Bird Song of the Day

Brown Thrasher, Elkinsville Rd. and Kirk’s Ford Rd., Brown, Indiana, United States. Grab a cup of coffee for nineteen minutes of thrashing!

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In Case You Might Miss…

  1. Trump’s first week.
  2. Democrats for 2028.
  3. Surviving pandemics.

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Politics

“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles

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Trump Administration

“Scoop: How Trump’s ‘black box’ limits outside influences” [Axios]. “President Trump is surprising — even frustrating — some longtime friends in his second administration’s early days with fewer leaks, a lack of exploitable rivalries, and tighter restrictions on access to him. Why it matters: No modern president has done more — across more areas of American policy, culture and life — than Trump in the past six days. This new operating style and system enabled a strategy of flooding the nation with so many huge moves that it’s hard for critics to attack specific ones.” And: “It’s stunning to veterans of Trump’s first West Wing. But at least in Week 1, the new government has mirrored the discipline of his 2024 campaign operation — another sharp contrast with his previous teams…. There’s a ‘strong silo system’ that has kept advocates and special interests from forum-shopping and end-running administration officials, the lobbyist added.” Interestingly: “The biggest change of all, Axios has learned, is that White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and other aides have clamped down on the ability of random friends and reporters to call Trump directly. Until now, if you had his phone number and called, Trump would answer and talk to you — and maybe even act on whatever you suggested. Now, Trump wants to focus more on work and has less time for bull sessions so he’s less prone to answer his phone.” • Of course, some might suggest that we want Trump to “work” as little possible.

“Confident, organised, still freewheeling: Trump 2.0 has learned from past” [BBC]. “The stacks of leather-bound executive orders piled high on the Resolute Desk illustrate how the Trump 2.0 era is set against a different political landscape from four years ago – one which has produced a more emboldened commander-in-chief…. ‘It’s been much more disciplined, on-point and issue-focused,’ said Lawrence Muir, a former official in the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Mr Muir, who was tasked with hiring administration personnel as part of the 2016 Trump transition team, told the BBC his work was ‘essentially discarded’ by the incoming White House at the time. ‘They did not have a great idea about what they were supposed to be producing, or how to produce it,’ he said. ‘[Trump’s] doing much better this time in terms of what he’s getting out, getting it out efficiently, and knowing how it has to be enforced down through the agencies.’”

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“Trump’s agenda is about to hit a make-or-break moment” [Politico]. “House Republicans are heading to President Donald Trump’s Miami-area resort for their annual policy retreat…. The biggest task for the gathering at Trump National Doral: Finalize a budget blueprint plan for the massive, party-line bill they’re planning, touching energy, border security and tax policy. But to do that, Republicans need to decide what will go in that package — with the price tag of Trump’s priorities reaching $10 trillion over 10 years — versus what might be included in a separate, bipartisan government funding bill that will be negotiated with Democrats over the next seven weeks. The fate of a necessary debt ceiling increase is top of mind…. The planned retreat discussions have been tailored to show attending members the possibilities for the way forward and to take their temperatures on potential spending cuts, according to three Republicans with direct knowledge of the planning. Leaders will have to carefully balance sometimes competing interests from various GOP factions.” And: “Centrists are also relaying their concerns to GOP leaders about some committees’ plans to target pieces of the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that provides food aid benefits for more than 40 million low-income Americans…. Those proposals are relatively more palatable for GOP lawmakers in competitive districts than the massive cuts to current benefits some conservatives would prefer. But they’re still politically divisive and could provide Democrats major campaign fodder in blue and purple districts ahead of the 2026 midterms.” • But cutting Medicaid, though easy and fun, won’t get those trillions. It never does.

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“Trump actions could wreak havoc on South Florida’s sizeable Colombian population” [Miami Herald]. “Florida is home to 473,606 Colombians, according to the U.S. Census data. The state has long been a magnet for new arrivals from the South American country who are seeking a place where there are many Spanish speakers, a warm climate and a ready-made community.” • Interestingly, the story doesn’t sat what percentage of those new arrivals have their papers in order.

