I remember a story a couple of weeks ago, or perhaps earlier this year about the lead-up to the NSDAP takeover of the German government in the mid 1900:s. It was something about just overwhelming people with pointless crisis and issues to keep you busy and preoccupied both physically and mentally so not to notice the truly bad things going when the democratic state was eroding.
This seems like one such thing, it's a ploy for the public, it distracts from other things, it takes space away from other thing in the news, it ties up courts and others.
"…it consumed all one’s energies, coming on top of the work one really wanted to do. You can see how easy it was, then, not to think about fundamental things. One had no time."
I read this recently on Hacker News, in a discussion about "They Thought They Were Free" (1955) [1]
In his interviews, this is more or less what Yuri Bezmenov described the aim of Russian propaganda was. It's hard to just get people to buy into ideas, but if you just turn up the volume on existing noise, it's simultaneously authentic but also robs people of discerning what's true or worth prioritizing.
The irony is all of his concerns were about the spread of Marxism in the US. Well, it turns out the methods are useful for anyone.
> It was something about just overwhelming people with pointless crisis and issues to keep you busy and preoccupied both physically and mentally so not to notice the truly bad things going when the democratic state was eroding.
This is something that Russia has been doing for more than a decade:
> We characterize the contemporary Russian model for propaganda as “the firehose of falsehood” because of two of its distinctive features: high numbers of channels and messages and a shameless willingness to disseminate partial truths or outright fictions. In the words of one observer, “[N]ew Russian propaganda entertains, confuses and overwhelms the audience.”2
> Contemporary Russian propaganda has at least two other distinctive features. It is also rapid, continuous, and repetitive, and it lacks commitment to consistency.
> Interestingly, several of these features run directly counter to the conventional wisdom on effective influence and communication from government or defense sources, which traditionally emphasize the importance of truth, credibility, and the avoidance of contradiction.3 Despite ignoring these traditional principles, Russia seems to have enjoyed some success under its contemporary propaganda model, either through more direct persuasion and influence or by engaging in obfuscation, confusion, and the disruption or diminution of truthful reporting and messaging.
Steve Bannon used the same technique during Trump 1.0:
> While watching the news coverage of Steve Bannon’s initial appearance in federal court on Monday, I kept thinking about his 2018 confession to the acclaimed writer Michael Lewis. His quote is like a compass that orients this crazy era of American politics. “The Democrats don’t matter,” Bannon told Lewis. “The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.”
> That’s the Bannon business model: Flood the zone. Stink up the joint. As Jonathan Rauch once said, citing Bannon’s infamous quote, “This is not about persuasion: This is about disorientation.”
You don't need to go the reductio ad Hitlerum route. Distraction, lawfare, divide-and-conquer are old, tried, and tested tactics for diverting attention, grinding down the opposition, and scattering threats. It isn't unique to this administration nor to our times.
(Incidentally, in the US, divide-and-conquer often happens on racial grounds, for example. When American oligarchy starts feeling threatened, it can easily reach for the race card by giving the appropriate people a platform to manufacture paranoia, grievance, outrage, indignation, and antipathy. Solidarity breaks down. People stop talking about how badly they're being governed and manipulated by gov't and private interest and shift focus toward hating each other. Indeed, this is how democracies function in practice. Whereas dictatorships often rely on a good deal of brute force, oligarchs in democracies must be craftier in their methods - this includes the abuse of media, or the phenomenon of sexual lib, as described by Aldous Huxley, as another intersecting example. The citizen cannot know he is subject to manipulation or coercion. Media and education become instruments of conditioning and inculcation, with society functioning as a force multiplier.)
I don't think I did, at least not harshly. I was just seemingly finding a political pattern which I recognised from earlier, and that happened to be what it was. Was I incorrect in my observation or were you reminded of https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/14/private-chat-among-... perhaps?
I partly agree with your general observation in parenthesis there, it seems this situation is being significantly sponsored by the American oligarchy (e.g. Thiel).
> You don't need to go the reductio ad Hitlerum route.
And yet, when the people at the top, the ones implementing these strategies and policies, are explicitly lionizing Hitler in a variety of ways, on top of mimicking his policies, strategies, values, and ideals, suddenly treating the comparison as if it's absurd or illogical starts to seem like it's trying to distract us from something...
Except similar things happened in multiple countries in the world at the same time, yet most are not slipping closer and closer to authoritarianism today.
I don't like putting the blame on a "takeover". Democracy is about a kind of equality among people, and the US has had a strong anti-democratic strain since slavery. Probably even feudalism before that. Once you see it, you see it everywhere and can't unsee it. There's a reason Trump's best polling issue is immigration. https://www.natesilver.net/p/trump-approval-ratings-nate-sil...
There was always going to be a day of reckoning. If you want multiculturalism, you need to follow Europe's lead with everything from strictly banning Nazis (Germany), to healthcare, to getting over 90% mutlilingualism (Nordic countries).
> Democracy is about a kind of equality among people, and the US has had a strong anti-democratic strain since slavery. Probably even feudalism before that.
Yeah, I remember reading about all those US feudal lords that preceded slavery...
During dt's first term I believed this as well and eagerly awaited the Mueller investigation.
Then when he won reelection I concluded I was consuming media in an echo chamber.
This fear you're commenting on goes way farther back than dt.
Ballroom, mueller investigation, Benghazi, guantanemo, tan suit, parkland, Alex Jones, mission accomplished, 911. These all got airtime. Some longer than others.
You're commenting on the nature of media to fill silence with noise, and the expectation we place on the reader to triage the news.
Biased newsfeeds are one thing, cronyism and flooding courts/weaponizing the judicial system are a different thing.
It could be the case that the level of cronyism and weaponizing we see today is the same amount as in the past.
It's up to the reader to determine how much of their opinion is due to bias, and how much is due to a real increase in nefarious political strategy. Some are more diligent about checking their sources that others.
To be fair to Trump, he was the target of lawfare after his election loss in 2020, for instance. He claimed later that he would have vengeance. Not a magnanimous move, but Trump is not magnanimous. He has stated before that he enjoys destroying his enemies, with relish and verve.
In any case, when we fixate on one political figure or party, we lose sight of the general picture. In sociological terms, Trump is not very important. He is more of an expression of the times than their cause. He may catalyze certain changes, but he's hardly alone in doing that. In the broad sense, the general historical trajectory is not really deflected by him.
A wiser perspective is to look at broad trends. One should read Plato's Republic. The decadence of society described in that book - degenerating into timocracy (rule by honor), then oligarchy (rule by wealth), then democracy (rule by freedom), ending finally in anarchy - are a good context for understanding how these processes tend to play out.
So those boxes of classified documents were totally innocuous? "Find me votes" and alternate elector slates weren't to advance his stated goal of reversing his loss?
I think my point is you're expected to triage find me votes vs 911. And the fact that find me votes is in the news isn't indicative of democratic decline, its the way the news work.
I am not sure I understand. Both of those events are significant: a sophisticated terrorist attack on the United States and a president trying to coerce a swing state governor into changing its election results.
News triages the newsworthiness. Viewers triage what elements of the news that are most meaningful to them.
I don't really see the problem, except qualms about execution.
> To be fair to Trump, he was the target of lawfare after his election loss in 2020, for instance.
To be fair to reality, no, he wasn’t. He committed a number of very serious crimes flagrantly out in the open and the Justice Department was inordinately slow in responding to them out of a number of factors, including institutional partisan bias (even under Democratic Administration the bulk of the federal criminal investigatory apparatus has always been Republican, including political appointees at the FBI, and every single FBI director in the bureau's history), concern over appearing political trumping concern over enforcing the law, and, well, a number of other things.
One I wonder about but cannot prove: I wonder if the Justice Department wanted the prosecutions to wait until 2024, so that they would tar Trump during the campaign. If so, they were well-served for that bit of trying to put a thumb on the electoral scales. Trump was able to delay the cases until after the election. If they had begun a year earlier, we might be living in a very different world.
