The Submission Drive

Humans have a drive for social and intellectual submission, which is extremely dangerous.

There was a time when psychological "drives" were all the rage. The idea that humans have instincts much as other animals do was just entering the scientific consciousness, so finding and classifying them was an important task- the great work of figuring out the human unconscious, or subconscious. Drives for food, security, sex, dominance, and much else were found. Freud even elaborated a "death drive". But our current political epoch suggests another one- a submission drive.

To an independent minded scholar and skeptic, the behavior on the Republican side of the political spectrum is revolting. Falling all over themselves to fawn over a narcissistic megalomaniac? Check. Thinking nothing of flagrant corruption that makes Warren Harding look like a choir boy? Check. Explaining away gross incompetence and pointless cruelty across the entire policy space from economics to foreign policy? Check. What causes people to join and defend what amount to cults? For that matter, what causes people to join religions?

At one level, submission is eminently rational. Groups are always more powerful than individuals. The American archetype of the loner, the Clint Eastwood or John Wayne character riding alone to mete out justice and bucking the system- that is a fantasy. It is powerful precisely because it is so romantic and unrealistic. It is compensatory psychic food for the hemmed-in and submissive. In reality, the system always wins. Militaries win when they can gather up a bigger army than the other guys. Corporations win when they have bought all their competition and become the biggest on the block. Our social instincts lead us to join groups to gain power. 

But the submission drive seems to go way beyond this, allowing us to swallow alternate realities and even seek domination by others. An interesting form is when whole cultures convert their religion. Many times, such as during the colonial era, during the Christian conquests of Northern Europe, and during the Muslim conquests, the winning power foists its religion on another culture, a culture that grows quite rapidly to accept and adopt it as its own. Was one religion true-er or better than the other? Not at all. The new one is often significantly worse in many dimensions than the old. This is purely a power transaction where those who had submitted themselves to one archetype and narrative of cultural and supernatural power find themselves convinced that social and military coercion is a pretty important form of power too, perhaps signifying a new narrative that they should submit to. But once converted, the same psychic events happen. Leaders are idolized, scriptures are memorized, vestments are accessorized. In return, those who submit seek safety and guidance, buying into a (new) father figure archetype.

Joining a group inserts you into a hierarchy of domination. There are rewards for working your way up the ranks, being able to get others to serve you, having more influence and status. This most obvious in the military, with its obsession with colorful gradations, decorations, and uniforms. But it is true everywhere- in corporations, politics, organized crime, families. Submission is the price of entry, and it seems that to properly submit, one has to take on the a great deal more than just a signed contract. Members of organizations are constantly being tested for their loyalty, their buy-in to the ethics and goals of the organization, and its wider world-view. At IBM, they used to sing the company song. Modern corporate life is a complex compromise where some of the submittee's personal life is allowed to be separated from corporate control, and many boundaries are set by legal regime to prevent the organization from turning into a criminal entity and bar total domination of its employees, customers, business partners. 

However, other organizations are not so limited. Religion and politics are a bit less hemmed-in, and demand sometimes extraordinary kinds of fealty for the rewards on offer. In their variety of styles and cultures, they attract different temperaments of devotee. Overall, one has to say that people more prone to submission and participation in hierarchies tend to go to right-wing political, military, and religious organizations. Contrary to the cultivated image of hard-headedness and independence, conservatives turn out to submit more readily to domination by others. It is notorious that organizing Democrats is like herding cats. Likewise, university faculty tend towards independence and disorganization. Liberal churches are notoriously light on discipline and free with their theology. 

Conversely, Republican and conservative organizations spring up like weeds and have, aside from gobs of funding, remarkable discipline. The MAGA swoon for the current president is just one example of the lengths to which thought patterns can be bent in favor of the dominant leader of the moment. The corollary of greater mental submission by the followers is greater rewards and wider scope of action for the leaders. Making it to the top of such disciplined heap seems to turn psychology on its head, from submission to domination. Napoleon is a case study, working his way up the ranks, literally, to a position of ultimate power. Which promptly went to his head, causing him to veer in a conservative direction, and to wreck half of Europe. Cult leaders have time and again shown how poorly adapted we are to this much-sought after, but rarely successful, psychological transition.

The fascist/authoritarian moment that is glowering around the world has reactivated these extreme domination/submission dynamics, such as between Russia and Ukraine, and within so many far-right movements and the poitical systems they target. Fortunately, there are just fundamental temperamental barriers to the attractiveness of such movements, forcing them to take extra-legal measures if they are truly dedicated to overcome the resistence of the less submissive members of their societies.

• Much of this is drawn from a classic book, "Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War".
• Report card on the courts.
• Waymo is hitting the highway.
• Plastic.

Gold Standard

The politics and aesthetics of resentment. Warning: this post contains thought crime.

I can not entirely fathom thinking on the right these days. It used to be that policy disputes occured, intelligent people weighed in from across a reasonable spectrum of politics, and legislation was hammered out to push some policy modestly forward (or backward). This was true for civil rights, environmental protection, deregulation, welfare reform, even gay marriage. That seems to be gone now. Whether it is the atomization of attention and thought brought on by social media, or the mercenary propaganda of organs like FOX news, the new mode of politics appears to be destructive, vindictive spite. A spiral of extremism.

It also has a definite air of resentment, as though policy is not the point, nor is power, entirely, but owning the libtards is the real point- doing anything that would be destructive of liberal accomplishments and ideals. We know that the president is a seething mass of resentments, but how did that transform alchemically into a political movement?

I was reading a book (Deep South) by Paul Theroux that provides some insight. It is generally a sour and dismissive, full of a Yankee's distain for the backwardness of the South. And it portrays the region as more or less third world. Time and again, towns are shadowed by factories closed due to off-shoring.  What little industry the South had prior to NAFTA was eviscerated, leaving agriculture, which is increasingly automated and corporatized. It is an awful story of regression and loss of faith. And the author of this process was, ironically, a Southerner- Bill Clinton. Clinton went off to be a smarty-pants, learned the most advanced economic theories, and concluded that NAFTA was a good deal for the US, as it was for the other countries involved, and for our soft power in the post-world war 2 world. The South, however, and a good deal of the Rust Belt, became sacrifice zones for the cheaper goods coming in from off-shore.

What seemed so hopeful in the post-war era, that America would turn itself into a smart country, leading the world in science, technology, as well as in political and military affairs, has soured into the realization that all the smart kids moved to the coasts, leaving a big hole in the middle of the country. The meritocracy accomplished what it was supposed to, establishing a peerless educational system that raised over half the population into the ranks of college graduates. But it opened eyes in other ways as well, freeing women from the patterns of patriarchy, freeing minorities from reflexive submission, and opening our history to quite contentious re-interpretation. And don't get me started on religion!

