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  4. <title>Outside the Beltway</title>
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  6. <link>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com</link>
  7. <description>Online Journal of Politics and Foreign Affairs</description>
  8. <lastBuildDate>Fri, 03 May 2024 10:57:29 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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  16. <title>Biden: We Welcome Immigrants!</title>
  17. <link>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/biden-we-welcome-immigrants/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=biden-we-welcome-immigrants</link>
  18. <comments>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/biden-we-welcome-immigrants/#comments</comments>
  20. <dc:creator><![CDATA[James Joyner]]></dc:creator>
  21. <pubDate>Fri, 03 May 2024 10:55:09 +0000</pubDate>
  22. <category><![CDATA[2024 Election]]></category>
  23. <category><![CDATA[Borders and Immigration]]></category>
  24. <category><![CDATA[US Politics]]></category>
  25. <category><![CDATA[World Politics]]></category>
  26. <category><![CDATA[Asylum]]></category>
  27. <category><![CDATA[Chicago]]></category>
  28. <category><![CDATA[China]]></category>
  29. <category><![CDATA[Denver]]></category>
  30. <category><![CDATA[India]]></category>
  31. <category><![CDATA[Japan]]></category>
  32. <category><![CDATA[Joe Biden]]></category>
  33. <category><![CDATA[Legislation]]></category>
  34. <category><![CDATA[National Security Council]]></category>
  35. <category><![CDATA[New York]]></category>
  36. <category><![CDATA[racism]]></category>
  37. <category><![CDATA[Russia]]></category>
  38. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/?p=271095</guid>
  39.  
  40. <description><![CDATA[A minor gaffe is overshadowing a more complicated story.]]></description>
  41. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
  42. <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" width="1024" height="683" src="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Biden-Flag-Construction-Speech.jpg" alt="President Joe Biden delivers remarks announcing CHIPS and Science Act grants to Intel to expand U.S. semiconductor production, Wednesday, March 20, 2024, at the Intel Ocotillo Campus in Chandler, Arizona." class="wp-image-271097" srcset="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Biden-Flag-Construction-Speech.jpg 1024w, https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Biden-Flag-Construction-Speech-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz</figcaption></figure>
  43.  
  44.  
  45.  
  46. <p><a href="http://Biden Says Japan ‘Xenophobic’ Along With China, Russia">Bloomberg</a> (&#8220;<strong>Biden Says Japan ‘Xenophobic’ Along With China, Russia</strong>&#8220;):</p>
  47.  
  48.  
  49.  
  50. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  51. <p>US President Joe Biden included ally Japan along with rivals China and Russia in a list of countries he called “xenophobic” in a speech at a campaign fundraising event in Washington.</p>
  52.  
  53.  
  54.  
  55. <p>Biden reiterated remarks he made last month linking China’s economic woes to its unwillingness to accept immigration. This time he added Russia, but also longstanding ally Japan, whose Prime Minister Fumio Kishida he welcomed for a summit and state dinner in Washington three weeks ago.</p>
  56.  
  57.  
  58.  
  59. <p>“You know, one of the reasons our economy is growing is because of you and many others. Why? Because we welcome immigrants,” Biden told Asian American and Pacific Islander donors Wednesday. “The reason &#8211; look, think about it. Why is China stalling so bad economically? Why is Japan having trouble? Why is Russia? Why is India? Because they’re xenophobic, they don’t want immigrants.”</p>
  60.  
  61.  
  62.  
  63. <p>His criticisms and the fact that Japan was mentioned alongside two major US rivals could raise hackles in Tokyo. The US and Japan announced a “significant upgrade” to their defense ties last month, citing the need to counter China’s “dangerous” actions in the Indo-Pacific region.</p>
  64.  
  65.  
  66.  
  67. <p>Biden’s reference to India was unusual, given the economy is the fastest growing of any major nation and, unlike Japan and China, its population is young and expanding. India’s Ministry of External Affairs wasn’t immediately available to comment when contacted for a response.</p>
  68.  
  69.  
  70.  
  71. <p>Allies know “very well how much the president respects them, their friendship, values, their contributions,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Thursday when asked about the president’s comment.</p>
  72.  
  73.  
  74.  
  75. <p>“The broader point that the president was making — and I think people all around the world recognize this — is that the United States is a nation of immigrants, and it’s in our DNA,” Kirby said. “We’re better for it, we’re stronger for it. We’re not going to walk away from it.”</p>
  76. </blockquote>
  77.  
  78.  
  79.  
  80. <p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/02/us/politics/biden-japan-india-immigration.html">NYT</a>&#8216;s Michael Shear (&#8220;<strong>Biden Calls Japan and India ‘Xenophobic’ in Defending U.S. Immigration</strong>&#8220;) adds:</p>
  81.  
  82.  
  83.  
  84. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  85. <p>For months, President Biden has been under pressure to prove he can be tough at the border. But at a campaign reception on Wednesday night, he also tried to voice his commitment to America’s long history of immigration.</p>
  86.  
  87.  
  88.  
  89. <p>He did so by taking a swipe at two of America’s partners, saying that Japan and India are struggling economically “because they’re xenophobic.” He said the two democratic countries, along with China and Russia, “don’t want immigrants.”</p>
  90.  
  91.  
  92.  
  93. <p>“Immigrants are what makes us strong,” the president told the crowd of supporters. “Not a joke. That’s not hyperbole, because we have an influx of workers who want to be here and want to contribute.”</p>
  94.  
  95.  
  96.  
  97. <p>[&#8230;]</p>
  98.  
  99.  
  100.  
  101. <p>he president’s comments also underscore how Mr. Biden is trying to find a politically palatable balance on immigration as he seeks a second term in the White House.</p>
  102.  
  103.  
  104.  
  105. <p>In response to anger from Republicans and Democrats about historic surges of migrants at the southern border, the president signed off on the most restrictive immigration legislation in years. That legislation stalled in Congress, but now Mr. Biden is considering whether to use his executive power to enact a severe crackdown on asylum on his own.</p>
  106.  
  107.  
  108.  
  109. <p>At the same time, Mr. Biden is trying to assert the moral high ground on the country’s treatment of migrants by drawing a contrast with former President Donald J. Trump and his yearslong assault on immigration.</p>
  110.  
  111.  
  112.  
  113. <p>Many advocates for immigrants have said they expected explicit support for what the president called a “humane” approach to immigration to continue in Mr. Biden’s White House. But the reality has been more complicated.</p>
  114.  
  115.  
  116.  
  117. <p>As the situation on the border worsened, demands for tougher action grew — even from the president’s Democratic allies in big cities like Chicago, New York and Denver. While Mr. Biden has proposed new legal options for some migrants to enter the United States, his policies and rhetoric have become more forceful.</p>
  118. </blockquote>
  119.  
  120.  
  121.  
