I take issue with the narrative I’ve heard some friends repeat that throwing soup at a painting is at least “courageous”. I think the left is sometimes too quick to bestow that accolade on people who do sort of shocking but low personal risk stuff (she’s a trust fund baby who might spend a night in the clink at worse but probably not). It makes progressives look deeply unserious.
Another thought that comes to my mind about this is that I often think that amateur hour civil disobedience protestors learn the wrong lesson from the Civil Rights Movement. One reason those protests were so effective is that they were doing illegal things that they wanted to demonstrate should be legal. No one serious thinks that throwing soup at a Van Gogh should be legal.
Let me add that there were plenty of downright silly civil rights protests. In Oakland, and perhaps other cities, protesters filled up and then abandoned grocery carts with random food, all to protest employment discrimination.
Coming up with artfully compelling protest schemes is genuinely really hard. Sitting in at a segregated lunch counter? Forceful message. Die-in to protest cyclist deaths? Makes sense to me.
Smearing soup on a painting? Because "What is more important? Art or life?" These two things are not in tension. They are both important. Conceptually, it's muddled and bad.
I was told by someone who was in Berkeley in the 70s that to protest the opening of a new 7-11 they were going to have a “barf-in” where they would take an emetic and throw up on the floor. If I recall the story correctly it didn’t actually happen, though.
"Quayle came to Portland for a $2,500-per-person Republican fundraiser at the downtown Hilton on Monday, Sept. 24. While the vice president was raising money and support for Republican representative Denny Smith (not re-elected) inside the hotel, 300 protesters gathered outside. Flags were burned. A man took a shit on a photo of Quayle.
Suit-wearing Reed students swallowed colored food dye and vomited red, white and, unintentionally, green."
All they did was make a big mess at Safeway and that’s a shame. The world could definitely use protest ideas that draw more attention to the object of the protest than too the protest itself
Like, how is it possible that people are so disconnected from others that this sort of navel-gazing, lotus-eating, bullshit enters into their minds?
Is it reflexive contrarianism? The desire to feel superior to the sheeple who instinctively recoil from this behavior? I just don’t get what the writer, her boss, and her editor were thinking when they decided to authorize, write, and publish this?
This is one of those things where the people who -care- about their little stunt (art/history lovers) are also the ones that are probably more likely to be liberal and generally opposed to oil.
The more low-brow conservatives who like rolling coal and will want to keep using oil even when there is a better alternative...generally don't care about some froo-froo art getting vandalized.
I think that’s pretty uncharitable towards “low-brow” conservatives.
I’ve seen plenty of people in Philly’s art museum standing reverently in front of a piece of art, and when they snap out of it and talk to the folks they’re with, it’s with a southern twang or a deliberate rural Pennsylvanian accent.
“They did what? Aw hell naw! Throwing tomato soup at Van Goghs Sunflowers? What’s next? Throwing lobster bisque at Klimpts The Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I? Randy, get in the goddamn truck!”
Didn’t bother to read the vox piece. I’m sure you’ve been to art museums plenty of times, but I encourage you to go again soon and observe the crowds more closely. In the big museums they’re huge, diverse, very international. This new stunt is literally an outrage for all humanity. The people against it would easily outnumber its supporters a thousand to one.
Also, I wonder when is the last time you actually spoke to an art historian? Why on earth do you think most people who devote their life to the study of art would support this? That’s pretty ridiculous libel there, my friend. I’m sure there are some Twitter freaks who match such perverse views but they are no different from anti vax doctors. They don’t teach you anything about the profession as a whole.
Based on your response and David R's, I think that I must have communicated my point very poorly.
I'm aware that there are plenty of solid conservatives who can and do appreciate art. Even Trump conservatives and some 'low brow' types.
But I think that it is fair and correct to say that, in general, the people who care about art and art history tend to be the left side of the political spectrum.
Which means that they are probably sympathetic to their cause already.(albeit probably not as extreme)
Which means that the vandals' tactics are particularly counterproductive. Alienating allies and eliciting a shrug from many of their enemies.
I'd guess (and it's strictly a guess; I'm not overly familiar with Romano's work) they write for a narrow audience (of like-minded persons) instead of a wider, more general audience.
I'll say this about Vox. I really feel that their target audience isn't me, so I don't read it. It's like when it became clear I wasn't in the target audience for Salon.
Stop ranting. The article was just fine. Before I read it, I had no idea the painting was undamaged. That’s an important, under-reported fact which makes me much more sympathetic to the activists.
I would have preferred a different tack in the article, focusing on why throwing soup on glass ever got so much attention. Because it’s rather strange that throwing soup on glass got so much attention, its also worth asking whether the activists might have better achieved their goals by smashing through the glass and destroying the painting.
In any event, your post is a dreary slew of pejoratives lacking analytical rigor, which is very much your mettier.
Speak of the devil, it’s Reflexive Contrarianism, his very own self!
You get triggered every time someone proposes mass transit investments, but you expect me to believe you’re fine with attempted vandalism in the name of climate activism?
Your reading comprehension needs work. I never said I was fine with what the activists did. I said the linked article was “just fine” because it centered an important, under-reported fact, then explained in general terms how I might improve it.
I’m perfectly capable of empathizing with activists whose goals I don’t share. Perhaps lack of empathy is your disconnect?
He’s apparently even more bored than I am at work, because he’s been following me around like a lost puppy nipping at my heels for weeks, spending disproportionate amounts of time and effort responding to my comments.
With an unending stream of mild, whiny ad hominem attacks, nitpicking, and general irritation.
If there were some “there” there I would be less annoyed, but Jesus Christ…
The other funny part for me here is that I know plenty of artists who think Van Gogh is overrated and a drama queen and that’s why his artwork is so ubiquitous. They’re gnashing their teeth now because his art has now been elevated again.
I think someone could write a long article contrasting contemporary attitudes on the relationship of politics to aesthetics with those of the mid-20th-century. Nowadays, it seems like people use politics to justify attitudes that are fundamentally aesthetic – the politics of "anti-cringe". But in the 1950s people like Clement Greenberg in his essay "Avant-Garde and Kitsch" were arguing that bad aesthetics *create* bad politics – that art that's "lowbrow" is a strategy to keep people complacent subjects of totalitarianism. So past generations of soup-throwers might have claimed even more ridiculously that Sunflowers is harmful in itself, who knows.
These people would never want to throw soup at Van Gogh. That just draws attention to the artwork. They want it pulled out of rotation more often and left in the back room to gather dust and taken off postcards and shopping bags.
Not everything has to be for or against a given rhetorical position. Sometimes we can just make comments about interesting things. I think it’s funny that there are a lot of people who don’t like Van Gogh who are now forced to publicly say how terrible it is that the painting was attacked when they’ve disliked it their whole lives.
They knew it was under glass and wouldn’t be harmed. They took a risk, but a small one. There has been an increasing trend of attacking paintings and art objects recently, which it would be good to understand.
What we need is for both a left wing activist and a right wing activist to do the same freakout stunt back to back, and watch everyone's heads explode as they try to defend the one they agree with and condemn the one they disagree with.
I'm imagining one of those charts where you pick things out of a list based on your birth month, date, and the first letter of your name or something. Birth month is a verb – "throw", "destroy", "deface", "glue" etc.; birth date is an object – "red paint", "glitter", "garbage" etc.; first letter of name is the target – "onto a painting", "at a politician's house", "into the river", "blocking the highway" and so on
For a less freakish but real world example, when lefties were so outraged over the Republican Senate blocking Merrick Garland's example, angry that he didn't even get a hearing, I kept telling them that if John Paul Stevens or Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in February 2008, Senate Democrats would (and should!) have done the exact same thing.
Ehhh, I think I disagree. Harry Reid would've wanted to, but the Dem base back then was pretty blase about the SC, especially compared to the GOP base. I don't know he would've had the support for a move that bold.
I would be more inclined to agree if the entire ideological balance of SCOTUS wouldn't have been on the line. But in this case I think Reid would have found a way.
I do hope the people doing that will be prosecuted and spend some serious prison time. The potential damage from these stunts is incalculable. If current laws don’t offer sufficient deterrence they should be amended asap. Also, update security protocol in these museums for heaven’s sake. Museums literally have only two jobs: protect the art for posterity and display it for the public, in this order. They’re kind of failing it right now.
I recall that concentrated sulphuric acid (96%) is not very corrosive. It can be stored in steel containers. So probably wouldn’t be the ideal pipeline protest fluid. Somewhat diluted sulphuric is very corrosive.
It's not courageous to deface another person's property for a cause that will be celebrated by your peers. Defacing your own property or challenging your peers, knowing that you will lose social status are courageous.
Thank you so much on noting that we should have encouraged more outdoor activity. This in my mind was overwhelmingly the biggest failure of pandemic policy, and I was seeing it as early as near the beginning when we were doing insane things like closing off playgrounds. It was so critical to run a cost/benefit analysis to demonstrate that getting more people outdoors would in turn keep them away from far more dangerous behavior indoors.
But we didn't. And my guess as to why is that we ceded too much authority to the public health crowd, who through this experience I've noted are some of the most neurotic people on the face of the earth. That's understandable given what they study. But it shouldn't have meant turning the keys entirely over to them on societywide policy, since most people are nowhere near as neurotic as them. That should have been strictly within the realm of elected executives to decide in a more holistic manner, who have a better read on how important socialization is to most people.
Someone from local government in my town went around and zip tied all the basketball hoops together when Covid hit to prevent people from using them. They also closed all the playing fields. Luckily, some enterprising soul eventually got a ladder and cut the ties so we could play again. Then they zip tied them again. Then they were cut again, and the town gave up. I was happy.
Generally speaking all of these problems came with the weird usurpation of power by the public health experts, who as you mention are extremely neurotic, but who are also just deeply ignorant of tons of stuff. In particular they seem to have very poor instincts on human behavior, as you mention, but also very poor instincts on social dynamics, economics, and really just every dimension of policy besides public health.
The way this is SUPPOSED to work is that we let them be ultra-neurotic worriers, they advise the government, and the government is the central nervous system that factors in that advice as well as the advice of many other groups to then conduct policy. This is why it doesn't matter that the CDC has absolutely absurd advice about alcohol consumption, sexual behavior, and all kinds of other random stuff -- because no one actually thinks that the CDC's advice is governing policy.
I also think there’s a huge class element. Pretty much all public health people talk about the importance of making sure public health efforts help people with lower incomes. Our pandemic response was very much driven by people who were not very familiar with the lives of people who were not upper middle class.
This was the key error IMO - the Covid Czar should have been in charge of policy and recommendations. It should be a political appointee who, for example, balanced the science against the interests is political groups like teachers unions. Instead this was foisted in CDC officials and put them in a position of trying to do two incompatible things at once - offer the best science-based advice while adjusting that to political reality.
The media’s celebration of that guy who dresses up as the grim reaper and wandered around Florida’s beaches telling people to go home was one of the low points.
What’s really sad is that I saw at least one “how risky is this activity?” Chart from a state medical association that claimed going to a museum was medium risk and going to a beach was medium high risk. I can also remember multiple healthcare workers claim that we absolutely knew that beaches were a major source of spread.
So did I. I think my blood pressure spiked at least 20 points every time someone told me "we have to close the beaches and parks because if we let people got to the parks and beaches, people will think it's okay to do stuff inside. Not everyone understands this like us" Seriously? Mice understand the difference between indoors and outdoors. I'm pretty sure that the number of Americans who do not understand the difference between inside and outside is infinitesimally small.
The best part is the photos were always taken with a depth of field that made it look like they were all sitting on top of each other, when in reality they were probably 20 yards apart.
The media celebration of that guy wasn't due to COVID. They saw the potential future for Governor DeSantis and ran story after story if there was an anti-DeSantis angle to it.
I kind of wonder how much of the COVID hawks are just like >80th percentile introverts for whom stay inside and read books and play video games only ever rose to mildly annoying at worst. I’m very much in this group though I’m vaxxed and relaxed but it all seems strange how much of a fuss it caused.
So I've generally agreed on this line of thinking all through the pandemic and I don't disagree with it now. It seemed crazy to me to close playgrounds and beaches even in Spring 2020.
That said - one thought that's entered my brain is, if outside is so much safer, how did respiratory diseases spread throughout history among rural people and animals? Cave bats are one thing, but if covid came from civets, for example, aren't they basically outside "at the playground" all day? Ditto for pigs, cows and birds that were the originators of most other communicable diseases in human. Bird flu must be spreading mostly outdoors, right?
I'm still "team outside" if there's another pandemic, but something here doesn't quite compute for me.
The important thing is (as MY noted in "The Myth of the Urban Plague", https://www.slowboring.com/p/urban-plague) rural doesn’t mean outdoors all the time. What matters is being within four walls with other people, whether that’s in a city of 100,000 houses or a village of just 10. Even a nomad's encampment can do it—a fully enclosed tent is just as bad for air circulation as any skyscraper. (Probably worse, actually, since once the doorflap is closed the only HVAC is a hole in the roof.)
Throughout history, people in rural communities have lived communally and indoors. Whole families in one room, and big extended ones too. All together, doing the literal domestic stuff of life—cooking, eating, cleaning, making and fixing things to use, socializing, sleeping. And they tended to bring their animals inside as well. Herders and farmers could and did spend time with their cows and sheep and pigs and chickens indoors—sometimes in dedicated barns, but sometimes they brought the animals into the home.
And so it’s no mystery how respiratory diseases spread in the premodern world—same as they do in the modern world, by people spending time with each other indoors. The main difference these days is that they usually don’t have a cow in the living room.
I mean, on one level, there's always going to be some risk. But I think it's a bit simpler than that; even when they can't build shelters, many animals tend to pack together in herds. The animals we domesticated--cows, sheep, pigs, even chickens to some degree--in particular tend to have a strong herding instinct; that's part of why we domesticated them!
As many researchers noted, the benefits of being outdoors are substantially reduced when you're outdoors and packed together like sardines. And which animals tend to be packed together like sardines, even in the wild? Ones that herd. (Or flock, if they're birds, or sheep for some reason.) Combine that with the longer timescales we're talking about when we talk about premodern and prehistoric disease spread (decades or centuries or millennia, not weeks and months and years) and you roughly have a picture of how this worked ages ago.
I can't speak for civets, but for a typical peasant family with one pig, that pig would absolutely be inside in the same space as the people in many places and times, at least in the winter.
Very good point. I'm not sure if this works for cattle, though, which seems to be enemy #1. It's maybe worth mentioning that the little evidence we have often suggests the general area of Egypt / Sudan as the place where the virus made the jump.
Also, I was just looking up TB and the genetic evidence seems to suggest it was circulating in both humans and bovines 17,000 years ago. Maybe there were cave cows at that time but I just don't see that as the likely explanation.
I can’t speak to the TB cave cow thing, but I can say the evidence suggests that the Ancient Egyptians spent a lot of time with their cows indoors (in houses and in barns/sheds). Certainly rural modern Egyptians have no qualms letting barnyard animals into their houses. I remember seeing goats wandering pretty freely in the non-touristic neighborhoods of Luxor, which isn’t even particularly rural, and my grandfather said something like that about his childhood in the Delta.
Lol, thanks! I also just remembered (and how could I forget) that even in the cities, modern Egypt is still overrun by animals, or was very recently. Rag-and-bone men in Cairo and Alexandria still use donkey-pulled carts (or they did when I was there 10 years ago), and the chicken butchers on every street keep live chickens in cages. And at Eid, you see lines and even temporary pens of live sheep, goats, and cows lined outside butcher's shops to be slaughtered for at least a week ahead of the holiday.
I don't quite follow why this would be relevant? I especially don't follow why the fraction would matter, as opposed to the rate per year or something like that, but maybe I'm missing something.
All I can say for sure is that R>1 for centuries. These diseases were circulating, somewhere, amongst humans for that entire time, and amongst animals for possibly even longer.
> if outside is so much safer, how did respiratory diseases spread throughout history among rural people and animals
Stupid question: did they?
My lazy assumption is that the "disease portfolio" facing humans (or cows) in the early modern era looked a lot like the one facing our ancestors (or proto-cows) 100,000 years ago, but I have nothing to back that up. The various waves of frightful pandemics among natives of the New World post-1492 hints that my lazy assumption might be a bad one.
All the respiratory diseases that I know a little about are pretty old and have been circulating thoroughly for a long time. Measles, smallpox and TB go back to Roman times. Influenza has been around since at least the 1500s. There were cities back then, to be sure, but I'm reading a book right now about early colonial America, and these diseases were spreading and killing amongst the colonials in their dispersed farming villages, also.
In any case, the animal evidence is even harder to dismiss. Cows seem to be the #1 originator of communicable human diseases (measles, smallpox, RSV, probably TB) and they live outdoors. Bird flu is spreading right now in wild populations.
There's something I'm missing here, too, in any case. Maybe the answer is as simple as "outdoors is lower-risk than indoors, but not as risk-free as some think". But I dunno.
I think this is part of general civic weakness across much of American life.
Political leaders often didn't feel like they had a mandate to dictate policy. So instead, they delegated to the public health professionals. Instead of having to confidently articulate a policy position, they could just say "listen to the experts." I think many politicians felt a lot more comfortable delegating those choices than having to make tough tradeoffs.
Public health officials, having not tasted what power is like in 21st century America, gladly stepped into the breach and started telling everyone what to do. They started with a lot of political capital and goodwill, but spent it down very quickly, and the result was a mess.
Now the public health institutions are discredited with half of America. This also makes them beholden to the half of America that still likes them - from now on, public health institutions will find it very difficult to stand up to liberal professionals, who make up their base of support. In political terms, they don't have much choice anymore but to operate as an arm of the democratic party. This is really bad for a lot of reasons, but may have been inevitable given the structural factors in play.
