Nuts that Trump would choose 2008 Obama as VP. He’s not “out of central casting,” if you know what I mean, and that matters to Trump.
No, he runs alongside his golfing buddy’s wife, who happens to be a prominent senator. She lives in New York too, so he has to change his residency to Florida. Not a big deal—the taxes are lower down there.
Besides, their daughters are buddies too. They’re great surrogates for the campaign and both play a central role in the new administration. By the early 2020s, they’re both in Congress and regulars on the Sunday morning shows. In the #MeToo era, their family names are practically synonymous with female empowerment.
After some rocky years in the 2010s, Dems are pretty jazzed about their first all-female ticket in 2024. The only question on anyone’s mind: will it be Trump-Clinton or Clinton-Trump?
Put me down as someone who would stop paying for your substack if it was only available bundled with Glenn Greenwald. I have no desire for my money to flow to him.
Smith is mostly economics with a bit of urbanism, Japan/anime, and cute rabbit photos. I like his writing a lot - it's clear and engaging, and his takes tend to be realistically optimistic on many issues - but am not quite econ-focused enough to pay for it. I find Barro and Yglesias a little bit more eclectic/broader in their policy nerdism, which suits my reading habits better. If you want more econ, he's a great choice in the view of this non-economist.
I'm in this boat too. I'd appreciate a "subscribe to 5 Substacks, get 10% off" discount that lets me pick and choose who to listen to, but actual bundling would be a disaster.
I disagree often with Hanania, (for starter’s, I’m dating a guy lol) but some of his work is top notch. The article “liberals read, conservatives watch tv” was fantastic, for example.
My model of him is that he often comes to unusual conclusions --- some of which are great and some of which are... not. I found "Woke Institutions is Just Civil Rights Law" and "Tetlock and the Taliban" to be quite insightful. The "liberals hate Putin because of the 2013 law banning gay propaganda towards minors" take wasn't insightful --- neither was his over learning from Afghanistan applied to Ukraine.
I'll also give him credit for making public predictions on Metaculus. That alone puts him above many writers in my book.
He wrote an article about Goldman Sachs during the 2008 with an iconic phrase, that's his big claim to fame. He also ran The eXile, a satirical newspaper in Russia that got shut down by Putin. So he has more connections with and knowledge of Russia than your average American journalist.
“ Taiwan should be making serious plans for its own defense, drawing up extensive lists of what kind of equipment would be genuinely useful in that situation and asking friendly countries to give it to them.”
My understanding is that Taiwan’s latest set of defense reforms was very much oriented in this direction; attempting to make itself prohibitively expensive to take rapidly and turn into an indigestible morsel once taken.
Now that they’re watching what Ukraine has been able to accomplish, I’m sure there’s some note-taking going on.
I also suspect that the CCP is paying close attention to exactly what economic buttons are being pushed to punish Russia. I’m not sure they can really proof themselves, but they can certainly inflict a lot more pain than Russia could.
I agree with your comment, but this seems like the right place to put mine:
I think the "China takes the long game" argument is a bit over-argued in Smart People Circles, but I've found the post-Ukraine backlash to be a wild over-correction. The PRC is not going to invade/not invade Taiwan next week because of how the Russian invasion of Ukraine is/isn't going. Even reckless cowboy Americans would take years to prepare for that sort of thing.
The "China takes the long game" angle is wildly over-used, because it's mostly untrue.
Chinese policy is almost always blindly reactive to the imperatives of domestic politics, if you actually bother to understand what those are.
As for Taiwan, there are only two ways the CCP runs that risk: they've successfully stacked the deck economically to the point where we need them more than vice versa and we have to just take it on the chin, or there's no other option because domestic instability requires a quick win.
They're not stupid; Taiwan is immensely more valuable than Ukraine, but not enough so to warrant the risk.
I also wonder if China is reevaluateinh how effective their military really is. It sounds like Russia’s military is full of improperly maintained equipment that was of poor quality to begin with. Does China have a similar problem? Given that they’re also an authoritarian country with a lot of corruption, I would not be shocked if they did.
It's certain that they do, the question is, to what extent, and concentrated where?
The PLA's land formations are, by and large, a glorified employment program. But when you have a million people under arms, you only need 10-20% to be competent troops when the war is mostly at sea.
The PLAN is purported to be quite another story, and the PLAAF isn't terrible either.
My guess, based on what I've heard and read, is that Chinese military procurement is somewhat less bloated than ours, but the percentage of outright skimming is higher. Nothing like Russia's, but there's definitely some "paper equipment" out there.
That said, the PLAN's strategy for a defensive war after taking Taiwan is probably a good one.
Even before the direct issue is Taiwan, if Russia doesn't back down fairly soon and take the necessary steps to rejoin the free world, isn't China going to have to choose which side of the new Iron Curtain it's on? Free world sanctions on Russia won't work over the medium and long term if China is allowed to remain economically integrated with both Russia and the countries trying to isolate Russia. It might seem dramatic to put it that way but a world where major trading partners launch unprovoked, brutal wars of conquest on their neighbors is simply not tolerable.
The US wouldn't have to blockade China's entire coastline. And it would be suicidal to try, given their anti-ship missiles.
