What Are My Politics?

And my unrefined thoughts on US politics

I don’t like writing about politics because it’s depressing, and exhaustively covered elsewhere. Let’s make this article an exception: I feel like it’s time for me to address my own political beliefs.

Because there’s no type of comment at the end of an article that annoys me more than this:

I used to like what you wrote, but in this article you say that you support X policy from Y politician; therefore, you are on the other side and you have lost me.

Given the topics I write about, people constantly ask me if I’m a Democrat or a Republican, right-wing or left-wing. So let’s make it clear: I am none of these.

First, I find bundling policies to be an absurd inheritance of 18th century technology: If I want to fight climate change, why then must I also support more public education, uncontrolled immigration, trans women in women’s sports, or taking billionaires’ assets? If I think the deficit should be low and the state should be small, why must I also believe that the climate is not changing, or that everyone should be free to carry a weapon?

And then what happens when the party changes stances? Like the Democrats did with immigration, going from Obama’s controlled to Biden’s free rein? Or like the Republicans with their support for Ukraine?

Second, people tend to be credulous of what leaders say, simply because they are in leadership. I think we should be the opposite.

I have a systematic skepticism, both of what people say and of people in power, so I have twice the skepticism of what people in power say. To me, this is the right check and balance: Who watches the watchmen? Everybody. We need everybody to question what leaders say—especially what our own leaders say, because we have a confirmation bias that we must actively fight.

The consequence is that when I criticize a political leader, you can’t really know whether I favor this leader or not.

Third, and much more importantly, I don’t create an identity around my beliefs. Doing this is dangerous, because it requires that you shift your beliefs to match your identity. That means you will disregard evidence to fit in with a group with shared beliefs.

I am not Centrist either, because that’s just another identity—and many times it’s just a cop-out, to avoid saying that you’re left or right because you don’t fully identify with either. Center is supposed to be in the middle, milquetoast. No: I may support ideas from the left, from the right, from libertarians, from authoritarians, from capitalists, from communists…

So how do I decide my political stance? I look at the topics that matter the most at any given time, reflect on what’s best for society, and pick the position that best achieves that.

Let’s take a few examples.

I agree with Germany’s Greens on supporting Ukraine against Russia, but I disagree with their nuclear stance. I believe in man-made global warming, but I also think it’s something we can solve through tech.

What’s the best for society? Whatever makes the most people happiest. So for example, housing costs are one of the biggest problems in society, suffered primarily by poor people who aren’t homeowners yet. Therefore, I favor YIMBYism: We should build much more housing to make it more affordable for more people.

I think Trump’s early management of COVID was stupid, but Operation Warp Speed was an immense success to get vaccines fast. I am glad Biden printed money to support people during the pandemic, but the economy remained closed for way too long, and too much money was printed and given away. Vaccine requirements were overreach once everybody who wanted a vaccine could get one.

I think Biden, Harris, and Trump were all awful choices for the last US elections. Biden was clearly not fit for reelection, and it was blatantly obvious at least one year before he stepped down. Harris was not even elected as the Democratic leader; she was just appointed. Trump is unethical and his stance on Ukraine and tariffs are dumb—I’ll explain why later. At the time, I appreciated Clinton, Obama, McCain, and Romney. I generally agree with Macron in France, even if he makes many mistakes and his approval rate is dismal. From my shallow understanding, both Left and Right in the UK seem terrible, and both center-left and center-right in Germany seem reasonable.

I am glad there was a Woke movement. It was good for women and minorities. The rights of women, Blacks, Latinos, homosexuals, and many more groups have greatly increased as a result. But Wokism went too far, so I’m glad we are course-correcting. For example:

• DEI statements and the like are very bad for society because they stifle freedom of speech and focus on the wrong metrics.

• I welcome pronouns (I’ll call you whatever you want me to call you!) but pressuring people to proactively mention them is a waste of everybody’s time (just say it when it’s relevant).

• Trans women should not share sports with biological women; for the same reasons we split men’s and women’s sports.

• I don’t believe in historic settler colonialism, and I think there are few legitimate issues of cultural appropriation.

