Big City Blues

 Hitler famously lit the German Reichstag on fire to create an emergency to seize control of the government, despite not having a majority in the German parliament. There is some thought that he's using the carjacking of Big Balls in DC to create martial law there. As both Richardson and Krugman point out, Washington DC is near a 30 year low in crime. 

Today, most of my family and I drove through western South and North Dakota. It's beautiful. No, really, gorgeous. It's also incredibly barren of people. We drove for two hours or more where I don't think one person could see their neighbors houses. These were mostly ranches. After a while, we got into grain country and eventually, it got so that houses had sightlines to each other. Still, when we got to Dickinson, ND (population 25.695) the place felt really crowded. The town we come from in CT is roughly the same size and is completely unremarkable in any way, shape or form. Dickinson is the anchor town for roughly 50-100 miles in every direction.

So, Dickinson - population: not that many - felt bustling. No wonder the few residents who may have gone to Chicago or (gasp) NY think of it as anarchic. If you live in rural America, the big cities are noisy, crowded, smelly and aggressive. That means that when Faux News starts talking about the crime there and Trump wails about American Carnage, those attacks make a certain amount of sense to fearful people who just can't grok a big city.

The other thing that crops up is how these idiots constantly show a precinct or county map of the election that is saturated in red, because the Big Empty is GOP country and the Big Cities are Democratic. For all the apparent anarchy of these big cities, they work. Really well! They are the centers of America's wealth, enterprise and innovation. Big Cities are what makes America Great!

For all the nonsense about Democrats needing to reach "real Muricans" and other Trump voters, there is simply no way to reach these deep rural voters. They live on a different planet. Your best bet is that they just quit the political system out of frustration when Trump invariably craters the economy and kills their farm subsidies by accident.

The Destiny of Autocrats

 Krugman talks about the incompetence of Stephen Moore, Economists to Republicans. He quotes Hannah Arendt about how authoritarians prefer stupid loyalists to competent officials.

Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.

This gibes with the book I'm reading on the Return of Great Powers, with a focus on disastrous decisions like Putin's invasion of Ukraine. But if you're a dictator, you don't have people telling you the truth, so you make error after error. Trump is doing and will do the same.

The reason liberal democracy is the preferred form of government is precisely because it can self-correct, and it is for precisely this reason that I'm really worried about GOP efforts to inoculate themselves from accountability with gerrymandering.

UPDATE: Paul Campos notes Trump's manifest cognitive decline.

What Does It Mean?

 Driving through northeastern Wyoming...WYOMING...we stopped at a McDonalds in the only town for miles. There were three old coots in a booth and one of them was basically going on about how little we know about the would be assassin from Butler, PA. Now, for the record, I think he was just another alienated misfit who would've become a school shooter if Trump never came to town. 

Still, it was interesting to hear folks in the most Republican state in the Union speculating about conspiracies surrounding that event. Conspiracy theories thrive when people lose faith in normal informational channels. Almost certainly, it means nothing. Maybe it was just the one guy holding forth. The enduring stink of the Epstein stuff seems to be lingering. That has to be in part because the conspiratorial mindset that helped usher Trump into power has become unmoored from its original vessel.  

Whatever it takes to bring that orange fucker down.

AI And VC

 There's a long piece in the Times about Uber's problem with sexual assault and sexual misconduct. My wife sent it to me, because I was dismayed at how easily she came to getting comfortable in a Waymo on her last trip to California. To me, Waymo represents a terrifying venue for tech companies like Uber to fire their drivers, many of whom depend on driving for Uber or Lyft. Her point is that there are a lot of cases of Uber drivers engaging in everything from creepy behavior to rape. The Times article points out - and the Uber spokesperson argues - that statistically, the number of these incidents is small, but the absolute number of events is large. That is to say, the percentage of Uber rides that end in sexual misconduct is low, but it still happens a lot. What's more important is that the number really needs to be zero.