  122. <p>The combination of the headline and the fact that the Bloomberg story was topped by a photo of Biden shaking hands with Kishida gave me the initial impression that these remarks were made while the President was welcoming a visiting ally. That he said it three weeks later in front of an immigrant group softens the damage rather considerably. </p>
  123.  
  124.  
  125.  
  126. <p>Still, including Japan and India, a close ally an a traditionally non-aligned country that we&#8217;ve been working to bring into our orbit for decades, was an unforced error. In the case of Japan, it at least happens to be true&#8212;they&#8217;re xenophobic and it&#8217;s truly hurting an economy that was the world&#8217;s second largest in recent memory. While India is currently led by a Hindu nationalist and certainly has a history of vile racism, it also has a long history of being welcoming to immigrant labor. And, as noted, its economy is growing faster than ours.</p>
  127.  
  128.  
  129.  
  130. <p>The larger issue, though, is the one Shear notes: the strange juxtaposition of extolling America as a nation of immigrants while at the same time pandering to our own xenophobia regarding our southern border. We welcome immigrants&#8212;but only the right kind. While we&#8217;ve certainly experienced waves of xenophobia and outright racism with regard to our immigration policy, we&#8217;ve shifted in recent decades to preferring those with skills that are immediately useful in our high-tech industry. Which is pretty much in line with what most advanced countries have done. </p>
  131. ]]></content:encoded>
  133. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/biden-we-welcome-immigrants/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  134. <slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
  137. </item>
  138. <item>
  139. <title>A Photo for Friday</title>
  140. <link>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/a-photo-for-friday-220/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=a-photo-for-friday-220</link>
  141. <comments>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/a-photo-for-friday-220/#respond</comments>
  143. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Steven L. Taylor]]></dc:creator>
  144. <pubDate>Fri, 03 May 2024 09:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
  145. <category><![CDATA[Photo for Friday]]></category>
  146. <category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category>
  147. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/?p=271093</guid>
  148.  
  149. <description><![CDATA["After April Showers']]></description>
  150. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
  151. <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-photo is-provider-flickr wp-block-embed-flickr"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
  152. <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/sltaylor/53686218815/in/dateposted-public"><img decoding="async" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53686218815_83f23a0ce0.jpg" alt="After April Showers" width="500" height="333" /></a>
  153. </div></figure>
  154.  
  155.  
  156.  
  157. <p>&#8220;After April Showers&#8221;</p>
  158.  
  159.  
  160.  
  161. <p>April 20, 2024</p>
  162.  
  163.  
  164.  
  165. <p>Pike Road, AL</p>
  166. ]]></content:encoded>
  168. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/a-photo-for-friday-220/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  169. <slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
  172. </item>
  173. <item>
  174. <title>Friday’s Forum</title>
  175. <link>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/fridays-forum-188/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=fridays-forum-188</link>
  176. <comments>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/fridays-forum-188/#comments</comments>
  178. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Steven L. Taylor]]></dc:creator>
  179. <pubDate>Fri, 03 May 2024 08:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
  180. <category><![CDATA[Open Forum]]></category>
  181. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/?p=271091</guid>
  182.  
  183. <description/>
  184. <content:encoded/>
  186. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/fridays-forum-188/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  187. <slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
  190. </item>
  191. <item>
  192. <title>When a Company is Bigger Than its Country</title>
  193. <link>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/when-a-company-is-bigger-than-its-country/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=when-a-company-is-bigger-than-its-country</link>
  194. <comments>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/when-a-company-is-bigger-than-its-country/#comments</comments>
  196. <dc:creator><![CDATA[James Joyner]]></dc:creator>
  197. <pubDate>Thu, 02 May 2024 11:57:45 +0000</pubDate>
  198. <category><![CDATA[Economics and Business]]></category>
  199. <category><![CDATA[World Politics]]></category>
  200. <category><![CDATA[Denmark]]></category>
  201. <category><![CDATA[diversity]]></category>
  202. <category><![CDATA[GDP]]></category>
  203. <category><![CDATA[Government Spending]]></category>
  204. <category><![CDATA[infrastructure]]></category>
  205. <category><![CDATA[intellectual property]]></category>
  206. <category><![CDATA[Interest Rates]]></category>
  207. <category><![CDATA[Obesity]]></category>
  208. <category><![CDATA[Social Media]]></category>
  209. <category><![CDATA[Spider-man]]></category>
  210. <category><![CDATA[Ukraine]]></category>
  211. <category><![CDATA[Wisconsin]]></category>
  212. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/?p=271079</guid>
  213.  
  214. <description><![CDATA[Novo Nordisk is worth more than home country's Denmark annual GDP. ]]></description>
  215. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
  216. <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" width="636" height="365" src="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/denmark-ozempic-e1714650941370.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-271080"/></figure>
  217.  
  218.  
  219.  
  220. <p><a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ozempic-maker-novo-nordisk-denmark-210031653.html">Bloomberg</a> (&#8220;<strong>The Ozempic Effect: How a Weight Loss Wonder Drug Gobbled Up an Entire Economy</strong>&#8220;):</p>
  221.  
  222.  
  223.  
  224. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  225. <p>There is no escaping Ozempic and Wegovy. The diabetes and obesity drugs are a global phenomenon. They’ve won over the rich and famous, generated billions in sales and blown open a new market for weight loss drugs, which Goldman Sachs estimates will reach $100 billion a year by 2030.</p>
  226.  
  227.  
  228.  
  229. <p>The development of semaglutide, the key ingredient in the medicines, has also transformed their maker, Novo Nordisk, into Europe’s most valuable company, with profound implications for its home country of Denmark. <strong>Novo’s market capitalization of more than $570 billion is bigger than the Danish economy.</strong> Its philanthropic foundation is now the world’s largest, with assets twice those of the Gates Foundation. The drugmaker’s income tax bill in Denmark last year was $2.3 billion, and its massive investments and heightened production helped the domestic economy expand almost 2% — more than four times the EU average. That drove record government spending on defense, the green transition and support for Ukraine.</p>
  230. </blockquote>
  231.  
  232.  
  233.  
  234. <p>That a drug company&#8217;s valuation is higher than Denmarks&#8217;s GDP is just staggering. Granting that Denmark is a small country whose population is roughly that of Wisconsin, it&#8217;s still the 37th largest economy on the planet by nominal GDP. </p>
  235.  
  236.  
  237.  
  238. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  239. <p>Without Novo’s contribution, the Danish economy would have stagnated.</p>
  240.  
  241.  
  242.  
  243. <p>Little in Denmark can escape Novo’s gravitational pull. <strong>Its agenda influences educational and research priorities, and politicians consider the company’s perspective before making decisions on immigration policy or new infrastructure development.</strong> The drugmaker has created thousands of jobs in the six-million-person country — and more will come as Novo expands across multiple locations — but even citizens with no ties to the firm benefit from its gains. Danish pension funds are flush from record returns on Novo shares, and mortgages are cheaper as booming diabetes drug exports have forced Denmark’s central bank to keep interest rates low.</p>
  244.  
