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Feb 1 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I continue to find Covid discourse baffling. On one hand more people are dying than ever; on the other, VSPs are soberly nodding & telling us that the time for mitigation measures is over. washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/…
One familiar part of the Covid discourse: the right is engaged in a massive, coordinated attempt to lie about vaccines so that more people will go unvaxxed & die, thus hurting Biden politically -- & the media's approach is, "why isn't Biden dealing with this sabotage better?"
You know how, once you see the Energizer bunny in the moon, you can't un-see it? Once you start noticing how many criticisms of Dems amount to "why aren't they dealing better w/ RW fuckery?" or "why haven't they made RWers be less shitty?" you can't un-see it.
Please watch this.

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More from @drvolts

David Roberts Profile picture
Feb 3
The least surprising "surprising answer" in history. Social trust is the foundation of *anything* a society wants to accomplish. The lack of social trust is why so many aspects of US policy are cruel & shitty, and why the US is currently falling apart. washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/…
The fun thing about reading social science on social trust is that the consensus is basically, "yes, this is the secret sauce that enables literally any society to accomplish literally anything. Also we have no idea how it's created or how to restore it or how it works. Whee!"
The last five or six decades have see an organized, billionaire-funded assault on social trust. That's what right-wing media IS; that is its essence. A lower-trust society is a cruel, inequitable, dog-eat-dog environment in which oligarchs can prosper.
Read 6 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
Feb 1
This @PeterBeinart piece reminds me: there has never in my adult life been a "cancel culture" stronger, with more ability to impose real personal & professional punishment, than the bloodthirsty elite consensus in favor of war with Iraq in the early 2000s. peterbeinart.substack.com/p/nationalism-…
The hysterical political & media elite response to the US withdrawal from Afghanistan showed that the hawkish & vengeful US foreign policy "blob" not only has suffered no consequences for its serial disasters -- it's as powerful as ever. Now it's beating Ukraine war drums.
And it is going to drag us steadily into an unnecessary & self-destructive posture of belligerence toward China.
Read 4 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
Jan 28
Missed this a few days ago, but @adamjohnsonNYC pretty much captures my current Covid thoughts. thecolumn.substack.com/p/covid-isnt-a…
The thought I keep coming back to is that Covid put the US under stress & basically exposed what a sad-sack crumbling empire we are. Failing institutions, weak leaders, selfishness, ignorance, denial, scapegoating, and whining, whining, whining, whining, whining.
Over & over again, the usual suspects try to do what they do -- blame everything on vague soft distant meddling "elites" & their immigrant armies -- only to find that the virus is just a virus & doesn't give a shit who owned who on cable & just keeps killing people.
Read 12 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
Jan 28
Today on Volts: to reach net-zero carbon emissions, the US must decarbonize tens of millions of buildings. Sounds tricky! I talk to @panamaredhat, head of the @BuildingDecarb Coalition, about the biggest challenges, including your stupid gas stove. volts.wtf/p/volts-podcas…
To be clear, it's me, not Panama, calling your gas stove stupid. It is stupid, though.
Ah, the very first line of today's post contains a stupid error! So fun. To clarify: the *direct + indirect* emissions of buildings are about 30% of the US total. Direct emissions -- the subject of the post -- are only around 10%. Correction in post: volts.wtf/p/volts-podcas…
Read 4 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
Jan 27
"There’s a part of me that feels like the only way we get to major structural reform is for the Rs to win unified gov't in 2025 & then just overreach incredibly. ... I mean, that’s my optimistic case at this point: that the ’20s will be a decade of decline and then renewal." 😞
That's @leedrutman, echoing my own chipper thoughts. vox.com/policy-and-pol…
All right all right everyone, chill out. I don't want to speak for Lee, but I think this is more morbid humor than real accelerationism. Less "this is something to want or expect" & more "this is literally the only positive outcome I can even dream up at this point."
Read 4 tweets
David Roberts Profile picture
Jan 26
There's something infuriating but also deeply sad about how many people contemplate the standard American life -- roads, pavement, parking, SUVs, strip malls, suburbs, fast food -- and conclude, "well, that's just what consumers want! It's just how Americans are!"
"Americans just intrinsically want to drive through suburbs in giant, hostile, aggressive, unsafe, quasi-military vehicles that kill tens of thousands of people a year. It's our National Character™️!"
It just seems like lots of people would rather say, "actually, I like this shit" than admit that American life has been shaped at every level, right down to hearth & home, by the profit motives of corporations & the manipulations of the public relations industry.
Read 5 tweets

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