Speaking of Mission Accomplished and 9/11, I recently watched Tucker Carlson's 9/11 series. I was expecting garbage but it actually did an amazingly good job building off of Fahrenheit 9/11 using the stuff that's come out in the 20yr since. If you take a step back the contrast does a really does a good job illustrating how just by sprinkling bullshit into the data the state, the media, etc, can do a sufficiently good job keeping people from connecting the dots or knowing what questions they ought to be asking.
Moore knew something stunk, but he was groping around in the dark in a totally different political climate less receptive to questioning authority.
Ah, Texas. The State of Texas once told me that I had to sign a declaration that I would not boycott Israel, in order that they could buy 3 figures worth of event planning software. I told them it was none of their business. I did not get the sale.
Not just Texas! 38 states have legislation that bars the state government from doing business with any company that boycotts Israel. As a US taxpayer, I would think that the involuntary contributions to Israel being taken out of my paycheck would be enough, but I guess we have to provide support in other ways too.
> I had to sign a declaration that I would not boycott Israel, in order that they could buy 3 figures worth of event planning software
What possible justification(s) did they have for something so stupid? Never seen anything like that in business contracts, but then I've never bought/sold anything to Texas.
They're required to do it by law, some posturing the Texas legislature went through a few years back in the name of "fighting anti-semitism". Virtue signalling stuff.
>" it was rewritten to exclude individual contractors and only pertain to businesses with 10 or more full-time employees and when the contract is for $100,000 or more."
I'm not a lawyer or an American, but I understood that the 1st Amendment wording specifically limits the rights of the government (including states) to limit free speech and doesn't mention the location or nationality of the target.
Honestly, yeah, makes sense to me. If we value freedom at all we value the right to tell the government to stuff it with their legally binding nothingburger deals.
It looks and smells like the big tobacco coverup, which I suspect it isn't. Even so, we'll know more if the Texas lawsuit gets to discovery and more than what was allegedly leaked is revealed.
Johnson & Johnson has literally collaborated with the FDA in the past to put disclosures of risks during pregnancy on hundreds of their products. Many of which are more profitable than Tylenol.
This is substantively different than the "tobacco coverup" in a magnitude of ways - but we're talking about an alleged coverup for something that the company doesn't have a history of covering up, for a tiny segment of their customers.
Regardless of the actual risk of Tylenol, Occam's Razor should not lead us to assume a coordinated coverup.
If this goes to court won't that just prove that there's no credible link between the 2? So what's Paxton's game here? Does he really think Tylenol causes autism or is this about forcing J&J to say that it does despite facts?
> politics slowly eating it's own ass for the past 40+ years; it's about politicking rather than governing
I'm honestly not even sure he is running for Senate. He might just be going turbo MAGA in hopes that Trump tries to buy him out of dropping out with an administration appointment, the way they did with Adams in NYC [1] (until he bombed out in the polls).
The Republican party has developed a perverse incentive structure where running in the primary as an unelectable nutjob in order to get bribed to drop out is a precedented strategy [2].
As a point of comparison, the Johnson & Johnson ruling over asbestos and talc never actually proved a credible link between trace amounts of asbestos and cervical cancer or even presence of asbestos in the client's talc. But they didn't have to in order to find J&J guilty of negligence.
One of the things about a jury trial is that the science itself is never on trial, and there's always a risk that one side can just out-maneuver the other.
Science doesn't get evaluated in a court a law. The standards for science in court have to do with credentials, charisma, money, and gullibility. Reproducibility doesn't exist in court. They only have to find convince a gullible handful of something once and it becomes law.
The annoying part is that there is a credible link between them, so it's harder to dismiss.
There is an established statistically measurable link between some viral infections during pregnancy and autism. So there is a statistically measurable link between Tylenol use (which reduce fever and pain) with the person having fever and pain.
If there is published science claiming so, they have to now argue for why this science is misleading or wrong instead of simply dismissing the case for having no scientific ground. The science is lazy but not outright wrong, and has not been retracted.
The tragic part is that it's far worse for the baby for a the mother to have a high unchecked fever or infection, or to use any other painkiller (most of which are well known to be dangerous during pregnancy). So even if there is a remnant risk after taking relevant variables into account, it is a far preferable risk to continue to use it.
Your first sentence says "there is a credible link between them" and the rest of your post points out how the link is not scientifically credible. Were the first and third paragraphs just bait?
You can't claim that "science says there's a measurable link" when the science in question says the link is just a correlation based on Tylenol being used to treat the causal link (fever from viral infection). Science isn't about finding correlation. It's about identifying causal links. That's why we do experiments.
> Science isn't about finding correlation. It's about identifying causal links
Science is fundamentally about finding correlations. We measure things we think are interesting to measure, and try to see if it matches our models and theories. The study found a correlation in their data, and that correlation is real. If that is where that study ends then it's still a valid study. Other papers could apply some more complex statistics to make a guess at the cause, or an aggregate study can take data from a collection of previous studies to re-process the data for new insights.
The "scientific consensus" ends up being what the largest samples studies with good statistical rigor seem to agree on. But that always ends up murky to use in court. "Published paper says X" is usually where most popular science ends, and in this case they're right. "Scientific consensus" is pretty clear that the cause is likely viral infection during pregnancy, but scientific consensus isn't written down anywhere as scientific consensus.
We've been fighting for 30 years about MMR and autism, which was a single retracted study discredited by every study since. And how we're gonna somehow discuss in courts about the correct statistical model to explain a real correlation.
> We've been fighting for 30 years about MMR and autism, which was a single retracted study discredited by every study since. And how we're gonna somehow discuss in courts about the correct statistical model to explain a real correlation.
Yeah, we mostly agree. Sorry if I was a bit harsh. I have been very frustrated about the MAHA push away from science based medicine and into lawyer based medicine.
Your point about it being difficult to defend and easy to apply manipulative rhetoric around statistical integrity and methods is a good one.
I have conflicting thoughts on this, as a former Texas medical school drop-out that participates on this website because it's_comfy.gif:
1) Ken Paxton is a powerful idiot/golum. Throw rocks, carefully.
2) Acetaminophen is waaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy overtaken/prescribed
3) Acetaminophen should not be added to most opiod preparations (e.g. common hydroxies of 5mg/325mg oxy/acetaminophen) [it quickly fucks up the liver at high/constant dosage]
4) Reverting to purer opiod pills would reduce the imports/effects/DEATHS related to fentanyl-laced streets drugs (whether the users are actively or deceptively seeking fent directly), it kills when mistaken/miss-taken.
5) Can we please just replace all of Texas' higher political representation... maybe do a "national reset" of political powerhouses by imposing term/age limits upon house reps at state/national levels, as well as similar to how Texas does SCOTex with mandatory retirement at 75 years old. There should certainly NOT be leaders that are 80+ years old! Retire, already; you earnt it, remember (can you remember?)..!
6) [trigger warning: trauma] I would recon things like GM (and other early childhood trauma) are more determinant in eventual autism claims, which would support its much higher prevalence among US boys/men.
7) In general acetaminophen-based products are overprescribed. I'm not sure if this was a rumor, but back two decades when I attended my first (and only) year of medical school: we were taught that acetaminophen was only put into opiod preparations to deter addicts (which was laughable, even then, since half the class had some sort of chemical addiction — we knew it well would not deter).
What are those claims based on? Are you trying to tell us something about claims by people from Texas? I know some smart Texans, so that's really unfair. :)
Can someone explain the angle here? I mean, I get why personally RFK Jr. might have opinions about stuff. I can imagine him putting his finger on the scale here or there.
But why all the attention? It's... tylenol. Why is POTUS and Texas AG and whatnot getting up on a stage in front of the media and going to war against an extremely boring OTC medication that no one has every cared about. There are no conspiracy votes to get here. RFK made it all up.
Is this a corruption thing? Are they shaking down the manufacturer? Is it being blown up for speculative reasons? I note that Johnson & Johnson spun it off just two years ago. Is there a plan behind this?
Seriously, what's actually going on? This smells like some kind of weird conspiracy but I can't see anything but irrationality.
