@Jonathanglick Would it be better to have a more regulated “big media”, like we de facto did during the pre-cable, network television era, such that some nonpartisan definition of meritorious would translate to coverage?
(Putting aside questions of whether / how such a regime could survive Constitutional challenge.)
I think an understated change in US politics is how completely Trump won the war over process and civility. Maybe “won the war” isn’t the right characterization, maybe defected and so pushed us all towards a defect/defect equilibrium rather then cooperate/cooperate in a stag-hunt style game. 1/
Democratic partisans, when pushed for policy specifics or unscripted, skeptical interviews call the press self-interested and untrustworthy.
It’s more polite than dismissing traditional press as “fake news”, but its implications are similar.
(Editing not to steal @marick’s footnoting style after all, when only one item is linked in this bit of the thread!) 2/
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/08/it-is-good-for-candidates-to-try-to-win-the-election
@marick The “when they go low we go high” rhetoric is just gone. Instead of clutching pearls when the other campaign insults, Democrats are reveling in being mean, even a bit dishonestly mean (cf Vance and the couch) to people who thoroughly deserve it. It feels liberatory to stop apologizing, to even go for mean. 3/
https://itself.blog/2024/08/12/weird-conservatives-and-the-end-of-whiny-self-righteousness/
@marick I have no view as to whether this is good or bad. I tend to be a bit of a pearl-clutcher myself, but that might just speak poorly of me. But I do think it interesting, it’s quite a vibe shift, and I think it’s fair to say that we’ve reset our norms (or our normlessness) around practices of Trump and his partisans that once we criticized. 4/
@marick I’m not accusing anyone of hypocrisy!
In a fight, I’d criticize you if you reached for a knife, but once you had one in your hand and were lunging with it at me, I’d pick one up too! /fin
Perhaps the “Great Awokening” is ending after all, just not in the way anti-woke reactionaries like #RonDeSantis and #ChrisRufo had hoped.
It has not, historically, been right-wing traditionalists who have owned a “mind your own damned business” ethos. Au contraire. It looks like the not-right-wing-traditionalists are taking it back now.
Maybe we're also taking back incautious expression, telling it like we see it, chips fall where they may.
See e.g. #AdamKotso https://itself.blog/2024/08/12/weird-conservatives-and-the-end-of-whiny-self-righteousness/
[new draft post] China as a model https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2024/08/13/china-as-a-model/index.html
There’s a genre of public affairs writing I call “Taking out the trash.” It becomes necessary when prominent, respected people say, as they very often do, tendentious and ill-considered stuff. Suddenly there’s garbage that might rot in the ears of people in power. A taking-out-the-trash piece debunks it.
It’s thankless work. Countering bullshit-in-a-fancy-suit is no one's idea of a good time. But it’s God’s work.
#MaxMoran and #HenryBurke respond to #MattYglesias https://prospect.org/power/2024-08-13-what-we-talk-about-revolving-door/
“Late cycle financial innovation: Are private credit funds the new MBS CDOs?” by @csissoko https://syntheticassets.wordpress.com/2024/08/13/late-cycle-financial-innovation-are-private-credit-funds-the-new-mbs-cdos/
// This is a challenging piece, but the basic idea is that private equity funds are foreseeably at risk, like housing was in the mid aughts. That inspired “innovations” to sell off future losses to less sophisticated bagholders. @csissoko considers techniques PE fund managers might use to pass off or share future losses with other parties.
Great UAW ad. via @Green_Footballs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ubJFPJgL3Y&t=114s
dickishness is contagious, so it’s hard not to be a dick.
“When Boeing and McDonnell Douglas sought to merge in 1996, the Clinton White House pushed for the approval of what was a clearly anti-competitive merger apparently based on the belief that the United States needed a company large enough to compete effectively with Europe’s Airbus. At the risk of stating the obvious, Boeing has not benefited from those indulgences.” #TimWu https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/13/opinion/google-antitrust-remedy.html
feels like The New York Times is dog-whistling to replacement theorists with this subhead.
Screenshot of New York Times app. Headline: Immigrants Are Becoming U.S. Citizens at Fastest Clip in Years Subhead: The government has reduced a backlog of applications that built up during the Trump administration. New citizens say they are looking forward to voting.
@otfrom @davidho @Brad_Rosenheim
@Netux in this case yes, hypothetically, but it doesn’t scale for the President to adjudicate even intragovernmental disputes. and most disputes won’t be intragovernmental.
Solicitations of political cash by e-mail and text are a pox. What I wouldn’t give for a campaign that got in touch to meaningfully communicate with me rather than to milk me.
It begins.
(The Supreme Court’s sabotage of the regulatory state begins to take effect.)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/12/air-force-epa-water-pfas-tucson
#HaroldMeyerson on #JonathanChait https://prospect.org/politics/2024-08-12-why-joe-biden-moved-center-economic-progressivism/ ht @ddayen
Text: Chait doesn't trouble himself to say which of the actions that these lefties are promoting amount to bad policy and are politically damaging to boot. The push to regulate cryptocurrencies? The lawsuits to break up the monopolies that stifle competition? The move to enable the 20 percent of American workers who are bound by noncompete agreements that keep them from seeking different jobs? The efforts to enable workers to join unions without fear of being fired? The enforcement of trade laws preventing sham Mexican unions? The ruling that companies that break U.S. labor laws during union elections must then recognize the union? None of this, and in fact no action outside of legislation-which Congress drives as much as the president-is mentioned at all. Without getting into, or even near, specifics, Chait sees unnamed, undiscussed Biden officials' tenures as something to be repudiated.
I find myself reminded of this old, excellent blog post by #DaniRodrik, “Why do economists disagree?” https://rodrik.typepad.com/dani_rodriks_weblog/2007/08/why-do-economis.html
finally giving obsidian a try (on @llimllib’s recommendation, others too i think i’m sorry if i’ve omitted you) and am kind of loving it so far. @obsidian https://obsidian.md/
Is Barack Obama a divisive figure within the Democratic coalition?
