Im confused over the state of ideology within the republican party at this point.
For years, government ownership and oversight has been demonized as the very thing that leads to inefficiencies and bad business practices.
Now the same party has their figurehead looking to take partial government ownership of a business?
Because it's never been about ideals. It's about power and financial/economic dominance. Politicians will align themselves with whatever ideology will get them the support they need to accumulate power and money. Whenever they take actions that seem to violate that ideology, they'll use spin and propaganda to justify it so as not to anger their base.
> Politicians will align themselves with whatever ideology will get them the support they need to accumulate power and money.
Not all politicians are like that. The Republican party has been very focused on that.
"All politicians bad" thinking damages the work of the many people fighting for a better and more just world. There are even politicians in conflict areas that give their lives trying to fight cartels or terrorist groups. "All are the same" is degrading for us all humans.
Biden voted to make same-sex marriage Illegal [1] and later for legalizing same-sex [2]. A bit interesting that his running mate neglected to legalize it and instead just didn't defend it in court (Imagine how people would talk if Trump refused to defend a law in court, lol!)
But yeah, some politicians like Bernie actually have been consistent their career while others like Ron Paul just make a big talk about their stances but then vote to inflate the deficit anyways.
It's almost like...people can change their mind about something?
I like Bernie too but he is nuts. He's a far left voice who is often quite rational, we need someone like him to bring things back towards the center, but I doubt he'd be a good president.
Sure people can change their mind but when your opinions are changing at the same time as popular opinion it doesn't sound like your mind is changed. It just sounds like you want to be popular and that's dangerous to me as a voter because I want to vote for a set of core values and not a face.
Yeah and it turns out if you lie to enough little disparate groups you can become supreme ruler!
Maybe dump isnt really a racist, or a crystal rubbing brain worm yoga mom... but he sure tricked them into voting for him. He actually did more than most politicians and actually did each of them a tiny solid rather than just ignore them after winning too
" For years, government ownership and oversight has been demonized as the very thing that leads to inefficiencies and bad business practices. "
This was their position just a few months back. This was the reason DOGE existed. At least that's what they said.
But it was never about that. It was always about the fact that they felt that they didn't have control of the government so they didn't want it dictating terms to them. Now that they have control and believe they always will -- now they believe that government should control everything.
I think Intel wants to stay alive so they are looking for a lifeline and the current administration wants to bring chip production into the US.
Intel's death would be very embarassing to that whole effort. So Intel has incentives (survival) and the administration has incentives (jobs in the US). The method is "whatever can be claimed as a win".
No US party seems particularly capable or keen to hold an ideological line but especially not the GOP from what I've seen. Not saying other countries have particularly impressive parties either. I'm less than thrilled with ours over here.
> I think Intel wants to stay alive so they are looking for a lifeline
I'm not sure Intel was asking for this.
It seems like a better approach would've been to broker a deal (he likes deals, right?) where companies like Apple and Nvidia (companies that are currently dependent on TSMC) would've been incentivized to make investments in Intel.
I agree, and I think the government’s incentive might also be a having strategic production capability in the US. Maybe they’re concerned about TSMC’s future with the tension between China and Taiwan?
That's all fine, but this is definitely heading into socialist territory. I guess they're out of ideas and this is how they incentivize. The free markets have failed?
My hypothesis is that this is government response (own stake in Intel) to another government’s action (hint take over of Taiwan) and as such is outside the free market. But I have no evidence to support it, it’s just an opinion and it could be that they view Intel as “too big to fail” or something like that as you suggest.
> the current administration wants to bring chip production into the US
Please don't credit the current administration with wanting to do something beneficial here. Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act in 2022 for $52.7 billion is appropriations for semiconductor R&D.
That's why no credit should be given. With the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (2021, Biden) which allocates 546-715 billion to infrastructure (see: jobs and improvements to daily lives of Americans) and the CHIPS and Science Act (2022, Biden) which allocates 52.7 billion to American semiconductor research and manufacturing we had major sources of government provisions from 2021 to 2024. The Trump admin continuously fails to implement parts of the legislation that they disagree with, and claims all credit for implementing the parts that they agree with.
They have just refined themselves to their essence. Gotten rid of all the baggage of civility and decorum and allowed their true colors to fly. The core uniting force between these folks is still there and it has never been about fiscal responsibility. That's just a mantle they took up to target programs for minorities back when they pretended to care about being called racist. Folks left of Democrats have been calling this our for literally decades only to be told we're overreacting as liberals once again try bipartisanship with fascists.
That isn't a response to the parent's question nor is it related to the principles of federally absorbing Intel stake in 2025.
When you write hollow comments like this as a response to good-faith observations, you ironically reaffirm the great-grandparent comment. You can't justify owning a significant stake in Intel on principle alone.
Republicans are at the top and good at messaging to the bottom (but they rarely actually help the bottom).
Democrats are just bad all around, bad at messaging and bad at achieving things, but at least they mostly don't make things worse, and people with enough time invested in understanding politics (a minority of people) see that. When things do get worse and Democrats are in charge, Republican messaging is effective at convincing people it's the Democrats' fault (which it kinda is because they did nothing to stop it, and kinda isn't because they did nothing to cause it, and in any case the Republicans are even worse but good at saying they're not).
I won’t disagree that the Democratic party has developed an identity crisis as well, in part to chase campaign finance. But to say that the Republican party has occupied the ideological space of pro-working class would be true only nominally. It has broad cultural appeal there in some quarters but its political economic actions are in no way focused on the real betterment of the working class. Where’s that comprehensive health finance plan which was due “in two weeks.” Several years ago.
Pretty sure they've jumped the ideological shark a long time ago at this point. Nothing is consistent. They say what's convenient for the situation. There are no ideals. People's attention spans are so short they don't notice, and if they do notice, most don't seem to care. You can find an infinite amount of tweets with these people contradicting themselves over and over again.
Easily. It's called fascism, one of the cornerstones being the marriage of industry and state. It has long been the marching direction of the US power structures, whether the individual participants cop to it or not. It has been an unwritten rule for decades and now it's just becoming more blatant. Republicans are not experiencing whiplash as much as they are becoming self-aware of their actual desires. There is a minority of the republican party that actually values small government (my respect goes out to them), but most of the party's actions to this end have been an obscene minority compared to their constant desire to either regulate morality via government overreach or enshrine their big business butt buddies into monopoly status.
While I feel the democrats are guilty of many of the same things, they are still a faction of what I would call the "capitalist-imperialist party." The GOP has been splitting off into the "fascist-imperialist party" for many years, which is likely one of the reasons for the political divide.
Consider that the current president campaigned on raising taxes, and was elected anyway.
Perhaps a lot of R voters didn't have a problem with that because they somehow assumed that enacting a bunch of tariffs wouldn't result in higher prices for them.
To call it a "campaign to raise taxes" I think assumes voters are more informed and open minded they they really are.
My boomer parents genuinely believed Trump had and would continue to reduce their taxes. When confronted with tariff facts they counter with more spin, like "he's just negotiating" or "it'll make the economy so much stronger".
Before I learned it was an infamous political meme immortalized by the fallout from WWII, I heard that claim recited in utter sincerity in the 1990s by a woman who had been a teenager in Italy during that period. Even after what happened with Mussolini, she still believed.
I mean the Republican part is now the party of the poor and working class while the Democrats are the educated and rich. As in who votes for them not necessarily who they pay lip service too. For example the Democrats still deeply message on them being the party of the working class even as the working class no longer votes for them.
If you view this around identity then its pretty straightfoward.
Republicans are the party of the dominant group and maintaining their power. Democrats are the party of the non-dominant groups and speading power across groups. Everything else is just chips to push these two agendas. And I think this is why Republicans will have a long-term advantage. The dominant group is by definition the group in power and its the group that people eventually want to be in (see Hispanics). No one wants to stay in the out-group.
What does this mean? The majority of people, regardless of 'group', are facing similar issues. I think this sort of rhetoric, alongside the endless hyperbole, is a big part of why the Democrat party is facing substantial difficulties.
I also think this claim is falsifiable by the homogeneity of party views. The stereotype of a Republican is pro-gun, anti-abortion, yeehaw. In reality? Only 24% of Republicans completely oppose abortion [1] and only 27% think gun laws should be less strict. [2] The party has become extremely heterogeneous. By contrast, stereotypes on Democrat views are somewhat more accurate with 86% thinking gun laws should be more strict, and 56% supporting abortion at any time, for any reason.
