[smallmancontrov]

There it is, the both sides brigade, right on time!

No, Keystone XL was not the same level of pettiness as offshore wind. Find me the IPCC report equivalent that makes the case for wind farms doing whatever social damage Trump says they do. I'll wait.

[PaulHoule]

The difference is that the right wing version is

   stupid + stupid = consistent -> wins

(feels authentic to somebody even when it is completely disingenuous)

and the left wing version is

   smart + stupid = inconsistent -> loses

(feels demoralizing to the true believers, feels disingenuous to everyone else, see Kamala Harris) e.g. "woke" is really a left wing retread of right wing ideology, for instance that "defund the police" slogan cribs Reagan's "defund the left" slogan, because it is so exhausted it can only mine Thatcherism for ideas.

[gsf_emergency_6]

Paging @aeb-kun!

The craft of "rationalist cover stories" as a class of band-aids!

Remember how you failed to help "black people"? The people who make the dems what they are today seem to more than 2 steps removed from that:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46727418

The emotional concerns that underly this ineffective (akratic) behaviour seem to come from uh "rationalist suffering" (the modern day version of white man's burden?)

Piketty 2022 section on Educational Justice (page 1007) thinks that its because dems are the overeducated children of the "Brahmin left".

So I think you've got the right diagnosis- reps are the undereducated children of the "Merchant Right", so their rationalist* cover stories are naturally more convincing :)

*Pecuniary===rational as in the "Legitimation Crisis"

Ps: somewhat better (=less overtly social-darwinist) handwringing, but not quite a bandaid

https://archive.ph/JC8Ip