I do like listening to a real Marxist. It's a refreshing difference from the stale Progressivism that dominates.
One item spurs me to actually comment, the claimed "failure to address climate change". I see the primary problem in climate discussion is credibility, both credibility about claims regarding current status and credibility regarding policy recommendations.
What is the evidence that we have "failed"? This should be based on measurements of carbon emissions (and carbon equivalents). There's a lot of measurement uncertainty, but the available measurements indicate real progress. Whether that progress is sufficient is another matter, but as an example, the United States total emissions peaked during 2000-2005 and has been dropping since. It's now down about 20% from peak.
Is that sufficient? What about all the rest of the world? That's unclear. China remains number one emitter and still growing. China is changing. Is it fast enough?
I've seen a big split in news reporting. In the business news the discussion is often about modest corporate size projects that are described in terms of cost of reduction, e.g., dollars per ton of carbon reduced. There are lots of these and it's an active area of business news. In the political press I see disaster porn, crisis stories, etc. Very little about actual projects, their costs, and the resulting carbon reduction makes the political press. There are wild claims by sponsors but not reporting of actual finished projects and real measurements of operational results.
I worked in meteorology for some of the early ozone and climate efforts, including building databases of worldwide historical records. Climate is at least as messy and hard to measure as economic structures. Claims like "climate change is causing more hurricanes" just don't hold up when you look at the available records. The EPA has the total history of hurricanes that hit the US. There is no trend line. The frequency and severity is highly variable, but overall not noticably changing in the past century.
Archeologists have spotty records of superstorms going back about 2000 years. These are storms so destructive that the debris from resulting floods and surges leave a record in the sediment layers. There are superstorm gaps of several centuries , like 1200-1500. There are superstorm peaks at about 4 times the current rate of superstorms during 900-1200. This greatly weakens claims that current levels of superstorms is changing due to carbon emissions.
But, there are other forms of strong evidence linking carbon levels to termperature, sea level, etc. It's a story of uncertainty and risk management.
The present claims of certainty hurt credibility as more evidence is gathered showing variability and lack of verifiable predictability.
Bessner characterizing Mearsheimer’s Realism as a theory of “human nature” is either purposefully dishonest or an act of pure projection. Realism is a structuralist analysis - Bessner can reject that approach as invalid, which would be weird for a Marxist, but to pretend that it’s a psychological theory is pure bullshit
1) Many of Daniel's complaints are not unique to capitalism, but rather to any system of production that does such a good job of providing goods and services. Pollution is hardly unique to capitalism per se; it's a side-effect of any system that tries to satisfy the desires of 7 billion people.
Likewise, the alienation of labor seems a necessary result of any efficient means of production. 1000 people might be able to each build 1000 cars by hand, but it can't beat an assembly line. I don't see any "advanced" Marxist economy producing by hand (except isolated cases in India and China that turned into economic disasters).
2) Daniel says "well, we're spoiled materialists". Maybe. But what desires would he re-educate us away from? He's OK with air conditioning. Health care? Education? Almost all of our "basic necessity" goods and services started out as luxury items -- almost all in capitalist economies. Perhaps, if Daniel had been in power 50 years ago, we wouldn't be addicted to our cell phones and Internet (and we wouldn't be having this conversation). Would that be a better world? 150 years ago, and we wouldn't be addicted to AC or antibiotics either.... What future "necessities" would we give up if we adopted Daniel's program today?
3) Interesting that he suggests going back to the New Deal. Which programs, exactly, have we moved away from? Social Security is alive and well (well, maybe not well, but no one seems to have a plan for *that*). SEC? Alive and well. Medicare for all? Hardly on FDR's agenda. Strong unions? How would he suggest bringing back manufacturing to the US? Pack the Supreme Court -- is that what Daniel has in mind? (As an aside, if Amy Wax dared suggest anything positive about the 1950s, she's immediately charged "Wax wants to bring back Jim Crow". Should I ask Daniel if supporting a return to the New Deal means he supports Jim Crow?)
4) It seems every Marxist on the planet, when confronted with the obvious and repeated failure of Marxism, wants to externalize the blame. In this case, it's the US and Western Europe's fault. Why? Granted, they weren't friendly to the USSR, but after the defeat of the White Russians, they mostly left the USSR alone. In that time, Germany was able to rebuild & rearm -- why couldn't the USSR get their act together? For that matter, why was Cuba (even with full support of the USSR) always a basket case?
