Theo Landsman
@ordinalandsman.bsky.social
Senior Political Analyst at YouGov Blue, Political Science PhD candidate , Ranked Ballot Nerd, Map poster.
My beef is that Schumer was clearly bluffing when he signaled that he would prefer Rs ending the filibuster to caving and instead of bluffing and being called on it he should simply have believed this and gotten his caucus to believe it because that is the correct preference ordering to have.
November 10, 2025 at 5:44 PM
My beef is that Schumer was clearly bluffing when he signaled that he would prefer Rs ending the filibuster to caving and instead of bluffing and being called on it he should simply have believed this and gotten his caucus to believe it because that is the correct preference ordering to have.
I am pretty sure smoke jumpers (basically fire fighting paratroopers) are the precedent, and a priori that seems like an even dumber idea, but we still have them.
November 8, 2025 at 1:35 PM
I am pretty sure smoke jumpers (basically fire fighting paratroopers) are the precedent, and a priori that seems like an even dumber idea, but we still have them.
More broadly having a bunch of people who either benefit from or are harmed by a governments policies who cannot participate in the decision making of that government harms both legitimacy and policymaking, it may slightly advantage one side or the other but mostly it just makes governance worse.
November 7, 2025 at 8:38 PM
More broadly having a bunch of people who either benefit from or are harmed by a governments policies who cannot participate in the decision making of that government harms both legitimacy and policymaking, it may slightly advantage one side or the other but mostly it just makes governance worse.
Doing something like pinning Mayoral compensation to the 90th or 95th percentile wage in the last year in your jurisdiction would do a pretty good job here.
November 7, 2025 at 4:13 PM
Doing something like pinning Mayoral compensation to the 90th or 95th percentile wage in the last year in your jurisdiction would do a pretty good job here.
IMO overall compensation matters less than the incentives. Most CEO pay is structured as incentives to boost share prices, whereas Mayors are specifically paid the same amount whether they do a good or bad job unless they are corrupt and most corruption these days is not even growth aligned.
November 7, 2025 at 4:11 PM
IMO overall compensation matters less than the incentives. Most CEO pay is structured as incentives to boost share prices, whereas Mayors are specifically paid the same amount whether they do a good or bad job unless they are corrupt and most corruption these days is not even growth aligned.
I think if you take the (plausible) view that inflation and anti-incumbent backlash was inevitable then Biden bringing the U.S. close to full employment and full fiscal capacity was 100% the right call, and Trump's bad numbers on the economy are almost completely a result of that choice.
November 7, 2025 at 4:07 PM
I think if you take the (plausible) view that inflation and anti-incumbent backlash was inevitable then Biden bringing the U.S. close to full employment and full fiscal capacity was 100% the right call, and Trump's bad numbers on the economy are almost completely a result of that choice.
The big question is whether MMT was good in that it caused Biden to use up the remaining fiscal headroom in the post financial crisis U.S. that had previously propped up the Trump economy or whether it was bad because without the ensuing inflation Trump would not have been re-elected.
November 7, 2025 at 4:01 PM
The big question is whether MMT was good in that it caused Biden to use up the remaining fiscal headroom in the post financial crisis U.S. that had previously propped up the Trump economy or whether it was bad because without the ensuing inflation Trump would not have been re-elected.
The problem here is that 'Hispanic' is a externally imposed and artificial grouping in the same way that 'German' or 'Italian' or for that matter 'Irish' was in the 19th century and 'Jewish' is not.
November 7, 2025 at 3:38 PM
The problem here is that 'Hispanic' is a externally imposed and artificial grouping in the same way that 'German' or 'Italian' or for that matter 'Irish' was in the 19th century and 'Jewish' is not.
My sense is that Maoist and particularly Khmer Rouge fetishization of rice farmers was a real and self-crippling phenomenon, and that Vietnamese communism fundamentally being based out of urban/cosmopolitan Hanoi is a major reason it went less of the rails.
November 5, 2025 at 8:07 PM
My sense is that Maoist and particularly Khmer Rouge fetishization of rice farmers was a real and self-crippling phenomenon, and that Vietnamese communism fundamentally being based out of urban/cosmopolitan Hanoi is a major reason it went less of the rails.
I think that's right, it's also why I think a Cuomo mayoralty would be even worse than the Cuomo governorship. What does a notoriously abusive boss do if he wins without owing any of the normal interest groups and only really indebted to the worst people nationally in U.S. politics?
November 4, 2025 at 5:49 PM
I think that's right, it's also why I think a Cuomo mayoralty would be even worse than the Cuomo governorship. What does a notoriously abusive boss do if he wins without owing any of the normal interest groups and only really indebted to the worst people nationally in U.S. politics?
This is actually what irks me about the 'do we need to run moderates' discourse. Normatively a more moderate legislature might be better at delivering for people but if moderation was as electorally powerful as some argue we would never have wound up in this position to begin with.
