Monday, September 9, 2024

Speaking of Which

I opened this file early enough (2024-09-03 01:16AM), but did little on it, and spent much of Wednesday/Thursday working up a fairly large dinner menu. So I didn't really get into this until Saturday, and then got waylaid on the long Plitnick comment (conceived in lieu of an introduction). I still hoped to wrap this up Sunday evening, but after a TV break was too exhausted to continue. Then Monday morning (for me, anyway) I quickly found myself writing more long comments (look for the star bullets below). Still hoping to post Monday evening, but once again time is running out.

After several weeks dominated by campaign news, this week Israel/Gaza came roaring back with a vengeance -- which reflects poorly on Biden/Harris, not that they are alone in that regard. Tuesday's Trump-Harris debate will probably be a big deal next week, although I'm skeptical that anything good will come out of it. I just got an unsolicited text from "Harris":

Tomorrow night may be my first debate with Donald Trump, but I am no stranger to taking on perpetrators of all kinds: predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain.

Believe me when I say I know Trump's type. And on tomorrow's debate stage, I will do my best to put my record against his.

Then she asks for money.

Approaching 10PM, I'm giving up for the day, and calling this a week. I've just spent the last several hours on even more Israel comments. My guess is that there's a decent essay buried herein, awaiting an editor I don't have to dig up the bits, restructure them a bit, and demand some finishing touches. Having barely touched on the election stories, I'm just now seeing lots of disturbing stories I have no energy for right now. (Last add was Kuttner's story on Harris' "capitulation," after which I saw a similar story in New Republic, and I have little doubt there are more. And now I'm seeing new Intelligencer pieces I suddenly find I can't read by Jonathan Chait: Kamala Harris should cut Joe Biden loose -- hasn't he been reading about those "capitulations to capital"? -- and Ed Kilgore: Believe it or not, many voters think Trump is a moderate, let alone Margaret Hartmann: Melania slams effort to 'silence' Trump on social-media site he owns.)

Top story threads:

Israel:

  • Mondoweiss:

  • Isaam Ahmed: [08-29] Under cover of Gaza war, Israel is seizing Palestinian land in the West Bank: "The Gaza war is serving as a cover for Israel to accelerate expansionist policies in the West Bank, with the ultimate aim of annexing the territory."

  • Anadolu Agency:

    • [09-06] 'Game of demographics': How Israel aims to wipe out Palestinians from Occupied East Jerusalem.

    • [08-22] Is the US a suitable actor for a mediation role in Gaza? I think at this point, we can all agree that the US cannot act as an impartial arbiter in the dispute. That ship sailed long ago, assuming it ever floated in the first place. But mediation is a slightly different art: for that, you need to be able to find a solution acceptable to both sides, and you need to be willing and able to apply leverage to both sides to close the deal. This conflict should be slightly simpler than most, as Israel has all of the power, so mediation only has to work to rein in one side. That makes America the only possible mediator for the conflict, because only America has any serious leverage to bring Israel to a deal -- partly because American support has been so essential to Israel for so long. (Proviso here is that while Palestinians have no power to set terms, they can reject and resist imposed terms they find demeaning and debilitating. Similarly, Israel can also reject terms, regardless of the mediator's leverage.)

      You can go through Israel's history and see various examples of American mediation working (e.g., Sadat-Begin in 1979, the recent Abraham Accords, as far as they got) and not working (Barak-Assad and Barak-Arafat in 2000). The latter failed because Barak's demands, due to internal political pressure, became unreasonable, and/or Clinton didn't have the willpower to put sufficient pressure on Barak. The situation is even worse with Biden, because he seems to have no independent willpower over anything having to do with Israel: he can't even imagine any alternative solutions, nor dare he challenge Israel's leaders. On the other hand, can you even conceive of any other mediator? You may recall the Quartet, but that was never more than a US front -- and given how subservient the US has become, Israelis were free to treat them as a mirage.

      So we're stuck: Israel has no need to change course unless the US challenges it with an acceptable alternative, which the US won't dare do as long as it is under Israel's thumb. With nothing to stop them, or even to induce second thoughts -- Israel is not quite the monolithic autocracy it has presented since last October -- Israel's genocide will continue, until its logical conclusion (which could take years or decades, to the whole world's detriment). All anyone else can do is to look for weak links that could be moved with the limited pressure we can muster. That's already happened enough to make the powers involved here nervous, and the movement to end this war and the injustices that caused and sustain it will only grow. But make no mistake: this only ends when Israel is willing to change, and that means America must also be willing to change.

  • Mariam Barghouti: [09-04] Inside the brutal siege of Jenin: "The Israeli army is destroying civilian infrastructure, blocking medical access, and conducting mass arrests in the largest West Bank operation in years."

  • Ramzy Baroud: [09-05] War on children -- Gaza kids are unvaccinated, hungry and orphaned.