So there has been a grand conjunction of resentment, between a population sick of the dividends of the educational meritocracy over a couple of generations, and a man instinctively able to mirror and goad those resentments into a destructive political movement. His aesthetic communicates volumes- garish makeup, obscene ties, and sharing with Vladimir Putin a love of gold-gilded surfaces. To the lower class, it may read expensive and successful, but to the well educated, it reeks of cheapness, focusing on surface over substance, a bullying, mob aesthetic, loudly anti-democratic.

Reading the project 2025 plans for this administration, I had thought we would be looking at a return to the monetary gold standard. But no, gold has come up in many other guises, not that one. Gold crypto coins, Gold immigration card, Oval office gold, golden hair. But most insulting of all was the ordering up of gold standard science. The idea that the current administration is interested in, or capable of, sponsoring high quality personnel, information or policy of any kind has been thoroughly refuted by its first months in office. The resentment it channels is directed against, first and foremost, those with moral integrity. Whether civil servants, diplomats, or scientists, all who fail to bend the knee are enemies of this administration. This may not be what the voters had in mind, but it follows from the deeper currents of frustration with liberal dominance of the meritocracy and culture.

But what is moral integrity? I am naturally, as a scientist, talking about truth. A morality of truth, where people are honest, communicate in truthful fashion, and care about reality, including the reality of other people and their rights / feelings. As the quote has it, reality has a well-known liberal bias. But it quickly becomes apparent that there are other moralities. What we are facing politically could be called a morality of authority. However alien to my view of things, this is not an invalid system, and it is central to the human condition, modeled on the family. Few social systems are viable without some hierarchy and relation of submission and authority. How would a military work without natural respect for authority? And just to make this philosophical and temperamental system complete, one can posit a morality of nurture as well, modeled on mothering, unconditional love, and encouragement.

This triad of moralities is essential to human culture, each component in continual dynamic tension. Our political moment shows how hypertrophy of the morality of authority manifests. Lies and ideology are a major tool, insisting that people take their reality from the leader, not their own thoughts or from experts who hew to a morality of truth. Unity of the culture is valued over free analysis. As one can imagine, over the long run of human history, the moralities of nurture and authority have been dominant by far. They are the poles of the family system. It was the Enlightenment that raised the morality of truth as an independent pole in this system for the culture at large, not just for a few scholars and clerics. Not that truth has not always been an issue in people's lives, with honesty a bedrock principle, and people naturally caring whether predicted events really happen, whether rain really falls, the sun re-appears, etc. But as an organizing cultural principle that powers technological and thus social and cultural progress, it is a somewhat recent phenomenon.

It is notable that scientists, abiding by a morality of truth, tend to have very peaceful cultures. They habitually set up specialized organizations, mentor students, and collaborate nationally and internationally. Scientists may work for the military, but within their own cultures, have little interest in starting wars. It is however a highly competitive culture, with critical reviewing, publishing races, and relentless experimentation designed to prove or disprove models of reality. Authority has its place, as recognized experts get special privileges, and established facts tend to be hard to move. At risk of sounding presumptuous, the morality of truth represents an enormous advance in human culture, not to be lightly dismissed. And the recent decades of science in the US have been a golden age that have produced a steady stream of technological advance and international power, not to mention Nobel prizes and revelations of the beauty of nature. That is a gold standard. 

• The theme does strike a nerve.
• In the name of free speech, thought crime will be punished.
• The war against propaganda.
• How fun it is in a culture of cruelty.
• A great drying is taking place.
• Is there no limit to the corruption?
• 200 years of trains.

The Revenge of History

China's cyclical history and the practice of meta-politics.

I have been studying the basics of Chinese history, getting my dynasties straight. And one observation made by everyone is the cyclicity of this history- the way it swings between unity and division, rise and collapse. One might say, however, that the real through-line is that of strong-man rule. Whether during warring states or in a unified empire, there has never been democracy in China. The states may be small or large, but they are always run by the same principle- authoritarianism. Thus the political evolution of China has been more concerned with how to ameliorate authoritarianism, with Confucianism the major (and Taoism and Buddhism the minor) modes of an (aspirational) ethic of rule that is more humane than the legalist school of pure power.

For example, one can ask the question: Why in such an ancient culture with such a lengthy political tradition, could Mao and the communist party turn it all upside down in the 20th century? Clearly it was not quite the revolution that it seemed, bringing not another system, but another emperor to the throne, one of astonishing cruelty, who killed off roughly 1/20 to 1/10 of the population over his career.

China's history is certainly a retort to the "End of History" school of thought, which had hoped to find in Western-style democracy the final refuge of humanity. One that all people and nations would recognize and join after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Hopes were nurtured that Russia might find its way to democracy, as they were towards China as well, after we did so much to encourage its capitalist development. Neither were requited, and now we ourselves are slipping into the quicksand of authoritarianism. What is going on?

One can view the American founding as a sort of meta-politics, where the best and the brightest got together, not to wage a war for supremacy, but to conceive a system that would allow continuous political development without bloodshed. Make up a few rules, set a few precedents, and we were launched on a political voyage that only descended into civil war once, and otherwise has maintained a responsive and distributed system of political control. Such meta-politics attempts to evade "real" history, which is made up of naked contests for power. One can say that it "gamified" politics by taking it off the plane of warfare, and onto a more benign plane of electoral and civic argument. It has been a shining example of human efforts to rise above our base nature.

But there is a problem, which is that it is still a contest for power, and the more serious the participants, the more tempted they are to change the rules of the game, back to the naked forms of yore. It is only the revulsion of the public against defectors that can confine power to those willing to play by the game's rules. And that revulsion has steadily eroded over the recent decades. I would place the start of this process at Newt Gingrich, who first whipped his caucus into shape with a discipline that eliminated individual conscience, and who sharpened propaganda and flamethrowing into political art. The FOX-based media ecosystem has eviscerated truth and principle as political concepts, not to mention empathy, and now celebrates political criminality as a matter of course. We are at war.

Again, China has never known democracy, so its political culture vacillates merely between more or less benign autocracies. From the astonishingly brutal rule of the Qin, to the cosmopolitan states of the Tang and Song. The "mandate of heaven", which is to say, popular opinion, is important, but is usually expressed through the ability of a revolutionary strong man to gather support. Muslim political culture is similar, having few suggestions about how a ruler should be chosen, but assuming always that there will be a ruler. The overall theme is that, especially by the "realist" school of foreign policy, history and the normal course of events are composed of naked contests for power, won by the most ruthless, shameless, and cruel. The ideas of the enlightenment offered an end to this state of affairs, by making politics about what they should be about- the opinions of the governed- systematically and peacefully. But to do that, the opinions of the governed also need to be enlightened, capable of sanctioning a politician for breaching the rules of the game, even if that politician is on their side. And that is what is so clearly missing today, as we gradually slip back into history.