But I also fear that this course-correction is going to go too far. Racism will increase and stupid mistakes will be made, which will be paid for with careers and lives.¹

So please, whenever I write an article, don’t say “Are you writing this because you support X party or Y person?” because that is never the case. Positions should stand on their own, supported by our intellect. If you want to convince me, use facts. I am frequently wrong; the only thing that might make me different from the average person on the Internet is that I recognize it fast and learn from it.

With that, I’m going to do something I don’t usually do: Share my rough takes on some important, newsworthy topics. Below are my current thoughts on US politics (I covered most of my EU thoughts here), without having reviewed the issues in depth. I welcome feedback and debate on them! I will review first Republicans (Trump’s administration) and then Democrats.

Quick Thoughts on Trump’s Policies

Again: I haven’t written about these at length because I haven’t studied them at length. But here are my unrefined thoughts:

DOGE

The concept of DOGE is good. In companies, you want leaders to act extremely aggressively: Lower costs mean higher margins, more dividends, and higher salaries. Companies have an incentive to save money for this reason. But the state does not: It doesn’t spend its own money, but taxpayers’. Frequently, success is measured by the amount of money spent, rather than the benefits provided. The fact that the government is so cavalier about taxpayer money is evident in instances such as the Pentagon failing its 7th audit in a row. There are other failures too, like that the US government seems to have several computers outside of the Federal Reserve that can print money—this should be limited to the FED, and should be independent from the government. This is why the DOGE approach is also valuable for the state: It can lead to less waste, less debt, and lower taxes.

There are two approaches to cutting spending:

1. Study how money is spent, and delete what is superfluous.

2. Delete first, and rethink your position after people come to complain.

We are used to #1 because it’s less disruptive. But #2 works much better because it switches the default: If you are already doing some activity, it’s easy to justify, so it’s hard to cut. But if you need to make a case to get your funding back, that’s a greater ask, and many people just won’t do it. This second approach is a more painful process, but I think it’s much more effective and efficient.

This has many positives:

• It will save the government (and taxpayers) many billions of dollars

• It will change civil servants’ perception of their own job safety. This is important, because if you believe you’re untouchable, your productivity lags.

• It will set an example for state and local governments to do the same, making this approach pervasive throughout government.

• It will change people’s perception of the corruption and waste in the government. People will be much more likely to pay their taxes and support a big state if they know that state is not wasteful.

Of course, it has negatives. It’s one thing to cut 80% of Twitter employees; it’s completely different for example to cut overnight foreign aid on which millions of people count for survival.

Here’s a positive that DOGE will not have: Make a huge dent in overall government spending.² The true way to save money is through policy change. But to me these are different things:

• The US should watch how it spends money to reduce waste and corruption. That’s what DOGE does.

• The US needs to reduce its deficit, and for that, big policies are probably a better tool.

Tariffs

To me, Trump is playing the real estate pseudo-mogul here.

In negotiation, there are two concepts that matter more than anything else: BATNA and anchoring.

BATNA is the Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement. It means if you don’t reach an agreement, your alternative is acceptable anyway, so you can walk away at any moment. That gives you negotiating power.

Anchoring is fixing the default agreement in terms that are advantageous to you, and then negotiating from there. For example, if you want to sell something for a minimum of $100, you might set the price at $400. The buyer on the other side will fixate on that $400, will use it as an anchor, and will explore discounts from there. He might imagine getting 10%, 20% off. If he gets 30% off, he’ll feel super happy. All of that is way above the minimum price of $100 you would actually accept.

When Trump puts 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, he has a good BATNA: Those tariffs would hurt the US, but they would hurt Canada and Mexico much more. If he walks away, it will be painful for the US (and thus Trump), but devastating for Canada and Mexico—and their presidents. So he uses this leverage.

Meanwhile, anchoring at 25% seems like a huge deal. It’s such a devastating increase in costs that going back to no tariff will appear like a huge win.

That’s my guess as to why he’s doing this. The problem is that it might work for some real estate deals, but likely not with the US government.

