Tag: Opinion

Opinion | ‘Aspirational Conservatism’: A New Path for the Republican Party

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These are not the only paths.
Another consistent strain of thought and action among conservatives over the past several decades argues policy should be on the side of the little guy and that our existing economic and social institutions also provide the best paths to opportunity. This type of thinking has gone by different names in the past, including “reform conservatism” and “compassionate conservativism.” In the 1990s, it animated much of the GOP’s agenda in Republican-led states and big cities, and was seen in the policies of congressional thought leaders such as Jack Kemp, Dan Coats and Paul Ryan, and the presidency of George W. Bush.
The goal was to use what is best about our market economy — job growth in dynamic sectors, innovation that raises wages and creates new opportunities — while correcting its shortcomings through a blend of grassroots civil society efforts and reforms to government programs so people are really equipped to participate in the economy.
Many on the Trumpian right, including those who claim to want the GOP to be the party of the working class, reject this approach. They assert it would allow “free-market fundamentalists” to rule the party. That’s simply not the case. Proponents of this philosophy believe that a market economy provides the best path up for those lower on the economic ladder — but also that government has an obligation to remove barriers as they strive to move up and provide a variety of supports to assist them as they do.
It’s an “aspirational conservatism,” as we call it, that prioritizes upward mobility for ordinary people. Compassionate conservatism and reform conservatism focused largely on poverty, work and families. Aspirational conservatism could build on those previous iterations by addressing what today are the most important issues felt by middle- and working-class families alike. And it could guide the Republican Party in the months and years to come, delivering both political victory and a real governing agenda.
In numerous surveys in recent years, voters across the political and socioeconomic spectrum have expressed an interest in leadership that puts job opportunity, housing affordability, public safety and good schools front and center. This creates an opportunity for conservatives who want neither anti-government ideology nor hyperactive culture warring.
Republicans should focus on three sets of issues.
First, the GOP should create a clear set of policy objectives to support opportunity, individual initiative and hope. The party should reject simplistic, binary choices on questions of government assistance and instead advocate for public policies that boost the twin themes of freedom and dignity.

Conservatives should support individual initiative while also updating safety net programs to help individuals and families when they falter. An aspirational agenda would focus on incentives for states and localities to lower the cost of housing by increasing supply, provide new skills to workers in dynamic sectors, help lower the costs of caring for young children, and support a new round of common-sense school reforms to meet heightened parental demand for education alternatives after the policy failures of the pandemic. These issues — housing, job opportunities, and quality care and schooling for children — are at the heart of most people’s vision for the American Dream.
Second, aspirational conservatives should be the voice of reason on crime and justice. Americans of all stripes have rated public safety among the most important issues, and yet elected leaders have mostly avoided providing solutions.
Republicans should ensure police are well-trained and have the resources and ability to prosecute crimes, but they should do more. They should support reforms that elevate trust through community policing and prevention strategies, including programs that help at-risk youth find purpose in school and work. A coherent policy incorporates all of these principles in order to ensure that trust in police rises while crime decreases and, in the words of sociologist James Q. Wilson, the benefits of working exceed the benefits from stealing.
Third, aspirational conservatives should break from a growing preference on the right for wielding federal power in pursuit of moral goals.
Conservatives should return to a robust view of federalism whenever possible as the best guarantee of diverse views around the country — calling on majorities to respect the minority opinions in their communities and calling out efforts by the left when it does the opposite. Federalism is essential to preserving personal freedom and honoring the independence of families, two values that most Americans consider essential to achieving the American Dream. Majorities also think the federal government has too much power, and heartland voters resent elites who impose their values on them. Even when it comes to socially conservative values with which most Republicans agree, using federal power to impose them on states and communities undermines fundamental conservative principles and risks a backlash from voters.
With control of just one house of Congress, Republicans don’t have the power to implement this agenda yet. But they can embrace this approach on Capitol Hill and on the 2024 presidential campaign trail. As more and more voters tire of Trumpian bombast and the culture wars driving our politics, aspirational conservatives have a chance to show they are on the side of the majority of Americans who care most about a good quality of life, ample opportunity and a government that works for them. That’s not just good policy — it’s good politics.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 12, 2023
Opinion | Nikki Haley’s Woman Problem