• A letter from China.
• How do they make it with so many losses? Tax fraud.
• Bill Mitchell on crypto.
• Russia's attitude towards peace.

My Religion is Star Trek

Denial of death and the origin of evil- Ernest Becker on religion.

I have always wondered about the purpose of clothes. Nudists obviously do as well. Sometimes you need to keep warm. But most of the time, clothes are a cultural convention full of signifiers of taste, status ... and something else. That something else is the illusion that we are not animals. Positively, absolutely, something wholly different and on another plane of existence. Not animals. 

Even a century and a half after Darwin explained that we are animals, there are plenty of people who cling to various stories of denial. But these stories have purposes that go well beyond this ontological illusion. Because not only are we animals, but we are animals without meaning. Animals that will die. That is, no meaning is given objectively. So just as we clothe our bodies with fabric, we clothe our spirits with illusions of meaning, for otherwise we could not live. 

I have been following a provocative podcast series, which spent a couple of episodes on Ernest Becker, a mid-20th century philosopher in the US. He posited that we all follow a religion, in the anthropological sense that we live in cultural structures that give us meaning. Structures that are fundamentally illusory, because there is no there there. Meaning has always been generated by us, for us, subjectively by our psychological proclivities for social connection and drama. We are psychologically adapted to make and seek meaning, though in the final analysis, however powerful they feel, these are all conjured, not given. Take Disney as an example. Many people get highly involved with, and take solace from, the narratives Disney puts out, in its parks, cruise ships, movies, merchandise, and other channels. Relentless provision of mechanically assembled archetypes and other psychological triggers that activate / soothe, inspire, and motivate apparently has a substantial market. 

While atheists take no end of potshots at the absurdities and hypocrisies of formal religions, they also live (and must live) in some sort of illusion themselves. The idea that learning and science makes for a more "objective" value system and life of meaning may be less absurd, but is no more objective. These values come with a rationale and a story, one of service to ultimately human ends of knowledge and betterment. But that doesn't make them true- just another set of values that must be gauged subjectively. And when measured by the ironic criterion of Darwinian success in promoting reproduction, they often turn out to be lacking. At the most basic level, getting through the day requires some kind of motivation, and that motivation, when it goes beyond the most animal requirements, requires meaning, which requires us to have some story that narrates a purpose to a life whose end is otherwise irredeemably meaningless. 

There is a problem, however, to Becker. The more enveloping and functional the narrative of meaning, the more any competing narrative becomes alien and threatening. Indeed, threatening narratives become evil. Thus Judaism became the nemesis of Christianity, and Catholicism that of Protestantism. If the meaning of our lives, in a spiritual and eternal sense, is devalued by another story that has competing status, there is no limit to our horror at its doctrines or our dehumanization of its adherents. Thence to crusades, religious wars, pogroms, and the delicately named "communal violence". The management of narratives of meaning thus is perhaps the most critical aspect of human affairs, as all religious leaders have known forever.

One can see the US civil war through this lens. The people of the South, wedded to slavery, justified it through their theology and culture. They were mortally offended by the busybodies of the North who dared cast aspersions on their moral narratives and justifications, not to mention their economic basis. Where "Uncle Tom's Cabin" may have broken through the indifference of Northern culture, it was met with outrage in the South- a stout defense of their powerful cultural and religious narratives. The conflict was spiritual and existential.

Becker did not have terribly novel solutions to the problems of meaning and counter-meaning. Just the meta prescription that arose in the enlightenment, secularism and in all the branches of modern psychology. Which is that understanding this dynamic and taking one's stories less seriously is the path to social peace. It may not be the path to optimal personal meaning, however. How do you compare the smorgasbord of Disney, mainline religion, Western Buddhism, science, and a thousand other sects and value systems to a traditional society with one church, one story, and one universe? The power of social and spiritual unity must have been tremendously validating and comfortable. So there has been a big tradeoff to get to our current state of social and spiritual innovation, plurality, and anomie. It is evident that our political moment is one of deep spiritual revanchism- of revulsion (by the more traditional-minded) against all this plurality, back towards a more benighted unity.

• Only Catholics go to heaven.
• Religious zealots have no clue whatsoever.
• Homelessness as a problem of affluence, gentrification, and too-good policing.
• But crime in DC? We know where that is.
• Cutting off our health to spite our libtards.
• The state of cars.

Making America Great: First Quarter Report Card

Are we great yet? I give some grades.

Enhancing the rule of law, and adhering to the constitution: F

This administration is characterized by contempt. A juvenile contempt for its enemies, and thorough contempt for the law, separation of powers, and the constitution. In asserting its royal prerogative to eviscerate legislatively created agencies, it is taking more power from congress, as if congress weren't sufficiently neutered and ineffective already. We are watching a replay of the transition of Rome from a republic to a monarchy, though in much more ham-fisted fashion, as its senate was sidelined. So far, the Republicans in congress do not see the danger, as they cheer on the mayhem. But it will come for them more directly in due time, maybe in Trump's third term, as he grooms Eric to be next in line.

Economic growth: F

The markets have given their verdict, which is thumbs down. The trade war this administration has started, in royal fashion, is bad for us and bad for everyone else. Even putting aside the short-term insanity, the long-term implications are lower living standards and lower growth. To take one example, what is going to happen if people in the US are effectively confined to buying US-built cars? We will be going back to the 60's and 70's, when cars were poorly built, and the captive market meant that US car makers did not have to innovate. We should focus on strategic industries, to preserve base-line capacity to build things, but otherwise let foreign trade work its economic magic.

Peace on earth: F

The new administration is siding with aggressors all over the world now, especially Russia and Israel. China is the only exception, though its support for Taiwan is quite a bit more tepid than that of the last administration. Siding with aggressors is a recipe for more war. More broadly, the US has lost its moral high ground, such as it was, and is losing friends at a rapid clip. I mean, how can one alienate Canada? That really takes some serious stupidity. Trump was angling for a Nobel Peace Prize, by ending the Ukraine war. But predictably, Putin plays him for the fool he is, and keeps on doing what he wants to. The instability and madness of the current administration is another factor all by itself, leading to international instability and higher risk for war, not to mention driving countries around the world into the arms of the truly stable genius... China.

Education and innovation: F

Of all the things that make our country great, it is education that has the greatest long-term implications. That is where the human capital comes from, and the technological innovation. We can grant that Republicans rely on less educated voters, so logic dictates that they make voters less educated. And that is what this administration has been doing with determination, eviscerating the department of education, cancelling and slashing funding for research, and ultimately promoting the destruction of public schools, through vouchers and other long-standing hobbyhorses of the right. This may make a country more amenable to royal rule, but is unlikely to make the US anything other than a diminished and declining power with lower living standards, less attractive to foreign students and foreign investment. China will shortly be the leading nation in high-level scholarly research.

