In the long-run, America can have one (and likely only one) of two things:

* An intellectual and institutional establishment that remains inhospitable to conservatives

* A Republican Party that trusts experts, dismisses conspiracy theories, and resists populism

Choose wisely.

My position:

Anyone who wants America to be a decent, functional country needs a theory for how to get the Republican Party to be sane again AND conservatives to feel welcome in the mainstream.

(And no, simply waiting for conservatives to die out is not a realistic plan.)

My points do not rest on the premise that the extent to which establishment institutions are inhospitable to conservatives has CAUSED the radicalization of the Republican Party, by the way.

(Though it is, I think, plausible to believe this played some, likely minor, role.)

Read 4 tweets

Yascha Mounk

@Yascha_Mounk

9 Apr

@TheAtlantic

At the beginning of the pandemic, I advocated serious forms of social distancing.

But the reasons that justified extraordinary government restrictions on our lives back then no longer hold.

It is time to drop many of them.

My latest @TheAtlantic

🧵.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

Last year’s lockdowns, and the restrictions we've lived with since, had two primary purposes:

• To stop hospitals from getting overwhelmed by “flattening the curve”

• To buy the time to put in place a test-trace-and-isolate system that would stop community transmission.

We’ve (mostly) accomplished the first goal in the past 12 months. The health system did not break down.

Now, ICU occupancy stands at 70% nationwide. Flu season is over. Nearly half of Americans have one shot of the vaccine.

Hospitals won’t be overstretched anytime soon.

Read 14 tweets

Yascha Mounk

@Yascha_Mounk

26 Mar

The filibuster is a relatively recent and arbitrary norm. I don't feel strongly about it.

But I find it strange that the same people who are convinced the Senate is structurally biased against them are also convinced abolishing the filibuster will help them realize their goals.

I get how abolishing the filibuster helps Democrats over the next two years.But will they really derive a partisan advantage from it over a twenty or forty year period?

That question seems to me to be incredibly hard to answer - and everyone is pretending that it's obvious.

Most answers assume the main battlegrounds will be economic and about adding legislation.

It is not at all obvious that either of these assumptions will hold true in the coming decades. Republicans could repeal existing entitlements and pass new laws on e.g. affirmative action.

Read 4 tweets

Yascha Mounk

@Yascha_Mounk

21 Mar

@TheAtlantic

A year ago, two pieces of conventional wisdom about the effects of the pandemic emerged:

* The global economic system would fail
* Governments would ride to the rescue

The truth has turned out to be almost exactly opposite.

My latest @TheAtlantic.

🧵
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

Economists claimed Covid would spell "the end of the world economy as we know it."

Just-in time production processes were supposed to break down.

Americans bought toilet paper, filled their bathtubs with water, or stocked up on ammunition.

But the huge disruptions never came.

* Water and electricity never gave out because of the pandemic.

* Global production chains proved surprisingly resilient.

* Generous relief payments led to a *fall* in poverty.

* And scientists invented life-saving vaccines in record speed.

It's an astonishing achievement.

Read 9 tweets

Yascha Mounk

@Yascha_Mounk

17 Mar

If you read one thing about the terrible situation in Myanmar, make it this.

Also, let me take this opportunity to explain some of the stubborn factors that make it so hard to raise attention for important issues like this coup.
persuasion.community/p/dont-ignore-…

1)

Readers are more interested in issue close to home or that they already have some familiarity with.

Thankfully, Persuasion is funded by subscribers with an ideological investment in these issues, so this doesn't matter much to us.

But even then there's other obstacles.

2)

Myanmar has long been cut off from the world, so editors don't know that much about it.

I have met activists and intellectuals from a large number of countries. I have a sense of who is credible and who isn't. I know who to go to.

On Myanmar, I don't. That makes it harder.

Read 6 tweets

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