tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25291910934303931712024-03-12T19:04:55.291-04:00NJB Article and Source RepositoryMichael Kaplanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16321643737829504881noreply@blogger.comBlogger3968125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2529191093430393171.post-21047451586384122922018-11-14T23:17:00.001-05:002018-11-14T23:37:06.322-05:00Yuval Noah Harari: 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. Talks at Google.<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bw9P_ZXWDJU" target="_blank">Yuval Noah Harari: 21 Lessons for the 21st Century</a></b>. Video. <i>Talks at Google</i>, September 14, 2018. YouTube.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/09/business/yuval-noah-harari-silicon-valley.html" target="_blank">Tech CEOs Are in Love With Their Principal Doomsayer, Yuval Noah Harari</a></b>. By Nellie Bowles. <i>New York Times</i>, November 9, 2018</span><br />
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<b style="font-family: georgia, serif;"><a href="https://youtu.be/SSRvvted_Ns?t=1" target="_blank">Yuval Noah Harari Speaking with Mathias Döpfner – BDZV Conference 2018</a></b><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;">. Video. </span><i style="font-family: georgia, serif;">Yuval Noah Harari</i><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;">, September 29, 2018. YouTube. </span><b style="font-family: georgia, serif;"><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/yuval-noah-harari-interview-21-lessons-forthe-21stcentury-author-2018-10" target="_blank">Edited transcript at Business Insider</a></b><span style="font-family: georgia, serif;">.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>Michael Kaplanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16321643737829504881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2529191093430393171.post-80211929523481713582018-09-03T20:55:00.002-04:002018-09-03T21:04:28.068-04:00Automation Will Crash Democracy: Intelligence Squared Debate<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="https://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/automation-will-crash-democracy" target="_blank">Automation Will Crash Democracy</a></b>. Debate with Yascha Mounk, Ian Bremmer, Andrew Keen, and Alina Polyakova. Video. I<i>ntelligence Squared</i>, May 16, 2018. <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7Tzbu2xJnc" target="_blank">YouTube</a></b>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="https://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/western-democracy-threatening-suicide" target="_blank">Western Democracy Is Threatening Suicide</a></b>. Debate with Yascha Mounk, Bernard Henri-Levy, Clive Crook, and Kori Schake. Video. <i>Intelligence Squared</i>, October 3, 2017. <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0Eexigt_ns" target="_blank">YouTube</a></b>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>Michael Kaplanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16321643737829504881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2529191093430393171.post-49172222468359453862018-07-26T23:45:00.003-04:002018-07-26T23:45:29.985-04:00Peter Zeihan: The Accidental Superpower. President Trump’s Foreign Policy In Geopolitical Context.<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
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<br />Michael Kaplanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16321643737829504881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2529191093430393171.post-60562408305584025642018-07-18T10:53:00.003-04:002018-07-18T11:35:04.184-04:00Yuval Noah Harari: We Should Never Underestimate Human Stupidity.<b style="font-family: georgia, serif;"><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/13/never-underestimate-human-stupidity-says-historian-and-author.html" target="_blank">“We should never underestimate human stupidity,” says Yuval Noah Harari</a></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">. Video. </span><i style="font-family: georgia, serif;">CNBC</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">, July 15, 2018. Interviewed by Martin Soong. Summary by Eustace Huang.</span><br />
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<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/07/12/we-should-never-underestimate-human-stupidity-historian.html?__source=cnbcembedplayer">'We should never underestimate human stupidity': Historian</a> from <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/?__source=cnbcembedplayer">CNBC</a>.<br />
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Michael Kaplanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16321643737829504881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2529191093430393171.post-89003118327863576112018-07-18T10:42:00.001-04:002018-07-18T11:43:38.782-04:00Yuval Noah Harari and Thomas Friedman on the Future of Humanity<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="http://www.ynharari.com/the-future-of-humanity-yuval-noah-harari-in-conversation-with-thomas-l-friedman/" target="_blank">The Future of Humanity: Yuval Noah Harari in Conversation with Thomas L. Friedman</a></b>. Video. <i>Yuval Noah Harari</i>, April 1, 2018. <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7P3rDXrVQ0" target="_blank">YouTube</a></b>.</span><br />
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<b style="font-family: georgia, serif;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/world/europe/yuval-noah-harari-future-tech.html" target="_blank">What’s Next for Humanity: Automation, New Morality and a “Global Useless Class.”</a></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"> Summary of Harari-Friedman Conversation
by Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura. </span><i style="font-family: georgia, serif;">New York Times</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">, March 19, 2018.</span><br />
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<b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/yuval_noah_harari_why_fascism_is_so_tempting_and_how_your_data_could_power_it" target="_blank">Why fascism is so tempting </a></b><b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/yuval_noah_harari_why_fascism_is_so_tempting_and_how_your_data_could_power_it" target="_blank">– and how your data could power it</a></b><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">. By Yuval Noah Harari. Video. TED, April 2018. </span><b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHHb7R3kx40" target="_blank">YouTube</a></b><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">.</span><br />
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Michael Kaplanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16321643737829504881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2529191093430393171.post-23215270274025896982018-06-19T22:41:00.002-04:002018-06-20T01:00:13.663-04:00Jonah Goldberg Discusses Suicide of the West with Robert Wright and Bill Kristol.<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="https://bloggingheads.tv/videos/52658" target="_blank">Suicide of the West</a></b>. By Robert Wright and Jonah Goldberg. Video. <i>The Wright Show</i>. Bloggingheads.tv, April 24, 2018. <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZxVAxGK6Zw" target="_blank">YouTube</a></b>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="https://bloggingheads.tv/programs/wrightshow" target="_blank">The Wright Show</a></b>. Bloggingheads.tv.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="http://bloggingheads.tv/" target="_blank">Bloggingheads.tv</a></b>. <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/Bloggingheads/videos" target="_blank">YouTube</a></b>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="http://conversationswithbillkristol.org/video/jonah-goldberg-iv/" target="_blank">Jonah Goldberg on Nationalism, Populism, and Identity Politics</a></b>. Video. <i>Conversations with Bill Kristol</i>, April 21, 2018. <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFfM_XbAmMc" target="_blank">YouTube</a></b>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>Michael Kaplanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16321643737829504881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2529191093430393171.post-16313188648988329302018-06-07T23:27:00.002-04:002018-06-07T23:28:04.667-04:00David Christian: The History of Our World in 18 Minutes.<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/david_christian_big_history" target="_blank">The history of our world in 18 minutes</a></b>. By David Christian. Video. <i>TED</i>, March 2011. <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqc9zX04DXs" target="_blank">YouTube</a></b>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>Michael Kaplanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16321643737829504881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2529191093430393171.post-81956004540439304852018-03-28T00:44:00.001-04:002018-03-28T00:52:37.269-04:00Rabbi Jonathan Sacks: Reflections on “Sapiens” and “The Strange Death of Europe.”<br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 115%;"><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY6UY2tn5Os" target="_blank">Reflections on “Sapiens” and “The Strange Death of Europe.”</a></b> By Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. Video. <i>Rabbi Sacks</i>, May 11, 2017. YouTube.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 115%;"><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ChHc5jhZxs" target="_blank">Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow with Yuval Noah Harari</a></b>. Video. <i>University of California Television (UCTV)</i>, April 24, 2017. YouTube.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif";"><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Xs3auqcX7k" target="_blank">Davos 2018: An Algorithm Will Be Your Best Therapist, But It Can Be Hacked Too</a></b>. By Yuval Noah Harari. Video. <i>ExpovistaTV</i>, January 25, 2018. YouTube.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Michael Kaplanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16321643737829504881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2529191093430393171.post-7904163716448225432018-03-26T23:58:00.001-04:002018-04-11T00:27:01.880-04:00Bryan Caplan: The Case Against Education.<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?441218-1/after-words-bryan-caplan" target="_blank">The Case Against Education</a></b>. Video. Bryan Caplan interviewed by Scott Carlson. <i>After Words</i>. C-Span, February 22, 2018. <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pa1aMLB0uno" target="_blank">YouTube</a></b>.</span><br />
