It was indeed
International Relations prof at U. Illinois. Editor of Arc Digital. Author “Drones and Terrorism.” Politics, national security, and occasional nerdery.
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It was indeed
I’m in the camp that blames this on the internet. It showed people with extremist views they’re not as fringe as they thought, and gave them tools to organize, while getting tons of regular people to believe the most important issue is “something must be done about the people who bother me online.”
You can pick a different word for it if you like, but millions and millions of us lived through society partially shutting down, with a lot of things temporarily closing, due to concerns about a new deadly virus. It happened. We were there.
If a few health professionals say something you don't like, all said it and we should destroy the CDC. If a few students say something you don't like, all higher ed said it and we should end academic freedom. If the president and his party does something, that's one guy spouting off, let it go.
Who is "they"?
Sneaking suspicion that the Sen. Brian Schatz thing is exactly what people who go "Bluesky is too unfriendly, I don't like it there" then spend time on X have in mind.
I see some claims that churches weren't closed during COVID, and that's BS. Blatantly false. Yes they were. The point: 1) Religious service in America is not close to politically uniform 2) All sorts of things were restricted, not partisan coded 3) Public health leaders recommendations were uniform
Faced with uncertainty and life-or-death stakes, public health officials tend to recommend "an abundance of caution," yes. The point here is they recommended that broadly, not in any way targeted based on some sort of partisan identity marker.
Yes. I really think that's it.
All those were closed for a non-zero amount of time. Many states restricted religious services, for example, along with everything else where people gather indoors in close proximity. It wasn't like secular choral practices took place as normal.
The United States has over 14 million health professionals. I don't understand how 1/14000000th of a profession is "the institutions."
As best I can tell, the core of the "COVID measures restricted conservatives while being permissive to liberals" conspiracy theory is "I hated the George Floyd protests." Because the big public health institutions/officials were consistent in recommending against gatherings, even outside. See Fauci:
I vividly remember a healthcare professional asking me how battlefield medics make triage choices and live with themselves after. "Let's just act like there's no public health crisis" was never an option.
Those aren't institutions, they weren't inside, and even though they were outside a lot of the people there were in masks. And even so, when health institutions weighed in, such as Fauci or CDC, they cautioned people against attending protests.
Instead of playing on liars' terms, start from the premise that their BS is BS, and build from there. I'm not claiming I know exactly how to do this, nor that there's one way to do it, but in general, this is the sort of thing I have in mind. At minimum, will get attention and prompt defensiveness.
No, I don't think that'll solve everything. In fact, I think "that won't solve everything" is a very bad, way too common reason to not do something. I think treating obvious lies as lies, and serial bad faith as bad faith, would be better on its own. Waste less time, focus more on the real problem.
I have a language suggestion, which everyone can do, but is primarily for media members who value truth and Democratic politicians: Instead of asking and adjudicating if an obvious lie is false, make the fact that it's false your premise. "Why are you lying?" instead of "some say that's not true."
That's a very good point. Applies to a lot of things. A spontaneous public reaction, with millions of individuals independently reacting in similar fashion, is quite different from an organized political movement with organizations and funding and media promotion and the rest.
What these Schatz posts say to me is that Dem elected officials like him seem incapable of perceiving the right as a *political movement.* The response to Covid mitigation and the Floyd protests was not a spontaneous reaction...it was a right wing backlash organized by a reactionary movement.
I've heard that excuse a lot — from some New York Times and Washington Post writers, for example — and it's warped. "Did you convince many voters?" is a terrible standard for journalists. It's not their job. Many ostensibly neutral reporters/editors conceiving of their job that way is a problem.
The generous interpretation is they've built networks on Twitter, including with blocks and mutes cultivated over years, and are confusing that with the experience of starting on a new social media site. Then, less generously, instead of thinking about the difference, they call themselves victims.
Yes. Though I can usually figure out what the bullshit is supposed to be referring to.
When they said they didn't cover Biden's age and health enough, they meant Biden's specifically, not old presidents in general.
Yes, very similar. The city can't elect Mamdani, because then the crimes that are happening while Adams is mayor might happen.
Goods chance the answer here is the same things that keeps coming up: The grand injustice, the society-shaken grievance, is "I posted on social media and got some negative replies, some of which were kinda harsh, and that made me feel bad."