RFK (or maybe Trump) gave themselves an arbitrary deadline of September this year to "find the cause of autism" which obviously meant they had to find a scapegoat. Some speculate that they went after Kenvue/J&J because they weren't kowtowing hard enough to the administration and there was junk science around Tylenol/Autism links which made it an easy target.
The link isn't solid, so there's not exactly much of a case, and probably better to take it for high fever than taking nothing at all... we think.
The big deal is that it's yet another case of government and big corporations hiding evidence that things aren't what they want us to think they are. RFK's big deal is simple:
1- autism diagnosis rates have skyrocketed
2- food today isn't what it used to be, what with all the dyes and not-food things put into food
3- daily diet advice is wildly inconsistent and based on old data
4- things which we've been taking for granted, like "tylenol is perfectly safe" or "the covid vaccine is perfectly safe" when neither are strictly true causes people to have LESS trust in the government, not more. Rather than treating everyone like idiots, give them information to make informed choices. There'll still be idiots either way, but better (in his mind) to let the rest make up their own minds on what they put into their bodies
How do you explain inherited autism then, from parent to child? Or autism running in families? You can't possibly think it's that they used the same bottle of pills, can you?
Have you ever looked at the prevalence of autism outside of the US?
I don't think the argument was ever that acetaminophen or other compounds were exclusively the cause of autism. If anything, it is likely that they activate the genes during development that are responsible.
I believe there have been some pretty large studies that looked at autism in siblings where the mother took acetaminophen during one of the pregnancies but not the other and found no statistically noticeable difference in autism rates between the siblings.
You apparently do not understand the difference between causation and correlation. This is also why the execs were concerned -- because most Americans are the same.
1. Diagnosis rates. Because diagnosis criteria has changed.
2. Sure okay. Don't eat junk food. Why are you pitching a little fit about it?
3. Don't know enough about dietary guidelines to comment on their quality, but the guidelines are updated based on best available science.
4. If you'd actually listen to doctors and researchers, rather than what your echo chamber claims, you'd know they don't claim any of it is "perfectly safe", just that it's safer than the alternatives like getting covid, or running a high fever when pregnant.
FWIW, I do recall hearing that Trump ran with the announcement ahead of RFK's plan, so it's a good possibility that it got over-hyped.
But, the question was why is RFK involved? The answer, it appears, is that he is putting the blame on the government - including the FDA - for not doing its job to regulate industry. Food should contain food. Europe understands this, but America has been a little slow to catch on.
> the guidelines are updated based on best available science
This has almost never been true, given that the available science has long been funded by the ag and food industry. The most recent updates are good for policy documents, but worthless for the average person. He's been promoting a simplified version.
> If you'd actually listen to doctors and researchers, rather than what your echo chamber claims
Actually, that claim has been thrown around, by both doctors in the public arena as well as the government, especially in tandem with the phrase "when used as directed".
All in all, I'm mostly interested to see if there's any actual evidence that comes out from discovery, or if this is all just a big PR stunt by the Texas AG.
First, nothing you write seems to explain why we're seeing Trump at a podium or Paxton filing a suit. Why not just have the FDA announce an investigation?
Second: this is one of the most common drugs on the planet, and has been for half a century. If there was a clear effect with non-trivial magnitude, someone would have noticed.
As to the rest:
> based on leaked memos
That is a laundered Daily Caller story! It's a single screenshot of a single email, which doesn't even contain the word "autism". Given the context, if you force me to flag a conspiracy here: this thing you linked is probably fabricated to enable this very freakout.
I mean, absent other criticism: it's talking about "studies". Studies get published. Surely you could just look them up and see if they show a link, no? Well, no, obviously, because the Caller didn't. Or they did, and they didn't support the breathless hyperbole.
I think what I was trying to get at is that we see RFK at the podium because he doesn't trust the FDA is regulating industry as it should. Food should contain food, not dyes and other things, etc etc.
> That is a laundered Daily Caller story
I did point that out in my other posts around here on the topic, I missed it on this one. The fact that the article doesn't contain everything is irrelevant; I'm pointing it out under the assumption that there's more than just a PR stunt for the Texas lawsuit. Maybe more will come out in discovery, or maybe it really is just a PR stunt. Time will tell.
> I mean, absent other criticism: it's talking about "studies". Studies get published.
The thing that's wild to me in all of this is that people complain for years that industry shouldn't regulate itself, that it's too involved in studies about itself, and yet here we are, defending an indefensible status quo. Big Tobacco didn't publish their own studies showing how harmful tobacco was, and the extent and years that they knew about it and did nothing were big contributors to the judgments against them.
> this thing you linked is probably fabricated to enable this very freakout.
That would be pretty wild, but I imagine these memos will be part of the discovery in the Texas lawsuit. If it turns out to be nothing, then people will move on like they always do.
See... this is where conspiracy thinking takes you. It's like an addiction, and you need to keep feeding it out of your head when the spigot runs dry.
> people complain for years that industry shouldn't regulate itself, that it's too involved in studies about itself, and yet here we are, defending an indefensible status quo.
You are inferring from the article (as it wants you to believe) that somehow this letter declares the existence of heretofore unknown studies funded, performed by and then suppressed by Johnson & Johnson. It doesn't say that, at all. The author just thanks someone for sending them a PDF or whatever.
So I see a partisan rag making an ambiguous point and assuming that the straightforward interpretation ("ambiguous evidence" is like the easiest bet in science) holds. You see it, having already been primed with an interpretation, and need to start filling in details to preserve the conspiracy you've already adopted. Occam argues strongly that the Caller is just wrong and publishing garbage spin, as they've done many times in the past.
The leaked memos went to DCNF via a law firm with prior suit with Kenvue, so take it with however much salt you want, but there does appear to be internal concern over the data.
It won't be dismissed out of hand because there is a colorable legal argument assuming the necessary facts and some (very weak) evidence that can be proferred for each of the necessary facts, which is pretty much all that is necessary to get to trial if you are committed and not worried about winning.
If the strategy is to get a settlement without agreement to fault extracting a bit of money to avoid the cost of litigation and use that also as a political hammer to reinforce the popular perception that the claim of a link is true, I can certainly see it being (despite being wildly unethical, an abuse of public office, etc.) an understandable course of action (I don't think it ultimately works even there, unless there is also separate corrupt pressure to settle by people abusing government, perhaps federal, offices in different ways—but that is also a possibility—because even a no admission of guilt settlement becomes hard for J&J publicly if even meaningful moves public perception.) I don't think there is much chance that they win a verdict at trial and survive appeals on it, but... that doesn't have to be the goal.
There are some actual studies behind it, which complicate things into a "scientific consensus" discussion rather than "no credible claims" discussion. Good statistics make the claims go away, but arguing about the correct use of statistics in court is gonna drag on.
Well... by filing the suit, if it isn't dismissed immediately, then Texas gets to do discovery on J&J. J&J may be unwilling to let that happen.
So options are dismissed immediately, J&J settles, Texas drops it after discovery (if they fail to find a smoking gun), or it goes to trial and Texas has to actually prove it.
If there's a settlement, that's as good as a win for those that believe this. They will look guilty as hell to everyone that wants to believe. I don't see any way a settlement is a valid choice for the defense. This is one of those you want to end decisively. Any time it is brought up after, you just point back to the court case. If you settle, any time it is brought up after there will always be linger speculation on why did they settle. It will forever be an albatross around their neck.
> If there's a settlement, that's as good as a win for those that believe this. They will look guilty as hell to everyone that wants to believe. I don't see any way a settlement is a valid choice for the defense.
Plus, Tylenol is... a pretty large product, and I don't think they're willing to just flush that entire product line down the toilet.
Great way to dispense a few billion of taxpayer money in settlements as a favor while everyone's distracted by the story and laughing about how dumb RFK and Trump are.
They're not that dumb. Anything that seems particularly illogical has underlying motives. Look and you'll find more instances of this. Much more.
I do think the "DAE TRUMP IS A DUMMY?!?!?!?" narrative has done a lot of harm over the last decade because nobody took his campaign seriously, but RFK is absolutely a moron.
