It's kind of objectively laughable, but I'd find it a lot funnier if he'd lost. Now it just stresses me out because he really believes he knows about it and gets to make important decisions.
It is funny when he says the sort of thing that a 5 year-old would be embarrassed to say. The absurdity that makes one half of the population laugh, feeds the faith of the other half.
Too bad congress keeps expanding presidential power. Democrats complain about Trump being a dictator on day one, but didn’t do anything in the last four years to prevent it, because they assumed Trump wouldn’t win, and would be happy if Biden or Kamala had that power.
"If you projected your hopes and dreams onto Trump when you pulled the lever, well, I guess that’s on you."
It's really not! Seriously, "voters wishful-think themselves into electing a tyrant" has been the default failure mode for democracy for literally as long as the concept has existed, it's been discussed ad nauseam since Plato, it's what a large fraction of any would-be democratic country's institutional infrastructure is designed to prevent, etc etc. The occurrence of Trump II: The Revenge is a major red flag for the health of the US as an institution (as if more red flags were needed). Pinning it on American voters for doing what voters do is kind of like saying Americans are twice as obese as the world average because they have less willpower, expecting climate change to be solved by individual consumers going vegan, etc.
This is an interesting comment and it connects I think with the debate about what the constitutional court just did in Romania. I think there’s a case for protecting democracy from itself based on something like the paradox of tolerance
There are clear hazards and unintended consequences to this philosophy. It’s not a simple set of issues to navigate but I do think liberal democracies are going to have to be more muscular and strict in their defense of themselves if they’re to endure.
Exactly @Jason. IMO this is exactly what Jefferson [apocryphally] meant by "the price of liberty is eternal vigilance". Ironically, I feel like first-hand experience with tyranny has made the majority of the world much more pragmatic and realistic about the need to defend their institutions from it through continuous tinkering (and yes, some technocracy), while Americans hold on to a romanticized idea that whatever framework the Founding Fathers could hack together over a couple of years (with no real prior art to guide them other than revolutionary France, and we know how that went!) is somehow perfect...
"Doing what voters do" is an odd articulation when you're talking about democracy. Democracy is, at the end of the day, entirely driven by voters. No one can pull the lever for them and, if they do, it's called autocracy. Liberal autocracy may be preferable to illiberal democracy, but liberal autocracy also pretty much doesn't exist. At the end of the day, Democrats can express their values and articulate their vision, but voters have to vote for it. If someone tells me that the sky is blue and someone else tells me that the sky is neon yellow, it's on me to look up at the sky and figure out which is right. In this case, we have tons and tons of evidence of what Trump is, what he values, and what he stands for. People making the decision to vote for him own it.
I understand where you're coming from, but pragmatically, every single institution exists as a buffer between "the people" and the lever. This has good theoretical reasons (Arrow's impossibility theorem, etc) but also excellent pragmatic reasons: any statesperson realizes that the state is a machine that needs to be idiot- and crook-proofed. So the starting point is not some pristine state of direct democracy which follows voters' wishes to the letter (that doesn't exist even in theory per Arrow's theorem). It is the machine we have now (or rather, the one you guys have now... I'm a Brazilian Israeli living in Portugal, my interest here is a bit more indirect.)
Pragmatics aside, the best analogy I can think of for the relevant moral conundrum is: if you own a car, it is yours and you can crash it against a wall (which you also own). You can even get so high that you think the car is a Chinese mind control device and crash it to save the country. You can even (I believe) kill yourself in the process. But you cannot risk other people's lives or property while doing that. And even if a majority of Americans wants to kill themselves to protect the great USA from Chinese mind control, that does not give them the right to do so, and it is right and proper for the people who happen to be in positions of power to use that power to build institutions that prevent them from doing so.
Now, I think it's fair to claim the folks who voted for Trump are high on something, and therefore not fit for making big decisions. (This is actually literally true for a plurality of poor Americans who abuse opioids. And it's certainly true that Americans' information diet and tribalistic social habits puts them in altered states. BTW, this is also true of many Harris voters...) But that's not my point. My point is rather that even if they were not high, there is no moral principle that gives them the right to do things that put others at risk. And yes, that includes voting for an unrepentant, corrupt chaos muppet. So quite simply, the fact that this muppet was given to them as a legitimate option in the first place is a moral failure on the part of the establishment as a whole. (Yes, you can say it was in no one's individual power to prevent it; even if true, this accountability sink doesn't get anyone off the hook.)
On a high minded moral level that’s all true and well and good. But no set of institutions is going to save people from their worst selves if that’s what they want to be. They’ve got agency. Trump is lying to them about lots of things, but he’s not lying about who he is— he’s super transparent about that.
The issue is not that people are being deceived into voting for something they don’t understand— it’s that they’re susceptible to their own worst selves. But the alternative is some kind of forcible autocracy. That’s never been a good alternative either. In an acute crisis where Trump orders the military to shoot on people, yes, the right move is probably for the military to say no and remove him. But we’re far short of that. Fundamentally, we’re locked into a set of institutions. Those matter until they become so bad as to risk an alternative. The issue with undemocratic alternatives is… they’re never liberal.
You must have noticed that the specific threshold you call "an acute crisis" deserving of intervention is completely arbitrary and hence a policy lever itself. Personally I, and the majority of people outside the US that I have talked to this about, consider Jan 6 2020 to have been enough of an acute crisis that the institutions just ought to have prevented him from being on the ballot at all costs. Why is that autocratic while the scenario you mentioned is not?
January 6 certainly SHOULD have kept him off the ballot. But the way to do that was through institutional levers. Those levers didn’t do that. Whether it was because the Justice Department slow played prosecution too much (I’m loath to credit that explanation) or that voters didn’t do it by reelecting him and thereby neutering prosecution, it’s what happened. And then your supposed alternative is effectively reversing an election, in the same way Trump tried to. That’s dangerous enough on its own terms— it’s far from guarantee that what you get will be better than the alternative; in fact it’s quite likely to be worse. But it’s also quite impossible. Because then the question is who should overturn an election— is it the military? Good luck with that. Full blown civil war? That’s even worse and no one has any appetite for it aside from a bunch of white trash hill people.
There’s a constant desire on both sides of the aisle to pretend that “the people” are pure and good. Either that electing Trump proves that he’s pure and good because the infallibly good and moral People chose him, or that the infallibly good and moral People were deceived into choosing him, and if only they’d understood the truth they would have swept him away.
