The discussions here about defunding police are emblematic of the sad fact that today's information culture makes the possibility of government by the people, of the people, and for the people probably no longer possible.
The very fact of the discussion is proof that the discussion is fruitless. Today if you have to explain anything, you ipso facto lose any chance of explaining anything.
The only way to "explain" anything these days is to fire a high-velocity emotion pellet past the brain into the id.
OK, I'll bite. While I agree-ish with your last sentence, not sure about the others. What about the discussions regarding defunding the police cause you to think the American experiment is over? I see lots of things explained all the time; seems OK to me.
Love Tom Nichols (and subscribe to TD as well as here), but Greene and Carlson do gain $ and status/position within their markets by their Trumpy branding. Agreed that Russia per se has nothing much to do with it. I agree with those downthread who say (maybe not in those words) that it resembles the (still around to some degree) pre-Woke left's fondness for Castro, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Chavez, etc.
Love the Bulwark. I'm a Liberal Canadian, but grew up in a border city so have immersed myself in U.S. politics most of my life. I have a suggestion for the website. Love it when you open your podcasts with suggestions of what you are watching on Netflix, etc.. Have watched several series like Broadchurch and Shetland due to your suggestions and loved them. Made the mistake of not writing down other titles you recommended. Would love a section on the website of what you are watching to escape from the news and what everyone is reading - non-fiction and fiction. Have a great weekend.
The greatest irony may be that the working class MAGA base of the party is actually the best recruiting tool for moving Black and Hispanic male voters into the GOP.
It turns out that working class Black and Hispanic men identify more closely with working class whites for a variety of reasons. As opposed to their elites that presume to speak for the Black and Hispanic communities.
First, they don't experience the much vaunted racism and white supremacy that their white peers are supposed to carry. They live and work among them. As a result they experience their white peers differently than they are portrayed in the media. Go visit a working class trailer park and you will see a lot of race mixing going on than might be expected. Interracial ride sharing to work. Interracial dating, child rearing and marriage.
Second, working class Blacks and Hispanics seek the same life style advantages of their white peers. Hard work defines their relationship to employment NOT racial discrimination. They are just as concerned about undocumented workers competing for their jobs as their white peers.
Third as noted Black and Hispanic men are socially conservative to start with. Their religious identity informs their attitudes toward LGBTQ rights and abortion which are alien to their consciousness. The role of women is also seen differently.
Fourth, the role of government looms large. Venezuelan, Central Americans and Cubans have had enough of authoritarianism--- and are not eager to embrace even a benign and paternalistic "big government" which is what the "socialism" thing boils down to.
When it comes down to Democrats they need to stop their patronizing condescension and start hosting fun block parties and fiestas. The overly serious Democrats have missed the fun that Trump has brought to the political landscape. Sure it is vulgar... but Trump Flag parades and boat parades and rallies are fun. Democrats need to dump the dour, neo-puritanical, hypercritical attitude and start meeting the working class where they live.
Hey Charlie, this is a couple days out of date, but after listening to your Wednesday podcast with David Priess, just thought I would weigh in on something of interest to me:
David mentioned that he was probably going to annoy mathematicians by saying that students should be taking prob/stat instead of calculus. I have an MS in Mathematics and I agree 100%.
Look, I love calculus. So much that as a teenager in high school, I read ahead in the textbook in bed at night. It's beautiful, and I'd heartily recommend it for anyone interested in math (even if you're not quite to my level of nerdiness).
That said, for the other 98% of the population, probability and statistics is *far* more useful and important, especially in this day where we are realizing the importance of maintaining an informed citizenry who knows how to interpret what they read in the news and online.
In fact, I have been annoyed to see the idea of replacing calculus with prob/stat being cast as an example of "wokeness" infecting high school curricula. The implication here that this is another example of "dumbing down" a subject to placate those who believe it to be an example of structural racism because of the underperformance of some minority groups. Prob/stat can be every bit as challenging as calculus.
And to David: this shouldn't annoy mathematicians, because prob/stat is math too! Even most PhDs would be hard pressed to disagree about the relative importance of prob/stat.
Oh, and one other thing: I have *Electronic Stratego* in my basement. :-)
I took statistics in college it was not easy...though any math above Algebra II I struggle with...but, it was a fascinating and useful course, as was one called "Logic" which dealt with decision making...I still make pro and con lists when I need to make a big decision
Statistics is hard because humans are not mentally structured to think in combinatorial ways. Calculus is easy because as soon as you grasp the idea of a limit the consequences are obvious. We subconsciously do calculus in our heads when we throw rocks at a target, just as birds compute trajectories literally on the fly when they effortlessly flash from one branch to another, avoiding all obstacles in between. Diffequations is hard only because you have to habituate yourself to the patterns and resemblances of trigonometric identities and infinite expansions, but the basis is fundamentally as simple as tracing a line from here to there.
Adding a post note. I speculate one reason Americans are not only innumerate but in many respects almost anti-numerate is they don't want to grow up and admit that life guidance should not be through instantaneous emotional impulses. Part of that comes I think from the American tradition of salvation through an emotional purgation of sin that happens without effort, like an orgasm. You don't have to think, you have only to believe. Once you believe you are saved and it's all simple.
Ha, all greek to me ....( I stopped after Algebra II...had all I needed to get into college and as a liberal arts major, didn't think I needed more than what I already had...Math is the only subject that I really struggled with at times ( hated geometry, but, loved Algebra ( think it might be a right brain/left brain thing...lol) ...and I use math for a living now, but, the lower ends of it...as a bookkeeper...lol
I am sorry for that... I thought I hated math, because I was so good at language skills I thought everything should be like the falling off a log that reading and writing was.
But worst of all I had great language/history teachers and truly terrible math teachers. My 9th grade algebra teacher was a true asshole whose ambition was to be a footbal coach and who in retrospect I now see hated his job and went out of his way to make his students see the subject with the loathing he felt for his own pathetic life. And maybe also he literally was afraid that any student who was actually interested in the subject would try to engage with him on it, and show his own lack of ability or knowledge. Somehow I got through several terms of high school algebra but can't recall giving a damn. The instructors were at best nonentities.
I always loved and was fascinated by science. But I went through college without taking a single math course -- graduate courses in literature, history, poli-sci but no math -- and only later signed up for a calc course after my graduation because I wanted to understand what was wrong with Zeno's paradoxes (I was a philosophy major).. And that was the most amazing wonderful class I ever had, like fireworks going off. The incredible beauty of the idea totally captivated me. It worked because (maybe I'd grown up a little) but also because the instructor was as enthusiastic about it and burned with a fire to share that ecstasy with his students. And then I took physics and it was even better.
I still remember in second or third term calc not paying attention to whatever the instructor was actually working through but suddenly seeing the amazing, totally mind blowing way that any smooth and continuous function can be represented to an arbitrarily perfect approximation by a sum of sin and cosine functions. And jumping out of my seat and shouting that it was beautiful. It was better than seeing God. It was like for a moment almost being Johann Sebastian Bach. and the instructor, instead of summoning the police and having me ejected for causing the disturbance, asked what that was about and we spent the rest of the class diverted onto that topic. He was as enthused as I was.
We don't show kids how exquisitely beautiful the ideas are. So they go out into the world like the Romanian orphans who never knew what it is to have a loving caregiver. Or growing up and never seeing the glory of a sunset.