Were the Republican party supporting some specific 'group', you would expect to see a general homogeneity of views. And were the Democrat party supporting a large number of otherwise relatively independent 'groups', you would expect to see a general heterogeneity of views. Instead, we see something much closer to the exact opposite.
This is consistent with my take. Most positions don’t matter. They’re side issues. The only thing that truly matters in party politics is identity. And the group that Republicans support the most are straight white males. That’s the in-group. All the other issues you mention are just side quests.
I applaud you having the dignity to define 'group' instead of weaseling around it. But the issue you immediately run into is that it's not like non-white individuals are homogenous, yet the Democratic party's polling on most issues is. In any case, society isn't buying this stuff.
For instance the most recent election was decided by the economy. People that thought the economy was excellent/good voted for Harris by a margin of about 92%. Those who thought it was mediocre/poor voted for Trump by a margin of 70%. [1] And it turned out that way more people thought the economy was bad than those that thought it was good.
This led to the best result ever for a Republican for both blacks and hispanics, with Trump outright winning Hispanic males. All the while the Democrat party flailed about with this identity stuff that not only do people mostly not care about, but that also pushes away folks like me that are liberal but vehemently against political correctness, identity politics, etc.
I don’t buy that. People might like to claim it was the economy, but it’s about making themselves feel like they’re not being passed up on the socioeconomic ladder, especially by a black woman.
It’s better for their won ego to vote to keep a white man at the top, even if he committed treason, than to see someone they perceive as below them go past them. For many, it even works to keep their same group down, because it can feel like a personal failure to not achieve more (such as women who would rather vote for a man).
This is one of the truest quotes there is, and it can be generalized to all people, not just white men:
Think about the implications of your argument. Trump didn't win because of some tremendous upsurge in voters - his increase in votes was no more than proportional to the increase in eligible voters. He won because some odd 6 million+ mystery voters that voted for Biden, didn't vote for Harris. And that's more like 10 million if we assume that the DNC baseline turnout was proportional to the increase in eligible voters.
"Qualified" for political office means, essentially by definition, the ability to garner votes. Clinton is one of the most unlikeable people imaginable who is almost certainly also a literal sociopath. [1] Harris started out by being the VP in a Presidency that, at its 'peak' was literally the most unpopular Presidency of all time, or at least since approval ratings began being tracked. And she has a habits such as cackling when caught lying, struggling to avoid becoming completely and literally incoherent in any conversation that last more than a few moments, and so on.
Obama? Coherent, intelligent, charismatic, and not only won by 10million+ votes, but also received more votes than any President at that point to date. I'm not fond of the guy (even if I voted for him, once) yet his speeches still literally give me goose bumps. He has an amazing rhetorical ability, which is the money shot in politics. By contrast, if he had the same traits/skillset as Harris or Clinton, he would have also been stomped and you would have been here arguing that people didn't vote for him because he was black.
People, in general, just don't really care about identity. Run particularly bad candidates and you're going to lose. Run particularly bad candidates while repeatedly claiming the sky is falling, and you're going to lose and imperil your ability to succeed in the future.
I'm also against identity politics in theory, but it's the one thing that binds everything together neatly. In fact, your example is evidence of my point. Who are these people that think the economy is good versus those who think its bad? Why does it cut more strongly across racial lines than it does against economic lines? It's because it's not really about the economy. The economy is simply a proxy to vote against -- it's a dog whistle. Just like Haitians eating dogs, or kids becoming cats at school, gun control, and even abortion.
What the Republicans are good at, and how they've convinced you that they're the right choice is they openly attack certain positions they feel they have strength in and know that Dems need to defend. Like trans people. Dems know that sticking up for trans is a losing proposition, but they also know that this is what they do -- they stand for those who are most oppressed. Gay marriage 20 years ago was the same thing.
And what Republicans do with a relatively loud dog whistle is indirectly attack identity. Go and look at relatively mainstream conservative forums and search for the term "DEI hire" or "DEI admit". The actual qualifications don't matter. They aren't requesting nuance, it's simply "black = DEI hire" and "white male = merit hire". Look Trump's cabinet. Conservatives say not a peep about their qualifications and routinely disparage others. Another example is crime. I'm sure you've seen the online memes about "well, well, well" or "13/50". It's a way to disparage black people in the context of crime. The fact that this stuff floods social media can only be attributed to widespread empathy for this position or bots.
And you're right that Dems do flail about identity, because they are actually trying to address the elephant in the room. But they need to do better to make it focused more on the subtext. Rather than advocate for LGBTQ rights, fight for universal parental leave rights.
Trumps legacy will have very little to do with the economy except for a failed attempt at mass scale tariffs (which honestly aren't nearly as good nor bad as people narrate -- but its just narrative). It will be around identity issues. It will be his attacks on removing identity from history, his attacks on higher education, his disenfranchising minority voters, his deporting of immigrants (legal and illegal), attacks on birthright citizenship. Plus some non-identity issues, which mostly relate to his power: war in Ukraine and prosecutions of enemies.
So make no mistake that while Republicans don't flail about identity (because they're much better at being on message), it is absolutely that tie that binds. It is the foundation. Everything else about small government, states rights, etc... all those principles fall apart. Identity is the one thing that withstands scrutiny. We both prefer it weren't so, but it is.
Try to read your post with the mindset of somebody who does not already share your worldview. Claiming things like people stating they were voting on the economy was some sort of dog whistle is something that might pass muster on Bluesky, but sounds a bit off kilter if you're not just preaching to the choir.
And extrapolating your online bubble to real life is unwise. For instance poll the majority of people, Democrat or Republican, on DEI and the most common answer you'd get is 'What's DEI?' When told what it stands for, most would take the meaning literally and generally support it. When they see how it plays out in practice, opposition would grow. You can see this here [1] where in 2023 only 16% of workers felt DEI was a bad thing.
The economy simply doesn't change anyone's vote. See [1] for example. Despite Utah Republicans feeling less optimistic due to Trump economically, they still support him. Why? Because they never actually voted on the economy.
There's no actual indicator that people actually vote on the economy. When it's bad you vote for your party, and when its good you do too. In part because when its bad its the other guy's fault. When its good, your team did it. There's no actual substance to economic data that will change voting.
Regarding "my online bubble" -- it's not mine. Give me any major news story regarding a black person and crime and I can give you a link of comments in 30s. You pick the story. I'm not going to 4chan. This is just reddit, TikTok, YouTube, Insta.
On DEI, I'm similar to the people polled. I think in spirit its a good idea, but poorly implemented. But the fact that I think doesn't mean I look down on every black person hired. This is like people conflating BLM the organization with BLM the sentiment. I'm sure you've seen the interviews of people about "CRT" -- they immediately say they're opposed to it. When asked why they say, "I'm not really sure what it is, I just know I don't like it".
An example that 'some indicator in some situation does not change some people's vote', does not generalize to 'indicator never changes anybody's vote in any situation'. People said they were voting based on the economy, and it drove votes that also ran directly contrary to this identity stuff. For instance, Trump won Hispanic males by 10 point margin.
The point about online bubbles is that what you read online isn't representative sample of what people in the real world are like. People who post online are a vocal minority that disproportionately often hold fringe views that typically become even more fringe over time due to the radicalizing effect of the echo chambers that most prefer to post in.
I think it's more about messaging rather than reality. Only one of these parties fights the safety nets, is against raising the minimum wage and cuts taxes for the rich, and that's the one that's positioned itself as the "party of the poor".
I'm the same, they absolutely loathe Zohran Mamdani for talking about state run grocery stores, but getting involved in Intel is fine? What?
The cognitive dissonance is what blows my mind, this applies to almost every topic.
Borders? Well according to them borders are the most important thing ever, border security etc. Yet Ukraine? Well f** their borders, they're just something Putin can play with and that's totally fine according to them?
The ideology seems to be, "Whatever aligns with my or the great leaders world view, is good and I'll tell whatever stories I have to justify it to myself and others.".
At some point a new group of organized criminals has either replaced or partnered with the "Republican Party." It seems this is partially for the Trump-aligned group to draw in votes and presumably corrupt or pressure the remaining "good guys" in the various government and political organizations.
Many of these moves and strategies make sense when viewed through the lens of organized crime shaking down companies, governments, private organizations, and such.
As to why they still have supporters - I can't really explain that aside from "they're hurting the right people."
As to why they still have supporters - I can't really explain that aside from "they're hurting the right people."
