Emily Atkin at The New Republic writes—Why the U.S. Government Is Crucial to Saving the Planet:
Since his election, I’ve heard experienced climate activists utter questions that a year ago would have been unthinkable: Have we lost? Should we give up?
Absolutely not, Michael Bloomberg and Carl Pope argue in their new book, Climate of Hope. As they did in a recent New York Times op-ed, “Climate Progress, With or Without Trump,” the former New York City mayor and former Sierra Club director make a tempting case: We don’t need the president, or even the federal government, to win the climate fight. “Cities are actually the key to saving the planet,” Bloomberg writes. In another chapter, he argues, “The more that business leaders and political leaders see climate change as an economic issue, not just an environmental one, the more progress we’ll make—and the better off our economy will be.” His thesis: “America’s ability to meet our climate pledge doesn’t depend on Washington.” [...]
While Climate of Hope lists various initiatives that cities and businesses can take, it doesn’t explain how these ideas comprise a comprehensive plan to reduce global warming before it’s too late.
Perhaps that’s because such a plan can only come from one place. In arguing for local solutions to climate change, Bloomberg and Pope inadvertently make a convincing case for why the federal government is our best hope.
E.J. Dionne Jr. at The Washington Post writes—Trump’s weather-vane presidency gyrates wildly with the winds:
President Trump rose to power on a combination of meanness, incoherence and falsehoods. His strategy depended almost entirely on playing off the unpopularity and weaknesses of others.
Every aspect of his approach has blown up on him since he took office, but as is always the case with Trump, he will not take any personal responsibility for what’s going wrong. He must find a scapegoat. The latest object of his opprobrium would seem to be Stephen K. Bannon, the chief White House strategist.
But dumping Bannon would only underscore the extent to which Trump is a political weather vane, gyrating wildly with the political winds. He’s “populist” one day, conventionally conservative the next and centrist the day after that. His implicit response is: Who cares? Let’s just get through another week.
The Editorial Board of The New York Times pokes holes in Mr. Trump’s Fickle Diplomacy:
Three months into the Trump presidency, Russia-American relations are as tense as ever, a casualty of Mr. Putin’s ruthless behavior and Mr. Trump’s changing views and whiplash approach to policy, infuriating Russians who had every reason to believe they would have a pal in the White House.
While both men could end up losers, there is a greater chance that Mr. Trump, a foreign policy neophyte who has bungled his presidential debut, will find it hard to prevail over the nefarious ways of Mr. Putin, a former K.G.B. agent. Mr. Putin’s approach to international engagement, which involves expanding efforts to meddle in countries from Europe to Libya and beyond, has been largely consistent; Mr. Trump’s has been anything but.
This, in turn, has shaken the confidence of allies that depend on America for prudent, steady leadership.
Joel Berg at The Washington Monthly writes—It’s Policy, Stupid. Why progressives need real solutions to real problems:
Given the spectacular collapse of GOP health care reform efforts, progressives may think they’ve hit upon the magic formula for victory: mobilize massive grassroots opposition to the Trump agenda, push Democrats in Congress to vote against everything, and then wait for the modern right’s unique combination of incompetence, extremism, and infighting to lead to their self-immolation.
The temptation for progressives to resist pushing their own concrete policy agenda is compelling, especially since doing so gives the other side ammunition for criticism and because conservatives have previously proven able to gain power by glossing over specifics. But doing little to advance realistic alternatives is not only harmful for the nation as a whole, it’s also counterproductive for the progressive movement in the long run.
Don’t get me wrong: it’s absolutely imperative for the left to steadfastly resist the right’s coordinated assaults on people in poverty, science, women, the judiciary, immigrants, non-Christians, the LGBTQ community, workers, human rights, and the environment — and on truth itself. Anyone who fails to oppose these attacks will be judged harshly by history.
But even as a political strategy, pure negativity has its limits. After all, the vast majority of Democratic messages in 2016 were negative against Donald Trump and the GOP — and Hillary Clinton lost key traditionally Democratic states, and thus the election, while the party failed miserably in their attempt to retake the Senate.
Francine Prose at The Guardian writes—Sadly, Sean Spicer's Hitler comments serve as a useful distraction for Trump:
Decrying or mocking Spicer’s massive faux pas, we can stop thinking about the damage being done to our environment and our schools, about the mass deportations of hard-working immigrants, about the ongoing war that Trump is waging against his poor and working-class supporters, about the ways in which our democracy is being undermined, every minute, every hour.
Perhaps what’s most disturbing about Spicer’s remarks is the idea of the scandal – long-lasting, at once destructive and informative – that would likely have ensued if something similar had occurred under more recent administrations.
But so many distressing and horrifying incidents have occurred since Trump took office that our attention span has come to resemble his. The White House press secretary forgets or ignores or denies the Holocaust – and it’s just another day in Trump’s America.