Well… I’m an old guy and the last time I really tried to use the maths I used to use so easily it seemed my head was full of cotton. I was putting together a simple model to calculate hardness concentration in a cooling tower given a few inputs, heat rejection due to evaporation, hardness of makeup, dilution due to blowdown… frustrating. Probably mostly lack of practice but also I’m sure brain ossification.. but I never will forget the numinous experience of seeing the few glimpses I’ve been vouchsafed of a tiny sliver of a part of a portion of a subset of a fragment of how reality works. Even though today I’m just another mud brain chimpanzee who saw a sunset once and that is all he gets.
When Newton and Leibniz first saw it, they must have imagined they had been given the keys to eternity. I treasure my own glimpse of that infinite landscape. It extends beyond what we see with the mind. It is also what we find in the Odyssey of Homer or the story of the Monkey King in the journey to the West or the statue of David in Florence or the dome of the Hagia Sophia.. or the brown eyes of my little firstborn child and her somber brown eyes looking at me, her hopelessly inadequent father, six hours after emerging from the body of my dear dear wife who for whatever reason, not that I deserve it, still claims to love me a half century after I assured her I would be her best friend forever and am today as ever since that day striving to fulfill that promise.
What our teachers need to do is raise the gaze of our young young chimpanzee progeny above the tiny horizon of their stupid phones and iPads up to the vast sky overarching their heads, and the wide range of visible frequencies our biological eyes cannot see but our minds have revealed to us. And all the further vistas beyond that we don’t even yet know await us.
By the way, despite her father she turned out to be awesome. And married into a family of amazingly marvelous people.
So go figure. Joy does not follow desert. If the arc of history truly bended toward justice in every case, why am I showered with blessings?
This morning as I read down the list of MAGA voices in Charlie's letter, I once again experienced my usual one-word gut reaction to these people...maggots. Then I had a thought, based on the overall reaction polls show among Republicans regarding Ukraine. It's probably incorrect, and is quite unlike me in that it actually contains a tiny sliver of hope regarding all things Republican. Nevertheless, for the briefest of moments at least, I contemplated the fact that perhaps we are looking at these MAGA maggots, sickening and deplorable though they are, in the wrong light.
Democracy in this country has been gravely wounded. I'm not knowledgeable enough about the subject to point to an exact time or place as to when the laceration occurred, but I do know that it happened before MAGA was even a thing, and its rent flesh has been septic and festering ever since.
Enter the maggots...
For those unfamiliar, maggot wound therapy is a real thing. Feel free to look it up, if you wish. It originated in antiquity as a way to treat wounds that refused to heal on their own and therefore became progressively more septic and life threatening, and is still practiced today in certain instances, the main difference being that today the "medical maggots" are sanitized and their use much more controlled and precise. In the right circumstances, and when other modern treatments fail, they can be quite effective at cleaning out necrotizing tissue, halting the spread of the infection and exposing clean healthy flesh, which then has a much better chance of healing.
So, my brain working in the weird way that it often does in making associations, for a moment the thought crossed my mind that perhaps the MAGA folks are the equivalent of the maggots needed to clean American democracy's deep and festering wounds, their seemingly deplorable gnawing at its flesh accomplishing what other remedies have heretofore failed to do...expose clean, healthy flesh to the healing process.
Of course, one of the essential tricks to the success of this therapy is to know when the little beasts' work is done, and to remove them before their insatiable appetite for filth devours too much of the clean and healthy tissue surrounding the injury. Perhaps the sound of democracy facing a real-world clear and present existential threat in Ukraine is the sound of the timer going off in a few people's heads that now is that time, even if they don't consciously recognize it as such. Maybe, just maybe the sight of dead parents and children in the streets of a democratic country, not unlike our own in its love of true and genuine freedom, is, sadly, exactly what was needed to ring the bell on when enough is enough.
Yeah, it's a stretch to even contemplate this. I'd say that, in fact, it's one hell of a long shot. But, having laid down a few bucks on longshots back when I used to watch the ponies run on sunny afternoons in more care-free times, a longshot sometimes does sneak its nose under the wire first. And in a time when holding onto hope itself often seems like a longshot, I guess there are worse ways to spend the energy of a few brain cells.
Two things are quite interesting here. The first being that when asking 'who speaks for the GOP' there are two answers: money, and crazy. By which I mean that the people who are 'sane' tend to be the monied ones; insulated from the day to day rat race of politics they can take positions they think are comfortable without rocking the boat. The crazy ones are the ones who feel they need the energy of the voters; they speak to the subset that might be small in number but which give in time and money.
But I personally think that what they say isn't important, it's what they do that matters. If you want to know what they think, look at how they vote, not at what they say about it. The votes with Ukraine are no different than the GOP members who talked about not taking away people's healthcare and then voting to do so. That we lack media that will simply call lies what they are is part of what they can do this.
As for the matter of black voters, you're correct that no one should take voters for granted. But you also cherry pick around the real problems that are being presented. It's true that black voters skew more conservative, but this is because they're older. Voters that don't vote for the Democrats also aren't voting for the GOP. Why? Because the GOP is a full white nationalist party that actively makes harassing black people part of its agenda. The issue is not one of swing voters but not voters.
The real issue among Hispanics is not one that can be counted as racial the way black votes are; by which I mean that black voters vote Democratic because the GOP is hostile to them in a way that they aren't for a lot of Hispanics. What does that mean? Well, there's a clear divide between how first and second born Hispanics vote compared to third and further generation Hispanics vote. Essentially, the latter vote the same as their white counterparts; in many cases they pass as white and act as such, as in the cases of people like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. They're also more likely to be hostile to immigrants, despite their own heritage. Essentially, by the third generation, they're no different than anyone who came over here before that point from any other place.
And the reason this is noteworthy is because Democrats have gotten very used to assuming that generations don't change things. Twenty years ago, the Hispanic vote was basically a lock, because democrats were the ones who supported their integration with the US. But now? They have little to no attachment to their old countries, no different than Irish people not having attachments to Ireland. They're Americans and they vote not based on the memories and struggles of an immigrant but as a born and bred American. That doesn't mean, by the way, that the GOP can take them for granted either.
Indeed, I would suspect that if the democrats have voters to be concerned about, it's young black people and white women. For the GOP, it's Hispanics.
Heads up, the "no" votes on that Ukrainian assistance package were actually no votes on the omnibus, of which Ukrainian assistance was less than 1%. Ben Sasse is hardly pro-Putin or MAGA.
This is true, but unless I missed it -- where were the Republicans hammering the Dem leadership for not stripping out the Ukraine military aid from the omnibus bill for a seperate vote? Not that there would have been any honesty or sincerity in it, but it seems strange that a party willing to pound the table about the opposition being at once insufficiently and excessively committed to supporting Ukraine would have been flogging a separate vote line like the proverbial bloody shirt.
It sort of smells like they aren't really sure which way they need to go.
Sooner or later, the drumbeat of Biden-bashing and Biden-opposition by the GOP is going to hurt Ukraine, as it and the deteriorating economic conditions (mostly due to the pandemic and the war) divert the majority of Republicans back toward domestic grievance politics and away from support of Ukraine. Fox News, of course, will do all it can to facilitate that.
It really does feel like the past decade of Western political history should be characterized by the rise of pro-Russian politicians, a lot of whom ran under the banner of right-wing populism. It's pretty clear that Trump was boosted by the Russians and encouraged to build a pro-Russia wing so that the American government might accept a Russian invasion and occupation as legitimate.
