Month: October 2022

Some people have the mistaken view that there is a rigid hierarchy of universities in this country; if that were so, we would need admissions systems that are purely meritocratic. Most observers, however, recognize that no such hierarchy exists, and that the educational experience is enhanced by creating a diverse student body. Do affirmative action programs in our universities actually accomplish that goal? Or, to reframe the question slightly, does admitting a black student from an affluent family create more diversity than admitting a working-class white student from a rural area?

It is a factual question about which I am ambivalent. On the one hand, I suspect that virtually all black students have had experiences that set them apart from the white world; on the other hand, it may be that a relatively privileged black student identifies more with his white peers than with less affluent blacks. I will leave that question to those who have experience dealing with it.

Which leads us to the second question: why should the Supreme Court have the right to overturn the decisions of elected officials and private parties as to the continuing necessity of affirmative action? What special knowledge does John Roberts have to make that call?

None whatsoever. It’s about ideology, not facts.

The really meaningful question is, what happens next? Trump will be watching with great interest.

Given Musk’s new vision for it, he really should change the name to Sewer.

Elon Musk, a self-styled free speech absolutist, took control of Twitter a few days ago. In a completely related development, Nancy Pelosi’s husband was beaten with a hammer by a deranged right-wing intruder on Friday. What do these developments have in common?

If Musk goes ahead with his plan to turn Twitter into a reactionary sewer, episodes like this one will happen more frequently. He won’t just have to deal with fleeing advertisers; he’ll have blood on his hands.

Is Musk so rich and arrogant that he can blow that off? We’ll see.

Brazil isn’t America, of course; it is important in its own right, and it has its own unique institutions. But if Bolsonaro manages to cling to power through the use of armed gangs, do you think Trump won’t notice?

A coup of any sort in Brazil will make one in America that much more likely. Keep your eyes on Bolsonaro for the next several days.

The GOP House majority will be desperate to cut spending in order to rebuke Biden and send a message to the public about big government and inflation. With entitlements off the table, and plans to increase spending on border controls and defense, what’s left?

Here is my guess:

1. Clean energy subsidies: You can take that one to the bank. Real Americans love fossil fuels.
2. IRS agents: This cut will actually increase the deficit, but the GOP cares far more about the ”freedom” to cheat the IRS than about deficits.
3. Obamacare subsidies: They are at risk as long as GOP voters view them as a form of welfare, even if the shell of the program appears to be safe for now.
4. Money for Ukraine: McCarthy will do what it takes to keep his extremists happy.

It’s not a very impressive list, but it’s not a very impressive party.

Obamacare is the dog that hasn’t barked during this campaign. I haven’t seen a single commercial about it. The midterms are all about crime, abortion, and inflation.

I assume that means the GOP has finally learned that talking about taking health care away from middle-class people is not a winning issue. But the base has always viewed Obamacare as a welfare program for poor minorities, not an entitlement program for white Christians. Has that changed, or will we see Obamacare at the top of the list for cuts when the GOP takes control of the House?

I’m guessing health care cuts will be very much on the table, but we’ll see.

If you watch TV even casually, you will have noticed that a concerted effort to portray gays and minorities in a more favorable light has been made over the last few years, most notably since the George Floyd episode. This is all to the good, and works with most people. Elderly white people, however, grew up with a vision of black people as being lazy parasites at best; more likely, they were violent criminals coming for you and your property. These attitudes cannot be changed by a few commercials, and are political dynamite.

So when you see an avalanche of GOP commercials about crime, even in areas that are extremely safe, remember what the message really is: only the Republicans can keep these people—animals, actually—under control.

CLs hate Social Security and Medicare because they’re big government programs that infringe upon the freedom of the elderly to be sick and destitute. PBPs at best view entitlement programs as a necessary evil, because they are funded by taxes. As a result, there will always be some support for entitlement cuts within the GOP.

Reactionaries, however, view SS and Medicare as a lifeline for elderly white Christian voters—their kind of people. And so, as long as the Reactionaries remain in charge, talk about entitlement cuts will be just idle chatter.

Of course, the possibility exists that entitlement cuts could be used as leverage to cut spending for poor minorities. That, in the eyes of Reactionaries, would be a win-win.

