Reviewing my book manuscript. It's still striking each time I go through the events leading to the 2013 Egyptian coup. CIA deputy director @MichaelJMorell openly praised the coup the day it happened. A month later, the worst mass killing modern Egyptian history took place
To my knowledge, @MichaelJMorell, who for all I know is some resistance hero now because he opposed Trump, has never had to account for his and his agency's role in green lighting the Egyptian coup
To this day, one of the most influential Washington figures (with direct access to top officials) is the UAE's ambassador, Youssef al-Otaiba. To commemorate the coup, Otaiba went to Cafe Milano in Georgetown to celebrate with friends. This is how one of our closest allies acts
The UAE has been one of the more pernicious actors in DC, and the fact that Otaiba had a direct line to Obama's Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and many others at crucial moments in the lead up to the coup and subsequent massacre tells you something about how DC works
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I'm basically an anti-realist of sorts, while @ElbridgeColby bases his arguments on an unapologetically realist logic. So I didn't know where we'd end up
In Part 1, we discuss how much these starting premises matter when it comes to China policy
They're never going to let this go. Despite being vaccinated, despite a maybe 1 in 10,000 chance (nytimes.com/2021/09/07/bri…) of getting a breakthrough infection, and despite being in spaces where 90%+ of people are also vaccinated, they want us to live like this indefinitely
This is why it's absurd to defer to scientists who constantly pontificate about risk tolerances, psychology, incentives, and how to balance competing values. Almost none of them are experts in any of the related fields. Historically, scientists aren't great ethicists for a reason
Through sleight of hand, misinformation, and the guise of "expertise," doctors and scientists like @DrEricDing have huge megaphones where they mislead millions of Americans—even though they have no expertise in the relevant disciplines
If you don't know @SWGoldman, it's time to correct the error
He's one of the most brilliant center-right thinkers around—and perhaps the preeminent scholar of American nationalism. His book AFTER NATIONALISM is one of my favorite books of 2021
Do check out the last 20 minutes of our @WCrowdsLive conversation with @swgoldman. I've been struggling with these issues, but I think I got some clarity
The episode is also available on all major podcast platforms 👇🏽
For reasons that aren't entirely clear to me, I've decided to listen to the entire Sonic Youth discography in chronological order, in the (perhaps misplaced) hope that this might help make me more productive
The first two Sonic Youth albums—the Sonic Youth EP and 'Confusion is Sex'—are surprisingly good. More listenable than I would have expected and intriguing because they don't sound much like what would come after
Sonic Youth's third album 'Bad Moon Rising' is oddly compelling, although probably too inaccessible and dirge-like for even my idiosyncratic musical tastes. The mood and hazy production is dark and dreamlike—always a plus in my book
In Tunisia, male president stages a coup and appoints first ever female prime minister in Arab world, in apparent attempt to confuse Western observers who prioritize liberalism over democracy
We fall for this every time. That's what happens when you prioritize liberal values over democratic legitimacy, and I suppose it's something we'll continue falling for, since we don't think Arabs are ready for democracy (in part because they're not liberal yet)
As a matter of policy, the U.S. should prioritize democracy over liberalism whenever the two are in tension. We're a long way from that, however
It's always striking to me to go back and look at what Madison and Adams actually said about democracy. They could be quite eloquent in their disdain. There were few things they feared more than the man on the street. Instead, they supported rule by elites
More than 200 years later, although we are now a democracy, we still haven't escaped the legacy of the founders
What would it look like, though, to flirt not with "direct democracy" but democracy by random selection or what's sometimes called "sortition"?