  245.  
  246.  
  247. <p>Novo’s enormous scale in Denmark also comes with risks, both for the company and its home market. Its every move is met with media scrutiny, making it especially vulnerable to public backlash and regulatory shifts. And a strategic misstep by the company would have a trickle-down impact on public coffers, scientific research and even jobs for the next generation of Danish university graduates.</p>
  248. </blockquote>
  249.  
  250.  
  251.  
  252. <p>This puts Denmark in a company with petrostates and others that are dependent on a single resource. Then again, even if Novo does everything else right, it&#8217;ll lose intellectual property rights to semaglutide by the end of 2031&#8212;possibly much sooner if various challenges to its patents succeed. </p>
  253.  
  254.  
  255.  
  256. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  257. <p>While Novo can’t anticipate how its decisions might affect Denmark, Chief Executive Officer Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen said in an interview, he’s also realistic about the drugmaker’s potential impact in its home country and elsewhere. “When you have superpowers,” he said, citing Swedish children’s story Pippi Longstocking, “you have super responsibility.”</p>
  258. </blockquote>
  259.  
  260.  
  261.  
  262. <p>I was curious whether Spider-Man&#8217;s Uncle Ben ripped off Pippi Longstocking or vice versa. The latter character predates the former in print by almost two decades and had been translated into English for more than a decade before the publication of <em>Amazing Fantasy</em> #15. Then again, literally every reference to <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=pippi+Longstocking+%22super+responsibility%22&amp;oq=pippi+Longstocking+%22super+responsibility%22&amp;gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRigATIHCAMQIRigATIHCAQQIRigAdIBCDc2MzFqMGo0qAIAsAIB&amp;sourceid=chrome&amp;ie=UTF-8">Pippi Longstocking and &#8220;super responsibility&#8221;</a> on the Internet seems to be from this article.</p>
  263.  
  264.  
  265.  
  266. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  267. <p>Such outsized influence can be a liability in a culture where humility is so deeply rooted that an unofficial social code exists to discourage flashy displays of success. And Novo has taken measures to downplay its stature: When the company rented Copenhagen’s famed Tivoli Gardens amusement park in September for a private two-day staff party, the drugmaker asked guests not to post pictures on social media for fear of repercussions, according to local media.</p>
  268.  
  269.  
  270.  
  271. <p>And this week, following months of debate over rising public spending on Novo medication, the firm quietly reduced prices for Ozempic in Denmark by nearly a third.</p>
  272.  
  273.  
  274.  
  275. <p>For now, Novo has an almost iconic status amongst Danes — policymakers included. There is an “extreme political attentiveness” to Novo, said Christoph Houman Ellersgaard, an associate professor at the Copenhagen Business School who researches Danish elites. Yet Novo is in a delicate position. If it continues to expand, so too will the power and influence it exerts in Denmark.And if it stumbles or falls, the country’s economy and society will feel the effects.</p>
  276.  
  277.  
  278.  
  279. <p>Economists call this the “Nokia risk,” referencing the Finnish telecommunications giant whose collapse, beginning in the first decade of the 2000s, dragged down that country’s entire economy. Not only did the then-phonemaker’s decline wipe out thousands of jobs, but the ripple effects extended to Finnish universities, businesses, and the public sector, all of which relied on its success.</p>
  280. </blockquote>
  281.  
  282.  
  283.  
  284. <p>I suppose you&#8217;d rather have the problem than not. But, rather obviously, more diversity in the economy would be preferable. </p>
  285. ]]></content:encoded>
  287. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/when-a-company-is-bigger-than-its-country/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  288. <slash:comments>17</slash:comments>
  291. </item>
  292. <item>
  293. <title>The ‘Outside Agitator’ Trope</title>
  294. <link>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/the-outside-agitator-trope/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=the-outside-agitator-trope</link>
  295. <comments>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/the-outside-agitator-trope/#comments</comments>
  297. <dc:creator><![CDATA[James Joyner]]></dc:creator>
  298. <pubDate>Thu, 02 May 2024 11:02:53 +0000</pubDate>
  299. <category><![CDATA[Policing]]></category>
  300. <category><![CDATA[US Politics]]></category>
  301. <category><![CDATA[Antifa]]></category>
  302. <category><![CDATA[assassination]]></category>
  303. <category><![CDATA[Associated Press]]></category>
  304. <category><![CDATA[Atlanta]]></category>
  305. <category><![CDATA[Birmingham]]></category>
  306. <category><![CDATA[Black Lives Matter]]></category>
  307. <category><![CDATA[Chicago]]></category>
  308. <category><![CDATA[Civil Rights]]></category>
  309. <category><![CDATA[CNN]]></category>
  310. <category><![CDATA[Cold War]]></category>
  311. <category><![CDATA[conspiracy theories]]></category>
  312. <category><![CDATA[Donald Trump]]></category>
  313. <category><![CDATA[FBI]]></category>
  314. <category><![CDATA[Fox News]]></category>
  315. <category><![CDATA[Gaza]]></category>
  316. <category><![CDATA[Jim Crow]]></category>
  317. <category><![CDATA[Legislation]]></category>
  318. <category><![CDATA[Malcolm X]]></category>
  319. <category><![CDATA[Mississippi]]></category>
  320. <category><![CDATA[Missouri]]></category>
  321. <category><![CDATA[North Carolina]]></category>
  322. <category><![CDATA[NPR]]></category>
  323. <category><![CDATA[Oklahoma]]></category>
  324. <category><![CDATA[Pennsylvania]]></category>
  325. <category><![CDATA[protests]]></category>
  326. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/?p=271074</guid>
  327.  
  328. <description><![CDATA[It's been around for a very long time.]]></description>
  329. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
  330. <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="576" src="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/outside-agitators-1024x576.webp" alt="" class="wp-image-271077" srcset="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/outside-agitators-1024x576.webp 1024w, https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/outside-agitators-768x432.webp 768w, https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/outside-agitators.webp 1160w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>
  331.  
  332.  
  333.  
  334. <p class="has-drop-cap">I received some pushback in yesterdays&#8217; &#8220;<a href="https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/campus-crackdowns-escalate/">Campus Crackdowns Escalate</a>&#8221; post for my assertion</p>
  335.  
  336.  
  337.  
  338. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  339. <p>Talk of “outside agitators” is almost always a distraction. While there are indeed people who glom on to existing protests and try to egg on violence, it’s just absurd to think that this is happening at two dozen or so campuses across the country.</p>
  340.  
  341.  
  342.  
  343. <p></p>
  344. </blockquote>
  345.  
  346.  
  347.  
  348. <p>So let&#8217;s unpack that a bit. There&#8217;s a quotation from the late historian-activist <a href="https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/outside-agitators/">Howard Zinn</a> dating to 1971:</p>
  349.  
