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> His thesis is that American success is due to Americans and what is distinctive about them Can you please link to when and where he said this? Because it rai

> His thesis is that American success is due to Americans and what is distinctive about them Can you please link to when and where he said this? Because it raises a question of when someone becomes "American." Trump's grandfather was born in Germany, so when did the Trumps become American? > all concrete policies consistent with that thesis Those were concrete policies from Project 2025, which Trump directly said was not related to his campaign or administration. We know he was clearly and directly lying, but with someone so willing to lie about everything, I'm not sure how you can prescribe some type of unifying thesis about his policy stances or actions. It feels like you are trying to paste your ideas onto his actions.

apawloski 10mo ago
Thanks for pointing out the irony that these folks refuse to engage with: that they (we) are all here as the result of immigration. It's about as plainly hypocritical that they get. Their immigrants were fine, of course.. I wish the folks who are trying to cut off all immigration (and open channels to de-naturalize American citizens) could appreciate this more. Because it exposes their thesis at its core: some Americans are better than others, and these people know which are which. Where do I as an American fall into these categories of theirs?
- rayiner 10mo ago
  Of course some immigrants are more American than other immigrants! You can tell who those are by whose ancient legal documents are incorporated into the U.S. constitution and laws and whose aren't. If you think those principles have worked pretty well, then the question is how to maintain the culture that produced this successful society. This is something Silicon Valley folks should easily understand! You guys screen people endlessly for "fit." Would you want a large number of folks who grew up in IBM's corporate culture to come work at your startup?
  - apawloski 10mo ago
    Were my ancient legal texts incorporated? Were yours? If you are born here, what does it matter? But more importantly, I said Americans. Are some Americans more American to you? America is not a startup. It is not even a company. It’s a country who was built inherently by immigration. And it was wrong to single out the Irish and Italians, and it’s wrong to single out the ___ now.
    - rayiner 10mo ago
      > Were my ancient legal texts incorporated? Were yours? If you are British American, then yes. Otherwise, no. > If you are born here, what does it matter? Empirically, yes it does! https://www.rorotoko.com/11/20230913-jones-garett-on-book-culture-transplant-how-migrants-make-economies-they-move-to-a-lot-like-the-ones-they-left https://www.rorotoko.com/11/20230913-jones-garett-on-book-cu... (“The Culture Transplant debunks the view that immigrants fully assimilate in a generation or two. This is something my fellow economists know—we have vast empirical literatures showing that, for instance, you can partly predict people’s savings behavior just by knowing which country their parents or grandparents came from.”). You can look at the data and see that about 50% of the difference in levels of social trust between people in Italy and Scandinavia are reflected in the descendants of immigrants from those countries to the U.S., even after generations. You can then use your eyes to look at Minnesota versus New Jersey and see more social trust and less corruption in the former than the latter. You can even tie cultural background back to concrete social indicators! Parts of the midwest settled by Dutch settlers perform better on versus metrics than parts settled by Germans. Parts of the country settled by Puritans outperform nearly everywhere else in terms of good governance and low corruption. > America is not a startup. It is not even a company. Culture matters even more in a country than a startup! Startups hire high-IQ people that focus on discrete problems that are amenable to scientific analysis. Voters in democracies must confront a wide range of issues that are not amenable to scientific analysis, and consist of average people who are not capable of such analysis anyway. That means the person’s gut reactions, arising from their culture and socialization, matters even more. For example, most people simply can’t understand numbers on the scale of the federal debt, but cultures differ significantly in their attitudes towards debt and savings. It’s imperative to have a body politic that has pro-adaptive cultural attitudes. >,It’s a country who was built inherently by immigration. That’s like saying the country was built by people who drink water. Immigrants from where? The country that exists reflects that it was built by British settlers, with greenfield development by Germans and Scandinavians in the Midwest. If the country had been built by my ancestors in Bangladesh, I assure you, it would look very different than it does today.
rayiner 10mo ago
A thesis doesn't have to be published in some academic paper. It's just a basic set of ideas or assumptions underlying a worldview. Trump has a very distinctive set of beliefs underlying his policies, and he talks about them at length if you listen to his speeches, his interviews, etc. Just because he expresses them at a 6th grade level doesn't mean that there aren't ideas. > Those were concrete policies from Project 2025, which Trump directly said was not related to his campaign or administration. This is such a weird angle. Democrats focused on Project 2025 because of the abortion stuff. Trump stated that Project 2025 wasn't related to his campaign because it wasn't. Heritage doesn't speak for Trump--especially about abortion. That is not inconsistent with the fact that Trump and Heritage agree on 80% of everything else.
- mcphage 10mo ago
  > Trump has a very distinctive set of beliefs underlying his policies Trump has things that he says—many things that he says. How many of them are beliefs, and how many of them are his normal verbal diarrhea, and how many of them are just the words of the last person who spoke to him?
- 5upplied_demand 10mo ago
  > Trump stated that Project 2025 wasn't related to his campaign because it wasn't. But it is related to the list of "Trump's Policies" that you created out of thin air, which bare a striking resemblance to many of the policies in Project 2025. This especially true with regard to military, foreign policy, and education. That's the point, he has almost no policies that he truly believes in (maybe immigration and tariffs?). > Heritage doesn't speak for Trump--especially about abortion. You cannot claim to know Trump's stance on abortion because he has taken literally every position on this topic. There are news articles spelling it all out [0]. Your comment is actually a perfect example what I am trying to explain: Trump has no discernible policy on abortion, as laid out in the article below. In order to ascribe him one, you seem to have taken the one that you align with most and applied it to him. [0] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trumps-many-abortion-positions-timeline-rcna146601 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trumps-many-ab...

