America Is in Denial(theatlantic.com) |
America Is in Denial(theatlantic.com) |
Great quote.
I was surprised to see this was written by Mitt Romney, completely missed the page title and only realised at the end
I think our lifeblood is not tribalism — we aren't that alike to divide into only two tribes — I think the real problem is fear. We've allowed ourselves (and the past 30 years of childrearing) to be overwhelmed by it and now can't function without assurance: being in a crowd of others — the most basic form of security known to animalkind — safety in numbers. The result of that now, intellectually, is we simply refuse to entertain ideas or arguments not already endorsed by others. So we cleave to whatever 'gang' is handy, never mind how dysfunctional their agenda or ideas or rationales are.
The hallmark of our times is the death of the individual.
I see it as the opposite. The current mood of the day in the US is individualism over any sense of civic obligation or cooperation.
At least in the case of global warming, the US are in good company: the whole world is failing (some more, some less, but nevertheless all failing) to confront the challenge.
But, you’ve got this coalition of entrenched interests and corrupt politicians who are fighting it. So the death gasps continue. Kudos to capitalism in this regard, it will accelerate the transition regardless as renewables and electric mobility learning curves bend adoption and deployment curves closer to vertical.
https://archive.ph/2022.06.30-103521/https://www.bloomberg.c...
https://ember-climate.org/insights/research/eu-slashes-fossi...
https://insight.factset.com/strong-ev-sales-could-soon-weigh...
Nature does not dole out milder climates to countries which pollute less either. We're all in the same boat.
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/whats-hotte...
He is a consummate politician who is afraid to offer any concrete suggestions to deal with the problems he mentions.
It might have been interesting to hear his ideas about gun control, abortion rights, etc. - If he has any.
But, the 4th of July is just another day in America, "Home of the Brave":
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/shooting-reported-july-4th-...
.
Residential water use has plummeted in the west. Some areas, like vegas, use less water than the 70s, not accounting for population changes. Arizona is the second best residential water manager in the world behind Israel. Agriculture uses the lion's share of water and can be cut off when things get really tight.
> As inflation mounts and the national debt balloons, progressive politicians vote for ever more spending.
The US must continue printing debt (expanding money supply) to continue the dollar's status as the reserve currency. And not all spending as bad, much of it can be an investment expecting positive long term returns.
If you want to find bloat, look at our government-subsidized suburban lifestyle and the sheer cost of the massive amount of infrastructure required to maintain it.
> As the ice caps melt and record temperatures make the evening news, we figure that buying a Prius and recycling the boxes from our daily Amazon deliveries will suffice.
Yet again blaming individuals' choices when large corporations are by far the largest global polluters. As well, this applies to a thin slice of the global population. most people, even in the US, can't afford to think about climate change. For example, higher gas prices translate to questions on whether there will be enough food on the table, or whether it's even worth the time to go to work anymore.
> When TV news outlets broadcast video after video of people illegally crossing the nation’s southern border, many of us change the channel.
Illegal border crossings have been declining and were at the lowest point in the last 10 years before Biden. There has been a huge amount of discussion about this politically, a large amount of Americans do consider this a big problem.
One of the under appreciated outgrowths of the Trump years is the rise of a crop of "centrist"-leaning conservatives who really agreed with Trump on almost all of his actually achieved policy goals but really just disagreed with his supposed incompetence or brashness or with the attempted insurrection, but had Trump had a different demeanor, they'd be along for the ride.
That was Bernie Sanders. Every debate, every mud sling, every derail, Sanders was a guy who would put the conversation back on track on doing what's right for the American people.
We have a completely bifurcated ontology. Just as one minority sees their other group as being left behind, another sees their other-group as having a now-completely false consciousness. Imo, we are alien tribes to one another, and I look at western democracies and see the same separation that precedes litigating a divorce. I can score points on people I disagree with all day, but I don't bother because those points are worthless and not redeemable for anything good in the world.
