This is a good example of someone who doesn't even understand the critique enough to mount an intelligible response. If you don't see the problem with his response, a thread.
The Trump Administration utterly failed to do enough planning for vaccine rollout. It should have done more. So what do I mean when I talk about the limits of central planning? *Not* that there should be no planning by the federal or state governments.
Rather, I mean that the FDA should not have forbid private actors from developing and using Covid tests early on, instead mandating the use of a flawed CDC test. See Lawrence Wright in the New Yorker for more on that example. Here's another:
I agree with Mitt Romney that the feds should play a greater role in vaccine coordination and distribution. I maybe think we should use the army. what I object too is overly complicated and onerous prioritization that looks good on paper but slows distribution too much.
It is possible to have both too little planning and to simultaneously error by doing too much central planning on discrete areas where not appreciating its limits leads to more harm than good.
As for the canard that the United States sucks at central planning because of libertarians, I invite scrutiny of California and New York, where libertarians have even less influence on policy than is the case at the federal level.
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Apropos a conversation with a friend I want to flag one of my favorite stories from The Atlantic archives by one of the journalists I esteem most--the singular @JamesFallows--and I want to rope in @WesleyLowery and the @wethefifth folks who conversed with him about journalism
This story touches on questions of journalistic ethics, objectivity versus moral clarity, and the relationship of journalists to the United States and to the American public and public opinion. But it has nothing to do with the particulars of current hot button debates
For that reason, maybe it will prove useful to people who are thinking through these complicated matters. Without any more buildup, here is the article theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
I've gotten some emails with requests to explain what informs the judgment that I've reached in the 2020 election. The long answer: lots of articles I've written and read over the last five years. This thread is an incomplete list of them.
The Trump character trait that bothers me most, by far, is his penchant for cruelty.
The issue that looms largest for me is COVID-19. I reject the absurd argument that Trump is responsible for all U.S. deaths. But his failures have been significant and catastrophic enough to justify doubting his competence in future emergencies theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
Annoyingly, Nikole Hannah-Jones blocked me on Twitter today before posting more mischaracterizations of our recent disagreements about 1619 vs 1776. I'd hoped and intended to leave things at my last thread. Now I'll post videos corroborating my position.
Lest there be any confusion, I want to be clear that I do not favor banning the project from schools or the president's attacks on NHJ.
Indeed, this week a hs teacher sent me a link to a video presentation by a student who read The 1619 Project and my essay about it. My discourse and debate-loving self found it so heartening.
The USC business school imbroglio is among the most alarming instances I've ever seen of administrators running roughshod over faculty, undermining academic freedom, and chilling speech in a way that harms all students. (thread)
The administration cannot help but know that their actions are causing multiple professors to alter their teaching in ways that harm students because they are terrified of being punished for unintentionally giving offense to students.
Will they do anything to alter that?
My reporting and an anonymous survey conducted by the Faculty Council at the school both yielded powerful quotes from USC professors that ought to be more widely known to fellow academics.
This claim is staggering. Because I wrote an essay arguing that The 1619 Project was great in parts, but was wrong to argue that 1619 was our "true founding," I take exception to it. My essay is here: theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/… Was I duped by "the right" or duping others? A thread:
Here she is calling Ben Shapiro a liar and saying that the wrongheadedness of his claim is easily verified. Am I going crazy? I thought. So I went back to check myself to make sure I didn't error in my essay. What I found is quite damning.