What mailbag used to be

Conspiracy theories, bad vibes, and my theory of economic policy persuasion

Kevin McCarthy is going to retire, but Slow Boring’s work continues. I really want to once again thank everyone who chipped in for our GiveDirectly fundraiser, as well as Judd and Jill who shared the fundraiser with their readers. We’ll have a final total for you in a few days, but thanks to your generosity, we ended up smashing our first goal and both of our stretch goals. Hoping to rope more Substackers into this next year and raise even more!

In other good news, redwoods are making a comeback. Lead water pipes are getting replaced. Productivity surged last quarter, and job openings continued to normalize even while hires stayed steady — that’s soft landing territory. This year, the “dead zone” in the Chesapeake Bay shrunk to its smallest size on record. New methane regulations represent a sensible, measured approach to climate pollution. Meanwhile, oil keeps getting cheaper, even as OPEC tries to cut production — a win-win for the United States. On the climate front, Lithos has an ambitious new carbon capture program that relies on enhanced rock weathering, but they use the dust for agriculture rather than as beach sand.

On to some questions.

Ryan B: I’ve just settled into my seat at the art house theater. Tonight premieres The Matthew Yglesias Story: No Subtitle Necessary.”

I pick a sliver of un-popped corn from my molar and wonder: what song will play over the montage scene?

It depends what’s happening in the montage! But I think “What New York Used To Be” by the Kills could be a very strong choice.

Or if you want to cover my time living in a basement apartment in DC, you could go very literal with “Basement: DC” by the French Kicks.

Evan Bear: A few years ago when people successfully got The Atlantic to un-hire Kevin Williamson, I believe you were, if not supportive of that effort, at least anti-anti- on the grounds that no one's entitled to a perch at The Atlantic, that being denied one is not persecution, and that Williamson has in fact held some very bad opinions. Would you feel differently about the Williamson controversy if it had happened today? Williamson has written the strongest anti-Trump stuff I'm aware of from an unimpeachably conservative perspective, and I can't think of anyone else who's capable of replicating that. Based on the logic of your Hanania piece from a while back, it might be valuable to society if Williamson's writing had a wider audience. (I get that the two situations are distinguishable since people were trying to get Hanania off the entire internet, not just removed from a perch at a big magazine, but I also think it's hard to dispute that Hanania is worse than Williamson.)

Rather than revisit the specifics of the Williamson case, let me outline two views of mine that a lot of people see as in tension with each other, but that I see as complementary.