November 2, 2018

I didn't know it was still predicted, but "A blue wave is predicted for the midterms. I’m not convinced" is...

... the title of an essay in WaPo by Paul Theroux, who wrote a book I like a lot — "The Mosquito Coast" — so I'll give it a read. I doubt if the author wrote the headline, but it is what caused me to click — only because I was just thinking that the term "blue wave" had been abandoned and the elections were now being discussed as some sort of dead heat to the finish line.
Ihave quite a lot of sympathy for certain Trump voters, and (wait, please, let me finish) I've been making a list of some concerns that Donald Trump the candidate (I beg you to stop interrupting me — this won't take long) raised when he was on the campaign trail and in the White House...
Ihave quite a lot of doubt about the copy editing at a news site that runs the first words of an essay together like that. They've got an eminent author, and they serve him that poorly! And here he is tripping off to a lovely start, conjuring up clamorous readers objecting and shouting him down.

Writing from Oaxaca, Mexico, Theroux is concerned about the poor labor conditions in Mexico: "the visible obscenity of American factories a few hundred yards over the border at, say, Mexicali or Ciudad Juarez or Reynosa, merely to allow these companies to pay workers $8.50 a day." What do Democrats propose to do about that?

And what will Democrats do about immigration? Theroux asks, even as he rejects "building the Murus Hadrianus Trumpus at the border.
Trump's hostility to immigration and his appeal to old-fashioned Americana is seen as nativist and sometimes racist.... Anyone who came of age in 1950s America has witnessed a doubling of the U.S. population and an enormous cultural shift. Its upside is diversity, of course; its downside is an erosion of historical memory, and culture shock.

Yes, it's a pity that young immigrants, and plenty of young people generally, have never heard of Elvis, Screamin' Jay Hawkins or Annette Funicello. It's of greater concern to me that the names Emmett Till and Rosa Parks are so seldom invoked; that there is so little awareness of America's tradition of dissent, or of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s hope to live in a nation where people "will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."...

To write off Trump's message, or to see his voters as racist and deplorable, is to miss the point.... There are many loud Trumpers, but there are shy Trumpers, too. So I distrust polls more than ever.... I discovered that many in my large and lovable and liberal-minded family, and maybe yours too, revealed themselves as shy Trumpers.

113 comments:

Ace Sullivan said...

Yes, exactly. He's a great travel writer and has this been around. Anyone who can tell me what exactly is the benefit of Diversity, except of course... Diversity, wins a cold drink on me.

WisRich said...

Yes there are shy Trumpers. The question is are they shy enough to skew polling results. I guess we'll find out in four days.

wild chicken said...

The memory of Emmitt Till is invoked at least weekly at the NYT, no?

Lest we forget!

TrespassersW said...

And keep in mind that the people who praise "Diversity" in the most raptured tones do not mean diversity of thought.

Shouting Thomas said...

In fact, we are beaten up daily by the media with Emmett Till, Rosa Parks and MLJ articles, particularly by WaPo. If you can stomach it, you can read a couple of dozen articles condemning whites for blood guilt every day.

A certain blogger by the name of Steve Sailer serves up daily reminders of just how beaten up we are with racism blabbering about events that took place 70 years (or more) ago.

So, what in the hell is this guy talking about?

tcrosse said...

The peasants are revolting, some more than others.

AllenS said...

This is for all of those protesters who were/are against building more pipelines carrying oil through this country: these legal/illegal immigrants want to be just like you, they will want a car, just like you, and to drive anywhere they want to, just like you, go to baseball games, soccer game, or pow wows, just like you. Can you see a problem ahead?

Lucid-Ideas said...

Thanks to the Kavanaugh fiasco, I predict that conservative positions have hardened and that anyone with an IQ bigger than their shoe size have seen a hardening as well.

The deceitfulness of the dems and the new low bar created during the confirmation hearing will not be forgotten. Ever.

Wince said...

"Trump's hostility to immigration and his appeal to old-fashioned Americana is seen as nativist and sometimes racist..."

If anything, Trump's policies make existing if not greater numbers of legal immigration more palatable.

Similarly, Trump giving voice to previously intimidated -- not "shy" -- people is likely to lessen their impetus for violence.

Oso Negro said...

And the GREAT WRITER, begs the questions with "the upside of diversity, of course". Sorry, how many natural born Americans actually believe that? Despite the relentless efforts of "authority" to assert its truth and indoctrinate us.

Dave Begley said...

What an arrogant elitist. I'm sure he's living in a mansion in Mexico and is paying low wages to his help. I also am confident his bank is in the US and he deals only in dollars; not the unstable peso.

That first quoted paragraph betrays the attitude I despise. We are the intellectuals. We are the only moral persons. All us cool kids hate Trump because he is so vulgar and doesn't speak like us.

