A Historic Moment of Free-Falling Dread

In fall and winter of 2001, venturing into Manhattan required some fortitude (I'd pack a transistor radio to stay informed in case of emergency). We New Yorkers, in our weakened state, were deeply rattled by the subsequent anthrax attacks. We had no idea what was coming next. Would wrecked urban landscapes and burly dudes pulling bodies through smoking mounds be our new normal?

At that time, I thought to myself: "History won't note any of this. It will be remembered that there was an attack, and we were all sad. No one will record the lingering anxiety, the not-knowing, the wrenched feeling in our stomachs - not from missing a couple towers few of us ever loved in the first place, but from the disorienting feeling of being unable to touch bottom - the not knowing how different it would all be. It was months, perhaps years, before we consensually decided New York was a city rather than a war zone.

Fifteen years later, I see that I was correct about history. The upshot is, indeed, that there were was an attack, and we were all sad. Tight and concretely clear. This happened, and that happened. Historians record only tangible actions.

I'm having that same feeling this week. And, as in 2001, I don't need to ask around to know that I'm definitely not the only one. We know now that Donald Trump won't win. That horrifying prospect is gone. What's more, we haven't learned anything significantly new about Trump in months. Absolutely nothing in the past month has been a surprise. Yet, even though I'm no sensitive snowflake, I find myself consumed with sadness. It's that old feeling again, deeper than our personal emotions; this is the visceral etching of history on our spirits in real time.

It will be recorded that a fascistic narcissist came dangerously close to the US presidency, and was rebuked. But this feeling I'm feeling (and I know without asking that many of you are feeling, as well) of free-falling dread that's not the least bit mitigated by the meteoric rising of Clinton's poll numbers - even in safely red states - and the avoidance of our most feared outcome, is not lifting. It won't be recorded in history. This is only for us. We need to remember.

I noted the turning point on Monday, saying that "if you're going to pay attention to politics once in your lifetime, now's the time. It's a privilege to live through history - even unpleasant history. I don't want to just read the synopsis later. This is not a moment to hit the fast-forward button; this is a moment to hit "play" and pay full attention." I'm indeed paying full attention. I haven't done much else this week. I don't want to spend decades trying to process my feelings and adjusting to tectonic changes that happened in my peripheral vision. I want to live straight through this with eyes wide open and the clearest possible perspective.




Several friends got flu shots this week, and report feeling even crappier than they usually do afterward. My suspicion is it's not the flu shots.

Barack Obama: "The way ahead"

Lost amid our national Trump obsession (which I've been feeding, I know; sorry!) was Barack Obama's very interesting and beautifully written article for The Economist outlining the economic challenges to be faced by the next administration, along with some insightful and dispassionate observations about - to come full circle, again with apologies - Trump (though the name is never mentioned).

Since it's for The Economist, he doesn't need to dumb it down. You don't normally hear his thoughts at this level of depth and consideration. It's a great read. Here's the intro:

Wherever I go these days, at home or abroad, people ask me the same question: what is happening in the American political system? How has a country that has benefited—perhaps more than any other—from immigration, trade and technological innovation suddenly developed a strain of anti-immigrant, anti-innovation protectionism? Why have some on the far left and even more on the far right embraced a crude populism that promises a return to a past that is not possible to restore—and that, for most Americans, never existed at all?

It’s true that a certain anxiety over the forces of globalisation, immigration, technology, even change itself, has taken hold in America. It’s not new, nor is it dissimilar to a discontent spreading throughout the world, often manifested in scepticism towards international institutions, trade agreements and immigration. It can be seen in Britain’s recent vote to leave the European Union and the rise of populist parties around the world.

Much of this discontent is driven by fears that are not fundamentally economic. The anti-immigrant, anti-Mexican, anti-Muslim and anti-refugee sentiment expressed by some Americans today echoes nativist lurches of the past—the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, the Know-Nothings of the mid-1800s, the anti-Asian sentiment in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and any number of eras in which Americans were told they could restore past glory if they just got some group or idea that was threatening America under control. We overcame those fears and we will again.

But some of the discontent is rooted in legitimate concerns about long-term economic forces. Decades of declining productivity growth and rising inequality have resulted in slower income growth for low- and middle-income families. Globalisation and automation have weakened the position of workers and their ability to secure a decent wage. Too many potential physicists and engineers spend their careers shifting money around in the financial sector, instead of applying their talents to innovating in the real economy. And the financial crisis of 2008 only seemed to increase the isolation of corporations and elites, who often seem to live by a different set of rules to ordinary citizens.

So it’s no wonder that so many are receptive to the argument that the game is rigged. But amid this understandable frustration, much of it fanned by politicians who would actually make the problem worse rather than better, it is important to remember that capitalism has been the greatest driver of prosperity and opportunity the world has ever known.

Over the past 25 years, the proportion of people living in extreme poverty has fallen from nearly 40% to under 10%. Last year, American households enjoyed the largest income gains on record and the poverty rate fell faster than at any point since the 1960s. Wages have risen faster in real terms during this business cycle than in any since the 1970s. These gains would have been impossible without the globalisation and technological transformation that drives some of the anxiety behind our current political debate.