Reality is that those high holy People aren’t very good in a lot of ways. They didn’t vote for Trump because they were unaware of January 6 or that they don’t recognize that transgender people aren’t out there dominating girls’ sports or whatever; it’s that they don’t really care about January 6 and they don’t like transgender people. And the problem isn’t how Democrats message that; it’s just who they are.
Ok but America's emissions are going down. They'll go down slower with Trump, yes. But we have to think on the margin here. We're not talking about eliminating all of America's emissions in a few years; that has unfortunately never been on the table. I wish it were, but it just isn't. The actual policy changes we're talking about here have only a very minimal effect on climate projections. (Unless you can convince yourself that China and everyone else will follow our moral example, which I think at this point is pretty obviously false.)
So while I'm certainly unhappy about Trump's likely climate policies, I don't think it's going to be a huge deal in terms of what actually happens to the climate.
I don't disagree with this analysis, or your position in general. I just take issue with what is basically a fairly meaningless statement that a problem is 'mostly being caused by other countries'. If you are picking 1 out of 194 countries, then even China at #1 spot could claim 'everyone else' is a bigger problem.
BTW the way I realise it was a bit of a throwaway phrase, not central to your main points, or reflective of your views in general on climate change, which I think are pretty sensible.
The US is the second-highest emitter gross (2022 figures), with emissions per capita 59% higher than that of the largest gross emitter (CN). My point being simply that while technically the lion's share of total global emissions may be being caused by other countries, the US can hardly be sanguine about the state of its own house in this respect.
My take on the issue is that to actually have any chance at really solving the problem, we need to concentrate on actions which will ultimately apply globally.
Buying an electric car, recycling or installing solar panels might make me feel good and signal socially beneficial behavior (which is important), but it won’t solve climate change. Nor will actions by California or the US or even developed nations in general. There are still billions of other people, and they have a right to prosperity and the massive increases in energy usage necessary to achieve this.
The solution will need to include some combination of better, cleaner, safer and cheaper energy sources, carbon extraction and weather engineering. IOW, the solution needs to be aimed foremost on technology.
Re: conflict with China, I agree that the situation does not look great, but this article strikes me as overly confident about how a conventional war with China would go down.
First, "manufacturing" is a very broad category and much of China's output advantage over the U.S. is probably of limited relevance to warfare.
Second, just because WW2 was largely decided largely by raw industrial output doesn't mean the next war between major powers will go the same way. Warfare has changed a lot and it's possible to imagine that technological advantage will turn out to be decisive rather than quantities produced. (which is not to say the U.S. is certain to enter a war with a technological edge).
Third, the composition of the economy at the end of the war is likely to look very different than at the beginning. The U.S. famously had little shipbuilding capacity at the outset of WW2. It's true that building up this capacity will take time, but unless China wins a decisive victory early in the war (or public opinion turns against the war) the U.S. will have time.
I'd love to see a post or series of guest authors try to break this down...
How many military drones can the USA make? How many might it zoom up to? Where is Mexico in that department?
Can the Chinese Navy hurt the USA? How bad? Where is Naval drone tech at?
From some of the last dives I did on China, one of the biggest problems is oil and the ease of a blockade. Is that still the case? What is the status on some of the Russia pipelines that had been discussed and possible volume...
I think the big problem of manufacturing is also the global economy. What do you do if your economy crashes 15% because everything seizes up... how long are people willing to fight a war with 25% unemployment and a reality they can't even imagine.
100% Agree! I would love to see all my favorite writers taking unique stabs at this. I'm especially interested in the demographics effect. China is in an absolute demographic free fall - what effect does post-poning a war 5 vs 10 years have in terms of Chinese people of war-fighting age as this free fall ramps up? What does it do to a society's willingness to go to war when they have a perception that people under 30 are precious and scarce (and those people themselves feel that they are precious and scarce, with prospects for the future?) The PLA in China is already low status and struggles to recruit (Chinese citizens would rather do anything but) - which especially hits their high tech war initiatives (pilots, rocketry compete with much higher status, higher pay private sector). Maybe AI / Automation blunts some of this, but otherwise we have no paradigm for China's population decline in modern history in a practical economic sense or in terms of societal perceptions and values. It may be that so long as the US and allies can hold the line for a decade (e.g. maintain naval dominance that would assure raw materials and oil do not make it into China, rendering their manufacturing edge somewhat moot), by the time China can end-run that with Russian oil overland and electrical capacity domestically, the demographic challenges take war off the table as the country turns inward and tries to manage a social shift unseen since the Black Death.
Because 99% of antimony comes from Chinese mines and manufacturing, the US is now unable to make bullets, let alone battleships. PRC has a huge lead in minerals and manufacturing.
“China has the capacity to defeat the U.S. in any extended conventional war, thanks to its domination of global manufacturing; soon, it may have the capacity to defeat the U.S. and all of its allies combined.”
The problem with models and game theory, etc. is that they have their own “conventionality,
biases,” etc. We haven’t lived in a conventional world for decades in re warfare. Yet the top “thought leaders” of major powers are slow learners, ignoring countless examples of smaller powers stymying their efforts to win wars: Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine. The pattern seems clear to me: asymmetrical attrition. Ukraine, like all the countries listed above is just the latest example. Strategists see the widespread rubble of war zones yet discount the billions of dollars of destroyed and rusting lawn ornaments (tanks, armored vehicles, artillery weapons, etc. Again, please provide the name of a single military analyst, “thought leader,” game theory concept that predicted 30 drone hobbyists on bicycles would render a 41-mile-long billion-dollar blitzkrieg useless. Russia list the Ukraine War in the first month, lost its most-educated and tech-savvy generation to the western countries.
This is repeating the obvious, yet experts insist on modeling future outcomes based on conventional warfare. The fact is that China can’t beat the world via war without isolating and killing itself. The poor air quality, droughts, inability to feed itself without imports, inability to meet its energy needs without the outside world.
The touted BRIC alliance is an example of overthinking in conventional terms. Russia and Iran have been losing for years. The trends are now accelerating because they overreached with conventional proxy wars. It’s likely the two Russian military complexes in Syria will soon be either overrun or rendered useless.