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Haley could very likely have it worse than the candidates did in 2016, encountering a veritable buzz saw of sexist and racist attacks from the moment she declares her presidential run. That’s because the base of the Republican Party, the most rabid and committed primary voters, has become more male and more far-right since Trump became the party standard bearer. Misogynist ideology and hate has proliferated so much among in recent years that the Southern Poverty Law Center has begun tracking “Male Supremacy” groups. Groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys that supported Trump and have seen members convicted of seditious conspiracy for involvement in the January 6th insurrection on the Capitol are also rabidly anti-woman. Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes told listeners on his podcast that, “Maybe the reason I’m sexist is because women are dumb.” Avowed White Supremacist Nick Fuentes, who dined recently with Trump at Mar-A-Lago, has told followers that his ideal world is one where the “women don’t have the right to vote,” one in which “women are wearing veils at church,” and “women [aren’t] in the workforce.”
In another era these extremists could be safely relegated to the political margins, but today they are playing a more central role than ever. While Kevin McCarthy and some other Republican leaders have condemned Fuentes, Trump himself refused to disavow him and dozens of lawmakers refused to comment about it either way. Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who continues to enjoy some of the highest ratings in cable TV, has used his considerable platform to launch racist and sexist attacks that have become more overt and more vitriolic in the last few years.
Of course, Trump, as the only declared Republican presidential candidate, looms large. He built his base on attacking women, particularly women of color. From endlessly debasing women journalists, political leaders and public figures who have criticized him to his braggadocio on the “Access Hollywood” tapes and racist rants against Secretary Elaine Chao Trump has never tried to hide his distain in even minimal veneer. He even brought Roger Ailes, who before his death in 2017 had been accused of sexual harassment by at least 20 women, on as an adviser to his campaign and appointed Bill Shine, who was accused of covering up sexual harassment during his time at Fox News, as White House communications director. Researchers found that in the 2016 election “hostile sexism” was a primary predictor of support for Trump, second only to party affiliation.
Astonishingly, it’s not just Trump or right-wing extremist men that push sexist ideology in the Republican Party. Congresswomen Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert have both embraced anti-feminism, despite their own career ambitions. It’s a trend that’s not especially new. Phyllis Schlafly, who was among the first prominent conservative women to back Trump when he ran for president, successfully fought passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, and railed against equal rights for women even as she was benefiting from the system she fought. But these attitudes pose a particularly significant threat today because so many of the figures most at ease with hostile sexism now hold positions of real power in the Republican Party. Lauren Boebert may be a back bencher, but she was part of the crew that held McCarthy’s speaker vote hostage. She told the Denver Post that she believes “women are the lesser vessel, and we need masculinity in our lives to balance that.” Taylor Greene, who now holds leadership positions on Congressional committees and is vying to be Trump’s running mate in ’24, told an interviewer that Satan was manipulating women into having abortions.
Haley faces a high hurdle in even convincing Republican voters that a woman can be president. A December 2022 USA Today poll revealed just how challenging gender is in Republican politics. Overall, a majority of voters (55 percent) say that gender doesn’t matter in presidential elections. Those who did have a preference chose a male president by more than 2-1, 28 percent-12 percent.
Among Republicans, 50 percent said the ideal president would be male while a paltry 2 percent said she would be female. In contrast, Democrats with a preference chose a woman over a man by 2-1, 24 percent-11 percent. Among those voters with a preference, men by 8-1 preferred a male president over a female one, 32 percent-4 percent. Even women were somewhat more likely to prefer a male president (25 percent-19 percent).
Politics is as much about time and place as it is about talent. And in this time and place, the hurdles for a woman in the Republican Party are exceptionally high. Whether we agree with Haley’s positions or not, we should all root for a level political playing field that stays in the bounds of decency and civility. Unfortunately, in today’s Republican political reality, the chances that happens are slim to none.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 12, 2023
Opinion | Republicans Can’t Succumb to Fantasy on Ukraine

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So, by all means, let’s hope for a deal. The secret to unlocking a potential agreement, though, isn’t leaving Ukraine in the lurch and hoping that Vladimir Putin — just as he begins to make gains — decides from the goodness of his heart to prudently and modestly stand down because dominating Ukraine wasn’t so important to him after all.
That’s obviously a fantasy. The only way there will eventually be a (flawed, unsatisfactory, and probably temporary) bargain is if Putin realizes that he has no hope of getting what he wants out of the war. With a major Russian offensive likely looming, we are still far from this point. The only way to get closer is for the Ukrainians to succeed on the battlefield, not retreat in the face of a reconstituted Russian assault.
Ukraine doesn’t have an inherent right to our support, and we shouldn’t fool ourselves about our ability to vindicate principles or abstractions in Ukraine (democracy, the so-called rules-based world order, etc.).
We should back Ukraine based on a cold-eyed calculation of our interest — we should want to stop Russia before it is tempted to bully or grab part of a NATO country in a vastly more dangerous adventure; to see Russia’s malign influence in Europe diminish rather than grow; to send a signal to China that the West will cohere and push back against territorial aggrandizement; and to resist the efforts of the de facto Russia-Chinese-Iranian alliance to undermine Western power.
All that said, Ukraine is not the aggressor in this war; it is a victim of an unprovoked, calculated act of brutal aggression.
Putin could quit fighting tomorrow, and Ukrainians would be content to reestablish their sovereign borders.
Ukrainians could quit fighting tomorrow, and Putin would, in keeping with his original plan, topple the government and install a puppet regime — in effect, snuffing out Ukraine’s sovereign existence.
There are a number of objections and arguments that populist and realist opponents make of current levels of aid to Ukraine.