No, we'd just patrol the Straights of Malacca (25% of all seaborne oil), safely outside of missile range, and interdict any ships going to mainland China. A few other straights too, and you could block off the vast majority of their oil.
Now, I'm skeptical it will come to that - unless China opens the war by launching missiles at Guam and US bases in Japan, in which case everything short of nukes will be on the table immediately. But the US Navy definitely has the capability to easily choke off China's seaborne oil supply.
Most of the folks I've read or discussed this with expect China's opening gambit in any conflict with the US (i.e., if the CCP's leadership believes the US will intervene in a Taiwan invasion) to be gut-punching Guam, Okinawa, and Yokohama with as many cruise missiles as will range, civilian casualties and Japanese entry into a war be damned.
They *need* to do something to degrade local US naval power, otherwise the USN can use Taiwan as a glacis to hide behind as it helps make mincemeat of any PLAN attempt to hold and cross the Straits. Which ends in a hundred thousand young men turned into drifting corpses and the Party leadership swinging from lampposts.
If they don't think we're going to intervene, they'll just go after Taiwan while making threatening noises at us and Japan.
Seems doubtful. Given the massively greater economic interdependence of USA-China, compared to USA-Russia, even a purely financial response would be enormously painful, let alone a military one (and a blockade is a declaration of war).
The US wouldn't need to blockade close to the coast to wreak havoc, the US and its allies dominate the Indian Ocean and the Pacific east of the first island chain. Plus, submarines.
ADVICE TO STREAMERS: If you are strapped for cash (or just want to save money), only subscribe to one service at a time. Seriously. Sign up for ONE MONTH of a streaming service, watch the fifteen or twenty movies that interest you for a whopping $0.55-$1 per title AND THEN CANCEL. Then sign up for a new service and repeat. Cycle through the streaming services that way. You aren't doing anything unseemly: that is the business model THEY chose, so fuck 'em.
Also, use Kanopy, the streaming service available through your local library. You can choose ten titles per month from a catalog of like 30,000 movies.
Personally, I have annual subscriptions to a few streaming services that I love and support: Criterion, Arrow, Shudder. That winds up being a reasonable $220 per year. If I want to view a different catalog of titles, I sign up for one month and immediately cancel, as described above.
I am definitely more on the "anti-bigness" side of things than Matt, but that's a different can of worms.
Kanopy is wonderful. I recommend it all the time, seems very few people know about it.
Hoopla is similar, also works with any library card. The quality of movies isn’t as good, but you also get access to tons of free books, audiobooks and a downright incredible graphic novel/comic selection to boot.
Wow. I get 30, with a random library card from Chattanooga (I have at least a dozen library cards from all over the country, don’t ask). Didn’t know it differed from one library to another.
We've got Disney+ and Netflix full time for us and the kids.
And then HBOMax we're doing for 3 months right now to catch up on stuff we want, and then we'll dump it and get Hulu for a bit to watch stuff there. And Paramount again for a while at some point.
We just have to be willing to not watch stuff "as soon as it comes out".
I'm an American in Berlin and do my streaming over a VPN, but one thing I also have that is common over here in Europe is a loyalty card with the local theater chain that lets me see everything I want for 20€ per month. I LOVE going to the movies, so this is a huge savings -- works out to about 2€ per movie. I'm not sure if there is anything like that in the states.
There was something like this tried across chains a few years ago but I think that kind of fell apart.
Looks like AMC will let you do 3 movies/week for $20/month. That's not quite as good but it's comparable. (That doesn't really work if you need babysitters though)
It looks like one of those sites that plays a shell game with a rotating series of free file hosting services on the backend. It's probably not legal for them, definitely not legal for the backend hosting services.
Lamenting the death of the Slatepitch, and immediately following it up with a Trump/Obama ticket counterfactual is real practice what you preach stuff. Nicely done.
Re subscriptions/streaming -- Apple News+ is a reasonable option for most newspapers and magazines. They make it hard to find some of the content you want, but it's mostly there somewhere. I like getting much of the WSJ news side without much money reaching the Murdochs. Also pretty good digital versions of magazines I used to subscribe to in hard copy. Initially I thought I'd buy the Apple News+ sub and cancel all my other print media subscriptions. But I just couldn't stick to that. I want a certain amount of in-depth news and analysis on a few topics. I am very happy with Slow Boring but I can't see me consuming two to four additional newsletters, even at a discounted rate. Even though I am 90% retired, I don't have that kind of time. I see a dichotomy between the Substack concept and bundling.
Will Wilkinson wrote a fawning piece about crypto, then promptly abandoned writing to go work for a crypto company. Which kind of calls into question everything about him I think? Either way, I don't think you can subscribe anymore
Ugh I was wondering why I hadn't got a post in a while! Obviously, I get waaay too many substacks. Wilkinson, when writing, is very good on housing/urban policy and the southernification of right wing voters outside the south. When I worked in trade policy, I knew and liked his work as well. Too bad about the crypto!
Slatepitch on Gore as president, and on the 2000 election as the least consequential of the modern era - his VP Joe Liberman (aka Democratic Dick Cheney) pushes Gore into Iraq, which then leads to a McCain presidency essentially as described in your scenario. The supreme court nominations all happened in 2005 or later, so this leads to no changes in the supreme court compared to real history. Meanwhile, a young Illinois senator named Barack Obama capitalizes on left-wing discontent at previous foreign policy failures under the last Democratic president to win the 2008 primary. He probably still chooses Joe Biden as VP since the same reasons more or less apply. Of course the financial crisis leads to Obama winning the presidency, which then leads to Donald Trump winning in a racist backlash in 2016 and history following essentially the same path as today.
