#^d 2023-10-01 #^h Speaking of Which
Front page, top headline in Wichita Eagle on Saturday: McCarthy's last-ditch plan to keep government open collapses. The headline came from an AP article, dropping the final "making a shutdown almost certain" clause. This headline, says more about the media mindset in America than it does about the politics it does such a poor job of reporting on. McCarthy is not trying to avert a shutdown (at least with this bill). Even if he somehow managed to pass it, there was no chance of it passing the Senate without major revisions, which his caucus would then reject. His core problem is that he insists on passing an extreme partisan bill, but no bill is extreme enough for the faction of Republicans dead set on shutting down the government, and nothing he can do will appease them.
If he was at all serious about avoiding shutdown, he'd offer a bill that would attract enough Democrat votes to make up for his inevitable losses on the extreme right. That's what McConnell did in the Senate, with a bill that passed 77-19. But House Republicans follow what they call the Hastert Rule, which states that leaders can only present bills approved by a majority of the caucus -- in effect, that means the right-wing can hold bills hostage, even mandatory spending bills, and looking for bipartisan support is pointless. McCarthy had to compromise even further to gain enough votes to be elected Speaker.
If the mainstream media refuses to provide even the barest of meaningful context, this kabuki propaganda will just continue, to the detriment of all.
[PS: On Saturday afternoon, after I wrote the above, McCarthy did just that, passing a bill 335-91, with 90 Republicans and 1 Democrat opposed. The bill continues spending for 45 days, adds disaster relief funds, extends federal flood insurance, and reauthorizes FAA, but does not include the new Ukraine aid Biden wanted.]
The shutdown: [PS: Congress finally passed a continuing spending resolution on Saturday, after McCarthy's "last-ditch" bill failed to pass the House. The intro below -- original title was "Drowning government in the bathtub" -- was written before this bill passed, as were the articles dated earlier. On the other hand, we're only 45 days away from the next big shutdown scare, which the same bunch of clowns and creeps are almost certain again to push to the brink.]
The Grover Nordquist quote (from 2001) is: "I just want to shrink [government] down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." Later he managed to get every Republican in Congress to sign onto his "Taxpayer Protection Pledge," which would seem to commit them to the ultimate destruction of the federal government. None of this slowed, let alone reversed the growth of government -- it just ensured that the growth would be funded mostly by deficits, which conveniently give Republicans something else to whine about, even though they're mostly just tax giveaways to the very rich. So whenever an opportunity arises for Republicans to vent their hatred of the government and their disgust over the people that government serves, they rise up and break things. One of those opportunities is this week, when the previous year's spending bills expire, without the House having passed new ones for next year. Without new authorization, large parts of government are supposed to shut down, giving Republicans a brief opportunity to impress Grover Nordquist. Then, after a few days or a couple weeks, they'll quietly pass a resolution to allow their incompetence to escape notice for another year. You see, most of what government actually does supports the very same rich people who donate to Republican politicians. I could file all of these stories under Republicans, since they are solely responsible for this nonsense, but on this occasion, let's break them out.
Li Zhou:
Ryan Cooper: [09-27] There's an easy way to end government shutdowns forever: "No other rich democracy endures America's brand of budgetary chaos."
Hugh Hewitt: [09-28] The GOP's Knucklehead Caucus courts a shutdown for no good reason. Long-time conservative columnist, a party loyalist, worked for Nixon and Reagan, ran the Nixon library, has hosted right-wing radio and TV shows. Still takes time out to attack Menendez and Hunter Biden, and make excuses for Ken Buck, who evidently only looks and acts like a knuckelead.
Post-deal:
Corbin Bolies: [10-01] Rep. Matt Gaetz: I will force vote to can McCarthy 'this week'.
Sam Brodey: [10-01] It's bad news that so many in the GOP are pissed about averting a shutdown: On the other hand, every tantrum here should be recorded and thrown back in their faces in 2024. It's bad news because these idiots still have considerable power to wreak havoc. Vote them down to a small minority and it will merely be sad and pathetic, which is what they deserve.
David Rothkopf: [09-30] All that drama and the House GOP's only win was for the Kremlin: I'm sorry to have to say this, but Russiagate -- not the "collusion" but the jingoistic Cold War revival -- isn't over yet. One thing that the Republican right understands is that Russia's "expansionism" is fundamentally limited by their sense of nationhood, and as such is no real threat to their own "America First" nationalism. Democrats don't understand this. They view Russia through two lenses: one is as a rival to the US in a zero-sum game for world domination -- which was a myth in the Cold War era, and pure projection now; the other is that Putin has embraced a social conservatism and anti-democratic repression to a degree that Republicans plainly aspire to, so they are strongly disposed to treat both threats as linked. (Which, by the way, is not total whimsy: Steve Bannon seems to have taken as his life's work the formation of an International Brotherhood of Fascists.) The problem with this is that it turns Democrats into supporters of empire and war abroad, and those things not only breed enemies, they undermine true democracy at home. Still, I'm not unamused by Rothkopf taking a cheap shot in this particular moment. I just worry about the mentality that makes one think that's a real point.
