Paul Waldman in the Plum Line makes a very reasonable argument as to why the US-Iran deal won’t be overturned even if the Republicans win the White House in 2017. It is a good argument grounded in reality, practicality, institutional design, economics and diplomacy. It makes sense. However there is one line in the article that sticks in my craw:
That’s a plan so stupid that it’s hard to imagine even the current GOP presidential candidates carrying it out.
The incentive structure for members of the Republican Party is to compete to out-stupid each other. Collectively this may or may not be the optimal incentive for the party as a whole, but that is the individual level incentive.
Don’t bet against extremely dumb beating out somewhat stupid.
Open thread
Gimlet
Open Thread News
Not since the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki nearly 70 years ago has the world been closer to the use of nuclear weapons, former Vice President Dick Cheney told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Tuesday night.
NonyNony
I think the thing that worries me a bit is the part that Waldman suggests before the pull quote you showed – that really the US dropping out of this affects no one but us. The next Republican president could “drop out” of the deal, remove our portion of the inspectors and reimpose unilateral sanctions. And it wouldn’t do anything because the rest of the world will ignore us and continue to work with Iran. Our Corporate Overlords wouldn’t really care about that – they could work through European subsidiaries to sell into the Iranian market all they wanted – but we would lose all of the benefits of an actual detente where the citizens of both countries trade directly with each other and gradually make it more costly to go to war than to just suck it up and accept that the other guys are different.
So essentially where Waldman sees no reason for the next GOPer President to torpedo this agreement, I actually see no reason for the next GOPer President NOT to torpedo it. Unless the next GOPer President is 8-12 years down the line and the US Chamber of Commerce has enough members directly trading with Iran to stop them.
NCSteve
Right?
Mustang Bobby
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.” – Albert Einstein.
cahuenga
It is a good argument grounded in reality
Hah!
Whose reality?
Jeremy
People forget that this will get passed through the UN Security Council which will make it a binding International agreement. It will be really hard for the next president to go back on this agreement. Members of the UN security council are bound to comply with resolutions based on the UN charter. Like I said yesterday they can whine all they want but this is a done deal. The only chance they had was hoping the negotiations failed.
Jerry
See also: Cleek’s Law.
dmsilev
This of course follows from the well-known axiom that Peak Wingnut is a Lie.
Tommy
When I first moved to DC this lady at work befriended me. I didn’t know a single soul. Took me into her house like if I was her kid or younger brother.
Her husband was taken hostage by Iran during the Hostage Crisis. State Department. Smoking pot and lots of wine in their backyard I asked him many times about what happened and he would not talk about it. Not a single word.
That we have a “deal” with Iran on anything make me both happy and think back to that backyard in Fall Church.
Capri
It’s very possible that in 8-12 years, the US will have moved on and forgotten about this deal except in a vague way, making any candidate who brings it up look hopelessly out of touch.
Remember the South Ossetia/Georgian/Russia issues during the McCain/Obama campaign? The GOP tried to use this as a way of re-igniting the cold war along with a bunch of hawkish statements by McCain to demonstrate his serious international cred. . The rest of the country went “meh”
NorthLeft12
A 94 year old Nazi accountant was convicted for accessory to murder for his part in the operation of a concentration camp in WW2. He was sentenced to four years in prison.
Why bring it up? Because Gimlet brought up the fact that the odious Dick Cheney is still walking around in public and spewing his insanity on the airwaves.
Holding him accountable [and all the other leaders around the world who deserve it] for his crimes against humanity would be a great leap forward for civilization and responsible government. I would not care if he was 105 when he is charged and tried. Any acknowledgement that he committed a crime would be welcome.
NOT.HOLDING.MY.BREATH.
JCJ
@Gimlet: Nuclear weapon used by whom? Did he specify? Russia? NoKo? Or more likely Israel? Oh, I forgot. They don’t have any.
Betty Cracker
I would never count on rationality staying wingnut legislators’ hands, but the urge to move on to the next shiny object and avoid incurring the wrath of voters might. They’ll oppose anything President Obama does because Obama, and they’ll rail against anything Hillary Rodham Clinton does because Clinton. But if one of their own gets in the White House (FSM forbid!), the movement to overturn the agreement might lose the majority of its steam for want of a boogeyman.
debbie
I just listened to Scott Walker on Glenn Beck’s show pledging the cancel the Iran deal his first morning in office, followed by a repeal of ACA that afternoon.
So, yes, extremely dumb is a certainty.
benw
@NonyNony: I agree with you and disagree with Waldman’s argument. In fact, the most recent R administration did stupidly walk away from international sanctions, allowing North Korea to accelerate their weapons program: with only some bluster about Evil as cover. Then they launched a stupid war and lied about it. And the Neocons running the joint then were competent and experienced compared to the current R bunch. War with Iran is the goal, not an unintended consequence of R stupidity.
shell
@Gimlet:
Gah, why does anybody give that animated corpse Cheney any attention…
Tommy
@NorthLeft12: Can I say this artfully?
You can be a 100-year-old Nazi and we’re still looking for you fuckers! I’d hope something people are computing that want to harm others ……
Jeffro
@debbie: That’s outstanding. It must be awesome to be a Republican and go full-throttle Cleek’s Law all of the time without ever having to engage in a moment of thought. I think it’s just a variation of their childlike need for certainty (no matter how wrong that certainty makes them).
Amir Khalid
Donald Trump makes yet another dubious claim.
beltane
@debbie: Perhaps we should be grateful that repeal of the ACA has lost some of its urgency among wingnuts. Today it has moved down to #2 on the list, tomorrow it will be forgotten altogether.
debbie
@beltane:
Yes, forgotten as soon as a squirrel scampers by the picture window.
@Amir Khalid:
Trump, Always the King Maker: “If I say ‘go to my wedding,’ they go to my wedding.”
Roger Moore
@Jeremy:
ITYM “trying to sabotage the negotiations”, because they went far beyond passively hoping for failure.
Punchy
@Tommy: If both pot and wine wont open his craw, good lord something bad must have happened. Usually that combo would get someone to admit a goat sex fetish or cop to 4 unresolved homicides from the 70’s.