Or, at least, he is very sincere in his convictions about many very dumb things
"Stupid" doesn't seem to be the right word to apply to a man who has managed to (annoyingly) command the attention of the entire world and who has gotten himself elected as the most powerful man in the world twice.
I do not like the man. I find his behavior to be corrupt, immoral, and unethical.
And I also do not hesitate for one moment to admit that he is a singular figure in history who has a deep understanding of human beings and how to exploit them. That may not be classic-elite-intellectual-book-smartness, but it is some kind of smartness, and far from stupid.
In November of 2024, I thought Americans voted to turn their country into Russia, and I still think that's largely right (the oligarchy, the arbitrarily repressive legal system, the endless media sycophancy, the masked paramilitary thugs, etc), but it's also not the complete story. Authoritarian governments like Russia also tend to invest in state capacity and science, so MAHA and DOGE's work is kind of an outlier and a unique American innovation in the space of creating authoritarian hellscapes. Let's see how it works out for them.
Think of it like a private equity acquisition - of government. Cut as much cost as possible, give the assets to yourself by liquidating and by running up debt, leave the husk for someone else.
Also, they are reactionary; the top priority of reactionaries is to destroy their opposition, not to achieve other things.
And by destroying government, they leave a power vaccuum for powerful private parties to fill.
> Authoritarian governments like Russia also tend to invest in state capacity and science
Russia? The country whose military is shitting the bed fighting an army that can’t project more than a third into its interior, whose “hypersonic” missiles are being shot down by 90s Patriot kit and whose space programme has—sensibly—seemingly given up on landing on the Moon?
Chinese authoritarianism can be sung some praises. At least until the wolf warriors get overconfident and tank the advantages meticulously eked out by their colleagues. But Russia? It’s chosen a policy of near-term vainglory at the expense of the Russian state existing within its current borders come 2050.
The issue is that Trump is a vessel that all sorts of people are trying to use to push their agenda. As long as you declare loyalty to him, you're allowed in and can push whatever BS you want no matter how wacky or authoritarian it is.
His own VP and health secretary have even called him Hitler but wised up so that they were allowed on the train!
I've slowly been coming to see voting for Trump as a populist revolt against the educated elite. The educated elite has embraced the Progressive Left, but refuses to acknowledge that a lot of people are simply do not agree that this is a positive development. But the Progressive Left keeps making that position not acceptable. Hillary Clinton's "deplorables" comment--and the fact that it got laughs--is a minor example. The Progressive Left has been making it harder to live as someone with a different opinion, and 2024 was the year everybody else revolted; I think even white men finally voted majority Republican, after the minorities slowly peeled off over the past decade. Trump is appalling, but I think the election makes more sense if you look at it as the non-elite population saying "we want less Progressivism", and Trump promised that he would deliver. Since nobody in the elite was listening, they had to say it louder and louder, until Trump became their mouthpiece. (This is probably all subconscious, of course.) If educated elites continue to along their current path, which I expect, because this seems to be a matter of essentially religious righteousness for them, I expect it will be said even louder, with potentially disastrous consequences for everyone. Continued Progressivism will also be disastrous, but in a different way. It won't be Putin, but dissent will certainly not be tolerated. Similar dynamics are happening in the UK, except that I don't think there is a Trump figure there, so the message is more diffuse. I expect you can probably look at Canada to see how continued Progressivism will work out.
It's only a feeling that I have, but I think that some folks live in a scarcity mindset, where they are only barely holding on to what they have. Note that this does not actually have to be their lived reality - you can be rich and think this way. Trying to adjust the system to "give more" to other people means less available to them. Sort of a zero-sum perspective on the world. If someone else gains, that means I lose.
This logic is fundamentally flawed. Pointing this out to people (often in strong language) makes them defensive. This creates the perfect combination to get people to vote against their best interests.
It's not about "being progressive" or "elite". It's about playing to the fears of people who are already fearful.
I see where you're coming from. Democrats haven't done a good job of reaching those blue collar voters in the red states.
What might this look like?
It might look like AOC taking a trip down south to spend the day with southern folks at a pig pickin', a crawfish boil, a monster truck show, day on the shooting range, etc.
The problem with this argument is that you imply that the left could simply choose to do away with what you call progressivism at no cost. In fact, what you’re calling progressivism and what is rejected by many Trump voters our fundamental rights for women, gay people, other minorities, et cetera.
The US is not particularly progressive by the standards of most developed democracies. It’s true the other countries have managed to maintain abroad consensus around minority rights in a way the US has not, but it’s inconceivable to concede much of this ground now. Gay marriage, reproductive rights et cetera. Are not simple things to give up. I find it almost impossible to seriously entertain arguments against them. What you’re asking for is for educated people to fundamentally undermine core principles that are part of a fairly coherent and consistent world view.
Purity tests or rules of conduct like respecting someone's gender identity? How many universities such that it becomes impossible to be a university professor without ideologically conforming to the progressive movement?
It was probably impossible to become a university professor if you didn't conform to earlier progressive movements as well, like if you slow to come to terms with women becoming educated, or black people integrating into American society.
If you can't figure out how to call someone by their own name, go pack boxes in a warehouse for a living.
Seeing the results of the 2024 election as anything other than a lashing out against COVID inflation tells me you might be in a right wing media bubble. Incumbents lost globally, not just in the US.
Pretending there was some big conspiracy by Dems to silence people for different opinions is flat out delusional. Hillary was correct on her "deplorables" comment but was too early; right wingers are perfectly happy to cheer on cancel culture, corruption, and civil rights violations as long as illegals are being deported and sent to a labor camp in El Salvador.
I remember a story a couple of weeks ago, or perhaps earlier this year about the lead-up to the NSDAP takeover of the German government in the mid 1900:s. It was something about just overwhelming people with pointless crisis and issues to keep you busy and preoccupied both physically and mentally so not to notice the truly bad things going when the democratic state was eroding.
This seems like one such thing, it's a ploy for the public, it distracts from other things, it takes space away from other thing in the news, it ties up courts and others.
It's intentional.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-echoing-project-2025-f...
https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/16/media/steve-bannon-reliable-s...
"…it consumed all one’s energies, coming on top of the work one really wanted to do. You can see how easy it was, then, not to think about fundamental things. One had no time."
I read this recently on Hacker News, in a discussion about "They Thought They Were Free" (1955) [1]
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45321663
That's the one I was thinking about, thanks!
I would love a link to this story, if you have it.
In his interviews, this is more or less what Yuri Bezmenov described the aim of Russian propaganda was. It's hard to just get people to buy into ideas, but if you just turn up the volume on existing noise, it's simultaneously authentic but also robs people of discerning what's true or worth prioritizing.
The irony is all of his concerns were about the spread of Marxism in the US. Well, it turns out the methods are useful for anyone.
> It was something about just overwhelming people with pointless crisis and issues to keep you busy and preoccupied both physically and mentally so not to notice the truly bad things going when the democratic state was eroding.
This is something that Russia has been doing for more than a decade:
> We characterize the contemporary Russian model for propaganda as “the firehose of falsehood” because of two of its distinctive features: high numbers of channels and messages and a shameless willingness to disseminate partial truths or outright fictions. In the words of one observer, “[N]ew Russian propaganda entertains, confuses and overwhelms the audience.”2
> Contemporary Russian propaganda has at least two other distinctive features. It is also rapid, continuous, and repetitive, and it lacks commitment to consistency.
> Interestingly, several of these features run directly counter to the conventional wisdom on effective influence and communication from government or defense sources, which traditionally emphasize the importance of truth, credibility, and the avoidance of contradiction.3 Despite ignoring these traditional principles, Russia seems to have enjoyed some success under its contemporary propaganda model, either through more direct persuasion and influence or by engaging in obfuscation, confusion, and the disruption or diminution of truthful reporting and messaging.
* https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html
Steve Bannon used the same technique during Trump 1.0:
> While watching the news coverage of Steve Bannon’s initial appearance in federal court on Monday, I kept thinking about his 2018 confession to the acclaimed writer Michael Lewis. His quote is like a compass that orients this crazy era of American politics. “The Democrats don’t matter,” Bannon told Lewis. “The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.”
