There was odd comfort in that episode. A reminder that none of us should waste energy trying to make generalized rationale arguments to convince people to vote one way or the other . It was laid bare ( yet again) you win over voters one at a time - no use getting upset about it , just time to get to work. I’m so glad you wrote this Triad, I found myself laughing out loud while listening to the episode KNOWING that JVL would be losing his mind if he were on.
I compare "being a Democrat [or Republican]" to "being a Fordian" because you own a Ford - you would never do that. Political parties are businesses solely designed to shuffle money out of voters pockets, into the pockets of marketers and "consultants." They do not deserve anything resembling loyalty, or feels. We use them as labels around ideology that we think they share with us but political parties are mercenary. Voters need to be more pragmatic, less dogmatic. Put aside emotional responses to tattoos, gender, color, what someone on social media says they meant when they said something - including JVL [wink]. It's ok if the tattoos trouble you and it's ok if you like someone's down-to-earth approach. Vote for the person who will ACT like they give a shit about the American people and our institutions. For the record - I really liked the Graham Platner piece. If I could 10:1 odds, I'd put a hundy on Platner...
About Sarah's Louisiana focus group: I just want to add my appreciation that her story didn't come with those annoying little line drawings of the participants, a la the NY Times. That definitely would've amounted to TMI.
Sorry if someone else has already mentioned this, but didn't Barack (HUSSEIN!) Obama go from the Senate to the White House in little more than one election cycle? Seems like Graham (CRACKER!) Platner could do the same thing.
Well, I can write what I've done before, about clown-hiring and circuses...but it's been done to death.
Seems to me it's time to say out loud what I haven't seen acknowledged: Pace Gen. Hertling's multiple essays on how a military and its campaigns are properly managed as organizational enterprises (jokes colleagues and I made as Army physicians notwithstanding), this "war" or, maybe, "special military operation" has been fumbled...criminally. I can't believe that senior military planners haven't gamed through likely outcomes and foreseeable forking paths, all sorts of operations, with all sorts of goals, in the Middle East, and everywhere else, for that matter. If not, we're in deeper politicomilitary trouble than we've appreciated.
I never made it above Captain, and I recognized and continue to recognize that military healthcare practitioners are, effectively, civilian contractors of a special sort, given rank and uniforms to justify pay grade. But I do understand how the military works...or used to do. With all the firings of senior and midlevel command, maybe it doesn't anymore work the way Mark Hertling describes and I saw.
So...did no one in the Joint Chiefs of Staff say, "Um, wait a minute, now. If we do this, then here's the likely result. Knock-on geopolitical, economic, and social outcomes are critical to plan for, because they're truly what'll make or break achievement of the final results." The outcome Mr. Kagan sees, and which is what's unfolding before our eyes, clearly was predictable.
Why did no one refuse ILLEGAL orders? Yeah, I know, career, retirement, blah, blah, blah. But doesn't character and nobility of purpose count for anything anymore? "Preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution"? Guess not. And why didn't someone say in January, "Well, hell, Mr. President, if you wanna fix Iran's goose and get the best effect, let's hit 'em now, hard, while the populace is pissed off and dying bravely because of it!". Remember, "Help is on the way."?
ABOUT PLATNER: David French wrote a piece a day or two ago in which he brought up all of Platner's baggage and judged his character as unacceptable as Trump's. Never mind that, unlike Trump, he has owned and apologized for all of it. French's point was that the lesser of two evils was still evil.
Most commenters pointed out that it's a binary choice where the overriding issue is saving democracy. We need all the Senate seats we can get, including that of the supremely disappointing Fetterman. We can't afford to be picky here.
ABOUT VOTERS: I am forever dismayed by the ignorance and illogic shown by voters. While many vote on the basis of personal identity as Democrats or Republicans, the largest share of voters now claim no party affiliation, but their electoral decisions seem to be based on whim. To test my thesis, I searched for issues on which there is bipartisan support.
While it's four years old, YouGov has a list of 100 issues on which majorities agree. For example, 90% of Democrats and 83% of Republicans say government should provide free lunch to low-income students in public schools. 84% of Democrats and 71% of Republicans support requiring criminal and mental background checks for all gun sales. You can see the other 98 areas of agreement here: https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/44463-policies-supported-by-democrats-and-republicans
When voters complain that their government isn't serving them, I want to ask if they're paying attention. Do they know which party's politicians refuse sensible gun laws, cut IRS funds to enable tax cheats, fight labor unions, cut regulations keeping sludge out of waters and keeping companies from defrauding you? Have they figured out yet that "Make America Great Again" is a meaningless phrase? Even Shrub (hat tip to Molly Ivins) could only be fooled once.
In today's Triad, JVL asserts that: "I cannot endorse this episode strongly enough because it demonstrates a valuable lesson about voters in 2026 America. There is no logic. No consistency. No ideology, even. They are nothing but bundles of impulse and appetite. They want what they want, when they want it. Come and meet The People."