Right. Good point. If I were in charge of everything, I would've prioritized reopening the schools. But I'm not—and shouldn't be—and it isn't surprising that some privately-owned institutions willingly took on (or willfully ignored) a degree of risk that public institutions did not.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The "liberal coded institution" is take out and delivery? That's... that's nuts. I read your comment as explanation, not advocacy, so this isn't a criticism of you, but isn't "you people are so backwards you don't even have food delivery" exactly the sort of condescending crap that they object to?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (Personally, I thought that was cool. They handled the pandemic better than just about anyone, the TV product without live crowds was interesting, LeBron cemented his legacy with another ring, people got deservedly mad at Rudy Gobert, plus more.)
All disease and civil disorder in 2020, while Donald Trump was president, was Joe Biden and the Democrats' fault. And the economic problems that immediately followed Trump's mismanagement of COVID were entirely someone else's fault. I don't think that makes much sense, but I don't make the rules.
It's mostly "the biggest victim of COVID was me" combined with "I can't get mad at a virus, it doesn't react in a way that gives me emotional satisfaction." Obviously COVID policy wasn't perfect. But to think it was political persecution, and pretend Trump wasn't president then, is really something.
I remember reading that one, and some others making similar arguments. Good at the time, aged well. Unfortunately.
Question: What "liberal-coded institutions" were kept open during COVID while churches—for sake of argument, pretend they're all conservative—were closed? Universities closed, Hollywood shut down production, unions met on Zoom, progressives avoided indoor gatherings. So... which institutions?
Hannah Arendt: If “given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness”
Already bad when people in your country try to get you rounded up and kicked out. A foreigner doing it, and stoking the sentiment, including with bigoted lies at scale, because his wealth and media control enables it, is insane. It’s already caused considerable harm, and appears to be getting worse.
The central bank will be in, uh, Beijbaiburg.
“If they had said the right thing, it wouldn’t have single-handedly fixed the major problem we now face” is a terrible, yet fairly common, excuse for not saying the right thing in advance, before the problem fully hit.
I agree, and have never claimed otherwise.
You may be wondering, is it bad that some leading figures in politics, media, and tech in both the US and UK push the same aggrieved conspiracy theory BS as multiple terrorist manifestos? Yes. Yes it is. Very much so.
The false, explicitly bigoted “great replacement” conspiracy theory has inspired some of the biggest terrorist attacks in recent years, including in Christchurch, New Zealand and El Paso, Texas. Transnational white nationalism—oxymoronic, yes, but nevertheless real—is a top terrorist threat today.
China didn’t take it. America gave it away.
This social media site will not and cannot succeed until everybody pats me on the head and tells me I’m a good boy for all my opinions
Heh. Though this one’s beyond him. He can make America decline, and others relatively stronger as a result. That isn’t going to make them all get along and discover more shared interests.
Sure, whatever you say. Good luck with those joint Russia-China-India-Brazil-South Africa military exercises and defense supply chain integration.
Yes. Though a little less so now that the US had the brilliant idea to pick fights with both at once, and ma y of their neighbors too, pushing them closer together (but not much, given the broader dynamic).
BRICS still isn’t a thing. It was a Goldman Sachs marketing pitch to drum up investment in developing economies, then some people ran with the label because they like the idea of a broad, powerful, anti-US, anti-West, anti-Global North, whatever you want to call it, alliance. But it isn’t one.
The thing about politicians on X is that very few politicians are capable of spending a bunch of time in a particular information environment and regularly interacting with people there without trying to get along with them. Trying to get a majority to like them is kinda their deal.
I used a 5-min segment on CBC News Network to push back directly against 3 separate myths we often hear. I emphasized that: 1) BRICS is nothing more than optics; it's members are not actual allies; 2) Ru maintains its maximalist demands; no progress was made in Alaska; 3) Ru isn't winning the war.
I am unaware of any social media website, image board, or even online comment section where everyone is pleasant and welcoming.
Where on the Internet is welcoming in that sense? What website where people talk about politics and culture and stuff has this broadly welcoming environment where just about everyone feels comfortable right away?
Holy Roman Empire logic. Old Twitter is gone, it’s not coming back, you can’t recreate it elsewhere. The fractured landscape is the indefinite future. That’s out of our control. Individuals watching what they post won’t change it.
Two things: 1) Why are the only options for websites growth that takes over everything or bust? What if users just like spending time there, at least compared to alternatives? 2) “You all must personally post better” is a silly standard that’ll never happen, and oddly doesn’t apply to other sites.