Problem 1: China vs CA / MEX

When Trump says China is the enemy and yet imposes taxes of 25% on Canada and Mexico, and only 10% on China, what he’s saying is, “I will take advantage of my allies and respect my enemies.” Both enemies and allies take note of this: He’s rewarding force and hostility, so that’s what both allies and enemies will work towards.

Problem 2: Tariffs Are Generally Bad

I assume Trump wants tariffs because of the consistent US trade deficit. But there are only a few cases in which tariffs are good, such as strategic independence or infant industries. They don’t include reducing the deficit. And broad tariffs are quite bad. They:

• Reduce domestic GDP and productivity

• Increase unemployment

• Increase inequality

• Barely impact the trade balance

• Are worse for developed economies

Problem 3: One-Off vs Recurring Negotiation

In real estate, you can play hardball and burn bridges in your negotiations, because there’s always another piece of land to buy or lease, another bank to sour relationships with. You can usually negotiate as if this deal is the last time you’re going to deal with these people.

That is not the case in politics. You have the same 195 countries in the world; they barely change. Of these, there’s only a handful that will matter over the years, and they will remember prior interactions. They will remember for decades. In fact, they will put your conduct as a leader in the context of thousands of years of history. You can’t burn bridges, because they will come back to bite you.

So when Trump tells Mexico and Canada that he’ll impose 25% tariffs, they will try to avoid them, but the next thing they’ll do is try to reduce their exposure to the US in general. This is bad for the US over the long term.

Imperialism

Something similar happens when the Trump Administration says “Canada is going to be the 51st state” or talks about taking over Greenland or the Panama Canal. Let’s consider Greenland in more detail.

Greenland

The US Vice President JD Vance said the Danish government (which controls Greenland) is “not doing its job” and “not being a good ally”, and that taking over the island “is what President Trump is going to do because he doesn’t care about what the Europeans scream at us; he cares about putting the interests of American citizens first.”

This can be good for chest-thumping bullies, but the reaction from Denmark is: We will never make life easy for Trump, we will do everything in our power to fend him off. It might push for more EU integration, more EU military power, expanding France’s nuclear umbrella, giving China a foothold on Greenland so that the US doesn’t take over (it’s not the same to anger small Denmark than big China)… None of these are good outcomes.

And of course, other allies pay attention. None of them will be very forthcoming with Trump because they have seen how he deals with his “allies”.

Greenland is strategically positioned between the US and Russia, making it a legitimate security concern,³ but treating an ally like that is the best way to lose allies. And the US can’t do what it does without its allies.

Fun fact, I saw this video post from JD Vance, and I want you to notice one thing:

See how he talks about Greenland as if it was already part of the US? “We’re going to go there to check on the security situation…” This is a known psychological trick: When you speak of things as if they have already happened, people accept them more easily.

Ukraine

The Trump Administration is playing hardball with Ukraine, aggressively trying to pressure it into a peace treaty with Russia. This is bad for Ukraine and bad for America.

Why does Trump want this? I asked Grok to summarize the Trump Administration’s reasons for wanting an end to the war in Ukraine, and it says it’s unclear, but based on declarations, it appears that the main reasons are: reducing deaths, preventing further escalations, better economics, and aligning Russia with the US against China.

1. Reduce deaths

This is a laudable goal, but nobody believes this is a true interest because it doesn’t represent America First.

2. Prevent further escalation

In 1938, Hitler annexed Austria. The Allies opted for appeasement: Surely Hitler would now be happy and stop his expansion.
In 1938, Hitler annexed the Sudetenland in Czechia. The Allies opted for appeasement.
In 1939, Hitler annexed the rest of Czechoslovakia. The Allies opted for appeasement.
Then in 1939 he invaded Poland, and the Allies realized appeasement doesn’t work with an expansionist dictator.

Between 1999 and 2009, Putin leveled Chechnya. Nobody batted an eye.
In 2008, he invaded Georgia. Nobody batted an eye.
In 2014, he invaded Crimea. The Allies opted again for appeasement and didn’t intervene.
Later that year, he invaded eastern Ukraine. Again, nobody did anything.