Jeremy
You also can’t compare this agreement to the Clinton administration making a deal with North Korea on nuclear weapons. This agreement is not even comparable to that one (for many reasons) because the deal only involved the U.S, South Korea, and Japan. It did not involve the other major world powers like the EU (UK, France, Germany), China, and Russia. It wasn’t a binding International agreement that was voted on by the UN security council.
Amir Khalid
@Roger Moore:
Does that childish letter from Tom Cotton and 46 of his friends count as a serious attempt to sabotage the negotiations? I suppose it does, as laughable as it was.
boatboy_srq
@Betty Cracker: The only concern I have is that personal/party agendas have a way of becoming policy. GWB’s disastrous tax cut (despite resistance from old-school fiscal conservatives who really did want to reduce the debt) was a campaign-promise-turned-policy item which, coupled with the dot-bomb, the first “jobless recovery” and the sudden massive extrabudgetary GWoT expenditures, did significant damage. Negotiations with DPRK were summarily halted, even before the Axis of Evil speech. There’s “repairing the damage”, and there’s renouncing the entirety of the BHP Presidency just because TABMITWH – and it looks an awful lot like the GOTea is campaigning on the latter, and “voters” (as opposed to campaign funding sources) can always get shown a new Shiny Object while the sleight-of-hand happens on the policies their attention is drawn away from noticing.
cmorenc
@Richard Mayhew:
Let’s not forget that it’s highly likely that any incoming GOP administration in 2017 is going to include John Bolton is a key position, Bolton is truly weapons-grade stupid and arrogant enough to work full-time to find ways to fuck up implementation of the agreement and ignite a war with Iran, assisted by the vastly more influential role Bibbi Netanyahu will have. Recall that the Bush Administration spun up a war with Iraq around nothing but outright lies, and in defiance of the same European powers you’re counting on to have enough sway to make any US attempt to do an about-face on the deal irrelevant.
BTW: I really do hope you’re right and I’m wrong about this.
Tommy
@Punchy:
He was one of the hostages taken and held in Iran. Thought I made that clear.
Peale
@Gimlet: Let’s see. MacArthur pushing to drop bombs in Korea and China? The Cuban Missile thingy? The Drop the Bomb on Vietnam idea? I think there may be a certain leader of a certain “ally” that would like us to drop a bomb on Tehran on its behalf, but outside of that, who are they actually scared of this time?
Jeremy
@Roger Moore: That’s true.
Amir Khalid
@debbie:
Being such a little man, Trump must feel a need to convince people that he can boss anyone around, even the Clintons.
Gimlet
Anyone know what part of it has to go through Congressional approval?
gene108
@benw:
The Neocons will be running the joint in any future Republican administration.
Is there anyone, in the Republican foreign policy brain trust who did not sign onto Bush, Jr.’s Iraq War? And who has not embraced the Neocon world view?
Basically I do not think it is possible to be a Republican foreign policy wonk and not be a Neocon. The two are right now inseparable.
Jeremy
@cmorenc: I think the major difference is that the entire European community is behind this agreement unlike Iraq war II where the UK supported Bush’s war. Also Iran is way more powerful than Iraq was and if a conflict were to erupt there it could lead to chaos that would make the Iraq war II look like a joke.
Chris
The key paragraph from the article:
Okay.
First of all, why would a future Republican president want to keep tabs on their nuclear program? The Republican line is going to be “Iran is secretly building a nuke because they’re shifty genocidal Muslims and that’s what they do” no matter what the inspectors find or don’t find – we saw how this worked in the run-up to the Iraq War. The idea that keeping an inspections regime in place is enough to convince Republicans is very dubious to me. Inspectors are just another group of people that might contradict you by reporting the facts whether or not they suit your agenda.
Second of all, yes, of course American sanctions in and of themselves would have no impact. But so what? We’ve already seen this played out in Cuba, where for fifty years the entire world was trading with the island but right wing pressure ensured that the U.S. remained firmly and obstinately behind a totally ineffective embargo. “It’s a matter of principle,” doncha know. Cuba is evil and we don’t talk to evil. Iran? Same thing.
Republicans are not interested in making things work. Republicans are interested in pointless bluster and throwing a ton of red meat to their base, which laps that kind of thing up. I find the idea of the U.S. sinking this deal if a Republican gets back in charge extremely plausible. Yes, it would do absolutely nothing to help the U.S. bargaining position; worst case scenario, it might even persuade Iran to get a nuclear weapon. But so what? That exact thing happened in North Korea – did George Bush suffer politically for it, or give any sign that he cared how badly he’d fucked up? Nope. And his successors will be even crazier than he was.
Mandaslay
FFS, there is no “US-Iran deal” to be overturned. It’s a deal between Iran and USA/Russia/China/UK/France/Germany. Despite the media’s best efforts, this isn’t all about us.
As a practical matter there is nothing the United States could do to derail the agreement once it is in place as long as all the other countries remain committed. A Republican president backed by a Republican Congress could still walk away but the agreement would remain, and reneging would make us look like a toodler having a tantrum.
Chris
@benw:
The interesting thing about the neocons we had in power is that they were, as you say experienced – they were largely the same group who’d been around in the Reagan/Bush years. And yet, the same people had turned into complete fucking lunatics just in the intervening decade. The people who decided the Iraq War would be a great idea (with only 138,000 troops and no planning for the aftermath, natch) were the exact same people who only a decade earlier had talked themselves to death explaining why it wasn’t a good idea to go to Baghdad and bring down Saddam. The people who were honestly flabbergasted when the Shi’a rose up and Iran piggbacked off of their rise to power were the same people who’d decided to let the Shi’a rebellion of the early nineties get wiped out specifically because they didn’t want to empower Iran or break up Iraq.
Same people, markedly loonier than their selves from just ten years earlier.
shawn
@Chris: Because blaming Obama for everything wrong with the universe is not going to end when he leaves office. If a GOP president undoes the deal, then that gives Obama and out on anything that happens afterwards in that part of the world (Not that they wouldn’t still blame him, but very few people would care).
If they do nothing (“I really wanted to back out of the deal, but that crafty Obama made it impossible to do without us literally giving a bunch of nukes to the ayatolla!”), then anything bad that happens in the middle east for the next 20 forevers can be blamed on this deal. And since the middle east is a huge mess and bad things are pretty much certain to happen, the GOP will be happy to have an easy path to blame Obama.