  • Zack Beauchamp: [09-04] The real reason Netanyahu won't end the Gaza war: "The Israeli public has turned against Netanyahu's war, but they can't stop it." I'm not sure how true this is. Israelis have run hot-and-cold on Netanyahu all year, but the only practical dissent on the war has come from the hostage families, who would make some concessions to release the hostages, whereas Netanyahu and his allies would be happier if the hostages would die already (see Hannibal Directive). But the war, fought so brutally that many outsiders have called it genocide, seems to have few dissenters within Israel (at least among the Israelis that count). Netanyahu still has a fairly slim coalition majority (64 of 120), so it wouldn't take many defections to bring it down. If Likud really was the "center-right" party as claimed, it shouldn't be hard to fracture, but it appears that they're not merely loyal to Netanyahu, and that Netanyahu is not merely maneuvering to keep out of jail, but that the policies Smotrich and Ben-Gvir have been demanding are things they've long wanted to do.

    The answer is brute power politics. The 2022 election gave right-wing parties a clear majority in the Knesset (Israel's parliament), allowing Netanyahu to build the most far-right government in Israeli history. Though this coalition has since become extremely unpopular, there's no way for voters to kick it out on their own.

    The government could only collapse if it faces defections from inside the governing coalition. But at present, the greatest threat to Netanyahu's coalition comes from his extreme right flank, which wants him to continue the war at all costs. And for that reason, he seems intent on doing so. . . .

    "For [the government to fall], Israeli political leaders would need common sense, political courage, and a moral backbone. Too clearly, the overwhelming majority have none," Dahlia Scheindlin, a leading Israel pollster, writes in the Haaretz newspaper.

  • Jessica Buxbaum:

  • Abdallah Fayyad: [09-04] How a disease the world (mostly) vanquished reared its head in Gaza: "Israel's attacks on Gaza created conditions for polio to spread. Now, a vaccination campaign is racing against time."

  • Tareq S Hajjaj: [09-07] 'The world has gotten used to our blood': Israeli massacres in Gaza continue: "Despite the shift in the media's attention to regional developments and the Israeli invasion of the northern West Bank, the massacres in Gaza continue in silence. In the first three days of September, Israel committed nine massacres in the strip."

  • Shatha Hanaysha: [09-06] 'Days filled with terror': Palestinians in Jenin recount harrowing 10-day Israeli army invasion: "Israeli occupation forces withdrew from the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, including the Jenin refugee camp, early on Friday."

  • Gideon Levy:

    • [08-29] Israel holds a ceremony for a war that hasn't ended -- instead of ending it. Looks like Israel's "never forget" industry is back, working harder than ever:

      Why is it even important to hold a ceremony on October 7? Is there anyone who doesn't remember? And has anyone learned any lessons from it? . . .

      Since October 7, Israel has been wallowing nonstop in October 7. There has yet to be a news program that doesn't wallow again in that day -- the longest day in Israel's history, the day that still hasn't ended.

      Yet this, too, is meant to repress, deny and escape what really matters. We'll wallow in the past, and then we won't have to think about how to extricate ourselves from it. We'll play the victim to the hilt, and then we won't have to deal with the victims of our own horrific crimes.

      October 7 doesn't need a ceremony. It's still alive and well, dead and held hostage. It's present all the time.

    • [09-05] When six Israelis are mourned more than 40,000 Palestinians: The "six" were hostages recently found dead by Israel. The "40,000" is the minimal number of Palestinians in Gaza killed by Israeli military operations since October 7, 2023.

      While the world is shocked by the fate of Gaza, it has never paid similar respect to the Palestinian victims. The president of the United States does not call the relatives of fallen Palestinians, not even if they, like the Goldberg-Polins, had American citizenship. The United States has never called for the release of thousands of Palestinian abductees that Israel has detained without trial. A young Israeli woman who was killed at the Nova festival arouses more sympathy and compassion in the world than a female teenage refugee from Jabalya. The Israeli is more similar to "the world."

      Everything has already been said about the overlooking and concealment of Palestinian suffering in the Israeli public conversation, and not enough has yet been said. The Palestinian killed in Gaza who had a face, a name and a life story and whose killing shocked Israel has not yet been born.

  • Yoav Litvin:

  • Harold Meyerson: [09-03] Only Israelis can end their war on Gaza: "But even the massive demonstrations weren't enough to get Bibi to shut down the war to which his own job security is linked."

  • Abdaljawad Omar: [09-04] Testing the boundaries for ethnic cleansing in the West Bank: "The current operation in the West Bank is meant to test the boundaries of what Israel will be allowed to get away with. It is setting the stage for the forced ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people." The author is basically right, but I have a couple nits to pick. There are no boundaries, in large part because there is no one monitoring what they are or are not "allowed to do." If their actions seem measured, it's because they have their own reasons for measuring them. They aren't seriously worried about the Americans turning on them, but they respect the threat enough to take some care in managing the issues. It seems to me that their game in the West Bank is to provoke an armed uprising, similar to Gaza, which they can then respond to with a major escalation of violence (as they did in Gaza). The the West Bank is a trickier proposition, so they're exercising a bit more care, but they've been pretty relentless about tightening down their control to maximize pressure.