  350.  
  351.  
  352. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  353. <p>When students begin to defy established authority it often appears to besieged administrators that “someone must be behind this,” the implication being that young people are incapable of thinking or acting on their own.&nbsp;</p>
  354. </blockquote>
  355.  
  356.  
  357.  
  358. <p>CNN&#8217;s <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/27/us/campus-protests-palestine-outside-agitator-cec/index.html">Harmeet Kaur</a> wrote a piece Monday &#8220;<strong>Examining the long history of the ‘outside agitator’ narrative</strong>.&#8221;</p>
  359.  
  360.  
  361.  
  362. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  363. <p>As university administrators and law enforcement crack down on campus protests over Israel’s war in Gaza, they’re invoking a familiar trope: the “outside agitator.”</p>
  364.  
  365.  
  366.  
  367. <p>[&#8230;]</p>
  368.  
  369.  
  370.  
  371. <p>In these instances, and others, authorities have not offered many specifics about who the “outside agitators” are, how significant their numbers are or how they differentiated outsiders from university-affiliated protesters.</p>
  372.  
  373.  
  374.  
  375. <p>Large-scale social movements can certainly be vulnerable to groups who seek to capitalize on the chaos for their own ends, said Aldon Morris, a professor emeritus of sociology and African American studies at Northwestern University. But time and again, authorities have leveled the broad accusation of “outside agitators” to undermine or stifle protests.</p>
  376.  
  377.  
  378.  
  379. <p>“The notion here is that student protests aren’t really legitimate because the claim is they are being taken over by outside agitators who are violent, anti-government, anti-democracy and so forth,” Morris told CNN.</p>
  380.  
  381.  
  382.  
  383. <p>The use of the term is nuanced. This time around, city officials, university administrators and supporters of the student protesters have all cited “outside agitators” as people who are trying to hijack the protests for their own means. But whether the person using the phrase is trying to quell the protests or defend them, it’s not always clear who these “outside agitators” are, and whether they can be classed as such in the first place.</p>
  384.  
  385.  
  386.  
  387. <p>“It seems to me that the ‘outside agitator’ claim is one to shift the focus away from the grievances of the students and their protest,” Morris said.</p>
  388.  
  389.  
  390.  
  391. <p>You don’t have to look far back in history to find examples of the “outside agitator” narrative.</p>
  392.  
  393.  
  394.  
  395. <p>During a speech at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, then-President Donald Trump characterized the demonstrations occurring nationwide as being overrun with professional anarchists, violent mobs and other left-wing groups. As he spoke, police forcibly dispersed peaceful protesters outside the White House gates with tear gas, flash grenades and rubber bullets — a move that resulted in uproar and prompted a lawsuit from a coalition of civil rights groups.</p>
  396.  
  397.  
  398.  
  399. <p>While there were some reports of people with extremist ties showing up at protests, an Associated Press review of court documents published in October found that most of those who were arrested or charged at the time didn’t appear to be linked to highly organized extremist groups. Many of them, the AP found, were young adults from suburban areas that Trump had vowed to protect.</p>
  400.  
  401.  
  402.  
  403. <p>Claims of “outside agitators” — or “crisis actors,” which evoke a similar idea — also emerged during a 2018 walkout of Oklahoma teachers, in the aftermath of the Parkland school shooting earlier that year and amid the violent unrest that followed the police shooting of an 18-year-old Black man in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014.</p>
  404.  
  405.  
  406.  
  407. <p>The “outside agitator” label was also frequently evoked during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s, implying that protesters participating in demonstrations were driven by the nefarious agendas of shadowy “others,” as opposed to being motivated by their own concerns.</p>
  408.  
  409.  
  410.  
  411. <p>One example is the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project, Kathleen Fitzgerald, a teaching associate professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina, explained in a 2020 interview with CNN. A group of mostly White college students who traveled from the North to Mississippi to help register Black voters and open freedom schools were dismissed by White Southerners as outsiders.</p>
  412.  
  413.  
  414.  
  415. <p>“When they use that narrative, it’s an assumption that no locals would agree with these actions and no locals are on board,” Fitzgerald said in 2020. “And that’s certainly not true.”</p>
  416.  
  417.  
  418.  
  419. <p>Indeed, there are people who travel to support causes they believe in, but that doesn’t necessarily mean there is a significant distinction between them and those who were originally protesting.</p>
  420.  
  421.  
  422.  
  423. <p>For instance, Martin Luther King Jr. and other activists in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference were often called in to assist with civil rights demonstrations across the South. In doing so, they were portrayed as outsiders stirring up trouble — a notion that King rejected.</p>
  424.  
  425.  
  426.  
  427. <p>“Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial ‘outside agitator’ idea,” he famously wrote in Letter from a Birmingham Jail. “Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.”</p>
  428. </blockquote>
  429.  
  430.  
  431.  
  432. <p>Vox&#8217;s <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/6/3/21275720/george-floyd-protests-outside-agitators-ferguson-civil-rights-movement">Li Zhou</a> had a similar piece (&#8220;<strong>The trope of &#8216;outside agitators&#8217; at protests, explained</strong>&#8220;) back in June 2020.</p>
  433.  
  434.  
  435.  
  436. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  437. <p>It’s a statement that activists have heard before, used throughout history to undermine the legitimacy of protests. By framing protests as the result of “outside” influence, lawmakers are able to undercut the validity of the protest itself and question activists’ capacity for organizing such a large-scale movement. At the same time, they’re able to maintain that they actually support activists’ broader cause of combatting police violence, while cracking down on protesters.</p>
  438.  
  439.  
  440.  
  441. <p>“The idea [behind the outside agitator] is that anything that’s formidable really couldn’t be pulled off by local black activists or protesters,” Howard University law professor Justin Hansford told Vox.</p>
  442.  
  443.  
  444.  
  445. <p>The term is one that he is very familiar with: Hansford was an activist during the Ferguson, Missouri, protests in 2014 and now he runs the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center at Howard.</p>
  446.  
  447.  
  448.  
  449. <p>“In Ferguson,” he said, “it was the same situation: it’s an effective tool because not only do you delegitimize the protest itself, but you also delegitimize the activists as not being skillful enough, or clever enough, to do this on their own. You play on racial tropes as well.”</p>
  450.  
  451.  
  452.  
  453. <p>It can be complicated, Hansford notes, as there are some groups and individuals who are trying to capitalize on these protests to sow chaos of their own. There have been reports, for example, of white supremacist groups taking advantage of these protests to try to impair the cause.</p>
  454.  
  455.  
  456.  
  457. <p>But Hansford characterizes these organizations as “infiltrators,” not “outside agitators,” and says there’s a key distinction: “Infiltrators” are organizations he describes as working to undermine the protest, while “outside agitators” are (in theory) given credit for amplifying it.</p>
  458.  
  459.  
  460.  
