Politics is about rationalizing voter’s feelings: you need to meet them where they are, accept their feelings and then you can persuade.

And the easiest way to loose the elections is to discard voters feelings.

That’s why “affordability” and “inflation” work and charts with median salary don’t.

Interesting.
But Tallinn could be an outlier here. USSR did not have much respect to the local governments and usually just incorporated all the suburbs into the city to make management easier.

And that’s totally justifies Putin’s violation of Russian-Ukrainian Border Treaty of 2003 that Putin signed himself!

I was born and raised in USSR and I can confirm that Tom’s takes on this subject are fairly accurate.
What’s more important- he’s one among like 0.1% who actually knows the topic. Other 99.9% who have opinions in fact have no clue at all.

Actually they were quite ineffective and sometimes did a lot of collateral damage by sensationalizing things. But the law is still very bad, so it’s a lose-lose situation 🫤

That’s Degenerative AI
“You can make your robot go to the gym and exercise for you 10 hours a day!”

Generative AI is great at imitating form but it cannot make new content.

Music, especially pop is much more about form than content.

We greatly underestimate how much people “beliefs” are not true beliefs, but parroting of their environment. Like saying things just to signal you are part of the group.

Just for the record: while this wasn’t the root cause of empty shells, USSR was still bad at running grocery stores.

“Russophobia” is a very special word,
kind of Kremlinspeak you would normally hear from Russian “diplomats”.
Something from Nebenzya vocabulary.

In Italy it was €10 for 1.5 hour/120 km trip.

Назва компанії чомусь закреслена в заголовку але легко читається у першому ж рядку текста. 🙂

WHY on Earth they always look so weird!!??

The bigger problem is that Navalny made the same mistake: he was always pretending he just fights corruption even when Russia became a full-blown fascist state.

“Trump calculated” is an oxymoron.
These two words just don’t go together.

I know this place and it exists until the next tsunami.
It’s almost at the sea level at the end of a 3 mile sand strip with only one way out.

Oh, and they have “Tsunami evacuation route” signs to remind that it’s possible.

Empathy: “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another”

If voters feel bad about the economy you need to meet them where they are. Trying to convince them with numbers that the economy is actually good is a lack of empathy.

“Voting for peace” is clearly just a rationalization.
You cannot argue with feelings, they will come up with even crazier explanation.

I guess Trump is a personification of their anger against the “rigged” system, because the only real thing about Trump is anger.

Notice how Ru’s nuclear sabre rattling always tracks various Western decisions; it never follows Ukr actions— Kerch bridge attack, drones in Moscow, Kursk incursion, etc. Illustrates that Ru knows that Ukr knows it’s a bluff; the fear-mongering only works on the gullible West.

Media don’t know how to cover sociopaths. They have exactly the same issue with covering Trump.

Listen, the verbal promise that was NOT given to the prez of another country allows you to violate the treaties you’ve signed yourself (2003 Russia-Ukraine Treaty)

This trend had started at least in 1980s
Social media may have accelerated it, but it’s not the root cause

“Just asking questions” is a known manipulation technique: people have more trust in their own conclusions. So instead of giving them the answer directly you’re “just asking questions” that imply the desired answer.

Unfortunately corruption narrative is too easy to counter:
1. “Both sides are corrupt”
2. “It’s just a ‘witch hunt’/politicizing DoJ”

A lot of voters equally despise both Ds and Rs. They see Trump (not Rs!) as avenger/outsider and hope that he will bring the change.

Fake hair, fake tan, fake wealth, fake weight, fake laugh, fake university… Anyone surprised by a fake wife!?

RFK Jr. May Have Made Up Wild Story About Bow-And-Arrow Ambush, Throwing Dynamite The presidential contender told a tale about a 1974 rafting trip in Peru that some of his travel companions have since said was exaggerated or never happened.

Just reposting this for no particular reason:

“…Kennedy also reportedly “kept eating strange things on the trip,” including a “boiled rat” and one of its eyeballs..”

www.huffpost.com/entry/robert...

“It was inflation” should have wiped out D’s in 2022 midterms at the height of the inflation.

It implies that voters skipped midterms and waited till 2024 to vote against Harris for 2022 inflation, the blame for which was transferable from Biden to Harris but not down ballot Dems.

Very visible spikes for Obama in Hawaii in 2008 and 2012, for Romney in Utah in 2012 and smaller dip in Vermont when Bernie lost primaries in 2016.
Based on these charts Dems need to nominate Texas or Florida democrats in order to win.

That’s a tempting non-explanation.
Voters attracted to Trump, but they’re not excited about right-wing cooks.
There were Senate races in NV, AZ, WI, MI and PA. Trump won all of them, but Dems won 4 out of 5 Senate races.
There’s something specifically about Trump that voters find attractive.

50% of success at work is actually doing a good job and 50% is presentation.