Surely a great majority of Republicans in Congress know that the election wasn’t stolen. Very few really believe that the storming of the Capitol was a false-flag antifa operation or simply a crowd of harmless tourists. But decades as a monolithic, top-down enterprise have filled the G.O.P. with people who will follow the party line wherever it goes.
So if Trump or a Trump-like figure declares that we have always been at war with East Asia, well, his party will say that we’ve always been at war with East Asia. If he says he won a presidential election in a landslide, never mind the facts, they’ll say he won the election in a landslide.
The point is that neither megalomania at the top nor rage at the bottom explains why American democracy is hanging by a thread. Cowardice, not craziness, is the reason government by the people may soon perish from the earth.
-Paul Krugman in the NY Times
But what has happened over the past couple of decades in the GOP is that even the "best" versions of their beliefs have disintegrated, as the party increasingly rejects the very concept of facts and reasonable debate. The standard-bearer for the modern GOP is Donald Trump, a racist conspiracy theorist who rejects facts as "fake news." Opposing rational discourse in favor of disinformation is what the mainstream Republican Party stands for now. Trying to include them in normal political discussion is like opening a hive of bees at a dinner party. It's just not going to go well.
-Amanda Marcotte in Salon.com
Home
As is so often the case, race is at the center of this battle, and conservatives are waging what amounts to a new version of the Lost Cause, the post-Civil War effort to rewrite the story of that war into one where noble Southerners fought only for their homes and the principle of states’ rights, and besides, slavery wasn’t so bad anyway. It was stunningly successful, but things have changed — and for some it requires a renewal.
Consider a few dispatches from the front:
Everywhere conservatives look, their view of America’s racial story is being challenged. Protests break out across the country against police mistreatment — and occasionally, cops are prosecuted for killing Black people. Confederate statues are coming down. TV and movies are showing more stories about racism than ever — and showing more stories by and about people of color.
Over and over, conservatives confront “wokeness” — another term repurposed by the right into a symbol of their oppression at the hands of censorious liberals. For all their talk about government “tyranny,” it’s the feeling of being surrounded that irks them the most, that any store clerk or pop song or even someone in their own household might challenge their view of society’s appropriate hierarchy and their place in it.
So they’ll use what power they have to strike back. Consider the Hannah-Jones case, which is actually a representation of something much larger. That story — a university largely run by liberals but overseen by conservatives — is being repeated across the country, since many state university systems are under the ultimate control of a board appointed by the legislature.
In the 2010 election, Republicans took control of the North Carolina state legislature. By 2015, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported, the state’s higher-education board “was essentially purged of Democrats, who had been replaced with Republican megadonors, current and former lobbyists, an ex-lawmaker, and a couple of super-PAC organizers.” Its current chair is a boat company owner who lacks a college degree.
As historian Nicole Hemmer notes, the conservative movement has long been “obsessed with universities as hives of liberal power — power they sought both to expose and diminish.” In recent years, through control of trustee boards and state law, they’ve sought to cut university budgets, undermine tenure, and dictate what is taught in the classroom. Meanwhile, Fox News and conservative talk radio regularly feature horror stories of some terrible thing a radical leftist professor said, or a conservative speaker “silenced” by students crying racism.
So more and more conservatives have decided that the American system of higher education is essentially their enemy. A 2015 poll by the Pew Research Center found that 37 percent of Republicans said “colleges and universities have a negative effect" on our country; only 19 percent of Democrats agreed. By 2019 the number among Republicans had shot up to 59 percent.
These battles will continue to play out in schools and universities, where knowledge is passed on and history is debated. It’s why so much of the Lost Cause focused on schools, making sure textbookstold the revisionist view of the Civil War.
If the right has their way, a new Lost Cause will prevail, one that puts racism safely in the past, a problem that has been resolved and we need seldom speak of again. They know they can’t make that happen through the power of persuasion. But they think they might be able to do it with the exercise of power.
It may be the case that the problem children are Manchin and Sinema, and not Biden and other Democratic leaders. But still, the ultimate problem remains: Any time spent on fake "negotiations" with Republicans is time wasted, and every moment wasted is a moment in which Democratic hopes of winning in 2022 and 2024 — which are already dim, due to gerrymandering and outright GOP cheating — fade even further. If there's any hope of Democrats retaining power, they need to get the economy moving and, ideally, to pass bills to protect voting rights. Letting Republicans waste time so that Democrats can do neither isn't just bad for the American people, it's political suicide, drawn out slowly each day that these crucial bills are fake-negotiated instead of brought up for a vote in Congress.
-Amanda Marcotte in Salon.com
Historian Kazin reviews the new JFK biography by Fredrik Logevall.