To expand that analogy, most divorces try to start as reasonable, but once you are actually free of one another in the separation, it becomes a war for the previously shared resources and custody, enabled and inflamed by people who get paid out of the shared pot either way, and any courtesy or civility is leveraged back as weakness. These differences become so irreconcilable that we have evolved a completely parallel court system to handle it. The whole process of litigating a divorce is debasing and shameful for everyone involved, and almost nobody gets out with their basic human dignity intact. It's a useful analogy because everywhere I have seen it, it's a microcosm of war.
What does a good outcome look like? In time the hostilities cool to where it's no longer an animal fight for survival. Typically in a divorce, women get the home and the kids, and men get some freedom to start another family, and some limited opportunity via visitation to guide their kids and help them become fully actualized people. Generally, the women go on to find new supportive companions, and the men move on and rebuild as best they can. This analogy I think is very close to the culture war divide, where, if we take it any deeper, it becomes just as much of a quagmire as who's right and wrong in a family dissolution as it is for red/blue, but it's useful to abstract it out with an analogy so we can look seriously at what I foresee we are very likely to be confronted with.
To me, Romney is like the sensitive ponytailed new friend who starts hanging around under the pretext of helping, but he's just another vulture circling a struggling relationship looking to make vulnerable people dependent on him. The cultural divide in America has always existed, but it has only really become dangerous because of carpet bagging opportunists who don't believe in truth whispering in the ears of the primary parties. People presenting themselves as centerists are usually just fluid and unprincipled, and by inserting themselves between mostly stable complementary sides, and by dissolving edges and boundaries, they create new distance that puts themselves in the middle. It makes them manipulative and dishonest brokers.
I am not a centerist, because I think our political differences are complimentary and mutually moderating forces that truly build one other and benefit us all. The proposal I would make would be that we agree to recognize that America has made good lives and a society together, and this attracts interlopers who would like a piece of what you have built together, and they use some very appealing and seductive techniques to try to lever themselves between you. They appeal to our feelings of outrage, pride, envy, aggrievement, and shame, among others. It's a very old trick, and it works in the microcosm as well as in the macro.
I live in a country where politicians preach togetherness and unity but always with themselves in the middle, and mainly spend their efforts trying shame anyone who isn't interested in their meddling as illiberal, oppressive and revanchist. If only we were as intolerant of their sleaze as we have become of each other, there might be a way to hold this thing together. If not, it will be sad, but I think we all know how this goes.
What's the point of this argument? Vegas population has increased more than 10x since the 70s, why would we not account for population growth when discussing the usage of a limited resource?
> Yet again blaming individuals' choices when large corporations are by far the largest global polluters
That's not how I read this at all. Rather it's attacking the idea that a few individuals doing the "right thing" can make a difference, when really we need to tackle the larger problem such as corporations.
In the end there's more responsibility to the individual that we are willing to admit.
Corporations don’t exist. There are only individual people.
Can't tell if serious, but if you are, holding that kind of short-sighted opinion, you can be sure to be in most excellent historical company.
I mean it's not like currency debasement causes the fall of empires or anything.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denarius
https://www.lietaer.com/2021/11/did-the-romans-debase-the-cu...
https://www.businessinsider.com/the-long-and-sordid-history-...
https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/cato...
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/classics/intranets/staff/butc...
https://coinweek.com/ancient-coins/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-...
Of course borrowing is not sustainable, but the alternative is not sustainable faster.
Corporations are logical entities made up of individuals. Individuals still make the choices. Individuals must be accountable.
There are plenty of commons that come with borders, the most trivial of which would be a patch of land used for grazing livestock.
Garrett Hardin himself has acknowledged that he made a mistake with the concept of "the tragedy of the commons". There is no such thing. Commons have all historically been carefully managed by a complex interlocking web of understandings, traditions, rules. The so-called tragedies correspond to (essentially in every case) powerful interests ignoring or overthrowing the management structures governing a commons to pursue their own self-interest.
