John Stoehr/The Editorial Board:
She reviewed it 35 years ago but didn’t realize it was foundational to white nationalists. Here’s how she understands the book now
Fern Schumer Chapman (and Jane Elliott) on The Birth Dearth
“Immigration” isn’t about immigration. “Abortion” isn’t about abortion. “Critical race theory” isn’t about CRT. Instead, they’re proxies for the fact that many white people “value whiteness more than democracy.”
Republican issues are usually about something else – and that something else is almost certainly rooted in white anxiety and fear of a republic slipping out of the control of white people, especially men.
In the video clip, Elliott talks about a book that explains all this. Written by Ben Wattenberg in 1987, it’s called The Birth Dearth: What Happens When People in Free Countries Don’t Have Enough Babies? (The author died in 2015.) I wanted to know more about the book.
NY Times:
I’m in Hot Demand, Baby’: Nebraska Thrives (and Copes) With Low Unemployment
The jobless rate in February, 2.1 percent, was close to the lowest ever. Employers are adjusting to the power of workers.
As a half-dozen or so happy hour patrons gathered at the bar on a recent afternoon, most had something remarkable in common: Everybody seemed to know somebody who had earned a significant raise, or multiple raises, in the past year — and many, if not all, had received a jump in pay themselves.
That included the bartender on the early-evening shift, Nikki Paulk, an easygoing woman with a flash of pink hair. “I’m in hot demand, baby,” she said, mentioning “desperate” employers with a burst of a grin. “I’ve worked at like six bars in the last six months because I just keep getting better offers I can’t turn down.”
Heidi Shierholz/Twitter:
We added 431,000 jobs in March, for a total of 8.4 million jobs added since the end of 2020. It’s mind bogglingly fast and sustained growth—well over half a million jobs added per month on average for 15 months.
Employment to Population Ratio
It’s not yet mission accomplished! The recession left a huge hole, and depending on how you measure the counterfactual, the total gap in the labor market right now is around 4-6 million jobs. But that gap is closing astonishingly fast.
We are on pace to recover nearly EIGHT YEARS faster than we recovered from the Great Recession. (I’ll re-up that prime age EPOP chart to drive home that point.)
Michael J Totten/The Bulwark:
Before the Ukrainians, It Was the Finns Who Kicked Russia’s Ass
The largely forgotten Winter War of 1939-40.
But Ukraine is not Hungary, and it is not Czechoslovakia. Five weeks in, the Ukrainians have killed thousands of Russian soldiers, destroyed entire enemy columns, downed planes, sunk at least one ship, captured more than a thousand prisoners, towed abandoned tanks off the road, pushed Russian forces away from Kyiv, and liberated the occupied cities of Makariv, Irpin, and parts of the larger city of Kherson. Russia, clearly humiliated, now declares that its military objective is limited to the “liberation” of the eastern Donbas region rather than regime change, nationwide occupation, or state death.
The apt comparison then is to Russia’s botched invasion of Finland in 1939. Before the Ukrainians established themselves as Europe’s fuck-around-and-find-out crew, that honor went to the Finns.
STATNews:
Narrowing the vaccine gap as boosters begin for people over 50
The Food and Drug Administration this week authorized a second booster for individuals 50 and older. Although some people over the age of 50 are mulling whether and how soon to get their fourth jab, a significant vaccine gap exists within this group which needs to be addressed. There are 118.5 million Americans over the age of 50; 18.4 million (15%) of these individuals are not fully vaccinated and 59 million (50%) have not received their first booster.
Closing that gap will be a challenge, especially given that the Health Resources and Services Administration on March 22 stopped accepting claims for Covid testing for the uninsured and on April 6 will do the same for vaccines. Millions of uninsured patients will no longer have the protection vaccination confers, and will be denied access to free Covid tests and treatments. Eligible patients, including those with fragile medical conditions in search of monoclonal antibodies, will struggle to access outpatient treatment, leading to a likely rise in hospitalizations. Without swift approval from Congress for emergency Covid-19 funds, the costs of inaction will inevitably lead to dire consequences for the most vulnerable. The $10 billion Senate compromise to procure therapeutics and vaccinations — roughly half of the $22.5 billion requested by the White House in mid-March — is insufficient, and we are all at risk if the U.S. can not deploy critical tools, including surveillance and the global vaccination campaign.
Julia Azari (2021)/Mischiefs of Faction:
Why is the popularism debate so popular? Because it's about who really controls the Democratic Party
Who really has power in the party?
Nevertheless, it’s clear that there’s at least a chance that groups who haven’t ever wielded a lot of power are shaping the Democratic Party’s agenda. There are obviously people in the “popularism” conversation who think that progressives – too young? too woke? too educated? – have too much influence in the party. And there are others who point to the more tangible realities of American life and note the ways in which disadvantaged groups are still, well, disadvantaged. Moving to the center would do little to help this and might even hurt. Shor, for his part, has insisted that he’s not advocating a move to the center, but a focus on economic issues rather race and immigration.
Still others have suggested that the connection between politics and policy is pretty broken anyway. And it seems like the fascination with this debate can be explained by looking mostly at politics. Both within parties and between them, power is a complicated currency. Convincing people that you’re out of power and that the wrong people wield it – that is, populism – can be a successful political strategy. And the use of this strategy doesn’t seem to be all that closely linked to reality: recent developments have shown that white people are not that hard to convince that they’re about to lose their grip on the levers of political power. The obscurity of how power flows through political parties opens up new opportunities to make these kinds of appeals – and to resist them. Maybe the real division in the Democratic Party is between those who are doing their best to make things transparent, and those who benefit from the murky ambiguity of modern politics.
Podcast (30 min):
The Rise of Bills Targeting transgender Rights
Why are Republican legislators in state after state focused on proposing bills that affect transgender lives? Do these proposals help them at the ballot box? In this episode of "Red, White, and Confused," I chat with Dan Cassino (Professor of Government and Politics at Fairleigh Dickinson University) and Yasemin Besen-Cassino (Professor and Chair of Sociology at Montclair State University) about their research on gender identity and partisanship.
The podcast makes the point that nothing motivates voters like scaring them. And what scares men is a discussion about sexuality and gender roles (much more so than dying). It scares them into voting Republican, or so they believe. That’s why there’s so much of this crap everywhere.