Michael Scherer: [09-30] Shutdown deal avoids political pain for Republican moderates: For starters, this helps with definition: A "moderate" is a Republican who worries more about losing to a Democrat than one who worries more about being challenged by an even crazier Republican. Shutting down the government is a play that appeals to the crazies, but has little enthusiasm for most people, even ones who generally vote Republican.
The Republican also-rans second debate: Six of the first debate's eight made their way to the Reagan Library in California, again hosted by Fox. Bear in mind that any judgments about winners and losers are relative.
Intelligencer Staff: [09-27] Republican Debate: At least 33 things you missed. If you're up for the gory details, here are the live updates. Notable quotes: "It's kind of sexist, but mostly it's just gross, and it drives home one essential fact about the people on tonight's stage. They are unrelatable freaks. There is something deeply off-putting about each person on stage." Also: "Ramaswamy: Thank you for speaking while I'm interrupting."
Mariana Alfaro: [09-27] Republican presidential candidates blame UAW strike on Biden: What? For giving workers hope they might gain back some ground after forty years of Republican-backed union busting?
Zack Beauchamp: [09-27] The Republican debate is fake: "With Trump dominating the GOP primary, the debate is a cosplay of a competitive election -- and a distraction from an ugly truth."
Aaron Blake: [09-27] The winners and losers of the second Republican debate:
Jim Geraghty/Megan McArdle/Ramesh Ponnuru: [09-28] 'It sucks:' Conservatives discuss the GOP primary after the latest debate. I didn't listen to the audio -- I'm listening to music almost all the time; I can read at the same time, but I don't have free time for podcasts -- so I'm not sure where Geraghty is going with this, but the gist is that Trump sucks all the oxygen out of the party, and nobody else has the guts to say that he's suffocating the party just to stroke his own ego, because even if he somehow manages to win, he doesn't know how to actually do anything, other than keep sucking. (Pun? Sure.)
Eric Levitz: [09-28] Who won (and lost) the second Republican debate:
Harold Meyerson: [09-28] Debate number two: Phonies and cacophonies.
Alexandra Petri: [09-28] Here's what happened at the second Republican primary debate. Really. Really? My favorite line here is one attributed to DeSantis: "If you measure popularity in number of tears that a candidate has collected from crocodiles and others, I am by far the most popular candidate."
Andrew Prokop: [09-27] 1 winner and 3 losers from Fox's dud of a second GOP debate:
Let me conclude this section with a quote from Jeffrey St Clair (see his "Roaming Charges" below for link) summing up the debate:
The Republican "debate" at the Reagan Library seemed like an exercise in collective madness. And 24 hours and half a bottle of Jameson's later, I still don't know what's crazier, Nikki Haley saying that she'd solve the health care crisis by letting patients negotiate the price of treatment with hospitals and doctors, Tim Scott's assertion that LBJ's Great Society program was harder for black people to survive than slavery or Ron DeSantis' pledge to use the Civil Rights Act to target "left-wing" prosecutors: "I will use the Justice Department to bring civil rights cases against all of those left-wing Soros-funded prosecutors. We're not going to let them get away with it anymore. We want to reverse this country's decline. We need to choose law and order over rioting and disorder."
Trump: While it was unprecedented for a former president to be indicted (for even one felony, much less 91), I think we now have to admit that's merely a historical curiosity, like Dianne Feinstein having been the first woman elected mayor of San Francisco. What is truly unprecedented is that this guy, facing so many indictments under four separate judges (plus more judges in prominent civil cases), is still being allowed to campaign for president, to fly free around the country, to give speeches where he threatens the lives of people he thinks have crossed him, to appear on television shows where he can influence potential jurors, and do this with complete impunity. While everyone knows that defendants are to be considered innocent until a jury finds them guilty, has anyone else under indictment ever been given such lax treatment? Many of them spend long pre-trial periods stuck in jail. (According to this report, there are 427,000 people in local jails who haven't been convicted.) Those who, like Trump, could manage bail, are subject to other numerous other restrictions. Maybe one reason Trump seems to regard himself as above the law is that the courts have allowed him such privileges.
Mark Alfred/Justin Rohrlich: [09-29] First plea deal in Georgia RICO case is not good news for Trump: Scott Hall to plead guilty and testify about his crime, which is a big part of the foundation for the RICO case. The plea agreement calls for five years probation, $5,000 fine, 200 hours of community service, and other restrictions.
Lauren Aratani: [10-01] The art of the fraudulent deal? Trump Organization trial set to begin. This is the New York civil case against his business. I'm a little unclear on how this works, given that there is already a "pre-trial judgment ruling that Trump and his co-defendants, including sons Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, committed financial fraud through faulty financial statements." Aratani previously wrote [09-26] Five key takeaways from Donald Trump's financial fraud case ruling, which says that the "bench trial" will be shorter, because the facts of fraud have already been established, so the focus will be on the amount and nature of the punishment.