"Oh, but the revolution should have occurred in industrial Germany, not the USSR." And somehow, Marx being so spectacularly wrong is an excuse of why Marxism might still be right?
5) US "responsibility" for Latin America. He makes no attempt to draw any causal relationship: "Latin America is a mess, the US has been involved, therefore it's the US's fault". Perhaps here's an opportunity for a counter-factual of our own: Would Latin America be any better off if the US had pursued a policy of strict isolation including serious restrictions on economic ties? What would Latin America look like?
For an answer, we might consider how the left has complained about the US embargo of Cuba, and how we are to blame for that country's woes.
6) Finally, on the subject of Israel. They have neighbors who want to destroy them, but -- as a matter of military might -- cannot at present do so. OTOH, their neighbor's sponsor, Iran, is pursuing nuclear weapons, which would likely re-order the power dynamics in the region. And you could also make the same statement about the Palestinians; they are under no existential threat. The acknowledge massive disparity in military might indicates that if Israel wanted to eliminate the Palestinians, they would have done so by now.
Does Mr. Bessner not recognize the challenge to the administrative state and the push disempowered the centralized state as a profound shift in the ideological climate? I had a difficult time taking much of what he said seriously. His position that no new ideological ground being broken struck me as a denial of the current political climate. He inexplicably seems somewhat anchored to the idea of New Deal Liberalism as the standard measure of what our system should look like. If that's the case he is driving while looking in the rear view mirror. It's called classical Liberalism Mr. Bessner. I have a hard time taking leftist very seriously.
In my reading, we are witnessing an attempt to decapitate the centralized administrative state and return to a pre-Wilsonian America and a repudiation of FDR’s and LBJ’s vision of overweening government. The real question is whether we can restore something that perhaps never should have been abandoned and which at its core was an historical American innovation. For many of our fellow citizens, those are indeed 'fighting words.' The Bernie’s of the world on one side and the neocon swamp creatures on the other will fight tooth and nail to protect the state from which their power and wealth flows. Can the will of the people as expressed by this last election prevail? If this project succeeds we are indeed looking at a very different America. I can’t help thinking about Neil Howe’s predictions and seeing this profound realignment as fulfillment of the Fourth Turning thesis. I bet we see a starkly different America by 2033 than we think possible today. Actually I think we can count on it.
Addendum: The more I listen to Mr. Bessner's opinions the more repelled I am by his doomer leftist negativism. He needs to move to someplace with more sunshine. Sorry he's a leftist clown. I made it to minute 17. bye bye.
All illegal aliens are violating those border laws -- a Liberal society would punish such lawbreakers.
The failure of Democrats, who claim to be Liberals, is not a failure of "Liberalism" but a failure to accept laws when in power to enforce laws or not, yet do not have the power or will to change the law. Their willingness to NOT prosecute HR Clinton for her illegal mail server with Top Secret stuff is a related violation of their later claim that None is Above the Law, a correct Liberal claim.
Unwillingness to stop local illegal shoplifting but punishing criminals, since so many of them are Black, is yet another violation of Liberal principles. And it makes normal innocent people into victims far more often. How many times must one be mugged by Dem supported muggers before you accept the reality of needing punishment for the muggers? None Above the Law, not even Blacks who were born poor and raised poor and went to poor schools. But the routes out of poverty should be made easier, and those honestly working should be helped more.
Can anyone help me understand how and why Bessner appeals to Glenn as a conversation partner? I marvel at Glenn's patience and magnanimity in speaking with thinkers who are far less curious than himself, like Bessner, and so these conversations definitely serve to make me like Glenn even more. But their discussions never seems to get anywhere, because Bessner already knows that the answer to every question is communism. Historical examples cherry picked, inconvenient data ignored, obscure hypotheticals offered, and on and on. It's not worth criticizing his smugness, ideological certainty, etc. because that's just the lingua franca of the cloistered tribe of academia he belongs to. In short, I find him deeply uninteresting. The question for me is why a mind as sharp and deliberate as Glenn's, a mind I look up to, finds him interesting and a worthy foil. What am I missing? Genuinely curious as to others' insights...
