Speaking of * [0 - 9]

Monday, November 11, 2024

Speaking of Which

Draft file opened 2024-11-06 2:00 PM. Finally posted 2024-11-11 10:00 PM. Added a couple small bits on 2024-11-12.

Also added a few more bits, all the way up to 2024-11-18, but I swear, that's the end of it.These later bits have green change bars, as opposed to red for the earlier adds.

Sections:

Trump won. I don't know why. I cannot fathom why anyone, much less an outright majority of voting Americans, could stand him, or could in any way identify with him, let alone entrust him with great power. It is not inconceivable to me that this result was rigged, with every voting machine in the country shaving several points in his favor -- and that all the election denial hoopla of 2020 was just misdirection, while they worked on perfecting the software.

Or, I suppose, it's possible that a thin majority of the American people have become so soul-deadened, demented, and/or deranged that they wish nothing more than to inflict this guy on the rest of us. In which case, the obvious answer is "to dissolve the people and elect another." The phrase comes from a Bertolt Brecht poem, a bit of Communist Party humor, not really applicable here, but it does convey the disconnect when you realize that the people you got are not the ones you imagined or hoped for. We need better politicians, but we also need to become better people, not least to stop them from the temptation to gaslight us.

Personally, I was delighted when Kamala Harris ran away with the Democratic nomination. I didn't think of her in terms of categories or attributes, and was always annoyed when people brought up "first woman," etc., like some kind of milestone. She just seemed like a generic American -- at least in the America I know, which includes many years of living in Kansas, as well as some in New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. I knew that she wasn't a leftist, that she was a shrewd and calculating politician, and that she circulated easily among friends in high places. But she seemed personable and relatable, flexible, nimble, like someone who could recognize problems and try to do things to fix them. She seemed much better to me than her predecessors (going back at least to 1992).

Besides, I'm old enough that I'm no longer enamored of utopia, nor patient for the long struggle, so I wasn't inclined to criticize. Surely, I figured, she must know what she's doing? And if not, if she blew it, we could unload on her then. But why give Trump any comfort from division. He was such a clear and present evil -- a word I normally abjure, but why beat around the bush here? -- that nothing could budge my vote from Harris. And now, like Hillary Clinton, and unlike -- no matter how little regard you have for him, Joe Biden -- she has committed the unpardonable sin of losing to Trump.

Still, as I'm writing this intro, I don't feel like tearing into her campaign or other shortcomings. As I collect links, I'm sure I will nitpick here and there. But it's still hard for me to see why she lost, or what else she could have done about it. That wasn't the case with Hillary Clinton: her faults, both personal and political, were obvious from the start, and the sanctimonious scapegoating for her loss only heightened her flaws. I could reconcile myself with the theory that Americans had candidates they disliked, but could only vote one of them off the island, and they chose her, because they knew her better. Surely, this year those same voters would dispatch Trump? Even as his polls held up, I expected a last gasp break toward sanity.

That it didn't happen suggests a much deeper problem, which brings us back to the voters. Or should, if I could figure it out. The one thing I'm pretty sure of is that America has been in some kind of moral decline since approximately when I was born -- in 1950, the week before Chinese volunteers entered the Korean War and reversed the American advance, forcing a stalemate, which American sore losers still refuse to accept. Sure, Americans committed many sins before I was born, but we could aim for better, and teach our children to make a better world. The Hays Office made sure that the good guys wore white hats, and triumphed in the end. I certainly grew up believing in all that, seriously enough that when events proved otherwise, I protected my ideals by turning against the actual America. But what I never lost was the notion that in the end, it will all turn out well.

We may not be at the end yet, but Trump sure seems like a serious turn for the worse. He's four years older than I am, but came from a completely different class and culture, and at each step along the way he had different reactions and made different choices, always breaking bad, which sometimes meant embracing deteriorating social morality, and often accelerating it. Oddly enough, he's the one who poses as a pious patriot. Stranger still, lots of people believe him, perhaps because he allows them to indulge their own vile impulses.

As far as I can tell, there are two types of Trump voter. On the one hand, there are people who actually like him, who get off on his arrogance and nastiness, and who like to see other people hurt. (I've previously noted two types of Christians: those who hope to help their fellows, and those who are more focused on consigning those they disapprove of to hell. Trump is practically a messiah for the latter group.) The second type are party-liners, who will always vote Republican, no matter how much they may disapprove of the candidate. The two groups overlap, but each group extends the other, nudging a minority up toward 50%.

Elite Republicans may not love Trump, but they'll do anything to win -- their whole graft depends on it -- so they go along, figuring they can control the damage (as well as profit from it). This is much like the conservatives in Weimar Germany figuring they can control Hitler -- meanwhile, Trump resembles Hitler at least in his political pitch (his ability to rouse the passions of people for whom economic conservatism has little appeal). Such fascism analogies resonate for some people, especially on the left, who know the history, but are meaningless to those who don't -- most Trump voters, although he seems to have some staff who revel in it, as they keep sending dog whistles, not least to provoke charges that never seem to work.

There is a certain genius to Trump/Republican politics, in how they've manage to flip attacks into accolades: charges that would discredit any normal candidate only seem to make Trump stronger, and that rubs off on the rest of the Republicans. The key element here has been the extraordinary success of partisan broadcasting, keyed to fear, flattery, and rage: the net effect has been to sow distrust and deny credibility to anything Democrats say or do, while championing Republicans as defenders of true America. The result is a tribe that has come to reject facts, reason, and/or any hint of moral purpose: all are rejected as tools of the devil.

Trump adds very little of substance to this toxic infosystem, but he does offer some kind of charisma or style, and disinhibition (which passes for candor if you buy it, or cluelessness if you don't), and serves as a lightning rod for attacks that only confirm the bond between him and his fans. This can be very confusing for all who are immune to or wary of his charms: his appeal makes no sense to us, and meaningful response is nearly impossible. On the other hand, they counter with the same logic and even more fervor, making even less sense to us. The double standards are mind-boggling. For example, one might try making a case that Trump has been unfairly targeted by prosecutors, but how do you square that with his threats to do much more of the same, and the "lock her up" chants?

But it's not just that Trump Republicans are easily deluded and controlled by their media. That feat is built on top of much deeper social trends that go back at least to the 1940s, with the founding of the military-industrial complex and the extension of American hegemony to serve global capitalism, with its attendant red scares, both foreign and domestic. Americans had an idealized picture of themselves coming out of WWII, which made the world Trump and I grew up in. But the task of protecting capital turned into nasty business, and we started to divide into one camp that relished the fight, and another appalled by it. We started seeing films where bad guys were recruited to do dirty work for supposedly good guys, who turned bad themselves. Before long, American presidents were ordering assassinations, kidnapping, and torture. Trump started out with his Nazi-symp father, his apprenticeship under Roy Cohn, and his mobster connections. He fit right in. He only had to wait until America became rotten enough to embrace him. Bush's Global War on Terror made that possible.

Well, the other part of the equation is the rise of the super rich, made possible by the ideological attack on the notion of public interest, and by the assertion of "greed is good," and the general belief that "might makes right" (i.e., anything you can get away with is fine). The richer the supers got, the more they leveraged their wealth through lobbies, PR firms, donations, and media to turn government to do their bidding, further increasing their wealth. They usually rented their spokesmen, but Trump, having personified great wealth on TV, gave them a new angle: he could have it both ways, claiming their authority while pretending to be free of their influence.

I'm not sure how much of the election any of this explains, although it may help explain why Democratic attack ads don't seem to be drawing any blood. As with Republican attack ads, they may do nothing more than confirm one's own virtues (or vices if that's your thing). But it does make one wonder if raising money isn't overrated.

We could, of course, look into the many ways Democrats have contributed to their downfall. The losers are always quick with thoughts, so a fair number of them will show up in links below. I may have more to say on this below, but for here I'll pass, except to point out a couple of fundamental dynamics:

  1. There is a deep divide and conflict within Democratic ranks, between corporate/neoliberal and populist/democratic tendencies; they both share a fear of the right but are deeply distrustful of each other. That produces acrimony, as you'll see below.

  2. Democrats are subject to higher expectations than Republicans. Democrats are expected not just to win elections, but to address issues successfully, and are held accountable for any failures. Republicans only have to win, and there are few strictures on how low they can go to win. When they do win, they can readily screw up, but are rarely held accountable.

  3. Democrats are also held to higher ethical and moral standards. Republicans may even embrace their own's misbehavior, while excoriating Democrats for the same faults. (Thus, for instance, Hillary Clinton is horribly corrupt, but Donald Trump is just a rogueish businessman.)

  4. Democrats believe in public service, in representing all people, and as such they credit Republicans with legitimacy where Republicans deny any to Democrats, and seek to cripple them wherever possible. Republicans see politics as a zero-sum game.

The net effect is that Democrats campaign at a severe handicap. Republicans can lie, cheat, and steal, but Democrats can't -- and in many cases don't even know how. Democrats want to be liked, even by Republicans (and especially by the rich), so they are careful not to offend. (Even so, a casual reference to "garbage" gets blown up sky high, while Republican references to "vermin" get laughed away.) Republicans can exaggerate for effect, while Democrats pull their punches, and that muddies their messages. Democrats cede critical ground in arguments, seemingly legitimizing Republican stands, which only become more extreme. The media love loud and brusque, so they lap it up, amplify it, spread it everywhere, dispensing with reason and nuance, and especially reality (the most boring subject of all).

Then there are structural factors. America is divided into states, districts, precincts, all of which can be gerrymandered, as Republicans were quick to turn to their advantage. The Senate is grossly undemocratic, and the filibuster there has made it impossible for Democrats to pass meaningful reforms, even on the rare occasions when they seem to have majority power. The Republicans have packed the courts, which they're increasingly using to restrict executive power by Democrats, and to increase it by Republicans. Many judges are protected from any oversight by lifetime appointments. Many reforms, as well as redress by impeachment, require supermajorities, which Republicans use to lock themselves in power, even if they lose popular support. (Orban's system in Hungary has made extensive use of this, and is widely cited by Republicans as a model for America -- although in may have originated here, much like Nazi, South African, and Israeli race laws drew on American precedents.)

But the biggest structural problem of all is money. Republicans worship it -- even poor ones are defined by their deference or indifference to great wealth -- and the rich thank them for their service. The single most certain prediction for a second Trump term is yet another round of tax cuts for the rich. Next up is another round of regulatory loopholes, give-aways, and subsidies to needy (or just greedy) businesses. Lobbyists took Washington in the 1980s, and have only grown ever since. Republicans run "revolving door" administrations where lobbyists are as likely to work for the government as against it. The net effect is that government is as likely to work against the public interest as for it.

Republicans love this, because it reinforces their message that government is inefficient, wasteful, and useless, and should be shrunk (and ultimately "drowned in the bathtub"), except they never actually do that, at least as long as they can use it to feed their political machine.[*] While this is mostly done with money, Republicans are also looking forward to using their power in other ways: in turning the civil service into a patronage system for political operatives; in aligning information services with their political messaging; and in using coercive powers to suppress heresy and dissent, to punish their enemies, and to empower (or at least pardon) their allies.

When Democrats talk so piously and nebulously about the "death of democracy," this is what they are actually referring to. Only it's not a future threat, something that might be avoided if only enough people would vote for a Harris, a Biden, a Clinton, an Obama. It's been happening for a long time -- I used to see 1980 (Reagan) as the turning point, but now that I see it less in policy terms than as a mental disorder, I see much more originality and continuity in Nixon (which has the advantage of making Johnson's Vietnam the breaking point -- it certainly was what turned my own life upside down -- instead of the nascently-Reaganesque Carter). Maybe with Trump redux, Democrats will finally realize that they have to fight back, and stop trying to pass themselves off as some kind of prophylactic, a thin barrier to limit the contagion.

Which brings us back to money. As I said, Republicans worship it. But so do Democrats: maybe not all of them, but virtually all of the kind that run for higher office, because the system is rigged so that only those with access to money can run serious campaigns. (Bernie Sanders is the exception here, and he did come up with a novel system of small donor support, but when he came to be viewed as a threat, big donors dumped tons of money -- Michael Bloomberg more than $500M; compare that to the $28M he spent this year for Harris against Trump -- to quash his campaign.) Harris is no exception here. She raised more money than any Democrat -- or Republican for that matter -- ever. And she lost. So maybe money isn't the answer?

I'm not going to try to tell you what Democrats should do instead, but maybe they should start by waking up and looking at the real world we're living in, a world that they are at least in some substantial part responsible for creating. And that means they need to re-examine their worship of money. There's much more that can be said about this, but I've droned on long enough. I should leave it here.

[*] That machine, by the way, is a thing of wonder, which I don't think has ever been fully dissected, although there is a lot of literature on various aspects of it. If Machiavelli were here, he would write a letter offering advice on how an aspiring young Republican could rise to a position of great power and influence. (As Gramsci noted, real princes didn't need such guidance. The point of the book was to expose their machinations to those with no such experiences.) This would not only lay out the topography of institutions, but the networking, the lexicon of coded language, the spin, and ultimately the psychology of why anyone would want to be a Republican in the first place -- something I still find incredibly alien even though I often take great pains to try to understand others in their own terms.

As of Saturday afternoon, I have 144 links, 15438 words. I was planning on not posting until Monday, so I have time to make another round or two, but I have enough feedback on the election to offer a few bits of speculation about the future. I put little stock in them, given how poorly my predictions have held up. But I can hedge a bit by offering a couple of alternatives.

On several occasions, notably 1992 for the Republicans, and 2016 for the Democrats, incumbent parties seem to have felt permanently entitled to the presidency, and took their defeats bitterly, lashing out blindly. The level of vitriol Republicans directed at Bill Clinton after 1992 was almost unprecedented in the never-very-polite lore of American politics, and set a pattern that they repeated after 2008 and 2020 (arguably the most over-the-top, but by then their character was expected, and the sore loser took personal charge of the rage).

While Democrats didn't behave that atrociously after 2016, when pretty much everyone expected Hillary Clinton to easily defeat Donald Trump, her followers reacted with dismay and a massive round of accusations and scapegoating -- especially directed at Russia, although there were many other factors at work, including how distasteful and provocative Trump was, and that Clinton supporters still had a chip on their shoulders over the strong Bernie Sanders challenge to what organization Democrats expected to be a cakewalk.

Democrats' opinion of Trump has only sunk lower with four years in power and four years plotting his comeback. But so far, reaction has been mild, other than the inevitable shock and sadness. Trump's margin has been sufficient that it's hard to doubt his win. And while Harris seemed promising at the Convention, that may have largely been relief that Biden was out, the assumption that his administration had a good story that was simply poorly communicated, and the pretty conviction belief that Trump was such damaged goods that most Americans would be glad to be rid of him. But it was never really love for Harris, who's proved to be an easy (and rarely defended) target for post-mortems. This also suggests that we misread Trump -- that our loathing of him isn't shared by enough Americans to beat him -- so maybe this isn't a good time to go ballistic on him (as we did in 2016).

Trump's margin opens one new possibility that we haven't considered, which is that if he governed competently, he could actually consolidate his power and become regarded as a significant American president. Admittedly, we have no reason to expect this. His first term was a disaster of unfathomable dimensions. He's spent most of the four years since scrambling to stay out of jail. And his campaign theme has been redemption and revenge. If he attempts to put into practice even a significant share of what he campaigned on, evaluations of his legacy should sink as far below the scale of American presidents as Caligula and Ivan the Terrible.

But will he? I wouldn't bet against it, but it's just possible that having won, as ugly as that whole campaign has been, he'll change course. I don't mean to suggest that he won't be as bad as his voters want him to be on signature issues like immigration. But now that he's president, why should he adopt austerity budgets and demolish services, just to prove that government doesn't work. If he does that, he'll be blamed, and if he doesn't, he'll reap the credit. Plus the whole Fox machine is behind him, so who's going to complain? Certainly not the Democrats, who are always ready to help a Republican president do a good deed. (Remember when they foolishly thought "No Child Left Behind" would better fund education?) He's promised a better ACA. Why not rebrand it like he did with NAFTA, adding a couple tweaks that most Democrats can get behind, and magically turning it into the Republican program it always was? He'd be a hero, whereas had he done any of Paul Ryan's plans, he'd be a goat.

The big difference between Trump now and then isn't just that he has some experience to learn from, but that this time he gets to pick his own staff. In 2016, he left that mostly to Pence and Priebus, who saddled him with a bunch of assholes even he couldn't stand, including the so-called "adults in the room." This could, as most of us feared, be for the worse, but Trump was always hemmed in by regular Republicans, ranging from the Koch-controlled Ryan to the Blob-heads in the national security racket. One big reason he won the 2016 primaries was that he disagreed with hardcore economic orthodoxy. But as a neophyte Republican, he got stuck with a bunch of crooked, deranged incompetents, and their rot killed his whole administration. Granted, he wasn't smart enough to figure it out in real time, and he may still not be, but the new crew were competent enough to run a winning campaign this time. We shouldn't exclude the possibility that they're competent enough to manage him, or to let him manage, some level of competency. For which he'll handle the PR, as that's his thing, and it will probably be more hideous than the actual administration, which above all else has to keep business booming and profits soaring.

One area where he has a mandate and some real power to act is foreign policy, where Biden has been utterly disastrous. It's well past time to settle the Ukraine War, which needs a bit more art and tact than he's shown so far, but is doable without looking like too much of a surrender to Putin (but if the Democrats scream treason, that'll probably make it more popular). The obvious deal there is status quo on the ground, and dial back sanctions as stability and security is ensured. The US actually needs a cooperative relationship with Russia, and that means undoing the sanctions. He needs to do that without looking like a Russian stooge, but Putin seems to be more sensitive to how Trump looks than Trump himself.

Israel is a different matter. He'll give Israel whatever they want, with no complaints or pretense of humanitarian concern. At some point, he'll broker a deal with Egypt, the Saudis, Syria (via Putin), and maybe even Iran, to send the rest of the Palestinians Israel hasn't killed already into permanent exile. Maybe he'll get Israel to concede Lebanon, and that will be the end of it. It's a horrible solution, but in some ways it'll be a blessing. The Democrats were just going to drag it out. [*]

I could go around the world, but in foreign policy, there is virtually nothing he can do (other than start a war, e.g. with China) that wouldn't be an improvement over Biden. In general, he'll depress trade and immigration, and disengage in the internal affairs of other countries. He could easily negotiate peace deals with North Korea, Iran, even Cuba and Venezuela. He doesn't care about human rights in those places. (Biden didn't either, but the pretense was killing.) BRICS will continue to grow, Europe will go its own way, and the American people will be just fine. (Maybe fewer cheap goods and less cheap labor, but nowhere near the scare levels that liberal economists like to predict.) If Democrats complain about this, they'll only dig themselves deeper graves. The era of American global hegemony is ending. Protracting it will only make a bad thing worse.

By the way, Vance is a creep, but he's much smarter, and much savvier both on foreign and domestic policy than Pence ever was. Plus, as the heir-apparent, he has incentives not to turn the administration into the dumpster fire that Pence left with. I could go on and on, but you should get the idea by now. Having shown he can win, legitimately (as these things go), Trump has little reason to destroy democracy. He could even build on the majority he already has. He faces two dangers: one is his own bad instincts; the other is the idiot nihilism of much of the Republican Party. But he owns that party now, and the rank-and-file are basically followers, controlled by the propaganda machine, and the apparatchiki are just hired hands: they do what they're told.

Again, I have very little confidence that Trump will do any of this -- even on Israel, where he will continue to do whatever Netanyahu wants, but Netanyahu is used to and even seems to like it being a forever war, so he may not press that hard.

So it's really just up to him. As for the Democrats, all they can do is react. It's hopeless for me to try to advise, as none of them are ready to listen. They first have to figure out who they are, who they want to represent, and what they want. But this game of conning both the donors and the voters is wearing awfully thin.

[*] I could add some caveats and nuance here, but the key point is that this is what the dominant political coalition of Israel actually wants, and that Trump, both by temperament and in light of his donor support network, is unlikely to offer any resistance to anything Israel demands -- even more so than Biden-Harris, who as Democrats felt the need to express humanitarian concerns and their commitment to democracy. Trump has no such concerns, and may even see the mass expulsion of Palestinians as an exemplary model for his own mass expulsion of "illegal immigrants." But any number of things could limit this "ethnic cleansing." I'll leave this to your imagination, assuming you have enough to see that public opinion all around the world will increasingly shift as Israel approaches genocide's "final solution" -- even in the US, which should be of some concern to Trump, although his first instinct will be to fight and suppress it. He will see it as an opportunity to break pro-Israel donors away from the Democratic Party, solidifying his support, but freeing Democrats from having to toady for Israel, as Harris did and paid for. But ultimately opinion could turn against Trump/Israel here. The tide could even turn in Israel as the costs of war and isolation mount. And a massive influx of Palestinian exiles will be welcome nowhere: the US and EU go without saying, but public opinion makes this a tough sell in the Arab autocracies, which could blow up under the strain -- and which have their own major financial pipeline to Trump (e.g., Kushner's billion dollar slush fund).

I think the most likely scenario is that Gaza is totally crushed and depopulated, but that Israel is pressured to dial back its apartheid and ethnic cleansing measures in the occupied areas (including parts of pre-1967 Israel, where Palestinians are 20% of the population, and have barely-nominal citizenship) to pre-October 2023 levels. But a wide range of scenarios are possible. While Trump's election strengthens Netanyahu, they are fighting a perilous uphill battle (against a world which has been inexorably decolonising ever since 1945), where they may well wind up just retreating into their fortress-castles. [**]

[**] MAGA is clearly such a retreat, on many fronts (e.g., they want to return to a world where stern fathers can spank naughty daughters). Most of their beliefs should be resisted, but their retreat from neoliberal/neoconservative foreign policy is overdue. The world has changed since WWII, when America extended its hegemony over the "free world" and set up its quasi-holy war against the enemies of capital. Most of the capital that American armed and propaganda forces so fiercely defend isn't even American any more, and what is isn't of much value to most actual Americans. (A precise accounting of that capital may depend on how you account for Elon Musk, who I'd argue is case proof that not all immigration is good). Moreover, America's defense of that capital has lost much of its effectiveness, as American soldiers have given up the fight (why risk ruining their lives for oil moguls?), as corruption has made the war machine prohibitively expensive, and as the world itself has become increasingly unconquerable. (Phrase comes from Jonathan Schell's 2003 book, The Unconquerable World.)

Neoliberals will accuse Trump et al. of "isolationism," because that's the slur they deployed against a previous generation of (mostly) Republicans, who were wary of their schemes for one world market, dominated by American capital, and regimented by American arms. Although the US rarely had much of a standing army before 1939, Americans were widely engaged in the world, mostly through trade, not insignificantly through missionary work, but only rarely through imperialist adventures (1898 counts, as does the subsequent "gunboat diplomacy"). This willingness to engage the world on fairly equitable terms, including the resistance to European imperialism announced in the Monroe Doctrine, the pursuit of Open Door Policy to break up imperial monopolies, and the "arsenal of democracy" which defeated the final campaigns of Germany and Japan: all this earned Americans considerable good will around the world, which America's post-WWII abuse of power has only turned into a "legacy of ashes" (to borrow the title of Tim Weiner's history of the CIA). While the "isolationist" taunt will impress subscribers of Foreign Policy, it's a spent term, a piece of liberal cant that will produce more backlash than agreement.

While the "defense Democrats" have been ascendant against Trump and for Biden, I can only hope they will be seen as bankrupt now, and that Democrats will revert to something more like Roosevelt's Good Neighbor Policy (a kinder, gentler redressing of Gunboat Diplomacy, not that it changed things much), and a renewed interest in the UN, which the neocons sought so hard to trash. Also, I do not expect Trump to be consistent here: even if his tendency is to withdraw, institutional support for militarism and world dominance remains strong, at least as much in the Republican Party as in the Democratic, and it's easy to play on his ego as "the leader of the free world," especially when all he has to do is to follow friendly bribes.

I woke up Monday morning with the thought that I could finally add a third intro here, where I talk about what Democrats should do now that they've been driven from national power. I always planned on a final chapter to my political book where I would offer what I saw as practical political advice to save the world. (Well, in some versions of that book, I tacked on an extra section, which would describe the dystopia that would ensue if Democrats fail and allow Republicans to do all they've wanted. That much, at least, I'll spare you spoilers for.) So I have given this subject a fair amount of thought, and if I had the time (and were still so inclined) I could write about this at considerable length. However, with Monday slipping away from me, and no desire whatsoever to face this file on Tuesday, I'll try to keep this very brief: some reflections and scattered tidbits, but no structure, and no cheerleading. I'm not trying to sell my advice. I'm just throwing it out there.

Monday evening, I find I haven't written this section, and no longer have time. I think I did make many of the points I've been thinking about under various articles, so I'll leave it to you to ferret them out. Anything involving money, credibility, and trust is likely to be relevant. The biggest problem Democrats have is that lots of people don't trust them -- on lots of things, including avoiding war. They have to figure out how to fix that. And funny thing, beating the Republicans at fundraising and at advertising and celebrity endorsements and "ground game" isn't doing the trick.

Why so many of those people trust Republicans instead is way beyond me, but there is considerable evidence that they do. There is also ample evidence that trust in Republicans is foolish and sometimes plain stupid, but until Democrats get their house in order, distrust in them takes precedence. One saving grace may be that most Americans really hate corruption, and they don't much care for incompetence either. Republicans are up to their necks in both. Now if you can just show them, you should be able to score points. But it's hard to do when you're corrupt and incompetent as well.

One thought I'm pretty sure I didn't get to yet concerns "woke." I think of it as something like satori, a state of mind that if you're lucky, you find yourself in through no discernible effort of your own. It's good to be woke, but only you can know that. What it is not is a license for an inquisition, which is how most of the anti-woke have been trained to view it. And it's not that they disapprove of inquisitions in general. It's just that they prefer their own.

Top story threads:

Election notes: Some general pieces here, then more specific ones on Trump (why he won, and how horrible that is) and Harris (why she lost, and who cares) following, then sections on the Senate (flipped R), House (undecided, but probably still R), and other issues below.

  • Washington Post: 2024 turnout is near the 2020 record. See how each state compares. I've seen references to a drop in voter turnout in 2024, especially relative to 2020, but this data shows a pretty close match, with 9 states posting new highs (44 year window). Trump won those states 5-4, with all of his wins in battleground states. Of 5 states with turnout under 55%, 4 were among Trump's biggest margin states (WV, AR, MS, OK), while the lowest one anywhere was Hawaii.

  • Zack Beauchamp:

    • [11-06] Donald Trump has won -- and American democracy is now in grave danger: "Trump's second term poses an existential threat to the republic. But there's still good reason for hope."

    • [11-06] The global trend that pushed Donald Trump to victory: "Incumbents everywhere are doing poorly. America just proved it's not exceptional." I still have, and haven't read, his book, so I know that this is his turf, and he likely has something interesting to say about the rest of the world -- something I, like most people, don't know a hell of a lot about -- but I don't see how this could possibly work: it just seems like another correlation pretending to be a cause. No need to deal with this now, but I will note one line: "Three different exit polls found that at least 70 percent of Americans were dissatisfied with the country's current direction, and they took it out on the current ruling party." Links in that line to the following:

  • William Bruno: [10-23] Why foreign policy is the biggest issue this November: "From Gaza to Ukraine, this election will have world-spanning consequences. Now more than ever, we need to push for an anti-war, anti-imperial foreign policy." This came out before the election, so its tactical advice, like "hold Harris accountable," is moot, but the core issues are certainly important.

  • Thomas Frank: [11-09] The elites had it coming. Of course, he's mostly talking about Democrats, although fellow traveler Dick Cheney gets as many nods as Barack Obama.

    Liberals had nine years to decipher Mr. Trump's appeal -- and they failed. The Democrats are a party of college graduates, as the whole world understands by now, of Ph.D.s and genius-grant winners and the best consultants money can buy. Mr. Trump is a con man straight out of Mark Twain; he will say anything, promise anything, do nothing. But his movement baffled the party of education and innovation. Their most brilliant minds couldn't figure him out.

  • Michelle Goldberg: [11-06] This is who we are now.

    Trump's first election felt like a fluke, a sick accident enabled by Democratic complacency. But this year, the forces of liberal pluralism and basic civic decency poured everything they could into the fight, and they lost not just the Electoral College but also quite likely the popular vote. The American electorate, knowing exactly who Trump is, chose him. This is, it turns out, who we are.

    So I expect the next few months to be a period of mourning rather than defiance. . . . But eventually, mourning either starts to fade or curdles into depression and despair. When and if it does, whatever resistance emerges to the new MAGA will differ from what came before. Gone will be the hope of vindicating the country from Trumpism, of rendering him an aberration. What's left is the more modest work of trying to ameliorate the suffering his government is going to visit on us. . . .

    Ultimately, Trump's one redeeming feature is his incompetence. If history is any guide, many of those he brings into government will come to despise him. He will not give people the economic relief they're craving. . . . We saw, with Covid, how Trump handled a major crisis, and there is not the slightest reason to believe he will perform any better in handling another. I have little doubt that many of those who voted for him will come to regret it. He could even end up discrediting bombastic right-wing nationalism the way George W. Bush -- whose re-election also broke my heart -- discredited neoconservatism.

    The question, if and when that happens, is how much of our system will still be standing, and whether Trump's opponents have built an alternative that can restore to people a sense of dignity and optimism. That will be the work of the next four years -- saving what we can and trying to imagine a tolerable future.

    One nit here is that no matter how discredited she thought neoconservatism was when Bush-Cheney departed, it still rules the roost, as Biden showed us with his disastrous cultivation of wars, and Harris underscored by welcoming Dick Cheney to her campaign. Even as some especially notorious individuals were put to pasture, the institutions supporting them remain unchecked and unexamined. I'm also less certain of Trump's incompetence. Much will depend on whether he hires competent people who can keep his trust without blundering. Sure, he did a very bad job of that during his first term.

  • Tyler Austin Harper: [11-06] What we just went through wasn't an election. It was a hostage situation. This seems about right:

    Heading into Tuesday's vote, a large majority of voters said that the country was on the wrong track and that they were disappointed with the candidates on offer. A plurality of voters said that regardless of who was elected, the next president would make things worse. Nearly 80 percent said the presidential campaigns did not make them proud of America.

    The blame for this grievous state of affairs lies with the Democratic and Republican Parties, both of which played a game of chicken with the electorate, relying on apocalyptic threats about the end of democracy to convince people that they had no choice but to vote as instructed. Both candidates offered up policies that were unpopular even among their supporters, serving a banquet for their donor classes while doling out junk food to their bases. For one candidate, that contemptuous strategy succeeded. But it fails the American people.

    For all his populist posturing, Mr. Trump put forward tax breaks that favor the wealthy, championed tariffs that would almost certainly raise grocery prices, bad-mouthed overtime pay, praised firing striking workers and largely stayed mum while his allies discussed destroying the Affordable Care Act. He insisted abortion be left up to the states even though most Americans, including many Republicans, think it should be legal everywhere, and pledged to oppose any new gun restrictions even though an overwhelming majority of Americans say they should be stricter.

    And what were Trump acolytes to be given in return for greenlighting this unpopular agenda? Elon Musk promised a period of economic pain. Tucker Carlson said Mr. Trump would bend the country over his knee and give it a "spanking." Why would any sign on? Because it was either that, they were told, or nuclear war under Ms. Harris. Some choice. . . .

    What we just went through was not an election; it was a hostage situation. Our major parties represent the interests of streaming magnates, the arms industry, oil barons, Bitcoin ghouls and Big Tobacco, often without even pretending to heed the needs of voters. A political system like that is fundamentally broken.

    I skipped over the corresponding list of indictments against Biden and Harris, which struck me as (relatively speaking) small potatoes, but most show that the inordinate influence of money isn't limited to Republicans. The first paragraph cites two pieces on the threat to "end democracy":

  • Doug Henwood: [11-08] It was always about inflation: "Simply put, Donald Trump owes his reelection to inflation and to the fact that the Biden administration did little to address the problem in a way that helped working-class families."

    I often say that the Democrats' political problem is that they're a party of capital that has to pretend otherwise for electoral purposes. This time they hardly even pretended. Kamala Harris preferred campaigning with the inexplicably famous mogul Mark Cuban and the ghoulish Liz Cheney to Shawn Fain, who led the United Auto Workers to the greatest strike victory in decades. Those associations telegraphed both her policy instincts and her demographic targeting: Silicon Valley and upscale suburbs.

    Like Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, the strategy failed, only worse. At least Clinton won the popular vote by almost three million. Harris even lost among suburban white women, a principal target of this twice-failed strategy.

  • Ed Kilgore:

    • [11-06] Americans wanted change and that meant Trump. There is something to this, but also several loads of bullshit:

      The simplest explanation, though, may be the most compelling: This was a classic "change" election in which the "out" party had an advantage that the governing party could not overcome. Yes, the outcome was in doubt because Democrats managed to replace a very unpopular incumbent with an interesting if untested successor, and also because the GOP chose a rival whose constant demonstration of his own unpopular traits threatened to take over the whole contest. In the end Trump normalized his crude and erratic character by endless repetition; reduced scrutiny of his lawless misconduct by denouncing critics and prosecutors alike as politically motivated; and convinced an awful lot of unhappy voters that he hated the same people and institutions they did.

      Nobody for a moment doubted that Trump would bring change. And indeed, his signature Make America Great Again slogan and message came to have a double meaning. Yes, for some it meant (as it did in 2016) a return to the allegedly all-American culture of the 20th century, with its traditional hierarchies; moral certainties and (for some) white male leadership. But for others MAGA meant very specifically referred to the perceived peace and prosperity of the pre-pandemic economy and society presided over, however turbulently, Trump. When Republicans gleefully asked swing voters if they were better off before Joe Biden became president, a veritable coalition of voters with recent and long-standing grievances over conditions in the country had as simple an answer as they did when Ronald Reagan used it to depose Jimmy Carter more than a half-century ago.

      The "better off" question is close to meaningless, as most people can't really tell, but as we've seen, are inclined to accept whatever their political orientation dictates. Unlike, say, the pandemic of 2020, or the financial meltdown of 2008, or the deflationary recession of 1980, or the great one of 1929-32 (is that what MAGA means?), there is little objective reason driving voters to change. Granted, there may be unease driven by slower, almost tectonic forces (like climate change), but few people think them through, and those who do tend to prefer orderly change over the kind of disruption Trump promises.

    • [11-09] Democrats lost because of their bad policies, not their bad attitude. I beg to differ, but both could have been better.

    • [11-12] Kamala Harris came much closer to winning than you think. The argument here is that the shift to Trump was less in the highly contested swing states than anywhere else (Harris topped Biden only in Colorado).

  • David Sirota: [11-07] Election 2024: How billionaires torpedoed democracy: "Both parties' 2024 campaigns claimed to be about 'saving democracy.' Yet both parties ended up bought and paid for by billionaires."

  • Jeffrey St Clair:

    • [11-06] Chronicle of a defeat foretold: "What does history repeat itself after it does farce?" He's very harsh on Harris here. One thing I find curious is an uncredited chart, which if I'm reading it right says that 24% of respondents think Democracy in the US is secure, vs. 74% threatened. Harris leads secure 59% to 39%, but trails in the larger threatened group, 46% to 53%. But isn't securing democracy supposed to be her issue? As an issue, it's nebulous enough that Trump was able to deflect it by claiming that Democrats were the real threat to democracy (after all, they're the ones rigging the polling and the voting!). Democrats could bring up fascism, but the response is simply, you're the real fascists, and who else really knows any better?

      This is an aside, but fits here as well as anywhere. I haven't found an article making this point so far, but could Kelly's fascism comments have been a plant? (Like one of Roger Stone's dirty tricks?) If Trump's operatives know that being charged with fascism will only solidify their support -- not because their supporters identify with fascism, but because they see it as stereotypically leftist infantile name-calling (unlike "libtard," which they know is just a joke). But mainstream Democrats generally shy away from such a loaded term, so how do you get someone like Harris to use it? You give her permission, by allowing her to quote someone like Kelly. This whole notion of "permission" is sick and pernicious. There's a quote somewhere about how the Cheney endorsements of Harris give Republicans permission to vote against Trump: it becomes something real Republicans can do without surrendering their identify. Harris may have had some doubt about "fascism," but she couldn't resist the Cheney honey trap, as she saw it as a way to steal some significant slice of Republican votes, putting her over the top. I have no reason to believe that Kelly and the Cheneys were plants, other than that they precisely had that effect. That they did, of course, was Harris's gaffe (and yeah, I'm following Kinsley rules here, otherwise I would have said "blunder").

    • [11-08] The crack-up. Title from F Scott Fitzgerald. Selected bits:

      • This "white wave" electorate didn't reject progressive ideas; they rejected the candidate who failed to advocate them for fear of alienating Big Tech execs and Wall Street financiers. Voters in both Alaska and Missouri approve increasing the minimum wage to $15. Voters approved paid sick leave in Alaska, Missouri and Nebraska. Voters in Oregon approved a measure protecting marijuana workers' right to unionize. Alaska voters banned anti-union captive audience meetings. Arizona voters rejected a measure that lowered the minimum wage for tipped workers. Massachusetts approved the right of rideshare workers to organize for collective bargaining. New Orleans voters approved a Workers Bill of Rights. Voters in Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada and New York approved measures granting a state constitutional right to abortion.

      • Harris lost the popular vote by five million votes. Jill Stein only garnered 642,000 votes, just 25,000 more than RFK, Jr., who'd long since withdrawn. In no state did Stein get enough votes to cost Harris the state. Good luck blaming the Greens (which says much about the politically emaciated condition of the Greens). Even in Wisconsin (where Harris lost by only 31,000 votes), Stein, who captured only 12,666 votes, didn't fare well enough to be blamed (or credited) for costing Harris the state. In Pennsylvania, Harris lost by 165,000 votes. Stein collected only 33,591 votes. In Michigan, where Stein had her best showing in a battleground state, winning 44,648 votes (0.8%), Harris lost to Trump by 82,000 votes.

      • Murtaza Hussain: "Suppressing the Bernie movement in 2016 effectively destroyed the Democratic Party. That was a turning point year GOP also had an insurgency with Trump but they ultimately worked with him to some new kind of synthesis. The Democrats never got past their decrepit ancien regime."

      • Some of you may remember that it was the Obama brain trust, irritated at Trump's role in promoting the birther conspiracy, who worked feverishly in 2011 to make Trump the face of the post-Tea Party GOP. Obama's former campaign manager and policy guru, David Plouffe later explained the thinking: "Let's lean into Trump here. That'll be good for us." That worked out about as well for the Democratic base as the bank bailouts.

    • By the way, St Clair also wrote The wolf at the door, which is a fund drive piece, but also a history of a publication that's still bristling with anger 30 years after inception. There's not just a lot to be angry about today, but much more coming down the pike. Be sure of that.

  • Freddy Brewster: [11-05] Leonard Leo's dark money web is sowing election day chaos.

  • Israel/Palestine considerations:

  • International reaction:

Trump:

  • Peter Baker: [11-06] 'Trump's America': Comeback victory signals a different kind of country: "In the end, Donald J. Trump is not the historical aberration some thought he was, but instead a transformational force reshaping the modern United States in his own image." This piece came out immediately after the election was called, showing once again that no one beats the New York Times when it comes to sucking up to those in power.

  • Walden Bello: [11-07] How did I "predict" that Trump, despite his repulsive persona and politics, would prevail? "Democratic Party leadership has been discredited and there's room for new progressive leaders to take the helm."

  • Jamelle Bouie: [11-09] What do Trump voters know about the future he has planned for them? Not much, partly because they don't believe what he says, and they believe even less what Democrats say he says. At some point in this post I should quote something Jeffrey St Clair wrote recently: [10-25]

    More than half of Trump's supporters don't believe he'll actually do many of the things he claims he'll do (mass deportations, siccing the military on domestic protesters and political rivals), while more than half of Harris's supporters hope she'll implement many of the policies (end the genocide/single-payer) she claims she won't. And that pretty much sums up this election.

    What we should add to St Clair's observation is that the Trump understanding was much more credible than the Harris take. Trump lies all the time, sometimes just to provoke a reaction. Harris, well, doesn't have Trump's track record, but she's a politician, and how far do you trust politicians, especially to do the right thing?

  • John Cassidy: [11-11] Donald Trump's victory and the politics of inflation: "Joe Biden's strong record on jobs and Kamala Harris's vow to reduce the cost of living couldn't prevent the Democrats from succumbing to a global anti-incumbency wave." One thing that bothers me in virtually every article this week that even mentions inflation is that no one seems to have a clear understanding of what it is, of how it works, of what is bad (and in some cases good) about it, of what can and should be done about it. I can't do it justice here, but I do want to stress one point: it creates both winners and losers. Good government policy would try to limit the winners (perhaps by taxing off their windfall) and to compensate the losers (the "cola" in Social Security is one example of this). The press seem to buy the notion that it is an always bad, which mostly means that they are carrying water for the side that wants less inflation (e.g., for bankers, which is largely why the Fed is so hawkish against inflation). I wouldn't say that there was no real inflation coming out of the pandemic: I suspect that some inflation was inevitable, but the winners and losers (and therefore who felt the pain, and who needed help) were largely determined by pricing power, which has been tilted against workers and consumers for some time, but became more acute when inflation was added to the mix. Policies limiting monopolies and price gouging would have helped, but Biden and Harris got little credit for them, even from supposedly liberal economists. Trump offered nothing but an outlet for rage. Why anyone thought that might be any kind of solution is way beyond me, but according to polls, many people did. They were deceived. Whether they ever learn from such mistakes remains to be seen.

  • Jelani Cobb: [11-07] 2016 and 2024: "We will be a fundamentally different country by the end of the next Administration." Indeed, we already are.

  • Ed Coper: [11-08] White noise: why hatred of Donald Trump fuels his success as much as his supporters' love: "A network of organised disinformation sows doubt, kills policy reform and keep us ad adds as we debate Trump-mania." Some misdirection in his first paragraph:

    Historians will long scratch their heads that a Republican candidate who -- despite an inability to string a coherent sentence together, being grossly underqualified and rife with extramarital affairs -- would go on to not only win election but become one of the most popular presidents in US history.

    Turns out the subject here was Warren Harding, elected president in a 1920 landslide. How it advances an understanding of Trump isn't clear, but even stranger stories ensue.

  • David Corn:

    • [11-04] Trump and his voters: they like the lying: "He's a con man whose deceptions and hypocrisies are easy to detect. The question won't fade: How does he get away with it?" "Trump is demonstrating that he does not play by the rules of the establishment that these people perceive (for an assortment of reasons) as the enemy."

    • [11-06] America meets its judgment day: "Trump's victory signals a national embrace of the politics of hate and a possible fascist future."

  • Ben Davis: [11-09] None of the conventional explanations for Trump's victory stand up to scrutiny: "This election has blown a hole in the worldviews of both leftists and centrists. The pandemic may be a more important factor." This piece covers a lot of ground, quite sensibly. The section on Covid is really about something else:

    I propose a different explanation than inflation qua inflation: the Covid welfare state and its collapse. The massive, almost overnight expansion of the social safety net and its rapid, almost overnight rollback are materially one of the biggest policy changes in American history. For a brief period, and for the first time in history, Americans had a robust safety net: strong protections for workers and tenants, extremely generous unemployment benefits, rent control and direct cash transfers from the American government.

    Despite the trauma and death of Covid and the isolation of lockdowns, from late 2020 to early 2021, Americans briefly experienced the freedom of social democracy. They had enough liquid money to plan long term and make spending decisions for their own pleasure rather than just to survive. They had the labor protections to look for the jobs they wanted rather than feel stuck in the jobs they had. At the end of Trump's term, the American standard of living and the amount of economic security and freedom Americans had was higher than when it started, and, with the loss of this expanded welfare state, it was worse when Biden left office, despite his real policy wins for workers and unions. This is why voters view Trump as a better shepherd of the economy.

    I've often thought that the Democrats took way too little credit for the first big pandemic relief bill, which Pelosi and Schumer largely wrote and pushed through, while Trump had to acquiesce because he was mostly worried about the falling stock market. The sunsetting made it palatable to Republicans, and made sense given that it was relief for an emergency. Democrats figured they could run on extending key parts of it, but did they? Not really. Worse than that, Trump claimed credit for the immediate effects, then blamed inflation on the act's largesse. Democrats were, once again, screwed coming and going, mostly for not following McConnell's formula of just letting the country go to hell, just so voters would blame the incumbent president.

  • David Dayen: [11-08] The triumphant return of corruption: "A look at the biggest stock gainers since Trump's election shows that paying tribute to the next president will have its benefits." He identifies several especially large gains, from outfits like MoneyLion (up 61%, "investors believe, correctly, that consumer protection, which made a comeback in the past four years, will be destroyed again"), CoreCivic (up 72%, a "private prison" company), GEO Group (up 61%, another "private prison" contractor), and Coinbase (up 41%, "the crypto exchange"). "We can get ready for four years of pay-to-play deals, corporate back-scratching, and a public unprotected from scam artists."

  • John Harris: [11-10] From Trump's victory, a simple, inescapable message: many people despise the left: "The tumult of social media and rightwing propaganda has successfully cast progressives as one judgmental, 'woke' mass." I don't doubt his point, but the examples mostly make me think that most of the people who "hate the left" have little if any idea what or whom the left is. That suggests some kind of communication problem, which makes most sense in the US, where we don't have our own party, and are often stuck under the dead carcass of a Democratic Party, whose leaders hate us as much as the right thinks it does. But there must be more to the story than that: some deep, dark psychological factors that are never really acknowledged and near impossible to dislodge There must be a literature researching this. We certainly have research on why people become fascists, which overlaps significantly with hating the left. On the other hand, my own study of history has shown that everything decent and valuable that has ever happened in America has its origin in the left. Why can't anyone else see that?

  • David Hearst: [11-07] Trump has a choice: Obliterate Palestine or end the war: Most likely he won't even think of it as a choice, but simply following the directions of his donors. The question is whether he can see the many downsides of doing so. He has several odd talents, but clear thinking and foresight aren't among them.

    Conventional wisdom has it that Trump 2.0 will be a disaster for Palestinians, because Trump 1.0 all but buried the Palestinian national cause.

    And it is indeed true that under Donald Trump's first term as president, the US was wholly guided by the Zionist religious right -- the real voice in his ear, either as donors or policymakers.

    Under Trump and his son-in-law adviser, Jared Kushner, Washington became a policy playground for the settler movement, with which the former US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, was unashamedly aligned.

    Consequently, in his first term, Trump upended decades of policy by recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moving the US embassy there; he disenfranchised the Palestinian Authority by closing down the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) office in Washington; he allowed Israel to annex the Golan Heights; he pulled out of the nuclear accords with Iran; and he assassinated Qassem Soleimani, the most powerful Iranian general and diplomat in the region.

    Even more damaging for the Palestinian struggle for freedom was Trump's sponsorship of the Abraham Accords.

    This was -- and still is -- a serious attempt to pour concrete over the grave of the Palestinian cause, constructing in its place a superhighway of trade and contracts from the Gulf that would make Israel not just a regional superpower, but a vital portal to the wealth of the Gulf.

    This led directly to the Hamas revolt, and the Israeli reprisal, not just collect punishment but a systematic plan to render Gaza uninhabitable, so credit him there, too. As I noted in my intro, I expect he will simply cheer Netanyahu on to "finish the job." I don't think he has any idea what that entails, how it will look, and how it will reflect back on America, and on him personally. Nor do I think he cares. He's one of those guys who strictly lives in the present, trusting his instincts will never fail him.

    There is much more to this piece, including a concluding section on "Hope for the future," where he notes: "It may be that as Biden departs, we have seen the party's last Zionist leader. That in itself is of immense significance for Israel."

  • Murtaza Hussain: [11-06] Trump is eyeing Iran hawk Brian Hook as first foreign policy pick.

  • Lauren Markoe: [11-07] Who is Howard Lutnick? Trump transition team leader is a billionaire supporter of Jewish causes and Israel.

  • Michael Mechanic: [11-07] Why did Trump really win? It's simple, actually. "When the economy thrives while half of America struggles, something has got to give."

  • Lorrie Moore: [11-07] A fourth-rate entertainer, a third-rate businessman, and a two-time president: "The 2024 election, like the one in 2016, had the same nutty and vapid Donald Trump, the same retrograde gender politics, and the same result."

    He is a third-rate businessman and fourth-rate entertainer, a husband to fashion models, a wannabe standup comedian who cannot land a punch line but floats language out into the air, hoping it will cohere, then flare, though it usually wanders into vapor and fog. As with much current standup, it can get raunchy and crass, but the MAGA people accept this lack of dignity. I was struck with puzzled admiration at his forty minutes of quiet swaying to "Ave Maria." It was like performance art. He also did a skit at McDonald's and one in a garbage truck. He will do most anything to avoid talking about actual governing, which he does not know that much about. He perhaps understands that most voters don't want to discuss that and want to just leave it to their elected officials. We are a country that is about money and entertainment. Trump was running as the embodiment of these. One PBS commentator used a Hollywood metaphor to explain him: Trump is a franchise blockbuster, familiar and splashy; Harris is an independent art-house film with subtitles.

  • Elie Mystal: [11-07] There's no denying it anymore: Trump is not a fluke -- he's America: "The United States chose Donald Trump in all his ugliness and cruelty, and the country will get what it deserves." This is certainly one viewpoint. Still, I have to ask, how many people didn't understand the choice this clearly? And for those who did not, why not?

    We had a chance to stand united against fascism, authoritarianism, racism, and bigotry, but we did not. We had a chance to create a better world for not just ourselves but our sisters and brothers in at least some of the communities most vulnerable to unchecked white rule, but we did not. We had a chance to pass down a better, safer, and cleaner world to our children, but we did not. Instead, we chose Trump, JD Vance, and a few white South African billionaires who know a thing or two about instituting apartheid. . . .

    Everyone who hates Trump is asking how America can be "saved" from him, again. Nobody is asking the more relevant question: Is America worth saving? Like I said, Trump is the sum of our failures. A country that allows its environment to be ravaged, its children to be shot, its wealth to be hoarded, its workers to be exploited, its poor to starve, its cops to murder, and its minorities to be hunted doesn't really deserve to be "saved." It deserves to fail.

    Trump is not our "retribution." He is our reckoning.

  • Rick Perlstein:

    • [11-05] Garbagegate, with a twist: "The media's penchant to balance the two parties and control the narrative didn't quite work when it came to a Trump insult comic's comments about Puerto Rico."

    • [11-13] How to hear a fascist: "Trump was supposed to be in decline, losing it. He lost it all the way to the White House."

  • Kelefa Sanneh: [11-07] How Donald Trump, the leader of white grievance, gained among Hispanic voters.

  • Timothy Snyder: [11-08] What does it mean that Donald Trump is a fascist? "Trump takes the tools of dictators and adapts them for the Internet. We should expect him to try to cling to power until death, and create a cult of January 6th martyrs." This is an article that we must admit, he's competent to write, but hardly anyone else is competent to read. I bookmarked it because it's an issue I take some perverse interest in. I haven't read it yet, because I doubt that I'll learn much -- e.g., I already knew the Marinetti story, and that's pretty obscure -- and the rest will probably just be annoying.

  • Rebecca Solnit:

  • Elizabeth Spiers: [11-06] Trump offered men something that Democrats never could.

  • b>Asawin Suebsaeng/Tim Dickinson: [10-03] 'American death squads': inside Trump's push to make police more violent: "Trump's recent call for a 'violent day' of policing is part of his plan to push cops to be as brutal as possible and shield them from accountability." Pre-election piece I should have noticed earlier (or should have been better reported).

  • Michael Tomasky: [11-08] Why does no one understand the real reason Trump won? "It wasn't the economy. It wasn't inflation, or anything else. It was how people perceive those things, which points to one overpowering answer."

    The answer is the right-wing media. Today, the right-wing media -- Fox News (and the entire News Corp.), Newsmax, One America News Network, the Sinclair network of radio and TV stations and newspapers, iHeart Media (formerly Clear Channel), the Bott Radio Network (Christian radio), Elon Musk's X, the huge podcasts like Joe Rogan's, and much more -- sets the news agenda in this country. And they fed their audiences a diet of slanted and distorted information that made it possible for Trump to win.

    Let me say that again, in case it got lost: Today, the right-wing media sets the news agenda in this country. Not The New York Times. Not The Washington Post (which bent over backwards to exert no influence when Jeff Bezos pulled the paper's Harris endorsement). Not CBS, NBC, and ABC. The agenda is set by all the outlets I listed in the above paragraph. Even the mighty New York Times follows in its wake, aping the tone they set disturbingly often. . . .

    I think a lot of people who don't watch Fox or listen to Sinclair radio don't understand this crucial chicken-and-egg point. They assume that Trump says something, and the right-wing media amplify it. That happens sometimes. But more often, it's the other way around. These memes start in the media sphere, then they become part of the Trump agenda.

    I haven't even gotten to the economy, about which there is so much to say. Yes -- inflation is real. But the Biden economy has been great in many ways. The U.S. economy, wrote The Economist in mid-October, is "the envy of the world." But in the right-wing media, the horror stories were relentless. And mainstream economic reporting too often followed that lead. Allow me to make the world's easiest prediction: After 12:00 noon next January 20, it won't take Fox News and Fox Business even a full hour to start locating every positive economic indicator they can find and start touting those. Within weeks, the "roaring Trump economy" will be conventional wisdom. (Eventually, as some of the fruits from the long tail of Bidenomics start growing on the vine, Trump may become the beneficiary of some real-world facts as well, taking credit for that which he opposed and regularly denounced.)

    Back to the campaign. I asked Gertz what I call my "Ulan Bator question." If someone moved to America from Ulan Bator, Mongolia in the summer and watched only Fox News, what would that person learn about Kamala Harris? "You would know that she is a very stupid person," Gertz said. "You'd know that she orchestrated a coup against Joe Biden. That she's a crazed extremist. And that she very much does not care about you."

    Same Ulan Bator question about Trump? That he's been "the target of a vicious witch-hunt for years and years," that he is under constant assault; and most importantly, that he is "doing it all for you."

    To much of America, by the way, this is not understood as one side's view of things. It's simply "the news." This is what people -- white people, chiefly -- watch in about two-thirds of the country. I trust that you've seen in your travels, as I have in mine, that in red or even some purple parts of the country, when you walk into a hotel lobby or a hospital waiting room or even a bar, where the TVs ought to be offering us some peace and just showing ESPN, at least one television is tuned to Fox. That's reach, and that's power. And then people get in their cars to drive home and listen to an iHeart, right-wing talk radio station. And then they get home and watch their local news and it's owned by Sinclair, and it, too, has a clear right-wing slant. And then they pick up their local paper, if it still exists, and the oped page features Cal Thomas and Ben Shapiro.

    Liberals, rich and otherwise, live in a bubble where they never see this stuff.

    Also, this ends with another key point/example:

    The Democratic brand is garbage in wide swaths of the country, and this is the reason. Consider this point. In Missouri on Tuesday, voters passed a pro-abortion rights initiative, and another that raised the minimum wage and mandated paid leave. These are all Democratic positions. But as far as electing someone to high office, the Man-Boy Love Party could probably come closer than the Democrats. Trump beat Harris there by 18 points, and Senator Josh Hawley beat Lucas Kunce, who ran a good race and pasted Hawley in their debate, by 14 points.

    The reason? The right-wing media. And it's only growing and growing. And I haven't even gotten to social media and Tik Tok and the other platforms from which far more people are getting their news these days. The right is way ahead on those fronts too. Liberals must wake up and understand this and do something about it before it's too late, which it almost is.

  • Katrina vanden Heuvel: [11-07] Americans are desperate for change. Electing Trump was a misguided message: "The causes of Donald Trump's victory will be endlessly debated, but misdirected discontent is clearly a major factor."

  • Julio Ricardo Varela: [11-08] Trump broke a record with Latino voters. History can tell us why. "Trump exploited an 'us versus them' mentality that has long existed among Latinos living in the US and those outside this country."

Also, some more speculative pieces on what a second Trump term might do (some issue-specific, some more general). Most of these assume Trump will try to do what he campaigned on, but I suggested an alternative scenario in the second section of the intro (but even it doesn't argue against most of the forebodings here):

  • Matt Bruenig: [11-07] What does Trump's win mean for the NLRB? "Donald Trump will probably sack National Labor Relations Board general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, who has been friendly to unions, on day one of his presidency."

  • Jonathan Chait: [11-08] Trump can prosecute anybody he wants, transition leader says: "Department of Justice is now Department of Trump Justice."

  • Rachel M Cohen: [11-06] Trump won. So what does that mean for abortion? "It will be easier to restrict reproductive rights in the president-elect's second term."

  • Tim Dickinson: 'You can't despair. Because that's what they want.' "Experts tell Rolling Stone what resisting authoritarianism in America will look like in Trump's second term." And if you have a subscription, you can find out what they have to say.

  • Abdallah Fayyad: [11-06] This one chart foreshadows Trump's immigration crackdown: "Investors in private prisons think they've hit the jackpot with a second Trump presidency."

  • Jonathan Freedland: [11-08] Think you know how bad Trump unleashed will be? Look at the evidence: it will be even worse. I can think of many risks, but I'd hardly put "the end of Nato" second (or anywhere) on my list. It's not going to happen, because NATO is really just an arms sales cartel, and Trump loves a good racket. His threats to withdraw from NATO were just meant to shake down more tribute. He won't back out, not least because that would only incentivize Europe to build up their own arms cartel.

  • M Gessen: [11-15] This is the dark, unspoken promise of Trump's return: An expert on Russia, learned the hard way, looks back there for insight.

    For those bewildered by why so many Americans apparently voted against the values of liberal democracy, Balint Magyar has a useful formulation. "Liberal democracy," he says, "offers moral constraints without problem-solving" -- a lot of rules, not a lot of change -- while "populism offers problem-solving without moral constraints." Magyar, a scholar of autocracy, isn't interested in calling Donald Trump a fascist. He sees the president-elect's appeal in terms of something more primal: "Trump promises that you don't have to think about other people."

    Around the world, populist autocrats have leveraged the thrilling power of that promise to transform their countries into vehicles for their own singular will. Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orban vowed to restore a simpler, more orderly past, in which men were men and in charge. What they delivered was permission to abandon societal inhibitions, to amplify the grievances of one's own group and heap hate on assorted others, particularly on groups that cannot speak up for themselves. Magyar calls this "morally unconstrained collective egoism."

    While there are people in Trump's circle who look to Orban as a guide to how to lock into power, Trump has many other sources of inspiration, even without cracking open his copy of Mein Kampf. For instance, the crypto-creep in El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, who was reelected with 84% of the vote, his popularity largely credited to his war on gangs. That's the sort of publicity Trump would gladly kill for.

  • Andrea González-Ramirez: [11-08] What to know about Susie Wiles, Trump's next Chief of Staff.

  • Karen J Greenberg: [11-07] It's not just about the president: "It's about the presidency."

    Indeed, the first Trump presidency vastly accelerated the claims of expanded presidential power. Jack Goldsmith and Bob Bauer . . . in their 2020 book, After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency, they contended that "Donald Trump operated the presidency in ways that reveal its vulnerability to dangerous excesses of authority and dangerous weaknesses in accountability."

    And as they make all too clear, the stakes were (and remain) high. "The often-feckless Trump," they wrote, "also revealed deeper fissures in the structure of the presidency that, we worry, a future president might choose to exploit in a fashion similar to Trump -- but much more skillfully, and to even greater effect." . . .

    A second Trump presidency will undoubtedly take unilateral presidential powers to a new level. . . . New York Times reporters Jonathan Swan, Charlie Savage, and Maggie Haberman reported that Trump "and his associates" plan to "increase the president's authority over every part of the federal government that now operates, by either law or tradition, with any measure of independence from political interference by the White House."

  • Ken Klippenstein: [11-12] Read the leaked Rubio dossier: "Trump camp details 'lightweight' Marco Rubio's liabilities." I restrained myself from noting reports that Rubio is in line to become Secretary of State, but couldn't resist reporting this.

  • Paul Krugman: [11-11] Why Trump's deportations will drive up your grocery bill: Seriously, a week after the election, and this is the best he can do? Alternate title: "Did you know that the pennies you saved on groceries were paid for by exploiting undocumented immigrant labor?" At least he paid off the "tarrifs will drive inflation" story he's already done a dozen times.

  • Avery Lotz: [11-10] Trump rules out Haley, Pompeo admin posts: No surprise with Haley, who still has a lot of sucking up to do. Pompeo, however, was always so good at it. The mark against him, beyond his very brief presidential campaign, could be policy. He is remembered as one of Trump's stealthiest hawks, and was especially influential in sabotaging Trump's North Korea diplomacy. Suppose Trump remembers that?

  • Rachel Maddow: [11-10] Dead last: "Authoritarian rule always entails corruption. With Donald Trump in office, watch your wallet." More than you, or I at least, need to read right now about Huey Long, Spiro Agnew, and anti-corruption hero Viktor Navalny (who is inconveniently dead). This sounds like an AI distillation of her recent books, which sound like they were written by someone else.

  • Branko Marcetic:

    • [11-02] Trump is planning a third red scare: "Donald Trump and his allies aren't making a secret of it: if they win, they're going to launch a campaign of repression to destroy the pro-Palestinian movement and the organized left."

    • [11-08] Trump is planning a presidency of, by, and for the rich: "Now that the 'pro-worker' GOP led by Donald Trump holds the reins of government, what does it plan to do? A program of handouts for big business and austerity for the rest of us."

  • Dylan Matthews: [11-06] Trump proposed big Medicaid and food stamp cuts. Can he pass them? "What Trump's return means for America's poor people."

  • Jane Mayer: [11-08] Donald Trump's Supreme Court majority could easily rule through 2045: "Democrats failed to make the Court itself a major campaign issue, but what comes after the Dobbs decision could very well be worse, and more far-reaching."

  • Julianne McShane: [11-06] After win, Trump fans admit "Project 2025 is the agenda".

  • George Monbiot: [11-07] Trump has pledged to wage war on planet Earth -- and it will take a progressive revolution to stop him.

