As regular readers know, the maternal mortality figures reported by the CDC are completely wrong. We know this because the CDC itself has acknowledged it. A careful check of the numbers several years ago revealed that, in fact, maternal mortality has been stable for decades.
It's scandalous that the CDC hasn't updated its methodology and instead continues to report incorrect numbers. But Noah Smith points out today that this might not be mere incompetence. He quotes Jerusalem Demsas writing in the Atlantic:
Christopher M. Zahn, the interim CEO of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, wrote a lengthy statement in response, arguing that “reducing the U.S. maternal mortality crisis to ‘overestimation’” is “irresponsible and minimizes the many lives lost and the families that have been deeply affected.” Why? Because it “would be an unfortunate setback to see all the hard work of health care professionals, policy makers, patient advocates, and other stakeholders be undermined.” Rather than pointing out any major methodological flaw in the paper, Zahn’s statement expresses the concern that it could undermine the…goal of improving maternal health.
In other words, we need to maintain an air of crisis—even if it's bogus—in order to keep attention focused on reducing maternal mortality.
Noah writes about this primarily from the perspective that scientists are misleading us in order to keep funding and attention high for the programs they work on. And that's true. But I think the broader effect is more insidious.
Why do so many people think that things in the US are far worse than they really are? A big part of the reason is that it's not just individual scientists who are manipulating data to protect their own fiefdoms. On the left, practically the entire think tank industry is dedicated to doomsaying in order to keep the public focused generally on the need for stronger social programs.
We need an eviction crisis to maintain focus on the homeless. We need a safety net crisis to maintain focus on the poor. We need an incarceration crisis to maintain focus on racism. We need a wage crisis to maintain focus on the working class. We need an education crisis to maintain focus on the children. We need a police shooting crisis to maintain focus on social justice. We need a jobs crisis among the young to maintain focus on Gen Z. We need a democracy crisis to maintain focus on Donald Trump. We need a tuition crisis to maintain focus on higher education. We need a lead crisis in Flint to maintain focus on Black people. We need a pandemic education crisis to maintain focus on in-person learning. We need a cyberbullying crisis to maintain focus on the ills of social media.
Never mind that there is no eviction crisis. Never mind that social spending has skyrocketed over the past few decades. Never mind that incarceration rates among all races have been falling for over a decade. Never mind that the debate over flat wages is way out of date. Household earnings have increased 0.6% a year for the past 20 years and 1.4% a year for the past decade.¹ Never mind that test data suggests American children are actually doing pretty well. Never mind that police shootings of unarmed suspects—of all races—have plummeted over the past decade. Never mind that Gen Z is doing fine, both on the employment front and elsewhere. Never mind that democracy in the US is in excellent shape, both before and after the Trump era. Never mind that university tuition hasn't actually risen more than a smidgen over the past several decades. Never mind that the kids in Flint are fine. Never mind that pandemic learning losses seem to have nothing to do with remote learning. Never mind that cyberbullying hasn't increased and social media has mostly positive influences on teens.
Needless to say, conservatives do the same thing: They cherry pick statistics to "prove" dubious points that are politically convenient. But generally speaking they use anecdotal outrage to keep their audience motivated. Lefties use an endless barrage of social crises.
What this means is that both sides are in a relentless battle to paint America as a hellscape. Is it any wonder, then, that so many people think America is a hellscape?
This is a particularly bad strategy for progressives. When people are frightened and scared, they tend to vote for conservatives. That's why scaring people is a core part of movement conservatism. Conversely, people tend to be more generous and open-minded when they feel good. In the long run, an endless cascade of crises isn't good for the progressive cause, and that's especially true when the crises aren't even real. At the very least, we need to focus on real crises—fentanyl, climate change, Black schoolchildren—and spend a lot less time on the fake ones.
¹Yes, this is adjusted for inflation.
Until my spouse finds a job (1 more week of unemployment) there is a fucking job crisis. Do you want to hire my spouse?
It's umm, just an extended leave or a furlough...
My spouse is doing that as well.
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Kevin has been misrepresenting the CDC pregnancy death topic for a while now. Misrepresenting data and mistaking your own opinion for data in order to yell at the liberals for making too much noise.....very original take here.
How is he misrepresenting the data? He's calling out the CDC for misrepresenting their own data.
Ugh, who wants to agree with the pro-genocide, pro-murder commenter?
Weren't you just here a couple weeks ago approving of a guy who drove his car into a crowded sidewalk, then shot and killed those who complained?
And weeks before that, told us about how it's perfectly fine for women to have their lives and health imperiled when pregnancies don't go according to plan?
Quit the harassment, @Crissa. It is tedious and based on at least one misrepresentation of the person's opinions.