This is the paradox that defines our world today. The world is more prosperous than ever before and yet our societies are marked by uncertainty and unease. So we have a choice—retreat into old, closed-off economies or press forward, acknowledging the inequality that can come with globalisation while committing ourselves to making the global economy work better for all people, not just those at the top.

Trump Apologizes for US Intervention on Serbian Genocide

25 days before the election, Donald Trump goes out of his way to tow a rabidly pro-Serbian line that comfortably matches one of the Kremlin's more important talking points.

Look, I'm not conspiracy-minded, and I'm having trouble conjuring up deep emotion re: the whole Russian connection thing. Really, I was off Trump the moment he informed us that Mexican immigrants are nearly all criminals and rapists (on the very day he announced his candidacy, if I'm not mistaken), so I haven't needed much further anti-Trump persuasion. In fact, I'm perplexed that the recent misogyny stuff is the least bit surprising to anyone. So I'm nonplussed by the recent waves of somewhat contrived-seeming outrage - and am, in fact, really upset by this deeply unfair video, proving that the right doesn't have a monopoly when it comes to cynically pushing deep buttons of division and racial animus in order to achieve political ends (the rest of us oughtn't reciprocally match the "burn-it-all-down" stance).

But, still. I have to concede that this Serbian thing is awfully strange.


Two notes:

1. This is like the third really good, really early, really important reporting I've seen from Newsweek this month. Did they get good again?

2. Muslims are, unsurprisingly, freaking out that the guy who wants to block them, and possibly deport them, putatively from a common sense desire to weed out bad apples, is now apologizing for the United States' intervention in the attempted genocide of Bosnian Muslims.

Trump Has A Huge Night at the Second Presidential Debate

So the Vic Berger video I briefly referenced yesterday has finally arrived, and it's as creepy/hilarious as we all hoped it would be.

Behold!

Burning it to the Ground

The end game of our century-plus political alignment has, sure enough, gained momentum. The Republican candidate for president is currently burning it all to the ground on Twitter.

Meanwhile, somewhere in Florida...

Some quick links:

At any other moment of our nation's history, this story, explaining how a US presidential candidate got caught not just unwittingly acting in the interest of a foreign power (as Trump has been doing for Russia all along), but cribbing directly from whoever feeds Russia's primary propoganda organ (i.e. someone high-level at the Kremlin), would produce an earth-rocking scandal.

Adding to the two I recommended yesterday, here are some more Twitter feeds to monitor: David Fahrenthold (the WaPo reporter who's been doggedly working the Trump foundation/donations story), Matt Mackowiak (another conservative anti-Trumper), Vic Berger is due to post a much-awaited mash-up of the last debate any minute now, and, just for fun, Ken Bone, the dude in the red sweater from the debate who's become an Internet sensation (check out this appearance on Kimmel bearing in mind how very, very difficult it is for a civilian to draw laughs - much less sustained laughs - on a late night talkshow.

Finally, this is pretty hilarious:




More brilliant videos from Peter Serafinowicz

All My Election Predictions Were Wrong

I was wrong in all my predictions about this election:

1. I wrote, back in May, that "the smartest thing Hillary and Bill could do would be to rent a nice house in the south of France until November, and disappear. Not say a word. Let her proxies (not Bill) snipe at Trump. Let Trump be the only candidate committing unforced errors. Give him the total spotlight he craves. Let the nation experience nothing but wall-to-wall Trump for six months. Let Trump undo Trumpism."

I still think that would have worked out just fine, but my prediction - that she'd mess things up with the lousy political skills which had squandered huge leads against seemingly weak opponents twice before - was wrong. She didn't spend the past months bellowing "Donald Trump is a racist!!" over and over again, as I expected. Rather, she and her team have played a subtle political strategy that I imagine will be remembered and taught for centuries.

The campaign ad below, from July, was brilliant. It perfectly set the stage for everything her campaign would be doing:



In the first debate, her strategy and execution were flawless. She trolled and provoked with perfect grace, while completely belying her image of stridency and smugness.

In the second debate, she played a prevent defense, declining to spar (even letting plenty of whoppers pass by unchallenged), running out the clock on her mounting lead. Trump gave her several opportunities to shove the knife in deeply, but she took none of them. This, too, was brilliant.

The Trump ticket went into the debate at a crisis point, with the Republican party on the verge of mass defection, and high-level talk of replacing the candidate. His running mate had even abandoned the campaign for two days and was said to be watching the debate performance before deciding whether to drop out. Clinton went in for no kills, did no trolling, and did little to set him off. She let him live, ensuring that the Republican party would be tied to this drowning candidate for the duration, and keeping the Senate's majority (and perhaps the House's) highly vulnerable.

That she was considered to have narrowly "won" the debate was, I think, purely accidental. Her main goal was to preserve a fatally damaged raft just enough that her opponents wouldn't abandon it for other, more unpredictable, means of survival. That was an awfully tough needle to thread, and she (and her team) nailed it [note that I just executed a rare quadruple mixed metaphor]. That she narrowly won, to boot, was a political triumph (long-time readers know I'm anything but a Hillary Clinton fan).

