Quick hits (part I)
December 5, 2020 Leave a comment
1) Good stuff, “How to Protect America From the Next Donald Trump: The Constitution is supposed to protect us from demagogues. Can we make it work again?”
2) Better stuff, “America Survived: Trump failed to destroy democracy. But he exposed flaws that demand attention.”
To a sizable chunk of the GOP electorate in 2016, pushing the American political system to the point of collapse was the point. As Steve Bannon said before the election, while still leading Breitbart: “We call ourselves the Fight Club. You don’t come to us for warm and fuzzy.” In that spirit, the burn-it-down Trump administration went to work, with attempts to mobilize the Department of Justice as an army of personal henchmen that would settle scores and protect the president from legal scrutiny; with social media as a bully pulpit where truth was bent at will; and with a thousand transgressions against the norms of governance and decency. Theirs was an affront not just to liberal policies but to the republican idea itself. As Walt Whitman wrote in the 1860s, “America, if eligible at all to downfall and ruin, is eligible within herself, not without.”
American history is characterized by a failure to truly democratize the nation’s democratic promise. Many of the structural flaws cannot be legislated out of existence with the stroke of a pen. High polarization and rising levels of inequality will remain detrimental to political discourse regardless of who controls Congress and the White House. Other flaws are so intertwined with the two-party system—gerrymandering, the politicized Supreme Court, the increasing divergence between the popular vote and the Electoral College—that reforms appear unlikely. And some flaws would require a shift within each party. For Democrats, this means abandoning the misplaced faith in “demographic destiny”—the idea that nonwhite voters, as they increase as a proportion of the American electorate, will remain guaranteed supporters of the Democratic Party. For Republicans, it requires disavowing Trumpism.
All of this illustrates another value of stress tests: to identify long-term liabilities that may be difficult to resolve, but can be planned around. This is already underway. For example, laws that remove barriers to voting have been relatively successful in recent years. Voter suppression today is more visible and less socially acceptable than in the past, but not necessarily worse. In Georgia, an automatic voter-registration law has significantly enlarged the electorate. The state demonstrates that democracy does not have to be perfect in principle to be resilient in practice. Sometimes, “slightly better than before” is all we can hope for—but also all we need.
3) Noah Smith on “defunding” the police:
But while the two-decade police riot in America needs to be put down somehow, abolishing the police is not the way to go about it. The reason is that police serve essential functions in society — deterring crime and preserving public order. If we abolished the police, someone else would start performing those functions. And it would probably not be someone we liked…
More generally, every complex society on the planet has some form of cops. Japan has cops. India has cops. Ghana has cops. Venezuela has the Policía Nacional Bolivariana (PNB)…
Cities and states all across the country are enacting police reforms. Many of these are deeper and more substantial than the reforms suggested after BLM protests in 2014-15. They involve things like civilian oversight boards, restrictions on the use of force, stricter hiring and disciplinary procedures, and, yes, some diversion of police budgets to other, more peaceful uses.
To me, though, the most interesting reforms involve changing what functions the police are expected to perform in society. Many of the reforms involve taking cops out of schools. In Berkeley, cops will no longer handle traffic enforcement (an idea partly credited to the excellent activist Darrell Owens). San Francisco is taking police off of 911 calls involving mental health and drug addiction, and replacing them with unarmed responders.
To me, this seems like exactly the right thing to do. Time will tell, of course. But there seems to be no reason why armed police should be the people to issue traffic tickets or help calm down a mentally ill person. And cops in schools are just dystopian. By removing these functions from police departments, we reduce the chance for violent escalation, and thus remove opportunities for police violence. And hopefully police departments, chastened by this reduction in their duties, will work harder to crack down on brutality.
This is real police defunding, since the money that would pay police to perform these functions will now go to pay unarmed responders. It’s not police abolition (sorry anarchist friends!), but it is a partial de-policing of our society. Hopefully these programs will succeed and be emulated throughout the country. Joe Biden already thinks they’re a good idea.