But with Trump out of office and the invasion proving to be a human rights catastrophe, the Russian disinformation playbook is buckling before our eyes. Where we go from here depends on the war's outcome, but it really feels like Putin bet big and lost everything. May that stay true.
I don't think it's inherently pro-russia. After all, they had the same attitude towards Orban. It's just that they have a fetish for 'strong' male leaders, who infuriate the right people. They actively support people like the Russians because they want to be the same thing here. It's not wholly different than those leftists in the 60's that supported the Soviets for the same reason.
Sure, we can debate how much the Republican base earnestly believes this stuff, but Trump has been very clear: Putin is strong and misunderstood, NATO is a racket, Ukrainians are corrupt and not worth defending, Putin taking the country over was smart.
This is a case of "you bought the ticket, now take the ride." Trump voters might not have taken Trump seriously when he praised Putin, but pro-Putin is what they'd get.
I've read that Putin, along with the Russian Orthodox Patriarch, long ago launched an influence operation among American religious and social conservatives, to persuade them that the Russian way was the antidote to secularism and decadence, and that the "liberal order" of alliances with other democracies was destroying our homegrown culture and national identity.
The strategy clearly worked quite well in corners of the right -- so well that some have basically taken the position that the logic of national self-determination permits a large country (with nukes) to devour smaller neighbors at will, and that only a corrupt globalism would try to stop it.
Absolutely. I'm sure they groomed Trump for the presidency because he was so easy to manipulate. He had strong relationships with the Russians living in NY. Especially the bankers.
You illuminate an interesting paradox. Right wing populism seems incompatible with their underlying, supposed “don’t tread on me” self concept. They (Republican voters) cast their lot with authoritarianism, assuming THEY themselves will be in charge. They refuse to comply with orders (masks? vaccines?), but gravitate towards leaders who are prone to giving orders. Cognitive dissonance is only possible with limited cognition.
What you say is really true. It's a symptom or characteristic of brainwashing. It doesn't have to make sense, and probably best if it doesn't. You just have to make suggestable people believe it without thinking.
It's because their right-wing populism isn't so much defined out of the small government/libertarian American political tradition, it's carved out of the nationalistic reactionary tradition that gave rise to fascism in Europe and quite similar to slavery/segregation politics that dominated the South, and to a degree still do.
One of the big early tells was the rampant opposition to any form of immigration, free trade, and globalization. Those ideas have been kicking around Europe anti-Syrian refugee and anti-EU, and were most successful in the UK.
Another big tell was how quickly white nationalists flocked to Trump's campaign, and transformed the GOP, even if it didn't explicitly endorse their ideas. Traditional conservatism must largely be small government (except for Christianity), but white supremacy is inherently discriminatory and unconstitutional, to enforce it you have to oppress the non-white population, is which 40% of us Americans.
So my point is basically, they aren't conservatives anymore, at least not ideologically. It's just a label to make white supremacy palatable.
Not only did white nationalists flock to Trump, but a lot of “mainstream conservatives” became white nationalists, once they recognized that power base. Integrity is in short supply.
"Don't tread on me" is sometimes just the flip side of "Let me impose my own preferences (including religion) on the whole country."
Some on the far right have somewhat openly soured on democracy, because it let's people they don't like influence policy. I think many would have been happy to see Trump overturn an election EVEN knowing he had lost fair and square.
The notion that Trump was constantly besieged by a nefarious Deep State that was sabotaging the choice of the American People is largely, IMO, camouflage for a belief that he should have been able to rule like a monarch without restraint by preexisting laws and institutions. I've heard insiders say that Trump was surprised and frustrated to learn that the president can't just do whatever he wants. And some "conservatives" think he's still the best choice for saving America!
A lot of them do. I have heard salt of the earth, good Americans say that they want Trump and his a god-aweful spawn to rule for the next 50 years. Go to a right wing enclave and talk to the people coming out of Church. You would be shocked at how anti Democracy they have become.
In my opinion, most of the “Stop The Steal” adherents know it’s a lie. I think most “disinformation” finds a very willing audience, an audience that isn’t fooled at all, but appreciates the cover for letting out their random anger.
Do you mean the GOP leadership? Oh, yes, certainly. But if you mean the "deplorables", et al, you might be surprised. From what I can see, lots of folks really do believe it. Take a ride around right-wing websites. It's a bit terrifying, but informative.
In many ways the progressive Deomcrats are as bad as the Dumpers but in different ways. They don't seem to have a grip on what the folks that elected them really want. At the moment I live in a district with a good solid old school Democrat but she is retireing and the district has been altered. I am an old life long liberal that believes is strong public saftey and well funded police departments. I have yet to hear what defunding police departments will accomplish? All this was caused by a deranged cop who murdered a man in plain sight. Then there is all the nonsense over clean energy, which I belive in, but it can't be accomplished in an instant. The progressives have forced the President into a position that probably will harm him in the future.
Exactly. That is why Biden has low poll numbers. The left says he's not doing enough for them. The right says he is doing too much. This makes me think he is doing just right. He is making decisions he thinks are right not for political gain. Sometimes they turn out good; sometimes not so good.
What defunding police departments would accomplish is satisfying self-righteous progressives who live in such safe neighborhoods that the only time they ever see a cop is when they get pulled over for speeding. Or at least, it would satisfy them for a short while; they'd start to wish they saw more cops if they ever got their way and crime rates rose in *their* neighborhoods. There's only so long they could tell themselves that their desire for safety was just another example of expectations born of their privilege. Eventually they'd realize their privilege was what led them to believe they didn't need cops in the first place.
I don't think any police dept has been defunded. I believe that is Fox News propaganda. When it was first mentioned, Biden immediately said absolutely NOT, in no uncertain terms. Left wing Bernie said not only did he NOT support defunding the police, he thought they should get more money. The police have a strong union and Bernie is nothing if not pro union.
Anyhow, on topic, "defund the police" had to be one of the stupidest things the woke wing came up with. However, that's all it ever was. At this point, it's mostly just a right-wing propaganda item. And, apparently it's still working
I think one thing you have to understand is that most democrats aren't really interested in 'defunding' the police, which is obvious because nowhere in the US has anyone actually defunded a police organization. In many cases, police budgets have increased from the Floyd murders.
The issue is that many Democrats see cops as being overly powerful and corrupt; they murder without oversight, can seize property without oversight, and in many cases are protected from wrongdoing by unions who ensure that they will never face any kind of discipline. The issue, simply put, is bad cops, not too many cops. But there's also the matter where we have far too many heavily armed police officers, which makes little sense. And if you don't think that's a problem, consider this: in many places in our country, gun laws are being loosened to allow anyone to carry a gun for any reason at all times. Now, ask yourself what happens when something happens and police who are trained to see people with guns as active shooters show up.
As for clean energy, the problem is that if you keep saying 'tomorrow' eventually tomorrow happens and you've never done anything. If you believe in something and will need it tomorrow, then you need to take actions now. If you keep putting something off, it will never happen.
The truth is not the progressives have forced the president into anything, the truth is that the President is in this position due to generations of ignoring the problem. High gas prices can't be solved by more drilling, because we're already a net exporter of oil. So we either need price controls, or to import more. And remember, it's a finite resource. Which means you will run out. Acting like we can just open up oil wells wherever won't fix our issue, and that also takes time and can't be accomplished in an instant. If you believe in clean energy, then that means that you need to invest today in it, not invest today in more drilling and hope tomorrow it'll be easier.