Re: "democracy in the US is in excellent shape"
I won't believe that unless Trump loses this November.
It will need to be a large margin to justify "excellent". If it is a modest margin, it will still be pretty losuy shape.
If he wins, there will not be a democracy at all in the US.
This is dumb. Erdogan and Modi suffered serious setbacks. Poland's party lost outright. Even Putin had to do years of work to get to that point. Its the end full stop if Trump wins.
None of these as narcissistic as Trump, and except Putin they didn't have the intention of terminating democracy.
Putin already terminated democracy by the end of the his first term in 2004. No serious challanger was alowed to run against him.
While there are some things about American democracy that aren't great, the things that suck the most (like the electoral college and the disproportionate representation of the Senate) are not at all new.
In recent years we've seen a lot of positive changes to improve the ease of voting.
And, for all his trying, Trump failed to stop votes from counting in multiple states. This was too dependent on the individual ethical behavior of a handful of people, but it is a sign of the endurance of Democracy.
There's no "disproportionate" representation in the Senate. Each is equally represented. It's not the House and it shouldn't be.
+10
Oh yes, the old argument that it isn't bad that the Senate is undemocratic, because the people who drafted the Constitution made the Senate undemocratic (as part of a compromise with small-staters who wanted more power and would have withheld their support otherwise over two centuries ago).
Meanwhile, the each of the 584,000 residents of Wyoming have 67 times as much representation in the Senate as the 39 million residents of California (and infinitely more than the 680,000 residents of the District of Columbia).
But yeah, it's important to keep things that way because otherwise the entity "Wyoming" would start to cry or something.
How about the argument that the American people are indeed too stupid to be trusted as you can see if you look at the House.
Haven't heard of the House of Representatives, huh?
+1
I don't think someone whose preferred policies increase maternal mortality should weigh in the comments of this article.
-10
That is bullshit.
It was gerrymandering from the get go.
Little Crissa is sad and upset again.
Each state is equally represented in the Senate, and that's an increasingly obviously bad design for a government. Just clarifying.
Each STATE is equally represented but because of huge disparities in the population of each STATE the average CITIZEN in Wyoming is wildly overrepresented compared to CITIZENS in more populous states like California. In the 1790 census Virginia was roughly 12 and 1/2 times larger than it's near neighbor Delaware. In the last census California was nearly 70 times larger thatn Wyoming. I think this imbalance contributes to the sense of grievance and entitlement that folks in small states have because they still have this piece of an undemocratic system to hang onto instead of recognizing the need to accommodate the dynamics of the modern world.
That's why we have the House, smart guy.
There's no "disproportionate" representation in the Senate. Each is equally represented. It's not the House and it shouldn't be.
C'mon, man! Of course there's disproportionate representation in the Senate. If you're going to be pedantic at least do so with a modicum of coherence! Pretty clearly, one senator for 19.2 million persons (California) compared to one senator for 280k persons (Wyoming) is is a form of disproportionality.
I personally don't have a big problem with this state of affairs. The problematic part in my view is that Congress's two chambers have fully equal powers (indeed, the Senate is arguably the more powerful chamber, eg treaty ratifications).
A non-population apportioned Senate is fine if it merely has the power to delay or amend legislation, in keeping with other high income democracies. Our Senate's powers go well beyond what is healthy.
The mere fact that Trump will have been the GOP nominee three cycles in a row, instead of being drummed out of the party in 2015, is all by itself a sign that American democracy is in terrible shape.
Somehow I don't see them turning to Republicans to figure out climate change. But then again, I guess the majority of Americans are honestly not all that frightened by climate change except the folks who post comments on liberal blogs and websites.
I spent two weeks in a tent in 2020 because of climate change and I'm pretty sure it can happen again.
And still, there will be people out there who don't see it as climate change.
To me, this is just a consequence of basic facts about human beings.
One such fact, which is very relevant to this discussion, is that human beings in general put three times as much weight to bad news as to good news.
That is to say, in rough terms, losing a dollar makes one feel about as bad as gaining 3 dollars makes one feel good. That's more or less the balance point.
And so, we see pretty much everyone in the mass persuasion business selling doom and disaster. Stoking fears, because they motivate people a lot more strongly that hopes and aspirations do.
I don't know that I like this, but I accept it. It's a fact of humanity. It probably has been overall beneficial to us.
It may be a fact but it is almost certainly not "beneficial" to a modern society to have people make decisions based on severe irrationality, especially in an age when people are easier to manipulate than ever.
The environmental community has become a hotbed for bad science (or science interpretation). No one is going to write checks if things are going ok.
Drum hilariously doesn't mention the bogus climate crisis where only 5% of thousands of climate scientists polled predict the possibility of a crisis by 2100.
Links? Evidence?
If they did that, then they might be faced with their argument being called dishonest.