Expansionist dictators will continue escalating until they lose. Rewarding them with victory only emboldens them.

Sure, you want to be careful how you support Ukraine to avoid WWIII or nuclear armaggedon, but Putin understands force much more than he understands any other argument.

3. Better economics

Apparently, the two ways in which this would be achieved are by stopping distribution of funds to Ukraine, and by taking advantage of peace for more economic exchanges.

Clearly, stopping the war would be a great way to stop sending money to Ukraine. But we should also put this in context.

It looks like the US has spent about $200B on Ukraine since 2022, or about $65B per year. Conversely, the US military budget is ~$900B per year. So, for about 7% of the US’s military spend, the US gets one of the best deals it could ever wish for.

Russia sees the US as its enemy—otherwise why would it get nervous about NATO expansion? Russia’s war with Ukraine gets the US’s traditional enemy bogged down in a war that bleeds its coffers dry, kills its youth, and pushes all its intelligent citizens away, at a cost of zero lives and a tiny share of its defense budget.

In return, the US gets even more goodwill from its European allies, wins an eternal ally (Ukraine), and keeps China in check, sending the message that invading Taiwan would be extremely costly for China. This, in turns, keeps Taiwan as an independent entity, which keeps China contained.

And just a small reminder that this is how the US won the Cold War! The USSR got into a quagmire in Afghanistan, and it bled so much money, soldiers, status, and internal support, that the empire crumbled. The US could have a repeat of this if it wanted. But now Trump says no! Why?

Economically, this is the most value for money the US has ever invested in its military.

If the US pushed for such a victory against Russia, it could easily negotiate an economic deal with Ukraine to tighten their economic exchanges and exploit its resources. The US will never be able to achieve such a deal with Putin, however, for a couple of reasons.

First, Western companies learned the lesson that if you invest in Putin’s Russia, you can lose your money overnight: All multinationals had to leave when the war started.

Second, why would a victorious Putin open up his country to the US more than how it was before the war? This is absurd. The only way Russia and the US will connect more tightly economically is if Putin is out of the picture. Plus, Russia is a tiny economy, as we have seen:

4. An Alliance US-Russia against China

It would indeed be very cool if Trump could get Russia on the US side and against China. And there’s a precedent: Nixon got the US closer to China during the Cold War, against the USSR. Except that China and the USSR had already split.

I just think it’s impossible.

First, Russia and China share a big border, either directly or through their buffers of Mongolia and Kazakhstan:

For Russia, China is much more of a threat than the US.

Second, that threat is very real, because the border with China is:

• Extremely far from Russia’s capital, Moscow

• Extremely close to China’s capital, Beijing

• Basically a 21st century colony for Russia

• The Russian side is empty, and the Chinese side is very populated

• China’s population and GDP are ~10x Russia’s, and China’s military spend is ~2x Russia’s

For all these reasons, it would be very easy for China to take over parts (or all) of Siberia.

Population density map from PythonMaps

Third, Russia and China don’t have a history of conflict. The USSR invaded Japanese-controlled China to free it, supported Communist China, and gave it its ideology. Compare that with Russia and the US, which have spent the last 80 years at odds.

Fourth, China has become a key ally of Russia, providing many of the resources it needs to keep operating. Antagonizing China for a speculative economic package from Trump—who doesn’t have a reputation of keeping his word, and who will be out of the picture in four years—would be political suicide for Putin.

Finally, the ideologies of Russia and China are much more aligned than those of Russia and the US. Despite Trump’s imperialist élan, the US is firmly a democracy that values freedom, while China and Russia are authoritarian empires.

For all these reasons, I think it’s virtually impossible to turn Russia around, so Trump’s attempts to do so are worthless. It would be easier to turn China against Russia than the other way around, since Russia really depends on China.

It’s hard to judge Trump’s strategy because he hasn’t made it explicit (does he even have one?), but from what I can gather, his positioning with regard to Ukraine is really unwise.

A Total Misreading of the World Today

All of this is telling me that Trump, unlike every other Republican president before him, simply doesn’t understand the world order that the US created in 1945 and that allowed it to remain the world’s biggest superpower all this time.