Well, we all have our views on issues but I'm not sure I needed a lecture based on your views. I never mentioned gas prices or oil but you certainly got off on that one. Anyway maybe you could explain to me and other readers how we are going to have a supply of EV's since there is still a chip shortage, a lack of battery production and a shortage of the raw materials needed to produce batteries? Since most of the minerals requirred to produce batteries are controlled by Russia and China the cost to obtain needed supplies may price EV's above what the normal human is willing to pay. Ford already has a two year backlog and if you look around there are few EV's available similar to the shortage of gas powered vehicles. I'm sure you are aware of the USPS decision on new vehicles. They have an immediade need to replace 30+ year old vehicles and EV's are not price competitive in the volume of vehicles USPS needs.
"we all have our views on issues but I'm not sure I needed a lecture based on your views." - er, it is a comments board. Different people giving their views and such.
"maybe you could explain to me and other readers how we are going to have a supply of EV's" - it's still early days for EVs. And, I wouldn't think raising objections in the current context of world-wide supply chain problems and other economic disruptions is a fair way to challenge EVs. As you implied, lots of things are being impacted.
Take a look at the cost of solar over the past decade. I'd bet the same will continue with EVs. It's a long game.
I fear this is far too much chasing wishes and not enough seeking after wisdom.
Putin maybe, maybe, is losing momentum at the moment because he isolated himself and went to war without the best people in charge and without adequate preparation and planning. Let us remember, Stalin did all that, plus not only arrested and imprisoned his top command structure— actually murdered them. And made almost every other wrong strategic and tactical decision he could— and nevertheless died from natural causes, unchallenged, as supreme autocrat of the greatest territorial and hegemonic scope any Russian Tsar ever had.
He achieved this because he never shrank from being the most relentlessly ruthless human bring on earth.
The dominant narrative is overlooking history and grasping at hopeful straws, as if Putin has now fatally cast himself as MacBeth and must inevitably perish when the crop of evil he has sown comes to fruition (and marches on his personal Dunsinane)…
Macbeth is a fantasy. If Shakespeare had written it according to the actual reality of the world, Macbeth would die in bed and it would be the head of MacDuff we see at the end.
Correct, Hitler didn't die in bed because Stalin (who did die in bed) sent his army into Berlin and pounded him into a corner he could finally not escape from .
Where is the Stalin whose army is driving Putin into the latter's death bunker? Who was the Stalin who trapped and destroyed Stalin?
We want to believe that the bad guys ultimately fail through the karma they make, and many do, but generally at the hands of worse.
Something I learned in Iraq that the Russian VDV corps is presently learning: there's an inversion point of diminishing return with size and strength, and it stops at how much weight you can put on someone's back. After that, it loses its utility. A guy who is 6' 4" and weighs 225 will get wasted by a sniper's bullet or step on an anti-personnel mine *exactly* the same as his 5'9" 170-lb counterpart. All that size doesn't do shit in a bombfight or a gunfight. It just makes you a bigger target who is harder to drag to cover once you take shrapnel or a sniper's bullet.
155-lb Iraqi teenager with an IED that cost $50 to make > 225-lb Marine machine-gunner covered in ballistic protection panels, ammunition drums, and advanced optics
Most Americans consider themselves Middle class. What people consider themselves is not what they really are. Most Black Americans favor robust social safety nets and unions, neither of which are conservative
But I’m beginning to realize that the culture of African Americans and Hispanics tend toward social conservatism, especially on matters of sexuality (and its variations) and also on women’s rights - which is ironic because strong women are the backbone of families in both cultures, in my limited understanding.
I can only speak anout the Black people in my family all of whom are middle class professionals and deeply committed to a strong public ed system through college and a social safety net.
I’m basing my comment on memory of polls showing that more Black men voted for Trump in 2020 than in 2016. And I seem to remember the same was true for Hispanic men; more swung over to Trump. It’s hard to reconcile that with what was revealed about Trump during his four years as president. I could imagine taking a chance the first time; but after those four years?
I can see why Hispanics would vote for him. Look at South and Central America. The most successful and popular leaders are authoritarian dictators. They respect the bully.
I think you’re right about that. I was naively astonished when I read Alexander Vindman’s book to learn that Russian immigrants in the U.S. are very supportive of Trump, including his own father - past tense for him.
There’s a lot about human nature that seems irrational to me; why would you uproot your whole family and move to the other side of the world to escape authoritarianism, and still feel favorably toward an authoritarian - when you have a choice? I think it must be the comfort of the familiar? Or perhaps the machismo of the background culture is too embedded to eradicate? But then, why leave in the first place?
Which brings me back to my own assessment of Trump followers; they think THEY will be in charge of “the libs”. They don’t imagine themselves on the receiving end of tyranny. They want to dish it out, but not take it. They embrace authoritarianism through the lens of the oppressor, not the oppressed. “Freedom for ME, not THEE.”
I really do believe it's cultural. The most conservative Black and Hispanic want to live like white conservative Americans. I have friends who are very middle-class and socially conservative, who are the children of illegal Mexican immigrants. And I experienced the same when I lived in Chicago among Polish immigrants. The people who I knew in that community are ardent Trump fans and would support him as President for life, in spite of the fact that they value being American and having American values.
It is always a gross miscalculation to assume that any artificial grouping of people equates to block voting. Vast diversity in priorities exist even in tightly knit cultural, ethic, racial and any other types of communities.
No but there are a number of well to do and middle class black men who respect money and power and male authoritarianism. They perhaps identify more with whites in those classes (especially Christians) than with the Black people who are still in the poor or lower economic class.
They tend toward social conservatism because they tend to be more religious; for African Americans, it's evangelical Christianity, for Hispanics it tends to be Catholicism. That's not true across the board, but it fits a large enough swath to be true. Having said that, it's worth noting that if you want to understand the social dynamics of both cultures, look at their pop culture and what is idolized and expressed through it. Beyond that, both African americans and hispanic cultures in the US are often hypermasculine; they actively promote the concepts of masculinity that we see espoused from conservatives.
Yes, to your comment about hyper-masculinity in both cultures. I seem to remember polls showing that, just like white Americans, there is a significant gender skew, with males leaning toward authoritarian Republicans.
But in observing the pop culture of African Americans, the religiosity is harder to see as a factor, although the Catholicism of migration across our southern border was an easily predictable source of social/political conservatism.
The discussions here about defunding police are emblematic of the sad fact that today's information culture makes the possibility of government by the people, of the people, and for the people probably no longer possible.
The very fact of the discussion is proof that the discussion is fruitless. Today if you have to explain anything, you ipso facto lose any chance of explaining anything.
The only way to "explain" anything these days is to fire a high-velocity emotion pellet past the brain into the id.
OK, I'll bite. While I agree-ish with your last sentence, not sure about the others. What about the discussions regarding defunding the police cause you to think the American experiment is over? I see lots of things explained all the time; seems OK to me.
“'The Soviet Union back before Russia when it broke up contained all of Ukraine including Crimea. The country itself is not really a country'
"Peter Navarro, Former Trump WH Advisor, December 2021"
The Soviet Union also contained all of Russia, so then it must not really be a country either.
The UK used to contain all of Ireland. Ethiopian contained all of Eritrea. And on and on. Countries?
Love Tom Nichols (and subscribe to TD as well as here), but Greene and Carlson do gain $ and status/position within their markets by their Trumpy branding. Agreed that Russia per se has nothing much to do with it. I agree with those downthread who say (maybe not in those words) that it resembles the (still around to some degree) pre-Woke left's fondness for Castro, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Chavez, etc.