Once the octogenarians now in power die-off, Ukraine, the EU’s largest country and breadbasket to the world (just ask the Mid East leaders), will become a NATO country. Russian wasted vast military resources, personnel and lost much of its future generations to the west — all for a tiny slice of Ukraine. This is the pathetic result of Putin’s retro dream of a reconstituted Russian Empire. What will be the takeaway of Xi and the “strongmen” around him?
I think we need to keep in mind that Trump cannot be re-elected (constitutionally at least) and I doubt he really wants to be. Don't underestimate his narcissism and laziness. He is mostly going to do whatever makes him seem, in his mind, presidential/popular, so will go for the superficial. I doubt he will really pursue any consistent policy that risks making any group deeply unhappy and does not personally enrich him. It will be a largely performative presidency, full of bragging about things he has not achieved in reality. Getting big things done is just too hard. It will be a PR presidency, thus the cabinet ("cast") of media personality types.
Where the action will be is among the numerous cast of hangers-on jockeying to be the most MAGA in an effort to line themselves up as Trump's successor. Though they have to be careful not to draw the spotlight from Trump. Good luck to them with that.
I'm so angry, but not surprised, he's selling us all out to the longshoremen's union (it's amazing they don't even try to hide their corruption - the President and EVP both have the same last names...)
I don't get all the venom and hatred that people (especially on this substack) have towards the longshoremen's union.
It's pretty much accepted that the healthcare industry (insurers, hospitals, the AMA, etc.) had a big hand in drafting and implementing the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). Same thing with auto and tech companies with the Inflation Reduction Act. We can argue about its effects, but both liberal supporters and conservative critics tacitly accepted the idea that engagement with industry insiders was both legitimate (in a normative sense) and pragmatic to finalizing a deal. But with the longshoremen, everybody is incensed and apoplectic at the idea that they would use their leverage to protect their interests at the expense of operational efficiency, even though this is basically negotiation 101. So what gives? If anything, I'd actually have more sympathy for the longshoremen than Big Healthcare or Big Auto/Battery manufacturers, since it's waaay cheaper to pay off the longshoremen than it is to bribe health insurers and auto manufacturers to collaborate with policymakers.
1. I don't like self-dealing industry lobbying, but usually it has a plausible positive effect, not just "this is self-evidently bad for America, but it will get us more money."
I also find it infuriating where that's not the case in other fields. Examples:
*Private Equity: the successful protection of the carried interest loophole via Krysten Sinema.
*Healthcare: Prohibitions on cross-state licensure.
ACA and IRA inputs aren't that simple. You could not have written decent policy without the input of the providers.
2. Bad ports are bad for US manufacturing, which is a very shaky industry here, and which we're spending billions to protect and re-shore. Bad ports are increase inflation, which is been a major problem for lower income people.
3. This union is nakedly corrupt
4. Most importantly, by far - their negotiating tactic is very different from lobbying - it's extortion. Have you seen Daggett's famous video in which he says he'll basically shut down the country until we cry uncle? If Tech said they were going to shut down their telecommunications systems in a week unless we reduced their taxes, I'd be furious too.
<I don't like self-dealing industry lobbying, but usually it has a plausible positive effect, not just "this is self-evidently bad for America, but it will get us more money.">
*Usually* is stretching it. I'm not totally cynical about the role of industrial lobbying on the political process (that's how the democratic sausage is made, etc), but I'd say it's a major contributing factor to the decline of the Pax Americana. The black hole that is defense procurement can largely (but not entirely) be blamed on the iron triangle of defense contractors, senior military officials, and elected officials angling for jobs in their district. Tax cuts have played a significant role in contributing to the large national debt, and we all know about how the tax-prep industry sabotages attempts at making the IRS more efficient. And so on.
<ACA and IRA inputs aren't that simple. You could not have written decent policy without the input of the providers.>
I agree. The same could be said for automating America's ports and harbors. You'll need insider input on how to do it effectively, and that includes consulting the workers and their union.
<Bad ports are bad for US manufacturing, which is a very shaky industry here, and which we're spending billions to protect and re-shore. Bad ports are increase inflation, which is been a major problem for lower income people.>
It's true that American ports are horribly inefficient and less automated than other ports internationally, but that doesn't mean they're inefficient BECAUSE* they're not automated. There are plenty of international ports that are world-class that aren't automated, and plenty of automated ports that are still horribly inefficient. Automation may marginally improve productivity, but I'd trade stable labor relations over a slight improvement in productivity any day of the week. Given the MAGA world's appeal to working-class Americans more generally, I think approving the deal with the longshoremen's union would at least show that the government is aware of how it's decisions affect the working class and is trying to make amends.
<3. This union is nakedly corrupt>
Can't argue with that.
<Most importantly, by far - their negotiating tactic is very different from lobbying - it's extortion. Have you seen Daggett's famous video in which he says he'll basically shut down the country until we cry uncle?>
Dude that's how collective bargaining works. The union threatens a work stoppage if they can't reach an agreement with the employers. When the strike goes on, the question becomes who gives up first: the union (by running out of their strike funds, workers' disgruntlement, etc.) or the company (by losing business and profits). Progressives like to talk a big game about becoming more like Finland: what they don't tell you is that the Nordic model rests on high unionization rates, which in turn imply significant leverage in labor-management negotiations. Hell, Danish trade unions held a successful general strike (basically what the longshoremen are doing, but across the entire economy) to unionize McDonalds. Right now, Swedish unions are doing a general strike against Tesla's anti-union policies. At the end of the day, Labor's bargaining power rests on their ability to halt production and make management feel the pain: that's the price of industrial democracy.
Appreciate the responses - I’ve dug pretty deeply on this and had read the construction physics post. The problem is this stretches into the future - automation will keep getting better and cheaper.
For whatever reasons, US unions seem particularly damaging. European sectorial bargaining seems to result in less harmful union wins. Not an expert.
But you’re not arguing with a a pro-union progressive here. I think all public sector unions are very, very bad, because their counterparty aren’t profit-seeking corporations, but the public. Private infrastructure unions (longshoremen) are bad for the same reason. I don’t mind if McDonald’s unionizes.
I think the challenge of the century for the US and Europe is that China will eat our lunch, partially because unions don’t have any power there. We have to pick our concessions to these workers much more carefully than we used to if we want to retain any manufacturing. I’d rather those concessions be worker health and safety and income for critical industries, rather than blocking automation to maintain very high paying makework jobs that increase costs for and slow down the entire rest of the economy.
