Jonathan Bernstein

@jonathanbernstein.bsky.social

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Good Politics/Bad Politics - Subscribe! Also I root for the Giants. The Making of the Presidential Candidates 2024.

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Jonathan Bernstein

What are the big takeaways from Iran's election? @claryc.bsky.social asks @hbanai.bsky.social how we should even think about the Iranian presidency, what we know about the winner Masoud Pezeshkian, the potential succession plan for the Supreme Leader of #Iran, and more:

My thoughts/explainer on Iran's non-democratic elections. goodauthority.org/news/iranian... With thanks to @goodauth.bsky.social @claryc.bsky.social @profsaunders.bsky.social

Iranian voters picked a moderate presidentgoodauthority.org Iranians just voted in the moderate candidate, not the ultraconservative on the presidential ballot.

Reply to

Jonathan Ladd

Yeah, this is similar to presidential primary season: Every candidate is (quite properly) publicly committed to remaining in the race until the convention no matter what....right until they drop out. It's the only way to play it.

Must read thread

I'd like to add some historical context to the discussions around Project 2025. The discourse misses why Project 2025 is so important. As I write about in my book, Heritage has built something like Project 2025 for every election since 1980, but this time it's different. Big 🧵

Was busy having a great day today and just catching up now on the news cycle but...is it bad that my favorite part of the insipid "blitz primary" thing is that they specified ranked choice voting?

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Jonathan Bernstein

This didn't work the first time, of course. My rule of thumb is: Work to make yourself less vulnerable to fair criticism. You can never make yourself less vulnerable to unfair criticism, so don't try. So the key question is if you think there actually is a problem with Biden serving 4 years.

They’re already doing the birtherism again. Lol

Plausible!

Yes, yes, yes, but you forgot the one about Trump's capable-to-serve problems being far more clear than Biden's, which is also true.

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Jonathan Bernstein

Reply to

Jonathan Bernstein

I think the hybrid theory is that these two factors would mean his agenda would be very narrow, major change on a few select issues but largely unchanged on across most of government

Theory 1: This time, Trump would hit the ground running. Theory 2: His potential transition is already in chaos. (And as always: that he's inept doesn't mean he's not dangerous; quite the contrary).

If it’s not Project 2025, then who is planning Trump’s transition—new @3streamsblog.bsky.social medium.com/3streams/if-...

If it’s not Heritage, who is planning Trump’s transitionmedium.com The former President need to clarify who’s in charge

One thing: as people have said, many have known someone who declined rapidly. But we’ve *also* someone who was cognitively aces but gets treated as an idiot because of physical and/or superficial issues. And…

(1) a lot of the coverage badly conflates serious and non-problenms; (2) Republicans spent 4 years conflating them (3) I suspect a lot of us bring our experiences to this, for better and worse.

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Jonathan Bernstein

By my count, 41 different incumbents or nominees in competitive US House races (tossup or lean) tweeted photos of themselves at July 4 parades yesterday in their districts. HOW GREAT IS AMERICA

Reply to

Will Wilkinson 🏳️‍🌈

I think this reaction may be correct in 5-10 days but probably not yet.

Although at that point if he’s convinced the party he should stay I doubt there’s significant long-term damage. The real damage would be a Biden v party standoff, but that’s unlikely.

Reply to

Daniel Drezner

Unfortunately it’s just not clear whether he’s fit to govern or not, and too much of the reporting (and their sources!) conflates superficial stuff with real potential issues.

Reply to

Prestidigitator John 🇵🇸🇺🇦

Sure, but that doesn't count against him being out of it.

My 4th listening turns out to have been mostly old stuff: Louis Armstrong Los Lobos Aretha The Breeders P!nk Digital Underground Violent Femmes The Go-Go's Ramones Janelle Monáe Bob Dylan Ella

Stayed old and all-American on the 5th so Mingus, Rickie Lee Jones, Stevie Wonder, and closing it out for now with Metal Circus and Chronic Town, which may not be the greatest two EPs ever but they'll do until something else comes along.

Reply to

Brendan Nyhan

Also he more tightly controls the prosecution power, so while he's in office they're likely safe. On the other hand, trusting any tyrant to stay loyal to the underlings is a long-term losing proposition.

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Jonathan Bernstein

What kind of illiberal lunacy is this? www.theguardian.com/politics/art... Think of who you don't want in power. Now imagine them enforcing this law. A society without misinformation is inherently unfree (and impossible).

Welsh government commits to making lying in politics illegalwww.theguardian.com Labour administration says ‘globally pioneering’ legislation will be brought in before next Senedd elections in 2026

If Trump knows nothing about Project 2025 he's way more out of it than Biden. (Trump is lying but he is, in fact, way more out of it than Biden, who may be in fact be too out of it to be president).

The ramped-up hits on Project 2025 must be landing — Trump just shoved it right in front of the bus

This is an excellent question, and the answer so far is "it depends." See this nice @smotus.bsky.social piece on it. smotus.substack.com/p/is-a-party... To add one observation...

Hey, poli scientists. If Dems succeed in (1) self-organizing to remove successful, all-but-nominated incumbent and (2) coalescing around veep, isn’t that evidence of an effective, resilient party? It’s only been week since debate horror supplanted SOTU impressions. @jonathanbernstein.bsky.social

This is exactly the kind of question that makes this topic so fascinating to me. The answers are really important! But also so difficult to unpack. The relevant data is often hard to see and murky even when you can see it, and causation is *at best* complex.

This is very good.

The Supreme Court’s immunity decision sidesteps history. Those who framed the Constitution agreed that unchecked presidential power was a terrible idea. Read the latest from @rudalev.bsky.social here: goodauthority.org/news/immunit...

The Supreme Court’s immunity decision sidesteps historygoodauthority.org Immunity for Donald Trump and future presidents does the Constitution, the country, and even the Supreme Court itself no favors.

Reply to

Julia Azari

Living in a (1) Southern (2) military city *way* too many people have called me sir and as a westerner I Do Not Like It not one bit.

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Jonathan Bernstein

😳

Reply to

Jonathan Ladd

I think Biden's been a good president and (separately) the US economy has been better than most others....but fairly sure the difference in the US is the out-party chose to nominate a candidate everyone hates.

Reply to

Miranda Yaver

Solid 4th choices.

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Jonathan Bernstein

It is good and normal for Joe Biden to sleep like an 81-year old, and he's a better president 6 hours a day than Trump was for the 17 minutes a day that he paid attention to anything and the other 12 hours that he was awake doing stupid crap. But still, "needs more sleep" is a disastrous message.

Reply to

Andrew Rudalevige

Certainly could have!