It’s not a coincidence that the US’s biggest allies today are also the countries that the US occupied during WW2: Europe, Japan, and South Korea. You can say they are soft colonies.

The UN, NATO, the World Bank, the IMF… All these “international” organizations that govern the world today are based in the US and / or controlled by the US. This extends to the dollar, the banking SWIFT system, the payment systems (VISA, Mastercard, Paypal…), credit rating organizations, USAID… What the US has built is a constellation of organizations that appear to make the world a safe, neutral, rules-based place. Add capitalism, which makes the world richer, and the US has been able to co-opt half of the world to work with it.

But when you look under the hood, all these organizations are controlled by the US, backed by its military power.

If the US withdraws its military power and bullies its allies, they will stop supporting the system, it will collapse, and the US’s power will crumble with it. We can see it happen in real time:

Hopefully Trump changes his stance or the US and the world can resist four years of this. I don’t want to contemplate the alternative.

Now that we’ve looked at the current state of the Republicans (nothing big today outside of Trump), let’s do the same with Democrats.

The Path Forward for Democrats

Democrat Radicalization

Democrats have been radicalizing way too much.

Here’s another visualization of how radical Democratic leaders have become:

This is bad for the Democrats, and it’s bad for the US.

Do you remember the Democrats’ reaction to Trump’s election win in 2016? People flooded the streets, held rallies against his agenda, pushed back against his build the wall crusade. Now, the executive orders keep piling up, and we barely hear Democrats’ reaction. Why? I think it’s because they don’t really know what to fight for. Their position on topics like immigration is quite unpopular,⁴ but it turns out an even less popular agenda item has been culture wars and identity politics.

The Woke Pendulum

In August of last year, I published The Woke Pendulum, in which I suggested that we had passed Peak Woke and that we were now swinging away from it, like a pendulum. Therefore, the anti-woke trend is going to keep gaining momentum until it passes the optimum level and then becomes too anti-fairness.

Since Trump got elected, the Woke Pendulum is in full swing. Trans women are being pushed away from female sports. DEI (Diversity Equity and Inclusion) departments and statements are disappearing everywhere. Affirmative action in employee and student selection is being decimated. Appropriately, Democrat darling AOC dropped her pronouns and went from “US Representative” to “US Congresswoman”:

I have nothing against AOC. In fact, at one point I studied her social media because she’s very good at communication and I was considering helping a female social media campaign for State Congress. I think AOC has some good stances and good intentions but she has radicalized over the years and she has some untenable positions like her visceral hatred for rich people.

Culture Wars is not the Democrats’ only shot in the foot. Another has been the unnecessary attack on billionaires like Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk. I understand being angry about rentiers—people who’ve done nothing in their lives but live off of the rents of their ancestors. But these are not rentiers. They are self-made people, who have built huge and profitable companies that employ hundreds of thousands of people. And they control several media. Why on Earth would you antagonize them?

The US needs strong Democrat leaders to balance out Trump. The only way we’re going to get them is if they are less radical. But then, what path should they follow? What would an exciting vision be for the left?

Some Thoughts on Democrats’ Path Forward

Some, like Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson in Abundance, apparently support deregulation to increase the supply of critical things like housing and renewables. I haven’t read the book (yet), but I’ve read some reviews, and I follow the thinkers in this arena from a distance. I’m not sure I buy their approach.

What I hear them ask is: What should the Left defend?
But that sounds backwards to me. You shouldn’t start with the idea of left vs right. Politics is about solving the coordination problems of people, so the right question is: What are people’s main issues? Then you go and solve those.

At a high level, my guess is that people broadly want to be rich, safe, healthy, and free. In addition, the Left tends to put considerable weight on being equal.

Economics

Real Estate is by far the biggest cost for families, so it’s obvious that any good party should focus on reducing these costs. Therefore, the Democrats should be YIMBYs (Yes In My BackYard) and promote much more housing.

Tariffs are bad because they make everything more expensive, so any political party should avoid them.