The very first duty of any government is serve and protect its citizens. We own NO DUTY to foreigners. How hard is that to understand? Mexico and all those shithole Central American countries should fix themselves.

rehajm said...

Trump's hostility to immigration

To quote the great Al Roker: I’m going to say this one last time, but the folks who get it, understand and the ones who DON’T, won’t. Trump is opposed to illegal immigration.

Shouting Thomas said...

Althouse displays the same weird blurred vision over feminism that Theroux displays over racism.

Racial pleading and scolding, of course, is a multi-billion dollar industry.

Feminism is also a multi-billion dollar industry. Every public elementary and high school, every college and every governmental institution devote themselves to indoctrinating us in feminism. Our employers hire highly paid consultants to lecture us on feminism. Women's Studies departments have been created at every university to pound the ideology into students.

And, yet, Althouse continues to suggest that she's a poor underdog, suffering from some sort of subordination and oppression. You've got to wonder what degree of sledge hammer feminist indoctrination would seem sufficient to her.

Bill, Republic of Texas said...

The memory of Emmitt Till is invoked at least weekly at the NYT, no?

Emmitt Till is being memory-holed. His lynching by a lying woman is counter to the "Believe All Women" movement. As always the wantsof upperclass women are more important than the needs of poor minorities.

zipity said...

And that Ann, is our secret weapon. I've been on the receiving end of countless phone calls for poll takers. Hung up on every last one of them. Refused to speak to the many door knockers too.

Tuesday will be another night of disbelief for the LameStream Media

It will generate another batch of video compilations just as election night 2016 did, with the talking heads on CNN, ABC, MSNBC, CBS, NBC slowly unraveling as they see their narrative collapse. Again.

Priceless.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

The peasants are revolting, some more than others.

Yes,you said it they stink on ice.

Anonymous said...

That was sure one hackneyed and pointless exercise. "Yes, Trump is awful but maybe deplorables have some legitimate concerns and Diversity! and Rosa Parks! blah blah blah fill in the blanks"

I've enjoyed Theroux's travel books (particularly The Happy Isles of Oceania), but this sort of thing is just embarrassing. Not that he doesn't have a lot of company in this particular Hall of Shame.

Burkemania said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Burkemania said...

The claim that America was, (a) invented and (b) founded on ideas, a set of beliefs, is so often repeated it seems wholly benign. It isn't. It neglects the parts a shared language and history play in making a nation, and suggests that if you're not on board with the idea, you're not really American.

Trump intuits this, in his odd way.

daskol said...

For the NYT, and a man of his milieu in this era, that’s a bold bit of Trump applogia.

Cath said...

So, Paul Theroux is a shy Trumper.

Original Mike said...

”Trump's hostility to immigration ...”

ILLEGAL immigration. The “eminent” author either has mush for brains or he’s dishonest.

James K said...

That first quoted paragraph betrays the attitude I despise. We are the intellectuals. We are the only moral persons. All us cool kids hate Trump because he is so vulgar and doesn't speak like us.

And yet: Conceding that there is perhaps, maybe, another side of the story other than "Trump is racist and anyone who supports him is a white supremacist" probably already has made him persona non grata in the cocktail party circuit.

Curious George said...

"WisRich said...
Yes there are shy Trumpers. The question is are they shy enough to skew polling results. I guess we'll find out in four days."

Were you in a coma in late 2016?

Tim said...

ILLEGAL immigration. They still don't get it.

William said...

The Know Nothing Party gave my antecedents a hard time. It should be noted that the New England members of that party were militant abolitionists and that in the western states many members were in favor of woman's suffrage........There's a kind of peristaltic action with immigrants. You can process a certain number without incident, but, beyond that, a gag reflex is triggered. Being anti-immigrant is one of the most enduring and hallowed of American traditions. I disapprove of the move to deprive anti-immigrants of their free speech rights here in America.......I don't know what is the precise number of immigrants that we should accept, but it would help enormously if we discriminated against the acceptance of those immigrants who are openly antagonistic to America.

Narayanan said...

In The words of Ellsworth Toohey ...
Divide and Conquer: Unite and Rule.
>>> Diversity

Lesson absorbed by Hillary Clinton, practised by Democrat.

robother said...

Its Theroux who seems to be the shy Trump voter here, tiptoeing through some diverse species of barbed tulips.

buwaya said...

In the Naipaul-Theroux spat I was on the Naipaul side.

Theroux lacks Naipauls integrity and invulnerable self confidence.

Naipaul would not have written anything like this, he would have put it plainly, correctly, mercilessly. And if it were to make some angry with Naipaul, he cared not a bit.

Unknown said...