  • David Remnick: [11-09] It can happen here: "Everyone who realizes with proper alarm that Trump's reëlection is a deeply dangerous moment in American life must think hard about where we are."

  • Tony Romm: [11-11] Trump eyes pro-crypto candidates for key federal financial agencies: "The incoming administration has explored new personnel and policy that can deliver on Trump's campaign promise to turn the United States into the 'crypto capital of the planet.'" Something else that Trump is going to do that is going to be really horrible, although in this case not without an element of farce.

  • Jennifer Rubin: [11-11] Trump can keep campaign promises or be popular. Not both. This is pretty much what I said in my second intro. The problem here is that Republicans don't see the need to be popular, or even want to. They want to rule. They want to be feared. And they think that they can extort and/or terrorize enough people to vote for them that, with their other dirty tricks, they can stay in power, and do all the sick and demented things they've been dreaming of. Remember the 2000 election? Lots of pundits thought that Bush, with his "compassionate conservatism" spiel, and coming off a relatively moderate record as governor of Texas, would show some modesty -- he had, after all, lost the popular vote, and only won when the Supreme Court prevented a recount in Florida -- and tack to the center. But as soon as Bush was inaugurated, Cheney took over and declared that Republicans had come to power with a purpose, and they were going to do everything they wanted, just the way they wanted it. Getting re-elected wasn't his department. He was there to break things, and that's exactly what he did. (Then, somehow, Rove managed to wangle Bush a second term anyway, despite the fact that nearly everything he had done in his first was massively unpopular.)

  • Matt Sledge: [11-07] Crypto sweep puts Congress on notice: vote with us or we'll come after you with millions: "In all likelihood, crypto deregulation is coming."

  • Peter Wade: [11-10] Trump tells GOP to bypass Senate confirmation process, block Biden judicial appointments: "Despite an incoming Republican majority, Trump wants new party leadership to agree to recess appointments." That way he can appoint people even Republicans could object to. (Obviously, RFK Jr. jumps to mind.) Here's another report:

  • Joel Warner: [11-07] What can we expect from a second Trump presidency? "From unleashing more dark money in politics to expanding fossil fuel production and assaulting reproductive rights, here's some of what we can expect from a second Donald Trump administration.

PS: Trying to wind up on Monday, I'm starting to see a number of early appointments (e.g., Trump picks Rep. Elise Stefanik as ambassador to the United Nations), which are beyond the scope of this post and section, as well as damn near impossible for me to keep up with. I will say that they do show that he's actually thought about transition and administration this time (unlike in 2016), he has a plan, and is executing it quickly. This certainly argues against the notion that he might not govern as viciously as he campaigned. I should also note that the Wade story above shows that he intends to dominate Congress (or bypass them wherever possible), rather than have to negotiate with anyone (even mainstream Republicans). He is basically confirming the fears of all those who predicted that Trump would turn the presidency into a dictatorship.

Harris:

  • Kat Abughazaleh: [11-08] Democrats need to clean house before they screw up again: "It wasn't just the people running Kamala Harris's campaign who failed. The leadership of the entire party is at fault."

  • Dean Baker: [11-13] Did bad economic reporting doom Harris?

    This is the time for everyone to do their election autopsy, where everyone pushes their preferred story of what went wrong for the Harris campaign. Mine will focus on what I consider the simplest and most obvious, the media painted a picture of a bad economy which was virtually impossible for the Harris campaign to overcome. And just to be clear, I'm not talking about the alternative reality folks at Fox, I mean the New York Times, Washington Post, and other bastions of the establishment media.

    Just to provide context, there is little doubt that people's views of the economy were hugely important in determining the vote. Exit polls consistently put the economy as the number 1 or number 2 issue in people's minds as they went to vote. And those rating the economy as a top issue voted for Trump by a huge margin.

    I find it completely unfathomable why anyone worried about the economy would look to Republicans (especially Trump) for relief. History, as far back as Herbert Hoover, is unanimous on this point, at least for most (working/middle class) people -- higher-income people may have done relatively better with Republicans, but with the possible exception of the top 1% (at most), they too have fared better with Democrats. Or you could look at policy preferences, which again favor Democrats by a huge margin. As Baker points out, a big part of people's evaluation of the economy is simply partisan, but that doesn't explain why a majority (actually well above the actual vote) thought better of Republicans.

    Baker continues:

    At the most basic level, the media have continually chosen to highlight the negative about the economy. University of Wisconsin political science professor Mark Copelovitch did an analysis last year showing that mentions of "inflation" and "recession" dwarfed mentions of unemployment, even as the latter was hitting record lows and we never had a recession.

    The inflation we did see was part of a worldwide burst of inflation related to the pandemic, where the US rate was little different than the inflation seen in countries like France and Germany. We were told people don't blame the pandemic, they blame Biden. That is undoubtedly true, but that is because the media didn't remind people that the inflation was due to the pandemic in the same way they always reminded people that the withdrawal from Afghanistan was "disastrous." . . .

    Most people are not getting their news from the New York Times or Washington Post, but the information presented in these outlets does spread to other news outlets and to social media. When people hear the bad economy story in the elite media they help its spread elsewhere.

    It's true that most regular consumers of these outlets supported Harris, but that misses the point. . . . They helped to advance a bad economy story that was at odds with reality. Given the importance of perceptions of the economy in people's voting, it would have been all but impossible for Harris to overcome this negative economy story, and she didn't.

  • Josh Barro: [11-09] This is all Biden's fault. He starts with Biden picking Harris as his VP in 2020.

  • Chris Bohner: [11-02] Kamala Harris is not doing well with union voters.

  • Jonathan Chait: [11-06] Why America rejected the Biden-Harris administration: "It's not that people love Trump. Democrats simply failed." As usual, Chait swims in his own tide:

    The seeds of Harris's failure were planted eight years ago, when the Democratic Party responded to Trump's 2016 victory not by moving toward the center, as defeated parties often do, but by moving away from it. This decision was fueled by a series of reality-distorting blinders on the Democrats' decision-making elite.

    So, after Hillary Clinton failed, they should have moved further to the right? How was that even possible? No mention of what the Democrats did in 2018, after moving so far into left-wing peril. (They won both houses of Congress.) But Chait then claims Biden in 2020, who "won because he abstained from that rush to the left, keeping him closer to where the party's voters had remained" -- maybe he should recheck his old columns complaining about Biden getting hoodwinked trying to appease Sanders voters?

  • Aida Chavez: [11-07[ Harris ran to Trump's right on immigration -- and gained absolutely nothing for it: "Harris could have focused on how US foreign policy pushes immigrants to leave their homes. Instead, she ran on border security."

  • Maureen Dowd: [11-09] Democrats and the case of mistaken identity politics: Inevitable that someone would bring this up. Who are these "normal people"? And when does one ever get a chance to really talk with them? Yet somehow, they always show up to second guess you.

  • Liza Featherstone:

  • Malcolm Ferguson: [11-08] Democrats say Kamala Harris ignored their dire warnings on Liz Cheney.

  • Daniel Finn: [11-07] Corporate donors guided Kamala Harris to defeat: E.g., Mark Cuban.

  • Oliver Hall: [11-09] I spent hours trying to persuade US voters to choose Harris not Trump. I know why she lost.

    You should know what I didn't hear during the hours speaking to US voters. I can only think of one occasion when someone mentioned stricter taxes on billionaires or any similar policies. The atrocities being committed by Israel in Gaza only came up six times in more than 1,000 calls. The idea that Harris was not leftwing enough seems false: the majority of the country just voted for the complete opposite.

    After all those conversations, I think the main reason that Harris and Walz lost this campaign is simple: Trump. Ultimately, he was simply too much of a pull again. Despite the gaffes, despite his views on women, despite his distaste for democracy and despite an insurrection, voters just didn't care.

    For reasons that I'm sure will be studied for decades, when he speaks, people listen. When he speaks, people believe him. After all those calls, I can be shocked at this result, but hardly surprised.

  • Benjamin Hart: [11-09] Why Kamala Harris's campaign was doomed from the start: Interview with Amy Walter, publisher/editor of Cook Political Report.

  • Bob Hennellyk: [11-11] Progressives aren't the problem in the Democratic coalition: "Ignoring low-wage and low-wealth voters cost Kamala Harris big."

  • Sarah Jones:

    • [11-06] Kamala Harris squandered her opportunity to win.

      Donald Trump had bet on a sense of aggrieved masculinity as the return path to power, and while there's much we don't know about who turned out to vote and why, his strategy did not alienate white women in the numbers Harris needed to win. Misogyny and racism should receive due attention in postmortems to come, but they can't explain Tuesday on their own. The story is more complicated, and dire. Though she spoke of freedom, of forward motion, of change, voters did not trust her to deliver. Some will blame the left for this, but Harris tried centrism as did Biden and Clinton before her, and that didn't work, either. Leftists do not control the Democratic Party and never have; only consider the party's intransigence on Gaza. If the Democratic brand is poison now, blame its grifter consultants, who never fail out of politics no matter how many pivotal races they lose. Blame Harris, too, whose message was simply too anemic to overcome decades of Democratic failure.

    • [11-12] Bigotry is not the answer to Donald Trump: There's a Seth Moulton quote in here that is horrible not because he's slandering trans people (maybe he wanted to, but I doubt he's referring any actual people) but because it shows how clueless some Democrats can be when it comes to facing Republican talking points. Democrats have to get much smarter at that. Some decent humane principles wouldn't hurt, either.

      Even so, the Democratic Party's problems did not start with Harris or with her economic policy, or with a few pro-trans remarks that she made before she ran for president. The party's inconsistency -- its refusal to reliably champion working Americans -- left trans people vulnerable to attacks from the right. Had voters believed that Democrats would lower the costs of housing or health care or other basic necessities, perhaps Harris would have won, or at least run a closer race. Instead she courted elites, as generations of Democrats have done before her, and handed the country to an aspiring tyrant.

      Now some Democrats and their liberal supporters would rather help Trump divide the working class against itself than admit the party failed. Liberals project their own intellectual and moral failings onto the left, which they accuse of rigidity and a certain wishful thinking. When Maureen Dowd wrote that "woke is broke" in her post-election diatribe, she imagined a country that is nothing more than a mirror of herself. When the hosts of Morning Joe read her column on air in its tedious entirety, they revealed themselves, not some hidden truth in the national soul. Their conclusions are far too convenient to be realistic. How lucky for Dowd that voters share her exact biases, that their enemies are her enemies and their fears her fears.

      Democrats need to deal with the electorate they have, but they can and should do so without denigrating trans and nonbinary people. Liberals and electeds who say the party should move further to the right do so because they aren't interested in serving the working class. They'd rather absolve themselves while avoiding the hard work of introspection. That way lies a political dead end. If the Democratic Party is to be fit for purpose, it will have to offer voters real answers, not technocracy or elitism or scapegoats. Trans people didn't cost Democrats the election. Liberals did that all by themselves.

  • Tim Jonze: [11-06] 'George Clooney - who cares?' Did celebrity endorsements actually harm Kamala Harris?

    • Eric Levitz:

    • [11-08] The debate over what Democrats do now hinges on one question: "There are two ways of interpreting Harris's loss." Actually, there are lots of ways to interpret the loss. The question isn't which one is right. (Even if you could do that, what good would it do you? A book? A posh job in academia, or at some think tank?) The only real question is: what, given the new reality, do you do about it? And no single Democrat is going to answer that. As Will Rogers explained back in the 1930s: "I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat." Today's Democrats aren't more organized or ideologically coherent than they were in Rogers' day. Ever since the Civil War, the Republicans have been the core party -- calling themselves the G.O.P. was brilliant, shape-shifting PR -- and the Democrats were whatever fell off the margins: tariff-adverse traders and bankers, big city immigrant machines, neo-Confederates, rural populists, any stray Catholics or Jews. Under FDR, they picked up labor support, and briefly became the majority, but Republicans never lost their conceit that they are the one true American party, and as they became more conservative, they evened up the balance by welcoming white racists (while Democrats attracted blacks and other estranged minorities, while losing their older ethnic groups to the Republican melting pot).

      After losing Congress in 1994 and 2010, Democratic presidents could consolidate their control over what was left of the Party, and respond to the losses in a coherent manner -- which guided both Clinton and Obama to second terms, but offered damn little help for other Democrats (either politicians or the party base). But this loss, like the McCain loss in 2008, leaves the Party with no leadership. Harris has liquidated her political capital, as have her predecessors (Biden, Obama, the Clintons), who were all very much (in retrospect, much too much) of her campaign.

      Which basically sets up a free-for-all to see who can rise up and lead a revived Democratic Party. Sure, some pundits and consultants are going to advise accommodation to the right winds, but who among the rank-and-file really wants to compromise on abortion bans, book burning, or genocide arming? At some point, you have to decide that enough is enough, that the right and the rich already have much more than they deserve, and that we have to fight back. And as that happens, new leaders will rise from the ranks. Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders is once again setting an example of a politician who intends to defend us -- from Trump, of course, but also from the defeatists in our own ranks.

      After the utter disaster of the Bush-Cheney regime in 2008, the Republican grandees were left aimless and speechless. Then the Tea Party broke out, and moved the Party radically to the right. The Tea Party didn't take over the Party, but the Party revived, largely on their energy, and bounced back remarkably fast. This will be harder for Democrats, because everything is harder for Democrats, but it won't be for lack of issues and critical analysis. And if the money powers get in the way, we need to learn to live without them, and show them to be the villains they actually are.

    • [11-15] The left's comforting myth about why Harris lost: "Progressives need an accurate autopsy of Kamala Harris's campaign, not an ideologically convenient one." Too late to mount a critique of this one, but that may be a worthy future project, especially as Levitz expands on his ideas in his new The Rebuild newsletter. I shouldn't get too defensive about Levitz's seeming turn against "the left," as the real bottom line here is how to make the Democratic Party more viable in general elections. The left needs an effective Democratic Party to implement our preferred policies (which are the best policies for everyone -- that's why we prefer them). But the Democratic Party also needs a strong left to keep them focused on real problems, steering away from the temptations of donors and their special interests.

      Answering those questions will require Democrats to analyze their predicament with open minds. If we seek ideologically comforting explanations for the party's problems -- rather than empirically sound ones -- the coalition will march deeper into the wilderness.

      Unfortunately, in the wake of Vice President Kamala Harris's loss, virtually every Democratic faction has produced its share of motivated reasoning. In future newsletters, I plan to take issue with some centrists' analysis of the party's difficulties. But today, I want to explain why I worry that the left is allowing wishful thinking to cloud its vision of political reality.

      Since November 5, some progressives have drawn a sweeping lesson from Trump's second victory: Harris's loss proves Democrats gain little from "moderation" or "centrism" and must "embrace radical policies" in order to compete. I admire many of the writers making this argument. But their confidence in this narrative strikes me as wildly unfounded.

      It is true that Harris pivoted to the center on border security, crime, and, to a lesser extent, economics. There are plenty of sound arguments -- both moral and political -- against Democrats moderating on specific issues. Yet it's hard to see how anyone could be confident that Harris lost because she moderated, much less that her loss proved that moderation is electorally counterproductive as a rule.

      I habitually respond to world events by imaging the kind of book I'd like to write about them. I've had a practical political book in mind at least since the 2004 election where I would methodically detail how Republicans are evil-hearted, lame-brained bastards leading us to ruin, and try to convince Democrats that they could not only win elections but actually solve problems by drawing on left ideas. While my faith in the healing power of those ideas remains, the 2024 election has demolished my faith that better ideas can win elections.

      So that kills off the old book concept, and intrdouces a new one: What We Learned From the 2024 Elections. I don't know the answer to that yet, but I what I suspect is that it has very little to do with issues and policies, and even less with the left-right axis, but turns around credibility and trust, on how you talk to people.

  • Jill Lepore: [11-10] Democrats tried to counter Donald Trump's viciousness toward women with condescension: "The Harris campaign felt the need to remind women voters that they can vote for whomever they want. Women understood this. The campaign failed to."

  • Damon Linker: [11-07] Kamala Harris failed to read the room.

  • Milan Loewer: [11-05] If Harris loses today, this is why: "To win working-class voters -- and possibly today's election -- Democrats need to attack economic elites. But the Kamala Harris campaign hasn't consistently offered an anti-elite counter to Donald Trump's right-wing populism." On the other hand, Republicans are very adept at channeling rage against elite Democrats. Why can't Democrats turn the tables on the some of the most entitled, selfish, greedy people in America?

  • Martin Longman: [11-07] I'm not sure the race was ever winnable. A big chunk of this is based on a pre-election piece:

    • Nate Cohn: [11-02] Why are Democrats having such a hard time beating Trump? "The national political environment just isn't as conducive to a Harris victory as many might imagine." I don't really buy the argument for a global tide toward conservatism, and there's much else I'd nitpick in his left-and-right momentum survey, but he's certainly right that Harris leaned against progressive policies that just four years ago Biden leaned into, and that undermined both the Democrats' credibility and the message that Trump and the Republicans are nihilist lunatics with no plans that could actually solve anything.

  • Branko Marcetic: [11-06] Democratic Party elites brought us this disaster. I'm tempted to quote lots of this rant, but can't quite hone in on any single section. I also rather doubt that the Trump vote is being driven by economic hardship -- not least because Trump's offering nothing to help, whereas Harris actually is. The problem there seems to be that mass of people who believe Trump on everything and Harris (or any other Democrats) on nothing.

    As a general rule, politicians campaign for donors early on, and make amends to donors after the election, but during the closing stretch, they focus on trying to appeal to voters. That's the point when, for Democrats at least, their messaging leans left, toward things that might actually help people. Voters have good reason to be skeptical, and I can think of cases where it didn't work well, but at least the politician is showing them some respect. I can't say as I was paying a lot of attention, but I didn't notice Harris doing that this campaign. Rather, they were raising money like crazy, and she doesn't seem to have taken the necessary step of changing that money into votes. I think that goes back to credibility, which has been in short supply since Clinton started triangulating. Even if it seemed to be working, as with Clinton and Obama, you look back years later, and see what the donors got out of the process, but can't remember what you got.

    Clinton like to quote Harry Truman as saying, "if you want to live like a Republican, you have to vote Democratic." Problem there is that when folk start living like Republicans, they start voting Republican, so you lose them -- especially the snots who will kick the ladder out so no one else can follow them (which, by the way, seems to be part of the problem why Democrats are losing Latino voters). Meanwhile, the people who didn't make it up start blaming you, and some of them vote Republican (or just don't vote) just to spite you, so it's lose-lose.

  • Nicholas Nehamas/Andrew Duehren: [11-09] Harris had a Wall Street-approved economic pitch. It fell flat. "The vice president vacillated on how to talk about the economy, and ended up adopting marginal pro-business tweaks that both corporate and progressive allies agreed made for a muddled message." I wonder if her late start didn't have something to do with this. She wound up spending way too much time talking to donors, and not enough to voters. She adopted much of what the former told her, and little from the latter. Most campaigns shift from one focus to the other (then the donors get a second shot after the votes are counted), but she was relentlessly, obsessively fundraising up to the very end. That worked to raise a lot of funds, but they never managed to turn those funds into votes -- possibly because the interests aren't the same. Or maybe she had enough time and help to figure things out, but just liked the donors more. And wanted more to impress them, perhaps because that's where her personal future lies (now more than ever).

  • Lydia Polgreen/Tressie McMillan Cottom: [11-07] Democrats had a theory of the election. They were wrong. Transcript of a conversation between two of their non-right opinion columnists:

    Polgreen: On Tuesday we found out that the nation really, really wanted a change. Not only did Donald Trump take the presidency, but Republicans took the Senate and made gains in blue states like my home state of New York and big gains in New York City, too. . . .

    McMillan Cottom: I don't live in New York full time, I live in the South. I spent a lot of time with working-class people, people living in the mountains and rural parts of the country. And I also saw a sort of acceptance and integration of Donald Trump's vision of an America where no one has to give up anything to win. And it appeals a lot to Hispanic voters, to working-class voters, especially working-class men. It appealed a lot to people in rural parts of the state of all races. That concerned me and concerned me the entire campaign.

    Polgreen: I think I was a bit more optimistic, in part because, to me, this election really turned on this question of who has a stake in the system as it currently exists and who feels that they could benefit from just blowing it all up. . . .

    I think I felt hopeful that here we had a generic Democrat who had these plain vanilla policies that were not that exciting. They tried to address around the edges some of the issues that people needed from government.

    I thought maybe that could work. Maybe there's just enough chaos, just enough of a sense that this is too dangerous. That gamble was just wrong, and ultimately you were right.

    McMillan Cottom: Again, I take no pleasure in that because if I am right, I am right because I thought -- and now have evidence -- that the anger that Americans feel cannot be directed toward the truth.

    More interesting things in here, including:

    Polgreen: The other thing is that we are living in this zero-sum moment where people think giving something to someone else means taking something away from me.

    There was that moment where JD Vance was talking about how if immigrants made countries rich, then Springfield, Ohio, would be the richest city in the world, and the United States would be the richest country in the world. Well, news flash, the United States is the richest country in the world. . . .

    McMillan Cottom: One of the things that JD Vance is actually very good at that Donald Trump is not good at, is he figured out how to take something that is a problem about relative differences and make it feel like an absolute loss.

    The point here isn't that Vance is really clever, but that he finds a way to get back to his basic campaign proposition. He's not unique -- I've seen Bernie Sanders do this many times, but the secret here is not dogged repetition, but having a point to get back to. Continuing:

    McMillan Cottom: But that relative loss, despite the fact that objectively, they are still doing OK, is enough when turned into anxiety and fear and aggression, which Donald Trump is very good at doing, feels like an emotional catharsis. And then JD Vance comes behind and says, "Not only are you losing, but yes, your loss is coming because someone else is gaining."

    What we do not have on the other side, to your point, is either a center or center-left and, I'd even argue, a Democratic center-right story that captures that emotion in the same kind of way.

    Also:

    Polgreen: Yeah. And I think that the idea that the Democratic Party has to work within a set of defined rules of the existing order is just a brain disease.

    I had initially skipped over all the New York Times pundits, until I was pointed here by:

    • Steve M.: [11-07] Voters think every party is the leopards eating people's faces party:

      What this suggests to me is that millions of voters didn't think they were voting on a choice between chaos and stability. They think both parties destabilize the country. So they chose Trump's promise of a form of destabilization they found appealing over the status quo, which they see as an unappealing destabilization.

      In the famous meme, a supporter of the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party says, "I never thought leopards would eat MY face." Donald Trump won because millions of voters think Democratic policies lead leopards to eat their faces, and Trump's policies will make leopards eat the faces of people they don't like.

      In particular, young men of all ethnicities think liberal culture has created a pro-queer gynocracy that's eating the faces of straight males. They want leopards to eat the faces of people they think are benefiting in this culture. . . .

      A majority of Hispanic men appear to have voted for Trump despite the fact that some will be caught up in his crackdown on undocumented immigrants. These Trump voters believe that only the undocumented will have their faces eaten, and they're fine with that. (Harris campaigned on a border crackdown, so she didn't talk much about how heavy-handed Trump's immigration policies are likely to be.)

      Trump chose popular victims of the leopards -- women, trans people, immigrants, criminals. Democrats could have chosen the rich, but bashing the rich reportedly scares some moderates. It sets off alarm bells in the "liberal" commentariat and reduces the big-money contributions that are necessary for Democrats to run one of our country's staggeringly expensive presidential campaigns.

      A day earlier, M. also wrote:

    • [11-06] Trump is a toxically masculine Andy Kaufman, and other unorganized thoughts: "A few thoughts on one of the worst days in American history." Section heads (some with a bit of quote):

      • Eeyore: I was right to be pessimistic, and it's clear that I should have remained pessimistic even after Kamala Harris entered the race.
      • Democrats and Republicans agree that Democrats are bad [longer quote to follow]
      • Maybe ground game is meaningless
      • But didn't voters think Trump is crazy?
      • Which brings me to Biden: But the race might have been different for her or Biden if Biden had been able to persuade voters that he cared and was working hard to make their lives better [but he couldn't, and she wouldn't].
      • And also, America is massively sexist: I don't think I'll live to see a female president. There are too many trad Christians and too many whiny boy-men -- and they just elected the biggest whiny boy-man of them all.

      The point about Democrats cited a comment from Frank Wilhoit that is worth quoting here:

      People vote their emotional compulsions, which, by definition, are purely destructive; that is why all voting is negative-partisan. Trump will get one vote: his own. The votes that are recorded as his will be votes against, not Kamala Harris, but the Democratic Party and its constituencies. Comparably, Harris will get no votes at all; the votes that are recorded as hers will be votes against, not Trump, but the Republican Party and its constituencies.

      History is on the side of the Republicans here, because they understand what is going on; that is why they focus exclusively upon degrading the Democratic brand. We do not understand. . . . We should have spent every moment of the past forty-five years screaming total rejection of the "conservative" pseudophilosophy, and nothing else. . . .

      It is too late now; one cannot suddenly "discover" a problem that has been in being for decades and try to whip up any urgency around it.

    • Patrick Healy/David French: [11-06] It's time to admit America has changed: Two more conservative New York Times pundits discuss the election.

  • Norman Solomon: [11-07] Democrats ignored every warning and the results are catastrophic: "Now that a fascistic party has won the presidency along with the Senate and apparently the House as well, the stakes for people and planet are truly beyond comprehension."

  • Andrew Prokop:

    • [11-06] One striking pattern hidden in the election results: "Were voters rejecting Democrats -- or just the Biden-Harris administration?" Or, I have to ask, just Harris? I haven't entertained the possibility, at least in print, that they simply don't trust a person with any/all of her attributes, which most obviously include: woman, color, from California, both parents immigrants. None of that bothers me, nor does it bother most people, and nearly all of the people who think of such things were going to vote Trump anyway, but if you can't win the kind of landslide you deserve on issues alone, maybe think about that. As for the pattern:

      But when you zoom in on the details of that result, there's a striking pattern: Democratic Senate candidates are outperforming Harris. Or, put another way, Republican Senate candidates are doing worse than Trump.

    • [11-06] Why Kamala Harris lost: "Trump won because Harris inherited a tough situation from Joe Biden -- and ultimately could not overcome it." I'll nominate this piece for a bracket elimination tournament to find the most intellectually lazy explanation for the loss. He offers three reasons: a global trend ("in the years since the pandemic, incumbent parties have been struggling in wealthy democracies across the world"); "Biden's unpopularity" (which Harris "had to figure out what to do about that"); and "Harris's own record," by which he means Harris's 2019 presidential campaign, when she "embraced progressive policy positions that Democrats now view as politically toxic." As I've said, I don't know what the answer is, but it's got to be something more than that. As for the "tough situation" Biden left Harris in, his only detail was that Israel-Gaza had "divided Democrats' coalition." (I'd submit that it didn't divide the coalition that actually identified as Democrats, but it turned off a lot of other voters that Harris needed.)

    • [11-11] The debate over why Harris lost is in full swing. Here's a guide. "Was she a weak candidate? Was it Joe Biden's fault? Did Trump have unexpected strength? Or was it a global trend?" This appeared too late for me to explore, but I have one suggestion: instead of looking for things that might have moved the needle a point or two, start from the assumption that Trump (and most Republicans) were be any objective criteria so bad they should have lost by at least 10, possibly 20 points, and see if you can identify any problems at that scale? I'd start with money and media structure, and then consider the difficulties of establishing trust against those odds. Harris wasn't a weak candidate so much as one not strong enough to overcome those bigger obstacles. Same for Biden, who had some additional weaknesses that Harris only partly made up for. We can go on down the list, but we keep coming back to what happened to the world to make Trump seem credible, while Harris was ultimately judged by many to be some kind of phony.

  • Nathan J Robinson: [11-06] Once again, the Democratic leadership has failed us all: "In 2016, we warned that Hillary Clinton's campaign was not resonating with Americans. In 2024, we warned about Kamala Harris, and we were ignored again. Now, the worst has happened. So, what do we do? A leftist analysis can help us chart a path forward."

    Since we're here, let's file some "I told you so" links cited in the article:

  • Bret Stephens: [11-06] A party of prigs and pontificators suffers a humiliating defeat: I can't stand Stephens, who even spoils his conversations with Gail Collins -- their latest, The Trump era never really ended, has a title that could develop into interesting analysis, but doesn't. This piece, too, is mostly crap, but he gives you a good taste of how the Republican mindset caricatures Democrats. (Do you suppose his Harris endorsement was another plant? He doesn't seem to have the faculties to have based it on reason -- well, as he explains later in the piece, his first reason for voting for Harris was Ukraine, followed by trade policy. The only time Republicans ever go bipartisan is when they suspect an opportunity to make Democrats look bad to their voters.) Here's a sample:

    The dismissiveness with which liberals treated these concerns was part of something else: dismissiveness toward the moral objections many Americans have to various progressive causes. [bogus examples follow, starting with trans athletics]

    The Democratic Party at its best stands for fairness and freedom. But the politics of today's left is heavy on social engineering according to group identity. It also, increasingly, stands for the forcible imposition of bizarre cultural norms on hundreds of millions of Americans who want to live and let live but don't like being told how to speak or what to think. Too many liberals forgot this, which explains how a figure like Trump, with his boisterous and transgressive disdain for liberal pieties, could be re-elected to the presidency.

    Last, liberals thought that the best way to stop Trump was to treat him not as a normal, if obnoxious, political figure with bad policy ideas but as a mortal threat to democracy itself. [more bogus examples] And it made liberals seem hyperbolic, if not hysterical, particularly since the country had already survived one Trump presidency more or less intact.

    Today, the Democrats have become the party of priggishness, pontification and pomposity. It may make them feel righteous, but how's that ever going to be a winning electoral look?

    This is massively unfair, but it's the bread and butter of right-wing media, so Democrats have to get better at handling it. That doesn't mean inching closer to Republicans, not least because that never works, but better framing is possible, and trust-building is essential. I don't see that working with a hack like Stephens, but most people are more open-minded than him (or minded, for that matter).

  • Bhaskar Sunkara: [11-08] The Democrats lost because they ran a weak and out of touch campaign: "The party, increasingly divorced from workers, leaned too much on an activist base instead of a voting base."

  • Michael Tomasky: [11-06] Latino men were the big defectors -- but they weren't the only ones: "Here's how Harris failed to replicate Biden's 2020 victory over Trump."

  • Bernie Sanders: Sanders endorsed and campaigned for Harris. After the election he posted this:

    It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them. First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they're right.

    Today, while the very rich are doing phenomenally well, 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and we have more income and wealth inequality than ever before. Unbelievably, real, inflation-accounted-for weekly wages for the average American worker are actually lower now than they were 50 years ago.

    I don't have the links handy, but right after Sanders made his statement about Democrats abandoning the working class, I saw a bunch of flak on Twitter charging Sanders with hypocrisy because during the campaign he praised Biden's record for labor (most pro-labor president since . . . ?). Pretty low bar, but during a campaign you take what you can get. Afterwards, you go back to what you want, which is a candidate who is more effective for working people. Sanders wants that. His detractors don't seem to.

    Other articles that focused on Sanders:

    • Jessica Corbett: [11-07] Sanders slams 'big money interests' that control Democratic Party after loss to Trump.

    • Krystal Kyle: [11-06] Bernie would have won: "The Democratic smothering of the Bernie coalition reaped its reward today."

    • Branko Marcetic: [11-07] Bernie Sanders is right to be incensed at the Democrats.

    • Natalie Shure: [11-12] Bernie would have won. Seriously. "Trump keeps winning because the Democratic party refuses to be the party of the working class." Sanders has one thing that few Democrats have, which is credibility. The counterpoint is that if the Democratic Party had nominated Sanders, rich Democrats like Michael Bloomberg would have bagged the election, throwing it to Trump -- much like previous generations of Democratic elites did to Bryan (1896) and McGovern (1972).

    • Jared Ryan Sears: [reply to a tweet that featured Sanders' post-election statement, the one with charging the Democrats with abandoning the working class]:

      • Unions are the strongest they've been in decades.
      • Wages among the lowest earners grew the fastest.
      • The child tax credit was expanded.
      • A minimum corporate tax was enacted.
      • A tax on stock buybacks was added.
      • High inflation was brought down to normal levels without a recession.
      • Millions of jobs were created.
      • Unemployment has remained low.
      • Manufacturing returned to the US.
      • Prescription prices were lowered.
      • More Americans have healthcare than ever before.
      • -Billions were given to student debt relief.
      • -The American Rescue Plan got Americans back to work, covered Cobra payments, and even directly gave Americans money.

      Let's stop pretending that nothing was done by this administration when it inherited a pandemic, a migrant crisis, and high inflation and managed not only to address all of those issues through Republican obstruction but accomplished much more as well.

      There's always more to do, and mistakes happen, but to act like Democrats abandoned the working class is ridiculous.

      Lots of comments follow, some agreeing with Sanders, but most attacking him, the vitriol especially strong from points farther left -- attacks on his endorsements of Clinton/Biden/Harris (I always filed those under "go along to get along," a game he's played rather skillfully) and charging him with genocide (he did reflexively support Israel after the Oct. 7 revolt, but as it became clear that Netanyahu's game plan was genocide, he has shown exceptional clarity and bravery in opposing US arms to further that genocide). I've generally insisted that people of the left are good-hearted, well-meaning, and thoughtful, but by evidence here, at least a dozen are simple-minded assholes, not unlike thousands (or millions?) on the right.

      PS: On second thought, I think these comments were to Sanders' original thread, not to the Zachary Carter tweet that led me to it. It is quite possible that he is heckled like this all the time, and that the "extreme left" attacks are deceptive trolls. Sorry for opening that can of worms.

Resisting and coping: I've generally put the "what comes next" pieces under Trump (second section), but the corresponding "what do we do now" pieces are likely to have nothing to do with Harris (not that the idea doesn't crop up in the various pieces critical of the Harris campaign). I wasn't really expecting to do this section, but found one piece, and thought there may be more (e.g., I moved the Ganz piece in from elsewhere).

  • John Ganz: [11-06] I hope I'm wrong: "About Trump and other things." Many worthy thoughts in this post:

    There's a political lesson there, too, though, that applies to the present moment: having a clear vision of things, even if it is unpleasant or dark, beats no vision or an unclear one. Trump's campaigns had a clear mythos: a story about what America is and was and where it is going. No Democratic candidate that's run against him has been able to articulate an opposing vision. This is not particular to this or that candidate, although all of them had individual weaknesses. We can litigate that forever. But it's really a problem of American liberalism: liberalism is unsure of itself and ameliorative, it's not a bold vision of the future as it once was in its heyday under LBJ or FDR. Trumpism may be reactionary, but liberalism too, has become too backward-looking -- look at my references in the previous sentence. It longs for an old age of consensus instead of gamely going to war to win a new one. American liberalism has also become a land of smug statisticians and wonks who want to test every proposition and shrink from striking out in a new direction, from testing rhetorical appeals in the public arena rather than the statistical survey. Trump and his campaigns were willing to venture boldly and that's part of what appealed to people. He said, "Follow me and make history," a dubious claim made by others before him, but it excites people.

    He also admits that his command of the history of fascism may not have helped:

    Antifascism is a century-old tradition now and the critics of who see in it a longing to recreate an old order are on to something. It's a politics of memory and meaning that are fading from this world. But it at least has a certain imaginative dimension, it's an ethos: its mythical core contains a struggle between good and evil. Unfortunately, it doesn't resonate at this moment. For voters for whom "democracy" was an issue Harris was the obvious choice, but that wasn't enough people. It's perhaps too idealistic, too abstract and airy, and not focused enough on practical issues, although for me it's a social democratic impulse, uniting the struggle for democracy and people's day-to-day needs. In any case, it's not a story that the American people get anymore.

    He also points out that "resistance" has its legacy rooted in the struggle against fascism, which may not be the best model right now. In particular, Trump's popular margin has given him a clear path to power, unlike Hitler and Mussolini, who used their demagoguery to gain a power base, but in the end resorted to force to seize power.

  • Natasha Lennard: [11-06] The answer to Trump's victory is radical action: "As ever, don't expect the Democratic Party to save us. Now is the time for grassroots action."

  • Nicole Narea: [11-16] Democrats got wiped out in 2004. This is what they did next. "The last time Democrats lost the popular vote spurred a reckoning." Both times the presidential race was close, but was combined with Republicans winning both sides of Congress, leaving a leadership vacuum in the Party. Howard Dean campaigned to run the DNC, and worked hard to rebuild it from the grass roots up, leading to a major success in 2006. After that success, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama seized the throne, turning the party back into an extension of their personal campaigns, and left the rest of the party for dead, but that's another story. Sub-sections here:

    1. They pursued a 50-state strategy
    2. Democrats reevaluated their messaging
    3. Democrats sought to become a party of ideas

    Last section is "the limits of political strategy," so some caveats.

  • Nathan J Robinson: [11-14] Here's the silver lining: "Horrible Republican policies are inevitably unpopular and will generate backlash. As Trump's presidency becomes a chaotic failure, a new left movement can rise." While it is a near certainty that Republican policies will fail to solve the problems they target (even by their own measures), and that they will generate backlash that will propel a Democratic resurgence (assuming we still get to vote -- a risk Republicans are all too aware of). But his "the dog that caught the car" metaphor is dead wrong. Republicans know exactly what they want to do with the car once they've caught it. And while Bush in 2000, Reagan in 1980, and Nixon in 1968 offer some precedents, Trump is moving much more aggressively than any previous president-elect.

    Robinson further tweeted: "this is not to diminish the terrible harm that will be done. It's going to be utterly awful, but it may spark unexpected popular uprising that lead to a transformative political movement." I responded:

    The "dog that catches the car" metaphor doesn't work here. Trump may seem clueless -- I've quipped that he doesn't know how to devise "dog whistles"; he's just a dog who responds to them -- but his crew know exactly what they want to do, and are doing it at record speed.

    Another commenter, perhaps facetiously: "Thank you for your role in giving the American people this convenient accelerant. When you think about it, in the end it was Hitler who brought lasting democracy to Germany after the war."

  • Timothy Shenk: [11-08] It's time to resist the resistance: "Resistance" in the sense of reflexive opposition that focuses on Trump personally:

    The origins of Resistance politics go back over a decade, even before Mr. Trump entered politics. In 2011, with Mr. Trump making headlines as the leading spokesman for birtherism, Barack Obama's team seized the opportunity to cast him as the face of the entire Republican opposition. Years later, David Plouffe, an Obama campaign manager turned presidential adviser, explained the strategy. "Let's really lean into Trump here," Mr. Plouffe remembered thinking. "That'll be good for us."

    And it was, for a while -- so good that when Mr. Plouffe joined Kamala Harris's campaign over the summer, it still seemed like the basis for a winning coalition. . . .

    But there was a price to be paid. No matter how progressive the rhetoric, Resistance politics inevitably feels conservative. It's reactionary in a literal sense: The other side decides the terms of debate, and it usually ends with finding yet another norm under assault, a new outrage to be tutted over or another institution that needs protecting.

  • Robert Wright: [11-08] How to fight Trump mindfully. This is good, but that he's actually quoting himself from seven years ago is a bit inauspicious:

    The premise of the Mindful Resistance Project is that understanding and addressing the root causes of Trumpism is important -- so important that we shouldn't let Trump's antics and outrages get in the way of this mission. To put a finer point on it: 1) We need to respond to each day's news about Trump wisely -- with moral clarity and forceful conviction but with awareness of the way overreactions to his provocations can play into his hands. 2) Meanwhile, we need to get a deeper understanding of the forces that led so many people to vote for Trump. These forces include globalization, demographic change, the loss of jobs through automation, and a political polarization that is grounded partly in the tribalizing tendencies of social media. This polarization is also grounded in what you might call the psychology of tribalism, in cognitive biases that afflict us all -- so fostering an understanding of how our minds work will be among the goals of this project.

Senate:

  • Nia Prater: [10-07] Where does control of the US Senate stand? As of Thursday, Republicans defeated Democratic incumbents in Ohio and Montana, and picked up the seat in West Virginia (not reported here), with races in Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada still undecided (with Pennsylvania looking like another Republican gain).

House of Representatives: I thought I'd have more in this section, including specific races, but I never even got around to looking at the numbers.

Other election matters:

Other Republicans:

  • Griffin Eckstein: [11-09] Jones calls for "Nuremberg Two" against Democrats following Trump win: "The conspiracy theorist and radio host said the Trump DOJ had a mandate from God to prosecute Dems." The subhed is no surprise, but the invocation of "Nuremberg" shows a mind-boggling level of ignorance (specifically, about Nazi Germany) and contempt for truth, and indeed for everyone. Of course, that's hardly news with this guy.

  • Adam Clark Estes: [11-07] We're all living inside Elon Musk's misinformation machine now: "As Musk gains even more power, X gains more influence." More on Musk and Big Tech:

    • John Herrman: [11-08] Big Tech's loyalty era: "Elon Musk's big bet paid off. Tech leaders are adjusting -- and warming -- to a new reality."

    • Timothy Noah: [11-08] Dump Twitter: "If you stick with Elon Musk, you're complicit."

      Whatever you call it, the social media site was Musk's primary tool to elect Trump. In Bloomberg's Tech Daily newsletter for November 7, Kurt Wagner writes that Musk "turned his feed into a Trump-inspired billboard for his more than 200 million followers," that it "became a major source of anti-immigrant conspiracy theories," that Musk "re-shared posts from the former president's supporters, not all of them accurate," and that Musk turned X into "a much more powerful version of Truth Social."

      Still, hard for me to see how shutting down my account, with 3000 posts, 650 followers, and 49 following, is going to make a dent in Musk's bottom line, much less his brain.

  • John Feffer: [10-30] The cruelty of crowds: "The far right has weaponized the Internet."

  • Casey Wetherbee: [11-03] The GOP playbook for sabotaging environmental regulations.

Other Democrats:

  • Kate Aronoff:

  • Ryan Cooper: [11-07] Time for Democrats to abandon the mainstream media: "The 'liberal media' was in the tank for Trump. Democrats should take their subscription dollars elsewhere."

  • Nicole Narea: [11-07] Why Democrats couldn't sell a strong economy, in 3 charts: "Top-line indicators pointed to cooling inflation and a strong economy. What did Democrats miss?" Section heads:

    • There was a real inflation backlash (even though chart shows that "overall wage growth has outpaced inflation")
    • The job market is tougher (chart shows: "more people are facing long-term unemployment")
    • Americans have less money and are taking on more debt (chart: "Americans are saving less after the pandemic"; doesn't look like much less, after a big spike during the pandemic, but credit card debt and delinquency rates are up)

    By the way, here's more on the credit card thing:

    • Steve M: [11-08] The election explained, in two charts. I probably missed the significance of this because I don't have any credit card debt, and had no idea the interest rates were this high (21.9%, up from a little over 14% just a year ago?). Part of the problem has to do with Biden reappointing Trump's Fed Chair pick, but the larger part is that we got rid of the anti-usury laws that used to provide a cap on this kind of loansharking. Harris could have came out with an anti-usury platform, and when questioned about it, told folk to look it up in the Bible. That, plus writing off most student debt -- which only exists due to political malfeasance, and which while Biden attempted some remedies, Harris hardly ever talked about -- would have had much broader and more tangible appeal than the silly notion of exempting tip income (a Trump idea that Harris adopted and helped legitimize -- every time you create a haven for untaxable income, you undermine our ability to tax the rich. How hard would it have been to point out that if we taxed rich folk at levels they had to pay before they paid off politicians for their tax cuts, people who depend on tips to make up for subminimal wages, as well as everyone else who is underpaid in America, could be taxed less, and get better benefits in the bargain?

      By the way, M. points out (and I can relate, not least by being a bit older):

      Ordinary people were already struggling more than their parents, then inflation struck in 2021. It hurt incumbent parties all over the world.

      Yes, it has receded in America. Yes, we now have the strongest economy in the world.

      But the two charts at the top of this post show how the economy looks to people who were already struggling to pay their bills every month when inflation hit. In all likelihood, they pulled out credit cards to buy necessities, and now they can't pay those credit cards off.

      My wife and I can afford to pay our credit card bills in full every month, but I don't look down on people who can't. If your family is bigger than ours, if you're younger (we're in our sixties), if you've ever had a stretch of unemployment or big medical bills, you have it harder than we did. If you went to college or grad school in the past twenty years, you'd be shocked at how small our student loan burden was in the 1970s.

      By economists' criteria, this is a booming economy. It's pretty sweet for people who can afford it. But I completely understand that it doesn't look so sweet if you're living paycheck to paycheck.

      I tried to run a one-person business for a while in my twenties and early thirties and got myself in debt. It sucks. It sucks to pay a partial bill and see no decrease in the debt because the interest keeps compounding and compounding. I managed to get out of that debt and never looked back, but when you're in the thick of it, it's miserable.

      If you've never been in that situation, count your blessings. If you think everyone who gets into debt is a bad person, well, I guess I was a bad person.

  • Wiley Nickel: [11-11] What should Democrats do now? Form a shadow cabinet. "The venerable British institution of the opposition would serve America well today." I've loved this idea ever since I first found out about it. It's more natural in a parliamentary democracy than it would be in America, but it could be done here, and it would give Democrats some leadership visibility in each specific area of government. Nickel is proposing drawing the cabinet from Congress members, which would make it a lot like the committee minority members. I think it would be better for the DNC to organize and raise money for a shadow government, mostly of technical experts (which could include some notables, like Pete Buttigieg in Transportation, or Robert Reich in Labor, or former members of Congress), selected by the Democratic caucus in Congress, possibly adding Democratic governors, maybe even party chairs in the underrepresented-but-still-important red states.

  • Osita Nwanevu: [11-08] The long Obama era is over: "The democrats must learn to speak to voters who don't believe in the politics of old and aren't interested in returning to it." I never thought of there being any "Obama era," probably because he made so little effort at delineating it from the "Clinton era," which he jumped the line on to little if any practical effect. The more customary term for them both, on through Biden and Harris, is "neoliberalism," except that one already lost its cachet before Biden.

    The long Obama era is over. The familiar homilies -- about how there are no red states or blue states and Americans share a set of common values and working institutions novelly and externally threatened by agents of chaos like Trump -- never described political reality. They now no longer work reliably even as political messaging. The hunt should be on for alternatives.

    The word "homilies" is striking here. Obama specialized in them, as if he had to constantly remind us that he was utterly conventional, someone who could be counted on to always say the correct thing. I remember my surprise at one point when Trump made fun of Obama for always ending his speeches with "God bless America." It's the most anodyne statement ever for an American politician, and yet it gives these yokels, who claim to put God and America above all else, an excuse to laugh at him.

  • Stephen Semler:

    • [09-10] US child poverty nearly tripled between 2021 and 2023: This seems like a possibly big deal, not just on the headline topic but on a wide range of economic issues. The key here is a chart of "several key US anti-poverty measures expired or were eliminated after 2021." As the chart makes clear, most of them started with the pandemic of 2020, while Trump was president, and ended 2021-23, while Biden was president. Only the last two items started after Biden became president (child care provider grants, WIC increase). One might read this chart and think Trump was the champion of welfare expansion, and Biden its nemesis. The truth is different: all of the items were pushed by Democrats, mostly by Pelosi and Schumer when they crafted Trump's first pandemic relief bill. To mollify Republicans, they were sold as emergency measures and they included sunset clauses. Democrats tried to extend some of them (things like the eviction and foreclosure bans were never going to be extended), but were frustrated by Republicans plus the sandbagging of a few Democrats (notably Manchin and Sinema, who held the deciding votes on many issues). Biden's support for the measures was less clear, but it's grossly simplistic to blame him for not being able to extend such useful programs.

      The child poverty figures are especially striking, dropping from 12.6% to 5.2% from 2019 to 2021, then rebounding to 12.4% immediately after ending the child tax credit. The lower figure shows what could easily be done with a bit of political will, but that's just one of many metrics here. Few people appreciated that it was the Democrats who made these remarkable changes happen, in part because Democrats who wanted to work with Trump shied away from taking credit. (Trump's subsequent bills were much weaker and less effective.) But also because Democrats didn't want to see them as a first start toward a massive expansion of social benefits, as something to build the future on. The pandemic was a very unusual period in American history -- one that deviated so far from the expectations of both political parties that neither seems to be able to deal with it. Republican delusions are expected, but seems like the Democrats can't wait to forget either, even though if they could, they might discover that they by and large behaved with the care and concern we hope for from the political system, but rarely get. Why couldn't they campaign on that?

    • [11-06] A couple charts to explain a Harris loss: The two charts are: "US food insecurity increased 40% since 2021" ("number of people living in food insecure housholds" increased from 33.8M to 47.4M), and "Poverty in the US increased 67% since 2021" ("number of people living below the poverty line" increased from 25.6M to 42.8M). Both of these charts, which measure pretty much the same thing, show 2020-21 dips before the 2022 rebound. The 2021 columns show the effects of pandemic relief programs, which had sunset clauses and were allowed to lapse, mostly due to Republican opposition (plus a couple bad Democrats). As I noted above, Democrats didn't claim much credit for the improvement, nor blame Republicans for the later pain, which allowed people who didn't know any better to flip the roles. As Semler notes:

      Why did I consider her defeat likely? Because Harris ran on an anti-populist economic agenda and an anti-antiwar foreign policy platform, and neither of those things poll well.

  • Paul Waldman: [11-10] Voters punished Biden for problems he didn't cause and effectively addressed: But for some reason couldn't talk coherently about, some of which can be attributed to age, some to his usual awkwardness, but also also to the problem that Democrats have to speak both to donors and to voters, two groups that want to hear different things, a task that even the most eloquent of Democrats have trouble pulling off. Alternate title, which I clicked on before arriving here, is "Trump is about to take credit for Biden's accomplishments."

  • Stephen Wertheim: [11-11] The Cheney-loving Democratic party needs a reckoning about war: "Election outcomes have multiple causes, of course. Yet foreign polilcy was one of the reasons Americans gave Trump the largest Republican victory in decades."

  • Matthew Yglesias: [11-12] A Common Sense Democrat manifesto: This seemed monumental enough to sneak in the day after. I was pointed here by Jonathan Chait, who tweeted: "I think (or at least hope) this will be an important reference document going forward." (Nathan Robinson heckled back: "shouldn't you probably shut up for a while," with a link to Chait's October 8 article: The race is close because Harris is running a brilliant campaign: "Stop complaining; the centrism is working.") Chait probably likes it because Yglesias's neoliberalism is showing, and because it's written in ways that signal anti-left bias. But the "principles" aren't so bad:

    Different people have different views and different priorities, and principles need to be loose enough to accommodate some differences. But I also don't want these to be total platitudes; I want some people to read them and think, "Fuck this, I don't agree." Over the next few weeks, I'll share posts elaborating on each one individually, but in the meantime, these are the principles I'd like to see the Democratic party embrace:

    1. Economic self-interest for the working class includes both robust economic growth and a robust social safety net.

    2. The government should prioritize maintaining functional public systems and spaces over tolerating anti-social behavior.

    3. Climate change -- and pollution more broadly -- is a reality to manage, not a hard limit to obey.

    4. We should, in fact, judge people by the content of their character rather than by the color of their skin, rejecting discrimination and racial profiling without embracing views that elevate anyone's identity groups over their individuality.

    5. Race is a social construct, but biological sex is not. Policy must acknowledge that reality and uphold people's basic freedom to live as they choose.

    6. Academic and nonprofit work does not occupy a unique position of virtue relative to private business or any other jobs.

    7. Politeness is a virtue, but obsessive language policing alienates most people and degrades the quality of thinking.

    8. Public services and institutions like schools deserve adequate funding, and they must prioritize the interests of their users, not their workforce or abstract ideological projects.

    9. All people have equal moral worth, but democratic self-government requires the American government to prioritize the interests of American citizens.

    Before getting to his list, Yglesias explains (and here I'll add my comments in brackets):

    Being a Democrat should mean caring more than Republicans about the lives of poor people, about equal rights and non-discrimination, about restraining big business in matters related to pollution and fraudulent practices, and about protecting social insurance for the elderly and disabled. [I'd add everyone else to "poor people," but you could just say 99% if villains are politically useful. Proper, not means-tested, social insurance becomes more valuable as you go up the income scale.]

    These are important progressive ideas, and because they are important progressive ideas, I think that anyone who identifies as a leftist or a progressive should vote for Democrats. [So why try so hard to drive us away? The charge that leftists are all-or-nothing is easily disproven.]

    But that doesn't mean that Democrats' agenda should be driven by those on the far left [or the right, or corporate neoliberalism, or identity groups, or any faction; it should be driven by problems and practical solutions]. A big-tent Democratic coalition needs leftists. But left-wing candidates are rarely winning tough elections, and too often, they're not improving governance of the solidly blue places where they're elected. [Leftists face many obstacles from entrenched forces, including donor-seeking Democrats, but even so, is this really a valid generalization?] . . .

    Most elected Democrats are not, themselves, actually that far left, and when faced with acute electoral peril, they swiftly ditch ideas like defund the police or openness to unlimited asylum claims [which are effectively caricaturs of leftist ideas, propagated to militate against the left]. But what they haven't generally done is publicly disavow the kind of simplistic disparate impact analysis that leads to conclusions like policing is bad. Similarly, the Democrats are not a degrowth party. [Degrowth is an idea that deserves consideration, but isn't a left political position.] When good GDP numbers come in, Joe Biden and his team celebrate them -- they believe in taking credit for strong growth. But even without being a degrowth party, Democrats are heavily influenced by the views of major environmentalist organizations that do have a degrowth ideology at their core.

    Critics on the right charge that Democrats are in the grips of radical ideology, but the truth is more boring: Many elected officials are just not particularly rigorous thinkers (think of how much backbench Republicans have shifted on various policies since Trump took over). Most only really understand a few issues and do a lot of going along to get along. . . .

    Winning elections is important, because if you don't win, you can't govern. [But if you win on the basis of bad ideas that don't work, your governing will have accomplished nothing, and you'll lose again -- at least until the other party reminds people of their own incompetence.]

    The Republican Party is basically just a racket: they lie, cheat, and steal, whatever it takes to ascend to power, so they can lie, cheat, and steal some more. Democrats have to run against Republicans, but they are also expected to tell the truth, to work earnestly for the public good, and to deliver tangible results. Democrats need the left, not just as reliable votes against Republicans, but because the left has useful ideas to solve or at least ameliorate problems that bedevil us. This repeated cycle of "centrist" or "neoliberal" -- Chait prefers the former term, while Yglesias is one of the few who actually embraces the latter -- blaming the left for many failures of the high-roller Democrats they favor needs to stop. Democrats need to figure out how to sell viable solutions to the people, and to deliver them once they are elected. Since most of those solutions come from the left, they need to stop demonizing the left, and start treating us as respectable and honorable.

    PS: Chait just wrote A farewell to New York, so with his new gig at The Atlantic, I guess I won't have him to kick around any more. One more reason not to subscribe.

Israel: This has been my top section ever since Oct. 7, 2023, only pushed down due to the election.

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

Israel vs. world opinion:

Ukraine and Russia:

Elsewhere in the world and/or/in spite of America's empire:

  • Lukas Scholle: [11-09] Germany's coalition collapsed, but recession is here to stay: "German chancellor Olaf Scholz has dismissed his finance minister, Christian Lindner, pitching the country toward elections. Economic woes will be at the center of the campaign -- yet proposals for a break with austerity are are conspicuously absent."

Supreme Court, legal matters, and other crimes:

Climate and environment:

  • Washington Post: [11-11] Nations gather for UN climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan.

    As nations gather at this year's talks, which are scheduled to run until Nov. 22, delegates will also have to contend with their countries' failure so far to deliver on the central pledge of last year's negotiations. The United States, for one, is producing more oil than any country, ever -- a trajectory expected to accelerate when Trump returns to the White House.

Other stories:

  • Kyle Chayka: [10-30] The banality of online recommendation culture: "A recent surge of human-curated guidance is both a reaction against and an extension of the tyranny of algorithmic recommendations." I didn't have time to write about this piece last week, and don't have time now, but being a guy who both writes and consumers self-styled "consumer guides," this is obviously up my alley. Also as a software engineer, I might note that I was thinking about algorithmic approaches to sharing preference information before many of the better known systems for aggregating such data became available -- none of which, needless to say, I find particularly useful.

    • Ruby Justice Thelot: [09-11] In praise of gatekeeping: "Why we need gatekeepers to resist cultural hyper-optimization." I found this in an open tab next to the Chayka article, so thought I should keep it. I'm not sure that the specifics matter to me. Also, the phrase is a bit loaded. The people I know (or at least the ones I follow) are more likely to be door-openers than gatekeepers.

Obituaries

Books

Chatter

  • Joshua Frank: [10-24] I wrote a book on how John Kerry blew the 2004 election by catering to the right, ignoring the antiwar vote, and outhawking Bush. Twenty years later, Kamala Harris is following the same losing playbook.

  • Aaron Maté: [10-27] If I were the Harris campaign I'd be playing this clip of Trump refusing to support a minimum wage hike on loop. Instead they're palling around with the Cheneys and yelling "fascist" at every turn.

  • David Sirota: [10-29] This is so far beyond parody that you could convince me it's a bit. [Response to Hillary Clinton: New Yorkers: Donald Trump may have Madison Square Garden, but we have Carnegie Hall.]

  • David Klion: [10-31] I'm confused why the Harris campaign thinks it's a good idea to send Bill Clinton to Michigan days before the election to lecture Arab and Muslim voters on the ancient Jewish claim to "Judea and Samaria."

  • Matt Duss: [10-31] It's ridiculous for Trump to claim to be the anti-war candidate and it's also ridiculous that that lane has been left wide open for him.

  • Eric Levitz: [11-96] Interesting how much rightwing propaganda outperforms leftwing propaganda across formats. It's not just that Fox beats MSNBC and the right dominates radio: As Dave Rubin, Tim Pool, and Rogan illustrate, podcasters tend to discover they can maximize their audience by moving right.

  • The Onion: Breaking News: The Onion on the verge of collapse after not being able to make up stuff that is more idiotic than the current reality in our political lives in these United States!

  • Rick Perlstein: [11-12] Don't quit Twitter. Ignoring fascist spaces is bad. Silence impliles assent, shuts down witness of the lies they're devising & the plans they're hatching. Don't initiate threads; the algo will just bury them. Tell the truth in threads, like leafletting an occupied French village.

  • Jeet Heer: [11-12] [Comment in response to Wally Nowinski, who offered a chart I can't read, and said: "Old white folks moved toward Kamala. Every other group moved towards Trump."] This is exactly the result you would get if you ran a pro-system, pro-status quo, hug-the-Cheneys campaign: improvement from those most invested in the system, alienating everyone else.

    [Actually, I find this interesting, perhaps because I belong to the "old white folks" demographic. Could it be that we weren't tuned into social media, so missed a lot of the lies, while we relied on more conventional news sources? Or maybe his point is to lambast us, while blaming the groups with the largest shifts to Trump (topped by black men) on the Harris campaign?]

  • db: [11-13] [illustration is House map, showing Republicans with 218 seats, clinching the majority, vs. 208 for Democrats] We did it! Worst possible world. thank you Kamala, thank you Joe, thank you Barack, and thank you to the DNC for strangling left populism in the crib and all but assuring this outcome! Couldn't have done it without you!

  • Rick Perlstein: [11-14] I have decided that I hate the adjective "unserious" as shorthand for "evil person who is stupid and dangerous and wrong about everything." The people it is purported to describe are plenty serious.

  • Dean Baker: [11-15] It's pretty funny to hear Trump boasting about his huge mandate. No Democrats has ever been elected president with a smaller mandate. I guess we can't expect a reality TV show star to be very good with numbers.
    [Later amended: "sorry, forgot about John Kennedy."]

Allen Lowe [11-07] Facebook post that somehow I managed to see on [11-15], but worth keeping for later:

One of the most annoying results of the election are those who are now standing up and saying the Democrats are gone and corrupt and that's it. Well, I'm not going to join the party of Jill Stein. And the Democrats still have a demographic advantage and still won a large percentage of the votes, and I don't care what you think, they are the only hope. Even Bernie Sanders agrees.

So I don't want to hear about how the billionaires would've won either way. I want to hear about how Biden basically eliminated 50% of child poverty only to be rebuffed by the Republicans when the law wasn't renewed. I want to hear about this huge infrastructure bill which is employing so many people and helping to make unemployment incredibly low. I want to hear about social welfare which flourishes under the Democrats because the agencies make appointments staffed by good people who take care of poor and disabled people. The Republicans staff them with people bent on destroying them and harming people like my disabled son.

I thought we learned our lessons during the prior Trump administration, when those who had told us that Hillary and Trump were the same slunk into the corner with their tails between their legs. Now they're coming out to try to tell us this is what they predicted all along.

Ridiculous, but it does show that many of them secretly hope the United States will sink into oblivion so a revolution will rise from the ashes. More people have to suffer so they can justify their own hallucinatory politics.The only thing that will rise from the ashes is more death and destruction.

Some good comments, like this one by Brian Simontacchi:

I think this is relevant to our conversation yesterday, so I'll just chime in and rebut a couple of your points:

  1. Biden did some very good things, shockingly. My expectations weren't high initially. He exceeded them easily
  2. As long as they try to prevent this outcome, I'll be supportive of Democrats and hold their feet to the fire at the same time. I can walk and chew gum
  3. Billionaires always win. Why spend all that money for no return?
  4. I think it's clear no lessons have been learned at all

I feel like you're working backwards from the conclusion that the outcome determines the causality. I don't think that. I think people, highly susceptible to misinformation and visceral tribalism, are easily manipulated, and Trump and his echo chamber are quite good at pressing those buttons. I think people change their minds with what they think is happening in the news and to them, and they don't care as much about a global or local responsibility to stability, if they ever did. When the billionaires make the global economic trends, they determine which professions and trades are most distressed and how those people will likely respond in an election. Its all coordinated; things will get worse before they get worse.

I'm just here to diagnose trends and be honest. I have no soft spot for billionaires or politicians. I want peace for my neighbors but I have to understand what's happening. Frankly, I have no loyalty to either party, only to harm reduction which I can't even impact from a blue state. If we can't have consistent progress, I'll settle for harm reduction, even though that is not my ultimate goal, or my responsibility to successive generations.