Good analysis. I still think that pivoting to cost benefit analysis is not only correct for getting the best results, but probably also the best way to free themself from "progressive" bias.
To back up, the PH folks should not be recommending behavior and policy per se. Their job is to give people and public policy makers the information on the health "costs" for the individual and other people so the decision maker could then weight those up against the benefits of the behavior or policy.
A WAY to give the information would have been be with examples
.
Indoor cocktail parties? Not a good idea.
Outdoor BLM or Trump rally? OK if you can keep your distance.
Church services? Depending on local conditions, OK if not too crowded, people wear masks to keep their (possible) infection to themselves.
Indoor dining? Depends on density and ventilation, with and without UV air recirculation.
Close schools and day care? That's a tough one. Here is how to think about risks of community spread, but the costs to parents time and children's education? That's not our area of expertise.
Disinfecting surfaces? Not worth the trouble now that we know it spreads as an aerosol not droplets.
Visiting a dying relative? Of course.
[MY examples are MY guesses about what sensible PH experts would have said.]
And the information/example messages should have changed as more was learned about the spread, prevalence (varies locally) number of people who are vaccinated (varies locally).
At a time when more & more people in the West are described as lonely, alienated, and without strong social connections- the trend towards 'let's have everyone white collar work out of their living room and never leave their house' is just utterly bizarre to me. Why would anyone think more social isolation is a good thing? I'm with Matt, I think that remote work is likely a negative trend in modern society, but is probably unstoppable. Speaking just from my industry, I can tell you that all the software engineers want to work 100% remotely, and they can simply choose not to work for companies that won't accede to that. They have all the leverage. So, hello increasingly lonely & isolated America.
I am hearing lots of rumblings from people at large companies, including the FAANGs, that productivity is markedly down from remote workers
One thing I have noticed is that people often don’t realize how lonely they are working from home until they start going back to the office. And that’s also when they realize how bad the loneliness was making them feel.
People often underestimate how much benefit that they get from social interaction. Obviously this doesn’t apply to everyone and there are good reasons to like working from home
I absolutely think I would have cracked and gone off the deep end in bad, self-harmful ways if we hadn't been allowed to come back full-time in June... of 2020.
No one thinks that social isolation is a good thing. But each bit of social isolation comes from something people want, like religious freedom or a parking spot or not having to commute.
I think that social engagement, like exercise or reading, is one of those things that is good for people and which they enjoy doing while they're doing it, but without a routine or even an obligation it's hard to get off their duff to do it. Work does serve that purpose, though perhaps it's overkill.
There's really no substitute for being with people you've been with for thousands of hours though. I won't say it's better or worse, but it's markedly different to be in an identical setting (say a happy hour) with people you've known for a long time versus people who are all open to meeting you but whom you don't know, and certainly different (and better) to be in either versus with people who are all doing their own thing, taking up space, and don't want to be bothered.
Also having some kind of routine and a purpose beyond mere gathering tends to make the group not fizzle. This is why a D&D campaign can easily last longer than a hangout group. Large events can also help here, but they're very much in the "meet people" category rather than "be with those you've been with", and most events only happen once or twice a year.
There seems to be a huge round of tech layoffs happening at lots of the large companies. I wonder if that is going to change the balance of negotiating power for new hires to insist on 100% remote.
I think most adults in the US live with a spouse or children. Many of them would gladly sacrifice time spent socializing with coworkers to gain time with their families. It doesn't seem obvious to me that the trade makes them more socially isolated.
I was referring more to younger people who don't. But for the older crowd- who on Earth wants to be locked in a house with their spouse or child all day, and you can't get away? You're with them during the day and then also the evening, the weekend..... Um no thanks. Some separation is good.
I'll put it to you this way- did you hear a lot of enthusiasm during the pandemic for everyone being locked away in their home? "Sure, this Covid thing is bad, but at least I'm stuck at home with my spouse and children and literally can't get away ever, it's been wonderful". Did you hear that much?
My wife wasn’t wfh but wouldn’t you both be in your offices throughout the workday, and then you only spend a little time with each other at lunch and a break?
Maybe I’m just imagining stuff but if remote teaching had been a permanent part of my life instead of a weird year and a quarter replacing the few hours I spend with adult coworkers with lunch and a dog walk with my wife seems like an unqualified plus.
I have the opposite take, 24 hrs/day with family is difficult, and I've been married 40 years, love my wife and raised two children to happy adulthood. Time at the office was a sanctuary and a blessing of human contact.
Opposite take for me too. I was already far less productive while at home (at a big tech) to the extent that I had to work until midnight to get even half of my normal velocity, and I can't even imagine being able to juggle that with other responsibilities like a relationship, kids, or pets. I'd strongly like to have kids someday but can't really see how living with someone else would be possible for me in a world where the rules have changed to be able to rug away my 50-60 hours a week of escape at the slightest safety provocation.
I don't know about all. Early this year it was 60% most/all in general*. I can buy that it is higher among software engineers.
We are officially hybrid with no requirements. Our seating is organized as 1-2 teams per room ("open office" within rooms), and that has a large influence, as to whether people can expect some company (good for coming in) or will be lonely in a large room (bad). For some teams, everyone is fully remote and only come in when there are special events. For others, almost everyone comes in daily. There are some people (usually leads/managers, but also other gregarious kinds) who have a soft pull, and they set an example for the whole team. Groups of people who come into the office have lunch together, and tend to come in and leave around the same reasonable times. In my team, we tend to notify others in advance if we expect to WFH, and others co-ordinate accordingly. I have been nearly 100% in-person for the last 1.5 years. If I ever look for another job, I expect to reject 100% remote positions unless I run out of options.
Law firms are also starting to crack the whip about getting people back into the office with more serious repercussions, especially in a potential recession economy
Listening to you on the EK show and i gotta say, you two still have great podcast chemistry. There's a reason those weeds episodes during the dem primary were my favorites, i appreciate the combo
Listening to Bad Takes made me feel like it is hard to find a good podcast partner for Matt because Matt often seems to want to jump over the base level discussion into something more specific or obscure and it felt like Ezra was the only one that trusted him enough to do that and that let some of the Weeds episodes get to interesting places. (Some examples of where this doesn't happen are the Chess episode of Bad Takes, the Anti-Asian hate crimes episodes of the Weeds or the Welfare reform episodes of the Weeds.)
For Bad Takes it seems like they would be well served mapping out the conversation before recording(perhaps they already do) because it feels like they don't have a solid idea of what form the discussion is going to take and what the actually interesting point of disagreement might be.
Its possible the format is just tough for them because they start off discussing a random tweet or whatever but then when they try to abstract the discussion a bit they get pretty lost.
Goes to show the non-uniformity of aesthetics; on bad takes i personally like that the hosts seem to be on some level discovering what the other thinks about the topic. Human preferences are a multitude!
I think I like that format more for things like sports and movie podcasts where the hosts' opinions feel less predictable and the deeper analysis isn't really the point. With political shows it feels like if you know the hosts a bit you can guess most of their starting point of views pretty regularly. Bad Takes feels like it takes too long to get to the actual discussion for a show that is only about 45 minutes long.
Sorry that was a bit unclear. Those episodes are times where it seemed like the cohosts did not let Matt jump ahead to the more specific discussion that he wanted to have.
Bad Takes just doesn't work, they should abandon it as a failed experiment and move on, there's no point to making a bad podcast that nobody will listen to.
Agree, I subscribe to Bad Takes but I confess that Matt’s co-host on that show is not my favorite among his interlocutors. Really enjoyed this episode of EK.
I like Laura. Matt is matt no matter who he talks to, but ezra is best when hes friends with the guest since it becomes more conversational. Pour one out for Jane Coaston who i think is criminally underutilized presently by the times
The Argument has been so bad lately. Just really shallow discussion of some very mainstream progressive hot topic with all people that agree. I do really like Jane and wish she could do a podcast that would allow her to expand on her own arguments more and have someone else host the Argument with a typical left, right, center format.
Fair point. I found the episode about the Queen especially annoying, but I like the more recent ones more (including this week’s, even though I have no interest in Kanye West and was completely unaware of the situation that generated the take at issue).
I think in the Queen episode, Laura actually had the better side of the debate (Elizabeth herself was a political actor who chose not to do more good in the world) and I started on Matt's side but moved to hers, but it all got sort of tangled in a way that was hard to follow. I feel like if they recorded the same episode in a year it would be much better. In terms of the interrupting thing, I don't know how they record, but they need a non-audio signal (eg do video chat and hold up a finger to say wrap it up or have a chatroom and type "want to break on X") so that it's not quite as jarring as being in the middle of a sentence and then cutting in.
Anyone have any refs for good Matt / Ezra episodes other than this week’s EKS. I started following both of them post Weeds so I haven’t listened to much of their stuff together.
Their 2020 primary debate recap episodes are pretty good but are pretty specific to that time obviously.
The early Weeds episodes with Matt, Ezra and Sarah are generally pretty good. The focus is often specifically healthcare but there are some other topics they get into.
Specific Episodes I enjoyed were:
Land value taxes, soda taxes, and carbon taxes - oh my!
Our undemocratic primaries, Obama's new fiduciary rule, and the challenges of information polarization.
Free College, Email Extravaganza and the China Shock
Those are mostly pretty old but the topics are still relevant in most cases.
Matt, if you're interested on the impact of remote work on productivity/growth, there was recently an econ conference at Stanford that focused on remote work. (see here: https://www.remoteworkconference.org/) Most of the research was focused on US workers, but not all.
The results were broadly that workers like remote work (and so it will probably stick around) but that fully remote work seems to be bad for feedback/mentorship -- especially for young workers -- and knowledge spillovers.
There was one field experiment run (in Bangladesh I think, so external validity is something to think about for the US context) that showed that mandated hybrid resulted in the best work outcomes: specifically, they found that hybrid workers send more emails, send more unique information in their emails, are rated by managers as having higher work productivity, and receive a higher wage increase than workers in either the mostly remote or mostly in-office groups.
One paper did find that remote work's negative impact on science collaboration has decreased as technology has gotten better, looking at scientific coauthors from geographically distant locales. So the results are at least somewhat mixed.
Not at this conference but I think I saw a paper in Science suggesting that remote brainstorming resulted in worse outcomes than in-person, as well.
So IMO I think the research mostly supports your POV, that remote work will stick but (fully remote) is bad for feedback/productivity/growth
To expand on my own top level comment, I'm in one of those professions and jobs where fully remote works best for productivity, and since I also work independently it is just not practical for me to lease out office space. But if I was part of a team on a regular basis, I'd probably want to meet in person about once a week just to get some camaraderie. The pandemic really revealed how miserable it was to be forced not to have that.
As someone who was recently forced to move from hybrid to fully remote for medical reasons (recovering from surgery), I cannot agree enough. Can't wait to go back to the office...2 days a week. Maybe even 3!
I've worked hybrid for a while now but I think to really make the most of it you have to specifically build the workweek around it. Meetings should be on days when your team is in-office, and then your individual work can be remote.
Scientific collaboration is an interesting case. Everyone is such a specialist, that you get big gains from collaborating with the right person, that easily outweigh the losses when that collaboration is across time zones.
Absolutely right, but even here, people working on similar problems will try to concentrate at specific universities because it's so much easier to collaborate in person. Like a department trying to establish a critical mass in a certain sub-field.
This *perfectly* lines up with my experience at our consulting engineer clients. Entry/junior-level and mid-level managers and up *hated* WFH and wanted it dead ASAP. It is impossible to get graduate and new-to-this-sector employees trained and mentored.
Mid-level individual actors fought tooth and nail to keep it. Finally senior folks had no choice but to put their jobs under threat despite the difficulty of hiring replacements because the only things that were getting done were the most basic day-to-day design tasks.
Now virtually everyone is back to hybrid, except the completely irreplaceable; nationwide program managers, crack design technology and automation process guys, etc.
I’m sorry but MY’s conspiracy theory of politics is a bit silly. If you must reduce all politics to one sentence then the left seeks change to improve things and the right seeks to protect the things that are already good *from* change. Both are genuine human interests and that’s why both have had and will forever continue to have varying degrees of popular support. Neither is in its essence a conspiracy although individual politicians and organizations on *both* sides have known to use conspiracy theories from time to time to advance their cause.
Yeah that struck me as silly too. Maybe the Trumpist right really is just falling for conmen because they don't want higher taxes, although that probably is not the full reason. But has he never read Hayek? The old, non-Trumpist right, which admittedly a lot smaller these days, still actually believes things like economic growth lifts all boats, the price mechanism is important, and markets are better at distributing resources than central planners.
But what is annoying about that old "non-Trumpist Right" is that in power it doesn't do anything to promote economic growth -- low deficits and immigration -- or trust in markets -- free trade, regulatory reform.
??? Do "Democrats" want 100% redistribution or the economic policy of "Europe?"
My beef with "Democrats" in not with how MUCH they want to redistribute (or combat climate change or promote acceptance of religious/ethnic/racial/gender identification diversity) but that they do not chose efficient, growth compatible means to do so.
"Protect the things that are already good" does not lead logically to Republican positions on taxes and the welfare state. That's where the flimflam comes in.
I’m attempting an abstract definition of progressive vs. conservative politics, you can’t assume that in a country with two parties whose coalitions are in constant flux they would perfectly align with the ideal type at any given moment.
It's reductionist, but has some truth to it. There is a fundamental issue with opposing redistribution to the median voter. Democrats can win with a vanilla economic distribution argument and call out Republican BS. Unfortunately they've encumbered this message with social policy.
There is no homo economicus, something that my seems to forget. Voters have more than just economic interests nor do they think about those in a purely selfish rational fashion. Non of this requires conspiracies or lies. That gop is currently steeped with both doesn’t prove that they must and historical and comparative examples to the contrary abound.
True. What is odd (from my right of center perspective) about the US recently is that that the Right does not seem to be protecting things that are good -- livable planet, inclusive growth (immigration, low deficits, free trade), ethnic/religious/gender identification diversity.
And the Left does not "sell" what it thinks is good as "good for everybody" positive sum changes and sometimes just messes up the cost-benefit analysis of the change.
And both for getting so MAD at the other side for their opinions.
P.S. I gave a super reductionist ad abstract definition on purpose, because MY did, but it’s obviously a limited heuristic. However I’d argue that it does fit *some* current debates. Immigration for instance: a conservative stance can be (doesn’t have to be but *can* be) framed as: country’s population is fine as is, let’s keep it that way. Left version is- let’s add more people, despite the disruption , because ultimately not will make things better.
Likewise lgbt acceptance- conservative position: current attitudes to sex etc are fine as they are since I’m happy with them (“I “ here in fact being 90% or more of population). Left says, no, we need to make change despite the temporary awkwardness for everyone to make a more just society and ultimately you too will thank us for it because you don’t realize yet that the status quo is bad.
The environment is tricky - but even there if the status quo is the use of oil then you could frame it conservatively.
Now OF COURSE you can find a more sophisticated conservative argument precisely for the opposite of many of these- eg enviormentalist position that agrees that reforms are necessary to ultimately preserve the status quo of the climate itself; gay marriage protects the family structure, trans inclusivity reinforces gender norms etc. that’s why the heuristic is limited but I still think it has its uses
Yes, us politics is f_d up right now. But here’s a hot take (?) look at the uk. I think their party system is doing much much better, despite the fact that their country is in greater economic trouble.
WRT the question about zero tolerance toward aggressive masculine behaviors..,A daycare teacher told us at the end of a day that our 3 year old son was interrupting girls all day and not letting them talk. I think this was a weird way to frame his behavior if he was being disruptive he’s not a disruptive kid but my wife and I were like “uh is she trying to say our 3 year old is sexist or something?” I think there is a little bit of hypersensitivity toward typical little boy behavior these days from my admittedly limited experience.
Is it not possible that your three your old is being sexist? Obviously not through consciously sexist thought, but maybe he has learned that interrupting this particular person always seems to result in positive outcomes (ie the girl doesn’t object or push back and he always gets to say what he wants)? That feels like relevant feedback to give to parents. Without more context I have no idea what’s actually happening since you’ve not provided more context but it feels like “a three year old is too young to be sexist” is a reductive way to dismiss this feedback.
It’s far far more likely that the daycare teacher is biased in her perception than a three year old in his behavior. I’d go as far as to say it’s a slight warning sign of casual misandry, but of course one cannot say based on one small anecdote.
I’d argue it’s little kid behavior , not little boy behavior. Girl toddlers can wreck havoc just as much as boy toddlers. The sexism is in the eye of the beholder.
So this was a great mailbag, as usual, with one exception: the bizarre conspiracy-theory version of conservative politics: "And the right’s strategy is to obfuscate".
What about the statement from last week's mailbag, "I don’t think questioning people’s sincerity is productive"? Maybe that doesn't apply to approximately fifty percent of our country - or, more charitably, to a large share of our politically active class?
In order to stand by that view of American politics, even if you want to question the right's sincerity, I think you have to either repudiate markets as a mechanism for advancing social good (which Matt obviously does not), or buy into the proposition that economic interests are the only genuine interests (or both). If you accept that people genuinely have non-economic priorities, it's easy enough to invert that critique and conceive of the American left as a conspiracy to bribe the electorate into accepting their high status as natural ("reality has a left-wing bias") and their cosmopolitan cultural preferences.
The original question is interesting, though! Why do Republicans keep nominating hapless lunatics and con men? I can think of at least two reasons. First, political talent is hard to come by in the first place, and the Republican party is suffering from a brain drain that is partly self-inflicted (by amplifying resentment of educated elites) but also driven by the left's tendency to treat conservative opinions as bad manners. Second, celebrity and its close cousin notoriety are much more important factors that we typically credit - far more important than, e.g., command of policy, at least in a representative democracy.
