TLP Weekend Edition (May 17-18, 2025)
What we're reading and checking out.
📖 “Ten Years and a Hundred Days of Trump,” by David Bromwich. In Compact, Bromwich offers a cogent big picture look at the rise of Donald Trump, his governing successes and screw ups, and how his Democratic opponents have failed to mount a compelling alternative to his brand of chaotic politics.
The 49.8 percent plurality that gave Trump his second term did so from a mood of rational resentment. People in this state don’t say of someone like Trump, “I agree with him” (even if it were clear what that could mean). They say about the opposing party: Not that. And the Democrats had come to seem a party in which elder statesmen like Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin took instructions from staffers in a language they scarcely understood; a party that began every ceremony, however brief, with a solemn land acknowledgment; in which a left-liberal columnist, Jonathan Capehart, at the meeting to elect the new chair of the Democratic National Committee, could ask the candidates and audience to raise their hands if they agreed that misogyny and racism were significant factors in defeating Kamala Harris, and, when almost everyone raised their hands, could award them with teacherly praise: “That’s good—you all pass.” We’re going to center the marginalized part of this issue so we can navigate any questions in a productive conversation and proactively support the resilience of intersectional folks. Democrats have been talking like that for a decade now, with inflation at home and the forever wars in the background.
The loss of services from government cuts at the level Trump has enforced; the degradation of due process in the immigration arrests; the global reaction to the tariffs and their predicable effects on the fulfillment of everyday needs—all these consequences of actions he authorized in his first 100 days will be brought home to voters soon enough. Trump can occasionally approach a semblance of coherent policy, but it never lasts for long. This fact alone might be a source of long-term hope for the survival of constitutional government; but it will have to be accompanied by a break from subservience by Republicans (it only takes a few) and, among Democrats, a turn from the indiscriminate allure of “resistance” to the daily work of political opposition: a work in which filthy words can deliver no more help than Greek or Roman words.
The polite culture has got to be put away and replaced by a disposition to think again and to listen—a different thing from acting friendly. An opposition worthy of the name can profit from heterodox models like former Senators William Fulbright of Arkansas and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin: lawmakers who went to work free of self-pity, condescension, or a well-bred distaste for the people they might still hope to persuade.
🗣️ “Persuasive Beats Abrasive,” by Robert Graboyes. Speaking of persuasion, center-right economist Graboyes offers a list of 12 things that Democrats could do to help win over skeptical independents like himself. Points nine and ten touch on the need to avoid sweeping generalizations of other Americans and to have genuine empathy for opponents:
If you vilify masses of voters, you won’t persuade me. If you instinctively presume—even silently—that voters who chose Donald Trump over Kamala Harris are either (1) racist, sexist, and homophobic or (2) stupid, then your capacity to persuade will be nil. To sway voters to your side, you must ask yourself, sincerely and sympathetically, why a decent, well-informed voter would vote the other way. Consider the peculiar juxtaposition of well-educated, high-earning white people slinging the “racist, sexist, and homophobic” charge at the millions of Trump-voting African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, Jewish Americans, Muslim Americans, Native Americans, LGBTQ Americans, not to mention women. More than once, I noted this incongruity to left-leaning friends and asked whether their status as well-educated, high-earning, white heterosexuals gives them special insights unavailable to darker-skinned and non-hetero Americans.
If you lack empathy for your adversaries, that will be obvious, and you won’t persuade me. Empathy acts as a check on your more destructive impulses. Empathy may steer you away from arguing that preemptive pardons issued by Trump in 2020 imply guilt while preemptive pardons issued by Biden in 2025 do not. (Adam Schiff claimed the former and received the latter.) Empathy helps you avoid the “SURELY you MUST agree that Trump is worse than Biden” statements you’re tempted to include in emails or Facebook posts. A key to persuasion is focusing on that which is verifiable and avoiding that which is easily dismissed as caustic opinion.
Worthy advice.
🌎 “A Critique of the Apocalyptic Climate Narrative,” by Judith Curry and Harry DeAngelo. This is a very clear, well argued, solidly empirical critique of what has become the conventional wisdom on climate change—conventional wisdom that is both wrong and actually quite dangerous.
The apocalyptic climate narrative is a seriously misleading propaganda tool and a socially destructive guide for public policy. The narrative radically overstates the risks to humanity of continued global warming, which are manageable, not existential. It prescribes large-scale near-term suppression of fossil-fuel use, while failing to recognize the huge costs that such suppression would inflict on humans because fossil fuels are currently irreplaceable inputs for producing food (via ammonia-based fertilizer), steel, cement, and plastics.
The paper details the flaws in the apocalyptic climate narrative, including why the threat from human- caused climate change is not dire and why urgent suppression of fossil-fuel use would be unwise. We argue that sensible public policies would focus instead on developing a diversified portfolio of energy sources to support greater resilience and flexibility to respond to whatever weather and climate extremes that might occur. We identify nine principles for sensible U.S. public policies toward energy and discuss implications of the flaws in the narrative for investors and their agents....
Alarming narratives that have an aura of plausibility can be highly effective tools for shaping public opinion and public policies. When such narratives are false or seriously misleading, they can do significant damage because of unintended consequences of their policy prescriptions. For example, an alarming narrative— rooted in a false, but plausible-sounding, analogy between the risks of nuclear power plants and nuclear bombs—helped turn public opinion against nuclear power and thereby induced much greater use of coal over the last 50 or so years. The substitution of coal for nuclear power shortened millions of lives (due to greater air pollution) and led to higher CO2 emissions than would have otherwise occurred. These unintended consequences of the anti-nuclear-power narrative should make us think carefully before the United States goes too far down the energy path prescribed by the Apocalyptic climate narrative.
🪐 “Andor Season 2,” on Disney+. Admittedly the Star Wars franchise has gotten a little long in the tooth on Disney, but the second season of Andor is excellent and a great reminder of why you loved the concept in the first place. The second round continues the story of Cassian Andor, the scheming of the Empire, and the rise of the rebellion with great characters, shrewd plot development, and lots of political intrigue. All twelve episodes are now available for streaming.
🎸 “SEEIN’ STARS/BIRDS,” by Turnstile. If you like live music, people having fun, monster riffs, thick bass lines, and pounding drums you’ll love Baltimore hardcore greats Turnstile. The band put on an epic hometown show in Wyman Park Dell last weekend to raise money for the homeless. There were no barriers, no security, and no troubles from a buoyant crowd of young and old, punks and normies. Just intense music, adoring fans, and non-stop bodies flying around and flipping off the stage. Turnstile played classics like “Drop” and “T.L.C.” along with new songs like the melodic-turn-ripper combo “SEEIN’ STARS/BIRDS” from their upcoming album.
I've about reached my limit of advice from Yale English professors. If there is a difference between the complaints of wealthy entitled Democratic academics and wealthy entitled Republican corporatists, I sure don't see it.
Does Bromwich really think people care about every tattooed gang banger illegal alien getting a multi month hearing about his rights?
The abiding delusion of Democrats (and the international Left) is that they are the champions of change when in fact they are the Establishment. From this, much of the crisis of relevance stems. The book excerpts highlight this.