What insufferable smugness from Bessner. I checked in here just to see what would be said about my big interest at the moment, the fate of Israel. Bessner says, "the sad thing is you could quote-unquote 'win' in Israel, but it's going to be ethnic cleansing." He then indicates that he knows how absurd that phrasing is by backing up to call it 'Israel dominating Gaza, and, probably under Trump, the West Bank." These are two entirely different terms, of course. The first of them, "ethnic cleansing," is an obscene distortion of what is happening there. "Dominating" will likely be necessary for a time to come. So, like "genocide," the term "ethnic cleansing" is just a rhetorical device to give heft to Bessner's superficial and contemptuous disdain for Israel -- in his "humble opinion as a Jewish American who is well aware of what happened during the Holocaust.." My god, isn't that little throat clearing exercise so familiar now, and so obtuse and arrogant? Isn't that big of him, that he is Jewish and knows about the Holocaust? How that buttresses and steels him in his certainty. In his mind, I guess. And all Glenn has in a counter to this is Mearsheimer's view that, yes, what is going on in Gaza is "genocidal" but, hey, he also sees Israel's long-term prospects as grim.
So, I ask, as I have over and over and over, can either of these two make ANY case for their casual flinging around of terms like ethnic cleansing or genocide? The deaths in Gaza are ALL entirely the choice of Hamas and due to Hamas, which itself launched an avowedly genocidal war against Israel. Hamas violates every basic international law of warfare by positioning its population purposely to be killed so as to gin up international political animus toward Israel and win that way. To speak of "ethnic cleansing" or "genocide" is to do Hamas's bidding. It is despicable.
Jonathan, Jonathan, Jonathan (heavy sigh)…..is there any way people like this will ever see the light on the subject of Israel? Particularly when they get their minds infected by people like Mearshimer and Finklestein? I have strenuously argued that Glenn and John need to have scholars from the other side educate them to a different point of view. My current favorite is Haviv Rettig Gur. But, until they do, they will have a one track mind. Very very sad.
Yes, but the real question is why Glenn apparently willfully refuses to include anyone on "the other side" who is at all knowledgeable about Israel. It is not as if many here have not requested it and offered suggestions. That this is in direct contradiction to the overall fundamental value Glenn has otherwise touted as the essence of this project does not seem to matter when it comes to Israel.
'Falling rate of profit?' Profit margins are at historic highs. Fun to listen to buy I doubt it will hold up to deeper analysis. Re 'global warming': outer space is super cold. Someone will figure out a way to funnel some of that cold down to earth's surface. I may even live long enough to see it happen in my lifetime. Some eight billion brains are working on it right now, even though most are not even aware of it. Why does this debacle remind me of the aftermath of the McGovern candidacy vs Nixon?
I can probably add that I read in Punchbowl News this morning that the Democrats in the House are feeling pretty good about where they are even if they lose the House because a) the frontliner Democrats ran 5 points ahead of Harris herself and b) never underestimate the dysfunction in the very small majority that the new Republican speaker will have. There is every reason to be skeptical about the last part because all the Republicans will obey direct orders from Trump but that map full of red shifts everywhere based on vote for Harris may exaggerate where the Democratic brand is.
Also my insta-analysis was that Trump was able to pick off the members of the Democratic coalition who have no ingrained loyalty to the institutions/ rituals of liberal democracy. I am somewhat supported in this because Dan Pfeiffer shared information that Biden won union households by 56% and Harris by 54%.
Bessner? Technology won’t solve the climate problems? How about natural gas from fracking dramatically reducing CO2 emissions? Improved nuclear energy? Hydrothermal wells? More efficient energy storage systems? We get what we want by finding solutions; we’re not puppets of an inhumane system.
You are of course correct. But the Loury-Bessner discussion here, as with Israel (which I've hyperventilated on here and often), is utterly superficial. Anyone who pays close attention to the ACTUAL climate debates (yes, it is NOT a settled science) knows how overhyped the notion of a "climate crisis" is. Ordinary economic incentives will in fact ultimately lead to a new energy mix over time, and we have vastly more time than the "12 years to doomsday" apocalyptic scenario depicts (and has for the same "ten or twelve years to go" since about 1980). Technology will help not merely in reducing CO2 (assuming that is even a good idea) but in adapting to any changes that do occur -- which is how humans have handled every climate challenge at every point on the entire globe for centuries already. The model being little Holland, living UNDER sea level that became a world power 500 years ago nontheless.