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<b style="font-family: georgia, serif;"><a href="https://reason.com/reasontv/2018/01/22/school-a-waste-of-time-and-money" target="_blank">The Case Against Education: Economist Bryan Caplan Says Government Spending of $1 Trillion a Year on Schooling Is aWaste</a></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">. Video. Bryan Caplan Interviewed by Nick Gillespie. </span><i style="font-family: georgia, serif;">ReasonTV</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">, January 22, 2018. </span><b style="font-family: georgia, serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hZylJp-pHo" target="_blank">YouTube</a></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Case-against-Education-System-Waste/dp/0691174652/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1522123442&sr=1-1&keywords=bryan+caplan+case+against+education" target="_blank">The Case Against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money</a></b></i>. By Bryan Caplan. Princeton University Press, 2018.</span><br />
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<b style="font-family: georgia, serif;"><a href="http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-caplan-education-credentials-20180211-story.html" target="_blank">What students know that experts don’t: School is all about signaling, not skill-building</a></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">. By Bryan Caplan. </span><i style="font-family: georgia, serif;">Los Angeles Times</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">, February 11, 2018.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><b><a href="https://nypost.com/2018/03/10/the-5-worst-things-about-colleges-in-america/" target="_blank">The 5 worst things about colleges in America</a></b>. By Bryan Caplan. <i>New York Post</i>, March 10, 2018.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><b><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/01/whats-college-good-for/546590/" target="_blank">The World Might be Better Off Without College for Everyone</a></b>. By Bryan Caplan. <i>The Atlantic</i>, January/February 2018 issue.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><b><a href="http://www.aei.org/events/is-education-worth-it/" target="_blank">Is education worth it?</a></b> Debate between Bryan Caplan and Eric Hanushek. Video. <i>American Enterprise Institute</i>, February 15, 2018. <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3erZaNSEDc" target="_blank">YouTube</a></b>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><b><a href="https://www.vox.com/conversations/2018/2/16/16870408/public-education-libertarianism-democracy-bryan-caplan" target="_blank">Why this economist thinks public education is mostly pointless</a></b>. Bryan Caplan interviewed by Sean Illing. <i>Vox</i>, February 16, 2018.</span><br />
<br />
<b style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><a href="https://reason.com/volokh/2018/03/24/bryan-caplans-case-against-education" target="_blank">Bryan Caplan’s Case Against Education</a></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">. By Ilya Somin. </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Reason</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">, March 24, 2018.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>Michael Kaplanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16321643737829504881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2529191093430393171.post-11378830201361596952018-03-08T22:13:00.003-05:002018-03-08T22:16:54.100-05:00Something Ominous Is Happening to Men in America. By Tucker Carlson.<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="http://video.foxnews.com/v/5747282256001/?#sp=show-clips" target="_blank">Something Ominous Is Happening to Men in America</a></b>. By Tucker Carlson. Video. <i>Fox News</i>, March 7, 2018. <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrhHkQhglig" target="_blank">YouTube</a></b>. Also at <b><a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/03/08/tucker_carlson_men_seem_to_be_becoming_less_male.html" target="_blank">Real Clear Politics</a></b>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><b><a href="http://video.foxnews.com/v/5747284741001/?#sp=show-clips" target="_blank">Is the Left’s “Toxic Masculinity” Label to Blame for the Male Crisis?</a></b> Jordan Peterson interviewed by Tucker Carlson. Video. <i>Fox News</i>, March 7, 2018. <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68EiD_LzmWY" target="_blank">YouTube</a></b>. Also at <b><a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/03/08/tucker_carlson_men_seem_to_be_becoming_less_male.html" target="_blank">Real Clear Politics</a></b>.</span><br />
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<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LrhHkQhglig?rel=0" width="560"></iframe>
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<iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/68EiD_LzmWY?rel=0" width="560"></iframe>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><b><a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/03/08/tucker_carlson_men_seem_to_be_becoming_less_male.html" target="_blank">Tucker Carlson:</a></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 10pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">You
hear a lot in America about the “war on women,” but it’s men in America who are
failing. We have some shocking statistics:</span><br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The
signs are everywhere. If you’re a middle aged man, you probably know a peer who
has killed himself in recent years. At least one. If you’re a parent, you may
have noticed that your daughter’s friends seem a little more on the ball than
your son’s. They get better grades. They smoke less weed. They go to more
prestigious colleges. If you’re an employer, you may have noticed that your
female employees show up on time, whereas the young men often don’t. And of
course if you live in this country, you’ve just seen a horrifying series of
mass shootings, far more than we’ve ever had. Women didn’t do that. In every
case, the shooter was a man.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Something
ominous is happening to men in America. Everyone who pays attention knows that.
What’s odd is how rarely you hear it publicly acknowledged. Our leaders pledge
to create more opportunities for women and girls, whom they imply are failing.
Men don’t need help. They’re the patriarchy. They’re fine. More than fine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But are
they fine? Here are the numbers:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Start
with the most basic, life and death. The average American man will die five
years before the average American woman. One of the reasons for this is
addiction. Men are more than twice as likely as women to become alcoholics.
They’re also twice as likely to die of a drug OD. In New Hampshire, one of the
states hit hardest by the opioid crisis, 73 percent of overdose deaths were
men.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But the
saddest reason for shortened life spans is suicide. Seventy-seven percent of
all suicides are committed by men. The overall rate is increasing at a dramatic
pace. Between 1997 and 2014, there was a 43 percent rise in suicide deaths
among middle aged American men. The rates are highest among American Indian and
white men, who kill themselves at about ten times the rate of Hispanic and
black women.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">You
often hear of America’s incarceration crisis. That’s almost exclusively a male
problem too. Over 90 percent of inmates are male.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">These
problems are complex, and they start young. Relative to girls, boys are failing
in school. More girls than boys graduate high school. Considerably more go to
and graduate from college. Boys account for the overwhelming majority of school
discipline cases. One study found that fully one in five high school boys had
been diagnosed with hyperactivity disorder, compared with just one in 11 girls.
Many were medicated for it. The long term health effects of those medications
aren’t fully understood, but they appear to include depression in later life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Women
decisively outnumber men in graduate school. They earn the majority of doctoral
degrees. They are now the majority of new enrollees in both law and medical
schools.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For
men, the consequences of failing in school are profound. Between 1979-2010,
working age men with only high school degrees saw their real hourly wages drop
about 20 percent. Over the same period, high school educated women saw their
wages rise. The decline of the industrial economy disproportionately hurt men.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There
are now seven million working age American men who are no longer in the labor
force. They’ve dropped out. Nearly half of them take pain medication on any
given day. That’s the highest rate in the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Far
fewer young men get married than did just a few decades ago, and fewer stay
married. About one in five American children live with only their mothers.
That’s double the rate in 1970. Millions more boys are growing up without
fathers. Young adult men are now more likely to live with a parent than with a
spouse or partner. That is not the case for young women. Single women buy their
own homes at more than twice the rate of single men. More women than men now
have drivers licenses.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Whenever
gender differences come up in public debate, the so-called wage gap dominates
the conversation. A woman makes 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. That’s
the statistic you’ll hear. It’s repeated everywhere. But that number compares
all American men to all American women across all professions. No legitimate
social scientist would consider that a valid measure. The number is both
meaningless and intentionally misleading. It’s a talking point.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Once
you compare men and women with similar experience working the same hours in
similar jobs for the same period of time — and that’s the only way you can
measure it — the gap all but disappears. In fact it may invert. One study using
census data found that single women in their 20s living in metropolitan areas
now earn eight percent more on average than their male counterparts. By the
way, the majority of managers are now women. Women on average are scoring
higher on IQ tests than men are.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Men are
even falling behind physically. A recent study found that almost half of young
men failed the Army's entry-level physical fitness test during basic training.