The first one was the ”shining city on the hill” for religious dissenters. Next, it was the creation of an independent republic. This was followed by manifest destiny, and the growth of America as a world economic power. Then, America sought to make the world safe for democracy. It saved the world from fascism and communism, went to the moon, and tried to build a genuine multi-racial democracy. Finally, it attempted to use force to bring the blessings of democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan. That didn’t turn out too well.

The worldwide democracy project having failed with a thud, what project can we pursue that would unite the country, overcome our current divisions, and do everyone some good? The logical candidates are the decarbonization of our economy, the creation of the long-promised perfect union, and successful opposition to China’s ambitions to upset the current world order. The problem is that the right objects to the first two, and even a struggle with China will damage the interests of consumers and some businesses. As a result, it is not clear that any such unifying project can be found.

As I anticipated, Florida has bent the rules significantly to facilitate voting in the hurricane-damaged areas of the state. You don’t even have to vote in your own precinct! These measures were absolutely necessary, and I commend the state for agreeing to them. But, of course, they are the product of a double standard. They prove that, for the GOP, “fraud” only occurs in large cities, which by definition are filled with minorities and Democrats–usually the same people. Areas dominated by right-leaning white Christians, by definition, are not susceptible to “fraud,” so the usual rules are unnecessary.

If a hurricane ever hits the blue areas of Florida right before an election, don’t expect the same official response. It will be all about “fraud,” not democracy.

Five years ago, I did a post in which I mused about the impacts of a hypothetical Mitt Romney victory over Obama in 2012. There would have been some short-term pain, to be sure, but that had to be balanced against having Romney as president instead of Trump between 2017 and 2020. At the time, it was a fairly close question for me. What about today?

Today, there can be no doubt; the nation would have been far better off with Romney as president through 2020. The GOP would have remained sane. The reactionaries would have been under control. There would have been no January 6, no threats of authoritarian rule, and no columns about the imminent death of liberal democracy in America.

You would take that in a minute, wouldn’t you?

Like most authoritarians, Putin offered a deal to the Russian people: reasonably strong, competent, stable government in exchange for the right to rule arbitrarily. After the chaos of the Yeltsin years, you could make a plausible argument that the Russian people got a decent bargain for about a decade. The economy improved; there were no huge international crises; and the forms of liberal democracy, if not the substance, remained in place. If that was due mostly to an increase in the price of oil, for which Putin deserved little credit, so what?

But what about now? The economy has stalled since the Crimean invasion. Worse, Putin has engaged in a vanity project war that threatens the lives of Russians and hurts their pocketbooks without offering anything to them in return. Tens of thousands of Russian soldiers are dead, for no good reason other than Putin’s desire to recreate the Russian Empire. All forms of dissent have been crushed. The country is now a pure dictatorship, operated and controlled by force–not consent.

It’s time to renegotiate, don’t you think?

I was eager to read the NYT Monday morning, because I figured that Bret Stephens would tell me if the GOP had learned anything from the Truss debacle. He did not disappoint. Stephens takes the position that the Truss tax cut program was correct; its failure was due to a lack of nerve and the inertia created by more than a decade of Tory big government rule.

Really? The Cameron/Osborne years can be described as a big government era? What planet does Stephens live on?

If Stephens still thinks tax cuts for the wealthy are a great idea in a time of yawning deficits, increased inequality, and rampant inflation, chances are that the rest of the GOP agrees, regardless of what the markets say.

Biden apparently called disregarding the debt ceiling “irresponsible” and said he wouldn’t cut entitlements as part of a quid pro quo, which of course suggests that other kinds of cuts could be on the table. Was this wise?

You can take it for granted that a GOP-controlled House, effectively run by the “burn it down” caucus, is going to make extreme demands and won’t back down. That will give Biden the following choices:

1. Give in to the blackmail, thus repudiating his presidency, demoralizing his supporters, and encouraging more ransom demands in the future;
2. Refuse to give in, but accept the validity of the debt ceiling, thereby causing chaos and widespread misery; or
3. Use the Fourteenth Amendment or the platinum coin gambit to continue to pay the bills, and dare the GOP to sue him.

One can hope that Biden is simply posturing for electoral purposes at this point, but this comment is going to come back and haunt him if he chooses #3 at crunch time. The other two alternatives are too awful to contemplate.