Health and Safety, Pro-worker Policy: F

Here as well, the administration has spoken loudly through its actions and appointments. Putting an anti-science vaccine denier in charge of HHS, and slashing personnel throughout the health agencies, and OSHA, and immediately kneecapping the labor relations board. Medicaid is slated to lose a trillion dollars, in favor of tax cuts for the rich. It all says that business and the rich are the true constituency of this administration, not people, let alone workers. Workers, indeed, are the evident enemy. How different this is from the campaign rhetoric! But that is how grifters work. And they will be gone before the real costs sink in.

Safeguarding democracy: F

Honestly, is this even a subject?

Culture and style: F

White Potus. Also, the Zelensky meeting. 

Drain the swamp: F

The inauguration set the tone, as Trump introduced an eponymous meme-coin, which his friends and insiders stocked up on before the public offering, in a naked pump and dump, even if the dump part of the operation has been delayed. Much bigger, however, is the tariff-palooza, which has the world "kissing my ass". No possibility of corruption there! If there were a lower grade than F, it would be awarded here.

Clear and elevated rhetoric: F

Again, the Zelensky meeting. I recently watched a documentary series on John F. Kennedy, which demonstrated that one needn't go back to the 19th century to encounter well-written, coherent, and civil political discourse in America. While admitting that the Biden administration was hardly a high point of forceful communication, at least it was civil- domestically and to our friends and partners abroad. Trump and his toadies compete for juvenile putdowns, unthinking meanness, and large helpings of lies. When actual policy is needed, elliptical "the weave" expressions clear the field of coherent thought, to make room for more chaos and cons.

OK, other than in these areas, things are going great. If your metric is owning the libs, destroying the government, giving away the store to the rich and to Russia, and having people line up to kiss the president's ass, then everything is going very well. 

It is important to understand that, generally speaking, the government exists to protect people from each other, especially protect the little people. The rich can take care of themselves, at least until things get really bad. It is the little people who need the Bill of Rights, the consumer protection bureau, the SEC, the FDA, the VA, OSHA, and all the other regulatory agencies that keep the rapacious wolves of capitalism on their leashes. Everyone benefits from civil service protections, transparency, rules, and law. But the little people benefit the most, because they are beset the worst in the capitalist system. All men are created equal, but not really. The insanity of giving up our government to the people with the most money is truly astounding, and we are seeing the fruits daily.

• Gary Kasparov gives some advice.
• Law, schmaw.
• The three-toed sloth posits AI is not intelligent, but another cultural technology, maybe a regurgitation machine. Or a feral card catalog. But does it help us think better?
• The barriers to knowing thyself.
• Making China great again.
• Gosh, if RFK wanted to get to the bottom of autism, did he attend this talk downstairs?

Realism in Foreign Policy

Idealism or realism? This is not just a left-right issue, but a deeper issue of values in foreign policy.

Think tanks on both the right and the left tout foreign policy realism, impatient with the demands that the post-war era have placed on the US as the unique, exceptional (and rich) leader of the free and democratic world. Whether from a cost perspective or a peace perspective, backing off from our world-wide commitments and ideals is attractive to many. The current administration has dramatically taken up their banner, reversing US policy, dropping Ukraine, allying with Russia, and ending idealism, generosity and empathy as a elements of foreign policy. What was firmly planted after World War 2 and flowered under John F. Kennedy has now been buried. So, are we great yet?

Where idealism in foreign policy takes up moral crusades, like human rights, women's rights, and global equity, even climate change, realism sticks to power and assumes anarchy, not order, as the natural state of international affairs. Realists sell themselves as hard-headed, unsentimental, and into the bargain, less likely to get us mixed up in wars. The most recent US wars, after all, from Vietnam to Iraq, were all crusades to foster democracy, in one form or other. Better to wash our hands of it all, care less about saving the people of the world, and more about bullying our neighbors to get what we want.

These are not really exclusive approaches, but rather shades of emphasis. The raw power of military and economic kinds is central to both, even if soft power is more of a focus for the idealists. But if you think about it more deeply, even these distinctions fade away, and both approaches end up being idealistic, just differing in the ideals they vaunt. The current administration clearly has its ideals- of Putin, Victor Orban, and authoritarianism ascendant world-wide. Its lack of empathy is not realism, it is a crabbed idealism- that of the rich and powerful lording it over the masses, both domestically and internationally.  

International power is composed of many things. But mostly, it is made up of relationships multiplied by technological capabilities. Two people can always overpower one person, and the same is true internationally. Bigger countries can field bigger armies. Bigger countries can field more researchers and manufacturers to arm those people with better weapons. Alliances between countries can make even more menacing combinations. 

It is, at base, social relationships that create power, and this is where realism really falls down. If one's ideal is transactional and bullying, worshipping power and taking a small-minded and greedy approach to international affairs, (that is to say, a zero-sum approach), then one will find that the few friends one has are fair-weather friends of convenience. Alliances between such partners frequently fall apart and re-arrange, creating the extremely dangerous environment conducive to major wars. Relationships are fungible and disposable. Europe had a long balance-of-power phase in the 1800's after the Napoleonic wars, until it collapsed in the 1900's in cataclysmic world wars, thanks in both cases to unstable alliance structures, not to mention authoritarian manias. The post-World War 2 era, the one we are witnessing the collapse of right now, was founded on something much more stable- true friendship and shared ideals of democracy. 

One can reply that helping the weak defend themselves against the strong is a sure recipe for entanglement in a lot of wars. Our involvement (up to now) in Ukraine is a case in point. We encouraged Ukraine to pursue a democratic path, thwarting Russia's clear and stated interests. And then we got dragged into this cataclysmic war. Why not side with the strong against the weak, instead? Wouldn't that make for a more stable world? Well, at some point we may be the weak one, not the strong one. What then? In the ever-shifting constellation of international alliances in a transactional, "realistic" world, there is no telling what tomorrow may bring, since values are not anchored in natural friendship or sympathy, but in naked interests, which are subject to rapid adjustment and negotiation. The disastrous Ribbentrop-Molotov pact comes to mind, as an example of such "realistic" foreign policy.

That is not a good world to live in, even if it has represented most of history. Realists may be right that their view is the mafia-like baseline of international relations, devoid of any human values and run on a power basis. Well, we can do better, both morally and objectively. That is what the last eighty years of international relations were all about. They were about setting up an international system where big countries at least tried to cloak their leadership in common interests, progress, and values. Where there was order, of some basic sort, which led to prosperity and security. And the Soviets bought into it as well, trying desperately to sell their adventures as standing for some kind of progressive, pro-worker ideology. Which lasted all the way to the end of the cold war, till its contradictions had grown too glaring. The US-led system has had its contradictions and hypocrisies as well, but the latest leap into the authoritarian camp is hardly fore-ordained or natural to our traditions.

