By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Fowl Tune of the Day

Northern Mockingbird, New Windfall Island; Lyford Cay, New Windfall, Bahamas.

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In Case You Would possibly Miss…

  1. Lina Khan out.
  2. Arnade on McDonald’s: Trump and The Adjuster
  3. Kamala’s flawless marketing campaign, lol.
  4. Fowl flu carried by mud on the wind.

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Politics

“So lots of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in actual fact a rational administration of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles

Musk GLP

‘We don’t even know who’s working the nation’: South Korea’s ruling occasion stalls for time amid management disaster Channel Information Asia

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Trump Transition

“‘A Present to the Oligarchs’: Trump Decide to Exchange Lina Khan Vowed to Finish ‘Battle on Mergers’” [Common Dreams]. “President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Trade Commission vowed in his job pitch to end current chair Lina Khan’s ‘war on mergers,’ a signal to an eager corporate America that the incoming administration intends to be far more lax on antitrust enforcement. Andrew Ferguson was initially nominated by President Joe Biden to serve as a Republican commissioner on the bipartisan FTC, and his elevation to chair of the commission will not require Senate confirmation. In a one-page document obtained by Punchbowl, Ferguson—who previously worked as chief counsel to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)—pitched himself to Trump’s team as the ‘pro-innovation choice’ with ‘impeccable legal credentials’ and ‘proven loyalty’ to the president-elect. Ferguson’s top agenda priority, according to the document, is to ‘reverse Lina Khan’s anti-business agenda’ by rolling back ‘burdensome regulations,’ stopping her ‘war on mergers,’ halting the agency’s ‘attempt to become an AI regulator,’ and ditching ‘novel and legally dubious consumer protection cases.’ Trump announced Ferguson as the incoming administration’s FTC chair as judges in Oregon and Washington state blocked the proposed merger of Kroger and Albertsons, decisions that one antitrust advocate called a ‘fantastic culmination of the FTC’s work to protect consumers and workers.’” • Dang…

“Trump Aims to Remake Federal Trade Commission With Two Picks” [Wall Street Journal]. “Trump on Tuesday also said he would nominate the Republican antitrust lawyer Mark Meador as a commissioner. Meador is a former aide to Sen. Mike Lee (R., Utah), who led the introduction of legislation to break up Google. His confirmation would give the GOP a majority on the commission. While Meador will require Senate approval, Ferguson won’t. He was already confirmed for his commissioner seat in March and will be able to make the transition to the role of chair.”

* * *

“Crypto Doesn’t Deserve a Tax Exemption” [Tyler Cowen, Bloomberg]. “The most obvious argument against the proposal is simply that uniform taxation is better than selective tax exemptions. If a lower capital gains tax rate is preferable, then the goal should be to make a smaller cut that applies to all assets. Exempting a single kind of asset is likely to lead to abuses. You might think that boosting crypto is important now, but which sector or asset will be selected next for special treatment? It may be one you don’t think deserves it.” And: “Many of the leading supporters of Trump’s campaign were crypto-connected companies. You don’t have to think this tax proposal is some kind of payback to realize that this creates problems of perception. Next time around, companies will offer campaigns financial support in the expectation of more favorable tax and regulatory treatment.” • I still struggle to understand the case for crypto, unless it be that Silicon Valley wants to get into finance, and to compete with Wall Street they need a distinctive competence, which turns out to be fraud (amazing, I know).

* * *

“Top Republicans split over strategy to move Trump’s 2025 agenda” [NBC]. “The new Congress will give Trump and Republicans the opportunity to pass major legislation without the need for any Democratic support under a process called ‘reconciliation’ But whether the GOP will try to link all of its top priorities together in a single package early next year or split major issues across two, smaller bills is a major subject of debate among top Republican leaders. The House’s top tax writer, Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith, R-Mo., is warning fellow Republicans against breaking the agenda up into two bills, in which border security and energy policy would come in the first and an extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cut law could come in the second. Delaying the tax legislation risks jeopardizing it, Smith and his allies warn, so they want one sweeping package.”