However, the argument that Waymo will save women from sexual assault or misconduct seems to miss the problem, which is that Uber has tools to dramatically reduce this problem, and they have often avoided implementing them. One tool is to record every trip, but if they do that, then they are admitting that their drivers are employees, and that has been a bright red line for them. They do not want to be responsible for providing health insurance or other benefits for what they term "independent contractors." 

They also had a plan to allow female riders to select only female drivers, but they shelved that when Trump was elected, in case you want to know where the heads are of major corporations today.

There is the problem of sexual assault, which predates Uber obviously. Then there is the problem of how Uber was run - it was a classic tech bro startup under Travis Kalanick. They wanted to grow, grow, grow, and efforts to preserve passenger safety were downplayed in order to grow the company and prepare for the all-important IPO.

That dynamic in some way, shape or form will be present as Waymo scales up. What's more, it will be present as AI scales up. We may already be seeing it.

Here is a chart of browsing searches for OpenAI. It collapses when school gets out. For all the hype and hoopla about what AI can do, it fundamentally is being used - at best - as a shortcut around the rigors of learning. The idea that AI will be able to cure cancer is appealing (especially since RFK is killing cancer research). The reality is that it's a cheating machine, and it is in the best interests of the people running those companies to insure that no restrictions occur when using their machine until it gets profitable.

The logic of Silicon Valley Venture Capitalism is an aggressive form of capitalism that is dedicated to rapidly scaling up a product, issuing an IPO and then cashing out. You can go from rags to riches pretty damned quick, but eventually you get to enshittification and poor customer experiences.

Waymo will cut corners if it means quick profitability. Not the BIG corners, because they have to show that they are viable. The little corners, the one that causes a problem once every 2000 rides. These are the same incentives that Uber faced, and Waymo is not special.

As for AI, it's painful as an educator and a parent to realize that what we think of as learning, the way we have learned for thousands of years, is going to be altered to suit the venture capitalists who want to leverage AI into billion dollar paydays. They could create safeguards - digital watermarks - that lets a teacher know if a student has used AI to generate their answers, but they won't, because they want to crush their IPO.

AI Utopianism is just rhetoric covering for AI Venture Capitalism.

It's Not The Ease Of The Work

 I haven't linked much to Yglesias recently (in part because I now seem to link almost exclusively to Richardson and Krugman). Today, however, he's so deep on his bullshit that I need to.

His argument is that people have devalued the Humanities because they are too easy. Now, there is absolutely grade inflation, and that grade inflation has hit Humanities harder than other disciplines. But nowhere does he offer a shred of evidence that these courses are easier than they used to be.

As a teacher and the parent of college students, I think the answer is far more about how you perceive your job prospects after you graduate. We have turned post-secondary education into a commodity that you develop in return for better job prospects when you graduate. One reason why STEM majors are more respected is not just that they are hard, but you will find a job after graduating and it will pay well.

If we just look at the Ivies (which is an outlier demographic), over a third of students are majoring in Computer Science, Econometrics or Applied Math. Our "adopted" Ukrainian son is at an Ivy and majoring in Applied Mathematics. He was looking at the Humanities BUT THEY WERE TOO HARD. He's ridiculously intelligent, and his intelligence is wired for math in a way that makes the difficulties of math more appealing to him. Roughly 15% of Ivy leaguers are majoring in History, International Relations or Political Science. Ideally, that number would be around 25%, but if you compare that to the 4% that are English majors, that says something, too.

Lets rack focus back to all US universities. Of all degrees awarded, 19% were in Business, 13% in "health professions", 7% in social science and history, 7% in biological and medical science, 6% in psychology and 6% in engineering. The key numbers there are the top two. The reason almost a third of college graduates are getting Business and Health Professions (not pre-med) degrees is that that is where the money is. These majors are not especially rigorous in the way that Engineering is. That doesn't stop kids from signing up.

At no point in Yglesias' argument does he offer evidence. It's all a priori assumptions.

Typical of a philosophy major.

