Shards from the Embattled Republic

An occasional list of links to provoking commentary. Some annotated by me.  

Johnathan Capehart: "... who gets lost in all this: Black parents and their children. All because some White people can’t bear feeling 'uncomfortable' learning about 'divisive' subjects. They want a gauzy, feel-good version of history that blinds them to the impact such a mythology has on events unfolding now. Meanwhile, Black people have to live with the real-life consequences of this blissful ignorance." Wouldn't want poor suffering White parents to have sad feelings ...

Economic historian Adam Tooze: "... one of the most profound hypocrisies in conventional talk about inflation [is] the asymmetrical treatment of the price of labour i.e. wages. If a central bank is truly committed to stabilizing the general price level, then it has no business lecturing any one particular actor on the need for restraint. Asking for wage restraint is literally asking for an allocative effect, one-sidedly, in favor of employers." You might guess Tooze is a Brit as well as an esteemed economist, more House of Commons question-time than Very Serious Expert.

Roxanne Gay: "When we are not free to express ourselves, when we can be thrown in jail or even lose our lives for speaking freely, that is censorship. When we say, as a society, that bigotry and misinformation are unacceptable, and that people who espouse those ideas don’t deserve access to significant platforms, that’s curation." Ms. Gay makes mincemeat of whining about "cancel culture."

Bill McKibben: "Provocation, of course, is the art form of our age, as music was of the 1960s and 1970s. Trolling is what we call it now, and the constant search for buttons to push has proved profitable—it’s what made Rush Limbaugh a fortune,  and what gets any obnoxious dude on Twitter enough attention to keep him preening." Interesting comparison. I do remember when you knew which side people were on if they liked Country Joe.

JVL at The Bulwark: "You get people like Susan Collins who would never consider herself a MAGA person and believes that she’s on the side of democracy. But she’s always been a Good Republican. She doesn’t want to rock the boat. And so she tells herself that everything will be fine. No need to do anything drastic or uncomfortable. Tomorrow will be just like yesterday. Everything is fine. And then you wake up one morning and things aren’t fine." Nobody is sharper at characterizing Republicans who are enabling fascism than a Never-Trumper.

Charles Blow: "Consciously including racial groups can be one of the most effective reparative remedies for centuries of racial exclusion." That's the true defense of much maligned affirmative action; it puts society on a path toward more justice.

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser: "Today we’re talking about the filibuster, but consider this: We wouldn’t even be in this situation if Washington, D.C., had two senators—the two senators we deserve." Lest we forget the injustice done to nearly 700,000 citizens of the capitol city.

Kevin Drum: "If I'm tired or stressed out, my mood worsens. This is precisely when I need to be most careful about making decisions or concluding that everything is, in fact, hopeless. The combination of COVID-19 and the Trumpian takeover of American politics is obviously something that's produced a lot of tiredness and stress. So beware of your feelings. It's likely that democracy isn't really doomed; that America isn't sliding down a rat hole; that Russia and China aren't poised to take over the world; and that conservatives won't rule the country forever. It may feel that way sometimes, but that's just your downtrodden brain chemistry talking. Things are probably better than you think." Let's hope he's right. He's not even sure himself.

Ben Rhodes: "... The opportunity to save a multiracial, multiethnic democracy should be approached as a defiant and joyful enterprise—a source of unity and community at a time when we badly need both." Or perhaps we can delight that we are undertaking a bold, novel  journey together, if only we persist.

Eugene Robinson: "... seeing the GOP as some kind of unstoppable juggernaut is wrong. It’s more like a group of hostages and hostage-takers, united only in a quest for power, not knowing or caring why." We are looking at fear and weakness masquerading as strength.