(Incidentally, this is why I disagree with Matt's recent, related off-hand remark on Bad Takes: he contrasted Republican's promoting meritocracy with the distressing candidates they promote, noting that they were extremely weak on policy. I don't think this is a contradiction at all: policy knowledge is not a core piece of a contemporary American politician's skill-set.)
I would offer a somewhat different point on the bad candidates. Republicans didn't elect nutjobs that much until Trump, so this is clearly all because of him and not some longer term weakness in conservative theory. Trump made politics exciting so lots of people want to copy what he did, and Trump brought lots of first time voters and populist Democrats over to the Republican party, which makes it even more difficult for the establishment to implement discipline.
FWIW I think both parties have a history with nut jobs, but Trump was by no means the first. It amazes me that Steve King held office as long as he did, or Sarah Palin
And I don’t mean because of their views. The mystifying thing is that the electorate in those places could have gotten EXACTLY the same
policy outcomes even if they’d elected someone less obviously incompetent and/or toxic
From what I have heard of Palin, she was always crazy but she hid it very well and was actually extremely effective for the short time she was in politics before entering the national stage. After she went national all of her work was undone, and she quit to become a celebrity. But for a time she seemed to be getting difficult things accomplished for her state.
There have always been nuts in both parties, but this is the first time the nuts have had so much power and influence.
Matt is presumably led to this view by the related observation he keeps hammering on that Republicans’ actual policy agenda, if they win elections in the near future, is big welfare state rollbacks. The “capitalism with a welfare state” cohort is the center left, not the right.
But the "capitalism" part is also in jeopardy. We'll get larger deficits (becasue the will not in fact reduce transfers by much is anything) but will get less immigration and more distorted (n different ways than Democrats are likely to do) trade. If the "full Bernie" Republican nightmare ever comes try it will be 100% their fault.
I think the experience might be different for those who had young children. For us, serious restrictions continued for quite a long time, mostly relating to schools. But just to give one dumb example, the playgrounds were open again by June of 2020 where I live. They were open, but my wife didn’t want to use them, and didn’t want to allow me to take our kids there. She wasn’t comfortable with playgrounds for at least another year. And that was in large part due to the lack of encouragement from the public authorities to use playgrounds. She was looking to respectable opinion leaders on the left for guidance throughout, and their advice was always “why take the risk?”That’s how I remember it.
Right: this is a good example of what I was trying to get at in my top level comment, where elected leaders needed to say "this interaction is safer" and override the neurotic public health wonks' "no interaction is safe".
In LA they actually kept the parks closed almost through the whole summer! In my condo building we couldn't get the HOA board to reopen the swimming pool!
Since Matt couldn't get to my question, I'm going to go rogue and post it here for the crowd, as I'm beginning to freak out a bit, and would love to get an opinion or two: assuming they lose the House (or worse) will Democrats have the common sense to address the debt ceiling the day after next month's election? Would it not be political malpractice of the highest order if they don't do so? Also, ten months ago they did it with 51 votes, so GOP votes aren't, strictly speaking, necessary.
(Also, we may well be heading into recession next year, and I can think of few better ways to intensify a downturn than a nasty debt scare at some point. If they don't take action on the debt ceiling, Democrats may as well invite DeSantis to the White House and let him get started early on measuring for curtains.)
The Republicans have learned their lesson on the debt ceiling topic. They will rattle a cage to get the more stupid part of their base to think it is possible. Then they will vote to raise the ceiling. Been repeated over and over for years now.
The Democrats haven't fixed it permanently because they hope Republicans will actually follow through at some point and shoot themselves in the foot.
Isn’t it sort of selfishly rational for Republicans to want to hurt the economy if they only control the House? That seemed to be their strategy throughout the Obama years: force austerity, blame Obama, win elections. That strategy basically worked, there was a long period of high unemployment and low wage growth, Republicans controlled at least one house of Congress from 2010 to 2020, and even after the pandemic, they still has 50 senators.
Not all concerns about the debt are driven by nakedly partisan calculations. Simpson-Bowles (also during Obama years) was bi-partisan and filled with people genuinely concerned about the trajectory of spending and revenue. Obama's team also had its share of austerity-friendly advisors.
Maybe some of those Republicans were hoping to "hurt the economy", but I think that is too cynical even for me. They were wrong, as were others I mentioned above, but being wrong isn't the same as being intentionally harmful.
By the way, I think the same thing about the excess stimulus put in by the Democrats. Wrong, but not intentionally so. Except the Student Loan forgiveness -- that IS naked & evil partisanship that harms the country and Biden doesn't care.
A Republican House would only increase the debt ceiling by relying on more Democrats to vote yes than Republicans. Would Kevin McCarthy have the courage to buck major parts of his coalition to do so?
Since this site demands probabilities, I'll put it at 20%. Low enough to make me very nervous. House Republicans are much more extremist and nihilistic than they were ten years ago, which is really saying something.
Yes Republicans were naughty to want to hurt the economy (They were just as mistaken as Democrats about the effects of fiscal policy on macroeconomic outcomes), but it was the Fed that was actually doing the hurting,
Yea, I think they realized that fucking around with this hurt them in 2012 and 2014. They’ll push it as hard as they can without courting disaster and then allow an increase.
My primary concern is that "evil-but-serious" Eric Cantor types, the sort of people who can dispassionately learn a lesson like that, were replaced with the likes of MTG, who I would not trust to walk a dog.
Good question, I don't know how other countries do it. Originally congress had to approve every single instance of new debt and it got to be a huge time-suck so they simply said that the central bank can take on any amount of debt up to this limit. That way they only had to occasionally vote on it instead of constantly having to. It wouldn't be a big deal if Republicans weren't such a bunch of jack-wagons.
Agreed. Democrats are thinking that Republicans either won't do it, which is good for the country, or they will, which will be terrible for the country but great for electing Democrats. Either way why worry about it?
Based on the fact that they were totally willing to gamble on democracy itself for political gain by helping anti democracy republicans in primaries im very very pessimistic. My guess would be that they will calculate that debt ceiling stunts will hurt the gop and that they will never actually pull through with it anyway. I think the last decade should have taught us however that there are no longer any red lines in politics that aren’t going to be crossed sooner rather than later. They’d be very foolish not to eliminate the debt ceiling completely and get rid of this Damocles sword but my guess is they won’t.
Right. Counting on any degree whatsoever of *rational* self-interest on the part of Republicans seems a bad plan—especially when it is Democrats who possess the incumbency brand: Republicans may well think any blowback against them because of debt hostage tactics may be ephemeral; but damage to the economy may hurt Democrats over the longer term (ie, in the November 2024 election). The GOP may also view the debt ceiling as a genuine opportunity to force some of their priorities on the nation, no matter the political cost (especially in the short term), in similar fashion to Dobbs.
Right. And it gets worse. Starting 2024 gop will get senate majority for foreseeable future. Even if Dems win wh in 2024 and transition of power is peaceful, debt ceiling basically allows gop to constantly balckmail the administration
Maybe they won't have time to get to the debt ceiling fight because they'll be too busy holding hearings about Hunter Biden, impeaching Joe, and repealing Obamacare.
Plus, there are probably plenty of democrats willing to back cuts to entitlements in order to appear "serious" about the deficit.
Tighten your belts. The government needs to work like a family making budget decisions at the dinner table. There are too many idle young men playing video games and collecting disability, we need to get Americans back to work by adding stricter work requirements. Social security is bankrupt. Old people should stay in the workforce longer. Cut inflation by cutting welfare. Bathtub government drowning promissory notes. Other related deficit tropes.
A family making budget decisions would probably first think about increasing it's income if that were possible. Deficits are a tax on private investment.
There ARE too many young and old men and women not working. If work requirements would get them to work (including caring for children, the infirm, or elderly) and and not just prevent them from receiving the benefits that would be great. [Why didn't we do that with the Child Tax Credit?]
SS and Medicaid revenue and benefit formulas are such that benefit payments do or soon will exceed revenues. Since the revenues come from a very inefficient and regressive tax, why not switch them to a VAT set at whatever level of benefits we chose (not significantly different from the actual I imagine, although some additional moves to raise the "retirement age is quite possible).
My fear is that they'll use the limited time in the lame duck to do base pleasing things like the gay marriage legislation instead of things to take the bomb away from the Republican crazies.
Have no fear. They won’t have the votes for marriage equality now that republicans no longer have the midterms threatening them . The fools missed the one chance :(
It's possible they can't hold their Senate conference together (Machin? Sinema?) so that could certainly be one reason. But yeah, this seems like the no-brainer of the new millennium.
"assuming they lose the House (or worse) will Democrats have the common sense to address the debt ceiling the day after next month's election"
[Ron Howard narration]: The Democrats do not in fact have the common sense to address the debt ceiling the day after next month's election if they lose the House.
The fact that they did not eliminate the debt ceiling before the elections may be an example of political misjudgments that caused then to lose the elections.
> Our elections are organized as if these are highly personal contests between two individuals, but Congress actually operates as a very polarized very partisan body. We’d be much better off with electoral institutions that matched that reality.
One reason I'm so keen on the Alaskan top-4 system (or the proposed Nevadan top-5 system, which I think is slightly better) is that it enables both intra-party and inter-party competition to happen simultaneously.
If you have that system and one of your party's candidates is a scumbag, then there is another candidate of your party you can vote for instead - meaning you can vote against a particular politician without risking affecting the balance of Congress. It also enables voters from the minority party to weigh in to some degree on which member of the majority party wins - which should advantage moderate members of both parties.
I think that top-4 is going to get a somewhat bad reputation among Republicans in Alaska because a typical top-4 in Alaska is going to be two Republicans, one Democrat and one Independent, and the intra-party battle between the two Republicans is liable to help the Democrat (as it did in the special election for the House recently). A top-5, which would almost certainly bring in a second Democrat, and so even out the intra/inter party conflict is a superior system.
Why not just use RCV rather than single-vote along with top-X to fix the intraparty competition problem? Seems like a much better solution than just increasing the number of slots.
Information problems. I'm in the middle of writing a long comment about this. Ranked voting systems rely on voters having more information and restricting the number of candidates makes this much easier.
I’ll look forward to your comment. Honestly I feel like all the information I’d need in a top-X primary is “this is the person in the party I support who isn’t a clown, this is the one who *is* a clown but whose election at least doesn’t empower the opposition party towards a Congressional majority” — and I don’t even need that much as long as I’m ranking candidates based on party first and personal characteristics second to ensure that my vote favors my party over the opposition regardless of how I rank its candidates against each other.
I don’t know that your characterization of the “fundamental” dynamic of the right is telling the whole story. There’s a parallel core group on the right that sincerely believes basically: “(1) economic growth lifts everyone’s standard of living much more than anything else, (2) the difference between say 1.5% annual growth and 3% annual growth over a human lifespan is enormous, (3) relatedly, society-wide high growth includes noticeable change and disruption that in the short-term is uncomfortable for many, therefore (4) the right thing for the government to do is to keep the economy growing fast even if this means ignoring short-term pain the electorate won’t tolerate.”
Ironically this is a very collectivist worldview - people on the left like to tar and feather the right as *only* trying to protect the rich, but most people on the right don’t see it as protecting the people who are rich today, but rather protecting the ability to *get rich* ideally by creating some transformative business that makes everyone better off.
You can also look to places like China today (and America in the past) and see that when you do things like just build the high speed rail lines fast even if you have to crush some individual property owners to do it, you get high speed rail lines fast and very soon society is better off (even though the change really sucked for a small number of people).
Of course you can totally disagree with that worldview and ideology but I think *ignoring it* is unwise.
There may be people that think that (I do) but no Republican has ever acted like it. Deficits are bad for growth. Immigration restrictions are bad for growth. Over a long enough time frame not having a net tax on CO2 emissions is bad for growth. Trade wars are bad for growth.
I take issue with the Slow Boring conventional wisdom that the right's activists are more disciplined than the left's. The more conservative the primary, the more likely you are to get a nutjob. That's because the true believers of the conservative movement ("activists") are nutjobs.
I feel like the most obvious recent evidence for this is Jan. 6. Was that a disciplined act or not?
Beyond that, right-wing nutjobs have in recent memory 1) stopped all business in the Canadian capital for several days, 2) supported nutjob conspiracies about multiple mass shootings, 3) endorsed Q, 4) celebrated family border separations, 5) called for a national abortion ban, and 6) described their political enemies as an evil "regime" that controls the media and deep state.
I understand that Matt is trying to make nuanced critiques of bad Democratic messaging, but it seems to me that he is really just creating more bad Democratic messaging with many of those critiques.
Matt suggests that Republicans not pushing more extreme abortion policies (at least at the national level!) reveals their discipline. I don't think that's true. First, the activists *are* pushing legislators to act (https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/18/anti-abortion-groups-gop-midterms-00062182) And second, most Republican legislators don't talk about it not due to discipline but because they're deep cynics who don't really care about any policy, except for tax cuts for the rich and helping businesses who agree with them on the former.
“Because right-wing politics is organized as a conspiracy to mislead people into not voting to give themselves more money, it creates structures that elevate and reward hucksters and flim-flam artists.”
There’s a kernel of truth here, and yet it seems extraordinary that a conspiracy to mislead people could more or less work for 246 years.
Was it just good luck for conservatives that Eisenhower and Reagan presided over four combined terms of peace and prosperity and that LBJ scuttled the Great Society in Vietnam? Is that why American voters plunder the rich less than their European counterparts? Is the conservative movement falling apart because there haven’t been any Reagans, Eisenhowers or LBJs for 34 years? It certainly takes some quirks and unexpected twists for a multimillion person conspiracy to prove so durable.
"Is that why American voters plunder the rich less than their European counterparts?"
Race is the reason. The Voting Rights Act is what scuttled the Great Society (to the extent something that left us Medicare and Medicaid can be considered "scuttled"). Race is why poor white people vote with rich white people instead of poor black and brown people even now.
Race is important but it isn’t the only variable. America was just as progressive as Europe up til about 1950, at which point European welfare states began expanding much faster than ours. Was race more salient in the 1960s than during the era of lynch law and Jim Crow? That hardly seems credible. Indeed, it was around 1965 that the proportion of Americans who were nonwhite reached its all time low.
The Civil Rights Act explains why white southerners left the Democratic party. It doesn’t explain why Republicans became more economically conservative at a time they were trying to assimilate southern voters who came from a pro-debtor, free silver political tradition.
>>It is the obvious variable. Why would we ignore it to keep casting about for some other explanation?<<
Race explains some of the difference between the expansion of European (and Canadian) safety nets and the US situation. But not every bit. In the first place, the US circa, say, 1950, wasn't obviously a terrible laggard in this area (and yet there was substantial racial strife). The country had a national pension system, and many of the states operated significant social welfare programs (orphanages, public hospitals, sanitaria, etc.). America operated robustly-funded education at all levels (including tertiary). American was on the cusp of embarking on a giant public works program (Interstate higways). And America's employer-centric health insurance system—subsidized by the tax code—was rapidly growing. The country also had a powerful labor movement as well as a relatively strong economic regulatory regime (FDA, FTC, antitrust enforcement, Department of Agriculture, FHA, FDIC, FCC, SEC, and so on).
In terms of the generosity and effectiveness of its safety net, the USA really began to fall behind the rest of the developed world in the 1970s, when it failed to build upon the successes of the Great Society and then shifted its political economy to the right with the arrival of Reagan. Race played a factor, yes, but ethnic, religious and racial conflict aren't unknown in Europe or Canada. I believe two overlooked factors are A) European elites were cowed by the specter of Soviet tanks a short ways away(and robust domestic Marxist political movements), and thought it prudent to embrace social democracy in a manner that was never the case in the USA; and, B) Europe and Canada mostly operate along parliamentary lines: the USA's Madisonian constitution simply makes it more difficult to enact what voters want.
I wasn't disagree with Matt's contention that right wing politics is largely "a conspiracy to mislead people into not voting to give themselves more money." I was disagreeing with Dsep's statement about the overwhelming role of race in determining the country's political economy. It's definitely a factor—indeed a very important one—but in my view it's nonetheless overemphasized.
I’m not saying we should ignore race. I’m saying the view “80% of American politics is racial” is (potentially?) at odds with Matt’s claim that right wing politics is an effort to con working stiffs into voting against their economic interests.
Let’s assume that your thesis is true and race is dominant. If that were the case, white elites would prize racial solidarity over low marginal tax rates. They would offer welfare style benefits structured to exclude (de facto or de jure) non whites in order to cement white racial dominance.
The fact that this didn’t happen proves, at a minimum, that white elites were not solely interested in white supremacy and were willing to risk racial solidarity to keep their taxes low
Offering welfare benefits structured to exclude nonwhites is exactly what they did. That's what social security was from the 30s to the 60s. That's what public ed funded by real estate taxes still is.
"White elites are not solely interested in white supremacy" is not the same as "there is no explanation for why white people vote with other white people."
If we begin with the extremely obvious observation that white people tend to vote with other white people regardless of class, then we might arrive at useful conclusions. If we insist on looking for some other explanation because the obvious reason makes the most powerful people feel sad, then we'll continue to not fix anything.
You are absolutely correct that social security was designed to exclude blacks and this is because white southerners were a pillar of the New Deal coalition and didn’t want black people getting benefits. However, that racial exclusion broke down in the 60s, and blacks now get a substantial pro rata share of benefits. Any good theory has to explain why white welfare chauvinism waned in the 1960s and is now basically limited to pockets of high end schools. Furthermore, public schools that exclude minorities also exclude poor whites. Indeed, attendance zones exclude poor whites and poor minorities for exactly the same reason: they can’t obtain and pay a mortgage in a good school district.
Class is a major theme in US history and in todays politics. Matt posited a conspiracy to protect class privilege, and it’s fair to ask why it worked.