  461. <p>[&#8230;]</p>
  462.  
  463.  
  464.  
  465. <p>Outside agitator is a racial term. The term means that protests are somehow less legitimate and really run by people who are, not black, usually white people, who are not local — people who are from different parts of the country or different parts of the world.</p>
  466.  
  467.  
  468.  
  469. <p>You may have seen people talk about Russian influence recently, fomenting this discussion. There’s another group they mention, which is seen as a predominately white organization. All these groups are, whether it’s Russia, whether it’s antifa, the idea is that anything that’s formidable really couldn’t be pulled off by local black activists or protesters. That’s actually the bottom line.</p>
  470.  
  471.  
  472.  
  473. <p>So, back in Ferguson, the outside agitator [that was raised] was George Soros. There’s an idea that these were paid protesters, it’s not legitimate, they are being paid to protest. Fox News was involved in promulgating that misnomer. I used to tell people — back then, if people were getting paid checks, I was wondering where my check was, because I never got a check. Nobody I know received a check.</p>
  474.  
  475.  
  476.  
  477. <p>[&#8230;]</p>
  478.  
  479.  
  480.  
  481. <p>Hostility toward the protesting can be justified easier. Legitimate protesting based on a legitimate problem: Being hostile toward it would make you seem like a racist. This gives you grounds for being hostile toward the protest in a way you can justify it.</p>
  482.  
  483.  
  484.  
  485. <p>In the history, most people will first think about Dr. [Martin Luther King Jr]. He was said to have been influenced by communists: In the aftermath of the ’50s, the McCarthy hearings, being a communist was a really harsh character assassination. Sheriffs and segregationists throughout the South said that Dr. King was being influenced by, again, white, foreign, outside agitators, who were the ones behind the fomenting. So if it wasn’t for those outside agitators, black people could not pull off such a formidable protest. That was the other big parallel in history.</p>
  486.  
  487.  
  488.  
  489. <p>It goes back before that. It does go back to even during the [anti-slavery] movement: If there was ever any disruptions, or even rebellions, it was the same thing. The trope was just more explicit at that point: “Black people couldn’t pull this off themselves, it must be some people from the North.”</p>
  490.  
  491.  
  492.  
  493. <p>So even then, from slavery up through segregation, the outside agitator could be in the communist concepts in the ’50s, ’60s, could be Russia, and back then in the 1800s, early 1900s, Jim Crow, slavery, the outsiders were the people from the North, white people from the North, the abolitionist from the North. Those were the outside agitators, so that’s the line: From the white people in the North to people who are communists in other countries, to George Soros … to antifa and Russia.</p>
  494.  
  495.  
  496.  
  497. <p>It’s the same process that’s been handed down over generations. That’s why it resonates so much and is such an easy thing to believe for folks who think that way, because there are so many precursors.</p>
  498.  
  499.  
  500.  
  501. <p>[&#8230;]</p>
  502.  
  503.  
  504.  
  505. <p>I have seen reports also of white supremacist organizations, who wanted to use this opportunity to create some sort of mayhem, specifically something called Boogaloo. I saw that report, so remember those are two different things: The outside agitator is trying to support, at least in the trope of it. When you think about white nationalists, now you’re talking about infiltrators.</p>
  506.  
  507.  
  508.  
  509. <p>The outside agitation trope versus the infiltration idea: It’s a subtle difference, but it is very true that there have been infiltrating groups in Ferguson, and I would not be surprised if there were infiltrators in the current protests. The infiltrator idea is a group that’s trying to harm the protest by doing things that are going to hurt the protesters’ cause.</p>
  510.  
  511.  
  512.  
  513. <p>The infiltrator thing is a real thing, I think that’s a legitimate issue. We had uncovered people in Ferguson, in the southern region of the Black Panther Party, Brown Berets, Native American groups, the American Indian movement.</p>
  514. </blockquote>
  515.  
  516.  
  517.  
  518. <p>Indeed, there were a spate of such articles at the time. </p>
  519.  
  520.  
  521.  
  522. <p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/06/09/873592665/unmasking-the-outside-agitator">NPR&#8217;s <em>Code Switch</em></a>, &#8220;<strong>Unmasking The &#8216;Outside Agitator</strong>&#8216;&#8221;</p>
  523.  
  524.  
  525.  
  526. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  527. <p>To help us understand why we&#8217;re hearing so much about outside agitators, we talked to Professor Peniel Joseph from the University of Texas at Austin. </p>
  528.  
  529.  
  530.  
  531. <p>[&#8230;]</p>
  532.  
  533.  
  534.  
  535. <p>The whole trope of outside agitator has a long history in American history, and it&#8217;s been used by everybody from plantation owners in the South during antebellum slavery to big corporate industry magnates.</p>
  536.  
  537.  
  538.  
  539. <p>We&#8217;re thinking about the Rockefellers and the Vanderbilts and Andrew Carnegie. It&#8217;s also been used by the FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover, when talking about everybody from radicals of the early 1920s and 30s, to civil rights activists such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, and certainly black power activists, including the Black Panthers and Stokely Carmichael.</p>
  540.  
  541.  
  542.  
  543. <p>So in our contemporary context—especially since the Black Lives Matter movement erupted around 2013 and 2014—it&#8217;s been utilized against activists who are trying to transform the criminal justice system in the United States. Basically, what it&#8217;s meant is that whatever conflict, political rebellion or demonstration is happening, it&#8217;s not organically home grown, it&#8217;s not authentic. That none of these troubles would happen if not for outside agitators.</p>
  544.  
  545.  
  546.  
  547. <p>[&#8230;]</p>
  548.  
  549.  
  550.  
  551. <p>When we think about the 19th century during antebellum slavery, there was this idea that those who were abolitionists and pushing for the eradication of slavery were outside agitators. And for a time, labeling people that way works. It even sparks new, more repressive legislation.</p>
  552.  
  553.  
  554.  
  555. <p>In the late 19th century and early 20th century, labor struggles and labor strife was a big moment for the use of &#8220;outside agitator.&#8221; It allowed really morally reprehensible acts of violence against labor activists. We&#8217;re talking about Haymarket in Chicago. In Homestead, Pennsylvania, in the late 19th century, workers who were on strike were literally murdered by a combination of law enforcement and private security firms hired by the great industrialists of the times.</p>
  556.  
  557.  
  558.  
  559. <p>The high point of the idea being an effective tool of repression was during the start of the Cold War. In the early 1950s, there was this idea that if you were a civil rights activist, and if you were pushing for an end to racial segregation, you were a communist. You were somebody who wasn&#8217;t authentically American. You were trying to do something that was subversive and anti-American and anti-patriotic.</p>
  560.  
  561.  
  562.  
  563. <p></p>
  564. </blockquote>
  565.  
  566.  
  567.  
  568. <p><a href="http://The Long History of the ‘Outside Agitator’">NYT</a>, &#8220;<strong>The Long History of the ‘Outside Agitator’</strong>&#8220;</p>
  569.  