We’ve ended up in a proxy war with Russia. True enough. Yet, this is not the situation we sought out. It’s not as though we encouraged Latvia to invade Russia, and then began lavishly supplying and training its forces. Despite our warnings and attempts to head them off, the Russians invaded. We could have stayed out of it, and let the Kremlin work its will in Ukraine before moving on to its next target. Otherwise, we were inevitably going to be involved in a proxy war.
The advantage of this proxy war is that the Russians are direct participants, and paying a heavy price, while our role is limited and indirect. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t risks to be managed, but we are in the role comparable to the Russians during the Vietnam War or the U.S. during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan — supporting a highly motivated indigenous force that is doing all the fighting against a bitter geopolitical adversary. This should be thought of as a favorable position, rather than one that makes us eager to wash our hands of the matter.
The war is expensive and drawing down our stocks of weapons. This, too, is true. By any measure, the roughly $30 billion, and counting, that we’ve spent on Ukraine is real money. But it’s a little more than a third of what President Joe Biden is spending on new IRS enforcement, and about a fifth of unspent funds from federal pandemic relief. It is a fraction of a fraction of the defense budget.
The drawdown of weapons has created shortages in U.S. stocks, but this is more exposing a vulnerability than creating one. If we are strained merely arming Ukraine, we’d quickly reach a breaking point in a direct conflict with China. The answer isn’t stinting on support to Ukraine, but rather building up our defense industrial base in a way that’d be necessary one way or the other.
NATO expansion provoked the Russians. Even if this were true, it doesn’t change the current calculus — the West would still be faced with the choice of letting Russia make Ukraine a vassal or helping the Ukrainians resist. And the underlying contention is dubious.
Everyone knew that Ukraine wasn’t going to actually join NATO anytime soon (or probably ever), and Russia didn’t rationally have anything to fear from the alliance — by the time Russia invaded Ukraine the first time in 2014, the U.S. had brought home all its tanks from Germany. Putin has made it clear that his ideological and geopolitical goal is to re-establish a version of the Russian empire. This is a deeply-held ambition that would very likely be the same if NATO had never expanded and if all the Baltic and Eastern and Central European states were blandly neutral and entirely disarmed — in fact, such a state of affairs would probably make Putin even more determined to realize his vision, because it would be so much easier.
Putin is only pursuing a traditional Russian foreign policy. Well, yes. But just because Russia occupied Poland for a hundred years or so, or gobbled up various nations of Europe during World War II and made them satellite states, doesn’t mean similar projects today would have any legitimacy. It is certainly the case that Russia has always been concerned with securing and maintaining access to the Black Sea. It should be noted, however, that it already had an agreement from Ukraine dating to the late 1990s to base its Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol. For good measure, in 2014, Russia grabbed all of Crimea. Invading Ukraine and trying to take Kyiv is over-saucing the goose and isn’t about the Black Sea, but destroying a model of (imperfect) democracy on its border.
If the case for throwing Ukraine overboard and accommodating the Russians is weak, the argument for a deal — as noted above — is quite strong. It’s not going to happen, though, if Putin can still sniff success. Although Biden has been stalwart in supporting the Ukrainians, he’s established a pattern of delay in giving them necessary weapons, before eventually relenting. We may regret not giving them even more material more quickly in the first year, when they had the opportunity to push the Russians even further back. Now, it’s not clear that they can do any better than maintain a stalemate, but they will need more long-range artillery capabilities, air defenses and drones to continue to hold their own.
Cutting them off in the hopes of jump-starting negotiations would be folly and only benefit Putin who, if he has his druthers, would bring a bloody-minded peace of repression and devastation to Ukraine.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 8, 2023
Opinion | Why Biden’s Speech Worked

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But other moments stood out to me.
Early on, we got one of the rarities of such a speech: a solid laugh line. In talking about the bipartisan infrastructure act, he thanked the Republicans who voted for it, and then added this: “And to my Republican friends who voted against it but still ask to fund projects in their districts, don’t worry. I promised to be the president for all Americans. We’ll fund your projects. And I’ll see you at the ground-breaking.”
There was as well, the trumpeting of the economic news that has turned brighter in recent months — record low unemployment, an easing of inflation — and with a nationalist take on his economic agenda that may have made Donald Trump jealous.
“‘Buy American’ has been the law of the land since 1933,” Biden said. “But for too long, past administrations, Democrat and Republican, have fought to get around it. Not anymore. … On my watch, American roads, bridges and American highways will be made with American products.”
The meat of the speech, however, was a series of assaults on the forces that were costing Americans money — a group that included not just familiar villains of the progressive left, but those that likely never have been called out in a State of the Union speech before.
Yes, there was the specter of the ultra-wealthy who paid little or no taxes.
“I’m a capitalist. But pay your fair share. I think a lot of you at home agree. … Look, the idea that in 2020, 55 of the largest companies in America, the Fortune 500, made $40 billion in profits and paid zero in federal taxes? Zero? Folks, that’s simply not fair.”
Yes, Big Oil was in the dock again, with Biden blaming them for the spike in energy costs.

“Last year, they made $200 billion in the midst of a global energy crisis,” he said. “I think it is outrageous. Why? They invested too little of that profit to increase domestic production.”
But Biden also reached down into much more quotidian matters. Look at the examples he used:
“We’re making airlines show you the full ticket price upfront and refund your money if your flight is canceled or delayed. We’ve reduced exorbitant bank overdrafts, saving consumers more than $1 billion a year. We’re cutting credit card late fees by 75 percent, from $30 to $8. Junk fees may not matter to the very wealthy, but they matter to most folks in homes like the one on your bill. … The idea that cable, internet and cell phone companies can charge you $200 or more if you decide to switch to another provider. Give me a break.”
I suspect this part of the speech will be mocked in many corners, for the small-bore nature of the topics. But it was striking for referencing the kind of daily outrages that burden ordinary life at the drug store, the airport or at the kitchen table as the bills pile up. They are in sharp contrast to the State of the Union speeches weighed down with Washington-speak that makes eyes glaze over by the millions.
Biden sounded genuinely outraged, and that’s something people respond to.
When and if he kicks off his reelection campaign — and tonight’s speech made the “when” way more likely than the “if” — expect to hear a lot more like this from Biden from now until November 2024.
I still think the conventional wisdom is right — that these moments rarely if ever affect the political terrain. But the president and his team deserve some credit for trying to speak more plainly and clearly to the country.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 8, 2023
Opinion | Cancel the State of the Union