Young Men

One group that broke for Donald Trump and allowed him to ooze back into the Oval Office was young men, aged 18-29. A lot has been written about Gen Z turning towards Republicans. I think that misses the point. Joe Biden won 18-29 year olds with 60% of their vote; Harris won it with 54% and actually lost men aged 18-29 by a single point. Her erosion among young voters - and I can't find the data, but I think it was mostly with young men - is what cost her the White House and plunged us into the orgy of corruption and incompetence that Trump brings with him like locusts.

This has naturally led to a million think pieces about how Democrats need to reach out to young men and go on Joe Rogan and Theo Von. I think that misses the point.

Author Jason Pargin makes the point that one thing that has young men upset is that we have de-masculinized work in so many ways, and this has an effect on certain groups of young men. Think of it this way: you're 24, you hated school and who were your teachers? Mostly women. You then want to get a good job, ideally doing manly things. Those jobs - construction, manufacturing - are tough to get, but you can get a retail gig. Who's your manger or HR director? Probably a woman, especially in HR. I'm sure there are male HR directors out there, I just haven't come across any.

Your whole life, women have been in significant positions of authority over you, and if you are stuck in a McJob, then you also aren't exactly prime dating material unless you're really charming. 

Resentment builds up, especially against women in positions of authority.

I don't think this is necessarily full-on misogyny. Sure, there are incels out there being venomous towards women, especially online. Overall, though, I think it creates a simmering undercurrent of resentment against women in authority and the way they exercise that authority. 

One thing I hate at work are these broad based emails that seem to suggest that everyone is making this one mistake and we all need to stop doing that. In fact, it's likely a couple of people but rather than deal with them, we get these mass emails. Now, I'm old and I'm less likely to take it personally, but it's still annoying and for young men, it feels oppressive.

Many of them will outgrow this. I did. I was - not quite resentful of women, but hurt by them when I was young. I tried to articulate it, but I was confused. It was just there and I doubt it made me more appealing to them.

I think a lot of young men carry some sort of anger about women controlling their lives until they grow up and realize it's not women doing that, it's just part of having a job or whatever. 

So, Democrats. If you want to win back young men, nominate a man. Unless you think Biden's strength with young voters was because of his youthful charisma, there seems to be a lot of evidence that young male voters just don't want to have a female president. I think they can grow out of it, and I understand not catering to a level of bigotry, but that's my suggestion. I don't like it, but I think it's true.

Great News

 Sherrod Brown is running for the Senate in Ohio. Let's hope Jon Tester joins him in Montana.

If these old war horses can find their way back to the Senate, then you are looking at Maine, North Carolina and possibly Alaska, Iowa and Kansas being the battleground. Yeah, yeah, I know...Texas and Florida.  I'll believe that when I see it. 

Cognitive Dissonance

 Both Richardson and Krugman look at the implications of Trump's firing of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because he didn't like the employment numbers. As many have noted, this is a classic authoritarian move, something straight out of 1984:

The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command... And if all others accepted the lie, which the Party imposed, if all records told the same tale, then the lie passed into history and became truth.

It is among the more remarkable ironies that Trump keeps screaming about "communists" in the Democratic Party, when his tactics most resemble Stalinist leanings. Lots of "conservative intellectuals" talk about a march through the institutions that was first suggested by Mao. Still, as we know, every accusation is a confession.

Ultimately, Orwell's statement has been taken to mean that the lies of an authoritarian regime become truth. I'm not sure how accurate that is. Soviet Russia had a ton of black humor about the difference between official statements and reality. In the end, the Soviet Union relied on extremely coercive controls to maintain their grip on power. This weakened them, to the point where the only way forward was to embrace openness, what Gorbachev called glasnost. Something Khrushchev was pushing in the mid-'60s, which is what led to his "retirement."

These closed systems don't work. They might work for a while if you're a New York builder/socialite who can lie and scam his way from one bankruptcy to the next, but the bankruptcies are the important thing. In the end, Trump's lying came face to face with reality, and reality won.

There are certain things we take as being fundamentally true in American politics. Often they are anecdotes that stand in for more complicated concepts. During the 1992 presidential campaign. George H. W. Bush was startled to discover the scanners used at grocery store checkouts. The guy had been Vice President or President for the previous 12 years. Of course he never did his shopping. Yet this became evidence that he was "out of touch" and was a reason he lost the election.