Ah, but the 2000 election sure *seems* important in retrospect. After all, a young President Bush surely would have been guided by the experienced foreign policy hands who had steered his father away from an Iraqi occupation and who led the fight against Gore’s invasion—guys like Brent Scowcroft, Don Rumsfeld and (above all others) Dick Cheney. Surely Bush would have done it all differently.
"But at the same time, I think moderates would do better if they walked back some of the leftward shifts of the past decade and acted a bit more like the Max Baucus or Mary Landrieu types we used to have"
But uh, Mary Landrieu lost re-election as an incumbent Senator. This is part of my issue with Shorism- it's not exactly a new or novel observation that Dems should run moderate candidates to win elections in rural states, they've been doing it for longer than any of us have been alive. It's just that with the nationalization of politics, they literally can't win anymore! Other than Manchin. You can be as moderate, pro-gun and anti-socialism as you want- if you have a D next to your name, you're basically guaranteed to lose in a rural state. The content of your message is basically irrelevant. If Baucus had continued running for Senator into the 2010s, the odds are very high that he would've lost to a Republican too.
Here's a list of moderate rural Dem Senators who all lost as incumbents in the 2010s/2020: Claire McCaskill, Heidi Heitkamp, Mary Landrieu, Kay Hagan, Joe Donnelly, Blanche Lincoln and Russ Feingold
Having spent a lot of time in red states, I think I’ve identified a problem with many of these candidates: they don’t seem as if they believe or care about anything, beyond winning elections. Both Democrats and Republicans feel that there’s no there there.
A form of popularism can get taken to a place where a candidate just seems like a creature of polling, finger constantly in the wind, in a way that seems craven to voters. See: Amy McGrath. It’s difficult to find a balance, there, and probably just comes down to being good at politics, having some level of personal magnetism and a talent for talking to voters.
I struggle with your working definition of "rural state" if it includes Wisconsin, Indiana, North Carolina, and Missouri. None of these are Massachusetts, but neither are they Wyoming.
I basically agree with this, but I think the deciding factor is personality, not ideology. Tester has won reelection twice, increasing his vote share each time. Manchin's vote share keeps going down. I think Manchin comes off as too slick, despite his forced folksiness, and too cozy with various muckety mucks, to grow his appealability. Tester is a blunt, good humored fat man with the cheapest haircut in D.C. He's much more relatable and likable. But Dems keep looking for highly credentialed empty suits to run as moderates/conservatives in rural seats, rather than "real" people. I think the "empty suit" label applies to your list of incumbents, except maybe Heitkamp and Feingold. The Dems need to realize that the best way to grow the party in red states is to nominate candidates with a high likability ceiling rather than a high credential floor. More Testers, less Baucuses, more Fettermans, fewer Lambs.
I disagree with the premise that Montana is shifting blue. As late as 2012, 5 of 6 statewide elected offices in MT were held by Democrats. Today, its only 1 in 6 (Tester).Trump's vote share was down in 2020, but he got a higher percentage in 2016 than Romney did in 2012, and Romney in 2012 beat McCain in 2008. MT may appear to be bluing due to population growth, but a lot of that growth is blue state Republicans moving to "friendlier" climates, like our New Jersey born governor, Greg "Chokeslam" Gianforte, or our at-large Congressman, "Maryland" Matt Rosendale.
A moderate non-woke populist who voted against NAFTA, yeah I'm good with it. In the vein of other Midwestern populists, he wanted to regulate Wall Street, break up the big banks, etc. What's the difference between him and Sherrod Brown, for instance?
At the end of the day, the largest divide in America is still over size of government, so I think it still makes sense to judge liberal vs conservative on that metric.
Wisconsin is like a gigantic farming state man. It has two cities over 100k population, that's it. Anyways, as mentioned below I meant more 'purple'. I'd still put it as a more rural than not state, but I guess there it wouldn't be the Internet if someone couldn't be extremely pedantic about something.
Anyways, you have won the Internet Medal of Honor for pedantry today, and I will amend my list of moderate incumbent Dem Senators (frequently from rural states) who lost re-election in the 2010s to Claire McCaskill, Heidi Heitkamp, Mary Landrieu, Kay Hagan, Joe Donnelly, and Blanche Lincoln. Happy?
I thought about this more last night, I have more unsolicited advice, to take or leave.
The biggest problem with DEI these days in my opinion is that it’s backed itself into a corner with only two perceived paths forward: train everyone to see these issues in exactly the same way (not diverse or inclusive at all!) and explicitly use peoples race and gender as a factor in hiring and promotions (sure to piss a lot of people off and arguably against civil rights laws). But there is a way out of this trap.
0. Define the problem. Vague feelings that “we need to do more” are not a real problem. Demand data transparency. Does the organization want to increase the % of roles filled by women and minorities? Increase the representation at executive levels to match what you have at entry levels? Do a pay equity audit? Get specific.