Hi Charlie
Love the Bulwark. I'm a Liberal Canadian, but grew up in a border city so have immersed myself in U.S. politics most of my life. I have a suggestion for the website. Love it when you open your podcasts with suggestions of what you are watching on Netflix, etc.. Have watched several series like Broadchurch and Shetland due to your suggestions and loved them. Made the mistake of not writing down other titles you recommended. Would love a section on the website of what you are watching to escape from the news and what everyone is reading - non-fiction and fiction. Have a great weekend.
Cathy, Burlington, Ontario
The greatest irony may be that the working class MAGA base of the party is actually the best recruiting tool for moving Black and Hispanic male voters into the GOP.
It turns out that working class Black and Hispanic men identify more closely with working class whites for a variety of reasons. As opposed to their elites that presume to speak for the Black and Hispanic communities.
First, they don't experience the much vaunted racism and white supremacy that their white peers are supposed to carry. They live and work among them. As a result they experience their white peers differently than they are portrayed in the media. Go visit a working class trailer park and you will see a lot of race mixing going on than might be expected. Interracial ride sharing to work. Interracial dating, child rearing and marriage.
Second, working class Blacks and Hispanics seek the same life style advantages of their white peers. Hard work defines their relationship to employment NOT racial discrimination. They are just as concerned about undocumented workers competing for their jobs as their white peers.
Third as noted Black and Hispanic men are socially conservative to start with. Their religious identity informs their attitudes toward LGBTQ rights and abortion which are alien to their consciousness. The role of women is also seen differently.
Fourth, the role of government looms large. Venezuelan, Central Americans and Cubans have had enough of authoritarianism--- and are not eager to embrace even a benign and paternalistic "big government" which is what the "socialism" thing boils down to.
When it comes down to Democrats they need to stop their patronizing condescension and start hosting fun block parties and fiestas. The overly serious Democrats have missed the fun that Trump has brought to the political landscape. Sure it is vulgar... but Trump Flag parades and boat parades and rallies are fun. Democrats need to dump the dour, neo-puritanical, hypercritical attitude and start meeting the working class where they live.
Hey Charlie, this is a couple days out of date, but after listening to your Wednesday podcast with David Priess, just thought I would weigh in on something of interest to me:
David mentioned that he was probably going to annoy mathematicians by saying that students should be taking prob/stat instead of calculus. I have an MS in Mathematics and I agree 100%.
Look, I love calculus. So much that as a teenager in high school, I read ahead in the textbook in bed at night. It's beautiful, and I'd heartily recommend it for anyone interested in math (even if you're not quite to my level of nerdiness).
That said, for the other 98% of the population, probability and statistics is *far* more useful and important, especially in this day where we are realizing the importance of maintaining an informed citizenry who knows how to interpret what they read in the news and online.
In fact, I have been annoyed to see the idea of replacing calculus with prob/stat being cast as an example of "wokeness" infecting high school curricula. The implication here that this is another example of "dumbing down" a subject to placate those who believe it to be an example of structural racism because of the underperformance of some minority groups. Prob/stat can be every bit as challenging as calculus.
And to David: this shouldn't annoy mathematicians, because prob/stat is math too! Even most PhDs would be hard pressed to disagree about the relative importance of prob/stat.
Oh, and one other thing: I have *Electronic Stratego* in my basement. :-)
I took statistics in college it was not easy...though any math above Algebra II I struggle with...but, it was a fascinating and useful course, as was one called "Logic" which dealt with decision making...I still make pro and con lists when I need to make a big decision
Statistics is hard because humans are not mentally structured to think in combinatorial ways. Calculus is easy because as soon as you grasp the idea of a limit the consequences are obvious. We subconsciously do calculus in our heads when we throw rocks at a target, just as birds compute trajectories literally on the fly when they effortlessly flash from one branch to another, avoiding all obstacles in between. Diffequations is hard only because you have to habituate yourself to the patterns and resemblances of trigonometric identities and infinite expansions, but the basis is fundamentally as simple as tracing a line from here to there.
Adding a post note. I speculate one reason Americans are not only innumerate but in many respects almost anti-numerate is they don't want to grow up and admit that life guidance should not be through instantaneous emotional impulses. Part of that comes I think from the American tradition of salvation through an emotional purgation of sin that happens without effort, like an orgasm. You don't have to think, you have only to believe. Once you believe you are saved and it's all simple.
Ha, all greek to me ....( I stopped after Algebra II...had all I needed to get into college and as a liberal arts major, didn't think I needed more than what I already had...Math is the only subject that I really struggled with at times ( hated geometry, but, loved Algebra ( think it might be a right brain/left brain thing...lol) ...and I use math for a living now, but, the lower ends of it...as a bookkeeper...lol
I am sorry for that... I thought I hated math, because I was so good at language skills I thought everything should be like the falling off a log that reading and writing was.
But worst of all I had great language/history teachers and truly terrible math teachers. My 9th grade algebra teacher was a true asshole whose ambition was to be a footbal coach and who in retrospect I now see hated his job and went out of his way to make his students see the subject with the loathing he felt for his own pathetic life. And maybe also he literally was afraid that any student who was actually interested in the subject would try to engage with him on it, and show his own lack of ability or knowledge. Somehow I got through several terms of high school algebra but can't recall giving a damn. The instructors were at best nonentities.
I always loved and was fascinated by science. But I went through college without taking a single math course -- graduate courses in literature, history, poli-sci but no math -- and only later signed up for a calc course after my graduation because I wanted to understand what was wrong with Zeno's paradoxes (I was a philosophy major).. And that was the most amazing wonderful class I ever had, like fireworks going off. The incredible beauty of the idea totally captivated me. It worked because (maybe I'd grown up a little) but also because the instructor was as enthusiastic about it and burned with a fire to share that ecstasy with his students. And then I took physics and it was even better.
I still remember in second or third term calc not paying attention to whatever the instructor was actually working through but suddenly seeing the amazing, totally mind blowing way that any smooth and continuous function can be represented to an arbitrarily perfect approximation by a sum of sin and cosine functions. And jumping out of my seat and shouting that it was beautiful. It was better than seeing God. It was like for a moment almost being Johann Sebastian Bach. and the instructor, instead of summoning the police and having me ejected for causing the disturbance, asked what that was about and we spent the rest of the class diverted onto that topic. He was as enthused as I was.
We don't show kids how exquisitely beautiful the ideas are. So they go out into the world like the Romanian orphans who never knew what it is to have a loving caregiver. Or growing up and never seeing the glory of a sunset.
That sounds awesome...
Well… I’m an old guy and the last time I really tried to use the maths I used to use so easily it seemed my head was full of cotton. I was putting together a simple model to calculate hardness concentration in a cooling tower given a few inputs, heat rejection due to evaporation, hardness of makeup, dilution due to blowdown… frustrating. Probably mostly lack of practice but also I’m sure brain ossification.. but I never will forget the numinous experience of seeing the few glimpses I’ve been vouchsafed of a tiny sliver of a part of a portion of a subset of a fragment of how reality works. Even though today I’m just another mud brain chimpanzee who saw a sunset once and that is all he gets.
