The Dive, 12/1/24
Your monthly compilation of what's what on global politics, American society, and an assortment of odds and ends
Quote of the Month
"Through me you go into the city of weeping; Through me you go into eternal pain; Through me you go among the lost people. Justice is what moved my exalted Maker; I was the invention of the power of God, Of his wisdom, and of his primal love. Before me there was nothing that was created Except eternal things; I am eternal: No room for hope, when you enter this place." - Dante, Inferno, III.1-9
What I’m Reading:
1. What does it mean to call Trump a fascist
Why you should read it: In the New Yorker, historian Timothy Snyder dissects what it means when we correctly call Trump a fascist.
“Trump’s skills and talents go unrecognized when we see him as a conventional candidate—a person who seeks to explain policies that might improve lives, or who works to create the appearance of empathy. Yet this is our shortcoming more than his. Trump has always been a presence, not an absence: the presence of fascism… When the Soviets called their enemies “fascists,” they turned the word into a meaningless insult. Putinist Russia has preserved the habit: a ‘fascist’ is anyone who opposes the wishes of a Russian dictator. So Ukrainians defending their country from Russian invaders are ‘fascists.’ This is a trick that Trump has copied. He, like Vladimir Putin, refers to his enemies as ‘fascists,’ with no ideological significance at all… Putin and Trump are both, in fact, fascists. And their use of the word, though meant to confuse, reminds us of one of fascism’s essential characteristics. A fascist is unconcerned with the connection between words and meanings. He does not serve the language; the language serves him… That is quite a fascist achievement. Faced with the complexity of history, liberals struggle with the overwhelming volume of questions to be asked, answers to be offered. Like communism, fascism is an answer to all questions, but a different kind of answer. Communism assures us that we can, thanks to science, find an underlying direction in all events, toward a better future. This is (or was) seductive. Fascism reduces the imbroglio of sensation to what the Leader says… A fascist just has to be a storyteller. Because words do not attach to meanings, the stories don’t need to be consistent. They don’t need to accord with external reality. A fascist storyteller just has to find a pulse and hold it. This can proceed through rehearsal, as with Hitler, or by way of trial and error, as with Trump.”
“Trump’s presence has always been a co-creation: his and ours. From the moment when he first came down the Trump Tower escalator in 2015, he was treated as a source of spectacle. Because he was good for television, he was accepted as a legitimate candidate. In the print media, he grew through the doctrine of both-sides-ism: no matter how awful his deeds, his opponent had to be presented as equally bad. This empowered him to be both wicked and normal. During every campaign’s final months, polling had a similar effect. By displacing policy differences and reducing politics to two faces or two colors, polls reinforce the notion that Trump belonged where he was, and that politics was just a matter of us or them… What amplifies Trump’s presence more than any other medium is the Internet. He is a natural with its quirky rhythms. And its algorithms make the rest of us open to exactly his sort of talky fascism. On social media, we are drawn away from people of complexity and toward blunt stereotypes. We ourselves are categorized, and are then fed content that brings out, in Václav Havel’s term, our’“most probable states.’ The Internet does not just spread specific conspiracy theories; it primes our minds for them.”
Why it matters: “Fascism is now in the algorithms, the neural pathways, the social interactions. How did we fail to see all this? Part of it was our belief that history is over, that the great rivals to liberalism were dead or exhausted. Part of it was American exceptionalism: ‘it can’t happen here’ and so on. But most of it was simple self-absorption: we wanted to see Trump in terms of his absences, so that our way of seeing the world would go unchallenged. So we failed to see his fascist presence. And, because we ignored the fascism, we were unable to make the easy predictions of what he would do next. Or, worse, we learned to thrill at our own mistakes, because he always did something more outrageous than we expected… Again and again, our major institutions, from the media to the judiciary, have amplified Trump’s presence; again and again, we have failed to name the consequences. Fascism can be defeated, but not when we are on its side.”
2. Why Trump voters got exactly what they wanted
Why you should read it: The Atlantic columnist Tom Nichols writes in a post-election columns that Trump voters got a president who they believe will hurt their others but, somehow, not them.