Like Kazin I wonder why John F. Kennedy remains so popular. One poll ranks him as our fourth greatest President. Rubbish! This ranking is a remarkable feat. We all remember where we were 11/22/63. Nostalgia ranks high. Yet most Americans remain unaware that JFK achieved little of lasting permanence during his thousand days in White House. Compared to say, FDR, JFK almost pales insignificance.
Perhaps the elegant beauty of his family and Jackie's clever Camelot metaphor carry the day. But Kennedy certainly became much more popular in death than his approval rating at the time of his death. For sure his tragic death touched many hearts and enhanced post presidential ranking.
As Kazin says, the JFK rain rolls on.
JFK groomed himself for high office with his privileged upbringing. He was a spoiled brat of the highest order.
"One can empathize with the Kennedy romance---after all, he was charismatic leader---while still confronting the myopia and moral shortcomings of his career."
JFK was fortunate to be born into a rich family where his father could almost ultimately buy him the Presidency. He was very clever in dealing with his father negative reputation.
"The central question the biographer raises but does not answer, at least in this volume, is whether his travels and self-education nurtured in Kennedy a desire to extend the reformist legacy of the New Deal or taught him instead to the exigencies of cold war politics and the ideological makeup of his party as rose to the top of it."
His near fatal misadventure in the Pacific during WW II is chilling to read about. History could have turned differently had he not survived.
Trying to get the 1956 vice-presidential nomination JFK was no civil rights champions. He dodged a question as to whether the party platform should endorse the Supreme Court's 1954 ruling on school desegregation no doubt because no doubt he had to appease Southern Democrats.
On the first night of he convention he narrated a 28 minute film about the party that did not mention slavery which he partly wrote which praised Andrew Johnson for trying to soothe defeated Confederates which was right out of the Dunning School.
Though losing Kennedy came close to the VP nomination in '56.
Ae time moves on, John F. Kennedy is likely to drop from the lofty perch in glory from which he looks down on his country today.
It’s a Catch-22. To win, the Republicans need to hamstring the opposition. But as they did that over the last generation, they undercut the oversight that would have kept the party healthy. Now the Republican Party runs the risk of alienating voters it desperately needs as it faces a scandal of sex and drugs, a profoundly troubled election “audit,” accusations that party members are afraid to speak out because they fear for their lives, and suggestions from the former third-ranking official in the House Republican conference that the first official in the conference should be subpoenaed.
-Heather Cox Richardson
But, really, this defense of Trump and the Big Lie isn't about winning elections at all. On the contrary, Republicans are sticking by Trump because, as embarrassing and frightening as the insurrection was, it ultimately pointed to a path forward for their party to hold power without winning elections, by stealing them instead. Even if Trump was taken off the map tomorrow — say, by getting arrested for one of his many crimes — he helped advance the "why win elections when you can steal them" mentality. And that, more than out of any loyalty to Trump-the-cult-leader, is why the GOP has decided to stand behind Trump and the Big Lie.
-Amanda Marcotte in Salon.com
If your social life is leaving you unfulfilled, you might have too many deal friends, and not enough real friends.
ARTHUR C. BROOKS“How to Build a Life” is a weekly column by Arthur Brooks, tackling questions of meaning and happiness.
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Think for a minute about your friendships. Some friends you would text with any silly thought; others you only call a couple of times a year. Some are people you look up to; others you like, but do not especially admire. You fit into these categories for others as well—maybe you are helpful to one person, and a confidant to another. We get different things out of different relationships, which is all well and good.
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There is one type of friend almost everyone has: the buddy who can help you get ahead in life, the friend from whom you need or want something. You don’t necessarily use this person—the benefit might be mutual—but the friendship’s core benefit is more than camaraderie.
These are what some social scientists call “expedient friendships”—with people we might call “deal friends”—and they are probably the most common type most of us have. The average adult has roughly 16 people they would classify as friends, according to one 2019 poll of 2,000 Americans. Of these, about three are “friends for life,” and five are people they really like. The other eight are not people they would hang out with one-on-one. We can logically infer that these friendships are not an end in themselves but are instrumental to some other goal, such as furthering one’s career or easing a social dynamic.
Expedient friendships might be a pleasant—and certainly useful—part of life, but they don’t usually bring lasting joy and comfort. If you find that your social life is leaving you feeling a little empty and unfulfilled, it might just be that you have too many deal friends, and not enough real friends.
Decades of research have shown that it is almost impossible to be happy without friends. Friendship accounts for almost 60 percent of the difference in happiness between individuals, no matter how introverted or extroverted they are. Many studies have shown that one of the great markers for well-being at midlife and beyond is whether you can rattle off the names of a few close friends. You don’t need to have dozens of friends to be happy, and, in fact, people tend to get more selective about their friends as they age. But the number needs to be more than zero, and more than just your spouse or partner.