This is also why a GOP president is unlikely to actually do much to get rid of Obamacare.
Davis X. Machina
@Gimlet:
He’s looking at Trump’s rise in the polls….
Punchy
@Tommy: Yeah, but held hostage by itself shouldn’t be so PTSD-ish 35 years out. Hell, marriage has a similar feel. Perhaps they forced him to torture small animals, eat other captives, listen non-stop to conservative AM radio, etc. Something truly awful.
Gimlet
Isn’t Iran helping Iraq (and the US) deal with ISIS?
Benw
@gene108: you are right, of course. Jeb has even made it explicit already that he’d install the same crew (plus W as his Middle East advisor!). And who else are the other R candidates going to pick if they win. And I think @Chris is correct as well that they’ve just gotten crazier and more paranoid over the years.
Mike in NC
Since it has temporarily become unfashionable to shoot unarmed black people, the wingnuts have instead focused their hatred on Mexicans. The local rag has been running plenty of Letters to the Editor from elderly bigots lauding Trump as America’s savior.
Almost funny considering that I live in an area full of golf courses and farms that couldn’t operate without Mexican laborers to maintain the greens and harvest the crops.
Hoping Trump soon shoots up to a 27% lead in the GOP polls.
Patricia Kayden
@Gimlet: “Why isn’t Cheney in jail” is the only issue I’d like Cheney to address. Otherwise, he needs to shut the hell up. The world is still trying to recover from his administration’s military excursions.
Botsplainer
Speaking of bigotry and low expectations, The Donald had this to say, and I’m anticipating that we’ll be looking at authentic blowhard gibberish on a daily basis for months:
Most people would ask what the caller wants to discuss. If Tailgunner Ted asks him to tone down, this could become comedy gold as one demagogue calls another demagogue a loser.
Statecraft 101, dumbass. You don’t get to simply tell a strong, unified regional power to “fuck off, do what we tell you” and walk away while pretending you accomplished something.
All of them, Katie. I read all of them. Also, too.
Maria Bartiromo, Carl Quintanilla and Rick Santelli are well known for their tough questioning and insightful, accurate reporting. I’m especially touched by the respectful tone with which Carl asked Sir Allen Stanford about how great it felt to be a billionaire.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/donald-trump-meet-ted-cruz-2016-120138.html#ixzz3fyJefg1L
Botsplainer
@Punchy:
Wish we had emoticons and like buttons.
Roger Moore
@Chris:
I’m pretty sure the guy at the top had a lot of effect on that. GHWB was at least somewhat realistic and was actually in charge of his administration, so he was able to keep his subordinates from doing all the crazy stuff they might have wanted. GWB was neither realistic nor in strong control, so his subordinates had much more freedom to do all the dumb things his father had prevented them from doing.
Chris
@shawn:
That’s probably the best hope for them not undoing the deal.
But it depends on enough Republicans being able to figure out (and believe) what you just pointed out – as opposed to just thinking that those wimpy liberals suck and they can do better simply through bluster and rhetoric.
Iowa Old Lady
@Patricia Kayden:
Exactly. That should be the only question any one ever asks him.
Benw
@Roger Moore: plus 9/11. After that the Bush admin could basically do anything with strong public support, at least for awhile. And it was clear (at least to me!) from day one that W was not at all a person capable of dealing with the aftermath or controlling his Neocon warmongers.
Germy Shoemangler
@Amir Khalid: Tom the Dancing Bug has done a tribute to the Donald:
http://boingboing.net/2015/07/15/tom-the-dancing-bug-the-dona.html
Face
@Botsplainer: I think it’s finally time to coin “Donut’s Theorem” w/r/t Donny T. Rump. It’s both wickedly accurate and follows Occam’s perfectly.
I’m going with Donut’s Theorem for all explanations to just what the fuck Donny is outrageously saying/doing each day.
El Caganer
@Amir Khalid: Certainly Iran’s foreign minister found it amusing. I think he was the one who tried to explain the Constitution to the Cottonheads.
Chris
@Roger Moore:
@Benw:
I think the Clinton years might have helped too (Clinton Derangement Syndrome, the forerunner to OBS). Republicans spent eight years convincing themselves that Clinton was cutting our military strength to death, destroying our world standing, failing to deal adequately with simple little problems like Saddam, etc. I could see that alone having the effect of making them crazier and more determined to show up the incompetent weak liberal sissies when they got back into power.
Chris
@Face:
“Shut the fuck up, Donny.”
/Walter Sobchak
Bill Arnold
@Jeffro:
And only a faint, ignored inner voice howling all the time about being a puppet of the Liberals.
Cacti
The problem for the GOPers is that the UN Security Council is set to vote on the Iran deal next week.
Once adopted by the UNSC, the other permanent members (China, Russia, and France especially) aren’t going to give a crap what the US Republican Party has to say about it.
Jeremy
@shawn: They can try and we know they will blame him for stuff no matter what. But if Iran is following the agreement and it changes our relations with Iran in the long run President Obama will get all the credit. This agreement is about nuclear weapons.
Another Holocene Human
The great, the wise, the wonderful Ta-Nehisi Coates, my friends. Behold all the multiple fucks he gives about intersectionality/violence against women/feminism/Black women/whatever you want to identify this as.
“Yeah, blah blah blah, men are dogs. Let’s move on.”
Peale
@Mike in NC: God. I can’t find the link of the “Concerned Catholic” blogger that I read this morning about El Chapo vs. Trump, and how those drug gangs are worse than ISIS when it comes to persecuting Christians and the left just won’t care to stand up to them. Not that I’m laughing about beheadings in Mexico, but they noted that you can just walk right over the border thanks to Obama and that El Chapo sent his wife to California to have a child and then implied that he was using this “anchor baby” to get our generous welfare benefits. Like a man of his wealth would need to send his kids to public school and thinks “man, I know I have hundreds of millions, but we should go on food stamps to make ends meet.”
Peale
@Another Holocene Human: Who are you complaining about?
Bostondreams
@Another Holocene Human: He basically said yes. What are you so upset about?
Chris
@Peale:
It’s always about persecuting Christians.
Conservatives: the bride at every wedding and corpse at every funeral. It’s always all about them.