2. I thought Trump could turn his bellicose demagoguery on and off. But he never pivoted for the general election, as I predicted. I was extremely wrong...and stupidly so. A 70-year old shallow narcissist, perennially surrounded by sycophants, has had neither opportunity nor incentive to develop the facility to modify his persona, his views, or his verbal style. Trump, I should have realized, is an expression of pure id, and id can't pivot.

The Election Is Now a Historical Turning Point

This may come to be seen as the precise moment when the Trump election cycle pivoted from a surreal shitshow to a foundational realignment of our nation's politics.

As the Republican party has began to unravel in earnest (liberals would be wise not to celebrate; ask any Iraqi how liberating massive sudden destabilization and radicalization feels), this has become historical, not merely anomalous. So this is the point where viewing, pondering, and discussing the campaign and its increasingly complex repercussions is more than titillation or abstract horse race boosterism. With Trump's defeat a foregone conclusion (barring black swans), we can focus on the broader picture. This is a moment Americans need to witness carefully in order to adjust to the impending new normal. Paying attention now is a civic duty.

To stay up on the fast-moving action in real time, Twitter's your best shot (the TV networks are crap; all of them). I recommend two Twitter accounts, both prolific, smart, and staunchly anti-Trump. Josh Barro approaches from the left, Rick Wilson (who wrote the influential article I linked to this weekend) approaches from the right. Between their near-obsessive tweeting, and the equally smart people they retweet, you'll have an excellent perch on the action.

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Speaking of civic duties, have you registered to vote yet (google for easy/precise state-by-state instructions)? Even if you're in a "safe" state, consider that an extremely sharp rebuke of Trump will help repair our standing abroad, and remove Trump's ability to claim he was robbed.

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A massively important story got buried amid all the Pussygate outrage. America's formal rebuke of Russia for trying to influence our elections via hacking is both more significant (it signals a pivot by Putin) and less significant (it's no deep conspiracy; more of a cunningly executed provocation) than it seems. This superb analysis is a bit long, but an easy read that you absolutely shouldn't miss.

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Lots of links, above, but if you're going to pay attention to politics once in your lifetime, now's the time. It's a privilege to live through history - even unpleasant history. I don't want to just read the synopsis later. This is not a moment to hit the fast-forward button; this is a moment to hit "play" and pay full attention.

Perennially Unlearned Lessons

The perennially unlearned lesson of the 20th century: "Excessive nationalism is dangerous."

The perennially unlearned lesson of the 21st century*: "Consorting with monsters is ultimately self-defeating."


* - I'd actually date it from 1989, when the mujahedin we'd funded repelled the Soviets from Afghanistan.

PredictIt

PredictIt is the popular political betting platform, said to be more predictive than polls because people must put their money where their mouths are. Here's their main page for the US national elections. I also like to track their markets for Democrat and Republican presidential landslides.

Here's a bet I'm considering:

You can buy "yes" to "Will Mike Pence win the 2016 U.S. presidential election?", currently costing 3¢ for a $1 payoff, and buy "yes" to "Will Paul Ryan win the 2016 U.S. presidential election?", currently costing 2¢ for a $1 payoff.

I don't think it's likely that Mike Pence or Paul Ryan will take Trump's place. But if there's even a 10% chance of that happening, then there's probably at least a 6% chance of one of them winning, making this an appealing longshot. Pence is, of course, more likely than Ryan, but his relative likelihood is already priced in (as with all bets, you're betting not on likelihood, but on other people's miscalculation of likelihood).

To hedge, buy "yes" to "Will Hillary Clinton win the 2016 U.S. presidential election?", currently costing 80¢ for a $1 payoff.

You'll very, very likely make 20¢ on your dollar (minus whatever you bet on the longshots), with a potential huge kicker.


I don't like Ryan's or Pence's politics, but a win by either of them would go a long way toward healing the country. There's nothing like a bona fide bogeyman to put in perspective who our real collective enemies are.

Post-Debate Update: Hillary declined to go in for the kill again and again, ceding Trump myriad petty victories, steering him away from total meltdown and leaving him strong enough to retain GOP support. Pence, who'd taken two days off campaigning and was said to have been closely watching the debate to decide his future with the campaign, released a strong reassertion of support. So, crisis averted...on both sides. The Dems are understandably reluctant to shake dice when both presidency and Senate seem easily attainable, and the Trump campaign will limp on. So Pence/Ryan are no longer smart long-shot bets. So never mind!

How to Politely Explain Your Price Range to a Sommelier

I just answered a Quora quesion: "In a fine dining restaurant, what is a polite way to tell the sommelier the price range for the wine you're considering?"

I cannot for the life of me understand why people allow themselves to be intimidated by staff in pricey retail. The dude opening my wine bottle is NOT my social superior (nor is he my inferior!), regardless of the status buttons he’s been trained to press. They’re doing kabuki status theater. That doesn’t mean *I* need to, as well. I’m the audience, not an actor!

So here’s how I do it: “What do you suggest for under xx bucks?”

If he offers the slightest indication that he considers me vulgar, that means he’s super bad at his job (which is ENTIRELY about making me feel comfortable).