I hope we can talk about this amicably. If we can't, I'll cease and desist.

As best I recall, I've been pretty consistent in believing that Biden, and later Harris, would defeat Trump, but I saw one scenario as particularly ominous: if the wars in Ukraine and Israel drag on through election day (as they have now done), I predicted that many voters would desperately search for an alternative, which could tip the election to Trump. I relaxed my prediction a bit when Harris replaced Biden, figuring she would be seen as less culpable, but she was in Biden's administration, was involved in much of its disastrous foreign policy, and made little if any effort to distance herself from its failures. Worse still, she started campaigning with hawks like Liz Cheney.

I figured I should go back and find the quotes. I've found several bits I wrote on a possible Trump win, so I'll include them here. The main one was from July 24 (actually quoting a July 18 letter), but we'll keep them in order, starting with this one (I'm adding bold in a couple spots):

June 22, 2024:

I find it impossible to believe that most Americans, when they are finally faced with the cold moment of decision, will endorse the increasingly transparent psychopathology of Donald Trump. Sure, the American people have been seduced by right-wing fantasy before, but Reagan and the Bushes tried to disguise their aims by spinning sunny yarns of a kinder, gentler conservatism.

Even Nixon, who still outranks Trump as a vindictive, cynical bastard, claimed to be preserving some plausible, old-fashioned normality. All Trump promises is "taking back" the nation and "making America great again": empty rhetoric lent gravity (if not plausibility) by his unbridled malice toward most Americans. Sure, he got away with it in 2016, partly because many people gave him the benefit of doubt but also because the Clinton spell wore off, leaving "crooked Hillary" exposed as a shill for the money-grubbing metro elites. But given Trump's media exposure, both as president and after, the 2024 election should mostly be a referendum on Trump. I still can't see most Americans voting for him.

That doesn't mean Trump cannot win, but in order to do so, two things have to happen: he has to make the election be all about Biden, and Biden has to come up seriously short. One can ponder a lot of possible issues that Biden might be faulted for, and come up with lots of reasons why they might but probably won't matter. (For example, the US may experience a record bad hurricane season, but will voters blame Biden for that and see Trump as better?) But we needn't speculate, because Biden already has his albatross issue: genocide in Gaza. I'm not going to relitigate his failures here, but in terms of my "optimistic view," I will simply state that if Biden loses -- and such an outcome should be viewed not as a Trump win but as a Biden loss -- it will be well deserved, as no president so involved in senseless war, let alone genocide, deserves another term.

So it looks like the net effect of my optimism is to turn what may look like a lose-lose presidential proposition into a win-win. We are currently faced with two perilous prospects: on the one hand, Biden's penchant for sinking into foreign wars, which he tries to compensate for by being occasionally helpful or often just less miserable on various domestic policies; on the other, Republicans so universally horrible we scarcely need to list out the comparisons. Given that choice, one might fervently hope for Biden to win, not because we owe him any blanket support, but because post-election opposition to Biden can be more focused on a few key issues, whereas with Trump we're back to square one on almost everything.

But if Biden loses, his loss will further discredit the centrist style that has dominated the Democratic Party at least since Carter. There are many problems with that style, most deriving from the need to serve donors in order to attract them, which lends them an air of corruption, destroying their credibility. Sure, Republicans are corrupt too, even more so, but their corruption is consistent with their values -- dog-eat-dog individualism, accepting gross inequality, using government to discipline rather than ameliorate the losers -- so it comes off as honest, maybe even courageous. But Democrats are supposed to believe in public service, government for the people, and that's hard to square with their individual pursuit of power in the service of wealth.

So, sure, a Trump win would be a disaster, but it would free the Democrats from having to defend their compromised, half-assed status quo, and it would give them a chance to pose a genuine alternative, and a really credible one at that. I'd like to think that Democrats could get their act together, and build that credible alternative on top of Biden's half-hearted accomplishments. It would be nice to not have to start with the sort of wreckage Trump left in 2021, or Bush left in 2009, or that other Bush left in 1993 (and one can only shudder at the thought of what Trump might leave us in 2029). But people rarely make major changes based on reasoned analysis. It usually takes a great shock to force that kind of change -- like what the Great Depression did to a nation previously in love with Herbert Hoover, or like utter defeat did to Germany and Japan in WWII.

If there was any chance that a Trump win in 2024 would result in a stable and prosperous America, even if only for the 51% or so it would take for Republicans to continue winning elections, we might have something to be truly fearful of. But nothing they want to do works. The only thing they know how to do is to worsen problems, which are largely driven by forces beyond their control -- business, culture, climate, war, migration -- and all their lying, cheating, and outright repression only rub salt into the wounds. When people see how bad Republican rule really is, their support will wither rapidly.

The question is what Democrats have to do to pick up the support of disaffected Trumpers. One theory is to embrace the bigotry they showed in embracing Trump. A better one would be promise the grit, integrity, independence, and vision that Trump promised by couldn't deliver on, partly because he's a crook and con man who never cared, but largely because he surrounded himself by Republicans who had their own corrupt and/or deranged agendas.

July 18, 2024:

For what little it's worth, here's my nutshell take on Biden:

  1. If he can't get control of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza by early October, he's going to lose, no matter what else happens. For people who don't understand them, they're bad vibes, so why not blame the guy who was in position to do something about them. That may be unfair, but that's what uninformed voters do. And if you do understand them (which I think I do), Biden doesn't look so good either. He sees Ukraine as a test of resolve, and Israel as a test of loyalty, and those views are not just wrong, they kick in his most primitive instincts.

  2. Otherwise, the election will go to whichever side is most effective at making the election into a referendum on the other side. That should be easy when the other side is Trump, but it gets real hard when most media cycles focus on your age and/or decrepitude. That story is locked in, and isn't going away. When your "good news" is "Biden reads from teleprompter and doesn't fumble," you've lost.

  3. Even if Trump's negatives are so overwhelming that even Biden, incapacitated as he is, beats him (and surely it wouldn't be by enough to shut Trump up), do we really want four more years of this?

September 1, 2024:

Nia Prater: [08-27] RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard are joining the Trump transition team: I noted this story last week, dismissing it with "sounds like something, but probably isn't." Here I should note that while it probably isn't, it could actually be something. Kennedy and Gabbard have a lot of traits that discredit them as presidential candidates, but the one thing they do have is pretty consistent antiwar track records, which they are not just committed to, but are eager to use against Biden and Harris, who are not exactly invulnerable to such charges. Moreover, they can say that they left the Democratic Party because they opposed how hawkish the Party had become -- so hawkish that even Trump would be a safer and more sensible foreign policy option. It remains to be seen how credible they'll be, because, well, on most other issues they're nuts, but on this one, they could be more credible than Trump himself to people with real concerns. I've said all along that if Biden doesn't get his wars under control, he will lose in November. The switch to Harris gives Democrats a partial reprieve, but the one thing she is most seriously vulnerable on is the suspicion that Democrats are going to continue saddling us with senseless and hopeless foreign wars. Kennedy and Gabbard could be effective at driving that point home -- sure, not to rank-and-file Democrats, who are generally much more dovish than their leaders, and who are even more wary of Republicans on that count, but to the "undecideds," who know little, even of what little they know.

September 9, 2024:

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

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

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

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

I'm sure there are more, but these at least make the point. After Harris took over, I hoped that she might be held less responsible, and other factors would give her a chance. I also resisted all the hectoring from the left, figuring that's just what we normally do, even if it's not helpful at the moment. Besides, I knew that I couldn't really do anything about it: that the forces in motion were way too powerful for whatever I think to make any difference at all. So I just went with it.

But now I'm left with all these doubts: about my own judgment and understanding, about other people, about the whole notion of sides. I'm getting old, and tired, and frustrated. And while it's premature to say that we have no future, I can't see any viable path for me to continue working like this.

Therefore, this is my last Speaking of Which post. Probably ever, at least not for quite some well. I have a Jazz Poll to run, and that's going to be enough of a time sink to last me to January. I'll keep posting Music Week, probably as long as I'm able, possibly with a new burst of energy but more likely with diminishing returns. The political book I've contemplated for twenty-some years now is definitely dead. Much of it would have been practical advice on how Left Democrats might more effectively frame issues. Clearly, I'm in no position to do that.

I may consider writing up more "blue sky" policy ideas. I've always been very fond of Paul Goodman's Utopian Essays and Practical Proposals, which gives me the perfect subtitle. But each chunk of that would take considerable work to research and whip into shape, and I have little confidence of doing that. The more serious writing project would be to return (or restart) the memoir. I don't know that will be of any interest, but it's a subject I know, have thought about, and often find myself slipping into, and it could be a springboard for anything else I wanted to slip in.

The other obvious project would be to go back and review the several million words I've written (most collected here, from the founding of the notebook and/or blog up to some point in 2022) and see what can be packaged into something useful. A couple people have looked at this, and thrown their hands up in the air. When I look, I see lots of things that still strike me as worthwhile, but I, too, have little idea what to do with them. My ideal solution would be to find an editor willing to work on spec, but I can't imagine why anyone would want to do that.

If anyone is interested in nattering on about this life decision, you can contact me through the little-used question form.

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Monday, November 4, 2024

Speaking of Which

Draft file opened 2024-11-01 5:10 PM.

Trying to wrap this up Monday afternoon, but I keep sinking into deep comments, like the Müller entry below, to which I could easily add another 3-5 paragraphs. Now I need to take a long break and do some housework, so I'm not optimistic that I'll be able to add much before posting late this evening. We're among the seeming minority who failed to advance vote, so will trek to the polls tomorrow and do our bit. As I've noted throughout (and even more emphatically in my Top 10 Reasons to Vote for Harris vs. Trump), I'm voting for Harris. While Kansas is considered a surefire Trump state -- the silver lining here is that we're exposed to relatively little campaigning -- around my neighborhood the Harris signs outnumber the Trump signs about 10-0 (seriously, I haven't seen a single one, although I've heard of Harris signs being stolen). Not much down ballot activity either, although if I find any more Democrats, I'll vote for them (minimally, our state legislators, who are actually pretty good).

In the end, it got late and I gave up. Perhaps I'll add some more tidbits tomorrow, but my more modest plans are to go vote, stop at a restaurant we like after voting, and finish the bedroom trim paint. Presumably there'll be a Music Week before the day's done, but not really a lot to report there.

Soon as I got up Tuesday, I found myself adding a couple "chatter" items, so I guess I'm doing updates on Election Day. In which case, I might as well break my rule and include a sample of the extremely topical items that will become obsolete as soon as they start counting ballots. I'll keep them segregated here:

Top story threads:

Israel:

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

Israel vs. world opinion:

  • Juan Cole: [11-02] As UN warns entire population of Gaza is at risk of death, Bill Clinton says he's not keeping score. Here's a report on Clinton's campaign for Harris:

  • Nada Elia: [11-01] On vote shaming, and lesser evils: "I will not be shamed into voting for a candidate who supports the genocide of the Palestinian people, and no one who supports progressive issues should be either." Hers is a vote against Harris -- not sure in favor of who or what -- and I think we have to respect her conviction, even if one disagrees with her conclusion. We need people opposed to genocide more than we need voters for Harris, not that the two need be exclusive. Elections never just test one red line, so they require us to look beyond simple moral judgments and make a messy political one. Agreed that Harris fails on this red line -- as does her principal (and only practical) opponent, arguably even worse[*] -- but there are other issues at play, some where Harris is significantly preferable to Trump, none where the opposite is the case. I don't have any qualms or doubts about voting for Harris vs. Trump. But I respect people who do.

    [*] Harris, like Biden (with greater weight of responsibility), is a de facto supporter of Israel committing genocide, but she does not endorse the concept, and remains in denial as to what is happening (unaccountably and, if you insist, inexcusably, as there is little room for debating the facts). Trump, on the other hand, appears to have explicitly endorsed genocide (e.g., in his comments like "finish the job!"). Both the racism that separates out groups for collective punishment -- of which genocide is an extreme degree -- and the penchant for violent punishment are usually right-wing traits, which makes them much more likely for Trump than for Harris. And Trump's right-wing political orientation is more likely to encourage and sustain genocide in the future, as it derives from his character and core political beliefs.

    Some other pieces on the genocide voting conundrum (probably more scattered about, since I added this grouping rather late):

  • Chris Hedges: [10-31] Israel's war on journalism.

    There are some 4,000 foreign reporters accredited in Israel to cover the war. They stay in luxury hotels. They go on dog and pony shows orchestrated by the Israeli military. They can, on rare occasions, be escorted by Israeli soldiers on lightning visits to Gaza, where they are shown alleged weapons caches or tunnels the military says are used by Hamas.

    They dutifully attend daily press conferences. They are given off-the-record briefings by senior Israeli officials who feed them information that often turns out to be untrue. They are Israel's unwitting and sometimes witting propagandists, stenographers for the architects of apartheid and genocide, hotel room warriors.

    Bertolt Brecht acidly called them the spokesmen of the spokesmen.

    And how many foreign reporters are there in Gaza? None.

    The Palestinian reporters in Gaza who fill the void often pay with their lives. They are targeted, along with their families, for assassination.

    At least 134 journalists and media workers in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon, have been killed and 69 have been imprisoned, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, marking the deadliest period for journalists since the organization began collecting data in 1992.

  • Jonathan Ofir: [10-30] New UN Special Rapporteur report warns Israel's genocide in Gaza could be expanding to the West Bank: "A new report by Francesca Albanese."

  • Wamona Wadi: [11-03] CNN finally covered the Gaza genocide -- from the point of view of Israeli troops with PTSD: Don't laugh. That's a real thing, a form of casualty that's rarely calculated, or for that matter even anticipated, by war planners. It should be counted as reason enough not to start wars that can possibly be avoided, which is pretty much all of them. Perhaps it pales in comparison to the other forms of trauma unleashed by war, but it should be recognized and treated the only way possible, with peace.

  • Videos: I have very little patience for watching videos on computer, but the one with Suárez came highly recommended, and the title shows us something we need to be talking about now. When I got there, I found much more, so I noted a few more promising titles (not all vetted, but most likely to be very informative).

Election notes: First of all, I'm deliberately not reporting on polling, which right or wrong will be obsolete in a couple days, and saves me from looking at most of this week's new reporting. Two more notes this week: this section has sprawled this week, as I've wound up putting many pieces that cover both candidates, or otherwise turn on the election results, here; also, I'm struck by how little I'm finding about down-ballot races (even though a lot of money is being spent there). I'm sure I could find some surveys, as well as case stories, but Trump-Harris has so totally overshadowed them that I'd have to dig. And even though for most of my life, I've done just that, I feel little compulsion to do so right now.

  • Thomas B Edsall: [10-30] Let me ask a question we never had to ask before: A survey of "a wide range of scholars and political strategists," asking not who will win, but who will blamed by the losers.

  • Saleema Gul: [10-31] A community divided: With Gaza on their minds, Muslim and Arab Americans weigh their options ahead of election day: Such as they are, which isn't much.

  • John Herrman: Democrats are massively outspending the GOP on social media: "It's not even close -- $182 million to just $45 million, according to one new estimate." As I recall, Republicans were way ahead on social media in 2016 (with or without Russian contributions), and that was seen as a big factor. (But also, as I recall, Facebook's algorithms amplified Trump's hateful lies, while Democratic memes were deemed too boring to bother with.)

  • Ben Kamisar: [11-03] Nearly $1 billion has been spent on political ads over the last week. Most of this money, staggering amounts, is being spent on down-ballot races, including state referenda.

  • Howard Lisnoff: [11-01] We're in some deep shit: Now that's a clickbait title, as you have to click to get to anything specific, of which many subjects are possibilities. Turns out it's mostly about Jill Stein: not what you'd call an endorsement -- his own view is summed up in the Emma Goldman quote, "if voting changed anything they'd make it illegal" -- but using anti-Stein hysteria as a prism for exposing the vacuousness of the Democrats, as if Trump wasn't in the race at all (his name only appears once, in a quote about 2016). Links herein:

    • Matt Flegenheimer: [10-23] Jill Stein won't stop. No matter who asks. "People in Stein's life have implored her to abandon her bid for president, lest she throw the election to Donald Trump. She's on the ballot in almost every critical state." This piece is, naturally, totally about how she might siphon votes from Harris allowing Trump to win, with nothing about her actual positions, or how they contrast with those of Harris and Trump. Even Israel only gets a single offhand mention:

      Her bid can feel precision-engineered to damage Ms. Harris with key subgroups: young voters appalled by the United States' support for Israel; former supporters of Bernie Sanders's presidential campaigns who feel abandoned by Democrats; Arab American and Muslim voters, especially in Michigan, where fury at Ms. Harris and President Biden has been conspicuous for months.

      The Sanders comment seems like a totally gratuitous dig -- he is on record as solidly for Harris even considering Israel, and few of his supporters are likely to disagree. The other two points are the same, and have been widely debated elsewhere (including several links in this post), but the key thing there is that while Stein may benefit from their disaffection, she is not the cause of it. The cause is American support for genocide, which includes Biden and Harris, but also Trump, Kennedy, and nearly everyone in Congress.

    • Glenn Greenwald: Kamala's worst answers yet? A 38:31 video with no transcript, something I have zero interest in watching, although the comments are suitably bizarre (most amusing: "Consequences of an arrogant oligarchy and descending empire").

  • Dan Mangan: [11-02] Shock poll shows Harris leading Trump in Iowa. An exception to my "no polls stories" policy. My wife mentioned this poll to me, as a possible reason to vote for Harris in Kansas where she had been planning on a write-in.

  • Parker Molloy: [11-04] We already know one big loser in this election: the mainstream media: "When your most loyal supporters start questioning your integrity, that's not just a red flag -- it's a siren blaring in the newsroom."

  • Clara Ence Morse/Luis Melgar/Maeve Reston: [10-28] Meet the megmadonors pumping over $2.5 billion into the election: The breakdown of the top 50 is $1.6B Republican, $752M Democratic, with $214M "supportive of both parties" (mostly crypto and realtor groups). The top Democratic booster is Michael Bloomberg, but his $47.4M this time is a drop in the bucket compared to the money he spent in 2020 to derail Bernie Sanders.

  • Nicole Narea: [11-01] 2024 election violence is already happening: "How much worse could it get if Trump loses?" I'm more worried about: how much worse could it get if Trump wins? It's not just frustration that drives violence. There's also the feeling that you can get away with it -- one example of which is the idea that Trump will pardon you, as he's already promised to the January 6 hoodlums. Nor should we be too sanguine in thinking that frustration violence can only come from the right. While rights are much more inclined to violence, anyone can get frustrated and feel desperate, and the right has offered us many examples of that turning violent.

  • Margaret Simons: [11-02] Can democracy work without journalism? With the US election upon us, we may be about to find out: "Most serious news organisations are not serving the politically disengaged, yet it's these voters who will decide the next president." Seems like a good question, but much depends on what you mean by journalism. Although I have many complaints about quality, quantity doesn't seem to be much of a problem -- except, as compared to the quantity of PR, which is over the top, and bleeding into everything else. As for "soon find out," I doubt that. While honest journalism should have decided this election several months ago, the commonplace that we're now facing a "toss up" suggests that an awful lot of folks have been very poorly informed. Either that, or they don't give a fuck -- (not about their votes, but about what consequences they may bring -- which is a proposition that is hard to dismiss. There are many things that I wish reporters would research better, but Donald Trump isn't one of them.

  • Jeffrey St Clair: [11-01] Notes on a phony campaign: strange days.

  • Margaret Sullivan: [11-04] The candidates' closing campaign messages could not be more different: Well, aside from automatic support for America's global war machine, extending even to genocide in Israel, and the unexamined conviction that "the business of America is business," and that government's job is to promote that business everywhere. But sure, there are differences enough to decide a vote on: "There is hateful rhetoric and threats of retribution from one side, and messages of inclusion and good will from the other." But haven't we seen this "bad cop, good cop" schtick before? Or "speak softly, but carry a big stick"? These are the sort of differences that generate a lot of heat, but very little light.

  • Zoe Williams: [10-31] An excess of billionaires is destabilising politics -- just as academics predicted: "Politicians have always courted the wealthy, but Elon Musk and co represent a new kind of donor, and an unprecedented danger to democracy."

  • Endorsements:

Trump:

  • The New Republic: [10-21] The 100 worst things Trump has done since descending that escalator: "Some were just embarrassing. Many were horrific. All of them should disqualify him from another four years in the White House." I ran this last week, but under the circumstances let's run it again. If I had the time, I'm pretty sure I'd be able to write up 20+ more, many of which would land in the top 20. For instance, Israel only merits 2 mentions, at 76 and 71, and the latter was more about him attacking George Soros: no mention of moving the embassy to Jerusalem, or many other favors that contributed to the Oct. 7 revolt and genocide. Ditching the Iran deal came in at 8, but no mention of assassinating Iranian general Qasem Soleimani (I hope I don't need to explain why). There is only one casual reference to Afghanistan (22. Escalates the drone war), none that he protracted the war four years, knowing that Biden would be blamed for his surrender deal to the Taliban. He gets chided for his being "pen pals with Kim Jong Un," but not for failing to turn his diplomacy into an actual deal. Not all of these items belong in a Trivial Pursuit game, but most would be overshadowed by real policy disasters if reporters could look beyond their Twitter feeds.

  • Zack Beauchamp: [11-02] It's not alarmist: A second Trump term really is an extinction-level threat to democracy: "Why a second Trump term is a mortal threat to democracy -- though perhaps not the way you think." Having written a recent book -- The Reactionary Spirit: How America's Most Insidious Political Tradition Swept the World (I bought a copy, but haven't gotten into it yet -- on this broad theme, he predictably offers us a rehash with a minor update. It's nice to see him dialing back the alarmism, enough to see the real longer-term erosion:

    If the first Trump term was akin to the random destruction of a toddler, a second would be more like the deliberate demolition of a saboteur. With the benefit of four years of governing experience and four more years of planning, Trump and his team have concluded that the problem with their first game of Jenga was that they simply did not remove enough of democracy's blocks.

    I do not think that, over the course of four more years, Trump could use these plans to successfully build a fascist state that would jail critics and install himself in power indefinitely. This is in part because of the size and complexity of the American state, and in part because that's not really the kind of authoritarianism that works in democracies nowadays.

    But over the course of those years, he could yank out so many of American democracy's basic building blocks that the system really could be pushed to the brink of collapse. . . .

    A second Trump term risks replacing Rawls's virtuous cycle with a vicious one. As Trump degrades government, following the Orbánist playbook with at least some success, much of the public would justifiably lose their already-battered faith in the American system of government. And whether it could long survive such a disaster is anyone's guess.

    While "toddler" is certainly apt, eight years later he hasn't changed that aspect much, and in many ways he's even regressed. His narcissistic petulance is ever more pronounced, which may be why many people dismiss the threat of a second term as hysteria. No matter how naughty he wants to be, even as president he can't do all that much damage on his own. He looks like, and sounds like, the same deranged blowhard he's always been, but one thing is very different this time: he and his activist cult have found each other. As president, he will empower them from day one, and they'll not only do things he can only dream of, but they will feed him new fantasies, carefully tailored to flatter him and his noxious notions of greatness, because they know, as we all should realize by now, that job one is stoking his ego.

    No doubt much of what they try will blow up before it causes real harm -- nobody thinks that, even with a Republican Senate, Big Pharma is going to let RFK Jr. destroy their vaccination cash cow -- and much of what does get promulgated and/or enacted will surely blow back, driving his initially record-low approval rates into the ground. But he knows better than to let GOP regulars construct "guard rails" with responsible "adults in the room." The loyalty of everyone he might hire now can be gauged by their track record -- both what they've said in the past, and how low they can bow and scrape now (Vance is an example of the latter, of how to redeem yourself in Trump's eyes, although I'd surmise that Trump's still pretty wary of him).

    PS: Here's a video of Beauchamp talking about his book: The realignment: The rise of reactionary politics.

  • Aaron Blake: [11-01] Trump's latest violent fantasy: "Trump keeps painting pictures of violence against his foes despite allegations of fascism. And Republicans keep shrugging."

  • Sidney Blumenthal: [11-02] Donald Trump's freakshow continues unabated: "Trump insists on posing as the salient question of the election: are you crazier today than you were four years ago?"

  • Kevin T Dugan: [11-01] Wall Street's big bet on a Trump win: "Gold, bitcoin, prisons, and oil are all thought to be the big moneymakers for the financial class if Trump wins another term." More compelling reasons to sink Trump.

  • Michelle Goldberg: [11-01] What I truly expect if an unconstrained Trump retakes power.

  • Steven Greenhouse: [10-30] Trump wants you to believe that the US economy is doing terribly. It's untrue: "Despite his claims to the contrary, unemployment is low, inflation is way down, and job growth is remarkably strong." But unless you're rich, can you really tell? And if you're rich, the choice comes down to: if you merely want to get richer, you'd probably be better off with the Democrats (who have consistently produced significantly higher growth rates, ever since the Roaring '20s crashed and burned), but if you really want to feel the power that comes with riches, you can go with one of your own, and risk the embarrassment. And funny thing is, once you've decided which side you're on, your view of the economy will self-confirm. From any given vantage point, you can look up or down. That's a big part of the reason why these stories, while true enough, have virtually no impact (except among the neoliberal shills that write them).

  • Arun Gupta: [11-01] Triumph of the swill: A night at the Garden with Trump and MAGA. About as good a blow-by-blow account as I've seen so far. Ends on this note:

    Eight years wiser and with four years to plan, Trump, Miller, and the rest of MAGA are telling us they plan to occupy America. They are itching to use the military to terrify, subjugate, and ethnically cleanse. The only liberation will be for their violent desires and that of their Herrenvolk who went wild at mentions of mass deportations. They loved the idea.

    Also by Gupta:

    • [10-29] Night of the Fash: "At Madison Square Garden with Trump and his lineup of third-rate grifters and bigots." An earlier, shorter draft.

    • [11-04] Kamala says she'll "end the war in Gaza": "For opponents of Israel's genocide, sticking to principles gets results. But for Harris, her flip-flop is a sign of desperation." I don't really believe her -- it's going to take more than a sound bite to stand up to the Israel lobby -- but I would welcome the sentiment, and not just make fun of her. It may be desperate, but it's also a tiny bit of timely hope, much more plausible than the magic Trump imagines.

  • Margaret Hartmann: [11-01] Trump's ties to Jeffrey Epstein: Everything we've learned: "Michael Wolff claims he has Epstein tapes about Trump, and saw compromising Trump photos."

  • Antonia Hitchens:

    • [11-03] Trump's final days on the campaign trail: "Under assault from all sides, in the last weeks of his campaign, the former President speaks often of enemies from within, including those trying to take his life."

    • [10-19] Inside the Republican National Committee's poll-watching army: "The RNC says it has recruited tens of thousands of volunteers to observe the voting process at precincts across the country. Their accounts of alleged fraud could, as one Trump campaign official put it, "establish the battlefield" for after November 5th."

  • Chris Hooks: [11-02] The brainless ideas guiding Trump's foreign policy: "Conservatives recently gathered in Washington to explain how they would rule the world in a second Trump term. The result was incoherent, occasionally frightening, and often very dumb." My first reaction was that one could just as easily write "The brainless ideas guiding Democrats' foreign policy," but then I saw that the author is referring to a specific conference, the Richard Nixon Foundation's "Grand Strategy Summit."

  • Marina Hyde: [11-01] Trump may become president again -- but he's already a useful idiot to the mega rich: "They make nice with him when it suits, ridicule him when he's not listening. Their lives are money and gossip -- with him they get both."

  • Ben Jacobs: [11-04] The evolving phenomenon of the Trump rally: "Rarely boring, always changing, and essential to his appeal."

  • Hannah Knowles/Marianne LeVine/Isaac Arnsdorf: [11-01] Trump embraces violent rhetoric, suggests Liz Cheney should have guns 'trained on her face': "The GOP nominee often describes graphic and gruesome scenes of crimes and violence, real and imagined."

  • Eric Levitz: [11-01] Elon Musk assures voters that Trump's victory would deliver "temporary hardship"; "And he's half right." Meaning the hardship, but not necessarily "temporarily":

    Now, as the race enters the homestretch, Musk is trying to clinch Trump's victory with a bracing closing argument: If our side wins, you will experience severe economic pain.

    If elected, Trump has vowed to put Musk in charge of a "government efficiency commission," which would identify supposedly wasteful programs that should be eliminated or slashed. During a telephone town hall last Friday, Musk said his commission's work would "necessarily involve some temporary hardship."

    Days later, Musk suggested that this budget cutting -- combined with Trump's mass deportation plan -- would cause a market-crashing economic "storm." . . .

    This is one of the more truthful arguments that Musk has made for Trump's election, which is to say, only half of it is false. If Trump delivers on his stated plans, Americans will indeed suffer material hardship. But such deprivation would neither be necessary for -- nor conducive to -- achieving a healthier or more sustainable economy.

    After discussing tariffs and mass deportation, Levitz offer a section on "gutting air safety, meat inspections, and food stamps will not make the economy healthier." He then offers us a silver lining:

    Trump's supporters might reasonably argue that none of this should trouble us, since he rarely fulfills his campaign promises and will surely back away from his economically ruinous agenda once in office. But "don't worry, our candidate is a huge liar" does not strike me as a much better message than "prepare for temporary hardship."

  • Nicholas Liu: [10-31] Trump nearly slips attempting to enter a garbage truck for a campaign stunt.

  • Carlos Lozada: [10-31] Donald and Melania Trump were made for each other: Basically a review of her book, Melania. The title could just as well read "deserve each other," but that suggests a measure of equality that has never been remotely true.

    Melania's relationship with Donald is among the book's haziest features. She depicts her initial attraction to him in superficial terms: She was "captivated by his charm," was "drawn to his magnetic energy" and appreciated his "polished business look." He was not "flashy or dramatic," she writes, but "down-to-earth." And though we know how he speaks about women in private, Melania writes that "in private, he revealed himself as a gentleman, displaying tenderness and thoughtfulness." The one example she offers of his thoughtfulness is a bit unnerving: "Donald to this day calls my personal doctor to check on my health, to ensure that I am OK and that they are taking perfect care of me."

  • Clarence Lusane: [10-31] The black case against Donald Trump: "Hold Trump accountable for a lifetime of anti-black racism."

  • Branko Marcetic: [10-31] 'Anti-war' Trump trying to outflank Harris at critical moment: "It may be a cynical strategy, but he seems to have read the room while she has chosen a more confused, if not hawkish, path." This has long been my greatest worry in the election.

  • Amanda Marcotte:

  • Peter McLaren: [11-03] Donald Trump versus a microphone: a head bobbing performance.

  • Jan-Werner Müller: [11-04] What if Trump's campaign is cover for a slow-motion coup? "Even if Trump can't really mobilize large numbers of people to the streets, just prolonging a sense of chaos might be enough." Why are people so pre-occupied with imagining present and future threats that have already happened? I'm sorry to have to break the news to you, especially given that you think the election tomorrow is going to be so momentous, but the "slow motion coup" has already happened. Trump, while easily the worst imaginable outcome, is just the farce that follows tragedy. The polarization isn't driven by issues, but by personality types. A lot of people will vote for Trump not because they agree with him, but because in a rigged system, he's the entertainment option. He will make the other people suffer -- his very presence drives the rest of us crazy -- and Trump voters get off on that. And a lot of people will vote against him, because they don't want to suffer, or in some rare cases, they simply don't like seeing other people suffer. Harris, actually much more than Biden or Obama or either Clinton, is a very appealing candidate for those people (I can say us here), but is still can be trusted not to try to undo the coup, to restore any measure of real democracy, let alone "power to the people."

    Here's a way to look at it: skipping past 1776-1860, there have been two eras in American history, each beginning in revolution, but which fizzled in its limited success, allowing reaction to set in, extending the power of the rich to a breaking point. The first was the Civil War and Reconstruction, which gave way to rampant corruption, the Gilded Age and Jim Crow, ultimately collapsing in the Great Depression. The second was the New Deal, which came up with the idea of countervailing powers and a mixed economy with a large public sector, mitigating the injustices of laissez-faire while channeling the energy of capitalism into building a widely shared Affluent Society.

    But, unlike the Marxist model of proletarian revolution, the New Deal left the upper crust intact, and during WWII they learned how to use government for their own means. The reaction started to gain traction after Republicans won Congress in 1946, and teamed with racist Democrats to pass Taft-Hartley and other measures, which eventually undermined union power, giving businesses a freer hand to run things. Then came the Red Scare and the Cold War, which Democrats joined as readily as Republicans, not realizing it would demolish their popular base. Dozens of similar milestones followed, each designed to concentrate wealth and power, which both parties increasingly catered to, seeing no alternative, and comforted with the perks of joining the new plutocracy.

    One key milestone was the end of the "fairness doctrine" in the 1980s, which surrendered the notion that there is a public interest as opposed to various private interests, and incentivized moguls to buy up media companies and turn them into propaganda networks (most egregiously at Fox, but really everywhere). Another was the end of limits on campaign finance, which has finally reduced electoral politics to an intramural sport of billionaires. (Someone should issue a set of billionaire trading cards, like baseball cards, with stats and stories on the back. I googled, and didn't find any evidence of someone doing this.) Aside from Bernie Sanders, no one runs for president (or much else) without first lining up a billionaire (or at least a near-wannabe). They have about as much control over who gets taken seriously and can appear on a ballot as the Ayatollah does in Iran.

    The main thing that distinguishes this system from a coup is that it's unclear who's ultimately in charge, or even if someone is. Still, that could be a feature, especially as it allows for an infinite series of scapegoats when things go wrong -- as, you may have noticed, they inevitably do.

  • Nicholas Nehamas/Erica L Green: [10-31] Trump says he'll protect women, 'like it or not,' evoking his history of misogyny.

  • Jonathan O'Connell/Leigh Ann Caldwell/Lisa Rein: [11-02] Conservative group's 'watch list' targets federal employees for firing.

  • Andrew Prokop: [09-26] The Architect: Stephen Miller's dark agenda for a second Trump term: "Miller has spent years plotting mass deportation. If Trump wins, he'll put his plans into action." I think the most important thing to understand about Miller isn't how malevolent he is, but that he's the archetype, the exemplar for all future Trump staff. He clearly has his own deep-seated agenda, but what he's really excelled at is binding it to Trump, mostly through utterly shameless flattery.

  • Aaron Regunberg: [11-01] Why is the Anti-Defamation League running cover for Trump? "Yes, it's fair to compare Trump's Madison Square Guarden spectacle to the Nazi rally of 1939."

  • Aja Romano/Anna North: [11-05] The new Jeffrey Epstein tapes and his friendship with Trump, explained.

  • Dylan Scott: [10-30] The existential campaign issue no one is discussing: "What happens if another pandemic strikes -- and Trump is the president." Mentions bird flu (H5N1) as a real possibility, but given Trump's worldview and personal quirks, one could rephrase this as: what happens if any unexpected problem strikes? I'm not one inclined to look to presidents for leadership or understanding, but the least we should expect is the third option in "lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way." Trump is almost singularly incapable of any of those three options. Moreover, where most people manage to learn things from experience, Trump jumps to the wrong conclusions. Case in point: when Trump got Covid-19 in 2016, he could have learned from the experience how severe the illness is, and how devastating it could be for others; instead, he recovered, through treatment that wasn't generally available, and came out of it feeling invincible, holding superspreader events and ridiculing masks. I've long believed that a big part of his polling bounce was due to people foolishly mistaking his idiocy for bravura.

  • Marc Steiner: [10-30] The failures of liberals and the left have helped Trump's rise: "Feckless Democrats and a disorganized Left have fed fuel to the MAGA movement's fire." Interview with Bill Fletcher Jr. and Rick Perlstein.

  • Kirk Swearingen: [11-02] Donald Trump was never qualified to be president -- or anything else: "After a lifetime of lying, failure and incompetence, this conman stands at the gates of power once again."

  • Michael Tomasky: [11-04] Donald Trump has lost his sh*t: "There is no 'context' for performing fellatio on a microphone. He's gone batty. The only remaining question is whether enough voters recognize it."

Vance, and other Republicans:

Harris:

  • Eric Levitz: [10-22] If Harris loses, expect Democrats to move right: "Even though Harris is running as a moderate, progressives are likely to get blamed for her defeat." I haven't read this, as it's locked up as a "special feature for Vox Members," but the headline is almost certainly wrong, and the subhed is very disputable -- I've already seen hundreds of pieces arguing that if Harris fails, it will be because she moved too far to the right, and in doing so risked discredit of principles that actually resonate more with voters. (And if she wins, it will be because she didn't cut corners like that on abortion, but stuck to a strong message.) No doubt, if she loses, the Democrats and "centrist" who never miss a chance to slam the left will do so again -- you can already see this in the Edsall piece, op. cit. -- but how credible will they be this time? (After, e.g., trying to blame first Sanders then Putin for Hillary Clinton's embarrassing failure in 2016.)

    If Harris loses, she will be pilloried for every fault from every angle, which may be unfair, but is really just a sign of the times, a rough measure of the stakes. But if Trump wins, the debate about who to blame is going to become academic real fast. Republicans are not going to see a divided nation they'd like to heal with conciliatory gestures. They're going to plunge the knife deeper, and twist it. And as they show us what the right really means, they will drive lots of people to the left, to the people who first grasp what was going wrong, and who first organized to defend against the right. And the more Trump and his goons fuck up (and they will fuck up, constantly and cluelessly), the more people will see the left as prescient and principled. The left has a coherent analysis of what's gone wrong, and what can and should be done about it. They've been held back by the centrists -- the faction that imagines they can win by appealing to the better natures of the rich while mollifying the masses with paltry reforms and panic over the right -- but loss by Harris, following Clinton's loss, will leave them even more discredited.

    As long-term politics, one might even argue that a Trump win would be the best possible outcome for the left. No one (at least, no one I know of) on the left is actually arguing that, largely because we are sensitive enough to acute pain we wish to avoid even the early throes of fascist dictatorship, and possibly because we don't relish natural selection winnowing our leadership down to future Lenins and Stalins. But when you see Republicans as odious as Bret Stephens and George Will endorsing Harris, you have to suspect that they suspect that what I'm saying is true.

  • Stephen Prager/Alex Skopic: [11-01] Every Kamala Harris policy, rated. This is a seriously important piece, the kind of things issues-oriented voters should be crying out for. But the platforms exists mostly to show that Harris is a serious issues-oriented candidate, and to give her things to point to when she pitches various specific groups. Anything that she wants will be further compromised when the donor/lobbyists and their hired help (aka Congress, but also most likely her Cabinet and their minions) get their hands on the actual proposals. Given that the practical voting choice is just between Harris and Trump, that seems like a lot of extra work -- especially the parts, like everything having to do with foreign policy, that will only make you more upset.

    Nathan J Robinson introduced this piece with an extended tweet, making the obvious contrasts to Trump ("a nightmare on another level"). I might as well unroll his post here:

    The differences between a Trump and Harris presidency: An unprecedented deportation program with armed ICE agents breaking down doors and tearing families from their homes in unfathomable numbers, total right-wing capture of the court system, ending every environmental protection.

    Workplace safety rules will be decimated (remember, the right doesn't believe you should have water breaks in the heat), Israel will be given a full green light to "resettle" Gaza, all federal efforts against climate change will cease, international treaties will be ripped up . . .

    There will be a war on what remains of abortion rights (if you believe the right won't try to ban it federally you're the world's biggest sucker), protests will be ruthlessly cracked down on (with the military probably, as Tom Cotton advocated), journalists might be prosecuted . . .

    Organized labor's progress will be massively set back, with Trump letting policy be dictated by billionaire psychopaths like Elon Musk who think workers are serfs. JD Vance endorsed a plan for a massive war on teachers' unions. Public health will be overseen by RFK antivaxxers . . .

    If you think things cannot be worse, I would encourage you to expand your imagination. Trump is surrounded by foaming-at-the-mouth authoritarians who believe they are in a war for the soul of civilization and want to annihilate the left. I am terrified and you should be too.

Walz, Biden, and other Democrats:

  • Ana Marie Cox: [11-01] Tim Walz has broken Tucker Carlson's brain: "The former Fox News host is so flummoxed by Kamala Harris's running mate that he's resorting to immature, homophobic schoolyard taunts."

  • Ralph Nader: [11-04] The Democratic Party still can adopt winning agendas. Obviously, the "there is still time" arguments are finally moot for 2024, not that the principles are wrong. This makes me wonder what would have happened had Nader run as a Democrat in 2000, instead of on a third party. Sure, Gore would have won most of the primaries, but he could have gotten a sizable chunk of votes, possibly nudged Gore left of Lieberman and Clinton, and if Gore still lost, set himself up for an open run in 2004.

Supreme Court, legal matters, and other crimes:

Climate and environment:

Business, labor, and Economists:

Ukraine and Russia:

Elsewhere in the world and/or/in spite of America's empire:

Other stories:

  • Victoria Chamberlin: [11-02] How Americans came to hate each other: "And how we can make it stop." Interview between Noel King and Lilliana Mason, author of Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity (2018), and Radical American Partisanship (2022, with Nathan P Kalmoe). She seems to have a fair amount of data, but not much depth. There is very little hint here that the polarization is asymmetrical. While both sides see the other as treats to their well-being, the nature of those threats are wildly different, as are the remedies (not that the promise of is in any way delivered).

  • Ezra Klein: [11-01] Are we on the cusp of a new political order? Interview with Gary Gerstle, author of The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era. I've noted him as a "big picture" historian, but I've never read him. But he makes a fair amount of sense in talking about neoliberalism here, even though I resist rooting it my beloved New Left. But I can see his point that a focus on individual freedom and a critique of the institutions of the liberal power elite could have served the reactionaries, not least by pushing some liberals (notably Charles Peters) to refashion themselves, which proved useful for Democratic politicians from Jimmy Carter on. This sort of dovetails with my argument that the New Left was a massive socio-cultural success, winning major mind share on all of its major fronts (against war and racism, for women and the environment) without ever seizing power, which was deeply distrusted. That failure, in part because working class solidarity was discarded as Old Left thinking, allowed the reactionaries to bounce back, aided by neoliberals, who helped them consolidate economic power.

    Gerstle offers this quote from Jimmy Carter's 1978 state of the union address:

    Government cannot solve our problems. It can't set our goals. It cannot define our vision. Government cannot eliminate poverty or provide a bountiful economy or reduce inflation or save our cities or cure illiteracy or provide energy. And government cannot mandate goodness.

    One thing I'm struck by here is that four of these sentences immediately strike us as plausible, given how little trust we still have in government -- a trust which, one should stress, was broken by the Vietnam War. However, the other sentence is plainly false, and Carter seems to be trying to pull a fast one on us, disguising a pretty radical curtailment of functions that government is the only remedy for: eliminating poverty (spreading wealth and power), providing a bountiful economy (organizing fair markets and making sure workers are paid enough to be consumers), reducing inflation, saving cities, curing illiteracy (schools), providing energy (TVA, for example; more privatization here, not the best of solutions, but kept in check by regulation -- until it wasn't, at which point you got Enron, which blew up).

    But once you realize you're being conned, go back and re-read the paragraph again, and ask why? It's obvious that government can solve problems, because it does so all the time. The question is why doesn't it solve more problems? And the answer is often that it's being hijacked by special interests, who pervert it for their own greed (or maybe just pride). Setting goals, defining vision, and mandating goodness are less tangible, which moves them out of the normal functioning of government. But such sentences only make sense if you assume that government is an independent entity, with its own peculiar interests, and not simply an instrument of popular will. If government works for you, why can't it promote your goals, vision, and goodness? Maybe mandates (like the "war on drugs") are a step too far, because democracies should not only reflect the will of the majority but also must respect and tolerate the freedom of others.

  • Elizabeth Kolbert: [2017-02-19] Why facts don't change our minds: An old piece, seemingly relevant again."

Obituaries

Books

  • Ta-Nehisi Coates: The Message: I'm finally reading this book, so linking it here was the easiest way to pick up the cover image. It took a while to get good, but the major section on Israel/Palestine is solid and forceful.

Music (and other arts?)

Chatter

  • Dean Baker: [11-03] quick, we need a major national political reporter to tell us Donald Trump is not suffering from dementia, otherwise people might get the wrong idea. [on post quoting Trump ("we always have huge crowds and never any empty seats") while panning camera on many empty seats.]

  • Jane Coaston: [11-04] Every white nationalist is convinced that almost every other person is also a white nationalist and that's a level of confidence in the popularity of one's views I do not understand.

    Rick Perlstein comments: I have a riff about that in my next book. I call it "epistemological narcissism": right-wingers can't imagine anyone could think differently than themselves. They, of coruse, only being different in having the courage to tell the truth . . .

  • Iris Demento: [11-05] Happy crippling anxiety day [followed by bullet list from 1972:

    • "Nixon Now" - Richard M. Nixon, 1972 (also, "Nixon Now, More than Ever" and "President Nixon. Now more than ever")
    • "Come home, America" - George McGovern, 1972
    • "Acid, Amnesty, and Abortion for All" - 1972 anti-Democratic Party slogan, from a statement made to reporter Bob Novak by Missouri Senator Thomas F. Eagleton (as related in Novak's 2007 memoir, Prince of Darkness)
    • "Dick Nixon Before He Dicks You" - Popular anti-Nixon slogan, 1972
    • "They can't lick our Dick" - Popular campaign slogan for Nixon supporters

    Remembering 1972, I contributed a comment:

    1972 was the first time I voted. I hated Nixon much more than I hate Trump today. (Not the word I would choose today; maybe I retired it after Nixon?) I voted for McGovern, and for Bill Roy, who ran a remarkable campaign against the hideous Bob Dole, and for Jim Juhnke against our dull Republican Rep. Garner Shriver. Those three were among the most decent and thoughtful people who ever ran for public office in these parts. I voted for whatever Republican ran against the horrible Vern Miller and his sidekick Johnny Darr. In a couple cases, I couldn't stand either D or R, so wasted my vote with the Prohibitionist (a minor party, but still extant in KS). Not a single person I voted for won. I was so despondent, I didn't vote again until 1996, when I couldn't resist the opportunity to vote against Dole again. (I was in MA at the time.) I've voted regularly since then. After moving back to KS in 1999, I got another opportunity to vote for whatever Republican ran against Vern Miller, and we beat him this time (although for the most part, my winning pct. remains pretty low).

  • Paul Krugman: [no link, but cited in a post called Trump could make contagion great again] I expect terrible things if Trump wins. Until recently, however, "explosive growth in infectious diseases" wasn't on my Bingo card [link to article on RFK Jr. saying "Trump promised him 'control' of HHS and USDA]

Local tags (these can be linked to directly): music.

Original count: 135 links, 9115 words

Current count: 160 links, 10343 words (13232 total)

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Wednesday, October 30, 2024

Speaking of Which

File opened 2024-10-24 01:36 AM.

I've been trying to collect my thoughts and write my up Top 10 Reasons to Vote for Harris vs. Trump. I posted an early draft -- just the top 10 list -- on Monday afternoon at Notes on Everyday Life, then blanked out and didn't get to the second part ("Top 5 Reasons Electing Harris Won't Solve Our Problems") until Tuesday afternoon (and well into evening). I updated the NOEL draft that evening, and finally posted the file in the blog. That pushes this file out until Wednesday, and Music Week until Thursday (which still fits in October).

As of Tuesday evening, this week's collection is very hit-and-miss (100 links, 6023 words), typed up during odd breaks as I juggled my life between working on my birthday dinner, writing the endorsement, and struggling with my big remodeling project.

The endorsement could do with some editing, although my initial distribution of the link has thus far generated almost no comment (one long-time friend wrote back to disagree, having decided -- "even in a battleground state" -- to vote for Jill Stein). A year ago I still imagined writing a book that might have some small influence on the election. In some ways, this piece is my way of penance for my failure, but the more I got into it, the more I thought I had some worthwhile points to make. But now it's feeling like a complete waste of time.

The birthday dinner did feel like I accomplished something. The Burmese curries were each spectacular in their own way, the coconut rice nice enough, the ginger salad and vegetable sides also interesting, and the cake (not Burmese, but spice-and-oats) was an old favorite. I should follow it up with a second round of Burmese recipes before too long, especially now that I've secured the tea leaf salad ingredients.

Slow but tangible progress on the bedroom/closet remodel. Walls are painted now, leaving trim next. Paneling is up in closet, where I still have the ceiling and quite a bit of trim. [Wednesday morning now:] I've been meaning to go out back and polyurethane the trim boards, so I can cut them as needed, first to shore up the ceiling. But it's raining, so I'll give that pass for another day, and probably just work on this straggling post. Laura's report of morning news is full of gaffes by Biden and Hillary Clinton, who seem intent on redeeming the dead weight of their own cluelessness by imposing it on Harris. With "friends" like these, who needs . . . Dick Cheney?

Posting late Wednesday night, my usual rounds still incomplete. I'll decide tomorrow whether I'll add anything here, or simply move on to next week (which really has to post before election results start coming in). For now, I'm exhausted, and finding this whole process very frustrating.

Top story threads:

Israel:

  • Mondoweiss:

  • Ruwaida Kamal Amer/Ibtisam Mahdi: [10-24] For Gaza's schoolchildren, another year of destruction, loss, and uncertainty.

  • Tareq S Hajjaj: [10-25] Survivors of north Gaza invasion report Israeli 'extermination' campaign: "Survivors of the ongoing Israeli extermination campaign in north Gaza describe how the Israeli army is separating mothers from children before forcing them south, executing civilians in ditches, and directly targeting hospitals and medical staff."

  • Shatha Hanaysha: [10-25] 'Our freedom is close': why these young Palestinian men choose armed resistance: "I met resistance fighters from the Tulkarem Brigade for an interview in the alleyways of Tulkarem refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. They talked about why they fight against Israel, and what their dreams are for the future." This is disturbing. I find it impossible to feel solidarity or even sympathy with people who would fight back against Israel, even if purely out of self-defense. But it is understandable, and has long been predicted, every time Israel has renewed its war on Gaza (going back at least to 1951): virtually all people, when oppressed, will fight back. That they should do so, why and why, is mostly a function of the people who are driving them to such desperate measures. We'd see less of this if only we were clear on who is responsible for setting the conditions that make such rebellion seem like the only recourse, especially if we made it clear that we'll hold those who control an area as the sole ones responsible for the rebellions they provoke. Sure, I can think of some cases where control was nebulous and/or revolts were fueled by external forces, but that is not the case with Israel in Gaza. Israel is solely responsible for this genocide. And if armed resistance only accelerates it, that is solely because Israel wants it that way.

  • Gideon Levy: [10-25] Beatings, humiliation and torture: The IDF's night of terror at a Palestinian refugee camp: "Israeli soldiers abused people during a raid on a remote refugee camp in the territories. During their violent rampage, the troops detained 30 inhabitants, of whom 27 were released the next day."

  • Mohammed R Mhawish/Ola Al Asi/Ibrahim Mohammad: [10-23] Inside the siege of northern Gaza, where 'death waits around every corner': "Limbs scattered on the streets, shelters set ablaze, hundreds trapped inside hospitals: Palestinians detail the apocalyptic scenes of Israel's latest campaign."

  • Qassam Muaddi:

  • Jonathan Ofir: [10-28] Israeli journalists join the live-streamed genocide: "A mainstream Israeli journalist recently blew up a house in Lebanon as part of a news report while embedded with the military. The broadcast shows how mainstream genocidal activity has become in Israeli society."

  • Meron Rapoport:

  • Christiaan Triebert/Riley Mellen/Alexander Cardia: [10-30] Israel Demolished Hundreds of Buildings in Southern Lebanon, Videos and Satellite Images Show: "At least 1,085 buildings have been destroyed or badly damaged since Israel's invasion targeting the Hezbollah militia, including many in controlled demolitions, a New York Times analysis shows." Same tactics, reflecting the same threats and intentions Israel is using on Gaza, except that you can't even pretend to be responding to an attack like Oct. 7. Hezbollah is being targeted simply because it exists, and Lebanon is being targeted because Israelis make no distinction between the "militants" they "defend" against and any other person who lives in their vicinity. The numbers in Lebanon may not amount to genocide yet, but that's the model that Israel is following.

  • Oren Ziv: [10-22] 'Copy-paste the West Bank to Gaza': Hundreds join Gaza resettlement event: "In a closed military zone near Gaza, Israeli settlers, ministers, and MKs called to ethnically cleanse and annex the Strip -- an idea that is growing mainstream."

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

  • Yaniv Cogan/Jeremy Scahill: [10-21] The Israeli-American businessman pitching a $200 million plan to deploy mercenaries to Gaza: "Moti Kahana says he's talking to the Israeli government about creating a pilot program for 'gated communities' controlled by private US security forces." By the way, the authors also (separately) wrote:

    • Yaniv Cogan: [10-06] Blinken approved policy to bomb aid trucks, Israeli cabinet members suggest.

    • Jeremy Scahill/Murtaza Hussain/Sharif Abdel Kouddous: [09-18] Israel's new campaign of "terrorism warfare" across Lebanon.

    • Ryan Grim/Murtaza Hussain: [10-29] Project 2025 creators have a plan to 'dismantle' pro-Palestine movement: "If Donald Trump wins next week, the Heritage Foundation has prepared a roadmap for him to crush dissent."

      The plan, dubbed "Project Esther," casts pro-Palestinian activists in the U.S. as members of a global conspiracy aligned with designated terrorist organizations. As part of a so-called "Hamas Support Network," these protesters receive "indispensable support of a vast network of activists and funders with a much more ambitious, insidious goal -- the destruction of capitalism and democracy," Project Esther's authors allege.

      This conspiratorial framing is part of a legal strategy to suppress speech favorable to Palestinians or critical of the U.S.-Israel relationship, by employing counterterrorism laws to suppress what would otherwise be protected speech . . .

      To achieve its goals, Project Esther proposes the use of counterterrorism and hate speech laws, as well as immigration measures, including the deportation of students and other individuals in the United States on foreign visas for taking part in pro-Palestinian activities. It also advocates deploying the Foreign Agents Registration Act, a law placing disclosure obligations on parties representing foreign interests, against organizations that the report's authors imply are funded and directed from abroad.

      In addition, the document also suggests using the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, to help construct prosecutions against individuals and organizations in the movement. The RICO act was originally created to fight organized crime in the U.S., and particularly mafia groups.

      It occurs to me that the same laws and tactics could be used to counter Israeli political influence -- that that anyone would try that -- and that the audit trail would be much more interesting.

  • Adrian Filut: [10-24] From Iron Dome to F-15s: US provides 70% of Israel's war costs.

  • Tariq Kenney-Shawa: [10-29] Why the Democrats were Israel's perfect partners in genocide: "By masking support for Israel with hollow humanitarian gestures and empathy for Palestinians have diluted pressure to end the war."

  • Akela Lacy: [10-24] How does AIPAC shape Washington? We tracked every dollar. "The Intercept followed AIPAC's money trail to reveal how its political spending impacts the balance of power in Congress."

  • Mitchell Plitnick: [10-25] US efforts to entice Israel into minimizing its attack on Iran are only raising the chances for regional war: "The Biden administration is showering Israel with military aid and support to persuade it not to hit Iran's energy sector, but this will only increase Israeli impunity and push the region closer to war."

  • Azadeh Shahshahahani/Sofía Verónica Montez: [02-26] Complicity in genocide -- the case against the Biden administration: "Israel's mass bombardment of civilians in Gaza is being facilitated, aided and abetted by the United States government." Older article I just noticed, but figured I'd note anyway. Reminds me that the only proper response to the "genocide" charge is to stop doing it. That at least enables the argument that you never meant the complete annihilation of everyone, because you stopped and left some (most?) target people still alive. Needless to say, the argument becomes less persuasive over time, where you've repeatedly missed opportunities to say this is enough, "we've made our point."

  • Richard Silverstein:

  • Ishaan Tharoor:

    • [10-25] Is Israel carrying out de facto ethnic cleansing? "A pro-settlement Israeli group and some Israeli lawmakers gathered a couple miles from northern Gaza's blasted neighborhoods to rally around settling Gaza."

    • [10-28] The world beyond the election: Middle East in turmoil: "Whoever takes office in January will face a region being reshaped by an emboldened Israel and the rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia."

    • [10-30] The world beyond the election: So much for democracy vs. autocracy. The Biden framing was mostly horseshit, mostly because America has never cared whether other countries practiced democracy, not least because we don't do a good job of it ourselves, and are certainly willing to throw it out the window if the polls look unfavorable. But also I suppose it was a subtle dig at Trump, who's always been Team Autocracy. That the ardor seems to have faded is less a change of view than acknowledgment that it hasn't worked so well. Then there is this line: "Biden once framed the successful defense of Ukraine as a rejection of a world 'where might makes right.'" But what is the US "defense" of Ukraine but an exercise in might making right? And if that case isn't clear cut enough for you, what else can you make of Israel?

Israel vs. world opinion:

Election notes:

Trump:

  • Trump's Madison Square Garden spectacle:

  • Zack Beauchamp: [10-31] Inside Trump's ominous plan to turn civil rights law against vulnerable Americans. Late-breaking but important article.

  • Jasper Craven: Trump's cronies threw the VA into chaos. Millions of veterans' lives are on the line again.

  • David French: [10-27] Four lessons from nine years of being 'Never Trump': His section heads:

    • Community is more powerful than ideology.
    • We don't know our true values until they're tested.
    • Hatred is the prime motivating force in our politics.
    • Finally, trust is tribal.

  • Susan B Glasser: [10-18] How Republican billionaires learned to love Trump again: "The former President has been fighting to win back his wealthiest donors, while actively courting new ones -- what do they expect to get in return?"

    Trump's effort to win back wealthy donors received its biggest boost on the evening of May 30th, when he was convicted in Manhattan on thirty-four criminal counts related to his efforts to conceal hush-money payments to the former adult-film actress Stormy Daniels. After the verdict, Trump walked out to the cameras in the courthouse and denounced the case brought against him as "rigged" and a "disgrace." Then he departed in a motorcade of black Suburbans. He was headed uptown for an exclusive fund-raising dinner, at the Fifth Avenue apartment of the Florida sugar magnate José (Pepe) Fanjul. . . .

    Trump was seated at the head table, between Fanjul -- a major Republican donor going back to the early nineties -- and Stephen Schwarzman, the C.E.O. of Blackstone, the world's largest private-equity fund, who had endorsed Trump the previous Friday. Securing the support of Schwarzman was a coup for the Trump campaign. . . .

    Trump was fund-raising off his conviction with small-dollar donors as well; his campaign, which portrayed him as the victim of a politicized justice system, brought in nearly $53 million in the twenty-four hours after the verdict. Several megadonors who had held back from endorsing Trump announced that they were now supporting him, including Miriam Adelson, the widow of the late casino mogul Sheldon Adelson; the Silicon Valley investor David Sacks, who said that the case against Trump was a sign of America turning into a "Banana Republic"; and the venture capitalist Shaun Maguire, who, less than an hour after the verdict, posted on X that he was donating $300,000 to Trump, calling the prosecution a "radicalizing experience." A day later, Timothy Mellon, the banking-family scion, wrote a $50-million check to the Make America Great Again super PAC.

    Many more names and dollar amounts follow.

  • Margaret Hartmann: [10-29] Melania Trump plays normal political wife for one week only: "From appearing at Donald Trump's racist MSG rally to insisting he's 'not Hitler' on Fox News, Melania is now conspicuously present."

  • Doug Henwood: [10-30] Trumponomics: "What kind of economic policy could we expect from a second Trump term?" A fairly obvious assignment for one of our more available left-wing economists, but he comes up with surprisingly little here, beyond income tax cuts and tariffs -- much-advertised themes that are unlikely to amount to very much. I suspect this is mostly because, despite the obvious importance of the economy, there isn't much of a partisan divide on how to run it. Trump would be harder on workers (especially on unions), and softer on polluters and all manner of frauds, but those are just relative shifts of focus. He would also shift public spending away from things that might be useful, like infrastructure, to "defense," including his "beautiful wall."

  • Michael Isikoff: [10-28] Trump campaign worker blows whistle on 'grift' and bugging plot: "A bombshell email claims millions were funneled from campaign to 'overcharging' firms -- and some went to a top Kamala Harris donor."

  • Robert Kuttner: [10-30] Why so much hate? "Trump has tapped into an undercurrent of crude hatred and encouraged his supporters to express it. Where does all this hate come from?"

  • Steven Levitsky/Daniel Ziblatt: [] There are four anti-Trump pathways we failed to take. There is a fifth. Authors of two books that have many liberal fans -- How Democracies Die (2018), and Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point (2023) -- but never struck me as worth investigating, partly because their interest in democracy seems more concerned with formal elegance than with making government serve the people. The fifth path, when various legal schemes fail, is "societal mobilization" -- isn't that what we used to call "revolution"? The authors have written several "guest essays" over the years, including:

  • Nick Licata: [10-29] Trump's playbook to win regardless of election night results.

  • Nicholas Liu: [10-30] RFK Jr. claims Trump promised him "control" of CDC and federal health care agencies.

  • Amanda Marcotte:

  • Nicole Narea: [10-29] Would Trump's mass deportation plan actually work? "Here's what history tells us." Related here:

  • The New Republic: [10-21] The 100 worst things Trump has done since descending that escalator: "Some were just embarrassing. Many were horrific. All of them should disqualify him from another four years in the White House."

  • Timothy Noah:

  • Paige Oamek: [10-15] Trump's campaign manager has raked in an insane amount of money: "How in the world did Chris LaCivita make this much money from a campaign?"

  • Rick Perlstein: [10-30] What will you do? "Life-changing choices we may be forced to make if Donald Trump wins."

  • Molly Redden/Andy Kroll/Nick Surgey: [10-29] Inside a key MAGA leader's plans for a new Trump agenda: "Key Trump adviser says a Trump administration will seek to make civil servants miserable in their jobs." Spotlight here on Russell Vought, "former acting director of the Office of Management and Budget." Also on Vought:

  • James Risen:

    • [10-25] Mainstream media was afraid to compare Trump to Hitler. Now the press has no excuse. "Statements by John Kelly, Trump's former chief of staff, have made it nearly impossible for the media to avoid Hitler comparisons." Kelly's comments did pop up among the late show comics, but I wouldn't expect much more.

