SSC Endorses Clinton, Johnson, Or Stein

The 2016 anti-Trump endorsement. Opens with the EV case for voting (a swing-state vote ≈ $5,000 in expected value), endorses Clinton (or Johnson/Stein in safe states), then the core argument: Trump is the right's millenarianism — the Marx parallel (bourgeoisie→coastal elites, false consciousness→PC) and the load-bearing principle 'don't destroy all existing systems and trust that a planet-sized ghost will make everything work out.' Then: prefer low variance (Hillary known, Trump high-variance); conservatism's crisis is better resolved if Trump loses; the low-variance case on climate; why electing Trump won't actually hurt the elites (just confirm their worldview); the prescient warning that a failed anti-PC president would supercharge the social-justice left; and the close that 'the enemy is epistemic vice,' not leftism (the LOCK HER UP coda).

Quality 84 · Excellent. Excellent, upper. One of Scott's most-read and prescient political essays, with multiple durable/memorable contributions: the 'don't destroy all systems and trust a planet-sized ghost' principle (which he returns to often), the explicit variance framing, and the strikingly prescient analysis of how Trump would radicalize the young left. Scored into the 84 cluster (Trapped-Priors / RIP-Culture-War / Age-of-Em); held just below the very top as a topical 2016 endorsement, though its principles transcend the occasion.

Claude’s paradigm shift 64 · Notable shift. Notable shift (64). Framing Trump as right-millenarianism, the planet-sized-ghost principle, and the variance + epistemic-vice synthesis were fresh, original framings of the phenomenon at publication.

Real-world impact 3 · Moderate. Moderate (3). Hugely read in 2016 and the planet-sized-ghost principle + variance framing circulate widely; influential political discourse within an educated subculture, but no measurable electoral/material change → capped at 3.