  570.  
  571.  
  572. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  573. <p>“The notion — or rather fiction — of the ‘outside agitator’ was a persistent trope, especially during the early years of the civil rights movement,” said Thomas C. Holt, 77, a professor of African-American history at the University of Chicago who helped organize demonstrations during the 1960s.</p>
  574.  
  575.  
  576.  
  577. <p>“Part of the motivations for the charge was to sustain the myth that the locals were satisfied with things as they were,” he said, “and if you could just crack down on the outsiders, the protests would cease. As the movement grew and spread, that myth became more difficult to sustain.”</p>
  578.  
  579.  
  580.  
  581. <p>But the concept of “outside agitators” in popular protests has persisted, in part because it is rooted in some truth: Then as now, activists and leaders traveled from city to city to help organize demonstrations or mutual aid programs. Freedom riders took buses across state lines to protest segregation. The civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., who was from Atlanta, traveled frequently and was regularly labeled an outsider by local officials.</p>
  582.  
  583.  
  584.  
  585. <p>[&#8230;]</p>
  586.  
  587.  
  588.  
  589. <p>Recently, misinformation and conspiracy theories about the protests have flourished online. President Trump has tweeted about the influence of “the Radical Left, looters and thugs,” and threatened to use the Insurrection Act of 1807 to deploy active-duty troops against protesters.</p>
  590.  
  591.  
  592.  
  593. <p>And while there is some evidence that fringe groups have tried to discredit the movement, there is little evidence behind the suggestions from some federal officials that members of antifa — a contraction of the term “anti-fascist” that is associated with a diffuse movement of protesters who sometimes engage in techniques like vandalism — are driving the looting and violence.</p>
  594.  
  595.  
  596.  
  597. <p>In this confusing landscape, it is worth remembering how officials have used rhetoric about infiltration to justify forceful responses to popular movements, Dr. Holt said.</p>
  598.  
  599.  
  600.  
  601. <p>“There can be little doubt that the Trump administration is using the ‘outsider’ ploy much as segregationists did in the 1960s, to justify extreme measures against all of the protesters under that guise,” he said. “As then, tear gas and rubber bullets don’t distinguish between natives and visitors.”</p>
  602. </blockquote>
  603.  
  604.  
  605.  
  606. <p>Again, I don&#8217;t doubt that there are instances of outsiders glomming on to some of these protests to stir up trouble. Or even that there is some external coordination helping students organize. But the phrase &#8220;outside agitators&#8221; just gets my Spidey Sense tingling. </p>
  607.  
  608.  
  609.  
  610. <p><strong>UPDATE:</strong> Swarthmore College history professor <a href="https://timothyburke.substack.com/p/the-news-up-in-the-atmosphere">Timothy Burke</a> had this on his Substack yesterday:</p>
  611.  
  612.  
  613.  
  614. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  615. <p>If you want to claim there are outside agitators on campus, <em>prove it</em>. Especially <em>prove it</em> if a bunch of people on your campus got arrested and you want to claim that half or more were not students, alumni, or anyone else who has a relationship to the institution. That’s not a private personnel matter, it’s not FERPA-violating, it’s none of the things that universities and colleges hide behind when they want to assert that their claims or interpretations are valid but also insist that they can’t provide evidence that confirms the validity.</p>
  616.  
  617.  
  618.  
  619. <p>If you won’t provide proof on this point, you should shut up about it, since “outside agitators” is literally the claim that <em>every institution and government makes</em> when facing dissent from its own constituents, usually as a cynical strategy to invalidate that dissent pre-emptively, without having to deal with its specific content. And journalists should not credulously repeat the “outside agitators” trope without independently investigating it themselves. There <em>are</em> people lurking around the edges of some of these protests who are deliberately stirring up shit, and they’ve been spotted in a few cases—and it’s not entirely clear that they are actually sympathizers in any way with the protests. “Outside agitators” works both ways, as anybody who has ever been part of a protest movement knows. There <em>are</em> people who like to “heighten the contradictions” who are not clearly left or right, but instead are basically online trolls in the flesh. But I also think that at the heart of the encampments and other protests, almost everybody is a student, an alum, or a faculty member. I’ll also point out that administrations should be able to prove this accusation in other ways than arrest records. Most of them have built huge surveillance apparatuses on their campuses, and most of them have other on-the-ground ways of keeping track of who’s who. It’s a funny thing about surveillance: it gets shared out without hesitation in legal proceedings when you’ve got the goods on someone committing a crime, but then is quite notably withheld if it doesn’t easily confirm something you want to claim about events or actions.</p>
  620. </blockquote>
  621.  
  622.  
  623.  
  624. <p>There&#8217;s a whole lot more from him on the protests and the crackdown at the link but that&#8217;s the entirety of his commentary on this issue.</p>
  625. ]]></content:encoded>
  627. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/the-outside-agitator-trope/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  628. <slash:comments>19</slash:comments>
  631. </item>
  632. <item>
  633. <title>Thursday’s Forum</title>
  634. <link>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/thursdays-forum-192/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=thursdays-forum-192</link>
  635. <comments>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/thursdays-forum-192/#comments</comments>
  637. <dc:creator><![CDATA[James Joyner]]></dc:creator>
  638. <pubDate>Thu, 02 May 2024 10:26:49 +0000</pubDate>
  639. <category><![CDATA[Open Forum]]></category>
  640. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/?p=271072</guid>
  641.  
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  643. <content:encoded/>
  645. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/thursdays-forum-192/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  646. <slash:comments>26</slash:comments>
  649. </item>
  650. <item>
  651. <title>Worry Polarization</title>
  652. <link>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/worry-polarization/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=worry-polarization</link>
  653. <comments>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/worry-polarization/#comments</comments>
  655. <dc:creator><![CDATA[James Joyner]]></dc:creator>
  656. <pubDate>Wed, 01 May 2024 15:48:34 +0000</pubDate>
  657. <category><![CDATA[Public Opinion Polls]]></category>
  658. <category><![CDATA[US Politics]]></category>
  659. <category><![CDATA[Donald Trump]]></category>
  660. <category><![CDATA[exit polls]]></category>
  661. <category><![CDATA[Fascism]]></category>
  662. <category><![CDATA[Greatest Generation]]></category>
  663. <category><![CDATA[Millennials]]></category>
  664. <category><![CDATA[New York]]></category>
  665. <category><![CDATA[NPR]]></category>
  666. <category><![CDATA[polarization]]></category>
  667. <category><![CDATA[teaching]]></category>
  668. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/?p=271063</guid>
  669.  
  670. <description><![CDATA[Americans are concerned about very different things. ]]></description>
  671. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
  672. <p>An interesting if odd <a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/05/01/1248249250/election-poll-trump-biden-voters">NPR poll</a> (&#8220;<strong>Democrats fear fascism, and Republicans worry about a lack of values</strong>&#8220;):</p>
  673.  