Victoria Bekiempis: [09-30] Trump calls for store robbers to be shot in speech to California Republicans.
Kyle Cheney: [09-29] Trump's attack on Milley fuels special counsel's push for a gag order.
Tim Dickinson: [09-29] This 'violence-ready' militia is hiding in plain sight: "White supremacist Active Clubs are growing exponentially -- 'they're who the Proud Boys wanted to be,' one researcher says."
Gabriella Ferrigine: [09-25] Donald Trump ramps up the GOP's attack on the military with call to execute top US general: Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley. This was followed up by Chauncey DeVega: [09-27] The real reason why Donald Trump wants Gen. Milley to be killed. Rep. Paul Gosar [R-AZ] also chimed in: Trudy Ring: [09-26] Republican Rep. Paul Gosar calls for death to 'sodomy-promoting traitor' Gen. Mark Milley.
Margaret Hartmann: [09-30] Master dealmaker Melania Trump keeps renegotiating her prenup.
Sarah Jones: [09-27] The media falls for Trump's labor lies.
Ed Kilgore: [09-28] With Trump's 2024 rivals out, who's left on his veep list? This is a stupid game, but I was tempted to look. For some reason, the actual names bruited here are all women: Kristi Noem, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Kari Lake, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Joni Ernst, Marsha Blackburn, Elise Stefanik, Katie Britt. I wouldn't give any of them as much as a 2% chance, although if Trump were a somewhat more conventional politician, Ernst wouldn't be a silly choice -- she's won two terms in former-swing-state Iowa, and her sadistic "make 'em squeal" motto should appeal to Trump, or at least his fans. Beyond that, I have no idea. Maybe someone he can share locker room banter with, like Michael Flynn or Ronnie Jackson? In 2016 he picked Pence because he needed someone to reassure the Republican regulars, and none of the candidates groveled more. This time, he is the Republican base, and no one else matters, so the last thing he'll want is some sniveling upstart who wants to step into his shoes. And while he might be up for banging anyone on Kilgore's list, he's never going to trust any of them.
Heather Digby Parton: [09-27] Trump family fraud exposed -- but Ivanka dodges liability in N.Y. civil case. DJTJ and Eric, on the other hand . . .
Christian Paz: [09-28] Donald Trump isn't the union legend he's pretending to be.
Charles P Pierce: [09-27] You've got to read this judge's ruling in Trump's New York fraud case.
Nia Prater: [09-27] Trump might lose Trump Tower after scathing court ruling.
Alex N Press: [09-27] Trump is speaking tonight in Michigan at a nonunion auto shop, as a guest of its boss: This was the date of the "debate," after Biden appeared on a UAW picket line.
Matt Stieb:
[09-26] The 5 craziest revelations from Cassidy Hutchinson's book about the Trump White House.
[09-27] Trump tells autoworkers 'I don't care what you get' in bizarre non-union rally: In lieu of the Fox debate, Trump went to Detroit, to do something else, I guess. "Over an hour or so, Trump talked trash about Joe Biden and the UAW's leadership."
David Von Drehle: [09-27] A judge calls out Trump's business lies. Voters can be just as critical.
DeSantis, and other Republicans:
Jonathan Chait: [09-27] DeSantis forced to say why he enjoys denying health insurance to poor Floridians: Chait paraphrases: "Those people should work harder. Indeed, to give them subsidized access to medical care will sap their incentive. Poor people need motivation to work hard, and denying them the ability to see a doctor and get medicine is part of that necessary motivation." Conservatives believe that getting rich is a reward for virtue, but they also seem to believe that if there are no consequences for not getting rich, no one would bother putting the work in. (Even though most of the people who actually are rich got that way not from having worked hard, but from enjoying privileged access to capital.)
Ed Kilgore: [09-29] Scott, Haley, and the Radicalization of the 'moderate' Republican: It's ridiculous to call these people "moderate": they are the residue left from the evolution of the South Carolina Republican Party from Strom Thurmond through Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint. Their only saving grace, which each of their predecessors had to some degree, is that they aren't shamelessly stupid panderers. They have some sense of how they look to others, and try to sound respectable. But politically, there as far right as their predecessors (and Haley is about as psychotically hawkish as Graham). Perhaps you could give them some credit for moving beyond Thurmond on race, but perhaps they were just cast to look like it?
Jasmine Liu: [09-26] Everything you need to know about the right-wing war on books: "Here's your guide to the heroes and villains -- plus a list of the 50 most banned books." Censorship chiefs: Ron DeSantis, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Greg Abbott, Moms for Liberty. Those have definitely gotten more press than the Reading Rebels: Suzette Baker, Debbie Chavez, Summer Boismier, and "Anonymous Utah parent." The books are mostly off my radar, aside from two titles each for Toni Morrison and Ibram X. Kendi.
Greg Sargent: [09-28] New data on ultra-rich tax cheats wrecks the 'working-class GOP' ruse.
Biden and/or the Democrats:
Noah Berliatsky: [09-25] Biden is presiding over a labor renaissance: "His solidarity goes beyond symbolism."