The smug climate people like Bessner actually know nothing about technology, but they know an awful lot about fear mongering and division. My physics friends tell me there is incredible promise in both “safe” fission and fusion, and that advancements in both arenas do not require public funding. The adoption of these technologies will come far sooner than any risk that the seas will rise to the point that our coastal cities will be underwater. By the way, who could know more about climate change than the geniuses at Harvard University. Harvard has purchased and is developing property at sea level in Cambridge and Brighton Massachusetts as we speak. Hmmmmm.
I believe his argument was that the private sector is not going to develop those technologies without government policy supporting it. Natural gas is only “dramatically reducing CO2 emissions” relative to coal (and possibly petroleum, though we aren’t doing natural gas cars). Improved nuclear energy is pretty small scale right now and the biggest risk to it is regulatory uncertainty. What corporation will invest in developing expensive new technologies if they aren’t sure they’ll have big returns on their investments? Companies don’t advertise it, but most of that research being done currently is part of a cooperative agreement with the government where something like 50% of the funds are from a government agency.
I've seen some excellent responses here, and I won't try to keep up with them.
But something that is being ignored is the disgraceful totalitarian efforts by progressives to remove Trump by any means possible, and then call it 'saving democracy'. Those of us who are not fond of the legacy of Stalin and Mao support Trump because we must. Whatever he does or does not accomplish, he is our bastion against the brutal totalitarianism that should have breathed its last breath in the last century.
I do like listening to a real Marxist. It's a refreshing difference from the stale Progressivism that dominates.
One item spurs me to actually comment, the claimed "failure to address climate change". I see the primary problem in climate discussion is credibility, both credibility about claims regarding current status and credibility regarding policy recommendations.
What is the evidence that we have "failed"? This should be based on measurements of carbon emissions (and carbon equivalents). There's a lot of measurement uncertainty, but the available measurements indicate real progress. Whether that progress is sufficient is another matter, but as an example, the United States total emissions peaked during 2000-2005 and has been dropping since. It's now down about 20% from peak.
Is that sufficient? What about all the rest of the world? That's unclear. China remains number one emitter and still growing. China is changing. Is it fast enough?
I've seen a big split in news reporting. In the business news the discussion is often about modest corporate size projects that are described in terms of cost of reduction, e.g., dollars per ton of carbon reduced. There are lots of these and it's an active area of business news. In the political press I see disaster porn, crisis stories, etc. Very little about actual projects, their costs, and the resulting carbon reduction makes the political press. There are wild claims by sponsors but not reporting of actual finished projects and real measurements of operational results.
I worked in meteorology for some of the early ozone and climate efforts, including building databases of worldwide historical records. Climate is at least as messy and hard to measure as economic structures. Claims like "climate change is causing more hurricanes" just don't hold up when you look at the available records. The EPA has the total history of hurricanes that hit the US. There is no trend line. The frequency and severity is highly variable, but overall not noticably changing in the past century.
Archeologists have spotty records of superstorms going back about 2000 years. These are storms so destructive that the debris from resulting floods and surges leave a record in the sediment layers. There are superstorm gaps of several centuries , like 1200-1500. There are superstorm peaks at about 4 times the current rate of superstorms during 900-1200. This greatly weakens claims that current levels of superstorms is changing due to carbon emissions.
But, there are other forms of strong evidence linking carbon levels to termperature, sea level, etc. It's a story of uncertainty and risk management.
The present claims of certainty hurt credibility as more evidence is gathered showing variability and lack of verifiable predictability.
Bessner characterizing Mearsheimer’s Realism as a theory of “human nature” is either purposefully dishonest or an act of pure projection. Realism is a structuralist analysis - Bessner can reject that approach as invalid, which would be weird for a Marxist, but to pretend that it’s a psychological theory is pure bullshit
Wow. So much to talk about.