All the more reason, then, to take honest stock of your friendships. Aristotle offers some advice on doing so in his Nicomachean Ethics. According to the philosopher, friendships exist along a kind of ladder. At the bottom rung—where emotional bonds are weakest and the happiness benefits are lowest—are friendships based on utility to each other in work or social life. These are colleagues, partners to a transaction, or simply those who can do each other favors. Higher up are friendships based on pleasure—something you like and admire about the other person, such as their intelligence or sense of humor. At the highest level are friendships of virtue, or what Aristotle called “perfect friendship.” These friendships are pursued for their own sake, and not instrumental to anything else. Aristotle would say they are “complete”—pursued for their own sake and fully realized in the present.
These levels are not mutually exclusive; you can carpool to work with a friend who has the unfailing honesty you strive to emulate. But the point is to classify friendships by their principal function.
You might not be able to put it into words, but you probably know how these “perfect” friendships feel. They often feature a shared love for something outside either of you, whether that thing be transcendental (like religion) or just fun (like baseball), but they don’t depend on work, or money, or ambition. These are the intimate friendships that bring us deep satisfaction.
Read: What a simple haiku can do for a friendship
In contrast to these real friendships, deal friendships—those at the lowest level on Aristotle’s ladder—are less satisfying. They feel incomplete because they don’t involve the whole self. If the relationship is necessary to the performance of a job, it might require us to maintain a professional demeanor. We can’t afford to risk these connections through confrontation, difficult conversations, or intimacy.
Unfortunately, societal incentives push many of us toward deal friends and away from real friends. The average American worker spends 40 hours on the job during the workweek. In leadership, the numbers are much higher. Most of us work with other people, so during the workweek we have less time for our family than for our colleagues, let alone for friends outside of work. In this way, deal friends can easily crowd out real friends, leaving us without the joys of the latter.
Read: Work-life balance has to include friendship
Perhaps deal friendships have displaced real friendships in your own life, leaving you feeling a bit bereft. If this is the case, the hardest part—recognizing the problem—is now behind you. The steps to regaining a healthier friendship balance are fairly straightforward.
Ask yourself how many people know you really well—who would notice when you are slightly off and say, “Are you feeling okay today?” If you answer “no one,” know that you aren’t alone. In 2018, an Ipsos poll conducted for the health provider Cigna found that 54 percent of Americans surveyed said they “always” or “sometimes” felt like no one knew them well.
Read: How friendships change in adulthood
For another test of real friendships, try listing a few people, not including your spouse, with whom you are comfortable discussing personal details. If you struggle to name even two or three, that’s a dead giveaway. But even if you can, be honest: When was the last time you actually had that kind of conversation? If it has been more than a month, you might be kidding yourself about how close you really are.
Cultivating real friendships can be tricky for people who haven’t tried for many years—maybe since childhood. Research shows that it is often harder for men than for women. Women generally have larger, denser, and more supportive friend networks than men. Furthermore, women generally base their friendships on social and emotional support, whereas men are more likely to base friendships on shared activities, including work.
Read: The kind of love that makes people happiest
Recognizing this gender pattern, and also that both of us could benefit from deeper friendships, my wife and I started organizing our social life specifically around conversations about more profound issues. At the risk of becoming Mr. and Mrs. Intense, we directed dinnertime chats with friends away from trivialities like vacation plans and house purchases, and toward issues of happiness, love, and spirituality. This deepened some of our friendships, and in other cases showed us that a more fulfilling relationship wasn’t going to be possible—and, thus, where to put less energy.
The key to building perfect friendships is to see relationships not as stepping stones to something else, but as boons to pursue for their own sake. One way to do this is to make friends not just outside your workplace, but outside all of your professional and educational networks. Strike up a friendship with someone who truly can do nothing for you besides caring about you and giving you good company.
Read: When your job turns you into a brand, you need a friend to be human with
Maybe this sounds difficult or awkward, but I assure you it isn’t. It simply requires showing up in places that are unrelated to your worldly ambitions. Whether it is a house of worship, a bowling league, or a charitable cause unrelated to your work, these are the places where you meet people who might be capable of sharing your loves, but without advancing your career. When you meet someone you like, don’t overthink it: Invite them over.
In our go-go world, where professional success is valorized above all else andworkism has become like a religion to many, it can be easy to surround ourselves with deal friends. In so doing, we can lose sight of the most basic of human needs: to know others deeply and to be deeply known by them. Christians and followers of other faiths place this deep knowing at the heart of their relationship with God, and it is central to achieving change in psychotherapy.
Read: What if friendship, not marriage, was at the center of life?
One of the great paradoxes of love is that our most transcendental need is for people who, in a worldly sense, we do not need at all. If you are lucky, and work toward deepening your relationships, you’ll soon find that you have a real friend or two to whom you can pay the highest compliment: “I don’t need you—I simply love you.”