Ben Jacobs: [09-28] Republicans held an impeachment hearing and it turned into a clown show.
Andrew Prokop: [09-28] Republicans' thin corruption case against Joe Biden, explained.
Michael Tomasky: [09-29] Impeachment hearing proves even dumb fascists can be dangerous. Cites CNN's Fact check of the hearing, concluding "these people are a joke," but limiting his laughter.
Laura Wagner: [09-28] The small pro-labor news site that has the Biden White House's ear: More Perfect Union. Looks like there is a lot of good material there (albeit mostly videos).
Legal and criminal matters:
Ian Millhiser:
[09-25] A Supreme Court case about hotel websites could blow up much of US civil rights law: "The Supreme Court hears a civil rights case straight out of a right-wing fever dream."
[09-26] The Supreme Court just told Alabama to shut up and listen.
Jenna Ruddock: [09-25] Prosecutors are going to war with climate protesters: "The far-reaching RICO indictment against Stop Cop City organizers in Atlanta is just the latest example of prosecutors' central role in chilling dissent."
Climate and environment:
Kate Aronoff:
[09-29] NYC is totally unprepared for climate disaster (but has a lot of cops): "If hordes of cops are going to keep polluting New York's increasingly flood-prone subways, the least they could do is grab a bucket and be helpful."
[09-29] The White House's two-faced climate rhetoric: "Why do US politicians insist on talking so much about a climate goal they're so far off track from?"
Matthew Cappucci: [09-28] Ophelia's leftovers to drench Northeast as Philippe and Rina roam tropics.
Scott Dance: [09-26] One of the most intense El Niños ever observed could be forming.
Scott Dance/Matthew Cappucci: [09-29] New York inundated with worst floods since 2021.
Carmen Aguilar Garcia: [09-22] Heat-related deaths in 2022 hit highest level on record in England: More than 4,500 people. It's hard to imagine anyone dying of heat in England, but maybe not being used to it makes them ultra-sensitive. I worked there for a 5-month stretch in the mid-1990s, and do recall one hot day: only about 90°F, but that was hot enough we had to detour off the M11 between London and Cambridge because "the road melted." The chart here shows a previous peak for heat-related deaths in 1995.
Hiroko Tabuchi/Blacki Migliozzi: [09-25] 'Monster fracks' are getting far bigger. And far thirstier. This is part of a series called Uncharted Waters, about "the causes and consequences of disappearing water."
Economic matters:
Dean Baker: [09-30] Team billionaire is winning: They have us cursing at markets.
Robert Kuttner: [09-29] Does Jay Powell want to elect Trump? "Most of the sources of inflation are either the result of the Fed's own policy, or have nothing to do with domestic demand, such as the rising price of oil." Powell is a Republican, initially nominated by Trump. He did a good job of hiding his future as an inflation hawk, getting Biden to nominate him to a second term before coming out. I've always said that Biden made a mistake in not nominating his own person. Same mistake, by the way, that Obama (with Bernanke) and Clinton (with Greenspan) let themselves get talked into, with pretty much the same results (Greenspan's bad enough that Clinton renominated him twice).
Eric Levitz:
Eve Ottenberg: [09-29] More at stake for auto workers than wages and benefits.
Alissa Wilkinson/Emily Stewart: [09-27] The Hollywood writers' strike is over -- and they won big.
Ukraine War:
Josh Holder: [09-28] Who's gaining ground in Ukraine? This year, no one. "Despite nine months of bloody fighting, less than 500 square miles of territory have changed hands since the start of the year." If you look down into the details, you'll find that Ukraine gained 143 square miles, and Russia gained 331 square miles, so the title is slightly misleading. Also: "Less territory changed hands in August than in any other month of the war."
Anatol Lieven: [09-26] Ukraine-Poland row exposes history, limits of devotion.
Patrick Wintour: [09-30] 'No turning back': How the Ukraine war has profoundly changed the EU: The Russian invasion has led to dramatic new militarism and efforts to shift away from Russia as a source for energy and materials. The US has basically led both efforts, but they could well continue even if the US cut back.
Around the world:
Masha Gessen: [09-29] The violent end of Nagorno-Karabakh's fight for independence.
Jonathan Guyer: [09-28] US-China tensions are every country's problem now.
Adi Saleem: [09-29] The trial of Subhas Nair: Race, class, and ideology in Singapore.
Richard Silverstein:
[09-29] Azerbaijan: Israeli arms sales, greased palms, ethnic conflict: "Israel sold tens of billions in weapons to the country's corrupt dictator, permitting him to conquer Nagorno-Karabakh."
[09-29] From meeting Musk to the UN, Netanyahu's US roadshow was paved with Israel normalisation.
Dianne Feinstein: The Senator (D-CA) died Thursday, at 90, after more than 30 years in the Senate. She had a mixed legacy, which had soured lately as her absences kept Democrats from confirming many Biden appointees.
Liza Featherstone: [09-30] Dianne Feinstein helped lead the Democratic Party's neoliberal turn.
