A bizarre amalgam is some apparently right and some apparently left positions resolves “no.” I will not participate to maintain objectivity. Resolves “no” if we have no clear answer within a month.
If his politics seem to have shifted, I will go with what appears to have been the most recent (last few years) version.
1,000
3.00He apparently wrote a letter that makes his reasoning pretty explicit: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/23/man-accused-of-attempting-to-assassinate-trump-urged-others-to-finish-the-job-00180457
Unsurprisingly it’s also batshit, including talking about a failed assassination attempt yet writing it before the attempt. However, the politics in it are definitely left of center.
I doubt anyone here is bothering to read his whole book but every passage and summary from that seems to fit the narrative that he’s anti-war and anti-Trump in 2024, not leftist, ring wing, fasicist, etc. but generally the most milquetoast MSNBC pro-NATO centrist style Democrat except vehemently anti-war and then cranked up past all grounding in reality due to obvious mental illness.
I don’t see any solidly republican right wing views in any of his recent material so I think he’s bizarre but not a left+right amalgamation. He’s basically Chuck Schumer if Schumer did a bunch of LSD followed by non-stop crack cocaine.
@LiamZ I think the letter was a sort of "if I fail this will be discovered" message from the story that he'd left it in a box with a friend.
@JoshuaPhillipsLivingReaso I think that’s possible but leaving a random box with bomb supplies and a letter about failing in the future to kill a previous United States president and current candidate written in the frame of your future failed self and at the risk that the person looks in it and reports you is itself also batshit.
It came out that he registered as Democrat and voted in their 2024 primary. That seems like enough to me; the bizarre amalgam side of the argument seems to be for positions no longer held.
https://x.com/xPatriotBlondex/status/1835458209840079281
Tulsi Gabbard ran for president as an anti-war Democrat. Vivek R took strong anti-war positions, far to the left of his rivals on war. Calling them the best two GOP candidates isn't bizarre, it's entirely consistent with a peacenik.
@PatrickMcCann Problem with the peacenik answer is that (some of) his stated views would make a hawk blush. For instance, he’s in favour of nuking Moscow, and actively recruits for both a Taiwan and Ukraine foreign legion. (Setting aside his success in those ventures.)
Is that entirely inconsistent with some of the people he supports politically? Absolutely. That’s the essence of the ‘bizarre amalgam’.
@OP Nuking Moscow isn’t left wing or right wing, it’s schizo but it does fit his anti war views because his intention is ending the war. He is radicalized against Russia because they started the war so it’s not that incongruous.
I definitely don’t think that is a point towards the American right considering their odd alignment with Russia in certain cultural ways (opinion polling on Putin in GOP vs Dems, Tucker Carlson doing clumsy propaganda, Qanon types believing Ukraine is evil and creating bio weapons, certain right wing pundits directly being paid by Russian propaganda funds, etc.) . It is more consistent with Dems having widespread obsession with Russian influence post 2016, the entire Mueller report fiasco, the piss tape memo, and the continued support for Ukraine.
So the question is “amalgamation of what and what?” Because it doesn’t look like 2024 Democrat plus 2024 Republican to me. It looks like 2024 Democrat plus schizophrenia and radicalization, those last two come with the territory for this type of event.
A bizarre amalgam is some apparently right and some apparently left positions resolves “no.”
I’ve got a betting position here, but surely no one can argue against “a bizarre amalgam” being a fair judgement?
Everyone’s arguments about his Biden bumper sticker versus his track record of voting for Trump and holding far-right positions just seems to be proving the “bizarre amalgam” theory…
@SimonGrayson All of his right wing positions were seemingly at least over 4 years ago and if you look at his most recent positions generally left of center seems to be an fair description
@SimonGrayson I just read Glenn Loury’s book so let’s take him as an example — he was at one point clearly right-of-center (nearly a Reagan appointee), then for a while broadly left of center (describes himself as progressive, voted for Hillary in 2016), and now broadly right of center again. Many people change their minds about things! It’s not the same thing as being simultaneously a believer in QAnon and a BLM booster.
@traders as far as I can tell, people are placing their trades based on their differing interpretations of the material that’s been released rather than on their predictions about future material that may be released. (Not that this is a clean dichotomy of course.) I have yet to see anything that I would qualify as a smoking gun (big “I love Karl Marx and John Rawls” sign? full-sleeve tattoo of William F. Buckley dated last week?). I will resolve this market either when I see such a smoking gun or based on the preponderance of the evidence on the close date. In the meantime, what are best practices for inviting people to make their case about the interpretation of the material we currently have?
@njmkw "“I love Karl Marx and John Rawls” sign" - The question is 'left of center' not 'far left'.
The Biden/Harris sticker should be enough on its own by any reasonable metric, the contents of the book makes this an absolute no-brainer barring any mental gymnastics or fresh evidence to the contrary...
@njmkw We have a very different feeling either about Rawls or where the center is then...
How would you describe CNN/NYT/Politico?
@PaulBenjaminPhotographer Ostensibly centrist, actually left of center. (The Marx/Rawls thing was a joke.)
@njmkw Only reason this market is 50/50 is because creator’s resolution criteria is nonsense and not tied to the actual question.