Antisemitism or Progressivism? A distinction without a difference?
Weekly News Roundup – 9 Aug 2024
This Week’s News
Harris picks a Veep
I thought about taking this week off but the Democratic Veep pick warrants discussion. I’m a center-right/center-left kind of guy. Trump comes with baggage (not a deep thinker, no real political core, “bends” the rules, etc.) but he appears to be tacking towards the center. I read Vance’s book years ago before he became a politician and like it. He’s the junior senator from Ohio, a state that’s gone to the winning presidential candidate since Lyndon Johnson in 1964 so despite the heat he’s been taking he probably helps with that state if only a little. He appears to align well ideologically with Trump (if Trump can be said to have an ideology) so may represent the presumptive heir to Trumpism (for lack of a better word) should the Republicans win this year. Do I think Trump is a good person? No, but I can live with his baggage as I do not see him as a threat to democracy despite what the left claims.
I am far more worried about the damage that the left can do. If you’ve been reading my substack for any length of time you know I don’t have much time for progressives (understatement). Best case they’re naïve and have little to no understanding of human nature. Worst case is their closet Marxists with racist and antisemitic tendencies underlying their class “consciousness.” Either way there’s no telling the amount of damage their policies can do to society. Biden was supposed to be the moderate center-left candidate who promised to “heal” the country but seems to have either handed the reigns to the progressives or had them stollen from him. Harris is a California democrat which means she’s a progressive. She’s flip flopped on a number of progressive issues lately (banning fracking, eliminating private health care, etc.) which could mean she’s tacking to the center, but I have my doubts. Earlier this week she selected Minnesota governor Tim Walz to be her VP. The presidential election, as we all know, is about the electoral college not the popular vote and Minnesota has gone to the Democrats since 1976, so Walz does not help Harris in that state. However, what he does help her with is progressives. He's in favor of “gender affirming care,” signed a bill making college tuition “free” for families earning less than $80,000 per year, and signed another mandating that schools provide “free” menstrual products in all restrooms, for both boys and girls, because “not all students who menstruate are female.”
If Harris’s policy changes really did signify a move to the center, she would have gone with Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro who would have helped with the 19 electoral votes in a state or Arizona Senator, and former astronaut, Mark Kelly who could have helped with another toss-up state. As centrists either might have helped win over center-right voters who aren’t comfortable with Trump’s personality and baggage.
Given the progressive reaction to the Oct 7th attack on Israel, the campus protests, and their general pro-Palestinian (Hamas) position there is one more thing that the Democrats will now have to deal with in the home stretch and that is the suspicion of many that Harris bypassed Shapiro because he’s Jewish. It is unprovable but the circumstantial evidence certainly paints a very antisemitic picture.
Good News
Representative Cori Bush (D-Mo.) became the second member of the progressive Squad to lose a primary election this year.
In a situation reminiscent of fellow Squad member Rep. Jamaal Bowman’s loss in June, Bush’s anti-Israel (pro-Hamas?) stance was her downfall as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and other pro-Israel groups spent heavily in a bid to unseat her.
Two down, seven to go.
Election Tracking
“Investors” are starting to turn on the Donald. The PredictIt leader board continues to move in Harris’ way.
Harris +3 cents
Trump -4 cents
RFK +1 cent
Betters are also starting to view Kamala as the front runner. Current odds to win are:
Harris – 50.4% (+6.8%)
Trump – 48.1 % (-3.4%)
Rest of the Pack – 1.5% (-3.5%)
The aggregated polling are also moving in Harris’ direction as she improved by 0.6% from last wek while Trump dropped 0.3%. However, as neither is polling above 50% the race remains very tight and could go in either direction.
Despite what the aggregated polls say, and what investors and bettors think, the election is still about the Electoral College results and – at least for the time being – Trump remains in the lead as nothing has changed in the last week. This is, perhaps, an indication of the impact of the VP pick.
What I’m Reading
Democracy “implies tools for getting at the truth” – John Maxwell Hamilton, over at RealClear Politics, writes about a topic I hold dear, the importance of words. Maxwell argues that words do more than just convey meaning, they hold society together and highlights an OECD study from just before the Covid pandemic that found “only 9% of 15-year-old students in industrialized countries were ‘able to successfully distinguish facts from opinions’” and with schools begin shutdown during the pandemic, this has likely made matters worse.
If I applied the TLDR rule to the article it would be this: Speak plainly, nobody likes a bullshitter.
Non-Political Item of the Week
Another step towards the robot apocalypse? – AI-startup Black Forest Labs “aims to create advanced generative AI for images and videos.” In this case that means addressing “criticism among image-synthesis hobbyists for its poor performance in generating human anatomy,” specifically human hands.
I guess not all AI advances can be exciting but at least we can be rest assured that when the cold dead hands of the terminator close around our throats they’ll look really life like.
AI-generated image by FLUX.1 dev: "A beautiful queen of the universe holding up her hands, face in the background."
My Podcast Recommendation(s) of the Week
I like to recommend podcasts which give us a break from politics but nothing this week was truly riveting. However, I like aliens and UFOs (sorry UAPs) so I’m going to recommend one on that topic. Michael Sermer interviews Greg Eghigian about how sightings and alleged encounters have “shaped cultural and scientific debates, influenced by fears of conspiracies, hoaxes, and the allure of extraterrestrial life.
The Michael Shermer Show - UFO Sightings Around the World: A Comprehensive History
If you don’t mind sticking with politics, then there’s a few discussions about the Harris Veep pick that are interesting including:
The Editors - Episode 673: Tim Walz Is In
The Reason Roundtable - Weighing Kamala Harris' Veep Options (recorded before the pick was finalized)
“It is unprovable…” Good on you for acknowledging that attributions of motive are unprovable. And probably say more about the individula making the attribution than they do about the person under discussion.