1. Convince people to focus on systems, not individuals. Instead of assuming the problem is everyone’s biases and you can train these away, assume the problem is whatever system allows peoples biases to have major ripple effects.
2. Recruiting, hiring, retaining, promoting. These are the major steps that influence the makeup of your organization. What are the formal and informal processes around each of these steps? Where can bias creep in? Do you use employees to recruit at their alma maters? That will perpetuate past biases. Are you recruiting at HBCUs? Are you opening up entry level positions to a wider range of degrees or even people without college degrees? Does your company use a structured interviewing approach for both external hiring and internal promotions? The book “Noise” describes this well.
3. Do internal studies using your own data. Interview people who are resigning to find out why. Crunch the numbers without assumptions. Encourage people to read “Scout Mindset” or something like it.
4. If people really want to bring in outside DEI trainers, check out Moral Courage, Theory of Enchantment, or even Braver Angels (they have a great “Depolarizing Conversations on Race” course) to get a more diverse perspectives on the topic
But never forget that focusing only on training is a trap. You will forever feel like you’re banging your head against a wall, pissing off skeptics who resent the implication they are the problem and pissing off true believers who are aghast at the skeptics’ pushback. Focus on systems, not individuals. In the words of Kendi himself, “there’s nothing wrong with the people!”
I’ve been on a lot of DEI teams at my (big) company over the years… at this point in the game, the way I find I can have the most influence in a positive direction is to just be the person who speaks up about other ways of looking at this stuff, and prevent the true believers into group-thinking themselves into deciding mandatory white privilege training or some such is a good idea. Usually if I can twist the concept so that it goes both ways, like unconscious bias or the latest, “psychological safety,” it ends up being a check on how crazy you can get. (“Is it a micro-aggression to say someone is further behind on their inclusion journey?”).
Funding research does sound cool, hope you can make it happen! My company is so cheap they don’t even pay outside consultants for DEI stuff, it’s all volunteers and semi-volunteers like yourself (and me) :)
I too loved the hilarious and unexpected twist on the aftermath of a Gore victory. But real-talk: the GOP and rightwing blogosphere, already littered with fascists like Ann "Someone Should Blow Up the New York Times Building" Coulter, would have shamelessly exploited 9/11 for short-term political advantage. Gore would have been blamed for the security failures by almost the entire conservative establishment.
The leaders of the engineered GOP legislative majorities in Wisconsin are trying in a couple of ways to make executive branch appointees more like parliamentary ministers accountable to them. One way is by simply not having Democrats appointed: there's a court case now about whether (Republican) appointees to state boards (think university regents or natural resource board members) have to leave if their (Democratic) successors are never confirmed by the state Senate. Another is never confirming the secretaries who run state agencies. The Senate can remove acting secretaries at any time by majority vote and did exactly when the Secretary of Agriculture criticized the legislature for not releasing funds to combat farmer suicides. The prospect of losing their jobs at any moment has to make the secretaries more cautious. Of course, none of this will apply the next time a Republican is governor. #welcometohungary
On the anti-bigness, I worry about countervailing power and the ability of large corporations to have essential powers due to their size: "quantity has a quality all its own."
Nuts that Trump would choose 2008 Obama as VP. He’s not “out of central casting,” if you know what I mean, and that matters to Trump.
No, he runs alongside his golfing buddy’s wife, who happens to be a prominent senator. She lives in New York too, so he has to change his residency to Florida. Not a big deal—the taxes are lower down there.
Besides, their daughters are buddies too. They’re great surrogates for the campaign and both play a central role in the new administration. By the early 2020s, they’re both in Congress and regulars on the Sunday morning shows. In the #MeToo era, their family names are practically synonymous with female empowerment.
After some rocky years in the 2010s, Dems are pretty jazzed about their first all-female ticket in 2024. The only question on anyone’s mind: will it be Trump-Clinton or Clinton-Trump?
Put me down as someone who would stop paying for your substack if it was only available bundled with Glenn Greenwald. I have no desire for my money to flow to him.
The winner here is the Josh Barro / Noah Smith / Yglesias combo.
This
Pitch me on Smith--I already read Barro and (obviously) Yglesias.
Smith is mostly economics with a bit of urbanism, Japan/anime, and cute rabbit photos. I like his writing a lot - it's clear and engaging, and his takes tend to be realistically optimistic on many issues - but am not quite econ-focused enough to pay for it. I find Barro and Yglesias a little bit more eclectic/broader in their policy nerdism, which suits my reading habits better. If you want more econ, he's a great choice in the view of this non-economist.
Solid economics articles if that's your jam
I disagree quite often with him - yet I still read intently. That is my case for Noah Smith.
I'll add that he has interesting articles that are at the intersection of economics and foreign policy. I think these ones are free:
- https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/does-china-think-long-term-while
- https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-is-ukraine-such-an-economic-failure
- https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/turkey-you-were-doing-so-well
“Persuasion” and “Liberal Patriot” feel like good add ins, though I think they’re mostly free.
Yes! Came here to post exactly this! I can only fit two, and a bundle means I could read all three.
I'm in this boat too. I'd appreciate a "subscribe to 5 Substacks, get 10% off" discount that lets me pick and choose who to listen to, but actual bundling would be a disaster.
