Wednesday, August 27, 2025

Loose Tabs

On [09-13] I moved previous contents of tabs.php here, which will eventually be renumbered to post.

This is an occasional collection of newsworthy links and comments, much less systematic than what I attempted in my late Speaking of Which posts. The name comes from my extensive use of browser tabs. When I get around to cleaning up, I often find tabs opened to old articles I might want to comment on and/or refer back to. So these posts are mostly housecleaning, but may also serve as a very limited but persistent record of what 20+ years ago I started calling "the end of the American empire" and nowadays feels more like "the end of civilization." I collect these bits in a draft file, and flush them out when periodically (12 times from April-December 2025, not much more often in 2026). My previous one appeared ? days ago, on August 27.

By the way, I've been trying to write some more in-depth pieces on major issues (and/or personal peccadillos), using Substack as an email agent. I call this series Notes on Everyday Life. I used to have a pinned list of pieces here, but as they've grown, I've moved them into separate index.

I also have a Notes feed there. While I've done very little with it so far, it occurs to me that I might be able to use it to publish Loose Tabs items and Music Week reviews as I write them, instead of having to wait for a long compilation post.

Table of Contents:

New Stories

Most stories fit into well-established categories, organized below as Major Threads. Some sources I lean on so regularly they have their own Regular Columnists section. I also have an End Matter section for dealing with regular occurrences like books, obituaries, and tweets. Stories that don't fit into any regular category appear under Miscellaneous Stories. However, occasionally a short-term story blows up to where it needs extra attention, in which case I included it here.

Examples from last time: Trump's War on Canada; Data Centers; Meta Settles Lawsuit.

Data Centers: This exploded as a separate story last month, and is likely to continue at least through the election, but is still too big to bury under the Electoral Politics section. Data centers are big, highly automated buildings, which demand a lot of electricity, but otherwise are relatively benign. What troubles people about them is the AI they are designed to serve, and even more so the business plans behind that AI, and how those business plans are creating a tiny number of mega-oligarchs. It's hard to imagine that people who crave that much wealth and power are going to achieve it without impoverishing the rest of us, but even those who have limited imagination of sci-fi villains are increasingly exposed to the hubris of real world examples. Halting development of technology is probably hopeless, but how it is used, who profits from it, and who gets hurt are political questions, and they are up for grabs.

  • Ryan Cooper [08-31]: Big Tech crashes headlong into American democracy: "The AI oligarchs thought they could stuff data centers down the throats of the American people. They thought wrong."

That Republican National ("Trumpapalooza") Convention: After some fact checking, I added a missing "pa" to the parenthetical, after noticing that it sounded too much like "Trump's a loser." This was a blatant grab for media attention, but the net effect was to remind everyone that the 2026 elections will be about Trump, even if his name isn't on the ballot. Nothing important happened, but too big to bury the stories under Republicans and/or Trump, where more will no doubt surface.

  • New York Times [09-11]: Trump floats $5,000 checks to Americans if Republicans win midterms: "The president offered a 'dividend' to every adult citizen if Republicans keep control of Congress. But his sagging approval ratings could endanger his party's chances in November." Pinned article, among many more "live updates." Wouldn't it be funny if the Democrats swept Congress then sent him the bill? — possibly loaded with a bushel of "poison pills," like funding it with taxes on the rich, and prohibiting the president from implementing tariffs and military operations without congressional approval (things that would make it even more popular). I'm not saying this "dividend" is a good idea. My first thought is: how much does Trump think Republicans can steal by hanging onto Congress? The estimated cost is about $1.3 trillion. Even if they just tack that onto the national debt, that's $1.3 trillion they could steal for themselves. Still, with tax breaks, a 50% bump in useless military spending, sweetheart contracts, lax regulation, and fraud everywhere you loook, they could still come out ahead. Especially if they don't deliver. What's their penalty for that? You're going to vote them out of office? Then why didn't you?

  • Astead Herndon [09-10]: The GOP midterms strategy is Trump and a prayer: "What we learned from the first day of the Republican convention in Dallas."