Maybe that's true? Or maybe there were macroeconomic events and the presence for a strong third party candidate that made Clinton's victory possible. 

Trump seems increasingly "out of touch." No figure, for instance, is keeping Epstein in the news than he is. You can fire all the statisticians and economists you want, but people are still noticing that prices for groceries are going up. People are going to notice when the price of manufactured goods goes up.

Trump, being Trump, is going to be SHOUTING IN ALL CAPS that the economy is the best in the history of the galaxy. If that's not true (and I don't think it will be) then that might even get through to the poorly engaged voter, who doesn't follow the news but does know that stuff is expensive.

Genuinely Scared

 Early on election night, I realized that my optimistic appraisal of the American electorate was badly flawed and that Trump would likely win. I drove out into the woods and screamed in rage and despair into the darkness. I wasn't sure how bad it would be, but I knew that the country had rejected decency and law in favor of a flawed view of the economy of 2019. 

So far, it has been objectively bad, but bad in a way that I think we can recover from. Yes, the Big Ugly Bill is a horror show; yes, people are being hurt; yes, the economy is being skewed even more towards the rich. You can point to dozens of terrible things this administration is doing or planning on doing. 

Yet, those actions can be undone. Bad bills can be replaced with good bills. America and the world will be worse off because Trump was returned to office, but the world is a resilient place and given time and the opportunity, we can return to a better state of affairs.

The gerrymandering plan being forced on Texas is shaking me up.

Abbott has always struck me as a less charismatic version of Trump. He lacks the gonzo appeal Trump apparently has for many, but he has the same anti-democratic impulses. When Trump asked him to redistrict, he rushed to do so. Texas Democrats have fled the state to deny Republicans a quorum, and now Abbott is talking about stripping them of their seats. Is that legal? I don't know, but I doubt that will stop him.

As Krugman notes, this is a sign of Trump's desperation. Republicans in Trumpistan do measurable worse when he's not on the ballot. The House is razor thin anyway, and every seat could matter in 2026. Forcing mid-decade redistricting on Texas, Florida and Ohio is a blatant attempt to short circuit democratic accountability. 

If it succeeds, that's the ball game. Seriously. I don't see how the country hangs together. We either become a dictatorship or the country fractures. Democrats have to win control of at least one house of Congress in order to exercise a check on the Mad King. If they fail to win either the House or Senate, then all the malevolent bullshit will become the new American normal. I doubt very much whether we would have anything approaching free and fair elections in 2028.

Now, there is another possibility. The descent into authoritarianism has - at least nominally - stayed within the bounds of law. So far, we don't have evidence of tampering with the counting of ballots. Putin and Orban didn't skew the counting, they just shaped the elections in ways that insured their victories. Gerrymandering is from that playbook. 

The Supreme Court enabled this with the Rucho decision that forbid Federal courts from overturning partisan gerrymandering. Even in that decision, they agreed that gerrymandering  might be undemocratic, but that they had no power to intervene. The Texas gerrymander almost certainly violates the Voting Rights Act, but does anyone expect the Courts to uphold that law? Roberts has been trying to overturn it since the the 1980s.

Now, as of this writing, California is thinking about changing their laws to gerrymander that state out of Republican hands. Illinois could do the same. New York...well, they are making the proper noises, but the NY Dems always fuck up, and in fact, fucked up a gerrymander attempt in 2021. 

A gerrymander war could preserve the chances of a Democratic House. There is even the chance that Republicans will create a "Dummymander" (a phrase I just heard) whereby they take districts that Trump won by 10 points and make the 5 point Trump districts. In a wave election, Democrats might win those seats. Right now, Republicans have gerrymandered Texas to create their partisan map. Texas' 3rd, 12th, 15th, 21st, 23rd, 24th, 26th, 31st and 38th districts are all already R+11 or closer. Dilute those at all and a backlash election could tilt the map to Democrats - even in Texas.