Now, it looks like Winter is Coming. If the US forcibly devolves the international system into a value-less scramble for power, no one can rely on, or be satisfied with, stable friendships, so the system will be in greater flux, as powers test each other. When friendships are devalued, what is left but competition, such as trade wars, causing general destruction, and eventually desperate measures to regain relative power. 

• The policy is plain.
• Social insecurity.
• Nothing strategic about it.
• Wells on the pandemic. For me, the remarkable memory is how little we collectively knew about the simplest things- masks, aerosols, surfaces. That was inexcusable.

Impeachment is Inevitable

Whether congress wants to or not, it will be forced to defend its role in government.

Looking out over the incredible destruction the new president has already wrought at home and abroad, it is hard to see this continuing for a full four-year term. There is a honeymoon now, and a shock campaign. There is delirium in hard-right circles that their fondest dreams of rampant chaos in the bureaucracy, with racism and fascism ascendant, are coming true. But there will come a time when the costs begin to appear, the appetite for dysfunction will wane, and the tide turns. Congress has small Republican margins, and it won't take many members to face up to our rapidly expanding constitutional crisis.

Maybe I am spinning a fantasy here, but one thing seems certain. The current president is constitutionally (pardon the expression) unable to follow directions. His oath of office was barely out of his mouth before he started violating the constitution and running roughshod over the explicit authorizations and appropriations of Congress. Not to mention direct assertions that the constitution doesn't mean what it plainly says, about birthright citizenship. This is not going to stop, and the only way our system of government is going to survive is that the other branches, specifically congress, use their powerful tools to reset the balance.

Article 2

Harder to judge are the attitudes of the congresspeople who are on the spot. The Republicans have largely rolled over in approving the first, abysmal slate of cabinet nominees. Again, there is a honeymoon of sorts. Party discipline is particularly strong on the conservative side, and the president has eagerly used his tools of intimidation and hatred to obtain obedience. So it is hard to say when they will crack. But as the functions of government degrade, the country is laughed at and reviled around the world, the economic damage accumulates, and constituents line up to complain, the equation will change. And anyhow, they would merely be elevating the vice president, who is hardly an opponent of their ideological aims, and is part of the Senate community (however disliked on both sides). So impeachment becomes a much less imposing action than it might otherwise be. 

As they say, the third time's the charm!

• Presidents day.
• Oh the irony. Science comes up with a vaccine that saves millions, who turn into idiots.

The Climate is Changing

Fires in LA, and a puff of smoke in DC.

An ill wind has blown into Washington, a government of whim and spite, eager to send out the winged monkeys to spread fear and kidnap the unfortunate. The order of the day is anything that dismays the little people. The wicked witch will probably have melted away by the time his most grievous actions come to their inevitable fruition, of besmirching and belittling our country, and impoverishing the world. Much may pass without too much harm, but the climate catastrophe is already here, burning many out of their homes, as though they were made of straw. Immoral and spiteful contrariness on this front will reap the judgement and hatred of future generations.

But hasn't the biosphere and the climate always been in flux? Such is the awful refrain from the right, in a heartless conservatism that parrots greedy, mindless propaganda. In truth, Earth has been blessed with slowness. The tectonic plates make glaciers look like race cars, and the slow dance of Earth's geology has ruled the evolution of life over the eons, allowing precious time for incredible biological diversification that covers the globe with its lush results.

A stretch of relatively unbroken rain forest, in the Amazon.

Past crises on earth have been instructive. Two of the worst were the end-Permian extinction event, about 252 million years ago (mya), and the end-Cretaceous extinction event, about 66 mya. The latter was caused by a meteor, so was a very sudden event- a shock to the whole biosphere. Following the initial impact and global fire, it is thought to have raised sun-shielding dust and sulfur, with possible acidification, lasting for years. However, it did not have very large effects on CO2, the main climate-influencing gas.

On the other hand, the end-Permian extinction event, which was significantly more severe than the end-Cretaceous event, was a more gradual affair, caused by intense volcanic eruptions in what is now Siberia. Recent findings show that this was a huge CO2 event, turning the climate of Earth upside down. CO2 went from about 400 ppm, roughly what we are at currently, to 2500 ppm. The only habitable regions were the poles, while the tropics were all desert. But the kicker is that this happened over the surprisingly short (geologically speaking) time of about 80,000 years. CO2 then stayed high for the next roughly 400,00 years, before returning slowly to its former equilibrium. This rate of rise was roughly 2.7 ppm per 100 years, yet that change killed off 90% of all life on Earth. 

The momentous analysis of the end-Permian extinction event, in terms of CO2, species, and other geological markers, including sea surface temperature (SST). This paper was when the geological brevity of the event was first revealed.

Compare this to our current trajectory, where atmospheric CO2 has risen from about 280 ppm at the dawn of the industrial age to 420 ppm now. That is rate of maybe 100 ppm per 100 years, and rising steeply. It is a rate far too high for many species, and certainly the process of evolution itself, to keep up with, tuned as it is to geologic time. As yet, this Anthropocene extinction event is not quite at the level of either the end-Permian or end-Cretaceous events. But we are getting there, going way faster than the former, and creating a more CO2-based long-term climate mess than the latter. While we may hope to forestall nuclear war and thus a closer approximation to the end-Cretaceous event, it is not looking good for the biosphere, purely from a CO2 and warming perspective, putting aside the many other plagues we have unleashed including invasive species, pervasive pollution by fertilizers, plastics and other forever chemicals, and the commandeering of all the best land for farming, urbanization, and other unnatural uses. 

CO2 concentrations, along with emissions, over recent time.

We are truly out of Eden now, and the only question is whether we have the social, spiritual, and political capacity to face up to it. For the moment, obviously not. Something disturbed about our media landscape, and perhaps our culture generally, has sent us for succor, not to the Wizard who makes things better, but to the Wicked Witch of the East, who delights in lies, cruelty and destruction.

• The oligarchy is upon us. Oh, and they will help the working class!
• The attention economy.
• Which distorts our public understandings.
• Good coverage will never win in the attention economy.
• Keep Greenland white!

Capitalism on the Spectrum

Prospects for the new administration.