> That’s the Bannon business model: Flood the zone. Stink up the joint. As Jonathan Rauch once said, citing Bannon’s infamous quote, “This is not about persuasion: This is about disorientation.”
* https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/16/media/steve-bannon-reliable-s...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Bannon#Political_ideolog...
What I despise about the stock investing climate right now is it is doing exactly this
Or as Steve Bannon put it: "flood the zone with shit"
You don't need to go the reductio ad Hitlerum route. Distraction, lawfare, divide-and-conquer are old, tried, and tested tactics for diverting attention, grinding down the opposition, and scattering threats. It isn't unique to this administration nor to our times.
(Incidentally, in the US, divide-and-conquer often happens on racial grounds, for example. When American oligarchy starts feeling threatened, it can easily reach for the race card by giving the appropriate people a platform to manufacture paranoia, grievance, outrage, indignation, and antipathy. Solidarity breaks down. People stop talking about how badly they're being governed and manipulated by gov't and private interest and shift focus toward hating each other. Indeed, this is how democracies function in practice. Whereas dictatorships often rely on a good deal of brute force, oligarchs in democracies must be craftier in their methods - this includes the abuse of media, or the phenomenon of sexual lib, as described by Aldous Huxley, as another intersecting example. The citizen cannot know he is subject to manipulation or coercion. Media and education become instruments of conditioning and inculcation, with society functioning as a force multiplier.)
I don't think I did, at least not harshly. I was just seemingly finding a political pattern which I recognised from earlier, and that happened to be what it was. Was I incorrect in my observation or were you reminded of https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/14/private-chat-among-... perhaps?
I partly agree with your general observation in parenthesis there, it seems this situation is being significantly sponsored by the American oligarchy (e.g. Thiel).
This is all truthy but loses nuance and is too tidy. The oligarchy is not a unified body, but it often resembles one.
Of course it isn't. Oligarchs jockey for power all the time amongst themselves, even while they have converging interests.
> You don't need to go the reductio ad Hitlerum route.
And yet, when the people at the top, the ones implementing these strategies and policies, are explicitly lionizing Hitler in a variety of ways, on top of mimicking his policies, strategies, values, and ideals, suddenly treating the comparison as if it's absurd or illogical starts to seem like it's trying to distract us from something...
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Except similar things happened in multiple countries in the world at the same time, yet most are not slipping closer and closer to authoritarianism today.
Like which?
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So you're okay with Project 2025 because its your team?
I’m not even American.
I don't like putting the blame on a "takeover". Democracy is about a kind of equality among people, and the US has had a strong anti-democratic strain since slavery. Probably even feudalism before that. Once you see it, you see it everywhere and can't unsee it. There's a reason Trump's best polling issue is immigration. https://www.natesilver.net/p/trump-approval-ratings-nate-sil...
There was always going to be a day of reckoning. If you want multiculturalism, you need to follow Europe's lead with everything from strictly banning Nazis (Germany), to healthcare, to getting over 90% mutlilingualism (Nordic countries).
> Democracy is about a kind of equality among people, and the US has had a strong anti-democratic strain since slavery. Probably even feudalism before that.
Yeah, I remember reading about all those US feudal lords that preceded slavery...
During dt's first term I believed this as well and eagerly awaited the Mueller investigation.
Then when he won reelection I concluded I was consuming media in an echo chamber.
This fear you're commenting on goes way farther back than dt.
Ballroom, mueller investigation, Benghazi, guantanemo, tan suit, parkland, Alex Jones, mission accomplished, 911. These all got airtime. Some longer than others.
You're commenting on the nature of media to fill silence with noise, and the expectation we place on the reader to triage the news.
Biased newsfeeds are one thing, cronyism and flooding courts/weaponizing the judicial system are a different thing.
It could be the case that the level of cronyism and weaponizing we see today is the same amount as in the past.
It's up to the reader to determine how much of their opinion is due to bias, and how much is due to a real increase in nefarious political strategy. Some are more diligent about checking their sources that others.
> weaponizing the judicial system
To be fair to Trump, he was the target of lawfare after his election loss in 2020, for instance. He claimed later that he would have vengeance. Not a magnanimous move, but Trump is not magnanimous. He has stated before that he enjoys destroying his enemies, with relish and verve.
In any case, when we fixate on one political figure or party, we lose sight of the general picture. In sociological terms, Trump is not very important. He is more of an expression of the times than their cause. He may catalyze certain changes, but he's hardly alone in doing that. In the broad sense, the general historical trajectory is not really deflected by him.
A wiser perspective is to look at broad trends. One should read Plato's Republic. The decadence of society described in that book - degenerating into timocracy (rule by honor), then oligarchy (rule by wealth), then democracy (rule by freedom), ending finally in anarchy - are a good context for understanding how these processes tend to play out.
So those boxes of classified documents were totally innocuous? "Find me votes" and alternate elector slates weren't to advance his stated goal of reversing his loss?
I think my point is you're expected to triage find me votes vs 911. And the fact that find me votes is in the news isn't indicative of democratic decline, its the way the news work.
I am not sure I understand. Both of those events are significant: a sophisticated terrorist attack on the United States and a president trying to coerce a swing state governor into changing its election results.
News triages the newsworthiness. Viewers triage what elements of the news that are most meaningful to them.
I don't really see the problem, except qualms about execution.
> To be fair to Trump, he was the target of lawfare after his election loss in 2020, for instance.
To be fair to reality, no, he wasn’t. He committed a number of very serious crimes flagrantly out in the open and the Justice Department was inordinately slow in responding to them out of a number of factors, including institutional partisan bias (even under Democratic Administration the bulk of the federal criminal investigatory apparatus has always been Republican, including political appointees at the FBI, and every single FBI director in the bureau's history), concern over appearing political trumping concern over enforcing the law, and, well, a number of other things.
One I wonder about but cannot prove: I wonder if the Justice Department wanted the prosecutions to wait until 2024, so that they would tar Trump during the campaign. If so, they were well-served for that bit of trying to put a thumb on the electoral scales. Trump was able to delay the cases until after the election. If they had begun a year earlier, we might be living in a very different world.
It would be insanely on-brand for the dems to do this and they would deserve this outcome. But we don't.
Speaking of Mission Accomplished and 9/11, I recently watched Tucker Carlson's 9/11 series. I was expecting garbage but it actually did an amazingly good job building off of Fahrenheit 9/11 using the stuff that's come out in the 20yr since. If you take a step back the contrast does a really does a good job illustrating how just by sprinkling bullshit into the data the state, the media, etc, can do a sufficiently good job keeping people from connecting the dots or knowing what questions they ought to be asking.
Moore knew something stunk, but he was groping around in the dark in a totally different political climate less receptive to questioning authority.
What's the intention behind your second paragraph? It seems to suggest that the current political climate is more receptive to questioning authority?
Why would losing an election mean you were wrong?
Mueller report unfortunately got way too little coverage.
Ah, Texas. The State of Texas once told me that I had to sign a declaration that I would not boycott Israel, in order that they could buy 3 figures worth of event planning software. I told them it was none of their business. I did not get the sale.
Not just Texas! 38 states have legislation that bars the state government from doing business with any company that boycotts Israel. As a US taxpayer, I would think that the involuntary contributions to Israel being taken out of my paycheck would be enough, but I guess we have to provide support in other ways too.
I think I've only seen it with Texas. I don't realize it was so widespread.
BTW I'm not boycotting Israel. I just refuse to sign any agreement that I won't.
> I had to sign a declaration that I would not boycott Israel, in order that they could buy 3 figures worth of event planning software
What possible justification(s) did they have for something so stupid? Never seen anything like that in business contracts, but then I've never bought/sold anything to Texas.
They're required to do it by law, some posturing the Texas legislature went through a few years back in the name of "fighting anti-semitism". Virtue signalling stuff.
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/01/31/texas-boycott-israel... as an example of it being considered unconstitutional by federal judges. Not sure whether it has been actually annulled yet.
Thanks for the link.