1) Many of Daniel's complaints are not unique to capitalism, but rather to any system of production that does such a good job of providing goods and services. Pollution is hardly unique to capitalism per se; it's a side-effect of any system that tries to satisfy the desires of 7 billion people.
Likewise, the alienation of labor seems a necessary result of any efficient means of production. 1000 people might be able to each build 1000 cars by hand, but it can't beat an assembly line. I don't see any "advanced" Marxist economy producing by hand (except isolated cases in India and China that turned into economic disasters).
2) Daniel says "well, we're spoiled materialists". Maybe. But what desires would he re-educate us away from? He's OK with air conditioning. Health care? Education? Almost all of our "basic necessity" goods and services started out as luxury items -- almost all in capitalist economies. Perhaps, if Daniel had been in power 50 years ago, we wouldn't be addicted to our cell phones and Internet (and we wouldn't be having this conversation). Would that be a better world? 150 years ago, and we wouldn't be addicted to AC or antibiotics either.... What future "necessities" would we give up if we adopted Daniel's program today?
3) Interesting that he suggests going back to the New Deal. Which programs, exactly, have we moved away from? Social Security is alive and well (well, maybe not well, but no one seems to have a plan for *that*). SEC? Alive and well. Medicare for all? Hardly on FDR's agenda. Strong unions? How would he suggest bringing back manufacturing to the US? Pack the Supreme Court -- is that what Daniel has in mind? (As an aside, if Amy Wax dared suggest anything positive about the 1950s, she's immediately charged "Wax wants to bring back Jim Crow". Should I ask Daniel if supporting a return to the New Deal means he supports Jim Crow?)
4) It seems every Marxist on the planet, when confronted with the obvious and repeated failure of Marxism, wants to externalize the blame. In this case, it's the US and Western Europe's fault. Why? Granted, they weren't friendly to the USSR, but after the defeat of the White Russians, they mostly left the USSR alone. In that time, Germany was able to rebuild & rearm -- why couldn't the USSR get their act together? For that matter, why was Cuba (even with full support of the USSR) always a basket case?
"Oh, but the revolution should have occurred in industrial Germany, not the USSR." And somehow, Marx being so spectacularly wrong is an excuse of why Marxism might still be right?
5) US "responsibility" for Latin America. He makes no attempt to draw any causal relationship: "Latin America is a mess, the US has been involved, therefore it's the US's fault". Perhaps here's an opportunity for a counter-factual of our own: Would Latin America be any better off if the US had pursued a policy of strict isolation including serious restrictions on economic ties? What would Latin America look like?
For an answer, we might consider how the left has complained about the US embargo of Cuba, and how we are to blame for that country's woes.
6) Finally, on the subject of Israel. They have neighbors who want to destroy them, but -- as a matter of military might -- cannot at present do so. OTOH, their neighbor's sponsor, Iran, is pursuing nuclear weapons, which would likely re-order the power dynamics in the region. And you could also make the same statement about the Palestinians; they are under no existential threat. The acknowledge massive disparity in military might indicates that if Israel wanted to eliminate the Palestinians, they would have done so by now.
Does Mr. Bessner not recognize the challenge to the administrative state and the push disempowered the centralized state as a profound shift in the ideological climate? I had a difficult time taking much of what he said seriously. His position that no new ideological ground being broken struck me as a denial of the current political climate. He inexplicably seems somewhat anchored to the idea of New Deal Liberalism as the standard measure of what our system should look like. If that's the case he is driving while looking in the rear view mirror. It's called classical Liberalism Mr. Bessner. I have a hard time taking leftist very seriously.
In my reading, we are witnessing an attempt to decapitate the centralized administrative state and return to a pre-Wilsonian America and a repudiation of FDR’s and LBJ’s vision of overweening government. The real question is whether we can restore something that perhaps never should have been abandoned and which at its core was an historical American innovation. For many of our fellow citizens, those are indeed 'fighting words.' The Bernie’s of the world on one side and the neocon swamp creatures on the other will fight tooth and nail to protect the state from which their power and wealth flows. Can the will of the people as expressed by this last election prevail? If this project succeeds we are indeed looking at a very different America. I can’t help thinking about Neil Howe’s predictions and seeing this profound realignment as fulfillment of the Fourth Turning thesis. I bet we see a starkly different America by 2033 than we think possible today. Actually I think we can count on it.