  • Paul R Pillar: [09-04] Why Isreal is attacking the West Bank: "Another chapter in the long, tragic story of Tel Aviv's leaders choosing to live forever by the sword."

  • Meron Rapoport: [09-04] To sacrifice or free the hostages? Israeli protesters have chosen a side: "Fearing for the remaining captives, the mass rallies that erupted across Israel were essentially demanding an end to the war -- and Netanyahu knows it." There is an element of hopeful thinking here, as the author admits: "To be clear, such a statement was not uttered from the stage nor was it seen on many placards, save for among the small pockets of left-wing protesters that formed the anti-occupation bloc."

  • Adnan Abdul Razzaq: [09-05] Israel's growing emigration rate has serious consequences:

    The number of migrants to Israel fell by more than half between 7 October and 29 November last year, according to statistics provided by the Israeli Immigration Authority. The Times of Israel reported that half-a-million people have left the occupation state and not returned, which confirms the erosion of trust and the decline of the population which frightens the regime in Tel Aviv. Prophecies about the "curse of the eighth decade" loom ever more menacingly over the apartheid state of Israel.

  • Nathalie Rozanes: [09-05] The Gaza war is an environmental catastrophe: "Toxic waste, water-borne diseases, vast carbon emissions: Dr. Mariam Abd El Hay describes the myriad harms of Israel's assault to the region's ecosystems." I'd say all wars are environmental disasters, and have been so for quite some while now, but this one is exceptionally egregious, both in the extent of devastation and for its clearly deliberate intent, where rendering the environment uninhabitable is a critical strategy for genocide.

    In recent months, the phrase ecocide has been widely used to describe the environmental impact of the Israel-Hamas war (as Wikipedia put it). "Ecocide" is not a new coinage: the Wikipedia article cites several examples, starting with the US use of chemical defoliants in Vietnam, but doesn't mention similar antecedents like the fire-bombing of urban area in WWII, atomic bombs in Japan (although Chernobyl gets a mention), or the bombing of dams in North Korea, as well as older strategies aimed at mass starvation (another Israeli strategy).

    I've probably cited some of these already, but a quick search for "Gaza ecocide" produces a long list of articles, including:

  • Devi Sridhar: [09-05] Scientists are closing in on the true, horrifying scale of death and disease in Gaza.

America's Israel (and Israel's America):

  • Branko Marcetic: [09-04] Netanyahu is blocking a hostage deal. You know that. You've known that all along. Netanyahu has always welcomed the opportunity of war. I still clearly remember him on TV on Sept. 11, 2001, grin on face, inviting the US to join Israel in the "war on terror." He said something to the effect of "now you know what it feels like."

  • Mitchell Plitnick: [09-06] The genocide in Gaza is as American as it is Israeli. The US won't stop it. "The desire for a ceasefire in the United States, certainly among Democrat voters, is clear. Yet, as the slaughter in Gaza enters its twelfth month, why does the US continue to act the way it does?" I woke up this morning thinking I should write an introduction on just this subject, so this article gives me a chance to dodge the introduction -- which I really don't have time for -- and just hang a couple comments here. I think we need to sort this out several ways, which give us slightly different answers.

    1. Has Israel embarked on a deliberate program of genocide? Short answer is "yes." Most Israelis will quibble over the term, and there are various nuances and idiosyncrasies to their approach, but they don't qualify the point. I could write much more on how this resembles and/or differs from other genocides over history, but the key points are: they know what they want to do, they are working deliberately to realize their intentions, and they have no effective internal constraints against continuing.

    2. Do the Israeli people (by which one means the Jewish ones with full citizenship, which is a privileged subset of the total) support this program of genocide? Short answer is "pretty much so." Very few Israelis object to the dehumanization of Palestinians, which underlies the indiscriminate brutality Israelis practice on them. Israeli culture is designed to inculcate the fear and alienation that makes this dehumanization possible.

    3. Do Americans understand and support Israel's genocide? Some pretty clearly do: e.g., anyone (like Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton) who've uttered the words "finish it!" Especially prominent among these people are neoconservatives who envy and admire Israel's habit of using force to impose its will on its supposed enemies. Such people are still very prominent in US security circles in both political parties. But they are a small (but exceptionally influential) faction. A somewhat larger faction, including many otherwise liberal Democrats, is simply loyal to Israel, and they are mostly in denial about the genocide. (Their share is especially large among the politician class, as their world has long been shaped by donors and lobbyists.) Support for Israel has long been tied to cultural prejudices -- including America's experience as a settler colony, its racist divisions, religious focus, and fondness for world wars -- maintained with extraordinary propaganda. Nonetheless, it is likely that most Americans who are aware of what Israel is doing to Palestinians are deeply unsettled and want to see the war and genocide stop.