"The big question is whether Trump will continue the effort to (partially) catch up to China in manufacturing, or whether he will scrap it." The answer to this question is the same as the answer to every policy decision Trump will make: What does Donald J Trump think will put the most money into his own pockets? His rule will be totally transactional. He has zero interest in what's good for the US (other than what's good for the oligarchs who send him money).
So if Trump thinks enabling the US economy to catch up to China in manufacturing will put more money in his own pockets than not doing so, this is what he will do.
Trump is a thoroughly corrupt, narcissistic person completely devoid of empathy for anyone but himself. His regime will be an oligarchy similar to Orban's and Putin's. We simply cannot ever expect Trump to do anything at all for the good of the United States unless he is guaranteed his "taste".
OK. You're right. You're trying to asses the impact of a Trump presidency, not apportion blame or something else where per capita measure is appropriate
If climate change were best addressed by individual-level behavioral changes, it would make more sense to talk about per capita. But because government policy actually is the only thing that really makes a difference, it makes more sense to talk about governmental units.
So the claim it's mostly being caused by 'other countries' is totally unsupported in terms of absolute (not per capita) numbers. I find it a pretty sloppy characterisation coming from someone who is normally far more careful in how they phrase things.
BTW it's quite possible to be the #1 polluter (China) and contribute <50% of total emissions and hence make the claim it's 'mostly caused by other countries'
That chart shows US emissions in 2023 as 4.9 billion metric tons, less than half of China’s whereas global emissions that year were 37 billion metric tons. So Noah is correct that most emissions are from countries other than the USA.
There are 195 countries in the world - of varying sizes. Unless the distribution is really extremely skewed it is pretty like that the 'rest' (i.e. 194) will be responsible for most (>50%) than any one emitter. This is just basic maths / stats and doesn't really make the statement justified. Is basically meaningless as ANY country (even China at #1 position) could claim everyone else is emitting more.
"All in all, I’m not too worried about the state of the United States right now". I think you are underselling the value of a working beaurocracy. It's easy to poke at any large beaurocracy and find things wrong - but the US government works relatively well, when compared to peers. Trumps appointees are all promising to burn things to the ground, and only allow Trump folks positions of power. One of the only reasons we didn't have a legitimate insurrection was that instutions held... and Trumps folks learned and they won't let that happen again.
These things are easy to break and very hard to fix - and having lived outside the US for years, once you have a corrupt government... well it kind of stays corrupt, despite what every new politician says. No one appreciates something until it's gone.
I was only half-joking when I suggested that the Canadian government should figure out a way to funnel a billion dollars to Trump’s secret Swiss bank account (do those still exist?)
It seems unlikely that Trump would remove export controls on chips as he did with ZTE.
ZTE is just one company, not at the forefront of anything technological, you can see Trump viewing it as a small bargaining chip.
The chip controls are a whole different beast, even Trump must understand that they're basically a crucial tactic in the new 'cold war', a zero sum game he would eminently understand.
The guy is dumber than a coconut if he thinks he can lower imports by letting the longshoremen work without automation, but that it would not affect exports.
Sure but you can make judgements based on his past behaviour and character, which is pretty consistent in seeing geopolitics as one of zero sum competition.
I fully agree that Trump wants to slow down China, but I think his brain is fuzzy on how that is exactly to be accomplished. If the Chinese don't thank him for lifting export controls, he may think he has hurt them. He can always view it as increasing American exports!
The underlying story here is the power is the power of the President (ceded by Congress) to set tariffs and export controls -- for good or ill. Combine that with the temperament of Trump and the out-sized influence of self-interested billionaires like Musk, who have his ear, and we're dealing with Machiavelli's The Prince and the privy councils of near absolute monarchs.
But, another thing makes me question where Trump will take this: He doesn't want to lose. I think it's right that he will try to frame losing as winning in one way or another, but there's a reality to power and the loss of it that will be hard to mask, even from leaders of his own party, setting up a Parliament vs. the King dynamic over the role of the U.S. in the world.
Or we can focus on solutions which apply globally, specifically including technologies for better, cleaner, cheaper energy sources, carbon extraction and or weather engineering.
Most of those technologies - at least initially - are driven by incentives, changing regulations and (sometimes) mandates, all of which require action by states, and leadership.
To date, industrial carbon pricing is by some margin the most effective curb on emissions, followed by mandates to eliminate thermal coal. Tech for energy sources ranks lower, which is not to ignore the critical contribution it has and will make to expanding energy production with less emissions. CS and weather engineering remain rounding errors. Tech for energy consumption is more important than those last two (e.g. electrifying more transportation modes).
"I've studied automation, and know just about everything there is to know about it."
Man, have I not missed having to listen to this nonsense for four years.
What's the problem? Kim Jung Un scored 11 holes in one his first time playing golf. These guys know what they're doing.
I mean I’m kind of torn. That quote was hilarious.
It's kind of objectively laughable, but I'd find it a lot funnier if he'd lost. Now it just stresses me out because he really believes he knows about it and gets to make important decisions.
It is funny when he says the sort of thing that a 5 year-old would be embarrassed to say. The absurdity that makes one half of the population laugh, feeds the faith of the other half.
Can't wait for th sharpie chart on port automation.
Removing export controls wouldn’t require executive action — Trump could just do it whenever he wanted.
TYPO: I think you mean legislative action. Trump can do executive actions whenever he wants.
Too bad congress keeps expanding presidential power. Democrats complain about Trump being a dictator on day one, but didn’t do anything in the last four years to prevent it, because they assumed Trump wouldn’t win, and would be happy if Biden or Kamala had that power.
Sorry but I have to go there:
"If you projected your hopes and dreams onto Trump when you pulled the lever, well, I guess that’s on you."
It's really not! Seriously, "voters wishful-think themselves into electing a tyrant" has been the default failure mode for democracy for literally as long as the concept has existed, it's been discussed ad nauseam since Plato, it's what a large fraction of any would-be democratic country's institutional infrastructure is designed to prevent, etc etc. The occurrence of Trump II: The Revenge is a major red flag for the health of the US as an institution (as if more red flags were needed). Pinning it on American voters for doing what voters do is kind of like saying Americans are twice as obese as the world average because they have less willpower, expecting climate change to be solved by individual consumers going vegan, etc.
