The Weekly Sift: Raising Doubt

Trump doesn't care if we think he's telling the truth - he just wants his supporters to doubt that anyone's telling the truth.

- Jon Favreau

This week's featured post is "All Democrats have some introspecting to do".

This week everybody was looking back at 2016

If good thing happened in your personal life last year, I'm happy for you. But in collective terms, 2016 was a nightmare.

CNN has a photo gallery of people who died in 2016: Muhammed Ali, David Bowie, John Glenn, and many others.

TPM presented the annual Golden Dukes awards, for outstanding achievement in "public corruption, outlandish behavior, The Crazy, nonsense and all relevant betrayals of the public trust".

The stylistic contrast between the old and new presidents in a nutshell:

Conclusion of the Obama New Year message:

It’s been the privilege of my life to serve as your President. And as I prepare to take on the even more important role of citizen, know that I will be there with you every step of the way to ensure that this country forever strives to live up to the incredible promise of our founding—that all of us are created equal, and all of us deserve every chance to live out our dreams. And from the Obama family to yours—have a happy and blessed 2017.

The Trump New Year tweet:

Happy New Year to all, including to my many enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly they just don't know what to do. Love!

and talking about Israel

The relationship between the Obama administration and the Netanyahu administration is ending with a lot of shouting. The U.S. refused to veto a Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements on the West Bank. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu accused the Obama administration of a "disgraceful anti-Israel maneuver". And John Kerry gave a speech highly critical of current Israeli policy.

I may comment at length after I've had time to sort through the details, but for now I'll rely on analysis from Vox.

For decades, every military crisis between Israel and the Palestinians has ended with the U.S. pressuring the Israeli government to stand down. And many of us have wondered how much real effect that pressure had. Maybe the Israeli leaders had completed whatever they wanted to do and used American pressure as cover against their political right flank at home. Or maybe they really were about to wreak massive vengeance, but America stopped them. Nobody really knew.

During the Trump administration, I think we're going to find out. Because I don't think Trump cares what happens Palestinian civilians. His people think we're in a global war between Christendom and Islam, and anybody fighting Muslims is on our side. So if you're an Israeli right-winger who has secretly been pining to do some ethnic cleansing, or to herd Palestinians into impoverished, unsustainable bantustans on the apartheid model (or the Gaza model, for that matter), the next four years are your chance. We'll see who tries to take advantage of it.

While I was researching this issue, I ran across this thought-provoking essay by Uriel Abulof at Jewish Daily Forward. It doesn't have a nice, pithy summary, but it's basically about the temptation of tribalism, and its political consequences: We want to be free individuals, but we also have a deep need to belong to something.

The liberal conclusion has since crystalized: Tame the tribe! Turn those perilous peoples into civic, multicultural, cosmopolitan societies, rationally administrated by the state. Globalization, with the European Union as its beloved offspring, should have fostered that vision.

But it is not turning out that way. Liberalism’s advantage — the primacy of the individual — is also its Achilles’ heel: It captures a yearning for independence, but fails to grasp the equally powerful drive to belong. Consequently, in recent years, neoliberalism’s inadvertent repression of that yearning has spurred Rousseau’s revenge: the return of the tribe. And now the tribe is intent on taking over the state that sought to tame it.

and Milo

Unless you've been paying attention to the alt-Right, you may never have heard of Milo Yiannopoulos. On the other hand, if you read Breitbart, you think he's a rock star -- he's just "Milo", like Madonna or Beyoncé. Or even "MILO".

Milo is a professional troll who came to public attention in the Gamergate controversy of 2014. He says and does outrageous things and profits from the attention they draw. That description could apply to any number of people, a few of whom I admire. But Milo takes it a step further, using his fame to focus his fans' persecution on individuals, like actress Leslie Jones and this transgender student in Wisconsin.

He's in the news now because he just got a $250K book deal from the respected publishing house of Simon & Schuster. This has incited a backlash against S&S, including such moves as The Chicago Review of Books announcing that it will not review any S&S books in 2017 or independent bookstores refusing to stock their titles.

It's important to understand exactly what kind of protest this is, and why it's really not a free-speech or freedom-of-the-press issue. No one is attacking either Milo's legal right to write a book or Simon's legal right to publish it. That's the law and no one disputes it. The point is that S&S can't promote this kind of garbage and remain a respected publisher. If Milo wants to self-publish, or if Breitbart wants to publish his book, fine. People who want to buy it should be able to. And if Simon & Schuster wants to become an alt-Right publishing house, that's up to them. But no law says I have to respect them.

and you might also be interested in

Inauguration Day is January 20, two weeks from Friday. The next day is the Women's March on Washington.

The Women’s March on Washington is quick to say it is not an anti-Trump protest. “We’re not targeting Trump specifically. It’s much more about being proactive about women’s rights,” said Cassady Fendlay, spokeswoman for the march.

I expect a certain amount of solidarity with other groups who feel threatened by Trump, like immigrants and Muslims. If you can't make it to Washington, there are sister marches in at least 30 other cities. I plan to go to the Boston one.

I think this kind of thing is important to do. Trump has shown absolutely no interest in reaching out to the majority that voted against him, or the plurality that voted for Clinton. We need to establish that we haven't gone away, and we need to start building the connections that we'll need for more issue-specific protests as the Trump administration starts doing things.

I also agree with the framing: Trump hasn't had a chance to do anything as president yet, so it's premature to protest against him. But people worried about the Trump administration need to know they have support.

North Carolina can no longer be considered a democracy, according to a report by the Electoral Integrity Project. I'm withholding further comment on this until I can read the report, which I haven't been able to find on the EIP web site.

Fascinating piece in Wired: Obesity might have more causes than just diet and exercise or genes. In particular, a virus might rewire your system to crave food and build fat.

Maybe comedians can succeed where more serious voices fail. Seth Meyers devotes 9 minutes to the Trump administration and climate change.