“…in the end, a majority of American voters chose Trump because they wanted what he was selling: a nonstop reality show of rage and resentment. Some Democrats, still gripped by the lure of wonkery, continue to scratch their heads over which policy proposals might have unlocked more votes, but that was always a mug’s game. Trump voters never cared about policies, and he rarely gave them any. (Choosing to be eaten by a shark rather than electrocuted might be a personal preference, but it’s not a policy.) His rallies involved long rants about the way he’s been treated, like a giant therapy session or a huge family gathering around a bellowing, impaired grandpa.”
“Back in 2021, I wrote a book about the rise of ‘illiberal populism,’ the self-destructive tendency in some nations that leads people to participate in democratic institutions such as voting while being hostile to democracy itself, casting ballots primarily to punish other people and to curtail everyone’s rights—even their own. These movements are sometimes led by fantastically wealthy faux populists who hoodwink gullible voters by promising to solve a litany of problems that always seem to involve money, immigrants, and minorities. The appeals from these charlatans resonate most not among the very poor, but among a bored, relatively well-off middle class, usually those who are deeply uncomfortable with racial and demographic changes in their own countries… Americans who wish to stop Trump in this assault on the American constitutional order, then, should get it out of their heads that this election could have been won if only a better candidate had made a better pitch to a few thousand people in Pennsylvania. Biden, too old and tired to mount a proper campaign, likely would have lost worse than Harris; more to the point, there was nothing even a more invigorated Biden or a less, you know, female alternative could have offered. Racial grievances, dissatisfaction with life’s travails (including substance addiction and lack of education), and resentment toward the villainous elites in faraway cities cannot be placated by housing policy or interest-rate cuts.”
Why it matters: “No candidate can reason about facts and policies with voters who have no real interest in such things. They like the promises of social revenge that flow from Trump, the tough-guy rhetoric, the simplistic ‘I will fix it’ solutions. And he’s interesting to them, because he supports and encourages their conspiracist beliefs… Those voters expect that Trump will hurt others and not them. They will likely be unpleasantly surprised, much as they were in Trump’s first term. (He was, after all, voted out of office for a reason.) For the moment, some number of them have memory-holed that experience and are pretending that his vicious attacks on other Americans are just so much hot air… In this election, he has triggered the unfocused ire and unfounded grievances of millions of voters. Soon we will learn whether he can still trigger their decency—if there is any to be found.”
3. How right-wing influencers and social media created an alternate universe for Trump voters
Why you should read it: Unsuccessful Congressional candidate John Avlon details his observations about the election in a piece for The Bulwark, highlighting the way a polluted information environment makes it difficult to convince voters of reality.
“Running for a seat in New York’s first district, I found that what I learned by listening to voters did not track with the subjects that preoccupy most horse-race political coverage. Instead, people out on Eastern Long Island were focused on issues like the price of food and affordability (from inflation to housing and insurance costs)… President Biden was hobbled by legitimate perceptions of reduced vigor while Democrats were denied credit for the bipartisan legislation they passed during his presidency. At stops at diners while on the campaign trail, I noticed that Biden’s age was a punch-line offered up by kids while their parents offered a pox-on-both-houses assessment of the two parties, often mentioning things like defund-the-police. There was pervasive anger at Albany for bail-reform laws, despite the fact that violent crime has fallen under Biden.”
“Talking with those voters, I was often reminded of one of my favorite quotes from the late New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan: ‘Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.’ The results of this election show that collective reasoning around common facts in hopes of finding common ground is an increasingly rare quality… I was struck by the prevalence of misinformation but also the relentlessness of the right-wing media ecosystem. There was willful amnesia over Trump’s botched COVID response, dismissal of election denialism and the January 6th attack, a demonization of Ukraine aid, and outright hostility to facts about America’s economic recovery and the re-shoring of essential manufacturing under Biden… The network of influencers and social media accounts, compounded by what remains of right-wing talk radio and cable news, would drive a message that was repeated loudly by true believers in ways that reached the ears of less politically-active voters. This prevalence overwhelmed the influence of less partisan legacy media, which proved susceptible to getting pulled toward a fake fairness out of concern over seeming biased.”