(Sorry for the rant)
This is an interesting comment and it connects I think with the debate about what the constitutional court just did in Romania. I think there’s a case for protecting democracy from itself based on something like the paradox of tolerance
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
There are clear hazards and unintended consequences to this philosophy. It’s not a simple set of issues to navigate but I do think liberal democracies are going to have to be more muscular and strict in their defense of themselves if they’re to endure.
Exactly @Jason. IMO this is exactly what Jefferson [apocryphally] meant by "the price of liberty is eternal vigilance". Ironically, I feel like first-hand experience with tyranny has made the majority of the world much more pragmatic and realistic about the need to defend their institutions from it through continuous tinkering (and yes, some technocracy), while Americans hold on to a romanticized idea that whatever framework the Founding Fathers could hack together over a couple of years (with no real prior art to guide them other than revolutionary France, and we know how that went!) is somehow perfect...
"Doing what voters do" is an odd articulation when you're talking about democracy. Democracy is, at the end of the day, entirely driven by voters. No one can pull the lever for them and, if they do, it's called autocracy. Liberal autocracy may be preferable to illiberal democracy, but liberal autocracy also pretty much doesn't exist. At the end of the day, Democrats can express their values and articulate their vision, but voters have to vote for it. If someone tells me that the sky is blue and someone else tells me that the sky is neon yellow, it's on me to look up at the sky and figure out which is right. In this case, we have tons and tons of evidence of what Trump is, what he values, and what he stands for. People making the decision to vote for him own it.
I understand where you're coming from, but pragmatically, every single institution exists as a buffer between "the people" and the lever. This has good theoretical reasons (Arrow's impossibility theorem, etc) but also excellent pragmatic reasons: any statesperson realizes that the state is a machine that needs to be idiot- and crook-proofed. So the starting point is not some pristine state of direct democracy which follows voters' wishes to the letter (that doesn't exist even in theory per Arrow's theorem). It is the machine we have now (or rather, the one you guys have now... I'm a Brazilian Israeli living in Portugal, my interest here is a bit more indirect.)
Pragmatics aside, the best analogy I can think of for the relevant moral conundrum is: if you own a car, it is yours and you can crash it against a wall (which you also own). You can even get so high that you think the car is a Chinese mind control device and crash it to save the country. You can even (I believe) kill yourself in the process. But you cannot risk other people's lives or property while doing that. And even if a majority of Americans wants to kill themselves to protect the great USA from Chinese mind control, that does not give them the right to do so, and it is right and proper for the people who happen to be in positions of power to use that power to build institutions that prevent them from doing so.
Now, I think it's fair to claim the folks who voted for Trump are high on something, and therefore not fit for making big decisions. (This is actually literally true for a plurality of poor Americans who abuse opioids. And it's certainly true that Americans' information diet and tribalistic social habits puts them in altered states. BTW, this is also true of many Harris voters...) But that's not my point. My point is rather that even if they were not high, there is no moral principle that gives them the right to do things that put others at risk. And yes, that includes voting for an unrepentant, corrupt chaos muppet. So quite simply, the fact that this muppet was given to them as a legitimate option in the first place is a moral failure on the part of the establishment as a whole. (Yes, you can say it was in no one's individual power to prevent it; even if true, this accountability sink doesn't get anyone off the hook.)
On a high minded moral level that’s all true and well and good. But no set of institutions is going to save people from their worst selves if that’s what they want to be. They’ve got agency. Trump is lying to them about lots of things, but he’s not lying about who he is— he’s super transparent about that.
The issue is not that people are being deceived into voting for something they don’t understand— it’s that they’re susceptible to their own worst selves. But the alternative is some kind of forcible autocracy. That’s never been a good alternative either. In an acute crisis where Trump orders the military to shoot on people, yes, the right move is probably for the military to say no and remove him. But we’re far short of that. Fundamentally, we’re locked into a set of institutions. Those matter until they become so bad as to risk an alternative. The issue with undemocratic alternatives is… they’re never liberal.
You must have noticed that the specific threshold you call "an acute crisis" deserving of intervention is completely arbitrary and hence a policy lever itself. Personally I, and the majority of people outside the US that I have talked to this about, consider Jan 6 2020 to have been enough of an acute crisis that the institutions just ought to have prevented him from being on the ballot at all costs. Why is that autocratic while the scenario you mentioned is not?
January 6 certainly SHOULD have kept him off the ballot. But the way to do that was through institutional levers. Those levers didn’t do that. Whether it was because the Justice Department slow played prosecution too much (I’m loath to credit that explanation) or that voters didn’t do it by reelecting him and thereby neutering prosecution, it’s what happened. And then your supposed alternative is effectively reversing an election, in the same way Trump tried to. That’s dangerous enough on its own terms— it’s far from guarantee that what you get will be better than the alternative; in fact it’s quite likely to be worse. But it’s also quite impossible. Because then the question is who should overturn an election— is it the military? Good luck with that. Full blown civil war? That’s even worse and no one has any appetite for it aside from a bunch of white trash hill people.
There’s a constant desire on both sides of the aisle to pretend that “the people” are pure and good. Either that electing Trump proves that he’s pure and good because the infallibly good and moral People chose him, or that the infallibly good and moral People were deceived into choosing him, and if only they’d understood the truth they would have swept him away.
Reality is that those high holy People aren’t very good in a lot of ways. They didn’t vote for Trump because they were unaware of January 6 or that they don’t recognize that transgender people aren’t out there dominating girls’ sports or whatever; it’s that they don’t really care about January 6 and they don’t like transgender people. And the problem isn’t how Democrats message that; it’s just who they are.
Do people truly have agency?
At the very least, people have varying levels of agency.
The contention that climate change is “mostly being caused by other countries” is hard to defend; and your point isn’t helped by its overly glib articulation. See this and many, many other sources. https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-which-countries-are-historically-responsible-for-climate-change/
History is history. Now is now. It's just not really possible to argue with the facts, I'm sorry.
The fact it that the US is the #2 polluter today. Even the #1 China 'only' contributes 32% (https://sigmaearth.com/global-carbon-emissions-country-by-country-for-2023/) so could argue it's 'mostly being caused by other countries'
The phrase is essentially meaningless when you have 195 countries as anyone can argue it's someone else's fault.
