The takesabout this election, hot and otherwise, are already coming fast and furious and I expect they will continue with tedious regularity for some time to come. I’m guilty of it myself jabbering away on podcasts and radio shows yesterday on no sleep and too much adrenaline. I’ll share some of those thoughts here as I get my head straight over the next little while. But I have been reading a lot of instant reaction pieces and I must say that more than anything I persuaded by the anti-incumbency analysis which I posted about yesterday. Here’s another argument laying that out from Derek Thompson in the Atlantic: A better, more comprehensive way to explain the outcome is to conceptualize 2024 as the second pandemic election. Trump’s victory is a reverberation of trends set in motion in 2020. In politics, as in nature, the largest tsunami generated by an earthquake is often not the first wave but the next one. The pandemic was a health emergency, followed by an economic emergency. Both trends were global. But only the former was widely seen as international and directly caused by the pandemic.
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Institutional ramparts and simple joys It remains to be seen whether or not reports of this country’s demise are greatly exaggerated. On the demise side, a majority of Americans on Tuesday chose to end this nation’s 250-year experiment in self-government. Not that they know it yet. This week, argues Brian Beutler, they handed “unchecked power to a narcissistic criminal demagogue because the price of bacon increased.” They may also, in fact, have surrendered their sovereignty without firing a shot. (What will the more militant do with the guns and ammo they’ve stocked for the coming civil war about which they’ve fantasized?) On the greatly exaggerated side are people like Beutler in England, who, being shielded from Trumpism by the Atlantic Ocean, have perspective lacked by those of us staring down its barrel.
Harris could have focused on how U.S. foreign policy pushes immigrants to leave their homes. Instead, she ran on border security.
The post Harris Ran to Trump’s Right on Immigration — and Gained Absolutely Nothing For It appeared first on The Intercept.
As the dust settles over election day, it’s worth reflecting that it’s not only the election results that have been at stake, but the future of the presidency and its powers. Over the course of the first quarter of this century, the American presidency has accumulated ever more power, rendering the office increasingly less constrained by either Congress or the courts. With Donald Trump’s reelection, the slide toward a dangerously empowered president has reached a moment of reckoning, particularly when it comes to foreign affairs and warfare. Presidential Powers Throughout American history, presidents have repeatedly sought to increase their powers, nowhere more so than in the context of war. As historian James Patterson has pointed out, “War and the threat... Read more
On “It’s not who we are” Americans believe their own bullshit. A large faction, for example, believes the United States was founded under divine guidance as a nation of, by, and for Christians. Never mind that Christians built the country by ethnically cleansing indigenous populations and built its economy on the backs of enslaved Africans. We carry around pocket copies of the U.S. Constitution, wave our flags, brand ourselves Team Freedom, think reality TV is unscripted, and pretend professional wrestling is real. We’re simplistic and jingoistic like “great again.” It’s not just a right-wing behavior. “We are the United States of America,” President Biden ends many speeches, so many that you know the rest. After particularly ugly episodes, politicians reflexively declare, this is “not who we are.” Biden’s closing always struck me as quaint, a little hoary, but sincere and well-meaning. “It’s not who we are” grates, another lie we tell ourselves while whistling past the graveyard the way Biden ceremoniously crosses himself with a grin. On Tuesday, America proved the lie.
Once again, Donald Trump has won the American presidency. In the autopsy, pundits will cite broad factors of the electoral environment like inflation, immigration, distrust of liberal institutions, the right-wing echo chamber of alternative media, and backlash to the Biden foreign policy doctrine to explain the victory.
However, this discounts a simpler explanation: Donald Trump is a generationally savvy electoral juggernaut who made every possible correct decision in his campaign, earning his win by perfectly calibrating his strategy and demonstrating exemplary policy acumen.
An all-seeing strategist and leader on the order of Sun Tzu or Caesar, Trump has left his opponents only to cower at his towering intellect—and, perhaps, if they are lucky, attempt to divine a lesson or two from his glorious example. They include:
Bring up Hannibal Lecter as much as possible.
Dude, that movie is awesome.
Make shit up.
Did you see that they’re eating dogs and assassinating squirrels?
The post Doctor Who Magazine 610 appeared first on Doctor Who Magazine.
Disinhibition will be the order of the day in Donald Trump’s America.
The post The Second Coming appeared first on The New York Review of Books.
The rise of online sleuthing is leading to the 'gamification' of our lives at the expense of often deeply vulnerable people
21st of October 2024 I am so happy to have been asked to contribute to this round table in honour of David. We were close friends for over fifty years. All who knew him well could sense the extraordinary unity between his life and work. His life bore testimony to his ideals. There were no … Continue reading In Memory of David P. Calleo – Bologna Conference
What we’ve already uncovered about the next Trump administration.
- by Aeon Video
- by Ana Todorović
- by Alex Hochuli
Rachael Reeves' budget was disappointing. Not for its content, but the way it was communicated
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So from January 20, 2025, Donald Trump will inherit the on-going genocide that the US government has been party to in the Middle East. He will then have no cover and will be judged accordingly. What follows are a few thoughts that I had when I watched the unfolding disaster for the Democrats and the…
British nonprofits set to flee the platform after Elon Musk’s campaign for Donald Trump pays off
Over ninety-nine percent of economists did not predict the 2008 financial crisis.
The vast majority of economists were pro-globalization, by which I mean pro offshoring and outsourcing. They said it would be good for America, they were wrong.
China is predicted to wind up with over 50% of the world’s industry by 2030. Forget all the bullshit about great power competition. It’s over. There may be a war, but if there is one the West will either lose or the world will be destroyed in a nuclear exchange.
Back in the 90s an economist called Brockway liked to say “Economists are bad for your health.”