Don't underestimate how hard it is to admit you're wrong when you're strongly invested in an ideology which is:
I'm always correct, I'm always winning, I'm strong, I'm alpha and nothing is every my fault nor am I ever responsible for anything
I interact with MAGAs on Reddit, it's sadistic but I really cannot stop because I just cannot believe people believe in the things they do. All I can say is these people have really really bought the lies, hook line an sinker. It's dangerous and I don't see how it's going to change anytime soon. The only way I see the spell breaking is economic catastrophe, even then these people would believe it's not Trump's fault, or the current admins fault, it would be Biden's fault.
The good news is there isn't a backup. There's no room for someone to be a second Trump -- they'd get destroyed as long as Trump is in power. I am hopeful that the party will split into two pieces, forever.
who just published his fourth book on Trump, and who labelled Trump sui generis:
> Sui generis (/ˌsuːi ˈʒɛnərɪs/ SOO-ee ZHEN-ər-iss,[1] Classical Latin: [ˈsʊ.iː ˈɡɛnɛrɪs]) is a Latin phrase that means "of its/their own kind" or "in a class by itself", therefore "unique".[2] It denotes an exclusion to the larger system an object is in relation to.
I think Vance is trying to position himself to be the Next Guy. That means doing whatever he has to to not be destroyed now, but trying to leave himself the room to shift when it's his turn.
But I'm not sure he can pull it off. He's too stiff. He doesn't have "it" - whatever "it" it is that Trump has.
Trump has a long and impossible to replicate history with American popular culture, I don't see how any career politician can ever beat it solely on being a politician, especially one that has to live in the shadows of the current President. You'll always be number 2.
Obama is now equally as famous IMO but he got there through his career. Not because of it.
Same for Russia and China, who will replace Putin and Xi, I guess the answer is "someone" but I can't imagine it being easy to replace these "kings" without clear successors.
Yes. The party used to be conservative; now it's populist. They are two very different ideological positions. It changed under Trump. It's the same party in name, but a totally different ideology. Many traditional conservatives have gone along with it because the party still slashed taxes, which has been their main goal for a long time. They care much more about lower taxes than government ownership.
Right, this is what's so amazing to me. The American conservative party spent the last 30 years taking a victory lap over the fall of the USSR, extolling the evils of socialism wherever they could, only to run in the opposite direction so hard, they ended up proving horseshoe theory by emulating everything that made the Soviets government dysfunctional.
The way I see this is in terms of attractors (in the sense of dynamics).
The dynamics are characterized mostly by institutions and rules rather than ideology.
The idea of liberalism was to get the institutions correct and so create a stable democracy.
If you destroy the institutions then the ideology behind why you did it doesn't matter. Just like it doesn't matter why you remove a load bearing wall in a building. You're at the mercy of primate emotions and everything tends toward oligarchy. That was just as true in the Soviet Union as in countless other countries throughout history.
Oligarchy is an attractor, and you need careful planning to avoid the whirlpool.
The same guy who tried to overthrow the 2020 election despite claiming to defend the constitution, is now trying to take government control over corporations despite claiming to believe in capitalism. And you're confused as to why this is happening?
> Can someone explain this ideological whiplash?
You've misidentified the ideology. It's "might makes right" not "let's do capitalism".
When Trump says "America First" he means whatever is needed for America to "win". Lots of major tech leaders and people around him think the AI race with China is going to define the next 25-50 years some think this is "the race" as in whoever wins is going to be The Superpower full stop not for the next 50 year just forever.
With that on the line a lot of principles are just plain unimportant.
Hell even Democrats are falling inline behind him on China. D.C. seems to think this is a make or break moment for the long term success of the country.
If someone wanted American owned companies to compete (or win), they wouldn't take 20% top line revenue of products sold to China. They'd allow those companies to spend that money on R&D to continue to compete against Chinese AI companies.
An Arms Race isnt your regular race, its just running on a treadmill.
There is no end, and the only thing you do is hope you dont collapse of exhaustion before your competition does. All the while, new competitors keep joining in.
If I recall, America was in a "make or break moment" back during the Cold War/Desert Storm/Iraq/etc. seems that we're still running...
One recent thing that isn't "America First", and doesn't help America "win", is that Trump blew up Canada trade negotiations because Canada decided to recognize the statehood of some distance nation in the middle east. Screwing up trade that affects everyone in America because of policy changes about things on the other side of the world doesn't seem focused on America. We only distance ourself from Canada and encourage Canada to do more trade with the EU and China; how does that help America?
The "let's just do whatever helps those in power gain more power" is a better match for what is happening.
> We only distance ourself from Canada and encourage Canada to do more trade with the EU and China; how does that help America?
I mean Canada doesn't really have the choice to do that. They are too dependent on America to really do much but just accept whatever we say. Maybe they can start reorienting themselves for a future in 10-20 years where they can meaningfully ramp up EU/China trade but for now they just accept whatever the USA says.
It's like when the last election was all "elbows up" then it turned out they had folded instantly and just hid it from their population.
In March Canada exports to the US decreased 6.6%, and their exports to other countries increased 25%. Canada's imports from America decreased 2.9%. Canada now exports more crude oil to China than it does to the US. There is now a strong social will and political will to reduce ties to the US and increase ties with other nations. This may take time, and it may not end the US, but it doesn't help the US by any means.
And why is this happening? "America First" means helping people that live in America; what part of this helps people living in America?
> When Trump says "America First" he means whatever is needed for America to "win".
When Trump says "America First" he means "Trump First". Insofar as this administration is concerned about winning a purported AI race, it's so that they can make money off of it. Trump views money collected by the government as his own personal slush fund, so this 10% of Intel is about him personally getting ownership of the AI race now. It has nothing to do with setting America up for the future, let's be clear.
I appreciated this comment. I really dislike Trump, but I try to steelman the opposing side to not fall into the "other party bad!" nonsense. But his recent actions have made it very hard to find a steelman, and it's been hard to resist feeling "the dude is a power-hungry narcissist". Your explanation makes a lot of sense as a steelman; thank you!
If you look only at Trump helping Intel, then yeah, that steelman makes sense.
But if you look at the affects of Trumps policies, such as stagnated manufacturing jobs, and huge uncertainty around tariffs, and Trump's willingness to blow up trade negotiations with Canada because Canada changed their policies about the middle east; just overall, Trump's not doing things that help us beat China.
We also see things like the US tends to reward those working in finance more than people working in engineering or just doing regular work. Income tax is higher than capital gains tax in America, this is a political choice we have made that rewards those who move money and capital around, but we give less reward to those who work or build things. Meanwhile in China they go out of their way to punish those in finance with government enforced caps on financial industry wages and such; they're trying to make sure their society is set up to reward engineering, building things, and regular work more than it rewards moving money around.
This actually makes a lot of sense and something that China has been strategic about — ensuring access to important raw materials. It’s one of the biggest, if not the biggest, reasons Japan lost WW2
What about the next fab? And the fab after that? Yes, for the short term the USA has a cutting edge fab on US soil, but what about 10 years after that? The US would lack the ability to build future cutting edge fabs.
Having TSMC build a fab on US soil doesn't prevent any parallel efforts. If anything having the workforce here would make it easier to build future fabs.
I never said it did. Having a fab on US soil is important for the short term, but you need cutting edge fabs on US soil in the future too and that doesn't happen unless you are doing a lot of research.
Okay, so Taiwan is blockaded or invaded by China. The USA has a 3nm TSMC fab that they can assume control over, and, yes, they have the labor of that fab, great, but what about 2 nm? 1 nm? Etc? Without TSMCs R&D does the US have a cutting edge fab in 10 years? 20 years? Beyond? There is literally no other company in the United States that could even hope to expand their capabilities to be considered on the cutting edge within the next 15 years.
The easiest way to get TSMC's R&D in the US is to have them build a fab here and have employees here. If China invades Taiwan, and TSMC has employees that want to flee to somewhere else, the US would be the most logical option. If they already have a fab here, an established workforce and infrastructure here, that's better than having to start from nothing.
Taiwan as a country doesn't want that. There is a reason they only fab their latest and greatest chips domestically in Taiwan. It is of Taiwan's national interest and of TSMCs interest to do everything they can to ensure that the US protects them from China.
Again, it is a net positive for the US to have TSMC manufacture chips on US soil, so I am not arguing against that point, I simply posit it is not enough from a US national security / technology leadership standpoint.
We need to be doing much, much more of this so that the country has ownership of substantial percentages of the critical infrastructure, including AI. That seems to be one of the only ways that the citizens in general will be able to share in the fruits of the technology, similarly to how Alaskan citizens get payments from petroleum.
Part of the reason we don't want this is because it creates an enormous government spoil, which is the decision to label a given company as part of the critical infrastructure of the country. For example: why Intel and not AMD? Does Micron make the cut? Seagate? What about the companies that make the inputs to the fabs? Telecom companies that run the Internet? Microsoft & Apple because business runs on their software?