You normally are far more precise and careful than the case here
Ok but America's emissions are going down. They'll go down slower with Trump, yes. But we have to think on the margin here. We're not talking about eliminating all of America's emissions in a few years; that has unfortunately never been on the table. I wish it were, but it just isn't. The actual policy changes we're talking about here have only a very minimal effect on climate projections. (Unless you can convince yourself that China and everyone else will follow our moral example, which I think at this point is pretty obviously false.)
So while I'm certainly unhappy about Trump's likely climate policies, I don't think it's going to be a huge deal in terms of what actually happens to the climate.
I don't disagree with this analysis, or your position in general. I just take issue with what is basically a fairly meaningless statement that a problem is 'mostly being caused by other countries'. If you are picking 1 out of 194 countries, then even China at #1 spot could claim 'everyone else' is a bigger problem.
BTW the way I realise it was a bit of a throwaway phrase, not central to your main points, or reflective of your views in general on climate change, which I think are pretty sensible.
The US is the second-highest emitter gross (2022 figures), with emissions per capita 59% higher than that of the largest gross emitter (CN). My point being simply that while technically the lion's share of total global emissions may be being caused by other countries, the US can hardly be sanguine about the state of its own house in this respect.
My take on the issue is that to actually have any chance at really solving the problem, we need to concentrate on actions which will ultimately apply globally.
Buying an electric car, recycling or installing solar panels might make me feel good and signal socially beneficial behavior (which is important), but it won’t solve climate change. Nor will actions by California or the US or even developed nations in general. There are still billions of other people, and they have a right to prosperity and the massive increases in energy usage necessary to achieve this.
The solution will need to include some combination of better, cleaner, safer and cheaper energy sources, carbon extraction and weather engineering. IOW, the solution needs to be aimed foremost on technology.
"being caused" = right now
Yep!
That article is old, China’s cumulative emissions have now caught up with the US and are still increasing rapidly.
Re: conflict with China, I agree that the situation does not look great, but this article strikes me as overly confident about how a conventional war with China would go down.
First, "manufacturing" is a very broad category and much of China's output advantage over the U.S. is probably of limited relevance to warfare.
Second, just because WW2 was largely decided largely by raw industrial output doesn't mean the next war between major powers will go the same way. Warfare has changed a lot and it's possible to imagine that technological advantage will turn out to be decisive rather than quantities produced. (which is not to say the U.S. is certain to enter a war with a technological edge).
Third, the composition of the economy at the end of the war is likely to look very different than at the beginning. The U.S. famously had little shipbuilding capacity at the outset of WW2. It's true that building up this capacity will take time, but unless China wins a decisive victory early in the war (or public opinion turns against the war) the U.S. will have time.
I'd love to see a post or series of guest authors try to break this down...
How many military drones can the USA make? How many might it zoom up to? Where is Mexico in that department?
Can the Chinese Navy hurt the USA? How bad? Where is Naval drone tech at?
From some of the last dives I did on China, one of the biggest problems is oil and the ease of a blockade. Is that still the case? What is the status on some of the Russia pipelines that had been discussed and possible volume...
I think the big problem of manufacturing is also the global economy. What do you do if your economy crashes 15% because everything seizes up... how long are people willing to fight a war with 25% unemployment and a reality they can't even imagine.
And WTF are those mystery drones in Virginia and New Jersey, and why don’t we know?
I hadn’t even heard about them!
100% Agree! I would love to see all my favorite writers taking unique stabs at this. I'm especially interested in the demographics effect. China is in an absolute demographic free fall - what effect does post-poning a war 5 vs 10 years have in terms of Chinese people of war-fighting age as this free fall ramps up? What does it do to a society's willingness to go to war when they have a perception that people under 30 are precious and scarce (and those people themselves feel that they are precious and scarce, with prospects for the future?) The PLA in China is already low status and struggles to recruit (Chinese citizens would rather do anything but) - which especially hits their high tech war initiatives (pilots, rocketry compete with much higher status, higher pay private sector). Maybe AI / Automation blunts some of this, but otherwise we have no paradigm for China's population decline in modern history in a practical economic sense or in terms of societal perceptions and values. It may be that so long as the US and allies can hold the line for a decade (e.g. maintain naval dominance that would assure raw materials and oil do not make it into China, rendering their manufacturing edge somewhat moot), by the time China can end-run that with Russian oil overland and electrical capacity domestically, the demographic challenges take war off the table as the country turns inward and tries to manage a social shift unseen since the Black Death.
Because 99% of antimony comes from Chinese mines and manufacturing, the US is now unable to make bullets, let alone battleships. PRC has a huge lead in minerals and manufacturing.
This article implies the USA makes 8 billion rounds of ammo a year? https://thegunzone.com/how-much-ammo-is-produced-in-the-us/
Wrong type of ammo?
I think that is referring to production of the type of bullets used in PowerPoint presentations. \S
“China has the capacity to defeat the U.S. in any extended conventional war, thanks to its domination of global manufacturing; soon, it may have the capacity to defeat the U.S. and all of its allies combined.”
The problem with models and game theory, etc. is that they have their own “conventionality,
biases,” etc. We haven’t lived in a conventional world for decades in re warfare. Yet the top “thought leaders” of major powers are slow learners, ignoring countless examples of smaller powers stymying their efforts to win wars: Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine. The pattern seems clear to me: asymmetrical attrition. Ukraine, like all the countries listed above is just the latest example. Strategists see the widespread rubble of war zones yet discount the billions of dollars of destroyed and rusting lawn ornaments (tanks, armored vehicles, artillery weapons, etc. Again, please provide the name of a single military analyst, “thought leader,” game theory concept that predicted 30 drone hobbyists on bicycles would render a 41-mile-long billion-dollar blitzkrieg useless. Russia list the Ukraine War in the first month, lost its most-educated and tech-savvy generation to the western countries.
This is repeating the obvious, yet experts insist on modeling future outcomes based on conventional warfare. The fact is that China can’t beat the world via war without isolating and killing itself. The poor air quality, droughts, inability to feed itself without imports, inability to meet its energy needs without the outside world.
The touted BRIC alliance is an example of overthinking in conventional terms. Russia and Iran have been losing for years. The trends are now accelerating because they overreached with conventional proxy wars. It’s likely the two Russian military complexes in Syria will soon be either overrun or rendered useless.