I've been hearing about a blue wave since early 2017, maybe even earlier, after the election which delivered both houses of Congress and the White House to the Republicans. I was supposed to believe that the electorate that had just delivered both houses of Congress and the White House to the Republicans really didn't mean it?

Original Mike said...

Blogger Tim said...”ILLEGAL immigration. They still don't get it.”

They get it. They’re lying.

WisRich said...

Curious George said...
"WisRich said...
Yes there are shy Trumpers. The question is are they shy enough to skew polling results. I guess we'll find out in four days."

Were you in a coma in late 2016?

11/2/18, 8:58 AM
------------

Heh. Right after I posted I thought the same thing.....2016!

John said...

”Trump's hostility to immigration ...”

ILLEGAL immigration.


The Trump administration is also administratively limiting H1B and H2B visas. That's legal immigration.

M Jordan said...

My extended family is 50/50. The libs hate Trump with a passion and have cowed most of the Trump side into “shy Trumpers.”

Guess who they haven’t cowed? Me. In fact, I’ve cowed them. So whenever the extended fam gets together, there’s a certain polite quality to everything. It’s amazing to behold a highly political family talking about everything but politics. Even more amazing, our get-together this summer was at the Hyatt-Regency in Chicago. Each time we exited the building there it was, to the left, shining out at us ... TRUMP. When we took the architectural boat tour the first building you face, indeed, the only one you see ...TRUMP.

Yet we managed not to talk about it.

It takes a loud Trumper (like me) to bring civility back. Civility bullshit.

exhelodrvr1 said...

Just prior to publishing the column, he was also an imminent author.

Fernandinande said...

A year ago:
"Mexico raises minimum wage by 10 percent to $4.71 per day"

Trash article:
"Companies that moved their manufacturing to Mexico are prospering, but their workers there barely make ends meet."

Companies are prospering and their employees ("workers" = "I'm a Marxist!") are "making ends meet", which is not surprising since the employees making almost 2X minimum wage.

What do Democrats propose to do about that?

I suppose the Dem fix would result in less profit for the companies and employees with unmet ends, so they'd become refugees or whatever.

Roughcoat said...

I don't like diversity, except in restaurants.

Bob Boyd said...

I give Theroux credit. Even this mealy-mouthed virtue signaling is courageous by today's standards among the Good/Smart. Publishing it will probably cost him.

Ralph L said...

BBC History magazine recently let their readers rank the 100 women "who changed history" as nominated in a bogus methodology by 10 academics. Rosa Parks came in #2 after Marie Curie.

Elizabeth Tudor wasn't on the list.

Rick.T. said...

I was hoping for some analysis of what the WaPo process might have been to offer limited editorial space to an author who lives abroad, many (most?) Americans are not familiar with beyond the name at best, and whose most recognized work is decades old.

mccullough said...

Every country needs some broader shared cultural identity, even with thriving subcultures.

Balkanization doesn’t work. Japan has a low fertility rate, like Europe, but Japan is not stupid. They know a Japan of 50 million Japanese will survive and can still flourish. A Japan of 50 million Japanese and 50 million Muslims will be a shithole. Europe has chosen its fate.

As to MLK and Rosa Parks and the decline of shared memory and culture, as the US is becoming less white it is not becoming more black. It’s becoming more Latino and as it becomes more Latino there will be fewer Asian immigrants.

Trump senses that American whites and blacks understand a shared culture and history, as rough as it has been. Trump’s immigration policies and views are meant to benefit blacks as well as whites. That’s what the Dems are fighting against.

Unknown said...

Trump has the ability to make

smart people sound stupid

He might be educated, well traveled, and a talented writer

but now he sounds plain silly parroting the SJW line

dreams said...

A blue wave? Hell no! Hell fucken no!

Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...

In other words, we need to improve our ability to identify Trump supporters so we can attack them more effectively.

etbass said...

Benefit of Diversity = more votes for Democrats.

I'll have some of that kool aid.

John said...

Benefit of Diversity = more votes for Democrats.

That's not how it works in a two party system. The parties will adjust as need to accommodate any changes. Just look at free trade - that used to be a bedrock republican principle. And Jeb was running on increase GDP growth by dramatically increasing immigration. The parties are never static.

TestTube said...

I have some questions on this.

What is up with headlines? Many times I have seen deceptive headlines that imply or even outright state something totally different than the article. One time when I corresponded with an article's author, she acted like she had no responsibility for a deceptive headline and a deceptive headline photo (whatever they call that thing is at the top of the article on the web page). Does the author of the article really have no say about those items?

Seems like ducking responsibility.

How does that work in journalism?

Fernandinande said...

BC History magazine recently let their readers rank the 100 women "who changed history" as nominated in a bogus methodology by 10 academics.

They're repeating that wonderful Ida Lovelace (#4) myth.