“Polarize this debate to the max” is right. Public health is very important, real life-and-death stakes. Today’s America has one pro-disease party and one anti-disease party. “Don’t politicize high stakes issues where you’re right”—in the name of civility or unity or whatever—is a terrible norm.
No, I wrote about the former CDC Directors speaking as a group, and also mentioned the New York Times election year coverage. I didn’t write “nobody said anything,” nor something remotely equivalent.
The 2028 election posting is ridiculous. Let Democrats have a primary, with people advocating for or against whatever they care about. Binary choice and popular front logic don’t really apply until the general election. No one has to preemptively compromise, and berating them to is absurd.
The “Putin wants peace” crowd, especially the “poor persecuted Russia just has some reasonable security requests” variety, really need to reckon with . Peace-seekers don’t go after the bureaucrats and diplomats.
Good to see a bipartisan group of former CDC Directors raise alarms in the NY Times about RFK Jr. dismantling US public health. And I can’t help but feel frustrated that they didn’t do this last year when public health was on the ballot—nor did NYT frame it that way—when we had a chance to stop it.
Of course not. But rights can lose to power, especially when a powerful government is actively opposed to rights and largely unchecked by law, institutions, or morality.
I don't think this is the Costanza thing. Not exactly. More like "it's not a lie if you are indifferent to true v. false."
I think the US government putting out plans to ethnically cleanse Gaza is really bad. I recognize that some Americans like it, while some others think it isn't a relevant change and makes no difference, but I disagree. I think it's bad, worse than what came before.
This is something I’ve thought about A LOT lately- the kinds of essential reporting that large traditional media has inexplicably stopped doing. For example, why aren’t there more reporters in the streets of DC, describing what it’s like? It’s truly dumbfounding
Wow, look, no crime. The government must've done a great job here.
Many think this goes: 1) Convinced that this is good. 2) Therefore choose to support it. But more often it goes: 1) Chose to support it. 2) Therefore find some way to say that it's good, even if totally made up.
It sucks that stuff she wrote 70+ years ago is so resonant today. It was a lot more pleasant to go "this is insightful about how things worked in some countries in the 20th century."
Hannah Arendt:
No, because in that allegory the frog doesn't get a bunch of signs that it's being boiled, with the boilers giddily proclaiming how hot they're going to make it and how much that's going to hurt.
Oh, absolutely. The fact that it works at such a scale is unsettling. Same thing with the "accuse your enemies of what you're actually doing" move. It's such obvious BS, yet evidently works on a lot of people.
Yes, same sort of thing. They're displaying contempt for the very idea of rule of law, and degrading the institution in the process, along with public confidence in it.
Unpatriotic farmers to sell products on open market? Comrade Trump says no! Great Patriotic Farmers grow glorious harvest, put in silos, watch rot, get taxpayer compensation taken from businesses still allowed to make money. Wonderful future awaits at completion of Five Year Plan.
The lies' laughable implausibility is a feature, not a bug. They're not trying to convince discerning, skeptical, fact-based people. They're trying to give supporters a fantasy that validates their feelings and creates a sort of loyalty test, while flaunting the absurdity in everyone else's faces.
Pritzker out here giving a master class in countering the right wing propaganda machine’s efforts to justify further federal invasions and occupations of American cities: he’s effectively reframing the discussion (beyond debates re: crime rates) to one of rising authoritarianism & federal overreach.
If he's not allowed to violate the Constitution and impose illegal policies, then he won't be able to use the tools he's not using to prevent global conflicts on the global conflicts he's actively making worse.
They're going to Baghdad Bob the economic data until the lies crash into reality the hard way.
Civic education and especially the press in this country aren't great, but the big problem here is that the people acting like the president isn't a public servant tasked with faithfully executing the law, but instead The Country's Boss, includes the GOP majorities in Congress and the Supreme Court.
Most people are more comfortable thinking of big historical evil as hypercompetent supervillains, rather than banal often stupid assholery at scale. The latter can be very damaging though.
Someone who lives in the middle of nowhere with a few other self-important people who keep complaining that no one’s picking up the garbage.
It’s not true that there are no principled conservatives, and every time they appealed to principle it was merely a mask for “it’s bad if you do it, but good when we do it, and we’re eager to do it a lot more.” It’s just that principled conservatives all went NeverTrump, by Jan. 6 at the latest.