Addendum: The more I listen to Mr. Bessner's opinions the more repelled I am by his doomer leftist negativism. He needs to move to someplace with more sunshine. Sorry he's a leftist clown. I made it to minute 17. bye bye.
"Liberalism" depends on Rule of Law.
All illegal aliens are violating those border laws -- a Liberal society would punish such lawbreakers.
The failure of Democrats, who claim to be Liberals, is not a failure of "Liberalism" but a failure to accept laws when in power to enforce laws or not, yet do not have the power or will to change the law. Their willingness to NOT prosecute HR Clinton for her illegal mail server with Top Secret stuff is a related violation of their later claim that None is Above the Law, a correct Liberal claim.
Unwillingness to stop local illegal shoplifting but punishing criminals, since so many of them are Black, is yet another violation of Liberal principles. And it makes normal innocent people into victims far more often. How many times must one be mugged by Dem supported muggers before you accept the reality of needing punishment for the muggers? None Above the Law, not even Blacks who were born poor and raised poor and went to poor schools. But the routes out of poverty should be made easier, and those honestly working should be helped more.
Can anyone help me understand how and why Bessner appeals to Glenn as a conversation partner? I marvel at Glenn's patience and magnanimity in speaking with thinkers who are far less curious than himself, like Bessner, and so these conversations definitely serve to make me like Glenn even more. But their discussions never seems to get anywhere, because Bessner already knows that the answer to every question is communism. Historical examples cherry picked, inconvenient data ignored, obscure hypotheticals offered, and on and on. It's not worth criticizing his smugness, ideological certainty, etc. because that's just the lingua franca of the cloistered tribe of academia he belongs to. In short, I find him deeply uninteresting. The question for me is why a mind as sharp and deliberate as Glenn's, a mind I look up to, finds him interesting and a worthy foil. What am I missing? Genuinely curious as to others' insights...
Daniel drives me crazy but I do love it. There are a lot of claims made, it would take an hour to dive into each one.
"Incredible central planning."
Great episode! Indeed the mutual ruin of the contending classes is the likely future of the globe.
What insufferable smugness from Bessner. I checked in here just to see what would be said about my big interest at the moment, the fate of Israel. Bessner says, "the sad thing is you could quote-unquote 'win' in Israel, but it's going to be ethnic cleansing." He then indicates that he knows how absurd that phrasing is by backing up to call it 'Israel dominating Gaza, and, probably under Trump, the West Bank." These are two entirely different terms, of course. The first of them, "ethnic cleansing," is an obscene distortion of what is happening there. "Dominating" will likely be necessary for a time to come. So, like "genocide," the term "ethnic cleansing" is just a rhetorical device to give heft to Bessner's superficial and contemptuous disdain for Israel -- in his "humble opinion as a Jewish American who is well aware of what happened during the Holocaust.." My god, isn't that little throat clearing exercise so familiar now, and so obtuse and arrogant? Isn't that big of him, that he is Jewish and knows about the Holocaust? How that buttresses and steels him in his certainty. In his mind, I guess. And all Glenn has in a counter to this is Mearsheimer's view that, yes, what is going on in Gaza is "genocidal" but, hey, he also sees Israel's long-term prospects as grim.
So, I ask, as I have over and over and over, can either of these two make ANY case for their casual flinging around of terms like ethnic cleansing or genocide? The deaths in Gaza are ALL entirely the choice of Hamas and due to Hamas, which itself launched an avowedly genocidal war against Israel. Hamas violates every basic international law of warfare by positioning its population purposely to be killed so as to gin up international political animus toward Israel and win that way. To speak of "ethnic cleansing" or "genocide" is to do Hamas's bidding. It is despicable.
Jonathan, Jonathan, Jonathan (heavy sigh)…..is there any way people like this will ever see the light on the subject of Israel? Particularly when they get their minds infected by people like Mearshimer and Finklestein? I have strenuously argued that Glenn and John need to have scholars from the other side educate them to a different point of view. My current favorite is Haviv Rettig Gur. But, until they do, they will have a one track mind. Very very sad.
