay for Bryce Harper, and that kind of worries me.

Yeah, Mo's made a few decent deals in free agency. Kyle Lohse tops the list, followed by Lance Berkman and Carlos Beltran. And he did trade for Matt Holliday. But, he's not a genius (no GM really is) but he's not in the top tier. He's not in the bottom tier, either, but still ...

I probably will have no need to worry. I think the team pivots to pitching with the Goldschmidt signing. I just wanted to add that, given Mo's track record, my reasons for worry are legit.

Otherwise, if the Cards are looking for a relatively low-cost lefty OF to give more left-right lineup balance, Michael Brantley and Nick Markakis are both still out there.  I think Markakis had an Indian summer year last year, so I would be leery of a lower-level overpay. Brantley is younger, and assuming 2018 showed he is past injuries, I'd give him a straight 3/$50 with some incentive money and a fourth-year option. The injuries is a judgment call. I would give Markakis no more than, say, 2/$30 plus an option year. If that.

Andrew Sullivan hits new pseudointellectual low

In what I see as possibly his greatest feat of anti-intellectualism since denoting an entire issue of The New Republic to touting the pseudoscientific insights of The Bell Curve, Sully is now hoisting high the old canard that atheists are really religious, too.

I have myself said that Gnu Atheists, in some sociology-type ways, show a mindset similar to fundamentalist-type Christians, and have thus called them atheist fundamentalists. But, I've never claimed that they, let alone non-Gnus, are religious.

He then followed with teh stupidz of claiming religion is in our genes.

Neither one is close to true, in reality. The fact that Sully is arguably a very good representative of the Peter Principle in mainstream media, especially thought and opinion media, on the other hand, is almost ironclad as an argument now.

But, I couldn't let such arrogant, arrant nonsense go unchecked.

Here's a few thoughts I posted on Twitter, with interspersed comment:

Nope on both points
On A., Gnu Atheists are quasi-religious, sociologically, but not metaphysically religious
On B., no, certain genetic-driven tendencies toward imputing agency, or over-imputing agency, is FAR from being in our genes.

— @realDonaldTrump 🌻🚩 (@SocraticGadfly) December 7, 2018

In short, per his Bell Curve love, on B, Sully seems to be doubling down on the pseudoscience of Ev Psych. A Scott Atran or Pascal Boyer will easily steer clear of this while offering much more plausible theories about the origins of what eventually became religious belief mindsets.

Of course, the second point, that religion is in our genes, is not far different from the "intelligence is in our racial heredity" that .@SullyDish claimed as part of fellating The Bell Curve.

— @realDonaldTrump 🌻🚩 (@SocraticGadfly) December 7, 2018

From there, it's off to the land of false analogies, refuted by this:

But Andrew Sullivan, .@sullydish, has yet more teh stupidz.
Claiming that a denial of god is the same as belief in god? That's like claiming that evolutionary biologists who deny creationism are the same as creationists.

— @realDonaldTrump 🌻🚩 (@SocraticGadfly) December 7, 2018

The real problem is Sully's willful ignorance on a fair amount of philosophy. I note that here

And, MORE Andrew Sullivan stupidity. .@SullyDish practices #scientism when he claims science can't replace religion because it's not abt "meaning." Hey, Sully? Way to prove you're willfully ignorant of #philosophy. It can indeed discuss meaning where science doesn't .@mpigliucci

— @realDonaldTrump 🌻🚩 (@SocraticGadfly) December 7, 2018

and here:

Sullivan gets even worse, himself using the word "scientism" later on after having strawmanned science for not being scientism. And, on issues of "meaning" and philosophy, he misappropriates John Gray while ignoring likes of Hume and Camus from philosophical greats

— @realDonaldTrump 🌻🚩 (@SocraticGadfly) December 7, 2018

Finally, Sullivan shows his misunderstanding of the political movement he claims to represent.