>" it was rewritten to exclude individual contractors and only pertain to businesses with 10 or more full-time employees and when the contract is for $100,000 or more."
So it didn't apply to us anyway!
Could taking part in a boycott be considered freedom of speech under the 1st Amendment?
Our company is not based in the USA.
I'm not a lawyer or an American, but I understood that the 1st Amendment wording specifically limits the rights of the government (including states) to limit free speech and doesn't mention the location or nationality of the target.
Honestly, yeah, makes sense to me. If we value freedom at all we value the right to tell the government to stuff it with their legally binding nothingburger deals.
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They didn’t say that.
It's rude to put words in someone's mouth.
Huh, I keep waiting for the makers of Tylenol to sue someone for defamation.
Their own execs showed concern over the connection years ago, according to leaked memos (to the DCNF, for whatever that's worth): https://www.financialexpress.com/world-news/us-news/bombshel...
They're unlikely to win any defamation lawsuits given how unsettled the actual research is.
Expressing concern about their product and an interest in investigating the safety is not the smoking gun people claim it is.
Obviously people at the company are going to be aware of the studies and have to respond to them internally. That's literally their job.
It looks and smells like the big tobacco coverup, which I suspect it isn't. Even so, we'll know more if the Texas lawsuit gets to discovery and more than what was allegedly leaked is revealed.
Johnson & Johnson has literally collaborated with the FDA in the past to put disclosures of risks during pregnancy on hundreds of their products. Many of which are more profitable than Tylenol.
This is substantively different than the "tobacco coverup" in a magnitude of ways - but we're talking about an alleged coverup for something that the company doesn't have a history of covering up, for a tiny segment of their customers.
Regardless of the actual risk of Tylenol, Occam's Razor should not lead us to assume a coordinated coverup.
If this goes to court won't that just prove that there's no credible link between the 2? So what's Paxton's game here? Does he really think Tylenol causes autism or is this about forcing J&J to say that it does despite facts?
> what's Paxton's game here?
He’s running for the U.S. Senate [1] and pandering to idiots.
[1] https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5575242-rove-cautions-...
politics slowly eating it's own ass for the past 40+ years; it's about politicking rather than governing.
> politics slowly eating it's own ass for the past 40+ years; it's about politicking rather than governing
I'm honestly not even sure he is running for Senate. He might just be going turbo MAGA in hopes that Trump tries to buy him out of dropping out with an administration appointment, the way they did with Adams in NYC [1] (until he bombed out in the polls).
The Republican party has developed a perverse incentive structure where running in the primary as an unelectable nutjob in order to get bribed to drop out is a precedented strategy [2].
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/05/nyregion/eric-adams-saudi...
[2] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/arizona-gop-boss-quits...
Doesn't he also need to stay out of court over financial irregularitis?
As a point of comparison, the Johnson & Johnson ruling over asbestos and talc never actually proved a credible link between trace amounts of asbestos and cervical cancer or even presence of asbestos in the client's talc. But they didn't have to in order to find J&J guilty of negligence.
One of the things about a jury trial is that the science itself is never on trial, and there's always a risk that one side can just out-maneuver the other.
That’s what I was thinking. This is a good thing! It will force the science to be evaluated.
I’m sure the inevitable retraction of autism links will get the proper coverage it deserves.
Science doesn't get evaluated in a court a law. The standards for science in court have to do with credentials, charisma, money, and gullibility. Reproducibility doesn't exist in court. They only have to find convince a gullible handful of something once and it becomes law.
Your final para sounds sarcastic - was that intended? I’d agree that proper coverage is unlikely, but it undercuts the sentiment of the first para.
The annoying part is that there is a credible link between them, so it's harder to dismiss.
There is an established statistically measurable link between some viral infections during pregnancy and autism. So there is a statistically measurable link between Tylenol use (which reduce fever and pain) with the person having fever and pain.
If there is published science claiming so, they have to now argue for why this science is misleading or wrong instead of simply dismissing the case for having no scientific ground. The science is lazy but not outright wrong, and has not been retracted.
The tragic part is that it's far worse for the baby for a the mother to have a high unchecked fever or infection, or to use any other painkiller (most of which are well known to be dangerous during pregnancy). So even if there is a remnant risk after taking relevant variables into account, it is a far preferable risk to continue to use it.
Your last point is far too subtle for the American public to understand.
Your first sentence says "there is a credible link between them" and the rest of your post points out how the link is not scientifically credible. Were the first and third paragraphs just bait?
You can't claim that "science says there's a measurable link" when the science in question says the link is just a correlation based on Tylenol being used to treat the causal link (fever from viral infection). Science isn't about finding correlation. It's about identifying causal links. That's why we do experiments.
> Science isn't about finding correlation. It's about identifying causal links
Science is fundamentally about finding correlations. We measure things we think are interesting to measure, and try to see if it matches our models and theories. The study found a correlation in their data, and that correlation is real. If that is where that study ends then it's still a valid study. Other papers could apply some more complex statistics to make a guess at the cause, or an aggregate study can take data from a collection of previous studies to re-process the data for new insights.
The "scientific consensus" ends up being what the largest samples studies with good statistical rigor seem to agree on. But that always ends up murky to use in court. "Published paper says X" is usually where most popular science ends, and in this case they're right. "Scientific consensus" is pretty clear that the cause is likely viral infection during pregnancy, but scientific consensus isn't written down anywhere as scientific consensus.
We've been fighting for 30 years about MMR and autism, which was a single retracted study discredited by every study since. And how we're gonna somehow discuss in courts about the correct statistical model to explain a real correlation.
> We've been fighting for 30 years about MMR and autism, which was a single retracted study discredited by every study since. And how we're gonna somehow discuss in courts about the correct statistical model to explain a real correlation.
Yeah, we mostly agree. Sorry if I was a bit harsh. I have been very frustrated about the MAHA push away from science based medicine and into lawyer based medicine.
Your point about it being difficult to defend and easy to apply manipulative rhetoric around statistical integrity and methods is a good one.
Can't wait for the Tylenol article on grokipedia to be cited in this court case.
I know by saying the following I am burning my chance to visit my cousins in the US, but are these people stupid or comedians?
I have conflicting thoughts on this, as a former Texas medical school drop-out that participates on this website because it's_comfy.gif:
1) Ken Paxton is a powerful idiot/golum. Throw rocks, carefully.
2) Acetaminophen is waaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy overtaken/prescribed
3) Acetaminophen should not be added to most opiod preparations (e.g. common hydroxies of 5mg/325mg oxy/acetaminophen) [it quickly fucks up the liver at high/constant dosage]
4) Reverting to purer opiod pills would reduce the imports/effects/DEATHS related to fentanyl-laced streets drugs (whether the users are actively or deceptively seeking fent directly), it kills when mistaken/miss-taken.
5) Can we please just replace all of Texas' higher political representation... maybe do a "national reset" of political powerhouses by imposing term/age limits upon house reps at state/national levels, as well as similar to how Texas does SCOTex with mandatory retirement at 75 years old. There should certainly NOT be leaders that are 80+ years old! Retire, already; you earnt it, remember (can you remember?)..!
6) [trigger warning: trauma] I would recon things like GM (and other early childhood trauma) are more determinant in eventual autism claims, which would support its much higher prevalence among US boys/men.
7) In general acetaminophen-based products are overprescribed. I'm not sure if this was a rumor, but back two decades when I attended my first (and only) year of medical school: we were taught that acetaminophen was only put into opiod preparations to deter addicts (which was laughable, even then, since half the class had some sort of chemical addiction — we knew it well would not deter).
What are those claims based on? Are you trying to tell us something about claims by people from Texas? I know some smart Texans, so that's really unfair. :)
> GM (and other early childhood trauma)
What does "GM" mean here?
Genital mutilation. People are circumspect about it because circumcision is a quasi-political/religious issue in the US.
Can someone explain the angle here? I mean, I get why personally RFK Jr. might have opinions about stuff. I can imagine him putting his finger on the scale here or there.
But why all the attention? It's... tylenol. Why is POTUS and Texas AG and whatnot getting up on a stage in front of the media and going to war against an extremely boring OTC medication that no one has every cared about. There are no conspiracy votes to get here. RFK made it all up.