Fully seventy percent of American men are overweight or obese, as compared to
59 percent of American women.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Perhaps
most terrifyingly, men seem to be becoming less male. Sperm counts across the
west have plummeted, down almost 60 percent since the early 1970s. Scientists
don’t know why. Testosterone levels in men have also fallen precipitously. One
study found that the average levels of male testosterone dropped by one percent
every year after 1987. This is unrelated to age. The average 40-year-old-man in
2017 would have testosterone levels 30 percent lower than the average
40-year-old man in 1987.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There
is no upside to this. Lower testosterone levels in men are associated with depression,
lethargy, weight gain and decreased cognitive ability. Nothing like this has
ever happened. You’d think we’d want to know what exactly is going on and how
to fix it. But the media ignore the story. It’s considered a fringe topic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Nor is
it a priority in the scientific research establishment. We checked and couldn’t
find a single NIH-funded study on why testosterone levels are falling. We did
find a study on, quote, “Pubic Hair Grooming Prevalence and Motivation Among
Women in the United States.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Those
are the numbers. They paint a very clear picture: American men are failing, in
body, mind and spirit. This is a crisis. Yet our leaders pretend it’s not
happening. They tell us the opposite is true: Women are victims, men are
oppressors. To question that assumption is to risk punishment. Even as women
far outpace men in higher education, virtually every college campus supports a
women’s studies department, whose core goal is to attack male power. Our
politicians and business leaders internalize and amplify that message. Men are
privileged. Women are oppressed. Hire and promote and reward accordingly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">That
would be fine if it were true. But it’s not true. At best, it’s an outdated
view of an America that no longer exists. At worst, it’s a pernicious lie.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 10pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">Either
way, ignoring the decline of men doesn’t help anyone. Men and women need each
other. One cannot exist without the other. That’s elemental biology, but it’s
also the reality each of us has lived, with our parents and siblings and
friends. When men fail, all of us suffer. How did this happen? How can we fix
it? We hope this series answers those questions.</span></div>
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</span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span>Michael Kaplanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16321643737829504881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2529191093430393171.post-46487184761185164762018-02-10T01:44:00.003-05:002018-06-15T13:29:16.753-04:00Tyrannosaurus Rex by Paleo Artist Simon Stålenhag.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDuVDUJTVgR2oADyoMe-jTLyXGO1-ckEQ5hKwOQBznz2q19oXl-4Mk_Q2aOnFllLYpUf84mAZYeC74gOfmEwMNTcYc8iB7D_mR7k1K2ZQuj6MqALHGsTyKbJjtCSJhMsT4MuxyoEqVIbn_/s1600/Tyrannosaurus+Rex+-+Simon+Stalenhag%252C+Swedish+Natural+History+Museum+-+tyrannosaurus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDuVDUJTVgR2oADyoMe-jTLyXGO1-ckEQ5hKwOQBznz2q19oXl-4Mk_Q2aOnFllLYpUf84mAZYeC74gOfmEwMNTcYc8iB7D_mR7k1K2ZQuj6MqALHGsTyKbJjtCSJhMsT4MuxyoEqVIbn_/s640/Tyrannosaurus+Rex+-+Simon+Stalenhag%252C+Swedish+Natural+History+Museum+-+tyrannosaurus.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
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<i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Tyrannosaurus Rex</span></span></i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">. Simon
Stålenhag/Swedish Natural History Museum.</span><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Tyrannosaurus rex</span></i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">
tearing apart a carcass while a flock of nervous herbivores skitter by in the
foreground. Tyrannosaurs were mostly small and unimportant for the better part
of their 100-million-year history. But in the final 20 million years of the
Cretaceous before the mass extinction, some species like <i>T. rex</i> reached outrageous size and fearsomeness. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">— Peter Brannen,
<i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062364804/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1" target="_blank">The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand the Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions</a></i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif";"><b><a href="http://www.simonstalenhag.se/paleo.html" target="_blank">The Simon Stålenhag Art Gallery on the World Wide Web</a></b>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif";"><b><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/paleo-art-is-a-thing/408829/" target="_blank">The Artists Who Paint Dinosaurs</a></b>. By Ross Andersen. <i>The Atlantic</i>, October 5, 2015.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif";">More Paleo art at <b><a href="https://www.jurassicmainframe.com/t300-awesome-paleoart" target="_blank">Jurassic Mainframe</a></b>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif";"><b><a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/276977835/Scientific-American-May-2015-Bindaredundat-pdf" target="_blank">Rise of the Tyrannosaurs</a></b>. By Stephen Brusatte, <i>Scientific American</i>, May 2015.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif";"><b><a href="http://thelukens.net/science/SciAmer/201512.pdf" target="_blank">What Killed the Dinosaurs</a></b>. By Stephen Brusatte. <i>Scientific American</i>, December 2015.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif";"><b><a href="http://thelukens.net/science/SciAmer/SciAm%20201606.pdf" target="_blank">Ascent of the Mammals</a></b>. By Stephen Brusatte and Zhe-Xi Luo. <i>Scientific American</i>, June 2016.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><b><a href="http://www.earthresourcesmt.org/uploads/3/4/9/6/34966806/dinosaurs_sci_amer_2018.pdf" target="_blank">The Unlikely Triumph of the Dinosaurs</a></b>. By Stephen Brusatte. <i>Scientific American</i>, May 2018.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2kCa7kRzkZSl-WGmdr25NXvOP2j1cUefXg2QIZvuEyhUrXZCBh-_bu7hf56fE45_H54pkXs5XMoB5rr31pK7LuOrK0Dil3zN0Gj73WpSjVX-8kLjfR3UK2EkN2mKR-SsGcKe0ax_5M93-/s1600/Tyrannosaurus+Rex+with+Chicxulub+asteroid+-+T-Rex+and+the+Asteroid%252C+Douglas+Henderson+-+f41dddff154e0c8e1de3771a81322794.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1314" height="526" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2kCa7kRzkZSl-WGmdr25NXvOP2j1cUefXg2QIZvuEyhUrXZCBh-_bu7hf56fE45_H54pkXs5XMoB5rr31pK7LuOrK0Dil3zN0Gj73WpSjVX-8kLjfR3UK2EkN2mKR-SsGcKe0ax_5M93-/s640/Tyrannosaurus+Rex+with+Chicxulub+asteroid+-+T-Rex+and+the+Asteroid%252C+Douglas+Henderson+-+f41dddff154e0c8e1de3771a81322794.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>T-Rex</i> & Asteroid. Douglas Henderson</span></td></tr>
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<i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Tyrannosaurus rex</span></i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> with
the Chicxulub asteroid hovering in the sky, moments before the catastrophic
impact that would have released, all at once, far more energy than all the
nuclear weapons ever detonated.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">—Peter
Brannen, <i>The Ends of the World</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Michael Kaplanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16321643737829504881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2529191093430393171.post-38278172520979909342018-02-09T01:44:00.003-05:002018-02-09T01:45:46.466-05:00Swipe Left: Dating Apps Have Killed Romance. Intelligence Squared Debate.<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="https://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/swipe-left-dating-apps-have-killed-romance" target="_blank">Swipe Left: Dating Apps Have Killed Romance</a></b>. Video. Intelligence Squared Debates, February 6, 2018. <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6Pxl7UMPkQ" target="_blank">YouTube</a></b>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>Michael Kaplanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16321643737829504881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2529191093430393171.post-20906001521906209592018-01-25T01:54:00.003-05:002018-01-25T01:59:35.904-05:00Esther Perel: Rethinking Infidelity at TED<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/esther_perel_rethinking_infidelity_a_talk_for_anyone_who_has_ever_loved" target="_blank">Rethinking infidelity . . . a talk for anyone who has ever loved</a></b>. By Esther Perel. Video. TED, March 2015. <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2AUat93a8Q" target="_blank">YouTube</a></b>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/why-happy-people-cheat/537882/" target="_blank">Why Happy People Cheat</a></b>. By Esther Perel. <i>The Atlantic</i>, October 2017 issue.