However, the gerrymander war or even the dummymander would mean that Republicans could reach for more extreme measures to preserve their rule. Krugman's conclusion is scary, but accurate:

And what if these actions aren’t enough? Remember, Trump supporters, with his clear encouragement, already tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

The important point is that right now Trump has immense power, thanks in large part to the cowardice of many of the institutions that should be holding him in check. But he’s also rapidly bleeding support, in large part because he’s completely failing to deliver on his economic promises.

That combination makes this an extremely dangerous moment. And if authoritarianism does come to America, don’t count on it being soft.

They are telling us how little respect they have for democracy. They said it when they refused to vote for impeachment after January 6th. They said it when they renominated Trump. They said when they rolled over for his awful legislation and illegal power grabs. They are saying by launching this gerrymander war. 

If they succeed in gerrymandering Texas, Florida and Ohio even more, and Democrats match them or they dummymander their way out of the majority in a wave election, why should we imagine that Trump and his fascist hangers on will accept that result peacefully?

The Remaining Guardrails

 As Trump's popularity declines, he lashes out more and more. Some of this is the stink coming off the Epstein mess, but the "Wrong Track" polling is also grim. For many center and left analysts, looking at how Trump has "governed" since he regained power, this is hardly a surprise. Tariffs, his budget, his deportations...these are all really unpopular. Also, he's just an asshole.

At the moment there are few guardrails to constrain him, but not none. The Courts have been at least somewhat reluctant to go along with his most egregious acts. The Supreme Court, however, has been less a restraint on him than many of us had hoped, even if we knew that hope was slim.

There are two remaining ways to bring this country back from the brink. When it comes to his tariff policies, it's worth noting that they are blatantly illegal. He simply doesn't have the power to do what he has been doing. What's more, the "agreements" he says he has are not really agreements. Going further, why should any country believe that Trump will honor the "deals" he makes, since he won't honor the existing treaty obligations? The supine Republican Congress won't take their constitutional powers back, so it's left to the Courts.

We haven't seen the Courts rein him in, but - and I concede I may be wishcasting here - these tariffs are not in the interest of American industry, especially the lunatic tariffs on raw materials like aluminum and steel. Yes, the red letter of the law is against Trump and the Supreme Court doesn't care about that, but this may be a case where the pro-plutocrat impulses of the Court overrule their fealty to the Mad King.

More troublesome is the gerrymandering issue. Trump is urging Texas to further gerrymander their state to deprive Democrats of perhaps five seats. California has threatened to retaliate. New York and Illinois are considering their options, while Florida does the same.

Gerrymandering is incredibly corrosive to our politics. Perhaps more corrosive than Trump himself, who will die in the next decade. Gerrymandering makes representatives more extreme, in order to placate their base and avoid a primary challenge. It deprives people of democratic choice in what is supposed to be the People's House. 

At the moment, we are relying on both the restraint of Texas lawmakers - yikes - in the face of retaliation. If they decide to go through with this, then we come back to the courts. I don't have much faith that the Roberts Court will uphold the shattered remains of the Voting Rights Act, but...maybe?

Maybe, again wishcasting, if Texas and other states go through with additional gerrymandering, that will create a backlash that swamps even R+10 districts. We are seeing something like that in special elections. 

Krugman has a long post about tariffs and their impact on GDP and it will actually be minimal (the costs come elsewhere besides GDP). Still, add that to deportations and the chaotic policy whims of the Mad King (like firing the head of BLS) and there are no significant headwinds. Any shock like a crypto crash could tip the country into a bad spiral. If that happens, R+15 districts might not be safe.

Still, the implications of a Supreme Court that refuses to enforce the actual law and constitution and a Republican Party hellbent on depriving voters of actual choice does not bode well for the future of American democracy, which - bruised and battered as it may be - is still clinging to life.

El Caudillo de Mar A Lago

 Surprise! The American economy, which had been the envy of the world last summer, is now seeing some noticeable signs of stagnation. The jobs report yesterday was not only weak, but the revisions downwards were striking. The expectation was 115,000 new jobs, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates it was 73,000. While that's notable, the real news was that - having access to more data - they revised downwards their previous estimates. The May estimate was 144,000 and the new number is 19,000; June was 147,000 and now is 14,000. If that trend holds, the July number should be revised down to negative job growth.