“Trump wants to tackle inflation. Will these top actions bring prices down?” [WaPo]. The deck: “Here’s six key actions, executive orders and promises, from this past week and how they would affect inflation.” More: “‘The reality is, inflation of the type we have gets embedded into the economy and takes a long time to wring out,’ said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum, a conservative think tank. ‘There aren’t many quick solutions.’” Be that as it may, the six: Immigration crackdowns, deportations [▲]; New tariffs and trade policies [▲]; Expanding oil and gas drilling, other energy overhauls [▼]; Rolling back regulations [▼]; Undoing Biden’s efforts to lower prescription drug prices[?]; Lowering interest rates[▲].” • Triangles for what WaPo thinks could go up, or down.

“Trump shocks the system. Will he solve problems voters care about most?” [Dan Balz, WaPo]. “The larger issue for Trump, and what ultimately will determine the political and substantive success of his second term, is whether this flurry of activity signaling a major course change will result in the betterment of the lives of the voters who supported him in November. Getting rid of DEI offices and personnel will cheer his most loyal supporters and hurt a federal workforce in a nation becoming more ethnically diverse. It won’t necessarily help families struggling to pay bills. Deporting millions of undocumented immigrants in fact could raise food prices and further labor shortages…. Shocking the system is one thing. Providing tangible results to people is another.”

2028

“The 12 Democrats who make the most sense for 2028” [WaPo]. Starts out well: “Save for a few months at the tail end of the 2024 campaign, the party hasn’t had an authoritative, dominant leader for a long time.” Really? 2024? Who was that? Anyhow, here are the 12, starting with #12: Tim Walz, Josh Stein, Andy Beshear, Gavin Newsom, Raphael G. Warnock, Wes Moore, Ruben Gallego, John Fetterman, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Gretchen Whitmer, and — at #1! — Josh Shapiro. It’s been a long time since I deployed the “Please kill me now” trope….

Our Famously Free Press

“Too Much News, Redux” [Jon Allsop, Columbia Journalism Review]. “I noted in 2020 that the ‘basic rhythms’ of the news business aren’t designed to cope with deluges of huge stories: whatever the day’s news, it must be stretched or shrunk to fill roughly the same number of newspaper column inches or cable news hours; the internet, of course, theoretically offers near-infinite space for news coverage to expand, but many digital formats—from homepages to newsletters—themselves have spatial limits, and that’s before we get into strained newsroom resources and apparently diminished audience buy-in, as Stelter pointed out last week. These constraints make it hard for the news media, as a collective apparatus, to communicate proportion. We have tools for organizing stories by importance—back in 2020, I noted that the New York Times had run thirty-three banner front-page print headlines in less than six months, smashing even its election-year average—but the constant blare of headlines, as I noted, can have a ‘flattening effect, making it harder, over a long period of time, to distinguish actual news from attention hustling.’ The problem of proportionality is recurring now. A story previewing Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s potentially radical plans to ‘target vaccines’ should he be confirmed as health and human services secretary appeared about halfway down a major Politico newsletter on Friday; yesterday, the CIA lab-leak story made the front page of the Times, but only in brief form at the very bottom. Needless to say that in the summer of 2020, both these stories would have been earth-shaking.” • Allsop complains of Trump’s tendency to make news, or at least news stories — “flood the zone with sh*t” — but I think there are more stories out there, as one would expect as a function of slow civilizational collapse (newsrooms are smaller too).

Democrats en déshabillé

“Playbook: A tough Week One for Democrats” [Politico]. “On Saturday, at their winter meeting in National Harbor, Maryland, Democrats will make their first consequential decision since their November drubbing: selecting a new chair of the DNC. In the opening days of the new administration, Democrats have struggled to frame Republicans, careening from the critique that Trump has surrounded himself with ‘broligarchs,’ as Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) put it, to whether Elon Musk made a Nazi salute. Senate Democrats have zigged and zagged on their Cabinet confirmation votes. Of course, not all nominees are equal. But they are clearly divided over tactics in responding to Trump’s program.” • Maybe — hear me out — the important Democrat problems aren’t at the tactical level?

