The most tin-eared neo-lib proposal yet

Matt Yglesias, the latest sign that you are talking out of your ass ought to be that Glenn Beck agrees with you.

He has a new book out titled One Billion Americans: The Case for Thinking Bigger, in which he proposes that we set a goal of pumping out more babies to give us an edge in international competition.

From one of our foremost policy writers, One Billion Americans is the provocative yet logical argument that if we aren’t moving forward, we’re losing. Vox founder Yglesias invites us to think bigger, while taking the problems of decline seriously. What really contributes to national prosperity should not be controversial: supporting parents and children, welcoming immigrants and their contributions, and exploring creative policies that support growth—like more housing, better transportation, improved education, revitalized welfare, and climate change mitigation. Drawing on examples and solutions from around the world, Yglesias shows not only that we can do this, but why we must.

The book has a website where you can find out more, but it’s rather unpersuasive. It has a section on praise which includes endorsements from billionaire Mark Cuban, his Vox co-founder Ezra Klein, Catholic creep Ross Douthat, and David Leonhardt (who?). Douthat’s blurb is about as empty as you can get:

“Trump-era bestseller lists are dominated by ‘exposes’ that tell us the same things, and (esp. under pandemic conditions) better books can’t get oxygen. So if you enjoy an excerpt or interview, buy the book!”

Gosh. An author has to be desperate to include that.

I have not read the book, nor do I feel at all compelled to read it. It just sounds dumb.

  • Why is tripling the population of the country even a goal? I mean, the description says some good things: supporting parents and immigrants, better housing, transportation, education, and welfare, and working to reduce the impact of climate change. Those are the goals we ought to aim for. Maybe a population increase would follow, but that would be a side effect of building a better, stronger nation. Why are you making the side effect primary, especially when it can conflict with your path to achieving that better nation?
  • How, Mr Policy Guy, how? Was an alternate title for your book Make More Babies NOW, Women!? Because that’s what it sounds like. A major obstacle to that goal right now is the deep gender inequities in this country — women bear the brunt of child-rearing responsibilities, so you’ve set a goal that falls mainly on the child-bearing hips of half the country. You don’t even mention correcting the unequal distribution of labor in your list of uncontroversial improvements.
  • The biggest economic factor limiting the United States is the immense, and growing, wealth inequality here, driven by raging unchecked capitalism. This is a country where the rich have grown richer during a pandemic that has harmed the well-being of the majority of the population. Spawning more children is not the path to prosperity for individuals, although it sure does swell a hungry workforce that can be exploited to the advantage of the corporate class. Somehow, I suspect that dismantling capitalism isn’t one of your uncontroversial contributions to national prosperity.
  • A colossal increase in population is going to involve equally colossal shifts in the economy. We’re going to require far more appreciation of child care and teaching, positions that are currently undervalued and underpaid. It’s going to lead to a booming number of retirees and the elderly, with a concomitant need for more advanced health care (unless, as an alternative, we’re going to just let them die).

OK, maybe the book is a staggering work of genius that includes eye-opening revelations about how we can accomplish everything all at once and reach a utopia full of happy families facing a bright future, but somehow I think that would inspire more interesting conversation than a couple of vague, bland reviews from a friend, a billionaire, the New York Times, and a terrible conservative op-ed writer whose endorsement ought to be reader-repellent. Reviewers who have read the book describe it as a mish-mash of shallow ideas only loosely connected to its central thesis. But sure, go ahead and collect those endorsements from Glen Beck, Mr Yglesias!

If you want to see socialism in action, just visit your library

I just discovered this marvelous thread by a librarian on what she has learned on the job. Really, libraries are the best part of any town, and we ought to support them fully. A taste:

Free public wi-fi is a big one, especially for people who can’t afford internet access otherwise.

The thread was pre-pandemic, though, and I’d like to see an update on how the pandemic has disrupted the essential services the library performs. I know our local library was closed for a while, and has reopened with special hours for at-risk individuals and now provides curbside pickup, so you can check out books without going inside.

Friends don’t let friends fall for the Lincoln Project’s lying tricks

I’ve been seeing this excerpt of a video interview with Republican Steve Schmidt in which he thoroughly tears into Trump’s incompetence and failures — and don’t get me wrong, that’s good to see, but it’s the omissions that grate. Schmidt is one of the architects of the modern Republican party, just like Rick Wilson and the other Lincoln Project hypocrites, and when he howls about how bad Trump is, he’s concealing the fact that he wants an autocratic conservative government, just one with not that figurehead. He’s not looking for a more moderate leader, he wants someone who is far right, but good at it, so don’t listen to these guys thinking they want to improve our country, they want to make it worse.

Driftglass explains the dishonesty of the Lincoln Project with a telling example.

Once again, good ol’ Steve’s feigning ignorance of basic American political history is almost comical.

See, we had an eight year experiment in compromise with Republicans. It was called the Clinton Administration: Clinton actually delivered on lots of things Republicans had screeching about for years and they reacted by shutting down the government, launching a four year witch hunt and impeaching him over trivia.

