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Before we gang up and downvote for the last statement, it's absolutely worth recognizing that the majority of the voting public (Or at least their candidates) s

Before we gang up and downvote for the last statement, it's absolutely worth recognizing that the majority of the voting public (Or at least their candidates) seem to have made 2024 an indictment against these kinds of policies. Even I, a staunch dem, have to admit that the alleged purity statements got a little too close to being real. On one research grant I led for NASA, the grant reviewer asked me to count the number of minority students on the team, from their picture displayed on one of my slides. That's just the kind of information I didn't gather because I was trying to run a research task and had employed the entire lab a professor led. That's fine, but we should also recognize how weird it is.

epistasis 1y ago
> seems to have made 2024 an indictment against these kinds of policies Really? I don't think that's true at all based on the swing voters I've talked to.
- jvanderbot 1y ago
  Perhaps its untrue. Maybe a better way of saying it is "The leading politicians and their buddies" have. Also, you know real swing voters? Like people who vote for more than one political party? I do this sometimes, but feel so bad about it I can hardly admit it!
- mdorazio 1y ago
  Swing voters are not the majority of the voting public that the parent comment referenced.
  - scarface_74 1y ago
    The swing voters in the swing states are all that matter because of the electoral college. Getting more democratic votes in red states won’t make a difference.
- tech_ken 1y ago
  Yeah I think people are way over-indexing on culture war stuff when the simple fact is that massive inflation makes the sitting president super unpopular. 2024 was primarily determined by the price of bread and eggs, with everything else being cents on the margin.
  - jvanderbot 1y ago
    OK fair enough! But these large sweeping changes aren't about eggs, so I'm not sure why they are so high profile (except perhaps that egg prices aren't doing what we want them to?)
    - tech_ken 1y ago
      Not sure I really follow your point. Why would a political bait-and-switch not be high profile?
bbor 1y ago
A slight majority of people who ended up voting in the last election did vote for people who also said they were against DEI, yes. But 1. That really has nothing to do with what's going on. I feel comfortable saying that it is a plain fact that the Trump administration is not just pushing back against woke language or affirmative action, they are dismantling the entire scientific infrastructure. It's up to you to infer why (maybe for a good reason!), but denying that it's happening is doing yourself a disservice. That's of course not even mentioning how "anti-DEI" seems to be awfully close to old-school segregation in practice... 2. I think you're mischaracterizing the basic mechanics of referrenda. Again, without getting too far into political particulars, I think it's objectively true that "stop the woke" was only a small part of Trump's campaign, even if we grant that that phrase logically implies what's happening now. He spent most of the final months denying P2025, hitting "no taxes on tips" and "Trump == Safety, Kamala == Crime" hard, associating Harris with Biden & The Deep State, and, above all, talking about inflation and the price of eggs and "a new American golden age". Of course all voters should read up on everything a candidate says, but we know that's far from the case.

epistasis 1y ago

> seems to have made 2024 an indictment against these kinds of policies Really? I don't think that's true at all based on the swing voters I've talked to.

jvanderbot 1y ago
Perhaps its untrue. Maybe a better way of saying it is "The leading politicians and their buddies" have. Also, you know real swing voters? Like people who vote for more than one political party? I do this sometimes, but feel so bad about it I can hardly admit it!
mdorazio 1y ago
Swing voters are not the majority of the voting public that the parent comment referenced.
- scarface_74 1y ago
  The swing voters in the swing states are all that matter because of the electoral college. Getting more democratic votes in red states won’t make a difference.
tech_ken 1y ago
Yeah I think people are way over-indexing on culture war stuff when the simple fact is that massive inflation makes the sitting president super unpopular. 2024 was primarily determined by the price of bread and eggs, with everything else being cents on the margin.
- jvanderbot 1y ago
  OK fair enough! But these large sweeping changes aren't about eggs, so I'm not sure why they are so high profile (except perhaps that egg prices aren't doing what we want them to?)
  - tech_ken 1y ago
    Not sure I really follow your point. Why would a political bait-and-switch not be high profile?

bbor 1y ago

A slight majority of people who ended up voting in the last election did vote for people who also said they were against DEI, yes. But 1. That really has nothing to do with what's going on. I feel comfortable saying that it is a plain fact that the Trump administration is not just pushing back against woke language or affirmative action, they are dismantling the entire scientific infrastructure. It's up to you to infer why (maybe for a good reason!), but denying that it's happening is doing yourself a disservice. That's of course not even mentioning how "anti-DEI" seems to be awfully close to old-school segregation in practice... 2. I think you're mischaracterizing the basic mechanics of referrenda. Again, without getting too far into political particulars, I think it's objectively true that "stop the woke" was only a small part of Trump's campaign, even if we grant that that phrase logically implies what's happening now. He spent most of the final months denying P2025, hitting "no taxes on tips" and "Trump == Safety, Kamala == Crime" hard, associating Harris with Biden & The Deep State, and, above all, talking about inflation and the price of eggs and "a new American golden age". Of course all voters should read up on everything a candidate says, but we know that's far from the case.