Why it matters: “Hardcore Trump supporters often come to political debates armed with a catechism of alternative facts. There is remarkable message discipline that comes from repetition—arguing, for instance, about the alleged failures of the bipartisan border security bill Trump killed, rather than acknowledging what conservative Oklahoma Senator James Langford said about the bill’s virtues and substance. There is a pervasive impulse to defend whatever Trump does, even when it requires reversing previous positions or common sense standards. This loyalty-over-logic impulse revealed itself in a televised debate when my opponent—a sitting congressman—couldn’t even bring himself to criticize Donald Trump for praising Adolf Hitler.”
4. Why Trump will lose a trade war
Why you should read it: New York Times columnist Paul Krugman explains why President-elect Trump “may be the worst possible person to guide U.S. policy through the turmoil that’s probably ahead” in the global economy.
“The good news: I don’t think Donald Trump will cause a global trade war… The reason I say that is I believe that a trade war would be coming even if Trump had lost the election, largely because China is refusing to act like a responsible economic superpower… So what do you do if [like China] you have lots of capacity but your consumers can’t or won’t buy what you make? You try to export the problem, keeping the economy humming by running huge trade surpluses… China appears to be exporting close to $1 trillion more than it imports, and the trend is upward.”
“Hence the coming trade war. The rest of the world won’t passively accept Chinese surpluses on that scale. The ‘China shock’ of the 2000s taught us that whatever the (real) virtues of free trade, a huge import surge does unacceptable damage to workers and communities in its path. Furthermore, China is an autocracy that doesn’t share democratic values. Allowing it to dominate strategically crucial industries is an unacceptable risk… So the trade war is coming; in some ways it has already started.”
Why it matters: “During his first term, Trump eventually stopped raising tariffs after signing what he called a “historic trade deal” in which China agreed to buy $200 billion in American goods. How much of that total did China actually buy? None... [S]erious trade conflict is coming as China tries to export its policy failures. But America just elected perhaps the worst possible leader to manage that conflict.”
5. Why Biden administration economic policy isn’t to blame for pandemic-era inflation
Why you should read it: Former Obama administration budget czar Peter Orzag makes the case in the Washington Post that “the nearly unprecedented supply-side shock” caused by the COVID-19 pandemic bears primary responsibility for the bout of inflation suffered by the United States—not President Biden’s $2 trillion American Rescue Plan.
“Inflation turned out to be a defining issue of the 2024 election, but the common story about its cause—covid-era stimulus—is more wrong than right. We should not learn a mistaken lesson… This story [that the ARP caused inflation] is intuitively appealing, and it is no surprise it became a popular narrative with the media. The weight of the evidence, however, suggests that the package had only a modest impact on the path of inflation.”
“Along with Robin Brooks of Brookings and William Murdock of Lazard, I have parsed a variety of economic data through the arc of the pandemic, including a commonly used measure of demand, supply indicators such as delivery times… The results show that supply-chain variables directly accounted for 79 percent of the rise in underlying inflation in 2021. These effects then continued into 2022, with ongoing supply issues directly explaining 60 percent of the rise in inflation that year. The rest was more than accounted for by spillovers from the 2021 supply-driven inflation. All of which leaves only a modest role for demand-driven effects like the covid relief package… At the start of the pandemic, Americans shifted their spending from services (like travel, eating out and going to the movies) to goods (like computer hardware and exercise equipment) — just as a snarled supply chain caused those goods to be in short supply. This caused prices to spike… In this multistage process of inflation’s arc, the American Rescue Plan played a minimal role. The stages would have occurred regardless of whether the plan was $2 trillion, $1 trillion or $500 billion. It simply takes a long time for economies to adjust to massive shocks like the pandemic.”
Why it matters: “There will be future health and economic crises. Misunderstanding the underlying causes of recent inflation risks hampering effective policymaking when the next crisis happens. Leaders might be hesitant to provide significant fiscal relief out of fear of stoking inflation. Though each situation is different, it would be a mistake to reach that conclusion from this covid episode.”