“White people vote with other white people” doesn’t really describe American politics. A better statement would be “white people are somewhat less likely to vote for progressive candidates than people of color.”
Democrats are only competitive nationally when they win 42% or more of the white, non-Hispanic vote. Democrats usually get a majority of the white vote in a number of states, eg Washington, Vermont and Oregon. There has never been a competitive statewide election in a major state where there weren’t huge numbers of white people supporting each candidate.
The old Southern Democrats who are now Republicans were always for large government and more spending. They were a major part of the New Deal coalition. They were just incredibly racist. They began migrating to the GOP beginning in the late 60s, early 70s, but did not have anywhere close to a majority in the GOP at that time. The majority was still the conservative Eisenhower coalition who wanted lower taxes. Eventually, a lot of these people left the GOP for cultural reasons, and the old Southern Democrats became a majority, which gave us Trump. This is why there are a lot more populist GOP politicians and policy proposals now, and why there are more Democrats averse to tax increases.
Is this at all true? I work in dc politics and do not see any of the “populist proposals” appear as meaningful legislation. It is actually fake.
As you may recall, the republicans controlled the government under the “populist” trump and their only legislative accomplishment was a “populist” bill cutting taxes for the richest people in society and businesses. While when the Dems were in charge they modestly capped drug prices and moderately raised taxes, which was apparently not populist. Additionally, they bailed out union pension funds and gave a child tax credit which were I guess not populist either.
"Race is why poor white people vote with rich white people instead of poor black and brown people even now"
That wasn't quite true until recently. Most of Appalachia was very D voting until it started shifting at the start of this century. W Virginia used to be a +20 D state.
Back in the 60s through the 80s, low income was a good predictor of D voting amongst white people, but it's been slowly replaced by education, which although related, is not quite the same thing.
"Tell the lowest white man that he's better than the best black man, and he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him someone to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." - LBJ
I think people generally, even some Republican and Democratic politicians, do not realize the damage done by reducing taxes to create deficits. In practice I believe recent history shows Democrats to contribute less to the structural deficit than Republicans. That said, if we are going to create deficits to transfer income to already well off people or to poorer people or even dubious infrastructure projects, I prefer the latter.
DO Americans plunder the rich less than their European counterparts? Aren’t top marginal rates about the same, with middle brackets in the US being lower?
In France, there is a 45% income tax beginning at €152k, and only €100k Euros are excluded from the inheritance tax. Maybe French billionaires are not taxed that much more than American billionaires, but French millionaires definitely get hit harder and there are many more millionaires than billionaires
45% is about right for a high earner in the US. 37% federal + 10% state. It kicks in lower over there, but plateaus around the same place, was my contention.
37% bracket in the US doesn't kick in until $528,000. The figure cited by D. Abbott (152k Euros) is only around $170k, which puts one in the 24% bracket. Add in 6% (ten percent is higher than average) and you reach a marginal rate of about 30%. That's quite a bit lower than the 45% cited above. So, while rates for truly "high" US earners might be close to what they'd pay in France, it seems mere UMC-level earners face a considerably smaller tax wedge in the US.
Jasper put it better. The small rich are taxed much less here, they can pass on $5 or $10 million estates basically tax free and likely have incomes in the $300-$500k range that are taxed slightly less than in France. In addition, VAT in France is much higher than state sales taxes.
I don’t know how old you are, but the early 80s were pretty rough economically under Reagan. The economy performs better under Democratic presidencies compared to Republican ones, and that has been true for a long time. If you look at GWB’s eight years, there was no economic progress at all.
I listened to a podcast over the weekend that made the point that if the US had a parliamentary system, Reagan wouldn’t have lasted two years.
Who knows, if Liz Truss had a full four-year term to get her act together (and for the recent economic turmoil to smooth itself over) maybe she would have had a ‘Morning in Britain’ reelection campaign or her own “Tear down this wall” moment.
Of course when recessions or inflation occur have approximately zero do do with which party holds the Presidency or Congress. The damage of the Reagan deficits were on long term growth and, through the overvaluation of the dollar, undermining tradeable goods sectors like manufacturing, mining, and agriculture.
I agree with you generally, but would also remind people that Democrats controlled Congress almost the entirety of Reagan's presidency and passed all those spending bills and tax cuts.
I agree. Democrats should never have gone along with the Reagan tax cut proposals that reduced revenue. And even with GWB and Trump, I think they did not make a big enough stink about the revenue losses. And what taxes have increased to reduce deficits in this Congress?
"The economy performs better under Democratic presidencies compared to Republican ones, and that has been true for a long time."
Agree or disagree with specific policies, but this statement suggest what I consider to be correlation without very weak causation. One could just as easily say that there have been a lot more recessions under a Democratic Congress than a Republican Congress. Which is accurate, but I wouldn't draw immediate conclusions from it.
I'm not drawing any conclusions. This was just in response to the discussion about the economy being very good under Republican presidents. That doesn't seem factually accurate. Reasoning about the correlation or reason behind that is a separate subject.
One of my first political memories (I was three) is my mother worrying there would be nuclear war when Reagan took over, then being really shocked how much time it took after the election before Reagan actually took office. By that time, my mom had chilled out.
To be clear, I was reading a *little* into Martinez's comments on gay parents. What she actually said was that it fell to her and Karen Bass, as the women on the parade float where Bonin's son was allegedly misbehaving, to parent the kid. I think what she was explicitly saying was basically an unnuanced feminist point, and I'm not sure what she thinks about gay men as parents – it's just that if you generally think "men are less attentive as parents" that might lead to some homophobic views about whether a kid should be raised by two of them. And also separately a lot of people do hold those views on their own terms. I think some of the cries of homophobia might also be due to Martinez characterizing Bonin as another male councilmember's "little bitch", so it's not like all of a sudden she's exonerated of homophobia, just thought it was worth me being clear.
MY’s idea about the positive COVID advice is great yet totally misses the mark. We’re forgetting something crucial in our COVID post mortem. It was a novel disease and nobody —including the authorities — understood it when it broke out. Knowledge was acquired only gradually. In the beginning it wasn’t at all clear that there is this radical difference between indoor and outdoor. Aerosol transmission was *initially* dismissed for good reasons (though CDC was too slow to catch up to mounting evidence) and so distancing, both indoors and outdoors was considered best practice, along with hand washing .
Of course had we known what we known now we could have dealt with the outbreak better. Heck, possibly we could have suppressed it completely! Original COVID was pretty bad in terms of virality and easy to avoid if you knew how! But we didn’t know and it’s worth remembering that when assessing the mistakes of the past. At least some are understandable in that context.
I also don't think "no outdoor contacts" remained in place for very long. For example, New York City closed ~40 miles of streets to give residents more places to go outdoors on March 24th, 2020. 10 days after March 14th, when the state issued its stay-at-home order. This was the same time that NYC was the epicenter of the virus, the hospitals were packed and all that. Cases wouldn't reach their (first wave) peak in New York for another month or so. If I remember correctly, they did keep playgrounds closed under the assumption that there would be too much close contact, but parks remained open.
The national consensus moved pretty quickly toward using outdoor space to socialize and mitigate the risk of transmission. For whatever reason, people talk about the early stage of the pandemic and the response to it as though it lasted until 2021 when it more or less ended in May when most states ended or dramatically scaled back their lockdowns. While I'm sure there were plenty of dumb overreactions, I also think we have a very selective memory about how quickly we learned important lessons about the virus and how quick officials were to respond to those lessons. We want to exaggerate how restrictive we were and how long we were restrictive and I'm not sure why.
Your memory jives with mine--that explicit bans/discouragement on outdoor activity were short lived--but to Matt's point, we didn't take it enough to the next level where the outdoors should have been explicitly and regularly encouraged as a much safer way to get normal human interaction.
Unfortunately I do think the original messaging stuck the most. I’ll never forget seeing a guy board the subway with gloves and a big hand sanitizer to boot but no mask…
The original anti mask messaging of the cdc —which was not primarily due to ignorance btw— did horrible damage and may have helped form the basis for anti mask sentiment imo.
Yeah, when Florida reopened beaches around that same time, I remember every damned news network showing some guy walking around on the beach in a grim reaper costume trying to dissuade people from being on the beach. For many viewers the impact of the story was probably not "let's go to the beach" but instead "maybe its a mistake to go to the beach" which became indignation at the perception that it's bad to go to the beach and so on.
This. 100%. There's a lot of strawmanning being engaged in by so-called libertarians about the supposedly draconian conditions imposed by the State. There were excesses, no doubt (though probably less so in the US than just about anywhere else), but the strict stage was pretty brief, and I personally never lost the use of local parks (this was in Menlo Park, CA and later in Seattle, not exactly MAGA strongholds) nor did I ever feel under much pressure to wear a mask outdoors. And by December the US had vaccines.
I got there in mid June 2020, and was there for four months, and had no problem gaining entrance to any parks. Of course, a number of them were overrun with homeless encampments from what I could tell (and thus weren't very enticing). The main ones I accessed were the Gasworks on Lake Union, Green Lake, and Golden Gardens. I also made extensive use of the Burke-Gilman Trail (again, was never barred).
The relevant question isn't when "all" public schools were back to normal, but when "most" public schools were back to normal: there are always going to be outliers.
I don’t think there was initially much good evidence against aerosol transmission at all - the entire field seems to have absorbed some bad lessons in the 1920s that led it astray until COVID let the aerosol scientists break through to the public health scientists.
I was personally baffled by the early insistence that aerosol transmission wasn't an issue. I mean, I'm just a lawyer, not a scientist or doctor, but to me it seems like any respiratory disease should be *presumed* to spread at least in part by aerosol transmission until evidence actively shows otherwise.
I'm also not any kind of relevant expert but it almost seems like the idea that it wasn't spread by aerosol transmission was a kind of wishful thinking, because if that was the case then there would be no real way to contain it or keep it from spreading across the globe (which ended up being true).
Well, I’m not a scientist either, but the scientific consensus for a while was clearly otherwise so the best a priori assumption is that they had good reasons. I don’t think I personally am qualified to asses what’s a reasonable or unreasonable scientiifc premise. One needs to acknowledge one’s ignorance. It does seem to me though regardless of the initial standpoint the problem was that cdc—by contrast to other scientific establishments—was too slow to update guidelines based on the fast accumulating new evidence.
The best practical method I found to navigate COVID guidelines was to read up on the guidelines of multiple *establishments* r.g. Cdc, uk, eu, who. See where they agree and definitely follow that, and where they diverge see who has a better track record or failing that where the majority is. What I found consistently is that the cdc always lagged 2-3 months or so behind the rest. Which was really bad. So I ended up following those other establishments more and feeling in a bit of bizarro world where I feel like in know the future (e.g. how and when to mask, when to get boosted etc)
I don't think I claimed to be other than ignorant? My problem is that the conclusion "no aerosol spread" is completely counterintuitive -- everyone has been taught for a century that diseases spread at least in part in a manner consistent with the symptoms they trigger in their victims that expel fluids/debris because those symptoms are what what help spread the disease. E.g., Gastrointestinal diseases spread primarily via ingestion of water, food, etc. contaminated with feces and vomit; skin diseases spread via contact with secretions and flaking from the skin, etc. COVID-19 was manifestly a respiratory disease -- lung congestion and coughing by victims were major symptoms. The presumption from that information, logically, should have been that it spreads at least in part via transmission in the air, the same way many other well-known respiratory diseases do. Even if aerosol transmission couldn't be immediately confirmed, surely the most rational thing to do with a new respiratory disease would be to say that we believe that it can spread via aerosol transmission until that could be clearly ruled out?
“COVID-19 was manifestly a respiratory disease… The presumption from that information, logically, should have been that it spreads at least in part via transmission in the air, the same way many other well-known respiratory diseases do“ what you are saying may be sensible , or may reveal your complete and utter lack of knowledge of virology. *I* wouldn’t know and feel that my ignorance does not allow me to engage in these kinds of arguments.
In April 2020 a group of physicists laid out the evidence for aerosol transmission for the WHO. The physicists were absolutely correct, but ignored by the WHO because they weren't epidemiologists.
Why would you , unless already having expertise in the subject or at least adjacent subject, assume physicists would know better ? It makes no sense to trust random opinions on the internet , especially by people who don’t even claim to be experts , over the establishment. Sure, sometimes randos may be right, but how on earth would you be able to tell without having expertise yourself? I still think that the best way to critique the establishment in fields in which you are totally ignorant is by referring to other establishments, e.g. other countries updated guidelines assuming aerosol transmission and emphasizing masking far sooner than us, and even us experts always acknowledge the effectiveness of masks if you read between the lines. *that* was a good basis to go with , not trusting physicists for medical advice.
A group of research physicists, including some who were experts in modeling the behavior of very small airborne particles is not what I would call “random opinions on the internet.”
More to the point, however, how could you witness the performance of the CDC throughout the pandemic and come away trusting them because they were “experts”?
Why “experts” do you doubt the existence of epidemiology etc as fields of expertise? More to the point, I just outlined above my approach. Do you have a better alternative?
Epidemiology is absolutely a valid field of study. But what should I make of epidemiologists who, for example, lie about mask wearing? What should I make of an epidemiologist who says social distancing is critical to slowing the spread of a deadly disease, but also issues an opinion that participating in a social justice march is more important? What should I make of a group of medical experts who formulate policy not on the best evidence, but on what a labor union wishes for its members?
These are mitigating factors, but the messaging did not change as the knowledge-base changed and the message should never have been about what to do but "here is the information you need to decide what to do."
I mean like: CDC says given local prevalence, COVID spreads in such and such a way in indoors settings with such and such people per square yard laughing/singing/talking/ sitting still and quiet and no UV in the recirculated air and in a different way with different local prevalence, different number of people per square yard doing different things. masked or not vaccinated or not and different ventilations. Then the local health authorities draw up rules that maximize the net present value of set of restrictions that change with circumstances.
I'm making this ridiculously utopian to emphasize what CDC should be aiming for.
I take issue with the narrative I’ve heard some friends repeat that throwing soup at a painting is at least “courageous”. I think the left is sometimes too quick to bestow that accolade on people who do sort of shocking but low personal risk stuff (she’s a trust fund baby who might spend a night in the clink at worse but probably not). It makes progressives look deeply unserious.
Another thought that comes to my mind about this is that I often think that amateur hour civil disobedience protestors learn the wrong lesson from the Civil Rights Movement. One reason those protests were so effective is that they were doing illegal things that they wanted to demonstrate should be legal. No one serious thinks that throwing soup at a Van Gogh should be legal.
Let me add that there were plenty of downright silly civil rights protests. In Oakland, and perhaps other cities, protesters filled up and then abandoned grocery carts with random food, all to protest employment discrimination.
Coming up with artfully compelling protest schemes is genuinely really hard. Sitting in at a segregated lunch counter? Forceful message. Die-in to protest cyclist deaths? Makes sense to me.
Smearing soup on a painting? Because "What is more important? Art or life?" These two things are not in tension. They are both important. Conceptually, it's muddled and bad.
I was told by someone who was in Berkeley in the 70s that to protest the opening of a new 7-11 they were going to have a “barf-in” where they would take an emetic and throw up on the floor. If I recall the story correctly it didn’t actually happen, though.
https://www.wweek.com/culture/2016/05/04/big-trouble-in-little-beirut/
This happened to Dan Quayle in the 1990s.
"Quayle came to Portland for a $2,500-per-person Republican fundraiser at the downtown Hilton on Monday, Sept. 24. While the vice president was raising money and support for Republican representative Denny Smith (not re-elected) inside the hotel, 300 protesters gathered outside. Flags were burned. A man took a shit on a photo of Quayle.
Suit-wearing Reed students swallowed colored food dye and vomited red, white and, unintentionally, green."
"...it didn’t actually happen, though"
More's the pity: a bunch of dirty hippies with upset tummies is a pretty funny picture.
All they did was make a big mess at Safeway and that’s a shame. The world could definitely use protest ideas that draw more attention to the object of the protest than too the protest itself
The Vox article the other day made me want to punch someone…
https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/culture/23414590/just-stop-oil-van-gogh-sunflowers-protest-climate-change
Like, how is it possible that people are so disconnected from others that this sort of navel-gazing, lotus-eating, bullshit enters into their minds?
Is it reflexive contrarianism? The desire to feel superior to the sheeple who instinctively recoil from this behavior? I just don’t get what the writer, her boss, and her editor were thinking when they decided to authorize, write, and publish this?
Hey, that would be an A paper at Vassar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY-0oKpA6A8
Me: [please be the Simpsons clip]
Me: woo hoo!
I almost thought of prefacing that with a Simpsons Did It, but given the nice anticipation it gave you, I’m glad I didn’t.
Someday, Milan is going to get teased very friendly with the Boorish Manners Of A Yalie line when the appropriate time comes.
This is one of those things where the people who -care- about their little stunt (art/history lovers) are also the ones that are probably more likely to be liberal and generally opposed to oil.
The more low-brow conservatives who like rolling coal and will want to keep using oil even when there is a better alternative...generally don't care about some froo-froo art getting vandalized.
I think that’s pretty uncharitable towards “low-brow” conservatives.
I’ve seen plenty of people in Philly’s art museum standing reverently in front of a piece of art, and when they snap out of it and talk to the folks they’re with, it’s with a southern twang or a deliberate rural Pennsylvanian accent.
Not to mention the occasional Amish attire.
“They did what? Aw hell naw! Throwing tomato soup at Van Goghs Sunflowers? What’s next? Throwing lobster bisque at Klimpts The Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I? Randy, get in the goddamn truck!”
Didn’t bother to read the vox piece. I’m sure you’ve been to art museums plenty of times, but I encourage you to go again soon and observe the crowds more closely. In the big museums they’re huge, diverse, very international. This new stunt is literally an outrage for all humanity. The people against it would easily outnumber its supporters a thousand to one.