    4. The Biden administration reflects all of these American views (but especially the blind loyalty expected of politicians on the take), but rather than trying to reconcile contradictions, they have kept doing what they've long been doing -- supplying Israel with large quantities of money and arms, while providing Israel with diplomatic cover -- only touched with schizophrenia. (I can think of dozens of examples, but let's start with the air drops of relief supplies.) I think you have to ask five questions about Biden's handling of this affair:

      1. Did Biden conspire with, or intend for, Israel to commit genocide? I think (but don't know) the answer here is "no." But this does show considerable naïveté and/or carelessness on Biden's part, as the conditions for Israel escalating its long-established program of collective punishment into the range of genocide have been brewing for more than a decade, and the provocation of the Oct. 7 attack was exactly the sort of event that could trigger such an escalation. That Biden's first response was to offer Israel full-throated, open-ended support was seen by Netanyahu as an open invitation.

      2. Did American support materially contribute to Israel's ability to commit genocide? The answer there is "yes," which is to say that the US was materially complicit in the genocide. The obvious follow up here is: did Biden attempt to withdraw or limit American support to end this complicity? The answer there is "not really." Similar questions can be asked about political, financial, and/or moral support, to which the answers are the same.

      3. Is Israel able and willing to carry out its genocide without American (and allied) support? I think the answer here is "maybe, but not nearly as effectively, or for such a sustained period." The main material supply was ammunition. Perhaps more important is money. Israel has maintained a very high mobilization for an exceptionally long time, while Israel's economy has lagged, so American money has helped pick up the slack. While Israel could self-fund their war, the cost-benefit analysis -- which is to say the viability of the Netanyahu coalition -- would be much harder to justify without the incoming cash.

      4. Is there some reason beyond loyalty for the US to support Israel's program of genocide? Given America's efforts at global hegemony, it is easy to imagine that there must be some sort of master plan, but beyond promoting arms sales, global finance, and the oil industry, there is very little coherence in US foreign policy, and much arbitrary prejudice -- which Israel has been very effective at playing for its own peculiar interests. So I would answers this "no," and add that Biden is hurting the real interests[*] of the American people in aligning with Israel.

        [*] By which I mean peace, cooperation, and development of equitable and mutually advantageous relationships, but those "interests" have no effective lobby in Washington (unlike the arms and oil industries, and Israel).

      5. If Biden finally decides to dissuade Netanyahu from his present course, could he? The answer here is "probably," but it wouldn't be easy. First problem would be gathering enough political support in the US to keep the idea from being strangled in the crib. The Israel lobby is very focused on preventing any politician from even considering any shift away from complete support for anything Israel's leaders desire, and they have a lot of influence both in the media and behind closed doors.

        Then you have to calculate enough pressure to move Netanyahu, who has more experience in manipulating American politicians than anyone else alive, and therefore more arrogance at resisting them. I have some ideas about how to do this, but it's a tricky business, especially when you start out on your knees, with no sense of decency or morals.

        Finally, you need to anticipate which compromises will ultimately prove to be acceptable, achievable, and viable. This, too, is hard, not least because the people who you need to get to accept the compromises -- which is to say, the ones with enough power to ignore you (by which I mean Israel) -- want something else instead (or just to play the game forever), and are unwilling to see the benefit of settling for something less injurious to the other party than they think deserved. Relative power warps the field of options so severely that truly just solutions may be impossible, so the best you can do is choose among disappointments, trying to pick ones that will lessen problems, rather than exacerbate them.

    5. Both Israel and the US should consider the reputational damage their complicity in genocide will cause them. It's not just that other people are tempted to sanction and shun them, but it calls into question their motives and behavior everywhere.

    Also related here:

    • Meron Rapoport: [09-02] 'This is also America's war': Why the US isn't stopping Israel's Gaza onslaught: "Israelis and Palestinians are making a terrible mistake by looking exclusively to Washington to solve their problems, says former negotiator Daniel Levy." When asked about Harris's DNC speech, Levy says:

      I think she achieved what she wanted: that both of those kinds of reporting could come out, and that both AIPAC and J Street could endorse it. But if we shift attention to the Palestinian rights movement or the Uncommitted Movement, there is nothing there for them. The way the DNC treated the issue tells you everything you need to know about the ways things aren't changing -- for instance, [the fact there was] no Palestinian speaker or perspective on the stage.

      Harris can talk about bad things that have happened to Palestinians, but from her words you wouldn't know who caused it -- a natural disaster? An earthquake? When Hamas does something bad, they are named and shamed; but when bad things happen to Palestinians, there is never any acknowledgement that they are caused by Israel.

      The nuances and differences between Biden and Harris do exist, and they matter, but we always have to go deeper. The expectation is totally misplaced that the United States will solve this.

    • Mohamad Bazzi: [09-06] Kamala Harris should do what Joe Biden won't: commit to actually reining in Israel: But she won't, and I'm not sure she should -- what she should say is that the slaughter and destruction has to end, that it's really unacceptable for any country to treat any people like that under any circumstances, and amends need to be made to make sure nothing like that ever happens again. And it's ok here to use the passive voice, which she has a lot of practice at when describing things that Israel and/or the US have done to get to this point. What we need to know now is that she takes this seriously, and will work on it when and as she's able, but I expect that her work will almost all be done in the shadows. It is important that Israel be seen as calling their own shots. And it is important that the US not be seen that way -- we really need to break out of the really bad habit of thinking we can go out and tell other countries what to do and how to behave.