Political economics can be seen as a spectrum from anarchic gangsterism (Haiti) to total top down control such as in communism (Cuba, North Korea). Neither works well. Each end of this spectrum ends up in a state of terror, because each is unworkable on its own terms. Capitalism, in its modern form, is a compromise between these extremes, where free initiative, competition, and hierarchical relations (such within corporations) are allowed, while regulation (via the state and unions) makes humane what would otherwise a cutthroat system of gangsterism and corruption. The organization and stability allowed by state-sponsored legal systems raises system productivity far above that of the primeval free-for-all, while the regulatory rules also make it bearable to its participants- principally the workers. The magic comes from a dynamic balance between competition and guardrails to keep that competition focused on productive ends (that is, economic/business competition), rather than unproductive ones (war, assassination, corruption, capture of the state, etc.)

The new Trump administration promises to tear up this compromise, slash regulations, and cut government. That means that the workers that voted for this administration, and who are the primary beneficiaries of the regulatory state, will be hurt in countless ways. The grifting nature of so many in this incoming administration is a blazing alarm to anyone who pays attention. Whether it is stiffing workers, bloviating on FOX, hawking gold sneakers, making a buck off of anti-vax gullibility, defrauding the government of taxes, promoting crypto, or frankly asking for money in return for political favors like petroleum deregulation, the stench of corruption and bad faith is overwhelming. Many of them, starting from the top, see capitalism as a string of scams and frauds, not exactly Milton Friedman's vision of capitalism. An administration of grifty billionaires is unlikely to rebuild US manufacturing, help workers afford housing, or fulfill any of the other dreams of their voters. Indeed, a massive economic collapse, on the heels of bad policy such as crypto deregulation, or a world-spanning trade war, is more likely, and degraded conditions for workers all but certain.

Freedom for capitalists means permission for companies to abuse workers, customers, the environment, the law, and whatever else stands in the way of profit. We have been through this many times, especially in the gilded age. It can spiral into anarchy and violence when business owners are sufficiently "free" from the fetters of norms and laws. When the most powerful entities in the economy have only one purpose- to make money- all other values are trampled. That is, unless a stronger entity makes some rules. That entity can only be the government. It has been the role of governments from time immemorial to look to the long term interests of the collective, and organize the inherent competition within society into benign and productive pursuits.

OK, more than a little ironic, but you get the idea.

On the other hand, there is a problem even at the golden mean of governmental rule-making over the capitalistic free-for-all, which is that the quality of the rule makers and their rules, their attention to real conditions, and their prompt decision making, all can decline into bureaucratic inertia. While this may not be a Stalinist system of top-down planning and terror, it still can sap the productive energies of the system. And that is what we have been facing over the last few decades. For instance, there is the housing crisis, where home construction has not kept up with demand, mostly due to zoning stasis in most desirable places in the US, in addition to lagging construction after the 2008 financial and real estate crisis. Another example is public infrastructure, which has become increasingly difficult to build due to ever-mounting bureaucratic complexity and numbers of stakeholders. The California high speed rail system faces mountainous costs and a bogged-down legal environment, and is on the edge of complete inviability.

Putting rich, corrupt, and occasionally criminal capitalists at the head of this system is not, one must say, the most obvious way to fix it. Ideally, the Democrats would have put forward more innovative candidates in better touch with the problems voters were evidently concerned with. Then we could have forged ahead with policies oriented to the public good, (such as planetary sustainability and worker rights), as has been the practice through the Biden administration. But the election came up with a different solution, one that we will be paying for for decades. And possibly far worse, since there are worse fates than being at a well-meaning, if sclerotic, golden mean of governmental regulation over a largely free capitalist system. Hungary and Russia show the way to "managed democracy" and eventual autocracy. Our own history, and that of Dickensian Britain, show the way of uncontrolled capitalism, which took decades of progressivism, and a great depression, to finally tame. It would be nice to not have to repeat that history.

• Daniel P. Moynihan was for the job guarantee.
• Housing in New Zealand.
• Nature's key scientists of 2024.
• A grumpy Krugman signs off.
• Notes on crypto and its grifting community.
• Who is for workers?
• MAGA to kill off the greatest public health advance, ever.

Jews Demand Signs and Greeks Look for Wisdom, but We Preach Christ Crucified

Review of God of the Mind, by Rob Haskell

This blog had its start in a religious discussion, pitting a Christian perspective against an atheist one. That discussion never ended because these viewpoints inevitably talk past each other, based as they are on fundamentally different epistemologies and axioms. Is truth facts, or is it a person? Does it have a capital "T", or a little "t"? Does reality come first, or does faith? With this election, this conflict, usually politely ignorable at the cultural sidelines, has come front and center, as half the country has transferred a Christian style of reasoning to politics, with catastrophic consequences.

I very much wish I had had this book by Rob Haskell back in the day. It lays out in a concise and thorough way all (well, let's say many of) the philosophical and psychological deficiencies of god-belief. It is hands-down the best discussion I have ever read on the subject- well-written, with humor and incisive insight. For example, he provides the bible quote that I have used to title this post, in a discussion of Christianity's approach to reason and intellect. While reams of theology support Christianity with reasons, at the end of the day, any honest theologian and Christian thinker will say that reason doesn't get you there. Faith needs to come first. Only then does all else follow. And this "all" is laced with superstition, suspension of normal rules of evidence, submission to authority, and a need to convert the whole world to the same system of belief. It is, implicitly, a preference for unity and power over truth. No wonder they were marks for the charismatic authority of Donald Trump.

One of the most disturbing aspects of the whole debate is the moralism that creeps into what is ostensibly a reasoned discussion of viewpoints and philosophy. If one does not accept god, Christians have been taught to believe that there is a reason. Not a logical reason, but a moral reason. Depravity is a word that comes up. Lack of belief betrays a moral failure, because god is the foundation of all moral law (those twelve commandments!). Those outside the fold merely want their false freedom to enjoy debauchery and crime, without the nagging conscience, which is apparently implanted not by god at birth, (let alone by evolution, or by moral reasoning), but by regular sermons, loudly professed faith, and bible reading. A bible, we might note, that is full of militarism, sexual abuse, deceit, and political authoritarianism. The whole proposition is absurd, from the ground up, unless, of course, you are of the religious tribe, in which case it has an irresistible logic and allure.

No wonder Christians feel good, right, and justified. And feel a birthright to rule over all, to claim that the US is (or should be) a Christian nation. One where resistance to its moral imperatives would, at last, be futile.

But here we are, getting off track! Rob Haskell is a former protestant missionary and minister, graduate of Regent College, and came to his new positions through deep personal engagement and turmoil. He knows intimately of which he speaks. An interesting aspect of his book is that he is almost more focused on psychology than on philosophy. For it is psychology that drives religious conversion, drives people to prostrate themselves before the void, and drives a faith that calls itself truth. Without the indoctrination by families, for example, no religion would amount to much- certainly not Christianity. And indoctrination of the young is obviously a highly irrational process, combining the most powerful psychological forces known- peer pressure, parental pressure, authority, tradition, community, repetition, fancy costumes. Who could resist? And yet Christians have no problem claiming that the result of all this is belief in truth, with a capital T. 