Inversion trolling? It's not original, nor believable.
It really doesn't matther WHEN climate tips into runaway mode, unless you enjoy contemplating the death by starvation or heat stroke of your descendants.
So you're either being dishonest or just really stupid, I can't tell.
Amen! The first time I saw proof of this was on the Editorial page of Science magazine many years ago talking about AIDS and whether to tell the truth or scare people. They were talking about how AIDS was transmitted. I couldn't believe that scientists would argue that it was a good idea to exaggerate or even lie in order to convince people that they were at risk for any sexual act, rather than warn them off the most dangerous pathways.
That made it even harder to trust the scientific establishment when COVID came along.
Is there any wonder that some of us don't trust Mr. "I am Science?"
What are you talking about.
"Why do so many people think that things in the US are far worse than they really are?"
It's the rightist propaganda, stupid. Leftist complaining about all sorts of thing is pretty much a constant. Of course there are interest groups that warn about certain things, such as mental-health professional saying that people are not getting enough professional attention. People in social work have always pointed out how bad things are in many areas - it's their job and they have always done it.
But people are not saying that inflation is at 50% or that the country will explode if Biden gets another term because of anything that leftists do. In many ways the attitude on the right, which seems to have spilled over into the middle, is completely detached from reality. This is a result of bald-faced lying by Trump and the politicians and media who back him up, and also the MSM giving equal space to lies as to truth.
Kevin himself usually gives credit to Fox News for the attitude on the right, so why is he now determined to try to blame the left? Calling on the left to shut up about real economic and social problems is not going to cause swing voters to turn away from Trump. The grievance of the right is that they're actually losing their White Christian Tribal dominance - this is not a matter of rhetoric on the left.
Hooray for the status quo. I think this should be the democratic platform. We won't change a thing!
Kevin, the fact that we have a homeless problem does show we have an eviction crisis. The fact that maternal mortality has racial and regional bias is a crisis. The fact that the employment we do have doesn't have a future or a pension plan is a crisis. And cyber bullying is a crisis because we refuse to actually do anything about it, those targeted are just told to shut up and accept their ruined lives.
And the climate is not getting better.
Just because it hasn't changed at an inflection point doesn't mean it's not a problem.
Kevin said "At the very least, we need to focus on real crises—fentanyl, climate change, Black schoolchildren—and spend a lot less time on the fake ones".
In terms of Black schoolchildren, I think (hope) he means performance disparities. But I think these numbers should be adjusted by socioeconomic status.
I saw a morbidly obese woman with a dog sitting in what was probably a wheel chair at an intersection yesterday. She held up a cardboard sign saying she was homeless. It could be, I suppose. But this person was unemployable regardless. So it’s really not a homeless problem as much as it is that the economic system has no use for this woman.
I have rarely seen a scientist rave like a maniac. It is the Press and its various media outlets that do that - constantly. Clicked by politicians and low information automatons it becomes a crisis. We saw this BEFORE the internet, think welfare queens, the government is the problem, Daisy Girl.
Now normalization of deviance in any community and its cousin institutional inertia are things we should worry about, but it our reactions that cause the problems. IMO it's a miscommunication (sender and receiver) of information because of the inability to understand the information on the public's (and media's) side and the blasted human trait of refusing to acknowledge fault and mistake on the originator's side.
Today is a deluxe mega-edition of "That Thing You're Worried About? It Doesn't Bother Me, Kevin Drum, The Smartest Guy on the Internet" (longer title for bigger splash).
"Noah writes about this primarily from the perspective that scientists are misleading us in order to keep funding and attention high for the programs they work on. And that's true. "
No it isn't.
Those are suits, not scientists. They have degrees in project management and human resources.
If your job is advocate, you are not a scientist.
Ok, let's admit: Maternal mortality is not the huge problem that we believed it was. All the many other problems don't just go away because of this.
Ideally we would prioritize the biggest ones: Climate change, climate change and climate change.
But being human we are most bothered by the stuff that is immediately inflicting annoyance on us. And, seriously: "everything is just fine, let's be happy" is not a very effective political message either.
I have no doubt Kevin will get a great deal of pushback on this, but this is an enormously salient point. If we continue to act as if none of the programs around social and economic justice instituted since the 1930s has had any appreciable benefit, than why would anyone continue to favor such programs going forward? Indeed, if poverty, racism, sexism, etc., are as bad today than they were X years ago, why not roll back those programs? Progressives and liberals constantly undercut their messaging by refusing to acknowledge that, while more work needs to be done, the world is a significantly better place than it was decades ago, which scholars like Steven Pinker and Steven Radelet have more than adequately demonstrated. Alarm gets peoples' attention, but hope and confidence are what ultimately achieve change.
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