Also, I wonder when is the last time you actually spoke to an art historian? Why on earth do you think most people who devote their life to the study of art would support this? That’s pretty ridiculous libel there, my friend. I’m sure there are some Twitter freaks who match such perverse views but they are no different from anti vax doctors. They don’t teach you anything about the profession as a whole.
Based on your response and David R's, I think that I must have communicated my point very poorly.
I'm aware that there are plenty of solid conservatives who can and do appreciate art. Even Trump conservatives and some 'low brow' types.
But I think that it is fair and correct to say that, in general, the people who care about art and art history tend to be the left side of the political spectrum.
Which means that they are probably sympathetic to their cause already.(albeit probably not as extreme)
Which means that the vandals' tactics are particularly counterproductive. Alienating allies and eliciting a shrug from many of their enemies.
Alienating people from being "against oil" (production and transportation) is a step forward for effectively addressing climate change. :)
>>Is it reflexive contrarianism?<<
I'd guess (and it's strictly a guess; I'm not overly familiar with Romano's work) they write for a narrow audience (of like-minded persons) instead of a wider, more general audience.
I don't read it becasue it does not let me talk back. It's even worse than the NYT
I'll say this about Vox. I really feel that their target audience isn't me, so I don't read it. It's like when it became clear I wasn't in the target audience for Salon.
Stop ranting. The article was just fine. Before I read it, I had no idea the painting was undamaged. That’s an important, under-reported fact which makes me much more sympathetic to the activists.
I would have preferred a different tack in the article, focusing on why throwing soup on glass ever got so much attention. Because it’s rather strange that throwing soup on glass got so much attention, its also worth asking whether the activists might have better achieved their goals by smashing through the glass and destroying the painting.
In any event, your post is a dreary slew of pejoratives lacking analytical rigor, which is very much your mettier.
Speak of the devil, it’s Reflexive Contrarianism, his very own self!
You get triggered every time someone proposes mass transit investments, but you expect me to believe you’re fine with attempted vandalism in the name of climate activism?
Laughable.
Please just leave me *be*.
Your reading comprehension needs work. I never said I was fine with what the activists did. I said the linked article was “just fine” because it centered an important, under-reported fact, then explained in general terms how I might improve it.
I’m perfectly capable of empathizing with activists whose goals I don’t share. Perhaps lack of empathy is your disconnect?
To the David's. I believe both of you should consider trying to have fewer enemies.
He’s apparently even more bored than I am at work, because he’s been following me around like a lost puppy nipping at my heels for weeks, spending disproportionate amounts of time and effort responding to my comments.
With an unending stream of mild, whiny ad hominem attacks, nitpicking, and general irritation.
If there were some “there” there I would be less annoyed, but Jesus Christ…
I don’t know where I first heard the story but I knew from the beginning the painting was undamaged. Do people think it was damaged?
Aaaaand this is why Matt left Vox. Also Aja is the worst of the worst.
The other funny part for me here is that I know plenty of artists who think Van Gogh is overrated and a drama queen and that’s why his artwork is so ubiquitous. They’re gnashing their teeth now because his art has now been elevated again.
“It’s ok to do this because Van Gogh is overrated anyway” is… it’s an argument that someone could make, I guess.
Lol.
I think someone could write a long article contrasting contemporary attitudes on the relationship of politics to aesthetics with those of the mid-20th-century. Nowadays, it seems like people use politics to justify attitudes that are fundamentally aesthetic – the politics of "anti-cringe". But in the 1950s people like Clement Greenberg in his essay "Avant-Garde and Kitsch" were arguing that bad aesthetics *create* bad politics – that art that's "lowbrow" is a strategy to keep people complacent subjects of totalitarianism. So past generations of soup-throwers might have claimed even more ridiculously that Sunflowers is harmful in itself, who knows.
Maybe combine this with article on the political aims of Socialist Realism.
These people would never want to throw soup at Van Gogh. That just draws attention to the artwork. They want it pulled out of rotation more often and left in the back room to gather dust and taken off postcards and shopping bags.
Fine, but surely you must admit that this is a complete irrelevancy?
Not everything has to be for or against a given rhetorical position. Sometimes we can just make comments about interesting things. I think it’s funny that there are a lot of people who don’t like Van Gogh who are now forced to publicly say how terrible it is that the painting was attacked when they’ve disliked it their whole lives.
I know everyone says this now, but legit that piece could be satire. Thornily brilliant satire.
I’m confused here. The painting was unharmed. I don’t think it was a courageous act, but why did it make you want to punch someone?
“Oh, your dog is fine, they missed when they tried to run it over, why are you still mad?”
They knew it was under glass and wouldn’t be harmed. They took a risk, but a small one. There has been an increasing trend of attacking paintings and art objects recently, which it would be good to understand.
Did they know that? Nothing I’ve seen suggests they did, and the one without glass was also subject to a similar stunt.
Reflexively defend it all you want, you’re wrong in the eyes of probably 90% of the public and that alone makes it a bad idea.
I’m not defending it and think it is counterproductive. I’m trying to understand your visceral reaction.
"There has been an increasing trend of attacking paintings and art objects recently, which it would be good to understand."
I think it is understood, but the explanation is unspeakable in 21st Century discourse.
You willing to venture it here?
To be fair, Vox has a pretty deep bench of writers who could have produced this take.
Slow Boring needs to do a hostile takeover of Vox and then immediately engage in Elon Musk-style mass layoffs.
Yeah, imagine a Vox with Matt Yglesias in charge! 😉
I'm not a big fan of mass layoffs in general. It's disruptive and may not actually solve the problem.
You forgot the /s tag.
I seriously guessed before I even clicked.
What we need is for both a left wing activist and a right wing activist to do the same freakout stunt back to back, and watch everyone's heads explode as they try to defend the one they agree with and condemn the one they disagree with.
“Throw a _____ at _______ “ to achieve your political objectives today!
I'm imagining one of those charts where you pick things out of a list based on your birth month, date, and the first letter of your name or something. Birth month is a verb – "throw", "destroy", "deface", "glue" etc.; birth date is an object – "red paint", "glitter", "garbage" etc.; first letter of name is the target – "onto a painting", "at a politician's house", "into the river", "blocking the highway" and so on
Stop imagining and start pitching to McSweeney’s!
For a less freakish but real world example, when lefties were so outraged over the Republican Senate blocking Merrick Garland's example, angry that he didn't even get a hearing, I kept telling them that if John Paul Stevens or Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in February 2008, Senate Democrats would (and should!) have done the exact same thing.
Ehhh, I think I disagree. Harry Reid would've wanted to, but the Dem base back then was pretty blase about the SC, especially compared to the GOP base. I don't know he would've had the support for a move that bold.
I would be more inclined to agree if the entire ideological balance of SCOTUS wouldn't have been on the line. But in this case I think Reid would have found a way.
...shoe...President Bush...
My prediction for how this would play out is everyone would shift seamlessly to arguing over which activist was being treated worse in the aftermath.
Guarantee you these loons are on the Haliburton's payroll.
I do hope the people doing that will be prosecuted and spend some serious prison time. The potential damage from these stunts is incalculable. If current laws don’t offer sufficient deterrence they should be amended asap. Also, update security protocol in these museums for heaven’s sake. Museums literally have only two jobs: protect the art for posterity and display it for the public, in this order. They’re kind of failing it right now.
What do you throw on what to protest lack of permitting reform and a net tax on CO2 emissions? :)
Concentrated sulphuric acid on a natural gas pipeline!
Makes only marginally less sense than soup on a priceless work of art…
I recall that concentrated sulphuric acid (96%) is not very corrosive. It can be stored in steel containers. So probably wouldn’t be the ideal pipeline protest fluid. Somewhat diluted sulphuric is very corrosive.
Been a decade and a half since my last chemistry class but that rings a bell; without water there’s really not much to allow any sort of reactivity.
Just to clarify, I did mean “concentrated” in the colloquial sense of “strong” rather than “the maximum concentration achievable by dehydrating.”
It's not courageous to deface another person's property for a cause that will be celebrated by your peers. Defacing your own property or challenging your peers, knowing that you will lose social status are courageous.
Amen! I too had the violence fantasies.
Thank you so much on noting that we should have encouraged more outdoor activity. This in my mind was overwhelmingly the biggest failure of pandemic policy, and I was seeing it as early as near the beginning when we were doing insane things like closing off playgrounds. It was so critical to run a cost/benefit analysis to demonstrate that getting more people outdoors would in turn keep them away from far more dangerous behavior indoors.
But we didn't. And my guess as to why is that we ceded too much authority to the public health crowd, who through this experience I've noted are some of the most neurotic people on the face of the earth. That's understandable given what they study. But it shouldn't have meant turning the keys entirely over to them on societywide policy, since most people are nowhere near as neurotic as them. That should have been strictly within the realm of elected executives to decide in a more holistic manner, who have a better read on how important socialization is to most people.
Someone from local government in my town went around and zip tied all the basketball hoops together when Covid hit to prevent people from using them. They also closed all the playing fields. Luckily, some enterprising soul eventually got a ladder and cut the ties so we could play again. Then they zip tied them again. Then they were cut again, and the town gave up. I was happy.
Philly removed the hoops from our park. Someone put up bucket rims. Those got removed and someone put more up.
In the meantime I was cutting ropes off the playground equipment so the little kids had something to do.
Never again.
*so the little lower-income kids had something to do
City Councilperson, Jr. just had mommy and daddy buy something for the backyard.
Generally speaking all of these problems came with the weird usurpation of power by the public health experts, who as you mention are extremely neurotic, but who are also just deeply ignorant of tons of stuff. In particular they seem to have very poor instincts on human behavior, as you mention, but also very poor instincts on social dynamics, economics, and really just every dimension of policy besides public health.
The way this is SUPPOSED to work is that we let them be ultra-neurotic worriers, they advise the government, and the government is the central nervous system that factors in that advice as well as the advice of many other groups to then conduct policy. This is why it doesn't matter that the CDC has absolutely absurd advice about alcohol consumption, sexual behavior, and all kinds of other random stuff -- because no one actually thinks that the CDC's advice is governing policy.
I also think there’s a huge class element. Pretty much all public health people talk about the importance of making sure public health efforts help people with lower incomes. Our pandemic response was very much driven by people who were not very familiar with the lives of people who were not upper middle class.
This was the key error IMO - the Covid Czar should have been in charge of policy and recommendations. It should be a political appointee who, for example, balanced the science against the interests is political groups like teachers unions. Instead this was foisted in CDC officials and put them in a position of trying to do two incompatible things at once - offer the best science-based advice while adjusting that to political reality.
The media’s celebration of that guy who dresses up as the grim reaper and wandered around Florida’s beaches telling people to go home was one of the low points.
What’s really sad is that I saw at least one “how risky is this activity?” Chart from a state medical association that claimed going to a museum was medium risk and going to a beach was medium high risk. I can also remember multiple healthcare workers claim that we absolutely knew that beaches were a major source of spread.
I wanted to punch my screen every time I saw a news agency use a picture of people on the beach as the featured image of reckless behavior.
So did I. I think my blood pressure spiked at least 20 points every time someone told me "we have to close the beaches and parks because if we let people got to the parks and beaches, people will think it's okay to do stuff inside. Not everyone understands this like us" Seriously? Mice understand the difference between indoors and outdoors. I'm pretty sure that the number of Americans who do not understand the difference between inside and outside is infinitesimally small.
The best part is the photos were always taken with a depth of field that made it look like they were all sitting on top of each other, when in reality they were probably 20 yards apart.
I have to admit that this was one where I reflexively bought the party line. Never again, he said with total confidence!
The media celebration of that guy wasn't due to COVID. They saw the potential future for Governor DeSantis and ran story after story if there was an anti-DeSantis angle to it.
I kind of wonder how much of the COVID hawks are just like >80th percentile introverts for whom stay inside and read books and play video games only ever rose to mildly annoying at worst. I’m very much in this group though I’m vaxxed and relaxed but it all seems strange how much of a fuss it caused.
This!
So I've generally agreed on this line of thinking all through the pandemic and I don't disagree with it now. It seemed crazy to me to close playgrounds and beaches even in Spring 2020.
That said - one thought that's entered my brain is, if outside is so much safer, how did respiratory diseases spread throughout history among rural people and animals? Cave bats are one thing, but if covid came from civets, for example, aren't they basically outside "at the playground" all day? Ditto for pigs, cows and birds that were the originators of most other communicable diseases in human. Bird flu must be spreading mostly outdoors, right?
I'm still "team outside" if there's another pandemic, but something here doesn't quite compute for me.
The important thing is (as MY noted in "The Myth of the Urban Plague", https://www.slowboring.com/p/urban-plague) rural doesn’t mean outdoors all the time. What matters is being within four walls with other people, whether that’s in a city of 100,000 houses or a village of just 10. Even a nomad's encampment can do it—a fully enclosed tent is just as bad for air circulation as any skyscraper. (Probably worse, actually, since once the doorflap is closed the only HVAC is a hole in the roof.)
Throughout history, people in rural communities have lived communally and indoors. Whole families in one room, and big extended ones too. All together, doing the literal domestic stuff of life—cooking, eating, cleaning, making and fixing things to use, socializing, sleeping. And they tended to bring their animals inside as well. Herders and farmers could and did spend time with their cows and sheep and pigs and chickens indoors—sometimes in dedicated barns, but sometimes they brought the animals into the home.
And so it’s no mystery how respiratory diseases spread in the premodern world—same as they do in the modern world, by people spending time with each other indoors. The main difference these days is that they usually don’t have a cow in the living room.
That's a good answer and maybe that's most of what I'm missing.
Would you say that could explain how such diseases spread among cattle though? Some of the diseases seem to go back to pre-domestication times.
I mean, on one level, there's always going to be some risk. But I think it's a bit simpler than that; even when they can't build shelters, many animals tend to pack together in herds. The animals we domesticated--cows, sheep, pigs, even chickens to some degree--in particular tend to have a strong herding instinct; that's part of why we domesticated them!
As many researchers noted, the benefits of being outdoors are substantially reduced when you're outdoors and packed together like sardines. And which animals tend to be packed together like sardines, even in the wild? Ones that herd. (Or flock, if they're birds, or sheep for some reason.) Combine that with the longer timescales we're talking about when we talk about premodern and prehistoric disease spread (decades or centuries or millennia, not weeks and months and years) and you roughly have a picture of how this worked ages ago.
I can't speak for civets, but for a typical peasant family with one pig, that pig would absolutely be inside in the same space as the people in many places and times, at least in the winter.
Very good point. I'm not sure if this works for cattle, though, which seems to be enemy #1. It's maybe worth mentioning that the little evidence we have often suggests the general area of Egypt / Sudan as the place where the virus made the jump.
Also, I was just looking up TB and the genetic evidence seems to suggest it was circulating in both humans and bovines 17,000 years ago. Maybe there were cave cows at that time but I just don't see that as the likely explanation.
I can’t speak to the TB cave cow thing, but I can say the evidence suggests that the Ancient Egyptians spent a lot of time with their cows indoors (in houses and in barns/sheds). Certainly rural modern Egyptians have no qualms letting barnyard animals into their houses. I remember seeing goats wandering pretty freely in the non-touristic neighborhoods of Luxor, which isn’t even particularly rural, and my grandfather said something like that about his childhood in the Delta.
You've convinced me.
Lol, thanks! I also just remembered (and how could I forget) that even in the cities, modern Egypt is still overrun by animals, or was very recently. Rag-and-bone men in Cairo and Alexandria still use donkey-pulled carts (or they did when I was there 10 years ago), and the chicken butchers on every street keep live chickens in cages. And at Eid, you see lines and even temporary pens of live sheep, goats, and cows lined outside butcher's shops to be slaughtered for at least a week ahead of the holiday.
What fraction of an average person’s infections before the 20th century would have been respiratory viruses? How often would people have “a cold”?
I don't quite follow why this would be relevant? I especially don't follow why the fraction would matter, as opposed to the rate per year or something like that, but maybe I'm missing something.
All I can say for sure is that R>1 for centuries. These diseases were circulating, somewhere, amongst humans for that entire time, and amongst animals for possibly even longer.
> if outside is so much safer, how did respiratory diseases spread throughout history among rural people and animals
Stupid question: did they?
My lazy assumption is that the "disease portfolio" facing humans (or cows) in the early modern era looked a lot like the one facing our ancestors (or proto-cows) 100,000 years ago, but I have nothing to back that up. The various waves of frightful pandemics among natives of the New World post-1492 hints that my lazy assumption might be a bad one.
Maybe it's cave bats all the way down?
All the respiratory diseases that I know a little about are pretty old and have been circulating thoroughly for a long time. Measles, smallpox and TB go back to Roman times. Influenza has been around since at least the 1500s. There were cities back then, to be sure, but I'm reading a book right now about early colonial America, and these diseases were spreading and killing amongst the colonials in their dispersed farming villages, also.
In any case, the animal evidence is even harder to dismiss. Cows seem to be the #1 originator of communicable human diseases (measles, smallpox, RSV, probably TB) and they live outdoors. Bird flu is spreading right now in wild populations.
There's something I'm missing here, too, in any case. Maybe the answer is as simple as "outdoors is lower-risk than indoors, but not as risk-free as some think". But I dunno.
That’s probably it, at least for TB.
I think this is part of general civic weakness across much of American life.
Political leaders often didn't feel like they had a mandate to dictate policy. So instead, they delegated to the public health professionals. Instead of having to confidently articulate a policy position, they could just say "listen to the experts." I think many politicians felt a lot more comfortable delegating those choices than having to make tough tradeoffs.
Public health officials, having not tasted what power is like in 21st century America, gladly stepped into the breach and started telling everyone what to do. They started with a lot of political capital and goodwill, but spent it down very quickly, and the result was a mess.
