Birch Smith

@birchsmith.bsky.social

392

Posts

Philosophy PhD student, working on the role of social and political epistemology in the future of liberal democracy.

Read my public philosophy here: https://discoursemachine.beehiiv.com/

Posts Replies Media

Some on the right want to tell us that we can't consistently - and clearly - speak about the dangers Trump poses while also rejecting political violence. On the contrary: only liberalism is capable of maintaining this distinction.

Some thoughts about how criticism of political opponents can be received differently from within liberal or illiberal perspectives, and how liberals can tell the truth while being sensitive to concerns (even bad-faith ones) about inciting violence. discoursemachine.beehiiv.com/p/political-...

Political Rhetoric in Liberal and Illiberal Modesdiscoursemachine.beehiiv.com Cooling the political temperature while telling the truth.

Reply to

The UnPopulist

Thanks for putting it all together, and thanks to the many excellent speakers!

Reply to

Sharon Kuruvilla

Feels like the "we think we have it in the bag" pick, not the "we need an electoral boost" pick. Who would've ever thought Trump's disavowal of Project 2025 was something besides sincere, etc

This alone would be sufficient to make me oppose the Trump/Vance ticket, as we now know it is. Whatever of my former conservative squish beliefs I still hold, they don't hold a candle to how much I oppose this repugnant understanding of people and the world.

I oppose this worldview—this theory of America—with every fiber of my being.

Reposted by

Birch Smith

The number of people Trump says he'll deport keeps going up. It's now 20 million, 50% higher than the largest estimates of the undocumented population. It's clear sign that distinguishing legal from illegal won't be a priority. They're just going to round up people they don't want to be here.

Reply to

Popehat

Ken/Akiva, does the fact that Thomas gratuitously added support for the theory (the immunity ruling iirc) make the circuit court less likely to remove her? It feels riskier to say "this is a totally crazy theory" if one SCOTUS justice has already endorsed it, but maybe they aren't that deferential?

"Clarence Thomas, a truly original legal thinker and creator of a novel theory of American Constitutional jurisprudence after originalism proved inadequate for the needs of his capacious intellect: 'do whatever the hell you want-ism'"

It’s all 100% masks off at this point, lads.

Reply to

suzabelle.bsky.social

I'm...less certain of that than I would've been before, given that Thomas went far out of his way to endorse the crazy theory she's using. But it would be nice

Holy shit she actually did it. Madlad behavior. Judge Dismisses Classified Documents Case Against Trump www.nytimes.com/2024/07/15/u...

Judge Dismisses Classified Documents Case Against Trumpwww.nytimes.com Judge Aileen Cannon ruled that the entire case should be thrown out because the appointment of the special counsel who brought the case, Jack Smith, had violated the Constitution. Her decision is sure...

"Bold strategy Cannon, let's see if it pays off for you"

The food was great but I'm real disappointed in the "be normal and rational" bit, damn

I'm gonna log off, go eat Thai food, and I assume that in my absence everybody is gonna be normal and rational about stuff, right? Right?

Reply to

Sharon Kuruvilla

I'm considering applying for jobs outside of the states, if I don't end up in the Sovereign Republic of Texas or whatever and therefore have an unrecognized degree in 4 years lol.

I'm gonna log off, go eat Thai food, and I assume that in my absence everybody is gonna be normal and rational about stuff, right? Right?

One of the most useful secondary questions I've seen, beyond the top-line number. Maybe we need a more nuanced approach to the actual electoral impacts?

Wheezing. Who could've guessed?

Reply to

Dr. ShinyGoth

My apologies, the bit I was thinking of was from Vegas Tenold's book, not Belew's. But it was this rift and the fact that Pierce and his successors were (relatively) more successful than Rockwell and later explicitly neo-Nazi groups, because they adopted messages more suited/amenable to US context

Reply to

Dr. ShinyGoth

I hadn't, although I found the paper and skimmed the intro/conclusion and it's extremely funny. If I'm understanding it correctly I think I'd say it's a somewhat related but distinct phenomena, but just because of a conceptual quibble that choosing less popular products isn't 'irrational' per se.

I take your point about the diffuse nature of political action, although I do think that it holds up over time by *type* of action: e.g. some post WW2 American white power groups learned that using Nazi imagery, etc wasn't working in context, while others kept using it and were much less successful

I butchered that bit trying to cram it into one post but iirc Kathleen Belew talks about this dynamic a fair bit in her book on white power groups

Part of the reason I wrote this (besides the fact I think it's true) is that I'm convinced that a lot of the freakout about Biden is because people don't want to stare into the abyss and admit that this election, and the country's fate, is almost certainy going to be decided by Stochastic Fools.

This is true, I think, and I'm taking a crack at that theory of mind in this new piece! discoursemachine.beehiiv.com/p/stochastic...

Stochastic Foolsdiscoursemachine.beehiiv.com The poltergeist in the (social science) machine

When so much is on the line, and when the alternative is so obviously evil and dangerous, it's really understandable for folks to search desperately for the magical strategy (Harris! Whitmer/Shapiro! Generic Popular Democrat!) that can be relied upon to save us.

It's why in a personal sense I don't really begrudge anyone their preferred flavor of freakout. I, too, wish we could find the magic key that unlocks a reliable pro-democracy majority! It's just that I don't think such a thing exists and I'd rather face up to that *before* deciding on next steps.

It's also worth reiterating that this is *not* me saying "there's nothing to be done, I wash my hands of this matter." It's that the stuff that's somewhat more likely to matter are 1. Have a really, really good ground game and 2. Tell them the GOP wants to take away their favorite park, etc.

Reply to

Dr. ShinyGoth

...we found the one legitimate use of Myers Briggs? Hooray?

Jokes aside this is probably correct. Certainly the kind of phenomena I'm describing, although I don't know enough about Myers Briggs to know if there are other problems that could cause that kind of result.

discoursemachine.beehiiv.com/p/stochastic...

I have a piece about the 'Stochastic Fools' concept coming out today that provides some more detail, but here we talk about how it affects my interpretation of polling. We also talk about some AI news, and I change my mind to favor court-packing/reform open.spotify.com/episode/7Hs8...

Stochastic Fools: Birch’s Victory Lapopen.spotify.com Listen to this episode from Discourse Machine on Spotify. This week we talk about how philosophy of mind shows that no, generative AI won’t save the world, and it may not even make you much money. Al...

Stochastic Foolsdiscoursemachine.beehiiv.com The poltergeist in the (social science) machine

This is true, I think, and I'm taking a crack at that theory of mind in this new piece! discoursemachine.beehiiv.com/p/stochastic...

The problem is that we are knee deep in politics and everyone in politics is in it 30 feet over their heads and so we have no theory of mind for people who are like “I’m not really sure about which way and whether I will vote” Those people are a different species from you and I

Stochastic Foolsdiscoursemachine.beehiiv.com The poltergeist in the (social science) machine

This is better! This is good! More of this!

this is powerful, whatever else you think about the paper of record. i suggest skipping the sniping and just embracing and sharing this widely.

Opinion | Donald Trump Is Unfit to Leadwww.nytimes.com He failed the tests of leadership and betrayed America. Voters must stand up to him in November.

Reply to

Birch Smith

What do they even hope to gain from this?