4) Enjoyed Coleman Hughes‘ takedown of “White Fragility”
The second unstated assumption in White Fragility—and this is where the book borders on actual racism—is that black people are emotionally immature and essentially child-like. Blacks, as portrayed in DiAngelo’s writing, can neither be expected to show maturity during disagreement nor to exercise emotional self-control of any kind. The hidden premise of the book is that blacks, not whites, are too fragile.
Some will say that I’m reading DiAngelo too uncharitably—but how else can one make sense of her guidelines for whites? During her CRT training sessions, for example, DiAngelo asks whites to refrain from crying around blacks. Why? Because historically, white tears have often accompanied false rape accusations that led to lynchings. Thus, for black people, she explains, white tears “trigger the terrorism of this history.”
Holding back tears to spare others’ emotions is not something that adults do around their equals; it’s what parents do around children. Indeed, DiAngelo’s picture of the ideal relationship between whites and blacks bears a disturbing resemblance to the relationship between an exasperated parent and a spoiled child: the one constantly practicing emotional self-control, the other triggered by the smallest things and helplessly expressing every emotion as soon as it comes. These are the roles she expects—even encourages—whites and blacks to play. That people can call this anti-racist with a straight face shows how far language has strayed from reality.
5) As a professor I’m presumably supposed to be upset by headlines like this, “UVM Announces Plan to Eliminate More Than Two Dozen Academic Programs.” But…
Unveiled at a time when many students are finishing the semester from home, the dramatic restructuring plan announced Wednesday would phase out 12 majors, 11 minors and four master’s programs — or one-fifth of the college’s offerings. The impacted programs have graduated or enrolled an average of fewer than five students over the last three years, according to Dean Bill Falls, who wrote in an email to faculty that the cuts were necessary in light of the college’s unprecedented $8.6 million deficit in fiscal year 2021.
Ummm… yeah, that’s pretty expensive per major.
6) If we are really going to be serious about masks as public policy we need more than an occasional $1000 citation for a store that actively tells its customers not to wear masks.
7) It is really racist to use the term “grandfathering“? I absolutely understand the origin of the term, but, linguistically, it has had no meaningful connection to slavery in generations and shouldn’t that mean something? Also, what’s the alternative term? I’m open to being convinced I’m wrong on this, but seems to me that a word that we have been commonly using completely without racial connotation and in contexts that have nothing to do with race is not racist.
8) One of my favorite things about Brian Beutler is how he relentlessly takes on the bad faith of Republicans:
But first a word about why we should care: This has been my hobby horse for years now, and for several reasons, but the most important is that being governed by bad faith is awful; it warps public debate, subjugates people who feel bound to engage in public affairs honestly, rewards cheaters and liars, and more or less makes functioning democracy impossible. Additionally, and nearer to the mission of this newsletter, I think a lot of intra-left bitterness arises from the fact that the system we all inhabit is designed to accommodate rather than penalize bad-faith acting on the right. When Republicans toggle shamelessly between (say) looting the public fisc under Trump and lockstep demands for austerity under President Biden, and actors in the system behave as though it’s all on the level, then responsibility for the fate of the country falls exclusively to Democrats, and all their relatively minor differences break out into the open. (For more on why we should care, read the damn essay!)
Anyhow, we’re well into the transition from the Trump era to the Biden era, and the Republican pivot to pretending to care about everything from ethics to deficits to decorum is underway, which means the moment for accountability (or not!) is upon us…
The point is clear: It is contrary to the spirit of journalism to uncritically pass along Republican objections to Biden nominees when those Republicans plainly don’t believe their own objections. Nevertheless, most of the reporting I watched and read on this topic either made only glancing reference to Republicans’ feigned forgetting of the past four years, or didn’t mention it at all, when it is, in fact, the wholestory.
9) Great stuff from Amanda Carpenter in the Bulwark, “They’re Fine With It: Republicans have no qualms with Trump’s dangerous conspiracy theories—until they get tangled up in them themselves.”
Why aren’t more Republicans standing up and speaking out about Donald Trump’s reprehensible acts? It’s the eternal question of the Trump era and one that’s been renewed this week after GOP officials in Georgia made public pleas to Republicans to rein in the president’s dangerous election conspiracies.After four long years, it’s finally time to stop parsing the motivations behind their collective silence and say what the real answer is, which is almost too scary to admit.