Buy 4 get one free
seems like kind of a dumb example. Why would it ever be available *only* as a bundle, rather than an optional bundle vs standalone?
Why the hate?
Literally lol'ed when I got to that part.
I disagree often with Hanania, (for starter’s, I’m dating a guy lol) but some of his work is top notch. The article “liberals read, conservatives watch tv” was fantastic, for example.
My model of him is that he often comes to unusual conclusions --- some of which are great and some of which are... not. I found "Woke Institutions is Just Civil Rights Law" and "Tetlock and the Taliban" to be quite insightful. The "liberals hate Putin because of the 2013 law banning gay propaganda towards minors" take wasn't insightful --- neither was his over learning from Afghanistan applied to Ukraine.
I'll also give him credit for making public predictions on Metaculus. That alone puts him above many writers in my book.
Luckily for you, Hanania's substack is free.
What's the deal with Taibbi? (Don't know much about him myself.)
Yeah, I'd never heard of him until someone linked to his "my bad" post about mispredicting Putin's invasion https://taibbi.substack.com/p/note-to-readers-on-the-invasion-of
Is he influential? Insightful?
He wrote an article about Goldman Sachs during the 2008 with an iconic phrase, that's his big claim to fame. He also ran The eXile, a satirical newspaper in Russia that got shut down by Putin. So he has more connections with and knowledge of Russia than your average American journalist.
The pivot from "death of the Slatepitch" to the Trump/Obama ticket is a trolling masterpiece and I salute it for exactly what it is.
“ Taiwan should be making serious plans for its own defense, drawing up extensive lists of what kind of equipment would be genuinely useful in that situation and asking friendly countries to give it to them.”
My understanding is that Taiwan’s latest set of defense reforms was very much oriented in this direction; attempting to make itself prohibitively expensive to take rapidly and turn into an indigestible morsel once taken.
Now that they’re watching what Ukraine has been able to accomplish, I’m sure there’s some note-taking going on.
I also suspect that the CCP is paying close attention to exactly what economic buttons are being pushed to punish Russia. I’m not sure they can really proof themselves, but they can certainly inflict a lot more pain than Russia could.
I agree with your comment, but this seems like the right place to put mine:
I think the "China takes the long game" argument is a bit over-argued in Smart People Circles, but I've found the post-Ukraine backlash to be a wild over-correction. The PRC is not going to invade/not invade Taiwan next week because of how the Russian invasion of Ukraine is/isn't going. Even reckless cowboy Americans would take years to prepare for that sort of thing.
The "China takes the long game" angle is wildly over-used, because it's mostly untrue.
Chinese policy is almost always blindly reactive to the imperatives of domestic politics, if you actually bother to understand what those are.
As for Taiwan, there are only two ways the CCP runs that risk: they've successfully stacked the deck economically to the point where we need them more than vice versa and we have to just take it on the chin, or there's no other option because domestic instability requires a quick win.
They're not stupid; Taiwan is immensely more valuable than Ukraine, but not enough so to warrant the risk.
I also wonder if China is reevaluateinh how effective their military really is. It sounds like Russia’s military is full of improperly maintained equipment that was of poor quality to begin with. Does China have a similar problem? Given that they’re also an authoritarian country with a lot of corruption, I would not be shocked if they did.
It's certain that they do, the question is, to what extent, and concentrated where?
The PLA's land formations are, by and large, a glorified employment program. But when you have a million people under arms, you only need 10-20% to be competent troops when the war is mostly at sea.
The PLAN is purported to be quite another story, and the PLAAF isn't terrible either.
My guess, based on what I've heard and read, is that Chinese military procurement is somewhat less bloated than ours, but the percentage of outright skimming is higher. Nothing like Russia's, but there's definitely some "paper equipment" out there.
That said, the PLAN's strategy for a defensive war after taking Taiwan is probably a good one.
Even before the direct issue is Taiwan, if Russia doesn't back down fairly soon and take the necessary steps to rejoin the free world, isn't China going to have to choose which side of the new Iron Curtain it's on? Free world sanctions on Russia won't work over the medium and long term if China is allowed to remain economically integrated with both Russia and the countries trying to isolate Russia. It might seem dramatic to put it that way but a world where major trading partners launch unprovoked, brutal wars of conquest on their neighbors is simply not tolerable.
Doesn’t china depend upon middle eastern oil? Isn’t it highly vulnerable to blockade?
By whom, in the case of a limited war with Taiwan only?
The US would blockade China if it invaded Taiwan.
The thrice-blasted hell it “would”!
It *might*.
These are very, very different things.
That’s the whole bloody point of “strategic ambiguity”.
China's coastline is 9000 miles long. We're not going to blockade them.
The US wouldn't have to blockade China's entire coastline. And it would be suicidal to try, given their anti-ship missiles.
No, we'd just patrol the Straights of Malacca (25% of all seaborne oil), safely outside of missile range, and interdict any ships going to mainland China. A few other straights too, and you could block off the vast majority of their oil.
Now, I'm skeptical it will come to that - unless China opens the war by launching missiles at Guam and US bases in Japan, in which case everything short of nukes will be on the table immediately. But the US Navy definitely has the capability to easily choke off China's seaborne oil supply.