When Newton and Leibniz first saw it, they must have imagined they had been given the keys to eternity. I treasure my own glimpse of that infinite landscape. It extends beyond what we see with the mind. It is also what we find in the Odyssey of Homer or the story of the Monkey King in the journey to the West or the statue of David in Florence or the dome of the Hagia Sophia.. or the brown eyes of my little firstborn child and her somber brown eyes looking at me, her hopelessly inadequent father, six hours after emerging from the body of my dear dear wife who for whatever reason, not that I deserve it, still claims to love me a half century after I assured her I would be her best friend forever and am today as ever since that day striving to fulfill that promise.
What our teachers need to do is raise the gaze of our young young chimpanzee progeny above the tiny horizon of their stupid phones and iPads up to the vast sky overarching their heads, and the wide range of visible frequencies our biological eyes cannot see but our minds have revealed to us. And all the further vistas beyond that we don’t even yet know await us.
By the way, despite her father she turned out to be awesome. And married into a family of amazingly marvelous people.
So go figure. Joy does not follow desert. If the arc of history truly bended toward justice in every case, why am I showered with blessings?
Why is it assumed that you teach either calc/precalc or statistics? Why not both?
Oh, sorry, I forgot -- this is America.
This morning as I read down the list of MAGA voices in Charlie's letter, I once again experienced my usual one-word gut reaction to these people...maggots. Then I had a thought, based on the overall reaction polls show among Republicans regarding Ukraine. It's probably incorrect, and is quite unlike me in that it actually contains a tiny sliver of hope regarding all things Republican. Nevertheless, for the briefest of moments at least, I contemplated the fact that perhaps we are looking at these MAGA maggots, sickening and deplorable though they are, in the wrong light.
Democracy in this country has been gravely wounded. I'm not knowledgeable enough about the subject to point to an exact time or place as to when the laceration occurred, but I do know that it happened before MAGA was even a thing, and its rent flesh has been septic and festering ever since.
Enter the maggots...
For those unfamiliar, maggot wound therapy is a real thing. Feel free to look it up, if you wish. It originated in antiquity as a way to treat wounds that refused to heal on their own and therefore became progressively more septic and life threatening, and is still practiced today in certain instances, the main difference being that today the "medical maggots" are sanitized and their use much more controlled and precise. In the right circumstances, and when other modern treatments fail, they can be quite effective at cleaning out necrotizing tissue, halting the spread of the infection and exposing clean healthy flesh, which then has a much better chance of healing.
So, my brain working in the weird way that it often does in making associations, for a moment the thought crossed my mind that perhaps the MAGA folks are the equivalent of the maggots needed to clean American democracy's deep and festering wounds, their seemingly deplorable gnawing at its flesh accomplishing what other remedies have heretofore failed to do...expose clean, healthy flesh to the healing process.
Of course, one of the essential tricks to the success of this therapy is to know when the little beasts' work is done, and to remove them before their insatiable appetite for filth devours too much of the clean and healthy tissue surrounding the injury. Perhaps the sound of democracy facing a real-world clear and present existential threat in Ukraine is the sound of the timer going off in a few people's heads that now is that time, even if they don't consciously recognize it as such. Maybe, just maybe the sight of dead parents and children in the streets of a democratic country, not unlike our own in its love of true and genuine freedom, is, sadly, exactly what was needed to ring the bell on when enough is enough.
Yeah, it's a stretch to even contemplate this. I'd say that, in fact, it's one hell of a long shot. But, having laid down a few bucks on longshots back when I used to watch the ponies run on sunny afternoons in more care-free times, a longshot sometimes does sneak its nose under the wire first. And in a time when holding onto hope itself often seems like a longshot, I guess there are worse ways to spend the energy of a few brain cells.
Two things are quite interesting here. The first being that when asking 'who speaks for the GOP' there are two answers: money, and crazy. By which I mean that the people who are 'sane' tend to be the monied ones; insulated from the day to day rat race of politics they can take positions they think are comfortable without rocking the boat. The crazy ones are the ones who feel they need the energy of the voters; they speak to the subset that might be small in number but which give in time and money.
But I personally think that what they say isn't important, it's what they do that matters. If you want to know what they think, look at how they vote, not at what they say about it. The votes with Ukraine are no different than the GOP members who talked about not taking away people's healthcare and then voting to do so. That we lack media that will simply call lies what they are is part of what they can do this.
As for the matter of black voters, you're correct that no one should take voters for granted. But you also cherry pick around the real problems that are being presented. It's true that black voters skew more conservative, but this is because they're older. Voters that don't vote for the Democrats also aren't voting for the GOP. Why? Because the GOP is a full white nationalist party that actively makes harassing black people part of its agenda. The issue is not one of swing voters but not voters.
The real issue among Hispanics is not one that can be counted as racial the way black votes are; by which I mean that black voters vote Democratic because the GOP is hostile to them in a way that they aren't for a lot of Hispanics. What does that mean? Well, there's a clear divide between how first and second born Hispanics vote compared to third and further generation Hispanics vote. Essentially, the latter vote the same as their white counterparts; in many cases they pass as white and act as such, as in the cases of people like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. They're also more likely to be hostile to immigrants, despite their own heritage. Essentially, by the third generation, they're no different than anyone who came over here before that point from any other place.
And the reason this is noteworthy is because Democrats have gotten very used to assuming that generations don't change things. Twenty years ago, the Hispanic vote was basically a lock, because democrats were the ones who supported their integration with the US. But now? They have little to no attachment to their old countries, no different than Irish people not having attachments to Ireland. They're Americans and they vote not based on the memories and struggles of an immigrant but as a born and bred American. That doesn't mean, by the way, that the GOP can take them for granted either.
Indeed, I would suspect that if the democrats have voters to be concerned about, it's young black people and white women. For the GOP, it's Hispanics.
Heads up, the "no" votes on that Ukrainian assistance package were actually no votes on the omnibus, of which Ukrainian assistance was less than 1%. Ben Sasse is hardly pro-Putin or MAGA.
This is true, but unless I missed it -- where were the Republicans hammering the Dem leadership for not stripping out the Ukraine military aid from the omnibus bill for a seperate vote? Not that there would have been any honesty or sincerity in it, but it seems strange that a party willing to pound the table about the opposition being at once insufficiently and excessively committed to supporting Ukraine would have been flogging a separate vote line like the proverbial bloody shirt.
It sort of smells like they aren't really sure which way they need to go.
ORYX
Sooner or later, the drumbeat of Biden-bashing and Biden-opposition by the GOP is going to hurt Ukraine, as it and the deteriorating economic conditions (mostly due to the pandemic and the war) divert the majority of Republicans back toward domestic grievance politics and away from support of Ukraine. Fox News, of course, will do all it can to facilitate that.
Given the fact that Tucker is now an official Putin spokesman (and Greene, Cawley, etc.), is there any doubt they're being paid by Moscow?
They don't need money from Putin to betray America. They will do it for free because they gain money from it indirectly.
It really does feel like the past decade of Western political history should be characterized by the rise of pro-Russian politicians, a lot of whom ran under the banner of right-wing populism. It's pretty clear that Trump was boosted by the Russians and encouraged to build a pro-Russia wing so that the American government might accept a Russian invasion and occupation as legitimate.
But with Trump out of office and the invasion proving to be a human rights catastrophe, the Russian disinformation playbook is buckling before our eyes. Where we go from here depends on the war's outcome, but it really feels like Putin bet big and lost everything. May that stay true.
The Russians still support massive pro far right poulism in the US. Especially Fox News.