Peale
@Chris: I will give the republican establishment something – they certain have convinced themselves of their right to rule. Any time they aren’t in complete control is a disaster but any time they get power back they roll out the red carpet for themselves and treat themselves to a restoration party.They use their time out of office to convince themselves that they should be in control. Long, soul searching moments are not part of the feedback system.
PaulW
There are some good reasons a Republican President won’t openly reject the Iran Deal if in office 2017: there are other nations signing onto the deal, some of them serious Euro allies. The U.S. can’t back out of this deal without upsetting them and disrupting the benefits they’re getting from a de-sanctioned Iran.
The candidates *could* argue like crazy people during the primaries about the “bad” deal, but when it gets to be the general election cycle they’ll likely back off, arguing instead that he will “improve” on the deal instead.
Likely, though, if in office the Republican President will sabotage the deal and will do so in a way to blame Iran for it. It depends on how subtle that person could get…
NorthLeft12
@Mike in NC: Regarding immigrants; I just returned from a European vacation and while in Prague passed by an angry demonstration in front of the Prime Minister’s residence. They were white supremacists complaining about immigrants and how they are taking jobs from good Czechs.
I noticed while walking around Prague [WOW what a gorgeous city!] that all of the construction workers did not look like long time Czech residents. A tour guide later confirmed that the vast majority of them are Turks, Romanians, Hungarians, etc. It’s the same story all over the world, the Cons/RWNJs all seem to be playing the same song. Is there an international playbook for these clowns?
I am a Canadian, and our PM is playing to that same racist base.
Bobby Thomson
@Jeremy: the last Republican president wasn’t big on that whole compliance with international law thing. No reason to think the even crazier men running this time would be any better.
Roger Moore
@PaulW:
Subtlety does not seem to be a strong point of the Republican field.
Germy Shoemangler
Every conservative I’ve encountered at work, at family gatherings or online has always repeated their mantra: that Obama, and liberals and democrats are unserious. I’ve encountered that mindset a thousand times.
Now imagine if any democrat anywhere had participated in something like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IrE6FMpai8
America’s mayor in drag with the Donald.
Imagine if Joe Biden had done something even remotely similar with, I don’t know, let’s say Harry Reid.
catclub
@JCJ: I would have listed October 1962 as much more likely than today.
Gimlet
@Chris:
I think Republicans demonize whoever the Democratic candidate for President is partly to swing some voters but more to make their base feel it will be the end of the world if the Democrat gets into office so they MUST get out there and vote for the Republican candidate rather than sit at home.
FlipYrWhig
Is there any Republican who truly believes anything other than “Don’t kid yourself, They are coming for us”? Or are the rich ones just working on enriching themselves and simply feeding that to everyone else? Because from where I’m sitting, every Republican is a hideous, hateful human being, and not from ignorance — they’re deeply committed to it.
srv
This deal is great for the Republicans. Once again, an agreement with a foreign country is constructed so that when they violate the agreement, as they will, real leaders will be forced to act. Casus belli doesn’t just fall from the sky, you have to have a setup.
The only question is if Obama knows his part in the play or is just along for the ride to burnish his Nobel.
Chris
@Germy Shoemangler:
But also, Obama talks like a college professor and a lecturer-in-chief, isn’t sufficiently folksy and in touch with The Average American, isn’t the kind of guy you’d want to have a beer with, etc.
Chris
@Gimlet:
Oh, totally. It’s just that along the way, they pretty much end up believing their own con, too. IMHO.
Germy Shoemangler
@Chris: That’s how I know how far out of the mainstream I am: I’d rather have a beer with someone like Obama than someone like George W
Roger Moore
@catclub:
Also, too, 1950. But that’s because you and I are realists dealing with the real world, not ideologues trying to prove that Obama is the worstest president EVAR!
FlipYrWhig
@NorthLeft12: Nativism flourishes when the economy breaks down. As a wise man once said, “And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
Amir Khalid
@Germy Shoemangler:
How does George Walker Bush win the beer challenge when he quit drinking years ago?
catclub
The only objection I have to Waldman’s idea is that in spite of the general belief that politician make promises and then do not follow up on them, the fact is that the only promises they DO follow up on are the ones they make, and they actually go to great lengths to fulfill those promises. The ONLY good guide to what they will do is what they campaign on.
Therefore, I sure hope that none of those GOP candidates get a chance to fullfill those promises.
Joel
@Another Holocene Human: That does make him look rather small, doesn’t it? Everyone has their weaknesses, and Coates has shown a historical willingness to learn.
Also, you should post the link: http://gawker.com/making-peace-with-the-chaos-an-interview-with-ta-nehis-1717839272
LanceThruster
@Gimlet:
From Israel?
Matt McIrvin
@Capri: Maybe it’s just because I paid too much attention that Vox article, but I am actually really, really worried about a US-Russia conflict flaring up to a hot war.
Nobody in the US really gives a crap about Russia invading post-Soviet republics… but three of them, the Baltics, are in NATO, and the US is obligated by treaty to start a war with Russia if it tries to get them back, even though we don’t really give a crap.
Some analysts think that Putin might actually try it just so he can break NATO: dare us to either fight a hot war with him, or prove to the world that the North Atlantic Treaty is worth nothing. He can be, for all time, the guy who succeeded in cracking the Western alliance where the Soviets failed.
And Putin apparently thinks he can compensate for inferior military force by taking out NATO troops with intermediate-range “non-strategic” nuclear weapons.
Weapons which US doctrine may well not regard as non-strategic.
If there’s one thing that could lead to an old-fashioned, thousand-warhead atomigeddon any day now, it’s that. The danger could be higher than it was during the Cold War, because there’s no sense of a balance of power: everyone knows that Russia is far weaker than NATO in conventional forces. That makes the incentive to go nuclear higher.
Joel
@Another Holocene Human: Also, the link matters because context matters:
FlipYrWhig
@Germy Shoemangler:
Because what “unserious” means there isn’t exactly “filled with embarrassing ideas” or “laughable.” It’s “unwilling to challenge their own voters,” which means in turn “unwilling to cut off the gravy train for Those People.” That’s why the major media always wants the Democrat to Get Serious about “entitlements.” They want a Democrat to admit that the other Democrats are locked into a comfortable feedback loop of exchanging perks for votes. “Serious” means “willing to make Those People hurt.”