This is Too Big To Fail on steroids.
> citizens in general will be able to share in the fruits of the technology, similarly to how Alaskan citizens get payments from petroleum
The alternative approach is right there in your answer. Like in Alaska or Norway, tax the winners and apply the benefits to citizens.
Sadly, we are going the other way both on taxation and benefits. The good news is we can at any time choose to live differently. Some might debate whether we could maintain our competitive business environment if Intel or Nvidia paid a tax rate comparable to yours, but perhaps it's worth a try?
I agree with your point, but to answer your first question, “why Intel and not AMD?” It is simply because Intel is the only US company, and one of only three chip manufacturers worldwide to even try to make cutting edge chips and that has an outside shot of doing so in the next decade or so.
Domestic chip production is a national security interest. Frankly the US should be funding one or more companies to expand their fab capabilities.
AMD doesn't fab their own chips. They currently utilize TSMC for that. Yes, if we were only talking about cutting edge chip design the US has no shortage.
USG is looking at spending ~$10B on an Intel stake. It's worth wondering whether it might make more sense to instead put the same money into AMD and earmark it for US fabs. Ditto NVidia.
There is an argument to be made there about how best to allocate the funds, but regardless of how the funds are deployed that spend has to be on Intel if you want it to protect US chip manufacturing and R&D. There are no other US chip manufacturers that are even trying to produce a chip under 12 nm. Unfortunately they are the only viable option.
>... advocates state ownership of the means of production. This is intended either as a temporary measure, or as a characteristic of socialism in the transition from the capitalist to the socialist mode of production or to a communist society.
I don't understand how the finances work here. Is the proposal that the US govt buys 10% of available stocks at some price from Intel to give them cash to operate? Why doesn't Intel just get some investors to do that? If Intel is no longer competitive from an investor standpoint, then what's the point?
A quick ChatGPT search tells me Intel owns none of it's own stock, so I'm confused. It tells me a company can sell newly created stocks and dilute the value of the old stocks. I didn't know this was possible. Is this the proposed case?
> It tells me a company can sell newly created stocks and dilute the value of the old stocks. I didn't know this was possible.
Yes, absolutely, and it's a fairly normal process. How do you think VC investment works? Founders take funding in exchange for diluting their ownership. Further investment rounds dilute all shareholders, including big investors from prior rounds. IPOs often involve issuing new shares, further diluting existing investors. Acquisitions can even result in zeroing out some classes of equity.
Existing investors put up with it because either a) they believe their diluted shares will end up being worth more in the long run, because the new investment is critical to growth or success, or because b) they don't have enough voting power to stop it.
Corporate structure and ownership is just a legal fiction. There's no set number of slices that a company is cut into, and contracts, terms, by-laws, etc. can change that at any time.
Say you own 100% of a company whose fair value is $100 dollars. I give the company $900 and in exchange it issues me enough new shares that I own 90% of the company. Now you own 10% of a $1,000 company, with exactly the same number of shares as before, and your shares having the same fair value as before. Now this does assume that controlling stake of a company is not really worth anything, which is theoretically true if none of us is doing illegal-if-not-particularly-easy-to-prove screw-over-minority-shareholders type stuff.
Not to say there is never any funny business: with private companies who don't have a market for their stock the 'fair value' is not obvious and you can play games with that number to dilute away the ownership of people who don't have board seats.
They can issue new stock I imagine. I think this is to keep fab capacity of advanced nodes still producing in the us and to ensure the engineering talent is not scattered by a breakup of Intel
Maintaining fab capacity requires product to run through that fab. Intel no longer has enough volume to maintain that on new advanced nodes (yeah, farming out CPUs to TSMC is super helpful on that front), and nobody wants to be a foundry customer of Intel given how badly they have failed to support those efforts over the past 20 years. I mean how badly are the fabs being run if they burned bridges with 3 different FPGA companies? The fabs need to be spun out of Intel and given a competent management team that knows how to run a foundry, build a new customer base and try to turn a profit in 10 years or so.
Honestly, throwing more money towards Intel without breaking it up is just going to increase the scale of the losses at this point. The internal culture is so broken that the likelihood of turning things around is negligible.
Agreed. As another commenter pointed out, this is state socialism. But sometimes state socialism works. The other option is to let MBAs run Intel even further into the ground.
Bingo - the solution to this is already programmed into the free market. Intel's failure can't be turned back around, especially not 10 years after the first cracks started showing.
It's not inherently wrong to want to prop up American chipmaking, but it is wrong to deny reality. No matter how much American scrip you put on the table, Intel's mistakes can't be undone faster than China can beat them.
This would not be state socialism it would be state capitalism. The capital market still exists, the state is just an owner in this case. Presumably the US Government would be just like any other capital owner in this situation.
The government doesn't pay the same in cash comp as other places people could go in the private sector.
You'll get some people that are amazing and committed, but the rest are just kinda happy to be there. I wish govt comp was better and more competitive.
Well, its like giving more money to the guys shoveling the money off the ship as it sinks. They will tip their hat or something as they continue shoveling.
... To me its a great idea, transitionally, until the shares are ready to be given to workers and ex-workers, but i'll admit that was definitely _not_ on my bingo card. Hopefully this work great and we'll see the US nationalize more instead of just giving money for nothing.
Im confused over the state of ideology within the republican party at this point. For years, government ownership and oversight has been demonized as the very thing that leads to inefficiencies and bad business practices. Now the same party has their figurehead looking to take partial government ownership of a business?
Can someone explain this ideological whiplash?
Because it's never been about ideals. It's about power and financial/economic dominance. Politicians will align themselves with whatever ideology will get them the support they need to accumulate power and money. Whenever they take actions that seem to violate that ideology, they'll use spin and propaganda to justify it so as not to anger their base.
> Politicians will align themselves with whatever ideology will get them the support they need to accumulate power and money.
Not all politicians are like that. The Republican party has been very focused on that.
"All politicians bad" thinking damages the work of the many people fighting for a better and more just world. There are even politicians in conflict areas that give their lives trying to fight cartels or terrorist groups. "All are the same" is degrading for us all humans.
Sure "not all" but it's a lot.
Biden voted to make same-sex marriage Illegal [1] and later for legalizing same-sex [2]. A bit interesting that his running mate neglected to legalize it and instead just didn't defend it in court (Imagine how people would talk if Trump refused to defend a law in court, lol!)
But yeah, some politicians like Bernie actually have been consistent their career while others like Ron Paul just make a big talk about their stances but then vote to inflate the deficit anyways.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_Marriage_Act
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respect_for_Marriage_Act
It's almost like...people can change their mind about something?
I like Bernie too but he is nuts. He's a far left voice who is often quite rational, we need someone like him to bring things back towards the center, but I doubt he'd be a good president.
Sure people can change their mind but when your opinions are changing at the same time as popular opinion it doesn't sound like your mind is changed. It just sounds like you want to be popular and that's dangerous to me as a voter because I want to vote for a set of core values and not a face.
> He's a far left voice
As European I see Bernie as center-right, but I guess it is a matter of perspective.
Well he's an American politician, so I'm talking within that context.
Yeah and it turns out if you lie to enough little disparate groups you can become supreme ruler!
Maybe dump isnt really a racist, or a crystal rubbing brain worm yoga mom... but he sure tricked them into voting for him. He actually did more than most politicians and actually did each of them a tiny solid rather than just ignore them after winning too
Unless you chronically need healthcare. In that case: good luck.
" For years, government ownership and oversight has been demonized as the very thing that leads to inefficiencies and bad business practices. "
This was their position just a few months back. This was the reason DOGE existed. At least that's what they said.
But it was never about that. It was always about the fact that they felt that they didn't have control of the government so they didn't want it dictating terms to them. Now that they have control and believe they always will -- now they believe that government should control everything.
I think Intel wants to stay alive so they are looking for a lifeline and the current administration wants to bring chip production into the US.
Intel's death would be very embarassing to that whole effort. So Intel has incentives (survival) and the administration has incentives (jobs in the US). The method is "whatever can be claimed as a win".
No US party seems particularly capable or keen to hold an ideological line but especially not the GOP from what I've seen. Not saying other countries have particularly impressive parties either. I'm less than thrilled with ours over here.
> I think Intel wants to stay alive so they are looking for a lifeline
I'm not sure Intel was asking for this.
It seems like a better approach would've been to broker a deal (he likes deals, right?) where companies like Apple and Nvidia (companies that are currently dependent on TSMC) would've been incentivized to make investments in Intel.