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The State of the Union isn’t completely useless, as I argued here eight years ago. It can help a president shape and present his agenda to Congress and the public. But a well-written email or PowerPoint demonstration could probably do an equal job of organizing and explaining an administration’s ambitions for the coming year.
When assigning blame for the contemporary indulgence of the SOTU, the obvious villain is television. The event was once a daytime bit of programming. It didn’t become a prime-time show until President Lyndon Johnson gave his 1965 performance. Johnson delighted at having a forum that allowed him to speak directly to the public, unlike press conferences, which are frequently interrupted by pesky questions from reporters. Reagan supplemented his SOTU speeches with Hollywood stagecraft. Previously, the SOTU was a simple speech. But Reagan turned it into a show by casting everyday heroes, veterans, activists and others into his productions, prompting whistles and applause by calling out their names and goading them to stand up and receive congressional adulation. Subsequent presidents, especially Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, expanded the “folks in the crowd” gimmick so far that some years the “guests” became more notable than the speech itself. (I’ll bet President Bill Clinton wishes he could row back the honors he gave Sammy Sosa.) Today, the SOTU resembles an old-fashioned variety show, only with the president filling in for Ed Sullivan.
The SOTU has thrived as a public spectacle for the past 80 years because it taps into a human psyche that seems to demand annual festivals and celebrations that renew the human spirit. Most cultures, ancient and modern, have marked the new year with rituals that plot a new beginning for all concerned. For Christians, this time of renewal can by marked by Easter or Christmas. For agrarian societies, it came at harvest time. For drinkers, it’s New Year’s Eve. For politicians, the State of the Union has become the starting place for political renewal, a time when all the powers — Congress, the Supreme Court, the Joint Chiefs of Staff — await (or prepare to ignore) instructions from their maximum leader.
Like a religious observance, the SOTU is chockablock with ritual observances. It’s usually given on a Tuesday. The members of the Supreme Court must sit motionless, like sphinxes, and not applaud. The sergeant-at-arms of the U.S. House of Representatives welcomes the maximum lead with an introduction that never varies. “Mr. Speaker, the president of the United States!” The ritual sequesters a single cabinet official off-site (the “designated survivor”) to ascend to the presidency in case a bomb strikes the building and vaporizes all. And the speech always elicits as many standing ovations from members of the president’s party as you might witness at a Bruce Springsteen concert. The SOTU festival expanded its footprint in 1966, when the opposition party started giving its response to the president’s comments the same night.
None of this is necessary, of course. A simpler ritual observance marking the political new year could be instituted, maybe organized around the Super Bowl and income-tax season, or maybe just a countdown ball like the one used in Times Square. By reducing the SOTU to an email, we would save a lot of time and bother. It would discourage presidents from engaging in demagoguery. Presidential speechwriters would also be encouraged to make the message weightier. As the Guardian reported in 2013, SOTU addresses have grown linguistically dumber and dumber since Washington’s time.
And it might lower political temperatures. When Jefferson sent his comments to Congress instead of delivering them publicly like his predecessors, he said his intention was to preserve “harmony” in government. “By sending a message, instead of making a speech at the opening of the session,” he wrote, “I have prevented the bloody conflicts to which the making an answer would have commited [sic] them.”
It’s not too late, President Joe Biden. You can still cancel the public SOTU and send an email instead. Just let me know your email address ahead of time so I can set up an Outlook rule to send the message directly to the trash.
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Jake Tapper goes to bed at 7:30 p.m. every night except New Year’s Eve when he stays up until 10 p.m. Send SOTU trivia to [email protected]. No new email alert subscriptions are being honored at this time. My Twitter feed watches the SOTU on YouTube. My Mastodon and my Post accounts want to sit in the gallery and be called on by the president. My RSS feed has never given a standing ovation to anybody.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 7, 2023
Opinion | Why I Welcome Our Future AI Overlords

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Another complaint directed at newsroom AI is that even if it is cheaper and faster, it will only replace human intelligence with algorithmic rigidity, making everything sound like bland robot utterances. This complaint will first have to acknowledge that too few works of journalism have ever contained much in the way of literary merit. Magazine and newspaper style books — I’m looking at you, Associated Press Stylebook — have forever stitched their writers inside straitjackets to make every one of them echo the house style, making them sound like machines. Why accept the robotic output of today’s newspapers and magazines but object to copy written by actual machines?
Fine writing has a place, but you don’t find it very often in newspapers. But that’s okay. Fine writing has been fetishized for too long in too many places. We romanticize news writers — but shouldn’t — as swaggering geniuses who divine inspiration from the gods and pour their passion onto the page when what most of them actually do is just type. The most vital part of the creation of a newspaper story is in its reporting, not its writing. Newsrooms have long endorsed this idea, hiring reporters who could discover jaw-dropping original news, but couldn’t write a grocery list if they had a gun placed to their heads. Such journalists usually worked with editors or rewrite artists who rearranged their facts and findings into a comprehensible narrative. It will be a sad day when such editors are cashiered and their reporters pour their findings into an AI vessel and tell it how to arrange them into a story, but we shouldn’t lament that any more than we lamented the passing of the news illustrator.
The first newsroom jobs AI will take will be the data-heavy but insight-empty ones that nobody really wants: The breaking news of Microsoft’s third-quarter earnings, tomorrow’s weather report, a condensation of last night’s Tigers-Yankees game or the rewrite of a windy corporate or government press release. But eventually AI will come for more ambitious work, such as investigations, eyewitness reportage and opinion journalism like what you’re reading right now. We shouldn’t fear that take-over if it produces better journalism. Press critic A.J. Liebling once boasted, “I can write faster than anyone who can write better, and I can write better than anyone who can write faster.” AI can write faster than A.J now. When the day comes that it can write faster and better, the Lieblings of this world ought to stand aside.
Will that day ever come? ChatGPT and the other AIs of the future will only be as good as their software and what they’ve been told. The only thing AIs “know” at this point is what somebody’s told them. Real news — the stuff that nobody wants you to know in the first place — does not reside in an AI’s learning base until somebody deposits it in their hard drives. In the near-term at least, AI will still depend on humans’ intelligence to generate novel information and arguments not folded into its corpus. By deskilling the writing of mundane and everyday stories, AI will free human journalists to asks questions it can’t yet imagine and produce results beyond its software powers. It’s only as smart as the people behind it.
Evidence of AI’s shortcomings were revealed to me when I asked ChatGPT to construct a hypothetical conservative brief for the repeal of Obergefell, the Supreme Court’s decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide. “It is not appropriate or legal to argue for overturning a Supreme Court decision that guarantees this fundamental right,” ChatGPT responded. No matter how the request was rephrased, it kept insisting it was inappropriate and illegal to do so. Even when instructed that settled law is occasionally unsettled by a new decision (as Justice Clarence Thomas appears to desire in this case), it would not relent. “While it is legal to argue for the overturning of a Supreme Court decision, it is not appropriate or legal to argue for a decision that would discriminate against individuals based on their sexual orientation,” it illogically stated.
For now, at least, my job seems safe. But we can foresee the day that given the proper prompts, better data, a longer leash, better software and a more productive spleen, AI will replace me as a columnist, devising better column ideas and composing better copy. But until it fully understands what it means to be human, how to be curious and how to sate that craving, and how to replicate human creativity, there will be acts of journalism beyond its reach.
Journalism has always been a collaborative craft, joining sources to reporters, reporters to editors, and then readers back to publication in an endless loop of knowledge production. If AI can join that loop to help make accurate, more readable journalism with greater impact, we shouldn’t ban it. Journalism doesn’t exist to give credentialed reporters and editors a steady paycheck. It exists to serve readers. If AI helps newsrooms better serve readers, they should welcome its arrival.
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The bot that runs [email protected] is dying to hear from your bot. No new email alert subscriptions are being honored at this time. My Twitter feed has been bot-driven from the beginning. My Mastodon and my Post accounts run on A.S. (artificial stupidity). My RSS feed is an organic intelligence.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 6, 2023
Opinion | Fake it Till You Make It: The Generational Explanation Behind George Santos

