Bob Somerby takes me to task today for posting a clip of Donald Trump that he says is grossly misleading and dishonest. I don't agree. The Biden campaign's snarky summary is fairly conventional Twitter abridgment and the video is right there for anyone who wants more. It wouldn't pass muster in a PhD dissertation, but it's fairly unremarkable in the context of a quick hit in a political campaign.
But agree to disagree! What I'm really curious about is Bob's response to Trump's declaration that we've become a pitiful country that can't solve even the smallest problem:
Just with regard to that one state of affairs, who can doubt the accuracy of what Trump said? Who can doubt the accuracy of the claim that we have become a nation that can't solve the simplest problem?
Of course we've become a nation which can't solve the smallest problem! It isn't perfectly easy to dole out blame for that situation, but the accuracy of the basic statement is blindingly obvious.
....We have become a small, pitiful nation "which is incapable of solving even the smallest problem." Everybody knows that's true—and in our view, a lot of that stems from our blue tribe's unintelligent behavior over the past many years, though your assessments may differ.
Huh? The United States, despite polarized politics and one major party that's all but insane, has been cruising along and solving problems at a remarkable clip for the past couple of decades. We've passed tax cuts, bankruptcy reform, Obamacare, financial reform, and an infrastructure act. We created and distributed a COVID-19 vaccine in less than a year and made it through the pandemic in better shape than nearly all our peer countries. We invented modern AI and we dominate the tech world. Our economy is the most vigorous on the planet. We've slashed crime, teen pregnancies, cigarette smoking, cancer deaths, air and water pollution, and HIV. Our educational system is one of the best.
Are there problems we haven't solved? Of course.¹ But there always are. Contrary to the mass depression that seems to have settled over so many of us, neither the US nor the world are undergoing a "polycrisis"—one of the most fatuous notions I've heard in a long time. In fact, the world is in remarkably calm and resilient shape, but only if you take your head out of the sand long enough to recall what things were like in the recent past.
Just stop it.
¹Fentanyl, illegal immigration, climate change, mass shootings, persistent deficits, racism, Fox News, obesity, falling fertility, social media disinformation, poor life expectancy, the Black-white educational gap, aquifer deterioration, housing shortages, pickleball beefs, mass incarceration, delusional conspiracy theorizing, student debt, Donald Trump, door plugs popping off of airplanes, and kids these days. Feel free to add to this list.
1. I note that he asserts his point three times, with phrases like "blindingly obvious" and "everybody knows it's true" without providing any evidence, or even suggesting a metric we might use. Because....
2. The obvious metric would be to look at other countries, who have solved some of these problems, and measure ourselves against them. In terms of major issues, I can only think of 2 that other countries do significantly better than we do: first, gun violence; second, providing healthcare to all citizens. So...
3. ... when it comes to big issues, it would seem that the American right is the obstacle. If we are comparing the US to other countries, in fact, it can't be the left's fault because uniquely among advanced democracies, America has no left-wing political party. Which might be the real reason we don't solve any problems, except...
4. I suspect Somerby's list of problems is very different from mine. I would have things like disinformation, corporate influence over the political process, inequality, the inability to tackle racism, growing intolerance of LGBTQ people, failing to provide a warm welcome to refugees, the denial of basic healthcare to pregnant women, a weak labor movement, and Christo-fascism right at the top of my list of problems that need solving.
I bet none of them are even concerns for Somerby who probably thinks "woke" college campuses are a problem.
Great comment.
I gave up reading Somerby a few years ago. What seemed at first to be a quirky commentary morphed into wearisome, cranky, tedious snark. He's not funny or clever and I struggle to figure out why I (or Kevin) should care about his posts. He's just sad.
Everybody knows that confirmation bias is real! It's blindingly obvious!
And yet...
Can't believe you forgot to take credit for the reduction of lead in drinking water.
Friends don't let friends read Somerby's nonesense.
Tax cuts, financial reform and bankrupcty reform? Lol, that is now the low bar of problem solving?
Oh goodness. Set the bar low enough and everyone gets over it. Lol, bankrupcty reform and tax cuts. Lol.
Please attend the closest LOL Anonymous meeting.
I wonder why tax cuts are on Kevin's list of solutions. What problem exactly do they solve? I would have said they are one of the problems we have not solved (not the fault of the blue tribe...). Also: Which is the problem we solve with AI? Isn't AI a problem, caused by out of control tech entrepreneurs, aka perennial teenagers, that we will have to try to solve?
It strikes me that the solved problems on Kevin's list are solved either by the private sector (COVID vaccine, technological solutions is general) or else by Democrats against massive resistance from the GOP. Plus the main unsolved problem right now, immigration, is unsolved only because the GOP needs the problem for its demagoguery.
I stopped reading Somerby around the time Bartcop died. All he ever does is drone on and on about how the media failed Al Gore and test scores. Tedious to say the least. About once a year I check the site to see if he's changed any. Nope!
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