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/State-Affairs-Rethinking-Infidelity/dp/0062322583/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1516862577&sr=1-1&keywords=esther+perel%2C+the+state+of+affairs" target="_blank">The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity</a></b></i>. By Esther Perel. New York: Harper, 2017. Amazon web page.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/251601/rethinking-infidelity" target="_blank">Rethinking Infidelity</a></b>. By Daphne Merkin. <i>Tablet</i>, December 20, 2017.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>Michael Kaplanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16321643737829504881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2529191093430393171.post-14172875926764624432018-01-21T17:51:00.001-05:002018-01-21T17:51:29.348-05:00Niall Ferguson Discusses the Evolution of Social Networks with Maria Bartiromo.<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="http://video.foxnews.com/v/5716086638001/?#sp=show-clips" target="_blank">Historian Niall Ferguson discusses the evolution of social networks</a></b>. Video. <i>Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo</i>. Fox News, January 21, 2018. <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJ-kleYANoI" target="_blank">YouTube</a></b>. <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjYzAWBfULA" target="_blank">YouTube</a></b>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>Michael Kaplanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16321643737829504881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2529191093430393171.post-85963800749232182332017-12-03T17:14:00.003-05:002017-12-03T17:15:21.279-05:00Max Boot: Trump Is “Making Me Feel Like a Foreigner' in My Own Country.<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif";"><b><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/03/us/max-boot-foreigner-gps-cnntv/index.html" target="_blank">Max Boot: Trump “making me feel like a foreigner” in my own country</a></b>. By Melissa Mahtani and Catalina Gonella. Video. <i>CNN</i>, December 3, 2017. <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCZrX9Yn9-8" target="_blank">YouTube</a></b>.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif";">See also </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Boot’s </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">article at the <b><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy-post/wp/2017/09/05/i-came-to-this-country-41-years-ago-now-trump-is-making-me-feel-like-i-dont-belong-here/?utm_term=.12c9533aab21" target="_blank">Washington Post</a></b>.</span></div>
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<br />Michael Kaplanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16321643737829504881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2529191093430393171.post-86776167271222768632017-10-04T18:19:00.003-04:002017-10-04T18:22:36.304-04:00Peggy Noonan on Gun Control: Americans Want to Go Down Fighting.<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/noonan-i-always-think-it-s-the-right-time-to-talk-gun-control-1060723267733" target="_blank">Peggy Noonan on Gun Control: Americans Want to Go Down Fighting</a></b>. Video. <i>Morning Joe</i>. MSNBC, October 2, 2017. <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2lwnnz-oUA" target="_blank">YouTube</a></b>. Also at <b><a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/10/04/peggy_noonan_i_think_it_is_always_the_right_time_to_talk_about_gun_control.html" target="_blank">Real Clear Politics</a></b>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Video starting at transcript excerpt:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="https://www.axios.com/axios-am-2492652648.html" target="_blank">Transcript excerpt at Axios:</a></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 10pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">There
is a sense that society is collapsing — the culture is collapsing. We’re
collapsing in crime. The world is collapsing. Crazy people with bad haircuts
have nukes. Everything is going bad — terrorism, etc. They want to be fully
armed on their hill, at home. . . . They’re Americans, and they want to go down
fighting.</span><br />
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Michael Kaplanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16321643737829504881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2529191093430393171.post-45242679684101579922017-09-16T21:02:00.002-04:002017-09-18T17:37:08.595-04:00Ben Shapiro Speaks at UC Berkeley.<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP_9cRUzqMw" target="_blank">Hurricane Shapiro Takes Berkeley By Storm</a></b>. Video. <i>The Daily Wire</i>, September 15, 2017. YouTube. Also <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9eWuqir9J0" target="_blank">here</a></b>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/21115/5-things-i-learned-berkeley-last-night-ben-shapiro" target="_blank">5 Things I Learned at Berkeley Last Night</a></b>. By Ben Shapiro. <i>The Daily Wire</i>, September 15, 2017.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="https://amgreatness.com/2017/09/17/ben-berkeley-scolds-poor/" target="_blank">Ben in Berkeley Scolds the Poor</a></b>. By Titus Techera. <i>American Greatness</i>, September 17, 2017.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>Michael Kaplanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16321643737829504881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2529191093430393171.post-25222078602622856212017-08-12T17:50:00.001-04:002017-08-12T17:51:12.196-04:00The Liberal Crackup. By Mark Lilla.<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="https://t.co/ErOGCf1TzH" target="_blank">The Liberal Crackup</a></b>. By Mark Lilla. <i>Wall Street Journal</i>, August 11, 2017.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Lilla:</b></span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Liberals should reject the divisive,
zero-sum politics of identity and find their way back to a unifying vision of
the common good</span></b><br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Donald
Trump’s surprise victory in last year’s presidential election has finally energized
my fellow liberals, who are networking, marching and showing up at town-hall
meetings across the country. There is excited talk about winning back the White
House in 2020 and maybe even the House of Representatives in the interim.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But we
are way ahead of ourselves—dangerously so. For a start, the presidency just
isn’t what it used to be, certainly not for Democrats. In the last generation,
Bill Clinton and Barack Obama won the office with comfortable margins, but they
were repeatedly stymied by assertive Republicans in Congress, a right-leaning
Supreme Court and—what should be the most worrisome development for Democrats—a
steadily growing majority of state governments in Republican hands.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What’s
more, nothing those presidents did while in office did much to reverse the
rightward drift of American public opinion. Even when they vote for Democrats
or support some of their policies, most Americans—including young people, women
and minorities—reject the term “liberal.” And it isn’t hard to see why. They
see us as aloof, elitist, out of touch.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It is
time to admit that American liberalism is in deep crisis: a crisis of
imagination and ambition on our side, a crisis of attachment and trust on the
side of the wider public. The question is, why? Why would those who claim to
speak for and defend the great American <i>demos</i>
be so indifferent to stirring its feelings and gaining its trust? Why, in the
contest for the American imagination, have liberals simply abdicated?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ronald
Reagan almost single-handedly destroyed the New Deal vision of America that
used to guide us. Franklin Roosevelt had pictured a place where citizens were
joined in a collective enterprise to build a strong nation and protect each
other. The watchwords of that effort were solidarity, opportunity and public
duty. Reagan pictured a more individualistic America where everyone would
flourish once freed from the shackles of the state, and so the watchwords
became self-reliance and small government.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">To meet
the Reagan challenge, we liberals needed to develop an ambitious new vision of
America and its future that would again inspire people of every walk of life
and in every region of the country to come together as citizens. Instead we got
tangled up in the divisive, zero-sum world of identity politics, losing a sense
of what binds us together as a nation. What went missing in the Reagan years
was the great liberal-democratic <i>We</i>.