He does not say "Republicans in our focus group of Trump voters" are like this. Nor does he say "some Republican voters in Louisiana," "some Republican voters," "some voters," "many voters," or even "most voters." No the "lesson" is about "voters." Back when I taught freshman composition, I alerted students to the problems with using words like "always," "never," "all," and "none" carelessly. I think we called it conflating the part with the whole or, perhaps more colloquially, painting with too broad a brush.
Not for the first time, I must ask JVL, whose commentary I think is almost always insightful and often dead on to stop doing that. Overstating the case weakens rather than strengthening it. No, all voters are not like those people in the focus group of Trump voters in Louisiana. They are not "who we are."
That said, I am glad that Sarah, JVL and Tim do the work of talking to these people because the rest of us need to try to understand them. Doing that is a valuable public service that distinguishes the Bulwark from many other publications. I have written Will Sommer a couple of times to tell him I admire him for following far-right influencers and pundits so the rest of us don't have to. In fact, I first learned about the Bulwark when I stumbled upon an interview Tim did with Candace Owens, someone I had never heard of before. I don't like her, but I need to know she's out there.
So, JVL, Sarah and Tim, keep interviewing people like those in that Louisiana focus group, but please don't claim they stand for all voters. They don't.
Red-hatted cultists aside for a minute, that Robert Kagan Atlantic article is a sobering read. Not that we didn't know a lot of it by now but holy moly, what an absolute catastrophe this administration is.
This was awesome. We listened to this focus group and once we picked our jaws up off the floor, came to a conclusion that Democrats need to go to these places and talk to them. Obviously you’re not going to get everyone, but the simple facts that people get their news from an insulated set of sources that they follow, and commercials, yet still aren’t excited about anyone, shows their perhaps unknown need to just have a person to talk to them normally could make the difference. Look I find myself in this situation, I like someone & I become defensive about them because they speak to me & what I want. Personally I want human rights, fair pay, healthcare, & to be left alone to just enjoy my life on planet earth. I also want that for others, so these voters that constantly vote against themselves blows my mind, but also to Tim’s point shows that maybe they are ripe for some disruption that will actually benefit them in the long run.
Anyway, thoroughly enjoyed this read. Also a regular saying in our house, is I am either JVL, Sarah, and mostly always Tim in any situation these days and I love that for us.
Every single Focus Group says the same exact thing. We want more MAGA. We love us some MAGA. Their economics are terrible, their policies suck, and their members are delusional, we admit it all and want more, more, more.
But don't you dare suggest it's White supremacy and eugenics. Sarah will cry.
I liked the Platner piece, and I share your dismay that so many of your readers almost willfully misinterpreted it. I often comment in other forums, and when I link to articles I've noticed that the ones most critical of the authors of those articles are the same ones who make it a point of saying that they can't be bothered to read them. ("TL; DR") They might as well be Sarah's Louisiana focus group members.
Spitballing here as someone who didn't start paying attention to all this until after I retired 10+ years ago.
Kagan's article summarizes how the blue print for war has changed. Ukraine initially showed that bombing the bejabbers of a country only works if said country has literally no defense to even think of an offense. So think any country south of the Sahara in Africa for starters. I can't imagine Trump and/or his advisors will consider an extensive ground attack, of all the countries in the middle east with the exception of Israel, Iran would be the most difficult to accompish even over Afghanistan, which didn't work either. Iran holds the cards.
Focus groups are fun for Roadies to devour. Not sure even if you set it up to include both sides of the political spectrum as participants what difference it makes. Political persuasion methods have changed. Strong adherents for a postion take in only arguments supporting their position….ok maybe a cult. For the the rest of us; the best targeted marketing or biggest voice carries more weight for too many of us. yes Trump's being bombastic fills a need.
And so much of our young adults are operating in a vacuum. They only know Obama/Trump/Biden/Trump as POTUS. The October 7, Hamas attack and subsequent Israeli response has shown history didn't mean a darn thing, what Cold War? Civil Rights? DEI/Woke?
We now have a more overt cultural Civil War that the Civil Rights Movement and Roe vs Wade etc. had pushed back into the forest…..
Not sure how that's going to change other than hopefully co-existing peacefully and maybe a reduction in the polarization some time soon.
Our minds were made to survive one more day. Getting the boot from your group meant that the saber-toothed tiger would have an easy target that day.
Combine that with human's true superpower - the ability to creatively rationalize any behavior away - and you have the human history of Us vs. Them, and it's bloody aftermaths. Welcome to Civil War 2.0, America.
There was odd comfort in that episode. A reminder that none of us should waste energy trying to make generalized rationale arguments to convince people to vote one way or the other . It was laid bare ( yet again) you win over voters one at a time - no use getting upset about it , just time to get to work. I’m so glad you wrote this Triad, I found myself laughing out loud while listening to the episode KNOWING that JVL would be losing his mind if he were on.
