The funny thing is, Stephens is supposedly NYT's in-house conservative, but none of the both-sides pablum he writes would ever be published by any real conservative outlet. "NYT conservatism" is not a genre for which there is any natural constituency; it wouldn't exist w/out NYT.
Must-read investigative journalism from @JaneMayerNYer (if that's not redundant) shows that the right is in a bit of a panic about HR1, the voting rights bill, because it's wildly popular with the public, even a majority of Rs. newyorker.com/news/news-desk…
Hey @JoeManchinWV? This is how they're talking about the voting rights bill in private:
"Instead, a senior Koch operative said that opponents would be better off ignoring the will of American voters and trying to kill the bill in Congress."
Do you want to be complicit in that?
Imagine sitting around having this discussion and never thinking, "gosh, I wonder if maybe we're horrible fucking people?"
And I chose to launch a new venture during exactly this period, so I'm haunted by the thought that I should be doing *more* than usual, showing enthusiasm, cranking stuff out, getting the thing going. Hustling! But it's like squeezing a rock for blood.
Today on Volts: I take a closer look at my favorite parts of Biden's infrastructure plan, from a new Grid Deployment Authority at DOE to a plan to retrofit a million affordable residences. (If you don't want to read, you can listen!) volts.wtf/p/the-coolest-…
Luv 2 send out an email with "$10 billion" instead of "$10 trillion" in the very first paragraph. Thank goodness things like that don't haunt me.
Hard to pick a favorite part of the jobs bill, but if forced, I might choose this: “a new Grid Deployment Authority at the Department of Energy ... to spur additional high priority, high-voltage transmission lines.” ⚡️⚡️⚡️🤟
All of this. As in the Hayes/McWhorter podcast, whenever anyone tries to question the *scale* & *significance* of this problem in the grand scheme of things, the CC crowd responds with outrageous individual examples. Which, yes, exist! But it isn't responsive to the question.
If we were going to approach "cancel culture" in a *remotely* scientific fashion, we'd have to define it, clarify what counts & doesn't. We'd have to specify what distinguishes leftie racial-justice CC from threats to speech from the right, or from the wealthy/powerful.
And we'd need to develop some empirically credible assessment of the *number* of these cases. How common are they, relative to other threats to speech/freedom?
The fact no CC warrior will answer these Qs (or even address them in good faith) inspires little confidence.
One thing we're starting to see -- expect it to ramp up when Biden's second investment bill is announced -- is the utter contempt that Republican tough guys feel toward the care professions, care workers, & caring generally.
Had a troll in my TL a bit earlier referring to care investments as "forcing him to pay for someone else's babysitter." There's going to be lots more of that. Care isn't *real* work, not *real* infrastructure, not the *real* economy -- just something chicks do.
Getting more women into politics won't solve all problems, but it will certainly reduce the salience of that pathetic, dumbass attitude.
A 🧵on the Republican approach to killing Dem initiatives.
Rs were caught flat-footed by the Covid recovery bill last month -- it was popular, the insurrection was still on people's minds, they couldn't find an effective attack line, it was a rout. That won't happen again.
Rs are on much firmer ground now, in the face of a big spending bill that's not tied to an immediate crisis. They will run the same play they ran on Obama several times.
Step one is promising that they are open to cooperation. They *want* an infrastructure bill, really!
That then sucks Dems into negotiations, where they will agree to give things up in the name of compromise. That will go on as long as Rs can keep it going -- they will draw it out & draw it out, with cooperation always juuuust over the horizon.