      I got some flak last week over something I wrote about how the Biden couldn't force Israel to end the genocide even if he wanted to. My wife was arguing that Biden does have the power, at least to force a ceasefire, given the enormous amount of aid the US provides Israel. I allowed that might work, but hasn't been tested (and won't) because Biden lacks the understanding and willpower to apply such leverage. My wife added that he lacks the morals, which is true, but I've grown weary of moralizing over foreign policy. But my point wasn't that such pressure couldn't work. It was that it's not guaranteed to work, because Netanyahu could hold firm, accepting the loss of support, and doubling down. We know from bitter experience that even maximal sanctions can be resisted (e.g., North Korea), and Israel has both the wherewithal and the psychology to do just that.

      Or so we should assume, and respect. As far as I'm concerned, the only escalation possible, direct war, is an option off the table. On the other hand, we don't know that Israel would take such extreme measures in resisting sanctions. They are, for the most part, rational people, who can be expected to carefully weigh their options, balancing costs against benefits, not least those of their own political careers. A big part of Netanyahu's political capital is the perception that he can wrap the Americans around his little finger, which could make him vulnerable to pushback -- sure, not from a pushover like Biden (or Trump), but perhaps from someone with a clear idea what they want. (Whether Harris is such a person remains to be seen. Obama never quite got ahead of Netanyahu.)

  • Ishaan Tharoor: [09-04] Netanyahu still wants more war: "The Israeli leader's critics argue he would rather prolong the war to assuage his far-right allies (and keep hold of power) than clinch a deal that stops hostilities and frees the remaining hostages." His critics are right, of course, but his friends would probably tell you the same thing. Where one might quibble is in his motivation: his odds of staying in power don't change much one way or the other, but what he mostly wants to do is to see how much war he can get away with -- before Biden gets disgusted and pulls the plug, before his coalition cracks up and forces a new election. Worst case scenario, he goes back to the people, campaigning on his defiance of the lily-livered turncoats who tried to derail his path to absolute victory.

  • Jonah Valdez: [09-06] Israel just killed another American in the West Bank. Will the US ever respond? "Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a human rights activist, was protesting an illegal West Bank settlement when she was reportedly shot in the head by Israeli soldiers."

Israel vs. world opinion:

Election notes:

Trump:

  • Zack Beauchamp: [09-04] Trump's biggest fans aren't who you think: "A new book shows how people are getting the right's class appeal all wrong." The book is Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right, by Arlie Russell Hochschild (whose 2016 book, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, got a lot of attention after Trump's win as "a guide and balm for a country struggling to understand the election of Donald Trump" -- the other book from back then that was often cited alongside it was JD Vance's much discredited Hillbilly Elegy). As revelations go, this -- that Trump does best among "the elite of the left-behind" -- doesn't strike me as a very big one. The more common term for many in that demographic is "asshole," and sure, Trump's their guy. (To be clear, supporting Trump doesn't make you an asshole, but being an asshole makes you much more likely to rally for Trump.)

  • Sidney Blumenthal: [09-04] Donald Trump is deeply threatened by Kamala Harris -- and desperately flailing.

  • Kevin T Dugan: Trump bombs his big speech debuting Elon Musk's commission.

  • Tom Engelhardt: [09-03] Trumptopia and beyond: "Is reality the biggest fiction of all today?"

  • Margaret Hartmann: The highs and lows from Trump's lazy new coffee table book: "From the glaring errors to the debunked gossip about Castro and Trudeau, Save America is a dizzying semi-literary adventure."

  • Sarah Jones:

  • Jerelle Kraus: [09-06] Two and a half hours alone with Nixon, the anti-Trump.

  • Nia Prater: Trump won't be sentenced before election day: "Juan Merchan, the presiding judge, ruled that Trump's sentencing hearing will be moved to November 26, weeks after the general election."

  • Robert Wright: [09-26] Is Trump a peacenik? No, but if you're worried that Biden (now Harris) is a bit too fond of war, he says a vote for him will save you from WWIII. And given that American politicians of both parties have long and ignominious histories of lying about wanting peace while blundering into war, and given how little reliable information there is about either, there may be enough gullible but concerned people to tilt the election. Wright reviews some of the contradictions here, and there are much more that could be considered.

    I've been worried about just this prospect all along, and I remain worried. I don't have time to explain all the nuances, but very briefly, Biden has done a very bad job of managing US foreign affairs, failing to make any progress dealing with a number of very manageable hostilities (North Korea, Venezuela, Iran, many others) while letting two crises (Ukraine, Gaza) drag into prolonged wars that he seemingly has no interest in ever resolving (at least he doesn't seem to be putting in any effort). The only good thing you can say about his handling of Afghanistan is that he dodged the worst possible option, which was to stick around and keep losing. And while he's made money for the arms and oil industries, both have made the world a much more dangerous place. And then there's China -- do we really need to go there?