Is this a corruption thing? Are they shaking down the manufacturer? Is it being blown up for speculative reasons? I note that Johnson & Johnson spun it off just two years ago. Is there a plan behind this?
Seriously, what's actually going on? This smells like some kind of weird conspiracy but I can't see anything but irrationality.
> Can someone explain the angle here?
RFK (or maybe Trump) gave themselves an arbitrary deadline of September this year to "find the cause of autism" which obviously meant they had to find a scapegoat. Some speculate that they went after Kenvue/J&J because they weren't kowtowing hard enough to the administration and there was junk science around Tylenol/Autism links which made it an easy target.
RFK didn't make it all up. J&J execs have been concerned about a possible link for years, based on leaked memos: https://www.financialexpress.com/world-news/us-news/bombshel...
The link isn't solid, so there's not exactly much of a case, and probably better to take it for high fever than taking nothing at all... we think.
The big deal is that it's yet another case of government and big corporations hiding evidence that things aren't what they want us to think they are. RFK's big deal is simple:
1- autism diagnosis rates have skyrocketed
2- food today isn't what it used to be, what with all the dyes and not-food things put into food
3- daily diet advice is wildly inconsistent and based on old data
4- things which we've been taking for granted, like "tylenol is perfectly safe" or "the covid vaccine is perfectly safe" when neither are strictly true causes people to have LESS trust in the government, not more. Rather than treating everyone like idiots, give them information to make informed choices. There'll still be idiots either way, but better (in his mind) to let the rest make up their own minds on what they put into their bodies
How do you explain inherited autism then, from parent to child? Or autism running in families? You can't possibly think it's that they used the same bottle of pills, can you? Have you ever looked at the prevalence of autism outside of the US?
I don't think the argument was ever that acetaminophen or other compounds were exclusively the cause of autism. If anything, it is likely that they activate the genes during development that are responsible.
I believe there have been some pretty large studies that looked at autism in siblings where the mother took acetaminophen during one of the pregnancies but not the other and found no statistically noticeable difference in autism rates between the siblings.
You apparently do not understand the difference between causation and correlation. This is also why the execs were concerned -- because most Americans are the same.
1. Diagnosis rates. Because diagnosis criteria has changed.
2. Sure okay. Don't eat junk food. Why are you pitching a little fit about it?
3. Don't know enough about dietary guidelines to comment on their quality, but the guidelines are updated based on best available science.
4. If you'd actually listen to doctors and researchers, rather than what your echo chamber claims, you'd know they don't claim any of it is "perfectly safe", just that it's safer than the alternatives like getting covid, or running a high fever when pregnant.
FWIW, I do recall hearing that Trump ran with the announcement ahead of RFK's plan, so it's a good possibility that it got over-hyped.
But, the question was why is RFK involved? The answer, it appears, is that he is putting the blame on the government - including the FDA - for not doing its job to regulate industry. Food should contain food. Europe understands this, but America has been a little slow to catch on.
> the guidelines are updated based on best available science
This has almost never been true, given that the available science has long been funded by the ag and food industry. The most recent updates are good for policy documents, but worthless for the average person. He's been promoting a simplified version.
> If you'd actually listen to doctors and researchers, rather than what your echo chamber claims
Actually, that claim has been thrown around, by both doctors in the public arena as well as the government, especially in tandem with the phrase "when used as directed".
All in all, I'm mostly interested to see if there's any actual evidence that comes out from discovery, or if this is all just a big PR stunt by the Texas AG.
First, nothing you write seems to explain why we're seeing Trump at a podium or Paxton filing a suit. Why not just have the FDA announce an investigation?
Second: this is one of the most common drugs on the planet, and has been for half a century. If there was a clear effect with non-trivial magnitude, someone would have noticed.
As to the rest:
> based on leaked memos
That is a laundered Daily Caller story! It's a single screenshot of a single email, which doesn't even contain the word "autism". Given the context, if you force me to flag a conspiracy here: this thing you linked is probably fabricated to enable this very freakout.
I mean, absent other criticism: it's talking about "studies". Studies get published. Surely you could just look them up and see if they show a link, no? Well, no, obviously, because the Caller didn't. Or they did, and they didn't support the breathless hyperbole.
I think what I was trying to get at is that we see RFK at the podium because he doesn't trust the FDA is regulating industry as it should. Food should contain food, not dyes and other things, etc etc.
> That is a laundered Daily Caller story
I did point that out in my other posts around here on the topic, I missed it on this one. The fact that the article doesn't contain everything is irrelevant; I'm pointing it out under the assumption that there's more than just a PR stunt for the Texas lawsuit. Maybe more will come out in discovery, or maybe it really is just a PR stunt. Time will tell.
> I mean, absent other criticism: it's talking about "studies". Studies get published.
The thing that's wild to me in all of this is that people complain for years that industry shouldn't regulate itself, that it's too involved in studies about itself, and yet here we are, defending an indefensible status quo. Big Tobacco didn't publish their own studies showing how harmful tobacco was, and the extent and years that they knew about it and did nothing were big contributors to the judgments against them.
> this thing you linked is probably fabricated to enable this very freakout.
That would be pretty wild, but I imagine these memos will be part of the discovery in the Texas lawsuit. If it turns out to be nothing, then people will move on like they always do.
See... this is where conspiracy thinking takes you. It's like an addiction, and you need to keep feeding it out of your head when the spigot runs dry.
> people complain for years that industry shouldn't regulate itself, that it's too involved in studies about itself, and yet here we are, defending an indefensible status quo.
You are inferring from the article (as it wants you to believe) that somehow this letter declares the existence of heretofore unknown studies funded, performed by and then suppressed by Johnson & Johnson. It doesn't say that, at all. The author just thanks someone for sending them a PDF or whatever.
So I see a partisan rag making an ambiguous point and assuming that the straightforward interpretation ("ambiguous evidence" is like the easiest bet in science) holds. You see it, having already been primed with an interpretation, and need to start filling in details to preserve the conspiracy you've already adopted. Occam argues strongly that the Caller is just wrong and publishing garbage spin, as they've done many times in the past.
Please stop.
I get that Ken Paxton is a Trump toady, but how will this not be dismissed out of hand?
The autism claims have no basis in fact and "because RFK and Trump said so" isn't evidence.
The claims and lawsuit are probably based on the internal memo from J&J execs who acknowledged the possible connection:
https://www.financialexpress.com/world-news/us-news/bombshel...
The leaked memos went to DCNF via a law firm with prior suit with Kenvue, so take it with however much salt you want, but there does appear to be internal concern over the data.
It won't be dismissed out of hand because there is a colorable legal argument assuming the necessary facts and some (very weak) evidence that can be proferred for each of the necessary facts, which is pretty much all that is necessary to get to trial if you are committed and not worried about winning.
If the strategy is to get a settlement without agreement to fault extracting a bit of money to avoid the cost of litigation and use that also as a political hammer to reinforce the popular perception that the claim of a link is true, I can certainly see it being (despite being wildly unethical, an abuse of public office, etc.) an understandable course of action (I don't think it ultimately works even there, unless there is also separate corrupt pressure to settle by people abusing government, perhaps federal, offices in different ways—but that is also a possibility—because even a no admission of guilt settlement becomes hard for J&J publicly if even meaningful moves public perception.) I don't think there is much chance that they win a verdict at trial and survive appeals on it, but... that doesn't have to be the goal.
There are some actual studies behind it, which complicate things into a "scientific consensus" discussion rather than "no credible claims" discussion. Good statistics make the claims go away, but arguing about the correct use of statistics in court is gonna drag on.
Well... by filing the suit, if it isn't dismissed immediately, then Texas gets to do discovery on J&J. J&J may be unwilling to let that happen.
So options are dismissed immediately, J&J settles, Texas drops it after discovery (if they fail to find a smoking gun), or it goes to trial and Texas has to actually prove it.