* * *

“The Bizarre Normalcy of Trump 2.0” [Jonathan Chait, The Atlantic]. So Chait got a promotion to the Atlantic (for some definition of “promotion”). “A very strange disjuncture has opened up in Washington between the serene mood and the alarming developments that are under way. The surface is calm because the Republican presidential candidate won the election, and Democrats, the only one of the two major parties committed on principle to upholding the legitimacy of election results, conceded defeat and are cooperating in the peaceful transition of power. Whatever energy the chastened Democrats can muster at the moment is aimed inward, at factional struggles over their future direction. Meanwhile, what is actually happening in the capital is, by any rational standard, disturbing. Donald Trump is filling his administration with ‘loyalists,’ a prerogative that his opponents have grudgingly accepted as his due. Yet he is defining loyalist in maximal terms, including the belief that Trump legitimately won the 2020 election and was justified in his attempt to seize power. The winners are rewriting the history of the insurrection, and their version of history is about to acquire the force of law.” And: “On Saturday, The New York Times reported that the Trump transition team is asking applicants for high-level positions in the Defense Department and intelligence agencies three questions: which candidate they supported in the past three elections, what they thought about January 6, and whether they believed the 2020 election was stolen. Among the ‘wrong’ answers, applicants say, are conceding that Trump lost the election or that his supporters should not have tried to overturn the result.” • As for the 2020 election, see immediately below. (I think all the huffing-and-puffing about Trump picking “loyalists” is absurd. After all, what is he supposed to do? Pick backstabbers? That said, a taste for Kool-Aid shouldn’t be the operational definition of loyalty. Or the ability to lie to get ahead, although this is Washington, D.C…..

* * *

“Trump lawyers and aide hit with 10 additional felony charges in Wisconsin over 2020 fake electors” [Associated Press]. “The state charges against the Trump attorneys and aide are the only ones in Wisconsin. None of the electors have been charged. The 10 Wisconsin electors, Chesebro and Troupis all settled a lawsuit that was brought against them in 2023. There are pending charges related to the fake electors scheme in state and federal courts in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Georgia. Federal prosecutors, investigating Trump’s conduct related to the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, said the fake electors scheme originated in Wisconsin. Electors are people appointed to represent voters in presidential elections. The winner of the popular vote in each state determines which party’s electors are sent to the Electoral College, which meets in December after the election to certify the outcome. Two states, Maine and Nebraska, allow their electoral votes to be split between candidates. The Wisconsin complaint details how Troupis, Chesebro and Roman created a document that falsely said Trump had won Wisconsin’s 10 Electoral College votes and then attempted to deliver to to then-Vice President Mike Pence. In the amended complaint filed Tuesday, .” • I’ve always said that the “contingent electors” cases were the important, genuine cases in the Democrat lawfare over 2020 — don’t let the door hit you on the way out, Fani — because the Trump campaign put civilians in the line of fire, as here. So I’m glad to see this case moving forward.

2024 Post Mortem

“No, Kamala Harris Staffers Did Not Run a “Flawless” Campaign” [Jeet Heer, The Nation]. “For anyone who followed the presidential election of 2024 and regards the victory of Donald Trump as an enormous tragedy for the United States and the world, the great foe of serenity is listening to interviews with Democratic Party strategists. This is a group that has displayed a mind-boggling unwillingness to accept any accountability for losing—for the second time in eight years—to Trump.” Heer seems surprised, as if this were new behavior. More: “Stephanie Cutter told Pod Save America that “the convention demonstrated a lot of enthusiasm for Kamala Harris, a lot of freshness, future oriented, bringing a variety of coalitions together. We had independents, Republicans, Democrats, business leaders, sports figures, everybody coming together around a new way forward and finally turning the page.” It is incredibly revealing that Cutter thinks a winning Democratic coalition consists of “independents, Republicans, Democrats, business leaders, sports figures” rather than being a multiracial coalition of union members, the broader working class, young people, civil rights activists, feminists environmentalists, and anti-war activists. Hers is a profoundly depoliticized view of the Democratic Party as a vehicle of the bipartisan establishment rather than a coalition fighting to change America. This depoliticized ideology permeated the Harris campaign—and doomed it to failure.” • Driving the knife home…