    • [10-22] Americans need a closing argument against Trump: "Too many Americans seem to be ignoring the risks that another Trump presidency would pose to the US. This is a warning to them." Included here because the author casually mentions: "Trump is a fascist who wants to overthrow the United States' democratic system of government." That's under the first section here, which is just one of several:

      1. Threat to democracy
      2. Imprison political opponents
      3. Eliminate reproductive rights
      4. Concentration camps and mass deportations for immigrants
      5. Create a theocracy
      6. Increase censorship and destroy the media
      7. A puppet for Putin
      8. Dictator for life

      Actually, I don't see many of these things happening, even if Republicans take Congress, and the last two are total canards. No one aspires to be a puppet, but aside from that, the rest are at least things Trump might think of and wish for. What separates Trump from the classic fascists has less to do with thought and desire than with checks and balances that make it hard for any president to get much of anything done. Still, a bad president can do a lot of damage, and any would-be fascist is certain to be a very bad president. As Trump has already proven, so we really shouldn't have to relitigate this.

    • [10-03] The reason Netanyahu and Putin both want a Trump victory: "Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu both want Donald Trump to win so they can prolong and intensify their brutal wars."

  • Asawin Suebsaeng/Tim Dickinson: 'American death squads': Inside Trump's push to make police more violent.

  • Sean Wilentz: Trump's plot against America: "A leading historian looks back at Philip Roth's novel and how it perfectly predicts the rise of Trump and his willing collaborators."

  • No More Mr. Nice Blog:

    • [10-28] It's world-historical fascism, but it's also ordinary white-guy bigotry.

      Did yesterday's rally seem like the work of an organized, dangerous fascist party? Yes -- but the rally's rhetoric also seemed like ordinary casual conversation among bigoted white men when they think no one can hear them. Remember the cops who beat Rodney King in 1991 and sent messages to one another describing Black citizens involved in a domestic dispute as being "right out of 'Gorillas in the Mist'"? Remember the police official responsible for investigating workplace harassment in New York City being fired in 2021 after it was revealed that he'd written racist posts in a police discussion group called the Rant? . . .

      This is how bigoted men talk. Among cops, it reinforces a sense of grievance that often leads to brutality. It'll do the same thing among Trumpers if they win -- and, to a lesser extent, if they lose. This is a rising fascist movement, but it's built on ordinary hatreds that aren't new and that predate Trump's political career.

    • [10-24] Fascism and other matters.

    • [20-21] Donald Trump, relatable fuckup?

      I think young men find Trump's campaign-trail lapses relatable. It's not just that they might really believe Haitians in America are eating people's pets, or might enjoy Trump's smutty anecdotes. I think they also might notice that Trump is being accused of campaign incompetence or dementia -- and that endears him more to them.

      After all, many of them were diagnosed with ADHD because they couldn't sit still in school or stop disrupting class. They might not like Trump's taste in music, but they can relate to someone who shows up and just doesn't feel like doing the work.

      They appreciate the way Trump suggests that he not only can solve all the world's problems, but can do it quickly and easily -- he conveys a sense that he can succeed at many things without doing any hard work. That's what they want to do!Why are young men attending college at lower rates than young women? Aren't they attending the same schools as their sisters? Being good in school has always been seen as weird and unmanly by most Americans, and I think that mindset is having a greater and greater impact on young men's choices. Boys with good grades are seen as weird losers and not very masculine -- they're like girls, who are allowed to be good in school. It's much cooler to be an amusing fuckup.

      When we express horror at Trump's latest baffling act on the campaign trail, I think we sound, to these young men, like annoyingly responsible scolds. Obviously, they like Trump's offensive humor because they like offending people, but they also relate to Trump's refusal to restrain his speech because trying to avoid giving offense to people is hard work. It's almost like schoolwork, and the same people are good at it, for the same reasons -- because they're grade-grubbing goody-goodies who seem to like spoiling everyone else's fun.

    • [10-29] No, Trump is still not "a spent and exhausted force": Disputes the Jamelle Bouie piece I cited above.

    • [10-30] A war at home is still a war, guys:

      This is a reminder of one reason Donald Trump is winning over some young men, apart from the bro-ishness and misogyny of his campaign: Trump and his surrogates have young men convinced that a vote for Harris is a vote for war. Trump regularly says that a Harris presidency will lead to World War III, while he'll instantly, magically, and single-handedly end all the major wars taking place right now and prevent future wars by means of a slogan, "Peace Through Strength." Harris, regrettably, has welcomed the support not only of Liz Cheney (who has stood up for the rule of law in recent years) but also of her father, whom nobody admires these days and who was unquestionably a warmonger.

  • Seth Meyers: [10-31] A Closer Look: Trump's embarrassing garbage stunt might be his most surreal photo op ever.

Vance, and other Republicans:

Harris:

  • James Carville: [10-23] Three reasons I'm certain Kamala Harris will win: Spoken like the hack-consultant he's always been:

    1. Trump is a repeat electoral loser. This time will be no different.
    2. Money matters, and Harris has it in droves.
    3. It's just a feeling.

    His feeling?

    For the past decade, Trump has infected American life with a malignant political sickness, one that would have wiped out many other global democracies. On Jan. 6, 2021, our democracy itself nearly succumbed to it. But Trump has stated clearly that this will be the last time he runs for president. That is exactly why we should be exhilarated by what comes next: Trump is a loser; he is going to lose again. And it is highly likely that there will be no other who can carry the MAGA mantle in his wake -- certainly not his running mate.

  • Lydie Lake: [10-30] Harris's final push before election day: "Kamala Harris delivered her closing argument in a charged pre-election rally near the White House."

  • Colleen Long/Darlene Superville/Nadia Lathan: [10-25] Beyoncé and Kamala Harris team up for Houston rally. One big thing they talked about was abortion, including how in Texas "the infant death rate has increased, more babies have died of birth defects and maternal mortality has risen.

  • Chris Megerian/Colleen Long/Steve Karnowski: [10-17] Following death of Hamas leader, Harris says it's 'time for the day after to begin' in Gaza. If by "day after" you mean the day after the killing ends, that's been overdue since Oct. 8, 2023 (and really many years before), but the statement would seem to reject the idea that the war has to go on until there are no Palestiniains left to kill, which seems to be Netanyahu's agenda.

  • Christian Paz: [10-24] How "Trump is a fascist" became Kamala's closing argument: "Brat summer is over; 'Trump is a fascist' fall is in." I chased this piece down after Nathan J Robinson tweeted:

    One of the main mistakes Hillary Clinton made was making her central message "Trump is bad" without offering a positive case for why she would be a good president. The error is being repeated.

    A quick search reveals more complaints about this as a strategy, along with much consternation that Harris is blowing the campaign, possibly letting Trump win. I get that the "Trump is a fascist" jab is suddenly fashionable thanks to the Kelly quote, although it's been commonplace for years among people who know much about the history of fascism, and are willing to define it broadly enough that a 78-year-old American might qualify. I'd say that Trump is a bit more complicated and peculiar than simply being a generic fascist, although sure, if you formulated a generic F-scale, he would pass as a fascist, and it wouldn't be a close call. But I have two worries here: one is that most Americans don't know or care much about fascism -- other than that it's a generic slur, which judging from his use of the word (e.g., to slam "radical leftists") seems to be his understanding; the other is that there are lots of other adjectives and epithets that get more surely and much quicker to the point of why Trump is bad: even fancy words like sociopath, narcissist, oligarch, and misanthrope work better; as well as more common ones like racist, sexist, elitist, demagogue; you could point out that he's both a blowhard and a buffoon; or you could settle for something a bit more colorful, like "flaming asshole." Or rather than just using labels/names, you could expand on how he talks and acts, about his scams and delusions -- sorry if I haven't mentioned lies before, but they come in so many flavors and variations you could do a whole taxonomy, like the list of fallacies (many of which he exemplifies -- at least the ones that don't demand much logic).

    As for Robinson's complaint, I think that's typical of left intellectuals, who've spent all their lives trying to win people over on issues. Politicians have to be more practical, especially because they have to win majorities, while all activists can hope for are incremental gains. Harris has a lot of planks in her platform, and if you're seriously interested in policy, there's a lot to talk about there (and not all good, even if, like most leftists, you're willing to settle for small increments). But to win an election, she needs to focus on the elements that can get her majority support.

    And the one key thing that should put her over the top is that he's Donald Trump, and she isn't: that the only chance we voters have of getting rid of Trump is to vote for her. To do this, she needs to focus relentlessly on his negatives. She doesn't need to toot her own horn much, as every negative she exposes him for is an implicit contrast: to say "Trump is a fascist" implies that "I am not." That may not be saying much, but it's something, and it should be enough. And Robinson, at least, should know better. I find it hard -- I mean, he's just co-authored a book with Noam Chomsky -- seriously expects any Democrat to offer "a positive case for why she would be a good president." All any voter can do is pick one item from a limited, pre-arranged menu. Sometimes you do get a chance to vote for someone you really like or at least respect, but quite often the best you can do is to vote against the candidate you most despise.

    That choice seems awfully clear to me this year. Unfortunately, it appears that many people are still confused and/or misguided. At this point, I don't see any value in second-guessing the Harris campaign. I have no reason to think they don't want to win this as badly as I want them to win. They have lots of money, lots of research, and lots of organization. They think they're doing the right things, and I hope and pray they're right. It's endgame now, so let them run their last plays. And if they do lose, that will be the time to be merciless in your criticism. (That'll be about the only fun you'll have in the next four years. By the way, if you want a head start, check out this book.)

  • Jennifer Rubin: [10-27] To understand the US economic success is to love Harris's plan: "Kamala Harris's economic proposals would build on the remarkable US comeback since the pandemic."

Walz, Biden, and other Democrats:

Supreme Court, legal matters, and other crimes:

Climate and environment:

Business, labor, and Economists:

Ukraine and Russia:

Elsewhere in the world and/or/in spite of America's empire:

Other stories:

  • Ross Rosenfeld: [10-30] How America's craven plutocrats busted the myth of the business hero: "The members of the billionaire executive class have billed themselves as great men of history beyond scrutiny and reproach. his is the year that shattered that illusion." Sorry to break this, but that illusion has been pretty thoroughly debunked at least since Ida B. Wells. And while I appreciate the occasional Harris supporter in their ranks, she isn't really that much of a reach: arguably she'll do better by them than their culturally simpatico golf cheat buddy.

  • Jeffrey St Clair: [10-25] Roaming Charges: Antic dispositions: Some tidbits:

    • More than half of Trump's supporters don't believe he'll actually do many of the things he claims he'll do (mass deportations, siccing the military on domestic protesters and political rivals), while more than half of Harris's supporters hope she'll implement many of the policies (end the genocide/single-payer) she claims she won't. And that pretty much sums up this election.

    • Barnett R. Rubin, former US diplomat: "Why do people keep saying that US politics is polarized? Look at the big picture. Genocide enjoys broad bipartisan support."

    • Fox News' Brian Kilmeade defended Trump's statement that he wants the "kind of generals that Hitler had." Kilmeade: "I can absolutely see him go, it'd be great to have German generals that actually do what we ask them to do, maybe not fully being cognizant of the third rail of German generals who were Nazis or whatever." Kilmeade and Trump may not be "cognizant" of the fact that several "German generals" (von Stauffenberg, Friedrich Olbricht, and Ludwig Beck) tried to blow Hitler to bits and Germany's most famous General, Rommel, was forced to kill himself after being implicated in the plot.

    • Hours after the Washington Post announced its decision not to endorse [Kamala Harris, directed by Post owner Jeff Bezos], the Associated Press reported that Donald Trump met with executives from Blue Origin, the space company owned by Bezos that has a $3.4 billion NASA contract to build a spacecraft to take astronauts to the moon and back.

    • Eugene Debs: "I'd rather vote for something I want and don't get it, than vote for something I don't want and get it."

    • Trump: "I worked a shift at McDonalds yesterday." A McDonalds shift is eight hours, not 18 minutes . . . Dukakis in a tank looked less ridiculous.

    • Sounds familiar . . . [followed by a tweet which reads: "In 1938, Benito Mussolini closed off a wheat field & did a photo shoot showing him harvesting hay in order to portray himself as a common working man. He was surrounded by workers who had been vetted as loyal to the party." Includes a picture of the shirtless Fascist with cap and aviator goggles.]

    • Since 2001, forest fires have shifted north and grown more intense. According to a new study in Science, global CO2 emissions from forest fires have increased by 60% in the last two decades.

    • Christian nationalist pastor Joel Webbon called for the public execution of women who falsely claim to have been sexually assaulted: "MeToo would end real fast . . . All you have to do is publicly execute a few women who have lied."

    • Montana Senate candidate Tim Sheehy, on why he wants to abolish the Dept. of Education: "We formed that department so little Black girls could go to school down South, and we could have integrated schooling. We don't need that anymore."

    • Edward Luce, associate editor of the Financial Times: "Hard to overstate what a sinister figure Elon Musk is. Never seen one oligarch in a Western democracy intervene on anything like this scale with unending Goebbels-grade lies." Musk is the most obnoxious kid in middle school who is running the campaign of the school bully for student council without even being asked because even the school bully doesn't want to be around him . . .

Obituaries

Books

Music (and other arts?)

  • Rick Lopez: [10-24] Update.01 to The Sam Rivers Sessionography: A Work in Progress: Fulfilling his subtitle, with a very substantial addition, on top of a "magnificent" and "gorgeous" (to quote my own blurb) 764-page book that already seemed definitive. By the way, those words were written in advance of this "press release" quoted on page 3:

    Michael Hull's Fifth Column Films has begun work on a feature-length documentary about Sam Rivers through the lens of The Sam Rivers Sessionography, a book by Rick Lopez. Rivers was a musical genius who spent his life obsessed with creating intricate compositions that pushed music to places no one else could conceive of. It's only fitting that his biographer has invented an entirely new way to understand the life of an artist through a minutely detailed portrait that could only flower from the uniquely focused mind of Lopez. Rivers was a massive talent who has been mostly forgotten by the American jazz scene and is rarely included in the conversation about great masters of the art. Lopez's book and this film aim to correct that oversight, and make the case that Sam Rivers should take his place in the pantheon of the 20th century.

    Full disclosure: Michael Hull is my nephew. He started in Jason Bailey's Wichita-based film crew (e.g., My Day in the Barrel), produced a film Smokers no one has heard of, wrote a novel that hasn't been published and, most relevant here, made the superb documentary Betrayal at Attica. I've admired Lopez since I first discovered him twenty-some years ago, so the idea of introducing him and Mike was blindingly obvious. (I was also the person who introduced Mike and Liz Fink, although the gestation period on that project took much longer.) We have some money invested in this project, which you can take as a caveat if you wish, but I regard more as a vote of confidence. Still some ways to go, but here's a preliminary trailer and more information.

  • John McWhorter: [10-24] It sounded like dancing, drinking and sex. It blew people's minds. I only noticed this piece on "the long, syncopated journey from Scott Joplin to Beyoncé" because Allen Lowe complained about it: "his views of ragime are just bizarre and beneath even the most minimal amount of knowledge, full of stereotypes and really thirdhand historiography"; Phil Dyess-Nugent added: "Having made his name writing about some things he seemed to understand, John McWhorter has since demonstrated his cluelessness on a vast array of subjects." That's my general impression of the few columns I've read, especially since his ridiculous Woke Racism book. This I'm less sure about, maybe because I don't know or chare that much about ragtime (or, I might as well admit, Beyoncé), so I'm mostly just noting a lot of name-dropping and connect-the-dots that favors obvious over interesting.

  • Riotriot: [10-30] Takes by the ocean: Zambian nightlife and spongian jawbox.

Chatter

  • Peter Daou [10-27]

    QUESTION: Who is worse for Palestinians, Trump or Harris?

    ANSWER: Harris is worse for Palestinians.

    WHY?

    1. Harris and Biden are already culpable for a year-long genocide.
    2. Like Trump, Harris vows to keep giving Israel unconditional support.
    3. Therefore, Trump can never match Harris's death toll.
    4. Rewarding Harris's war crimes with a vote emboldens Netanyahu and opens the floodgates for future tyrants.
    5. If Trump wins and Democrats suddenly decide massacring children is wrong, Trump will face much greater resistance to letting Israel commit atrocities.

    Bottom line: Voting third party is the only moral choice, but if liberals insist on comparing Trump to Harris, Harris is worse for Palestinians.

    I found this immediately after posting my preliminary draft on who to vote for president and why, so I've already explained why I disagree with Daou's conclusion so strongly. But perhaps I should stress one very important point, which is that voting is not a moral choice; it is a political choice. I'm not going to write a disquisition on the difference, but will insist that it is a category error to vote based on morality. As for Daou's five points:

    1. True, but the order is wrong, like saying "Speer and Hitler are already culpable," where the clearest charge against Speer (and Harris) is not breaking with their leader. By the way, Biden is more like Speer than to Hitler -- in playing follow-the-leader, but also given their critical position in the arms pipeline.
    2. Not false, but Harris (unlike Trump and Graham) has never said "finish the job," and she's not unaware of the human toll Israel's "self-defense" is taking, so I'd say that continued "unconditional support" is slightly less likely from her. Admittedly, that's a thin reed she has often taken pains to cover up.
    3. No way of predicting, but no reason to underestimate Trump's capacity for getting people killed. His general contempt for most of the world suggests quite the opposite.
    4. Clearly, massively false. Netanyahu's preference for Trump is widely known, not only through his own words and acts but through mutual donors like Myriam Adelson.
    5. Hard to know where to begin with this variation on "if the fascists win, the revolution will hasten." Ever hear of "moral hazard"? Sure, some Democrats may learn to blame the genocide on Trump -- as some Democrats came to blame Nixon for Vietnam -- but most will simply be shocked and search for scapegoats to blame, especially "pro-Palestinians" like Daou.

    Daou's conclusion that "Harris is worse for Palestinians" is horribly wrong, even if "Harris is no good for Palestinians" may well be true. But I wouldn't be much swayed if one could argue that one candidate would be good or better, because I've never looked at this conflict through that prism. I never quite bought the argument that "Palestinians have dug their own graves," but I did have sympathies for Israel at one point, which may be why I still wish to emphasize that genocide is bad (and I mean really bad) for Israel (and for America, which is implicated not just due to recent arms support but via longstanding cultural and political mores), and that in itself is reason enough to oppose it. (And sure, it's even worse for the killed than the killers, and that's another reason to oppose it, but it doesn't have to be the only one.)

    Some more comments on Daou's tweet:

    • Nathan J Robinson: Peter, this doesn't make sense. It could absolutely get worse under Trump. Any pressure to provide any aid whatsoever to Gaza will disappear. Greater pressure may be brought on Egypt to let Israel fully ethnically cleanse Gaza. Don't assume this is as bad as it can get.

    • Andrew Revkin: I sense @RudyGiuliani would disagree with you, @peterdaou, on who's worse for Palestinians. Here's how he explained the Trump plan at the #MSGRally tonight in his own words.

    • Films For Action: When we think of Trump in power again, we recall that even a genocide can get much worse. Trump just said that Netanyahu must "go further" in Gaza while criticizing Biden for "trying to hold him back." The full statement is highly worth reading: [link to Arizona Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and Progressive Democrats Statement on Presidential Election].

    • Shadowblade: Who moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem?

    • Jonathan Blank Films: [Link to 'Trump would be the worst': Palestinians react to US presidential race.]

  • Nathan J Robinson: [12-27] [comment attached to a clip of Tucker Carlson's MSG rally rant] The level of uncontrolled rage is terrifying, but I think if Trump is elected you will see it get far worse. The amount of overt racism will increase, the view of Democrats, leftists, migrants being scum in need of elimination. JD Vance has made clear that Pinochet is the model.

  • Mehdi Hasan: [10-30] Donald Trump is going around telling Michigan Muslims he'll end the war, be the peace president, and how pro-Muslim (!) he is.

    Meanwhile, Dems sent Bill Clinton to lecture Michigan Muslims on how it's all Hamas's fault that Israel is massacring kids and killing civilians holding white flags.

    Whether or not they end up losing Michigan, at this point the Dems deserve to lose Michigan. Sheesh.

  • Aaron Rupar: [10-31] Trump on Liz Cheney: "Let's put her with a rifle standing there with 9 barrels shooting at her. Let's see how she feels about it. You know, when the cuns are trained on her face."

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Tuesday, October 29, 2024

Speaking of Which: Top 10 Reasons to Vote for Harris vs. Trump

Note: This piece is also cross-posted at Notes on Everyday Life. I originally posted it there first, in hopes of generating some preliminary discussion. If keeping them in sync proves difficult, this one should probably be authoritative.

Two questions need to be addressed before we get down to detailed arguments. The first is why vote at all? I'd say first, because it is your right as a citizen, but must be secured by your exercise of it. People in America may have a very limited say in how the country is organized and run, but you do have the vote, and using it shows your willingness to engage in the responsibility for setting the nation's direction.

The second question is whether you should limit your vote choice to the two major political parties, or consider voting for a third party should you prefer that candidate's platform? History shows us that America gravitated into a two-party system almost immediately after the Constitution was ratified, and quickly returned to a two party system on the two instances where one major party disbanded (replacing the Federalists with the Whigs, and replacing the Whigs with the Republicans). No subsequent third party has been able to sustain significant followings, with third-party votes often dropping to under 5% in recent elections.

So from a practical standpoint, third parties are ineffective and unpromising.One might nonetheless consider voting for a third party candidate if: neither major party nominated a candidate you can stand, and there is no significant difference between the two candidates that can direct your choice. I can understand if you feel that both Trump and Harris should be shunned for their rote support of Israeli genocide, although I suspect that even there the nature of their positions differs enough to favor a vote for Harris.

One other possible consideration is whether one party offers a better chance for future improvement, based on the composition of the party, how open-minded its members are, and how democratic its processes are. The current two-party system is quite possibly the most polarized ever, which has led most people to select one party or the other. Moreover, both major parties have primaries that are open to all members, and as such are amenable to reform. If, like me, you are primarily concerned with "left" issues of peace and equal rights, you may have noticed that most of the people most likely to agree with you are currently Democrats. If your goal is to build a majority around your ideals, you need to establish a bond of solidarity with the Democrats, which often means voting for a candidate you don't totally agree with. You are, after all, hoping that other Democrats, even ones that disagree with you, will vote for your candidate should that person win a primary.

The last third party candidate I voted for was Ralph Nader in 2000. I don't feel bad about that vote, especially as I'm convinced that the Gore-Lieberman ticket would have been as gung-ho starting the "war on terror" after 9/11 as Bush-Cheney was. But I did learn one lesson from that election, which is that even in Kansas, where the Gore campaign was practically non-existent, 90% of the anti-Bush votes cast went to the Democrat. Since then, I vowed to work within the Democratic Party, such as it as, as best I could. (I did lapse once since, to vote against a particular Democrat I've hated what seems like all of my life, but there I went with the Republican, as I really wanted that Democrat to lose.)

Having narrowed the choice down to Harris vs. Trump, arguments that one candidate is better and/or one candidate is worse are equally valid. This being American politics, "one candidate is worse" arguments predominate. Lest you imagine there might be any suspense here, Harris is the better option, while Trump is much the worse.

And while the future is impossible to predict, the margins overwhelm any imaginable uncertainty. Trump is especially known, as we've actually experienced him as President. This doesn't mean a second term will be just like his first: it could easily be worse, for reasons we'll get into. Harris is harder to read. Although she has much relevant experience, presidency offers powers and temptations that she's never faced before, as well as situations she's never had to deal with. This raises doubts, which I will deal with in a separate list, following the "top ten."

So, here are my top ten reasons to vote for Harris vs. Trump:

  1. Donald Trump is a truly odious human being. That's a personal, not a political judgment: sure, virtually all of his political views stink, but most of the people who share his political views have personal traits one can relate to, respect, even appreciate. As far as I can tell -- and while I only know what's been reported, I've been exposed to a lot of that -- he has none. He seems totally miserable. If he's ever laughed, it's been at someone else's expense. He lacks even the slightest pretense of caring for anyone, even for his wives or children (the prenups should have been a clue). He's not unique in this regard, but most similar people are easily ignored. The only way to free ourselves from Trump's ever-present unpleasantness is to vote him off (like in the "reality TV" shows he's a creature of).

    Harris, on the other hand, can listen, and respond appropriately. She has a generous and infectious laugh. And while I've never seen her cry, she is at least cognizant of situations that call for a show of concern and empathy. I don't particularly like the idea of president as "handholder-in-chief," but it's better to have someone who can feign that than someone who utterly cannot.

  2. Such personal failings drive most people to despair, which at least could be pitied, but Trump's inherited wealth has provided him with an armor of callousness, which has long elicited the warm glow of supplicants and sycophants. From this, he has constructed his own mental universe where he is adored and exalted. This has produced extraordinary hubris -- another of his distasteful traits -- but more importantly, his narcissism has left him singularly unprepared to deal with reality when it so rudely intrudes on his fantasy life (as happens all too often when you're President).

    I should note here that the collective embarrassment we so often felt when witnessing Trump's failed attempts at addressing events has dulled somewhat since he left office (need I remind you of Hurricane Maria? -- just one of dozens of examples, ranging from his staring into the eclipse to the pandemic). The only things that have affected him that way since have been his indictments, but even there he's been sheltered like no one else ever. There is no reason to think that Harris wouldn't respond to events at least as well as a normal politician, which is to say, by showing palpable concern and deliberation. Trump's disconnect from reality is unprecedented. (Good place to mention his election denialism.)

  3. There is some debate as to whether Trump's wealth is real, but even as it seems, that should be reason enough to disqualify him. Only a few Presidents have come from the ranks of the rich, and those who did -- like Washington, Kennedy, and the Roosevelts -- took pains to distance themselves from their business interests. Back in 2016, Trump suggested he would give up his business ties, insisting that his wealth made him more independent of corrupt influences, but after he won, he backtracked completely, and ran an administration that was outrageously corrupt -- especially at the top, where his son-in-law's diplomacy netted him a billion-dollar private equity fund, but his administration hired lobbyists to peddle influence everywhere. One might argue that Trump's business was so large that he couldn't possibly disentangle himself, but that's just part of the reason why people like him shouldn't be allowed in politics. Their inability to relate to ordinary Americans is another.

  4. Aside from his abuse of executive power to staff government with corporate agents, pack with courts with right-wing cronies, and pardon numerous criminals in his circle, his record for delivering on his 2016 campaign promises is remarkably thin: he lost interest in things that might have been popular (like building infrastructure, or "draining the swamp"). He also lucked out, when a couple Republican defections saved the ACA, and then when Democrats took Congress back in 2018. The only positive bill he signed was the pandemic relief act, which he wanted desperately to save a flagging stock market, but had to accept a mostly Democratic bill that helped pretty much everyone.

    Also, the full impact of many policies can take years before it is felt. The repeal of Taft-Hartley in 1947 took decades before it started to do serious damage to unions and workers (although it had the immediate impact of ending a campaign to unionize in the South, which would have been a big advance for civil rights). Deregulation of savings & loans in the 1980s and larger banks in the 1990s took most of a decade before triggering recessions. Much of what Trump did during his term didn't blow up until after the 2020 election, including his killing of the Iran nuclear deal, his agreement to give Afghanistan to the Taliban, and his Supreme Court's overturn of Roe v. Wade.

    Harris's ability to deliver on campaign promises will, as Biden's has, depend much on the balance of power in Congress, but at least Democrats have a track record of trying to pass laws to help most Americans, and not just those favored by Republicans with their tax and benefit cuts. Harris will be further hampered by the Republican packing of the courts, but that's one reason why it matters not just that Democrats win elections, but win big.

  5. On the other hand, if Trump were more dedicated in pursuit of the policy positions he espouses, or if he's just given more power by a Republican Congress, he could (and probably would) do much more harm in a second term, way beyond the still not fully accounted for harm of his first. For starters, he has a much more developed idea of what he wants to do -- not because he understands policy any better, but because he has more specific goals in areas that especially interest him -- and will hire more loyal operatives, eager to carry out his wishes. This will be easier, because he's already bent the party to his will, especially promoting its most crazed cadres, while he himself has become further radicalized. Moreover, he now has a long list of enemies to punish, while his minions will be free to pursue their own grafts and obsessions. We've already seen how he's turned the presidency into a cult of personality. Give him more power -- not just in Congress but the Supreme Court is ready to enshrine the "unitary executive theory" -- and he will only grow more monstrous.

  6. Donald Trump is a shit stain on the face of America. They say that wealth is power, and that power corrupts, absolute power absolutely. America emerged from WWII with half of the world's wealth, with troops spread to Europe and East Asia, and corporations everywhere. America has been "breaking bad" ever since, starting in the 1940s rigging elections in Italy, fighting communists in Greece and Korea, overthrowing democratic governments in Guatemala and Iran, replacing them with corporate-friendly autocrats. Still, even Reagan expected good guys in white hats to win out, so he pretended to be one, while the Bushes hid their conservatism behind fake compassion. Trump is the first US president to give up all pretense. His fans may mistake his contempt for candor, but the result is a much more brutal world. He demands tribute from allies, lest they fall into the ranks of enemies, who are expected to cower when faced with overwhelming American might, and face escalating threats when they refuse to fall in line. His is a recipe for neverending war, as we've already seen with Russia and Iran, with Korea and China waiting for the next break.

    Nor are we only talking about foreign policy. The conservative solution to domestic matters is also to rely on force, starting with mass incarceration, eroding/stripping rights, smashing unions, purging the civil service, quelling demonstrations, stifling free speech, book bans, censoring the press, turning education into indoctrination, rigging elections, even going so far as to incite mobs and promise them immunity. While these impulses have long been endemic to Republicans, Trump is unique in he wants you to see and smell the feces, and that seems to be the basis for his popularity among his hardcore constituency. This, with its embrace of sheer power and rampant criminality, is what's so reminiscent of the fascist movements of the 1930s.

  7. Still, as bad as Trump is personally, the real danger is that his election will bring a tidal wave of Republicans into power all throughout the federal and local governments they have pledged to debilitate and reduce, as Grover Norquist put it, "to the size where I can drown it in the bathtub." (The less often discussed ancillary idea is to hack off functions done by government and give them away to the private sector. This almost never works. When attempted, it almost always makes the functions more expensive and/or less useful.) This is just one of many deranged and dysfunctional ideas prevalent in the Republican Party. Like most of their ideas, it's appealing as rhetoric, but unworkable in practice. Republicans have repeatedly tried to reduce government spending by cutting taxes on their donor class, but have found little to actually cut -- even when they had the power to write budgets -- so all they've produced is greater deficits, and an inflated oligarchy.

    They've had more luck at poisoning benefits, trying to make government appear to be worthless. The idea is to convince voters that voting is hopeless, because government will only take from them, and never give back. The idea that the purpose of government is to "provide for the general welfare" (that's in the Preamble to the US Constitution) is inimical to them. The idea of "government of, by, and for the people" (that's in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address) is alien to those who hate most American people. Republicans created a death spiral of democracy, which they hope will leave them in permanent power, not to serve the public, but to prevent people from using government for their own improvement.

    Trump has added his own authoritarian quirks to the Republican agenda, but the big risk to democracy has always come from money, which Republicans have made sure selects candidates and drives elections. Trump is less a cause of oligarchy than evidence of how far it has progressed.

  8. Two important concepts in economics are externality (public costs that are not factored into product costs, such as pollution) and opportunity costs (other things that we could spend money on if we weren't preoccupied with given expenses). Republicans, driven exclusively by their desire to help the rich get richer in the here and now, and blind to the future, have no interest in these concepts. Democrats are subject to the same donor pressures, but at least recognize that such side effects are real and important. This is because they try to recognize and balance everyone's welfare, and not just that of their donors and voters.

    Climate change is a good example of both: it is largely caused by the waste products of fossil fuels, and can only be remedied by major investment sooner rather than later. But people only see what gasoline costs when they fill up, while the climate change they're contributing to only manifests later, and mostly to other people. This gives them little reason to spend now to avert future costs, so they don't. Even as climate change has become a very tangible problem, Trump and the Republicans have wrapped themselves ever deeper into a cocoon of denial and ignorance, which ensures that as long as they're in power we will never invest what we need to in sustainable infrastructure. While a second Trump term could do a lot of immediate damage, its long-term cost will largely be opportunity costs, as we belatedly realize we didn't invest what we should have when it would have been more effective.

  9. It's impossible to overstate how completely Donald Trump has taken over and perverted our culture, what philosophers call our noosphere -- the mental universe, our ability to reason. This may seem paradoxical given that few people on Earth are as disengaged from and contemptuous of reason as Donald Trump, but that may well be the source of his power. He has effectively given his followers permission to disengage from other people, to eschew reason and argument and indulge their own prejudices and fantasies, because that's what he does, and he's so fabulously successful. Moreover, it has the added benefit of driving crazy all those who still worry about real problems (both their own and those of other people), which they expect to deal with through science and reason. (Such people often project their own mania back onto the Trumpers, and reckon them to be saddled with problems, when they actually seem to be quite blissfully serene in their obliviousness and/or ignorance.)

    Political scientists have a concept known as the Overton window, which describes "the range of policies politically acceptable to the mainstream population at a given time." Ideas outside the window are dismissed as radical or even unthinkable, making it very hard to get any sort of coverage, as the media limits itself to more widely acceptable ideas. Events may push some ideas into the mainstream, while discarding others. For instance, there was a time when eugenics was all the rage, but no more. Climate change has become increasingly mainstream, although there are still political interests out to kill any such discussion. A big part of politics is fighting over what we can and cannot talk about. What Trump has done has been to expand the Overton window to the far right, legitimizing clusters of issues that were previously regarded as baseless (like QAnon, antivax claims, election denial). Perhaps the most disturbing of all has been Trump's own criminal enterprises. These subjects, which at best distract from real problems and often create more, would only grow under a second Trump term.

    I have no doubt that the bad policies advanced by Trump will blow up and wind up discredited, but at a great waste of effort to stop them, and a huge opportunity cost as we ignore constructive ideas from the left. Even where Harris does not have good programs, which certainly includes her continued fealty to Bush-Obama-Trump-Biden (and Cheney?) foreign policy, her election would provide a much healthier window for debate than what we'd be stuck with under Trump.

  10. It's time to turn the page on Trump and the era of Fox Republicanism. Cloture on Trump is easy to imagine, as he's way past his prime, increasingly doddering at 78, unlikely to ever run again. Vote him out, and that's one problem America will never have to deal with again. Not only would it give us a chance to heal, to move on, to deal with our self-protracted problems, but it could be the kindest result for Trump and even for his Party. Trump could cut his plea deals and escape most of the legal jeopardy he's landed in. The Party could finally recalculate, trying to find a way to compete in the real world instead of trying to scam the rhetorical madness that Fox created to profit from fear and rage. Moreover, by cutting their losses, they'd escape much of the blame for the disasters their preferred policies would inevitably lead to. Progress is inexorable, so those who would resist it only have two choices: bend or break. The Republicans' forty-year (1980-2020) era has done much damage to the social and economic fabric of the nation. Some things have broken, and many more are creaking. We might survive four more years of Trump, but time is running out. And when things do break under Trump, beware that no one will be more ill-prepared and incompetent at dealing with them.

    On the other hand, Harris, like most Democrats (even the nominally left-wing of the party), doesn't represent visionary change, but she is perceptive, analytical, and pragmatic, which suggests that she will adapt to changing circumstances, and endeavor to make the best out of them. She will be sorely tested by the influence of wealthy lobbyists, by the superficial and sensationalist press, by the still powerful remains of Republican power -- which while incapable of governing competently let alone responsibly, is still a formidable machine for amplifying grievances -- and by new challenges we haven't even been able to think of yet (so mired are we in the ruins of bad Republican politics, from Nixon and Reagan through the Bushes to their ultimate self-parody in Trump, tempered ever so slightly by interim Democrats who never got beyond patchwork repairs).

Of course, one can think of many more reasons, especially if you tried to work from policies outward. I may do a separate document where I read through Trump's "Agenda 47" and comment line-by-line. Presumably there's a comparable Harris document somewhere, which could also be scrutinized. From them, I might be able to come up with a scorecard, but there's no chance of a different result. As it is, I've concentrated less on issues and more on personalities and political dynamics: Trump is at best muddled on issues, but his shortcomings as noted are extremely clear.

Harris, as I noted, is harder to read, especially because for tactical campaign purposes she has adopted a set of views that aim to win over not just undecided/centrist voters but any Republicans that Trump hasn't totally stripped of their decency yet. She's had some success at that, although it remains to be seen how many actual votes follow her celebrity endorsements. At this point, I don't see any point in second-guessing her campaign strategy. Presumably she has researched the electorate and knows much better than I do just how to pitch them. If she loses, we'll have a field day dissecting her mistakes -- which, for all the reasons mentioned above and many more, may be the only fun we can have in the next four years.

But for now, let's assume she wins, and she runs her administration along lines it is reasonable to expect. In that case, the left will still have work to do and things to protest. So here are my:

Top 5 Reasons Electing Harris Won't Solve Our Problems

I ran across this synopsis recently: "There are converging political, economic, and ecological crises, and yet our politics is dominated by either business as usual or nostalgia for a mythical past." Harris represents the party of "business as usual," where "change" is acknowledged as inevitable, but is guarded so as not to upset the status quo -- which may include reforms to make it more tolerable, as not doing so would risk more disruptive change.

While it didn't occur to me in listing the "top ten reasons" above, one more strong reason is that Trump's "nostalgia for a mythical past" -- the once-great America he aims to restore and protect -- is not just incoherent but impossible, so much so that his efforts to force the world back into his ideal alignment are more likely to break it than to fix anything. Reducing America to his chosen few would breed chaos and resentment, and collapse the economy, destroying the wealth he meant to protect. Moreover, his instinct to use force would only compound the damage.

It is ironic that while most of us on the left have grown wary of revolution, many on the right, perhaps due to their embrace of violence, have been seduced by the notion that might makes right. If conservatism means wishing to keep things as they are, it is the Democrats who are the true conservatives, while Republicans have turned into flaming radicals, with Trump emerging as their leader given his flamboyance and utter disregard for conventional political thinking. As with the fascist movements of the 1930s, many people are enthralled by this radicalism. Why such movements have always failed, sometimes spectacularly, has yet to sink in -- although the connection does at long last seem to be entering the mainstream media.

Democrats are still uncomfortable being the party of the status quo. Many are nostalgic for the days when Republicans filled that role, providing foils against which they could propose their modest reforms -- which they've long needed to attract struggling voters. The problem that Harris faces in 2024 is that the Trumpian romance of reactionary revolution has become so attractive -- the backdrop is the unprecedented extension of inequality over the last fifty years, which has left most people feeling left behind -- and so terrifying that she's fallen into the trap of defending the status quo, making her seem insensitive to the real problems that we look to candidates to help solve. Trump at least has answers to all the problems -- wrong ones, but many people don't understand the details, they're just attraction to his show of conviction, while they note that Harris seems wary of pushing even the weak reforms popular in her party.

She's banking on the status quo to save America from Trump and the Republicans. If she wins her bet, she will win the election. But then she'll have to face the more difficult task of governing, where her limits could be her undoing. These five questions loom large on the post-election agenda:

  1. Perhaps most immediately, US foreign policy needs a total rethink. US foreign policy took a radical turn shortly after WWII, renouncing the "isolationist" past and assuming a militarily as well as an economically interventionist stance. This was partly a matter of filling the vacuum left by the war's global destruction, and partly ambition. Beyond the battlefields, Europe's colonial empires had become untenable, opening the door for businesses as the hidden powers behind local rulers. As the alternatives were communist-leaning national liberation movement, this soon turned into the Cold War -- which was great news for the arms industry, which along with oil and finance became a pillar of American foreign policy. When the cold war receded, neocons came up with more rationales for more conflicts, to keep their graft going. Efforts at building international institutions (like the UN) increasingly gave way to unilateral dictates: America First, before Trump, who basically thinks of foreign policy as some kind of protection racket, latched onto the term. There hadn't been significant partisan differences in foreign policy since the advent of the Cold War: all the Democrats who followed Republican hawks (Reagan, the Bushes, even Trump in his own peculiar way) did was to normalize their aggressiveness. Thus Biden reaffirmed his support for Ukraine and Israel, as well as his opposition to Russia, China, and the usual suspects in the Middle East, which has (so far) blown up into two catastrophic wars, while at the same time the US has made sure that world organizations (like the UN) are powerless to intervene.

    Harris seems to be fully on board with this: not only does she support the current wars, she has gone out of her way to ostracize so-called autocrats -- not the ones counted as allies because they buy American arms but the others, the ones who make their own (or buy from each other). This conventional thinking, based on the notion that force projection (and sanctions) can and will dictate terms for resolving conflicts, has a very poor track record: it polarizes and militarizes conflicts, stokes resentments, stimulates asymmetric responses (like terrorism), while driving its targets into each others' clutches. Meanwhile, the reputation the US once had for fairness is in tatters.

    A new foreign policy needs first of all to prioritize peace, cooperation, and equitable economic development. It should also, where possible, favor social justice (albeit not through force, which is more likely to make matters worse).

  2. Restricting immigration is the one issue where neo-fascist politicians seem to be gaining significant popular support, in Europe as well as the US. Harris has chosen to lean into the issue rather than oppose the Republicans, as had Biden and Obama before her, not that any of their harsh enforcement efforts have gotten any cooperation or compromise from Republicans, who would rather milk this as a grievance issue than treat it as a practical issue. Part of the problem here is that while many voters will support Republicans just to vent rage, other voters expect results from Democrats, and no matter what results they hoped for, few are satisfied. The issue is complex and messy, and Congress is unable or unwilling to pass any legislation to help clear the mess. Which makes this an issue that will haunt Harris indefinitely, no matter what she tries to do.

    Personally, this is an issue I care little about either way. What concerns me more is that the system be seen as fair and just, that it is neither exploitative of immigrants nor that it hurts the domestic labor market. I could see arguments for limiting or for expanding immigration numbers. I do think that the current backlog of non-documented immigrants needs to be cleared up, which could involve clearing the path toward naturalization and/or paying them to leave, but it needs to be done in an orderly and humane manner, with clear rules and due process. I've generally opposed "guest worker" programs (like the one Bush tried to push through), but could see issuing green cards as a stopgap measure. Harris will find it difficult to navigate through this maze, but what would help is having some clear principles about how citizenship should work -- as opposed to just responding to Republican demagoguery.

    I should also note that the biggest determinant of immigration is foreign policy. Most people emigrate because they are dislodged by war or ecological and/or economic distress, and those are things that American foreign policy as presently practiced exacerbates. Policies that resolve (or better still, prevent) conflicts, that limit climate change, and/or that extend economic opportunities would significantly reduce the pressures driving emigration.

  3. Democrats under Biden made the first serious legislative effort at addressing climate change ever, but the structure of American politics makes it much easier to promote the development of new technologies and products than it is to do things like changing habits of fossil fuel use. Democrats are so wedded to the idea of economic growth as the panacea for all problems that they can't conceive of better lives lived differently. How one can ever get to zero emissions isn't on any agenda. Meanwhile, Republicans keep digging themselves ever deeper into their tunnel of ignorance, so they have nothing to offer but obstruction.

    While prevention seems to be too much to ask of any Democratic politician, they do still have a big advantage on disaster care. Reagan's joke -- "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help'" -- is easily disproven every hurricane season, yet remains as sacred dogma. Given that climate change has already happened, and is playing out in cycles of increasingly uninsurable "natural" disasters, it becomes imperative to elect a government that cares about such problems, and regards it as its duty to help people out. Harris will be tested on this, repeatedly.

    Meanwhile, if you want to try out nine really terrifying words, try these: "I'm a Republican, and Donald Trump is my President."

  4. There is one political issue that close to 90% of all Americans could agree on, but it has no leadership and little support in either major party, and that is the thoroughly corrupt influence of money on politics. The situation has always been bad, but got much worse in 2010 when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of unlimited corporate spending in Citizens United v. FEC. Obama spoke out against the ruling, but did nothing to overturn it. Rather, he easily outraised his opponents in 2008 and 2012, winning twice. Biden and Harris have also raised much more money than Trump, so while Republicans are the most steadfast supporters of campaign graft, top Democrats also benefit from the system -- especially against their real competition, which is other Democrats, who might be tempted to campaign on issues that appeal to voters, as opposed to having to spend all their time catering to the whims of rich donors. The 2024 presidential election is by far the most ridiculously expensive in history, which also makes it the most tainted by special interests and their peculiar obsessions (like Israel, which has kept both candidates from expressing any concern about ongoing genocide). Breaking this mold is a golden opportunity for some aspiring politician. Harris can't do it while she's still campaigning, but it's not only wasteful, it diminishes trust in everyone involved, and as such discredits the whole system.

  5. The worst offenders, of course, are the billionaires, many of whom -- starting with Elon Musk, the kind of immigrant that even Trump can love -- has been especially conspicuous this year. They are the beneficiaries of a wide range of laws and breaks that allow a tiny number of individuals to accumulate obscene amounts of wealth. And they use that wealth to steer government away from any notion of public interest, to do their own bidding, and to indulge their own fantasies. This extraordinary inequality -- far beyond the historic highs of the Gilded Age and the Roaring '20s (both, you may recall, ill-fated bubbles) -- is the single biggest problem facing the world today. It may seem hypothetical, but it lies beneath so many other problems, starting with the dysfunction of government and politics, which is largely influenced by the distortions of wealth. It extends worldwide, with inequality of nations mirroring the inequality of individuals.

    The problem with inequality isn't that some people have a bit more than others. It's that such wide variations corrupt and pervert justice. It's often hard to say just what justice is, but it's much easier to identify injustice when you see it. In highly stratified societies, such as ours, you see injustice everywhere. It eats at our ability to trust institutions and people. It diminishes our expectation of fair treatment and opportunity. It raises questions about cooperation and even generosity. It makes us paranoid. And once lost, trust and security is all that much harder to restore.

    There is no simple answer here. It needs to be dealt with piecemeal, one step at a time, each and every day. It helps to reduce gross inequality (which can be done by taxation). It helps to reduce sources of inequality (which can be done by regulation of business, by limiting rents, by promoting countervailing powers, like unions). It also helps to reduce the impact of inequality (which can be done by raising basic support levels, by removing prices from services, by ending means testing, by providing universal insurance, and when no better solution is possible, by rationing). I don't expect any politician, especially one who has proven successful in the current system of extraordinary inequality, to go far along these lines, but most people are at least aware of the problem, and many proposals for small improvements are in common discourse. Even if Harris doesn't rise to the occasion, we should work to make sure her successors do.

While I think that Harris comes up short on all five of these really important points, they in no way argue for Donald Trump, even as a "lesser evil." He personifies modern inequality, Back in 2016, he tried arguing that his wealth would allow him to run a truly independent campaign, but that was just another lie. No one in recent memory has been more obvious about selling favors for financing. He is a climate change denier, and has shown nothing but contempt for the victims of natural disasters. His signature issue is his hatred of immigrants (excepting, presumably, two wives and his sugar daddy, Elon Musk), where he puts even more emphasis on performative cruelty than on effectiveness.

His take on foreign policy is slightly more . . . well, "nuanced" isn't exactly right, more like "befuddled." It's hard to make a credible case that he's anti-war when he puts such emphasis on what a tough guy he is, on how no opponent would dare challenge him. He has shown remarkably poor judgment in defense staffing, which is only likely to get worse now that two of his former generals have called him a fascist. He has no dealmaking skills, nor would he hire someone who could negotiate (any such person would be dismissed as a wuss). His "America First" schemes are designed to strain alliances, and are more likely to break than not. He delayed his deal to get out of Afghanistan so Biden would get the blame. His handling of Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Iran-Saudi Arabia directly contributed to the outbreak of war and genocide. As I said, foreign policy needs a complete rethink. He's already failed on several counts, starting with the need to think.

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Monday, October 21, 2024

Speaking of Which

File initially opened 2024-10-16 01:00 PM.

Late Monday night, I'm posting this, without any real sense of where I'm at, how much I've looked at, and how much more I should have considered. I have no introduction, and at this point can't even be troubled to think up excuses. (Perhaps I'll write something about that in tomorrow's Music Week -- assuming there is one: my problem there isn't lack of records but no time, given other demands and priorities.) One thing I am confident of is that there is a lot of material below. Maybe I'll add more on Tuesday, but don't count on it.

Got up Tuesday morning and before I could eat breakfast, let alone open next week's file, I added several entries below, including a Zachary Carter piece I had open in a tab but didn't get back to in time.

Top story threads:

Israel's year of infamy: Given the hasty nature of last week's Speaking of Which, it was inevitable that I'd need another week (or more) for one-year anniversary pieces.

  • Spencer Ackerman: [10-03] The year after October 7th was shaped by the 23 years after September 11th: "9/11 gave Israel and the US a template to follow -- one that turned grief into rage into dehumanization into mass death. What have we learned from the so-called 'war on terror'?" That it feels better to make the same mistakes over and over again rather than learn from them? Worth noting that the US response to 9/11 was modeled on Israel's by-then-long war against the Palestinians (recently escalated in the Sharon's counter-intifada, effectively a reconquista against Palestinian Authority, which saved Hamas for future destruction).

  • Haidar Eid: 10-13] A vision for freedom is more important than ever: "We must focus on the present as conditions in Gaza worsen daily, but a clear strategy and political vision are crucial to inspire people around the world as to what is possible."

  • Dave Reed: [10-13] Weekly Briefing: Looking back at a year of Israeli genocide.

  • Jeffrey St Clair: [10-18] Israel unbound: October in Gaza, one year later.

    A retaliatory military operation that many wizened pundits predicted would last no more than a month or so has now thundered on in ever-escalating episodes of violence and mass destruction for a year with no sign of relenting. What began as a war of vengeance has become a war of annihilation, not just of Hamas, but of Palestinian life and culture in Gaza and beyond.

    While few took them seriously at the time, Israeli leaders spelled out in explicit terms the savage goals of their war and the unrestrained means they were going to use to prosecute it. This was going to be a campaign of collective punishment where every conceivable target -- school, hospital, mosque -- would be fair game. Here was Israel unbound. The old rules of war and international law were not only going to be ignored; they would be ridiculed and mocked by the Israeli leadership, which, in the days after the October 7 attacks, announced their intention to immiserate, starve, and displace more than 2 million Palestinians and kill anyone who stood in their way -- man, woman or child.

    For the last 17 years, the people of Gaza have been living a marginal existence, laboring under the cruel constrictions of a crushing Israeli embargo, where the daily allotments of food allowed into the Strip were measured out down to the calorie. Now, the blockade was about to become total. On October 9, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned: "I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, food, or fuel; everything is closed." He wasn't kidding.

    This goes on for 14 more paragraphs, all deserving your attention, before he descends into his usual plethora of bullet points -- dozens of them, his attention never straying to the more pedestrian atrocities he often (and compared to most others exceptionally) reports on. He ends with this:

    The war of revenge has become a war of dispossession, conquest and annexation, where war crime feeds on war crime. Not even the lives of the Israeli hostages will stand in the way; they will become Israeli martyrs in the cause of cleansing Gaza of Palestinians. . . .

    It's equally apparent that nothing Israel does, including killing American grandmothers, college students, and aid workers, will trigger the US government, whether it's under the control of Biden, Harris, or Trump, to intervene to stop them or even pull the plug on the arms shipments that make this genocidal war possible.

    Followed by a list of sources:

  • Oren Yiftachel: [10-15] Is this Israel's first apartheid war? "Far from lacking a political strategy, Israel is fighting to reinforce the supremacist project it has built for decades between the river and the sea." The author thinks so, while acknowledging the long history of war that preceded this year's war:

    While its eight previous wars attempted to create new geographical and political orders or were limited to specific regions, the current one seeks to reinforce the supremacist political project Israel has built throughout the entire land, and which the October 7 assault fundamentally challenged. Accordingly, there is also a steadfast refusal to explore any path to reconciliation or even a ceasefire with the Palestinians.

    Israel's supremacist order, which was once termed "creeping" and more recently "deepening apartheid," has long historical roots. It has been concealed in recent decades by the so-called peace process, promises of a "temporary occupation," and claims that Israel has "no partner" to negotiate with. But the reality of the apartheid project has become increasingly conspicuous in recent years, especially under Netanyahu's leadership.

    Today, Israel makes no effort to hide its supremacist aims. The Jewish Nation-State Law of 2018 declared that "the right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people," and that "the state views the development of Jewish settlement as a national value." Taking this a step further, the current Israeli government's manifesto (known as its "guiding principles") proudly stated in 2022 that "the Jewish people have an exclusive and inalienable right to all areas of the Land of Israel" -- which, in the Hebrew lexicon, includes Gaza and the West Bank -- and promises to "promote and develop settlement in all parts of the Land of Israel."

    My reservation here is that the "apartheid program" goes way back, at least to 1948 when Israelis declared independence and set up a separate judicial system for Palestinians in areas they controlled, retaining it even after Palestinians became nominal citizens of Israel. In effect, Israeli apartheid goes back to the "Hebrew labor" concept adopted by Ben-Gurion's Histadrut in the 1930s. (By the way, South Africa's Apartheid laws were only formalized in 1950, although, as with Israel, the roots of racist discrimination ran much deeper. The ideas behind South Africa's legal thinking drew heavily on America's Jim Crow laws, which were also notable sources for Nazi Germany's race laws.) So what's new since October 7 isn't apartheid, but the nature of the war, which has crossed over the line from harsh enforcement to genocide: the purpose of which is not just to punish Hamas for the insolence of rebellion, but to purge Israel of all Palestinians:

    Under the fog of this onslaught on Gaza, the colonial takeover of the West Bank has also accelerated over the past year. Israel has introduced new measures of administrative annexation; settler violence has further intensified with the backing of the army; dozens of new outposts have been established, contributing to the expulsion of Palestinian communities; Palestinian cities have been subjected to suffocating economic closures; and the Israeli army's violent repression of armed resistance has reached levels not seen since the Second Intifada -- especially in the refugee camps of Jenin, Nablus, and Tulkarem. The previously tenuous distinction between Areas A, B, and C has been completely erased: the Israeli army operates freely throughout the entire territory.

    At the same time, Israel has deepened the oppression of Palestinians inside the Green Line and their status as second-class citizens. It has intensified its severe restrictions on their political activity through increased surveillance, arrests, dismissals, suspensions, and harassment. Arab leaders are labeled "terror supporters," and the authorities are carrying out an unprecedented wave of house demolitions -- especially in the Negev/Naqab, where the number of demolitions in 2023 (which reached a record of 3,283) was higher than the number for Jews across the entire state. At the same time, the police all but gave up on tackling the serious problem of organized crime in Arab communities. Hence, we can see a common strategy across all the territories Israel controls to repress Palestinians and cement Jewish supremacy.

    Near the end of the article, the author points to A Land for All: Two States One Homeland as an alternative, and cites various pieces on confederation. I'm not wild about these approaches, but I'd welcome any changes that would reduce the drive of people on both sides to kill one another.

Israel:

  • Mondoweiss:

  • Dave DeCamp:

    • [10-16] Netanyahu approves set of targets to hit inside Iran: "Israel is expected to attack before the November 5 US presidential election."

    • [10-16] Israeli soldiers say ethnic cleansing plan in North Gaza is underway: "A reserve soldier told Haaretz that anyone who remains in the north after a deadline 'will be considered an enemy and will be killed.'"

    • [10-17] Israel says Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has been killed. More on Sinwar

      • David Dayen: [10-17] In Israel, the war is also the goal: "Yahya Sinwar's death is unlikely to change the situation in Gaza." This has long been evident, but it's nice to see new people noticing:

        That Netanyahu's personal and political goals vastly outweigh whatever could resemble military goals in this war in Gaza by now has become a cliché. Netanyahu wants to stay out of prison, and ending the war is likely to place him there. So new missions and operations and objectives sprout up for no reason.

        Suddenly Bibi's party has mused about re-settling northern Gaza for the first time in nearly 20 years, while transparently using a policy of mass starvation as a way to implement it. . . .

        The war has long passed any moment where Israel has any interest in declaring victory, in the fight against terror or in the fight for the security of its people. Even bringing up the fact of continued Israeli hostages inside Gaza seems irrelevant at this point. The war is actually the goal itself, a continuation of punishment to fulfill the needs of the prime minister and his far-right political aims. The annals of blowback indicate pretty clearly that incessant bombing of hospitals and refugee camps will create many Yahya Sinwars, more than who can be killed. That is not something that particularly burdens the Israeli government. Another pretext would serve their continuing interests.

      • Griffin Eckstein: [10-17] Harris sees "opportunity to end" to Israel-Gaza war in Hamas leader Sinwar's killing: Nice spin, especially after Biden's me-too statement, but naive and/or disingenuous. Surely she knows that the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan didn't end with regime change or the later deaths of Saddam Hussein, Mullah Omar, or Osama Bin Laden. Sure, those deaths seemed like good ideas at the time, but by the time they happened many more people had been killed, and more people rose from nowhere to fight back, and then they too had to be killed, because once you -- by which I mean the kind of people who lead countries and start wars -- start killing, there's always more to do. Still, Harris deserves a nod for even imagining that some other path is possible. Whether she deserves it depends on whether she can follow through and act upon her insight. Unfortunately, to do so would mean she has to develop enough backbone to defy and put pressure on Netanyahu, which thus far she hasn't risked.

      • James Mackenzie/Nidal Al-Mughrabi/Samia Nakhoul: [10-17] Hamas leader Sinwar killed by Israeli troops in Gaza, Netanyahu says war will go on. Because the point never was Sinwar or Hamas or the October 7 revolt.

      • Qassam Muaddi: [10-17] Israel says it killed Yahya Sinwar as he was fighting the Israeli army: "The Israeli army said on Thursday that Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar had been killed in combat during an armed confrontation with an Israeli army patrol in Rafah."

      • Abdaljawad Omar: [10-21] It was only their machines: on Yahya Sinwar's last stand: "Yahya Sinwar's last stand laid bare Israel's weakness, exposing the truth about its post-heroic army that only survives from a distance and remains shielded by armor, unwilling to face its enemies head-on."

      • Bernie Sanders: [10-18] Sinwar is dead; we must end our complicity in this cruel and illegal war. Note that this is not a syllogism: the conclusion was true even when Sinwar was still alive.

      • Steven Simon: [10-17] The demise of Yahya Sinwar and his 'big project': "The Hamas leader overestimated Israel's fractures and underestimated Netanyahu's willingness to destroy Gaza." I'm not convinced that either of these assertions are true. I tend to see his "big project" as an act of desperation, aimed to expose Israel's brutality, as well as imposing some measure of cost for an oppression that had become routinized and uninteresting for most people not directly affected. It seems highly unlikely that he underestimated Netanyahu's monstrosity, although he might not unreasonably have expected that others, like the US, would have sought to moderate Israel's response. But even as events unfolded, Israel has done an immense amount of damage to its international reputation, as has America. While it's fair to say that Sinwar made a bad bet for the Palestinian people, the final costs to Israel are still accumulating, and will continue to do so as long as Netanyahu keeps killing.

      • Ishaan Tharoor: [10-20] What will Yahya Sinwar's death mean for Gaza? Not peace. Which kind of begs a question too obvious for mainstream media, which is why kill him if doing so doesn't bring you closer to peace?

  • Jamal Kanj: [10-18] The Israeli General's Plan in Gaza: Genocide by starvation.

  • Edo Konrad: [10-16] The 'pact of silence' between Israelis and their media: "Israel's long-subservient media has spent the past year imbuing the public with a sense of righteousness over the Gaza war. Reversing this indoctrination, says media observer Oren Persico, could take decades." I've long been critical of US mainstream media sources for their uncritical echoing of Israeli hasbara, but Israel -- where major media, 20-30 years ago, seemed to be far more open to critically discussing the occupation than American outlets were -- has become far more cloistered. Consider this:

    What Israeli journalists do not understand is that when the government passes its "Al Jazeera Law," it is ultimately about something much larger than merely targeting the channel. The current law is about banning news outlets that "endanger national security," but they also want to give the Israeli communications minister the right to prevent any foreign news network from operating in Israel that could "harm the national morale." What the Israeli public doesn't understand is that next in line is BBC Arabic, Sky News Arabic, and CNN. After that, they're going to come for Haaretz, Channel 12, and Channel 13.

    We are heading toward an autocratic, Orbán-esque regime and everything that comes with that -- in the courts, in academia, and in the media. Of course it is possible. It sounded unrealistic 10 years ago, then it sounded more realistic five years ago when Netanyahu's media-related legal scandals blew up. Then it became even more reasonable with the judicial overhaul, and even more so today. We're not there yet, but we are certainly on the way.

  • Qassam Muaddi:

Lebanon:

  • Dave DeCamp: [10-20] Israel starts bombing banks in Lebanon: "The Israeli military is targeting branches of al-Quard al-Hassan, which Israel accuses of financing Hezbollah."

  • Qassam Muaddi: [10-21] Israel presents its conditions for Lebanon ceasefire as Hezbollah intensifies operations: "Israel's conditions for a ceasefire in Lebanon include allowing Israel to operate inside Lebanese territory against Hezbollah and freedom of movement for Israel's air force in Lebanon's airspace."

  • Adam Shatz: [10-11] After Nasrallah. Long piece, lot of background on Nasrallah and Hizbullah.

    It's hard to see what strategy, if any, lies behind Israel's reckless escalation of its war. But the line between tactics and strategy may not mean much in the case of Israel, a state that has been at war since its creation. The identity of the enemy changes -- the Arab armies, Nasser, the PLO, Iraq, Iran, Hizbullah, Hamas -- but the war never ends. Israel's leaders claim this war is existential, a matter of Jewish survival, and there is a grain of truth in this claim, because the state is incapable of imagining Israeli Jewish existence except on the basis of domination over another people. Escalation, therefore, may be precisely what Israel seeks, or is prepared to risk, since it views war as its duty and destiny. Randolph Bourne once said that 'war is the health of the state,' and Netanyahu and Gallant would certainly agree.

  • Lylla Younes: Israel escalates attacks on Lebanese first responders -- potentially a war crime.

