Arc Digital

01/08/2024

Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah's retaliatory options to this week's Israeli assassinations are limited.

My early analysis in Arc Digital.
Includes comparisons to:
-Israel poisoning Hamas' Khaled Mashal (1997)
-US killing IRGC Gen. Qassem Soleimani (2020)
-Iran firing 300+ projectiles at Israel that got shot down (Apr 2024)
-and more

Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah's options are limited in response to Israel's assassinations of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr

31/07/2024

The New Right is on the march.
Elon Musk changed Twitter in their favor, and they got Peter Thiel-sponsored JD Vance on the GOP ticket.
But it injected more of their off-putting weirdness into the mainstream, where normies see it, harming their electoral chances.
My latest, in the Bulwark:

With X and JD Vance, the New Right is having a political moment—yet it already appears to be passing.

22/07/2024

When history evaluatesBiden dropping out, the results will overshadow the process.
The nominee should be Harris, and likely will.
Trump campaign was mostly Biden Too Old, plus some Hunter Biden. That's gone.
GOP responses show they're scrambling.
Elon Musk may have seriously screwed up.
And more thoughts from me on Biden dropping out:

It’s not about Biden’s age anymore. Time to focus on the larger stakes.

07/07/2024

Worry about Kamala Harris potentially replacing Joe Biden assumes there are many voters who prioritize racism and/or sexism but aren't already voting Trump, and would vote Biden but won't vote Harris because she's a Black woman.

We're skeptical it's larger than the number of Americans who won't vote Biden because of his age.

Comparing Harris's likely chances to Biden's and other Democrats' show she'd be competitive, which means fear of nominating her shouldn't be part of the president's decision

07/07/2024

Should Biden drop out, or should Democrats and pro-democracy voters drop concerns and line up behind him?
I don't know. But I'd like it resolved fast.
So I assessed Kamala Harris's likely odds against Trump.
The bottom line: fears of her chances are overblown, so it shouldn't be a deciding factor.

Comparing Harris's likely chances to Biden's and other Democrats' show she'd be competitive, which means fear of nominating her shouldn't be part of the president's decision

02/07/2024

The Supreme Court's overreaching, absurd, deeply un-American immunity decision is an exercise in power, not law.

I wrote about the Justices' evident priorities, the decision's faulty logic, various risks it creates, how it helps Trump's authoritarian project, and more:

The overreaching, absurd, un-American decision granting ex-presidents a large degree of immunity is an exercise in power, not law

24/06/2024

Parts of America don't belong entirely to "red" or "blue." It's all shades of purple.

If you're a political minority, you should engage in civic participation if you can, and reject the undemocratic idea that it's not for you.

Notes on democracy and political minority from a southern liberal

20/06/2024

This one’s for the news ju**ies, the highly informed voters. For discourse participants, and denizens of political social media. For people who think about news and politics (perhaps including sometimes when they'd rather not).

Election 2024 will be intense, so take a break this summer if you can.

And other thoughts from a news ju**ie who temporarily logged off

31/05/2024

November is effectively an up-or-down referendum on constitutional democracy, boiled down to whether we should put Trump in the White House or jail. Thanks to prosecutors and a jury in New York, there’s a more definitive picture of exactly what Trump is, and what Americans will be choosing to do to the country if they elect him.

My take on Trump's conviction:

In November, voters will know exactly what’s at stake.

24/05/2024

"If Donald Trump wins the 2024 election and becomes president again, American democracy is done. That may sound dramatic, but that’s because we’re living through a historical moment, and I don’t see any benefit in sugarcoating it."

Trump has brought the United States further down the path of democratic backsliding than many realize. The election is the only barrier left.

23/05/2024

Aging populations create a real national challenge. But right-wingers expressing concern over demographic decline also oppose immigration, surrogacy—especially for gay couples—and sometimes even IVF, showing what they really prioritize.

Birth rates are low in many economically developed countries, but right-wing nationalists aren't offering solutions

21/04/2024

I wrote about the movie Civil War and U.S. politics today.
A spoiler-filled article for people who've seen the movie, people who don't plan to, and anyone politically-minded who doesn't care if they know what happens in the movie.

"Civil War" is political without being overtly partisan, which speaks to today’s politics more than many realize

13/04/2024

The MAGA right, anti-war left, some self-styled realists, the Pope, the president of Brazil, and others say it's time for Ukraine to negotiate with Russia.

But from Russia sympathizers to well-intentioned peacemakers, all these calls pretend away the crucial question: What if Putin doesn't want peace?
What if the Kremlin sees US military aid drying up not as a reason to end this terrible war, but as reason to push harder?
What then?

I explore in The Daily Beast

Calls for the U.S. to push Ukraine to negotiate an end to the war require assuming a peace-minded Russia that doesn’t exist.