November 4, 2025 at 5:21 PM
This is actually what irks me about the 'do we need to run moderates' discourse. Normatively a more moderate legislature might be better at delivering for people but if moderation was as electorally powerful as some argue we would never have wound up in this position to begin with.
It's a similar bind to what some conservatives get into about god, moderation is powerful enough that we need to devote endless resources to it but weak enough to constantly be under threat of extinction but powerful enough that there is no real alternative.
November 4, 2025 at 5:20 PM
It's a similar bind to what some conservatives get into about god, moderation is powerful enough that we need to devote endless resources to it but weak enough to constantly be under threat of extinction but powerful enough that there is no real alternative.
Isn't freeing elites of your (or for that matter my) specific job more the opposite? A world where elites are still massively reliant on skilled and unskilled labor in the physical world but where white color work focused on ideation and analysis is increasingly obsolete.
November 4, 2025 at 3:16 PM
Isn't freeing elites of your (or for that matter my) specific job more the opposite? A world where elites are still massively reliant on skilled and unskilled labor in the physical world but where white color work focused on ideation and analysis is increasingly obsolete.
Like just to give an example, maybe Moody's is trying to come up with a figure that accounts for say a regional hotel chain heiress who on paper loses tens of thousands of dollars a year and has minimal personal assets, but consumes millions of dollars of goods and services.
November 3, 2025 at 4:23 PM
Like just to give an example, maybe Moody's is trying to come up with a figure that accounts for say a regional hotel chain heiress who on paper loses tens of thousands of dollars a year and has minimal personal assets, but consumes millions of dollars of goods and services.
I am curious how this method is handling capital gains, my sense is that trying to capture that is what's motivating the weird Moody's method of calculating. Maybe it's not actually calculable because of how weird and hard to capture wealth is relative to income but I can see why you'd try.
November 3, 2025 at 4:20 PM
I am curious how this method is handling capital gains, my sense is that trying to capture that is what's motivating the weird Moody's method of calculating. Maybe it's not actually calculable because of how weird and hard to capture wealth is relative to income but I can see why you'd try.
Yeah I feel like the problem with the 'model or fluke' framing is that there is no counterfactual where a talented dark horse politician comes out of nowhere and defeats the political machine at the top of its game. He's a type of politician who only emerges when there's a rupture.
November 3, 2025 at 3:56 PM
Yeah I feel like the problem with the 'model or fluke' framing is that there is no counterfactual where a talented dark horse politician comes out of nowhere and defeats the political machine at the top of its game. He's a type of politician who only emerges when there's a rupture.
One structural problem with our current moment is that the promise of power for Dem apparatchiks is basically 'you get promoted at your job' and the promise of power for Republican apparatchiks is 'unlimited power but if we ever lose you'll probably be arrested.'
November 3, 2025 at 3:48 PM
One structural problem with our current moment is that the promise of power for Dem apparatchiks is basically 'you get promoted at your job' and the promise of power for Republican apparatchiks is 'unlimited power but if we ever lose you'll probably be arrested.'
I think Hillary probably wanted to win personally more than Trump but that MAGA chuds were much more thirsty for victory than the average dem staffer.
November 3, 2025 at 3:38 PM
I think Hillary probably wanted to win personally more than Trump but that MAGA chuds were much more thirsty for victory than the average dem staffer.
'The candidate/party who wants to win more usually does' is underrated as a theory of politics. One reason IMO that democracy is a superior system is that people would often prefer to bitch about whoever's in charge then be in charge after a while provided they can exit power without being executed.
November 3, 2025 at 3:28 PM
'The candidate/party who wants to win more usually does' is underrated as a theory of politics. One reason IMO that democracy is a superior system is that people would often prefer to bitch about whoever's in charge then be in charge after a while provided they can exit power without being executed.
That is interesting and fair! I was being intentionally provocative, but obviously not everything in Anglosphere politics revolves around the U.S. The Liberal Party are also much clearer inheritors of the global Whig tradition then the U.S. Democratic Party.
November 3, 2025 at 1:44 AM
That is interesting and fair! I was being intentionally provocative, but obviously not everything in Anglosphere politics revolves around the U.S. The Liberal Party are also much clearer inheritors of the global Whig tradition then the U.S. Democratic Party.
It was probably impossible to have a central banker become the leader of left of center Anglophone party pre-Hamilton and now it isn't.
November 2, 2025 at 10:43 PM
It was probably impossible to have a central banker become the leader of left of center Anglophone party pre-Hamilton and now it isn't.
I do think Hamilton had a pretty significant societal effect by recontextualizing diverse urban Democrats as inheritors of the federalist tradition rather than the Jacksonian-Jeffersonian tradition. You can argue that it was an over determined switch but we're still living in the fallout from that.
November 2, 2025 at 10:40 PM
I do think Hamilton had a pretty significant societal effect by recontextualizing diverse urban Democrats as inheritors of the federalist tradition rather than the Jacksonian-Jeffersonian tradition. You can argue that it was an over determined switch but we're still living in the fallout from that.