Little wonder that so few now wish to join us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There
is a mystery at the core of every suicide, and the story of how a once-successful
liberal politics of solidarity became a failed liberal politics of “difference”
is not a simple one. Perhaps the best place to begin it is with a slogan: <i>The personal is the political</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This
phrase was coined by feminists in the 1960s and captured perfectly the mind-set
of the New Left at the time. Originally, it was interpreted to mean that
everything that seems strictly private—sexuality, the family, the workplace—is
in fact political and that there are no spheres of life exempt from the struggle
for power. That is what made it so radical, electrifying sympathizers and
disturbing everyone else.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But the
phrase could also be taken in a more romantic sense: that what we think of as
political action is in fact nothing but personal activity, an expression of me
and how I define myself. As we would put it today, my political life is a
reflection of my identity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Over
time, the romantic view won out over the radical one, and the idea got rooted
on the left that, to reverse the formula, <i>the
political is the personal</i>. Liberals and progressives continued to fight for
social justice out in the world. But now they also wanted there to be no space
between what they felt inside and what they did in that world. They wanted
their political engagements to mirror how they understood and defined
themselves as individuals. And they wanted their self-definition to be
recognized.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This
was an innovation on the left. Socialism had no time for individual
recognition. Rushing toward the revolution, it divided the world into
exploiting capitalists and exploited workers of every background. New Deal
liberals were just as indifferent to individual identity; they thought and
spoke in terms of equal rights and equal social protections for all. Even the
early movements of the 1950s and ’60s to secure the rights of African-Americans,
women and gays appealed to our shared humanity and citizenship, not our
differences. They drew people together rather than setting them against each
other.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">All
that began to change when the New Left shattered in the 1970s, in no small part
due to identity issues. Blacks complained that white movement leaders were
racist, feminists complained that they were sexist, and lesbians complained
that straight feminists were homophobic. The main enemies were no longer
capitalism and the military-industrial complex; they were fellow movement
members who were not, as we would say today, sufficiently “woke.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It was
then that less radical liberal and progressive activists also began redirecting
their energies away from party politics and toward a wide range of single-issue
social movements. The forces at work in healthy party politics are centripetal;
they encourage factions and interests to come together to work out common goals
and strategies. They oblige everyone to think, or at least to speak, about the
common good.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In
movement politics, the forces are all centrifugal, encouraging splits into
smaller and smaller factions obsessed with single issues and practicing rituals
of ideological one-upmanship. Symbols take on outsize significance, especially
in identity-based movements.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The
results of this shift are now plain to see. The classic Democratic goal of bringing
people from different backgrounds together for a single common project has
given way to a pseudo-politics of self-regard and increasingly narrow and
exclusionary self-definition. And what keeps this approach to politics alive is
that it is cultivated in the colleges and universities where liberal elites are
formed. Here again, we must look to the history of the New Left to understand
how this happened.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">After
Reagan’s election in 1980, conservative activists hit the road to spread the
new individualist gospel of small government and free markets and poured their
energies into winning out-of-the-way county, state and congressional elections.
Also on the road, though taking a different exit on the interstate, were former
New Left activists heading for college towns all over America.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Conservatives
concentrated on attracting working people once attached to the Democratic
Party—a populist, bottom-up strategy. The left concentrated on transforming the
outlook of professional and party elites—a top-down strategy. Both groups were
successful, and both left their mark on the country.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Up
until the 1960s, those active in the Democratic Party were largely drawn from
the working class or farm communities and were formed in local political clubs
or on union-dominated shop floors. That world is gone. Today they are formed
primarily in our colleges and universities, as are members of the
overwhelmingly liberal-dominated professions of law, journalism and education.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Liberal
political education, such as it is, now takes place on campuses that are far
removed, socially and geographically, from the rest of the country—and
particularly from the sorts of people who once were the foundation of the
Democratic Party. And the political catechism that is taught is a historical
artifact, reflecting more the idiosyncratic experience of the ’60s generation
than the realities of power politics today.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The
experience of that era taught the New Left two lessons. The first was that
movement politics was the only mode of engagement that actually changes things;
the second was that political activity must have some authentic meaning for the
self, making compromise seem like a self-betrayal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">These
lessons, though, have little bearing on liberalism’s present crisis, which is
that of being defeated time and again by a well-organized Republican Party that
keeps tightening its grip on our institutions. Where those lessons do resonate
is with young people in our highly individualistic bourgeois society—a society
that keeps them focused on themselves and teaches them that personal choice,
individual rights and self-definition are all that is sacred.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It is
little wonder that students of the Facebook age are drawn to courses focused on
their identities and movements related to them. Nor is it surprising that many
join campus groups that engage in identity movement work. But the costs need to
be tallied.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For
those students who will soon become liberal and progressive elites, the line
between self-discovery and political action has become blurred. Their political
commitments are genuine but are circumscribed by the confines of their
self-definitions. Issues that penetrate those confines take on looming
importance, and since politics for them is personal, their positions tend to be
absolutist and nonnegotiable. Those issues that don’t touch on their identities
or affect people like themselves are hardly perceived. And classic liberal
ideas like citizenship, solidarity and the common good have little meaning for
them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As a
teacher, I am increasingly struck by a difference between my conservative and
progressive students. Contrary to the stereotype, the conservatives are far
more likely to connect their engagements to a set of political ideas and
principles. Young people on the left are much more inclined to say that they
are engaged in politics <i>as an X</i>,
concerned about other <i>Xs</i> and those
issues touching on <i>X-ness</i>. And they
are less and less comfortable with debate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Over
the past decade a new, and very revealing, locution has drifted from our
universities into the media mainstream: <i>Speaking
as an X</i>…This is not an anodyne phrase. It sets up a wall against any
questions that come from a non-X perspective. Classroom conversations that once
might have begun, <i>I think A, and here is
my argument</i>, now take the form, <i>Speaking
as an X, I am offended that you claim B</i>. What replaces argument, then, are
taboos against unfamiliar ideas and contrary opinions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Conservatives
complain loudest about today’s campus follies, but it is really liberals who
should be angry. The big story is not that leftist professors successfully turn
millions of young people into dangerous political radicals every year. It is
that they have gotten students so obsessed with their personal identities that,
by the time they graduate, they have much less interest in, and even less
engagement with, the wider political world outside their heads.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There
is a great irony in this. The supposedly bland, conventional universities of
the 1950s and early ’60s incubated the most radical generation of American
citizens perhaps since our founding. Young people were incensed by the denial
of voting rights out there, the Vietnam War out there, nuclear proliferation
out there, capitalism out there, colonialism out there. Yet once that
generation took power in the universities, it proceeded to depoliticize the
liberal elite, rendering its members unprepared to think about the common good
and what must be done practically to secure it—especially the hard and
unglamorous task of persuading people very different from themselves to join a
common effort.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Every
advance of liberal identity consciousness has marked a retreat of liberal
political consciousness. There can be no liberal politics without a sense of <i>We</i>—of what we are as citizens and what
we owe each other. If liberals hope ever to recapture America’s imagination and
become a dominant force across the country, it will not be enough to beat the
Republicans at flattering the vanity of the mythical Joe Sixpack. They must
offer a vision of our common destiny based on one thing that all Americans, of
every background, share.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And
that is citizenship. We must relearn how to speak to citizens as citizens and
to frame our appeals for solidarity—including ones to benefit particular
groups—in terms of principles that everyone can affirm.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Black
Lives Matter is a textbook example of how not to build solidarity. By
publicizing and protesting police mistreatment of African-Americans, the
movement delivered a wake-up call to every American with a conscience. But its