23/03/2024

My preliminary analysis of the terrorist attack in Moscow, in Arc Digital
-Unlike 1999 apartment bombings, false flag makes no sense
-MO and claim fit ISIS, like 2015 Paris attacks
-Russia might use as excuse anyway
-Intel failure echoes Oct 7, as Russia dismissed US warnings like Israel dismissed Egypt's
-and more

An early analysis of the March 22 terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall in Moscow, including comparisons to previous terrorism in and outside Russia

29/02/2024

The anti-Biden "Uncommitted" vote in Michigan in protest of the president's Gaza policy got over 100k votes, about 2/3 Biden's 2020 margin of victory over Trump. It showed they're not close to a majority of Democrats, but may be large enough to impact the general election. And inning them back won't be easy.

The Uncommitted campaign showed it’s far from a majority of Democrats, but might have the numbers to impact the general election. Winning them back could be difficult.

23/02/2024

Enlightenment values are under threat from widespread acceptance of misinformation and contempt for liberal democracy on the not-really-still-fringes, but their complaints are selective, and they enjoy the benefits.
Good read by Adam Wakening in Arc Digital.

Liberalism's triumphs often don't make front page news. That doesn't mean the populists are right that ours is a world in ruins.

20/02/2024

Putins' Western admirers do not necessarily desire a Moscow-led world order, Alan Elrod argues. But their "desire for a more conservative, anti-liberal network of nations, driven by strong ethnonationalism and religious paternalism, serves as a broad common ground."
Read more about the Putin-Orban-Trump anti-liberal internationale:

From the EU to the United States, reactionaries imagine a world order shaped by xenophobic, culturally conservative states

12/02/2024

"Ceasefire now," demand critics of Biden's Gaza policy. But what, exactly, does that mean? Brokered Israel-Hamas agreement? Unilateral Israeli cessation? Something else?

And what do the American people want? It depends on how you ask.

I unpack the policy options and polling data in The Daily Beast.

Polls show support for an end to the bloodshed, but things like cutting off U.S. aid to Israel and accepting Hamas’ continued rule over Gaza are far less popular.

12/02/2024

Biden is old. (If you didn't know that, it's true, he is.) So is Trump. They’ve both clearly lost a step, but differ on so much else—character, rule of law, NATO—that fixating on their one shared weakness, and only focusing on one of them, is odd.

In the Bulwark, I examine various reasons Republicans, Democrats, and the media focus on Biden's age + mental acuity, and why it's nuts to treat that as an issue on par with Trump's age + mental acuity + corruption + criminality + threat to democracy:

Lopsided dynamics for Republicans, Democrats, and the press.

11/01/2024

I wrote about the DeSantis-Haley debate–I watched, so you don't have to—why Chris Christie shouldn't endorse Haley, and the weirdness of going through a "pretend primary" with a clear frontrunner avoiding events who the other candidates mostly don't campaign against. In The Bulwark.

On the CNN debate stage, a slapfight for second place.

01/01/2024

Ending the Gaza war isn't enough. Have to avoid returning to the bad pre-war status quo, or worse.
But a real, lasting peace requires addressing these five difficult obstacles:
1) Hamas
2) Netanyahu and his Far Right Govt
3) Palestinian Hopelessness
4) West Bank Settlers
5) Regional Power Dynamics
My latest (in The Daily Beast

The converged interests of powerful entities could make the conflict continue indefinitely. But with patience, these forces can be dislodged.

14/12/2023

Trump is running to put himself above the law and end Constitutional democracy, and it's good that media is saying so. But still, I write in the Bulwark, the tone is too pessimistic; too defeatist.

Trump's return to power is possible, but definitely not inevitable. A majority of Americans oppose him. And beating him won't simply stave off a threat, it offers a chance for democratic renewal.

Next year is about more than defeating a wannabe dictator—it’s also an opportunity for a grand reaffirmation of democracy.

17/11/2023

How distorted frames make an already difficult situation even harder to solve

15/11/2023

On Israel-Palestine, the broader conflict, the difference between living it and observing it, what law and culture consider indigenous, efforts to frame it as clearly good v. evil, or to impose Western racial strife onto it, and more.

How distorted frames make an already difficult situation even harder to solve

15/11/2023

Conservatives traditionally appeal to conventional wisdom, claiming to speak for the average, regular, and most importantly reasonable person.
But the "common man" much of the right speaks to today is quite unreasonable.

The man in the Clapham bus encounters a roadblock

10/11/2023

Hungary's Viktor Orban lost his fellow in European illiberalism due to elections in Poland. The new Slovakian govt may agree with Orban on some things, but overall, his culture war-prioritizing, anti-EU model appears stagnant.

Hungary once again forges a lonely path. But unlike in 1956, there’s little to celebrate.

10/11/2023

Beyond some basic similarities, Israel in the aftermath of Hamas’ October 7 attack is not like post-9/11 America, and forcing the analogy could lead to avoidable errors

10/11/2023

Many call the 10/7 Hamas attack "Israel's 9/11," and cite the US War on Terror as a lesson of what Israel shouldn't do in response.
But despite some similarities, there are multiple important differences, limiting the analogy's usefulness.

Beyond some basic similarities, Israel in the aftermath of Hamas’ October 7 attack is not like post-9/11 America, and forcing the analogy could lead to avoidable errors

26/09/2023

Russia targeted civilian infrastructure and Ukraine targeted a naval headquarters, highlighting the moral and strategic differences that make Ukraine worth supporting

14/08/2023

And barely even tries.