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Fred Bauer Profile picture
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10 Jan, 4 tweets, 2 min read
From a certain member of Congress in the summer of 2020: If you're going to "protest safely," be sure that you wear nondescript clothing so that you can't be identified and bring along some heat-resistant gloves. instagram.com/p/CA0jzCdg_vR/…
June 1, 2020: "Since the beginning of this country, riots and violent rhetoric have been markers of patriotism." theatlantic.com/culture/archiv…
May 29, 2020: "What we’re missing when we condemn “violence” at protests." vox.com/first-person/2…
August 2020: "We have to be willing to do things that scare us and that we wouldn't do in normal, 'peaceful' times, because we need to get free." npr.org/sections/codes…

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Fred Bauer Profile picture
10 Jan
This is an interesting window into narrative formation.

As videos circulate of Capitol Police officers putting their bodies on the line and being overwhelmed by a violent mob, the former president links to a piece calling their response "tepid."
A policeman literally died in defense of the Capitol.
A thin line of police fighting against the mob.
Read 4 tweets
Fred Bauer Profile picture
9 Jan
One path that does not seem promising for the preservation of "liberal democracy": Increasing agitation for popular violence, sustained efforts at constitutional delegitimization from major stakeholders, roving paranoia, calls for economic/political unpersoning, etc.
Whatever it public-health benefits, sustained social distancing is also extremely destructive to political stability.

American elites have all too often sought to channel this instability into factional violence (from May 2020 onward). It's a catastrophic failure of leadership.
Or maybe they've attempted to try to harness such violence toward factional ends. Either way, a massive failure.
Read 4 tweets
Fred Bauer Profile picture
3 Dec 20
Congressional Research Service report on removing per-country caps on green cards (which unanimously passed the Senate yesterday) reveals how transformative this proposal would be. It basically shuts down high-skilled immigration from most of the world. cis.org/sites/default/…
The EB1 visa is for applicants with "extraordinary" abilities in the sciences, research, the arts, business, etc. Currently (outside of India and China), there's only a 1-year wait for this visa. Under HR1044, that will become a 7-year wait.
For EB2 (professionals w/advanced degrees, etc.), the backlog for the rest of the world (other than India/China) is less than a year. If the caps are removed, that will become 37 years.
Read 4 tweets
Fred Bauer Profile picture
7 Apr 20
One note of caution about extrapolating too much from this statistic (and related studies): The U.S. economy is balanced very differently compared to 1918--much more dependent on service sector now. Also, many city "lockdowns" in 1918 were less stringent than today.
LA as cited as an example of a city that had an effective lockdown to counter the 1918 flu. But, according to the Influenza Encyclopedia, the lockdown was pretty targeted--schools, poolhalls, theaters, etc. Efforts to implement broader lockdowns failed. influenzaarchive.org/cities/city-lo…
If you look at the 1918 policies in the cities praised by the NYT above, you'll notice that they leave many businesses open and focus mostly on closing entertainment venues, schools, and churches. Again, the Influenza Encyclopedia is a good resource. influenzaarchive.org/index.html
Read 6 tweets
Fred Bauer Profile picture
4 May 19
This is the pluralist in me, but here's an issue that arises if major social-media platforms want to start policing the accounts of "dangerous extremists" with more granularity: Who determines what counts as a dangerous or extremist ideology?
If you look at the 20th century, one of the ideologies with the most corpses to its discredit was communism. So do postmodern socialists count as dangerous extremists?
What about essays arguing that one of the goals of criminal-justice reform should be to *increase* the violent crime rate? Some might think of that as a necessary revolution, while others might consider that a dangerous proposition. nplusonemag.com/issue-13/polit…
Read 5 tweets
Fred Bauer Profile picture
28 Oct 18
As outsider politicians continue to gain power, it's worth remembering one of the reasons why they've had such an opportunity: The political center accepted as conventional wisdom ideas that, in reality, are quite extreme.
Maastricht and other treaties that centralized power in Europe were radical in their ambition. Placing so many countries (with so many competing imperatives) under a single currency is almost a recipe for political tensions.
Angela Merkel's open-door approach to migration is also quite radical. "Wir schaffen das" became a slogan for a utopianism disconnected from the realities of concrete political life.
Read 9 tweets

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