Yes, but the real question is why Glenn apparently willfully refuses to include anyone on "the other side" who is at all knowledgeable about Israel. It is not as if many here have not requested it and offered suggestions. That this is in direct contradiction to the overall fundamental value Glenn has otherwise touted as the essence of this project does not seem to matter when it comes to Israel.
Those two make a pretty fun odd couple. I had a good time with that one.
'Falling rate of profit?' Profit margins are at historic highs. Fun to listen to buy I doubt it will hold up to deeper analysis. Re 'global warming': outer space is super cold. Someone will figure out a way to funnel some of that cold down to earth's surface. I may even live long enough to see it happen in my lifetime. Some eight billion brains are working on it right now, even though most are not even aware of it. Why does this debacle remind me of the aftermath of the McGovern candidacy vs Nixon?
Here is something from Henry Farrell that just came across the email
https://goodauthority.org/news/popularists-deliverists-partyists-in-us-2024-election/
I can probably add that I read in Punchbowl News this morning that the Democrats in the House are feeling pretty good about where they are even if they lose the House because a) the frontliner Democrats ran 5 points ahead of Harris herself and b) never underestimate the dysfunction in the very small majority that the new Republican speaker will have. There is every reason to be skeptical about the last part because all the Republicans will obey direct orders from Trump but that map full of red shifts everywhere based on vote for Harris may exaggerate where the Democratic brand is.
Also my insta-analysis was that Trump was able to pick off the members of the Democratic coalition who have no ingrained loyalty to the institutions/ rituals of liberal democracy. I am somewhat supported in this because Dan Pfeiffer shared information that Biden won union households by 56% and Harris by 54%.
The shift towards Trump was broad (evenly spread throughout most of the electorate) but not deep.
"no ingrained loyalty" -- people who are lonely and alienated of whom in Trump Country there seem to be a lot
Bessner? Technology won’t solve the climate problems? How about natural gas from fracking dramatically reducing CO2 emissions? Improved nuclear energy? Hydrothermal wells? More efficient energy storage systems? We get what we want by finding solutions; we’re not puppets of an inhumane system.
You are of course correct. But the Loury-Bessner discussion here, as with Israel (which I've hyperventilated on here and often), is utterly superficial. Anyone who pays close attention to the ACTUAL climate debates (yes, it is NOT a settled science) knows how overhyped the notion of a "climate crisis" is. Ordinary economic incentives will in fact ultimately lead to a new energy mix over time, and we have vastly more time than the "12 years to doomsday" apocalyptic scenario depicts (and has for the same "ten or twelve years to go" since about 1980). Technology will help not merely in reducing CO2 (assuming that is even a good idea) but in adapting to any changes that do occur -- which is how humans have handled every climate challenge at every point on the entire globe for centuries already. The model being little Holland, living UNDER sea level that became a world power 500 years ago nontheless.
The smug climate people like Bessner actually know nothing about technology, but they know an awful lot about fear mongering and division. My physics friends tell me there is incredible promise in both “safe” fission and fusion, and that advancements in both arenas do not require public funding. The adoption of these technologies will come far sooner than any risk that the seas will rise to the point that our coastal cities will be underwater. By the way, who could know more about climate change than the geniuses at Harvard University. Harvard has purchased and is developing property at sea level in Cambridge and Brighton Massachusetts as we speak. Hmmmmm.
I believe his argument was that the private sector is not going to develop those technologies without government policy supporting it. Natural gas is only “dramatically reducing CO2 emissions” relative to coal (and possibly petroleum, though we aren’t doing natural gas cars). Improved nuclear energy is pretty small scale right now and the biggest risk to it is regulatory uncertainty. What corporation will invest in developing expensive new technologies if they aren’t sure they’ll have big returns on their investments? Companies don’t advertise it, but most of that research being done currently is part of a cooperative agreement with the government where something like 50% of the funds are from a government agency.
I've seen some excellent responses here, and I won't try to keep up with them.
But something that is being ignored is the disgraceful totalitarian efforts by progressives to remove Trump by any means possible, and then call it 'saving democracy'. Those of us who are not fond of the legacy of Stalin and Mao support Trump because we must. Whatever he does or does not accomplish, he is our bastion against the brutal totalitarianism that should have breathed its last breath in the last century.