Most of the folks I've read or discussed this with expect China's opening gambit in any conflict with the US (i.e., if the CCP's leadership believes the US will intervene in a Taiwan invasion) to be gut-punching Guam, Okinawa, and Yokohama with as many cruise missiles as will range, civilian casualties and Japanese entry into a war be damned.
They *need* to do something to degrade local US naval power, otherwise the USN can use Taiwan as a glacis to hide behind as it helps make mincemeat of any PLAN attempt to hold and cross the Straits. Which ends in a hundred thousand young men turned into drifting corpses and the Party leadership swinging from lampposts.
If they don't think we're going to intervene, they'll just go after Taiwan while making threatening noises at us and Japan.
This is also quite wrong; the Chinese littoral, end-to-end, is around 2,200 miles.
And crowded with the sort of bottlenecks that make blockades easier.
And hemmed in on virtually all sides by unfriendly powers.
If the US and Japan end up in a shooting war with China, nothing is getting in or out unless they want.
Seems doubtful. Given the massively greater economic interdependence of USA-China, compared to USA-Russia, even a purely financial response would be enormously painful, let alone a military one (and a blockade is a declaration of war).
The US wouldn't need to blockade close to the coast to wreak havoc, the US and its allies dominate the Indian Ocean and the Pacific east of the first island chain. Plus, submarines.
ADVICE TO STREAMERS: If you are strapped for cash (or just want to save money), only subscribe to one service at a time. Seriously. Sign up for ONE MONTH of a streaming service, watch the fifteen or twenty movies that interest you for a whopping $0.55-$1 per title AND THEN CANCEL. Then sign up for a new service and repeat. Cycle through the streaming services that way. You aren't doing anything unseemly: that is the business model THEY chose, so fuck 'em.
Also, use Kanopy, the streaming service available through your local library. You can choose ten titles per month from a catalog of like 30,000 movies.
Personally, I have annual subscriptions to a few streaming services that I love and support: Criterion, Arrow, Shudder. That winds up being a reasonable $220 per year. If I want to view a different catalog of titles, I sign up for one month and immediately cancel, as described above.
I am definitely more on the "anti-bigness" side of things than Matt, but that's a different can of worms.
Kanopy is wonderful. I recommend it all the time, seems very few people know about it.
Hoopla is similar, also works with any library card. The quality of movies isn’t as good, but you also get access to tons of free books, audiobooks and a downright incredible graphic novel/comic selection to boot.
Huh I had never heard of it either.
https://library.austintexas.gov/virtual/kanopy
Only 2 movies / month for us (not 10) but that's still 2 movies I didn't know we could do.
Wow. I get 30, with a random library card from Chattanooga (I have at least a dozen library cards from all over the country, don’t ask). Didn’t know it differed from one library to another.
I get 15. Way more than my record high.
We've got Disney+ and Netflix full time for us and the kids.
And then HBOMax we're doing for 3 months right now to catch up on stuff we want, and then we'll dump it and get Hulu for a bit to watch stuff there. And Paramount again for a while at some point.
We just have to be willing to not watch stuff "as soon as it comes out".
I'm an American in Berlin and do my streaming over a VPN, but one thing I also have that is common over here in Europe is a loyalty card with the local theater chain that lets me see everything I want for 20€ per month. I LOVE going to the movies, so this is a huge savings -- works out to about 2€ per movie. I'm not sure if there is anything like that in the states.
There was something like this tried across chains a few years ago but I think that kind of fell apart.
Looks like AMC will let you do 3 movies/week for $20/month. That's not quite as good but it's comparable. (That doesn't really work if you need babysitters though)
Alternatively use watchseries.ma or other similar sites
Is this legal?
It looks like one of those sites that plays a shell game with a rotating series of free file hosting services on the backend. It's probably not legal for them, definitely not legal for the backend hosting services.
Lamenting the death of the Slatepitch, and immediately following it up with a Trump/Obama ticket counterfactual is real practice what you preach stuff. Nicely done.
Re subscriptions/streaming -- Apple News+ is a reasonable option for most newspapers and magazines. They make it hard to find some of the content you want, but it's mostly there somewhere. I like getting much of the WSJ news side without much money reaching the Murdochs. Also pretty good digital versions of magazines I used to subscribe to in hard copy. Initially I thought I'd buy the Apple News+ sub and cancel all my other print media subscriptions. But I just couldn't stick to that. I want a certain amount of in-depth news and analysis on a few topics. I am very happy with Slow Boring but I can't see me consuming two to four additional newsletters, even at a discounted rate. Even though I am 90% retired, I don't have that kind of time. I see a dichotomy between the Substack concept and bundling.
I looked it up and, despite being a service, it requires Apple hardware -- which means that it is not an option for me and billions like me.
I would love a Slow Boring/Very Serious/Model Citizen Substack policy nerd bundle.
Thanks for the fun meetup yesterday! It was great to meet some fellow Slow Borers and Matt was an excellent host.
Should I be reading Model Citizen? I'm unfamiliar with it. But you've already named the other two Subs I pay for...
Will Wilkinson wrote a fawning piece about crypto, then promptly abandoned writing to go work for a crypto company. Which kind of calls into question everything about him I think? Either way, I don't think you can subscribe anymore
I haven't read the piece, but isn't the charitable interpretation:
"I really do like crypto, and here's why"
"And because I like crypto I'm going to go work for one"
(Now, I happen to question the judgement of people who really like crypto, and maybe you were talking about his judgement, rather than his character)
His 'crypto turn' honestly made me very sad. Made me second guess everything I'd read from him before.