Now the public health institutions are discredited with half of America. This also makes them beholden to the half of America that still likes them - from now on, public health institutions will find it very difficult to stand up to liberal professionals, who make up their base of support. In political terms, they don't have much choice anymore but to operate as an arm of the democratic party. This is really bad for a lot of reasons, but may have been inevitable given the structural factors in play.
Good analysis. I still think that pivoting to cost benefit analysis is not only correct for getting the best results, but probably also the best way to free themself from "progressive" bias.
To back up, the PH folks should not be recommending behavior and policy per se. Their job is to give people and public policy makers the information on the health "costs" for the individual and other people so the decision maker could then weight those up against the benefits of the behavior or policy.
A WAY to give the information would have been be with examples
.
Indoor cocktail parties? Not a good idea.
Outdoor BLM or Trump rally? OK if you can keep your distance.
Church services? Depending on local conditions, OK if not too crowded, people wear masks to keep their (possible) infection to themselves.
Indoor dining? Depends on density and ventilation, with and without UV air recirculation.
Close schools and day care? That's a tough one. Here is how to think about risks of community spread, but the costs to parents time and children's education? That's not our area of expertise.
Disinfecting surfaces? Not worth the trouble now that we know it spreads as an aerosol not droplets.
Visiting a dying relative? Of course.
[MY examples are MY guesses about what sensible PH experts would have said.]
And the information/example messages should have changed as more was learned about the spread, prevalence (varies locally) number of people who are vaccinated (varies locally).
At a time when more & more people in the West are described as lonely, alienated, and without strong social connections- the trend towards 'let's have everyone white collar work out of their living room and never leave their house' is just utterly bizarre to me. Why would anyone think more social isolation is a good thing? I'm with Matt, I think that remote work is likely a negative trend in modern society, but is probably unstoppable. Speaking just from my industry, I can tell you that all the software engineers want to work 100% remotely, and they can simply choose not to work for companies that won't accede to that. They have all the leverage. So, hello increasingly lonely & isolated America.
I am hearing lots of rumblings from people at large companies, including the FAANGs, that productivity is markedly down from remote workers
One thing I have noticed is that people often don’t realize how lonely they are working from home until they start going back to the office. And that’s also when they realize how bad the loneliness was making them feel.
People often underestimate how much benefit that they get from social interaction. Obviously this doesn’t apply to everyone and there are good reasons to like working from home
I absolutely think I would have cracked and gone off the deep end in bad, self-harmful ways if we hadn't been allowed to come back full-time in June... of 2020.
No one thinks that social isolation is a good thing. But each bit of social isolation comes from something people want, like religious freedom or a parking spot or not having to commute.
I think we should come up with a solution to social isolation other than "sit in a cubicle for fifty hours a week".
rec sports leagues!
I think that social engagement, like exercise or reading, is one of those things that is good for people and which they enjoy doing while they're doing it, but without a routine or even an obligation it's hard to get off their duff to do it. Work does serve that purpose, though perhaps it's overkill.
There's really no substitute for being with people you've been with for thousands of hours though. I won't say it's better or worse, but it's markedly different to be in an identical setting (say a happy hour) with people you've known for a long time versus people who are all open to meeting you but whom you don't know, and certainly different (and better) to be in either versus with people who are all doing their own thing, taking up space, and don't want to be bothered.
Also having some kind of routine and a purpose beyond mere gathering tends to make the group not fizzle. This is why a D&D campaign can easily last longer than a hangout group. Large events can also help here, but they're very much in the "meet people" category rather than "be with those you've been with", and most events only happen once or twice a year.
There seems to be a huge round of tech layoffs happening at lots of the large companies. I wonder if that is going to change the balance of negotiating power for new hires to insist on 100% remote.
I think most adults in the US live with a spouse or children. Many of them would gladly sacrifice time spent socializing with coworkers to gain time with their families. It doesn't seem obvious to me that the trade makes them more socially isolated.
I was referring more to younger people who don't. But for the older crowd- who on Earth wants to be locked in a house with their spouse or child all day, and you can't get away? You're with them during the day and then also the evening, the weekend..... Um no thanks. Some separation is good.
I'll put it to you this way- did you hear a lot of enthusiasm during the pandemic for everyone being locked away in their home? "Sure, this Covid thing is bad, but at least I'm stuck at home with my spouse and children and literally can't get away ever, it's been wonderful". Did you hear that much?
My wife wasn’t wfh but wouldn’t you both be in your offices throughout the workday, and then you only spend a little time with each other at lunch and a break?
Maybe I’m just imagining stuff but if remote teaching had been a permanent part of my life instead of a weird year and a quarter replacing the few hours I spend with adult coworkers with lunch and a dog walk with my wife seems like an unqualified plus.
I have the opposite take, 24 hrs/day with family is difficult, and I've been married 40 years, love my wife and raised two children to happy adulthood. Time at the office was a sanctuary and a blessing of human contact.
Opposite take for me too. I was already far less productive while at home (at a big tech) to the extent that I had to work until midnight to get even half of my normal velocity, and I can't even imagine being able to juggle that with other responsibilities like a relationship, kids, or pets. I'd strongly like to have kids someday but can't really see how living with someone else would be possible for me in a world where the rules have changed to be able to rug away my 50-60 hours a week of escape at the slightest safety provocation.
I don't know about all. Early this year it was 60% most/all in general*. I can buy that it is higher among software engineers.
We are officially hybrid with no requirements. Our seating is organized as 1-2 teams per room ("open office" within rooms), and that has a large influence, as to whether people can expect some company (good for coming in) or will be lonely in a large room (bad). For some teams, everyone is fully remote and only come in when there are special events. For others, almost everyone comes in daily. There are some people (usually leads/managers, but also other gregarious kinds) who have a soft pull, and they set an example for the whole team. Groups of people who come into the office have lunch together, and tend to come in and leave around the same reasonable times. In my team, we tend to notify others in advance if we expect to WFH, and others co-ordinate accordingly. I have been nearly 100% in-person for the last 1.5 years. If I ever look for another job, I expect to reject 100% remote positions unless I run out of options.
* https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2022/02/16/covid-19-pandemic-continues-to-reshape-work-in-america/
It seems very bad.
Law firms are also starting to crack the whip about getting people back into the office with more serious repercussions, especially in a potential recession economy
Listening to you on the EK show and i gotta say, you two still have great podcast chemistry. There's a reason those weeds episodes during the dem primary were my favorites, i appreciate the combo
Listening to Bad Takes made me feel like it is hard to find a good podcast partner for Matt because Matt often seems to want to jump over the base level discussion into something more specific or obscure and it felt like Ezra was the only one that trusted him enough to do that and that let some of the Weeds episodes get to interesting places. (Some examples of where this doesn't happen are the Chess episode of Bad Takes, the Anti-Asian hate crimes episodes of the Weeds or the Welfare reform episodes of the Weeds.)
For Bad Takes it seems like they would be well served mapping out the conversation before recording(perhaps they already do) because it feels like they don't have a solid idea of what form the discussion is going to take and what the actually interesting point of disagreement might be.
Its possible the format is just tough for them because they start off discussing a random tweet or whatever but then when they try to abstract the discussion a bit they get pretty lost.
Goes to show the non-uniformity of aesthetics; on bad takes i personally like that the hosts seem to be on some level discovering what the other thinks about the topic. Human preferences are a multitude!
I think I like that format more for things like sports and movie podcasts where the hosts' opinions feel less predictable and the deeper analysis isn't really the point. With political shows it feels like if you know the hosts a bit you can guess most of their starting point of views pretty regularly. Bad Takes feels like it takes too long to get to the actual discussion for a show that is only about 45 minutes long.
doesn't happen or does happen?
Sorry that was a bit unclear. Those episodes are times where it seemed like the cohosts did not let Matt jump ahead to the more specific discussion that he wanted to have.
Bad Takes just doesn't work, they should abandon it as a failed experiment and move on, there's no point to making a bad podcast that nobody will listen to.
Agree, I subscribe to Bad Takes but I confess that Matt’s co-host on that show is not my favorite among his interlocutors. Really enjoyed this episode of EK.
I like Laura. Matt is matt no matter who he talks to, but ezra is best when hes friends with the guest since it becomes more conversational. Pour one out for Jane Coaston who i think is criminally underutilized presently by the times
I wish they would change the Argument back into a left-right-center with Jamelle Bouie, Ross Douthat, and Jane.
That would be so much better than what they're doing now.
That would be awesome!
The Argument has been so bad lately. Just really shallow discussion of some very mainstream progressive hot topic with all people that agree. I do really like Jane and wish she could do a podcast that would allow her to expand on her own arguments more and have someone else host the Argument with a typical left, right, center format.
Agree on Coaston. Sane, empathetic, unique voice.
Fair point. I found the episode about the Queen especially annoying, but I like the more recent ones more (including this week’s, even though I have no interest in Kanye West and was completely unaware of the situation that generated the take at issue).
I think in the Queen episode, Laura actually had the better side of the debate (Elizabeth herself was a political actor who chose not to do more good in the world) and I started on Matt's side but moved to hers, but it all got sort of tangled in a way that was hard to follow. I feel like if they recorded the same episode in a year it would be much better. In terms of the interrupting thing, I don't know how they record, but they need a non-audio signal (eg do video chat and hold up a finger to say wrap it up or have a chatroom and type "want to break on X") so that it's not quite as jarring as being in the middle of a sentence and then cutting in.
Anyone have any refs for good Matt / Ezra episodes other than this week’s EKS. I started following both of them post Weeds so I haven’t listened to much of their stuff together.
Their 2020 primary debate recap episodes are pretty good but are pretty specific to that time obviously.
The early Weeds episodes with Matt, Ezra and Sarah are generally pretty good. The focus is often specifically healthcare but there are some other topics they get into.
Specific Episodes I enjoyed were:
Land value taxes, soda taxes, and carbon taxes - oh my!
Our undemocratic primaries, Obama's new fiduciary rule, and the challenges of information polarization.
Free College, Email Extravaganza and the China Shock
Those are mostly pretty old but the topics are still relevant in most cases.
Matt, if you're interested on the impact of remote work on productivity/growth, there was recently an econ conference at Stanford that focused on remote work. (see here: https://www.remoteworkconference.org/) Most of the research was focused on US workers, but not all.
The results were broadly that workers like remote work (and so it will probably stick around) but that fully remote work seems to be bad for feedback/mentorship -- especially for young workers -- and knowledge spillovers.
There was one field experiment run (in Bangladesh I think, so external validity is something to think about for the US context) that showed that mandated hybrid resulted in the best work outcomes: specifically, they found that hybrid workers send more emails, send more unique information in their emails, are rated by managers as having higher work productivity, and receive a higher wage increase than workers in either the mostly remote or mostly in-office groups.
One paper did find that remote work's negative impact on science collaboration has decreased as technology has gotten better, looking at scientific coauthors from geographically distant locales. So the results are at least somewhat mixed.
Not at this conference but I think I saw a paper in Science suggesting that remote brainstorming resulted in worse outcomes than in-person, as well.
So IMO I think the research mostly supports your POV, that remote work will stick but (fully remote) is bad for feedback/productivity/growth
Thanks! More creedence to my feeling that hybrid work is the way to go, barring unique circumstances of the job.
i feel the same way, and probably not coincidentally, i'm also not a fan of fully remote personally haha
To expand on my own top level comment, I'm in one of those professions and jobs where fully remote works best for productivity, and since I also work independently it is just not practical for me to lease out office space. But if I was part of a team on a regular basis, I'd probably want to meet in person about once a week just to get some camaraderie. The pandemic really revealed how miserable it was to be forced not to have that.
Hybrid needs to be forced hybrid though or you just end up with people in an empty office bc nobody works in-person on the same day
As someone who was recently forced to move from hybrid to fully remote for medical reasons (recovering from surgery), I cannot agree enough. Can't wait to go back to the office...2 days a week. Maybe even 3!
I've worked hybrid for a while now but I think to really make the most of it you have to specifically build the workweek around it. Meetings should be on days when your team is in-office, and then your individual work can be remote.
Scientific collaboration is an interesting case. Everyone is such a specialist, that you get big gains from collaborating with the right person, that easily outweigh the losses when that collaboration is across time zones.
Absolutely right, but even here, people working on similar problems will try to concentrate at specific universities because it's so much easier to collaborate in person. Like a department trying to establish a critical mass in a certain sub-field.
This *perfectly* lines up with my experience at our consulting engineer clients. Entry/junior-level and mid-level managers and up *hated* WFH and wanted it dead ASAP. It is impossible to get graduate and new-to-this-sector employees trained and mentored.
Mid-level individual actors fought tooth and nail to keep it. Finally senior folks had no choice but to put their jobs under threat despite the difficulty of hiring replacements because the only things that were getting done were the most basic day-to-day design tasks.
Now virtually everyone is back to hybrid, except the completely irreplaceable; nationwide program managers, crack design technology and automation process guys, etc.
Yeah, I've made the point here before: Mentoring young employees is really, really hard over Zoom.
I’m sorry but MY’s conspiracy theory of politics is a bit silly. If you must reduce all politics to one sentence then the left seeks change to improve things and the right seeks to protect the things that are already good *from* change. Both are genuine human interests and that’s why both have had and will forever continue to have varying degrees of popular support. Neither is in its essence a conspiracy although individual politicians and organizations on *both* sides have known to use conspiracy theories from time to time to advance their cause.
Yeah that struck me as silly too. Maybe the Trumpist right really is just falling for conmen because they don't want higher taxes, although that probably is not the full reason. But has he never read Hayek? The old, non-Trumpist right, which admittedly a lot smaller these days, still actually believes things like economic growth lifts all boats, the price mechanism is important, and markets are better at distributing resources than central planners.
But what is annoying about that old "non-Trumpist Right" is that in power it doesn't do anything to promote economic growth -- low deficits and immigration -- or trust in markets -- free trade, regulatory reform.
??? Do "Democrats" want 100% redistribution or the economic policy of "Europe?"
My beef with "Democrats" in not with how MUCH they want to redistribute (or combat climate change or promote acceptance of religious/ethnic/racial/gender identification diversity) but that they do not chose efficient, growth compatible means to do so.
"Protect the things that are already good" does not lead logically to Republican positions on taxes and the welfare state. That's where the flimflam comes in.
I’m attempting an abstract definition of progressive vs. conservative politics, you can’t assume that in a country with two parties whose coalitions are in constant flux they would perfectly align with the ideal type at any given moment.
It's reductionist, but has some truth to it. There is a fundamental issue with opposing redistribution to the median voter. Democrats can win with a vanilla economic distribution argument and call out Republican BS. Unfortunately they've encumbered this message with social policy.
There is no homo economicus, something that my seems to forget. Voters have more than just economic interests nor do they think about those in a purely selfish rational fashion. Non of this requires conspiracies or lies. That gop is currently steeped with both doesn’t prove that they must and historical and comparative examples to the contrary abound.
True. What is odd (from my right of center perspective) about the US recently is that that the Right does not seem to be protecting things that are good -- livable planet, inclusive growth (immigration, low deficits, free trade), ethnic/religious/gender identification diversity.
And the Left does not "sell" what it thinks is good as "good for everybody" positive sum changes and sometimes just messes up the cost-benefit analysis of the change.
And both for getting so MAD at the other side for their opinions.
P.S. I gave a super reductionist ad abstract definition on purpose, because MY did, but it’s obviously a limited heuristic. However I’d argue that it does fit *some* current debates. Immigration for instance: a conservative stance can be (doesn’t have to be but *can* be) framed as: country’s population is fine as is, let’s keep it that way. Left version is- let’s add more people, despite the disruption , because ultimately not will make things better.
Likewise lgbt acceptance- conservative position: current attitudes to sex etc are fine as they are since I’m happy with them (“I “ here in fact being 90% or more of population). Left says, no, we need to make change despite the temporary awkwardness for everyone to make a more just society and ultimately you too will thank us for it because you don’t realize yet that the status quo is bad.
The environment is tricky - but even there if the status quo is the use of oil then you could frame it conservatively.
Now OF COURSE you can find a more sophisticated conservative argument precisely for the opposite of many of these- eg enviormentalist position that agrees that reforms are necessary to ultimately preserve the status quo of the climate itself; gay marriage protects the family structure, trans inclusivity reinforces gender norms etc. that’s why the heuristic is limited but I still think it has its uses
Dueling reductionisms! :)
Yes, us politics is f_d up right now. But here’s a hot take (?) look at the uk. I think their party system is doing much much better, despite the fact that their country is in greater economic trouble.
WRT the question about zero tolerance toward aggressive masculine behaviors..,A daycare teacher told us at the end of a day that our 3 year old son was interrupting girls all day and not letting them talk. I think this was a weird way to frame his behavior if he was being disruptive he’s not a disruptive kid but my wife and I were like “uh is she trying to say our 3 year old is sexist or something?” I think there is a little bit of hypersensitivity toward typical little boy behavior these days from my admittedly limited experience.
Is it not possible that your three your old is being sexist? Obviously not through consciously sexist thought, but maybe he has learned that interrupting this particular person always seems to result in positive outcomes (ie the girl doesn’t object or push back and he always gets to say what he wants)? That feels like relevant feedback to give to parents. Without more context I have no idea what’s actually happening since you’ve not provided more context but it feels like “a three year old is too young to be sexist” is a reductive way to dismiss this feedback.
It’s far far more likely that the daycare teacher is biased in her perception than a three year old in his behavior. I’d go as far as to say it’s a slight warning sign of casual misandry, but of course one cannot say based on one small anecdote.
I’d argue it’s little kid behavior , not little boy behavior. Girl toddlers can wreck havoc just as much as boy toddlers. The sexism is in the eye of the beholder.
