Aged Senator Thad Cochran Announces Resignation, Set for April 1

Tea Party types nearly primaried this guy out, but in the run-off, Thad Cochran appealed to Democrats to cross over to keep him as the Republican candidate. The Establishment supported this, because obviously.

I think for many people this was either the last straw or the next-to-last straw which is how you Got Trump.

Now he'll be vacating the seat, and that seat will come open for election in 2018,
I'm thinking, instead of 2020, when the seat would have been up for election,
absent this resignation.

I don't think the Establishment are necessarily bad people. But they have way, way outsized influence compared to their actual numbers, and they often wield this power pretty blatantly instead of occasionally thinking, "Say, we're in a political partnership with these 'Hobbits' in the Tea Party. Perhaps we'll be good partners and let them have this one, maybe, instead of provoking a revolt by steamrolling over them every single time."

If you try to win every dispute in a marriage, you will soon find yourself divorced.

Jordan Peterson had an interesting insight on the Adam Carolla podcast: he noted that children learn what "fair competition" is. Basically, a very strong child will learn that he has to let the weaker child "win" in about 30% of all wrestling matches, or else his weaker competitor will just give up and stop wrestling with him altogether.

Sort of an intuitive, instinctual Mercy Rule that most well-socialized children understand, even if they couldn't explain why they're allowing themselves to lose on occasion when they could, if they wanted, almost always win.

The Establishment never seemed to understand this -- that just because you can steamroll the Tea Party doesn't mean it's in your long-term political interests that you should -- and were subsequently semi-deposed.

And they still don't understand why. And they continue not understanding why as they simultaneously ball their fists and shriek and cry that they're the political professionals who really understand politics.

Pro-Tip: People who really understand politics don't get themselves deposed.

People who understand politics understand the give-and-take necessary in a political marriage and realize that sometimes you lose one to win more in the future.

By the way, the Jordan Peterson/Adam Carolla interview is fascinating. I never even thought about very-young socialization in children and the huge effects that has later in life.

posted by Ace at 06:50 PM

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