[User23]

Here’s my attempt at a steel man: JD Vance is one of the bad guys on the bad guys team. Whenever bad things happen it’s the bad guys’ fault.

I’m aware that sounds like a pretty poor alloy, but it’s internally consistent, matches the observables, and I can’t really honestly do better.

Edit: The point of this is to explain what this derailment has to do with JD Vance. Any reply that fails to explain why JD Vance is somehow personally involved is failing to do better than the offered steel man. Just generally supporting policies you disagree with merely makes him a bad guy. You do think he’s bad for supporting these policies you believe are bad right? Next you have to show that a freshman senator in the minority who’s been in office for a month is somehow responsible even indirectly. I’d like to see a better effort to steel man that than mine.

[SamBam]

That's literally the opposite of a steel man argument.

[s5300]

If bad guys are what you call politicians that repeatedly call to strike down industrial safety measures & corporate accountability, then I could perhaps say that you are on to something

[User23]

I wasn’t able to find anything about striking down industrial safety measures in JD Vance’s campaign platform or voting record. Can you? If not then what does this have to do with JD Vance?

[TomSwirly]

Translation: "I'm not going to bother to understand this issue. I'm going to talk down to people instead."

[Apocryphon]

A straw man dressed up like a steel man, delicious

[emodendroket]

If you were actually trying to "steel man" wouldn't you say "policies which make this type of industrial accident more likely" rather than "policies that are bad/you disagree with," which makes it sound childish and random?

[User23]

I can’t find any evidence of JD Vance supporting such policies in either his platform or his voting record. I don’t think just making things up counts as steel manning.

Incidentally, in the USA Congress has delegated the power to regulate rail safety to the Executive branch which last I knew was controlled by the Good Guys. So I’m really at a loss how to show that this has anything to do with a freshman senator in the minority. I begin to think nobody else knows how to either. The miasma theory of Vance’s affiliation with the Bad Guys somehow making bad things happen in his state really is the best argument anyone has presented here.

[emodendroket]

Spending a minute or two on a search I see that, on the basis of his likely environmental policies, he's been endorsed by Andrew Wheeler, formerly of the EPA (https://www.ontheissues.org/domestic/JD_Vance_Environment.ht...). Let's see what he was up to while he was on the EPA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_R._Wheeler#EPA_administ...

What do you know, slashing a bunch of environmental regulations.

Did you come across this in your efforts to figure out how someone could possibly believe Vance would support deregulation on the environment?

[User23]

That's the best you've got? He was endorsed by someone formerly from an agency that has nothing to do with the US Department of Transportation that regulates trains? That's literally the Bad Guy on team Bad Guys makes Bad Things happen argument I already gave.

If you'd dug even a little you'd see that the classification of these trains at a lower hazard level than probably warranted dates back at least to the Obama administration and probably further. So again, what does this have to do with JD Vance other than the steel man argument I already gave?

[emodendroket]

No, the point was it took me minutes to find and you didn't really care to find an answer as much as you pretended.

[User23]

But you didn’t find anything other that Vance is on Team Bad Guy? Thank you for helping prove the strength of my steel man.