BBC put the list of mostly obscure names on 4 pages, so I'm not going to check to see if they included the female inventor of the powered windshield wiper.

Rosa Parks came in #2 after Marie Curie.

Discovering an element must be pretty important if it's the most history-changing thing done by a woman, even more important than sitting on a bus, so I wonder if anyone other than chemists and physicists name the very important discoverers of any other elements?

TestTube said...

There may well be a blue wave.

In my famously progressive city, voters were lined up at the early polling place near me. Twenty to thirty minute wait mid-afternoon, well after lunch. Lots of people out knocking on doors for liberal candidates. Lots of text alerts I didn't sign up for.

And in Arizona, Sinema seems to be holding her own despite a documented history of far-left politics and deep contempt for her fellow citizens.

We will see.

AZ Bob said...

It's 2016 all over again.

The Crack Emcee said...

"I am an independent woman. I've earned the right to think for myself and to vote for myself, by saying "The Secret" is science, allowing cultists to jump on my couch, killer gurus to spread their message on my show, introducing the public to quack doctors, helping a politician who conned Democrats into thinking "Hope" is a political platform (instead of the big bag of "nothing" they got after 8 years) and bookmarking all that with the black Civil Rights Movement to make me bulletproof to anyone scared of being called a "racist"."

- Okra

RichAndSceptical said...

Another liberal who doesn't have a clue about Conservatives and Trump voters specifically. He should make a 2 column table - in one column write down what Trump has accomplished as President that is good for US and in other, those accomplishments that are bad for US.

Not what Trump has said or things he hopes to do in the future, but what he has actually accomplished.

Another thing he misses - Conservatives have a sense of humor. Chants like CNN Sucks are analogous to going to a football game and cheering. It's part of the fun and it doesn't mean we are planning on shooting the other team.

buwaya said...

#1 Woman should have been Isabella of Castile. The European conquest of the world is the single most important event (extended over four centuries) in human history. And the Spanish Empire above all (with a powerful boost from Portugal) induced Europe to invade everything.

#2 Possibly Elizabeth I of England, created the British Empire, or laid its naval foundations anyway.

#3 The Empress Maria Theresa, who preserved the Habsburgs for another 150 years.

And etc., there were indeed women who had a powerful influence on the world. But not the sort that these myopics came up with.

The list is stupid.

rcocean said...

He needs to be noted that Thoreux had always been a elite Liberal Democrat - can you get to top of the writing game without being one?

He's also been an Expat for his entire life.

His somewhat reasonable take on Trump is due to his old age and the fact that his prior travel writings (read "the Iron Rooster") are full of sneers at the "natives". In fact, that was his shtick, going to exotic places and finding endless discomfort, pathetic losers, gauche rich people, and obnoxious natives. He's taken shots at the English, the Irish, South America, the Chinese, the South Pacific Islanders, Africans, and Muslims.

rcocean said...

Liberals and the MSM have been working overtime to elimante the distinction between illegal and legal immigration.

Of course there is no such thing as Illegal immigration. People who invade the USA, and jump over the border MAY be here to live and become citizens aka Immigrants or they MAY just be crooks or parasites who want to make some $$$ by hook or by crook and go back to where they came from.

Oso Negro said...

@ TestTube - Your famously progressive city will probably re-elect their Democrat Congressperson, or elect a replacement Democrat. IF the turnout is double what it was last time, or even 300% of the voting age population, it will still be one Democrat. Same old, same old. The question is, will districts who voted for a Republican in 2016 now decide they need a Democrat?

Oso Negro said...

@TestTube - Or will the Democrats find a way to cheat themselves to success in enough Republican represented districts.

Anonymous said...

This is similar to the drum that Thomas Franks has been beating: that the Democratic party is sclerotic, run by a bunch of rich folks and could care less for working men and women regardless of color or location.

There has been a lot of drawback on the "Blue Wave" this week. Powerline thinks that three congressional seats in MN may flip Republican. Two are almost a certainty and one is in the Iron Range of all places. I don't know what this means for the rest of the country because Congressional issues are so local.

Polls, schmolls. I suspect that there will be some anguish among the pollsters regardless of the outcome. The validity of polls is a low as it can get. A lot of smart (they think) are making asses of themselves.

Anonymous said...

"people"

iowan2 said...

Blue wave.
This is not about DEMS regaining some political power. Nope. This is about, finally, proving, beyond a doubt that President Trump is/was an anomaly. A statistical outlier. A fluke, that 2018 will correct and take the wobble out of the planet. A return to "political norms", of the nation being run by a cabal of Republicans (JEB! Kaisch, Rubio, Romney) Dems (Warren,Schumer) Media (NBC, ABC, NYT, LATimes,etal.) All will be back on track the way its supposed to be.
Not the way that is in the best interests of the citizens of the United States, but the way the elite are directing things for our own good.