Another Holocene Human
@Bostondreams: Maybe it’s an unfair question from the interviewer. But it shows his complete lack of thought about the topic, the lack of insight … just like in the open board comment days on the Atlantic. TNC maybe SRS BSNS but he’s no progressive. My feeling about him is that one day he rolled out of bed and starting saying all the things the rest of us had been trying to tell him for years. Maybe he says it prettily, and that’s enough for you. I don’t grok whatever it is y’all are getting from him. He does seem to be good at communicating to certain white people who weren’t hearing it from anybody else, so, cool? Y’all can have your TNC; pass me back the Angela Davis, okay?
Roger Moore
@catclub:
Not quite. What they’ve done before is often a better guide than what they promise to do. For example, even if Scott Walker doesn’t run on gutting unions, you can bet that will be high on his list if he is ever elected, because that was high on his list as governor.
Chris
@FlipYrWhig:
Back on the Donald Trump thread from last night, Matt McIrvin pointed out that there was one way in which Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders were similar, in that they were both focusing largely on one thing – economic justice for Sanders, Mexican-bashing for Trump.
The interesting thing about that is that they’re both responding to the same thing – an increasing sense of insecurity that comes from bad economic times, stagnating wages and rising prices, an eroding middle class, etc. The difference is who they’re telling people to blame for them; Sanders tells people to blame the plutocrats and their allies who’ve been rigging the game for decades, Trump tells people to blame the darkies (“immigrants are taking your jobs and you better be careful,” as he said verbatim).
A hundred years ago, a German socialist observing the rise of left wing and right wing populism had this to say about it: “Anti-Semitism is the Socialism of imbeciles.” Different ethnic scapegoats, same basic principle.
Another Holocene Human
@Joel: Is this better for TNC? Again, he’s given this topic no serious thought and it shows!
We can go back to the Wayback Machine and explore his history of opining on stuff out of his ass totally voluntarily that he’d done no research on as well, but that just sounds depressing and plus, everybody deserves a pass or two for their old Atlantic blog, I mean who hasn’t worked for a major media corporation and said something embarrassing or two (but he said it in such a Klassy way, like Will or Safire, no Argle-bargle here).
I was studiously ignoring TNC for last couple of years or so but in the last 2-3 days he’s tossed out a year’s worth of derp. It’s really tiresome.
Germy Shoemangler
@Amir Khalid:
And that’s the villager/republican logic in a nutshell: “Bush is more relatable because he’s someone you’d want to have a beer with!”
Like I’d want to have a beer with a dry drunk, and then watch him finish the entire twelve-pack and pick a fight with a lamp post?
Patricia Kayden
@Gimlet: That scaremongering didn’t work against President Obama (or President Clinton) though. Doesn’t sound like a winning strategy. A better strategy would be to put forward a middle of the road Conservative who could appeal to a wide electorate beyond angry White men (and angry married White women).
Patricia Kayden
@Another Holocene Human: Is your critique of TNC that he doesn’t write about the Black woman experience? Or that he’s not empathetic to Black women? Personally, I have no problem with him focusing on what he knows best — the Black man experience. I wouldn’t want him to speak for Black women as there are more than enough Black women who could do so.
Another Holocene Human
Okay, to be TOOOOOOOTALLY 100% fair to TNC (before I take a break from Ballooning, I have stuff to do):
1. TNC often writes above my comfortable reading level. To you 1%ers who can enjoy and appreciate this, more power to you, but it’s a struggle and not a pleasure for me, so that neuron doesn’t exist for me and isn’t dinging. I will never care about how he wordsmiths things the way you do. But good for him. Amazing skill. Wielding it for good, even more amazing.
2. There is just something not quite right with TNC. It is by no means apparent at first, but becomes evident when you start regularly reading him, which I did at one time. I am somebody that can’t like not quite right slide. I worry at it and worry at it and worry at it.
3. I am holding a grudge over what he said about my hero, savior, and life apostle, Barack Obama. Take it back, TNC!!!
Germy Shoemangler
@Patricia Kayden:
I hope they don’t do that. I’d rather see them continue with the scary monsters they’re running now.
Because every one of their middle-of-the-road conservatives is a wolf in sheep’s clothing in my opinion, to borrow a meme from Ms. Fiorina.
Chris
@Germy Shoemangler:
Absolutely this.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Holocene Human: I remember him being sometimes a bit clueless about feminist issues and arguments in the days when his comment boards were active. For me, the saving grace was that, unlike your typical Internet mansplainer, he seemed to be not at all defensive about it and willing to learn. I suppose the question is whether he did.
gelfling545
@Gimlet:
Only if we elect a Republican in ’16.
bemused
@Germy Shoemangler:
Do they elaborate or go into detail on the ways that Obama, Dems and liberals are unserious?
Betty Cracker
@Another Holocene Human: Huh. TNC has his blind spots, as we all do, but is it fair to expect him to fully comprehend every human scenario from every conceivable angle and include all perspectives in this one book, which has a narrowly defined focus?
I haven’t read it yet, so I can’t comment on how the book holds up. I’m not a TNC worshiper, but I have gained considerable insight from his perspective that I, as a white woman, could not have gained from my own experience of the world.
One fault I do occasionally find with his commentary is a failure to meet the same standards of perception and empathy he demands of others, and maybe that’s what you’re getting at. But even when he makes what I believe is an unwarranted assumption, it’s invariably in the service of a larger point that isn’t invalidated by minor failures of imagination or rhetorical sloppiness.
ETA: Never mind!
Germy Shoemangler
@bemused: The argument is always that they are incompetent with economic issues (because of all the “handouts” and “entitlements” which will “bankrupt us all”) and weak on foreign policy (turning around and showing their scared pink bottoms to our enemies). Those two issues usually form the bulk of the “unserious” argument.
Gimlet
@gelfling545:
I think at least in part that’s a reference to Iran using an atomic bomb.
catclub
@Roger Moore: Yes, I agree.
bemused
@Germy Shoemangler:
That would have been my guess. Liberals not willing and eager to kick everyone under the 1% off government goodies and bomb, bomb, bomb.