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My doctoral research on conservative media influencers features interviews with people like Santos’ new staffer Vish Burra, a Staten Island native who once worked with Steve Bannon on his podcast War Room to break the Hunter Biden laptop story. Later, Burra staffed Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz as he was being investigated for sex trafficking (though prosecutors have recommended not making any charges).

Rep. George Santos and his top aide, Vish Burra (above) are both just playing to the incentives of the attention economy, which exploded in the past decade, writes the author.
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Francis Chung/POLITICO
In interviews, Burra told me about the far-right media’s strategy of penetrating mainstream media and delivering lib-owning, attention-seeking performances. Burra himself has claimed “illegal immigrants” were bringing Covid-19 across the border on The Daily Show. He clashed with Asian-American progressives on a VICE panel discussing upticks in hate crimes against Asians. On local news, he lauded his maskless New York Young Republican Club gala during the 2020 pandemic. He is one of many characters in the Trumpian carnival, the self-described “clout Diablo,” who seeks social capital at all costs. All of this performance is in the name of attention.
Burra and Santos are both just playing to the incentives of the attention economy, which exploded in the past decade. Those trying to shame Santos will find their words falling on deaf ears: For the congressman, it is more important to be noticed than liked.
Origins of the Attention Economy
After the global financial crisis in 2008, so many in my millennial generation faced the cold reality that a stable job, home and retirement were not givens. Not only that, it was the corrupt big banks that were getting bailed out by the government, not average Americans. With the additional backdrop of a failing War on Terror, cynicism about power, institutions and truth set into my generation. Creating a “personal brand” became a way to rely on the one thing that would never go out of business: ourselves.
A “fake it till you make it” attitude pervaded this personal branding environment. If powerful people lied for money or power and got away with it — be it in the 2008 financial crisis or the pretense of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq — why could you not embellish the truth a little?
Luckily, anyone could make a business out of themselves using new social media platforms that could quickly turn a regular person into an internet celebrity. Venture capitalists placed bets on “unicorns” with inspiring stories that could reap fame — while attracting users and investors. Online news, like Breitbart or The Huffington Post (which employed a young Andrew Breitbart before he founded his own site), discovered personality-driven news drove more traffic. Forbes launched its 30 Under 30 list in 2011, jumping on the influencer-driven media bandwagon and creating the heroes-cum-villains of my generation.
As media scholar Alice Marwick points out in her book Status Update, new Web 2.0 technologies encouraged a fixation on status, attention and getting followers in a world of influential leaders. And the increasing demand for content left little time or incentive to look behind or dig deeper into a click-generating story.

Politicians have simply adapted to this moment, according to Gaetz, who interviewed Santos while guest hosting on Bannon’s podcast. “If we didn’t seat people on committees who embellished their résumé running for Congress, we probably wouldn’t be able to make quorum,” Gaetz said.
Santos likely thought he was doing what everyone else was doing in the age of the influencer.
Although he denies any criminal activity, the congressman has admitted to a number of biographical fabrications. And with that, Santos joins other too-good-to-be-true alleged scammers in the news cycle, albeit in different fields, who doctored their personal stories (and businesses) for influence, power or money. The most recent examples include fallen crypto giant and effective altruism-acolyte, Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX, or student aid entrepreneur currently being sued by JP Morgan for $175 million, Charlie Javice of Frank. (Full disclosure: I once made a small attempt to start a company with Javice, but opted to follow a different life-path as a doctoral student.)