So this was a great mailbag, as usual, with one exception: the bizarre conspiracy-theory version of conservative politics: "And the right’s strategy is to obfuscate".
What about the statement from last week's mailbag, "I don’t think questioning people’s sincerity is productive"? Maybe that doesn't apply to approximately fifty percent of our country - or, more charitably, to a large share of our politically active class?
In order to stand by that view of American politics, even if you want to question the right's sincerity, I think you have to either repudiate markets as a mechanism for advancing social good (which Matt obviously does not), or buy into the proposition that economic interests are the only genuine interests (or both). If you accept that people genuinely have non-economic priorities, it's easy enough to invert that critique and conceive of the American left as a conspiracy to bribe the electorate into accepting their high status as natural ("reality has a left-wing bias") and their cosmopolitan cultural preferences.
The original question is interesting, though! Why do Republicans keep nominating hapless lunatics and con men? I can think of at least two reasons. First, political talent is hard to come by in the first place, and the Republican party is suffering from a brain drain that is partly self-inflicted (by amplifying resentment of educated elites) but also driven by the left's tendency to treat conservative opinions as bad manners. Second, celebrity and its close cousin notoriety are much more important factors that we typically credit - far more important than, e.g., command of policy, at least in a representative democracy.
(Incidentally, this is why I disagree with Matt's recent, related off-hand remark on Bad Takes: he contrasted Republican's promoting meritocracy with the distressing candidates they promote, noting that they were extremely weak on policy. I don't think this is a contradiction at all: policy knowledge is not a core piece of a contemporary American politician's skill-set.)
I would offer a somewhat different point on the bad candidates. Republicans didn't elect nutjobs that much until Trump, so this is clearly all because of him and not some longer term weakness in conservative theory. Trump made politics exciting so lots of people want to copy what he did, and Trump brought lots of first time voters and populist Democrats over to the Republican party, which makes it even more difficult for the establishment to implement discipline.
FWIW I think both parties have a history with nut jobs, but Trump was by no means the first. It amazes me that Steve King held office as long as he did, or Sarah Palin
And I don’t mean because of their views. The mystifying thing is that the electorate in those places could have gotten EXACTLY the same
policy outcomes even if they’d elected someone less obviously incompetent and/or toxic
From what I have heard of Palin, she was always crazy but she hid it very well and was actually extremely effective for the short time she was in politics before entering the national stage. After she went national all of her work was undone, and she quit to become a celebrity. But for a time she seemed to be getting difficult things accomplished for her state.
There have always been nuts in both parties, but this is the first time the nuts have had so much power and influence.
Matt is presumably led to this view by the related observation he keeps hammering on that Republicans’ actual policy agenda, if they win elections in the near future, is big welfare state rollbacks. The “capitalism with a welfare state” cohort is the center left, not the right.
But the "capitalism" part is also in jeopardy. We'll get larger deficits (becasue the will not in fact reduce transfers by much is anything) but will get less immigration and more distorted (n different ways than Democrats are likely to do) trade. If the "full Bernie" Republican nightmare ever comes try it will be 100% their fault.
100%. Very out of character and disappointing. Who hurt you Matt?
Much better answer to the question, thx!
I think the experience might be different for those who had young children. For us, serious restrictions continued for quite a long time, mostly relating to schools. But just to give one dumb example, the playgrounds were open again by June of 2020 where I live. They were open, but my wife didn’t want to use them, and didn’t want to allow me to take our kids there. She wasn’t comfortable with playgrounds for at least another year. And that was in large part due to the lack of encouragement from the public authorities to use playgrounds. She was looking to respectable opinion leaders on the left for guidance throughout, and their advice was always “why take the risk?”That’s how I remember it.
Right: this is a good example of what I was trying to get at in my top level comment, where elected leaders needed to say "this interaction is safer" and override the neurotic public health wonks' "no interaction is safe".
In LA they actually kept the parks closed almost through the whole summer! In my condo building we couldn't get the HOA board to reopen the swimming pool!
Boise also made the same blunder with their public swimming pools.
Our HOA kept the pool closed because they were afraid of lawsuits.
Whoa, ours too! It didn’t make any sense to me but I’m perversely glad it wasn’t just a delusion in our building alone.
Since Matt couldn't get to my question, I'm going to go rogue and post it here for the crowd, as I'm beginning to freak out a bit, and would love to get an opinion or two: assuming they lose the House (or worse) will Democrats have the common sense to address the debt ceiling the day after next month's election? Would it not be political malpractice of the highest order if they don't do so? Also, ten months ago they did it with 51 votes, so GOP votes aren't, strictly speaking, necessary.
(Also, we may well be heading into recession next year, and I can think of few better ways to intensify a downturn than a nasty debt scare at some point. If they don't take action on the debt ceiling, Democrats may as well invite DeSantis to the White House and let him get started early on measuring for curtains.)
The Republicans have learned their lesson on the debt ceiling topic. They will rattle a cage to get the more stupid part of their base to think it is possible. Then they will vote to raise the ceiling. Been repeated over and over for years now.
The Democrats haven't fixed it permanently because they hope Republicans will actually follow through at some point and shoot themselves in the foot.
Isn’t it sort of selfishly rational for Republicans to want to hurt the economy if they only control the House? That seemed to be their strategy throughout the Obama years: force austerity, blame Obama, win elections. That strategy basically worked, there was a long period of high unemployment and low wage growth, Republicans controlled at least one house of Congress from 2010 to 2020, and even after the pandemic, they still has 50 senators.
Not all concerns about the debt are driven by nakedly partisan calculations. Simpson-Bowles (also during Obama years) was bi-partisan and filled with people genuinely concerned about the trajectory of spending and revenue. Obama's team also had its share of austerity-friendly advisors.
Maybe some of those Republicans were hoping to "hurt the economy", but I think that is too cynical even for me. They were wrong, as were others I mentioned above, but being wrong isn't the same as being intentionally harmful.
By the way, I think the same thing about the excess stimulus put in by the Democrats. Wrong, but not intentionally so. Except the Student Loan forgiveness -- that IS naked & evil partisanship that harms the country and Biden doesn't care.
A Republican House would only increase the debt ceiling by relying on more Democrats to vote yes than Republicans. Would Kevin McCarthy have the courage to buck major parts of his coalition to do so?
Since this site demands probabilities, I'll put it at 20%. Low enough to make me very nervous. House Republicans are much more extremist and nihilistic than they were ten years ago, which is really saying something.
Yes Republicans were naughty to want to hurt the economy (They were just as mistaken as Democrats about the effects of fiscal policy on macroeconomic outcomes), but it was the Fed that was actually doing the hurting,
Yea, I think they realized that fucking around with this hurt them in 2012 and 2014. They’ll push it as hard as they can without courting disaster and then allow an increase.
My primary concern is that "evil-but-serious" Eric Cantor types, the sort of people who can dispassionately learn a lesson like that, were replaced with the likes of MTG, who I would not trust to walk a dog.
True. Ugh.
I find your excess of faith disturbing.
Why exactly do we have a 'debt ceiling'? Does any other developed country?
Good question, I don't know how other countries do it. Originally congress had to approve every single instance of new debt and it got to be a huge time-suck so they simply said that the central bank can take on any amount of debt up to this limit. That way they only had to occasionally vote on it instead of constantly having to. It wouldn't be a big deal if Republicans weren't such a bunch of jack-wagons.
I gather Denmark does it like the US.
Agreed. Democrats are thinking that Republicans either won't do it, which is good for the country, or they will, which will be terrible for the country but great for electing Democrats. Either way why worry about it?
Yeah, I was wondering about the second part: maybe Democrats *welcome* a fight? Still, seems risky...
Based on the fact that they were totally willing to gamble on democracy itself for political gain by helping anti democracy republicans in primaries im very very pessimistic. My guess would be that they will calculate that debt ceiling stunts will hurt the gop and that they will never actually pull through with it anyway. I think the last decade should have taught us however that there are no longer any red lines in politics that aren’t going to be crossed sooner rather than later. They’d be very foolish not to eliminate the debt ceiling completely and get rid of this Damocles sword but my guess is they won’t.
Right. Counting on any degree whatsoever of *rational* self-interest on the part of Republicans seems a bad plan—especially when it is Democrats who possess the incumbency brand: Republicans may well think any blowback against them because of debt hostage tactics may be ephemeral; but damage to the economy may hurt Democrats over the longer term (ie, in the November 2024 election). The GOP may also view the debt ceiling as a genuine opportunity to force some of their priorities on the nation, no matter the political cost (especially in the short term), in similar fashion to Dobbs.
Right. And it gets worse. Starting 2024 gop will get senate majority for foreseeable future. Even if Dems win wh in 2024 and transition of power is peaceful, debt ceiling basically allows gop to constantly balckmail the administration
Maybe they won't have time to get to the debt ceiling fight because they'll be too busy holding hearings about Hunter Biden, impeaching Joe, and repealing Obamacare.
Plus, there are probably plenty of democrats willing to back cuts to entitlements in order to appear "serious" about the deficit.
Tighten your belts. The government needs to work like a family making budget decisions at the dinner table. There are too many idle young men playing video games and collecting disability, we need to get Americans back to work by adding stricter work requirements. Social security is bankrupt. Old people should stay in the workforce longer. Cut inflation by cutting welfare. Bathtub government drowning promissory notes. Other related deficit tropes.
A family making budget decisions would probably first think about increasing it's income if that were possible. Deficits are a tax on private investment.
There ARE too many young and old men and women not working. If work requirements would get them to work (including caring for children, the infirm, or elderly) and and not just prevent them from receiving the benefits that would be great. [Why didn't we do that with the Child Tax Credit?]
SS and Medicaid revenue and benefit formulas are such that benefit payments do or soon will exceed revenues. Since the revenues come from a very inefficient and regressive tax, why not switch them to a VAT set at whatever level of benefits we chose (not significantly different from the actual I imagine, although some additional moves to raise the "retirement age is quite possible).
Well, if Democrats don’t do this, which they could, the real question is why?
My fear is that they'll use the limited time in the lame duck to do base pleasing things like the gay marriage legislation instead of things to take the bomb away from the Republican crazies.
Have no fear. They won’t have the votes for marriage equality now that republicans no longer have the midterms threatening them . The fools missed the one chance :(
It's possible they can't hold their Senate conference together (Machin? Sinema?) so that could certainly be one reason. But yeah, this seems like the no-brainer of the new millennium.
"assuming they lose the House (or worse) will Democrats have the common sense to address the debt ceiling the day after next month's election"
[Ron Howard narration]: The Democrats do not in fact have the common sense to address the debt ceiling the day after next month's election if they lose the House.
The fact that they did not eliminate the debt ceiling before the elections may be an example of political misjudgments that caused then to lose the elections.
Why did they not eliminate the "debt ceiling?"
Why did they not pass a Manchin friendly vision of the Child Tax Credit?
Why did they have to back track to accept fewer obstacles to fossil fuel production/transportation?
Why did they not (gently) criticize the Fed for allowing inflation to rise so far above target?
> Our elections are organized as if these are highly personal contests between two individuals, but Congress actually operates as a very polarized very partisan body. We’d be much better off with electoral institutions that matched that reality.
One reason I'm so keen on the Alaskan top-4 system (or the proposed Nevadan top-5 system, which I think is slightly better) is that it enables both intra-party and inter-party competition to happen simultaneously.
If you have that system and one of your party's candidates is a scumbag, then there is another candidate of your party you can vote for instead - meaning you can vote against a particular politician without risking affecting the balance of Congress. It also enables voters from the minority party to weigh in to some degree on which member of the majority party wins - which should advantage moderate members of both parties.
I think that top-4 is going to get a somewhat bad reputation among Republicans in Alaska because a typical top-4 in Alaska is going to be two Republicans, one Democrat and one Independent, and the intra-party battle between the two Republicans is liable to help the Democrat (as it did in the special election for the House recently). A top-5, which would almost certainly bring in a second Democrat, and so even out the intra/inter party conflict is a superior system.
Why not just use RCV rather than single-vote along with top-X to fix the intraparty competition problem? Seems like a much better solution than just increasing the number of slots.
Information problems. I'm in the middle of writing a long comment about this. Ranked voting systems rely on voters having more information and restricting the number of candidates makes this much easier.
I’ll look forward to your comment. Honestly I feel like all the information I’d need in a top-X primary is “this is the person in the party I support who isn’t a clown, this is the one who *is* a clown but whose election at least doesn’t empower the opposition party towards a Congressional majority” — and I don’t even need that much as long as I’m ranking candidates based on party first and personal characteristics second to ensure that my vote favors my party over the opposition regardless of how I rank its candidates against each other.
I don’t know that your characterization of the “fundamental” dynamic of the right is telling the whole story. There’s a parallel core group on the right that sincerely believes basically: “(1) economic growth lifts everyone’s standard of living much more than anything else, (2) the difference between say 1.5% annual growth and 3% annual growth over a human lifespan is enormous, (3) relatedly, society-wide high growth includes noticeable change and disruption that in the short-term is uncomfortable for many, therefore (4) the right thing for the government to do is to keep the economy growing fast even if this means ignoring short-term pain the electorate won’t tolerate.”
Ironically this is a very collectivist worldview - people on the left like to tar and feather the right as *only* trying to protect the rich, but most people on the right don’t see it as protecting the people who are rich today, but rather protecting the ability to *get rich* ideally by creating some transformative business that makes everyone better off.
You can also look to places like China today (and America in the past) and see that when you do things like just build the high speed rail lines fast even if you have to crush some individual property owners to do it, you get high speed rail lines fast and very soon society is better off (even though the change really sucked for a small number of people).
Of course you can totally disagree with that worldview and ideology but I think *ignoring it* is unwise.
There may be people that think that (I do) but no Republican has ever acted like it. Deficits are bad for growth. Immigration restrictions are bad for growth. Over a long enough time frame not having a net tax on CO2 emissions is bad for growth. Trade wars are bad for growth.
I take issue with the Slow Boring conventional wisdom that the right's activists are more disciplined than the left's. The more conservative the primary, the more likely you are to get a nutjob. That's because the true believers of the conservative movement ("activists") are nutjobs.
I feel like the most obvious recent evidence for this is Jan. 6. Was that a disciplined act or not?
Beyond that, right-wing nutjobs have in recent memory 1) stopped all business in the Canadian capital for several days, 2) supported nutjob conspiracies about multiple mass shootings, 3) endorsed Q, 4) celebrated family border separations, 5) called for a national abortion ban, and 6) described their political enemies as an evil "regime" that controls the media and deep state.
I understand that Matt is trying to make nuanced critiques of bad Democratic messaging, but it seems to me that he is really just creating more bad Democratic messaging with many of those critiques.
Matt suggests that Republicans not pushing more extreme abortion policies (at least at the national level!) reveals their discipline. I don't think that's true. First, the activists *are* pushing legislators to act (https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/18/anti-abortion-groups-gop-midterms-00062182) And second, most Republican legislators don't talk about it not due to discipline but because they're deep cynics who don't really care about any policy, except for tax cuts for the rich and helping businesses who agree with them on the former.
“Because right-wing politics is organized as a conspiracy to mislead people into not voting to give themselves more money, it creates structures that elevate and reward hucksters and flim-flam artists.”
There’s a kernel of truth here, and yet it seems extraordinary that a conspiracy to mislead people could more or less work for 246 years.
Was it just good luck for conservatives that Eisenhower and Reagan presided over four combined terms of peace and prosperity and that LBJ scuttled the Great Society in Vietnam? Is that why American voters plunder the rich less than their European counterparts? Is the conservative movement falling apart because there haven’t been any Reagans, Eisenhowers or LBJs for 34 years? It certainly takes some quirks and unexpected twists for a multimillion person conspiracy to prove so durable.
"Is that why American voters plunder the rich less than their European counterparts?"
Race is the reason. The Voting Rights Act is what scuttled the Great Society (to the extent something that left us Medicare and Medicaid can be considered "scuttled"). Race is why poor white people vote with rich white people instead of poor black and brown people even now.
We don't always have to over think these things.
Race is important but it isn’t the only variable. America was just as progressive as Europe up til about 1950, at which point European welfare states began expanding much faster than ours. Was race more salient in the 1960s than during the era of lynch law and Jim Crow? That hardly seems credible. Indeed, it was around 1965 that the proportion of Americans who were nonwhite reached its all time low.
The Civil Rights Act explains why white southerners left the Democratic party. It doesn’t explain why Republicans became more economically conservative at a time they were trying to assimilate southern voters who came from a pro-debtor, free silver political tradition.
I mean, you began by posing these questions like they were great mysteries.
Those European countries don't have our race history. That's what makes race a salient variable.
The 1960s is when we passed national legislation that made Southern whites feel like they had lost their position of dominance.
It is the obvious variable. Why would we ignore it to keep casting about for some other explanation?
>>It is the obvious variable. Why would we ignore it to keep casting about for some other explanation?<<
Race explains some of the difference between the expansion of European (and Canadian) safety nets and the US situation. But not every bit. In the first place, the US circa, say, 1950, wasn't obviously a terrible laggard in this area (and yet there was substantial racial strife). The country had a national pension system, and many of the states operated significant social welfare programs (orphanages, public hospitals, sanitaria, etc.). America operated robustly-funded education at all levels (including tertiary). American was on the cusp of embarking on a giant public works program (Interstate higways). And America's employer-centric health insurance system—subsidized by the tax code—was rapidly growing. The country also had a powerful labor movement as well as a relatively strong economic regulatory regime (FDA, FTC, antitrust enforcement, Department of Agriculture, FHA, FDIC, FCC, SEC, and so on).