I compare "being a Democrat [or Republican]" to "being a Fordian" because you own a Ford - you would never do that. Political parties are businesses solely designed to shuffle money out of voters pockets, into the pockets of marketers and "consultants." They do not deserve anything resembling loyalty, or feels. We use them as labels around ideology that we think they share with us but political parties are mercenary. Voters need to be more pragmatic, less dogmatic. Put aside emotional responses to tattoos, gender, color, what someone on social media says they meant when they said something - including JVL [wink]. It's ok if the tattoos trouble you and it's ok if you like someone's down-to-earth approach. Vote for the person who will ACT like they give a shit about the American people and our institutions. For the record - I really liked the Graham Platner piece. If I could 10:1 odds, I'd put a hundy on Platner...
About Sarah's Louisiana focus group: I just want to add my appreciation that her story didn't come with those annoying little line drawings of the participants, a la the NY Times. That definitely would've amounted to TMI.
Remind me again how people are found and or selected for focus groups? Saturdays was a doozy!!
I’m just tired. This is my response:
https://snyder.substack.com/p/on-superpower-suicide?r=151fk&utm_medium=ios
Sorry if someone else has already mentioned this, but didn't Barack (HUSSEIN!) Obama go from the Senate to the White House in little more than one election cycle? Seems like Graham (CRACKER!) Platner could do the same thing.
Well, I can write what I've done before, about clown-hiring and circuses...but it's been done to death.
Seems to me it's time to say out loud what I haven't seen acknowledged: Pace Gen. Hertling's multiple essays on how a military and its campaigns are properly managed as organizational enterprises (jokes colleagues and I made as Army physicians notwithstanding), this "war" or, maybe, "special military operation" has been fumbled...criminally. I can't believe that senior military planners haven't gamed through likely outcomes and foreseeable forking paths, all sorts of operations, with all sorts of goals, in the Middle East, and everywhere else, for that matter. If not, we're in deeper politicomilitary trouble than we've appreciated.
I never made it above Captain, and I recognized and continue to recognize that military healthcare practitioners are, effectively, civilian contractors of a special sort, given rank and uniforms to justify pay grade. But I do understand how the military works...or used to do. With all the firings of senior and midlevel command, maybe it doesn't anymore work the way Mark Hertling describes and I saw.
So...did no one in the Joint Chiefs of Staff say, "Um, wait a minute, now. If we do this, then here's the likely result. Knock-on geopolitical, economic, and social outcomes are critical to plan for, because they're truly what'll make or break achievement of the final results." The outcome Mr. Kagan sees, and which is what's unfolding before our eyes, clearly was predictable.
Why did no one refuse ILLEGAL orders? Yeah, I know, career, retirement, blah, blah, blah. But doesn't character and nobility of purpose count for anything anymore? "Preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution"? Guess not. And why didn't someone say in January, "Well, hell, Mr. President, if you wanna fix Iran's goose and get the best effect, let's hit 'em now, hard, while the populace is pissed off and dying bravely because of it!". Remember, "Help is on the way."?
ABOUT PLATNER: David French wrote a piece a day or two ago in which he brought up all of Platner's baggage and judged his character as unacceptable as Trump's. Never mind that, unlike Trump, he has owned and apologized for all of it. French's point was that the lesser of two evils was still evil.
Most commenters pointed out that it's a binary choice where the overriding issue is saving democracy. We need all the Senate seats we can get, including that of the supremely disappointing Fetterman. We can't afford to be picky here.
ABOUT VOTERS: I am forever dismayed by the ignorance and illogic shown by voters. While many vote on the basis of personal identity as Democrats or Republicans, the largest share of voters now claim no party affiliation, but their electoral decisions seem to be based on whim. To test my thesis, I searched for issues on which there is bipartisan support.
While it's four years old, YouGov has a list of 100 issues on which majorities agree. For example, 90% of Democrats and 83% of Republicans say government should provide free lunch to low-income students in public schools. 84% of Democrats and 71% of Republicans support requiring criminal and mental background checks for all gun sales. You can see the other 98 areas of agreement here: https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/44463-policies-supported-by-democrats-and-republicans
When voters complain that their government isn't serving them, I want to ask if they're paying attention. Do they know which party's politicians refuse sensible gun laws, cut IRS funds to enable tax cheats, fight labor unions, cut regulations keeping sludge out of waters and keeping companies from defrauding you? Have they figured out yet that "Make America Great Again" is a meaningless phrase? Even Shrub (hat tip to Molly Ivins) could only be fooled once.
In today's Triad, JVL asserts that: "I cannot endorse this episode strongly enough because it demonstrates a valuable lesson about voters in 2026 America. There is no logic. No consistency. No ideology, even. They are nothing but bundles of impulse and appetite. They want what they want, when they want it. Come and meet The People."