  • Stephen Fowler [09-11]: Empty seats, socialism and Trump dominate the Republican midterm convention: Link text says "7 takeaways from the 'Trumpapalooze' Republican . . . ," but the article comes up short:

    1. Republicans have an enthusiasm problem
    2. The message emphasized personal attacks over policy
    3. The rise of the -isms: Communism, Socialism, Marxism, Terrorism.
    4. What war?
    5. 2028 looms over everything
    6. It may be too late to turn the tide

  • Joseph Gedeon [09-12]: Calls for Democrats to be shot go unchallenged at Republican convention: "Crowd member repeatedly said some Democrats 'should be shot' during Ted Cruz's speech, without senator responding."

  • David Smith [09-12]: Trump personality cult alive and well in Dallas: I dropped the rest of the title, which continues, "will it power Republican midterm success?"

The 25th Anniversary of 9/11:

  • Tom Hull [09-10]: Remembering 9/11: "Notes from a highly personal turning point."

  • Jon Schwarz [09-10]: The most terrifying thing about 9/11 was America's resp[onse: "The fear I experienced that terrible day in New York doesn't begin to compare with the dread I've developed watching our path since."

    In the weeks after 9/11, I told friends who didn't live in New York that Al Qaeda had really put the terror back in terrorism. But the fear I experienced that terrible day does not begin to compare with the dread I've developed since. On September 11, 2001, I realized that I was on Al Qaeda's list. Since then, I've learned that I'm also on the list of the far more mighty people in charge of America, just a little further down. Even with the most concrete dangers facing us — the destruction of a livable biosphere, an enduring pandemic, and much more — they are absolutely committed to following the same path, driven onward by complex delusions. Power tends to corrupt, not just in a standard moral sense but also intellectually and emotionally, and they've held extreme power for a very long time. What I know now that I didn't know then is that if we let them, their corruption will surely destroy us all.

  • Elie Mystal [09-11]: The US had a choice after 9/11. It chose wrong.

  • Nick Turse [09-11]: Osama Bin Laden won: "The architect of the September 11 attacks dreamed of the destruction of America. In the last 25 years, his wish has come true." Well, sure, that part of Bin Laden's plan came true, or is coming true, as the corpse of American empire is still animated, twitching and lashing out, still causing incalculable harm to itself and the world. But the other part of Bin Laden's dream, that devout Muslims would rise up against the impious charlatans who ran Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and the rest of the Muslim world, that didn't happen, the only flickers of revolt occurring in the vacuum of states that were mere collateral damage of the Americans, like the Iraq/Syria borderlands, Libya, Somalia, and Mali. Meanwhile, Israel, whose leaders were giddy with delight on 9/11, has become ever more genocidal, as US presidents Biden and Trump have given up any consideration of independent thought.

    Bin Laden's bleed-until-bankruptcy plan was designed to sink America's economy — and it continues to work to great effect. And by ushering in the presidencies of Donald Trump, bin Laden left the United States morally bankrupt, too. Twenty-five years after 9/11, the country is a pale shadow of the superpower that emerged from World War II having been laid low not by the Soviet Union — the nuclear-armed power it long considered an existential threat — but by two trust-fund terrorists: the scions of a Saudi construction empire, and an outer borough New York City real estate developer, respectively.

  • Scott Hibbard [09-08]: 25 years after 9/11, the US still doesn't know 'why they hate us': "The War on Terror showed the perils of seeking military solutions for political problems. Policymakers never got the message."

  • Thomas Palley [09-11]: An American tragedy: the woeful self-inflicted consequences of 9/11.

  • Robert Wright [09-11]: Always forget: My own personal takeaway from 9/11:

    But if I were in charge of US foreign policy, the message I'd try to get out is: "Forget! Forget! Forget!" Dwelling on 9/11 is what initiated and helped sustain a disastrous quarter century of American adventurism abroad.

    I mean, sure, if America's leaders had rationally assessed the causes of the 9/11 attack, dwelling on it could have been productive. They might have started by looking into the conditions that gave birth and subsequent energy and direction to al Qaeda, and pondered the following possibilities: (1) Maybe the US shouldn't have staged a proxy intervention in Afghanistan two decades earlier that flooded the place with weapons and created the cauldron that enticed, shaped, and revved up a young Osama bin Laden (and also created the violent chaos that allowed the Taliban to take control of Afghanistan — a position the Taliban used, during the runup to 9/11, to provide safe haven for bin Laden and al Qaeda). (2) And maybe, after the Persian Gulf War of 1991, the US shouldn't have established an enduring military presence in the Islamic holy land, Saudi Arabia — a presence that became a persistent and powerful bin Laden grievance and helped direct his belligerence toward America.

