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I was born at the end of the cold war, unaware of the danger we were emerging from. Duck and cover drills (as if those could protect schoolchildren from a nuclear blast) were a curiosity of the past.
The farmer-poet Wendell Berry, who wrote about the dread of nuclear war, died recently. From his 1968 “The peace of wild things”:
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least...
The US midterm elections have now occurred. There was extensive discussion about the OR-06 primary, where many EA’s tried to help Carrick Flynn win the nomination.
While I cannot find an online link, I was told that Flynn’s supporters were extremely confident of a general election win if he won the primary. It is not clear to me why this would be so. Metaculous bears this out, his odds of winning the general were barely below his odds of winning the primary:
https://www.metaculus.com/questions/9700/carrick-flynn-to-win-or-6-democratic-primary/
https://www.metaculus.com/questions/9701/carrick-flynn-to-win-or-6-general-election/
538’s model showed the GOP candidate ahead in the lead up to the election: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/house/2022/oregon/6/
Democrats somewhat outperformed their polling nationwide; OR-6’s returns aren’t yet in, but Andrea Salinas, the Democrat, currently holds a 2.4% lead. Given how narrow the race is, and how Flynn lost the primary despite his financial advantage, it’s likely that he would have lost the general election had Salinas decided not to run.
Protect our Future PAC spent unprecedented levels on Carrick's campaign, and they seem to have spent $1.75M on attack ads against Salinas, which maybe biggest 'within party' attack ad budget in a primary. Seems understandable this can be seen as a norm violation (attack ads are more sticky) and perhaps it's poor 'cooperation with other value systems'.
On the other hand, SBF donated to the House Majority PAC, which financed John Fetterman's campaign.