Sarah Jones: [09-29] Dianne Feinstein blazed a trail to ruin.
Ed Kilgore: [09-29] Gavin Newsom made filling Dianne Feinstein's seat even harder: I think it's always a mistake to announce ahead of time that you're going to limit your future choices to people of a certain type. In theory, consider everyone, pick someone, claim that's the best possible choice.
Rebecca Traister: [09-29] The institutionalist: "Dianne Feinstein fought for gun control, civil rights, and abortion access for half a century. Where did it all go wrong: Profile originally published June 6, 2022, now updated.
Robert Menendez: Senator (D-NJ), was prosecuted for corruption several years ago, beat the charges, managed to get himself reëlected, and caught again.
Branko Marcetic: [09-27] Bob Menendez isn't merely corrupt. He carried water for a brutal dictator. Shouldn't that be plural? Menendez got caught taking money from Egypt, but he's been a dependable supporter of other nominal allies with troubled connections (Israel and Saudi Arabia get mentions here, but not Latin America, where his antipathy to anything leftist knows no bounds).
Timothy Noah: [09-29] Why is the GOP suddenly defending Bob Menendez? "From Trump on down, they're speaking out on behalf of a Democratic senator buffeted by accusations of corruption --he's just one more Biden deep state victim."
Henry Olsen: [09-27] Bob Menendez is right not to step down: One of the conservative hack pundits to rally behind Menendez, pleading "let the justice system play out as it's supposed to," urging him to hang in there even past conviction until all his appeals are exhausted, and assuring him that "there's little proof that a senator's indictment affects voters' decisions in other races." He offers the example of Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, who resisted pressure to resign after embarrassing photos from a yearbook came to light, but Northam wasn't indicted, and was barely distracted from doing his job. The charges against Menendez are very serious, and derive directly from his abuse of the power given him by his job. While the indictments may cramp his ability to collect further bribes, his job is one where even the appearance of corruption diminishes the office. It is this very sense of taint that has led many Democrats to call for his resignation. To see Republicans rally behind Menendez testifies to how they've evolved to celebrate his kind of corruption.
David Atkins: [09-27] America needs a true liberal media: "Our crisis of democracy is exacerbated by conservative misinformation. Time for a balanced media diet." Of course, he has a lot to complain about, but couldn't he put it better? I shouldn't have to parse the difference between "liberal" as an adjective and "liberal" (or "liberalism") as a noun, and explain why a "liberal media" isn't just a propaganda outlet for liberalism (as conservative media is for conservatism). If we had an honest media dedicated to rooting out misinformation from any source, it would easily find ten times as much emanating from right-wing interest groups (which it would clearly label as such). Atkins cites several examples of polls where scary large numbers of Americans believe things that are plainly false. That such numbers persist goes a long way toward indicting the media for failing to keep us informed.
On the other hand, another sense of "liberal" is that it provides equal credence to all views, regardless of truth, merit or ulterior motives. This was, for instance, the view Marcuse et al. put forth in A Critique of Pure Tolerance (1965). In light of this, one can be as critical as Atkins is of the present facts and draw the opposite conclusion, that the problem we have today is that the media, with its relentless balancing and its credulous repetition of blatant falsehoods, is simply too liberal.
Zack Beauchamp: [09-24] Is America uniquely vulnerable to tyranny? Review of a new book, Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point, by Steve Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, whose previous book, the comparative study How Democracies Die, was taken as a landmark among liberals who worry more about the formal political institutions than about government reflecting the interests of most people.
Nina Burleigh: [09-26] Are we in the last days of Fox News? "Michael Wolff's new book on the Murdochs is full of juicy details, but its predictions may be off." The book is called The Fall: The End of Fox News.
Joshua Green: [08-27] How social justice activists lost the plot: A review of Fredrik DeBoer's new book, How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement, "an entreaty to white, college-educated progressives: Stop obsessing over identity and language and start fighting for working people." I took a brief look at this book when assembling my latest Book Roundup and couldn't decide what to make of it: he's reputed to be a leftist, but he spends most of his time attacking others on the left side of "social justice" issues, possibly for not being leftist enough (on economic issues? for leftists of some vintage what else is there?). I'm not engaged enough to recognize much less care about many of the complaints lodged against today's younger generation on the left, but back in my day (c. 1970) I ran into similar problems, where comfortably well-off young people got worked up over other people's problems without having the grounding of knowing their own problems. (I was a rare working class kid, and pathological introvert, in an elite university, so I never had that luxury.) I have no idea how well, or how badly, DeBoer navigates problems with his fellow leftists. Green, however, ends with one piece of reasonable advice: "If they'd focus on electing Democrats, they'd finally be in a position to deliver for those groups, rather than just bicker over whose turn it is to talk next." I would add that while I don't think leftists should adopt bad positions just to get around, the only policy improvements that are achievable are ones that pass through the Democratic Party, so that's where you need to do your practical work.