decision to use this mistreatment to build a general indictment of American
society and demand a confession of white sins and public penitence only played
into the hands of the Republican right.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I am
not a black male motorist and will never know what it is like to be one. If I
am going to be affected by his experience, I need some way to identify with
him, and citizenship is the only thing I know that we share. The more the
differences between us are emphasized, the less likely I will be to feel
outrage at his mistreatment.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 10pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 10pt;">The
politics of identity has done nothing but strengthen the grip of the American
right on our institutions. It is the gift that keeps on taking. Now is the time
for liberals to do an immediate about-face and return to articulating their
core principles of solidarity and equal protection for all. Never has the
country needed it more.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
Michael Kaplanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16321643737829504881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2529191093430393171.post-70050417255783418702017-08-03T23:27:00.003-04:002017-08-05T18:02:44.478-04:00Fareed Zakaria: Why Trump Won.<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/31/opinions/why-trump-won-zakaria/index.html" target="_blank">Why Trump Won</a></b>. By Fareed Zakaria. <i>CNN</i>, July 31, 2017.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><b><a href="https://www.mediaite.com/online/fareed-zakaria-trumps-victory-was-a-class-rebellion-against-people-like-us/" target="_blank">Fareed Zakaria: Trump’s Victory Was “A Class Rebellion Against People Like Us.”</a></b> Video. <i>Mediaite</i>, July 31, 2017. <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsLfUra6j_8" target="_blank">YouTube</a></b>. Full CNN <i>New Day</i> segment <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Im12Ik06vE" target="_blank">here</a></b>, <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk6-gifqIbI" target="_blank">here</a></b>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><b><a href="http://www.salon.com/2017/08/05/donald-trump-and-the-endgame-of-the-end-of-history-the-latest-news-from-world-war-iv/" target="_blank">Donald Trump and the endgame of “The End of History”: The latest news from World War IV</a></b>. By Andrew O’Hehir. <i>Salon</i>, August 5, 2017.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><b><a href="http://www.npr.org/2017/04/04/522554630/francis-fukuyama-on-why-liberal-democracy-is-in-trouble" target="_blank">Francis Fukuyama On Why Liberal Democracy Is In Trouble</a></b>. Interviewed by Steve Inskeep. <i>NPR</i>, April 4, 2017.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">See also <b><a href="https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2017/08/02/fareed-zakaria-gps-and-joy-reid-on-a-never-ending-quest-to-explain-why-they-were-rejected/" target="_blank">Rush Limbaugh</a></b>, <b><a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/07/31/cnns_fareed_zakaria_trump_victory_an_act_of_class_rebellion_against_the_educated.html" target="_blank">Real Clear Politics</a></b>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PsLfUra6j_8?rel=0" width="560"></iframe>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Zakaria:</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 10pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">The
real question of the 2016 presidential election isn’t so much why did Donald
Trump win, as why did he even get close?</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">After
all, Trump was a totally unconventional candidate who broke all the rules and
did things that would have destroyed anyone else running for president. So why
did he break through?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Here’s
the answer: America is now divided along four lines, each one reinforcing the
others. Call them the four Cs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The
first is capitalism. There was a time when the American economy moved in tandem
with its middle class. As the economy grew, so did middle class employment and
wages. But over the last few decades that link has been broken. The economy has
been humming along, but it now enriches mostly those with education, training,
and capital. The other Americans have been left behind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The
second divide is about culture. In recent decades, we’ve seen large scale
immigration; African-Americans and Hispanics rising to a more central place in
society; and gays being accorded equal rights. All of this has meant new
cultures and narratives have received national attention. And it’s worried a
segment of the older, white population, which fears that the national culture
they grew up with is fading. One comprehensive study found that after party
loyalty, the second strongest predictor of a Trump voter was “fears of cultural
displacement.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The
third divide in America today is about class. The Trump vote is in large part
an act of class rebellion, a working class revolt against know-it-all elites
who run the country. These voters will stick with Donald Trump even as he
flails, rather than vindicate the elite, urban view of him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The
final C in this story is communication. We have gone from an America where
people watched three networks that provided a uniform view of the world to one
where everyone can pick their own channel, message, and now even their own
facts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">All
these forces have been at work for decades, but in recent years, the Republican
Party has been better able to exploit them and identify with those Americans
who feel frustrated, anxious, angry – even desperate about the direction that
the country is headed in. Donald Trump capitalized on these trends even more
thoroughly, speaking openly to people's economic anxieties, cultural fears, and
class rebellion. He promised simple solutions, mostly aimed at others –
Mexicans, Muslims, Chinese people and, of course, the elites and the media.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It
worked. He won. Whether his solutions are even enacted is another matter. But
the real victory will come for this country when someone looks at these deep
forces that are dividing it and tries to construct a politics that will bridge
them. Rather than accept that America must remain a country split between two
tribes – each uncomprehending of the other, both bitter and hostile – he or she
would speak in a language that unites them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 10pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">That
kind of leadership would win not just elections -- but a place of honor in
American history.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>Michael Kaplanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16321643737829504881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2529191093430393171.post-34390460762468215342017-07-12T00:36:00.002-04:002017-08-10T22:28:20.913-04:00Tucker Carlson vs. Ralph Peters and Max Boot on Putin and Russia.<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/07/11/tucker_carlson_vs_ralph_peters_russia_putin_syria_assad_status_of_middle_east_iraq_war.html" target="_blank">Tucker Carlson vs. Ralph Peters: Russia, Putin, Syria, Assad, Status of Middle East, Iraq War</a></b>. Video and partial transcript. <i>Real Clear Politics</i>, July 11, 2017. <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j73yfwC-spM" target="_blank">YouTube</a></b>. Also at <b><a href="http://www.mediaite.com/tv/tucker-carlson-gets-into-it-with-fox-news-analyst-you-just-compared-me-to-a-nazi-apologist/" target="_blank">Mediaite</a></b>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><b><a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/07/13/fireworks_tucker_carlson_vs_max_boot_on_russia_you_dismiss_anyone_who_doesnt_share_your_view_as_a_nazi.html" target="_blank">FIREWORKS: Tucker Carlson vs. Max Boot on Russia: You Dismiss Anyone Who Doesn’t Share Your View as a Nazi</a></b>. Video and partial transcript. <i>Real Clear Politics</i>, July 13, 2017. <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HjVipLZYns" target="_blank">YouTube</a></b>. Also at <b><a href="http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/07/12/tucker-carlson-max-boot-russia-collusion-donald-trump-jr-foreign-policy-romney" target="_blank">Fox News Insider</a></b>. See </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Boot’s comments at <b><a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/08/fox-news-has-completed-its-transformation-into-trump-tv/" target="_blank">Foreign Policy</a></b>, <b><a href="https://www.commentarymagazine.com/politics-ideas/tucker-carlson-russia-putin-neoconservatism/amp/" target="_blank">Commentary</a></b>.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/j73yfwC-spM?rel=0" width="560"></iframe>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>Michael Kaplanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16321643737829504881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2529191093430393171.post-10494338006289733222017-07-10T22:27:00.001-04:002017-07-10T22:28:12.116-04:00Eric H. Cline: 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed.<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRcu-ysocX4" target="_blank">1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed</a></b>. By Eric H. Cline. Video. <i>NCASVideo</i>, October 11, 2016. YouTube.</span><br />
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Michael Kaplanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16321643737829504881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2529191093430393171.post-35575908520290264212017-06-25T16:12:00.002-04:002017-07-07T15:25:26.756-04:00David Brooks on Conservatism in the Trump Era.<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaCO16_tzj4" target="_blank">David Brooks on Conservatism in the Trump Era. CNN Fareed Zakaria GPS</a></b>. Video. <i>Breaking News Channel</i>, June 25, 2017. YouTube. Also <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RB1L2Suel0" target="_blank">here</a></b>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><b><a href="http://billmoyers.com/story/donald-trumps-populism-decoded-billionaire-became-voice-little-people/" target="_blank">Donald Trump’s Populism Decoded: How a Billionaire Became the Voice of the “Little People.”</a></b> By Leonard Steinhorn. <i>Moyers and Company</i>, July 3, 2017.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1706/25/fzgps.01.html" target="_blank">Brooks, GPS Transcript:</a></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">ZAKARIA:
Ronald Reagan: In the minds of many on the right, he will forever be the king
of conservatism, his presidency the high point of that movement.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So what
does Donald Trump’s presidency represent? Where does conservatism go from here?