Gin & Tonic
@JCJ: Motherfucker was also willfully ignoring Able Archer.
boatboy_srq
@Jeremy:
People also forget that half the current crop of Teahadi pResidential candidates are listening to the likes of John Bolton, and following Bircher isolationist talking points (when they aren’t posturing about going medieval on anyone who they presume opposes them). Getting out of the UN is the macro “scr3w the mooching Other People” to the UI/SNAP/Medicaid-reductions for “lazy moochers getting fat on food stamps” micro when it comes to their policies. At whatever point this agreement does get through the GA and SC it will be to them still more proof that the UN has overgrown, is exceeding its mandate and is, if not the Great Satan itself, certainly a tool All Those Other People are going to use to bring down Ahmurrca. Iranian nuclear restrictions as a binding UN resolution is incentive, not impediment, to abrogating the agreement.
Frankensteinbeck
@FlipYrWhig:
Remember the 47% speech? When the poster boy for the greedy rich thought he was talking in private to others like him, he didn’t say anything about fleecing the rubes. He spouted the same lies the rubes believe, with the same hate, to an audience that agreed with him. I’m sure there are deliberate manipulators somewhere, but as a rule every economic and political level of the Republican Party is equally nuts. The rich don’t have any incentive to be smarter or more rational than the working class. They have LESS incentive, because they will stay rich even if they fail at everything. See George W Bush.
@FlipYrWhig:
Well… I comfort myself that humanity is diverse, and people are individuals, never monoliths. Still, the GOP’s policies are based on hate, its arguments are arguments of hate, and it deliberately courts hate-filled people. You’re starting pretty deep in the hole to be a decent person, there.
Steeplejack
@Tommy:
I think we all get that. What we don’t get is what was—literally!—unspeakable about his experience. Other hostages have talked and written about it.
But we also get that you don’t have a clue about that.
Belafon
I do think this might be the one foreign policy question you have to ask the candidates for 2016: What will you do as president if Iran fails to follow through on its part of the agreement?
Frankensteinbeck
@Belafon:
I’d rather not. It will help the GOP and the media obsess over their belief that this agreement is Iran putting one over on those weak liberals who don’t understand shifty Muslims are born terrorists and can’t be trusted.
boatboy_srq
@Mike in NC: You’d have thought they would learn from GA, Nathan Deal and the flight of Hispanic labor after GA’s horrific immigrant policy of a few years ago. Whole crops lost because nobody was there to harvest them (hoocoodanode). It’s getting so what used to be abolitionist sentiment has become raw envy – but of the “lucky duckies sucking on the public teat” and not the 1%ers and big business who can afford their very own Mexican(s).
NorthLeft12
@Jeremy:
It is, and it isn’t. This is actually a great opportunity to develop a diplomatic relationship with Iran for not only the US [Canada has not had an embassy there since the hostage crisis too]. Long term, that might be as important as the nuke deal. Actually, they both go hand in hand.
schrodinger's cat
@Another Holocene Human: FWIW, I too don’t get the worshipful admiration TNC engenders on this blog and others like it. His writing can be insightful when he writes about race and the Civil War for example. I have said before, I find his relentless negativity tiring and at times tiresome.
NorthLeft12
@Frankensteinbeck: I agree with Frank. I suspect that the GOPers will say that they will blockade/invade/nuke Iran, while the Dems will [mostly] say that they will sanction and diplomatically isolate them as well.
What they may actually do is beyond knowing IMO.
J.D. Rhoades
Another war is EXACTLY what the Right wants. They want to keep us in a state of mind that combines high patriotism with pants-wetting fear in order to stifle all dissent and make us that much easier to manipulate. War is the perfect way to create that mindset.
cokane
@Another Holocene Human: I actually fail to see much of the TNC praise as a writer or intellectual. He has clever phrasing, undeniable, but I think that’s almost something to make one wary, rather than praise him…
While Coates is very very good at quote mining history, I think alot of his arguments lack a certain intellectual rigor. He rarely marshals statistics or any kind of empirical evidence to back up his arguments. He often relies on logical invalid arguments — he’s literally made arguments from authority or non-authority to reject, accept premises. He scarcely interviews others in his work at the Atlantic. He rarely attempts to present and confront a strong antithetical argument. He just isn’t a very laborious intellect, I fail to see the praiseworthiness.
And frankly, a great deal of his work is little more than “hippie punching”, attacking other liberals/progressives for insufficient fealty to his world view, things that if done by a moderate liberal would earn the ire of places like BJ. This wouldn’t be so bad, but there’s not much evidence of him doing any actual labor to advance progressive causes. Much of his work is little more than narcissistic self congratulatory moralizing.
Mike J
@Amir Khalid: Here’s the smartest thing Trump ever tweeted.
Emma
@Another Holocene Human: 1. I have the same problem with a number of authors but I struggle with it if it’s a topic I’m interested in. 2) That’s a personal attack without facts to back it up; your gut isn’t enough to accept the “wrongness” of anyone. 3) I didn’t like it either but he was right.
What I appreciate the most about TNC is that he’s willing to learn. His posts titled “talk to me like I’m stupid” (or something like that) have been some of the best reading I’ve ever done. He seeks information, and doesn’t try to dispense it from on high.
(later)A lot of the criticism about him seems to be: you don’t do it the way I want you to. My answer to people like that is, start your own blog. His is his. I don’t expect him to be either an academic or a cheerleader for progressive causes. For example, his grappling with learning French has been, to me, some of his most insightful writing.
schrodinger's cat
@cokane:
Word. See his criticisms of Obama after his reelection. Plus all his articles read pretty much the same. If you have read one, you have read them all. In short, he is a moralizing bore. Just the type to be adored by totebaggers.
rikyrah
The thing about Donald Trump being a Democratic Party Plant.
Um….
what he’s saying is filet mignon to the GOP base.
If what he’s saying is SOOO not Republican…
then why doesn’t he have Carly Fiorina Poll Numbers?
I’ll say it again…
the problem for them with Trump is NOT what he’s saying is WRONG…
It’s that he’s not speaking in dogwhistles anymore. He’s not speaking in Frank Luntz-approved language.
Language that the MSM can hide behind and pretend that they don’t know what the GOP is saying and what it means.
He’s using a 2 by 4 in plain language to show exactly who the GOP is……
and, they can’t hide it.
You notice how NONE of the GOP candidates have said that Trump was WRONG. That Republicans don’t stand for what Trump is saying.
raven
I like him, fuck ya’ll.