Anthony L Fisher: [09-30] Why the 2020 social justice revolutions failed: Interview with DeBoer on his book, steering the discussion toward the 2020 BLM protests and the coincident looting ("riots"). Maybe DeBoer has something specific to say about all that, but that wasn't obvious to me from what I previously read. I wouldn't say that the protests failed -- they moved several meters significantly, especially in that the cop who killed George Floyd and the cops who aided and abetted the murder have been convicted of serious crimes, which is never expected when police kill civilians -- and I also wouldn't say that where they failed, they did so due to the liberal elite syndrome I take DeBoer to be critical of. What was possible from those protests was limited by Trump, other right-wing political figures, including police and vigilantes, responded so negatively, often deliberately attempting to provoke riots (which, based on much experience, they assumed would be blamed on the protesters).
Becca Rothfeld: [09-01] Should progressives want the support of the ruling classes? A critical review of DeBoer's book, mentioned in the Fisher interview above, the author dismissed by DeBoer as "exactly the kind of person that is being indicted in the book." [PS: On closer examination, this strikes me as a pretty good review of the book.]
Freddie deBoer: [0-25] AOC is just a regular old Democrat now. I saw this at the time, and didn't think it was worth reporting on, but since we're talking about the author now, it shines as much light on him as on her. The theme is not something I'd lose any sleep over.
Tyler Austin Harper: [09-28] Ibram X. Kendi's fall is a cautionary tale -- so was his rise: Flagged for possible future reference, as I'm not close enough to this story to have an opinion. I will say that I fifty-plus years ago I read two important historical works on racism in the early 1970s: Winthrop Jordan's White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550-1812 (1968), and David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (1966), which if memory serves argued that racism wasn't Stamped From the Beginning (the title of Kendi's big book) but was developed over time, primarily to justify chattel slavery in the Americas, and the profits derived therefrom. I read quite a bit more back then, covering later history as well as contemporary books like Soul on Ice and The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
But it had been quite a while when Kendi's book came out, so I thought it might be useful to get a more contemporary reading of Jordan's domain. But when I looked at the book, I decided I didn't need or particularly want it. I had, by then, read lots about Thomas Jefferson's racism (and for that matter, Lincoln's), but didn't see much point in dwelling on it. But the big turn off was the section on major aboltionist William Lloyd Garrison. Looking at the Amazon preview now, my reaction may have been hasty: surely the later chapters on W.E.B. DuBois and Angela Davis weren't meant to be simple exposés of racist ideas like chapters on Cotton Mather and Jefferson? But then, what were they? Kendi followed up with an explicitly political book, and evidently built a mini-empire on his reputation. That could have been good, bad, irrelevant, or some combination thereof.
Sean Illing: [09-26] Naomi Klein on her doppelganger (and yours): Another interview, promoting her new book, Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World.
Sarah Jones: [09-24] The dark side of courtship: "Shannon Harris's relationship was held up as a model for millions of Evangelicals. Now she's reclaiming her story."
David Masciotra: [09-26] What the Clinton haters on the left get wrong: "A new book epitomizes the risible belief that the 42nd president betrayed liberals and the 1990s were a right-wing hellscape." The book is A Fabulous Failure: The Clinton Presidency and the Transformation of American Capitalism, by Nelson Lichtenstein and Judith Stein. I note this in passing, and also that the first publication to take such offense against such a blight on Clinton's good name is the one where the term "neoliberalism" was first coined. Somehow I doubt a book where the authors juxtaposed "fabulous" and "failure" is simply "untruths they've written [to] bolster the cynicism that undermines the trust vital to the survival of the American experiment."
The first point anyone needs to understand is that Clinton pioneered a new political path by trying not to fight Reagan but to outflank him: to show leaders that Democrats in power would be even better for business than Republicans. That Clinton won gave his argument an air of gospel after a brutal decade, which only deepened the more hysterically Republicans attacked him. However, his two presidential wins were largely wiped out by losing Congress, and with it the ability to legislate anything beyond his pro-business and anti-crime initiatives.
On the other hand, his failures -- mistakes and, especially, missed opportunities -- only grew. Listing them would take a book (probably even longer than this one). Compounding Reagan's turn toward increasing inequality is probably the top of the list. Or failing to trim back America's imperial overreach to secure a truly international peace -- today's conflicts with Russia and China, as well as the long war against the Middle East, are easily traced back to his failures. Or maybe we should wonder why Al Gore wasn't allowed to work on climate change when it wasn't yet too late, but was tasked instead with "reinventing government," which mostly meant making it more profitable for lobbyists. Or maybe we should ask why he stripped the Democratic Party down to a personal cult-of-personality, allowing Republicans to repeatedly rebound from disaster every time they came close to the lever of power?
Dylan Matthews: [09-26] 40 years ago today, one man saved us from world-ending nuclear war: A Russian, Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov, who was monitoring Russia's ICBM detection system, which had determined "with high probability" that the US had launched five Minutemen missiles at the Soviet Union. It hadn't, but two years of constant saber-rattling under Reagan, on top of worsening US-Soviet relations under Jimmy Carter (or should I say Zbigniew Brzezinski?), along with internal turmoil that might suggest weakness, left top Soviet circles more in fear of an American attack than ever before. David Hoffman wrote a book about this: The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race & Its Dangerous Legacy (2009).