    Conceivably, such reflections on the past could have led to such ideas about the future as: Maybe what the US should avoid after 9/11 is further military adventures in Muslim countries. After all, such adventures might continue to be conducive to the creation or growth of militantly anti-American groups — and might also prove a godsend for any terrorist recruiters who wanted to focus their efforts on young alienated men already living in America.

    If the memory of 9/11 had set in motion trains of thought like this, I'd be OK with remembering.

Major Threads

War on Iran:

Israel:The focus here is on Israel's wars, especially against their own people, and on internal Israeli politics. A second section will address Israel's relations with the world, especially the US.

Israel-American-World Relations: This section deals with Israel's relations with the world, especially the US, both at the state level and regarding public opinion.

  • Michael Arria [09-03]: House passes bill blocking schools from boycotting Israel: "An anti-BDS bill passed in the House 237-169 with heavy AIPAC-backed Democratic support, as the Trump administration quietly extends its Iran deployment to 2027 despite 63% of Americans opposing the war."

  • Dave Zirin [09-15]: Justice for Macklemore: "The rapper has been dumped from Ed Sheeran's tour for saying 'Free Palestine.' That's a disgrace." Well, obviously, it's Palestine that needs justice, not Macklemore. But note first that the person who claims credit for blacklisting Macklemore is Robert Kraft, who thanks to the people of Massachusetts owns the stadium Sheeran was scheduled to perform at.

Ukraine, Other Hot Spots, and World Politics: A catch-all, where the focus is away from, but not unaffected by, Trump's wars.

  • Wen Stephenson [09-08]: A reckoning comes for Nepal: "A year after its Gen Z uprising, Nepal faces a struggle not only for democracy and human rights but for climate survival." Nepal is in the news after catastrophic flodding caused by melting glaciers caused by, well, you know.

  • CJ Polychroniou [09-09]: Germany's fascist party just won control of a state government: "The Alternative for Germany party's victory in the Saxony-Anhalt state election is an ominous coup for the far right."

  • Zack Beauchamp [09-09]: A Nazi-curious party just won big in Germany. The White House approves. "How a very dangerous state election in Germany helps reveal Trump's real foreign policy." Note especially that Elon Musk has spoken at AfD rallies. Vance and Rubio have also spoken out in favor of the AfD. I've sometimes referred to Steve Bannon's efforts to organize a World Brotherhood of Fascists, but what practical value do nationalists have in cooperating with each other? It's true that the US has long supported certain fascists abroad, but that's usually for lack of a liberal alternative in face of a left-wing threat. This just looks like a circle jerk.

  • Sandra Davidovic [09-16]: What NATO leaves behind as it pulls back from Kosovo: "27 years after the Western intervention in Yugoslavia, the alliance is starting to withdraw despite ongoing tensions."

Trump's War Department: I set this section up to deal with Trump's threats of war. We're obviously beyond that now, so see the section on Iran for more on that.

Trump vs. Law and/or Law vs. America: From ICE to the Supreme Court and the assault on democracy.

Trump's Administration: Trump can't remake America in his own image (i.e., destroy the country, culture, and civilization) just by himself. He needs help, and having largely purged the government of civil servants and replaced them with his own minions, this is what they are doing — whether he's paying attention or not, and that it's mostly not is no excuse: he sets the tone, then distracts the media with his own insanity.

Donald Trump: The cult (or should I say sinkhole?) of personality. While most of the bad things he has done and is doing are the work of his administration, and many of their bad ideas are deeply ingrained in the Republican Party, he hogs the spotlight, giving them a uniquely pungent odor.

  • Harold Meyerson [08-24]: Clone Natalie Harp! "Every insecure American deserves a Natalie."