Anonymous said...

@Buwaya Is Catherine the Great deserving of a mention?

buwaya said...

Ada Lovelace's work was one of those forgotten historical curiosities, papers discovered and evaluated long after they could have been influential. But they weren't influential at the time computing was being developed, because of course they had been forgotten.

She worked on the groundwork laid by Babbage, indeed in collaboration, but Babbage gets far less publicity these days than Lovelace. Babbage was to some degree directly influential, through Vannevar Bush among others, but certainly not critical to future work.

There are lots of forgotten or failed ideas and inventions, arguably ahead of their time, that do not influence the future as they do not lie in or are oeripheral to the chain of development of more advanced technologies. Its interesting when they are discovered, but simply as curiosities.

One lesson to take from all of this "ahead of its time" stuff is that the great man focus in the history of technology and science is bunk. There are usually a considerable number of people about at any given time with similar ideas and working on similar lines. One of these may be the first in something or other, or get better publicity. It may also be a matter of a few years or a couple of decades.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

All of these predictions of a "Blue Wave" make me thing about the disclosures that we, Financial Advisors, were required to make when presenting investments and investment strategies to clients.

In fact most of the literature that we were also required to hand out to clients at the time of presentations had the disclosure printed on it.

Past performance is not indicative of future results

The Democrats seem to think that the past performance of Democrat voting patterns is not subject to change. Voters change. The market changes. Everything changes and to bet on the past....is a fool's bet.

Henry said...

the 100 women "who changed history"

Anne Boleyn & Catherine of Aragon (tie)

buwaya said...

I would rate Elizabeth of Russia above Catherine, but YMMV.
Elizabeth brought Russia into the cockpit of Europe, making Russia a direct player in European power politics.

MD Greene said...

1. Newspaper copy editing is over. So is basic grammar. In a WSJ letter to the editor last week a college instructor said she spent the first two weeks of a journalism course explaining to COLLEGE STUDENTS the differences among "their," "there" and "they're."
I'm still waiting for someone to explain what 40 years of having a federal Department of Education with a $68 billion budget has done to improve the preparation of students.

2. The conundrum of 2016 is that a guy who was born rich and lived in a Manhattan penthouse decorated like Versailles had a better sense of the mood of the country than all the self-assured prognosticators and pollsters and journalists.
You don't have to be a Trump fan to acknowledge that he's pretty good at making the right people's heads explode.

Matt said...

"It's of greater concern to me that the names Emmett Till and Rosa Parks are so seldom invoked."

Except, literally in the last week, by Time (Nov. 1), Washington Post (Nov. 1), The Root (Oct. 31), WNYC (Oct. 31), WAMU Radio (Oct. 30), CNN (Oct. 30), NPR (Oct. 27), US New and World Report (Oct. 25), not to mention all the smaller, local papers. There was also a Dr. Who episode about Rosa Parks a couple of days ago, a starship in Star Trek recently named after Emmitt Till, and a horror movie (Spike Lee executive producer) with Emmitt Till as a character.

Henry said...

Anna Anderson literally changed history.

Doris Kearns Goodwin just plagiarized it.

Anonymous said...

John: "Benefit of Diversity = more votes for Democrats."

That's not how it works in a two party system.


Actually that is how it's been working in our particular two-party system. "Diversity" reliably turns red to blue. Stupid Party fantasies re "natural conservatives" notwithstanding.

ron winkleheimer said...

I saw an article earlier today pointing out that the radicals taking over the Democrat party are alienating the blue-collar voters that Democrats depend on. It also stated that the young radicals are mostly college grads that are living in gentrifying neighborhoods and that increasing numbers of blacks and Hispanics are turning to the Republican party. This is not sustainable. The Democrat party is in a death spiral. Their will be no blue wave. After the midterms saner heads in the Democrat party will want to discuss accommodating some of the blue collar voters' concerns. They will not prevail. The radicals, who have been thoroughly indoctrinated in college, will prevail. The Democrat party will continue to move well to the left of the American public. Frustration on the left will give rise to more political violence.

bbkingfish said...

How old is Paul Theroux?

I have no idea, but it seems to me he's been around a long, long time.

If he's as old as I think he might be, it's very possible that he is part of the WPP's target audience for fear-mongering about immigrant "invasions" and Ebola.

So it might not be all that surprising that Theroux is swayed by this year's election "messaging" from the right.

JackWayne said...

Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Fernandinande said...

Won't someone think of Mitochondrial Eve? (not her real name).

gahrie said...

I'm still waiting for someone to explain what 40 years of having a federal Department of Education with a $68 billion budget has done to improve the preparation of students.

Not a damn thing. In fact you can easily argue that it has made things worse.

Bob Boyd said...