I agree, and I think the government’s incentive might also be a having strategic production capability in the US. Maybe they’re concerned about TSMC’s future with the tension between China and Taiwan?
That's all fine, but this is definitely heading into socialist territory. I guess they're out of ideas and this is how they incentivize. The free markets have failed?
My hypothesis is that this is government response (own stake in Intel) to another government’s action (hint take over of Taiwan) and as such is outside the free market. But I have no evidence to support it, it’s just an opinion and it could be that they view Intel as “too big to fail” or something like that as you suggest.
Well I guess tariffs were supposed to fix all this? What happened to the CHIPS act?
I really wonder how 10% stake in Intel will fix anything practical ?
> the current administration wants to bring chip production into the US
Please don't credit the current administration with wanting to do something beneficial here. Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act in 2022 for $52.7 billion is appropriations for semiconductor R&D.
Which Trump essentially killed - part of Intel’s problem as it hasn’t received most of the money it was awarded.
That's why no credit should be given. With the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (2021, Biden) which allocates 546-715 billion to infrastructure (see: jobs and improvements to daily lives of Americans) and the CHIPS and Science Act (2022, Biden) which allocates 52.7 billion to American semiconductor research and manufacturing we had major sources of government provisions from 2021 to 2024. The Trump admin continuously fails to implement parts of the legislation that they disagree with, and claims all credit for implementing the parts that they agree with.
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They used to be against tariffs and for free trade as well.
The Republican Party circa 2012 no longer exists. The hood ornament looks the same, but the car is completely different.
They have just refined themselves to their essence. Gotten rid of all the baggage of civility and decorum and allowed their true colors to fly. The core uniting force between these folks is still there and it has never been about fiscal responsibility. That's just a mantle they took up to target programs for minorities back when they pretended to care about being called racist. Folks left of Democrats have been calling this our for literally decades only to be told we're overreacting as liberals once again try bipartisanship with fascists.
It's just about winning (read: more power for the upper class), not about ideals.
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"Flatten the curve for just 2 weeks." Wait, who was in power for the first year of Covid?
Democratic governors in almost all states that mattered, due to the aftermath of the 2018 election.
That isn't a response to the parent's question nor is it related to the principles of federally absorbing Intel stake in 2025.
When you write hollow comments like this as a response to good-faith observations, you ironically reaffirm the great-grandparent comment. You can't justify owning a significant stake in Intel on principle alone.
Party realignment:
https://time.com/7173651/democratic-party-alignment-history/
The Democrats moved from working class to the professional managerial class and the Republicans in reverse.
I thought the republicans are at the top and bottom of the wealth scale and the democrats are in the middle
Republicans are at the top and good at messaging to the bottom (but they rarely actually help the bottom).
Democrats are just bad all around, bad at messaging and bad at achieving things, but at least they mostly don't make things worse, and people with enough time invested in understanding politics (a minority of people) see that. When things do get worse and Democrats are in charge, Republican messaging is effective at convincing people it's the Democrats' fault (which it kinda is because they did nothing to stop it, and kinda isn't because they did nothing to cause it, and in any case the Republicans are even worse but good at saying they're not).
I won’t disagree that the Democratic party has developed an identity crisis as well, in part to chase campaign finance. But to say that the Republican party has occupied the ideological space of pro-working class would be true only nominally. It has broad cultural appeal there in some quarters but its political economic actions are in no way focused on the real betterment of the working class. Where’s that comprehensive health finance plan which was due “in two weeks.” Several years ago.
To me it feels like the same whiplash around auto bailouts and equity. Different donors and lobbyists so the roles are reversed for parties.
I don’t think there’s ideology in politics any longer. And it’s even hard to predict what industries and firms are in favor.
Pretty sure they've jumped the ideological shark a long time ago at this point. Nothing is consistent. They say what's convenient for the situation. There are no ideals. People's attention spans are so short they don't notice, and if they do notice, most don't seem to care. You can find an infinite amount of tweets with these people contradicting themselves over and over again.
> Can someone explain this ideological whiplash?
Easily. It's called fascism, one of the cornerstones being the marriage of industry and state. It has long been the marching direction of the US power structures, whether the individual participants cop to it or not. It has been an unwritten rule for decades and now it's just becoming more blatant. Republicans are not experiencing whiplash as much as they are becoming self-aware of their actual desires. There is a minority of the republican party that actually values small government (my respect goes out to them), but most of the party's actions to this end have been an obscene minority compared to their constant desire to either regulate morality via government overreach or enshrine their big business butt buddies into monopoly status.
While I feel the democrats are guilty of many of the same things, they are still a faction of what I would call the "capitalist-imperialist party." The GOP has been splitting off into the "fascist-imperialist party" for many years, which is likely one of the reasons for the political divide.
1. The Republican party of 10 years ago is not the Republican party of today. 2. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
What desperate times to you see here?
How are they different?
Consider that the current president campaigned on raising taxes, and was elected anyway.
Perhaps a lot of R voters didn't have a problem with that because they somehow assumed that enacting a bunch of tariffs wouldn't result in higher prices for them.
When did Trump ever campaign on raising taxes?
Perhaps you mean the tariffs which he promised that other countries will pay for?
It was a lie, but it was still a campaign to raise taxes on Americans.
To call it a "campaign to raise taxes" I think assumes voters are more informed and open minded they they really are.
My boomer parents genuinely believed Trump had and would continue to reduce their taxes. When confronted with tariff facts they counter with more spin, like "he's just negotiating" or "it'll make the economy so much stronger".
He's making the trains run on time.
Before I learned it was an infamous political meme immortalized by the fallout from WWII, I heard that claim recited in utter sincerity in the 1990s by a woman who had been a teenager in Italy during that period. Even after what happened with Mussolini, she still believed.
2 decades of increasingly refined 24/7 propaganda designed to radicalize.
I don't think it's been refined so much as it's been amplified.
Now they’re less subtle.
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One era can be exemplified by people who sound like Mitt Romney or George Bush.
I mean the Republican part is now the party of the poor and working class while the Democrats are the educated and rich. As in who votes for them not necessarily who they pay lip service too. For example the Democrats still deeply message on them being the party of the working class even as the working class no longer votes for them.
They literally flipped inside the last decade.
If you view this around identity then its pretty straightfoward.
Republicans are the party of the dominant group and maintaining their power. Democrats are the party of the non-dominant groups and speading power across groups. Everything else is just chips to push these two agendas. And I think this is why Republicans will have a long-term advantage. The dominant group is by definition the group in power and its the group that people eventually want to be in (see Hispanics). No one wants to stay in the out-group.
What does this mean? The majority of people, regardless of 'group', are facing similar issues. I think this sort of rhetoric, alongside the endless hyperbole, is a big part of why the Democrat party is facing substantial difficulties.
I also think this claim is falsifiable by the homogeneity of party views. The stereotype of a Republican is pro-gun, anti-abortion, yeehaw. In reality? Only 24% of Republicans completely oppose abortion [1] and only 27% think gun laws should be less strict. [2] The party has become extremely heterogeneous. By contrast, stereotypes on Democrat views are somewhat more accurate with 86% thinking gun laws should be more strict, and 56% supporting abortion at any time, for any reason.
Were the Republican party supporting some specific 'group', you would expect to see a general homogeneity of views. And were the Democrat party supporting a large number of otherwise relatively independent 'groups', you would expect to see a general heterogeneity of views. Instead, we see something much closer to the exact opposite.
[1] - https://news.gallup.com/poll/246278/abortion-trends-party.as...
[2] - https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/24/key-facts...
This is consistent with my take. Most positions don’t matter. They’re side issues. The only thing that truly matters in party politics is identity. And the group that Republicans support the most are straight white males. That’s the in-group. All the other issues you mention are just side quests.
I applaud you having the dignity to define 'group' instead of weaseling around it. But the issue you immediately run into is that it's not like non-white individuals are homogenous, yet the Democratic party's polling on most issues is. In any case, society isn't buying this stuff.
For instance the most recent election was decided by the economy. People that thought the economy was excellent/good voted for Harris by a margin of about 92%. Those who thought it was mediocre/poor voted for Trump by a margin of 70%. [1] And it turned out that way more people thought the economy was bad than those that thought it was good.
This led to the best result ever for a Republican for both blacks and hispanics, with Trump outright winning Hispanic males. All the while the Democrat party flailed about with this identity stuff that not only do people mostly not care about, but that also pushes away folks like me that are liberal but vehemently against political correctness, identity politics, etc.