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

  • Michael Arria:

  • Aida Chávez: After Israel killed Hamas leader, DC pushes to hand Palestine to Saudi Arabia: "Bent on a 'mega-deal' security pact with Saudi Arabia, Congress and the Biden administration see their chance."

  • Matt Duss: [10-17] Yahya Sinwar's death can end this war: But it won't, because only Netanyahu can end the war, and he doesn't want to, because there are still Palestinians to dispossess and dispose of, and because Biden isn't going to make it hard on him to continue. But sure, if one did want to end the war, checking Sinwar off your "to do" list offers a nice opportunity. On the other hand, negotiating a ceasefire with a credible leader like Sinwar would have been even better. This piece was cited by::

  • Ellen Ioanes: [10-19] There's no ceasefire in sight for Israel's Gaza war. Why not? Any author, like this one, that doesn't squarely answers "Israel" has simply not been paying attention.

  • Anatol Lieven: [10-10] Blinken's sad attempt to whitewash Biden's record: "By not acting with political and moral courage, this administration has actually failed abysmally on numerous counts."

  • Alan MacLeod: [10-17] Revealed: The Israeli spies writing America's news.

  • Steve McMaster/Khody Akhavi: [10-15] Netanyahu: Thank you America for your service: "One year after Gaza invasion, US complicity is everywhere in the smoldering ruins."

  • Trita Parsi:

  • Mitchell Plitnick: [10-18] No, the US is not 'putting pressure' in Israel to end its war: "A letter from the Biden administration to Israel this week threatening to possibly withhold weapons raised hopes among some, but the delivery of a missile defense system and deployment of U.S. soldiers sent the real message."

  • Aaron Sobczak: [10-14] Biden sends US troops to Israel weeks ahead of election: "Recent polling suggests there is no American support for this."

  • Alex de Waal: [10-20] Israel, a behind-the-scenes powerbroker in Sudan: "Of the many foreign powers influencing this bloody conflict, Tel Aviv could help claw it back -- if it wanted to.

  • Sarah Leah Whitson: [09-27] Shared zones of interest: "Harris and Trump's foreign-policy aims in the Middle East proceed from the same incentive structures and presuppositions about US supremacy." This is an important point, which could be developed further.

    There are two principal reasons for this. First, Harris and Trump's worldviews are grounded in an article of faith that has undergirded America's post-World War II foreign policy: maintaining U.S. hegemony and supremacy. There is full agreement, as Kamala Harris recently declared at the Democratic convention and reiterated in her debate with former President Trump, that the U.S. must have the "most lethal" military in the world, and that we must maintain our military bases and personnel globally. While Trump may have a more openly mercenary approach, demanding that the beneficiaries of U.S. protection in Europe and Asia pay more for it, he is a unilateralist, not an isolationist. At bottom, neither candidate is revisiting the presuppositions of U.S. primacy.

    Second, both Harris and Trump are subject to the overwhelming incentive structure that rewards administrations for spending more on the military and selling more weapons abroad than any other country in the world. The sell-side defense industry has fully infiltrated the U.S. government, with campaign donations and a revolving escalator to keep Republicans and Democrats fully committed to promoting their interests. The buy-side foreign regimes have gotten in on the pay-to-play, ensuring handsome rewards to U.S. officials who ensure weapons sales continue. And all sides play the reverse leverage card: If the U.S. doesn't sell weapons, China and Russia (or even the U.K. and France) will. There is no countervailing economic pressure, and little political pressure, to force either Harris or Trump to consider the domestic and global harms of this spending and selling.

    In the Middle East, the incentive structure is at its most powerful, combining the influence of the defense industry and the seemingly bottomless disposable wealth of the Gulf States. And there are two additional factors -- the unparalleled influence and control of the pro-Israel lobby, which rewards government officials who comply with its demands and eliminates those who don't; and Arab control over the oil and gas spigots that determines the prices Americans pay for fuel. As a result, continued flows of money, weapons, and petroleum will ensue, regardless of who wins in November.

    Whitson is executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now, after previously directing Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North African Division from 2004 to 2020. Here are some older articles:

Israel vs. world opinion: Although my title is more generic, the keyword in my source file is "genocide," because that's what this is about, no matter how you try to style or deny it.

Election notes:

  • Rachel M Cohen: [10-15] Nebraska is the only state with two abortion measures on the ballot. Confusion is the point. "The state's 12-week ban has already upended care. Anti-abortion leaders want to go further."

  • Gabriel Debenedetti: Has a series of articles called "The Inside Game":

    • [10-14] David Plouffe on Harris vs. Trump: 'Too close for comfort': "The veteran strategist on the state of play for his boss, Kamala Harris, and what he thinks of the 'bed-wetters.'" He doesn't seem to have much to say about anything, which may be what passes as tradecraft in his world of high-stakes political consulting. It does seem like an incredible amount of money is being spent on a very thin slice of the electorate -- Plouffe is pretty explicit on how he's only concerned with the narrow battleground states.

    • [09-15] The WhatsApp Campaign: "Kamala Harris's team is looking for hard-to-find voters just about everywhere, including one platform favored by Latinos."

    • [10-02] How Tim Walz saved himself: "At first, he looked overmatched by JD Vance. Then came abortion, health care, and, above all, January 6."

    • [09-21] How Kamala Harris knocks out Trump: "Mark Robinson's Nazi-and-porn scandal ignites an all-out push to win North Carolina."

  • Errol Louis: [10-17] Hey Democrats, don't panic -- here's why.

  • John Morling: [10-21] It is not too late for the Uncommitted Movement to hold Democrats accountable for genocide: "The Uncommitted Movement voluntarily gave up its leverage but it is not too late to hold Kamala Harris accountable for supporting the Israeli genocide in Gaza." Yes, it is too late. The presidential election is about many things, but one thing it is not about is Israeli genocide. To insist that it is overlooks both that Trump has if anything been more supportive of genocide, and that while he was president, he did things that directly connect to the Oct. 7 Hamas revolt, and to Netanyahu's sense that he could use that revolt as a pretext for genocide.[*] On the other hand, punishing Harris suggest that none of the real differences between her and Trump matter to you. Most Democrats will not only disagree, they will blame you for any losses.

    [*] Trump moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, abandoning a major tenet of international law. Trump ended the Iran nuclear deal. And Trump's invention of the Abraham Accords was widely considered as a major factor in Hamas's desperate attack.

  • Andrew Prokop: [10-21] The big election shift that explains the 2024 election: "Progressives felt they were gaining. Now they're on the defensive." A new installment in a Vox series the point of which seems to be to tell leftists to go fuck themselves. As with the Levitz piece (also hereabouts), this article is half false and half bullshit. The false part starts with the "gaining" -- the success of the Sanders campaigns had less to do with ideological gains (although he made some, and continues to do so) than with his presentation of a non-corrupt alternative to a very corrupt system), and the adoption of some progressive thinking by Biden had more to do with the proven failures of much neoliberal thinking under Obama and Clinton -- and continues with the "defensive": Sanders' decision not to challenge Biden and (later) Harris was largely a concession to age, as well as a gesture of party unity against Trump and the increasingly deranged Republicans, but also a sense that Harris would be at least as willing to work toward progressive ends as Biden had been. That Harris, having secured the nomination with no real opposition from progressives or any other faction or interest group, should deliberately tack toward political orthodoxy may be disappointing to a few of us -- and in the especially urgent matters, like Israel's wars and genocide, we still feel the need to speak out[*] -- but the "assignment" (to use Chait's wretched phrase) is to win the election, and that involves reaching and convincing a majority of voters, way more than just self-conscious progressives, in an environment and culture that are severely warped by moneyed interests and mass media doublespeak. I'm inclined to trust that what she's saying is based on sound research and shrewd analysis with that one goal in mind. She's the politician, and I'm just a critic. If she loses, I'll take what little joy I can in dissecting her many failings, but if she wins, I can only be thankful for her political skills, at least for a few days, until her statements move from vote-grubbing to policy-making, in which case we critics will have a lot of expertise to offer.

    As for the left, I'm more bullish than ever. Capitalism creates a lot of benefits, but it is also a prodigious generator of crises and chronic maladies, and it fuels political ideologies that seek to concentrate power but only compound and exacerbate them. Anyone who wants to understand and solve (or at least ameliorate) thsee systemic problems needs to look to the left, because that's where the answers are. Granted, the left's first-generation solutions -- proletarian revolution and communism -- were a bit extreme, but over many years, we've refined them into more modest reforms, which can preserve capitalism's advances while making them safer, sustainable, and ultimately much more satisfying. Post-Obama Democrats haven't moved left but at least have opened up to the possibility that the left has realistic proposals, and have adopted some after realizing that politics isn't just about winning elections, it's also about delivering tangible benefits to your voters. (Obama and Clinton no doubt delivered tangible benefits to their donors, but neglect of their base is a big part of the reason Trump was able to con his way into his disastrous 2016 win.)

    No problems are going to be solved on November 5. What will be decided is who (which team) gets stuck with the problems we already have. Republicans will not only not solve any of those problems, they -- both judging from their track record and from their fantasy documents like Project 2025 (or Trump's somewhat more sanitized Agenda47 -- they will make them much worse for most people, and will try to lock down control so they can retain power even as popular opinion turns against them. Democrats will be hard-pressed to solve them too, especially if they revert to the failed neoliberal ideologies of the Clinton-Obama years. But when decent folk do look for meaningful change, the left will be there, with understanding and care and clear thinking and practical proposals. Left isn't an ideology. It's simply a direction, as we move away from hierarchy and oppression toward liberation and equality. It only goes away when we get there.

    [*] It's not like Communists did themselves any favors when in 1939, when after Stalin negotiated his "pact" with Hitler, they stuck to the party line and dropped their guard against Nazi Germany. Ben-Gurion did much better with his 1939 slogan: "We shall fight in the war against Hitler as if there were no White Paper, but we shall fight the White Paper as if there were no war." He ultimately succeeded on both counts.

    • David Weigel: [10-15] No matter who wins, the US is moving to the right: Prokop cites this piece, which argues that the rightward shift of 1980-2005 had been countered by a leftward drift from 2005-20, but since 2000 the tide has shifted back to the right. His evidence is superficial, mostly polling on language that correlates weakly with left/right. Biden may have talked more left in 2020 because he literally stole the nomination from Sanders, and desperately needed to shore up left support (which he managed to do). Harris got the nomination handed to her on a platter, with virtually no dissent from the left, so she's been free to wheel and deal on the right, for whatever short-term margin it might bring. But nobody on either side thinks she's more conservative or orthodox than Biden. That's why Republicans are in such a panic, so unmoored from reality.

  • Tony Romm/Eric Lau/Adriana Navarro/Kevin Schaul: [10-18] Crypto cash is flooding the 2024 election. Here's who's benefiting.

  • Matt Sledge:

  • Endorsements:

Trump:

  • Mariana Alfaro: [10-20] Musk promises a daily $1 million lottery in questionable pro-Trump effort: "Legal experts raised concerns about the legality of the move because it ties a monetary reward to voter registration status, which is prohibited under federal law."

  • Zack Beauchamp:

    • [10-16] Critiquing Trump's economics -- from the right: "What one of the right's greatest thinkers would make of Trumponomics." On Friedrich Hayek, who saw himself as a classical liberal, and who saw everyone else even slightly to his left as marching on "the road to serfdom." But nothing here convinces me he would have a problem with Trump -- he was, like most of his cohort, a big Pinochet fan -- let alone that his opinion (having been wrong on nearly everything else) should matter to me.

    • p10-18] The increasingly bizarre -- and ominous -- home stretch of Trump's 2024 campaign: "The past week of erratic behavior shows how he manages to be silly and scary at the same time."

  • Jamelle Bouie:

  • Philip Bump: [10-18] Trump's age finally catches up with him: "The man who would (once again) be the oldest president in history has reportedly scaled back his campaign due to fatigue. So who would run his White House?"

  • Zachary D Carter: [10-16] The original angry populist: "Tom Watson was a heroic scion of the Boston Tea Party -- and the fevered progenitor of Donald Trump's violent fantasies." Link title was: "They say there's never been a man like Donald Trump in American politics. But there was -- and we should learn from him." If you're familiar with Watson, who started out as a Populist firebrand and wound up as a racist demagogue, it's probably thanks to C Vann Woodward, if not his 1938 biography, Tom Watson: Agrarian Rebel, then (as in my case) his 1955 book, The Strange Career of Jim Crow. But this, of course, is mostly about Trump.

    Something important happened at the end of Trump's presidency and the beginning of Joe Biden's. Nobody wants to talk about it -- not even conservatives bring up masks and school closures anymore, and much of the discourse surrounding inflation studiously avoids reference to the massive economic disruption of COVID-19. But one of the most important cultural artifacts of the period is the sudden spread of vaccine skepticism to the cultural mainstream. The anti-vaxxer delusion that vaccines cause autism has lingered at the fringes of the autism community in no small part because it provides narrative meaning to a difficult and random experience. There is tremendous joy in the life of a special needs parent, but there is also a great deal of fear and pain. Fear, because you do not know how the world will respond to your child, and pain, because you must watch your child struggle for no fault of their own. For many, it is more comforting to believe that their child's hardships are not a random act of fate but a product of deliberate malfeasance. The idea that bad things happen for bad reasons is more palatable than the belief that they happen for no reason at all.

    It is not only anti-vaxxers who seek such comfort. Americans on both the left and the right avert their eyes from the story of Tom Watson not only because the story is ugly and violent but because we insist on being able to control our own destiny. From Huck Finn to Indiana Jones, American mythology tends to write its heroes as variations on the story of David and Goliath -- tales of underdogs who secure unlikely triumphs against an overbearing order. Even when that order is part of America itself, individual heroism soothes the audience with the promise that the world's wrongs can be righted with enough derring-do. Horatio Alger's novels of children born into poverty could be read as an indictment of the Gilded Age social order, but the romance of these stories always lies in a boy taking fate by the horns. Watson disturbs us not only because he turns to evil but because an extraordinary leader's earnest, Herculean attempt to right the world's wrongs comes up short. To win, he assents to the dominion of dark forces beyond his control.

  • Chas Danner: [10-15] Trump turned his town hall into a dance party after fans got sick. This was much ridiculed by late night comics, so I've seen much of Trump and Kristi Noem on stage, but very little of the crowd, which is usually the definition of a "dance party." How did the crowd react after his bumbling responses to five setup questions? It's hard to imagine them thrilling to multiple versions of "Ava Maria," but it's also hard to imagine them showing up for the information. I wonder if Trump rallies aren't like "be-ins" in the 1960s, where crowds assemble to associate with similar people and complain about the others. Trump defines who shows up, but after that, does it really matter what he says or does? This was a test case, but if you start thinking everything Trump does or says is stupid, your confirmation bias kicked in instantly, without raising the obvious next question, why do crowds flock to such inanity? Or are they as stupid as Trump?

  • Chauncey DeVega:

    • [10-08] Trump's violent fantasies: Experts warn of "a terror that blinds us to what's coming next". "As much as Donald Trump crows about the need for 'law and order,' he is very much the embodiment of lawlessness and disorder."

    • [10-17] "Femiphobia" motivates MAGA males: Psychologist Stephen Ducat on the gendererd tribalism of Trumpism.

    • [10-18] "Thirst for the spectacle of Trump's cruelty": Exploring MAGA's unbreakable bond. Some time ago, I noted that there are two basic types of Christians in America: those whose understanding of their religion is to love their neighbors and seek to help them, and those who hate their neighbors, and see religion as a way to punish them for eternity -- it's no wonder that the latter group have come to define Christian Republicans.

      DaVega includes a long quote from Peter McLaren, then adds:

      McLaren notes "Trump is speaking to an audience that since 2016 has come to share Trump's worldview, his political intuition, his apprehension of the world, what the Germans call Weltanschauung and has created a visceral, almost savage bond with the aspiring dictator."

      As the next step in Trump's dictator and authoritarian-fascist plans, he is now embracing scientific racism and eugenics by telling his followers that nonwhite migrants, refugees and "illegal aliens" have bad genes, i.e. "a murder gene." Last Monday, Trump told right-wing radio host Hugh Hewitt that, "You know now, a murderer -- I believe this -- it's in their genes. And we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now." Take Trump's obsessions with good genes and bad genes and couple them with his remarks about "purifying the blood" of the nation by removing the human poison and other human vermin. Historically, both in American society and other parts of the world, people with the "bad genes" that Trump is so obsessed with have been removed from normal society through imprisonment and other means. Such targeted populations have also been subjected to eliminationist violence and forced sterilization.

      Sometimes I wonder if Trump's team doesn't just plant this obvious Nazi shit to provoke recognition and reaction. They know that it just sails past their own people, while it turns their opponents into whiny hysterics droning on about stuff no one else understands.

  • Griffin Eckstein: [10-11] "Fascist to the core": Former Trump official Milley warns against "dangerous" second term: "Trump appointee Mark Milley called the ex-prez the 'most dangerous person ever.'"

  • Dan Froomkin: [10-20] If Trump wins, blame the New York Times: "America's paper of record refuses to sound the alarm about the threat Trump poses to democracy." Sure, the Times endorsed Harris -- see [09-30] The only patriotic choice for president -- but in such jingoistic terms you have to wonder. Their opinion columnists are, as always, artfully divided, but in day-to-day reporting, they do seem awfully dedicated to keeping the race competitive (presumably the ticket to selling more papers) and keeping their options open (as is so often the way of such self-conscious, power-sucking elites). I've never understood how many people actually take "the paper of record" all that seriously. At least I've never been one.

  • Hadas Gold/Liam Reilly: [10-16] Fox News did not disclose its all-women town hall with Trump was packed with his supporters.

  • Annie Gowen: [10-20] Trump repeats 'enemy from within' comment, targeting Pelosi and Schiff: And there I was, thinking he meant me.

  • Evan Halper/Josh Dawsey: [10-18] Trump has vowed to guy climate rules. Oil lobbyists have a plan ready. "As companies fall short on methane emission reductions, a top grade group has crafted a road map for dismantling key Biden administration rules."

  • Margaret Hartmann:

  • Greg Jaffe: [10-20] The CIA analyst who triggered Trump's first impeachment asks: Was it worth it? Long piece, and at this point probably not worth your time.

  • Sarah Jones: [10-15] Donald Trump is deteriorating: "And as he does, the extremists around him move closer to power."

    Though braggadocio is a familiar Trump quality, much like his reluctance to stick to his prepared remarks, he is arguably getting weirder -- and more disturbing -- over time. Trump's speeches are so outlandish, so false, that they often pass without much comment, as the New York Times reported earlier this month in a story about his age. Yet a change is noticeable. "He rambles, he repeats himself, he roams from thought to thought -- some of them hard to understand, some of them unfinished, some of them factually fantastical," the Times noted, adding that his speeches have become much longer on average, and contain more negative words and examples of profanity than they previously did.

  • Hassan Ali Kanu: [10-16] Conservatives use Trump assassination to target women in anti-diversity war: "It's a move to enshrine values into law, but it's not beyond the realm of possibility." What? "The claim is one of reverse discrimination: that the historically and presently male-dominated Secret Service discriminates against men." Say whaaat?

  • Nicholas Liu:

  • Carlos Lozada: [10-13] When Trump rants, this is what I hear: The author came to the US when he was three, so technically he's an immigrant, a person Trump makes rather gross generalizations about.

  • Amanda Marcotte:

  • Harold Meyerson: [10-10] Trump's Made-in-China Bibles: "The imperative of Trump's price-gouging (selling $3 Bibles for $59.99) meets the Holy Word."

  • Connor O'Keeffe: [10-16] Beware of war hawks in "America First" clothing.

  • Heather Digby Parton:

  • Russell Payne:

  • Sabrina Rodriguez/Isaac Arnsdorf: [10-01] Trump mixes up words, swerves among subjects in off-topic speech: "The Republican nominee appeared tired and complained about his heightened campaign schedule."

  • Marin Scotten:

Vance, and other Republicans:

Harris:

  • Ryan Cooper: Black men deserve better pandering from the Harris campaign: "Crypto and weed are not how to advertise her ideas for this group."

  • Chas Danner: [10-17] Who won Kamala Harris's Fox News interview with Bret Baier? What does "winning" even mean here? The more salient question is who survived with their reputation intact? This is really just a catalog of reactions, the final of which was "both sides got what they wanted." Which is to say, if you missed it, you didn't miss much.

  • David Dayen/Luke Goldstein: Google's guardians donate to the Harris campaign: "Multiple Harris donors at an upcoming fundraiser are representing Google in its case against the Justice Department over monopolizing digital advertising." I have to ask, is digital advertising something we even want to exist? Competition makes most goods more plentiful, more innovative, and more affordable, but if the "good" in question is essentially bad, maybe that shouldn't be the goal. I'm not saying we should protect Google's monopoly. A better solution would be to deflate its profitability. For instance, and this is just off the top of my head, you could levy a substantial tax on digital advertising, collect most of it from Google, and then redistribute much of the income to support websites that won't have to depend on advertising.

  • Elie Honig: [11-18] Kamala Harris has finally embraced being a cop: "The label hurt her in 2019. Today she wears it like a badge." Reminds me a bit of when Kerry embraced being a Vietnam War soldier. He didn't get very far with that.

  • Robert Kuttner: [10-09] Notes for Harris: "It's good that Kamala Harris is doing more one-on-one interviews, because she's getting a lot better at it. Still, she occasionally misses an opportunity." E.g., "Harris could point out that the administration has made a difference by challenging collusion and price-gouging, in everything from prescription drugs to food wholesalers."

  • Nicole Narea: [10-18] How tough would a President Kamala Harris be on immigrants?

  • Christian Paz: [10-16] Kamala Harris and the problem with ceding the argument: "The vice president had a chance to defend immigrants on Fox News. She passed."

  • Matthew Stevenson: [10-18] Harris: Speed dating Howard Stern: I was surprised last week to find the "shock jock and satellite-radio wit" endorsing Harris last week, probably because I have zero interest or curiosity in him, and may know even less.

Walz, Biden, and other Democrats:

  • Avishay Artsy/Sean Rameswaram: [10-21] Why Wisconsin Democrats are campaigning in places where they can't win: "To win statewide, the party wants to "lose by less" in rural areas." That's good advice everywhere. Especially as Democrats actually have a better proposition for rural voters than Republicans have.

  • Ed Kilgore: [10-19] Four good reasons Democrats are terrified about the 2024 election: I wasn't sure where to fire this, but the reasons turn out to mostly reside in Democrats' heads. Nothing here suggests that Democrats are more likely to lose. It's just that if they lose, the consequences will be far worse than whatever setbacks Republicans might suffer in another Trump loss:

    1. Democrats remember 2016 and 2020
    2. Democrats fear Trump 2.0 more than Republicans fear Harris
    3. Only one party is threatening to challenge the election results
    4. If Harris wins, she'll oversee a divided government; if Trump wins, he'll have a shot at total power

  • Eric Levitz: [10-17] The Democrats' pro-union strategy has been a bust: "Despite Joe Biden's historically pro-union policies, the Democrats' share of the union vote is falling." First question is: is this true? (Actually, either "this": the falling vote share, or the "pro-union" policies.) Second question is would be anti-union (like Republicans) win or lose votes? Most of the people who are locked into Republican positions (e.g., guns, abortion) are so distrustful of Democrats no amount of pandering can move them, but giving up positions that are popular among Democrats can lose face and faith, and that can hurt you more than you can possibly gain, even if there is no meaningful alternative. Third point is who cares? If standing up for unions is the right thing to do, why equivocate with polling? We live in a country where the rich have exorbitant power, where unions are one of the few possible countervailing options. Extreme inequality is corroding everything, from democracy to the fabric of everyday life. More/stronger unions won't fix that, but they'll help, and that's good in itself, as well as something that resonates with other promising strategies. Fourth, if you're just polling union members, you're missing out on workers who would like to join a union if only they could. Are your "pro-union" policies losing them? Or are they offering hope, and a practical path to a better life?

    On some level, Democrats and Republicans are fated to be polarized opposites, each defined by the other and stuck in its identity. A couple more pieces on labor and politics this year:

  • Erik Loomis: [09-26] Preserving public lands: "Deb Haaland has been a remarkable secretary of the interior. But the future is about funding in Congress."

Supreme Court, legal matters, and other crimes:

Climate and environment:

  • Alex Abad-Santos: [10-11] For some evacuation defiers, Hurricane Milton is a social media goldmine: "They didn't listen to Hurricane Milton evacuation orders. Then they posted through it." This reminds me of the hype that "shock and awe" would win the war against Iraq, because all it would take is one awesome demonstration of force to get Iraqis to drop their arms and surrender. Problem was: the people who were truly shocked were dead, and the rest survived not just the bombs but the hype, making them think they were invincible.

  • Matthew Cappucci/Kelsey Baker: [10-19] Hurricane Oscar forms in Caribbean, surprising storm watchers: "Oscar probably won't be around long. After making a run at Cuba, it will begin turning north into Monday and weakening into Tuesday."

  • Benji Jones: [10-17] We need $700 billion to save nature: "Just a tiny fraction of the global GDP could help stave off ecological collapse."

  • Robert Kuttner: [10-15] How hurricanes are a profit center for insurers: "To compensate for exaggerated expectations of claims, they jack up rates and hollow our coverage, giving themselves more profit than before." As long as the market will bear it, and up to the point when they really do go bankrupt. This is, of course, the kind of profiteering business schools teach their students to be shameless about.

Business, labor, and Economists:

  • Dean Baker: Quite a bit to catch up with here, as he always has good points to make. In trying to figure out how far I needed to go back, I ran across this tweet I had noted: "Part of the job of a progressive government is to shift the public narrative towards the idea that the state can improve people's lives." I'll add that the point here is not to convince you that government is good or benign, but that it belongs to you and everyone else, and can be used to serve your interests, as far as they align with most other people (or, as the US Constitution put it, to "promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity"). While progressives initially do this by advancing reasoned argument, they also need to put it into practice whenever possible, and actually do things to "promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty." You hear much about "democracy" these days, but knows this: democracy makes good government possible, but only works if/when people realize they have the power to direct it. Also, make sure to check out Baker's free book, Rigged.

    • [09-16] Now that we all agree that 10 percent tariffs on imports are bad, how about 1000 percent tariffs on prescription drugs?

    • [09-17] The Washington Post is concerned about the budget deficit, again.

    • [09-22] Why is it silly to think it's the media's job to inform the public?

    • [09-23] My six favorite untruths about the Biden-Harris economy. These are the subheds:

      1. The New York Times picks an atypical worker to tell a story about a divided economy.
      2. It's hard for recent college grads to find jobs even when their unemployment rate is near a twenty-year low.
      3. The two-full time job measure of economic hardship
      4. The retirement crisis
      5. The collapsing saving rate
      6. Young people will never be able to afford a home

      He adds:

      Those are my six favorites, but I could come up with endless more pieces, like the CNN story on the family that drank massive amounts of milk who suffered horribly when milk prices rose, or the New York Times piece on a guy who used an incredible amount of gas and was being bankrupted by the record gas prices following the economy's reopening.

      There are also the stories that the media chose to ignore, like the record pace of new business starts, the people getting big pay increases in low-paying jobs, the record level of job satisfaction, the enormous savings in commuting costs and travel time for the additional 19 million people working from home (almost one eight of the workforce).

      The media decided that they wanted to tell a bad economy story, and they were not going to let reality get in the way.

    • [09-26] The economy after the GDP revisions: "Basically, they tell us a story of an economy that has performed substantially better since the pandemic than we had previously believed."

      The highlights are:

      • An economy that grew substantially more rapidly than previously believed and far faster than other wealthy countries
      • Substantially more rapid productivity growth, suggesting more rapid gains in wages and living standards and a smaller burden of the national debt;
      • Higher income growth than previously reported, with both more wages and more profits;
      • A higher saving rate, meaning that the stories about people having to spend down their savings were nonsense.

      There were also a couple of not-so-good items:

      • A higher profit share that is still near a post-pandemic peak;
      • A lower implicit corporate tax rate, although still well above the 2019 level.

    • [10-05] Automation is called "productivity growth". As he points out, productivity growth was long regarded as a universal good thing, until the 1980s, when businesses found they could keep all of the profits, instead of sharing with workers.

      Anyhow, this is a big topic (see Rigged, it's free), but the idea that productivity growth would ever be the enemy is a bizarre one. Automation and other technologies with labor displacing potential are hardly new and there is zero reason for workers as a group to fear them, even though they may put specific jobs at risk.

      The key issue is to structure the market to ensure that the benefits are broadly shared. We never have to worry about running out of jobs. We can always have people work shorter hours or just have the government send out checks to increase demand. It is unfortunate that many have sought to cultivate this phony fear.

    • [10-08] Tariffs and government-granted patent monopolies: bad and "good" forms of protectionism. Baker rarely misses an opportunity to bash patent monopolies -- an important issue that few others pay much attention to.

    • [10-09] Should Kamala Harris be celebrating the labor market? A sober evaluation of a recent column by Peter Coy: [10-07] Kamala Harris should think twice about touting this economy.

      I will say that by any historical standard the labor market is doing pretty damn good. It could be better, but a low unemployment rate and rapidly rising real wages is a better story than any incumbent administration could tell since -- 2000, oh well.

      I would put more stress here on "it could be better" than on the seemingly self-satisfied "pretty damn good." I'd also stress the options: that Republicans and business lobbyists have obstructed reforms that would help more (and in some cases virtually all) people, and that the key to better results is electing more Democrats -- who may still be too generous to the rich, but at least consider everyone else.

    • [10-14] CNN tells Harris not to talk about the economy. CNN is not the only "neutral news outlet" to have persistently trashed the economic success of the Biden-Harris administration, but they have been particularly egregious. It's almost as if they have their own agenda.

      The goal for Democrats in pushing their many economic successes (rapid job creation, extraordinarily low unemployment, real wage growth, especially at the lower end of the wage distribution, a record boom in factory construction) is to convince a small percentage of the electorate that this is a record to build on. By contrast, Donald Trump seems to push out a new whacked out proposal every day, with the only constants being a massive tax on imports and deporting a large portion of the workforce in agriculture and construction.

      Given the track record of the Biden-Harris administration compared with the craziness being pushed by Donald Trump, it is understandable that backers of Donald Trump would not want Harris to talk about the economy. But why would a neutral news outlet hold that view?

  • Emma Curchin: [10-17] 34 million seniors in Medicare advantage plans face rude awakening: "Insurers are dropping plans and slashing benefits" -- you know, like all private insurance companies everywhere.

  • Sarah Jones: [Fall 2024] In the shadow of King Coal: "While the coal industry is in terminal decline, it still shapes the culture of central Appalachia."

  • Paul Krugman: [10-17] How Trump's radical tariff plan could wreck our economy.

  • Robert Kuttner: [10-18] Redeeming the Nobel in economics: "This year's prize went to three institutionalist critics of neoliberalism. The award is overdue." Daren Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A Robinson. The latter two were co-authors with Acemoglu of books like Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (2012), and Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity (2023). Johnson was also co-author, with James Kwak, of one of the first notable books to come out of the 2008 financial meltdown: 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown (2010).

  • Bethany McLean: [10-17] Senate report: How private equity 'gutted' dozens of US hospitals: Thanks to modern tricks of financial engineering, investors can prosper even when the underlying business is failing."

Ukraine and Russia:

Elsewhere in the world and/or/in spite of America's empire:

  • Philip Balboni: [10-14] Why US foreign policy today is a form of 'isolationism': "Those throwing around the epithet are the ones driving us to be more alone in the world."

  • Van Jackson: I just ran across him today, but he has several books I should have noticed by now, and a Substack newsletter that I'll cite below. He describes himself as "a one-time 'defense intellectual' and a longtime creature of the national security state," but also "on the left," albeit only in a "vague cosmopolitanism and an antiwar sensibility, yet reflexively in support of the going concerns of the Democratic Partly, including (paradoxically) military primacy."

Other stories:

  • Joshua Frank: [10-18] Pissing everyone off for 30 damn years: A memoir of writing for Counterpunch since 1998, tied on the publication's 30th anniversary to their annual funding campaign.

  • Whizy Kim: [10-16] Is every car dealer trying to rip me off? "Why buying a car is the worst kind of shopping." Cited here because after 18 years I'm in the market for a new car, and because I've been for 2-3 years without ever managing to put the time and effort into it. I've only bought one used and four new cars in my life, and the new car I spent the least time shopping for was by far the worst -- the others were pretty good deals on pretty good cars. But I've seen a lot of crap like this, and it pays to beware.

Obituaries

Books

  • Ta-Nehisi Coates: The Message

  • Bob Woodward: War.

    • Fred Kaplan: [10-15] Bob Woodward's latest book tells the story of America's declining leverage in the world. Link title was "Bob Woodward's new book is about Biden, but the most urgent takeaways are about Trump." This is just more proof of the truly ridiculous extent to which Trump has dominated our minds since 2015. Nearly four years out of office, it still feels like he's the incumbent, to no small extent because most of our regrets and great fears of the moment are directly traceable back to him, but because of his amazing (and I'll use the word "ridiculous" again here) domination of the noosphere (apologies for using a word almost everyone will have to look up, so I can at least save you that trouble: per Merriam-Webster: "the sphere of human consciousness and mental activity especially in regard to its influence on the biosphere and in relation to evolution"). In short, he's in our heads, as intractable as an earworm, and several orders of magnitude more disturbing. I've been struggling with trying to narrow down "the top ten reasons for voting for Harris against Trump," but number one has to be: MAKE IT STOP!

      Returning to the book, Kaplan writes a bit about Biden:

      Woodward's style of storytelling is more episodic than structural. Chapters tend to run for just a few pages. His mantra tends to be "And then . . . and then . . . and then . . . " as opposed to "And so . . . and so . . . and so . . ." Still, the stories here hang together, more than they usually do, because of their underlying thread -- as the title suggests, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and how Biden and his team dealt with them.

      For the most part, Woodward is impressed, concluding that they engaged in "genuine good faith efforts" to "wield the levers of executive power responsibly and in the national interest," adding, "I believe President Biden and this team will be largely studied in history as an example of steady and purposeful leadership."

      Needless to say at this point, I disagree with nearly everything that Biden has done in the foreign policy arena, but Woodward's wording here -- "good faith efforts," "steady and purposeful leadership" -- betrays the subtext, where the baseline for praise is "at least he's not Trump." So I can get the point, without having to agree with the particulars. Kaplan continues:

      This is an uncharacteristically bold assertion for any author, much less Woodward, who, throughout his 50-year career, has been the less judgmental half of the Woodward and Bernstein team that broke the Watergate scandal and brought down Richard Nixon. In a Playboy interview back in 1989, he admitted that analysis wasn't his strong point; it still isn't. But heading into his ninth decade, with nearly two dozen books under his belt, it seems he feels entitled -- properly so -- to render some verdicts from journalism's high bench.

      He dangled his new assertiveness in 2020, on the eve of that year's election, when he wrote, as the last line in Rage, "Donald Trump is the wrong man for the job." The next year, after Trump's defeat, he ended Peril by musing, "What is your country? What has it become under Trump?"

      And even in War, where Trump plays a cameo role as he mulls making another run for the White House, Woodward declares, just before touting Biden's legacy, "Donald Trump is not only the wrong man for the presidency, he is unfit to lead the country."

Music (and other arts?)

Chatter

  • Meme quote from Michelle Wolf: "You know in High School if you didn't believe in Science or History, it was just called failing." I got this from a Facebook thread, with several interesting comments, including this one from Clifford Ocheltree:

    I shall only point to an earlier remark, the failure of our educational system to teach critical thinking. To be skeptical in the absence of that learned skill is pure ignorance. I would add that perception plays a critical role in how an uneducated populace becomes 'skeptical,' 'credulous' and 'easily duped.' We are, we have become, the product of a failed educational system. One in which the vast majority of the population cannot read directions on a bottle of aspirin or name the three branches of the Federal Government. These failures allow both parties to play fast and loose with history and science knowing full well the audience isn't likely to 'get it.'

    Ocheltree also addressed history: "History is the interpretation of fact by 'experts' who bring their own bias." Someone else picked this up, noting "I can't help laugh at the notion of your feigning disdain for history" then asking "why do you lap up so many history books?" Ocheltree replied:

    Fact and history are not the same thing. Most 'experts' (historians) have a bias and view 'facts' through that lens. Nearly 50 years ago I read an excellent book by Frances Fitzgerald, "America Revised: History Schoolbooks in the Twentieth Century" (1979). A discussion and analysis of how history teaching and texts had changed over the years. At times the result of new information coming to light and at others the outgrowth of changing social standards or political leanings. Some 20 years ago I discovered some 'facts' while researching. Trial testimony with supporting documentation (original records) in a Virginia court house basement. At a conference I had some time to speak with the author of the leading text(s) being used on the topic by any number of colleges. I shared my findings, privately, as they disproved a good chunk of his work. His response in short? Nobody will give a shit that I was wrong, my text is the accepted standard and will always be paramount because it makes my point.

    I would add, history and record reviews are much the same. The author collects 'facts,' the critic listens. Each applies his/her own bias. The idea that anyone would accept an authors' work(s) as 'unbiased' strikes me as a failure of our education system. Steven Pinker's recent work has focused on the utter lack of training students in the basics of critical thinking. I 'lap up' history books with a jaundiced eye. I love the topic but learned many years ago, just because a book has been issued isn't 'proof' that it is accurate.

    Hardin Smith, who started this thread, added:

    Who said fact and history are the same thing? I sure didn't. But that doesn't mean it's not worth studying and it doesn't mean that it doesn't behoove people to have a working knowledge of it. And certainly you'd agree that there are certain things that we can all agree on, or at least on the general outlines. Here's a question: if so much of what you read is biased, whose work are you using to make that judgment? Is there a higher unbiased source you go to? And, are there certain historical events that we can all agree to? The Holocaust, the Moon Landing, Trump's loss in '20? Or is everything in your world subjective opinion? Also, history is not like record reviews, sorry. Record reviews are totally based on opinion, but though there may be bias, history at least concerns itself with actual facts. It's a subjective interpretation of actual facts. There's never completely removing bias in anything produced by humans, but I'd submit to you that some are more biased than others. Some are relatively free of bias. None of it means that history isn't worth knowing.

    It's tempting to go all philosophical here, and argue that it's all biased, all subjective, at best assertions that are subject to independent verification -- same for record reviews, although the odds of being rejected by other subjectives there are much elevated compared to science, which has a longer history of refinement and consensus building (not that similar processes don't apply to record reviewing). Still, not much disagreement here. Smith seems to find it important to maintain a conceptual division between opinion and fact, between subjective and objective, which I find untenable and not even necessary (although it's easy to fall into when arguing with idiots -- which is why Wolf's joke is so cutting).

    This leads us back to the importance of critical thinking, which is ultimately a process of understanding one's own biases -- starting, of course, with exposing the biases of others. (Much like crazy people developed psychoanalysis to understand, and ultimately to master, their own neuroses.)

  • Ali Abunimah: [10-21] In April, under pressure from "Israel," @amazon banned the sale of The Thorn and the Carnation, the novel by Palestinian resistance leader Yahya Sinwar.

    You can still buy copies of Hitler's Mein Kampf from Amazon, in multiple languages.

    [Link to: Amazon pulls book by Hamas leader Sinwar. By the way, you can also still buy copies of Herzl's The Jewish State, in many editions, as well as his utopian novel, Altneuland (The Old New-Land) -- you know, the one about how happy Arabs will be once Jews are running the state.]

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Monday, October 14, 2024

Speaking of Which

File opened 2024-10-08 11:43 AM.

I had the thought of writing up a "top ten reasons for voting for Kamala Harris and the Democrats this year," but haven't gotten much further than considering the possibility of adding a second list of "top five reasons why voting for Kamala Harris and the Democrats won't be enough." The former is obviously dominated by how bad the Republican offerings are, although you still have to establish that at least in some significant respects, Democrats are preferable. If you can't show that, you can't reject the "third party" option. The second list might even help there, in that most of my reservations are about programs that don't go far enough. The exceptions there are Israel/Palestine and Russia/Ukraine, where Harris doesn't go anywhere at all.

So while I have zero doubt that I will vote for Harris/Walz, and most likely for every other Democrat who bothers to run here in Kansas, I've spent most of my time here dealing with the pressing issues of war, which the election will have little obvious impact on. The best hope I can offer is a mere hunch that Harris has locked herself into a Netanyahu dittohead position out of the calculated fear that any sign of wavering might precipitate a sudden pro-Israel shift toward Trump, and scuttle her campaign, but that once she wins, she'll have more room to maneuver behind the scenes, and ease back toward the more viable ground of decency. In any case, decency isn't even an incidental prospect with Trump.

Monday night, I ended this arbitrarily, with little sense of how much more I didn't get to.

The following is a bit from Gideon Levy's The Killing of Gaza: Reports on a Catastrophe (pp. 9-11):

Israel's media have acted this way for years. They conceal the occupation and whitewash its crimes. No one orders them to do this; it is done willingly, out of the understanding that this is what their consumers want to hear. For the commercial media, that is the top and foremost consideration. In this way Israel's media have become the most important agent for dehumanization of the Palestinians, without the need for censorship or a government directing it to do so. The media take on this role in the knowledge that this is what their customers want and expect of it. They don't want to know anything about what their state and army are carrying out, because the best way to be at peace with the reality of occupation, apartheid and war is with denial, suppression and dehumanization.

There is no more effective and tried means to keep alive an occupation so brutal and cruel as dehumanization via the media. Colonialist powers have always known this. Without the systematic concealment, over dozens of years, and the dehumanization, it may well be that public opinion would have reflected greater opposition to the situation among Israelis. But, if you don't say anything, don't show anything, don't know anything and have no desire to know anything, either, if the Palestinians are not truly human -- not like us, the Israelis -- then the crime being committed against them goes down easier, can be tolerated.

The October 7 war brought all of this to new heights. Israel's media showed almost nothing of what was happening in Gaza, and Israelis saw only their own suffering, over and over, as if it was the only suffering taking place. When Gazans counted 25,000 fatalities in less than four months, most of them innocent noncombatants, in Israel there was no shock. In fact, shock was not permitted, because it was seen as a type of disloyalty. While in Gaza 10,000 children were killed, Israelis continued to occupy themselves exclusively with their captives and their own dead. Israelis told themselves that all Gazans were Hamas, children included, even the infants, and that after October 7, everyone was getting just what they deserved, and there was no need to report on it. Israelis sank into their own disaster, just theirs.

The absence of reporting on what was happening in Gaza constituted the Israeli media's first sin. The second was only slightly less egregious: the tendency to bring only one voice into the TV studios and the pages of the printed press. This was a voice that supported, justified and refused to question the war. Any identification with the suffering in Gaza, or worse, any call to end the war because of its accumulating crimes, was not viewed as legitimate in the press, and certainly not by public opinion. This passed quietly, even calmly, in Israel.

In Israel, people were fine with not having to see Gaza. The Jewish left only declined in size, great numbers of people said they had the scales removed from their eyes -- that is, October 7 led to their awakening from the illusion, the lies, the preconceptions they had previously held. It was sufficient for a single cruel attack for many on the left to have their entire value system overturned. A single cruel attack was sufficient to unite Israelis around a desire for revenge and a hatred not only of those who had carried out that attack, but of everyone around them. No one considered what might be taking place in the hearts and minds of the millions of Palestinians who have been living with the occupation's horrors for all these dozens of years.

What kind of hatred must exist there, if here in Israel such hatred and mistrust could sprout up after a single attack, horrific as it may have been. This "waking up" among the left has to raise serious questions about its seriousness and resilience. This wasn't the first time that the left crumbled in the face of the first challenge it encountered.

I've long been struck by the fickleness of the "peace camp" in Israel: in particular, by how quickly people who should know better rally behind Israeli arms at the slightest provocation. Amos Oz and David Grossman are notorious repeat-offenders here, but the effect is so common that it can only be explained by some kind of mass psychology so deep-seated that it can be triggered any time some faction sees an opportunity for war.

Top story threads:

Israel's year of infamy:

  • Mondoweiss: A website founded by Philip Weiss which has moved beyond its origins as a vehicle for progressive Jews to express their misgivings about Israel by providing an outlet for a wide range of Palestinian voices, this has long been my first stop for news about Israel/Palestine, and has been extraordinarily invaluable over the past year. Here's their: Palestinians reflect: One year of genocide:

    • Michael Arria: [10-10] A year of genocide, a year of protest: "Despite the horror we are watching unfold in Palestine, the movement challenging Israel has seen unprecedented growth and accomplishments in the past year." A reminder that every action produces a reaction -- perhaps not "opposite and equal," but things have a way of settling out over time.

    • Noura Erakat: [10-08] Five things we've learned since October 7. From an August 30 speech as part of a panel titled "All Eyes on Palestine."

      1. It has exposed the enduring colonial nature of international law
      2. This is a U.S. genocide of Palestinians
      3. Universities are an extension of the state's coercive apparatus
      4. Zionism has no moral legs to stand on
      5. Racism and power -- the invisibility and power of Palestinians

    • Tareq S Hajjaj: [10-07] After October 7, my home became a bag I carry with me: "I have lived through my own Nakba and understand why thousands of Palestinians fled their homes in 1948. I made the most difficult decision of my life and left Gaza, not knowing that what I carried might be all I will ever possess of my homeland."

    • Reem A Hamadaqa: [10-07] My martyrs live on: "Out from under the rubble, I see my martyrs waving for me. They all stand again. They smile. They live. They go back home."

    • Maen Hammad: [10-09] Photo essay: An autobiography of uprising: "Documenting one year of revolt from the occupied West Bank to the East Coast."

    • Hebh Jamal: [10-10] The Gaza I knew is gone with our martyrs: "We do not fight for Palestine for our family. I am no longer clinging to the hope of reunification and survival. We fight for Palestine because the liberation of its people means the liberation of us all."

    • Ghada Karmi: [10-08] The true lesson of October 7 is that Israel cannot be reformed: "The year since October 7 has shown us that Israel can neither be accommodated nor reformed. It must be dismantled, and Zionism must be brought to an end. Only this will finally alleviate the Palestinians' terrible ordeal over the past 76 years." This is an argument that I instinctively dislike and recoil from, but I do take the point that it is incumbent on Israelis to show that they are open to reform, the first step to which would be the recognition that they have done wrong, and the resolve to stop doing so, and to start making amends. Whether they can salvage some sense of Zionist legacy is an open question. The strands of thought and culture that drove Israel to genocide are woven deep in their history, and won't be easy to dispose of, but I wouldn't exclude all hope that Israel might recover.

    • Rawan Masri: [10-11] October 7 created a new world, but there is so much left to be done: "We live in an entirely new world than a year ago. The ugly, racist, violent logic dominating our lives has been irrevocably exposed. Will we allow that logic to prevail?"

    • Qassam Muaddi: [10-09] After a year of extermination, Palestine is still alive: "Palestinians have endured 76 years of the Nakba and now the 2024 genocide. Despite Israel and the West's desire to erase our existence, we continue to declare, 'We won't leave.'"

    • Salman Abu Sitta: [10-07] From ethnic cleansing to genocide: "I am a survivor of the 1948 Nakba who lived to witness the 2024 genocide. I may not live to see justice be made, but I am certain our long struggle will be rewarded. Our grandchildren will live at home once again."

  • Ruwaida Kamal Amer: [10-05] After a year of terror in Gaza, our souls feel suspended in time: "I've cheated death, mourned friends, and lost my livelihood. Just when I was on the cusp of leaving this torment, Israel shut our last crossing to the world."

  • Alice Austin: [10-07] A year after the Nova massacre, survivors are still paralyzed with grief: "The Nova festival was the site of October 7's largest massacre. Now, survivors and the families of those murdered are suing the state for negligence." One section head here is in quotes: "It's impossible to heal, because it's never-ending." But the massacre itself ended almost as quickly as it started. What has never ended has been the political use and psychological abuse of that massacre as a pretext for genocide. End that, and everyone can start healing.

  • Ramzy Baroud: [10-11] A year of genocide. "No one had expected that one year would be enough to recenter the Palestinian cause as the world's most pressing issue, and that millions of people across the globe, would, once again, rally for Palestinian freedom." In some limited sense that may be true, but I don't see how it works out. Not for lack of trying, but those "millions of people" haven't been very effective, nor is their fortune likely to change.

  • Joel Beinin: [10-07] Yahrzeit for October 7: Long note on Facebook, including:

    Since October 7, organizations of the American Jewish establishment, like the Jewish Federations and the Anti-Defamation League, have weaponized our grief, decontextualized it, promoted falsehoods about what happened that day, and deployed Israeli propaganda talking points to justify a genocidal onslaught against the Gaza Strip. Within days of October 7, Israeli political and military leaders publicly declared their intention to exact vengeance by destroying Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip. Leading with a campaign of mass bombing in densely populated areas that could only result in massive civilian deaths, they have done so. Israel's conduct of the war does not conform to any reasonable definition of self-defense.

    The second half of the piece is devoted to relatively old history, especially an event in 1971, which leads into the final paragraph:

    The January 2, 1971 attack on the Aroyo family and Israel's brutal response to it prefigure, albeit on a much smaller scale, the events of October 7, 2023 and their aftermath. Shlomo Gazit was correct. Israeli security cannot be achieved by committing war crimes and ethnic cleansing. Palestinian liberation cannot be achieved by murdering civilians.

  • Helen Benedict: [10-03] Ending the cycle of revenge: "Bereaved Israelis and Palestinians use their grief to advocate for reconciliation and peace together."

  • Robert Grenier: [10-05] How Israel's brutal war strategy has remade the Middle East: "Israel set out to reestablish military superiority. It succeeded -- at catastrophic human cost." Article misses the obvious question, which is why "military superiority" matters to anyone other than the military budget makers, as well as why the Hamas attack on October 7 made them think they had something to prove. As for "remaking the Middle East," it really looks much like it did just over a year ago, except for the humanitarian crisis which Israel itself is solely responsible for. (Sure, blame America for aiding, but had Israel not wanted to launch its multi-front war, Americans would have bowed and scraped just the same.)

  • Anis Shivani: [10-11] Israel won: I considered pairing this piece with Baroud (above) as a sobering counterpoint, but it has its own problems. While Palestinians have lost much, it's hard to say what (if anything) Israel has won. Also, he seems to be stuck on the notion that the US is the architect of Israel's foreign policy, whereas the opposite seems much closer to the truth.

  • Nick Turse: [10-07] Israel's year of killing, maiming, starving, and terrorizing the people of Gaza: "Taking stock of the human toll of one year of destruction in the densely packed Gaza Strip." Lots of statistics follow, ending with:

    Last year, images and video of the survivor of the October 7, 2023, strike in Abasan Al-Kabira, 11-year-old Tala Abu Daqqa, circulated online. In a short video, the young girl -- her face peppered with tiny cuts -- appears glassy-eyed, broken, shattered. That day, the first of the war, she became one of the now 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza who have witnessed or directly experienced conflict trauma and one of the 1 million children in need of mental health and psychosocial support. Since the attack, at least 138,000 fellow Gazans have been killed or wounded.

    Numbers can't tell the full story of the suffering of children and adults living under a year of Israeli bombardment. No matter how accurate, figures can't capture the scope of their sorrow or the depth of their distress. An estimate of how many million tons of rubble Israeli attacks have produced can offer a sense of the scale of destruction, but not the impact of each strike on the lives of those who survived, and the effect on the future of Gaza given how many didn't.

    Numbers are wholly insufficient to explain Tala Abu Daqqa's anguish. Statistics can't tell us much about how living through such a catastrophe affects an 11-year-old child. Heartache defies calculation. Psychological distress can't be reduced to the score on a trauma questionnaire. There is no meaningful way to quantify her loss except, perhaps, by offering up two basic, final numbers that will stay with her forever: two parents and three sisters killed.

Israel:

  • Mondoweiss:

  • Jonathan Adler: Israel's paradoxical crusade against UNRWA: "Israeli officials are relying on UNRWA to prevent a polio epidemic -- while the Knesset advances laws to expel the agency." Paradox?

  • Dave DeCamp: [10-13] Israeli government done with ceasefire talks, seeks annexation of Gaza.

    Israeli defense officials told Haaretz on Sunday that the Israeli government is not seeking to revive ceasefire talks with Hamas and is now pushing for the gradual annexation of large portions of the Gaza Strip. . . .

    The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth has reported that Israeli forces in Jabalia are carrying out a "scaled-down" version of the "general's plan," an outline for the complete ethnic cleansing of northern Gaza and the killing of any Palestinians who choose to stay, whether by military action or starvation. The UN's World Food Program said Saturday that no food aid has entered northern Gaza since October 1. . . .

    If Israel is successful in cleansing northern Gaza of its Palestinian population, it would pave the way for the establishment of Jewish-only settlements in the area, an idea openly supported by many Israeli ministers and Knesset members. The general's plan calls for the tactics to be used in other parts of the Strip once the north is cleansed.

  • Tareq S Hajjaj: [10-09] Inside Israel's ongoing invasion of Jabalia in northern Gaza: "Israel laid siege to Jabalia in northern Gaza on the anniversary of October 7. Residents tell Mondoweiss that the Israeli army is forcibly conscripting civilians as human shields and shooting residents who attempt to evacuate."

  • Mohammed R Mhawish: [10-09] I'm still reporting on Gaza. But the blood on our streets is no closer to drying: "Palestinian journalists write for a future that doesn't involve counting the dead -- for the bombs to stop, the tanks to roll back, and the drones to disappear."

  • Ibrahim Mohammad/Mahmoud Mushtaha: [10-10] 'Dead bodies everywhere' in Jabalia camp as Israel besieges northern Gaza: "Gazans in the north are trapped in their homes as Israel launches a new military operation, threatening and shooting at fleeing residents."

  • Qassam Muaddi: [10-08] 'I can't feel anything anymore': women in a West Bank refugee camp reflect on a year of Israeli military raids on their homes: "After a year of near-constant Israeli military raids on their homes and private spaces, women are some of the most affected among the Palestinian residents of Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem."

  • Suzi Weissman: [10-07] Israeli politics is even more right-wing since October 7: Interview with Yoav Peled.

  • Mairav Zonszein: [10-07] On Israeli apathy. I resisted the word "apathy" here. It's a commonplace that many (most?) Israelis have lost the ability to recognize Palestinians as human beings -- a loss of empathy that makes them indifferent to horrendous violence. But it's easier to understand that as hatred than as apathy. And no doubt much Israeli propaganda is devoted to stoking hate, but that goes hand-in-hand with efforts to desensitize Israelis to the effects of violence directed at others, and ultimately to keep Israelis from realizing that their own violence is doing to themselves.

    The lawlessness and state violence directed at Palestinians for so long have started to seep into Jewish Israeli society. Mr. Netanyahu's refusal to assume responsibility for the security failures of Oct. 7, his grip on power despite corruption trials, his emboldening of some of the most radical and messianic elements in Israel are a testament to that. The nearly carte blanche support Israel has received from the Biden administration throughout much of this war has further empowered the most hard-line elements of the nation's politics. And yet many Israelis are still not making the connection between their inability to get the government to prioritize Israeli life and how expendable that government treats Palestinian life.

    Without this realization, it is hard to see how Israelis can pave a different path forward that does not rely on the same dehumanization and lawlessness. This, for me, has made what is already a dire, desperate reality seemingly irredeemable. For Israelis to start carving a way out of this mess, they will have to feel outraged not only by what is being done to them, but also what is being done to others in their name, and demand that it stop. Without that, I'm not sure that I, like other Israelis with the privilege to consider it, see a future here.

    Any state that allows such abuse will ultimately turn its anger and callousness on its own people.

Lebanon:

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

  • Michael Arria:

  • Sunjeev Bery: [10-10] US foreign policy has created a genocidal Israel: "Without massive, unconditional US military subsidies, Israel would have had to practice diplomacy with their neighbors years ago." One could just as easily argue that Israel has steered the US toward increasing embrace, if not (yet) of full-blown genocide, then at least to the leading policies of "extraordinary rendition," "black sites," and "targeted assassination," as Israel became first the model, then the laboratory for the "war on terror" -- really just a cult that believes that sheer force can overcome all obstacles. Or one can argue that genocide is encoded in the DNA of our shared settler-colonial origins, a latent tendency which flowers whenever and wherever conditions allow.

    There can be no doubt that the American "blank check" has contributed significantly to those conditions. And on the surface, it would seem that the rare occasions when American presidents attempted to restrain Israel were successful: in 1956, Eisenhower forced Israel to retreat from Egypt; in 1967 and 1973 the US and Russia brokered UN ceasefire resolutions; in 1978, Carter halted Israel's intervention in Lebanon, and in 1979 Carter brokered a peace agreement with Egypt; in 1990-91, Bush restrained Israel from retaliating against Iraq, and pressed for peace talks, which ultimately led to Israelis replacing the recalcitrant Shamir with Rabin, leading to the ill-fated Oslo Accords. But in fact, every apparent accommodation Israeli leaders made to US pressure was systematically subverted, with most of the offenses repeated as soon as allowed: the war against Egypt that Eisenhower ended was relaunched with Johnson; the invasion of Lebanon that Carter held back returned with Reagan; the sham "peace process" under Clinton was demolished -- well, actually repackaged in caricature -- with GW Bush. But under Trump and Biden, American subservience -- which is part pure corruption, but also imbued in war-on-terror culture -- has become so complete that Netanyahu no longer bothers to pretend.

    Actually, Israel's die was set in two previous events where a realistically alternative path was possible and rejected -- in both cases, by David Ben-Gurion. The first was in 1936, when British authorities realized what a mess of their mandate in Palestine, and proposed, through the Peel Commission, to solve their problem with a program of partition and mandatory transfer: divide the land into two pieces, and force all the Jews to one side, and all the Arabs to the other. The division, of course, was unfair, not just in the ratio of people to land but especially in that nearly all of people forcibly uprooted and "transferred" would be Arabs. But Ben-Gurion, whose power base at the time was the Hebrew-only union Histadrut, saw in the proposal the prospect of an ethnically pure Jewish state, which could with independence and time build up a military that could seize any additional lands they thought they needed.

    The British proposal was not only rejected by the Palestinians, but precipitated a revolt which took the British (and the Israeli militias they encouraged) three years to suppress, and then only when the British to the main Palestinian demand, which was to severely limit Jewish immigration. But Ben-Gurion kept the drive for partition alive, eventually persuading the UN to approve it in diluted form -- the "transfer" was sotto voce, but when the British withdrew in 1948, Israel's militias merged into the IDF, significantly expanded beyond the resolution's borders, and drove more than 700,000 Palestinians from their homes into exile. The resulting Israel wasn't as large or as pure as Ben-Gurion had hoped, but it soon became as powerful, as became clear in its wars against Egypt in 1956 and 1967 (and its defense in 1973).

    One can argue that Ben-Gurion did what needed to be done in order to found and secure Israel. But once Israel was free and secure, it had options, one of which was to treat its new minority fairly, earn its respect and loyalty, and disarm its neighbors by normalizing relations. Ben-Gurion didn't do that, but he did give way to his lieutenant, Moshe Sharrett, who was much more inclined to moderation. Ben-Gurion's second fateful decision was to return to politics, deposing Sharrett, and returning Israel to the path of militarism, ethnocracy and empire building. This led straight to the 1956 war, and its 1967 reprisal. Ben-Gurion had retired again before the latter, but he had left successors who would carry on his maximalist objectives (notably, Moshe Dayan, Golda Meir, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, and Ariel Sharon; meanwhile, he had rehabilitated his old enemies from the Jabotinsky wing, from Menachem Begin to Benjamin Netanyahu, and integrated into the political system the followers of the ultra-orthodox and ultra-nationalist Kook rabbis -- pretty much the entire spectrum of current Israeli politics).

    I like to think of Ben-Gurion's return to power as similar to Mao's Cultural Revolution: the last desperate attempt of an aging revolutionary to recreate his glory days rather than simply resting on his laurels. It is interesting that Ben-Gurion advised against the 1967 war, arguing that Palestinians wouldn't flee from Israel's advancing armies like they did in 1948, so any land gained would reduce the Jewish demographic majority he had fought for, and be burdened with a heavy-handed occupation. But once the war ended so decisively, he was delighted, and his followers were confident they could handle the occupation -- the bigger threat was that Egypt and Syria would fight to get their land back, as they did in 1973.

    While Ben-Gurion has had extraordinary influence on Israel's entire history, he has at least in one respect been eclipsed of late: he always understood that occupation was a burden, one that can and should be lightened by some manner of decency, and he also understood that Israel needs friends and alliances in the world, which again demands that Israel show some decency and respect. Shlomo Avineri ends his The Making of Modern Zionism with chapters on Ben-Gurion, Jabotinsky, and Kook. Ben-Gurion at least understood the rudiments of social solidarity, and saw practical value in it, even if his socialism was radically circumscribed by his nationalism. Most Israelis today no longer feel the need: like Jabotinsky, they believe that power conquers all, and that the powerful should be accountable to none; while some, like Kook, see their power as divinely ordained, as is their mission to redeem greater Eretz Yisrael, and purge it of its intruders. To them, America is just a tool they can use for their own ends. Indeed, it's hard to explain why Biden and his predecessors have indulged Israel so readily. Which, I suppose, is why Bery's thesis, that American power has always been rotten, cannot be easily dismissed. His conclusion is not wrong, except inasmuch as he implies conscious intent:

    The simple reality is that U.S. foreign policy remains just as bloody and horrific as it has always been. In earlier decades, "acceptable" losses included the 1 to 2 million civilians killed in Vietnam, another million dead in Indonesia, the carnage of U.S.-backed dictators across Latin America, and the hundreds of thousands killed during the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Today's U.S. military and diplomatic interventions in the Middle East are no different.

    To end Israel's horrific actions in the Middle East, we must change the politics of America itself. This is no easy task, given the robust power and influence of pro-Israel -- and pro-war -- networks, donors, and lobbying groups inside the U.S. But it is the task at hand, and it should be the focus of every person of conscience, both within and outside the borders of the United States. As has been true in other regions of the world, U.S. foreign policy is the fundamental obstacle to justice, democracy, and peace in the Middle East.

    Page also included a link to a year-old article which adds background depth here:

  • Max Boot: [10-10] There is no purely military solution to Israel's security woes: And this from a guy who sees "military solutions" like a hammer sees nails.