apawloski 10mo ago

Thanks for pointing out the irony that these folks refuse to engage with: that they (we) are all here as the result of immigration. It's about as plainly hypocritical that they get. Their immigrants were fine, of course.. I wish the folks who are trying to cut off all immigration (and open channels to de-naturalize American citizens) could appreciate this more. Because it exposes their thesis at its core: some Americans are better than others, and these people know which are which. Where do I as an American fall into these categories of theirs?

rayiner 10mo ago
Of course some immigrants are more American than other immigrants! You can tell who those are by whose ancient legal documents are incorporated into the U.S. constitution and laws and whose aren't. If you think those principles have worked pretty well, then the question is how to maintain the culture that produced this successful society. This is something Silicon Valley folks should easily understand! You guys screen people endlessly for "fit." Would you want a large number of folks who grew up in IBM's corporate culture to come work at your startup?
- apawloski 10mo ago
  Were my ancient legal texts incorporated? Were yours? If you are born here, what does it matter? But more importantly, I said Americans. Are some Americans more American to you? America is not a startup. It is not even a company. It’s a country who was built inherently by immigration. And it was wrong to single out the Irish and Italians, and it’s wrong to single out the ___ now.
  - rayiner 10mo ago
    > Were my ancient legal texts incorporated? Were yours? If you are British American, then yes. Otherwise, no. > If you are born here, what does it matter? Empirically, yes it does! https://www.rorotoko.com/11/20230913-jones-garett-on-book-culture-transplant-how-migrants-make-economies-they-move-to-a-lot-like-the-ones-they-left https://www.rorotoko.com/11/20230913-jones-garett-on-book-cu... (“The Culture Transplant debunks the view that immigrants fully assimilate in a generation or two. This is something my fellow economists know—we have vast empirical literatures showing that, for instance, you can partly predict people’s savings behavior just by knowing which country their parents or grandparents came from.”). You can look at the data and see that about 50% of the difference in levels of social trust between people in Italy and Scandinavia are reflected in the descendants of immigrants from those countries to the U.S., even after generations. You can then use your eyes to look at Minnesota versus New Jersey and see more social trust and less corruption in the former than the latter. You can even tie cultural background back to concrete social indicators! Parts of the midwest settled by Dutch settlers perform better on versus metrics than parts settled by Germans. Parts of the country settled by Puritans outperform nearly everywhere else in terms of good governance and low corruption. > America is not a startup. It is not even a company. Culture matters even more in a country than a startup! Startups hire high-IQ people that focus on discrete problems that are amenable to scientific analysis. Voters in democracies must confront a wide range of issues that are not amenable to scientific analysis, and consist of average people who are not capable of such analysis anyway. That means the person’s gut reactions, arising from their culture and socialization, matters even more. For example, most people simply can’t understand numbers on the scale of the federal debt, but cultures differ significantly in their attitudes towards debt and savings. It’s imperative to have a body politic that has pro-adaptive cultural attitudes. >,It’s a country who was built inherently by immigration. That’s like saying the country was built by people who drink water. Immigrants from where? The country that exists reflects that it was built by British settlers, with greenfield development by Germans and Scandinavians in the Midwest. If the country had been built by my ancestors in Bangladesh, I assure you, it would look very different than it does today.

rayiner 10mo ago

A thesis doesn't have to be published in some academic paper. It's just a basic set of ideas or assumptions underlying a worldview. Trump has a very distinctive set of beliefs underlying his policies, and he talks about them at length if you listen to his speeches, his interviews, etc. Just because he expresses them at a 6th grade level doesn't mean that there aren't ideas. > Those were concrete policies from Project 2025, which Trump directly said was not related to his campaign or administration. This is such a weird angle. Democrats focused on Project 2025 because of the abortion stuff. Trump stated that Project 2025 wasn't related to his campaign because it wasn't. Heritage doesn't speak for Trump--especially about abortion. That is not inconsistent with the fact that Trump and Heritage agree on 80% of everything else.

mcphage 10mo ago
> Trump has a very distinctive set of beliefs underlying his policies Trump has things that he says—many things that he says. How many of them are beliefs, and how many of them are his normal verbal diarrhea, and how many of them are just the words of the last person who spoke to him?
5upplied_demand 10mo ago
> Trump stated that Project 2025 wasn't related to his campaign because it wasn't. But it is related to the list of "Trump's Policies" that you created out of thin air, which bare a striking resemblance to many of the policies in Project 2025. This especially true with regard to military, foreign policy, and education. That's the point, he has almost no policies that he truly believes in (maybe immigration and tariffs?). > Heritage doesn't speak for Trump--especially about abortion. You cannot claim to know Trump's stance on abortion because he has taken literally every position on this topic. There are news articles spelling it all out [0]. Your comment is actually a perfect example what I am trying to explain: Trump has no discernible policy on abortion, as laid out in the article below. In order to ascribe him one, you seem to have taken the one that you align with most and applied it to him. [0] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trumps-many-abortion-positions-timeline-rcna146601 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trumps-many-ab...