Yes, commons have historically been managed, or should I say coordinated [1], more or less explicitly, exactly so as to avoid the tragedy of unmanaged commons. The environmental awakening in the 20th century was a response to several tragedies of commons hitherto unmanaged, and these tragedies were partially mitigated by nation state level coordination. A couple of decades later humanity succeeded in solving the first truly global tragedy of commons in the history, the depletion of the ozone layer. But that was a relatively easy problem to solve compared to carbon emissions.
[1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
Here's one - https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/mitt_romney/412841
There's a reason that Romney, McConnell, and Trump share the same party, dysfunctional thought their relationship might be.
Anyway, the fact that the water use of the state as a whole has increased throws out any suggestion that "here, this one segment of the state has decreased their usage" as if that is a serious argument against the rise of water consumption being an issue.
[0] It's a report with data until 1995 but lucky for us it compares levels with 1970 and it did increase significantly EDIT: sorry, figure 1-3
http://water.nv.gov/programs/planning/stateplan/documents/pt...
https://www.watereducation.org/western-water/climate-change-...
1. improvements in domestic water usage arising from changes to in-home fixtures and appliances. Per capita use in cities across the US southwest has dropped by 30% or more over the last few decades.
2. switching over to grey/recycled water usage for a huge chunk of municipal water irrigation (eg. city parks, highway medians etc.). This uses a significant amount of water, and switching to water that has already been used once has a dramatic impact.
I hear you. Are you still wearing a mask to protect other people? COVID is still out there. We have to protect people from COVID so please wear a mask and only go outside if necessary. This is still a pandemic.
When he voted against the party - you say he had no effect on his party.
When he votes with the party - you say he has fallen in line.
What exactly is he supposed to do? No one person has the power to change the party.
I just appreciate someone, an individual, doing a good thing when they do it. This post is a good thing. The least I can do is express my gratitude for that good decision. This endless demonizing of every politician from a party X is what further entrenches tribalism. If every politician is rotten no matter what they do, do you think that leaves them with any incentive to serve a public that hates them either way? When people only see them as tribe members and not individuals, they will act that way.
Join the other party. They may be unpalatable to him, but his own party has become despicable. He would be considerably more influential with the other party: he could make substantial policy demands in exchange for his support.
> He would be considerably more influential with the other party
Would he? Or would he just be a figurehead, or a war trophy?
> he could make substantial policy demands in exchange for his support.
He can now. In a 50/50 Senate, for him to support a Democratic bill will ensure passage (unless a Democrat defects). He can extract concessions for that.
Men like Romney tear at the social fabric of America for financial gain, that's what he and his party are dedicated to. To be fair, if they could make more money by not tearing at it, they would - the point is the money; the rest is meaningless. I've worked for private equity, they're every bit the monsters we've been told. Of course they put on a good show and a nice suit - and that's who Romney is and what posts like this are all about. But at the end of the day, he and McConnell and their party are just trying to create a moral justification for greed, the same as any conservative. They just don't like Trump because he lets the mask slip.
But yeah, that is scary.
This may come down to him in a few months. There is a decent chance that the November elections will be 51 Republicans to 49 Democrats. Romney will have his choice of putting Mitch McConnell in charge, or jumping parties (cf Arlen Specter).
I would put it to him that, even if he could rein in the worst abuses, it will nonetheless bolster the party's self-image as successful in elections. That will be seen at every level as affirming all of their policies.
The problem, I believe, is that it's not about the "insanity of Trump". Trump took advantage of a party that had become insane, taking advantage of fervently held opinions and a number of thumbs on the electoral scale in their favor.
It seems to me that his best hope for fixing things would be to cause them to lose elections until they beg him to return and help fix things. I, as a Democrat, would not feel the least hard feelings were he to jump ship back. And that's not just short-term-thinking of being happy to win a few elections, but the much longer-term hope of no longer having to choose between "the delusional party" and the "at least we're not the delusional party" party. And worse, the fact that this decision appears to be a toss-up at best.