6. Why Democrats need to start saying “no” to activist groups
Why you should read it: Former Democratic staffer Adam Jentleson contends that the party needs to start saying “no” much more often to activists and advocacy groups who purport to speak for certain constituencies but in reality represent no one but themselves.
“Supermajority thinking is urgently needed at this moment. We have been conditioned to think of our era of polarization as a stable arrangement of rough parity between the parties that will last indefinitely, but history teaches us that such periods usually give way to electoral realignments. Last week, Mr. Trump showed us what a conservative realignment can look like. Unless Democrats want to be consigned to minority status and be locked out of the Senate for the foreseeable future, they need to counter by building a supermajority of their own… Democrats cannot do this as long as they remain crippled by a fetish for putting coalition management over a real desire for power. Whereas Mr. Trump has crafted an image as a different kind of Republican by routinely making claims that break with the party line on issues ranging from protecting Social Security and Medicare to mandating insurance coverage of in vitro fertilization, Democrats remain stuck trying to please all of their interest groups while watching voters of all races desert them over the very stances that these groups impose on the party.”
“Achieving a supermajority means declaring independence from liberal and progressive interest groups that prevent Democrats from thinking clearly about how to win. Collectively, these groups impose the rigid mores and vocabulary of college-educated elites, placing a hard ceiling on Democrats’ appeal and fatally wounding them in the places they need to win not just to take back the White House, but to have a prayer in the Senate… At their best, these groups can be productive partners in building power and legislating. But many have grown too big, adopted overly expansive mandates and become disastrously cavalier about the basic realities of American politics in ways that end up undermining their own goals… The groups also pollute the talent pipeline by training young people in magical thinking, teaching them to apply movement tactics to every issue instead of inculcating them with the disciplined practice of smart politics. This is primarily the fault of the leaders, not the youth, since many bosses claim to live in fear of being ‘canceled’ by their young staff members. Yet having managed dozens of junior staffers in progressive institutions for more than a decade, I know it is possible to listen to and learn from their concerns and create a supportive work environment while also setting clear boundaries and expectations.”
Why it matters: “Ruthlessly prioritizing winning will make the groups mad, and that’s OK — in fact, it will be good for them. Groups have become too accustomed to enjoying access without holding themselves accountable; the question “is this tactic more likely to trigger backlash than to advance our goals?” is the single most important one, yet it seems to be rarely asked by many of the groups’ leaders or funders. Meanwhile, many of today’s lawmakers and leaders have come up at a time when alienating the groups is seen as anathema, but they should start seeing it as both right and necessary — a long overdue resetting of the relationship that will be healthy for all involved… Those who would rather lose elections so that they can feel better about themselves leave the real suffering to the people they claim to fight for. No one wins when we lose. It is time to start winning again.”
7. Why Democrats should moderate on trans issues, not surrender
Why you should read it: The Atlantic columnist Jonathan Chait notes that, contrary to the overwrought claims of trans activists and social media types, Democratic moderation on transgender issues does not entail “throwing trans people under the bus.”
“Now some of the very people who pushed Democrats into adopting these politically toxic positions have shifted to a new line: Abandoning any element of the trans-rights agenda would be morally unthinkable… Refusing to accommodate the electorate is a legitimate choice when politicians believe they are defending a principle so foundational that defeat is preferable to compromise. But in this case, the no-compromise stance is premised on a fundamental misunderstanding of the options on the table. Democrats do not, in fact, face a choice between championing trans rights and abandoning them. They can and should continue to defend trans people against major moral, legal, and cultural threats. All they need to do to reduce their political exposure is repudiate the movement’s marginal and intellectually shaky demands.”
“Democrats mainly ran into trouble because they either supported or refused to condemn a few highly unpopular positions: allowing athletes who transitioned from male to female to participate in high-level female sports, where they often enjoy clear physical advantages; allowing adolescent and preadolescent children to medically transition without adequate diagnosis; and providing state-funded sex-change surgery for prisoners and detainees. The first two issues poll horribly… I think there’s a strong case to be made for the Democrats adjusting the first two of these stances on substantive grounds. But even if you disagree with that, as many activists do, there remains an almost unassailable political case for reversing course. Why not stick to what I’d argue are the clearest, most important cases where trans rights must be protected, while letting go of a handful of hard-to-defend edge cases that are hurting Democrats at the polls—yielding policy outcomes that work to the detriment of trans people themselves? The answer is that much of the trans-rights activist community and its most vocal allies have come to believe that the entire package of trans-rights positions is a single, take-it-or-leave-it bloc. That mistaken conviction underlies the insistence that compromise is impossible, and that the only alternative to unquestioning support is complete surrender.”