  674.  
  675.  
  676. <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="662" height="441" src="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Alfred-E.-Neuman-Me-Worry.webp" alt="" class="wp-image-271068"/></figure>
  677.  
  678.  
  679.  
  680. <p>The fear factor is real in America, but Democrats and Republicans are scared for the country&#8217;s future for different reasons, the&nbsp;<a href="https://maristpoll.marist.edu/polls/2024-race-for-the-white-house-may01">latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll</a>&nbsp;finds.</p>
  681.  
  682.  
  683.  
  684. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  685. <p>They also believe very differently about what children who will inherit that future should be taught.</p>
  686.  
  687.  
  688.  
  689. <p>Looking at this year&#8217;s presidential election, the survey also found big shifts with key voter groups, along generational, racial and educational lines.</p>
  690.  
  691.  
  692.  
  693. <p>It also explored how third-party candidates and so-called &#8220;double haters&#8221; — who have unfavorable ratings of both President Biden and former President Donald Trump — could affect the race.</p>
  694.  
  695.  
  696.  
  697. <p>Finally, it finds a jump in Republicans now believing Trump has done something unethical, as he continues to contend with dozens of criminal charges and legal troubles.</p>
  698. </blockquote>
  699.  
  700.  
  701.  
  702. <p>So far, so good.</p>
  703.  
  704.  
  705.  
  706. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  707. <h3 class="wp-block-heading">Fascism and extremism vs. a lack of values and becoming weak</h3>
  708.  
  709.  
  710.  
  711. <p>Democrats overwhelmingly said teaching children to treat others as you would want to be treated, the &#8220;Golden Rule,&#8221; is the most important value to teach children. That was followed farther back by &#8220;education being the key to success&#8221; and &#8220;be happy and follow your dreams.&#8221;</p>
  712.  
  713.  
  714.  
  715. <p>Democrats are most concerned about a rise in extremism and fascism, topping everything else by a wide margin.</p>
  716.  
  717.  
  718.  
  719. <p>Republicans, on the other hand, said instilling children with faith in God, teaching them that hard work and discipline pay off, and to abide by the &#8220;Golden Rule&#8221; were most important.</p>
  720.  
  721.  
  722.  
  723. <p>Their biggest concerns for the country were a lack of values and becoming weak as a nation.</p>
  724. </blockquote>
  725.  
  726.  
  727.  
  728. <p>That&#8217;s a bit confusing but the graphics help show the starkness:</p>
  729.  
  730.  
  731.  
  732. <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="789" src="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/NPR-Marist-Concerns-20240501-1024x789.png" alt="" class="wp-image-271064" srcset="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/NPR-Marist-Concerns-20240501-1024x789.png 1024w, https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/NPR-Marist-Concerns-20240501-768x592.png 768w, https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/NPR-Marist-Concerns-20240501-1536x1184.png 1536w, https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/NPR-Marist-Concerns-20240501.png 1974w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>
  733.  
  734.  
  735.  
  736. <p>Democrats are very worried about fascism, with nearly half citing it as their biggest fear, whereas Republicans are not at all concerned. Independents are right in line with the median. Conversely, roughly a third of Republicans are most worried about becoming weak as a nation&#8212;almost three times the rate of Democrats. Once again, Independents are smack in the middle. Interestingly, given what we&#8217;ve been reading for these last several years, essentially no Republicans cite &#8220;people like you losing power;&#8221; indeed, their responses here are identical to the Democrats.</p>
  737.  
  738.  
  739.  
  740. <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="975" height="752" src="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/NPR-Marist-Concerns-Children.png" alt="" class="wp-image-271066" srcset="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/NPR-Marist-Concerns-Children.png 975w, https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/NPR-Marist-Concerns-Children-768x592.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 975px) 100vw, 975px" /></figure>
  741.  
  742.  
  743.  
  744. <p>With regard to the first two &#8220;values&#8221; questions, I&#8217;m wondering about interaction effects. On the surface, Republicans are nearly three times as likely as Democrats to cite &#8220;Faith in God&#8221; as the number one value and Democrats roughly twice as likely to cite the Golden Rule. But the most familiar version of the latter to Americans comes from Jesus&#8217; Sermon on the Mount. So, presumably, faith would reinforce, not compete with, that value.</p>
  745.  
  746.  
  747.  
  748. <p>Otherwise, no real surprises here. Democrats are increasingly the party of the educated class; it&#8217;s natural that they see it as a top value. Republicans, on the other hand, have increasingly seen educational institutions as threats to their religious, social, and cultural values. </p>
  749.  
  750.  
  751.  
  752. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  753. <h3 class="wp-block-heading">Trump&#8217;s trials have worn down Republicans, as more of them are viewing the former president as having done something wrong</h3>
  754.  
  755.  
  756.  
  757. <p>Fewer than half of respondents said they&#8217;re following Trump&#8217;s New York hush money trial closely, but with the Republican primary over and Trump&#8217;s continued legal troubles, a majority of Republicans now say they believe Trump has done something wrong, whether that&#8217;s something unethical or illegal.</p>
  758. </blockquote>
  759.  
  760.  
  761.  
  762. <p>The degree to which that will influence voting behavior in November remains to be seen but it would seem to be evidence that at least some awareness is setting in.</p>
  763.  
  764.  
  765.  
  766. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  767. <h3 class="wp-block-heading">There are big shifts since 2020 along age, race and educational lines</h3>
  768.  
  769.  
  770.  
  771. <p>When looking at the presidential election, Biden and Trump remain in a virtual tie among registered voters, with 50% for Biden and 48% for Trump. Among people who say they are &#8220;definitely voting&#8221; in November, Biden&#8217;s lead expands out to 5 points, 52%-47%. The survey shows Biden is doing better with groups that say they&#8217;re likely or definitely voting<strong>&nbsp;—</strong>&nbsp;older voters and college-educated whites, in particular.</p>
  772. </blockquote>
  773.  
  774.  
  775.  
  776. <p>The irony, of course, is that Republicans have historically benefitted from this for the same reasons. </p>
  777.  
  778.  
  779.  
  780. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  781. <p>That may seem like the same old story — two well-known candidates who were expected to be in a close race are now in a close race. But the top line numbers mask important shifts taking place by age, race and education.</p>
  782.  
  783.  
  784.  
  785. <p>Here are some key findings:</p>
  786.  
  787.  
  788.  
  789. <p><strong>Age</strong></p>
  790.  
  791.  
  792.  
  793. <ul>
  794. <li>Trump won voters older than 45 in 2020, according to exit polls, but Biden is winning them now, including having a 12-point lead with the oldest voters. That&#8217;s unusual because older voters have traditionally leaned Republican.</li>
  795.  
  796.  
  797.  