[1] - https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/exit-polls
I don’t buy that. People might like to claim it was the economy, but it’s about making themselves feel like they’re not being passed up on the socioeconomic ladder, especially by a black woman.
It’s better for their won ego to vote to keep a white man at the top, even if he committed treason, than to see someone they perceive as below them go past them. For many, it even works to keep their same group down, because it can feel like a personal failure to not achieve more (such as women who would rather vote for a man).
This is one of the truest quotes there is, and it can be generalized to all people, not just white men:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lbj-convince-the-lowest-wh...
Think about the implications of your argument. Trump didn't win because of some tremendous upsurge in voters - his increase in votes was no more than proportional to the increase in eligible voters. He won because some odd 6 million+ mystery voters that voted for Biden, didn't vote for Harris. And that's more like 10 million if we assume that the DNC baseline turnout was proportional to the increase in eligible voters.
I classify not voting as a vote for the winning candidate.
Dems lost twice with a highly qualified woman candidate, against a highly unqualified man candidate.
"Qualified" for political office means, essentially by definition, the ability to garner votes. Clinton is one of the most unlikeable people imaginable who is almost certainly also a literal sociopath. [1] Harris started out by being the VP in a Presidency that, at its 'peak' was literally the most unpopular Presidency of all time, or at least since approval ratings began being tracked. And she has a habits such as cackling when caught lying, struggling to avoid becoming completely and literally incoherent in any conversation that last more than a few moments, and so on.
Obama? Coherent, intelligent, charismatic, and not only won by 10million+ votes, but also received more votes than any President at that point to date. I'm not fond of the guy (even if I voted for him, once) yet his speeches still literally give me goose bumps. He has an amazing rhetorical ability, which is the money shot in politics. By contrast, if he had the same traits/skillset as Harris or Clinton, he would have also been stomped and you would have been here arguing that people didn't vote for him because he was black.
People, in general, just don't really care about identity. Run particularly bad candidates and you're going to lose. Run particularly bad candidates while repeatedly claiming the sky is falling, and you're going to lose and imperil your ability to succeed in the future.
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlz3-OzcExI
I'm also against identity politics in theory, but it's the one thing that binds everything together neatly. In fact, your example is evidence of my point. Who are these people that think the economy is good versus those who think its bad? Why does it cut more strongly across racial lines than it does against economic lines? It's because it's not really about the economy. The economy is simply a proxy to vote against -- it's a dog whistle. Just like Haitians eating dogs, or kids becoming cats at school, gun control, and even abortion.
What the Republicans are good at, and how they've convinced you that they're the right choice is they openly attack certain positions they feel they have strength in and know that Dems need to defend. Like trans people. Dems know that sticking up for trans is a losing proposition, but they also know that this is what they do -- they stand for those who are most oppressed. Gay marriage 20 years ago was the same thing.
And what Republicans do with a relatively loud dog whistle is indirectly attack identity. Go and look at relatively mainstream conservative forums and search for the term "DEI hire" or "DEI admit". The actual qualifications don't matter. They aren't requesting nuance, it's simply "black = DEI hire" and "white male = merit hire". Look Trump's cabinet. Conservatives say not a peep about their qualifications and routinely disparage others. Another example is crime. I'm sure you've seen the online memes about "well, well, well" or "13/50". It's a way to disparage black people in the context of crime. The fact that this stuff floods social media can only be attributed to widespread empathy for this position or bots.
And you're right that Dems do flail about identity, because they are actually trying to address the elephant in the room. But they need to do better to make it focused more on the subtext. Rather than advocate for LGBTQ rights, fight for universal parental leave rights.
Trumps legacy will have very little to do with the economy except for a failed attempt at mass scale tariffs (which honestly aren't nearly as good nor bad as people narrate -- but its just narrative). It will be around identity issues. It will be his attacks on removing identity from history, his attacks on higher education, his disenfranchising minority voters, his deporting of immigrants (legal and illegal), attacks on birthright citizenship. Plus some non-identity issues, which mostly relate to his power: war in Ukraine and prosecutions of enemies.
So make no mistake that while Republicans don't flail about identity (because they're much better at being on message), it is absolutely that tie that binds. It is the foundation. Everything else about small government, states rights, etc... all those principles fall apart. Identity is the one thing that withstands scrutiny. We both prefer it weren't so, but it is.
Try to read your post with the mindset of somebody who does not already share your worldview. Claiming things like people stating they were voting on the economy was some sort of dog whistle is something that might pass muster on Bluesky, but sounds a bit off kilter if you're not just preaching to the choir.
And extrapolating your online bubble to real life is unwise. For instance poll the majority of people, Democrat or Republican, on DEI and the most common answer you'd get is 'What's DEI?' When told what it stands for, most would take the meaning literally and generally support it. When they see how it plays out in practice, opposition would grow. You can see this here [1] where in 2023 only 16% of workers felt DEI was a bad thing.
[1] - https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/11/19/views-of-...
The economy simply doesn't change anyone's vote. See [1] for example. Despite Utah Republicans feeling less optimistic due to Trump economically, they still support him. Why? Because they never actually voted on the economy.
There's no actual indicator that people actually vote on the economy. When it's bad you vote for your party, and when its good you do too. In part because when its bad its the other guy's fault. When its good, your team did it. There's no actual substance to economic data that will change voting.
Regarding "my online bubble" -- it's not mine. Give me any major news story regarding a black person and crime and I can give you a link of comments in 30s. You pick the story. I'm not going to 4chan. This is just reddit, TikTok, YouTube, Insta.
On DEI, I'm similar to the people polled. I think in spirit its a good idea, but poorly implemented. But the fact that I think doesn't mean I look down on every black person hired. This is like people conflating BLM the organization with BLM the sentiment. I'm sure you've seen the interviews of people about "CRT" -- they immediately say they're opposed to it. When asked why they say, "I'm not really sure what it is, I just know I don't like it".
[1] https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2025/08/14/trumps-elect...
An example that 'some indicator in some situation does not change some people's vote', does not generalize to 'indicator never changes anybody's vote in any situation'. People said they were voting based on the economy, and it drove votes that also ran directly contrary to this identity stuff. For instance, Trump won Hispanic males by 10 point margin.
The point about online bubbles is that what you read online isn't representative sample of what people in the real world are like. People who post online are a vocal minority that disproportionately often hold fringe views that typically become even more fringe over time due to the radicalizing effect of the echo chambers that most prefer to post in.
I think it's more about messaging rather than reality. Only one of these parties fights the safety nets, is against raising the minimum wage and cuts taxes for the rich, and that's the one that's positioned itself as the "party of the poor".
Dems/Repubs seem evenly split by income.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/exit-polls
The Republican party is now the party of billionaires, grifters, the dumb, and the duped.
I'm the same, they absolutely loathe Zohran Mamdani for talking about state run grocery stores, but getting involved in Intel is fine? What?
The cognitive dissonance is what blows my mind, this applies to almost every topic.
Borders? Well according to them borders are the most important thing ever, border security etc. Yet Ukraine? Well f** their borders, they're just something Putin can play with and that's totally fine according to them?
The ideology seems to be, "Whatever aligns with my or the great leaders world view, is good and I'll tell whatever stories I have to justify it to myself and others.".
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Maybe the 70 million+ people who voted for this and continue to support this ideology?
At some point a new group of organized criminals has either replaced or partnered with the "Republican Party." It seems this is partially for the Trump-aligned group to draw in votes and presumably corrupt or pressure the remaining "good guys" in the various government and political organizations.
Many of these moves and strategies make sense when viewed through the lens of organized crime shaking down companies, governments, private organizations, and such.
As to why they still have supporters - I can't really explain that aside from "they're hurting the right people."
As to why they still have supporters - I can't really explain that aside from "they're hurting the right people."
Don't underestimate how hard it is to admit you're wrong when you're strongly invested in an ideology which is:
I'm always correct, I'm always winning, I'm strong, I'm alpha and nothing is every my fault nor am I ever responsible for anything
I interact with MAGAs on Reddit, it's sadistic but I really cannot stop because I just cannot believe people believe in the things they do. All I can say is these people have really really bought the lies, hook line an sinker. It's dangerous and I don't see how it's going to change anytime soon. The only way I see the spell breaking is economic catastrophe, even then these people would believe it's not Trump's fault, or the current admins fault, it would be Biden's fault.
> Im confused over the state of ideology within the republican party at this point.
The ideology is whatever Trump says.
In a couple years when he's dead, they are gonna be seriously fuk't.
Yay.
The good news is there isn't a backup. There's no room for someone to be a second Trump -- they'd get destroyed as long as Trump is in power. I am hopeful that the party will split into two pieces, forever.