Noah Berlatsky at the Los Angeles Times writes—Holocaust centers and criminal filth: Why Trump officials can't stop offending everyone:
The press secretary’s confusion was telling, though. Stumbling about in the vast empty reaches of his mind, Spicer sought to distinguish Hitler and Assad, presumably in an effort to justify Trump's decision to bomb Syria. What Spicer came up with was a distinction based on nationality; Assad gassed his own people, Hitler gassed the Jews. While it is true that many of the Jews that Hitler gassed were not German, some of them were. Of course Hitler did not consider them to be Germans because he was a racist, genocidal monster. American press secretaries, as a rule of thumb, should avoid cosigning Hitler where possible. The Anne Frank Center characterized Spicer's remarks as Holocaust denial.
Critics on the right no doubt believe that it’s only fair to forgive and forget Spicer’s seemingly unintentional embrace of Nazi racial nationalism. But we shouldn’t let Spicer off so easy: Racial nationalism was, after all, the foundation of his boss' campaign.
Now more than ever, Republicans compulsively draw distinctions between true Americans and untrustworthy outsiders merely pretending to be Americans. Donald Trump built his candidacy on white identity — and on excluding as many people as possible from that identity.
Linda Greenhouse at The New York Times writes—The Broken Supreme Court:
Going forward, it will be next to impossible for people to look at decisions that may appear on the Republican Party’s agenda — on voting rights, as a prime example — without seeing the Supreme Court as a partisan tool. The Republican-conservative alignment existed while Justice Scalia was alive, but as I’ve explained, the circumstances were very different. It was no surprise that conservative presidents would send conservatives to the Supreme Court; the surprise is that a Republican Senate would actually steal a seat to assure a future Republican president of that opportunity.
Since the Senate’s bipartisan rejection of Robert Bork in 1987, a generation of conservatives has come of age fuming about what might have been, about the “loss” of the Supreme Court. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy is a target of that anger because he ended up in the seat intended for Judge Bork, from which he cast crucial votes to preserve the right to abortion and recognize a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. [...]
Now, Democrats won’t be comparing Justice Gorsuch’s votes with those Justice Scalia might have cast. No, their benchmark will be Chief Judge Garland, who never got the chance to explain himself to the Senate but who, we can presume, would have been on the side of staying the course of modern constitutional law.
Eric Alterman at The Nation writes—‘Thought Leaders’ and the Plutocrats Who Love Them:
haven’t seen much discussion of Daniel Drezner’s new book, The Ideas Industry: How Pessimists, Partisans, and Plutocrats Are Transforming the Marketplace of Ideas—which is weird, because it’s the kind of book that is written more to be reviewed and argued about, as opposed to actually purchased.
Drezner’s book is the latest investigation into the state of America’s public intellectuals and the “debate” they conduct with their patrons and their public, and, especially, among themselves. He joins a distinguished procession of thinkers who have tackled the subject, including Walter Lippmann, Randolph Bourne, Lewis Mumford, Edward Shills, Irving Howe, Russell Jacoby, Edward Said, and, most recently, Richard Posner. (See my “Judging the Wise Guys,” The Nation, January 10, 2002.) Drezner is a reliable and intelligent guide to the current state of play. But while focusing on the trees, he doesn’t always pay proper attention to the forest, which in this case is the power of money to corrupt and control literally everything with which it comes into contact—most particularly intellectual culture.
Van Badham at The Guardian writes—David Schwimmer's sexual harassment films are good. But this is women's work:
The American actor David Schwimmer has produced a series of short films about sexual harassment and they’re receiving a lot of praise. The shorts feature a number of well-known actors – Emmy Rossum, Cynthia Nixon, Schwimmer himself among them – acting out the degrading scenarios familiar to too many women. [...]
The authenticity of the films that is striking such a nerve is not because Schwimmer — kindly fellow that he is — is some kind of intuitive, empathetic genius entirely woke to the female experience. It’s because the creator of the project and director of the films is a Sigal Avin, an Israeli-American artist who was herself the young woman who found herself harassed by a famous-actor-and-penis when she was starting out as a playwright two decades ago. She made the original versions of the films in Israel, based on real-life stories. To enhance the reach of her project, she approached her friend Schwimmer to helm an American version.
It’s a good thing that Schwimmer’s done to assist the broadcast of Avin’s message. But it’s so hard as a feminist to shake a conviction based on so much accumulated evidence that these films have received the positive reception they have because their identification with Schwimmer lends masculine validity to their analysis. I’m reminded of the infamous headline in the Onion, “Man Finally Put in Charge of Struggling Feminist Movement”, that summarises this cruel phenomenon.
Graham Vyse at The New Republic writes—Don’t Believe the Hype About Jon Ossoff:
“These special elections can be flukey,” Kyle Kondik, managing editor of the election analysis website Sabato’s Crystal Ball, told me. “I’m always necessarily leery of attaching too much importance to these specials, particularly since the midterm is so far away.” [...]