Sara Morrison:
[09-28] Net neutrality is back, but it's not what you think.
[09-26] The government's case to break up Amazon, explained: "The Federal Trade Commission, led by longtime Amazon critic Lina Khan, finally makes its move." This particular case focuses on Amazon Marketplace -- the most obvious place to start, I agree. I could probably write a lot on this, but some other time. There are a lot of things I like about Amazon, but the potential for abuse is huge, and doesn't loom purely in the future. I cited a David Dayen piece last week, and it deserves to be mentioned again in light of this suit:
David Dayen: [09-21] Amazon's $185 billion pay-to-play system: "A new report shows that Amazon now takes 45 percent of all third-party sales on its website, part of the company's goal to become a monopoly gatekeeper for economic transactions."
Will Oremus: [09-27] Lina Khan's Amazon lawsuit is nothing like her famous law article: "The FTC chair has traded some youthful idealism for pragmatism as she takes on the case of a lifetime."
Jonah Raskin: [09-29] "I am not now, nor have I ever been": Musings on communism and anti-communism. I've known a few American communists, or at least a few of their "red diaper baby" children. All good people, as far as I can tell.
Heather Cox Richardson: [09-26] The fight for our America: Excerpt, or maybe a précis, from her forthcoming book Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America. The setup: "There have always been two Americas. One based in religious zeal, mythology, and inequality; and one grounded in the rule of the people and the pursuit of equality. This next election may determine which one prevails." My first cavil here was over the word "prevails": recent elections (at least since 2000, and arguably since 1968 -- the landslides of 1972 and 1984 now look like flukes, as does the lesser margin of 2008) have turned out to be pretty indecisive. There is little reason to think that 2024 will turn out differently: a Trump-Biden rematch is unlikely to turn out much differently than in 2020, but Republicans have structural advantages in the Senate, the House, and the Electoral College that could flip the popular vote -- further reinforcing the current partisan divide over democracy itself.
Still, in searching for a better term than "prevails," I find myself considering the more extreme "survives." While electoral results have remained ambiguous, the stakes for (and fears of) losing have only grown more urgent. Republicans have already used their narrow margins to establish a Supreme Court supermajority, which has already resulted in the loss of fundamental rights and will continue to frustrate efforts of elected Democrats to address important policy issues. Give them more power, and they'll continue their efforts to fortify their power bases and impose their will on a disempowered people.
Democrats are right to fear such authoritarianism, and are right that the antidote is a renewed faith in democracy, but their defense of democracy has been frustratingly difficult, because Democrats rarely think of power in the broad sense that Republicans understand: the power of business and money, of media, of social institutions like churches, of culture (one area they have been least effective at controlling, and therefore one they're most paranoid about, hence their recent, seemingly desperate, stress on the "war against woke"). More often than not, Democrats have appealed to moneyed interests, even to the point of sacrificing traditional allies like unions, and this has tattered their reputation as champions of the people.
Richardson's "two Americas" may serve as generic shorthand for the two highly polarized parties, but while identities align with parties, the underlying philosophies are more or less present and at tension in most people. By far the most important is the split on equality: the right views the world as necessarily (or rightly) inequal and hierarchical, where each person has a station, and order is maintained by popular acceptance (and, often, by force); the left views all people as fundamentally equal, at least in rights, and ideally in opportunities. The left naturally leans toward democracy, where government is constituted to act in the popular interest. The right leans toward dictatorship (originally of monarchs, although any strongman able to impose order to save their hierarchy will do), and distrusts democracy, suspecting that if given the chance, the majority would end the privileges of those atop the hierarchy.
By the way, liberals are focused on the rights and ambitions of individuals. Whether they lean right or left depends mostly on the conservative hierarchy is in admitting talented upstarts -- for many would like to live like princes, but if they are locked out, they're happy to tear the hierarchy down, and willing to appeal to the masses for help in doing so. Liberals are disrupters, which is why conservatives loathe them, but as long as they are sufficiently corruptible, they can be co-opted. But until they get bought off, they are likely to inspire more widespread ambitions -- which is why we still admire Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt (and wanted to admire Obama).
It is important to remember that nearly everything we cherish about our past was the work of liberals aspiring to the greater (more universal) good. (Which is to say, of moves toward the left, though often of people not strongly committed to the left.) Also that every advance has been met with conservative reaction, which was generally flexible enough to admit a select few in order to cut short the hopes of the many. Richardson groups religious zeal and mythology with the side of inequality. They are actually tools of a hierarchy which, given America's founding as a liberal/mass revolt against aristocracy, cannot be defended on its own terms. Rather, the right, in order to maintain any plausibility at all, has to spin a mythic past rooted in old fashioned religion and pioneering entrepreneurial spirit -- the new hierarchy that rose to replace the aristocracy dispatched by the Revolution.
