Wednesday, November 06, 2024
We Failed
Tuesday, November 05, 2024
Resilient Fascism
I still haven't decided if I'm going to do my traditional liveblog of the election. It may just be too stressful. Plus, I have to teach an early-morning class tomorrow, and it would be bad if I stayed up all night tracking election returns (lol, like I have a choice).
While we're waiting for results to come in, I want to briefly comment on news abroad -- namely, that Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu has fired his Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant. It is yet another incident of capricious chaos meant to appease Netanyahu's furthest-right base, and is being greeted with yet another round of mass protests throughout Israel. And I can't help but think it is a premonition of what America will be like if Trump wins another term.
When I look at what's happening over there, what stands out to me is the resilience of the Israeli government -- and not in a good way. What's been striking about the current Israeli government is not just the blundering into crisis after crisis that has typified its time in office, but how it has managed to survive and endure them while barely budging. It has survived near-constant protests, brutally sagging popularity, a seemingly endless (now two-front!) war, complete abandonment of hostages, regular evidence of widespread corruption, and increasing international isolation, and has through all of it only deepened its commitment to the furthest-right fringes of its governing coalition.
It's not that it's been able to accomplish all its heart's desires (the judicial coup continues to tread water), but it has hunkered itself down and proven nearly impossible to dislodge. Why isn't widespread public rage and scandal enough to bring down the government? Simple: because the people in government know that the minute they dismount the tiger they've been riding, they'll get devoured. So they bound about from desperate move to desperate move, breaking this rule, smashing that norm, all in complete defiance of the popular will, hoping to find a magic bullet that will forestall the inevitable day of reckoning. Chaos, dysfunction, unpopularity, public rage -- even in extreme doses none of it has proven enough to dislodge the authoritarian nightmare once it took root.
This isn't an Israel-only story -- I saw someone else making a similar observation about India -- but it is a grim harbinger of what will happen if Trump re-enters office. It was hard enough getting him out of office the first time. The second time around, he'll be even worse. It is beyond obvious he will take extreme, authoritarian measures to protect himself and to hurt his enemies, ones that will prove ruinously unpopular and will prompt widespread public protest. And it won't matter -- even leaving aside the myriad ways our "democratic" institutions do not reflect the democratic will, every incentive of Trump's ruling coalition will be to not respond to popular outrage, to not give an inch, to double-down at every moment. And the evidence from Israel suggests that this is a workable strategy -- when the fascists take power, their power is alarmingly resilient to public fury and terrifyingly immune to public outrage.
The first results should start appearing momentarily. I've spent all day on a "doom and bloom" cycle, but at this point we can only watch. I'm praying that America makes the right call, that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Monday, November 04, 2024
Vote Joy
Tomorrow is election day. Voting isn't the only obligation of a democratic citizenry, but it is the most basic one. Voting isn't the guarantor of positive change, but it is an essential component of it.
If you haven't voted already, please make sure you get to the polls. And when you do, I encourage you to vote joy.
Sunday, November 03, 2024
Read an Iowa-Selzer and You'll Feel Better Fast!
A few days ago, the watchword of the pollster-watchers was "herding". Polls adjust based on underlying assumptions (models) of the electorate, and these assumptions can sharply shift the reported results. Many have hypothesized that the pollsters, feeling burned by underestimating Trump's support in 2016 and 2020, are now overcorrecting to show a tight race so they don't look foolish in the event that we have our third straight tight race.
To this possibility, a lot of responses online took the form of "report the data you cowards!" If the data was showing Harris with a larger than "expected" lead (say, because she's cleaning up amongst women still furious about the fall of Roe), then don't hide from your own conclusions -- report them!
And then, right as that call of "don't be a coward" was cresting, the extremely highly regarded Selzer poll in Iowa put Harris over Trump by three in a state virtually nobody had in play. And that, in turn, generated a wave of "now I'm not saying I expect Harris to win Iowa, but ...."
Turns out, we're all cowards too.
No pollster is perfect, but Selzer's reputation for accuracy is well-earned. As you can see, in the last seven statewide Iowa races, Selzer's biggest miss was 5 points (2018 Governor), and more often she nails it to within a point or two.