The way Kondik sees it, the Ossoff campaign is “this perfect storm where Democrats who are still shell shocked from Donald Trump’s victory are looking for some outlet for their rage.” Democratic challengers in 2018 are unlikely to raise the amount that Ossoff has, and they will face sitting members of Congress with the advantage of incumbency. “It’s different when you’re running in an open seat than when you’re challenging, say, a Barbara Comstock or Ileana Ros-Lehtinen,” Kondik said, naming a pair of Republican congresswomen from districts Hillary Clinton won last fall. “There are some pretty talented Republican incumbents in these frontline seats.” [...]
Even Keenan Pontoni, Ossoff’s campaign manager, pushes back on the national significance of the election’s outcome. “I really think this race is actually about the community engagement we’re seeing in the district,” he told me. “Whether that’s something we’ll see across the country remains to be seen.... I know the amazing people here in this district and all the amazing work they’re doing. I don’t know if that’s going to be the case in every battleground district in 2018.” [...]
This isn’t to say an Ossoff win would be insignificant for Democrats nationally. In addition to picking up a House seat, the party would earn positive press that could drive fundraising across the country. Though Ossoff’s approach to the Sixth District wouldn’t be directly transferable to the 23 additional seats Democrats would need to flip to reclaim the House majority, they’d be able to draw lessons from him.
Robert Borosage at The Nation writes—Democrats Shouldn’t Be Trying to Banish Tulsi Gabbard
Donald Trump’s feverish tweeting appears to be contagious. Amid a chorus of praise for the administration’s cruise missile strike on a Syrian airbase last week, Neera Tanden, the head of the Center for American Progress, dashed off a tweet calling on voters in Hawaii to oust Democratic Representative Tulsi Gabbard for expressing skepticism about the Syrian government’s responsibility for the chemical attack that provoked the US military strikes. Former presidential candidate and former Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean piled on, and tweeted that Gabbard’s comments were a “disgrace” and that she “should not be in the Congress.” [...]
Gabbard had good reason to ask for proof. By his own account, Trump struck rapidly after seeing gruesome televised pictures of dying babies. No time was allowed for an independent investigation of the source of the chemical weapons attack. No presentation was made to the United Nations or the Congress asking for permission to use force. Trump flipped his own policy on its head overnight, and began lobbing missiles. [...]
Perhaps Assad was responsible, but skepticism is warranted in times of war. [...]
Neither Tanden nor Dean is a foreign policy expert; both made careers in domestic policy. Neither knows as much about Middle East wars as Tulsi Gabbard, a major in the Army National Guard who served two tours of duty in Iraq. Gabbard earned a Combat Medical Badge, an Army Commendation Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster and a Meritorious Service Medal among others. Like many who saw the human costs of the calamity up close, she became an ardent opponent of the war. She now serves on both the House Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees.
Elizabeth Kolbert at The New Yorker writes—Earth Day in the Age of Trump:
There’s arguably more money, in the long run, to be made from imposing the regulations—from investing in solar and wind power, for example, and updating the country’s electrical grid. Writing recently in the Washington Post, Amanda Erickson proposed an alternative, or at least complementary, explanation. Combatting a global environmental problem like climate change would seem to require global coöperation. If you don’t believe in global coöperation because “America comes first,” then you’re faced with a dilemma. You can either come up with an alternative approach—tough to do—or simply pretend that the problem doesn’t exist.
“Climate change denial is not incidental to a nationalist, populist agenda,” Erickson argues. “It’s central to it.” She quotes Andrew Norton, the director of the International Institute for Environment and Development, in London, who observes, “Climate change is a highly inconvenient truth for nationalism,” as it “requires collective action between states.” This argument can, and probably should, be taken one step further. The fundamental idea behind the environmental movement—the movement that gave us Earth Day in the first place—is that everything, and therefore everyone, is connected.
Ray Boshara at The Washington Post writes—Black college graduates are losing wealth. Here’s what can help:
Lots of wealth, in fact — and in sharp contrast to whites. Research from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis — where I work — has found that, between 1992 and 2013, college-educated whites saw their wealth soar by 86 percent while college-educated blacks saw theirs plummet by 55 percent. Losing wealth means losing a cushion against hard times and a springboard for better times; it also means losing a chance to endow the next generation with the wealth we’ve accumulated over our lives.
You may wonder: How could college-educated blacks over the past 25 years actually lose wealth despite meaningful progress among blacks overall in educational attainment, political representation, voting rights, anti-discrimination measures and other realms?
Four findings emerged from a research symposium we held to help answer this question. First, racial differences around preparing for and financing college are stark. To begin with, black college grads are more likely than white college grads to have needed more student loans, which have a disproportionately negative effect on wealth because student loans defer or displace wealth-building measures such as marriage, buying a home and saving for retirement. Moreover, the wealth gap increases when comparing blacks and whites with advanced degrees. And in one study of Missouri’s four-year public universities, preparation for college and academic environments prior to enrollment entirely explains black-white disparities in college completion rates, STEM degrees and post-college earnings.