In terms of the generosity and effectiveness of its safety net, the USA really began to fall behind the rest of the developed world in the 1970s, when it failed to build upon the successes of the Great Society and then shifted its political economy to the right with the arrival of Reagan. Race played a factor, yes, but ethnic, religious and racial conflict aren't unknown in Europe or Canada. I believe two overlooked factors are A) European elites were cowed by the specter of Soviet tanks a short ways away(and robust domestic Marxist political movements), and thought it prudent to embrace social democracy in a manner that was never the case in the USA; and, B) Europe and Canada mostly operate along parliamentary lines: the USA's Madisonian constitution simply makes it more difficult to enact what voters want.
I agree with everything above. It’s not as simple as Matt’s intriguing but facile distillation
I wasn't disagree with Matt's contention that right wing politics is largely "a conspiracy to mislead people into not voting to give themselves more money." I was disagreeing with Dsep's statement about the overwhelming role of race in determining the country's political economy. It's definitely a factor—indeed a very important one—but in my view it's nonetheless overemphasized.
I’m not saying we should ignore race. I’m saying the view “80% of American politics is racial” is (potentially?) at odds with Matt’s claim that right wing politics is an effort to con working stiffs into voting against their economic interests.
Let’s assume that your thesis is true and race is dominant. If that were the case, white elites would prize racial solidarity over low marginal tax rates. They would offer welfare style benefits structured to exclude (de facto or de jure) non whites in order to cement white racial dominance.
The fact that this didn’t happen proves, at a minimum, that white elites were not solely interested in white supremacy and were willing to risk racial solidarity to keep their taxes low
Offering welfare benefits structured to exclude nonwhites is exactly what they did. That's what social security was from the 30s to the 60s. That's what public ed funded by real estate taxes still is.
"White elites are not solely interested in white supremacy" is not the same as "there is no explanation for why white people vote with other white people."
If we begin with the extremely obvious observation that white people tend to vote with other white people regardless of class, then we might arrive at useful conclusions. If we insist on looking for some other explanation because the obvious reason makes the most powerful people feel sad, then we'll continue to not fix anything.
You are absolutely correct that social security was designed to exclude blacks and this is because white southerners were a pillar of the New Deal coalition and didn’t want black people getting benefits. However, that racial exclusion broke down in the 60s, and blacks now get a substantial pro rata share of benefits. Any good theory has to explain why white welfare chauvinism waned in the 1960s and is now basically limited to pockets of high end schools. Furthermore, public schools that exclude minorities also exclude poor whites. Indeed, attendance zones exclude poor whites and poor minorities for exactly the same reason: they can’t obtain and pay a mortgage in a good school district.
Class is a major theme in US history and in todays politics. Matt posited a conspiracy to protect class privilege, and it’s fair to ask why it worked.
“White people vote with other white people” doesn’t really describe American politics. A better statement would be “white people are somewhat less likely to vote for progressive candidates than people of color.”
Democrats are only competitive nationally when they win 42% or more of the white, non-Hispanic vote. Democrats usually get a majority of the white vote in a number of states, eg Washington, Vermont and Oregon. There has never been a competitive statewide election in a major state where there weren’t huge numbers of white people supporting each candidate.
The old Southern Democrats who are now Republicans were always for large government and more spending. They were a major part of the New Deal coalition. They were just incredibly racist. They began migrating to the GOP beginning in the late 60s, early 70s, but did not have anywhere close to a majority in the GOP at that time. The majority was still the conservative Eisenhower coalition who wanted lower taxes. Eventually, a lot of these people left the GOP for cultural reasons, and the old Southern Democrats became a majority, which gave us Trump. This is why there are a lot more populist GOP politicians and policy proposals now, and why there are more Democrats averse to tax increases.
Is this at all true? I work in dc politics and do not see any of the “populist proposals” appear as meaningful legislation. It is actually fake.
As you may recall, the republicans controlled the government under the “populist” trump and their only legislative accomplishment was a “populist” bill cutting taxes for the richest people in society and businesses. While when the Dems were in charge they modestly capped drug prices and moderately raised taxes, which was apparently not populist. Additionally, they bailed out union pension funds and gave a child tax credit which were I guess not populist either.
Unions aren’t really populist. They are rent seeking coalitions in search of special privileges for their members
"Race is why poor white people vote with rich white people instead of poor black and brown people even now"
That wasn't quite true until recently. Most of Appalachia was very D voting until it started shifting at the start of this century. W Virginia used to be a +20 D state.
Back in the 60s through the 80s, low income was a good predictor of D voting amongst white people, but it's been slowly replaced by education, which although related, is not quite the same thing.
LBJ said as much. The quote is quite famous.
"Tell the lowest white man that he's better than the best black man, and he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him someone to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." - LBJ
I think people generally, even some Republican and Democratic politicians, do not realize the damage done by reducing taxes to create deficits. In practice I believe recent history shows Democrats to contribute less to the structural deficit than Republicans. That said, if we are going to create deficits to transfer income to already well off people or to poorer people or even dubious infrastructure projects, I prefer the latter.
DO Americans plunder the rich less than their European counterparts? Aren’t top marginal rates about the same, with middle brackets in the US being lower?
In France, there is a 45% income tax beginning at €152k, and only €100k Euros are excluded from the inheritance tax. Maybe French billionaires are not taxed that much more than American billionaires, but French millionaires definitely get hit harder and there are many more millionaires than billionaires
45% is about right for a high earner in the US. 37% federal + 10% state. It kicks in lower over there, but plateaus around the same place, was my contention.
Point taken on inheritance taxes.
37% bracket in the US doesn't kick in until $528,000. The figure cited by D. Abbott (152k Euros) is only around $170k, which puts one in the 24% bracket. Add in 6% (ten percent is higher than average) and you reach a marginal rate of about 30%. That's quite a bit lower than the 45% cited above. So, while rates for truly "high" US earners might be close to what they'd pay in France, it seems mere UMC-level earners face a considerably smaller tax wedge in the US.
https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/taxes/federal-income-tax-brackets
That's what I said. isn't it? The middle class in America pays less, but the rich pay about the same.
Jasper put it better. The small rich are taxed much less here, they can pass on $5 or $10 million estates basically tax free and likely have incomes in the $300-$500k range that are taxed slightly less than in France. In addition, VAT in France is much higher than state sales taxes.
I don’t know how old you are, but the early 80s were pretty rough economically under Reagan. The economy performs better under Democratic presidencies compared to Republican ones, and that has been true for a long time. If you look at GWB’s eight years, there was no economic progress at all.
"...the early 80s were pretty rough economically under Reagan"
It was one of the reasons he won the election. That fact should go a long, long way to showing the error in your logic.
He turned it around before 1984 and won reelection. But there two recessions between 1980 and 1983.
I listened to a podcast over the weekend that made the point that if the US had a parliamentary system, Reagan wouldn’t have lasted two years.
Who knows, if Liz Truss had a full four-year term to get her act together (and for the recent economic turmoil to smooth itself over) maybe she would have had a ‘Morning in Britain’ reelection campaign or her own “Tear down this wall” moment.
Of course when recessions or inflation occur have approximately zero do do with which party holds the Presidency or Congress. The damage of the Reagan deficits were on long term growth and, through the overvaluation of the dollar, undermining tradeable goods sectors like manufacturing, mining, and agriculture.
I agree with you generally, but would also remind people that Democrats controlled Congress almost the entirety of Reagan's presidency and passed all those spending bills and tax cuts.
I agree. Democrats should never have gone along with the Reagan tax cut proposals that reduced revenue. And even with GWB and Trump, I think they did not make a big enough stink about the revenue losses. And what taxes have increased to reduce deficits in this Congress?
"The economy performs better under Democratic presidencies compared to Republican ones, and that has been true for a long time."
Agree or disagree with specific policies, but this statement suggest what I consider to be correlation without very weak causation. One could just as easily say that there have been a lot more recessions under a Democratic Congress than a Republican Congress. Which is accurate, but I wouldn't draw immediate conclusions from it.
I'm not drawing any conclusions. This was just in response to the discussion about the economy being very good under Republican presidents. That doesn't seem factually accurate. Reasoning about the correlation or reason behind that is a separate subject.
One of my first political memories (I was three) is my mother worrying there would be nuclear war when Reagan took over, then being really shocked how much time it took after the election before Reagan actually took office. By that time, my mom had chilled out.
To be clear, I was reading a *little* into Martinez's comments on gay parents. What she actually said was that it fell to her and Karen Bass, as the women on the parade float where Bonin's son was allegedly misbehaving, to parent the kid. I think what she was explicitly saying was basically an unnuanced feminist point, and I'm not sure what she thinks about gay men as parents – it's just that if you generally think "men are less attentive as parents" that might lead to some homophobic views about whether a kid should be raised by two of them. And also separately a lot of people do hold those views on their own terms. I think some of the cries of homophobia might also be due to Martinez characterizing Bonin as another male councilmember's "little bitch", so it's not like all of a sudden she's exonerated of homophobia, just thought it was worth me being clear.
Thanks for listening to the tape so I don’t have to.
This is a very interesting point.
MY’s idea about the positive COVID advice is great yet totally misses the mark. We’re forgetting something crucial in our COVID post mortem. It was a novel disease and nobody —including the authorities — understood it when it broke out. Knowledge was acquired only gradually. In the beginning it wasn’t at all clear that there is this radical difference between indoor and outdoor. Aerosol transmission was *initially* dismissed for good reasons (though CDC was too slow to catch up to mounting evidence) and so distancing, both indoors and outdoors was considered best practice, along with hand washing .
Of course had we known what we known now we could have dealt with the outbreak better. Heck, possibly we could have suppressed it completely! Original COVID was pretty bad in terms of virality and easy to avoid if you knew how! But we didn’t know and it’s worth remembering that when assessing the mistakes of the past. At least some are understandable in that context.
I also don't think "no outdoor contacts" remained in place for very long. For example, New York City closed ~40 miles of streets to give residents more places to go outdoors on March 24th, 2020. 10 days after March 14th, when the state issued its stay-at-home order. This was the same time that NYC was the epicenter of the virus, the hospitals were packed and all that. Cases wouldn't reach their (first wave) peak in New York for another month or so. If I remember correctly, they did keep playgrounds closed under the assumption that there would be too much close contact, but parks remained open.
The national consensus moved pretty quickly toward using outdoor space to socialize and mitigate the risk of transmission. For whatever reason, people talk about the early stage of the pandemic and the response to it as though it lasted until 2021 when it more or less ended in May when most states ended or dramatically scaled back their lockdowns. While I'm sure there were plenty of dumb overreactions, I also think we have a very selective memory about how quickly we learned important lessons about the virus and how quick officials were to respond to those lessons. We want to exaggerate how restrictive we were and how long we were restrictive and I'm not sure why.
Your memory jives with mine--that explicit bans/discouragement on outdoor activity were short lived--but to Matt's point, we didn't take it enough to the next level where the outdoors should have been explicitly and regularly encouraged as a much safer way to get normal human interaction.
Unfortunately I do think the original messaging stuck the most. I’ll never forget seeing a guy board the subway with gloves and a big hand sanitizer to boot but no mask…
The original anti mask messaging of the cdc —which was not primarily due to ignorance btw— did horrible damage and may have helped form the basis for anti mask sentiment imo.
Yeah, when Florida reopened beaches around that same time, I remember every damned news network showing some guy walking around on the beach in a grim reaper costume trying to dissuade people from being on the beach. For many viewers the impact of the story was probably not "let's go to the beach" but instead "maybe its a mistake to go to the beach" which became indignation at the perception that it's bad to go to the beach and so on.
This. 100%. There's a lot of strawmanning being engaged in by so-called libertarians about the supposedly draconian conditions imposed by the State. There were excesses, no doubt (though probably less so in the US than just about anywhere else), but the strict stage was pretty brief, and I personally never lost the use of local parks (this was in Menlo Park, CA and later in Seattle, not exactly MAGA strongholds) nor did I ever feel under much pressure to wear a mask outdoors. And by December the US had vaccines.
Seattle absolutely closed parks, this is not some kind of Fox News mirage: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/seattle-to-close-major-parks-beaches-this-weekend-due-to-coronavirus-fears-during-expected-warm-weather/
I got there in mid June 2020, and was there for four months, and had no problem gaining entrance to any parks. Of course, a number of them were overrun with homeless encampments from what I could tell (and thus weren't very enticing). The main ones I accessed were the Gasworks on Lake Union, Green Lake, and Golden Gardens. I also made extensive use of the Burke-Gilman Trail (again, was never barred).
"...the strict stage was pretty brief..."
Yeah? When were all public schools back to normal?
The relevant question isn't when "all" public schools were back to normal, but when "most" public schools were back to normal: there are always going to be outliers.
That’s fair.
When were 80% of public schools back to normal? All in-person, no masks, no social distancing.
I don’t think there was initially much good evidence against aerosol transmission at all - the entire field seems to have absorbed some bad lessons in the 1920s that led it astray until COVID let the aerosol scientists break through to the public health scientists.
I was personally baffled by the early insistence that aerosol transmission wasn't an issue. I mean, I'm just a lawyer, not a scientist or doctor, but to me it seems like any respiratory disease should be *presumed* to spread at least in part by aerosol transmission until evidence actively shows otherwise.
I'm also not any kind of relevant expert but it almost seems like the idea that it wasn't spread by aerosol transmission was a kind of wishful thinking, because if that was the case then there would be no real way to contain it or keep it from spreading across the globe (which ended up being true).
I was baffled too until I read up about the whole history of miasma, then I got baffled in the complete opposite direction.
I'm curious as to how learning about the miasma theory of disease caused you to be baffled in the complete opposite direction?
Well, I’m not a scientist either, but the scientific consensus for a while was clearly otherwise so the best a priori assumption is that they had good reasons. I don’t think I personally am qualified to asses what’s a reasonable or unreasonable scientiifc premise. One needs to acknowledge one’s ignorance. It does seem to me though regardless of the initial standpoint the problem was that cdc—by contrast to other scientific establishments—was too slow to update guidelines based on the fast accumulating new evidence.
The best practical method I found to navigate COVID guidelines was to read up on the guidelines of multiple *establishments* r.g. Cdc, uk, eu, who. See where they agree and definitely follow that, and where they diverge see who has a better track record or failing that where the majority is. What I found consistently is that the cdc always lagged 2-3 months or so behind the rest. Which was really bad. So I ended up following those other establishments more and feeling in a bit of bizarro world where I feel like in know the future (e.g. how and when to mask, when to get boosted etc)
I don't think I claimed to be other than ignorant? My problem is that the conclusion "no aerosol spread" is completely counterintuitive -- everyone has been taught for a century that diseases spread at least in part in a manner consistent with the symptoms they trigger in their victims that expel fluids/debris because those symptoms are what what help spread the disease. E.g., Gastrointestinal diseases spread primarily via ingestion of water, food, etc. contaminated with feces and vomit; skin diseases spread via contact with secretions and flaking from the skin, etc. COVID-19 was manifestly a respiratory disease -- lung congestion and coughing by victims were major symptoms. The presumption from that information, logically, should have been that it spreads at least in part via transmission in the air, the same way many other well-known respiratory diseases do. Even if aerosol transmission couldn't be immediately confirmed, surely the most rational thing to do with a new respiratory disease would be to say that we believe that it can spread via aerosol transmission until that could be clearly ruled out?
“COVID-19 was manifestly a respiratory disease… The presumption from that information, logically, should have been that it spreads at least in part via transmission in the air, the same way many other well-known respiratory diseases do“ what you are saying may be sensible , or may reveal your complete and utter lack of knowledge of virology. *I* wouldn’t know and feel that my ignorance does not allow me to engage in these kinds of arguments.
In April 2020 a group of physicists laid out the evidence for aerosol transmission for the WHO. The physicists were absolutely correct, but ignored by the WHO because they weren't epidemiologists.
Why would you , unless already having expertise in the subject or at least adjacent subject, assume physicists would know better ? It makes no sense to trust random opinions on the internet , especially by people who don’t even claim to be experts , over the establishment. Sure, sometimes randos may be right, but how on earth would you be able to tell without having expertise yourself? I still think that the best way to critique the establishment in fields in which you are totally ignorant is by referring to other establishments, e.g. other countries updated guidelines assuming aerosol transmission and emphasizing masking far sooner than us, and even us experts always acknowledge the effectiveness of masks if you read between the lines. *that* was a good basis to go with , not trusting physicists for medical advice.
A group of research physicists, including some who were experts in modeling the behavior of very small airborne particles is not what I would call “random opinions on the internet.”
More to the point, however, how could you witness the performance of the CDC throughout the pandemic and come away trusting them because they were “experts”?
Why “experts” do you doubt the existence of epidemiology etc as fields of expertise? More to the point, I just outlined above my approach. Do you have a better alternative?
Epidemiology is absolutely a valid field of study. But what should I make of epidemiologists who, for example, lie about mask wearing? What should I make of an epidemiologist who says social distancing is critical to slowing the spread of a deadly disease, but also issues an opinion that participating in a social justice march is more important? What should I make of a group of medical experts who formulate policy not on the best evidence, but on what a labor union wishes for its members?
These are examples of "experts," not experts.
Yes i read some stuff by Lindsey Marr early on and was converted.
How strong a convert were you? Me? I quit washing my hands.
These are mitigating factors, but the messaging did not change as the knowledge-base changed and the message should never have been about what to do but "here is the information you need to decide what to do."
Can you explain the difference between what to do and the information needed to decide what to do?
I mean like: CDC says given local prevalence, COVID spreads in such and such a way in indoors settings with such and such people per square yard laughing/singing/talking/ sitting still and quiet and no UV in the recirculated air and in a different way with different local prevalence, different number of people per square yard doing different things. masked or not vaccinated or not and different ventilations. Then the local health authorities draw up rules that maximize the net present value of set of restrictions that change with circumstances.
I'm making this ridiculously utopian to emphasize what CDC should be aiming for.