> The good news is there isn't a backup.
Recently Charlie Rose [1] interviewed Michael Wolff,[2]
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlrRr4ljLFM
who just published his fourth book on Trump, and who labelled Trump sui generis:
> Sui generis (/ˌsuːi ˈʒɛnərɪs/ SOO-ee ZHEN-ər-iss,[1] Classical Latin: [ˈsʊ.iː ˈɡɛnɛrɪs]) is a Latin phrase that means "of its/their own kind" or "in a class by itself", therefore "unique".[2] It denotes an exclusion to the larger system an object is in relation to.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sui_generis
A unique personality that happened to come along at a unique time, and who which probably cannot be replicated.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Rose
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Wolff_(journalist)
I think Vance is trying to position himself to be the Next Guy. That means doing whatever he has to to not be destroyed now, but trying to leave himself the room to shift when it's his turn.
But I'm not sure he can pull it off. He's too stiff. He doesn't have "it" - whatever "it" it is that Trump has.
Trump has a long and impossible to replicate history with American popular culture, I don't see how any career politician can ever beat it solely on being a politician, especially one that has to live in the shadows of the current President. You'll always be number 2.
Obama is now equally as famous IMO but he got there through his career. Not because of it.
Same for Russia and China, who will replace Putin and Xi, I guess the answer is "someone" but I can't imagine it being easy to replace these "kings" without clear successors.
> Same for Russia and China, who will replace Putin and Xi […]
Once heard the idea that this is one of the 'features' of democracies: built-in succession planning.
Donald Trump Jr
> Can someone explain this ideological whiplash?
Yes. The party used to be conservative; now it's populist. They are two very different ideological positions. It changed under Trump. It's the same party in name, but a totally different ideology. Many traditional conservatives have gone along with it because the party still slashed taxes, which has been their main goal for a long time. They care much more about lower taxes than government ownership.
Slashed taxes but raised tariffs (aka import taxes).
It’s the end of the postwar consensus and the return of the “strong gods”.
Before: hands-off economic liberalism.
Now: doing what seems best for ones own nation state.
See “Return of the Strong Gods” by RR Reno for an interesting explanation of lots of puzzling behavior from major political parties.
There is no consistent ideology. There is only grift, and rage against anyone that they think wronged them.
Okay, there is ideology. But it's a bunch of different people with very different ideologies and goals.
Ah, the Soviet model of governance
Right, this is what's so amazing to me. The American conservative party spent the last 30 years taking a victory lap over the fall of the USSR, extolling the evils of socialism wherever they could, only to run in the opposite direction so hard, they ended up proving horseshoe theory by emulating everything that made the Soviets government dysfunctional.
The way I see this is in terms of attractors (in the sense of dynamics).
The dynamics are characterized mostly by institutions and rules rather than ideology.
The idea of liberalism was to get the institutions correct and so create a stable democracy.
If you destroy the institutions then the ideology behind why you did it doesn't matter. Just like it doesn't matter why you remove a load bearing wall in a building. You're at the mercy of primate emotions and everything tends toward oligarchy. That was just as true in the Soviet Union as in countless other countries throughout history.
Oligarchy is an attractor, and you need careful planning to avoid the whirlpool.
The same guy who tried to overthrow the 2020 election despite claiming to defend the constitution, is now trying to take government control over corporations despite claiming to believe in capitalism. And you're confused as to why this is happening?
> Can someone explain this ideological whiplash?
You've misidentified the ideology. It's "might makes right" not "let's do capitalism".
It’s communism! But we want it..
They literally have no political North Star at this point. It is the whatever Trump says goes for the spineless Republicans and do-nothing Dems.
When Trump says "America First" he means whatever is needed for America to "win". Lots of major tech leaders and people around him think the AI race with China is going to define the next 25-50 years some think this is "the race" as in whoever wins is going to be The Superpower full stop not for the next 50 year just forever.
With that on the line a lot of principles are just plain unimportant.
Hell even Democrats are falling inline behind him on China. D.C. seems to think this is a make or break moment for the long term success of the country.
If someone wanted American owned companies to compete (or win), they wouldn't take 20% top line revenue of products sold to China. They'd allow those companies to spend that money on R&D to continue to compete against Chinese AI companies.
An Arms Race isnt your regular race, its just running on a treadmill. There is no end, and the only thing you do is hope you dont collapse of exhaustion before your competition does. All the while, new competitors keep joining in.
If I recall, America was in a "make or break moment" back during the Cold War/Desert Storm/Iraq/etc. seems that we're still running...
One recent thing that isn't "America First", and doesn't help America "win", is that Trump blew up Canada trade negotiations because Canada decided to recognize the statehood of some distance nation in the middle east. Screwing up trade that affects everyone in America because of policy changes about things on the other side of the world doesn't seem focused on America. We only distance ourself from Canada and encourage Canada to do more trade with the EU and China; how does that help America?
The "let's just do whatever helps those in power gain more power" is a better match for what is happening.
> We only distance ourself from Canada and encourage Canada to do more trade with the EU and China; how does that help America?
I mean Canada doesn't really have the choice to do that. They are too dependent on America to really do much but just accept whatever we say. Maybe they can start reorienting themselves for a future in 10-20 years where they can meaningfully ramp up EU/China trade but for now they just accept whatever the USA says.
It's like when the last election was all "elbows up" then it turned out they had folded instantly and just hid it from their population.
In March Canada exports to the US decreased 6.6%, and their exports to other countries increased 25%. Canada's imports from America decreased 2.9%. Canada now exports more crude oil to China than it does to the US. There is now a strong social will and political will to reduce ties to the US and increase ties with other nations. This may take time, and it may not end the US, but it doesn't help the US by any means.
And why is this happening? "America First" means helping people that live in America; what part of this helps people living in America?
If his actions were actually designed to make “America win” I’d have less of a problem with it. But even at that goal they fail miserably.
> When Trump says "America First" he means whatever is needed for America to "win".
When Trump says "America First" he means "Trump First". Insofar as this administration is concerned about winning a purported AI race, it's so that they can make money off of it. Trump views money collected by the government as his own personal slush fund, so this 10% of Intel is about him personally getting ownership of the AI race now. It has nothing to do with setting America up for the future, let's be clear.
I appreciated this comment. I really dislike Trump, but I try to steelman the opposing side to not fall into the "other party bad!" nonsense. But his recent actions have made it very hard to find a steelman, and it's been hard to resist feeling "the dude is a power-hungry narcissist". Your explanation makes a lot of sense as a steelman; thank you!
If you look only at Trump helping Intel, then yeah, that steelman makes sense.
But if you look at the affects of Trumps policies, such as stagnated manufacturing jobs, and huge uncertainty around tariffs, and Trump's willingness to blow up trade negotiations with Canada because Canada changed their policies about the middle east; just overall, Trump's not doing things that help us beat China.
We also see things like the US tends to reward those working in finance more than people working in engineering or just doing regular work. Income tax is higher than capital gains tax in America, this is a political choice we have made that rewards those who move money and capital around, but we give less reward to those who work or build things. Meanwhile in China they go out of their way to punish those in finance with government enforced caps on financial industry wages and such; they're trying to make sure their society is set up to reward engineering, building things, and regular work more than it rewards moving money around.
Related: Pentagon becomes largest stakeholder ($400 million) in rare earths mine in California's Mojave Desert.
https://www.metaltechnews.com/story/2025/07/16/tech-metals/d...
This actually makes a lot of sense and something that China has been strategic about — ensuring access to important raw materials. It’s one of the biggest, if not the biggest, reasons Japan lost WW2
So this is the official end of the “free market” then, with stamp and seal.
Welcome tho the People’s Republic of the Soviet States of America.
Note that this makes USG the largest stockholder – BlackRock and Vanguard (as institutions, not funds) are about ~9%.
Intel does not have to be eternal. There was a time before Intel.
What other US company has a shot of making a sub 5 nm chip in the next, oh, let’s say 20 years?
Because of this, unfortunately, Intel is too big too fail.
TSMC.
US company. R&D is more important than the fabs. TSMC is under threat from China.
Gee I wonder why the US gov showered TSMC in money to build a fab on US soil.
Again, that is nice in the short term, but not for long term development if the worst happens between China and Taiwan.
We'd still have the fab on US soil even if they went to war. I don't think China would invade the US over it.
What about the next fab? And the fab after that? Yes, for the short term the USA has a cutting edge fab on US soil, but what about 10 years after that? The US would lack the ability to build future cutting edge fabs.