I don't think it's inherently pro-russia. After all, they had the same attitude towards Orban. It's just that they have a fetish for 'strong' male leaders, who infuriate the right people. They actively support people like the Russians because they want to be the same thing here. It's not wholly different than those leftists in the 60's that supported the Soviets for the same reason.
Sure, we can debate how much the Republican base earnestly believes this stuff, but Trump has been very clear: Putin is strong and misunderstood, NATO is a racket, Ukrainians are corrupt and not worth defending, Putin taking the country over was smart.
This is a case of "you bought the ticket, now take the ride." Trump voters might not have taken Trump seriously when he praised Putin, but pro-Putin is what they'd get.
I've read that Putin, along with the Russian Orthodox Patriarch, long ago launched an influence operation among American religious and social conservatives, to persuade them that the Russian way was the antidote to secularism and decadence, and that the "liberal order" of alliances with other democracies was destroying our homegrown culture and national identity.
The strategy clearly worked quite well in corners of the right -- so well that some have basically taken the position that the logic of national self-determination permits a large country (with nukes) to devour smaller neighbors at will, and that only a corrupt globalism would try to stop it.
Absolutely. I'm sure they groomed Trump for the presidency because he was so easy to manipulate. He had strong relationships with the Russians living in NY. Especially the bankers.
TAC is constantly doing pro-Putin arguments. Reagan, Buckley and others are spinning in their graves.
You illuminate an interesting paradox. Right wing populism seems incompatible with their underlying, supposed “don’t tread on me” self concept. They (Republican voters) cast their lot with authoritarianism, assuming THEY themselves will be in charge. They refuse to comply with orders (masks? vaccines?), but gravitate towards leaders who are prone to giving orders. Cognitive dissonance is only possible with limited cognition.
What you say is really true. It's a symptom or characteristic of brainwashing. It doesn't have to make sense, and probably best if it doesn't. You just have to make suggestable people believe it without thinking.
It's because their right-wing populism isn't so much defined out of the small government/libertarian American political tradition, it's carved out of the nationalistic reactionary tradition that gave rise to fascism in Europe and quite similar to slavery/segregation politics that dominated the South, and to a degree still do.
One of the big early tells was the rampant opposition to any form of immigration, free trade, and globalization. Those ideas have been kicking around Europe anti-Syrian refugee and anti-EU, and were most successful in the UK.
Another big tell was how quickly white nationalists flocked to Trump's campaign, and transformed the GOP, even if it didn't explicitly endorse their ideas. Traditional conservatism must largely be small government (except for Christianity), but white supremacy is inherently discriminatory and unconstitutional, to enforce it you have to oppress the non-white population, is which 40% of us Americans.
So my point is basically, they aren't conservatives anymore, at least not ideologically. It's just a label to make white supremacy palatable.
Not only did white nationalists flock to Trump, but a lot of “mainstream conservatives” became white nationalists, once they recognized that power base. Integrity is in short supply.
"Don't tread on me" is sometimes just the flip side of "Let me impose my own preferences (including religion) on the whole country."
Some on the far right have somewhat openly soured on democracy, because it let's people they don't like influence policy. I think many would have been happy to see Trump overturn an election EVEN knowing he had lost fair and square.
The notion that Trump was constantly besieged by a nefarious Deep State that was sabotaging the choice of the American People is largely, IMO, camouflage for a belief that he should have been able to rule like a monarch without restraint by preexisting laws and institutions. I've heard insiders say that Trump was surprised and frustrated to learn that the president can't just do whatever he wants. And some "conservatives" think he's still the best choice for saving America!
A lot of them do. I have heard salt of the earth, good Americans say that they want Trump and his a god-aweful spawn to rule for the next 50 years. Go to a right wing enclave and talk to the people coming out of Church. You would be shocked at how anti Democracy they have become.
In my opinion, most of the “Stop The Steal” adherents know it’s a lie. I think most “disinformation” finds a very willing audience, an audience that isn’t fooled at all, but appreciates the cover for letting out their random anger.
Do you mean the GOP leadership? Oh, yes, certainly. But if you mean the "deplorables", et al, you might be surprised. From what I can see, lots of folks really do believe it. Take a ride around right-wing websites. It's a bit terrifying, but informative.
In many ways the progressive Deomcrats are as bad as the Dumpers but in different ways. They don't seem to have a grip on what the folks that elected them really want. At the moment I live in a district with a good solid old school Democrat but she is retireing and the district has been altered. I am an old life long liberal that believes is strong public saftey and well funded police departments. I have yet to hear what defunding police departments will accomplish? All this was caused by a deranged cop who murdered a man in plain sight. Then there is all the nonsense over clean energy, which I belive in, but it can't be accomplished in an instant. The progressives have forced the President into a position that probably will harm him in the future.
No party should take any voter for granted.
Exactly. That is why Biden has low poll numbers. The left says he's not doing enough for them. The right says he is doing too much. This makes me think he is doing just right. He is making decisions he thinks are right not for political gain. Sometimes they turn out good; sometimes not so good.
What defunding police departments would accomplish is satisfying self-righteous progressives who live in such safe neighborhoods that the only time they ever see a cop is when they get pulled over for speeding. Or at least, it would satisfy them for a short while; they'd start to wish they saw more cops if they ever got their way and crime rates rose in *their* neighborhoods. There's only so long they could tell themselves that their desire for safety was just another example of expectations born of their privilege. Eventually they'd realize their privilege was what led them to believe they didn't need cops in the first place.
I don't think any police dept has been defunded. I believe that is Fox News propaganda. When it was first mentioned, Biden immediately said absolutely NOT, in no uncertain terms. Left wing Bernie said not only did he NOT support defunding the police, he thought they should get more money. The police have a strong union and Bernie is nothing if not pro union.
Weird browser-specific autocorrect?
Anyhow, on topic, "defund the police" had to be one of the stupidest things the woke wing came up with. However, that's all it ever was. At this point, it's mostly just a right-wing propaganda item. And, apparently it's still working
I think one thing you have to understand is that most democrats aren't really interested in 'defunding' the police, which is obvious because nowhere in the US has anyone actually defunded a police organization. In many cases, police budgets have increased from the Floyd murders.
The issue is that many Democrats see cops as being overly powerful and corrupt; they murder without oversight, can seize property without oversight, and in many cases are protected from wrongdoing by unions who ensure that they will never face any kind of discipline. The issue, simply put, is bad cops, not too many cops. But there's also the matter where we have far too many heavily armed police officers, which makes little sense. And if you don't think that's a problem, consider this: in many places in our country, gun laws are being loosened to allow anyone to carry a gun for any reason at all times. Now, ask yourself what happens when something happens and police who are trained to see people with guns as active shooters show up.
As for clean energy, the problem is that if you keep saying 'tomorrow' eventually tomorrow happens and you've never done anything. If you believe in something and will need it tomorrow, then you need to take actions now. If you keep putting something off, it will never happen.
The truth is not the progressives have forced the president into anything, the truth is that the President is in this position due to generations of ignoring the problem. High gas prices can't be solved by more drilling, because we're already a net exporter of oil. So we either need price controls, or to import more. And remember, it's a finite resource. Which means you will run out. Acting like we can just open up oil wells wherever won't fix our issue, and that also takes time and can't be accomplished in an instant. If you believe in clean energy, then that means that you need to invest today in it, not invest today in more drilling and hope tomorrow it'll be easier.