“In the wilderness: Democrats struggle to navigate the politics of new Trump era” [Guardian]. “‘He’s been in office less than a week, and you’ve already seen a federal court with a judge who was appointed by a Republican president – a president that much of the conservative movement in America upholds – say that he’s operating blatantly unconstitutionally,’ said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of the non-profit legal group Democracy Forward. ‘I think what you’re going to see is more sophisticated legal responses this time because civil society, I think, is much more organized and savvy to this playbook.’ Democracy Forward is one of more than 350 organizations that have joined a coalition known as Democracy 2025, which has the explicit aim of ‘disrupting any efforts by the Trump-Vance administration to attack our rights.’ ‘The message that we want to send to all Americans across the country is thbe doing is demanding a president and a Congress that does the same thing,’ Perryman said.” • So, doubling down on lawfare. 350 organizatioat there are lawyers and advocates who are going to be in court every single day fighting for your rights, and what we need to ns is not a sign of strength. It’s a sign of weakness. Nor are these NGOs representative of “civil society” as a whole.

“Trump Just Broke the Law. Blatantly. And He Might Get Away With It” [Michael Tomaskey, The New Republic]. On Trump firing the 15 Inspectors General: “Under the original law, presidents had to give Congress 30 days’ notice about their intent to fire an I.G. and just supply some vague reason why. President Barack Obama’s excuse for firing the I.G. of national service programs was simply a lack of confidence in the guy. Then came Trump. As Bob Bauer and Jack Goldsmith wrote at Lawfare in 2022, ‘More frequently than prior presidents, [Trump] manipulated vacancies and related laws to fire or dismiss disliked inspectors general and replace them, pursuant to the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 (FVRA), with a more like-minded or pliant official.’ So Congress, through a larger defense bill, amended the I.G. law by replacing the word ‘reasons’ with the phrase ‘substantive rationale, including detailed and case-specific reasons.’ In sum, Congress toughened this law because of Trump. And now, Trump has broken the provision that was added in response to his flouting of the original law! That he broke the law is obvious. He didn’t give 30 days’ notice. He didn’t provide any ‘substantive rationale.’ He didn’t provide any reason at all. He just did it. And he told reporters Saturday that it was all fine. ‘It’s a very common thing to do,’ he said. Once he says that, we know that basically every Republican, and Fox News and Sinclair and the rest of the propaganda chamber, are going to say the same thing. Lindsey Graham on Sunday hilariously admitted that ‘technically, yeah,’ Trump broke the law but Graham wasn’t losing any sleep over it.” • It’s a good thing that four solid years of lawfare (eight, if you count RussiaGate) didn’t make people cynical about Democrat accusations of illegality, because this thing looks like it could have legs.

Realignment and Legitimacy

“Column: The rise of Silicon Valley, from indifference to lords of the political universe” [Los Angeles Times]. “When the high and mighty of Silicon Valley assumed their privileged perch at the swearing-in of President Trump, it was an ostentatious show of wealth and power unlike any before. ‘You could go back to the Gilded Age and you could have a similar concentration of capital and power. You know, Rockefeller and Carnegie,’ said historian Margaret O’Mara, citing two of the richest men who ever bestrode the earth. ‘But they weren’t on the dais of the inauguration.’…. The explanation for their propinquity lies not in the creation of some whiz-bang, life-changing, paradigm-bending consumer product, or the shining virtues or particularly fertile minds that grace Silicon Valley’s fruited plain. ‘It’s one of the oldest truisms in politics,’ said Larry Gerston, a San José State political science professor emeritus, who’s followed the tech industry from a front-row seat for decades. ‘Money buys access.’ Bezos’ Amazon and Zuckerberg’s Meta were among the tech firms that tithed $1 million each to help pay for Trump’s inauguration. Musk invested more than a quarter of a billion dollars to help elect Trump. Given his conjoined-twin closeness to the 47th president, it appears money well spent.’”