So I'll add my voice to the chorus, but basically to echo Scott Lemieux: I'm also not going to venture a prediction that Harris wins Iowa, but even Iowa being closer than expected (say, Trump +2 rather than his 8-9 point margin from the last two elections -- this would equate to Selzer's largest recent "miss") augurs very, very well for Democrats across the country (and in contested House races in Iowa, for that matter).
Friday, November 01, 2024
Two-Thirds Excited, One-Third Terrified
(It's a boy, due in January)
When people ask me how I'm doing, I have a stock answer: "Two-thirds excited, one-third terrified." It's always good for a laugh. But it's more or less accurate.
There's so much I'm excited about. I'm excited to share my favorite books. I'm excited to get him into Calvin & Hobbes. I'm excited to take him to hockey games. I'm excited to tell him stories. I'm excited to see him sit up, crawl, and walk for the first time. I'm excited to learn his passions. I'm excited to find out who he's going to be. I'm excited to be a dad, and I'm excited to watch my wife become a mom. This is, of course, only a very partial list.
But I'm also, admittedly, a bit terrified. And I know that's normal -- everyone says the moment the hospital discharges you and just ... sends you home with a baby generates a feeling of incredulous disbelief ("Who, me? I'm in charge now? You're just letting this happen"). But I want to talk about the fear side in a bit more in depth.
One overall salutary development we've seen in society recently is that we've moved towards allowing women -- including women who very much want to have children -- to have a more complicated relationship with pregnancy and childrearing beyond "it's the greatest thing ever and if you have any misgivings you're a failure as a woman." There is at least some more space to acknowledge that pregnancy is uncomfortable, and labor painful, and parenting is exhausting. It doesn't mean you're a bad mother. It's an acknowledgment of reality, and it makes for stronger, not weaker, parents.
Meanwhile, for men, there's been a cultural push in the other direction, because the gendered social dynamics began in a different place. For men acculturated into thinking of children as either "seen not heard", or a sort of doomsday event ("baby trap"), the emphasis has been on accentuating both the positives of fatherhood but also the responsibilities of being a good partner. Parenting is equal parts our job. It's not okay to just leave it all to the missus. In fact, the missus almost certainly has it a lot harder than you (you're not the one gestating and then expelling a whole human being inside your body).
This, too, is a salutary development. But it has I think left a bit of a gap in men being able to talk earnestly about their legitimate fears -- in part precisely because those fears in some ways need to be subordinated to the more pressing needs of one's partner.
For example: one thing I'm really scared about is the process of labor. Leaving aside catastrophizing about medical complications, it's a terrible thing to see my person, whom I love more than anyone in the world, in pain. Under normal circumstances, that fear and fright solicits resources of care and concern -- probably from my wife, who is my main source of care and concern when I'm feeling fear or fright. But of course, in the context of labor, that resource is unavailable, and more broadly my need for care resources is obviously of lower priority than my wife's -- what kind of self-absorbed jerk would I be if I made the pain of childbirth about supporting me? My job in the delivery room is to support my wife however I can, not to horde care resources for myself. I don't want to reenact this scene from Brooklyn Nine Nine.
I've spoken about this before as an "empathy drought": circumstances where our care resources are overtaxed and so need to be triaged. And so again, I want to emphasize that the prioritization here is absolutely, 100% proper. There is no injustice here. And the lack of injustice is, in its way, the injustice -- or at least the loneliness: what is one supposed to do when one's genuine needs (because I don't think, in the abstract, that the pain of seeing a loved one in pain is not the sort of thing where one might need emotional support) are rightfully subordinated? It's hard, and it generates a lacuna.
Childbirth represents an especially clear case. But there is some carry over to fatherhood as well -- it's hard to talk about one's genuine fears and concerns without sounding like one wants to reach back into the not-so-misty past of overgrown man-babying where mom-wife just took care of everything. And again, it's a good thing that we're rearticulating manhood and fatherhood. But that doesn't change the fact that, just as a more complex relationship to childrearing for women that speaks to both the joys and the fears doesn't make one out as a bad mother, so too for fathers as well.