If there's a settlement, that's as good as a win for those that believe this. They will look guilty as hell to everyone that wants to believe. I don't see any way a settlement is a valid choice for the defense. This is one of those you want to end decisively. Any time it is brought up after, you just point back to the court case. If you settle, any time it is brought up after there will always be linger speculation on why did they settle. It will forever be an albatross around their neck.
> If there's a settlement, that's as good as a win for those that believe this. They will look guilty as hell to everyone that wants to believe. I don't see any way a settlement is a valid choice for the defense.
Plus, Tylenol is... a pretty large product, and I don't think they're willing to just flush that entire product line down the toilet.
All true. The only way J&J would settle is if what Texas might find in discovery is worse than accepting a settlement (including in PR terms).
Look, I'm not saying that it's going to happen that way in this case. But in terms of possible outcomes, it's one that is possible.
Now the Tylenol makers have grounds for suing RFK Jr for defamation.
That was the plan to begin with.
Great way to dispense a few billion of taxpayer money in settlements as a favor while everyone's distracted by the story and laughing about how dumb RFK and Trump are.
They're not that dumb. Anything that seems particularly illogical has underlying motives. Look and you'll find more instances of this. Much more.
Isn't this just the "4d chess" argument?
I think you overestimate some of the people involved.
I do think the "DAE TRUMP IS A DUMMY?!?!?!?" narrative has done a lot of harm over the last decade because nobody took his campaign seriously, but RFK is absolutely a moron.
Or, at least, he is very sincere in his convictions about many very dumb things
I'm not buying your "3-D chess" explanation that it was a ruse to give taxpayer $$ to Tylenol stockholders, all along.
How about: RFK is smart, but insane, and Trump is genuinely stupid, as people who meet him have been saying for decades.
> RFK is smart
Based on what evidence?
Perhaps they meant in comparison to Trump and the rest of Trump's cabinet?
There is lichen in my garden that would clear that bar.
"Stupid" doesn't seem to be the right word to apply to a man who has managed to (annoyingly) command the attention of the entire world and who has gotten himself elected as the most powerful man in the world twice.
I do not like the man. I find his behavior to be corrupt, immoral, and unethical.
And I also do not hesitate for one moment to admit that he is a singular figure in history who has a deep understanding of human beings and how to exploit them. That may not be classic-elite-intellectual-book-smartness, but it is some kind of smartness, and far from stupid.
In November of 2024, I thought Americans voted to turn their country into Russia, and I still think that's largely right (the oligarchy, the arbitrarily repressive legal system, the endless media sycophancy, the masked paramilitary thugs, etc), but it's also not the complete story. Authoritarian governments like Russia also tend to invest in state capacity and science, so MAHA and DOGE's work is kind of an outlier and a unique American innovation in the space of creating authoritarian hellscapes. Let's see how it works out for them.
Think of it like a private equity acquisition - of government. Cut as much cost as possible, give the assets to yourself by liquidating and by running up debt, leave the husk for someone else.
Also, they are reactionary; the top priority of reactionaries is to destroy their opposition, not to achieve other things.
And by destroying government, they leave a power vaccuum for powerful private parties to fill.
> Authoritarian governments like Russia also tend to invest in state capacity and science
Russia? The country whose military is shitting the bed fighting an army that can’t project more than a third into its interior, whose “hypersonic” missiles are being shot down by 90s Patriot kit and whose space programme has—sensibly—seemingly given up on landing on the Moon?
Chinese authoritarianism can be sung some praises. At least until the wolf warriors get overconfident and tank the advantages meticulously eked out by their colleagues. But Russia? It’s chosen a policy of near-term vainglory at the expense of the Russian state existing within its current borders come 2050.
The issue is that Trump is a vessel that all sorts of people are trying to use to push their agenda. As long as you declare loyalty to him, you're allowed in and can push whatever BS you want no matter how wacky or authoritarian it is.
His own VP and health secretary have even called him Hitler but wised up so that they were allowed on the train!
I've slowly been coming to see voting for Trump as a populist revolt against the educated elite. The educated elite has embraced the Progressive Left, but refuses to acknowledge that a lot of people are simply do not agree that this is a positive development. But the Progressive Left keeps making that position not acceptable. Hillary Clinton's "deplorables" comment--and the fact that it got laughs--is a minor example. The Progressive Left has been making it harder to live as someone with a different opinion, and 2024 was the year everybody else revolted; I think even white men finally voted majority Republican, after the minorities slowly peeled off over the past decade. Trump is appalling, but I think the election makes more sense if you look at it as the non-elite population saying "we want less Progressivism", and Trump promised that he would deliver. Since nobody in the elite was listening, they had to say it louder and louder, until Trump became their mouthpiece. (This is probably all subconscious, of course.) If educated elites continue to along their current path, which I expect, because this seems to be a matter of essentially religious righteousness for them, I expect it will be said even louder, with potentially disastrous consequences for everyone. Continued Progressivism will also be disastrous, but in a different way. It won't be Putin, but dissent will certainly not be tolerated. Similar dynamics are happening in the UK, except that I don't think there is a Trump figure there, so the message is more diffuse. I expect you can probably look at Canada to see how continued Progressivism will work out.
> and 2024 was the year everybody else revolted; I think even white men finally voted majority Republican
I believe white men have voted majority Republican in every election since 2000, probably going back further but I haven't bothered to check
It's only a feeling that I have, but I think that some folks live in a scarcity mindset, where they are only barely holding on to what they have. Note that this does not actually have to be their lived reality - you can be rich and think this way. Trying to adjust the system to "give more" to other people means less available to them. Sort of a zero-sum perspective on the world. If someone else gains, that means I lose.
This logic is fundamentally flawed. Pointing this out to people (often in strong language) makes them defensive. This creates the perfect combination to get people to vote against their best interests.
It's not about "being progressive" or "elite". It's about playing to the fears of people who are already fearful.
> I, a nobody, am so deathly afraid of getting cancelled that I'm going to vote for the other guy who checked all the boxes of being a terrible leader
They're getting everything the voted for.
I see where you're coming from. Democrats haven't done a good job of reaching those blue collar voters in the red states.
What might this look like?
It might look like AOC taking a trip down south to spend the day with southern folks at a pig pickin', a crawfish boil, a monster truck show, day on the shooting range, etc.
The problem with this argument is that you imply that the left could simply choose to do away with what you call progressivism at no cost. In fact, what you’re calling progressivism and what is rejected by many Trump voters our fundamental rights for women, gay people, other minorities, et cetera. The US is not particularly progressive by the standards of most developed democracies. It’s true the other countries have managed to maintain abroad consensus around minority rights in a way the US has not, but it’s inconceivable to concede much of this ground now. Gay marriage, reproductive rights et cetera. Are not simple things to give up. I find it almost impossible to seriously entertain arguments against them. What you’re asking for is for educated people to fundamentally undermine core principles that are part of a fairly coherent and consistent world view.
> The Progressive Left has been making it harder to live as someone with a different opinion
Out of curiosity, how?
I think they are referring to the concept of Democratic party "purity tests".
It is entirely possible to live without being in the Democratic Party.
For example, at least some universities started adopting them, at least for new faculty.
I mean, it's entirely possible to live without being a university professor, too...
Purity tests or rules of conduct like respecting someone's gender identity? How many universities such that it becomes impossible to be a university professor without ideologically conforming to the progressive movement?
It was probably impossible to become a university professor if you didn't conform to earlier progressive movements as well, like if you slow to come to terms with women becoming educated, or black people integrating into American society.
If you can't figure out how to call someone by their own name, go pack boxes in a warehouse for a living.
The screeching twitter wokemob that begat the screeching twitter kirkmob.
Those are opt-in mobs and services.
Seeing the results of the 2024 election as anything other than a lashing out against COVID inflation tells me you might be in a right wing media bubble. Incumbents lost globally, not just in the US.
Pretending there was some big conspiracy by Dems to silence people for different opinions is flat out delusional. Hillary was correct on her "deplorables" comment but was too early; right wingers are perfectly happy to cheer on cancel culture, corruption, and civil rights violations as long as illegals are being deported and sent to a labor camp in El Salvador.
And so the madness spreads…