Hillary Clinton deserves a mention for losing the 2016 election.

Marcus said...

In the digital age, there is no excuse for not allowing the author of an article also write the headline or, at the very least, have input in and review over it.

Many headlines I have seen (in the liberal MSM I follow as well as conservative media) are not a good representation of the article's subject and narrative but more indicative of the editor's bias.

James K said...

“that his prior travel writings (read "the Iron Rooster") are full of sneers at the "natives". ”

In his feud with Naipaul, he referred to Naipaul’s 2nd wife as coming from some “sh****” town in Pakistan.”

viator said...

"There are many loud Trumpers, but there are shy Trumpers, too. So I distrust polls more than ever.... I discovered that many in my large and lovable and liberal-minded family, and maybe yours too, revealed themselves as shy Trumpers."

also today I noticed...
"Is Another Silent Red Wave Coming?
The latest Rasmussen Reports survey finds that 60% of Likely Democratic Voters say they are more likely to let others know how they intend to vote, this compares to 49% of Republicans and 40% of voters not affiliated with either major political party. In August 2016, 52% of Democrats were more likely to let others know how they intended to vote in the upcoming presidential election, compared to 46% of Republicans and 34% of unaffiliated voters. Some analysts before and after Donald Trump's upset victory suggested that most pollsters missed his hidden support among voters fearful of criticism who were unwilling to say where they stood."



Francisco D said...

Queen Matilda - mother of Henry II.

She actually fought against the Norman patriarchy in the 11th Century.

n.n said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
James K said...

“shy” is a polite word for “afraid for their jobs, families, and physical safety.”

n.n said...

Character (e.g. principles) before diversity. Color judgments (e.g. Jew privilege) have low information content, and are mostly sanctimonious hypocrisy.

Wages are, in part, based on cost-of-living. Tariffs serve to mitigate labor and environmental arbitrage through outsourcing. Immigration that does not exceed the rate of assimilation and integration before Planned Parenthood, mitigates collateral damage at both ends of the bridge.

William said...

That's a very idiosyncratic list. Lots of Victorian and Edwardian women I never heard of. How little we know of 19th century female cricketers and rowers......Cleopatra has inspired the most poetry. Catherine of Russia and Theodora of Byzantium had the most interesting backstories. It's hard to sell Victoria as an interesting woma. .I'm glad Sonja Heinie made the list.. She's legitimately hot. There should be at least one token hottie on the list of most influential women. I'm sure hot women have shaped a lot of history.

Howard said...

It's all about turnout and Trump is hitting that as hard as he can. The dems need to work back incrementally. The fever dream of hitting a walk-off grand slam to win the world series plays right into bone spurs tiny little hands. Dems take the house by a nose, reps pick up 1.465 senate seats

Bill Peschel said...

TestTube: Does the author of the article really have no say about those items?

Seems like ducking responsibility.

How does that work in journalism?

Testtube, speaking as a veteran of the copy desk, I can say that newspapers started shedding their copy desks in cost-cutting moves since roughly 2005. It really accelerated during the 2010s.

Newspapers still need people to layout pages, but they're page designers, not word people. Some chains (McClatchy and Gannett in particular) have "hubs" where people do nothing but lay out pages for several newspapers.

As a result, not only do they not have the skills to write accurate headlines, they don't have the local knowledge needed to make sure the facts are correct.

And, yes, writers have no influence on writing the headline, which usually takes place hours after the writer has gone home (and started drinking).

FIDO said...

It's of greater concern to me that the names Emmett Till and Rosa Parks are so seldom invoked; that there is so little awareness of America's tradition of dissent

This is exceptionalism bullshit. It is a former academic trying to reinforce their right to ignore norms, laws, culture, and yes civility to do what thou wilt e'en if it harm someone. See Ms. Christine 'Alzheimer's' Ford and her 'cheer squad'.

The Academy, well equipped w rationalizations, wants license to act up if they can frame it correctly.

Well, let me tell you Ms. Althouse; one need only look at almost ANY of our campuses and we can see current and alarming examples of dissent.

Why do you think you only value rebels and malcontents as an Academic? Is that the best lesson for the unwise, the untaught, and the immature?

Society has responded to this and said 'no'. Your side has abused this horribly.

iowan2 said...

I'm still waiting for someone to explain what 40 years of having a federal Department of Education with a $68 billion budget has done to improve the preparation of students.