Well, we all have our views on issues but I'm not sure I needed a lecture based on your views. I never mentioned gas prices or oil but you certainly got off on that one. Anyway maybe you could explain to me and other readers how we are going to have a supply of EV's since there is still a chip shortage, a lack of battery production and a shortage of the raw materials needed to produce batteries? Since most of the minerals requirred to produce batteries are controlled by Russia and China the cost to obtain needed supplies may price EV's above what the normal human is willing to pay. Ford already has a two year backlog and if you look around there are few EV's available similar to the shortage of gas powered vehicles. I'm sure you are aware of the USPS decision on new vehicles. They have an immediade need to replace 30+ year old vehicles and EV's are not price competitive in the volume of vehicles USPS needs.
"we all have our views on issues but I'm not sure I needed a lecture based on your views." - er, it is a comments board. Different people giving their views and such.
"maybe you could explain to me and other readers how we are going to have a supply of EV's" - it's still early days for EVs. And, I wouldn't think raising objections in the current context of world-wide supply chain problems and other economic disruptions is a fair way to challenge EVs. As you implied, lots of things are being impacted.
Take a look at the cost of solar over the past decade. I'd bet the same will continue with EVs. It's a long game.
I fear this is far too much chasing wishes and not enough seeking after wisdom.
Putin maybe, maybe, is losing momentum at the moment because he isolated himself and went to war without the best people in charge and without adequate preparation and planning. Let us remember, Stalin did all that, plus not only arrested and imprisoned his top command structure— actually murdered them. And made almost every other wrong strategic and tactical decision he could— and nevertheless died from natural causes, unchallenged, as supreme autocrat of the greatest territorial and hegemonic scope any Russian Tsar ever had.
He achieved this because he never shrank from being the most relentlessly ruthless human bring on earth.
The dominant narrative is overlooking history and grasping at hopeful straws, as if Putin has now fatally cast himself as MacBeth and must inevitably perish when the crop of evil he has sown comes to fruition (and marches on his personal Dunsinane)…
Macbeth is a fantasy. If Shakespeare had written it according to the actual reality of the world, Macbeth would die in bed and it would be the head of MacDuff we see at the end.
Hitler didn't die in bed. Neither did Mussolini. And, to get away from Eurocentrism, Shaka Zulu was assassinated.
Correct, Hitler didn't die in bed because Stalin (who did die in bed) sent his army into Berlin and pounded him into a corner he could finally not escape from .
Where is the Stalin whose army is driving Putin into the latter's death bunker? Who was the Stalin who trapped and destroyed Stalin?
We want to believe that the bad guys ultimately fail through the karma they make, and many do, but generally at the hands of worse.
Right. The Allied armies approaching from the west and the south had nothing to do with it.
I know it predated the invasion, but Cancun Ted having a Twitter orgasm over the masculinity of the Russian military deserves inclusion in the pro-Putin GOP archives. https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1395394254969753601?s=20&t=89V0FBuBDNvW4hSaKRfd9Q
I don't think Cruz has an honest bone in his body. His only thought seems to be "will this be good for me"
Did you see his take on the invasion? Why it's Biden's fault because of the poor withdrawal from Afghanistan. That's why Putin invaded. Of course.
He wouldn't have had the courage to withdraw from Afghanistan. It might have gone badly, which is why we stayed their way too long.
Only Biden was willing to do the right thing, even if it made him look bad
Who, Cruz? Courage? Same sentence? Heh, good one!
I meant Trump , but it's the same difference. It could also apply to all of the presidents who governed during the Afghanistan occupation.
Something I learned in Iraq that the Russian VDV corps is presently learning: there's an inversion point of diminishing return with size and strength, and it stops at how much weight you can put on someone's back. After that, it loses its utility. A guy who is 6' 4" and weighs 225 will get wasted by a sniper's bullet or step on an anti-personnel mine *exactly* the same as his 5'9" 170-lb counterpart. All that size doesn't do shit in a bombfight or a gunfight. It just makes you a bigger target who is harder to drag to cover once you take shrapnel or a sniper's bullet.
155-lb Iraqi teenager with an IED that cost $50 to make > 225-lb Marine machine-gunner covered in ballistic protection panels, ammunition drums, and advanced optics
Most Americans consider themselves Middle class. What people consider themselves is not what they really are. Most Black Americans favor robust social safety nets and unions, neither of which are conservative
But I’m beginning to realize that the culture of African Americans and Hispanics tend toward social conservatism, especially on matters of sexuality (and its variations) and also on women’s rights - which is ironic because strong women are the backbone of families in both cultures, in my limited understanding.
I can only speak anout the Black people in my family all of whom are middle class professionals and deeply committed to a strong public ed system through college and a social safety net.
I’m basing my comment on memory of polls showing that more Black men voted for Trump in 2020 than in 2016. And I seem to remember the same was true for Hispanic men; more swung over to Trump. It’s hard to reconcile that with what was revealed about Trump during his four years as president. I could imagine taking a chance the first time; but after those four years?
I can see why Hispanics would vote for him. Look at South and Central America. The most successful and popular leaders are authoritarian dictators. They respect the bully.
I think you’re right about that. I was naively astonished when I read Alexander Vindman’s book to learn that Russian immigrants in the U.S. are very supportive of Trump, including his own father - past tense for him.
There’s a lot about human nature that seems irrational to me; why would you uproot your whole family and move to the other side of the world to escape authoritarianism, and still feel favorably toward an authoritarian - when you have a choice? I think it must be the comfort of the familiar? Or perhaps the machismo of the background culture is too embedded to eradicate? But then, why leave in the first place?
Which brings me back to my own assessment of Trump followers; they think THEY will be in charge of “the libs”. They don’t imagine themselves on the receiving end of tyranny. They want to dish it out, but not take it. They embrace authoritarianism through the lens of the oppressor, not the oppressed. “Freedom for ME, not THEE.”
I really do believe it's cultural. The most conservative Black and Hispanic want to live like white conservative Americans. I have friends who are very middle-class and socially conservative, who are the children of illegal Mexican immigrants. And I experienced the same when I lived in Chicago among Polish immigrants. The people who I knew in that community are ardent Trump fans and would support him as President for life, in spite of the fact that they value being American and having American values.
It is always a gross miscalculation to assume that any artificial grouping of people equates to block voting. Vast diversity in priorities exist even in tightly knit cultural, ethic, racial and any other types of communities.
You think there's a sizable portion of Black voters who want to take America back to the 1950s?
No but there are a number of well to do and middle class black men who respect money and power and male authoritarianism. They perhaps identify more with whites in those classes (especially Christians) than with the Black people who are still in the poor or lower economic class.
They tend toward social conservatism because they tend to be more religious; for African Americans, it's evangelical Christianity, for Hispanics it tends to be Catholicism. That's not true across the board, but it fits a large enough swath to be true. Having said that, it's worth noting that if you want to understand the social dynamics of both cultures, look at their pop culture and what is idolized and expressed through it. Beyond that, both African americans and hispanic cultures in the US are often hypermasculine; they actively promote the concepts of masculinity that we see espoused from conservatives.
They do? I never see Black culture promoting the idea that white men are the pinnacle of humanity
Yes, to your comment about hyper-masculinity in both cultures. I seem to remember polls showing that, just like white Americans, there is a significant gender skew, with males leaning toward authoritarian Republicans.
But in observing the pop culture of African Americans, the religiosity is harder to see as a factor, although the Catholicism of migration across our southern border was an easily predictable source of social/political conservatism.
85% of Black men voted for Biden
Good point to bring up for discussion.