Having TSMC build a fab on US soil doesn't prevent any parallel efforts. If anything having the workforce here would make it easier to build future fabs.
I never said it did. Having a fab on US soil is important for the short term, but you need cutting edge fabs on US soil in the future too and that doesn't happen unless you are doing a lot of research.
Okay, so Taiwan is blockaded or invaded by China. The USA has a 3nm TSMC fab that they can assume control over, and, yes, they have the labor of that fab, great, but what about 2 nm? 1 nm? Etc? Without TSMCs R&D does the US have a cutting edge fab in 10 years? 20 years? Beyond? There is literally no other company in the United States that could even hope to expand their capabilities to be considered on the cutting edge within the next 15 years.
The easiest way to get TSMC's R&D in the US is to have them build a fab here and have employees here. If China invades Taiwan, and TSMC has employees that want to flee to somewhere else, the US would be the most logical option. If they already have a fab here, an established workforce and infrastructure here, that's better than having to start from nothing.
Taiwan as a country doesn't want that. There is a reason they only fab their latest and greatest chips domestically in Taiwan. It is of Taiwan's national interest and of TSMCs interest to do everything they can to ensure that the US protects them from China.
Again, it is a net positive for the US to have TSMC manufacture chips on US soil, so I am not arguing against that point, I simply posit it is not enough from a US national security / technology leadership standpoint.
I think we agree and we've just been talking past each other. Cheers.
Best.
I know everything is for sale, but how would Intel buying 10% of the US Government work? ;P
We need to be doing much, much more of this so that the country has ownership of substantial percentages of the critical infrastructure, including AI. That seems to be one of the only ways that the citizens in general will be able to share in the fruits of the technology, similarly to how Alaskan citizens get payments from petroleum.
Part of the reason we don't want this is because it creates an enormous government spoil, which is the decision to label a given company as part of the critical infrastructure of the country. For example: why Intel and not AMD? Does Micron make the cut? Seagate? What about the companies that make the inputs to the fabs? Telecom companies that run the Internet? Microsoft & Apple because business runs on their software?
This is Too Big To Fail on steroids.
> citizens in general will be able to share in the fruits of the technology, similarly to how Alaskan citizens get payments from petroleum
The alternative approach is right there in your answer. Like in Alaska or Norway, tax the winners and apply the benefits to citizens.
Sadly, we are going the other way both on taxation and benefits. The good news is we can at any time choose to live differently. Some might debate whether we could maintain our competitive business environment if Intel or Nvidia paid a tax rate comparable to yours, but perhaps it's worth a try?
I agree with your point, but to answer your first question, “why Intel and not AMD?” It is simply because Intel is the only US company, and one of only three chip manufacturers worldwide to even try to make cutting edge chips and that has an outside shot of doing so in the next decade or so.
Domestic chip production is a national security interest. Frankly the US should be funding one or more companies to expand their fab capabilities.
AMD is a US company:
Founder: Jerry Sanders
Headquarters: Santa Clara, California
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD
AMD doesn't fab their own chips. They currently utilize TSMC for that. Yes, if we were only talking about cutting edge chip design the US has no shortage.
USG is looking at spending ~$10B on an Intel stake. It's worth wondering whether it might make more sense to instead put the same money into AMD and earmark it for US fabs. Ditto NVidia.
There is an argument to be made there about how best to allocate the funds, but regardless of how the funds are deployed that spend has to be on Intel if you want it to protect US chip manufacturing and R&D. There are no other US chip manufacturers that are even trying to produce a chip under 12 nm. Unfortunately they are the only viable option.
Why can't we just raise taxes on corporations?
Socializing the means of production.
Heh. State socialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_socialism
>... advocates state ownership of the means of production. This is intended either as a temporary measure, or as a characteristic of socialism in the transition from the capitalist to the socialist mode of production or to a communist society.
"Capitalism with MAGA characteristics."
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism_with_Chinese_charact...
Preparations up for WWIII? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Plant_Corporation
I don't understand how the finances work here. Is the proposal that the US govt buys 10% of available stocks at some price from Intel to give them cash to operate? Why doesn't Intel just get some investors to do that? If Intel is no longer competitive from an investor standpoint, then what's the point?
A quick ChatGPT search tells me Intel owns none of it's own stock, so I'm confused. It tells me a company can sell newly created stocks and dilute the value of the old stocks. I didn't know this was possible. Is this the proposed case?
> It tells me a company can sell newly created stocks and dilute the value of the old stocks. I didn't know this was possible.
Yes, absolutely, and it's a fairly normal process. How do you think VC investment works? Founders take funding in exchange for diluting their ownership. Further investment rounds dilute all shareholders, including big investors from prior rounds. IPOs often involve issuing new shares, further diluting existing investors. Acquisitions can even result in zeroing out some classes of equity.
Existing investors put up with it because either a) they believe their diluted shares will end up being worth more in the long run, because the new investment is critical to growth or success, or because b) they don't have enough voting power to stop it.
Corporate structure and ownership is just a legal fiction. There's no set number of slices that a company is cut into, and contracts, terms, by-laws, etc. can change that at any time.
Say you own 100% of a company whose fair value is $100 dollars. I give the company $900 and in exchange it issues me enough new shares that I own 90% of the company. Now you own 10% of a $1,000 company, with exactly the same number of shares as before, and your shares having the same fair value as before. Now this does assume that controlling stake of a company is not really worth anything, which is theoretically true if none of us is doing illegal-if-not-particularly-easy-to-prove screw-over-minority-shareholders type stuff.
Not to say there is never any funny business: with private companies who don't have a market for their stock the 'fair value' is not obvious and you can play games with that number to dilute away the ownership of people who don't have board seats.
From the subhead
> Money earmarked for semiconductor company under Chips Act could be converted into equity
They’re already getting federal money.
An amount of stocks is created relative to the investment. Share value stays the same. Ownership percentage is diluted.
They can issue new stock I imagine. I think this is to keep fab capacity of advanced nodes still producing in the us and to ensure the engineering talent is not scattered by a breakup of Intel
> engineering talent is not scattered by a breakup of Intel
They'd be happy to nudge them from blue states (e.g. Hillsboro and Santa Clara) to red states.
Maintaining fab capacity requires product to run through that fab. Intel no longer has enough volume to maintain that on new advanced nodes (yeah, farming out CPUs to TSMC is super helpful on that front), and nobody wants to be a foundry customer of Intel given how badly they have failed to support those efforts over the past 20 years. I mean how badly are the fabs being run if they burned bridges with 3 different FPGA companies? The fabs need to be spun out of Intel and given a competent management team that knows how to run a foundry, build a new customer base and try to turn a profit in 10 years or so.
Honestly, throwing more money towards Intel without breaking it up is just going to increase the scale of the losses at this point. The internal culture is so broken that the likelihood of turning things around is negligible.
It's like loading more men onto a sinking ship. Gee, I wonder how this one ends.
While I’m pessimistic I do hope they turn their ship around. We don’t benefit from having less diversity in that market.
Agreed. As another commenter pointed out, this is state socialism. But sometimes state socialism works. The other option is to let MBAs run Intel even further into the ground.
>The other option is to let MBAs run Intel even further into the ground
or worse, the government runs Intel into the ground while constantly taking more taxes to prop it back up.
Incompetent private companies eventually dissolve. Uncle Sam can siphon your paycheck in perpetuity.
I agree with you. I shouldn't have framed this as a false dilemma, and I didn't put a whole lot of thought into my comment.
Bingo - the solution to this is already programmed into the free market. Intel's failure can't be turned back around, especially not 10 years after the first cracks started showing.
It's not inherently wrong to want to prop up American chipmaking, but it is wrong to deny reality. No matter how much American scrip you put on the table, Intel's mistakes can't be undone faster than China can beat them.
This would not be state socialism it would be state capitalism. The capital market still exists, the state is just an owner in this case. Presumably the US Government would be just like any other capital owner in this situation.
Does the government not hire people with MBAs?
The government doesn't pay the same in cash comp as other places people could go in the private sector.
You'll get some people that are amazing and committed, but the rest are just kinda happy to be there. I wish govt comp was better and more competitive.
Well, its like giving more money to the guys shoveling the money off the ship as it sinks. They will tip their hat or something as they continue shoveling.
... To me its a great idea, transitionally, until the shares are ready to be given to workers and ex-workers, but i'll admit that was definitely _not_ on my bingo card. Hopefully this work great and we'll see the US nationalize more instead of just giving money for nothing.
Mango and his cabal of clowns are rolling out a protection racket. smh.
Fan-tas-tic.
Well done, Republicans. Well done.. slow clap
So free market of them.