This one drives me to distraction. Not a single $ of federal money spent on education has helped educate a single person. In fact it is worse. President Johnson promised, as a part of his 'Great Society' program to make the education system in the US as the envy of the world. Whats wrong with that statement, was that when he made the statement, the US was the envy of the world.
The education machine is a raw failure. I can't see a single thing that is better today than when Johnson was President. The Educational machine is self directed. The very best educated, in education, set the standard and create the process. Colleges with dozens of people with Doctorates in Education, create and implement the educational process, from early childhood development, through Doctorates in "Queer females in quantum dysphoria"
The education establishment gets everything they ask for, teach what they want to teach the way they want to teach it, and we end up with 20 somethings that don't know how to register to vote. Which is bad, but they lack the skill set to learn how to register to vote.
We are supposed to bow to these masters before us, shutup, and do as we are told.

Yancey Ward said...

There were clearly "shy" Trump supporters in 2016- you saw this in almost every single state poll taken in 2016- in almost every single state Trump outperformed the polling by 5% or more. I think today that effect is even greater in regards to Trump the individual, but I have yet to see it proven for the candidates running for Representative and Senator next week. It is true that Republican candidates for the House have regularly outperformed the generic polls for over two decades now, and so have the Senate candidates in most elections, but I don't know if that shyness for such candidates is growing. I suspect it is.

If I look at the polls, I would predict that Republicans add two seats to their majority in the Senate, and the House ends with one party or the other winning by a couple of seats. However, I think the polling will be catastrophically off- either the Democrats win 50-60 House seats and the Senate, too, or the Republicans lose less than 12 seats and have 55 Senators come next week. I don't think a split decision is in the cards.

Yancey Ward said...

When it takes a pollster 30,000 contacts to get 700 responses, polling might well be useless. You can't even be sure in such a survey that the 700 responses are honest people with regards to taking a poll any longer because they are such outliers to the broad population by that one amazing metric. To give you an example, I answered a poll on Monday just for the fun of it since I have been called at least 10 times since late September- I made the opposite answer to every single question just because it amused me. I think, from the questions asked, that it was an internal poll conducted by the Bredesen/Dean Campaign here in TN, or at least by someone supporting the Democrats here. The questions were modestly disparaging towards the opponents Blackburn/Lee- in other words, they were focused on issues on which Bredesen and Dear are clearly running- things like healthcare- in particular, a question about taking the Medicaid expansion here in TN which Dean has been running on from the beginning.

buwaya said...

iowan2 is entirely correct.

Educational culture, policy, content, and methods are imposed top-down by a semi-formal system with everything coming from the elite universities. The various governments provide funding, and nothing else of consequence.

And US education on the whole has not improved one bit after massive increases in both public and private spending over the last forty years. It is in fact one of the more shameful failures of American culture, a total disaster.

Oso Negro said...

@Buwaya - I would say US education on the whole has demonstrably declined

Qwinn said...

I've been calling minimum 57 Senate seats for the GOP for 18 months now on this blog. Even odds of 61-62. I stand by my prediction.

No call for the House other than we keep it.

Qwinn said...

I will throw in the caveat that I think the level of voter fraud the Dems will.engage in this year could well surpass anything we've seen before. I also, however, think that we're in the best position to catch them at it than we have been as well.

Phil 314 said...

Theroux is an "independent"

tcrosse said...

Theroux is an "independent"

The "x" is silent.

JaimeRoberto said...

"It's of greater concern to me ... that there is so little awareness...of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s hope to live in a nation where people 'will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.'"

I agree with this, but it's mostly the Dems who have so little awareness of this, at least during the 364 days a year that aren't MLK Day. I don't see how you can reconcile identity politics with MLK's words.

buwaya said...

MLK said what he thought would go over well at the time.
What his "hopes" were, or rather his ultimate intentions, were not necessarily what he was saying.

In that sense I agree with the modern left-wing objection to the use of these words.
They are not holy writ but the remnants of one flawed mans' long-ago rhetorical maneuver.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

The "x" is silent.

Theroux go again

RI Red said...

Therouxis apparently unaware that President Trump negotiated the "new NAFTA" deal which raises the base wage (in automotive plants now; others soon to follow) to $40 an hour. In Mexico. He needs to pay better attention to what is actually going on.

FIDO said...

It is telling that Ms. Althouse has since amended her own post by removing the most egregiously stupid, unreflective, or dishonest comment I have yet read here: that our youth have no idea about our 'tradition of dissent' like St. Rosa Parks.

It seems she has missed essentially every single news story for the last 18 years, which has been a constant circus of protestors screaming at Republicans.

Yeah...our kids have NO idea about our 'tradition of dissent'. (rolls eyes)


Kirk Parker said...

Kesanh,

Nah, Catherine was just horsing around.

Bay Area Guy said...

Here's my second favorite law professor, Laurence Tribe, on Twitter today:

"PLEA TO GREEN PARTY CANDIDATES EVERYWHERE:

Please consider dropping out and endorsing the Democrat in your race — unless you truly believe your environmental values would be better served by leaving an unchecked Trump to despoil our green earth"

Tribe was specifically referring to Sinema in Arizona.