  • Yaniv Cogan: [10-06] Blinken approved policy to bomb aid trucks, Israeli cabinet members suggest.

  • Daniel L Davis: [09-16] Israel's conduct in the war will consume us all: "Netanyahu used a sledgehammer when a scalpel was the right tool -- now everyone is paying the price."

  • Liza Featherstone: [10-06] The chicken hawks want war with Iran.

  • Jeet Heer: [10-11] The high cost of Biden's policy of unconditional support for Israel: "Beyond hobbling Kamala Harris's campaign, Biden is leaving behind a disaster that will last decades."

  • Khader Jabbar: [10-06] Israel and Iran: Unpacking Western media bias with Assal Rad: "Assal Rad joins The Mondoweiss Podcast to discuss media coverage of recent events in Palestine and Lebanon and the persistent pro-Israel bias in Western media."

  • Jake Johnson: [10-13] Alarm as Pentagon confirms deployment of US troops to Israel: "Netanyahu is as close as he has ever been to his ultimate wish: making the US fight Iran on Israel's behalf." The deployment is pretty limited -- "an advanced antimissile system and around 100 US troops" -- but it encourages Israel to provoke further armed responses from Iran, while making American troops handy targets for all sorts of terrorist mischief. Washington, conditioned to see Iran as a potential aggressor, probably sees this as purely defensive, urgent given Iran's threats (and occasional but mostly symbolic practice) of retaliation, and practical in that trained troops can get the system operative much faster than just handing the weapons over to Israel. Netanyahu, on the other hand, will see this as confirmation that the Americans are on the hook for war with Iran. They also understand that if/when Iran wants to hit back in ways that actually hurt, the US has many easier targets to hit than the patch of Israel this weapon system is meant to protect.

  • Imran Khalid: [10-09] Israel is the greatest threat to US strategy in the Middle East: "Netanyahu's push for a military victory beyond Gaza threatens to drag Washington into a broader regional war, challenging America's long-term interests in the region."

  • Rashid Khalidi:

    • [10-13] Israel is acting with full US approval: An interview with the noted historian, author of many books, including Brokers of Deceit: How the US Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East (2013). I still find it a bit hard to buy into his main point:

      The first thing we have to do is to disabuse ourselves of the notion that the United States has any reservations about what Israel is doing. Israel is doing what it is doing in careful and close coordination with Washington, and with its full approval. The United States does not just arm and diplomatically protect what Israel does; it shares Israel's goals and approves of Israel's methods.

      The tut-tutting, the pooh-poohing, and the crocodile tears about humanitarian issues and civilian casualties are pure hypocrisy. The United States has signed on to Israel's approach to Lebanon -- it wants Israel to destroy Hezbollah and Hamas. It does not have any reservations about the basic approach of Israel, which is to attack the civilian population in order to force change in Lebanon and obviously in Gaza. . . .

      The United States helps Israel in targeting Hezbollah and Hamas leaders -- that is a fact. Anybody who ignores that and pretends that there's any daylight between what Israel does and what the United States wants it to do is lying to themselves or is lying to us.

      I don't have any evidence to contradict this, but this doesn't fit the model I have of American interests and motivations. The most likely part of this story is the low-level sharing of signals intelligence and targeting information, because that doesn't have to go through diplomatic levels where questions might be asked about what it's being used for. That sort of thing is pre-approved, not because Israel is doing America's dirty work but because US officials have, as a matter of political convenience, given up any pretense of independent thought where Israel is concerned.

    • [05-07] Violent settler colonialism caused this war: Earlier interview, happened to find it in an open tab.

  • Maureen Clare Murphy: [10-05] US admits it doesn't want diplomatic solution.

  • Paul R Pillar: [10-07] Biden is letting Israel trap the US into war with Iran: "One year after Hamas' Oct 7 attacks, regional conflict is raging with no end in sight."

  • Ben Samuels: [10-02] In US election, Israel might be the ultimate October surprise: "For the first time, there's a real chance that Israel may help sway the race. Election Day is 34 days away. Undoubtedly, many more surprises are in store, and none of them are likely to be pleasant."

  • Dahlia Scheindlin: [10-01] Hamas and Hezbollah trapped Israel on October 7. Now Israel is trapping Iran and America: "Tehran and Washington are facing tremendous dilemmas, trapped between two highly fraught options. Their choices will determine the fate of the Middle East for both the short term and for years to come." But the only real choice here is Israel's, as they can keep doing this until they get their desired result, which is America and Iran at war.

  • Ishaan Tharoor: [10-09] How Netanyhahu shattered Biden's Middle East hopes: "The Israeli prime minister tested and bested President Joe Biden's diplomatic strategy around the growing conflict in the Middle East." The logical fallacy here is in thinking that Biden ever had his own plans for anything involving Israel.

  • Nick Turse:

  • Jonah Valdez: One year of empty rhetoric from the White House on Israel's wars.

  • Sharon Zhang:

Israel vs. world opinion:

  • Kyle Anzalone: [10-13] Israel to seize UN agency's headquarters for new settlement housing: That would be the UNRWA offices in East Jerusalem.

  • Marjorie Cohn: [10-08] As Israel extends its genocide into the West Bank, it targets and kills children.

  • Julia Conley: [10-11] Hiroshima survivor and nuke abolitionist wins Nobel Peace Price, spotlights Gaza: "Toshiyuki Mimaki said he thought 'the people working so hard in Gaza' would be honored, referring to UNRWA aid workers."

  • Jim Fitzgerald: [10-14] Israel against itself and Israel against all.

    There is a good bit of evidence that suggests Israel is unraveling from within. It now appears that Zionism, like communism, is a self-defeating project. In June of this year, renown Jewish historian, Ilan Pappé, suggested [link follows] that the collapse of Zionism may be imminent. According to Pappé, "We are witnessing a historical process -- or, more accurately, the beginnings of one -- that is likely to culminate in the downfall of Zionism."

    In a manner eerily reminiscent of ancient Israel, modern Israel is quickly dividing into two separate states: the State of Israel and the State of Judea. The former identifies as a secular liberal democracy while the latter consists of far right religious zealots who want to establish a theocracy, and believe that God has promised them all the land between the Nile and the Euphrates.

    Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich is a leading figure of this latter group. In a new documentary produced by Arte, Smotrich claimed that "the future of Jerusalem is to expand to Damascus."

    Not surprisingly, Smotrich's vision for the State of Judea includes annexing territories presently belonging to Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. The members of this group, including, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Minister of National Security, believe that the events which transpired on October 7 provide the perfect pretext for them to realize their vision of Greater Israel.

    It should be noted here that Smotrich's party only holds seven seats (out of 120) in the Knesset, although they seem able to use their limited leverage to dominate the coalition government agenda.

  • Adam Johnson/Othman Ali: [10-14] A study reveals CNN and MSNBC's glaring Gaza double standard: "Palestinians received far less sympathetic and humanizing coverage than either Israelis or Ukrainians, a Nation analysis has found." Nice to have the charts and all the rigor, but the conclusion has been obvious for many years. It's been engineered by "hasbara" architects, and reinforced by the whispers of money in editors' ears.

  • David Klion: [10-08] The failure of liberal Zionism: "Israel has behaved exactly as its harshest critics predicted."

    By scapegoating Netanyahu, who has dominated the Israeli political system for most of the past fifteen years, liberal Zionists have been able to preserve in their imaginations the idealized Israel many of them fell in love with decades ago -- the Israel that was founded by secular socialists from Eastern Europe and that branded itself as a paragon of enlightened governance, even as it engaged from the beginning in colonization, land theft, murder, and expulsion on a scale that Netanyahu's coalition can only envy. By denying the essential nature of the Zionist project and its incompatibility with progressive values, liberal Zionists have also been in denial at every stage about the war to which they have pledged at least conditional support. They have insisted that the situation is "complicated," which is the framing Ta-Nehisi Coates absorbed during his tenure at the predominantly liberal Zionist Atlantic, and which he denounced as "horseshit" following a trip to the occupied West Bank in the summer of 2023. "It's complicated," Coates told New York magazine last month, deriding that common talking point, "when you want to take something from somebody."

    A year after October 7, no one seriously believes there will be peace between Israel and the Palestinians in our lifetime. The bombed and starved children of Gaza will never forget what they've been subjected to, nor the world's general indifference; while it's not on the same scale, their counterparts in Israel will never forget the national trauma of the attacks. The "two-state solution" that liberal Zionists have verbally supported for years as the only possible just outcome is an obvious fantasy. Other, far more disturbing outcomes seem likelier; at present, it is hard to see what consequences Israel will face from continuing to kill and displace Palestinians on all fronts while seizing and occupying more and more of their land. If there is one lesson to be taken from the past dismal year, it's this: the liberal Zionist interpretation of the conflict has no predictive value, no analytical weight, and no moral rigor. It is a failed dream of the previous century, and it is unlikely to survive this one.

  • Gideon Levy: [10-10] Israel has lost its humanity as it celebrates its power to kill: "A hundred innocents, a thousand, even ten thousand dead Palestinian children - none of this changes the new Israeli mindset."

    The loss of humanity in public discourse is a contagious and sometimes fatal disease. Recovery is very difficult. Israel has lost all interest in what it is doing to the Palestinian people, arguing that they "deserve it" - everyone, including women, children, the elderly, the sick, the hungry and the dead.

    The Israeli media, which has been more disgraceful over the past year than ever before, voluntarily carries the flag of incitement, inflaming passions and the loss of humanity, just to gratify its consumers.

    The domestic media has shown Israelis almost nothing of the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, while whitewashing manifestations of hatred, racism, ultra-nationalism, and sometimes barbarism, directed at the enclave and its population.

  • Owen Jones: [10-03] What atrocity would Israel have to commit for our leaders to break their silence?

  • Jake Romm: [09-24] There's another way to hold Netanyahu accountable for the Gaza genocide: "A case for prosecuting the Israeli prime minister for the crime of persecution." Good case, but in what court?

  • Said Zeedani: [10-08] Gaza's governance must remain in Palestinian hands: "Amid plans for external interventions, it is vital to build a consensus around an interim body to manage Gaza's urgent needs and pave the way for unity." I have no idea who's saying what about "external interventions," but nothing serious can happen until Israel implements a ceasefire (with or without any Hamas consent -- even if the hostages are not repatriated immediately, they will be much safer with a ceasefire), agrees to withdraw its forces, and renounces any claim to the land of Gaza and/or its people. If we've learned anything from the last year, it's that Israel is not fit to occupy land without citizens. That shouldn't be a hard sell to Israel, as they have no settlers in Gaza to contest claims, and they've more than made their point about what they will do to people who attack them.

    Once Israel is out of the picture, other people can get involved, immediately to rescue the people -- for the most part de-housed, with many diseased and/or starving -- and eventually to repair and rebuild. Gazans have great needs and no resources or leverage, so reconstruction will depend on the generosity of donors -- which may quite reasonably come with strings attached (especially to respect Israel's security, to avoid future repeats of its brutality). The one point which must be respected is that in due course Gaza must be self-governing, its sovereignty vested in the people who live there and are free to choose their own leaders. Any "interim authority" must lead without prejudice to such a democracy. Among other things, this means that it should not ensconce previous political parties (like Fatah or Hamas), nor should it exclude former members. Gaza should rebuild on a clean slate.

  • B'Tselem: The pogroms are working - the transfer is already happening: I've cited this report before, but it popped up again in Mazin Qumsiyeh's newsletter, and is worth repeating, as it helps put the post-Oct. 7 genocide into its much deeper historical context, as a continuation of a process which Israelis were diligently working on before they could accelerate it under the "fog of war." (You may recall that the Nazi extermination program only began after they invaded Russia, although the Nazis were rabidly antisemitic from the start, and committed many heinous crimes against Jews well before they crossed the line we now know as genocide.)

    This is mostly a report on events in the West Bank prior to the Oct. 7 Gaza revolt, after which settler violence in the West Bank -- "in the past two yeras, at least six West Bank communities have been displaced" -- only increased.

    For decades, Israel has employed a slew of measures designed to make life in dozens of Palestinian communities throughout the West Bank miserable. This is part of an attempt to force residents of these communities to uproot themselves, seemingly of their own accord. Once that is achieved, the state can realize its goal of taking over the land. To advance this objective, Israel forbids members of these communities from building homes, agricultural structures or public buildings. It does not allow them to connect to the water and power grids or build roads, and when they do, as they have no other choice, Israel threatens demolition, often delivering on these threats.

    Settler violence is another tool Israel employs to further torment Palestinians living in these communities. Such attacks have grown significantly worse under the current government, turning life in some places into an unending nightmare and denying residents any possibility of living with even minimal dignity. The violence has robbed Palestinian residents of their ability to continue earning a living. It has terrorized them to the point of fearing for their lives and made them internalize the understanding that there is no one to protect them.

    This reality has left these communities with no other choice, and several of them have uprooted themselves, leaving hearth and home for safer places. Dozens of communities scattered throughout the West Bank live in similar conditions. If Israel continues this policy, their residents may also be displaced, freeing Israel to achieve its goal and take over their land.

Election notes:

  • Gail Collins/Bret Stephens: [10-07] How could the election be this close? Good question, to which the article only offers the oblique of answer of demonstrating how clueless two New York Times opinion columnists can be. Stephens, at least, wears his ignorance on his sleeve, going out of his way to quote arbitrary Blacks and Hispanics who think Harris is "too liberal," "overall untrustworthy," and "unsure how prepared she is to be president." (And see those traits as worrisome compared to Trump?) Stephens also wants Harris to "name some widely respected policy heavyweights as members of her brain trust -- people like Robert Rubin and David Petraeus. And announce that Liz Cheney will be her secretary of state." Collins keeps her cluelessness hidden better. She has a reputation for humor, but here it's mostly just egging Stephens on to say stupid things.

    PS: Speaking of stupid Stephens things, this piece came to my attention:

    • Bret Stephens: [10-01] We absolutely need to escalate in Iran. It's quite possible that this was the inspiration for the "preemptive strike on Iran now?" question that opened the VP debate. The editorial came to my attention via:

    • Kathleen Wallace: [10-11] We absolutely do not need to escalate anything New York Times.

      Despite what those afflicted with sociopathy at the top want us to believe, we are hardwired to help each other. We've heard how the military has to work so hard to train killers, to erase that hesitation to kill, and how so many shots taken in war are purposely missed ones. When we see such wanton glee at killing we can bet that an immeasurable number of hours have been spent in the indoctrination of hatred, to erase the inclination for community and mutual aid. . . .

      But we all know how kids often turn out after living in violent and hate-filled homes and that's basically what all of us have been toiling under our whole lives. We all know we've been propagandized, it's a constant task that we need to be aware of this fact and we need to recognize things like "passive voice" so popular in newspapers like the New York Times. All these people dying, not being killed! Children being called adult terms to take away our natural gut reaction to their deaths . . . I think many have been able to break out of the arrogant decrees that are brought down by religious institutions but still are enamored with the liberal intelligentsia media. If they say it, it must be true and there is no slant to the way it's delivered. Well, it will take some time and critical thinking for those "esteemed" edifices to be brought down. But for now, New York Times, you can go fuck yourself and your call to war, there's real work to be done and we don't have time for your shit.

      Author's ellipses in last paragraph (originally six dots, no idea why). I considered dropping the second half of that paragraph, but decided the author deserved to make the point, even if crudely.

  • Stanley B Greenberg: [10-09] Trump is laser-focused on the final duel. Harris is not. "That will put Trump and Vance in the White House." One problem with reporting based on polls is that polls most often ask stupid questions of people who are far short of well-informed, so they can chastise politicians for failing to cater to their nonsensical results.

  • Chris Lehman: [09-25] In 2024, the pundits are wronger than ever: "Most of the predictions, advice, and scolding emanating from the glow of TV news this year have proved flat-out wrong. Democrats should stop listening once and for all." Well, yes and no. It helps to start from the assumption that you're being lied to and being given faulty and often disingenuous advice, then try to work out what you can learn from that. On the other hand, there actually is a lot of pretty good, solid reporting and analysis available, if only you can figure out which is which.

  • Rick Perlstein:

    • [09-25] The polling imperilment: "Presidential polls are no more reliable than they were a century ago. So why do they consume our political lives?" Catching up with other Perlstein columns:

    • [10-02] Who are the 'undecided'? "It may not be about issues, but whether voters surrender to Trump's invitation to return to the womb." Here he draws on an article Chris Hayes wrote on undecided voters in 2004, and which hardly anyone seems to have understood or rediscovered in the last two decades of intense 24/7 political "coverage": basically, undecided voters are unable to think about political issues in terms of political choices. That's my simplification. Here's Perlstein quoting Hayes:

      Chris noted that while there were a few people he talked to like that, "such cases were exceedingly rare. More often than not, when I asked undecided voters what issues they would pay attention to as they made up their minds I was met with a blank stare, as if I'd just asked them to name their favorite prime number . . . the very concept of the 'issue' seemed to be almost completely alien to most of the undecided voters I spoke to." . . .

      Hayes: "I tried other ways of asking the same question: 'Anything of particular concern to you? Are you anxious or worried about anything? Are you excited about what's been happening in the country in the last four years?'"

      But those questions harvested "bewilderment" too. "As far as I could tell, the problem wasn't the word 'issue' . . . The undecideds I spoke to didn't seem to have any intuitive grasp of what kinds of grievances qualify as political grievances."

      That's the part that stuck with me word for word, almost two decades on. Some mentioned they were vexed by rising health care costs. "When I would tell them that Kerry had a plan to lower health-care premiums, they would respond in disbelief . . . as if you were telling them that Kerry was promising to extend summer into December."

      Of course, you don't have to be "undecided" to have no clue as to the policy domain that politics determines. Many uninformed or less than competently comprehending voters pick their allegiances on other seemingly arbitrary and often nonsensical grounds. These factors are rooted in psychology, and are expertly exploited, mostly by Republican operatives, perhaps realizing that their actual policy preferences have little rational appeal. Perlstein, after noting Trump's promise to be "your protector," reflects back on fascism:

      Millions of pages have been filled by scholars explaining the psychological appeal of fascism, most converging on the blunt fact that it offers the fantasy of reversion to an infantile state, where nothing can come and harm you, because you will be protected by an all-powerful figure who will always put you first, always put you first. It is simply indisputable that this promise can seduce and transform even intelligent, apparently mature, kind-hearted people formerly committed to liberal politics. I've written before in this column about the extraordinary film The Brainwashing of My Dad, in which director Jen Senko describes the transformation of her Kennedy-liberal dad under the influence of right-wing talk radio and Fox News -- and also how, after she explained the premise of her film for a Kickstarter campaign, scores of people came out of the woodwork to share similar stories about their own family members.

      I've learned a lot about the psychological dynamics at work from the X feed of a psychologist named Julie Hotard, who drills down on the techniques Fox uses to trigger infantilization in viewers. The people at Fox who devise these scripts, one imagines, are pretty sophisticated people. Trump's gift is to be able to grunt out the same stuff just from his gut. Trump's appeals have become noticeably more infantile in precisely this way. When he addresses women voters, for instance: "I am your protector. I want to be your protector . . . You will no longer be abandoned, lonely, or scared. You will no longer be in danger . . ."

      Or when he grunts the other side of the infantilizing promise: that he will be your vengeance. His promise to destroy anything placing you in danger. Like when he recently pledged to respond to "one really violent day" by meeting criminals with "one rough hour -- and I mean real rough. The word will get out and it will end immediately."

      Or when he posted the Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel ("O Prince of the heavenly hosts, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan, and all the evil spirits, who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls") illustrated by a 17th-century painting of said saint curb-stomping a defeated devil, about to run a sword through his head.

      Even on the liberal-left, many interpret the way Trump seems even more to be going off the rails these last weeks as a self-defeating lack of control, or as a symptom of cognitive impairment. They almost seem to celebrate it. The New Republic's email newsletter, which I cannot stand, is full of such therapeutic clickbaity headlines canvassing the same examples I talk about here: "Trump Proposes Stunningly Stupid Idea for Public Safety"; "Ex-Aide Says Trump's 'Creepy' Message to Women Shows He's Out of Touch"; "Trump Appears to Have Lost a Total Grasp on Things."

      I certainly don't disagree that Trump is becoming more cognitively impaired and out of touch with reality. But might not these impairments render him a better fascist seducer, as his invitations to infantile regression become ever more primal, ever more basic, ever more pure?

    • [10-09] Our cults, ourselves: "Is the best way to understand the MAGA movement to binge-watch docuseries about charismatic leaders sending their acolytes to ruin? Tune in and find out."

    • [09-18] Everything you wanted to know about World War III but were afraid to ask: "For generations, we thought fear of nuclear holocaust would prevent world war. Is that faith obsolete?"

    • [02-14] A cultural artifact that meets the moment: "Stephen King's Under the Dome nails how Trumpism functions at the most elemental of levels." This is the piece Perlstein cited in the "undecided" piece above, but worth breaking out here. I remember watching, and enjoying, the miniseries (2013-15), but had forgotten whatever political import it might have held, but I welcome the refresher course. The section on The Brainwashing of My Dad is kind of a coda. I should look into it further, although I can already think of several examples from my own family. (I had a pair of cousins, who shared the same cultural legacy -- small towns, church, hunting -- and could be socioeconomic twins, but one got her news from the BBC, the other from Fox.) This essay also refers to a "Part 1":

    • [01-31] A hole in the culture: "Why is there so little art depicting the moment we're in?" Starts with a letter, which includes this:

      My husband and I are old and sitting right slap dab in the middle of red Arkansas with MAGA friends and family all around. They try to pull us into their discussions but we change the subject. I stopped going to church because the churches no longer teach Christ's message, but Trump's message.

  • Harris endorsements:

Trump:

  • Peter Baker/Dylan Freedman: [10-06] Trump's speeches, increasingly angry and rambling, reignite the question of age: "With the passage of time, the 78-year-old former president's speeches have grown darker, harsher, longer, angrier, less focused, more profane and increasingly fixated on the past, according to a review of his public appearances over the years." This elicited letters: [10-09] In Trump's speeches, signs of cognitive impairment.

  • Zach Beauchamp: [10-09] What Trump really means when he says immigrants have "bad genes": "The ominous implication of an outburst that ties two strains of right-wing thought together."

  • Jonathan Chait: [10-10] Trump delivers historically illiterate lecture on tariffs: "Everything he says about this is wrong."

  • Margaret Hartmann: [10-10] Highs and lows from Melania Trump's baffling book. Bullet points:

    High: It's an actual memoir, not a picture book.
    Low: It reads like a generic college-application essay.

    High: The book is quite short.
    Low: There's too much filler.

    High: Melania shares some political views.
    Low: Her political takes make no sense.

    High: The insults are subtle and classy.
    Low: Some insults may be too subtle.

    High: The book is beautiful.
    Low: It won't stay beautiful for long.

    High: The book is endorsed by Donald J. Trump.
    Low: Donald J. Trump probably didn't read it.

  • Richard Lardner/Dake Kang: [10-09] It turns out Trump's 'God Bless the USA' Bibles were made in China: This week's least surprising headline.

  • Robert Lipsyte: [10-06] Growing old in the age (and that's the appropriate word!) of Trump:

    After Joe Biden was shuffled off stage on trumped-up charges of senility, I started thinking seriously about the weaponization of old age in our world. Who gets credit for old age and who gets the boot?

    At 86, I share that affliction, pervasive among the richest, healthiest, and/or luckiest of us, who manage to hang around the longest. Donald Trump is, of course, in this same group, although much of America seems to be in selective denial about his diminishing capabilities. He was crushed recently in The Great Debate yet is generally given something of a mulligan for hubris, craziness, and unwillingness to prepare. But face it, unlike Joe B, he was simply too old to cut the mustard.

    It's time to get real about old age as a condition that, yes, desperately needs and deserves better resources and reverence, but also careful monitoring and culling. Such thinking is not a bias crime. It's not even an alert for ancient drivers on the roads. It's an alarm for tolerating dangerous old politicians who spread lies and send youngsters to war, while we continue to willfully waste the useful experience and energy of all ages.

    He also mentions Rupert Murdoch (93) and Warren Buffett (94):

    Those old boys are anything but role models for me and my friends. After all, they've been practicing all their lives how to be rich old pigs, their philanthropy mirroring their interests, not the needs of the rest of us. In my pay grade, we're expected to concentrate on tips from AARP newsletters on how to avoid telephone scams and falls, the bane of the geezer class. And that's important, but it's also a way of keeping us anxious and impotent.

    But he does mention some other ancients, like Casey Stengel and Jules Feiffer, who he finds more inspiration in. And the Gray Panthers, founded by Maggie Kuhn -- a personal blast from the past, as I knew of them through Sylvia Fink Kleinman (who excused her own fine tastes, explaining "nothing's too good for the working class").

  • Nicholas Liu:

  • New York Times: [09-26] The dangers of Donald Trump, from those who know him: A big chart of sound bites from "administration insiders, the Trumps & Trump Inc., Republican politicians, conservative leaders, world leaders" -- including some who remain as steadfast supporters, like Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz. Oddly enough, the wittiest is Kim Jong-un's "a frightened dog barks louder."

  • Pamela Paul: [10-03] Donald Trump, you lucky dog.

    There are lists of Donald Trump's lies and lists of his alleged crimes. But the catalog of all the good things that have happened to the former president is equally unnerving. Every dog has its day, but Trump -- no fan of dogs, BTW -- has had far more good luck than the average mutt.

    Of course, the man was born lucky -- into a life of wealth and privilege and with looks that some women apparently find attractive. Like many indulged heirs, he quickly dispensed with those gifts, wasting away his fortune like a 20th-century tristate re-creation of "A Rake's Progress." It could have easily curdled into squalor from there.

    But one fateful day, along came "The Apprentice," visiting the sulky developer in his moldering office. As my colleagues Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig document in their new book, aptly titled Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father's Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success, it was this improbable TV show that offered Trump a golden ticket out of bankruptcy and irrelevance, transforming him into a successful billionaire by pretending he actually was one.

    Also:

    Eight years ago Trump, who has been convicted of 34 felony charges in Manhattan and has been indicted in three other cases, told a rally full of acolytes, "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters." It is fortunate for him, then, that he was able to appoint three justices to the Supreme Court who created the possibility for him to be granted immunity in the three remaining cases against him.

    It's impossible to attribute all of this to strategy or intelligence or even mere cunning. In the same way the mask-averse Trump contracted what we now know was a serious case of Covid, at age 74 and seriously overweight, miraculously bounced back with the benefit of cutting-edge treatment that did not include injecting disinfectant, these things happened independent of Trump's own actions and inclinations.

    Now here we are, with Trump crediting the outcome of two failed assassination attempts to divine intervention.

  • James Risen: [10-03] The reason Netanyahu and Putin both want a Trump victory: "so they can prolong and intensify their brutal wars." Actually, there's not much stopping them now, and any policy shift under Harris is purely speculative -- it's sure not something she's campaigning on. I don't doubt that Trump is preferred by both -- as a fellow right-winger, Trump is unbothered by human rights abuses, and he's notoriously open to bribery and flattery. Also, both have history of poking their noses into American domestic politics, although in that Putin is a piker compared to Netanyahu.

  • Tony Schwartz: [10-11] I was Trump's ghostwriter. A new biopic gets the most important thing right. The movie is The Apprentice, directed by Ali Abbasi and written by Gabriel Sherman, based on "Trump's career as a real estate businessman in New York in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as his relationship with lawyer Roy Cohn." (Sebastian Stan plays Trump, Jeremy Strong plays Cohn, and Martin Donovan plays Fred Trump Sr.)

    Watching The Apprentice crystallized two big lessons that I learned from Mr. Trump 30 years ago and that I've seen play out in his life ever since with more and more extreme consequences. The first lesson is that a lack of conscience can be a huge advantage when it comes to accruing power, attention and wealth in a society where most other human beings abide by a social contract. The second lesson is that nothing we get for ourselves from the outside world can ever adequately substitute for what we're missing on the inside.

    Also on The Apprentice:

  • Tatyana Tandanpolie: [10-08] Analysis shows Trump tax plan "taking money" from bottom 95% and "giving it" to richest 5%: "This is an enormously redistributive tax plan from low- and middle-income families to the wealthiest Americans."

  • Joan Walsh: [09-24] Trump is spiraling, and getting creepier, about women voters.

  • Lawrence Ware: [10-11] Republicans are not evil . . . well, not all of them: When I saw this, my first thought was that it might take off from a New York Times opinion piece I had noticed but didn't mention at the time. Author is based in Oklahoma, so no suprise that he regularly encounters Republican voters who seem decent enough even when they are wrong. As a writer, I am often tempted to use "evil," as few words make a point so succinctly. But almost always, the real target is some act or belief, not the person implicated in the moment. Aiming at the person loses that distinction, and makes it that much harder to ever recover.

    • Nicholas Kristof: [08-31] Here's why we shouldn't demean Trump voters. It's not just that some Trump voters have decent (even if misguided) motivations, and that grouping them all together is a logical fallacy, but that the habit and practice is bad for you too -- it makes you more like the person you are demeaning. That said, in this particular case, "misguided" is a really huge understatement.

    • Brad Warthen: [10-11] Kristof is right: don't demean Trump voters.

  • Li Zhou: [10-08] Donald Trump's many, many lies about Hurricane Helene, debunked: "Rampant disinformation is getting in the way of disaster response."

Vance, and other Republicans:

Harris:

  • Jonathan Chait:

    • [10-08] The race is close because Harris is running a brilliant campaign: "Stop complaining; the centrism is working." Or so says Chait, who only views every disappointed/disaffected leftist as a strategic gain, even though he can't begin to count the votes. No doubt that if Harris does manage to "pull a Hillary" and lose the election, Chait will be the first to blame it on the left.

    • [10-10] The election choice is divided government or unrestrained Trumpism: "Harris won't be able to implement her plans. Trump will." As a devout centrist, Chait may regard divided government as the best of all worlds, with each party making sure the other doesn't accomplish anything, or rock any boats. Indeed, no Democratic president has had a Democratic Congress for a full terms since Carter, and even the initial two-year stretches Clinton, Obama, and Biden inherited were hobbled by lobbyists and the filibuster.

  • David Dayen: [10-09] Harris in-home care plan recognizes information gap on seniors: "Trump has been blanketing Pennsylvania with dubious claims that Harris would cut Social Security and Medicare."

  • Susan Faludi: [10-06] Kamala Harris is turning a Trump tactic on its head.

  • Ed Kilgore: [10-09] Can Nikki Haley voters win it for Kamala Harris? I can believe that most of the people who voted for Harris in Republican primaries this year won't vote for Trump. But calling them "Nikki Haley voters" seems gratuitous, especially given that Haley is on board for Trump, so isn't one of them.

  • Branko Marcetic: [10-12] Is Kamala 2024 Clinton 2016?: "Republican endorsements, running to the right on foreign policy, an unambitious agenda of incremental change less important than how bad the other guy is. Where have we seen this before?"

  • Andrew Prokop: The rise -- and fall? -- of the New Progressive Economics: "Progressives conquered economic policy under Biden. Would they lose it under Harris?" How should I know? And not just because the article is a "member exclusive" I can't even get a glimpse of. (I did feel kind of bad about never giving what used to be my favorite news site any money, but less and less so every time I hit a paywall, especially on an article that is obvious bullshit.) In the first place, the premise that "NPE conquered Biden" is somewhere between greatly exaggerated and plain false. Biden moved somewhat out of the Obama-Clinton neocon rut because both the economics and the politics failed. Unlike Republicans, Democrats are expected to address and at least ameliorate real problems, and the old neoliberalism just wasn't working. Some new stuff got tried, and mostly worked. Other ideas got stymied, for which there was lots of obvious blame, as well as Biden's own lukewarm interest. But where is the evidence that Harris is going to abandon policies and proposals that are popular with Democrats just to help the rich get richer? The only thing I'm aware of is that she's had to cozy up to a lot of rich donors to raise her billion dollar campaign war chest, and they're going to want something in return. But by then, she'll be president, and in a better position to call her own shots.

  • Bill Scher: [10-10] No "deplorables," "you ain't black," "cling to guns": Harris's gaffe-free campaign: I suppose that's good news, but Scher is the most unflappable of Democratic Party apologists, so one doubts his ability to detect gaffes, let alone strategic missteps. The one I'm most worried about is her continuing political calculation to amp up vitriol against Russia and Iran. My guess is that as president she will pivot to a more moderate stance, because I don't see her as a neocon ideologue, but I do see her as politically cunning, so her stance tells me that she thinks it's the smart play viz. voters and the media. That's pretty depressing.

  • Matthew Stevenson: [10-11] Why Harris and Walz lose.

Walz, Biden, and other Democrats:

  • Robert Kuttner: [10-04] Biden's amazing win settling the dock strike: "The terms are a total victory for dockworkers and for smooth supply chain operation, as the White House faced down exorbitant shipper profits. What would Trump have done?"

  • Paul Starr: [09-20] What should Democrats say to young men? "Young men appear to be drifting right. Ignoring them means trouble." As an asymptomatic observer, I have trouble caring about this -- much like the "stolen pride" in the Arlie Russell Hochschild book (below): been there, got over that. Still, I do, as a matter of principle, believe that every voter counts, and that all pain (even the phantom variety) merits some kind of treatment. Cites:

  • Astra Taylor: [09] Divided and conquered: "In search of a democratic majority." "You've reached your free article limit," so sayonara. "The essay was partially adapted with permission from Solidarity: The Past, Present, and Future of a World Changing Idea, which I did buy a copy of, so I can probably reference it when I want a critique of Kevin Phillips (The Emerging Republican Majority, which is often counted as prescient, even if only with regret) and/or Ruy Teixeira/John Judis (The Emerging Democratic Majority, which isn't, so they recently rewrote it as Where Have All the Democrats Gone?), not that I couldn't write those myself.

Supreme Court, legal matters, and other crimes:

  • David Dayen: [09-30] How Congress gets its groove back: "The Supreme Court's recent rulings will change how Congress writes laws. It may even force the legislative branch to take a hard look at its own dysfunctions." This is about the Court's recent dismantling of what's called the "Chevron defense," which while possibly disastrous for the normal functioning of the federal government, can (at least in theory) be rectified by Congress writing and passing more precise laws that leave less discretionary power in the hands of an increasingly politicized executive. But for that to happen, you first need a Congress that is willing and able to do the necessary work to deal with real problems. That obviously involves getting rid of a lot of Republicans, and tools like the filibuster, but it also suggests the need for much better Democrats. Otherwise, problems just multiply, while the courts further hamstring any efforts at remedy by executive order.

  • Sarah Jones: [10-10] The misogyny plot: A new report on the Kavanaugh hearings reveals a deeper conspiracy."

  • Ian Millhiser:

    • [10-05] We should call the Republican justices "Republicans" and not "conservatives": "Supreme Court journalist should tell the truth about what's going on at the Court." While I agree that "the arguments against treating the justices as partisan actors are unpersuasive," I worry that reducing them to partisan hacks will set expectations both for and against, reinforcing their stereotypical behavior. It is still the case that on occasion Republican justices can rule against their party's most craven arguments -- indeed, the legitimacy of the Court depends on at least some air of independence. Same for Democratic justices (which as far as I've noticed happens more often).

    • [10-08] Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett seem unsure whether to save a man's life: "It's unclear how the Supreme Court will resolve an unusually messy death penalty."

  • Stephen S Trott: [10-07] Why the Supreme Court's immunity ruling is untenable in a democracy.

Climate and environment:

Business, labor, and economists:

Ukraine and Russia: No "Diplomacy Watch" this week?

Elsewhere in the world and/or/in spite of America's empire:

Other stories:

  • Matt Breunig/Zephyr Teachout: [09-27] Should the government break up big corporations or buy them? "Matt Bruenig writes that governments should nationalize more companies while Zephyr Teachout argues that freedom requires decentralized power." Ça dépend. Each case should be evaluated on its own merits. One could write a book on this.

  • Stephen F Eisenman: [10-11] What does fascism look like? A brief introduction: Most of this piece focuses on Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, with an eye toward architecture and aesthetics, but that leads to a section "what does fascism look like today?" that opens with a photo of the Pentagon. Conclusion:

    Huey Long, governor of Louisiana from 1928-32, himself often called a fascist, said: "American Fascism would never emerge as Fascist, but as a 100 percent American movement; it would not duplicate the German method of coming to power but would only have to get the right President and Cabinet." Fascism, as I said at the beginning of this brief survey, is easy to see in retrospect, but not in prospect. However, when it appears right in front of you, identification becomes simple -- signs and symbols appear everywhere. As we approach the U.S. election, we can clearly witness one political party's tight embrace of fascism -- but seeing it doesn't mean we can easily stop it.

    Those of us on the left, especially with any real sense of history, are quick to brand certain right-wingers as fascists -- the dividing line is where disagreement turns to hatred and a desire to kill us. To us, at least, it's not just a derisive label, but a full paradigm, which informs not just by analogy but by internal logic. However, the label "fascist" doesn't appear to have much utility in communicating with people who are not on our specific bandwidth. One thing I will point out is that throughout history, fascists have not only done bad things, they have repeatedly failed, often bringing to ruin the nations and folk they claim to love. By the way, Eisenman has a forthcoming book, The Young Person's Illustrated Guide to American Fascism, with illustrations by Sue Coe.

Obituaries

Books

Music (and other arts?)

Chatter

  • Lara Friedman: [09-28] Observations on the current the moment - a thread.

    Israel used 10/7 to manufacture US consent/collaboration to undo what Bibi & his Greater Israel/neocon fellow travelers (incl in US) have long viewed as historic errors forced on Israel by weak leaders & intl appeasers of terror.

    These are: Gaza disengagement (viewed as capitulation to Hamas), the Oslo Agreement (viewed as capitulation to the PLO), and withdrawal from southern Lebanon (viewed as capitulation to Hezbollah).

    Along the way the Biden Admin & Congress acquiesced to new Israeli-authored rules of war that, among other things, define every human being as a legitimate military target - a terrorist, a terrorist supporter or sympathizer, or a "human shield" -

    - & allowing the annihilation of huge numbers of civilians & destruction of entire cities; allowing entire populations to be displaced, terrorized, starved, & deprived of medical care; & normalizing killing of journalists, medical workers, & UN staff - all with impunity.

    The costs of these new rules of war will be paid with the blood of civilians worldwide for generations to come, and the US responsibility for enabling, defending, & normalizing these new rules - and their horrific, dehumanizing consequences will not be forgotten.

    In the countdown to the US November elections, continued Israeli impunity means that Netanyahu and his government have every incentive to continue to pursue their revanchist and genocidal goals in Gaza, the West Ban, and Lebanon.

    Absent some new US & intl seriousness to impose concrete consequences that change Israeli calculations, the only real question now is whether Bibi & friends will seize this moment to pursue the other long-held dream of neocons in both Israel and the US: regime change in Iran.

    If they do so - and following a year of genocide-with-impunity capped by Nasrallah's assassination, the likelihood is today higher than ever before - the decision will be in large part based on the certainty that the Biden Admin, more than any Admin before it, will back them.

    This backing - which they have every reason to assume is assured - includes money, military aid, & even US military action. & it is assumed, regardless of whether the Biden Admin wants such a war & regardless of Israel's tactics/the scope of the destruction and casualties.

    Likewise, such a decision will reflect an equal certainty that the Harris & Trump campaigns not only will support Israel in waging war on Iran, but will actively compete over who, as president, will stand more firmly with Israel in its push to remake the entire region.

    And to be clear: Bibi & friends have - in actions & words - been telling the world since 10/7 their intent. Anyone surprised things have reached this point was either not paying attention, was in denial, or was happily playing along.

    For anyone who thinks my analysis re "next up, Iran" is wrong, see: [followed by tweet from Jared Kushner, then video of Netanyahu]

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Monday, October 7, 2024

Speaking of Which

Draft file opened 2024-10-02 12:17 PM. I expected to have very little time to work on this, and that's proved accurate. Now trying to wrap this up Monday afternoon, while I have a bit of a breather. But I already got distracted, and spent the last hour posting a dinner plate to Facebook, and writing further notes in the notebook. Nero wasn't the only one ever to fiddle while their country burns.

Wound up after 2AM, arbitrarily deciding I've done enough. Maybe I'll add more while working on Music Week, but I should get back to working on house. Good news, though, is that working on blog is less painful than the house work has been.

When I got up this morning, I started reading the third chapter in Ned Blackhawk's The Rediscovery of America, it occurred to me that the following bit, while written about Champlain in the early 1600s, is most relevant today (pp. 81-82):

While violence was an essential institution of colonialism, it was never enough to achieve permanent goals of empire. As political theorists have long maintained, violence fails to create stability. It destroys relationships -- between individuals, communities, and nations -- and does so unpredictably. Once it is initiated, none can predict its ultimate course. While threats upon a population do over time result in compliance, more enduring stability requires shared understandings of power and of the legitimate use of violence. . . .

Nor could violence ever be completely monopolized. As in New Spain, Native peoples across North America quickly adopted the advantages that Europeans brought. Raiders took weapons as spoils of war and plundered Indians who were allied with Europeans or had traded with them. They stole their metals, cloths and, if possible, guns. Increasingly, they took captives to trade in colonial slave markets.

Apologists and propagandists for Israel really hate it when you describe Israel as a settler-colonial movement/nation. They resent the implicit moral derision -- every such society has been founded on racist violence, which we increasingly view as unjust -- but they also must suspect that it implies eventual failure: the cases where settler-colonialism was most successful are far in the past (especially in America, where the Indian wars ended by 1890, and full citizenship was accorded to Indians in 1924). But perhaps most troubling of all is the recognition that many others have started down this same road, and found that only a few approaches can work (or at least have worked), and only in limited circumstances.

Top story threads:

Israel: One year ago today, some Palestinians from Hamas and Islamic Jihad -- street gangs left free to operate in Gaza because Israel and the US refused to allow any form of political freedom and democratic self-governance in a narrow strip of desert with more than 2 million people, isolated from all norms of human discourse -- staged a jail break, breaching Israel's walls, and, as brutalized prisoners tend to do, celebrating their temporary freedom with a heinous crime spree.[*]

Most of the people in Gaza were refugees from Israel's "war of independence," known to Palestinians as "Nakba" for the mass expulsions of Palestinians. From 1948-67, Egypt had occupied Gaza. In 1967, Israel attacked Egypt, and occupied Gaza, placing it under military rule. The situation there became even more desperate after 2006, when Israel dismantled its settlements in the territory, locked down the borders, left local control to Hamas, and begun a series of increasingly devastating punitive sieges they rationalized as "mowing the grass."

As the situation in Gaza grew more desperate, Israeli politics drifted ever more intensely to the right, to the point where some parties advanced genocidal responses to the Gaza revolt, while even large segments of the nominal opposition concurred. Meanwhile, especially under Trump, the US has become a mere rubber stamp for whatever Israel wants. And what "Israel wants" is not just to extirpate Hamas and punish Gaza but to take out their fury on Palestinians in the West Bank, to complete the annexation of Palestinian land, and to export war all the way to Iran.

[*] Per Wikipedia, the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel lasted two days (October 7-8), during which 1180 Israelis (379 security forces, 797 civilians) were killed, and 251 Israelis were taken captive, while Israeli forces killed 1609 "militants" and captured 200 more. At the end of those two days, Israel had secured its border with Gaza, and had gone on the offense against the people and infrastructure of Gaza. Israel's subsequent slaughter and destruction has been so indiscriminate, and so systematically destructive of resources necessary for sustaining life, that it is fairly characterized as genocide -- a judgment that is consistent with the clearly stated intentions of many Israeli political leaders. Moreover, the genocide in Gaza, has provided cover allowing Israelis -- including vigilante settler-mobs protected by IDF forces -- to attack Palestinians in the West Bank, and Israeli aggression has now has spilled over into Lebanon.

  • Mondoweiss:

  • Anadolu Agency: [10-07] 1 year of Gaza genocide: Psychological terror 'part of Israel's genocidal plan' -- UN Special Rapporteur.

    The ongoing violence has created a cycle of anxiety and trauma in the besieged Strip, leaving young people particularly devastated.

    Tlaleng Mofokeng, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, spoke to Anadolu about the mental health crisis in Gaza.

    The amount of anxiety and the exposure to trauma, as well as the level of anticipation of violence, is very abnormal

    Mofokeng said, emphasizing the persistent threat of violence as a major contributor to the psychological distress.

    She highlighted that 50 per cent of Gazans were already suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) before the relentless violence they experienced since 7 October, 2023. "We have to talk about it as a deliberate infliction of mental trauma," she added. The psychological impacts, manifesting as anxiety, nightmares, depression and memory loss, are compounded by the absence of adequate mental health resources.

    Yet, some scars remain invisible, Mofokeng pointed out, as many suffer in silence, with distress escalating into PTSD, eventually leading to complex mental health issues. These only intensify for children who have lost their entire family. She further noted that the lack of proper mourning and dignified funerals is "very detrimental," robbing families and communities of the chance to heal and opening wounds that may take a lifetime to mend.

    The absence of healthcare and therapy has exacerbated the situation. "The situation is much worse," she stressed.

  • Aluf Benn: [10-07] Pro-war, anti-Netanyahu: that has been the Israeli liberal conundrum in a terrible year: "The horrors of 7 October burst the bubble for progressives who had marched for democracy at home but sidelined the Palestinian issue." Editor-in-chief of Haaretz.

  • Tareq S Hajjaj: [10-07] After October 7, my home became a bag I carry with me: "I have lived through my own Nakba and understand why thousands of Palestinians fled their homes in 1948. I made the most difficult decision of my life and left Gaza, not knowing that what I carried might be all I will ever possess of my homeland."

  • Qassam Muaddi:

    • [10-04] 'Bodies shredded into pieces': unprecedented Israeli airstrike in West Bank kills 20, including entire family: "An Israeli airstrike on a residential building in Tulkarem killed 20 Palestinians in the first such attack in two decades. 'We've been living through the occupation's raids for more than a year now, but this was different,' says an eyewitness."

    • [10-07] Israel's year of war on the West Bank: "While Israel has been carrying out a genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, its military and settlers have been waging another campaign of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, moving ever closer towards Israel's goals of annexation." This is an often neglected but increasingly important part of the story. This makes it clear that the root problem is not Hamas or Palestinian "national ambitions" but the fundamental, all-pervasive injustice of the apartheid regime. I was hoping in early days that the powers could separate Gaza and the West Bank, deal with the former by cutting it loose, and save the more entangled West Bank occupation to later, at which point cooler heads might prevail. But hotter heads made sure peace was never given a chance, because they saw the cover of war as useful for promoting their real goals.

  • Baker Zoubi: How weapons from the Gaza war are killing Palestinians on Israel's streets: "Arab crime organizations are carrying out attacks using smuggled military explosives, with experts accusing the government of turning a blind eye."

Lebanon:

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

  • Spencer Ackerman: [10-03] The year after October 7th was shaped by the 23 years after September 11th (director's cut): "9/11 gave Israel and the US a template to follow -- one that turned grief into rage into dehumanization into mass death. What have we learned from the War on Terror?" Unfortunately, "this post is for paying subscribers only," so I don't know how he relates the US reaction to 9/11 to the previous year's demolition of the Oslo Accords and the breakout of the Shaul Moffaz Intifada (more commonly called "Al-Aqsa," but Moffaz was the instigator).

  • Michael Arria:

  • Erin Banco: [10-04] Inside the US intel dilemma on Gaza a year after Oct. 7.

  • Erin Banco/Nahal Toosi: US officials quietly backed Israel's military push against Hezbollah.

  • Matthew Duss: [10-07] Joe Biden chose this catastrophic path every step of the way: "What's happening in the Middle East was enabled by a president with ideological priors, aides who failed to push back, and a cheerleading media establishment."

    There's a 23-year-old quote from Benjamin Netanyahu in The New York Times that I've been thinking a lot about lately. Reached on the evening of September 11, 2001, the then-former prime minister was asked what the terrorist attacks that brought down the Twin Towers and killed almost 3,000 people meant for relations between the United States and Israel. "It's very good," he said. Then he quickly edited himself: "Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy."

    He may have been rude and insensitive, but he was also being uncharacteristically honest. Like any demagogue, Netanyahu knew instinctively that enormous pain could be easily transformed into permission.

    In addition to providing Israel's then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a freer hand in crushing the second intifada, Netanyahu also saw America's trauma as an opportunity to achieve a wider set of regional security goals. As Congress was considering the Iraq invasion, he came to the United States to lend his support. "If you take out Saddam, Saddam's regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region," he assured a congressional committee in September 2002.

    This is part of a series called October 7: A year of unfathomable misery and political failure: "Hamas's horrific terrorist attack on that day gave Israel the excuse it desired to destroy Gaza -- and America did nothing to stop it."

    • James Robins: [10-07] Israel is trapped by its own war machine: link title, actual, with sub: "The missed moral lesson of October 7: Hamas's attack should have triggered not military retaliation but the immediate resumption of negotiations for a just peace." Of course, it didn't, because Israel has never considered justice a consideration in its very rare and never serious efforts at negotiation -- they look for leverage, and play for time. But I do recall making the same point on 9/11: I thought it should be viewed as a wake-up call, as a time when the first thing you ask yourself, have I failed? Netanyahu (and Bush) couldn't ask that question, much less answer it. But if you just give it a few minutes of thought, you'll realize that every war is consequential to a series of mistakes. The least you can do is to learn from such mistakes, but the people who yearn to fight wars never take the effort to learn.

    • Yousef Munayyer: [10-07] A year that has brought us to the breaking point: "Alongside the mass graves and beneath the tons of rubble, there may lie another victim: the very possibility of a jointly imagined coexistence."

    • Emily Tamkin: [10-07] One year after Ocrtober 7, American Jewry has been "broken . . . in half": "The casualties in the Middle East include thousands of innocents lives and (for now) any hope of peace. The casualty here? The dream of a liberal Zionism."

  • Nicholas Kristof: [10-05] Netanyahu ran rings around Biden for a year. What failure. That's the link title. The page title is less pointed: "Biden sought peace but facilitated war."

  • Trita Parsi: [10-01] Iran bombs Israel, but buck stops with Biden: "If Israel's response sucks us into war, it will be on the administration's hands. Here's why." People really need to get a better idea of motivations, costs, and imagined rewards.

    Biden's strategy has been to put enormous effort into deterring Iran and its partners from retaliating against Israel, while doing virtually nothing to discourage Israel from escalating in the first place. This lopsided approach has in fact been a recipe for escalation, repeatedly proving to Netanyahu that Washington has no intention of bringing pressure to bear on Israel, no matter its actions.

    The situation is actually worse than this, because Israel sees nothing but positives from provoking a war that pits Iran and the US. For starters, it keeps the US preoccupied with external threats when the real enemy of peace is Israel itself. And if Americans get hurt in the fracas, Netanyahu understands that will only make the Americans more determined to fight Iran, just as he knows that his periodic attacks on Iran and its friends only make them more determined to strike back, even if just ineffectively, at Israel.

  • Mitchell Plitnick: [10-05] The United States and Israel set out to remake the Middle East, again: "The mood in Washington today is similar to 2003 when the neocons of the Bush administration sought to remake the Middle East. This time, a joint vision shared by Israel and the Biden administration seeks to remake the region in the West's vision."

  • Dave Reed:

    • [09-29] Weekly Briefing: Israeli attacks on Lebanon are lighting a powder keg in the Middle East.

    • [10-06] Weekly Briefing: A year on from October 7 Israel is out of control:

      The images coming out of Lebanon and Gaza are horrifying. As I write this, well over a million Lebanese civilians are displaced as the Israeli military carries out punishing bombing raids across nearly the entire country, and over 2,000 have been killed. We've watched them drop so-called "bunker buster" bombs on residential blocks in Lebanon's capital, Beirut, in an attempt to kill the leadership of Hezbollah, never mind the civilians who may be in the way. Like in Gaza, Israel is targeting hospitals and schools, border crossings, and infrastructure. That the international community is allowing this to go on is nothing short of a calamity.

  • Responsible Statecraft: [10-03] Symposium: Will US-Israel relations survive the last year? "We asked if the post-Oct. 7 war has permanently altered Washington's 80-year commitment to the Jewish state." Collects statements from: Geoff Aronson, Andrew Bacevich, Daniel Bessner, Dan DePetris, Robert Hunter, Shireen Hunter, Daniel Levy, Rajan Menon, Paul Pillar, Annelle Sheline, Steve Simon, Barbara Slavin, Hadar Suskind, Stephen Walt, Sarah Leah Whitson, James Zogby. While several are critics, it is pretty obvious that the "special relationship" has held fast, with the Biden administration providing unstinting support despite reservations that they are unable or unwilling to act on, with most of Congress even more emphatically in thrall.

  • Daniel Warner: [10-04] No more bro hugs: Time to reset US/Israel relations.

Israel vs. world opinion:

VP Debate

  • Zack Beauchamp: [10-01] The only moment from the VP debate that mattered: "Vance's 'damning non-answer' on the 2020 election exposed the true stakes for democracy in 2024." I'm a bit chagrined that the one Vance lie that Walz chose to push back hard on was the "fate of democracy." It's not that I don't appreciate the threat, but to understand it, you need some context. To borrow Grover Norquist's metaphor, the program of the right since the 1970s -- cite Potter Stewart if you like -- has been to shrink democracy "down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." We've barely noticed the shrinkage, but only started to panic now that we can identify Trump as the one threatening to finish the job. So right, it matters, a lot even, but it's a bit like waiting until a hurricane or flood or fire to discover that something is screwy with the climate -- another comparable oops!

  • Gabriel Debenedetti: [10-02] How Tim Walz saved himself: "At first, he looked overmatched by JD Vance. Then came abortion, health care, and above all, January 6.

  • Maureen Dowd: [10-05] JD smirks his way into the future. But first, a bit on Trump v. Harris:

    In a Times/Siena College poll last month, 55 percent of respondents said Trump was respected by foreign leaders while 47 percent said that of Harris.

    The ad claims Harris is not tough enough to deal with China, Russia, Iran or Hamas. It features actors playing Vladimir Putin, Hamas fighters and a tea-sipping ayatollah watching videos of the candidate who wants to be the first woman president. It ends with four clips of Kamala dancing -- a lot better than Trump does -- and a clip of Trump walking on a tarmac with a military officer and a Secret Service agent. The tag line is: "America doesn't need another TikTok performer. We need the strength that will protect us."

    Even though Trump lives in a miasma of self-pity and his businesses often ended up in bankruptcy, somehow his fans mistake his swagger and sneers for machismo. What a joke. Trump is the one who caves, a foreign policy weakling and stooge of Putin. . . .

    In a Trumpworld that thrives on mendacity, demonizing and dividing, sympathy is weakness.

  • Ariel Edwards-Levy/Jennifer Aglesta: [10-02] CNN instant poll: no clear winner in VP debate between Tim Walz and JD Vance. But even those who thought Vance "won the debate" had doubts about him.

    Debate watchers said, 48% to 35%, that Walz is more in touch than Vance with the needs and problems of people like them, and by a similar margin, 48% to 39%, that Walz, rather than Vance, more closely shares their vision for America.

  • M Gessen: [10-03] The real loser of the VP debate: "It's our politics." And: "In this audio essay, Gessen argues that when we put Trump and his acolytes on the same platform as regular politicians and treat them equally, 'that normalization degrades our political life and degrades our understanding of politics.'"

  • Ed Kilgore: [10-02] Snap polls show VP debate was as close as the presidential race.

  • Eric Levitz: [10-02] Vance's one weird trick for selling Trumpism to normies: Just lie: "The Republican VP candidate isn't a moderate, but at the debate Tuesday, he played one on TV."

  • Katy O'Donnell: [10-04] JD Vance says 'illegal immigrants' are keeping you from owning your own home.

  • Andrew Prokop/Dylan Scott/Abdullah Fayyad/Christian Paz: [10-02] 3 winners and 2 losers from the Walz-Vance debate: W: JD Vance's code switching abilities; L: The narrative that Tim Walz is a media phenomenon; W: Obamacare; L: The moderators; W: A surprising amount of decency. The bottom line is that Vance lied outrageously (but smoothly) in his attempt to make Trump out as a reasoned, skillful public servant, while Walz somewhat awkwardly dialed his own criticism back. From point two:

    It was not exactly a masterful showing, though. Walz seemed uncomfortable in the format compared to the smooth-talking Vance, he didn't really seem to have one overarching message that he kept returning to, and he often missed opportunities to call out Vance's lies and misrepresentations.

    On the moderators:

    From the start, Norah O'Donnell and Margaret Brennan, the CBS news moderators, made it clear they did not think it was their job to keep the candidates grounded in reality. . . . The questions themselves were either not probing enough or poorly framed.

  • Jeffrey St Clair: [10-04] Notes from a phony campaign: the great un-debate: "This week's vice-presidential debate, one of the most tedious and dull in US history, was praised by the punditocracy for its civility. Is civility in politics what we need when the current government is arming a genocide and the rival campaign wants to arrest 15 million people and deport them?" Also: "Why did Walz try to humanize a jerk who claims Haitians are BBQing pets?"

  • Margaret Sullivan: [10-02] JD Vance's slick performance can't hide the danger of another Trump presidency: "Vance may have prevailed on tone and presentation, but at the end of the day Walz is on the side of democracy."

  • Kelley Beaucar Vlahos: [10-01] VP debate: preemptive strike on Iran now? "This was the only foreign question of the night, which made it easier for everyone, apparently." The question was horrible, even to suggest such a thing. The obvious answer was: no, never, wars should be ended, not started when there is any chance of avoiding one. The answers -- unlike John McCain's "bomb bomb bomb Iran" refrain -- at least were evasive, but in failing to address the question, allowed it to hang in the air, as if the idea is something a sane person might consider. It wasn't, and should have been flagged as such.

Election notes:

  • Ed Kilgore: [10-07] Harris and Trump are deploying party defectors very differently: They may be calculating differently, but the dominant issue is the same. Trump is using Gabbard and Kennedy as testimony that he's the lesser world war threat, without him having to soften his tough guy image. Harris, on the other hand, is attracting some Republicans with extreme neocon credentials, like the Cheneys -- not primarily to show that she's the hawk in the contest, but their support does reassure the neocons that she's likely to stick with the conventional wisdom on foreign policy (which is decidedly neocon, despite their disastrous track record).

  • Ariel Wittenberg/Avery Ellfeldt/Thomas Frank: [10-04] Helene hit Trump strongholds in Georgia and North Carolina. It could swing the election. Voters have to ask themselves whether they want competent government which wants to help folks when they're down, or a bunch of corrupt cronies trusting the market will magically heal itself.

Trump:

Vance, and other Republicans:

  • David Daley: [10-04] Two men have re-engineered the US electoral system in favor of Republicans: "If the right strews constitutional chaos over the certification of this presidential election, two people will have cleared the path." Leonard Leo (who packed the Supreme Court) and Chris Jankowski (who refined the art of gerrymandering).

  • Moira Donegan: [10-01] The leaked dossier on JD Vance is revealing in all the things it doesn't say.

  • Ed Kilgore: [10-04] Oklahoma wants a Trump Bible in every public-school classroom: "For state school superintendent Ryan Walters, not any old Bible will do for the edification of Oklahoma's children."

  • No More Mister Nice Blog:

    • [10-05] Extremist Republican derangement has many faces, not just one.

    • [10-06] I made an ad attacking Donald Trump without all the obvious stuff. "Here's the ad, on YouTube. Or just watch it here (40 seconds):

    • [10-04] The "liberal" media is measuring the White House drapes for JD Vance -- again.

    • [10-02] No, JD Vance did not win last night's debate. Starts by citing the New York Times' debate pundit grid -- 'Vance's excellent reviews will enrage Trump': 13 writers on who won the vice-presidential debate -- which provides a ready index of what kind of people are inclined to be more impressed by a slick liar than by a normal guy struggling to keep his debate prep points ready. Follow that with "ordinary people" polls, one giving Vance a 51-49 lead, the other 42-41 with 17% judging the debate a tie.

    • [09-30] Margaret Sullivan inadvertently demonstrates that even a better press couldn't save us from Trump: The Sullivan article is here: [09-30] The three phases of normalizing Trump's attack on Harris in Wisconsin: "The media did what it always does, and it's not good enough."

      I don't mean to pick on Margaret Sullivan. I think the fact that even she can't find the words to explain what's so horrifying about this suggests that maybe there aren't any words -- or to be more precise, maybe there aren't words that can convey what's so horrifying about this to people who've watched Trump for the past nine years and still aren't horrified.

      Calling a political opponent "mentally impaired" and "mentally disabled" ought to be a very bad look for any candidate, and it should be self-evidently bad for reasons Joe Scarborough noted this morning:

      "If [Harris] were so quote stupid, if she were so quote mentally impaired, if she were quote so mentally disabled, why did she destroy him in a debate for 90 minutes, humiliate him, and beat him so badly that he refuses to even debate her on Fox News?"

      "That's question number one," he continued. "And if she's had this mental condition from birth, then why did he give her thousands of dollars in 2014 for her political campaign when she was running for the United States Senate?"

      But it's unsuitable language for any candidate to use -- except it isn't anymore, because talk radio and Fox News coarsened the political culture, in lockstep with Republican politicians from Newt Gingrich on, and now there's a large percentage of the voting population for whom there's nothing a Republican can say that will lead to a withdrawal of support, except perhaps a kind word about a Democrat. . . .

      Trump can't be discredited any more than he already has been. Our only recourse is a large turnout by people who are neither impressed by his rhetoric nor numbed by it.

  • Matthew Stevenson: [10-04] JD Vance: mob lawyer.

    If you're Vance, the only reason you agree to take Trump on as a client is the hope that he will pay your seven-figure fees before you, yourself, end up in jail.

    Alas, as the history of broken dreams isn't one of the subjects taught at Yale Law School, Vance seems to be missing the point that most of his predecessors -- Michael Cohen, Sidney Powell, Kenneth Cheseboro, Jenna Ellis, Rudy Giuliana, John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark, and Alina Habba (to list only a few Trump attorneys who are drifting up the river) -- never got paid and will probably end up in jail long before Trump himself is fitted with an oversized orange necktie.