Rep. George Santos joins other too-good-to-be-true alleged scammers in the news cycle, albeit in different fields, who doctored their personal stories (and businesses) for influence, power or money, such as disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.
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Seth Wenig/AP Photo
Be it in politics or start-ups, all of these figures played to the incentives of a media and tech landscape that rewards individuals who can sell a niche-story, regardless of its veracity. Such tall tales get clicks, funding, donations and attention from people who want an outsider to do the impossible. In Silicon Valley, it is a story of young people who “do well by doing good” and could growth hack their way to market dominance. In Republican politics, that story may be one of a gay, Brazilian immigrant businessman with “Jew-ish” roots and a questionable animal charity, who also backs Trump’s “Stop the Steal” election denialism.
It’s a risky game to play, but these attention seekers think their fame — and the influence, money or power they assume will come with it — will insulate them from consequences. And for now, it seems to be true for Santos, who has so far successfully dodged calls for resignation.
A MAGA Anti-Hero or Villain?
With Santos joining the orbit of people like Burra and Gaetz, I am even more sure that the performance will not stop. Like a World Wrestling Entertainment fighter, Santos has joined a political promotion where he must fashion a new role for himself. Playing the well-meaning MAGA-dunce may just be it.
As much as other Republicans, such as Speaker Kevin McCarthy, may express doubts about Santos to the press, Santos and his daily tabloid exposés are now the perfect diversion. Republican-run legislatures around the country are introducing bills banning drag, while Twitter can’t stop talking about Santos’ time as a Brazilian drag queen. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene got a seat on the House Homeland Security Committee, even after saying “we would have won” if she had organized the Jan. 6 riot. Yet, this news is not as salacious as Santos receiving money from a cousin of a sanctioned Russian oligarch. The GOP has little reason to kick out such a welcome distraction.
Our technology, politics and media have created structural incentives for a scam — and our culture seems to love it. We live in a love-hate relationship with billionaire unicorns and untouchable CEOs. Forty-four percent of Americans believe they can become billionaires, while 40 percent simultaneously hate billionaires. We rue a Gatsby. We live to gossip about a scammer. We may even find it badass (and Netflix-binge worthy) when faux-heiress Anna Delvey, born Russian-German immigrant Anna Sorokin, nearly scammed the world’s biggest banks into investing in her startup.
In a similar vein, far-right influencer Jack Posobiec wrote in one of his books that “Donald Trump is an anti-hero.” From Tony Soprano to Frank Underwood, Americans love an anti-hero who will do bad things for noble reasons and has a complex moral character.
Yet lying one’s way into a congressional seat is different from scamming powerful people like venture capitalists, big banks or (in Trump’s case) the Deep State. Santos has reportedly lied about his mom dying in 9/11 to New Yorkers who have experienced the horror of terrorism. Faking to voters about such things is punching down, not up. That, it seems, may have been Santos’ true transgression, and one we might see more often as more members of our generation seek office.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 2, 2023
Opinion | Trump’s Most Brazen Attack Yet?

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The “free state of Florida”? No, despite what you might recall, or have experienced at the time, or find when looking up the record for yourself, it was really the “shut down Sunshine state.”
“Florida was actually closed, for a great, long period of time,” Trump told reporters during his first campaign swing. “Remember, he closed the beaches and everything else? They’re trying to rewrite history.”
He followed up with a Truth Social post touting “the revelations about Ron DeSanctimonious doing FAR WORSE than many other Republican governors, including that he unapologetically shut down Florida and its beaches, was interesting, indeed.”
The supposed revelations were, of course, the dubious things that Trump himself had said.
This is brazen even by Trump’s standards. It will take all of his powers as a political sloganeer, marketeer and wrecking-ball to counter the DeSantis brand on Covid, which has the advantage of being grounded in reality.
For Republicans, DeSantis’ approach to the pandemic of getting out of shutdowns as soon as possible and resisting mandates and restrictions has been vindicated and has appeal to nearly all factions of the party.
For populists, he resisted the elites and self-appointed experts. For limited-government conservatives, he (although this is complicated) lightened the heavy hand of government. For everyone right of center, he forged his own path in the face of conventional wisdom and got attacked for it in the media and by the left — demonstrating the paramount GOP virtues of having courage and the right enemies.
DeSantis would have much to brag about in his record in Florida absent Covid, but it is his response to the pandemic that sets him apart and makes him, for the moment, a near-legend for many Republicans. There’s no wonder that Trump feels compelled to try to deny him this foundational strength.

Trump is correct that DeSantis issued shutdown orders like nearly everyone else at the outset of the pandemic. In March 2020, the governor issued statewide restrictions and then more far-reaching measures in Palm Beach and Broward counties. Beaches, as Trump said, were shut down.
The trouble Trump has is that DeSantis was initially acting in keeping with the guidance of the federal government that Trump led. Trump’s argument amounts to a version of the famous Flounder line from Animal House — DeSantis fucked up, he trusted us.
Despite Trump’s occasional grousing, he had at his right hip during the entire pandemic the man that has come to represent for Republicans all that was wrong with the pandemic response: Anthony Fauci. If Trump had a tense relationship with the long-time federal official, he largely went along with Fauci’s advice.
It tends to be forgotten, but Georgia went first in re-opening in late April 2020, and Trump hit GOP Gov. Brian Kemp for it.
At one of his signature coronavirus briefings, Trump said, “I told the governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, that I disagree strongly with his decision to open certain facilities.” Trump opined that Kemp had moved “just too soon,” and was “in violation” of step one of his administration’s phased re-opening plan. He urged Georgians to “wait a little bit longer, just a little bit — not much — because safety has to predominate.”
When DeSantis, too, moved to re-open, Trump’s coronavirus adviser, Fauci, attacked the state for moving too quickly. “Certainly Florida I know, you know, I think jumped over a couple of checkpoints,” Fauci told the 538 podcast. He said that the state needed to shutter bars and prevent crowds.
By May 2020, Florida had a clearly distinguishable approach to the pandemic. I interviewed DeSantis then, and he already was skeptical of shutdowns and focused on protecting the most vulnerable rather than population-wide measures.
Florida had begun easing restrictions, cautiously and on a phased basis at first, but more rapidly than in almost all other states. In September 2020, DeSantis lifted capacity limits on restaurants, arguing that the experience of Miami-Dade, which closed restaurants, and Broward, which didn’t, showed they were ineffectual.
Crucially, the state was absolutely insistent that schools return to in-person instruction. Now there’s a consensus that remote learning was largely a debacle, but at the time DeSantis was believed to be making a risky choice. As the Washington Post reported in August 2020, “Florida is making a high-stakes gamble on school openings, with superintendents pressured into decisions that some fear will result in coronavirus outbreaks.”
The state had to bludgeon some counties to go along, and fight off a lawsuit from the Florida Education Association.
Another problem that Trump has is that during this period he was lavishing Florida with praise for its emphasis on re-opening. In July 2020, he enthused, “Look at what’s going on in Florida, it’s incredible,” and at an October campaign rally in Florida he called DeSantis “one of the greatest governors in our country,” specifically citing how “you’re open and you didn’t close, and you’re just amazing.”
Trump is endlessly flexible and can try to talk his way out of anything, but un-ringing this bell is likely going to be beyond even his powers.
Over time, DeSantis shifted into a different mode, using the power of his office and the state to block further Covid restrictions by localities, school boards and private businesses. He kept localities from obstructing businesses from opening or fining people for violating mask ordinances. He forbid vaccine passports. He prevented schools from forcing parents to mask their children.
All of this was a frank use of state power, although toward the goal of allowing as much individual discretion in reacting to the virus as possible.
DeSantis began talking of choosing freedom over Faucism and of his opposition to the “biomedical security state,” capturing and leading conservative sentiment that had lost all patience with anything associated with the sense of emergency around the pandemic. He took particular aim at vaccine mandates, and called for an investigation of alleged misinformation around the vaccines.
While DeSantis was a sitting governor who could take concrete and symbolic steps to advance a wholly anti-Fauci perspective, Trump, by this point, was out of office and powerless to revise what had been his partnership with Fauci or take measures more in keeping with the Republican mood in April 2022 as opposed to April 2020.
DeSantis’ response to Covid isn’t going to be decisive in a prospective 2024 primary battle with Trump. It is, however, what has put him in the game. It also is a large part of the reason that Republicans feel vested in and defensive of the governor, making it harder for Trump to mock and belittle him — not that he isn’t going to try.
Trump accuses DeSantis of disloyalty. If developing a record on covid that is going to be almost impossible for Trump to counteract counts, he’s guilty as charged.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 2, 2023
Opinion | Trump’s Most Brazen Attack Yet?