Ugh I was wondering why I hadn't got a post in a while! Obviously, I get waaay too many substacks. Wilkinson, when writing, is very good on housing/urban policy and the southernification of right wing voters outside the south. When I worked in trade policy, I knew and liked his work as well. Too bad about the crypto!
I don't know if Wilkinson has a big enough audience to make a Substack work economically. Plus he's seemingly always been a bit unstable.
Slatepitch on Gore as president, and on the 2000 election as the least consequential of the modern era - his VP Joe Liberman (aka Democratic Dick Cheney) pushes Gore into Iraq, which then leads to a McCain presidency essentially as described in your scenario. The supreme court nominations all happened in 2005 or later, so this leads to no changes in the supreme court compared to real history. Meanwhile, a young Illinois senator named Barack Obama capitalizes on left-wing discontent at previous foreign policy failures under the last Democratic president to win the 2008 primary. He probably still chooses Joe Biden as VP since the same reasons more or less apply. Of course the financial crisis leads to Obama winning the presidency, which then leads to Donald Trump winning in a racist backlash in 2016 and history following essentially the same path as today.
Ah, but the 2000 election sure *seems* important in retrospect. After all, a young President Bush surely would have been guided by the experienced foreign policy hands who had steered his father away from an Iraqi occupation and who led the fight against Gore’s invasion—guys like Brent Scowcroft, Don Rumsfeld and (above all others) Dick Cheney. Surely Bush would have done it all differently.
"But at the same time, I think moderates would do better if they walked back some of the leftward shifts of the past decade and acted a bit more like the Max Baucus or Mary Landrieu types we used to have"
But uh, Mary Landrieu lost re-election as an incumbent Senator. This is part of my issue with Shorism- it's not exactly a new or novel observation that Dems should run moderate candidates to win elections in rural states, they've been doing it for longer than any of us have been alive. It's just that with the nationalization of politics, they literally can't win anymore! Other than Manchin. You can be as moderate, pro-gun and anti-socialism as you want- if you have a D next to your name, you're basically guaranteed to lose in a rural state. The content of your message is basically irrelevant. If Baucus had continued running for Senator into the 2010s, the odds are very high that he would've lost to a Republican too.
Here's a list of moderate rural Dem Senators who all lost as incumbents in the 2010s/2020: Claire McCaskill, Heidi Heitkamp, Mary Landrieu, Kay Hagan, Joe Donnelly, Blanche Lincoln and Russ Feingold
Having spent a lot of time in red states, I think I’ve identified a problem with many of these candidates: they don’t seem as if they believe or care about anything, beyond winning elections. Both Democrats and Republicans feel that there’s no there there.
A form of popularism can get taken to a place where a candidate just seems like a creature of polling, finger constantly in the wind, in a way that seems craven to voters. See: Amy McGrath. It’s difficult to find a balance, there, and probably just comes down to being good at politics, having some level of personal magnetism and a talent for talking to voters.
There's also a problem whereby moderate sometimes means pro-business, which isn't actually _popular_.
"If Baucus had continued running for Senator into the 2010s, the odds are very high that he would've lost to a Republican too."
Perhaps, but Jon Tester has managed to get reelected all the way through the 2010s.
I struggle with your working definition of "rural state" if it includes Wisconsin, Indiana, North Carolina, and Missouri. None of these are Massachusetts, but neither are they Wyoming.
OK, purple state, whatever. Was writing in the morning before I'd finished the whole cup of coffee
I'm not sure how you would describe them as "purple state[s]" if even moderate Democrats " literally can't win anymore!"
Born, raised and still presently live in a rural purple state- my Dad's even a farmer. Thanks,
I basically agree with this, but I think the deciding factor is personality, not ideology. Tester has won reelection twice, increasing his vote share each time. Manchin's vote share keeps going down. I think Manchin comes off as too slick, despite his forced folksiness, and too cozy with various muckety mucks, to grow his appealability. Tester is a blunt, good humored fat man with the cheapest haircut in D.C. He's much more relatable and likable. But Dems keep looking for highly credentialed empty suits to run as moderates/conservatives in rural seats, rather than "real" people. I think the "empty suit" label applies to your list of incumbents, except maybe Heitkamp and Feingold. The Dems need to realize that the best way to grow the party in red states is to nominate candidates with a high likability ceiling rather than a high credential floor. More Testers, less Baucuses, more Fettermans, fewer Lambs.
I disagree with the premise that Montana is shifting blue. As late as 2012, 5 of 6 statewide elected offices in MT were held by Democrats. Today, its only 1 in 6 (Tester).Trump's vote share was down in 2020, but he got a higher percentage in 2016 than Romney did in 2012, and Romney in 2012 beat McCain in 2008. MT may appear to be bluing due to population growth, but a lot of that growth is blue state Republicans moving to "friendlier" climates, like our New Jersey born governor, Greg "Chokeslam" Gianforte, or our at-large Congressman, "Maryland" Matt Rosendale.
As for Mike Trout, he's very good.