  • John Ganz [08-24]: Trump's third-worldism: Some interesting notes here on Trump's use of tariffs:

    Trump's tariffs increasingly function less like uniform rules than as the opening bid in negotiations between firms and the state. For instance, Pharmaceutical companies can obtain tariff exemptions by reaching pricing and investment agreements with the administration. An even clearer example comes from the polysilicon sector: Trump imposed new Section 232 tariffs, but simultaneously authorized Commerce to approve company-specific "onshoring plans." If Commerce approves a firm's plan, that firm can import covered products and production equipment without paying the tariff, in quantities Commerce judges commensurate with the firm's investment. Commerce can vary the benefits and later rescind them if it decides the company has not lived up to its commitments.

    To sum up, the government first creates a rent by restricting market access, then acquires the power to distribute that rent through exemptions and carve-outs. Under such circumstances, cultivating political access can become as important to profits as lowering costs or developing better products. . . .

    It's worth noting here that this is not really protectionism per se, which can be quite regular and boring: you have some rationalized system of tariffs — a clear-cut policy — that's supposed to end up with a specific result. This is more like something you might call a "discretionary economy," where things move at the personal discretion of the Big Boss or one of his plenipotentiaries. The developmentalist pretext, where the regime is defending domestic industry, is conveniently compatible with the needs of corruption.

  • Eric Levitz [09-11]: Trump keeps telling voters he doesn't care much about affordability: "The president is engineering a pre-midterms price spike." There's a chart here showing that on how Trump is handling the cost of living, 24.3% approve, and 70.2% disapprove. That suggests to me less that the Trump's GOP has an "affordability problem" than that it has a reality problem.

Electoral Politics: Pieces on US elections (recent and future) and, more generally, inter-party politicking. Party-specific pieces in following sections.

  • Ed Kilgore:

    • [09-06]: Three ways the 2026 midterms could reshape Washington: Nothing interesting here at all: either party could sweep both houses of Congress, or they could split (Republicans hanging onto the Senate, Democrats taking the House). The assumption is that under each of these scenarios, everyone will act as expected (except maybe Trump, unless you've already normalized his tantrums).

  • Michael Tomasky [09-04]: Donald Trump as no idea of the tidal wave that's coming for him: "There are three groups of voters who matter in this election, and each of them is going to punish the president." He justifies this by having been right once before (1998?), so that's not terribly convincing. His three groups:

    1. "people like you and me — the people who always thought he was a fascist goon and an imbecile"
    2. "swing voters who were naïve enough to believe that Trump could lower prices and fix the economy"
    3. "Betrayed MAGA Pigeons . . . [who thought] Trump would improve the economy; that he was right on immigration and heads needed to be cracked; that Kamala Harris was the real warmonger, and Trump would calmly keep the peace. Well, that defense against reality has been crushed like a grape under a tire." He thinks it's more likely that this group will simply not vote, than that they will turn and vote for a Democrat.

    In a rational world, he's right. In ours?

  • Chris Lehmann [09-11]: Trump wants voters to pretend he's on the ballot: "But Republican midterm candidates are hoping everyone forgets he exists."

  • Caitlin Dewey [09-15]: 6 other ways Trump is meddling in the midterms: "The Supreme Court ruled against Trump's mail voting rules, but the president is still trying to mess with the election."

  • Miles Bryan/Sean Rameswaram [09-15]: California's audacious plan to tax its billionaires: "And why some tax experts think there's a better way to do it." Interview with Cristobal Young, who wrote The Myth of Millionaire Tax Flight: How Place Still Matters for the Rich. Doesn't sound like he's against it. One complaint here is: "Firstly, it's a one-time tax, but this is not a one-time problem."

Other Republicans:

Democrats:

  • Ben Schwartz [09-04]: Hasan Piker and the Democrats' edgelord dilemma: Cited for reference. I don't know enough about Piker to care what he says. And I'll trust politicians like Abdul El-Sayed to speak for themselves. I will say, though, that if you want to complain about "dirtbag trolls," that isn't a left problem, even if you find a few examples that break against the right.

  • Dylan Gyauch-Lewis [09-13]: Centrists are soft-launching the idea that we have a little too much democracy: "As the right attacks mass particpation head on, the center is telling the rest of us to pipe down while the elites are talking." At a time when every day's news is filled with things we should find outrageous, Matthew Yglesias is quoted as saying "what we need is fewer engaged people," another wag is complaining about "the growing obsession with the common good," while consultants are advising a "move away from the dominance of small-dollar donors." Centrists are like hall monitors (or prison guards) assigned to keep rank-and-file Democrats from getting too uppity.