“The meaning of, and in, McDonald’s” [Chris Arnade, Chris Arnade Walks the World]. “Trump’s McDonald’s photo op, which while it has been adjudicated to death, is still a great illustration of what many elites still miss about his appeal. Trump’s superpower has long been signaling to working stiffs that he’s ‘just like you’ despite being on the surface anything like them. His love of McDonald’s, which I believe is as genuine as any politician can ever have, is one of those signals, and maybe his most effective, because it makes his critics go hyperbolic in a way that signals that they are not ‘just like you.’ McDonald’s is wildly popular with every group of Americans, uniting every demographic in the US — it crosses economic class, race, gender, urban versus rural — with the single exception of the highly educated, especially academics. They alone as a group have moral issues with it, and while they might use it, they do so grudgingly, usually to appease crying kids or for a rest stop on a long trip. So Trump’s embrace of McDonald’s becomes a political twofer. He’s one of you, he is a a back-row guy at heart, and while he should be a member of the front-row, given his education and wealth, he’s not because they despise him for many of the same reasons they look down on you — for what he eats, how he talks, and for what he believes in, and how he arrives at those beliefs, which isn’t by spending years reading through approved syllabi (techne), but having gone out into the world and learned from it, one mistake after the next (metis).” • Well worth reading in full, like everything Arnade writes (for a review of his book Dignity, see NC here). And on The Adjuster, arrested in a McDonald’s, see below.

Democrats en déshabillé

“Newsom’s Big Choice: Single Payer Or His Insurance Donors?” [The Lever]. From 2022. “The current push for single-payer may be doomed to the same fate as its predecessors. Even if the bill manages to pass the assembly before the end of the day Monday and passes the state senate, there is no guarantee Newsom will sign it into law. Despite his campaign promise, the California governor has long been allied with insurance companies opposing the reform…. UnitedHealth Group, the nation’s largest health insurer, is also opposing the single-payer bill, and has been pressing its employees to lobby California lawmakers against passing the legislation. The insurance giant has contributed $130,000 to Newsom’s campaigns since 2011, and $513,000 to the state Democratic party since 2007. In 2019, UnitedHealth Group and one of its subsidiaries donated $100,000 to Newsom’s inaugural fund. Now, whether Newsom’s relationship with Blue Shield, Anthem, and UnitedHealth will impact his decision-making on CalCare is an open question, says Court at Consumer Watchdog.” • Social murder has many accomplices….

Syndemics

“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison

* * *

Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).

Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!

Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (wastewater); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).

Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).

Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).

Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, KF, KidDoc, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).

Stay safe out there!

Transmission: H5N1

“Central Valley is ground zero for bird flu outbreak” [Sun-Gazette]. “The Central Valley is the epicenter for the bird flu epidemic drastically reducing the state’s poultry supply and slightly dropping its milk supply…. The two farm animal businesses are some of the state’s most important ag industries, clustered in the Central Valley, often just down the road from each other. The names of the affected facilities are not made public. But when more than half of the state’s dairies are quarantined due to the virus and some 8 million chickens in the state had to be destroyed – including over 5 million egg layers representing about half of the egg laying flock in the Golden State – Californians will no doubt feel the shortages at the grocery store…. While the state is not releasing the location of the dairies, all 32 of the state’s confirmed cases of bird flu in humans were in the Central Valley, California’s nation’s top dairy producing region…. Both industries are on a similar viral infection timeline which also coincides with the annual wild bird migration, which many experts agree is the original source for the disease.” And eighteen paragraphs down, the buried lead: “Now there is concern the rapid rise in infections at both confined animal facilities may be linked, with one affecting the other. Research shows that , says the industry publication EggNews.” • Oh.

* * *

TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts

Lambert: CDC’s wastewater page loaded. No Thanksgiving surge that I can see.

Wastewater
This week[1] CDC December 2 Last week[2] CDC (until next week):

Variants [3] CDC December 7 Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC November 30

Hospitalization
★ New York[5] New York State, data December 10: National [6] CDC December 5:

Positivity
National[7] Walgreens December 9: Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic November 23:

Travelers Data
Positivity[9] CDC November 19: Variants[10] CDC November 4:

Deaths
Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11] CDC November 20: Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12] CDC November 20:

LEGEND

1) ★ for charts new today; all others are not updated.

2) For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open image in new tab.”

NOTES

[1] (CDC) Good news!

[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.

[3] (CDC Variants) XEC takes over. That WHO label, “Ommicron,” has done a great job normalizing successive waves of infection.

[4] (ED) Down.

[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Leveled out.

[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). Actually improved; it’s now one of the few charts to show the entire course of the pandemic to the present day.

