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Ezra Klein

@ezraklein

19 Feb

"Imagine if somebody saw in all the wrong colors and all the shapes that he saw were incorrect. And all of his understandings were messed up. That person would be wise to be a little humble, because the data’s coming in, and he’s messing it up."

"And essentially, I think that’s what human beings are doing in our little, sweet, pathetic way."

"So then, if you are in that kind of flawed thinking machine, and you see another flawed thinking machine, it would seem almost crazy and irrational to start judging and fighting that person."

"You might more reasonably say, oh, wow, you too."

Read 4 tweets

Ezra Klein

@ezraklein

18 Feb

This is a piece I've been thinking about for a long time. One of the most dominant policy ideas in Washington is that policy should, always and everywhere, move parents into paid labor. But what if that's wrong? nytimes.com/2021/02/18/opi…

My reporting here convinced me that there's no large effect in either direction on labor force participation from child allowances. Canada has a bigger one than either Romney or Biden are considering, and more labor force participation among women.

But what if that wasn't true?

Forcing parents into low-wage, often exploitative, jobs by threatening them and their children with poverty may be counted as a success by some policymakers, but it’s a sign of a society that doesn’t value the most essential forms of labor.

Read 11 tweets

Ezra Klein

@ezraklein

11 Feb

https://twitter.com/ddayen/status/1359928733243637761

So I'd recommend reading this thread from Dave, but I thought about some of these policies, and how they fit into the whole, a lot, and want to offer a different interpretation.

https://twitter.com/ddayen/status/1359928733243637761

I think California is world leading on progressivism that doesn't ask anyone to give anything up, or accept any major change, right now.

That's what I mean by symbolically progressive, operationally conservative.

@leahstokes

Take the 100% renewable energy standard. As @leahstokes has written, these policies often fail in practice. I note our leadership on renewable energy in the piece, but the kind of politics we see on housing and transportation are going foil that if they don't change.

Read 13 tweets

Ezra Klein

@ezraklein

11 Feb

In much of SF, you can’t walk 20 feet without seeing a sign declaring that Black lives matter and no human being is illegal. Those signs sit in yards zoned for single families, in communities that organize against the new housing that would bring those values closer to reality.

Poorer families — disproportionately nonwhite and immigrant — are pushed into long commutes, overcrowded housing and homelessness. Those inequalities have turned deadly during the pandemic.

And it's not just SF:

@Scott_Wiener

"What we see at times is people with a Bernie Sanders sign and a ‘Black Lives Matter’ sign in their window, but they’re opposing an affordable housing project or an apartment complex down the street," @Scott_Wiener told me.

Read 9 tweets

Ezra Klein

@ezraklein

9 Feb

So I've been reporting a story about how you'd fix the impeachment process. It doesn't work for removal, as currently designed. Impeachment was built for a political system without parties. It fails in a system with polarized parties.

The one time it functioned as intended, confusingly, was the time it didn't happen: Richard Nixon wasn't impeached! But the impeachment process, which came at the low ebb of party polarization in American history, convinced his party to force him to resign.

Would Republicans force Nixon to resign today?

Oh, you're cute. Thank you. I needed that.

Read 13 tweets

Ezra Klein

@ezraklein

9 Feb

@kdrum

Wait, am I reading @kdrum's mind or is he reading mine? At any rate, this is pretty close to my thinking on the political path, and to the long-term scenario I fear. jabberwocking.com/in-2040-we-wil…

I'd only add — and this is something I took from "The Ministry For The Future" — that it's a mistake to extrapolate our current level of political apathy too far forward. At some point, some set of calamities will sharply change the reaction in specific countries.

Geoengineering is one possible response, including countries going it alone. But so too is largescale eco-violence, either by state or non-state actors. And I'm persuaded that there could be financial crises to come, that would also change the politics here in unpredictable ways.

Read 6 tweets

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