    One might reasonably think that anyone could have done a better job than Biden has done, but we actually know one person who had every same opportunity, and made them all worse: Donald Trump, the president before Biden. Is there any reason to think that Trump might do better with a second chance? The plus side is that he may be more wary this time of relying on the "deep state" advisers who steered him so badly. (Biden, too, was plagued by their advice, but he seemed to be more in tune with it -- the only changes Biden made in US foreign policy were to reverse Trump's occasional unorthodox lapses, especially what he viewed as softness on Russia.)

    On the other hand, Trump brings a unique set of disturbing personal characteristics to the job: he cares more about perception than reality; he wants to be seen as very tough, but he's really just a whiney bitch; he's majorly ignorant, and incoherent on top of that; he's impetuous (but he can usually be talked down, because he rarely has any reasons for what he wants to do); he's vain and narcissistic; he has no empathy with people he meets, so has no idea how to relate with them (e.g., to negotiate any kind of agreement); he has no sympathy for other people, so he has no cares for anything wrong that could happen; he has a weird fascination with using nuclear weapons, so that's one of the things he often has to be talked down from; I know I already said that he's ignorant and implied that he's clueless, but he's also pretty stupid about how most things in the modern world actually work. He does, however, have a keen interest in graft, and a passing admiration for other right-wing demagogues, if only because he admires their art and sees them as his peers. About the only thing I can see as a positive is that he doesn't seem to feel any personal need for war to prove his masculinity -- for that he's satisfied abusing women.

    • Daniel Larison: [09-03] Trump doesn't oppose endless wars: "If it were anyone other than Trump taking these positions, his own supporters would be denouncing him as a neocon."

  • Steve M: [09-08] In addition to "sanewashing," can we talk about "reality-washing"? Various bits quoting Donald Trump, summed up in the end:

    I still say Trump isn't crazy or suffering significant dementia. He's just beginning to realize that he can tell any lie, no matter how divorced from reality it is, and no one will say that his lies are categorically different from ordinary political lies. To the media, there's no difference between Trump saying schools are forcibly performing gender reassignment surgery on children and Tim Walz saying that he and his wife conceived their children using in vitro fertilization when they really used intra-uterine insemination. A lie is a lie! Nothing to see here, folks!

    Maybe the press has a sense of futility about fact-checking Trump -- it's never stopped him from insisting that the 2020 election was rigged, so why bother? And fact checking clearly can't kill other Republican Big Lies -- that Democrats support abortion after birth, or that entire cities were burned to the ground during the George Floyd protests in 2020. (Many Republicans other than Trump tell these lies and get away with them.)

    If we continue to let Trump lie this brazenly without making the sheer magnitude of the lies a story, we run the risk that he'll become president and indict enemies or call out troops on disfavored groups based entirely on fictional scenarios. Once that happens, the press might finally tell us that he's the worst-ever purveyor of Big Lies, but it could be too late by then.

    Also see his earlier post, on a point I also recall making:

Vance, And other Republicans:

Harris:

  • Jack Hunter: [08-26] Harris' aversion to talks with dictators is more Bush than Obama: "Negotiating with adversaries is not 'cozying up to tyrants' as she suggested in her DNC speech."

  • Joshua Keating: [09-06] The guessing game over Kamala Harris's foreign policy: "Nobody knows."

  • Robert Kuttner: [09-09] Kamala's capital capitulation: "The money is not that huge, but the optics are terrible."

  • Eric Levitz: [09-05] Harris is swimming in cash -- but Democrats may still have a fundraising problem: "Democratic donors are underinvesting in state legislative races, where money goes a lot further." This has been a persistent problem, especially when Clinton and Obama used the Democratic Party as a personal piggy bank, while letting Democratic majorities in Congress go under. This happens because Democratic donors have very different priorities than Democratic voters, and may even prefer to sandbag policies that Democratic majorities would pass if they had the numbers. Republicans, on the other hand, work much harder to get their candidates elected down ballot, because they need to pass laws to implement their regressive agenda.

  • Nicole Narea/Sean Collins: [09-06] Will Harris's massive fundraising spree actually help her? The chart here shows that both candidates combined raised almost twice as much money in 2020 as in 2016 ($1774M vs. $896M). As Jeffrey St Clair pointed out (article below), 2020 was the first year in many when the winner got more votes than the number of eligible voters who didn't vote, so one correlation seems to be that more money means more voter participation (although the returns there are pretty slim). Chart also shows that Trump more than doubled his fundraising in 2020 over 2016. I was thinking that shows the value of incumbency, but Obama's raised almost exactly the same in 2012 and 2008.