  • Nicholas Wu/Madison Fernandez: [10-04] House Democrats' new bogeyman: Project 2025: "The party is making a concerted effort to go on the attack using the controversial set of conservative policy proposals." It's about time. Similar plots have been circulating for decades, but this year's edition exposes the threats exceptionally tangible form. Moreover, it's never been easier to imagine Republican apparatchiki blindly following whatever master plan they're given. Project 2025 makes clear and comprehensible how pervasive rotten ideas are throughout the Republican Party.

  • Li Zhou: [10-03] Elon Musk's nonsensical lies about immigrant voting, briefly explaned: "Musk and Republicans have embraced falsehoods that undermine the legitimacy of the election."

Harris:

  • Jonathan Chait: [10-03] Kamala Harris is right to get endorsements from bad Republicans: Like Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzales. Of course, Chait loves this because it gives him another excuse to take digs at Sanders and AOC, who also, like Chait, support Harris. Different people have different reasons for who they vote for, and these particulars aren't totally deluded in thinking a public announcement might help, and probably won't hurt. What bothers me is the suggestion that they see Harris as more in tune with their neocon warmongering legacy, and that their endorsements can be taken as evidence that Harris is more war-prone than Trump.

  • Ellen Ioanes: [09-20] Kamala Harris and Oprah humanized the consequences of state abortion bans: "Harris and Winfrey spoke to the family of Amber Thurman, who died after doctors delayed abortion-related care."

  • Michael Kruse: [10-04] The woman who made Kamala Harris -- and modern America: "Shyamala Gopalan's immigrant story explains the roots of a multiethnic society that has defined the country in the 21st century -- and also become a political flashpoint."

  • Christian Paz: [10-04] What young voters see in Kamala Harris: "How the vice president seems to have fixed one of Biden's biggest vulnerabilities."

Walz, Biden, and other Democrats:

Supreme Court, legal matters, and other crimes:

Climate and environment:

Business, labor, and economists:

Ukraine and Russia:

Elsewhere in the world and/or/in spite of America's empire:

Other stories:

Obituaries

Books

  • Richard Slotkin: [10-05] To understand Trump vs. Harris, you must know these American myths: The author has mapped out the entire history of American mythmaking in his book A Great Disorder: National Myth and the Struggle for America, so applying his methodology to one more election is pretty easy. I've read his book, and previously cited various reviews. I've long placed great importance on the notion of myth -- paradigmatic stories that are widely believed, transcending fact and fiction -- so I'm very used to this form of critique. Still, there is a risk that his categories have become too pat, and forcing new facts to fit them tends to lose your grip on anything new. For instance, it's easy enough to see Trump playing off the "lost cause playbook," but those of us who grew up in what was still the Jim Crow era should be struck by how much weirder it seems this time around. On the other hand, when Democrats (like Obama/Clinton) embrace "American exceptionalism," they look naive and foolish, and easily loose track of the reforms they understand we need.

  • Jennifer Szalai: [09-29] Ta-Nehisi Coates returns to the political fray, calling out injustice: "The Message marks his re-entry as a public intellectual determined to wield his moral authority, especially regarding Israel and the occupied territories." More on the book below, but first a good introduction is a bit of CBS Mornings interview with Coates. A quick sampling of reviews. (I have a copy of the book, but haven't cracked it open yet.)

Music (and other arts?)

Chatter

  • Peter Beinart: [10-01] this first question: would you support a preemptive strike on Iran rather than how would you stop this regional war pretty much encapsulates what is wrong with US media coverage of this conflict

Local tags (these can be linked to directly): music.

Original count: 131 links, 7251 words (9735) total).

Current count: 131 links, 7256 words (9744 total)

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Monday, September 30, 2024

Speaking of Which

As expected, I've had very little time to work on this all week. The idea of starting each week's post with an evolving executive summary will have to wait until next week, at the earliest.

Trying to wrap this up Monday afternoon, but I soon have to take a break to buy some lumber and tools, and I should spend most of the day working on the upstairs room (having wasted my weekend on what should have been a simple wiring job, and, well, much of the bulk below. I probably won't post this until late, so I'll likely find more, but in lieu of trying to summarize my main points, let me just emphasize two:

  1. I've tried very hard for very long to be as understanding as possible to Israelis, even though I never embraced the nationalist movement that founded and led the "Jewish State" (never mind the crypto-religious settler cult that currently holds sway over it). Nor have I been reluctant to criticize when I've sensed similar (correlative?) movements among Palestinians, even when I saw in them reflections of the dominant Israeli trends. I believe that people of all sides deserve human rights, and I'm sympathetic to those who are denied them, regardless of whose fault that might be (even when the fault is one's own). However, at this point Israel alone -- by which I mean the current governing coalition and all those who support them (not all Israelis, but most; not most Americans, but some) -- bear exclusive responsibility for all pain and suffering in the region, even their own. One thing that follows from this is that every violence from any side is properly viewed as a consequence of Netanyahu's incitement and perpetuation of this genocidal war. Just for the record, I don't approve of Hamas or Hezbollah violence any more than I approve of Israeli violence, but I understand that when Israel acts as it has been doing, human nature will respond in kind. Israel alone has the power to end this conflict. That they refuse to pay even the minimal rights of according Palestinians a right to live in peace and dignity puts this all on them.

  2. I have very little new to say about the US elections. Trump, Vance, and virtually every other Republican have proven to be even more boorish and benighted than previously imagined. Honest and decent American voters have to stop them, which means electing Democrats, regardless of their flaws. I will continue to note some of these flaws, but none of them can possibly alter the prime directive, which is to stop the Republicans. To that end, I will continue to note pieces that expose their failures and that heap derision on them, but I don't see that doing so here makes much difference. I, and probably you, know enough already. Aside from voting, which is the least one can and should do, I wouldn't mind tuning out until November, when we can wake up and assess the damages.

I could write much more about each of these two points, but not now.

Top story threads:

Israel: Israel dramatically expanded its genocidal war into Lebanon this week, which warrants yet another section, below

  • Mondoweiss:

    • [09-23] Day 353: Israel launches bombing campaign on Lebanon as Hezbollah retaliates: "Israel's intensifying bombardment of Lebanon has killed at least 274 people so far, while Hezbollah retaliates with rockets across Israel. The Israeli army also raided and forcibly shut down the Ramallah office of Al Jazeera."

    • [09-26] Israel's Genocide Day 356: Netanyahu denies accepting US-French ceasefire proposal with Lebanon: "As Israel expands bombing in Lebanon, Hezbollah rockets have reached reached Akka, Haifa, Tiberias, and the lower Galilee. Meanwhile, in Gaza, Israel returned a truckload of decomposing bodies without identification that it had abducted from Gaza." First thing to note here is that they've changed the headline here: all previous entry titles started with 'Operation al-Aqsa Flood' (their quotes) before "Day." I've always dropped that part, as I found it both unnecessary and unhelpful: "Operation al-Aqsa Flood" lasted at most four days; everything since then, as well as most of those first four days, has been Israel's doing -- and I wasn't about to impose Israel's own declaration ("Operation Swords of Iron," which in itself says much about Israeli mentality). I'm not going to repeat the new title either (beyond this one instance), but I do consider it truthful, and have since about one week into the operation, by which time it was clear what Netanyahu had in mind (look back for quotes about Amalek; e.g.: Noah Lanard: [2023-11-03] The dangerous history behind Netanyahu's Amalek rhetoric: "His recent biblical reference has long been used by the Israeli far right to justify killing Palestinians").

    • [09-30] Day 360: Israel tells US Lebanon invasion 'imminent' as Hezbollah says it is 'ready to engage' Israeli forces: "Hezbollah's Deputy Secretary General said Hezbollah's military capacities remain intact, while Israel has reportedly informed the U.S. that an Israeli ground invasion of southern Lebanon is 'imminent.'"

  • Ahmed Abu Abdu: [09-25] Waste is piling up in Gaza. The public health implications are disastrous. "I am in charge of waste management in Gaza City. The Israeli occupation has launched a war on our sanitation facilities and waste management systems, creating an environmental and health crisis that will take years to recover from."

  • B'Tselem: The pogroms are working - the transfer is already happening: This is mostly a report on events in the West Bank prior to the Oct. 7 Gaza revolt, after which settler violence in the West Bank -- "in the past two yeras, at least six West Bank communities have been displaced" -- only increased.

    For decades, Israel has employed a slew of measures designed to make life in dozens of Palestinian communities throughout the West Bank miserable. This is part of an attempt to force residents of these communities to uproot themselves, seemingly of their own accord. Once that is achieved, the state can realize its goal of taking over the land. To advance this objective, Israel forbids members of these communities from building homes, agricultural structures or public buildings. It does not allow them to connect to the water and power grids or build roads, and when they do, as they have no other choice, Israel threatens demolition, often delivering on these threats.

    Settler violence is another tool Israel employs to further torment Palestinians living in these communities. Such attacks have grown significantly worse under the current government, turning life in some places into an unending nightmare and denying residents any possibility of living with even minimal dignity. The violence has robbed Palestinian residents of their ability to continue earning a living. It has terrorized them to the point of fearing for their lives and made them internalize the understanding that there is no one to protect them.

    This reality has left these communities with no other choice, and several of them have uprooted themselves, leaving hearth and home for safer places. Dozens of communities scattered throughout the West Bank live in similar conditions. If Israel continues this policy, their residents may also be displaced, freeing Israel to achieve its goal and take over their land.

  • Tareq S Hajjaj: [09-26] In Gaza, all eyes are on Lebanon: "People in Gaza hoped that an expansion of the Lebanese front would ease pressure on Gaza. Instead, Israel has escalated its massacres while global attention is elsewhere. They still hope the resistance in Lebanon will make Israel pay."

  • Vera Sajrawi: [09-25] In Israel's prisons, skin diseases are a method of punishment: "Prison authorities are allowing scabies to spread by restricting Palestinian inmates' water supply and depriving them of clean clothes and medical care."

  • Erika Solomon/Lauren Leatherby/Aric Toler: [09-25] Israeli bulldozers flatten mile after mile in the West Bank: "Videos from Tulkarm and Jenin show bulldozers destroying infrastructure and businesses, as well as soldiers impeding local emergency responders."

  • Oren Ziv: [09-23] Settlers attacked Bana's village. Then a soldier shot her through her window: "After Israeli settlers assaulted Palestinians with rocks and Molotov cocktails, soldiers raided Qaryut and killed a 13-year-old as she stood in her bedroom."

Israel targets Lebanon: Following last week's stochastic terrorist exercise -- detonating thousands of booby-trapped pages and walkie-talkies -- Israel escalated its bombing of Lebanon, Israel targeting and killed senior Hezbollah leadership, including long-time leader Hasan Nasrallah. In many quarters, this will be touted as a huge success for Netanyahu in his campaign to exterminate all of Israel's enemies, but right now the longer-term consequences of fallout and blowback are incalculable and probably even unimaginable. We should be clear that Hezbollah did not provoke these attacks, even in response to Israel's genocide in Gaza.

(In 2006, Hezbollah, which had been formed in opposition to Israel's 1982-2000 occupation of southern Lebanon, did act against Israel, as a diversion after Israel launched its first punitive siege of Gaza. Israel shifted attention to Lebanon, and conducted a horrific bombing campaign, as well as an unsuccessful ground incursion.)

Rather, Israel has repeatedly provoked Hezbollah -- which has tried to deter further attacks by demonstrating their ability to fire rockets deep into Israel, a strategy I regard as foolish ("deterrence" only deters people who weren't going to attack you in the first place; it works for Israel against its hapless neighbors, but when others try it, it just provokes greater arrogance and aggression by Israel). As I've stressed all along, Israel's expansion of the war into Lebanon serves two purposes: to provide "fog of war" cover for continuing the genocide in Gaza, and expanding it into the West Bank; and to lock reflexive US support in place, which is tied to the supposedly greater regional threat of Iran. The US could short-circuit this war by denouncing Israel's aggression, by demanding an immediate cease-fire, and by negotiating a separate peace and normalization with Iran (which Iran has long signalled a desire for). Instead, the Biden administration continues to let Netanyahu pull its strings.

Note that I haven't tried to subdivide these links, but events unfolded quickly, so dates may be significant.

  • Al Jazeera: [09-28] Israel kills Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in air strike on Beirut: "Hezbollah confirms Nasrallah's death as Israel says it hit the group's leaders at their headquarters in south Beirut."

  • Seraj Assi: [09-24] Israel is extending its genocidal war to Lebanon.

  • Elia Ayoub: [09-23] With page blasts and airstrikes, Israel unleashes its terror on Lebanon: "Israeli leaders have threatened to replicate the 'Gaza model' in south Lebanon. But Hezbollah may prove to be an even more challenging foe than Hamas."

  • Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor: Israel escalates its military attacks in Lebanon, targeting residential areas and civilians with intense raids.

  • Khader Jabbar/Abualjawad Omar: [09-27] From Gaza to Beirut: Abdaljawad Omar on the ripple effects of Israel's attack on Lebanon: Interview, from [09-25]. Omar has written several articles for Mondoweiss that I've been highly critical of. On the other hand, I see little to quibble with here:

    I may be exaggerating at some level, but those are the contours of how Israel viewed October 7. Not because it was really an existential risk. We already saw that in only two or four days, Israel was able to regain the Gaza envelope and the settlements surrounding Gaza. But on the level of the psyche, that's how it felt for most Israelis. So they want to regain the initiative. They saw October 7 as an opportunity to exact a price from everybody in the region who supports resistance. They want to destroy societies that are challenging them, whether in Gaza, Lebanon, or other places.

    The real desire is for an ultimate form of victory, this kind of awe-inspiring victory that will give them an answer to their existential questions.

    I think that on some level, the Israelis won the war, they won the victory. They want to create these awe-inspiring moments, like we saw with the pager and walkie-talkie attacks, which they have severely missed in contrast to how they were caught with their pants down on October 7.

    October 7 was a moment that not only stuck in the Israeli psyche, but the Palestinian psyche as well. Israel's genocide in Gaza inspired shock and horror, but didn't inspire a lot of awe. It didn't give Israelis the taste of power that Israeli identity was built on. But with Hezbollah, we've seen this awe factor come back, like the penetration of the communication devices and blowing them all up at once. This includes some of the operations that Israel has conducted in Gaza, like the extraction of some Israeli prisoners held by the Palestinian resistance.

    That's on a level of, if you want, psychological and aesthetic analysis. But on a political level, Israel finds this as an opportunity. It's already way deep into a war for 11 months, a war that is costing it a lot economically, socially, politically, and diplomatically. It sees that only more war will bring about better results in those domains.

    It will be able to establish what it calls deterrence. It will be able to put a line in the sand and say, if you ever challenge us again, this is what will happen to you. It will burn into the consciousness of the people of the region that Israel shouldn't be played with. All of these motivations coexist all at once in Israel's conduct -- and of course, for the settlers specifically.

    The only ones who have a real solution for this whole Palestinian question, instead of managing the conflict or shrinking the conflict or destroying the possibilities for two states or one state, are the settlers who say that we should change the paradigm with the Palestinians. They say, we should destroy Palestinian existence in the land of Palestine.

    So for the settlers, the "ultimate victory" is to get rid of as many Palestinians as possible from the river to the sea, including Palestinian citizens of Israel, and establish the kind of pure religious Jewish state that they have always dreamed of. For them, war is desirable. It maintains the possibility for ethnic cleansing, it maintains the possibility for genocide. It means it still keeps the possibility of total victory open. Of course, even in their wildest dreams, even if they clear out all of the Palestinians from Palestine, I think the Palestinian question will not go away.

    I don't have time to ruminate on this right now, but there is a lot to unpack here.

  • Ken Klippenstein: [09-23] Beep, beep! "Israel's pager caper is a Wile E. Coyote vs. Road Runner exercise in futility."

    This is the less cinematic but no less depressing reality of the pager attack: it is just another version of the latest weapon in the never changing battlefield, one typified by these kinds of tit-for-tat attacks that never bring about a decisive ending or a new beginning.

    Before long, other countries and terrorist groups will buy or develop their own Acme Exploding Pagers, as Panetta hinted. The media's uncritically declaring Israel's latest caper a success creates an incentive for countries to do just that. Absent an honest assessment, hands will again be wrung, chins scratched, ominous warnings issued, and beep, beep! -- perpetual war will zip right on by.

    And of course when Hezbollah or some other group attacks our devices, the national security state will happily label it terrorism.

  • Edo Konrad: [09-20] What Israelis don't want to hear about Iran and Hezbollah: "For years, Israeli expert Ori Goldberg has tried to challenge commonly-held assumptions about the Islamic Republic and its allies. Will anyone listen?"

  • Andrew Mitrovica: [09-28] The peace appeals of Israel's Western enablers are a cynical charade: "For the West, Lebanese lives are as disposable as Palestinian lives. Its calls for a ceasefire are no more than a sham."

  • Qassam Muaddi:

  • Nicole Narea: [09-28] Hezbollah's role in the Israel-Hamas war, explained.

  • Liz Sly: [09-29] Nasrallah's assassination shreds illusion of Hezbollah's military might. What military might? In 2006, Hezbollah was effective at repelling an Israeli ground incursion, which wasn't all that serious in the first place. But Hezbollah has no air force, no effective anti-aircraft defense, no tanks, few if any drones, a few small missiles that while more sophisticated than anything Hamas had in Gaza have never been able to inflict any serious damage. Sure, they talk a foolish game of deterrence, but no one in Israel takes their threat seriously.

  • Mohamad Hasan Sweidan: [09-20] No one is safe: the global threat of Israel's weaponized pagers.

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

  • Michael Arria:

    • [09-24] The Shift: Biden team admits they won't get ceasefire done. Cites the Sanger and Ward pieces below.

      • David E Sanger: [09-23] Biden works against the clock as violence escalates in the Middle East: "President Biden is beginning to acknowledge that he is simply running out of time to help forge a cease-fire and hostage deal with Hamas, his aides say. And the risk of a wider war has never looked greater." It's hard to make things happen when you don't have the will to exercise your power. Still, it's pretty pathetic to think that a sitting US president needs more than four months to demand something as simple and straightforward as a cease-fire. (The hostage exchange is an unnecessary complication.) While I'm sure there are limits to presidential power, the problem here appears to be that Biden and his administration don't have the faintest understanding of what needs to be done. Nor do they seem to care.

      • Alexander Ward: [09-19] US officials concede Gaza cease-fire out of reach for Biden: "Biden administration is still pushing talks, but a breakthrough appears unlikely.

      • Arria also quotes Alon Pinkas in Haaretz:

      [Netanyahu] has a vested interest in prolonging the war for his political survival and in making it an election issue that could potentially harm Vice President Kamala Harris. It seems that the US finally and very belatedly realized it last week, which is why, however unfortunate, there is little the US will do until the election, unless it's forced to act in the case of a major escalation.

    • [09-26] The Shift: Tlaib target of (yet another) smear campaign: "Rep. Rashida Tlaib is being targeted by yet another smear campaign, after she criticized Michigan's AG for pursuing charges against Palestine protesters."

    • [09-27] Netanyahu defends Gaza and Lebanon attacks in UN speech: "Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the United Nations on Friday, vowing to continue waging war on Gaza and Lebanon. Israeli media reports the Israeli Prime Minister ordered massive strikes on Beirut just before giving the speech."

  • Sam Bull: [09-23] US sending more troops to the Middle East: "Now close to 50,000 American service members in the region as the threat of a wider war looms."

  • Tara Copp: [09-23] US sends more troops to Middle East as violence rises between Israel and Hezbollah: I've been saying all along that Israel's attacks on Lebanon (aka Hezbollah) are designed to trap the US into a role of shielding Israel from Iran. The thinking is that if the US and Iran go to war, the US will become more dependent on Israel, and more indulgent in their main focus, which is making Gaza and the West Bank uninhabitable for Palestinians. US troop movement prove that the strategy is working, even though it's pretty obviously cynical and deranged.

  • Dave DeCamp: [09-26] US gives Israel $8.7 billion in military aid for operations in Gaza and Lebanon.

  • Fawaz A Gerges: [09-30] The rising risk of a new forever war: Title from jump page: "The United States has not been a true friend of Israel." This is the relevant paragraph:

    Nevertheless, it is the only way forward. Israel's hubris in its attacks on Lebanon has been enabled by America's "ironclad" military support and diplomatic cover for its ally. In this regard, the United States has not been a true friend to Israel. Israel will not know lasting peace until it recognizes that its long-term security depends on reconciliation with the millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Its leaders must find a political compromise that will finally allow Israel to be fully integrated into the region. Top-down normalization with Arab autocrats is not enough.

  • Jamal Kanj: [09-27] Israel's war on Lebanon and Netanyahu's October Surprise to pick the next US president.

  • Yousef Munayyer: [09-25] How Anthony Blinken said no to saving countless lives in Gaza: "The secretary of state overruled his own experts, allowing bombs to continue to flow to Israel. How many more people would be alive today if he hadn't?"

  • Brett Murphy: [09-24] Israel deliberately blocked humanitarian aid to Gaza, two government bodies concluded. Anthony Blinken rejected them.

  • Ishaan Tharoor:

    • [09-20] A broader Israel-Lebanon war now seems inevitable: "This week's pager explosions in Lebanon represent a tactical victory for Israel. They also appear to lock the region into an escalatory spiral." I thought that tactics were meant to facilitate strategy, but it's hard to discern either in such massive, indiscriminate mayhem. Unless the strategy is to convince the world that Israelis are insane as well as evil, in which case, sure, they're making their point.

    • [09-23] World leaders gather at a UN desperate to save itself: "Ongoing crises in Sudan, Gaza and Ukraine have underscores the inefficacy of the world's foremost decision-making body. Great power competition may be to blame." You think? The UN has no power to enforce judgments, so the only way it can function is as a forum for negotiation, and that only works if all parties are amenable. There is nothing the UN can do about a nation like Israel that is flagrantly in contempt of international law. In many ways, the US is even more of a rogue force on the international scene. America's disregard for other nations has pushed other countries into defensive stances, further disabling the UN. Now it's just a big gripe session, as the speeches by Netanyahu and Biden made abundantly clear.

    • [09-24] Biden walks off the UN stage, leaving behind a world in 'purgatory': "In his last speech from the dais of the UN General Assembly, Biden highlighted his efforts to resolve the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Others remain skeptical."

    • [09-27] At the UN, overwhelming anger at Israel: "At the United Nations, world leaders cast Israel's heavy-handed campaigns in Gaza and the inability of the UN system to rein it as a danger to the institution itself."

  • Robert Wright: [09-27] Biden and Blinken, Israel's lawyers.

Israel vs. world opinion:

Election notes:

Trump:

Vance, and other Republicans:

Harris:

  • James Carden: [09-25] When odious foreign policy elites rally around Harris: "We should take seriously those responsible for some of the bloodiest, stupidest national security decisions in recent memory." Cheneys, of course, and a few more mentioned, as well as reference to this:

  • Adam Jentleson: [09-28] Kamala Harris said she owns a gun for a very strategic reason: "She has been doing an effective job of vice signaling from the left." First I've heard of "vice signaling," and this definition doesn't help: "Vice signaling means courting healthy controversy with the enforcers of orthodoxy -- the members of interest groups who on many critical issues have let themselves off the hook for accurately representing the views and interests of those they claim to speak for." I have run across "virtue signaling" before, which is a term used to deride views from the left as mere ploys to make one seem more virtuous -- an implicit put-down of anyone who doesn't agree. "Vice signaling" has the same intent, but opposes virtue by embracing its opposite vice. Why these terms should exclusively be directed against the left is counterintuitive -- throughout history, "enforcers of orthodoxy" have nearly always come from the right, where "holier than thou" is a common attitude, and snobbery not just accepted but cultivated.

    The actual examples given, like embracing fracking and threatening to shoot a home invader, may help Harris break away from cartoon left caricatures, and that cognitive dissonance may help her get a fresh hearing. That may be part of her craft as a politician -- as a non- or even anti-politician, I'm in no position to tell her how to do her job. Nor do I particularly care about these specific cases. But I am irritated when leftists who've merely thought problems through enough to arrive at sound answers are dismissed as "enforcers of orthodoxy."

  • Padma Lakshmi: [09-21] As a cook, here's what I see in Kamala Harris. There's a lot in this piece I can relate to, put my own spin on, and imagine her spin as not being all that different.

    Talking about food is a way to relate to more Americans, even those uninterested in her politics. We've all been eating since we were babies, and we're experts on our own tastes. Talking about food paves the way to harder conversations. Food removes barriers and unites us.

    Ms. Harris evinces clear delight in cooking and in talking about almost any type of food -- a passion that is core to who she is, like basketball for Barack Obama or golf for Donald Trump.

    She is omnivorous and a versatile cook.

    That Obama and Trump would go for sports is in itself telling (as is that Trump went for the solo sport, vs. a team sport for Obama, one that requires awareness of other people and the ability to make changes on the fly). I've only watched one of the videos (so far, making dosa masala with Mindy Kaling, which was chatty with less technique than I would have preferred -- I understand the decision to use the premix batter, after at least one stab at making it from scratch).

  • John Nichols: [09-20] Kamala Harris is winning the Teamsters endorsements that really matter: "The national leadership may have snubbed her -- but Teamsters in the swing states that will decide the election are backing her all the way." They all matter. Not clear whether the non-endorsement was reaction to the DNC snub, which I never quite understood. Still, the choice for labor is so overwhelming this time the national leadership appears pretty out of touch.

Walz, Biden, and other Democrats:

  • Ethan Eblaghie: [09-26] The Uncommitted Movement failed because it refused to punish Democrats: "The Uncommitted movement failed to move the Biden-Harris administration policy on Gaza because unaccountable movement leaders were unwilling to punish Democrats for supporting genocide." They failed, if that's the word you want to use, because they didn't get the votes. I doubt this was due to lack of sympathy for their issue: most rank-and-file Democrats (as opposed to party politicians, who of necessity are preoccupied with fundraising) support a cease-fire, and many are willing to back that up with limits on military aid[*]; but they also see party unity as essential to defeating Trump and the Republicans, and they see that as more critical/urgent than mobilizing public opinion against genocide. I can see both sides of this, but at this point the ticket and the contest are set, so all you can do is to pick one. While I have little positive to say about Harris on Israel, it's completely clear to me that Trump would be even worse, and I can't think of any respect in which he would be preferable to Harris. As for punishing the Democrats -- even with third-party and not-voting options -- don't be surprised if they never forgive you. So ask yourself, do you really want to burn the bridge to the people you're most likely to appeal to?

    [*] Michael Arria, in a piece cited above, has some polling:

    Recent polls show vast support for an arms embargo on Israel among Democratic voters.

    A March 2024 Center for Economic and Policy Research survey found that 52% of Americans wanted the U.S. to stop weapons shipments. That included 62% of Democratic voters.

    A June survey then from CBS News/YouGov found that more than 60% of voters should not send weapons or supplies to Israel. Almost 80% of Democrats said the the U.S. shouldn't send weapons.

  • Ken Klippenstein: [09-25] Biden's ode to perpetual war: "In final UN speech, President ignores a world on fire.

Supreme Court, legal matters, and other crimes:

Climate and environment:

Economists, the economy, and work:

Ukraine and Russia:

Elsewhere in the world and/or/in spite of America's empire:

Other stories:

Obituaries:

  • Benny Golson:

    • Richard Williams: [09-25] Benny Golson obituary: "Tenor saxophonist whose compositions were valued for their harmonic challenge and melodic grace."

  • Fredric Jameson: A critic and philosopher, I remember him fondly from my early Marxist period, which certainly meant his books Marxism and Form: Twentieth Century Dialectical Theories of Literature (1971), and possibly The Prison-House of Language: A Critical Account of Structuralism and Russian Formalism (1972), but I haven't followed him since. Turns out he's written much more than I was aware of, especially many titles published by Verso Books.

    • Terry Eagleton: Fredric Jameson, 1934-2024: "reflects here on Jameson's humility, generosity, and unrivalled erudition."

    • Owen Hatherley: [09-28] Fredric Jameson's capitalist horror show: "We still live in the postmodern landscape defined by the Marxist thinker, who died this month."

      Jameson's work was both utopian and depressive, expansive in the field of its analysis and trained almost entirely on culture rather than politics. And he was rare among Marxist intellectuals in the neoliberal era to have managed to speak firmly to the present day. That is why his work affected so many. An entire strand of mainstream political thought is unimaginable without the influence of Jameson's fusion of hard cultural criticism, immense knowledge, refusal of low/high cultural boundaries, and his endlessly ruminative, open-minded dialectical curiosity, put in the service of a refusal ever to forgive or downplay the horrors that capitalism has inflicted upon the world. Jameson's Marxism was particularly tailored for our fallen era, a low ebb of class struggle, an apparent triumph of a new and ever more ruthless capitalism: "late", as he optimistically put it, borrowing a phrase from the Belgian Trotskyist Ernest Mandel.

      Also:

      "The dialectic," wrote Jameson, "is not moral." In the sprawling Valences of the Dialectic (2009), Jameson proposed "a new institutional candidate for the function of Utopian allegory, and that is the phenomenon called Wal-Mart". While conceding that the actually existing Wal-Mart was "dystopian in the extreme", Jameson was fascinated by its unsentimental destruction of small businesses, its monopolistic mockery of the concept of a "free market", and its immense, largely automated and computerised network of distribution of cheap, abundant goods. Perhaps it was a step too far to extrapolate from this -- as did Leigh Phillips and Michael Rozworski in their 2019 The People's Republic of Wal-Mart -- and portray the megacorp as a prefiguring of communist distribution networks. But what Jameson was up to, following Gramsci's and Lenin's fascination with Fordism and Taylorism, was an attempt to uncover what the new horrors of capitalism made possible. In the case of Wal-Mart, he argued, the answer was: a computerised planned economy. Jameson was a strict, 20th-century Marxist in remaining a firmly modernist thinker, refusing to find any solace in imagined communal or pre-capitalist pasts. But his unsentimental modernism did not preclude an outrage at the ravages inflicted by colonialism and imperialism in the name of "progress", an often overlooked thread in his work.

      [PS: From this, my first and evidently only free article, I clicked on Richard Seymour: [07-22] The rise of disaster nationalism: "The modern far-right is not a return to fascism, but a new and original threat." I could see this as a reasonable argument, as evidence of the "thought-provoking journalism" the publication touts, but I was stopped cold at the paywall ("as little as $12.00 a month").

    • Clay Risen: [09-23] Fredric Jameson, critic who linked literature to capitalism, dies at 90: "Among the world's leading academic critics, he brought his analytical rigor to topics as diverse as German opera and sci-fi movies."

    • AO Scott: [09-23] For Fredric Jameson, Marxist criticism was a labor of love: "The literary critic, who died on Sunday at age 90, believed that reading was the path to revolution."

    • Robert T Tally Jr.: [09-27] The Fredric Jameson I knew.

    • Kate Wagner: [09-26] The gifts of Fredric Jameson (1934-2024): "The intellectual titan bestowed on us so many things, chief among them a reminder to Always Be Historicizing."

    • Verso Books: [09-23] Jameson at 90: A Verso Blog series: "Our series honoring Fredric Jameson's oeuvre in celebration of his 90th birthday."

  • Kris Kristofferson:

  • Maggie Smith:

  • Also note:

Books

  • Patrick Iber: [09-24] Eric Hobsbawm's lament for the twentieth century: "Where some celebrated the triumph of liberal capitalism in the 1990s, Hobsbawn saw a failed dream." Re-reviewing the British historian's 1994 book, The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914-1991, which I started at the time, and have long meant to return to -- although after re-reading the first of what turned into his tetraology, The Age of Revolution (1789-1948), I found myself wanting to work through the intermediate volumes -- The Age of Capital (1848-1875) and The Age of Empire (1875-1914) first. Iber teases us with his conclusion:

    But if a classic is a work that remains worth reading both for what it is and for what it tells us about the time it was created, Hobsbawm's text deserves that status. It rewards the reader not because a historian would write the same book today but precisely because they would not.

    Hobsbawm's previous books are dazzling for the breadth of his knowledge, and his skill at weaving so many seemingly disparate strands into a sensible whole. This one, however, is coterminous with his life (into his 70s; his dates were 1917-2012), which gives him the advantages (and limits) of having experienced as well as researched the history, and having had a personal stake in how it unfolded.

  • Sandip Munshi: [09-25] Irfan Habib is one of the great Marxist historians.

  • Ryu Spaeth: [09-23] The return of Ta-Nehisi Coates: "A decade after The Case for Reparations, he is ready to take on Israel, Palestine, and the American media." Coates has a new book, The Message, coming out Oct. 1. I expect we'll be hearing much more about this in coming weeks. To underscore the esteem with which Coates is held, this pointed to a 2015 article:

    Here's are several fairly long quotes from Spaeth's article:

    In Coates's eyes, the ghost of Jim Crow is everywhere in the territories. In the soldiers who "stand there and steal our time, the sun glinting off their shades like Georgia sheriffs." In the water sequestered for Israeli use -- evidence that the state had "advanced beyond the Jim Crow South and segregated not just the pools and fountains but the water itself." In monuments on sites of displacement and informal shrines to mass murder, such as the tomb of Baruch Goldstein, who gunned down 29 Muslims in a mosque in 1994, which recall "monuments to the enslavers" in South Carolina. And in the baleful glare of the omnipresent authority. "The point is to make Palestinians feel the hand of occupation constantly," he writes. And later: "The message was: 'You'd really be better off somewhere else.'" . . .

    His affinity for conquered peoples very much extends to the Jews, and he begins the book's essay on Palestine at Yad Vashem, Israel's memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. "In a place like this," he writes, "your mind expands as the dark end of your imagination blooms, and you wonder if human depravity has any bottom at all, and if it does not, what hope is there for any of us?" But what Coates is concerned with foremost is what happened when Jewish people went from being the conquered to the conquerors, when "the Jewish people had taken its place among The Strong," and he believes Yad Vashem itself has been used as a tool for justifying the occupation. "We have a hard time wrapping our heads around people who are obvious historical victims being part and parcel of another crime," he told me. In the book, he writes of the pain he observed in two of his Israeli companions: "They were raised under the story that the Jewish people were the ultimate victims of history. But they had been confronted with an incredible truth -- that there was no ultimate victim, that victims and victimizers were ever flowing." . . .

    The book is strongest when its aperture is narrow. There is no mention of the fact that Israel is bombarded by terrorist groups set on the state's annihilation. There is no discussion of the intifadas and the failed negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian leaders going back decades. There is even no mention of Gaza because Coates was unable to visit the region after the October 7 attack and he did not want to report on a place he hadn't seen for himself. ("People were like, 'Gaza is so much worse,'" he told me. "'So much worse.'") What there is, instead, is a picture of the intolerable cruelty and utter desperation that could lead to an October 7.

    "If this was the 1830s and I was enslaved and Nat Turner's rebellion had happened," Coates told me that day in Gramercy, "I would've been one of those people that would've been like, 'I'm not cool with this.' But Nat Turner happens in a context. So the other part of me is like, What would I do if I had grown up in Gaza, under the blockade and in an open-air prison, and I had a little sister who had leukemia and needed treatment but couldn't get it because my dad or my mom couldn't get the right pass out? You know what I mean? What would I do if my brother had been shot for getting too close to the barrier? What would I do if my uncle had been shot because he's a fisherman and he went too far out? And if that wall went down and I came through that wall, who would I be? Can I say I'd be the person that says, 'Hey, guys, hold up. We shouldn't be doing this'? Would that have been me?"

    • Ta-Nehisi Coates: [08-21] A Palestinian American's place under the Democrats' big tent?: "Though the Uncommitted movement is lobbying to get a Palestinian American on the main stage, the Harris campaign has not yet approved one. Will there be a change before Thursday -- and does the Democratic Party want that?" In the end, the DNC didn't allow a Palestinian speaker, calling into question their "big tent" commitment, and exposing how invisible and unfelt Palestinians have become even among people who profess to believe in democracy, equal rights, human rights, peace and social justice.

Chatter

  • Zack Beauchamp: [09-24] The Israel-Palestine conflict is in fact complicated and difficult to resolve fairly.

    Invariably, posts like these attract the absolute stupidest people who prove why it needs saying in the first place.

    PS: I replied: Reminds me of a joke: how many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? One, but the light bulb really has to want to change. Palestinians have tried everything; nothing worked, so it looks difficult. But Israel has offered nothing. If they did, it would be easy.

    Many comments, preëmptively dismissed by Beauchamp, make similar points, some harshly, others more diplomatically. One took the opposite tack, blaming it all on Palestinian rejection of Israel's good intentions -- basically a variation on the argument that when one is being raped, one should relax and enjoy it. The key thing is that Israelis have always viewed the situation as a contest of will and power, where both sides seek to dominate the other, which is never acceptable to the other. When dominance proves impossible, the sane alternative is to find some sort of accommodation, which allows both sides most of the freedoms they desire. That hasn't happened with Israel, because they've always felt they were if not quite on the verge of winning, at least in such a dominant position they could continue the conflict indefinitely. Given that presumption, everything else is rationalization.

    One comment cites Ta-Nehisi Coates:

    For Coates, the parallels with the Jim Crow South were obvious and immediate: Here, he writes, was a "world where separate and unequal was alive and well, where rule by the ballot for some and the bullet for others was policy." And this world was made possible by his own country: "The pushing of Palestinians out of their homes had the specific imprimatur of the United States of America. Which means it had my imprimatur."

    That it was complicated, he now understood, was "horseshit." "Complicated" was how people had described slavery and then segregation. "It's complicated," he said, "when you want to take something from somebody."

  • Zachary D Carter: [09-25] Biden's Middle East policy straightforwardly violates domestic and international law.

    In just about every other respect Biden's foreign policy operation has been admirable, but the damage he has done to international conceptions of the U.S. with his Middle East program is on par with George W. Bush.

    PS: I replied: Funny, I can't think of any aspect of Biden foreign policy as admirable, even in intent, much less in effect. Same hubris, hollow principles, huge discounts for shameless favorites (arms, oil, $$). Even climate is seen as just rents. Israel is the worst, but the whole is rotten.]

I saw this in a Facebook image, and felt like jotting it down (at some point I should find the source):

Banksy on Advertising

People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, ttakle a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you're not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you.

You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.

Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no chance whether you see it or not is yours. It's yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.

You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don't owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don't . . .

Quite some time ago, I started writing a series of little notes on terms of interest -- an idea, perhaps inspired by Raymond Williams' book Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, that I've kept on a cool back burner ever since. One of the first entries was on advertising, and as I recall -- I have no idea where this writing exists, if indeed it does -- it started with: "Advertising is not free speech. It is very expensive . . ." Williams would usually start with the history of the word, including etymology, then expand on its current usage. I was more focused on the latter, especially how words combine complex and often nuanced meanings, and how I've come to think through those words. Advertising for me is not just a subject I have a lot of personal experience in -- both as consumer or object and on the concept and production side -- but is a prism which reveals much about our ethics and politics. In particular, it testifies to our willingness to deceive and to manipulate one another, and our tolerance at seeing that done, both to others and to oneself.

In looking this up, I found a few more useful links on Raymond Williams (1981-88) and Keywords:

Local tags (these can be linked to directly): music.

Original count: 171 links, 10266 words (13367 total)

Current count: 171 links, 10271 words (13374 total)

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Monday, September 23, 2024

Speaking of Which

File opened: 2024-09-17 2:05 PM. Wrapping it up, rather arbitrarily, on Monday afternoon. I feared I would have little time to work on my weekly posts this week (and next, and the week after, when we expect visitors), so I limited my hopes to picking up a few links for future reference, collected in my spare time. This has grown larger than I expected, especially as I opened up and wrote several lengthy comments. Such informal writing comes easy, and feels substantive, where my more ambitious concepts so often flounder. So I count this as therapeutic, regardless of whether it's of value to anyone else.

My one ambitious concept this week was to write up an outline of an introduction, which would provide some kind of "executive summary" of current events. As events change little from week to week -- for some time now I've been starting each week with a skeletal template, which I refine and reuse -- it occurred to me that I could come up with a boilerplate introduction, which I could then copy and edit from week to week, but would cover the main points I keep returning to in scattered comments.

I came up with that idea back on Thursday, but here it is Monday and I still haven't started on it. So maybe next week? I'll start with a blanket endorsement of Harris and all Democrats, not because I especially like them but because they're the only practical defense against Republicans, who are set on a program to do you great harm, and in some cases get you killed. Then we'll talk about inequality and war, which top my list of the world's problems -- not that we can ignore the latter, but fixing them is really hard without ending war and reducing inequality. And when it comes to war and inequality, no example is more horrific than Israel, which as you'll read below, took a sudden, bizarre turn for the worse last week. Back in October, I explained my plan for ending the Gaza war. My thinking has evolved a bit since then, and it would be good to update it and keep it current.

I woke up early (way too early for me) Tuesday morning, and found this in my mailbox from Mazin Qumsiyeh (I've replaced URLs with linked article titles):

A regional war has just been officially declared and will likely soon become a global war. This accelerated with Netanyahu's refusal to do a prisoner swap and ceasefire deal for Gaza for 11 months (even against the wishes of his military commanders) with no prospect of that changing which meant continuation of the genocide and conflict with Lebanon, Yemen, and Iraq (yes supportive resistance forces to Israeli imperial hegemony). The Israeli regime escalated with a series of terrorist attacks on Lebanon including rigging pagers and walkie-talkies to explode killing and injuring scores of civilians. Then attacked Beirut apoartment buildings, then in the past 24 hours attacked homes throughout Lebanon killing 500 Lebanese civilians (most women and children like in Gaza) Israel escalates its military attacks in Lebanon, targeting residential areas and civilians with intense raids.

And yes the resistance from Lebanon and Gaza continues to target Israeli military forces. And attacks on the West Bank continue so that they can depopulate us Inside the brutal siege of Jenin.

An Interfaith Dispatch From the West Bank: Rabbis for Ceasefire and Hindus for Human Rights make a peace pilgrimage (mentions us): An interfaith dispatch from the West Bank.

The prospect and the solution? See this just published very short article of mine in Z Magazine A path forward or listen to this interview 5 Sept Heroes and Patriots Mazin Qumsiyeh and Abba Solomon, heroes and patriots or this talk 22 Sept UU Brevard, Flordia 9 22 24 Decolonization of people and nature in Palestine and globally, with Prof Mazin Qumsiyeh.

Question: How many more thousands of children have to be massacred (so far 20,000) before the world governments act?

Reminder: THIS DID NOT START 7 OCTOBER 2023 . . IT STARTED IN 1948 AND EARLIER WITH ETHNIC CLEANSING AND COLONIZATION. See Frequently asked questions, answers, and documentation on Gaza.

Top story threads:

Israel:

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

  • Michael Arria:

    • [09-19] Jill Stein leads Kamala Harris among Muslim voters in swing states as Palestine supporters weigh choices amid Gaza genocide: "A recent poll shows Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein beating Kamala Harris among Muslim voters in multiple swing states as pro-Palestinian voters weigh the upcoming U.S. presidential race." I'm skeptical of any such polling, and not just because third-party support tends to evaporate in the closing days of the season. The article doesn't go into much detail about either the poll details or the question of how many voters are we really talking about here. CAIR estimates that there are over 2.5 million Muslim voters in the US (75% born in the US, 20-25% African-American), so about 1.5% of all registered voters. Contrary to the headline, the CAIR poll shows Harris slightly ahead of Stein, 29.4%% to 29.1%, trailed by Trump (11.2%), Cornel West (4.2%), and Chase Oliver (the Libertarian, 0.8%), with 16.5% undecided and 8.8% not voting.

    • [09-19] The Shift: Uncommitted Movement says it won't back Harris in election. If you read the fine print, you'll see that while they refuse to endorse Harris, they "oppose" Trump, and are "not recommending a third-party vote in the Presidential election, especially as third party votes in key states could help inadvertently deliver a Trump presidency given our country's broken electoral college system." They don't talk about not voting, but if you're leaning that way, please read the parts about Trump again.

    • [09-17] The Shift: Nearly 60% of Israelis say they'd vote for Trump: "Former President and GOP nominee Donald Trump remains a popular figure in Israel. A recent poll found that 58% of Israelis would vote for Trump, while just 25% would vote for Harris."

      This week Trump will give two speeches to pro-Israel audiences.

      First, he'll speak to a group of Jewish supporters in DC about countering antisemitism.

      Jewish Insider's Matt Kassel reports that Orthodox businessman Yehuda Kaploun and his business partner Ed Russo will host the event.

      A source told Kassel that the event will allow Trump to speak with Jewish leaders "about his plans to combat the wave of antisemitism and antisemitic behavior and enforce the laws for religious liberty to all."

      Miriam Adelson is expected to attend. The GOP megadonor is reportedly set to spend more than $100 million to elect Trump in November.

      In DC Trump will also address the Israeli American Council's (IAC) national convention. The IAC is led by lan Carr, who served as the envoy to combat antisemitism under Trump. Its largest donor is Adelson.

      I understand why people are disturbed the level of reflexive support for Israel that Harris has consistently shown, and how tempting it is to punish her at the ballot box, but the candidate who is most under Israel's thumb is clearly Trump. Harris at least has the presence of mind and decency to decry and bemoan the war, and offer that it must stop. Trump's allegiance is not just for sale here. It's done been sold.

  • Juan Cole: [09-17] A centrist Muslim alliance against an extremist Israel?

  • Edo Konrad: [09-20] What Israelis don't want to hear about Iran and Hezbollah: "For years, Israeli expert Ori Goldberg has tried to challenge commonly-held assumptions about the Islamic Republic and its allies. Will anyone listen?"

  • Daniel Larison: [09-19] A rare foreign policy win is there for the taking: "Iran's new reformist president wants to negotiate with the West; we should take him up on his request."

  • Jim Lobe: [09-18] 42 years ago today: the Sabra & Shatila massacre.

  • Nicole Narea: [09-18] What we know about the pager and walkie-talkie explosions in Lebanon and Syria: Unfortunately, Vox doesn't seem to know very much about this wave of exploding tech devices -- hundreds of pagers on Tuesday, followed by thousands of walkie-talkies on Wednesday, each packed with remotely-detonated explosives, and allegedly distributed by Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria -- and more importantly, isn't able or willing to set the context and draw meaningful conclusions. Their subhed: "It's a dangerous escalation in the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel as the war in Gaza rages on."

    The first thing that needs to be noted is that the "conflict" is extremely asymmetrical. The background is that Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, intervening in a civil war to bolster a Phalangist (fascist) party thought to be favorable to Israel, which backed out of Beirut but continued to occupy southern Lebanon, up to its withdrawal in 2000 (except for a small sliver of territory[*], which remains as a sore point, which seems to be the point). Hezbollah developed as the most effective resistance organization to Israeli occupation. Once Israel withdrew (except for that sliver, see what I mean?), Hezbollah's mission was complete, but since Israel never signed any peace treaty with Lebanon, they continued to organize as a deterrent against another Israeli attack (as happened in 2006). Since then, except for that sliver, the only times Hezbollah has fired (mostly missiles) at Israel has been in response to Israel's periodic attacks on Lebanon. I'm convinced that Israel does this simply to provoke responses that they can spin into their cover story on Iran: Americans still bear a grudge against Iran over 1979, a feud they've relentlessly stoked since the 1990s, as it gives Israel a threat which is beyond its means, thus binding an American alliance that provides cover for their real agenda, which is to erase the Palestinian presence in all of Israel.

    The US could end this farce immediately by making a separate peace with Iran (and for good measure, with its alleged proxies in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen). Obama took one step in that direction with the JCPOA "nuclear deal," which was the only realistic solution to "the Iranian nuclear threat" -- which Israelis had played up since the early 1990s[**]. But Netanyahu denounced the deal, and used the full power of the Israel lobby to undermine it, leading to Trump's withdrawal, and Biden's failure to reinstate. Had Israel been serious about the "nuclear threat," they would have celebrated JCPOA. Had the US understood Israel's objectives, they would have extended their "deal" with Iran to resolve other disputes and normalize relations.

    I had several other points in mind when I started writing this, but they're more obvious from the reporting, which I'll continue to collect below. Chief among them is that this is a patently Israeli operation, combining as it does a fascination with high tech and completely oblivious disregard for its impact on others, or even for the damage it will do to the future reputation of all Israelis. This is indiscriminate terrorism, on a huge scale. Exactly who in Israel is immediately responsible for this isn't yet clear, but whoever it is should be held responsible, first and foremost by the Israeli people, but until that happens, it is not unreasonable to sanction the state. Any nation, like the US, which claims to be opposed to terrorism would be remiss in not doing so.

    The most similar event I can recall was the Chicago Tylenol murders of 1982, which was probably the work of a single rogue individual (although it was followed by several copycat crimes, and was never definitively solved). The maker of Tylenol (Johnson & Johnson) took extraordinary measures to restore consumer trust (see How the Tylenol murders of 1982 changed the way we consume medication). While similar in terms of sowing mistrust, this case is orders of magnitude larger, and is likely to prove much more difficult for Israel to manage. No one ever thought for a moment that Johnson & Johnson wanted to poison customers, but Netanyahu's hands are not just tainted but dripping blood. Even if he is not personally responsible for this, the war and genocide are clearly his work, in conception and commission, and in his consistent refusal to end or even limit it. Moreover, there is no reason to trust Israel to investigate itself -- as it has claimed many times in the past to do, covering up and/or excusing many serious crimes along the way.

    [*] This sliver is called Shebaa Farms. When Israel withdrew from Lebanon, they continued to occupy this bit of land, arguing that it was originally part of the Syrian Heights, which Israel has occupied since 1967 (and later annexed, contrary to international law; it is now better known as Golan Heights). See Why is there a disputed border between Lebanon and Israel?.

    [**] What changed for Israel in 1990 was that after Saddam Hussein was defeated in Kuwait and bottled up and disarmed, they needed a new "existential threat" to replace Iraq and maintain American support. While the Ayatollahs weren't as chummy with Israel as the Shah had been, they maintained cordial relations all through the 1980s -- by far the most anti-American period of Iran's revolution. Israel helped arm Iran as a counterweight to Iraq's ambitions (including their role in Reagan's Iran-Contra scandal, which gave them insight into America's schizoid reaction to overthrowing the CIA-installed Shah). Trita Parsi explains all of this in Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States (2007).

    • CNN [Tara John, et al.]: [09-18] How did pagers explode in Lebanon and why was Hezbollah using them? Here's what we know.

    • CNN [Charbel Mallo, et al.]: [09-18] Israel behind deadly pager explosions that targeted Hezbollah and injured thousands in Lebanon.

    • Caitlin Johnstone: [09-17] Turning people into involuntary suicide bombers to fight terrorism.

    • Daniel Larison: [09-18] Israel terrorizes Lebanon: "This was a reckless attack that makes a major war between Israel and Hezbollah much more likely."

    • Nikita Mazurov: A brief history of booby-trapping electronics to blow up.

    • Jonathan Ofir: [09-18] Israel's attack on Lebanon using exploding electronics is part of a long history and strategy of targeting civilians: "Israel's latest attack on Lebanon represents an expansion of its Dahiya doctrine which intentionally targets civilians to send a political message."

    • Paul R Pillar: [09-20] Wider war closer after Israel's attack on Lebanon.

    • Mitchell Plitnick: [09-18] I scraped this off Facebook.

      A friend asked me how I come to say that Israel targeted civilians with their attack on pagers purchased by Hezbollah.

      Here is my response:

      So let's start with this: being a Hezbollah "operative" does not make one a legitimate target nor does it mean you're not a civilian. Hezbollah operatives include clerks, messengers, secretaries, even medical workers. Bear in mind, Hezbollah is part of the Lebanese government. Its activities cover a lot more than military actions. Therefore, targeting Lebanese people for their connection to Hezbollah is no different from targeting the janitor in the IDF's Tel Aviv headquarters. It's targeting civilians.

      Second, I am told by people I know and have seen it confirmed by at least two Lebanese journalists that many recipients of these pagers are not military. Israel certainly knows that.

      Third, Israel detonated these pagers en masse. They certainly knew they were sure to be in populated areas, with women and children nearby, but they certainly did NOT know who actually had each pager. That's not collateral damage. That's intentionally targeting civilians.

      Any ambiguity in any of this is negated by the fact that this is a blatant violation of international law, specifically the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons which explicitly bars booby-trapping ordinary items. Israel is a High Contracting Party to Article II, where this prohibition is seen:

      4. "Booby-trap" means any device or material which is designed, constructed or adapted to kill or injure, and which functions unexpectedly when a person disturbs or approaches an apparently harmless object or performs an apparently safe act.

      3. It is prohibited in all circumstances to use any mine, booby-trap or other device which is designed or of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering.

      4. Weapons to which this Article applies shall strictly comply with the standards and limitations specified in the Technical Annex with respect to each particular category.

      5. It is prohibited to use mines, booby-traps or other devices which employ a mechanism or device specifically designed to detonate the munition by the presence of commonly available mine detectors as a result of their magnetic or other non-contact influence during normal use in detection operations.

      I'm very comfortable calling this the deliberate targeting of civilians.

    • Steven Simon: [09-18] Exploding pagers in Lebanon: taste of what's yet to come?

    Israel followed up the pager/walkie-talkie attacks with another round of bombing Lebanon, going all the way to Beirut. Some articles on this:

  • Annelle Sheline: [09-18] MBS: no Saudi-Israel normalization until Palestinians get a state: "The Kingdom's crown prince throws cold water on Biden's 'grand bargain,' days after Oman does the same." However:

Israel vs. world opinion:

  • Ramzy Baroud:

  • Medea Benjamin/Nicholas JS Davies: [09-17] Can the world save Palestine from US-Israeli genocide? Refers to a UN General Assembly resolution, which passed on 9/18:

  • Jonathan Cook: [09-20] Jewish Chronicle scandal: why was there no uproar over past pro-Israel disinformation? "Despite a deeply problematic track record, the paper's fake news is making waves only now, after it printed claims based on forged Hamas documents."

  • Georgia Gee: These human rights defenders were hacked by Pegasus. Now they want police to charge the spyware maker. "So far, no one has been able to hold the notorious Israeli spyware firm accountable for complicity in human rights abuses."

  • David Hearst: [09-11] How Israel's genocide in Gaza is creating enemies on all sides: "Netanyahu's refusal to end the war on Gaza and settlers' terrorism in the West Bank have sowed the seeds of hatred across the region."

  • Ziyad Motala: [09-12] The US must allow the World Court to adjudicate on Israel's genocide: "Israeli diplomats have reportedly been instructed to push Washington to scupper South Africa's case before the International Court of Justice."

  • Mazin Qumsiyeh: Links from his latest newsletters, one new, most old, but his writings rarely lose their relevance, as new events more often than not just confirm his insights.

    • [01-01] 2024: Year-end report, personal achievements (research papers, etc.), plans for the coming year.

    • [2023-12-29] Hope for 2024.

    • [2023-11-12] Are we being duped to focus only on Gaza suffering? This is an even bigger question today, as coverage of Gaza has settled into a mind-numbing tedium while Israelis have escalated attacks on the West Bank, and working hard to provoke a war with Hezbollah which will only further cloud their operations against Palestinians. The first two paragraphs here (my bold) are so accurate one has to wonder about all the pundits back then who were (and in many cases still are) clueless.

      Israel's genocide of Gaza is intentional, planned and ongoing with no sign of slowing down. The contrary, with no water, food and medicine it is accelerating. Israel leaders boast openly that they do not care about what the UN, ICC, or ICJ say. Israeli fascist leaders say they do not care what statements are issued by governments. Nor do they care if public pressure causes some western leaders to moderate their "language" stating there is a "humanitarian catastrophe" unfolding in Gaza (without naming the perpetrator and continuing to support physically the genocide). Israel actually can use the humanitarian catastrophe (as if it is an act of God not their agency) as bargaining chips. The focus on "ceasefire negotiations" is actually a very clever strategy to continue the genocidal occupation and for impunity from facing tribunals for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

      Israeli leaders are crystal clear about their crimes and they get their way by genocide and total state terrorism against populations. If you have any doubt, listen to them (see below). They even say openly that if Hizbollah continues its resistance in South Lebanon, then all of Lebanon will pay a devastating price and Beirut will be like Gaza (i.e. totally devastated). Israeli military spokesmen gave the same threats to cities in the West Bank like Jenin and Tulkarem and even Ramallah. These are not idle threats. Many were complicit with Israeli apartheid regime by suppressing the truth and giving weapons to commit genocide. According to Israeli leaders global public opinion and "diplomatic" pressure will not end its carnage done to promote colonialism and greed. Many human rights advocates are at a loss as to how to end the carnage. While people focus on the carnage, few address its underlying cause. It is like focusing on suffering in concentration camps without identifying the source of that suffering (or even worse blaming the victims).

      Next line is a bit inflammatory ("Extreme nationalism leads to genocide: Nazis and Zionists"), but the error there is assuming causality from consequences. Extreme nationalism may be a necessary precondition, but something more is also required: the hubris of unchecked, unaccountable power. Plenty of kneejerk nationalists all around the world, but in Israel they've achieved a sense of invincibility unmatched since Hitler's Germany. That one exemplar claims to be for Jews and the other against just how unimportant the category is.

    • [2023-07-14] Lebanon & Palestine: A trip report.

    • [2023-07-03] Hope: present and future: Starts with an Israeli atrocity which, needless to say, predates the Oct. 7 Hamas revolt, and the even greater Israeli atrocities since then.

    • [2023-06-29] Changing ourselves: "As a zoologist and geneticist I am always puzzled about human (optimistically named Homo sapiens) behavior."

    • [09-22] End of empire? His grasp of US politics is less assured here. While his critique of Trump is sound enough, his points against the Democrats are harsh where I would be more generous. To pick out two of five:

      1. Harris courting of the lobby and supporting genocide undermines any remnant of illusion progressives,
      2. the Democrat party is corrupt and worked hand in glove with republicans against allowing other parties.

      The American political system is such that it is impossible for anyone to win without picking up a whiff of corruption. While some Democrats play that game as adeptly as Republicans, and when they can, shower their donors with favors as readily, most also see and feel some obligation to serve their constituents, or more generally "all the people." One thing nearly all Democrats have in common is their loathing for Trump and his shock troops, and this is almost always due to how repulsive they find the effect of his programs on ordinary people. The Israel lobby has done a masterful job of disappearing Palestinian humanity, but most Democrats can still see through that veil -- and, unlike most Republicans, once they see they will care and act. It's not unreasonable to hope that eventually their leaders, including Harris, will follow their rank and file [there's a good Gandhi quote I could look up and insert here]. This may seem like faint hope, but Qumsiyah has written eloquently about his hopes. I'm not going to deny that Harris, following Biden, has been complicit in and supportive of genocide and other hideous crimes against human rights, but I still believe that their support is squishy and conflicted, far from the hardened determination of Smotrich, Ben-Gvir, and now Netanyahu, who would rather join Hitler in the bunker than give up their life's work.

  • Dave Reed: [09-15] Weekly Briefing: Zionism is now a dirty word.

  • Mona Shtaya: [09-16] Israel is joining the first global AI convention, here's why that's dangerous: "Over the last year Israel has weaponized AI in its genocide in Gaza, deploying AI-driven surveillance and automated targeting systems which has killed tens of thousands. Israel's participation in the first global AI treaty raises serious questions."

  • Jonah Valdez:

  • Kelley Beaucar Vlahos: [09-17] South Africa minister: countries have to 'boycott' Israel's war: "In a Washington appearance Tuesday, Ronald Lamola recalled how the world community ended apartheid in 1990."

Election notes:

  • Jonathan Chait: -[09-21] The case for 2024 indecision is feeble: "Trump-wary conservatives have run out of rational reasons to be undecided." His examples of still-vacillating conservatives include Ross Douthat and Bret Stephens.

  • Andrew Prokop: [09-17] What happened to Nate Silver: I'm not sure he was ever all that "beloved by progressives." In his 538 days, his focus was on getting it right, which meant anticipating contests Republicans would win, and calling them emphatically enough to claim the win. He started out as a useful corrective to a lot of polling bullshit, but after he blew the 2016 election, he overcompensated and turned into just another annoying pundit.

Trump:

Vance, and other Republicans:

Harris:

Walz, Biden, and other Democrats:

  • Rick Perlstein: [08-26] Say it to my face: "How Democrats learned to tell the plain truth and like it." Perlstein's columns have been terrific ever since he started writing for American Prospect, but somehow I missed this one, which came out of the DNC without being explicit about it (well, until the end). He gives examples from Clinton, Gore, Kerry ("the worst of them all"), and Obama. I don't think Harris is totally past running from her own shadow, but she's much better at at defending what's right, and attacking what's wrong.

Supreme Court, legal matters, and other crimes:

Climate and environment:

Economists, the economy, and work:

  • John Cassidy: [09-18] How inflation fooled almost everybody: "With the Fed poised to cut rates for the first time in years, what have we learned about the economic disruptions of the pandemic era?"

Ukraine and Russia:

Elsewhere in the world and/or/in spite of America's empire:

Other stories:

  • Ryan Cooper: [08-05] The case for pragmatic socialism: "The times are right for a socialist agenda that America can accept. We even have examples of it in practice." I held this piece back for later perusal, but I rather doubt I'm ever going to finish reading it, much less argue with it. In my philosophy days, I was fairly simpatico both with Marxism and with Pragmatism, and never saw much of a problem there. (I certainly knew a lot more of Marxism, but I read a fair amount of Charles Peirce, and also of Kant and various neo-Kantians like Robert Paul Wolff -- although I gather he spent more time critiquing pragmatists than swimming with them.) At least the focus on praxis was shared, along with the suspicion of metaphysics. The thing is, I have very little interest in salvaging "socialism" as a slogan, even though I admire both the theory and the legacy, and I'm willing to do my bit in defense of both. I just think that at this point a fresh start might work better. There's something pragmatist in that, isn't there?

  • Jeffrey St Clair: [09-20] Roaming Charges: Cat scratch political fever: Starts with "Miss Sassy started the biggest political fire since Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicked over a lamp and burned down Chicago." So, with Trump and Vance. Then includes a picture captioned "When sleazy immigrants [Don Jr. and Eric Trump] sneak into your country and kill your cats."

