“There is a power that dumb things have in this world. It is not the power of imperviousness to criticism, but rather of being so permeable that all criticism passes through with no effect, like the invisible neutrinos that stream through our bodies every second. Grappling with the dawn of the Second Trump Era will require an acceptance of the disquieting truth that Dumb Things and Important Things are about to merge into a single excruciating category of existence. Donald Trump is an ignorant, overconfident, narcissistic, grievance-ridden man — a dumb man, who over time has attracted around him an asteroid field of dumb allies who are but lesser versions of himself.” (11/20/24)
“Reducing emissions from the transportation sector is essential to building a sustainable and forward-looking economy in the United States. As the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the country, the transportation sector contributes 29% of total emissions, with personal vehicles alone contributing 58% of these. This underscores a critical opportunity for decarbonization in personal transportation. As the world grapples with climate change, transitioning to electric vehicles (EVs) offers a promising path to quickly reduce these emissions. This analysis places U.S. EV adoption in a global context and identifies initial policy recommendations to accelerate decarbonization in this vital sector.” (11/19/24)
“Donald Trump’s re-election assures that protectionism will become even more fashionable inside the Beltway. Trump recently declared that tariff is ‘the most beautiful word in the dictionary,’ and the exaltation of trade barriers has become the latest political mania. Washington hustlers are loudly promising to enrich the nation by selectively blockading American ports. Unfortunately, the Trump team and the growing horde of protectionist pundits sound clueless about America’s long record of trade follies. Instead, we are encouraged to presume that politicians merely need to issue a few commands and federal bureaucrats will instantly apply their wisdom to remedy our economic problems. But unless politicians intend to ban all imports or inflict the same tax on all imports, then government officials will need to make distinctions between products.” (11/19/24)
“At this year’s National Conservatism Conference, [Vivek] Ramaswamy labeled his view as ‘national libertarianism.’ He later described the view to the New York Times’[s] Ezra Klein as a strand of America First focused on ‘dismantling the existence of that nanny state in all of its forms: the entitlement state, the regulatory state, and the foreign nanny state.’ Listen to him a bit more closely, though, and Ramaswamy’s vision begins to appear more like an ambitious attempt to repackage libertarianism in nationalist garb. … The MAGA intelligentsia Ramaswamy is trying to hitch his wagon to … have come to wholly reject the wisdom of free trade, civic nationalism in favor of ethnic nationalism, and immigration of any kind. For them, libertarianism hasn’t just failed; it is the source of ‘rot in the existing order’ that they seek to overhaul.” (11/19/24)
“Many Americans, including me, notice that the Constitution only seems to be obeyed when those in power find obeying it convenient. Some Americans, not including me, fantasize that it’s not only possible to force government to obey it, but that doing so would magically solve all the problems that have them so upset so much of the time. It’s not possible, nor would it produce those results. As Rita Mae Brown wrote in 1983 (you may have seen the quote attributed to others), ‘insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.’ That’s ‘constitutionalism’ in a nutshell.” (11/19/24)
Source: The Hill
by Phillip Magness & Alexander William Salter
“Good ideas don’t always outcompete bad ones. But willful foolishness usually has a cost. So it is with modern monetary theory. Ironically, this basket of economic fallacies, embraced by policymakers during the Biden-Harris administration, may have returned Donald Trump to the White House.” (11/19/24)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Marco Rubio will be joining a long list of psychopaths as the next US secretary of state. A few of Trump’s cabinet picks might have a hard time getting past the Senate, but not Rubio. He’s the exact type of blood-guzzling swamp leech those creatures on Capitol Hill adore. Psychopathy is almost a job requirement for secretary of state, because the title entails a responsibility for helping to roll out the violence and tyranny which serves as the glue that holds the US empire together. As secretary of state you are responsible for whipping up international consensus for brutal economic sanctions regimes, drumming up support for heightened aggressions against the official enemies of Washington, and making up excuses for the criminal abuses of the US and its allies.” (11/19/24)
Source: ProSocial Libertarians
by Andrew Jason Cohen
“I’ve met dedicated Trump voters — those who really love the man and his bluster. I’ve met Trump voters who find the man appalling but want what they think he will deliver — including laying waste to what they see as wokism. And I’ve met people who voted for Trump, hating the man, what he stands for, and what he may try to accomplish; they also, though, believe he will either tear down the existing system or pave the way for its self-implosion. They may not like or agree with him, but they are willing to accept him to end what they see as evil capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy, etc. Before the election, the last group I just mentioned scared me the most because of their unpredictability. I think that fear turned out to be well justified.” (11/19/24)
“Some 15 years ago, on December 5, 2010, a historian writing for TomDispatch made a prediction that may yet prove prescient. Rejecting the consensus of that moment that U.S. global hegemony would persist to 2040 or 2050, he argued that ‘the demise of the United States as the global superpower could come … in 2025, just 15 years from now.’ To make that forecast, the historian conducted what he called ‘a more realistic assessment of domestic and global trends.’ Starting with the global context, he argued that, ‘faced with a fading superpower,’ China, India, Iran, and Russia would all start to ‘provocatively challenge U.S. dominion over the oceans, space, and cyberspace.'” [editor’s note: If this meant an end to the empire and the restoration of a constitutional republic, what is the downside? – SAT] [additional editor’s note: “Restoration of a constitutional republic” isn’t even on the table – TLK] (11/19/24)