  • Adam Wren/Megan Messerly: [09-09] Why the 'one-two punch' of Liz and Dick Cheney backing Harris matters: Evidently they have their own PACs, so they can back up their votes with some money. Whether they have any credibility with anyone who wasn't already a "never Trumper" isn't very likely. Dick Cheney ended his VP term with the lowest approval numbers ever (9% is the number I remember). Liz Cheney has some fawning admirers among the DC press core (including Joan Walsh?). But it's quite possible that the net change will be negative. By far the biggest liability Biden (and now Harris) had was their involvement in senseless foreign wars -- which they seem completely powerless to do anything to stop -- and here they're picking up endorsements from bona fide super-hawks. That's a very bad look.

Walz, Biden, and other Democrats:

  • Perry Bacon Jr.: [09-03] What a conference for the left just revealed about November: "The war in Gaza and the threat of another Trump presidency pulled democratic socialists in opposite directions at a post-convention meeting in Chicago." Look, life can be frustrating on the left. You've managed to figure out some basic truths about how the world works, and how for most people it could work better, but one major group of people keep telling you that your proposals, which you see as just plain common sense, are impossible dreams, that instead you have to not just limit yourself to corporate compromises but smile when you vote for the Democrats who broker those deals (or just let them wither and die) -- and be assured that if you don't vote for them, if you even criticize them at inopportune times, they will blame all their failures on you. Then there's that other major group of people who simply hate you for even suggesting that any conscious change is possible let alone desirable, even though those people have consistently pursued their own self-interests in ways that have drastically altered the world, with hardly any regard for the vast harm they have caused all around the world.

    These major groups dominate the political parties that limit our choices in what passes for democracy in America: the Democrats, who are leery and dismissive of the left, and the Republicans, whose fear and loathing is so unbounded we often recognize them as Fascists. (Fascism is sometimes dignified as an ideology, but for leftists, the telltale sign is sensing that someone wants to kill you.) November matters because that's the next big election, a rare opportunity for most people (even leftists) to vote for one of the two major parties' vetted candidates. Most of us feel the need to participate, on principle for democracy, but also because we usually have a pretty good idea which candidate is the worst -- it may be hard to vote for some ideal, but we shouldn't squander the opportunity to vote down someone truly malignant. But that's just one moment: too glaring to ignore, not least because so many people invest so much hope in its outcome. I can identify with one leftist quote here: "Presidential elections, the Democrats specifically, have a way of sucking all life out of any movement." In November, winners will celebrate, losers complain, but leftists (and lobbyists) can only go back to work.

Supreme Court, legal matters, and other crimes:

Climate and environment:

Economists and the economy:

Ukraine and Russia:

The World and/or America's empire:

Other stories:

  • Marty A Bullis: [08-12] MAGA to MAGNA: "True greatness -- magnanimity -- is rooted in giving our selves away, not attempting to make ourselves great again." Philosophy professor, launched this newsletter a month ago, evidently he's a friend of a friend, deep enough I decided not to bury it in the "laugh and cry" section under Donald Trump's name. I'm afraid I lost my interest in all things great long ago, so it's hard for me to take "make America great" as anything other than sardonic conceit. For starters, it always conjured up the Bill Moyers story of how he suggested calling Lyndon Johnson's social programs "the good society," but Johnson insisted on "great." A big chunk of the problem is that very little of what people claim as great is really much good. And Hillary Clinton's counterpoint, that "America has always been great," was really unhelpful (but, I supose, revelatory). What kind of person even aspires to greatness? Especially after models like these.

    Bullis does us a service in describing how the phrase works, and in breaking it down to five "core values" (which I might add are not tautological, but are empirically derived from observation of the people we've come to shorthand as "MAGA"):

    "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) is the central value-phrase Trump uses to activate our instinct for greatness. MAGA stimulates a simultaneous sense of loss for, and desire to work and fight to regain some part of our past -- whether real or imagined. The phrase is generic in a way that it can be all things to all people. Who hasn't experienced loss? And who would not want to get something valuable back? Trump for his part had the brilliant (and self-serving) idea to trademark and market this motivational phrase, and then turn it into a repetitive rallying cry to channel our fears and hopes for his benefit.

    I will be highlighting five core MAGA values that play on these fears and hopes, bringing harm in their path. The list is not meant to be exhaustive of the values driving negative actions in the MAGA-sphere, and I am not the first to discuss them. My goal is, however, to show how these values can be redirected in ways that will allow us to be authentically great. The five MAGA values are: 1) insular self-interest; 2) cultural homogenizing; 3) social wall building; 4) patriotic ranting; and 5) self-serving aggression. Like Trump, these values are attractive to many people.

    His emphasis. He then spoils the mood with his next sentence: "But I will argue that there are better and truly authentic value-paths to greatness." He really needs a better destination, and not just because "greatness" has been spoiled. (I don't have a counterproposal, but the first word that popped into mind was "satori.) Looks like he at least has his path plotted out, with a first section here and the promise of more to come:

    1. Unselfing America: Embracing service rather than self-interest
    2. Unhomogenizing America: Embracing diversity as our identity
    3. Unwalling America: Embracing our immigrant status rather than isolation
    4. Unranting America: Embracing gracious discourse rather than hateful speech
    5. Unaggressing America: Embracing nonviolence rather than picking a fight
    6. Stepping out in authentic greatness

    Mostly good themes, so good luck with that. Maybe something good can come out of "greatness" after all. But don't get me started on "authenticity," a concept I like even less than "greatness."