Once the octogenarians now in power die-off, Ukraine, the EU’s largest country and breadbasket to the world (just ask the Mid East leaders), will become a NATO country. Russian wasted vast military resources, personnel and lost much of its future generations to the west — all for a tiny slice of Ukraine. This is the pathetic result of Putin’s retro dream of a reconstituted Russian Empire. What will be the takeaway of Xi and the “strongmen” around him?
Time will tell.
The tide comes in
the tide goes out
and nobody knows
what they’re talking about.
I think we need to keep in mind that Trump cannot be re-elected (constitutionally at least) and I doubt he really wants to be. Don't underestimate his narcissism and laziness. He is mostly going to do whatever makes him seem, in his mind, presidential/popular, so will go for the superficial. I doubt he will really pursue any consistent policy that risks making any group deeply unhappy and does not personally enrich him. It will be a largely performative presidency, full of bragging about things he has not achieved in reality. Getting big things done is just too hard. It will be a PR presidency, thus the cabinet ("cast") of media personality types.
Where the action will be is among the numerous cast of hangers-on jockeying to be the most MAGA in an effort to line themselves up as Trump's successor. Though they have to be careful not to draw the spotlight from Trump. Good luck to them with that.
I'm so angry, but not surprised, he's selling us all out to the longshoremen's union (it's amazing they don't even try to hide their corruption - the President and EVP both have the same last names...)
I don't get all the venom and hatred that people (especially on this substack) have towards the longshoremen's union.
It's pretty much accepted that the healthcare industry (insurers, hospitals, the AMA, etc.) had a big hand in drafting and implementing the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). Same thing with auto and tech companies with the Inflation Reduction Act. We can argue about its effects, but both liberal supporters and conservative critics tacitly accepted the idea that engagement with industry insiders was both legitimate (in a normative sense) and pragmatic to finalizing a deal. But with the longshoremen, everybody is incensed and apoplectic at the idea that they would use their leverage to protect their interests at the expense of operational efficiency, even though this is basically negotiation 101. So what gives? If anything, I'd actually have more sympathy for the longshoremen than Big Healthcare or Big Auto/Battery manufacturers, since it's waaay cheaper to pay off the longshoremen than it is to bribe health insurers and auto manufacturers to collaborate with policymakers.
1. I don't like self-dealing industry lobbying, but usually it has a plausible positive effect, not just "this is self-evidently bad for America, but it will get us more money."
I also find it infuriating where that's not the case in other fields. Examples:
*Private Equity: the successful protection of the carried interest loophole via Krysten Sinema.
*Healthcare: Prohibitions on cross-state licensure.
ACA and IRA inputs aren't that simple. You could not have written decent policy without the input of the providers.
2. Bad ports are bad for US manufacturing, which is a very shaky industry here, and which we're spending billions to protect and re-shore. Bad ports are increase inflation, which is been a major problem for lower income people.
3. This union is nakedly corrupt
4. Most importantly, by far - their negotiating tactic is very different from lobbying - it's extortion. Have you seen Daggett's famous video in which he says he'll basically shut down the country until we cry uncle? If Tech said they were going to shut down their telecommunications systems in a week unless we reduced their taxes, I'd be furious too.
<I don't like self-dealing industry lobbying, but usually it has a plausible positive effect, not just "this is self-evidently bad for America, but it will get us more money.">
*Usually* is stretching it. I'm not totally cynical about the role of industrial lobbying on the political process (that's how the democratic sausage is made, etc), but I'd say it's a major contributing factor to the decline of the Pax Americana. The black hole that is defense procurement can largely (but not entirely) be blamed on the iron triangle of defense contractors, senior military officials, and elected officials angling for jobs in their district. Tax cuts have played a significant role in contributing to the large national debt, and we all know about how the tax-prep industry sabotages attempts at making the IRS more efficient. And so on.
<ACA and IRA inputs aren't that simple. You could not have written decent policy without the input of the providers.>
I agree. The same could be said for automating America's ports and harbors. You'll need insider input on how to do it effectively, and that includes consulting the workers and their union.
<Bad ports are bad for US manufacturing, which is a very shaky industry here, and which we're spending billions to protect and re-shore. Bad ports are increase inflation, which is been a major problem for lower income people.>
It's true that American ports are horribly inefficient and less automated than other ports internationally, but that doesn't mean they're inefficient BECAUSE* they're not automated. There are plenty of international ports that are world-class that aren't automated, and plenty of automated ports that are still horribly inefficient. Automation may marginally improve productivity, but I'd trade stable labor relations over a slight improvement in productivity any day of the week. Given the MAGA world's appeal to working-class Americans more generally, I think approving the deal with the longshoremen's union would at least show that the government is aware of how it's decisions affect the working class and is trying to make amends.
<3. This union is nakedly corrupt>
Can't argue with that.
<Most importantly, by far - their negotiating tactic is very different from lobbying - it's extortion. Have you seen Daggett's famous video in which he says he'll basically shut down the country until we cry uncle?>
Dude that's how collective bargaining works. The union threatens a work stoppage if they can't reach an agreement with the employers. When the strike goes on, the question becomes who gives up first: the union (by running out of their strike funds, workers' disgruntlement, etc.) or the company (by losing business and profits). Progressives like to talk a big game about becoming more like Finland: what they don't tell you is that the Nordic model rests on high unionization rates, which in turn imply significant leverage in labor-management negotiations. Hell, Danish trade unions held a successful general strike (basically what the longshoremen are doing, but across the entire economy) to unionize McDonalds. Right now, Swedish unions are doing a general strike against Tesla's anti-union policies. At the end of the day, Labor's bargaining power rests on their ability to halt production and make management feel the pain: that's the price of industrial democracy.
https://www.construction-physics.com/p/do-us-ports-need-more-automation
https://mattbruenig.com/2021/09/20/when-mcdonalds-came-to-denmark/
https://archive.ph/Cr6if
*Apologies for all caps; wish Substack had an italics function for comments
Appreciate the responses - I’ve dug pretty deeply on this and had read the construction physics post. The problem is this stretches into the future - automation will keep getting better and cheaper.
For whatever reasons, US unions seem particularly damaging. European sectorial bargaining seems to result in less harmful union wins. Not an expert.