  • Matthew Duss [09-16]: The reality today is that foreign policy hawks are a minority in the Democratic Party. As noted, rank-and-file Democrats are significantly less hawkish than their representatives, especially on Israel. Duss wants more accurate representation on foreign policy roles. What he doesn't do is go further and argue that Democrats need to reconcile foreign policy with their core domestic policy beliefs: that support for war, tyranny, and exploitation abroad is deeply at odds with the way they think that Americans should be treated.

Economists and the Economy:

Technology (Including AI):

  • Rebecca Gordon [08-31]: It's time to rein in lethal AI drones: Gordon wrote a similar piece in TomDispatch in 2022 (A world of killer robots?), but with all the AI apocalypse talk of late, it's worth noting that some of this is already happening, and that you don't need AGI to start killing people. All you need is to hook a killing machine, like a missile-equipped drone, to a fairly rudimentary computer program. We've already seen a huge acceleration in two things: drone warfare (in Ukraine/Russia, where being used to hit targets way beyond the lines, and in the Middle East (Iran, Yemen, Israel, the US); and Israel's use of AI for target selection in Gaza and Lebanon. I used to think that AI deployment would be slow as people would first have to make sure it works correctly, but Israel clearly doesn't care whether AI target selection meets strict criteria; they only care to make sure that their bomb budget gets applied efficiently. As near as I can figure out, Israel's military strategy in Gaza (and they seem to be applying this wholesale in Lebanon, if anything more effectively, as most residents of occupied southern Lebanon have been able to flee north):

    1. Identify a list of Palestinian leaders ("militants" prominently, but others may be included, like journalists), and kill them all off whenever possible.
    2. Systematically destroy critical infrastructure, making daily life as hard as possible for everyone (greenhouses are a good example here).
    3. And they are killing small numbers of people almost randomly, in a strategy that could be called "stochastic terror."

    AI is certainly useful for sifting intelligence data (especially images, which can involve facial recognition), the likelihood that it will generate false positives in target selection is high. But since that just adds to the stochastic terror, that's their idea of a feature.

  • Rachel Cohen Booth [09-08]: The smartphone trap we built for ourselves: "It's time to end the mandatory QR code."

  • Andrew Prokop [09-14]: The week the AI freakout went mainstream: "Warnings about AI killing many people, or everyone, are going viral. Here are 3 things the government could do." The false premise here is the idea that under Trump, there is a "the government" that can actually do anything. None of these three strike me as especially good: banning some forms of AI; introducing government oversight; increasing civil liabilities. My own preference is to undercut the bubble by reducing the potential economic rewards for owners of AI technology. One could, for instance, deny patent protection to AI tech or anything developed with AI tech. One could require that all AI be open source and publicly auditable and reparable. One could also prohibit suspect organizations, like militaries and security forces, from buying AI-based products (since they are the most likely to abuse them).

  • David Futrelle [09-14]: Time has run out for AI risk deniers: "The recent spate of reports about the technology's destructive power underline two prime directives: Be afraid, and regulate aggressively." But I still don't understand what these "existential threats" are and how they work. On the other hand, it's relatively easy to see how the fearmongering feeds into the mystique of AI, thereby driving up its potential value to owners.

  • Cameron Peters [09-14]: Everyone but Trump is worried about AI: "AI experts want guardrails. Trump wants to go full speed ahead." Of course, nothing could be less reassuring than that Trump is the exception here. This quotes Trump:

    The only control or 'guardrails' that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades. There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China. WHOEVER WINS AI, WINS!

    Wins? If the race is to see who can first produce autonomous agents of mass destruction, is "winner" a word that makes any sense?

  • Natasha Lennard [09-14]: Tech CEO's doomsaying is a distraction from real, existing harms of AI: "The binary between AI apocalypse and AI redemption asks us to ignore data centers and AI war machines — all as tech executives get incredibly rich."

Climate and Environment:

Media:

Regular Columnists

Sometimes an interesting columnist writes often enough on a range of topics that it makes sense to collect their work in one place, rather than scatter it about (especially if they cover a range of topics).