  • Ted Chiang: [08-31] Why A.I. isn't going to make art: "To create a novel or a painting, an artist makes choices that are fundamentally alien to artificial intelligence." I was directed to this piece by a tweet, which quoted this nugget:

    The task that generative A.I. has been most successful at is lowering our expectations, both of the things we read and of ourselves when we write anything for others to read. It is a fundamentally dehumanizing technology because it treats us as less than what we are: creators and apprehenders of meaning. It reduces the amount of intention in the world.

  • Gabor Maté: [09-06] We each have a Nazi in us. We need to understand the psychological roots of authoritarianism: I don't have any specific insight into this question, other than my experience that every argument ever made constructed along these lines has been complete and utter horseshit -- the most obvious examples being blatantly racist, or closely analogous.

    Neuroimaging studies have shown that the amygdala, the tiny almond-shaped brain structure that mediates fear, is larger in people with more rightwing views. It is more active in those favoring strong protective authority and harboring a suspicion of outsiders and of people who are different.

    I have a pretty low opinion of right-wingers, but I'm pretty sure the only ones "born that way" are explicable in terms of class acculturation, and even if tightly held are not locked in.

  • Caitlin PenzeyMoog: [09-04] Organize your kitchen like a chef, not an influencer. Well, this is the sort of soft "lifetyle" feature I often bother to read, and I kept the link for future reference (partly because I didn't know what a "cambro" was, although I have some cheaper alternatives). I have the largest refrigerator I could find, and I keep it jammed, for better or worse, so managing it (as opposed to presenting it as a gallery) is something often on my mind.

  • Jeffrey St Clair: [09-06] Roaming Charges: Ain't that America, something to see, baby? Starts off with the latest school shooting, then gives you some Xmas cards from our "family values" Republicans. After that, the usual smorgasbord.

  • Jason Stanley: [09-05] Why fascists hate universities: "Authoritarians and would-be authoritarians are only too aware that universities are primary sites of critique and dissent." Mostly on Bangladesh and India, but of more general interest. Stanley has a recent book: Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future, following up on his previous books: How Propaganda Works (2015), and How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them (2018).

  • Barry Yourgrau: [09-03] Lessons of a Weimar anti-fascist in Palestine: "After my father fled Nazi Germany in 1933, he witnessed a toxic new nationalism rising among Jews in Palestine -- and was silenced for trying to warn of its dangers."

Obituaries

Books

Chatter

  • Zachary D Carter: [09-06] [Responding to Leah Greenberg, writing on Vance: I can't get over how disrespectful this is. It's the answer of someone who has never seriously considered any aspect of how care policy works, because he believes -- but knows better than to say out loud -- that women should be home taking care of the kids.]

    When you did get past the gender hang-ups there's nothing here except warmed over occupational licensing reform stuff from the 60s and 70s. These guys say they want to represent working families but they have no interest in how working families live.

    To the extent there is a policy argument here, Vance is saying we should lower daycare costs by paying lowering pay for childcare. If your solution to an economic problem is "lower wages," you aren't interested in supporting working families.

  • Stephen Walt: [09-05] By now it is clear that there is nothing #Netanyahu could do or say that would lead @SecBlinken to withhold U.S. support. A more ineffectual approach to diplomacy is hard to imagine, and the failure to achieve any positive results is entirely predictable. [Comments follow:]

    • Blairja: [09-05] The entire Biden Administration simply does not know how to negotiate. The entirety of US current foreign policy is purely the result of this basic inability to negotiate. No negotiations = endless support for war. The ONLY way conflicts ever end is with negotiation.

    • Jean-Noël: [09-05] It is clear that the Biden administration and Blinken in particular are completely under the thumb of Netanyahu. They all follow Biden's example of unconditional support, whatever humiliation Netanyahu inflicts to them over and over again. We are the laughing stock of the world.

    [Given the company they're joining, it's a bit surprising that anyone bothers to offer intelligent commentary. I've understood all along that the longer this war continues, the more people who are appalled by it may turn to antisemitic tropes. Most of the people I read are careful not to fall into that trap, but there's quite a bit of it in the commentary here -- most personal about Blinken (e.g., "Blinken is effectual, he's just not playing for our team"), although there was also a "Jews run America." Still, by far the most offensive comment was "Hamas supporter," followed by a cartoon showing Netanyahu and someone labeled Hamas holding a child wrapped in a suicide vest and a paper that reads "Demands: Death to all Jews," with Blinken in the middle saying, "Could you at least meet him half way?"]

Local tags (these can be linked to directly): Plitnick ("the genocide in Gaza is as American as it is Israeli"), Trump, music.

Initial count: 154 links, 10515 words (13320 total)

Current count: 167 links, 11084 words (14075 total)

Ask a question, or send a comment.