In some ways, the declining job growth is completely to be expected. Yes, tariffs have created a great deal of instability into the economy, so why would an employer expand her workforce when she might be looking at layoffs by the fall? Or if he's having to eat tariffs under the assumption they will be transitory, that means cutting back on wages by not hiring. Additionally, deportations have to depress economic activity, especially in the trades. Again, less aggregate demand. Throw in anecdotes of a decline in tourism and it would make sense that the only sector to see job growth is health care providers. 

Inflation, meanwhile, is a bit on the warm side at 2.7 - 2.9. That's not high, though it also means prices are still rising from the already inflated prices of the post-Covid supply crunch, so it feels like high. Additionally, if you really are seeing around 2.8 inflation during a possible contraction in hiring: well, hello stagflation. 

So, yeah, a bad report. 

More noteworthy than the bad report, though, is that Trump immediately fired the head of BLS for producing the report. 

This is basic Dictator 101 stuff. Any news that reflects badly on Dear Leader is to be suppressed and the best way to suppress it is to fire the experts who produce the bad news and replace them with toadies who will produce shiny, happy news. The problem, obviously, is that modern economies run on accurate news, not good news. On a fundamental level, markets are exchanging information before they are exchanging goods and services. The information moves first, and if Trump destroys some of the accuracy of the information, that will distort markets. 

If - as most economists believe - the softening economy is caused by the uncertainty of Trump's tariffs, adding uncertainty about governmental economic statistics, which were the gold standard, is simply injecting a lot more uncertainty into the markets.

The logic of TACO is that Trump did respond to bad news, like market crashes, and he changed course. If you censor the ability of people to get bad news, he won't course correct. That means any effort to count on him making a better decision in the face of contrary evidence is increasingly doomed.

This is exactly the reason why dictatorships fail. The question for us is the degree to which he drags us all down with him.

No, We Don't Have Any Tariff Deals

 It's the same bullshit every time. Trump launches tariffs, says he's going to force people to make "a deal." Then he announces a deal. It's not a bilateral statement by trade negotiators. It's Trump announcing a "deal" that almost immediately turns out to not be the actual deal. When we have Trump saying that he's ended six wars, it becomes an open question as to whether he's just incapable of not spewing bullshit everywhere or completely divorced from reality. (Cheryl Rofer makes this point, too)

That same cognitive frame applies to tariffs. What does he know or not know? What does he understand or not understand? If we take his words at face value - and I concede that's very problematic, as he is a compulsive liar - then he really does seem to think that other people pay the tariffs. I don't think that's spin, I think he believes that. 

Of course aside from his misguided understanding of trade and tariffs, which appears to be a sort of bone-deep ignorance, there is his basic personality trait of behaving like a mob boss.  Krugman points to his illegal tariffs on Brazil as an example of this.

If we look at Trump's long career in business, we see a guy who often was able to bully small contractors and suppliers by constantly suing and such. He declared bankruptcy to escape from consequences for his mismanagement. If it wasn't for the fucking Apprentice, he would have disappeared from the public eye completely. (I swear, between Mark Burnett and Rupert Murdoch, maybe Trump has a point about immigrants.) 

Trump would have to assume based on his entire career as a bully that being president allow him to be the biggest bully of them all. I mean, if he could coerce people as a marginal real estate developer, why wouldn't he be able to coerce the whole world as president? 

The reality - and we have no idea to what degree he understands reality at this point - is that sovereign nations are, indeed, sovereign. He has presumed he could threaten and bully and coerce countries, but when he couldn't "settle out of court" he just blatantly invents victories. 

Finally, if you were China or the EU or any other country, why should you believe that Trump will abide by the "deals" (more like concepts of a plan) that he says he's struck? He's breaking US law to wage these trade wars, and then he ping pongs crazily from one rate to another. There's zero reason to trust him because he is fundamentally untrustworthy.