Because while I'm two-thirds excited, there is plenty that sits in that third of terror. I'm scared of not getting enough sleep. I'm scared of freezing up when my kid throws a tantrum. I'm scared of not knowing how to balance between transmitting my values and letting him be his own person. I'm scared of my two-person life suddenly adding a third. I'm scared of not having time for my own hobbies. I'm scared of raising a Jewish child in today's world. Hell, I'm scared of bringing any child in today's world. Again, only a partial list, and not one I claim is unique to men. But it's a real list, and I don't think it's one that is unreasonable in soliciting support.
I'm not a parent yet, so I don't have some deep words of wisdom to offer on this. But I do believe, and I've always believed, that letting oneself be vulnerable and honest encourages others to be as well. Talking about these things openly lets others do so too. We don't have to work through these fears alone. We should not and need not present these fears as the number one priority of parenthood. But the more people who come out and speak, the more this burden can be shared, and the more room we all have to also turn our attention to the essential task of being great fathers and great partners. So this is me doing my part: being open, and being vulnerable, and trying to make everyone a little less alone -- because there's so much to be excited about.
Thursday, October 31, 2024
Which Nuts Crack?
I like to keep a half eye on Senate, House, and gubernatorial polling trends at The Downballot (formerly Daily Kos Elections). There are quite a few swing state races that are certainly close, but seem to have mild Democratic advantages -- these include the Michigan and Pennsylvania Senate races, for instance. But there are also some swing state races where Democrats are running away with it -- Ruben Gallego looks set to smoke Kari Lake in Arizona, for instance; same with Josh Stein over Mark Robinson in the race for North Carolina Governor.
All of these races are occurring in tightly contested swing states. If anything, Arizona and North Carolina are more red leaning than are Michigan and Pennsylvania. So why are Lake and Robinson doing so poorly?
Obviously, the most straightforward answer is "they're both certified nutjobs." But the same statewide polls that have Lake and Robinson down by double-digits have Trump either tied or ahead. And I truly, honestly, cannot figure out what sort of person recognizes the nuttiness of a Kari Lake or a Mark Robinson but doesn't see it in Trump. What's the difference? What makes Trump's lunacy different from Lake's or Robinson's? What characterizes the voter who sees Lake or Robinson as different-in-kind from Trump?
Tuesday, October 29, 2024
It's (Not) All Greek To Her
I have an ambivalent relationship to "kids these days!" thinking.
On the one hand, I'm a professor, so I'm constantly exposed to the "kids". And overwhelmingly, they're alright! Great, even! I have very little patience for the notion that the young people of today are some sort of uniform blob of incuriosity, intolerance, and preachiness. It just isn't my experience.
That said, I've always been a bit of a crotchety old man at heart. And it being age-appropriate to shout "get off my lawn!" is one of the few things that excite me about growing older.
So for someone with my proclivities, this story is outright dangerous in how much it pushes some of my confirmatory bias pleasure buttons regarding youthful idiot "activists" being idiots.
A 23-year-old woman has been arrested after she posted on social media about having gotten away with ripping down Greek flags at a New Jersey restaurant that she believed were Israeli.
The incident at Efi’s Gyro in Montclair, New Jersey, occurred March 11, but it wasn’t until Amber Matthews posted the video to TikTok on Oct. 15 that police were able to identify her. She was arrested on Tuesday and charged with bias intimidation and harassment.
In the video, Matthews, who went by the name “Ambamelia” on her now-removed TikTok account, can be heard berating employees about the “genocide” in Gaza. She posted the video with the text “The time I mistakenly thought the flag for Greek was for Israel and took the restaurants flag down OMG.”
Both Greece and Israel have blue and white flags.
Just to sum the above up, this lady:
- Tore down flags at a random restaurant as a means of protesting "genocide" (which is bad enough on its own);
- Didn't realize the flag she tore down was that of Greece (excuse me, "Greek") rather than Israel; and
- Was only caught because she posted a TikTok video where she bragged about her idiotic crime burst.