Haskell recounts an educational experience he had inviting Mormon missionaries to an extended discussion of why he should take up Mormonism. They tout the book of Mormon, which Haskell knows very well is a absurd fabric of early nineteenth century prejudices and speculations. They tout the archeological work a few believers have undertaken to prove their scripture, which is highly dubious, to say the least. But at last, when reason fails and argument slackens, Haskell is urged to pray. Pray hard enough, and the light is sure to shine. And for Mormons, brought up with all the pressures and templates ready-made for their belief, such prayer is very likely to work, activating the archetypes and feelings conducive to agreement with their culture. Will the story or the prayer work for others? Rarely, but occasionally it does strike a nerve, especially in the psychologically vulnerable. Haskell recognizes, uncomfortably, that while the stories are different, the psychological methods used by the Mormons and by him as a missionary are eerily similar.

"This points back to what I've already described, namely that in evangelical thinking, and possibly in all religious thinking, the acceptance of certain crucial and non-negotiable ideas comes first. Then, after that acceptance comes the search for evidence that supports it. But that evidence always gets the short end of the stick. Evidence is great when it affirms the things that are accepted by faith. But here isn't a lot of interest in evangelical circles in evidence itself, or in thinking clearly about evidence. And when the evidence falls short, the believer goes back to where it all started: not evidence but faith. So, it's really a matter of wanting to have your cake and eat it too. There's a built-in permission to be sloppy. 'We like evidence!' says the evangelical, 'so long as it proves our point. but when the evidence brings up difficult questions, we reserve the right to toss it out and appeal to faith.' ... How can you have a serious conversation with someone who thinks like this? It's like talking with your teenager."

Rationalization and confirmation bias are fundamental aspects of human psychology. Science has developed an organized and reasonably effective way to address it, but other institutions have not, notably the echo chambers of current news and social media. We do it all the time, (I am certainly doing it here), and it is no wonder that Christians do it too. The problem is the lack of humility, where Christians revel in their fantastical story, impugn anyone so dense (if not evil) as to not get it, and twist the very vocabulary of epistemology in order to declare that "Truth" comes, not out of reality, but precisely out of unreality- a faith that is required to believe in things unseen and tales thrice-told.

• And he writes a blog, too.
• Example of typical religious condescension, by J D Vance's mentor, James Orr.
• The Discovery Institute will try anything...
• Then there is the no true Scotsman defense.
• The Supreme Court lowers itself still further.
• What makes a human brain?
• We continue speeding ever faster to disaster.
• Poisonous propaganda + AI = our future.

Who Needs the Fed?

Project 2025 promotes "free" banking, which is to say, no pesky regulations or backstopping from the Federal Reserve. What could go wrong?

Policy wonks can't help themselves- they need to write down their plans so that all the world can see how brilliant they are, and how real they could be, if only others recognized their brilliance. In that way, the project 2025 plans from the Heritage Foundation have been a gold mine, at least for Democrats. And since the Republican Party couldn't be bothered to write down a platform, other than "anything Trump wants", this project serves as the functional platform of the current Republican campaign, written as it was by scores of officials from the first Trump administration, plus many others itching to be appointed to a second. And it is crazy- more like a project 1825 than anything we would want to look forward to.

One of its less publicized planks is its approach to banking. It heaps criticism on the Federal Reserve, and recommends, as the most effective solution, its abolition and a return to "free banking". Which means a world where no regulator controls the banks, and no federal reserve backs it up against panics and crises. And just to complete the return to barbarism, it recommends a return to the gold standard as well.

"In free banking, neither interest rates nor the supply of money is controlled by the government. The Federal Reserve is effectively abolished, and the Department of the Treasury largely limits itself to handling the government’s money. Regions of the U.S. actually had a similar system, known as the “Suffolk System,” from 1824 until the 1850s, and it minimized both inflation and economic disruption while allowing lending to flourish." - From Chapter 4

Needless to say, US history is littered with banking panics, runs, and depressions, usually due to the unregulated nature of this "free" banking and to monetary gold backing. It is hard to express just how absurd and damaging it would be to return to such a world. The Federal Reserve was conjured up after a long history of the establishment of the first national bank, then its destruction by Andrew Jackson, a century of economic instability with particularly damaging panics in 1893 and 1907. By 1913, the US finally had had enough, and set up an updated national bank in the form of the Federal Reserve, to regulate and backstop the banking system. 

Illustration from 1873, portraying "Panic" on Wall Street.

Unfortunately, until the advent of Keynesian economics, it didn't really know what it was doing, and was particularly ineffective during the Great Depression, making things worse instead of better. Even now, it amounts to a cabal of bankers who are more interested in jacking up interest rates than in national prosperity. MMT economists tend to think that interest rates should be kept low, and the functions of the Federal Reserve folded into the Treasury Department, with greater political oversight. The use of interest rates- which are such a blunt tool of economic policy- could then be de-emphasized, in favor of more dynamic fiscal policy to manage inflation and monetary conditions. It is worth noting that over the last eighty years, the Fed has routinely over-shot its mark in raising interest rates, ending up with recessions, and rapid, belated retreats to lower rates. It is only with the current cycle that it has achieved, at least so far, the dream of a soft landing, taming inflation while avoiding recession.

Recessions (gray) have regularly followed interest raising campaigns by the Fed, and not always intentionally.

But note that the word "depression" is no longer in our lexicon. For all its faults, the Fed has kept the economy on a much more even keel than was possible under the wild-west free banking era, when monetary conditions were hostage to whatever Yosemite Sam dug up in the Yukon, or how wildly bankers over-extended their issuance of notes. Banks built impressive buildings to foster the illusion of stability in an environment where stability was impossible, lacking the infinite backstop that the Federal Reserve can now bring to bear during a crisis. Both individual depositors and the population as a whole benefit. It is a classic example of the people of the US coming together to create an institution that makes our lives better, so that we can worry about other things than the next banking panic. 

This economic craziness is just one small example of the fevered imaginations of the right wing in current US politics, which seems to have crawled out from the former fringes of Lyndon Larouche and the Birchers to take over an entire half of our political system. And this is fundamentally thanks to the air given them by an appalling right wing media that cares nothing for truth or civility, rather making its money from button pushing, whining grievance, and reflexive anti-state propaganda. And people complain about social media! Just how long ostensibly reasonable and decent (even Christian(!)) people will wallow in this environment is anyone's guess, but our common, rational, and beneficial institutions will in the mean time be in constant danger.

• Luddites of today.
• We need to win this war.
• Profile in courage.

Correction- The Republican convention did actually come up with a platform.

Welcome to Lubyanka!