UPDATE: It will be interesting if the Courts rescue the economy/capitalists from Trump's tariff insanity, but it will require them to read the clear letter of the law and apply it consistently to the way they have in the past so who knows?

A Fundamental Problem

 It is axiomatic that if you are complaining about the refs, you're in a "loser mindset." However, there are a couple of great examples of just how profoundly the press is failing us at this moment.

Richardson points to the revelations about Project 2025 last summer. When it leaked out, it was very, very unpopular. Democrats spent a week or two talking about it, but Trump denied he knew anything about it. (Which might have been technically true, as he is an idiot.) The press never really, well, pressed Trump on it. They took - at face value - the denials of a serial liar.

Krugman looks at how the media simply accepts certain frames from MAGA that are at factual odds with reality. Things like "other countries pay for tariffs" or "immigrant commit more crimes." Sure, halfway down the page, there will be a clarifying line that states the factual truth, but the headlines and the lede tend to take Trump and his minions at his word.

Finally, Marshall points out a fascinating glimpse into the dysfunction of the Federal government under Trump. On the surface, it's a report about the head of Pandemic Preparedness resigning, but the piece actually notes that no one really knows if that person was the head of Pandemic Preparedness. There are lots of places in the Federal government that are just kind of winging it. Hell, Marco Rubio has four jobs - Secretary of State, National Security Advisor, Head of USAID and Chief Archivist. How is that OK?

Sure, you could make the argument that the press is more focused on the salacious story of Epstein and Trump, but this dynamic goes back a decade. It's not just sanewashing, but it's an issue with Trumpists asserting unreality, Democrats noting the unreality and the media reporting on the argument.

I honestly don't know what the solution is, but I'm pretty sure it's not "Kamala Harris needs to go on Joe Rogan."

Can't Believe I'm Writing About This

 Sydney Sweeney is an American actress who I'm pretty sure I've never seen in anything, yet she is ubiquitous. (I guess she was in Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood, but I don't know who she played.) Anyways, she is in an ad for American Eagle Jeans with the very Dad Pun: "Sydney Sweeney Has Good Genes" as she cavorts in sexually suggestive ways.

Naturally, the internet has lost its damned mind. Because we have actual Nazis in significant positions of authority and eugenics a real part of fascist ideology, people have seized on the underlying ramifications of the ad: Hot Blonde Lady is the preferred genetic outcome. That's not, of course, what the ad says. It may be a preferred aesthetic outcome for some, but if the person in the ad were Ana de Armas or Lupita Nyong'o, would the joke work any less? Maybe there will be subsequent versions with non Aryan looking women, just to tweak the noses of those who are outraged.

But after all, the outrage is the point. Yes, it's the algorithms that force this topic into our faces, but the algorithm only works if we let it. We are steeped in our outrage over every little fucking thing. People see the ad as racist and eugenic. OK, I mean, I guess. Their outrage becomes counter-outrage on Fox and other Right wing spaces. The counter-outrage is used to justify the initial outrage. 

Meanwhile, we are all a little bit dumber, because we've shut off the higher parts of our brain function as we descend deeper into the outraged parts of our brains. 

Genocide

 I have been very reluctant to call Israel's conduct in Gaza "genocide." The reason is that I think that when you broaden the use of a very powerful word, you dilute the impact of it. When some folks started saying that expecting people to be on time was "white supremacy" and racism...suddenly racism isn't real. It's just a thing someone doesn't like.

Anyway, I've felt that the IDF was conducting war crimes and that the long term goal of the Israeli Right was slow motion ethnic cleansing.

I think what we are seeing in Gaza now rises to the level of genocidal intent. Of course, if my theory of language is right, then my and others calling it genocide has lost the punch it might have because people have been throwing that word around at various forms of urban combat. 

Still, we are likely to see more and more countries, including the EU, recognize a Palestinian state. The US veto will prevent full UN recognition, but the conduct of Israel has gotten worse and worse, when it should have been getting better and better. Hamas is crippled, Syria is neutralized, Iran is licking its wounds. Now is the time to "win hearts and minds" and instead we are seeing escalating crimes against humanity.