Syndemics

“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison

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Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).

Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!

Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (wastewater); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).

Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).

Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).

Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, KF, KidDoc, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, thump, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).

Stay safe out there!

Airborne Transmission

Airborne governance, interesting concept:

But commentary, putting the diagram in context:

Transmission: H5N1

“2nd Edition Ready For The Next One: A Guide to H5N1 Preparation” [Ko-Fi]. Description: “While much of the US struggles to see the oncoming avian flu pandemic as a true public health threat, Sharon offers a way forward into an uncertain, chaotic future with a special focus on H5N1 preparation. Includes all the material in her H5N1 prep essays along with printable bonus material, like health preparations and talking points & communication strategies.” • Haven’t evaluated it, but it is paid for on a sliding scale starting at zero, so perhaps some kind soul in the readership would like to take a look.

“How the Messy Process of Milking Cows Can Spread Bird Flu” [New York Times]. From December 5, 2024: “[D]ata strongly suggests that the virus, known as H5N1, has spread primarily* through milk. It replicates quickly in the udders of infected cows, which produce milk with sky-high levels of the pathogen. Droplets of milk can splash into dairy workers’ faces, while milk-splattered equipment and vehicles can transport the virus from cow to cow…. In theory, a virus that spreads through milk should be easier to control than one that floats invisibly in the air. But a look inside the modern dairy industry reveals that milk-based transmission is profoundly worrying. ‘Milk is hugely problematic,’ said Seema Lakdawala, a virologist at Emory University.” • Detail on how humans and robots milk cows. Commentary:

I only know what I read in the papers, so perhaps some kind reader can comment on this solution.

NOTE * If HN51 travels on dust blown by the wind, the “primarily” claim could turn out to be false.

Maskstravaganza

Masking and class:

Prevention: Covid

Covid-consciousness as HODL:

I think it’s good not to be infected, and the next best thing is to put off being infected; the advantages of, say, not getting brain damage compound.

How to survive a pandemic (thread):

Personal Risk Assessment

So they tell us:

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Lambert here: Indeed, the CDC data seems to have paused onTrump’s order (except for National Hospitalization, oddly). How I wish we had Biobot’s wastewater charts back!

TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts

Wastewater
This week[1] CDC January 13 Last week[2] CDC (until next week):

Variants [3] CDC January 18 Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC January 11

Hospitalization
New York[5] New York State, data January 16: National [6] CDC January 24:

Positivity
National[7] Walgreens January 27: Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic January 18:

Travelers Data
Positivity[9] CDC December 30: Variants[10] CDC December 30

Deaths
Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11] CDC January 11: Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12] CDC January 11:

LEGEND

1) for charts new today; all others are not updated.

2) For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open image in new tab.”

NOTES

[1] (CDC) Seeing more red and more orange, but nothing new at major hubs.

[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.

[3] (CDC Variants) XEC takes over. That WHO label, “Ommicron,” has done a great job normalizing successive waves of infection.

[4] (ED) A little uptick.

[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Definitely jumped.

[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). Leveling out.

[7] (Walgreens) Leveling out.

[8] (Cleveland) Continued upward trend since, well, Thanksgiving.

[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Leveling out.

[10] (Travelers: Variants). Positivity is new, but variants have not yet been released.

[11] Deaths low, positivity leveling out.

[12] Deaths low, ED leveling out.

Stats Watch

National Activity: “United States Chicago Fed National Activity Index” [Trading Economy]. “The Chicago Fed National Activity Index for the US increased to 0.15 in December 2024, the highest reading in seven months, compared to an upwardly revised -0.01 in November. The reading showed economic growth increased in December, with production-related indicators contributing 0.19 (vs +0.03 in November) and employment-related indicators adding (vs unchanged).”

Manufacturing: “United States Dallas Fed Manufacturing Index” [Trading Economics].

