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Yascha Mounk Profile picture
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30 Jan, 4 tweets, 1 min read
This is about as scientific or sensible as the fears that the religious right had about the Simpsons corrupting America's youth.
Liberals have traditionally been skeptical about television shows ruining the young or video games turning nice kids into mass murderers.

And yet, many of us now embrace ideas about how conspiracy theories spread that make similarly simplistic and sensationalist assumptions.
"Wait, I've got it! It's because of all the Easter Eggs in Bojack Horseman! THAT's why people now, for the first ever time in human history, are willing to believe in batshit conspiracy theories."
Speaking of Bojack Horseman, I was just rewatching one of the early episodes about Herb Kazzaz. It is brilliant and deeply resonant today.

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More from @Yascha_Mounk

Yascha Mounk Profile picture
27 Jan
I support (the option of) statehood for Puerto Rico on an ur-American principle: "no taxation without representation."

But it's a little weird that so many people assume that a) Puerto Ricans would definitely vote for statehood and b) their Senators would always vote with Dems.
Puerto Rico has a deeply entrenched partisan political divide that does not map neatly onto the American one.

And its Senators would, primarily, have an interest in getting the best treatment for PR.

It really isn't as simple as "they're brown so they'll just be Democrats."
Of course, all of this is even more reason to offer PR a vote on statehood.

This shouldn't be some partisan maneuver to "rebalance" the Senate. It should be pursued because we owe Puerto Ricans a chance to decide on their own future, whatever the consequences for US politics.
Read 4 tweets
Yascha Mounk Profile picture
25 Jan
An unsourced German press report in a serious newspaper suggests that the primary vaccine used in the UK only has 8% effectiveness among 65+.

This is either:

a) a totally irresponsible failure of journalism, or

b) a giant disaster for the UK (and @BorisJohnson's government).
In the interest of reducing deaths and beating this pandemic, let's all hope it turns out to be a)...
FWIW, Germany's biggest tabloid is now reporting a version of the same story, suggesting that the vaccine is unlikely to be green-lit for 65+.

At this point, this does not look like misreporting; true or false, someone senior in the German government is really feeding this info.
Read 6 tweets
Yascha Mounk Profile picture
21 Jan
As somebody with a Body Mass Index just over 25, this would put me in one of the highest priority groups to get the vaccine in Washington, DC.

Respectfully, that is completely nuts.

washingtonpost.com/local/dc-polit…
(On the other hand, I now have an excuse to eat poorly for the next few weeks. Don't wanna drop below that magical threshold!)
This is also a great example of the idiocy of trying to smuggle racial justice into vaccine priorities under the hood.

The point of this policy is to get it to DC's poorer residents. In the end, it'll help the people who have the most resources to work the system.

Total fail.
Read 4 tweets
Yascha Mounk Profile picture
17 Jan
Germany's Christian Democrats just chose a new leader, who is likely to succeed Angela Merkel next year: Armin Laschet.

Unlike his main competitor, Friedrich Merz, Laschet is a moderate who is likely to continue Merkel's political line.

That's good. But I have a few concerns.
1)
It is far from clear that Laschet will continue Merkel's line on foreign policy.

In the past, Laschet has been deferential to Russia, defended Assad and even attacked NATO for its solidarity with Britain at the time of the Salisbury Attack.
It's possible that Laschet will seek a middle course between America, on the one hand, and Russia and China, on the other hand.

Even if he does not make that disastrous mistake, he is highly unlikely to turn Germany into a more consistent defender of democracy and human rights.
Read 8 tweets
Yascha Mounk Profile picture
13 Jan
"A survey of mothers from 65 to 75 years old with at least two living adult children found that about 11 percent were estranged from a child and 62 percent reported contact less than once a month with at least one child."

62 percent! That's terribly sad.

theatlantic.com/family/archive…
The 11 percent figure doesn't strike me as particularly concerning. About one in ten people is probably deeply toxic, and it is the right of children to keep those people out of their lives.

But 62 percent of children who have barely any relationship with their parents! Wow.
And yup, as everyone is pointing out, it's 62 percent of mothers who barely have contact with one of their children - so not 62 percent of mother-child dyads, as it were.

Still!
Read 4 tweets
Yascha Mounk Profile picture
2 Jan
None of the common metaphors for what a thriving, diverse society might look like work well.

Melting pot: Too much emphasis on cultural homogeneity.

Salad bowl: Too much emphasis on cultural separatism.*

Do you have a better idea for how to talk about this?
* The metaphor of the salad bowl is also way less inclusive than its advocates seem to think.

A good salad needs a chef who makes choices and makes dressing. Or do you want to eat a dry salad that's 90% croutons?

(Same problem goes for "mosaic.")
Agree with everyone that the right answer is likely *not* to be a food metaphor. (The fact that academics all resort to food metaphors has long been fascinating to me.)

But what's better?
Read 5 tweets

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