But you’re not arguing with a a pro-union progressive here. I think all public sector unions are very, very bad, because their counterparty aren’t profit-seeking corporations, but the public. Private infrastructure unions (longshoremen) are bad for the same reason. I don’t mind if McDonald’s unionizes.
I think the challenge of the century for the US and Europe is that China will eat our lunch, partially because unions don’t have any power there. We have to pick our concessions to these workers much more carefully than we used to if we want to retain any manufacturing. I’d rather those concessions be worker health and safety and income for critical industries, rather than blocking automation to maintain very high paying makework jobs that increase costs for and slow down the entire rest of the economy.
"The big question is whether Trump will continue the effort to (partially) catch up to China in manufacturing, or whether he will scrap it." The answer to this question is the same as the answer to every policy decision Trump will make: What does Donald J Trump think will put the most money into his own pockets? His rule will be totally transactional. He has zero interest in what's good for the US (other than what's good for the oligarchs who send him money).
So if Trump thinks enabling the US economy to catch up to China in manufacturing will put more money in his own pockets than not doing so, this is what he will do.
Trump is a thoroughly corrupt, narcissistic person completely devoid of empathy for anyone but himself. His regime will be an oligarchy similar to Orban's and Putin's. We simply cannot ever expect Trump to do anything at all for the good of the United States unless he is guaranteed his "taste".
Trump will be strongly inclined to cancel export controls because Biden championed them. It is really not more complicated than that.
"Climate change is a threat, but it’s mostly being caused by other countries"
Not true - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita
Sadly, the climate doesn't care about per capita. If it did, Qatar would be the main culprit.
OK. You're right. You're trying to asses the impact of a Trump presidency, not apportion blame or something else where per capita measure is appropriate
Yep. :-)
If climate change were best addressed by individual-level behavioral changes, it would make more sense to talk about per capita. But because government policy actually is the only thing that really makes a difference, it makes more sense to talk about governmental units.
Agree wholeheartedly with that. Albeit as a headline measure of carbon intensity in a major developed economy, it's not an entirely useless metric.
In absolute terms the US is #2 : https://www.statista.com/statistics/270499/co2-emissions-in-selected-countries/
So the claim it's mostly being caused by 'other countries' is totally unsupported in terms of absolute (not per capita) numbers. I find it a pretty sloppy characterisation coming from someone who is normally far more careful in how they phrase things.
BTW it's quite possible to be the #1 polluter (China) and contribute <50% of total emissions and hence make the claim it's 'mostly caused by other countries'
That chart shows US emissions in 2023 as 4.9 billion metric tons, less than half of China’s whereas global emissions that year were 37 billion metric tons. So Noah is correct that most emissions are from countries other than the USA.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/276629/global-co2-emissions/
There are 195 countries in the world - of varying sizes. Unless the distribution is really extremely skewed it is pretty like that the 'rest' (i.e. 194) will be responsible for most (>50%) than any one emitter. This is just basic maths / stats and doesn't really make the statement justified. Is basically meaningless as ANY country (even China at #1 position) could claim everyone else is emitting more.
I thought that was the point. It’s a collective issue, not one that any one country primarily controls.
"All in all, I’m not too worried about the state of the United States right now". I think you are underselling the value of a working beaurocracy. It's easy to poke at any large beaurocracy and find things wrong - but the US government works relatively well, when compared to peers. Trumps appointees are all promising to burn things to the ground, and only allow Trump folks positions of power. One of the only reasons we didn't have a legitimate insurrection was that instutions held... and Trumps folks learned and they won't let that happen again.
These things are easy to break and very hard to fix - and having lived outside the US for years, once you have a corrupt government... well it kind of stays corrupt, despite what every new politician says. No one appreciates something until it's gone.
Trump is like Smaug, vain and greedy. Everyone knows this know, so he’s easily persuaded into agreeing with the last person he talked to.
I was only half-joking when I suggested that the Canadian government should figure out a way to funnel a billion dollars to Trump’s secret Swiss bank account (do those still exist?)
It seems unlikely that Trump would remove export controls on chips as he did with ZTE.
ZTE is just one company, not at the forefront of anything technological, you can see Trump viewing it as a small bargaining chip.
The chip controls are a whole different beast, even Trump must understand that they're basically a crucial tactic in the new 'cold war', a zero sum game he would eminently understand.
Very hard to be sure what trump *must* understand.
The guy is dumber than a coconut if he thinks he can lower imports by letting the longshoremen work without automation, but that it would not affect exports.
My assessment is that Trump is a bigger moron than Bush Jr and something being really, really stupid is no barrier to Trump wanting to do it.
He must understand just about everything there is to know about automation!
Sans doute!
Sure but you can make judgements based on his past behaviour and character, which is pretty consistent in seeing geopolitics as one of zero sum competition.
I fully agree that Trump wants to slow down China, but I think his brain is fuzzy on how that is exactly to be accomplished. If the Chinese don't thank him for lifting export controls, he may think he has hurt them. He can always view it as increasing American exports!
The underlying story here is the power is the power of the President (ceded by Congress) to set tariffs and export controls -- for good or ill. Combine that with the temperament of Trump and the out-sized influence of self-interested billionaires like Musk, who have his ear, and we're dealing with Machiavelli's The Prince and the privy councils of near absolute monarchs.
But, another thing makes me question where Trump will take this: He doesn't want to lose. I think it's right that he will try to frame losing as winning in one way or another, but there's a reality to power and the loss of it that will be hard to mask, even from leaders of his own party, setting up a Parliament vs. the King dynamic over the role of the U.S. in the world.
"Climate change is a threat, but it’s mostly being caused by other countries"
That's true for every country, since no country is the majority source. By that logic, no one - and no country - need be concerned, or act.
Or we can focus on solutions which apply globally, specifically including technologies for better, cleaner, cheaper energy sources, carbon extraction and or weather engineering.
Most of those technologies - at least initially - are driven by incentives, changing regulations and (sometimes) mandates, all of which require action by states, and leadership.
To date, industrial carbon pricing is by some margin the most effective curb on emissions, followed by mandates to eliminate thermal coal. Tech for energy sources ranks lower, which is not to ignore the critical contribution it has and will make to expanding energy production with less emissions. CS and weather engineering remain rounding errors. Tech for energy consumption is more important than those last two (e.g. electrifying more transportation modes).