To pick one of many possible examples: the Nazis basically went “those world class nuclear physicists are nerdy eggheads and way too Jewy, not like manly Aryans” while Hitler had people researching the occult. The 20th century equivalent of thinking Putin’s military will easily win because pushups.
“I imagined it and told people to do it then it happened.” Yeah… I don’t think that’s an accurate story of business.
Oh right, the theory that we’re dealing with hypercompetent geniuses who will figure out the exact right places to target, and the exact right way to target all of them, then do so with perfect execution. Color me skeptical.
Mussolini didn’t actually make the trains run on time. That’s propaganda. 20th century fascists did “sheer vandalism” and elevated superstitions above science, often in self-harming ways. The competence of fascists is another of their self-aggrandizing myths. It’s just that destroying is easy.
There are far more polling places in America than ICE officers. I’m pretty sure there are decently more in California alone than ICE’s national force.
The modern American reaction to voter intimidation and suppression has been a loud “fuck you,” manifesting in turnout and patience. And the next one’s going to be a doozy. Everyone who says it’s all over is wrong. Whether or not they realize, helping the intimidation. Not easy, but far from over.
The thing about a lot of these never Trump Republicans is that, unlike a lot of institutionalist Dems who think the fever will break and we can all return to comity or whatever, these guys saw the rot up close and know the only appropriate response is to tear them out of government root and branch.
Do they have editorial meetings where they plan out how to pretend Trump has more power than he actually has in an attempt to manifest that into being, or do they just do it by instinct, misleading readers because they’ve fully internalized the idea that distorting reality is how to be “unbiased”?
Oh right, the grand diplomatic achievement of “expressing frustration” that the press rushed to praise. That too.
Pretty much
Putin, Modi, and other leaders gathering in China, looking like serious, respectful diplomacy, is such a contrast to Trump’s fanboying over Putin in Alaska. What an embarrassment. Future historians seeking images to illustrate the end of the American century will have a lot to choose from.
Bouie ends the “real or a show?” debate by explaining that it’s both at once. It’s real, a show, and their vision for the future, one that isn’t in place though possibly could be if it keeps going. Don’t fall for the show and take the reality seriously, resisting the vision. All simultaneously.
We tried parroting Russian propaganda and telling Ukraine to bow down. We tried denigrating European allies and refusing to discuss real security guarantees. We tried rolling out the red carpet for Putin and saying we deserved a Nobel Prize for that. Now we’re “seriously considering stepping back.”
Dr. Demetre Daskalakis resigning from the CDC in protest and blowing the whistle on RFK Jr.'s dismantling of American public health is very serious. But also, Stanley Tucci's agent saw this and got very excited.
I don't disagree. Those are common reactions to that appearance. Yet the appearance doesn't change the question "does this person have the cognitive capacity to handle the job's many responsibilities, or has he experienced too much age-related decline?," which is not only about public appearance.
We will acknowledge the Constitution, but we will not enforce it, because we assume the highest court, the one with the final word on interpreting the Constitution, has determined that the Constitution doesn't apply when it would get in the way of partisan and policy outcomes they'd like to see.
Official reason for letting Trump's tariffs remain in place despite finding them unconstitutional is give him a chance to appeal. Worth noting that courts can issue a stay, blocking action they deem unconstitutional unless a higher court allows it, as one did with Biden's student loan forgiveness.
Court ruling that Trump's tariffs are unconstitutional but he can keep doing them for a while anyway illustrates why the judiciary hasn't upheld rule of law, even though some parts really are been trying to. "Let him keep doing it, even if unconstitutional" is basically the message from SCOTUS.
Modi neither kisses up to Trump like Bolsonaro, nor is admired and envied by Trump like Putin. That means he's not part of Trump/MAGA's conception of "us," no matter his domestic politics. In contrast to, for example, Orban.
Good question. Part of the answer appears to be that Bolsonaro is more buffoonish and obsequiously praises Trump, while Modi is a massive ego with a different domestic audience and doesn't. Plus anti-Lula and race, as you mention. And Elon/Online Right fighting with Brazil. Maybe other things too.
I think the press should devote some effort to what's really going on, rather than merely a shallow look at what everyone can already see. And I can't be the only person who had a grandparent who got quieter as they got older and another grandparent who talked a lot, loudly, as they got dementia.
That elides quite a bit of history. Trust did take a hit during Vietnam and Watergate, but it fluctuated after that for a few decades and then spiked after 9/11. It was Iraq, Katrina, and 2008 that caused it to fall off the cliff.