They’re fine with it. All of it.
Really.
Ponder the grim circumstances of our current reality.
The overwhelming majority of Republicans voted for Trump in 2020. Even after witnessing his escalating threats of violence and direct attacks on our democratic system.
Take your pick of the worst events of the Trump presidency. Charlottesville, Lafayette Square, kids in cages, Trump’s egging on of militiamen, pipe bombers, mass shooters, and vigilantes. None of it led to a significant break between Trump and elected Republicans…
The only times we’ve heard real, vigorous pushback against Trump have been when Republicans found themselves suffering the unpleasant consequences of their party’s decision to cultivate a rabid, unhinged base.
Which brings us to Georgia.
There, two Republican elections officials are speaking out against Trump for the looney conspiracy theories he’s pushing about how the election was supposedly stolen from him. But, one has to ask, would they be saying anything if they weren’t the ones being targeted?
Therein lies the problem.
You see, I remember Trump calling lots of other Americans “an enemy of the people” and putting them in danger before he attached that label to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. For some reason, though, it didn’t matter to Raffensperger until it happened to him.
In an op-ed lamenting the attacks from Trump and his allies, Raffensperger said the “smooth election” should “be something for Georgians to celebrate, whether their favored presidential candidate won or lost. For those wondering, mine lost—my family voted for him, donated to him and are now being thrown under the bus by him.”
Meaning everything was fine before Raffensperger faced with the rough end of the conspiracy stick. He voted for Trump but didn’t like it when Trumpism collided directly into his life. All that other bad stuff didn’t matter.
Likewise for Raffensperger’s colleague, elections administrator Gabriel Sterling. A fellow Republican, Sterling held a solo press conference that went viral on Tuesday. Millions of people watched the video of him bemoaning the fact that a young technician involved in the Georgia recount had received death threats, and that Sterling himself and Raffensperger now require police protection.
“Someone’s going to get hurt, someone’s going to get shot, someone’s going to get killed, and it’s not right,” he warned. He blasted Trump campaign lawyer and former U.S. Attorney Joe diGenova for calling for the execution of Chris Krebs, the federal elections cybersecurity chief recently fired by Trump. Many more election workers are reporting threats, too.
Sterling begged the GOP to put an end to it all. “It has to stop,” he said. “Mr. President, you have not condemned these actions or this language. Senators, you have not condemned this language or these actions. This has to stop. We need you to step up.”
Sterling added, “I’m talking about Sen. David Perdue and Sen. Kelly Loeffler, two people whom I still support. But they need to step up.”
Except they haven’t, and most likely won’t…
Because what are a few death threats, even among supposed GOP friends, when it comes to retaining and reclaiming political power?
They’re fine with it.
Deep down, Sterling is too. Just as long as it isn’t affecting him.
10) This seems crazy. But, hey, I do have HBO Max (though get it on Roku already, damnit), “Warner Bros. Says All 2021 Films Will Be Streamed Right Away: Seventeen movies will each arrive in theaters and on HBO Max simultaneously, the biggest challenge yet to Hollywood’s traditional way of doing business.”
11) NYT interactive feature on finding your place in the Covid vaccine line. I’m basically at the very end. But, we know where I really am :-).
12) Five years ago I wrote about seeing Trump at a rally in Raleigh. What’s striking is my tone of “isn’t this all just harmless good fun.” If only I had known!
13) This! “The NIH’s Top Vaccine Maker Wants Warp Speed To Be the New Normal: John Mascola, who worked on the research that led to the Moderna shot, thinks Covid-19 proves we have to prep for the next virus, too.” This part is so good:
Now that you’ve seen this process unfold over the past year, what do you think the implications are for vaccine development—not just for whatever the next pandemic is but infectious disease generally?
If you think back to the beginning, there was a lot of concern that we were using technologies that have never been used before for a licensed vaccine. And now we have validation that mRNA vaccines can work, and they can be brought to bear quickly. I think it’s likely that the adenovirus technology has reasonably good protection. So we have another technology that works, and we have the more traditional technology, proteins, which I think will also work.