The default position toward regulations should be to avoid them, because they reduce economic activity and make everyone poorer.

More importantly, AI is coming, and there’s a high chance that it will push the masses towards unemployment. If that’s the case, a universal basic income (UBI, a small amount of cash given to every person unconditionally) is probably the right answer. Democrats should be exploring that.

Safety

Everyone wants to be safe, but Democratic cities are not. Democrats should stop prioritizing the rights of proven criminals at the cost of the safety of the common people.

Democrats should drop their broad opposition to guns (it’s not going to be popular any time soon) and focus on the few positions that are popular (like limiting the sale of automatic weapons or large magazines).

Safety also means a safe world: a world governed by rules, not by the law of the jungle. Imperialist countries like Russia or China should be opposed, and Democrats should be scorching Trump for his support of Russia against Ukraine.

Healthcare

The US has a massive issue with its healthcare: It’s wasteful and overly expensive, it bankrupts people way too frequently, and it’s not easily accessible to all. So the Democrats should eliminate the stronghold that physicians have on the supply of new physicians, enforce healthcare price transparency⁵, and push for universal healthcare: It works reasonably well in many other countries, and Medicare and Medicaid are not far from that.

Freedom

Culture wars have limited freedom of speech too much, so Democrats should tone it down, which apparently they’re already doing.

Regulations also thwart freedom, so they should be limited whenever possible.

Equality

Democrats should zero in on the remaining sources of inequality.

One is the wage gap between men and women, but to solve it, they should gain a deep understanding of which part of the remaining gap is legitimate (like choosing to work fewer hours or in lower-income industries) and which part is not (like not negotiating raises).

Another is racial inequality, but the current understanding of the roots of this inequality are shallow, and it shows. For example, I read that African immigrants have much better outcomes than African Americans. If that’s true, that gap can’t be explained by racism—there’s something else. You can’t solve a problem you don’t understand.

Today, people with mental illnesses are not properly cared for in the US. They end up in the streets, which lowers the quality of life for them and for the rest of the city. It would be better for everyone if the community paid for their care.

The biggest inequality of the 21st century will be an economic one, though. Economies naturally tend towards inequality (as Piketty showed in Capital in the 21st Century), and the only way that we’ve reduced wealth inequality historically is through massive crises like wars, revolutions, state disintegration, or epidemics. We don’t want these, and we don’t want too much inequality. Unfortunately the Internet in general, and AI in particular, will usher in a new world of inequality. I suspect the only way to fight that will be—again—universal basic income.

A Democrat Platform

Since the US needs two strong parties, this is the type of approach I’d like to see Democrats come up with—maybe not these specific policies, but a reasoned approach that proves they’re trying to make people happy. Then they could pick the most compelling pieces and build a convincing platform around them:

• UBI

• Universal healthcare and lower healthcare prices

• Lower housing prices with more supply

• Safer and cleaner cities

• Caring institutions for the mentally ill

• A just and safer world, fighting for freedom and democracy

Takeaways

My goal in this article was not to convince you of any policy that US Democrats or Republicans should follow—I haven’t analyzed each one in enough depth to form a definitive opinion. Rather, I have tried to illustrate how I think about politics: Not in terms of one side that should prevail, but rather as independent policies that are better or worse for society, independently from who supports it.

Each US party has strengths and weaknesses. I don’t feel like I belong to either, or favor one over the other. In fact, I root for both parties, because the stronger they both are, the more intelligent the debate will be, and the better the resulting policies.

This is true not just for the US, but for the entire world: I don’t favor one ideological trend over another. They all have some truths, you gotta take the best from each.

I hope more of us can think this way, so we can debate ideas based on what they are rather than who says them.

1. A more racist environment can easily result in more hate crimes, and can also curtail careers that would have thrived in a meritocracy—like wokism did with other careers.

2. Billions is not too much when your budget is measured in trillions.

3. And potentially on the path of missiles from China

4. They used to be in favor of controlled immigration, which is a reasonable stance, but went for open borders after Trump decided to “build a wall”.

5. All prices should be posted online and physically, and provided upfront rather than after the service has been provided.