Jeffrey St Clair: [09-29] Roaming Charges: Our man in Jersey: Starts with Robert Menendez as a Le Carré character, "New Jersey's own apex con man, whose personal embellishments and political fictions have become so labryinthine that now that he's been caught with gold bars in his closet, he can't even get his own life story straight."
In other items, he notes that the US drug overdose rate, in the fifty years since the War on Drugs was launched in 1973, has ("what a smashing success it has been!") increased from 3.0 per 100,000 to 32.4.
Marcela Valdes: [10-01] Why can't we stop unauthorized immigration? Because it works. "Our broken immigration system is still the best option for many migrants -- and U.S. employers."
Jason Wilson: [10-01] 'Red Caesarism' is rightwing code -- and some Republicans are listening: This piece introduced me to a recent book by Kevin Slack: War on the American Republic: How Liberalism Became Despotism, which argues that America has been destroyed by three waves of liberals: "Teddy Roosevelt's Anglo-Protestant progressive social gospelers, who battled trusts and curbed immigration; Franklin Roosevelt's and Lyndon Johnson's secular liberals, who forged a government-business partnership and promoted a civil rights agenda; and the 1960s radicals, who protested corporate influence in the Great Society, liberal hypocrisy on race and gender, and the war in Vietnam," and who finally cemented their power with "the 'great awokening' that began under Barack Obama." The result: "an incompetent kleptocracy is draining the wealthiest and most powerful people in history, thus eroding the foundations of its own empire."
I don't know how I missed this tome in my list of paranoid rants tacked onto the end of my Book Roundup entry on Christopher Rufo, as it's basically Rufo's thesis backed up with more historical special pleading. I do wonder, though, how you could get from Grover Cleveland's America to world-topping empire and wealth except through the progressive machinations of the Roosevelts and their followers.
The Amazon page for Slack's book doesn't mention "Red Caesarism," which seems to be the idea that Trump should seize power next chance he gets, and dispense with all the other trappings of democracy. At this point, the article shifts to Michael Anton's The Stakes, about which I previously wrote:
Michael Anton: The Stakes: America at the Point of No Return (2020, Regnery): Publisher is all the signal you need, but here's some background: Anton wrote a famous essay calling 2016 "The Flight 93 Election," because he figured it was better to storm the cockpit and crash the plane than to let Hillary Clinton win. He explains "the stakes" here: "The Democratic Party has become the party of 'identity politics' -- and every one of those identities is defined against a unifying national heritage of patriotism, pride in America's past, and hope for a shared future. . . . Against them is a divided Republican Party. Gravely misunderstanding the opposition, old-style Republicans still seek bipartisanship and accommodation, wrongly assuming that Democrats care about playing by the tiresome old rules laid down in the Constitution and other fundamental charters of American liberty."
While I'm skeptical both of Trump's chances of winning in 2024, and even more so of his ability to seize total personal control of the government (as, sorry but there is no clearer example, Hitler did upon being appointed chancellor in 1933). Still, it is pretty clear that he would like to, and that he will go out of his way to hire people who have ideas about how to go about it (some of whom he'll have to spring from jail), but these will largely be the same sorts that talked him into thinking Jan. 6 was a bully idea.
Zack Beauchamp announced: "I'm really excited to announce that I have written my first book!" The title is: The Reactionary Spirit: How America's Most Insidious Political Tradition Swept the World. I'd be real tempted to order a copy, but right now I'm bummed that there sems to be another year until publication date (next year, maybe fall). I've always imagined that if I could get my book written in the next 3-4 months, say, it could still appear several months before the 2024 election.
Beauchamp has been writing more/less philosophical pieces in Vox for several years now. I've followed these with interest, as they dovetail nicely with my own thinking. He described his book in multiple tweets, collected and numbered here:
I also see that a book is coming out in January, 2024, by Hunter Walker and Luppe B. Luppen, titled The Truce: Progressives, Centrists, and the Future of the Democratic Party (from WW Norton). The key here isn't that the leftists became reasonable -- we've long been eager to work on real even if piecemeal solutions -- but that the centrists finally started to realize that their approaches, which most often tried to incorporate right-wing talking points while slightly toning them down, weren't working, either for winning elections or for making tangible improvements (which are always hard when you're not winning elections).
As I was trying to wrap this up, I ran across this Nate Silver tweet:
I am a statistician. I'm also a statistician with a good bullshit detector.
There is little variation in age by state. And to the extent there is, it doesn't argue in your favor. The four oldest states are West Virginia (very red), Florida (pretty red), Maine (pretty blue) and Vermont (very blue).
What are their COVID death rates (per 1M population) since Feb. 1, 2021 (i.e. post-vaccine?):
- West Virginia: 3454
- Florida: 2992
- Maine: 1881
- Vermont: 1210
These states all have the ~same elderly population, and yet there are huge variations in COVID death rates that line up 1:1 with partisan differences in vaccine uptake.
In another tweet, Silver noted:
Republicans have the same death rates as Democrats until the introduction of vaccines, then they start dying at much higher rates. That's a very useful first approximation.