Where does the Republican Party go from here? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Early
in the week, I had the opportunity to talk to a man who thinks a lot about
these issues, the <i>New York Times</i>
columnist David Brooks. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">(BEGIN
VIDEOTAPE)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">ZAKARIA:
David Brooks, pleasure to have you on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">BROOKS:
Good to be with you. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">ZAKARIA:
When you look at Trump and the way he’s been governing, the things he’s passed,
it’s, kind of, a hodgepodge of some things that seem hardcore Republican
economic agenda, the repeal of Obamacare. Some of it is the trade protectionism
he’s always promised. Is there a new conservatism developing? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">BROOKS:
No, I don’t think so, not – not in this administration. I think we saw glimmers
of it in the campaign. And what Trump understood but a lot of us didn’t
understand, what debate we were having. We grew up in the debate of big
government versus small government, whether you wanted to use government to
enhance equality, as Democrats did, or reduce government to enhance freedom, as
Republicans did. But in the campaign, Trump said “That’s not our debate.” As
many people, including you, have said, it’s open-closed. It’s between those who
feel the headwinds of globalization blasting in their faces and they want
closed borders, closed trade, security, and those who feel it’s pushing at
their backs, and they want open trade, open opportunity and open social mores. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And he
identified that we’re having a new debate now. And what's central to his
administration is he hasn't delivered on that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And
that’s because there are not a lot of Trumpians in the world of policy. And so
he hasn’t exactly helped the people who got him into office. He’s staffed his
administration, to the extent it is staffed, with people who basically believed
in the Reagan bargain of 1984, which is, you know, cut tax rates, reduce
government regulation. And so I think he opened the door for a new kind of
conservatism but has not fulfilled it. That’s for somebody in the future. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">ZAKARIA:
So where do Republicans go? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When
you look at Republican congressmen, politicians, have they looked at that
campaign and said, “We need to become more populist conservatives?” Is that
where the party is heading? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">BROOKS:
Yeah, there was a book that was really useful to read, a short book called <i>The Structure of Scientific Revolutions</i>
by Thomas Kuhn. And he said what happens in science – but it’s also true in
politics – is you get a paradigm; you get a way of looking at the world,
Reaganism. That was a paradigm. It works for a little while and then slowly it
detaches from reality and it’s hollow, but nobody knows it. Somebody comes
along, punctures it and it collapses. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And
that’s what Trump did to Reaganism. But then you get this period of chaos,
where people really haven’t released the old paradigm but they haven’t – don’t
know what the new one is. And then you get a period of competition of
paradigms. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And so,
in the Republican Party, you’re going to get a libertarian paradigm; you’re
going to get a paleo-conservative Pat Buchanan paradigm. You’re going to get a
whole bunch of different ones and they will fight it out. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And if
I had to bet, I would like an Alexander Hamilton, open trade, a lot of
immigration, a lot of economic dynamism. But frankly, when I look at the polls,
there are not a lot of people who want what I want. The Steve Bannons of the
world – that’s where a lot of the people are. If you – they’re older; they’re
economically disadvantaged, and they want a national conservatism that will
protect them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">ZAKARIA:
And if that is what they want, the party, you think, will – will fold. Because,
to me, what’s been really interesting to watch is conservative intellectuals
have, by and large, particularly the more prominent ones like you, have stuck
true to their ideas and ideals and, you know, been very critical of Trump. I
think somebody like George Will essentially got fired from Fox for that reason.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">BROOKS:
Yeah, right. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">ZAKARIA:
But the Republican politicians have not. They have all caved and, in some way
or the other, have accommodated themselves to Trump?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">BROOKS:
Yeah. And either those of us in the intellectual class are hidebound and rigid
and we’re stuck with our ideas and we’re not reflecting reality, or the
politicians are craven and they just don’t want to lose their jobs, so they’ll
go wherever the people are. And that’s basically where they are. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I think
one of the things we’ve learned and Trump has demonstrated is that parties are
not that ideological. Trump ran against a lot of Republican positions and
Republicans signed on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What
parties are these days are cultural signifiers, social identity markers and
just teams. And people think, “What team has people like me on it? What fits my
social identity?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A lot
of people looked around; a lot of suburban women in Missouri looked around and
said “Sarah Palin, she’s, kind of, like me.” And whether Sarah Palin believed
in high tax rates or low tax rates or health insurance markets or some other
health care policy, that’s not what they were thinking about. They were
thinking about, “Who’s like me?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And for
a lot of people in the Republican Party, which is older, whiter and less
educated at the core, Trump was like that. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">ZAKARIA:
Does that tell you that they will be loyal to him to the end, if there – if
these investigations go – go badly for the president? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">BROOKS:
Yeah, pretty much. One of the things I think we’ve learned in spades over the
last 20 years is that we in the political class get super-excited about
scandal, and we think, “Oh, it’s about to tear that person down.” But, time and
time again, when you actually go out to districts where people are voting, it’s,
sort of, just a noise in the background, and they’re voting the things that
they care about, their economics, their health care, their education, or they
like the person. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And so,
in my conversations with Trump voters, the scandals just don’t come up. They
think – always, he’s kind of a buffoon or whatever, but at least he’s still
basically trying to say the right things. And so I don’t think it will have any
difference.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">ZAKARIA:
And is part of Trump's support that that – you know, that core 35 percent or so
of the country strengthened every time the media criticizes him? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">BROOKS:
Yeah...<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">ZAKARIA:
Because the last thing they want to do is to give you the satisfaction...<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">(LAUGHTER)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">BROOKS:
Correct.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">ZAKARIA:
... of having been right about Donald Trump?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">BROOKS:
Correct. Yeah, one of the things we learned about the class structure in this
country is that people in the lower middle class or people in the working class
or people who voted for Trump don’t mind billionaires; they do not mind rich
people. What they mind are bossy professionals, teachers, lawyers, journalists
who seem to want to tell them what to do or seem to want to tell them how to
act. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And if
you had to pick the classic epitome of that person who most offends them, that
would be Hillary Clinton. And so she was exactly the wrong person. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And so
I find them remarkably stable in their support. There’s been some seepage
around the edge for Donald Trump, but so far it’s just seepage. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">ZAKARIA:
David Brooks, pleasure to have you on.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 10pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">BROOKS:
Thank you.</span><br />
<b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></b>
<b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><br /></b>
<b style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Steinhorn (excerpt):</b></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 10pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">But
populism has always been about more than a loss of jobs, status and prestige.
It’s also about who they blame for that loss. And typically they train their
fire on those they view as elites.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Notwithstanding
the threads of nativism and xenophobia woven into the early populist rhetoric,
their targets were clear: monopolies, banks, industrialists and those who
controlled the levers of capital in America. To them, they traced their loss of
livelihood and status directly to the economic barons who constituted the
elites of their time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But
today’s populists — with the notable exception of the Bernie Sanders wing —
don’t rage against the capitalist elites and corporate boards and CEOs and
financiers for outsourcing their jobs, closing their plants, squeezing their
incomes and soaking up much of the nation’s wealth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Rather,
they aim their anger at those who they believe have deprived them of their
cultural capital. To them, it’s the liberal, intellectual and media elites that
have redefined who and what America values. On the cultural pedestal is now a
rainbow flag, not the American flag. The masculinity of old is now declassé. We
elevate diversity and multiculturalism, not the hard hat, cop and white picket
fence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In the
white working-class worldview, these elites have hijacked what Sarah Palin once
called the “real America” — through globalization that stole their jobs,
dispensations and benefits for those that haven’t earned it, and a politically
correct hierarchy that privileges gays, minorities, immigrants and now the
transgendered, but not the white working class even though, to them, they’re
the ones who built the country and deserve respect.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">From
their perspective, all these elites seem to hand them is disdain and
condescension. So they see themselves, in the words of President Trump, as the
“forgotten Americans.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">Trump
understood all of that from the very beginning of his campaign. Sporting his
trademark “Make America Great Again” red baseball cap signaling white
working-class solidarity, he vowed to stomp on the elites that his supporters
believed were putting them down.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>Michael Kaplanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16321643737829504881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2529191093430393171.post-6890658089243064542017-06-25T00:50:00.003-04:002017-07-13T00:24:12.873-04:00A Tale of Two Political Systems. By Eric X. Li.<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/eric_x_li_a_tale_of_two_political_systems" target="_blank">A Tale of Two Political Systems</a></b>. By Eric X. Li. Video. <i>TED</i>, June 2013. <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0YjL9rZyR0" target="_blank">YouTube</a></b>. <b><a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/eric_x_li_a_tale_of_two_political_systems/transcript" target="_blank">Transcript</a></b>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2012-12-03/life-party" target="_blank">The Life of the Party: The Post-Democratic Future Begins in China</a></b>. By Eric X. Li. <i>Foreign Affairs</i>, Vol. 92, No. 1 (January/February 2013).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2016-04-19/watching-american-democracy-china" target="_blank">Watching American Democracy in China: Liberals and Conservatives After Trump</a></b>. By Eric X. Li. <i>Foreign Affairs</i>, April 19, 2016.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2016-12-09/end-globalism" target="_blank">The End of Globalism: Where the United States and China Go From Here</a></b>. By Eric X. Li. <i>Foreign Affairs</i>, December 9, 2016.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><b><a href="http://blog.ted.com/why-democracy-still-wins-a-critique-of-eric-x-lis-a-tale-of-two-political-systems/" target="_blank">Why democracy still wins: A critique of Eric X. Li’s “A tale of two political systems.”</a></b> By Yasheng Huang. <i>TED Blog</i>, July 1, 2013.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><b><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-07-11/why-china-may-never-democratize" target="_blank">Why China May Never Democratize</a></b>. By Tyler Cowen. <i>Bloomberg</i>, July 11, 2017.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>Michael Kaplanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16321643737829504881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2529191093430393171.post-56888834563453493862017-05-02T17:52:00.001-04:002017-05-15T17:41:29.587-04:00“Nationalist” Shouldn’t Be a Dirty Word. By Walter Russell Mead.<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">President
Trump discusses an executive order on trade, March 31, in front of a portrait
of President Andrew Jackson, who served 1829-37. PHOTO: BLOOMBERG NEWS</span><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif";"><b><a href="https://t.co/RR8GkDXTF7" target="_blank">“Nationalist” Shouldn’t Be a Dirty Word</a></b>.