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The “free state of Florida”? No, despite what you might recall, or have experienced at the time, or find when looking up the record for yourself, it was really the “shut down Sunshine state.”
“Florida was actually closed, for a great, long period of time,” Trump told reporters during his first campaign swing. “Remember, he closed the beaches and everything else? They’re trying to rewrite history.”
He followed up with a Truth Social post touting “the revelations about Ron DeSanctimonious doing FAR WORSE than many other Republican governors, including that he unapologetically shut down Florida and its beaches, was interesting, indeed.”
The supposed revelations were, of course, the dubious things that Trump himself had said.
This is brazen even by Trump’s standards. It will take all of his powers as a political sloganeer, marketeer and wrecking-ball to counter the DeSantis brand on Covid, which has the advantage of being grounded in reality.
For Republicans, DeSantis’ approach to the pandemic of getting out of shutdowns as soon as possible and resisting mandates and restrictions has been vindicated and has appeal to nearly all factions of the party.
For populists, he resisted the elites and self-appointed experts. For limited-government conservatives, he (although this is complicated) lightened the heavy hand of government. For everyone right of center, he forged his own path in the face of conventional wisdom and got attacked for it in the media and by the left — demonstrating the paramount GOP virtues of having courage and the right enemies.
DeSantis would have much to brag about in his record in Florida absent Covid, but it is his response to the pandemic that sets him apart and makes him, for the moment, a near-legend for many Republicans. There’s no wonder that Trump feels compelled to try to deny him this foundational strength.

Trump is correct that DeSantis issued shutdown orders like nearly everyone else at the outset of the pandemic. In March 2020, the governor issued statewide restrictions and then more far-reaching measures in Palm Beach and Broward counties. Beaches, as Trump said, were shut down.
The trouble Trump has is that DeSantis was initially acting in keeping with the guidance of the federal government that Trump led. Trump’s argument amounts to a version of the famous Flounder line from Animal House — DeSantis fucked up, he trusted us.
Despite Trump’s occasional grousing, he had at his right hip during the entire pandemic the man that has come to represent for Republicans all that was wrong with the pandemic response: Anthony Fauci. If Trump had a tense relationship with the long-time federal official, he largely went along with Fauci’s advice.
It tends to be forgotten, but Georgia went first in re-opening in late April 2020, and Trump hit GOP Gov. Brian Kemp for it.
At one of his signature coronavirus briefings, Trump said, “I told the governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, that I disagree strongly with his decision to open certain facilities.” Trump opined that Kemp had moved “just too soon,” and was “in violation” of step one of his administration’s phased re-opening plan. He urged Georgians to “wait a little bit longer, just a little bit — not much — because safety has to predominate.”
When DeSantis, too, moved to re-open, Trump’s coronavirus adviser, Fauci, attacked the state for moving too quickly. “Certainly Florida I know, you know, I think jumped over a couple of checkpoints,” Fauci told the 538 podcast. He said that the state needed to shutter bars and prevent crowds.
By May 2020, Florida had a clearly distinguishable approach to the pandemic. I interviewed DeSantis then, and he already was skeptical of shutdowns and focused on protecting the most vulnerable rather than population-wide measures.
Florida had begun easing restrictions, cautiously and on a phased basis at first, but more rapidly than in almost all other states. In September 2020, DeSantis lifted capacity limits on restaurants, arguing that the experience of Miami-Dade, which closed restaurants, and Broward, which didn’t, showed they were ineffectual.
Crucially, the state was absolutely insistent that schools return to in-person instruction. Now there’s a consensus that remote learning was largely a debacle, but at the time DeSantis was believed to be making a risky choice. As the Washington Post reported in August 2020, “Florida is making a high-stakes gamble on school openings, with superintendents pressured into decisions that some fear will result in coronavirus outbreaks.”
The state had to bludgeon some counties to go along, and fight off a lawsuit from the Florida Education Association.
Another problem that Trump has is that during this period he was lavishing Florida with praise for its emphasis on re-opening. In July 2020, he enthused, “Look at what’s going on in Florida, it’s incredible,” and at an October campaign rally in Florida he called DeSantis “one of the greatest governors in our country,” specifically citing how “you’re open and you didn’t close, and you’re just amazing.”
Trump is endlessly flexible and can try to talk his way out of anything, but un-ringing this bell is likely going to be beyond even his powers.
Over time, DeSantis shifted into a different mode, using the power of his office and the state to block further Covid restrictions by localities, school boards and private businesses. He kept localities from obstructing businesses from opening or fining people for violating mask ordinances. He forbid vaccine passports. He prevented schools from forcing parents to mask their children.
All of this was a frank use of state power, although toward the goal of allowing as much individual discretion in reacting to the virus as possible.
DeSantis began talking of choosing freedom over Faucism and of his opposition to the “biomedical security state,” capturing and leading conservative sentiment that had lost all patience with anything associated with the sense of emergency around the pandemic. He took particular aim at vaccine mandates, and called for an investigation of alleged misinformation around the vaccines.
While DeSantis was a sitting governor who could take concrete and symbolic steps to advance a wholly anti-Fauci perspective, Trump, by this point, was out of office and powerless to revise what had been his partnership with Fauci or take measures more in keeping with the Republican mood in April 2022 as opposed to April 2020.
DeSantis’ response to Covid isn’t going to be decisive in a prospective 2024 primary battle with Trump. It is, however, what has put him in the game. It also is a large part of the reason that Republicans feel vested in and defensive of the governor, making it harder for Trump to mock and belittle him — not that he isn’t going to try.
Trump accuses DeSantis of disloyalty. If developing a record on covid that is going to be almost impossible for Trump to counteract counts, he’s guilty as charged.
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#Opinion #Trumps #Brazen #Attack
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 2, 2023
Opinion | We Already Have 18 Intelligence Agencies. We Still Need 1 More.