The other really encouraging implication is that we’ve proven that scientific structure-based vaccine design works, that knowing how to manipulate a viral protein to make it a good vaccine antigen, that’s worked for Covid. It’s being tested for respiratory viruses and children and other cases, but Covid sort of just came to the front of the line and proved that the concept works.
Now we need a much better global surveillance system that’s worldwide and integrated, and uses modern technologies to do testing, so we know what’s out there. We need better global clinical trials capacity so we can stand up these large trials faster. The United States government can put $10 billion, $12 billion, on the table and incentivize companies. But, you know, what about the rest of the world? And how do we create the infrastructure to be prepared and do clinical trials?
When people say that it only took a year to get a Covid vaccine, I know that’s not exactly right. It took nearly two decades to understand coronaviruses well enough to work on. But what if the next one’s not a coronavirus?
There’s a reasonable possibility that a virus could emerge from a different virus family, and we would not be as prepared. We know that there are about 20 major virus families in the world that infect humans, and almost every outbreak we’ve seen in the past 50 years or more has come from one of those 20 virus families. What if we made a concerted effort to study every family in detail, to make vaccines to every family, and do what we did for coronavirus? Make some prototypes. So that if a cousin in that family emerges, a virus we’ve never seen before, we at least have laid some groundwork for vaccine design. One could do that for what used to be considered a lot of money, but what now would be considered a small investment compared to what happens when you have a pandemic.
14) Very good stuff on how Tesla keeps continually improving its engineering to improve the range of its cars:
In 2012, a small EV startup unveiled its second vehicle. The 2012 Tesla Model S wasn’t as flashy as the Roadster that preceded it, but it was a more practical electric car and it essentially changed how the world sees electrification. The Model S sedan with the largest battery pack—with a capacity of 85.0 kWh—was rated at 265 miles of EPA range. Four years later, a larger, 100.0-kWh pack was introduced, and it was no surprise when the range number jumped up to 315 miles. A larger battery in essentially the same package equals more miles between charges. A no-brainer.
But while the pack remained the same, the range has continued to increase over the years. Car and Driver visited Tesla earlier in September, and they let us in on a bunch more of the details of how it achieves this.
The current Tesla Model S Long Range Plus has an EPA range of 402 miles. That’s an 87-mile increase from when the 100.0-kWh version of the vehicle was introduced in 2016. How it achieves this is closely related to the fact that Tesla is building its own motor, inverter, battery pack, and other items instead of sourcing from a Tier 1 supplier. This do-it-yourself approach allows Tesla to continually tweak those parts to maximize their efficiency.
15) Great essay, “1918 Germany Has a Warning for America”
HAMBURG, Germany — It may well be that Germans have a special inclination to panic at specters from the past, and I admit that this alarmism annoys me at times. Yet watching President Trump’s “Stop the Steal” campaign since Election Day, I can’t help but see a parallel to one of the most dreadful episodes from Germany’s history.
One hundred years ago, amid the implosions of Imperial Germany, powerful conservatives who led the country into war refused to accept that they had lost. Their denial gave birth to arguably the most potent and disastrous political lie of the 20th century — the Dolchstosslegende, or stab-in-the-back myth.
Its core claim was that Imperial Germany never lost World War I. Defeat, its proponents said, was declared but not warranted. It was a conspiracy, a con, a capitulation — a grave betrayal that forever stained the nation. That the claim was palpably false didn’t matter. Among a sizable number of Germans, it stirred resentment, humiliation and anger. And the one figure who knew best how to exploit their frustration was Adolf Hitler.
Don’t get me wrong: This is not about comparing Mr. Trump to Hitler, which would be absurd. But the Dolchstosslegende provides a warning. It’s tempting to dismiss Mr. Trump’s irrational claim that the election was “rigged” as a laughable last convulsion of his reign or a cynical bid to heighten the market value for the TV personality he might once again intend to become, especially as he appears to be giving up on his effort to overturn the election result.
16) Damn do I love ancient human art. How cool is this? “‘Sistine Chapel of the ancients’ rock art discovered in remote Amazon forest”
The paintings are being filmed for a major Channel 4 series to be screened in December, Jungle Mystery: Lost Kingdoms of the Amazon. Photograph: Ella Al-Shamahi
Fully Myelinated 
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