A moderate non-woke populist who voted against NAFTA, yeah I'm good with it. In the vein of other Midwestern populists, he wanted to regulate Wall Street, break up the big banks, etc. What's the difference between him and Sherrod Brown, for instance?
Not a lot, but neither are moderates! They are populist liberals, not the same as a Hillary Clinton liberal, sure. But not moderate.
I think the problem here is that moderate may have a lot of different meanings to many different people.
At the end of the day, the largest divide in America is still over size of government, so I think it still makes sense to judge liberal vs conservative on that metric.
I would disagree. The largest divide in America is between hierarchy and equality, authoritarianism versus democracy.
Wisconsin is like a gigantic farming state man. It has two cities over 100k population, that's it. Anyways, as mentioned below I meant more 'purple'. I'd still put it as a more rural than not state, but I guess there it wouldn't be the Internet if someone couldn't be extremely pedantic about something.
Anyways, you have won the Internet Medal of Honor for pedantry today, and I will amend my list of moderate incumbent Dem Senators (frequently from rural states) who lost re-election in the 2010s to Claire McCaskill, Heidi Heitkamp, Mary Landrieu, Kay Hagan, Joe Donnelly, and Blanche Lincoln. Happy?
"It has two cities over 100k population, that's it."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_municipalities_in_Wisconsin_by_population
Encouraging the funding of actual research into DEI practice is a really cool idea! Going to work on that.
I thought about this more last night, I have more unsolicited advice, to take or leave.
The biggest problem with DEI these days in my opinion is that it’s backed itself into a corner with only two perceived paths forward: train everyone to see these issues in exactly the same way (not diverse or inclusive at all!) and explicitly use peoples race and gender as a factor in hiring and promotions (sure to piss a lot of people off and arguably against civil rights laws). But there is a way out of this trap.
0. Define the problem. Vague feelings that “we need to do more” are not a real problem. Demand data transparency. Does the organization want to increase the % of roles filled by women and minorities? Increase the representation at executive levels to match what you have at entry levels? Do a pay equity audit? Get specific.
1. Convince people to focus on systems, not individuals. Instead of assuming the problem is everyone’s biases and you can train these away, assume the problem is whatever system allows peoples biases to have major ripple effects.
2. Recruiting, hiring, retaining, promoting. These are the major steps that influence the makeup of your organization. What are the formal and informal processes around each of these steps? Where can bias creep in? Do you use employees to recruit at their alma maters? That will perpetuate past biases. Are you recruiting at HBCUs? Are you opening up entry level positions to a wider range of degrees or even people without college degrees? Does your company use a structured interviewing approach for both external hiring and internal promotions? The book “Noise” describes this well.
3. Do internal studies using your own data. Interview people who are resigning to find out why. Crunch the numbers without assumptions. Encourage people to read “Scout Mindset” or something like it.
4. If people really want to bring in outside DEI trainers, check out Moral Courage, Theory of Enchantment, or even Braver Angels (they have a great “Depolarizing Conversations on Race” course) to get a more diverse perspectives on the topic
But never forget that focusing only on training is a trap. You will forever feel like you’re banging your head against a wall, pissing off skeptics who resent the implication they are the problem and pissing off true believers who are aghast at the skeptics’ pushback. Focus on systems, not individuals. In the words of Kendi himself, “there’s nothing wrong with the people!”
I’ve been on a lot of DEI teams at my (big) company over the years… at this point in the game, the way I find I can have the most influence in a positive direction is to just be the person who speaks up about other ways of looking at this stuff, and prevent the true believers into group-thinking themselves into deciding mandatory white privilege training or some such is a good idea. Usually if I can twist the concept so that it goes both ways, like unconscious bias or the latest, “psychological safety,” it ends up being a check on how crazy you can get. (“Is it a micro-aggression to say someone is further behind on their inclusion journey?”).
Funding research does sound cool, hope you can make it happen! My company is so cheap they don’t even pay outside consultants for DEI stuff, it’s all volunteers and semi-volunteers like yourself (and me) :)
I would bundle a noahpinion with Yglesias today. And I'd mess up your pronunciation for free.
I really like that last idea. Substack bundling.
I too loved the hilarious and unexpected twist on the aftermath of a Gore victory. But real-talk: the GOP and rightwing blogosphere, already littered with fascists like Ann "Someone Should Blow Up the New York Times Building" Coulter, would have shamelessly exploited 9/11 for short-term political advantage. Gore would have been blamed for the security failures by almost the entire conservative establishment.
The leaders of the engineered GOP legislative majorities in Wisconsin are trying in a couple of ways to make executive branch appointees more like parliamentary ministers accountable to them. One way is by simply not having Democrats appointed: there's a court case now about whether (Republican) appointees to state boards (think university regents or natural resource board members) have to leave if their (Democratic) successors are never confirmed by the state Senate. Another is never confirming the secretaries who run state agencies. The Senate can remove acting secretaries at any time by majority vote and did exactly when the Secretary of Agriculture criticized the legislature for not releasing funds to combat farmer suicides. The prospect of losing their jobs at any moment has to make the secretaries more cautious. Of course, none of this will apply the next time a Republican is governor. #welcometohungary
On the anti-bigness, I worry about countervailing power and the ability of large corporations to have essential powers due to their size: "quantity has a quality all its own."