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My last job in the U.S. government was overseeing the intelligence community’s role in the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), along with an interagency group formerly known as Team Telecom, and being responsible for the intelligence community’s engagement with our foreign allies’ own investment security efforts. The cases that come before CFIUS are privileged and not publicly disclosed. But I can say this: The most challenging ones usually revolved around issues of advanced or dual-use technology, an area in which the Department of Commerce plays a critical role given its international trade and export control responsibilities.
Today, the Department of Commerce is an agency unexpectedly on the frontlines of vital U.S. national and economic security challenges, most prominently demonstrated by its leading role on ensuring critical access to semiconductors, and as evidenced by the CHIPS Act and recent rules promulgated by the department to protect against even knowledge transfers between the United States and China.
But these efforts are certain to be a beginning for Commerce, not an end. And a dedicated in-house intel agency can better identify emerging threats and challenges from China that Commerce needs to tackle, including potential spyware and other intrusions embedded in foreign technology. For instance, in late November, the U.S. issued a ban on new Huawei and ZTE equipment — along with that of three other Chinese companies — for fear it would be used to spy on Americans. Last month, Congress proposed limiting U.S. exposure to Chinese 5G leaders, including Huawei, by restricting their access to U.S. banks, adding them to Treasury’s Specifically Designated Nationals List.
In fact, Commerce’s current position is not unlike that of the Treasury Department’s in 2004.
That year — as part of the Intelligence Authorization Act — Congress established the current iteration of Treasury’s intelligence agency, the Office of Intelligence and Analysis, and formally made it part of the broader intel community. Since then, OIA has played a critical role for almost two decades combating terrorist financing, helping support sanctions efforts and providing financial intelligence to Treasury policymakers.
OIA’s successes would simply not have been possible without it being a full, integrated member of the intelligence community. Indeed, its assessments often find their way to the White House and to other senior policymakers across town, even as its primary focus is supporting the Treasury Department.
In the same way, the Commerce Department cannot be expected to play a more fulsome role in U.S. national security if its leaders are not fully informed of the strategic goals and illicit tactical efforts of U.S. adversaries. To meet that expectation, requires the launch of a new, 19th intel agency to be housed at the department.
Most Americans think of intelligence and by default conjure up images of the CIA. But there are 18 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community, most housed in various departments or military services, and dedicated to providing the kind of intelligence support to a secretary or commander, that CIA continues to lead the way in providing to the White House.

Members of Congress who for the first time are serving on the Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, Armed Services or other prominent national security-related committees and sub-committees, may be surprised to learn that despite what they may have gleaned from the media, the intel community does not actually make predictions; it makes judgments. The difference is critical.
Predictions are generally fleeting: right and wrong, winners and losers, black and white. Judgments are far more complicated. They address the likelihood of events and emergence of prospective capabilities; the potential follow-on implications and challenges from an event occurring — or not; and the associated risks and opportunities for U.S. national and economic security.
These conclusions are what the intelligence community informs policymakers of, to help them make the best decisions possible.
Not only would Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo benefit greatly from having her own intel agency providing these types of assessments directly to her, but so too would the rest of the department, including the Bureau of Industry and Security, which is responsible for export controls, and the International Trade Administration, which defends U.S. industry against unfair trade practices of foreign allies and adversaries.
In creating the new agency, the Director of National Intelligence and Congress must ensure it does not simply result from merging together overworked and under-supported disparate parts of the department that seem to fit. Less than two years ago, Commerce’s national security work was overshadowed by a rogue and illegal security operation at the department — and neither it nor the U.S. government can afford a repeat.
Rather, a new agency must be stood up and staffed by leaders and analysts who are intel community professionals that know how to blend complex analytic efforts with the priorities of the department. Having this type of experienced leadership will ensure the development of novel and Commerce-centric analysis, all while adhering to intelligence tradecraft and community standards.
A new intel agency at the Commerce Department won’t end the national security challenges the U.S. faces from China; but it will help policymakers mitigate and overcome them.
The views expressed in this publication are the author’s and do not imply endorsement by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the intelligence community, or any other U.S. government agency.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 1, 2023