JPL
The President is suppose to have a news conference soon.
Also, too.. My dog brought me another dead mouse… I don’t like mice dead or alive. This particular mouse had a small tail, I assume from being flung around in the dog’s mouth.
SiubhanDuinne
POTUS pressed just started.
SenyorDave
@Germy Shoemangler: For some Republicans, the only they would be happy to have a beer while Obama was in the room is if he were wearing a waiter’s uniform and he served it to them.
Germy Shoemangler
@SenyorDave: EXACTLY.
boatboy_srq
@NorthLeft12: Old World ethnic divisions are millennia older, and far more bitter. Look at Serb/Croat/Bosnian strife just in the last quarter century: those divisions go back to the fall of Rome. This is partly a reason why the German land-grab in Czechoslovakia (annexing the Sudetenland) was less distasteful than it appears from the New World: Sudeten Czechs were largely ethnic Germans, and ceding that territory to Germany made cultural sense even if it gave Germany more land/industry/power/wealth. Maastricht relaxed state border controls and opened stronger markets to labor from elsewhere, and the groups you noticed gravitated to jobs and away from homelands; native populations are reacting to the old prejudices as much as modern Otherness.
Germy Shoemangler
Okay, this is an open thread so here goes:
I need some advice about clothes.
I need some comfortable, lightweight yet dressy clothes for an outing the Missus has planned. We will be visiting friends and relatives. I need a blazer (or a sportcoat) that I can wear in 80º-plus weather, plus some slacks.
I’m not a big clothes horse. I tend to wear clothes until they rot away. I have shirts that are probably older than some of you.
There is a GAP down the street from us. Can I trust them to outfit me properly? I am an older, semi-portly male. Just want some casual slacks, shirts, and a blazer so I can pass myself off as a respectable person to our peers.
Any suggestions for retailers from the fashion plates here on balloon-juice?
The last mens’ clothing place I visited, I told them I wanted a simple blazer in black. The lady tried to sell me something that looked like an awning, all loud multiple patterns and colors. I insisted I wanted a simple black blazer that was suitable for warm weather. I got something that looks nice, but is too heavy for temperatures over 55º.
Are there stores that cater to the older gentleman who wants to look nice, but doesn’t want to sweat his ass off in this disgusting heat and humidity?
? Martin
@Gimlet:
None, actually. It’s an agreement under the UN Security Council so it falls under the UN treaty that Congress approved half a century ago. Congress is talking about taking the initiative to pass a resolution to instruct the President to reject the agreement, which Obama will veto, which Congress will need to override. He just needs to keep ⅓ of the Senate on board and he’s good, assuming such a thing passes (which it probably will just for campaign points).
schrodinger's cat
@Germy Shoemangler: Don’t know much about men’s fashions but I have one piece of advice. Wear it, before you buy it. Make sure that the shoulder seams hit you at the shoulder, and so on. If you want to buy a blazer go to Macy’s or a department store, they will usually have a tailor to do alterations. For shirts and khakis, Gap should be good.
ETA: For warm weather, I suggest linen, cotton or seersucker.
Omnes Omnibus
@Germy Shoemangler: The Gap will probably get you what you need. If there is a J. Crew store near you, that could work as well.
schrodinger's cat
@Omnes Omnibus: J Crew’s quality for the women’s clothing seems to have deteriorated off late. I like Banana Republic and Gap better than J Crew.
Germy Shoemangler
@schrodinger’s cat: Here’s what bugs me about blazers (and/or sportcoats, I honestly don’t know the difference)… why do they pad the shoulders? I have a tiny head, almost freakishly small, and wide shoulders, and I really don’t want padded shoulders making me look like the guy from Beetlejuice.
Emma
@Germy Shoemangler: Passing this on from male relatives.
The Gap is great for basics. Khakis, basic shirts and t-shirts, sweaters, cardigans, coats. More than that, nyet.
My father says: L.L. Bean for overall looks, but you need to know your size. Buy your basics at the Gap, so you know your measurements and either order from L.L. Bean or find a lookalike where you are.
And TRY IT ON!
Betty Cracker
@Germy Shoemangler: I’m no fashion plate either, but I second S-Cat’s advice about where to acquire a jacket. For myself, when forced to dress up in hellishly hot summer weather, I tend to go with linen when possible. Linen breathes. On the other hand, it wrinkles so easily that a trip to the loo might leave you looking like you just rolled out of bed. But it manages to be casual, elegant and cooling all at once, making it unique among fabrics.
schrodinger's cat
@Emma: I have to go one size down from my usual size at L L Bean, otherwise their clothes which are generously proportioned, can make you look frumpy. Eddie Bauer is good too.
? Martin
@Germy Shoemangler: My attitude has always been that since I don’t invest time or money in clothes, that on the occasions when I do need to – buying a suit, the scenario you describe, etc. – that I would take all of those well-accrued savings and go to a proper expert. So I would run straight to Nordstrom or comparable high-end retailer (Barneys, etc) and go during the workday. Yes it will be more expensive but you want someone who has been picking clothes for people for 20 years, not 20 days.
I say this as someone who worked for about a month in such a place helping to do fittings. The gentlemen who I worked with knew about 10 million times as much as you or I on the appropriate thing to wear, how to wear it so you aren’t a sweaty mess or freezing cold, how it should fit, how you should accessorize it and so on. Perhaps another way to consider it – you may want to pay a bit of money for the confidence that you are wearing what others deem acceptable for the situation if you have any anxiety over that.
And I will also note that getting it right will result in compliments, which feel nice and make you at ease. More importantly, you aren’t dressing for yourself on this occasion – you are dressing for your wife. Compliments to you will result in twice as many compliments to her, which is what really matters. It will make her feel good and she will enjoy the trip more because you put in the extra effort. I suspect you will in some way be rewarded when you get home.
Germy Shoemangler
@Omnes Omnibus: I’ll try the GAP first. If they can’t fit me, I’ll wander into J. Crew. Maybe someone there will take pity on me.
I just want to look nice this summer.
My favorite pair of slacks are white, and the waist band goes all the way up to my chest. I look like Lionel Barrymore in “Key Largo” … my wife HATES it, but I tell her it’s comfortable and that all pants should fit that way. One afternoon while I was sitting quietly I saw her sketching a portrait of me in my comfortable pants. I laughed when I saw the finished sketch. I looked like grandpa jones.