Memo to the politically non-astute Larry Tribe:

If you're tweeting to beg 3rd Party candidates to drop out 3 DAYS before the election, in an era of EARLY voting, where 30-40% of votes have already been cast, it means 2 things:

1. You saw polling data in Arizona you didn't like; and
2. McSally will win

Have a nice day, Larry!

Robert Cook said...

"One time when I corresponded with an article's author, she acted like she had no responsibility for a deceptive headline and a deceptive headline photo (whatever they call that thing is at the top of the article on the web page). Does the author of the article really have no say about those items?

"Seems like ducking responsibility.

"How does that work in journalism?"


Journalists file their stories. Editors decide where and how to place it in the paper. They draft headlines to draw attention to the article (or to divert attention if they don't want the article to attract attention), and the writer of the article may have nothing to do with the headline.

Robert Cook said...

"Newspaper copy editing is over. So is basic grammar. In a WSJ letter to the editor last week a college instructor said she spent the first two weeks of a journalism course explaining to COLLEGE STUDENTS the differences among 'their,' 'there' and 'they're.'
I'm still waiting for someone to explain what 40 years of having a federal Department of Education with a $68 billion budget has done to improve the preparation of students."


I hope she also taught them that "of" and "have" are two entirely different words.

Recent generations are becoming increasingly post-literate. My generation (and the one before mine) grew up with television. The generations after mine have grown up with computers, email, texting, and now smartphone and smart tablets. They don't read.

wildswan said...

I'm sure there are shy Trumpers but if they live in red states, sometimes they are vocal shy Trumpers. That is, it is fashionable in some states or areas to be a shy Trumper and either to lie to a pollster or else to hang up on one. Then get on the phone, yes the phone, and discuss the triumph with loved ones. I am quite jealous of my relatives' victories and have been meditating strategies to count coup in the matter. To pace before the Democratic party HQ until they try to poll me. To phone into Charlie Sykes if he is still on the air and proclaim my undying support for Hillary in 2020 (and that's no lie.) All futile, because I'm too lazy to work on elaborating a lie.

wildswan said...

I think a young person is risking their career today if they let out today that they support Trump but is risking their career tomorrow if they attack Trump today. How they should thread the needle? - I wonder.
PS The most important woman was Emily Dickinson who takes up ten places from 1 to 10. She said:

"I taste a liquor never brewed -
From Tankards scooped in Pearl -
Not all the Frankfort Berries
Yield such an Alcohol!

Inebriate of air - am I -
And Debauchee of Dew -
Reeling - thro' endless summer days -
From inns of molten Blue -

When "Landlords" turn the drunken Bee
Out of the Foxglove's door -
When Butterflies - renounce their "drams" -
I shall but drink the more!

Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats -
And Saints - to windows run -
To see the little Tippler
Leaning against the - Sun!"

This may be the way to go.

n.n said...

PLEA TO GREEN PARTY CANDIDATES EVERYWHERE

We must keep the bridges to global dump sites open, and popular and academic obfuscation renewable, in order to progress the "green" illusion. We must maintain abortion rites in order to keep our lawns and air clean and free of unwanted carbon-based products.

Big Mike said...

Assuming that the American economy continues to boom, we are going to need more immigrants to work the jobs that are being created. We are going to desperately need some sort of guest worker program, and sooner rather than later, as well as increased immigration quotas.

From where I sit right now the way we are doing it, with wink-wink, nudge-nudge at illegal border crossings is insane. We need to control our immigration, make certain that taxes are properly collected, and avoid giving citizenship, even de facto citizenship, to people who have little or no interest in becoming US citizens and assimilating into our culture.

rcocean said...

THere's no reason to believe the economy is not to slow down, historically we're due for one.

As for needing "More Immigrants" - can you even tell me how many immigrants we get every year and how many of the workers?

I doubt it.

rcocean said...

We've let in 40 immigrants in the last 25 years. Yet Farmers are always crying about the need for more farm workers. According to the Census there aren't more than 1 million farm workers in the Whole USA.

Maybe Farmers need another approach.

Big Mike said...

@rcocean, that's why you institute a guest worker program.

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Bob said...

One of Theroux's more recent travel books was Deep South: Four Seasons on Back Roads, in which Theroux hung out with (and liked) southern blacks and hung out with (and mostly disliked) southern whites, so he's probably more informed on shy Trump voters than most Althouse readers are. I doubt, also, that he is including himself among those of his family members (his family is quite large, and included Gennifer Anniston by marriage until recently) that he describes as shy Trumpers - - he's been a Yellow Dog Democrat his entire life and isn't likely to change as he nears his eighties.

And, unless he's made recent changes, he doesn't live in Mexico, but winters in Hawaii and summers on Cape Cod, both of which are deep blue states.