Why it matters: “In place of careful reasoning, advocates of the maximal [trans] position frequently resort to sweeping moralistic rhetoric. Innumerable columns after this month’s elections have chastised moderates for ‘throwing trans people under the bus…’ But there is plenty of reasonable room for Democrats to retreat—on female-sports participation, youth gender medicine, and state-sponsored surgery for prisoners and detainees. You may wish to add or subtract discrete items on my list. I can’t claim to have compiled a morally or politically unassailable accounting of which compromises Democratic politicians should make. What is unassailable is the principle that compromise without complete surrender is, in fact, possible.”
8. How blunderbuss tariffs hurt manufacturing jobs and export industries
Why you should read it: Trade economist Fariha Kamal digs into the data at the Briefing Book Substack and finds that broad-based tariffs on imports only harm exports and do nothing (at best) for manufacturing employment.
“A new ‘Washington Consensus’ has emerged where higher tariffs feature prominently in U.S. international economic policy. A key objective of the tariff increases is to protect and promote U.S. manufacturing employment. However, the balance of the evidence to date points to few benefits and net costs to U.S. manufacturing activity. A central reason is that U.S. production is integrated into global supply chains and it is challenging to reorient long-established supply links. An examination of newly released public-use statistics reveals the high concentration of trade and jobs at firms that both export and import goods (exporter-importer firms) and thus tariffs on imports can end up hurting export performance and associated employment. Future U.S. trade policy actions should narrowly target stated domestic goals to minimize unintended hits to American competitiveness.”
“Contrary to broadcasted objectives of boosting U.S. manufacturing activity, evidence shows that the dramatic rise in U.S. import tariffs between 2018 and 2019 lowered exports and employment in the U.S. manufacturing sector. While tariffs on foreign goods provide protection to import-competing industries, they can have a net negative impact on output and employment because U.S. manufacturers rely on foreign inputs in their goods production processes. In fact, half of all U.S. imports are industrial supplies and capital goods that are used as intermediate inputs by manufacturers. Tariffs are taxes that make these inputs more expensive; and in the absence of suitable alternatives and inability to pass on higher costs to consumers, especially in the short-term, higher tariffs place downward pressure on output and employment (all else equal). The Federal Reserve’s October 2019 Beige Book, for example, documents that ‘[b]oth retailers and manufacturers noted rising input costs, often for items subject to new tariffs, but retailers had relatively more success passing through these cost increases to their customers…’ This is borne out in evidence from co-authored work examining the impacts of the 2018-2019 import tariffs on U.S. exports. Three facts underscore the links between exports and tariff-impacted imports: (i) 57% of all imports facing tariffs were intermediate goods; (ii) exporters exposed to import tariffs accounted for 84% of total exports; and (iii) the average importer in the manufacturing sector paid implied duties of about $1,600 per worker (equivalent to about 1.5% of the average wage bill) and employed 65% of manufacturing workers. By 2019, the negative effect of import tariffs on exports is equivalent to what would happen with a direct ad valorem tariff on U.S. exports of 2%. The analysis further indicates that export growth reductions would have been a third smaller if the new import tariffs were not levied on goods likely to be part of the average firm's supply chain.”
Why it matters: “Getting the basic facts right on the structure of U.S. industry is fundamental to assessing the impacts of tariffs. An examination of the contribution of U.S. goods trading firms to exports, imports, and employment, using the latest publicly available information, reveals that exporter-importer firms play an outsized role in U.S. goods exports and manufacturing job growth… Given exporter-importer firms’ outsized contribution to exports and as a major source of employment and job creation not only in the goods-producing sector but also across a wide range of industries in the service-providing sector, the continuation of existing tariffs and further broad-based increases are likely net hindrances to long-term U.S. competitiveness.”