Then we had another eight year experiment in trying to work with Republicans when Democrats elected an intelligent, humane, scandal-free constitutional law professor to fix the multiple, crippling catastrophes Steve Schmidt’s Republican Party had left in their wake after eight years of George W. Bush. Barack Obama was exactly the sort of incrementalist/accommodationist leader that Steve Schmidt now dreams of and Steve Schmidt’s Republican Party reacted to his election with eight relentless years of sabotage, sedition, unhinged racism, Birtherism and, finally, Trump.

Exactly. Obama was a moderate centrist (or in many ways, a conservative Democrat), and Schmidt and Wilson and all their fellow travelers hated him and fought him every step of the way. They don’t want a good leader, they want a Trump without the baggage.

Or, I suppose, the most charitable (not really) interpretation is that maybe they want a white Obama who they can push around. That wouldn’t surprise me at all.

We just have to find the right numbers, and the problems go away!

I’m busy grading exams and quizzes today, and I’m grateful that none of my students have stumbled on the McEnany solution, which is to justify wrong answers by saying they just used different numbers than I gave them.

It is a kind of universal answer, though.

“I asked you what 2 + 2 is, and you said 3.14! That’s wrong!”

Nah, I just added two different numbers than the ones you used.

Republicans: Still creating their own reality, even down to using different math.

We need to get rid of Bill Barr, too

We’ve got some real winners in this administration. Bill Barr keeps earning a star for his standout performance, though.

You know, putting a national lockdown, stay at home orders, is like house arrest. Other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint, this is the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history, Barr said as a round of applause came from the crowd.

How dare he. As we all know, the orders that we not go play on the freeway is a greater intrusion on civil liberties. The law that requires that we wear a seatbelt is a greater intrusion. Traffic laws in general are a greater intrusion — who are these authoritarians who insist that I need a license to drive and have to respect the rules of the road? The state even has hired thugs in cars to enforce those!

Doesn’t the government tell people to stay safe inside when there is a tornado? Public safety isn’t an intrusion on civil liberties, other than your liberty to do stupid things and die.

Then he goes on to accuse the Justice Department of being full of preschoolers.

It might be a good philosophy for a Montessori preschool, but it is no way to run a federal agency,

You know, he’s in charge of the Justice Department. I guess he wants to run it all by himself?

Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates stole my money!

I want it back! I want everyone to get their fair share!

This new report explains that the rich have been robbing us blind since the 1970s, at least. That’s 50 years of cash I want in my pocket right now.

Just how far has the working class been left behind by the winner-take-all economy? A new analysis by the RAND Corporation examines what rising inequality has cost Americans in lost income—and the results are stunning.

A full-time worker whose taxable income is at the median—with half the population making more and half making less—now pulls in about $50,000 a year. Yet had the fruits of the nation’s economic output been shared over the past 45 years as broadly as they were from the end of World War II until the early 1970s, that worker would instead be making $92,000 to $102,000. (The exact figures vary slightly depending on how inflation is calculated.)

There was a transfer of $2.5 trillion in wealth from those who could actually use it to the über-rich. You might be wondering who to blame, who engineered this massive heist…I can think of a few crooks who’ve benefitted, but it’s also partly our own fault. We let this happen by electing lazy, greedy looters to high office.

They say the blame lies, in large measure, with decades of failed federal policy decisions—allowing the minimum wage to deteriorate, overtime coverage to dwindle, and the effectiveness of labor law to decline, undermining union power. They also cite a shift in corporate culture that has elevated the interests of shareholders over those of workers, an ethos that took root 50 years ago this week with the publication of an essay by University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman.

Many of these developments, Rolf points out, have been driven by the belief that an unfettered free market would generate wealth for everyone. Thanks to the RAND study, he says, “we now have the proof that this theory was wrong.”

Oh god. Friedman. Advisor to Reagan and Thatcher, libertarian, neo-liberal monster. So much of blame for the decline of the United States can be plopped onto his too-influential shoulders. Where’s his grave? We ought to all go piss on it, at the very least.

After the symbolic desecration party, though, we should pass laws that rip the ill-gotten wealth out of the hands of the 1%.

“the most shameful moment in the history of U.S. science policy”

In this week’s Science magazine, H. Holden Thorp damns the president of the USA.

When President Donald Trump began talking to the public about coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in February and March, scientists were stunned at his seeming lack of understanding of the threat. We assumed that he either refused to listen to the White House briefings that must have been occurring or that he was being deliberately sheltered from information to create plausible deniability for federal inaction. Now, because famed Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward recorded him, we can hear Trump’s own voice saying that he understood precisely that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was deadly and spread through the air. As he was playing down the virus to the public, Trump was not confused or inadequately briefed: He flat-out lied, repeatedly, about science to the American people. These lies demoralized the scientific community and cost countless lives in the United States.

Over the years, this page has commented on the scientific foibles of U.S. presidents. Inadequate action on climate change and environmental degradation during both Republican and Democratic administrations have been criticized frequently. Editorials have bemoaned endorsements by presidents on teaching intelligent design, creationism, and other antiscience in public schools. These matters are still important. But now, a U.S. president has deliberately lied about science in a way that was imminently dangerous to human health and directly led to widespread deaths of Americans.

Congress needs to throw the asshole out now, and the American people need to elect a better human being to the office in November.