Jeffrey St Clair:

  • [09-04]: Roaming Charges: America First, Americans Eventually: I'm shocked to say this, but he's more optimistic than I am. Starts with the story of Brian José Morales Garcia, a US citizen who was snatched up by ICE and deported to Mexico. Further down he quotes a more famous deportee:

    + Milo Yiannopoulos on his arrest and deportation (apparently it's funny when it happens to Haitians, Salvadorans, and Mexicans and an outrage when they come after you): "I didn't really understand the physical reality of how institutionalized the brutality is in America. The manner in which they arrest you, they put you in manacles; everybody is arrested like an MS 13 gang member. It was physically degrading. It was frightening. I don't think I've ever been frightened like that before. I was weeping like an old woman for an hour. I wouldn't wish it on anyone."

    + As they kicked 5 million American families off of food aid, the Trump White House is offering white South Africans $4500 in living expenses to move here . . .

    + Norman Mailer: "Will the time come when we can cease concerning ourselves with the fiction that the rich need large profit incentives in order to keep our economy going? Just as a poor man does all he can to survive under the most wretched circumstances, so will the rich continue to be rich (although less so) if their profits are reduced by the recognition that a modern society cannot take an honest breath until it manages to provide for all of its citizens."

    Unfortunately, I think the answer to this, thirty years after said this during his Chubb Lecture at Yale, is no . . . Not this society, anyway.

    + A new Reuters poll finds that 89% of Americans believe that corruption in government is "widespread." But how many of them think, to rework the line from Wall Street, that "corruption is good," as long as your guy's the one doing the grifting?

    + Trump continued to buy and sell oil and gas stocks throughout his war on Iran. Trump's one-third Roy Cohn, one-third Jay Gould and one-third Baby Huey . . .

  • [09-18]: Roaming Charges: Say hello to my little gear!: Opens with Trump:

    Trump no longer projects power. Only the gilded trappings are left. But the low-rent Versailles decor he has cocooned himself inside only makes him look like an aging potentate well past his prime. He has surrounded himself with sycophants, none of whom have the political skills to save him from the perilous pit he has dug for himself and the country at large. . . .

    Mostly, though, Trump seems bored, out of it half the time, barely engaged the rest. The old fire has burned down to a few smoldering embers. He's distracted by shiny things. His Oval Office bric-a-brac. His ballroom. His arch. His name on the Kennedy Center. Natalie, oh, Natalie.

    He's caught in a war that he can't win and can't bring himself to get out of. It's the mentality of someone he never went to war but has played the role of a bully his entire life. Nothing infuriates Trump more than being called a loser. But he is one. . . .

    Trump is Trump, even in his diminished capacity. There will be no successor. In a sense, there will be nothing to succeed to. The Trump political empire, like his economic empire, is a mirage. . . .

    There was always only the brand and the brand without the man is empty, a void filled only with debts that will never be paid.

    More items:

    + The 100 wealthiest Americans now hold an estimated $5.5 trillion in net worth, which exceeds the $4.3 trillion combined total held by the entire bottom half of the U.S. population (roughly 66 million households).

    + CNBC: "The number of apartments renting for more than $50,000 a month in Manhattan has more than doubled compared with 2025, while the number renting for more than $100,000 a month is up sevenfold."

    + NOAA: "The average temperature for meteorological summer (June-August) 2026 was the warmest for the contiguous United States in the 132-year record, exceeding the previous records, set in 1936 and 2021, by 0.4 degrees." Five years from now, people will be longing for the summer of 2026 . . .

    + Macklemore should put together his own tour with Kneecap and Bob Vylan.

    + Ben Ehrenreich: "It's sort of a weird tell to fervently believe that anything smarter than us would want us all dead."

    + RFK. Jr. on Trump: "I discovered a self-effacing man of superior intelligence, of empathy and compassion with an encyclopedic grasp of the issues and in molecular detail. And most of all a near-reckless courage to challenge vested interests and official orthodoxies . . . who cared about transparency in government and free speech."

Miscellaneous Pieces

The following articles are more/less in order published, although some authors may have collected pieces, and some entries may have related articles underneath.