He does not say "Republicans in our focus group of Trump voters" are like this. Nor does he say "some Republican voters in Louisiana," "some Republican voters," "some voters," "many voters," or even "most voters." No the "lesson" is about "voters." Back when I taught freshman composition, I alerted students to the problems with using words like "always," "never," "all," and "none" carelessly. I think we called it conflating the part with the whole or, perhaps more colloquially, painting with too broad a brush.
Not for the first time, I must ask JVL, whose commentary I think is almost always insightful and often dead on to stop doing that. Overstating the case weakens rather than strengthening it. No, all voters are not like those people in the focus group of Trump voters in Louisiana. They are not "who we are."
That said, I am glad that Sarah, JVL and Tim do the work of talking to these people because the rest of us need to try to understand them. Doing that is a valuable public service that distinguishes the Bulwark from many other publications. I have written Will Sommer a couple of times to tell him I admire him for following far-right influencers and pundits so the rest of us don't have to. In fact, I first learned about the Bulwark when I stumbled upon an interview Tim did with Candace Owens, someone I had never heard of before. I don't like her, but I need to know she's out there.
So, JVL, Sarah and Tim, keep interviewing people like those in that Louisiana focus group, but please don't claim they stand for all voters. They don't.
Red-hatted cultists aside for a minute, that Robert Kagan Atlantic article is a sobering read. Not that we didn't know a lot of it by now but holy moly, what an absolute catastrophe this administration is.
This was awesome. We listened to this focus group and once we picked our jaws up off the floor, came to a conclusion that Democrats need to go to these places and talk to them. Obviously you’re not going to get everyone, but the simple facts that people get their news from an insulated set of sources that they follow, and commercials, yet still aren’t excited about anyone, shows their perhaps unknown need to just have a person to talk to them normally could make the difference. Look I find myself in this situation, I like someone & I become defensive about them because they speak to me & what I want. Personally I want human rights, fair pay, healthcare, & to be left alone to just enjoy my life on planet earth. I also want that for others, so these voters that constantly vote against themselves blows my mind, but also to Tim’s point shows that maybe they are ripe for some disruption that will actually benefit them in the long run.
Anyway, thoroughly enjoyed this read. Also a regular saying in our house, is I am either JVL, Sarah, and mostly always Tim in any situation these days and I love that for us.
Thanks guys!!!
Every single Focus Group says the same exact thing. We want more MAGA. We love us some MAGA. Their economics are terrible, their policies suck, and their members are delusional, we admit it all and want more, more, more.
But don't you dare suggest it's White supremacy and eugenics. Sarah will cry.
I liked the Platner piece, and I share your dismay that so many of your readers almost willfully misinterpreted it. I often comment in other forums, and when I link to articles I've noticed that the ones most critical of the authors of those articles are the same ones who make it a point of saying that they can't be bothered to read them. ("TL; DR") They might as well be Sarah's Louisiana focus group members.
so how will they vote? They don't seem to like any of the options
That's OK, they probably have many people in their lives to tell them how to vote. Like Trump, Greg Gutfield, and their pastors.
Spitballing here as someone who didn't start paying attention to all this until after I retired 10+ years ago.
Kagan's article summarizes how the blue print for war has changed. Ukraine initially showed that bombing the bejabbers of a country only works if said country has literally no defense to even think of an offense. So think any country south of the Sahara in Africa for starters. I can't imagine Trump and/or his advisors will consider an extensive ground attack, of all the countries in the middle east with the exception of Israel, Iran would be the most difficult to accompish even over Afghanistan, which didn't work either. Iran holds the cards.
Focus groups are fun for Roadies to devour. Not sure even if you set it up to include both sides of the political spectrum as participants what difference it makes. Political persuasion methods have changed. Strong adherents for a postion take in only arguments supporting their position….ok maybe a cult. For the the rest of us; the best targeted marketing or biggest voice carries more weight for too many of us. yes Trump's being bombastic fills a need.
And so much of our young adults are operating in a vacuum. They only know Obama/Trump/Biden/Trump as POTUS. The October 7, Hamas attack and subsequent Israeli response has shown history didn't mean a darn thing, what Cold War? Civil Rights? DEI/Woke?
We now have a more overt cultural Civil War that the Civil Rights Movement and Roe vs Wade etc. had pushed back into the forest…..
Not sure how that's going to change other than hopefully co-existing peacefully and maybe a reduction in the polarization some time soon.
Our minds were made to survive one more day. Getting the boot from your group meant that the saber-toothed tiger would have an easy target that day.
Combine that with human's true superpower - the ability to creatively rationalize any behavior away - and you have the human history of Us vs. Them, and it's bloody aftermaths. Welcome to Civil War 2.0, America.