9. How America can return to its central values after Trump
Why you should read it: In The Bulwark, retired Army general Mark Hertling takes lessons from his own experience helping the U.S. Army recall its own core values at the height of the Iraq war and shows how they can help America return to its own principles when Trump finally leaves the scene.
“There are times in all our live when we lose our way. Unexpected challenges, fear of the unknown future, absence of role models, a gradual drift away from what we believe, continuous compromises to what we know is right, losing sight of what truly matters—it’s not hard for individuals, businesses, organizations, and even nations to stray from their stated values… For the Army, the values are derived from longstanding traditions, principles of military service on behalf of a democratic nation, ethical standards derived from the Geneva Conventions and the Laws of Land Warfare, and the American approach to military service. Throughout my military career, I was also taught our country’s values determine our national interests, and those interests should drive our strategies and how we act on the international stage… Our national values… flow mostly from our nation’s founding documents, inspiring speeches, and the worthy ideals that have shaped our history… The values found in the Declaration of Independence are equality (‘all men are created equal’), inalienable rights (‘Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness’), popular sovereignty (‘Governments are instituted among Men and derive their just powers from the consent of the governed’), and freedom from tyranny (the right of the people to ‘alter or abolish’ abusive governments). Our Constitution lists six key national values: unity, justice, domestic tranquility, the common defense, the general welfare, and the protection of liberty… These are the values that inspired every future generation of American political thought, from Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Ronald Reagan, and up to the present day.”
“Some people view America as an accident of history—a more or less random selection of people, serendipitously assigned to a land, like every other people in any other land around the world. But even a cursory reading of the country’s founding documents and great speeches makes clear that America is a political organization with a reliance on our values. The speeches by great men and women through our history also provide us with the values we ought to hold dear. There are hundreds of such reminders, but Lincoln, the two Roosevelts, Kennedy, King, and Reagan provide a few examples… Like the Army values we instill in new soldiers, American values have both intrinsic and instrumental worth. Peace, freedom, and respect for the rights of everyone all stem from the acknowledgement of the universal value of human life. But our inherent values are also necessary tools to allow a large, diverse, energetic population to live as one in a bountiful nation. Americans have always been divided by wealth, education, region, religion, even language, in addition to race and ethnicity and place of birth. But application of our shared values are tools for peace and productivity.”
Why it matters: “These American values have served us well for hundreds of years, just as the Army values served the Army for centuries before they were codified in doctrine. Our problem is not that our values are outdated or obsolete; it is that we haven’t done a sufficient job teaching them to the next generation. If the lessons I learned in the Army are any guide, even a little more time spent explaining what it means to be an American based on our national values would return civic rewards manyfold.”
Odds and Ends
An historian of ancient Rome reviews Gladiator II…
How new discoveries of Neolithic stone circles in England support theories of a “sacred arc” that includes Stonehenge…
The 80s are back, at least for orcas in the Pacific Northwest who have resumed wearing dead salmon hats after a 37-year break…
Why ice giant planets Uranus and Neptune may be concealing vast oceans that help explain their weird magnetic fields…
Fourteen songs from the late, legendary producer Quincy Jones…
What I’m Listening To
The Who’s 1978 Shepperton Studios performance of “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” from their seminal 1971 album Who’s Next.
“1999,” the opening track from Prince’s breakthrough 1982 album of the same title.
Vince Guaraldi’s “Thanksgiving Theme” from A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.
What I’m Streaming
Silo, a post-apocalyptic Apple TV+ drama starring Rebecca Ferguson (the Mission: Impossible and Dune movie franchises), returns for its second season on the streaming service.
Say Nothing, a streaming adaptation of journalist Patrick Radden Keefe’s excellent book on the brutality and cruelty of Northern Ireland’s Troubles.
Endurance, a National Geographic documentary feature about polar explorer Ernest Shackleton’s ill-fated 1914 expedition to Antarctica and the 2022 search for the wreck of his ship, the Endurance, in the frigid waters of the Southern Ocean.
Image of the Month
