I want to note that the political staffer talent gap previously observed in posts such as “Go Republican, Young EA” has swung in the opposite direction now.
America PAC ran a get out the vote campaign that Dems are still struggling to understand and most staffers in the party still don’t grasp that it did this because “hurr hurr Elon dumb bad man”. To the smartest among us it was obvious at the time that he was running circles around the Harris campaign, but the Harris campaign’s leadership seemed to sincerely believe they had the stronger field campaign because they couldn’t see outside the limited set of metrics they were using.
The tech--->right wing politics pipeline has ensured that the GOP will have it’s share of the most talented and ambitious young staffers. Meanwhile the Dems seem to be actively seeking out staff who don’t want to work too hard, reducing the hours campaign staffers are expected to work and in some cases even the hours Congressional staffers are required to work, to levels where it’s not really possible to do such a difficult job competently. More broadly, a lot of management practices have become focused on the comfort of the staff rather than the accomplishment of the mission. This obviously discourages people who want to do a good job from even applying.
Given the Dems’ ideologically-driven preference for lower-quality staff and dysfunctional operating conditions, I think it’s somewhat tricky to arbitrage this, but you could either run in a primary against a Dem candidate who has adopted bad hiring practices, or go to work for a candidate who has rejected such practices, and your odds of winning would be higher than most outside observers would expect. James Carville expressed a frustration that many of us in the Democratic party have with the quality of young staffers in this video: https://www.facebook.com/reel/918431933580060. I think more candidates and elected officials over the next few years will start to select more for staff who are achievement-oriented rather than lifestyle-oriented, but this change will be pretty unevenly adopted.
I’m against most adjectives and also against most uses of “nonviolent communication”, so let me offer a more fundamental reason to reduce your use of adjectives: It’s just clearer writing/speaking to omit them. And the attempt to write more clearly probably forces you to think more clearly. Precisely-chosen adjectives are fine, but “bad” conveys more noise than signal. The fact that it may hurt someone’s feelings is beside the point. You could just as easily offer a commentary on “AI 2027′s excellent timeline models” and “excellent” would be similarly uninformative. OTOH, a bare description of the facts will hurt an emotionally intelligent person’s feelings just as much as you calling it “bad”, because they get the point. Depending on context, it might even hurt more, because they know it’s a rationally-considered take and not an emotional one that you are likely to feel differently about once you calm down.
The focus should be on speaking/writing in a way that will most clearly convey meaning. “The kitchen is dirty” obfuscates; “the dishes need to be washed” makes clear what you want (and conveys just as much “judgment” to all but the most obtuse). “Your presentation was too dry”, OTOH, is better than “I didn’t like it”. But better still would be “I would like more examples of what these budget numbers mean for our day to day operations” or “expert consensus is that people will pay more attention if you sound excited when you give a presentation”.