Obituaries

Books

  • Wendy Brown: [09-09] The enduring influence of Marx's masterpiece: "No book has done more than Capital to explain the way the world works." Essay "adapted from the foreword to the first English translation of Capital: Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1 in 50 years." Somehow, I don't recall this "famous turn of phrase" that Brown cites: "Capital is dead labor that acts like a vampire: It comes to life when it drinks more living labor, and the more living labor it drinks, the more it comes to life." Brown continues:

    Capital's requirements of increased labor exploitation over time -- exploiting more workers and exploiting them more intensively -- and in space -- ever expanding markets for its commodities -- constitute the life and death drives of capitalism, drives that are as insatiable as they are unsustainable. They reduce the masses to impoverishment, concentrate wealth among the few, and pile up crises that spell the system's eventual collapse, overthrow, or, as we have later learned, reinventions through the social state, the debt state, neoliberalism, financialization, and the asset-enhancing and de-risking state. Since growth is essential for what Marx called the "realization of surplus-value" or profit, capitalist development becomes an almighty shredder of all life forms and practices, including its own recent ones. From small shops, family farms, and cities to gigantic industries, rain forests, and even states, everything capital makes or needs it will eventually also destroy. In Marx's summary, "Capitalist production thus advances . . . only by damaging the very founts of all wealth: the earth and the worker."

    I'm reminded here of how easy it is to explain all of the world's ills with one word: "capitalism." That's the lesson drawn by every person who ever fell under Marx's spell, but reading this now I'm most struck by the insatiability of the process, which dialectically impels us to limit and regulate growth. Even now, when we've seen much of the harm capitalism can do, and as we've clearly benefited from many efforts to limit its rapacity, that's still a tough sell to many otherwise well-meaning people (e.g., "progressives," who still hope to grow our way out of all earthly hardships).

    • James Miller: [09-19] Karl Marx, weirder than ever: "What good is one of the communist thinker's most important texts to 21st-century readers?"

  • Adam Gopnik: [2012-02-27] The big reveal: Old article, popped up in a link list, piqued my curiosity for reasons I may (or may not) get around to explaining. Basically, a review of Elaine Pagels: Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation, first imagining the text as a blockbuster movie:

    The Bible, as every Sunday-school student learns, has a Hollywood ending. Not a happy ending, certainly, but one where all the dramatic plot points left open earlier, to the whispered uncertainty of the audience ("I don't get it -- when did he say he was coming back?"), are resolved in a rush, and a final, climactic confrontation between the stern-lipped action hero and the really bad guys takes place. That ending -- the Book of Revelation -- has every element that Michael Bay could want: dragons, seven-headed sea beasts, double-horned land beasts, huge C.G.I.-style battles involving hundreds of thousands of angels and demons, and even, in Jezebel the temptress, a part for Megan Fox. ("And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and' she repented not.")

    I have this mental image of a certain type of 19th century Midwest farmer-intellectual who thinks that all of the world's knowledge -- past, present, and future -- is locked in the pages of the Bible, waiting to be explored and conquered by obsessive scholars like themselves. I even have a specific name in mind: Abraham Lincoln Hull, my great-grandfather, born on an arid west Kansas homestead in 1870, shortly after his father (plain Abraham Hull) moved out from Pennsylvania, after the Civil War. He was a sheep rancher, but I've heard him described as "the laziest human being ever." I suspect he was just lost in his thoughts, which fed into sideline jobs of teaching and preaching. I never knew him, but I did know, until I approached 15 and he died at 70, thereby confirming his own biblically-derived prophecy. He also farmed, taught school, dressed up for church, and pondered Revelations. One of the few times when he asked me a question was when he was trying to figure out whether the founding of Israel was proof that the second coming was imminent. I lacked the presence of mind to figure out whether he was a premillennial or postmillennial dispensationalist, but I was struck by the crackpot nature of the question, and I've recalled the moment every time I've seen or heard of Christian Zionists wax on the subject -- going back at least as far as David Lloyd George in approving the Balfour Declaration.

    As it turned out, my father had his own very different take on Revelation, but I never made the slightest effort to understand his, just noting that it was opposed to my grandfather's, and suspecting that, as with most of his theories of everything, it erred on the side of the whimsical. Eventually, I realized that I too was fated to have a theory of Revelation, even without having read more than the occasional isolated verse (which is the only way I ever approached the Bible -- the idea that one could just read it as literature, like The Gilgamesh or Moby Dick, only occurred to me when I saw it listed in the Great Books curriculum). My theory is that the book was tacked onto the end of the Bible as a reveal, one of those joke endings that exposes everything that had come before it as an elaborate hoax. That suggests more intention than I can imagine early Christian clerics as being capable of. Still, some of the most dedicated scholars have easily wandered into reductio ad absurdum, especially when the subject is religion.

    While my "theory" was never more than a joke, it was pretty clearly derived from insights I gleaned while reading a book about Judaism: Douglas Rushkoff: Nothing Sacred: The Truth About Judaism. Rushkoff's thesis is that the internal logic of Judaism functions as an aid in helping you get through and past and over religion. The book isn't fresh enough in my mind to do justice to here (not that I have the time, anyway), but I will note that I had spent a lot of time on the history and evolution of puritanism, and found a similar dynamic at play there (e.g., the unitarians are direct descendants yet perhaps the most secular and tolerant sect in all of Christendom; but far more significant is the liberation puritan theology allowed to turn into "the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism").

  • Ed Park: Nuance and nuisance: on the Village Voice: Review of Tricia Romano's oral history, The Freaks Came Out to Write: The Definitive History of the Village Voice, the Radical Paper That Changed American Culture.

  • Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins/Kate Yoon: [09-12] The age of public austerity and private luxury: "A conversation with Melinda Cooper about the recent history of neoliberalism and her new book Counterrevolution: Extravagance and Austerity in Public Finance. Cooper opens with:

    My overarching argument is continuous with the one I developed in Family Values [2017, subtitle: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism]. I question the idea that the neoliberal counterrevolution of the early 1980s was a backlash against Keynesianism as such. Instead, I see it as a backlash against the leftist social movements of the late 1960s and '70s, which were already engaged in a kind of immanent critique of actually existing Keynesianism. . . .

    My basic argument is that neoliberals of different stripes managed to create a regime of extreme public spending austerity for those primarily dependent on wage income, while at the same time ushering in a regime of radical spending and monetary extravagance for financial asset owners. We tend to see only the austerity side of the equation -- hence the illusion that this is all about the retreat of the state. But it's hard to explain the extreme wealth concentration that has occurred in recent decades if we don't also understand the multiple ways in which financial wealth is actively subsidized by the state.

    There's quite a bit here on how capital gains taxation (or lack thereof) subsidizes asset inflation -- my term, not a very popular one as it suggests assets aren't really worth as much as they seem, and also that inflation, like money, is "good for the rich but bad for the poor" (as Lewis Lapham liked to put it). Also more details on how the "Virginia school neoliberals" (like James Buchanan) "dovetailed" with the "supply siders" - despite different concepts, both sought to make the rich richer, at the expense of everyone else. Then back to politics:

    Having said this, I don't think economic liberalism as such ever works alone; it always works in alliance with some species of conservatism. This may be the communitarian/neoliberal alliance of a Third Way Democrat like Bill Clinton, or the neoconservative neoliberalism of George W. Bush.

    In today's Republican Party, we have something that looks like a neoliberal/paleoconservative alliance, and this brings complexities of its own. Paleoconservatism has clear connections to the white supremacist and theocratic far right; as a movement, it defines itself in opposition to neoconservatism, which it sees as too secular, too liberal, too internationalist, and too Jewish.

    However, the kinds of economic alliances made by paleoconservatives have been quite diverse. [Mentions Koch-favorite Murray Rothbard, drawing on Ludwig von Mises; "Ayn Rand devotee" Alan Greenspan; Pat Buchanan.] . . .

    I would say the contemporary Republican Party draws on all of these influences, Trump more haphazardly than others. In his first election campaign, Trump seemed to embody the kind of paleoconservative national protectionist policies espoused by Pat Buchanan or Steve Bannon -- and certainly on the issue of trade with China, he followed through on this.

    JD Vance sounds like he espouses an anti-neoliberal national protectionist position too, but then again he is one of several Republican right operators who are funded by the ultra-libertarian Peter Thiel. What unites these people is their affiliation to far-right paleoconservatism and their immersion in the world of private investment. This underwrites a deeply patrimonial, autarchic, and atavistic outlook that is sometimes dressed up in the garb of a more progressive anti-corporate agenda.

Music (and other arts?)

Chatter

  • Means testing is divisive, wasteful and punitive: [09-19] Israel has shown itself as a metastasizing threat to the whole world. Are you going to be comfortable getting on a plane with people carrying Israeli-made products?

  • Jeff Sharlet: [09-23] 49% of the class of '23 at Dartmouth, where I [t]each, went into finance or consulting. Even were [I] the most ardent capitalist -- I am really not that -- this would be a crushing statistic. So much energy, education, & intellect hoovered up by one sector. [I might have added: which produces nothing of value, being mostly parasitic, and often just predatory.]

  • Tony Karon: [09-24] Israel -- a Jewish supremacist state created by violently displacing the indigenous Palestinian majority -- was built on racist contempt for Arab life, limb and property. It is maintained today by the same people -- for Israel and its US backers, Arab lives don't matter. [image of headline: Israeli air strikes kill 492 people in Lebanon]

Local tags (these can be linked to directly): music.

Original count: 135 links, 8611 words (11055 total).

Current count: 144 links, 9060 words (11622 total)

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Monday, September 16, 2024

Speaking of Which

Opened this file on September 11, 1:27 PM, with the big debate looming that evening. As I'm writing this Sunday evening, that start seems like ages ago. Little chance I'll make my rounds before nodding off tonight. I could see posting or of not, where the main reason for posting is to move earlier into doing endlessly delayed non-blog work.

Indeed, late Sunday night I decided to pack it in without posting. I don't expect I'll need to add much on Monday. And in general, I won't be circling back to publications I checked on Sunday, or reporting news that only broke on Monday.

Finally posted this late Monday night. I ran into a lot of pieces on Monday that added a lot of extra writing, in many cases including regrets that I didn't have time to write even more. Even with the extra day, I didn't make all the usual rounds. I also found myself needing to search for further articles on specific topics, which may wind up being a better way to go about doing this. I also hit a bunch of paywalls. That's a horrible way to run a democracy, but that's a rant for another day.

For what it's worth, this week, on initial post, has the most words (15635) and the third most links (288, behind 317 and 290) of any week since I embedded the counting software.

I was struck by the following passage from Annie Proulx's Fen, Bog & Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis, where talking about the bogs in Germany she brings up some old Roman history. The significance here is about how arrogant empires seed their own destruction (p. 120):

Rome's first emperor, Caesar Augustus, was seventy-two years old and near the end of his rule when the legions suffered their catastrophic defeat on the edge of the Great Bog. Germania's population was rural, made up of farmer-warriors and their families living in small settlements at the time of the battle. There were no real towns, and private ownership of land had been unknown among the eastern barbarians fifty years earlier when Caesar conquered Gaul. In general, where colonial- and imperial-minded aggressors make their moves into new territories and encounter indigenous people, often very numerous and "complex, multi-lingual, culturally diverse," as the two groups gradually mix and confront each other, tribal identities begin to take shape and individual "tribal leaders" are named. For the aggressor, this bundling is the opening process of controlling the indigenous people who, up to that time, may not have seen themselves as distinct tribes. Suddenly, they are corralled by identity to a specific area.

The Roman system of conquest was to grant conquered people Roman citizenship and involve them in Roman customs and culture. What Rome got from its aggressive takeovers encircling the Mediterranean Sea was an increase of manpower to serve in the army, slaves and money from taxation of its new colonies.

The Roman legions were augmented by auxiliaries of men from conquered lands. Yet many of the vanquished hated the Romans, their martial ways, their enslavements, their self-proclaimed superiority, their heavy taxes and their strutting presence as overseers and governors in seized territories. At the same time the conquered population wanted to be joined to the powerful, to visit glittering Rome whence all roads led.

The next couple pages go into specifics about the battle, where over 13,000 Roman troops were slaughtered at a loss of 500 Germans. I had long been under the impression that the Roman Empire expanded steadily up to its maximum under Hadrian (117-138 CE; Wikipedia has maps from 117 and 125), but I've since learned that history is messier. I first heard about the German bog debacle after the Bush invasion of Iraq, when I noted:

Of course, this will take a while to play out, but the logic of self-destruction is clear. A while back Martin van Creveld compared the Bush invasion of Iraq to the disastrous Roman invasion of Germany in 9 BCE when Augustus marched his legions into a swamp, losing them all.

By the time I wrote that, I had already noted a comparable Roman military disaster, when in 53 BCE Crassus led "across the Euphrates" into Iraq, where the desert proved as debilitating as the German bog -- although in both cases the real culprit was the Roman ego. Back then I was thinking more about the hubris of the invaders, but one could just well focus on the inevitability and resilience of resistance.

A short while later, I read this, from Timothy Egan, Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis (2011, pp. 16-17):

What Curtis knew of Indians was informed, in large part, by depictions of dead natives he had seen in a book as a child. More than a thousand Eastern Sioux had been rounded up following an 1862 raid on settlers in Minnesota. The carnage was widespread in villages and farms in the southwest part of the state; by one estimate, eight hundred whites were killed in what became known as the Sioux Uprising. The Sioux had been roused to violence by repeated violations of their treaty, and by the mendacity of corrupt government agents who refused to make the required payments from the pact. In defeat, after the uprising, the Indians were sentenced to death. At the same time, many in Congress demanded that all Indians be wiped from the map, echoing the view of their constituents after the Sioux had caused so many casualties. President Lincoln commuted the sentences of most of the insurgents. But the death penalty remained for more than three dozen of them. On December 16, 1862, they were all hanged, the largest mass execution in American history. Curtis had studied an engraving of the lifeless Sioux in Mankato, Minnesota. Necks snapped, faces cold -- it haunted him. "All through life I have carried a vivid picture of that great scaffold with thirty-nine Indians hanging at the end of a rope," he wrote.

Top story threads:

Israel:

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

  • Ruwaida Kamal Amer/Mahmoud Mushtaha: [09-12] 'People torn to pieces' in Israeli airstrike on Gaza displacement camp: "Israeli bombs set tents ablaze and left deep craters in the earth as the army attacked Al-Mawasi, a designated 'safe zone,' for the fifth time."

  • Michael Arria:

  • James Bamford: [09-13] Israel's crackdown on the West Bank has already killed an American citizen: Aysenur Ezgi.

  • Rachel Chason/Jennifer Hassan/Alon Rom/Niha Masih/Kareen Fahim: [09-15] Houthis fire missile from Yemen into central Israel, warn of more strikes: "Israeli forces said the missile Sunday did not cause any direct injuries, but Netanyahu threatens, 'we exact a heavy price for any attempt to harm us.'"

  • Ellen Ioanes: [09-11] How Israel keeps evading responsibility for killing Americans.

  • Fred Kaplan: [09-11] The key reason why we're not close to a cease-fire: That's an easy one -- "Netanyahu refuses" -- but one should note that Biden doesn't dare make his refusal the least bit awkward, even though that simply reinforces the ideas that he is helpless as a leader and/or he actually endorses as well as facilitates genocide. Previous American presidents have generally been able to prevail on Israeli leaders to make some gestures toward accommodating American needs, even if they really didn't want to (withdrawing from Sinai in 1957) and/or doublecrossed the Americans later (basically, every time since). Also, what the hell is this?

    Both sides' positions are reasonable, given their interests. Hamas fears that without a permanent cease-fire and total withdrawal, Israel will inflict utter devastation on all of its positions (and suspected positions) after the last hostage is released. And Israel fears that Hamas will attempt another Oct. 7 if the group isn't first destroyed as a political and military power.

    I mean, the Hamas position sounds reasonable, because that's exactly what Israel is doing, and without a permanent ceasefire has vowed to continue doing until the last Hamas fighter is dead, even if they have to kill every other Palestinian to get to him. But Israel has no grounds for any such "reasonable fear." Another "Oct. 7," if indeed any such thing is possible, will only happen if Israel recreates the same (or worse) conditions. There are many ways to prevent further eruptions from Hamas. Killing every Palestinian is the worst possible option.

  • Joshua Keating: [09-13] Can the world stop a massive oil spill in the middle of a war zone? "If the race to stop a spill in the Red Sea fails, it would be one of the worst in history."

  • Branko Marcetic: [09-13] The US government is a partner to Israel killing US citizens.

  • Mitchell Plitnick: [09-12] Israel's lie about a US activist's murder has exposed the Biden-Harris double standard on Palestine: "Israel's lie over the murder of U.S. activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi has been exposed, and in the process, so has Joe Biden and Kamala Harris's double standard on the worth of Palestinian lives."

  • Josephine Riesman/SI Rosenbaum: [09-10] Kamala is sending a subtle message on Israel. Is anyone listening? What she said in the debate was almost literally what she said in her DNC acceptance speech. "Subtle" is one word for it, if you assume that she's being completely honest, and has every intention of filling out every little detail. Or, less generously, you could say she's being cynical and deceptive. As I pointed out a while back, her "subtle" message would be more effective if she reversed the order of terms, and first bemoaned the massive destruction and loss of life before touting her deep commitment to a secure Israel. At this point, when most people hear "Israel's right to defend itself" they automatically translate it to a license to commit mass murder, because that is exactly what Israel has done every time they've uttered those magic words.

    The authors make their case at great length. I'm not completely dismissive, but I'm far from convinced. I do have some feeling for the pressure she is under, and of the stakes should she fail. I'm personally willing to let this play out through November, after which she will either have much more leverage, or will be totally irrelevant. Partly for that reason, I've moved this discussion away from the sections on Debate and Harris. But another part of that reason is that I feel her critics for failing to come out more clearly in favor of ceasefire and conflict resolution have every cause to speak their piece. And even to vote against her if they feel the need, although I think that would be a mistake, especially as an attempt to move your fellow Americans to be more critical and independent of Israel.

    Here's part of the piece:

    If you're trying to determine Harris' position on Israel from the mainstream news media coverage of it, you're likely confused.

    Headlines point in all directions, from "Harris' Support for Israel 'Ironclad' After Attack on Golan Heights" to "Harris Team 'Expressed Openness to a New Direction' on Israel Policy." One article claims there are "Democrats Working Inside the Party to Persuade Kamala Harris to Stop Weapons for Israel," while another dishes: "Harris Steps Out on Israel." But many explainers wind up throwing their hands in the air, like the Forward did: "Kamala Harris Wants to Support Israel, and Palestinians. It Will Be Even Harder Than It Seems." Indeed.

    But taken together, Harris' statements and movements around Israeli policy -- throughout her career but especially in recent months, after the candidacy was bestowed on her -- do add up to something.

  • Ali Rizk: [09-12] Is Gaza war feeding ISIS resurgence in Middle East? "As resources are drawn to Israel-Lebanon region, US troops are fighting the terror group more than ever."

  • Norman Solomon: [09-11] Undebatable: what Harris and Trump could not say about Israel and Gaza: Starts with "Kamala Harris won the debate. People being bombed in Gaza did not." Ends with: "Silence is a blanket that smothers genuine democratic discourse and the outcries of moral voices. Making those voices inaudible is a key goal for the functioning of the warfare state."

  • Jeffrey St Clair: [09-13] Murder in Beita: the IDF's killing of Aysenur Eygi.

  • Jonah Valdez: Most Americans want to stop arming Israel. Politicians don't care.

Israel vs. world opinion:

  • Gideon Lewis-Kraus: [09-08] The angst and sorrow of Jewish Currents: "A little magazine wants to criticize Israel while holding on to Jewishness."

  • Ben Lorber: [09-05] The right is increasingly exploiting the horror of genocide: "Right-wing operatives are channeling the genocide in Gaza into mainstream antisemitism." A report from the fifth annual National Conservatism (NatCon) conference ("the cutting edge of the Trumpian Right"). I'm not making a lot of sense out of this. Traditional right-wing antisemites, including some NatCon grandees, have more often been staunch supporters of Israel: Zionism both flatters their prejudices and offers them hope for their own societies becoming Judenrein. However, we're not dealing with especially clear-headed thinkers here, so it shouldn't be much of a surprise when they start confusing their complaints. Anyone who sees the atrocities Israel is committing and conflates them with all Jews (or even all Israeli Jews) is a fool -- and note that the most flagrant offenders here are the propagandists who try to equate any criticism of Israel with antisemitism. It's inevitable that people who don't know any better will take this hint and run with it, which seems to be Lorber's subject here.

    I hadn't run across Lorber before, but he has a book (co-written by Shane Burley), Safety through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism, and some older articles:

  • Craig Mokhiber: [09-10] No, Israel does not have a right to defend itself in Gaza. But the Palestinians do. "Basic morality and simple logic dictate that the right of self-defense belongs to the Palestinian people, not to their oppressor. And international law agrees." True that international law does recognize some right to self-defense, but it is not a moral principle, and I am suspicious of whatever logic you might think supports it. Although law often reinforces what we take to be moral, it has to deal not just with what people should do, but with real people in complex situations who do things that do not always conform with morality. One thing that people often do, whether by nature or culture, regardless of law, is attempt to defend themselves. Self-defense is used to describe a wide range of acts, from shielding your face from blows to throwing punches of your own. Modern weapons magnify and accelerate both threats and damage. Some are so powerful that they can harm bystanders, who never were threats, so never needed to be defended against. What law has to do is to decide whether self-defense is understandable and/or excusable, or should be condemned and possibly punished. To say self-defense is a right is to assert that acts which otherwise would be considered criminal should be not just tolerated but taken as exemplary, as precedents to encourage others to even greater violence.

    But in this specific case, to the extent that one allows such a right, why shouldn't Palestinians enjoy it same as Israelis? If you only allow Israel a right to self-defense, and allow it so broadly, you're really just saying that you think Palestinians are sub-human, that they don't count or matter, and might as well be slaughtered indiscriminately. As the last year has proven, that's no hypothetical. That's what Israel is doing, and anyone who thinks they have a "right" to do so is simply aiding and abetting genocide.

  • James Ray: [09-13] Electoral politics are not the way forward for the Palestine movement: "The question of how Palestine activists should engage in electoral politics has split the movement, but the 2024 election season should clarify why they are not an effective strategy for building power." I'll endorse the title, but the article itself leans way to heavy on "the Palestine movement," which I have some sympathy for but little faith or interest in. Electoral politics are set for the year, with nothing but the voting left to do. While there are important issues and major differences in candidates yet to be decided, lots of issues aren't on the ballot, including America's support for Israel's genocide against Palestinians -- which is how I prefer framing the issue, as it seems much broader (of interest to many more people) and deeper (of greater importance) than the question of where and when one can fly Palestinian flags.

    The movement, of course, can and must continue, using any tactics that seem likely to move public and/or elite opinion -- anything that would put pressure on those in power to act to halt these atrocities and start the long process of healing. I can argue that those of you who are intensely concerned with this issue should spend your vote on Harris and the rest of the Democrats -- it's not much, but it's yours, and if you don't vote, even out of righteous spite, you're wasting your right to participate in even our bare minimum of democracy. Also, by spoiling your vote, you're not just being negligent but showing contempt for people who need your help on issues that really matter to them -- the same people you need most urgently for your issue.

    I could also argue that Harris is more cognizant of and amenable to further pressure on this issue. I'm not going to plead this case here: it's just a feeling, not supported by clear statements on her part, or by a track record which shows any great will on her part to withstand the enormous pressures the entire political systems puts on politicians like her to pledge allegiance to Israel. My own inclination is to not just vote for her but to give her a free pass through November, as I don't see any constructive value in further embarrassing her on this issue (or in encouraging her to embarrass herself by reiterating her blanket support for Israel). But I'm not saying that anyone active on this issue should stop talking about it, and I'm not going to be holding any grudges against others who can't help but include her among the many American political figures who are complicit in this genocide. For pretty much the same reason, I may think that people who self-identify as "pro-Palestinian" have a dubious grasp of political tactics, I bear them no ill-feeling, because they at least are committed to opposing Israel's hideous and shameful reign of terror. Until the atrocities are stopped, whatever thoughts they may have about Palestinian statehood are mere curiosities.

    By the way, don't give Trump the same free pass until the election. Feel free to point out how his presidency contributed to the conditions that elected Israel's ultra-right government, that cornered and prodded Hamas into their desperate Oct. 7 revolt, and that revealed so many Republicans as genocide's biggest cheerleaders. This is not just a matter of setting the historical record straight, but it directly counters the ridiculous notion that Trump is some kind of antiwar candidate.

  • Ben Reiff: [09-11] Why did a British Jewish newspaper publish fake Israeli intelligence? "Israel's army suspects fabrications published in the Jewish Chronicle were part of a pro-Bibi influence campaign, while the article's author is not as he claims."

  • Stephen Semler: [09-12] Is Israel intentionally attacking aid workers? "We've compiled 14 incidents where humanitarians were attacked despite giving the IDF their coordinates and being clearly identified as civilians."

The Harris-Trump debate:

  • Vox [Andrew Prokop/Nicole Narea/Christian Paz]: [09-10] 3 winners and 2 losers from the Harris-Trump debate: The winners were: Kamala Harris, ABC News's debate moderators (David Muri and Linsey Davis), and Swifties for Kamala; the losers: Donald Trump, and Immigration. Once again, the Vox writer were out in force:

    • Ellen Ioanes: [09-10] Kamala Harris's and Donald Trump's wildly different tax plans, explained.

    • Joshua Keating: [09-11] Biden and Harris say America's no longer at war. Is that true? "Harris says US troops aren't fighting in any 'war zones.' What about Iraq, Syria, and the Red Sea?" Within the context of the debate, Harris had a point, which was useful in countering Trump's lie:

      Beyond the legal hair-splitting, Harris made the comment in the context of a defense of the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, and it is true that under Biden, the US military posture overseas has significantly shrunk from what it was under the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations.

      (Trump has falsely claimed in the past that his presidency was the first in 72 years that "didn't have any wars," despite the fact that he oversaw four years of combat in Afghanistan as well as major military escalations in Iraq, Syria, and Somalia. At least 65 US troops died in hostile action under Trump's presidency.)

      That number under Trump was significantly less than under Obama, which in turn was less than under Bush. A comparable Biden number is probably less than Trump's, but not much less.

    • Eric Levitz: [09-11] Donald Trump lost the debate because he's too online: "The GOP nominee spoke to swing voters as though they were his Truth Social followers." Also note the section head: "For swing voters, many of Trump's ravings sounded like a summary of the sixth season of a show they'd never watched."

  • Intelligencer:

  • Emma Brockes: [09-11] Harris clearly beat Trump -- not that you'd know it from the right-wing media. Shame on them. "From the likes of Fox News has come a masterclass in post-debate pretzel logic. Surely the excuses must run out soon."

  • Frank Bruni: [09-12] Kamala Harris is serious. Donald Trump is not.

  • Margaret Carlson: [09-11] Harris shows how to dismantle a would-be dictator: "Humor, ridicule, gut punches, and that look of puzzlement and contempt were just some of the tools the vice president used to take down Trump."

  • Nandika Chatterjee: [09-12] Fox News host triggers Donald Trump by saying "he decisively lost" the debate with Kamala Harris: "Fox Business anchor Neil Cavuto said the debate wasn't close."

  • John Ganz: [09-11] Cats and dogs: "I can't believe I watched the whole thing!"

    Trump still has considerable powers of self-expression, which are often underrated by liberals, but they should not be overrated either. He has a very limited vocabulary and it constrains the extent to which he can articulate responses on any issue. So, he falls back into hyperbole -- everything is the worst, the best, the greatest. This can be effective, but often last night it sounded repetitive and, yes, kind of dull. If the American simply people tire of his antics, it will really be over for him. Harris's message of "let's turn the page" is a good one because it presents Trump as tiresome as much as fearsome.

  • Richard A Friedman: [09-12] Trump's repetitive speech is a bad sign: "If the debate was a cognitive test, the former president failed."

  • Susan B Glasser: [09-11] Donald Trump had a really, really bad debate.

  • Shane Goldmacher/Katie Rogers: [09-11] Harris dominates as Trump gets defensive: 6 takeaways from the debate: "Layout out bait that Donald Trump eagerly snatched, the vice president owned much of the night, keeping him on the back foot and avoiding sustained attention on her own vulnerabilities." As Rick Perlstein tweeted: "In a strictly intellectual sense, I'm very excited to see how the New York Times solves the linguistic puzzle of making that sound like a tie. It will require a Fermat's Last Theorum-level of ingenuity." Perlstein later linked to a NYT app article headline ("Fierce Exchanges Over Country's Future Dominate Debate") that satisfied his expectations, but when I searched for that headline, I found this article instead. Perhaps sensing that such precise (albeit vague) balance wouldn't stand up to scrutiny, they conceded the debate to Harris, while playing up whatever they could for Trump. The six takeaways:

    1. Harris set traps. Trump leaped into them.
    2. Trump played defense on his record.
    3. Harris seized the advantage on abortion.
    4. Trump didn't hide his disdain of Harris.
    5. Harris missed some opportunities.
    6. Trump missed Biden.

  • Nardos Haile: [09-10] "I went to the Wharton School of Finance": Harris getting Trump flustered makes for great TV.

  • Thom Hartmann: [09-13] Inside Trump's 'peace candidate' debate scam. This is an important subject -- one I wish he did a better job of handling. Trump should have zero credibility as a "peace candidate," well below Biden/Harris, even though they've set the bar pretty low. They at least have a modicum of empathy for the costs of war. As such, they can see some reason to stay clear of war, or to clean up the wars they've been given (e.g., Afghanistan). What Hartmann is pretty good at is pointing out "our media failures":

    Thus, Trump and the entire GOP are now furiously trying to rewrite their party's history of using unnecessary wars to get re-elected. And, according to opinion polls, it's working because America's corporate media pretty much refuses to point out Republican perfidy in any regard.

    Consider these indictments of our media failures. Polls show:

    • 52% trust Trump more compared to 37% for Harris on inflation (even though America has the lowest inflation rate in the developed world because of Biden's policies)
    • 51% trust Trump vs. 43% for Harris on handling the economy (even though Biden's economy beats Trump's by every metric, even pre-Covid)
    • 54% trust Trump more on border security compared to 36% for Harris (even though border crossings are at historically low levels now, lower than any time during Trump's non-Covid presidency)
    • 53% trust Trump vs. 40% for Harris on immigration (even though Trump wants to build concentration camps, go door-to-door arresting Hispanics, and again tear children from their mother's arms)
    • 51% trust Trump vs. 41% for Harris to stand up to China, even though Trump got millions in bribes from them for his daughter
    • And on crime and public safety, 48% trust Trump versus 42% for Harris, even though crime levels today are lower than any time during Trump's presidency

    None of these numbers would be where they are if our news organizations had accurately reported the facts.

  • Jeet Heer: [09-11] With her rope-a-dope strategy, Kamala Harris baited Trump into scaring swing voters: "Last night's debate will help give Democrats an edge. But strengthening the base remains crucial."

  • Fred Kaplan: [09-11] Harris exposed how easy Trump is to manipulate. Dictators have known this for a long time. Easy to manipulate, for sure, but when it comes to manipulation, you need proximity, which only his staff really has, and they've generally been able to cancel out any idea foreign dictators may have planted. While Trump threatens to break the mold on US foreign policy, in his first term, he was hamstrung by orthodox blob operatives, leaving him with nothing but a few ridiculous photo ops. A second term could be better or worse, but given how consistent (and wrong-headed) US foreign policy has been across both partisan administrations, he'll probably just make the same mistakes over and over again. It's not like he actually knows any better.

  • Ezra Klein: [09-11] Harris had a theory of Trump, and it was right: "The vice president successfully baited Trump's angry, conspiratorial, free-associating side. But what wasn't said was just as telling."

  • Robert Kuttner: [09-11] Notes for next time: "Kamala Harris did well in the debate but missed some opportunities to remind voters of Trump's sheer craziness."

  • Dahlia Lithwick:

  • Amanda Marcotte: [09-11] "The same old, tired playbook": Harris baits an aging Trump into being his grumpiest, weirdest self: "Even with the muted microphones, there is no 'sane-washing' Trump during the debate." There's also an interview of Marcotte by Alex Henderson.

  • Melanie McFarland: [09-11] "She whupped him": Kamala Harris won the debate by turning a potential disaster into a laugh-in.

  • Mary McNamara: [09-12] How Kamala Harris de-normalized Trump is less than 2 hours.

  • Harold Meyerson: [09-11] Normal meets weird: "And normal wins by a knockout in Tuesday's Harris-Trump debate."

  • John Nichols: [09-11] Kamala Harris won the debate about the future of American democracy: "Harris exposed Donald Trump as a clear and present danger, framing a stark choice and inviting voters to 'turn the page.'"

  • Andrew O'Hehir: [09-12] Trump's self-destruction was epic -- but this is America, so it might not be enough.

  • Molly Olmstead:

  • Bernie Sanders: [09-12] Kamala Harris was great in the debate. Will that be enough to win?

  • Bill Scher: [09-11] Kamala Harris is good at this: "The vice president laid out her plans for the future while Donald Trump was caught in a tangle of grievances about the past."

  • Adam Serwer: [09-14] The real 'DEI' candidates: Kamala Harris's evisceration of Donald Trump at the debate revealed who in this race is actually unqualified for power."

  • Rebecca Solnit: [09-11] Kamala Harris, unlike Donald Trump, was well prepared for this debate -- and won: "Harris spoke in lucid paragraphs, but Trump spouted lurid, loopy stuff."

  • Margaret Sullivan: [09-11] ABC's debate moderators did what some said was impossible: factcheck Trump.

  • Charles Sykes: [09-11] Trump blames everybody but himself: Talk about infinitely recyclable headlines! "He can't face the truth about his performance at the debate."

  • Robert Tait: [09-11] Republicans dismayed by Trump's 'bad' and 'unprepared' debate performance: "GOP lawmakers and analysts virtually unanimous that Trump was second best to Harris in first presidential debate."

  • William Vaillancourt: [09-12] Longtime GOP pollster Frank Luntz says Trump's campaign is over after bad debate.

  • John Zogby: [09-14] The polling is in and Harris won the debate. But Democrats shouldn't get cocky.

  • Steve M: [09-11] How the right-wing mediasphere -- and Trump's fragile ego -- set him up for failure last night. This elaborates on a theme that I've been noticing for years, which is that Trump is merely a receptacle for right-wing propaganda. Right-wingers have cynically formulated their propaganda to trigger incoherent emotions in their listeners -- a technique often dubbed "dog-whistling." To carry the analogy a bit farther, Trump isn't a whistler; Trump's just one of the dogs. What makes him the MAGA leader is his money, his ego, his ability to capture the media's attention. But as a thinker, as a speaker, as an organizer, he's strictly derivative, a second-rate hack picking up and repeating whatever he's been told. M explains:

    Trump has always been cultural conservative -- a racist, a fan of "law and order," an admirer of strongmen and authoritarians -- but years of binge-watching Fox News have made his opinions and prejudices worse. Now he has a set of opinions -- on renewable energy vs. fossil fuels, on immigration, and so on -- that are made up of talking points from the right-wing informationsphere. When he says that windmill noise causes cancer, he's repeating an idea spread by pseudo-scientists funded by the fossil fuel industry.

    But that's how his mind works -- his ego is so fragile that he can't bear to be wrong, so he clings desperately to any assertion that reinforces his notion that he's right. Windmills kill birds! Solar energy is useless when it's cloudy! Of course, the right-wing infosphere is a machine designed to reassure all of its consumers that their prejudices and resentments are right. . . .

    But in recent years, as Fox News has begun losing its primacy on the right while the Internet has increasingly been the main source for what rank-and-file right-wingers believe, fringe ideas have become more mainstream: Barack Obama birtherism, the allegedly stolen election in 2020, QAnon's notion of a vast elitist pedophile ring that somehow excludes all Republicans.

    And now we have the cats.

    When even J.D. Vance was spreading scurrilous stories about Haitian immigrants eating cats in Springfield, Ohio, I was surprised -- not because right-wingers are spreading hateful and dangerous blood libels about immigrants (that happens all the time), but because Republicans weren't confining the spread of this preposterous and easily disproved story to the fringier parts of their infosphere. They were going mainstream with this.

    But of course they were. In 2024, it's hard to restrict a story like this to the fringe. Naturally, Elon Musk promoted it, as did many online influencers and Trumpist members of Congress.

    Trump hates immigrants, so of course he seized on this story and talked about in the debate. Trump's confirmation bias is tied to his delicate ego, which always needs to say, See? I was right. A few years ago, he might not have even noticed this story. But the tiers in the right-wing mediasphere have collapsed, so the confirming messages Trump is exposed to are stupider. And he believes them. . . .

    Trump simply can't take in information that challenges his beliefs. His ego can't handle it. The right-wing infosphere flatters Trump the way dictators flatter Trump: by telling him what he wants to hear. That's the person Kamala Harris showed us last night, and that's why we can't allow him to win the presidency again.

  • Taylor Swift endorses Harris: I wouldn't be surprised to find that her lawyers drafted the statement (released on Instagram) weeks ago, but its timing does two useful things: it shows due diligence, as she waited for a moment when it would appear she considered both options fair and square, and it provided a singuarly conspicuous verdict on the debate, thereby underscoring its importance.

Trump:

  • Sasha Abramsky: [09-13] Trump is as gullible as he is a threat to democracy: "A decade into his political career, Donald J Trump is entirely at the mercy of his own BS."

  • David Atkins: [09-12] Trump doesn't understand tariffs, but he knows enough to be menacing. Trump's fascination with tariffs seems to be based on the notion that he can impose them arbitrarily and with impunity, so they function as a massive ego stroke. On the other hand, his opponents are nearly as simple-minded and dogmatic as he is. As I've said before, tariffs only make sense as part of a strategy to build up domestic industries (i.e., if you are doing economic planning, which is something most American politicians have long denounced). It now occurs to me that there may be better ways to do that than tariffs.

    Facts cannot penetrate Trump's narrow, incurious, egotistical worldview. He believes that as the leader of the world's dominant economy, he can bully the rest of the world into submission. And like Hoover -- not coincidentally, the only other president to preside over a net loss of jobs in the United States -- he will make an easily avoidable mistake that costs everyone.

  • Peter Baker: [09-09] As debate looms, Trump is now the one facing questions about age and capacity.

  • Charles R Davis: [09-08] Trump, lying about migrants and crime, says mass deportations "will be a bloody story": "he claimed he would use police and soldiers to deport at least 12 million undocumented people."

  • John Cassidy: [09-09] Donald Trump's new "voodoo economics": "The former president's tax plan would cost the government trillions of dollars. Tariffs and Elon Musk will pay for everything, he says."

  • Chauncey DeVega: [09-12] The problem with pinning Donald Trump down: Americans' attention spans are too short: "The American people are not well. Sick societies produce sick leaders." Time to "elect a new people"? Wouldn't it be much simpler to just slam Trump with the truth day and night until everyone sees him as an embarrassment?

  • Kevin T Dugan: [09-11] Trump's bad debate cost him nearly $500 million. The metric here is the value of Trump's Truth Social stock.

  • Eugene R Fidell/Dennis Aftergut: [09-13] Trump's plan to undermine foreign policy: The authors argue that Trump promised to violate the Logan Act, a law which "makes it a felony for private citizens, including presidents-elect, to interfere in foreign policy." I doubt that anyone, least of all Trump himself, is going to take his statements that literally, but the sloppy thinking is typical. The innuendo, that he's just a Putin stooge, is more barbed, but its plausibility is also based on his sloppy thinking.

  • Adam Freelander: [09-09] Exactly how Trump could ban abortion: "Whether the US bans it everywhere could be up to the next president."

  • David A Graham:

  • Elie Honig: [09-13] Jack Smith's reckless gamble: "The special counsel seems ready to bet the entire January 6 case against Trump on an improbable outcome."

  • David R Lurie: [08-19] Trump's carny act isn't working anymore: "His Folgers Coffee Conference showed a candidate in decline." Compares his Aug. 15 "press conference," with tables of grocery items, props for his wild claims about inflation, with a similar branding event from his 2016 campaign, describing the latter:

    It was all pretty darn weird; but the press lapped it up and, for the remainder of the campaign, gave Trump all the airtime and attention he wanted for similar performances.

    The Trump Steaks Conference was to become the template for Trump's political strategy during the ensuing decade, a mélange of elaborate (and often patently false) self-promotion blended with equally false and correspondingly vicious attacks on whoever happens to be Trump's opponent du jour.

  • Jason Stanley: [09-13] Donald Trump is openly running on a Great Replacement Theory campaign. If you're not familiar with GRT (especially as used by the American right), here's an index of articles.

  • Margaret Sullivan: [09-07] The power of a single word about media malfeasance: "It's 'sanewashing' -- and it's what journalists keep doing for Trump." She credits various pieces by Parker Molloy, Michael Tomasky, Aaron Rupar, and Greg Sargent, quotes some, quotes a definition, and notes:

    Here, as an example, is a Politico news alert that summarizes a recent Trump speech: "Trump laid out a sweeping vision of lower taxes, higher tariffs and light-touch regulation in a speech to top Wall Streets execs today." As writer Thor Benson quipped on Twitter: "I hope the press is this nice to me if I ever do a speech where no one can tell if I just had a stroke or not."

    Trump has become more incoherent as he has aged, but you wouldn't know it from most of the press coverage, which treats his utterances as essentially logical policy statements -- a "sweeping vision," even.

    After the intense media focus on Joe Biden's age and mental acuity, you would think Trump's apparent decline would be a preoccupation. He is 78, after all, and often incoherent. But with rare exceptions, that hasn't happened. . . .

    But why does the media sanewash Trump? It's all a part of the false-equivalence I've been writing about here in which candidates are equalized as an ongoing gesture of performative fairness.

    And it's also, I believe, because of the restrained language of traditional objective journalism. That's often a good thing; it's part of being careful and cautious. But when it fails to present a truthful picture, that practice distorts reality.

    I was pointed here by a Paul Krugman reference. I figured it was worth noting separately, and for good measure, I searched for "sanewashing Trump" and found it's suddenly been adopted widely of late. Links follow -- I skipped "Trump has not been 'sane-washed'," because it's at Atlantic, and I didn't want to blow one of my few "free article" credits on something as transparently worthless. (Parker Molloy critiques the Paul Farhi piece below, so you can find the link there.)

    But let me make a couple preliminary points. The term has never been used pre-Trump, because no previous candidate has ever given us such copious evidence of dubious sanity. It's not that we've never seen neuroses or delusions before, but they've never seemed so disconnected from reality. Trump has three personal problems that are relevant here, and while none of these are unprecedented, his combination is pretty extreme. (1) He lies a lot, and not just about things we're used to other politicians lying about. (2) He has very little grasp of policy ideas, but even his conventional policy ideas -- the ones common to most Republicans, most of which he thoughtlessly picked up from Fox News -- are ill-considered and unworkable, so detached from reality even before he embroiders and imbues them with his personal twists. (3) He is old and mentally clumsy, as well as extremely vain and conceited, states that we perhaps too readily associate with dementia.

    While "sane-washing" is new and especially Trump-specific -- unless the term ever appeared in the Republican campaign to impugn "Biden's dementia" -- the media angle is much older, this a mere inflection on the more common term "white-washing," which occurs when reporters suppress, sanitize, and/or rationalize their reporting. This has been going on for ages, but few if any candidates have benefited more from an indulgent press than Trump, not least because few candidates have ever needed so much indulgence. Worse still, the process has been self-normalizing, so rather than gently nudging Trump back into normal discourse (as white-washed Trump), he figures he can push his boundaries even further, confident the media will excuse further excesses (or that he can denounce them as 'fake news").

  • Kelley Beaucar Vlahos: [09-09] Rustbelt poll: Majority say Trump more likely to avoid war: "Survey finds strong support for Gaza ceasefire; most believe today's foreign policy doesn't put America first." The poll was designed and run by Cato Institute.

  • Elizabeth Warren: [09-14] What Donald Trump isn't telling us: Starts off with Trump's "concepts of a plan" for replacing Obamacare:

    Plans translate values into action. They test the quality of the ideas and the seriousness of the people advancing them. Plans reveal for whom candidates will fight and how effective they are likely to be. And in a presidential race, if either party's nominee is asked about his or her plans for something as fundamental as health care, voters should get a straight answer.

    The problem is not that Mr. Trump can't think up a way to put his values into action. The problem is that when he and other Republican leaders produce plans with actual details, they horrify the American people.

    Mr. Trump's health care values have been on full display for years. In 2017, Republicans controlled Congress, and their first major legislative undertaking was a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Every time they drafted something, independent experts would point out that their plan would toss tens of millions of people off their health insurance, jack up premium costs and slash benefits for those with ongoing health problems. . . .

    But at the debate, Mr. Trump displayed a new strategy. He seems to realize that his health-care plans are deeply unpopular, so he simply doesn't talk about them. Thus, after nine years of railing against the A.C.A. and trying mightily to repeal it, he has moved to "concepts of a plan," without a single detail that anyone can pin him down on.

    The new strategy might have worked -- except Mr. Trump's right-wing buddies have already laid out the plans. No need for concepts. Project 2025 has 920 pages translating Republican values into detailed action plans, including on health care: Repeal the A.C.A. Cut Medicare benefits. End $35 insulin. Stop Medicare drug price negotiations. Cut health-care access for poor families. Restrict contraceptive care. Jeopardize access to I.V.F. Ban medication abortion.

    As Project 2025's favorability plummets, Mr. Trump is once again scrambling. "I have nothing to do with Project 2025," he claimed at the debate. "I'm not going to read it." But it was written by many members of Mr. Trump's former administration and over 250 of the policies in the plan match his past or current policy proposals.

  • Agence France-Presse: [09-14] Laura Loomer, far-right flame thrower who has Trump's ear.

    Meet Laura Loomer, the latest fringe figure to set up in the presidential candidate's inner circle, and who has managed to shock even Trump's most extreme allies as he seeks to reclaim the White House.

    Loomer, a 31-year-old social media influencer and provocateur, has managed to squeeze into Trump's entourage as he is struggling to win over the independents and moderates needed to prevail in November's election against Kamala Harris, a race that is coming down to the wire. . . .

    Asked Friday about her incendiary posts and conspiracy theories, Trump -- a voracious consumer of social media who has previously amplified Loomer's posts on his own account -- shrugged them off, telling reporters in California: "I don't know that much about it."

    Trump declined to criticize Loomer, instead hailing her as a "free spirit" supporter with "strong opinions."

    More on Loomer:

  • Madeline Halpert/Laurence Peter: [09-15] Trump rushed to safety and suspect held after man spotted with rifle: Evidently someone was seen with a gun on a golf course where Trump was playing. Secret Service shot at a man, who dropped the gun and fled, and was later apprehended. Many articles call this "a shooting" and/or "an assassination attempt," which is something to look into, but not established fact. Presumably we'll know more soon, but I don't recall ever learning much about the previous "assassination attempt." While it would be bizarre to fake events like this -- the previous one seemed to spike his polls -- it's hard to rule anything out with Trump, or to assume that normal rules apply. It's also hard to care, possibly because he seems so keen on assassinating other folks that you can't discount the karma, and possibly because when I think of similar cases the one I always land on first is George Lincoln Rockwell.

Vance, and other Republicans:

Harris:

  • Jedediah Britton-Purdy: [09-12] Harris can win on the economy, but she needs a stronger message. Dean Baker reacted to this piece -- "the gist of the piece is that most people are hurting now, but Harris can turn things around by adopting a more populist agenda" -- adding that "it would be great to see Harris push a more populist agenda," but mostly attributing the problem to misinformation ("the media have lied to the public"), but also by asserting that "most people are not hurting how, or at least not more than they did in the past." One problem is that the whole system is rigged to maintain a level of economic pain, so most people feel precarious even when conditions are within normal bounds. Also not clear to me what Britton-Purdy's "clear economic program" actually is. Certainly there are lots of opportunities, but making them clear and tangible to voters is much easier said than done.

  • Marin Cogan: [09-11] Wait, Kamala Harris owns a gun?

  • Jill Filipovic: The big thing Kamala Harris is doing differently than Hillary Clinton: "The Democratic Party is finally figuring out how to right-size its focus on identity politics."

  • Jacob S Hacker: [08-14] Kamala Harris had a great health care idea in 2019. She should embrace it.

  • Heather Digby Parton: [09-13] Kamala Harris' big tent strategy -- and its success -- has thrown Trump for a loop. I personally find the Cheney endorsements damning, but when she mentioned them, I thought she got the "even" inflection just right. I suppose what that shows is that she's the politician, and I'm not. I'm skeptical of how many disaffected Republicans she can win over, but as long as she can pick up some without turning on (or off) her natural base, that not only helps her chances of winning, it opens up the possibility of winning big -- and that would be a good thing, even if it muddies the message a bit.

    I could go farther here and argue that for most Republicans, a big Harris win, even one that gave her a comfortable margin in Congress, would be a blessing. Trump and his movement are a dead end, desperately clinging to demographics that are slipping away, that can only be shored up by disabling democracy, while their policy prejudices only make problems worse, and their reflexive resort to force behind propaganda only makes their victims and opponents more desperate.

    In the 1970s, Republicans argued -- wrongly, I think, but not without reason -- that America has swung too far to the left, so they set about "rebalancing" government. Since then, they never let up, pushing inequality to levels that never existed before: the "gilded age" of the 1880s and the "roaring '20s" were past peaks, both ending in massive depressions, which were corrected with shifts back to the left -- never far, as the rich fared handsomely in the Progressive and New Deal/Great Society eras. Pace the Trump paranoia, they have little to fear from Harris and the Democrats -- even from the farthest left reaches of the party, whose actual programs proposed are modestly reformist, and easily compromised by lobbying.

    Capitalism doesn't help anyone develop a sense of enough, but common sense does, and Republicans need some of that. Especially, they need a break from the Trumpists, who are paranoid and delusional, prepared to burn it all down for the sake of idiot theories, just to exercise their malice against much of the world. It's good to respect the new Republicans who, like recovering alcoholics, are willing to break. The the Cheneys still have a lot of recovering to go.

  • Charles P Pierce: [09-16] Kamala Harris understands that an overly serious campaign is a losing campaign: "Our history is not all crises weathered and problems solved. It is also brass bands, and torchlight parades, and barrels of hard cider at rural polling stations." Point noted, but then: "Sorry. This article is for subscribers only."

  • Zephyr Teachout: [09-09] Stop calling Kamala Harris' anti-price gouging proposal price controls: "Her plan to control inflation is not some leftist plot. It's rooted in mainstream American legal tradition -- and sorely needed."

  • Rebecca Traister: [09-09] The people for Kamala Harris: "How a women-led movement,born in the devastation of 2016, put Democrats on the brink of making history." Magazine cover story article, takes the time needed to sketch out the big picture. This article was paired with:

    • Olivia Nuzzi: [09-09] The afterlife of Donald Trump: "At home at Mar-a-Lago, the presidential hopeful contemplates miracles, his campaign, and his formidable new opponent." Note, however, that the magazine cover used a different, more intriguing title: "Peering into Donald Trump's ear, and soul." (Actually, the Traister article also has a different cover title: "The joyous plot to elect Kamala Harris.")

  • The Cheney endorsements

Walz, Biden, and other Democrats:

Election notes:

Supreme Court, legal matters, and other crimes:

Climate and environment:

Economists, the economy, and work:

Ukraine and Russia:

Elsewhere in the world and/or/in spite of America's empire:

Other stories:

  • Yet another 9/11 anniversary:

  • WD Ehrhart: [09-13] Why I don't watch political speeches: A position I sympathize with, although I've never been tempted to throw things at the TV, other than the occasional snide comment. So I'd have to explain my aversion differently.

  • Nathan J Robinson/Current Affairs:

    • [09-13] The worst magazine in America: The Atlantic poses as a magazine of ideas, but its writers get away with terrible arguments. Its ascendance is a sign of the dire state of American intellectual life." Long article, seems like he spends a lot of time on effort on such obvious atrocities as Robert D Kaplan's "In Defense of Henry Kissinger." More interesting is Simon Sebag Montefiore's "The Decolonization Narrative Is Dangerous and False," which is about how we shouldn't describe Israel as a "settler colony" because the settlement took place over several generations, the "settlers" are no different from immigrants elsewhere, but their designation as "settler-colonists" marks them as "ripe for murder and mutilation." Robinson spends a lot of time on this piece, but that last bit is too insane for him to bother with further. What he does instead is spend considerable time discrediting the sort of mythmaking Montefiore's "caricature" attempts. Whole books have been written to that effect. Robinson makes good points here, but misses most of the angles I would have focused on -- like why does the "settler-colonial" analysis help or hinder you from understanding the history? and what's with this "murder and mutilation"? -- as well as the deeper question of why Atlantic's editors like to publish overblown articles by ill-tempered nincompoops?

      One reason could be that some articles, even if you know they're not just wrong but horribly so, should be published somewhere, if only for smarter people to knock them down. I don't know from Montefiore, but I can imagine someone deciding they want a piece on Kissinger, and wondering if Kaplan might have an interesting take. (I've read a lot of Kaplan, and while he's often wrong -- any time he opens a paragraph with "that got me thinking," you know some really insane shit is coming around the bend -- I've learned a lot along the way. Same for George Packer, source of another Robinson case study.) You're never going to convince me that Atlantic editorial choices are above political prejudices, or even that they are seriously dedicated to providing some sort of open forum, but you need more than just a few examples. You could really use some statistical analysis. But I suppose you could point out examples that are both countersensical and have no "prestige" reason to be published, like the sanewashing article I mentioned above. Robinson does get into this a bit later on, but mostly as asides to a big bang of extra example outrages.

      I sometimes wonder whether I should break down and subscribe to Atlantic. I frequently see links to articles that look like they may be interesting (some by writers I respect, like Adam Serwer and David Graham), and some that just look like arguments I want to knock down, but in the end, I'm just too cheap (and/or committed to free speech), so I almost never click on them. (My wife does pay for digital subscriptions, so sometimes I'm able to piggyback on her accounts, but she really loathes much of what appears in Atlantic, so it's not on her list.) Still, I regularly look at their table of contents to get the lay of the land. From Monday's list, here are some articles I might have considered (a few more I slipped into relevant slots above, especially on Trump and the debate):

    • [09-13] How the soul of New York City is vanishing: Interview with Jeremiah Moss "on what neoliberalism has done to the culture and soul of New York City."

    • [09-13] What doesn't get said: "Commentary around the first Harris-Trump debate focused on Harris's impressive performance. But both candidates accepted dangerous right-wing premises on climate, immigration, economics, and foreign policy." Well, as the joke goes: two campers are surprised by a bear in the woods. One says, "you can't outrun that bear." The other says, "I don't have to; I just have to outrun you." I hate Chait's concept of "the assignment"

      , but I accept that Harris has one, which is make sure she beats Trump in November, preferably by a lot. To do that, she needs to run fast and not trip and fall. (Trump tripping and falling would help, but isn't something you can count on.) I see three risks for her: one is that the war situation gets worse, with Biden and her getting by a public that isn't very sharp on such issues; the second is that she loses support from the money people, most likely by appearing too far to the left; the third is that in steering away from the left, she loses the enthusiasm she needs to get out the popular vote. She's done a pretty solid job of avoiding two and three so far, while Trump and Vance are proving to be even worse than expected, so I'm not inclined to nitpick. War I'm more worried about, but at this point turning on Israel may be the more dangerous option: I was thinking about what Netanyahu's latest threats against Yemen might mean, and wound up wondering what would stop him from exacting his "heavy price" with "a mushroom cloud." How would Biden and Harris react to that kind of "October surprise"? (Trump would probably cheer, and seize it as a wedge issue, which would only encourage Netanyahu.)

      Still, I don't have any beef with Robinson writing articles like this. He, and his readers, quite properly focus on issues. No need for them to stop during what Matt Taibbi used to call "the stupid season." That will pass, while the issues keep coming back, at least until someone finally takes them seriously.

    • [09-11] You've got to read books: "Not everyone has the available time or energy to do deep reading. But if you're going to make confident public pronouncements on matters that require a lot of research, books will help you avoid dangerous foolishness." Needless to say, I endorse this view. Following something Billmon did on his blog (defunct since 2006), I've kept a "current reading" roll and list going for 20+ years now, so I can check how much (and how little) I've read, and just what -- at least in book form. Curiously, I haven't read any of the four books Robinson cites on the 2000 Camp David negotiations, although I've read 3-6 (or maybe 12, depends on how you slice them) other books that cover the same ground -- we're in general agreement on the facts, but I wouldn't go around citing Quandt's "it's really complicated" explanation.

      This is a big subject, one that I can imagine writing quite a lot about. It's true that bad books can be worse than no books at all. (Robinson mentions Robert Fisk's Pity the Nation on Lebanon, which is monumental, but I've actually run into people who got everything they know about Lebanon from Thomas Friedman, and they're painful to deal with.) It's also true that one can learn to read bad books and get value out of them (like the aforementioned Robert D Kaplan library). But even journalists doing "first draft" history often get much better by the time their work comes out in book form (cf. practically everyone who started embedded and wound up with a book on Iraq -- hell, even George Packer got better with a bit of perspective; I wouldn't be surprised if Thomas Ricks' Fiasco had Gung Ho! as its working title).

    • [09-05] How to approach the crisis of mass incarceration: "Mass incarceration is extremely harmful to prisoners and society. But what do we do about it? The editors of Dismantling Mass Incarceration discuss." Interview with Premal Dharia, James Forman Jr., and Maria Hawilo.

Obituaries

Books

  • Zack Beauchamp: [09-11] How a 2006 book by a Harvard professor explains the Trumpist right's gender politics: "Harvey Mansfield's book on 'manliness' prefigured JD Vance's musings about 'childless cat ladies' by nearly two decades."

  • Daniel Immerwahr: [09-09] What if Ronald Reagan's presidency never really ended? "Anti-Trump Republicans revere Ronald Reagan as Trump's opposite -- yet in critical ways Reagan may have been his forerunner." A long review of Max Boot's "definitive" 880 page biography, Reagan: His Life and Legend.

    Recent events have forced Boot to ask if Reagan was part of the rot that has eaten away at Republicanism. Boot now sees him as complicit in the "hard-right turn" the Party took after Dwight D. Eisenhower which "helped set the G.O.P. -- and the country -- on the path" to Trump.

    And yet Boot sees a redeeming quality as well: Reagan could relax his ideology. He was an anti-tax crusader who oversaw large tax hikes, an opponent of the Equal Rights Amendment who appointed the first female Supreme Court Justice, and a diehard anti-Communist who made peace with Moscow. "I've always felt the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government, and I'm here to help," Reagan famously quipped. But he delivered that line while announcing "record amounts" of federal aid. He viewed the world in black-and-white, yet he governed in gray.

    I rather doubt that Reagan wanted to "govern in gray." That was a concession to the Democrats who controlled Congress, to the still-existing liberal Republicans, to the liberal courts, and to the popularity of New Deal and Great Society programs. Reagan was realistic about what he could accomplish, but he did move the needle on all fronts. How anyone could see his program, or his personal charisma, as heroic escapes me.

    Here's another review:

  • Michael Ledger-Lomas: All roads lead to ruin: "Sunil Amrith's The Burning Earth takes us on a gloomy and bleak tour of how, in the name of progress, Western empires made a mess of everything."

  • Rohan Silva: [2022-09-19] Fen, Bog & Swamp by Annie Proulx review -- where have all out wetlands gone? I just read this book, and quoted a bit of it in the introduction, which is why I found this review. While there is much of interest in the book, it's connection to climate change never gets developed, beyond the occasional occasional notes that peatlands sequester a lot of carbon, so their loss has increased atmospheric carbon dioxide.

  • Annie Levin: [09-16] Why you should host a hootenanny: "Outside of a church or karaoke room, singing is mostly left to the professionals. But anyone can -- and should -- partake in the joys of collective singing." I can imagine, but I gave up singing in public in 5th grade, when Lannie Goldston insisted that I lip-synch, and kicked me in the shins every time I slipped up and uttered a sound.

Chatter

It took me the better part of two days to finally insert all of the entries in my April 25, 2024 Book Roundup into my Book Notes file, which at this point is probably too long to be a useful web page (6944 paragraphs, 369868 words), but which I need to figure out whether I've mentioned a book before. I couldn't really start on a new post until that bit of housekeeping got done.

One thing I noticed there was this blurb on a 2017 book (presumably written then) that seems completely relevant to this week's news:

Nathan Thrall: The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine (2017, Metropolitan Books): Hard to think about the conflict without considering how to end it, especially if you're an American, since we've long assumed that our mission on Earth is to oversee some sort of agreement. Thrall has been following the conflict closely for some time now, and writes up what he's figured out: that the only way it ends is if some greater power wills it. The title has a certain irony in that the Israelis, following the British before them, have often said that violence is the only language the Palestinians understand. But as students of the conflict should know by now, the only times Israel has compromised or backed down have been when they been confronted with substantial force: as when Eisenhower prodded them to leave Sinai in 1956, when Carter brokered their 1979 peace with Egypt, when Rabin ended the Intifada by recognizing the PLO, or when Barak withdrew Israeli forces from Lebanon in 2000. Since then no progress towards resolution has been made because no one with the power to influence Israel has had the will to do so -- although Israel's frantic reactions against BDS campaigns shows their fear of such pressure. On the other hand, one should note that force itself has its limits: Palestinians have compromised on many things, but some Israeli demands -- ones that violate norms for equal human rights -- are always bound to generate resistance. What makes the conflict so intractable now is that Israel has so much relative power that they're making impossible demands. So while Thrall would like to be even-handed and apply external force to both sides, it's Israel that needs to move its stance to something mutually tolerable. The other big questions are who would or could apply this force, and why. Up to 2000, the US occasionally acted, realizing that its regional and world interests transcended its affection for Israel, but those days have passed, replaced by token, toothless gestures, if any at all. It's hard to see that changing -- not just because Israel has so much practice manipulating US politics but because America has largely adopted Israeli norms of inequality and faith in brute power.

Curiously, I noted but wrote nothing about Thrall's later book:

Nathan Thrall: A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy (2023, Metropolitan Books).

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