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Manufacturing: “Boeing may soon sell some of its businesses. That could finally boost the stock” [MarketWatch]. “Leaders at Boeing Co. have been struggling to turn the company around after years of bad headlines. Now, some investors are hoping they’ll look to a new tactic: selling some of its businesses, which could shore up the company’s balance sheet and lift the stock from its doldrums. There are a few discrete businesses within the aerospace and defense behemoth that could generate cash, including Boeing’s Jeppesen navigation unit and Boeing’s parts distribution business. In conversations with MarketWatch, some investors also have raised the possibility of changes to Boeing’s satellite-launch joint venture with Lockheed Martin Corp.”

Manufacturing: “Budget airline Ryanair cuts passenger traffic goal again on Boeing delays” [CNBC]. “[Ryanair CFO Neil Sorahan], who said he recently returned from a trip to Boeing’s production facilities into Seattle, said he’d seen ‘huge improvements in relation to supply chain and everything else’ in recent months. ‘I have a high level of confidence that the remaining nine aircraft that we need to get to 181 ‘Gamechangers’ along with the existing fleet will come in,’ he added. Sorahan said that Boeing appeared to have ‘turned the corner,’ adding that he was hopeful Ryanair would not need to cut its traffic targets even further.” • I hope its true. Regardless, kudos to whoever took Sorahan round the plant….

Tech: Nate, Nate:

And:

Tech: Matty, Matty:

And:

Tech: Can this be true?

It does make sense that the tech bros, being bottom feeders, would stuff their training sets with the cheapest possible content…

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Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 38 Fear (previous close: 48 Neutral) [CNN]. One week ago: 37 (Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Jan 27 at 1:49:14 PM ET.

Rapture Index: Closes unchanged. [Rapture Ready]. Record High, October 10, 2016: 189. Current: 181. (Remember that bringing on the Rapture is good.) • This is a tough crowd. Surely Trump’s first week brought the Rapture closer?

Gallery

How New England (1):

How New England (2):

Zeitgeist Watch

“How to Weather the Storm” [Kottle.org]. All about the feels. That said: “I’ve decided that part of what I’m doing to weather the storm is to keep doing what I’m doing here on kottke.org — that is, highlighting the creativity of humanity, telling the truth about what’s going on in the world, sharing dumb stuff that makes us laugh — and continue to develop an online community built around those things via the comments and other means.”

Guillotine Watch

“The Wage Crisis of 2025: 73% of Workers Struggle Beyond Basic Living Expenses” [Resume Now]. Self-reported, but in a way that’s the point: “A recent survey by Resume Now reveals that financial stress has reached a breaking point for American workers, with 73% of employees struggling to afford anything beyond their basic living expenses.” And:

  1. 12% often cannot afford basic living expenses, and 24% struggle to cover essentials.
  2. Only 6% are able to save for the future.
  3. One-third of workers say their salary has not kept up with inflation.
  4. 55% think their salary is lower than it should be.
  5. 29% have moved to lower-cost areas or housing to navigate financial strain.
  6. 3 in 10 have taken on debt to cover living expenses.
  7. Only 4% of workers feel truly valued in their role.

Commentary:

News of the Wired

“What an Insomniac Knows” [Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker]. “[Matthew Walker, who runs the Center for Human Sleep Science, at Berkeley,] suggests that humans are made for ‘biphasic’ sleep—that is, two sleep sessions per day. People in traditional communities where everyone naps live longer than people in modernized ones where they don’t. The siesta is lifesaving. Walker even conjectures that our peculiar sleep patterns may explain our evolutionary advance. We sleep less than other primates, but get relatively more REM sleep, and the dreams it brings, than our monkey and ape cousins. It is during REM sleep, Walker insists, that we engage in ’emotional processing.’ The mnemonic collisions during this phase forge new connections among our experiences, and we wake not merely refreshed but revived and enlightened by our re-wrought neural networks.” • Hmm.

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Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi, lichen, and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From Timotheus:

Timotheus writes: “Evening view of a beloved giant gingko on Broadway and 211th Street, Manhattan.”

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About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered.

To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.













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