By Walter Russell Mead. <i>Wall Street Journal</i>, May 1, 2017. See also <b><a href="https://www.the-american-interest.com/2017/05/02/andrew-jackson-needs-alexander-hamilton/" target="_blank">The American Interest</a></b>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><b><a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/donald-trump-andrew-jackson-bromance-bad-america-article-1.3123596" target="_blank">Why the Donald Trump-Andrew Jackson bromance is bad for America: Our current President’s ignorance about the past is painful</a></b>. By J.M. Opal. <i>New York Daily News</i>, May 1, 2017.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><b><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/what-trump-gets-rightand-progressives-get-wrongabout-andrew-jackson/525015/" target="_blank">What Trump Gets Right—and Progressives Get Wrong—About Andrew Jackson</a></b>. By Andrew Exum. <i>The Atlantic</i>, May 2, 2017.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><b><a href="http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-republicans-should-be-the-party-lincoln%E2%80%94-jackson-20640?page=show" target="_blank">Republicans Should Be the Party of Lincoln--and Jackson</a></b>. By Jarrett Stepman. <i>The National Interest</i>, May 13, 2017.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif";"><b>Mead:</b></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Trump will be successful if he puts U.S.
interests first—while still helping to maintain global order.</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If
Donald Trump were a liberal Democrat, some of the media’s descriptions of
“chaos” and “disarray” in the White House probably would be replaced with
stories about “creative tension” among a “team of rivals.” As it is, the
struggle between “nationalists” like Steve Bannon and “globalists” like Gary
Cohn is characterized in near-apocalyptic terms. Yet as Mr. Trump told The Wall
Street Journal last week, “I’m a nationalist and a globalist.” That is good
news: Mr. Trump and the Republican Party should be weaving nationalist and
globalist themes together rather than picking them apart.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Nationalism—the
sense that Americans are bound together into a single people with a common
destiny—is a noble and necessary force without which American democracy would
fail. A nationalist and patriotic elite produces leaders like George
Washington, who aim to promote the well-being of the country they love. An
unpatriotic and antinationalist elite produces people who feather their nests
without regard to the common good.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Mr.
Trump is president in large part because millions of Americans, rightly or
wrongly, believed that large sections of their country’s elite were no longer
nationalist. Flawed he may be, but the president bears an important message,
and Trump-hating elites have only themselves to blame for his ascendancy. A
cosmopolitan and technocratic political class that neither speaks the language
nor feels the pull of nationalist solidarity cannot successfully lead a
democratic society.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The
president symbolized his nationalist commitment by hanging a portrait of Andrew
Jackson in a place of honor in the Oval Office. Now Mr. Trump must stay true to
that commitment or he will lose his political base and American politics will
spin even further off balance. But life is rarely simple. Jacksonian means will
not always achieve Jacksonian goals. Sometimes, they even get in the way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Jackson
learned this when his populist fight against the Second Bank of the United
States ultimately led to a depression that turned the country over to his hated
Whig rivals. As Mr. Trump comes to grips with the tough international economic
reality, he is realizing that not everything the Jacksonians think they want
will actually help them. The president has already discovered that ripping up
the North American Free Trade Agreement won’t help the middle-class voters who
put him in office.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Jacksonian
voters don’t want North Korea to have the ability to threaten the U.S. with
nuclear weapons. They also don’t want a second Korean War. Reaching the best
outcome on Korea could mean giving China a better deal on trade than many Trump
voters would desire. Populists like to rail against globalization and world
order. Yet the security and prosperity of the American people depend on an
intricate web of military, diplomatic, political and economic arrangements that
an American president must manage and conserve.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Mr.
Trump is learning that some of the core goals of his Jacksonian program can be
realized only by judiciously employing the global military, diplomatic and
economic statesmanship associated with Alexander Hamilton. Bringing those two
visions into alignment isn’t easy. Up until the Civil War, the American party
system revolved around the rivalry of the Jacksonian Democrats with the
Hamiltonian Whigs. Abraham Lincoln fused Jacksonian unionism with Henry Clay’s
Hamiltonian vision when he created the modern Republican Party. Theodore
Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan revitalized the party of their times by returning
to the Jacksonian-Hamiltonian coalition that made the old party grand.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">The
future of the Trump administration and the Republican Party largely depend on
whether the president and his allies can return to these roots. The elements of
fusion are there. While Jacksonians are skeptical of corporate power and
international institutions, they like economic growth that benefits the middle
class, and they strongly believe in an America that stands up for itself and
its allies. They are less worried about budget deficits than they are about a
strong economy. If the tide is lifting the rowboats, they do not care all that
much that the yachts are rising too.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For the
coalition to work, Hamiltonians need to realize that the health and cohesion of
American society is fundamental to the world order that allows corporations and
financial firms to operate so profitably in the global market. In other words,
Peoria matters much more than Davos. It was American power and will that built
the present world order and ultimately must sustain it. A divided society with
an eviscerated middle class cannot provide the stable, coherent leadership that
is required.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 10pt;">The
U.S. must be simultaneously a nationalist power, focused on the prosperity and
security of its own people, and a globalist power working to secure the
foundations of international order that Americans need. Mr. Trump appears to
understand this truth better than many of his most vituperative critics. The
task now confronting the president and his team is to develop and execute a
national strategy based on these insights. Nothing in today’s world is harder
than this, and nothing is more essential.</span></div>
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Michael Kaplanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16321643737829504881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2529191093430393171.post-12173499072115826272017-04-30T11:12:00.002-04:002017-04-30T11:12:53.686-04:00Walter Russell Mead on Christian Eschatology and American Foreign Policy.<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><a href="https://www.the-american-interest.com/2017/04/29/watch-wrm-discusses-theology-and-u-s-foreign-policy/" target="_blank">Walter Russell Mead Discusses Christian Eschatology and American Foreign Policy</a></b>. Video. <i>The American Interest</i>, April 29, 2017. <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrEFTr6re20" target="_blank">YouTube</a></b>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>Michael Kaplanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16321643737829504881noreply@blogger.com