Perhaps there is no hope for me.
? Martin
@Germy Shoemangler: This is why you go to a pro. They will tell you the truth about that – to avoid something that accentuates your shoulders in your case (or that would in my case as I have narrow shoulders) and they will find something for you that accomplishes that or will help tailor it that way. The staff at the Gap won’t tell you that and won’t necessarily help you solve that particular issue effectively.
Germy Shoemangler
Thank you everyone for the advice. I really hate clothes shopping, but I want to make the wife happy. I’m making notes from your remarks, and I’ll do my best.
Joel
@Another Holocene Human: It seems like you’re saying that Coates is (occasionally) a douche, which he most definitely can be. But that’s a different critique than what you leveled earlier.
catclub
@? Martin:
Or 1/3 of the House, which is more likely than the Senate ( and I know holding 1/3 of the Senate will probably happen).
Omnes Omnibus
@Germy Shoemangler: On second thought, I agree with those above who are saying get the blazer from a good department store or men’s clothing store. You want it to fit well. The rest of the stuff should be fine from a place like the Gap.
schrodinger's cat
@Germy Shoemangler: Removing the shoulder pads should not be a big problem if you like everything else about the jacket.
FlipYrWhig
@Germy Shoemangler: Try Joseph A. Bank. Not top of the line stuff by any means but reliable. My wife used to work in the menswear business and yet is also EXTREMELY frugal in a New England Yankee way, and combing through the racks there she never had any complaints about the quality of materials or anything like that.
Germy Shoemangler
@schrodinger’s cat: My wife says my head is normal-sized. She says it must be dysmorphia. I have no evidence to the contrary. But I don’t like shoulder pads.
I have made a list of the stores you have all mentioned.
FlipYrWhig
@schrodinger’s cat: I don’t read Coates but your criticism makes him sound just like Freddie DeBoer.
WaterGirl
@Germy Shoemangler: I saw lots of advice for you here, all of it good! My two cents is that you should pay special attention to Martin’s comments.
Germy Shoemangler
@FlipYrWhig:
There is one right down the street from us! I will give them a try.
FlipYrWhig
@Germy Shoemangler: Worth a shot. I thought the staff there was knowledgeable and opinionated in a good way (like “if you try to wear pants with the waist size you think you are but they don’t look good on you, you’re not going to wear them, and that will be a waste of money”). And they have tailors. (My wife does tailoring for me so that’s less of an issue personally, luckily…)
schrodinger's cat
@FlipYrWhig: He is a far better writer than FDB. Coates has become more predictable and boring as he has become more successful.
Emma
@schrodinger’s cat: Yeah. That’s why the scream at the end. If you have ANY variation from the “perfect” norms, TRY IT ON BEFORE BUYING!
boatboy_srq
@Germy Shoemangler: GAP can’t do it. Banana Republic might be able to. I’d recommend Mens Wearhouse, Jos A Bank, Charles Tyrwhitt or a decent tailor: you’ll pay a premium at each of those places, but you’ll recoup it in better-fitting, more durable and more wearable. And if they try to sell you something other than what you went in for, scratch that outlet off the list and go elsewhere.
Gin & Tonic
@Germy Shoemangler: I’m probably older than you, and I got a very nice linen and sik blazer last summer at J. A. Bank.
boatboy_srq
@schrodinger’s cat: There was a recent article that posited that 2014 off-the-rack fashions were designed to last 30 washes (where clothing made even 10 years earlier was designed for 50 or more). Disposable haberdashery is “in” from the retailer’s perspective: it’s the clothier’s version of planned obsolescence. One more way the 1% segregate themselves from the oi polloi: they spend more on clothes that last (more expensive per item, but strong potential for equivalent spend over time since more durable “timeless” articles are replaced far less often than “cheap” mass-produced knockoffs).
NorthLeft12
@FlipYrWhig:
I was on a river cruise down the Danube and my wife and I were very friendly with an older [late 60s] couple from Kansas [ Lawrence actually]. My wife made me promise before the cruise that I not discuss politics as we had a good idea of the politics of the majority of the people on this cruise. I agreed as I did not want to be known as the “lunatic lefty/commie/socialist from Canada”.
One night at dinner the husband went off on a rant about how the Republicans are ruining his state and his country, and his wife interrogated another couple at the table about why the Methodist church was not joining the 21st century and recognize same sex marriage. NOTE: The male of the other couple was a retired Methodist minister who supervised about eighty other ministers in South Carolina.
After their twin outbursts, I said to them “Please don’t take offence at what I am about to say, but I know you say you are both Republicans, but you don’t sound like any other Republicans I have heard of.” The husband commented that his kind of Republican does not seem to be in fashion anymore, and that the current batch of idiots [his words, not mine] running the party care only about ideology, not accomplishing anything. He admitted to not voting for Brownback in the last election. They had both worked for Bob Dole for both Senate and Presidential campaigns.
These were very nice, and moral people. They may be Republicans, but they are not the monsters you are accusing them of being. I believe there are a lot more Republicans like that than you think, and they may be reaching their breaking point with their own party by 2016.
gelfling545
@Gimlet: No doubt but I believe that the real danger lies elsewhere.
JGabriel
Paul Waldman:
Sigh. I remember making the same argument about invading Iraq way the hell back in 2001-2003. I hope Waldman is more correct than I was then – or, better yet, I hope the GOP doesn’t win any of the next 3 – 5 presidential contests and we never have to test his assertion.
Denali
F**k Dick Cheney.
boatboy_srq
@NorthLeft12: Not meaning to second-guess you here, but speaking as a former GOPer of the type you ran into, there’s a lot stronger incentive to leave the party than try to do anything about it from inside. There are far more potential Democrats than there are reform-minded Republicans committed to the party. If there is an effort to be expended here, I would recommend reaching out to those Republicans to get them to switch long before I would advise them to push for changes that will be extremely painful for them to attempt.
pluege
motto of the modern GOP:
‘proud to be stupid!’
J R in WV
@Denali: This a thousand times!!!
He should be on display in a holocaust museum, in a diorama of Iraqis all dead. With Cheney on a gibbit.