[7] (Walgreens) Down.

[8] (Cleveland) Down.

[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Leveling out.

[10] (Travelers: Variants). Positivity is new, but variants have not yet been released.

[11] Deaths low, positivity leveling out.

[12] Deaths low, ED leveling out.

Stats Watch

Inflation: “United States Consumer Price Index (CPI)” [Trading Economics]. “Consumer Price Index CPI in the United States decreased to 315.49 points in November from 315.66 points in October of 2024. The annual inflation rate in the US rose to 2.7% in November, from 2.6% in October and matching markets expectations. On a monthly basis, the CPI increased by 0.3%, the most since April,

* * *

Manufacturing: “Boeing wins $450.5M contract for Japan’s F-15 Super Interceptor upgrades” [Aerotime]. “Boeing has been awarded a $450.5 million contract by the US Air Force (USAF) to support the F-15 Japan Super Interceptor Program. Under this contract, , Boeing will acquire the systems needed to upgrade the Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) F-15J fleet.” • Industrial policy….

Manufacturing: “Boeing Stock Is Taking Off. Here’s Why.” [Barron’s]. If you play the ponies…. “Wall Street expects Boeing to reach 360 deliveries for all of 2024, according to FactSet. That isn’t enough to make money. At the start of 2024, before the door plug incident, Wall Street projected 2024 deliveries of about 700 jets and net income of about $3.5 billion. The Street has since revised that estimate to a loss of $8.9 billion. Tuesday’s gains leave Boeing shares down about 37% for the year and about 34% since the Alaska Air incident. Shares were up about 1% from just before the strike, when 737 MAX production was paused.”

Manufacturing: “Is China ready to take on Airbus and Boeing? Not just yet” [Business Times]. “One of its selling points [of the COMAC C919] is that it is more environmently friendly than its European and American counterparts. Comac designed its C919 with environmental sustainability as an objective – the jet made its first commercial flight on sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in September. The biofuel can be made from algae or agricultural, forestry, food or even municipal waste. It is claimed to cut carbon emissions by up to 80 per cent compared with petroleum-based jet fuel. It has been reported that GallopAir, a Brunei-based startup airline, has placed an order for the C919. Vietnam Airlines, Indonesia’s TransNusa, Air Asia and Brazil’s Total Linhas Aereas have expressed interest.” • “919” reminds me of “707,” but 9 is an auspicious number in China.

* * *

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 51 Neutral (previous close: 48 Neutral) [CNN]. One week ago: 56 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Dec 11 at 1:27:47 PM ET.

Healthcare

“The meaning of, and in, McDonald’s” [Chris Arnade, Chris Arnade Walks the World]. Splitting in two what Arnade conceptualized, correctly, as a unity: “I’ve seen two questions raised. The first is, why would someone ‘so careful’ as Luigi go into a McDonald’s? The second is, how in the world was he noticed?, given that it is a soulless franchise where you should be able to easily blend in, since each is the same, bland, and heavily trafficked space. Yet, after over a decade acquiring an informal PhD in McDonald’s studies, with a minor in mental illness, I could have scripted this latest event down to the description of the regulars who first noticed him. I’m going to go out on a limb here, despite it being too early to do so, and suggest that Luigi is suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. I’ve met a lot of those in McDonald’s, because besides providing them with all the things every other customers wants, it is also a ‘reality safe space.’ It is one of, it not the only, place in the ‘real world’ they can go, grab a cup out of the garbage can, and sit at their corner table and fit in, at least for an hour or two, without encountering too many dangers. It becomes, for many deeply troubled people, their only life line to normal society. It’s a role McDonald’s, to its credit, has accepted. I’ve witnessed many episodes where the employees and morning regulars go out of their way to help those who come in that are suffering the worst. From free food, to calls for help, to having their husband come and repair their broken-down car, free of charge. Which is why the second question, how in the world was he noticed, isn’t surprising at all. Each McDonald’s is a community, and despite being a franchise built for the immediate and transactional, they’ve become long-term and social. I’m writing this from the McDonald’s in my town, where I do most of my writing when at home, and I ‘know’ almost all the two dozen or so oddballs that come in, like me, and sit in a corner, either starring at the wall, ranting into a cup, or working on their beat up laptop. The morning regulars, the evolving group of five or so guys who are at the door when it opens (5:30 a.m.), as well as the afternoon regulars, and all the employees all ‘know’ these oddballs and should a new one come in, sit in a corner, and start acting a bit off, they’ll notice. That almost always that means eventually offering to help, or in this rare case, noticing and calling the police.” • For the “McDonalds as a Community” part, I think Arnade is spot on. For the “Luigi as paranoid schizophrenic” I think both Arnade and the regulars may be acting on their priors. The Mighty Wurlitzer is, after all, at this very moment cranking up to the highest possible the message that “The Claims Adjuster” was crazy, because — Soviet psychiatry comes to mind, here — he had, as the cops put it, “ill will toward corporate America.” (Arnade’s footnote 4 is an answer to this, but I think it proves too much. It would be possible, for example, to argue that all Marxists “are remarkably logical, but starting from absurd premises,” hence “High IQ paranoid schizophrenics.” The cops would love this, of course. As would many conservatives. I mean “Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming.” Insane?