Katherine Krueger [09-07]: They tried to make Charlie Kirk a saint. They made him a meme. "By elevating Kirk to a martyr and clamping down on free speech, the right assured that he would be ridiculed even in death." It's been one year since the Republican youth organizer was killed, and the right-wing propaganda machine went into overdrive trying both to sanctify him and to turn his death into a club for use in beating anyone who expressed doubts or indifference. (See, e.g., Alain Stephens [2025-10-14] The right wing desperately wants to make Charlie Kirk its MLK.)

Books: Multiple reviews are grouped under book.

  • Vivian Gornick [09-08]: Home truths: "Love and literature in Leslie Fiedler's America." Revisits Fiedler's 1960 book, Love and Death in the American Novel. I recall reading his book later in the decade, and being astonished at how interesting it was to read about books that my previous schooling had convinced me were so dead-ass boring as to be unreadable. I never overcame that early prejudice, but I did read widely about books I never read, and it proved to be a pretty efficient learning strategy.

  • Osita Nwanevu [09-08]: Can we save democracy? "Hélène Landemore's case for an alternative system of popular government." Review of her book, Politics Without Politicians: The Case for Citizen Rule. The critique of the intrinsic flaws of politicians is interesting, and possibly accurate, but they seem like a necessity now and well into the future. It is very rare that one gets a chance to design a political system from scratch. (Where I have thought about this, as in standing up initial consultative governance in a Gaza freed of Israel, where past political parties would be unwelcome, I have come up with similar approaches, starting with a random selection of representatives.) I'd be curious here about what the book has to say about "Bringing the Shy People Out." Also on Landemore:

    • Nathan Heller [2020-02-19]: Politics Without Politicians: "The political scientsit Hélène Landemore asks, If government is for the people, who can't the people do the governing?" Which refers back to an earlier (2012) book, Democratic Reason: Politics, Collective Intelligence, and the Rule of the Many.

  • Christian Paz [09-08]: How Christians can fight back against Christian nationalism: "A new book argues that the future of democracy depends on a segment of American Christians." Interview with Robert P Jones, author of Backslide: Reclaiming a Faith and a Nation After the Christian Turn Against Democracy.

  • Jonathan Kaufman [09-09]: Blame Ronald Reagan: Author has a new book, When America Roared: How the 1980s Saved, Then Broke, the Country — and Led Us to Today. Googled summed up the core argument: "While Ronald Reagan's market-driven changes saved the US from 1970s economic stagnation, they also broke the social contract and created modern populist anger." The economic feats of the Reagan years were much less impressive than many people are given to think, mostly because they were so unevenly distributed. From the New Deal in the 1930s through most of the 1970s, workers were able to claim a nice chunk of business profits, sustaining the notion that the country was unified — not that there were no exceptions, but nothing like what happened in the 1980s, when unions were busted, taxes on the rich were slashed, and opportunities for financial shenanigans exploded. Much of this can be traced back to previous presidential agendas — Kennedy (tax cuts), Nixon (ending the gold standard, farm policy), and Carter (deregulation) — but with Reagan profiteering went shameless, creating a cult of the rich that leads directly to Trump. The only boom industry in America in the 1980s was fraud, which is why Reagan wound up with more corruption scandals than any presidents since Harding and Grant, but even more telling is what people got away with. Kaufman drops some names here — evidently his book is built around profiles of people like Jack Welch — but doesn't go very deep. Still, that something significant happened around 1980 is well established. Reagan's popularity rested largely on adoption of a fantasy of American bliss, a stark contrast to the bleak worldview of Carter. What's harder to understand is why Democrats got invested in the same delusions, especially as they became increasingly untenable. It's taken Trump to finally expose Reagan as the ogre he always was.

  • Kai Bird [09-15]: We are living under Roy Cohnian logic: "The political fixer created a career for himself as a self-promoting, ubiquitous hustler. Like Trump, he got away with it by having the right friends." The author, with Susan Goldmark, wrote the book American Scoundrel: Roy Cohn's Dark Journey from Joe McCarthy to Donald Trump.

Music:

Other media:

Obituaries: I had been using the New York Times, but they're giving me aggravation these days, so I'll switch over to Wikipedia, also August), which is probably better anyway. Roughly speaking, since my last report on August 27:

Some other names I recognize:

Tweets: I've usually used this section for highlighting clever responses and/or interesting ideas.

Current count: 132 links, 8064 words (10373 total)

Ask a question, or send a comment.