.@mpigliucci Sullivan gets worse from there. (And, you need to pass this part on to Dan Kaufman.) He goes into "classical liberal" mode and claims that politics without religion is illiberal. https://t.co/vcclblD88m

— @realDonaldTrump 🌻🚩 (@SocraticGadfly) December 7, 2018

Tosh. Both here and in Europe (and the Anglosphere across the world), many politicians and political thinkers are both classical liberals and irreligious.

Beto2020 — the Kool-Aid is poured and many are chugging it

The amount of Kool-Aid that's already being poured for a presidential run for ConservaDem Beto O'Rourke is mind-boggling. So is the amount of people — including Texans who I thought were either better thinkers than that or better informed than that — who are willfully drinking.

A few thoughts:

1. Were I voting in the 2020 primary (let's assume I am still in Tex-ass and that I figure Greens have no chance of a successful ballot access petition) while Bernie Sanders' age (if he runs again) would concern me, I would vote him over Beto in a heartbeat. Per what I have seen on Effbook, Beto as a younger, if not totally progressive, than allegedly not ConservaDem, option to Bernie, is nonsense.

2. Among the national neoliberal chattering class (Neera Tanden at Center for American Progress et al) Beto is clearly taking more shape as a stop-Bernie possibility.

2A. Both the 1 and 2 camps tout "winnability." In other words, "lesser evilism." Currently, that's more a lesser evilism from ignorance than willfulness in Camp 1, but it's willfulness more than ignorance in Camp 2.

3. It is true that, because of his near success against Havana Ted Cruz, that wingers and fellow travelers fear him. As I've noted, two such fellow travelers have lied in claiming that Beto is a single-payer guy as part of claiming he ran a bad campaign. The lie is obviously a placeholder to extend nationally Havana Ted's smear. The bad campaign claim is shown to be untrue by the fact that, while he lost, Beto finished closer to Havana Ted than the best poll predictions. (Per Real Clear Politics, only one outlying Emerson poll showed a race closer than 3 percentage points and none ever showed O'Rourke with a lead.)

4. In light of Group 2, while Beto will face a few "takedown" pieces if he leans more toward running, he'll also get plenty of national media puff pieces like he did this year. After all, John Nichols at The Nation showed his hackery by writing a puff piece on someone who not only is not a DSA rose, but actually was non-endorsed by some local chapters of Our Revolution. Anne Helen Peterson's gushing for BuzzFeed is a bit more forgivable on account of biased laziness; Nichols knows better, or at a minimum, he has a history and body of work that shows he should know better.

Meanwhile, Beto, obviously taking a page from Sanders getting a bad rap, has already met with both Dear Leader and Al Sharpton.

That said, there's other Kool-Aid already out there besides Beto.

Kamela Harris and Kirsten Gillibrand are both being image-buffed. Donut Twitter will probably throw both out as women along with complaints that Bernie is anti-woman. Women's issues will remain important, though the rough edges of MeToo will fade in a year.

Anyway, I vote based on foreign as well as domestic policy.

Who is, say, under 65, or better yet, under 60, three-quarters or more as progressive on domestic policy in Dem ranks as Bernie, and even close to him on foreign policy? No Democrat that I see. Elizabeth Warren is over 65, self-damaged goods in some ways, and already criticizing of BDS.

That said, no "name," presidential-aspirant Democrats are great on foreign policy. Bernie's the best of a bad lot. Beyond being iffy himself on BDS, he's dabbled in the collusion Kool-Aid, speaking of that beverage. And, an alleged Texas socialist at Splinter claims its best he should step aside and try to nudge Warren leftward. Jacobin just torpedoed that. And, don't claim Tulsi Gabbard, who remains an Islamophobe as well as a friend of India's semi-fascist BJP.

==

Riffing on David's comment:

Dan Derozier, Houston DSA elections committee chair, in a Chronicle-run retrospective, notes clearly that Beto stood for Beto and little else. So true. Even worse than Obama, he left little "apparatus" to build on. (Derozier dodges Beto's stance, or lack thereof, on specific positions, though. Beto is just criticized as a values-free campaigner without noting WHAT values he was free of. I.e., his dodges on single-payer aren't specifically mentioned. Per that, I wonder if he's trying to work intra-DSA factions on Betomania.)