Another case of penal systems illuminating their culture.

Most of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's In the First Circle is a desultory slog, at least if you have already read the Gulag Archipelago. But there are a few glorious set-pieces. One is the mock trial of Prince Igor of Kiev that the prisoners stage in their free time, a bitter satire of the Soviet judicial system. The second is a meticulous description of how prisoners are brought into and introduced to the Lubyanka prison- the central prison of the KGB/FSB/Cheka/GPU/OGPU/NKVD/NKGB, etc.. the frequently renamed, but never-changing organ of the Russian government.

The character is Innokenty Volodin, a Soviet diplomat who has recently had second thoughts about the rightness of the Soviet system, and has placed a call (around which the book's plot, such as it is, mostly revolves) to the Americans to prevent Russia from obtaining certain critical atomic secrets. Solzhenitsyn carefully prepares the way by portraying Volodin's rarified position and luxurious life. As was customary, Volodin is lured into his arrest under false pretenses, and finds himself driven to the prison almost before he knows what has happened. Then, with almost loving detail, Solzhenitsyn describes the not just systematic, but virtuosic process of degradation, step by step, shred by shred, of Volodin's humanity, as he is inducted into Lubyanka.

One cardinal rule is that prisoners must have no contact with other prisoners. Even to see others is forbidden. As they are conducted from one cell to the next, they are shoved into mini phone-booth cells if another prisoner is being conducted in the opposite direction. Their possessions are gradually taken away, down to buttons, belts, and steel shoe shanks. They are shorn. They are sleep deprived. They are relentlessly illuminated by glaring bulbs. They are spied on constantly. They are moved relentlessly from place to place and disoriented. In the middle of the night, the building is abuzz with activity, as though this were the very nerve center of the Soviet empire. 

While the rest of Russian society is mired, or cowed, in mediocrity, this is a shining point of competence. The purest expression of its obsessive leader, and the product of decades of careful study and accumulated wisdom. It is also a deeper expression of the nature of Russian society- its reflexive despotism and its strange infatuation with suffering. The closest thing we have is mafia culture, with its honor codes, brutality, and constant battle for dominance. Chess, the emblematic game of Russia, expresses this view of life as a pitiless contest to crush one's opponent. There may be a lot of historical reasons for this nature, such as the long centuries of Mongol rule, the many invasions, both ancient and modern, and the perceived success of leaders such as Ivan the Terrible and Stalin, but it is a deep and disturbing aspect of the Russian psyche. 

Should we have expected anything else, in the long road of declining relations after the cold war? Should the Russian people give thanks to the ruthlessness of their national leadership and psyche for the current position of relative power they wield in the world, far out of proportion to their population or economic strength? Other countries with larger populations peacefully mind their own business, avoid outside entanglements, and eschew invading their neighbors. It is the bullies, the intransigent, and the cruel, who appear to account for most of the drama in the world. Should we understand them, or fight against them?

• Another way to crush spirits.
• It is good to be outside.
• AI is not helping job seekers.
• On paying the devil his due.
• Why have kids anymore?

Hungary for Power

Hungary has become a one-party, authoritarian state, not a democracy.

Victor Orban recently paid a visit to Donald Trump in Florida, with glowing photos and pledges of goodwill. Republicans in the US have nurtured a deep fascination and alliance with Orban and his government, holding several CPAC conventions in Hungary, and hosting Orban and his lieutenants at US events. It is clear that they view Hungary as a shining example and template of where they could take the US. Not the shining city on a hill of Reagan's democratic and anti-authoritarian dreams, but a whole other kind of city, one that never will fall into Democratic hands again.

So it is worth looking in detail at what has happened in Hungary, to observe the ideals of our current Republicans and what is in store for the rest of us from a second Trump term. I was, incidentally, beaten to the punch of this analysis by a recent story in the Atlantic. Orban's party, Fidesz, is very similar to the GOP in its mix of business right-wingery and rural values. Its strength is handing out the red meat of traditional, anti-cosmopolitan values to the rural base, along with helpful economic subsidies. In the pivotal 2018 election, it won all the rural districts, even though the opposition bowed to the logic of re-written (winner-take-all) electoral system and tried to join into a unified party. 

Fidesz came to power originally on an anti-socialist platform, vowing to get rid of the remnant bits of the prior communist system, which had settled into the same kind of semi-kleptocratic mode as in most of the former Soviet states and its satellites. That they did, but not to bring an end to corruption, let alone authoritarianism, but rather to partake themselves instead. After coming into power, Fidesz rewrote the constitution, in ways large and small to entrench their own power, and has since continued a campaign of extremely effective, gradual, and often surreptitious legislation to cement its advantages. Gerrymandering is now standard procedure, which when combined with the winner-take-all districts creates the opportunity to win overwhelming majorities in parliament founded on very thin electoral pluralities. Small parties can not win any more, but are also prohibited from combining with other small parties into election list coalitions.

The courts were remade by putting them under the control of a political appointee- the president of the National Judicial Office. This president is appointed by parliament, and in turn appoints, promotes, and runs the operations and budget of the whole judicial system. Needless to say, it is heavily influenced by the now Fidesz-controlled parliament and executive.

The media has been remade by gradual pressure on independent media owners to sell to Fidesz-friendly interests, which now control 90% of the country's media. Government advertising buys were strategically placed with friendly outlets, and government run media was put under direct political control. A Russian inspired "security" law was passed to outlaw ill-defined criticism of the state, public morality, or "imbalance" of coverage, answerable naturally to a parliamentary-appointed body, rather than the courts. Imagine if in the second Trump administration, PBS and NPR were put under political control and given a "FOX" makeover. 

Hungary is now effectively a one-party authoritarian state with managed elections. We are not far off. To see the battle of titanic interests and billionaires now openly showering money on favored candidates, and extending their tentacles down to the school board level, is sickening. The Republican party has partnered with Heritage foundation to offer an openly Orbanist plan for the second Trump administration. The court system has already re-written our constitution in extensive ways over the last four years, without an amendment being passed, or even proposed. The antics of Judge Eileen Cannon show that very little may remain of the rule of law if it is left in the hands of partisan extremists.

And our media is in even more perilous condition, with the relentless lying of FOX, Sinclair, and their ecosystem. The Republican convention just past was a pageant of lies and grift, betokening the criminal enterprise that party has turned into. Headed by their adored, and now divine, leader who is not just a felon and business fraud, but rapist and insurrectionist as well. But no matter. With enough money, and enough shamelessness, anything is possible.

• Everything is fine!
• Scandals erupt out of a corrupted system.
• The new GOP.
• Which is a blue collar party, right?
• Tom Tomorrow, on last week.
• Historical note on the great California land grab, and the fate of "free" land generally.
• Notes from the early days of life.