Clarifying:

Talking of “ranging from absurd premises”….

“Luigi Mangione’s Full Story Isn’t On-line” [New York Magazine]. “[W]hat’s most placing about Mangione’s intensive on-line file is that, had it been compiled earlier than the taking pictures befell, it wouldn’t have raised a lot alarm. You’ll be able to spend hours studying these posts, sifting via his follows, and searching for clues about what Kind of Man he’s, however the supportable theories are fairly skinny: Mangione had a web based profile consonant along with his id and context. He shared and posted and adopted like a 20-something striver with a foot within the tech business, listened to Rogan, and thought of himself a rationalist or a minimum of unusually rational.

Class Warfare

“SF tech CEO’s billboards are ‘dystopian.’ That’s how he needs it” [SFGATE]. “Thursday afternoon in San Francisco: On one side of Mission Street, hotel workers chanted and banged on a drum outside the Marriott Marquis, part of a monthslong strike for higher wages and more jobs. On the other, a tech company’s billboard proclaimed, ‘Stop hiring humans.’ Various versions of the provocative advertisements are emblazoned across the city on rotating screen displays on bus shelters and on classic vinyl billboards on poles and buildings, plugging the San Francisco startup Artisan. SFGATE spoke with Artisan’s CEO about the campaign. The company has just 30 employees and is less than 2 years old; its only existing product is an artificial intelligence ‘sales agent’ called Artisan, built to automate the work of finding and messaging potential customers. It’s a classic AI-age idea, one of many such tools flooding the tech world. But the billboards in San Francisco are less routine. Bleak might be a better word, or mean-spirited. And in a city laden with jargony advertisements, these are easy to understand. Most feature a dark-haired, purple-eyed persona and a few rows of text. Some critique humans and remote work: ‘Artisans won’t complain about work-life balance’ and ‘Artisan’s Zoom cameras will never ‘not be working’ today.’ Others are more direct: ‘Hire Artisans, not humans.’ Several include the line, ‘The era of AI employees is here.’ The gist is crystal clear: Artisan is selling automation to employers. In a video spot about the ‘sales agent’ tool online, Artisan says it works with ‘no human input’ and ‘costs 96% less than hiring someone to do her job..’” “Artisan.” Of all the names to choose.

News of the Wired

“That Healing Sound” [Nautilus]. “Music boosts the immune system, in particular immunoglobulin IgA, a substance that travels to the site of mucosal infections by reducing cortisol. When you’re stressed, cortisol shuts down the immune system, because cortisol usually spikes in response to an explicit proximal threat, like a lion running toward you. Over thousands of years of evolution, the cortisol system figured out that if you’re going to have to fight a lion, you’ve got to preserve all your resources to fight or to flee…. So, what does preserving your resources mean at a physiological and metabolic level? It means shutting down your digestive system. That can wait till later. Shutting down your libido, because you don’t have time for that now. Shutting down your immune system. That’s why people with chronic stress have compromised immune systems. And if you can reduce psychological and physical stress, you’re enabling your body’s immune system to do what it’s meant to do. Music can promote IgA levels. They can promote cytokine production, the production of natural killer cells, T cells, plus, they can increase serotonin, which boosts your mood, which in turn, can create this cascade of neurochemical activity.” • Hmm. Not to go all woo woo, but Long Covid?

* * *

Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi, lichen, and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From KW:

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* * *

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About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered.

To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.













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