  798. <li>Biden won voters under 45 by double-digits in 2020, but Trump and Biden are now tied with the group. Biden is particularly struggling with the youngest voters — he&#8217;s up just 2 points with Gen Z/Millennials, who are 18 to 43 years old. In 2020, though, he won 18- to 29-year-olds by 24 points, and those 30 to 44 by 6 points. </li>
  799.  
  800.  
  801.  
  802. <li>Respondents aged 18 to 29 give Biden just a 31% approval rating, 10 points lower than his overall rating of 41%.</li>
  803. </ul>
  804. </blockquote>
  805.  
  806.  
  807.  
  808. <p>I suspect this is more about generational displacement than shifting attitudes among the same cohort. The Silents and Greatest Generation are dying off, and the Boomers and Xers have gotten four years older. Indeed, the oldest of the Millennials have just turned 43, so they&#8217;ll be in the &#8220;over 45&#8221; category next go-round. It&#8217;s somewhat ironic that the youngest voters disapprove of Biden, given student loan forgiveness and the like that he&#8217;s done to curry their favor; but they&#8217;re doing far worse than recent generations were at that point in their lives. </p>
  809.  
  810.  
  811.  
  812. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  813. <p><strong>Race and education</strong></p>
  814.  
  815.  
  816.  
  817. <ul>
  818. <li>Biden won nonwhite voters by 45 points in 2020, but his lead with them now is half that.</li>
  819.  
  820.  
  821.  
  822. <li>He is doing better with white voters than he did in 2020 by a few points, and that&#8217;s mostly attributed to college-educated whites.</li>
  823.  
  824.  
  825.  
  826. <li>Biden won college-educated white women by 9 points in 2020. This survey has him ahead by 17 with them.</li>
  827.  
  828.  
  829.  
  830. <li>Trump won college-educated white men by 3 points in 2020, but now Biden is ahead by 10 points with them.</li>
  831. </ul>
  832. </blockquote>
  833.  
  834.  
  835.  
  836. <p>Here, it seems obvious that race and education are two variables rather than one. Biden is doing better with college-educated folks, who are disproportionately White and Asian, and losing working-class voters, who are disproportionately Black and Hispanic. </p>
  837.  
  838.  
  839.  
  840. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  841. <h3 class="wp-block-heading">&#8220;Double haters&#8221; are core to RFK Jr.&#8217;s support</h3>
  842. </blockquote>
  843.  
  844.  
  845.  
  846. <p>Well . . . duh.</p>
  847.  
  848.  
  849.  
  850. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  851. <p>Polls have been unclear about which candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has the potential to pull support from more. This survey shows him taking a bit more from Biden than from Trump.</p>
  852.  
  853.  
  854.  
  855. <p>Biden&#8217;s 2-point lead with all adults and 5-point lead with registered voters evaporates when RFK Jr. and others are considered. RFK Jr. takes in 11% of the vote, which is about how much he&#8217;s been registering on average in previous Marist polls and other surveys.</p>
  856.  
  857.  
  858.  
  859. <p>It&#8217;s no secret that there&#8217;s a lot of cynicism and disaffection among many voters. Highlighting the country&#8217;s partisanship, respondents said both men essentially represent equal threats to democracy, and majorities say they dislike both.</p>
  860.  
  861.  
  862.  
  863. <p>In this survey, 56% have an unfavorable view of Trump, and 54% have an unfavorable opinion of Biden. That&#8217;s the well from which RFK Jr. is drawing.</p>
  864. </blockquote>
  865.  
  866.  
  867.  
  868. <p>My guess here is that Trump&#8217;s 56 and Biden&#8217;s 54 are different.  Aside from committed partisans, my guess is that few viscerally dislike Biden. So, it&#8217;s not just a matter of there being slightly more Trump &#8220;haters&#8221; but rather that there are a whole lot more who <em>really</em> hate Trump. </p>
  869.  
  870.  
  871.  
  872. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  873. <p>In a matchup between Biden, Trump and RFK Jr., RFK Jr. gets 31% with those who have an unfavorable rating of both Trump and Biden, the &#8220;double haters.&#8221; Another 31% of the &#8220;double haters,&#8221; when faced with this choice, chose Trump and only 20% side with Biden.</p>
  874. </blockquote>
  875.  
  876.  
  877.  
  878. <p>But that&#8217;s surely a function of a lot of die-hard Republicans finding Trump personally loathsome but nonetheless unwilling to let a Democrat set public policy. And RFK is, after all, a Democrat.</p>
  879.  
  880.  
  881.  
  882. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  883. <p>That&#8217;s a major warning sign for Biden because in 2020, Biden did well with &#8220;double haters,&#8221; according to Democratic pollsters. When it&#8217;s just Biden against Trump, the two men are statistically tied with the group, 46% for Trump, 45% for Biden.</p>
  884. </blockquote>
  885.  
  886.  
  887.  
  888. <p>There wasn&#8217;t a charismatic alternative to the two men in 2020.</p>
  889.  
  890.  
  891.  
  892. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  893. <p>Among the other groups RFK Jr. gets his most support: independent women (22%), independents overall (17%), those in the West (15%), parents with children under 18 (14%), white women with college degrees (14%), those under 45 (13%) and Gen Z/Millennials.</p>
  894. </blockquote>
  895.  
  896.  
  897.  
  898. <p>I&#8217;ll be shocked if anything like that level of support sustains itself through the fall. </p>
  899. ]]></content:encoded>
  901. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/worry-polarization/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  902. <slash:comments>16</slash:comments>
  905. </item>
  906. <item>
  907. <title>Sometimes History Rhymes In Ironic Ways</title>
  908. <link>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/sometimes-history-rhymes-in-ironic-ways/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=sometimes-history-rhymes-in-ironic-ways</link>
  909. <comments>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/sometimes-history-rhymes-in-ironic-ways/#comments</comments>
  911. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Matt Bernius]]></dc:creator>
  912. <pubDate>Wed, 01 May 2024 14:59:10 +0000</pubDate>
  913. <category><![CDATA[Education]]></category>
  914. <category><![CDATA[History]]></category>
  915. <category><![CDATA[Middle East]]></category>
  916. <category><![CDATA[US Politics]]></category>
  917. <category><![CDATA[World Politics]]></category>
  918. <category><![CDATA[coffee]]></category>
  919. <category><![CDATA[Columbia University]]></category>
  920. <category><![CDATA[Gaza]]></category>
  921. <category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
  922. <category><![CDATA[protests]]></category>
  923. <category><![CDATA[ROTC]]></category>
  924. <category><![CDATA[Social Media]]></category>
  925. <category><![CDATA[Twitter]]></category>
  926. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/?p=271059</guid>
  927.  
  928. <description><![CDATA[And you might ask yourself: "how did we get here?"]]></description>
  929. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
  930. <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1191" height="670" src="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/GMdY9BHXgAAOCUU-edited.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-271061" srcset="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/GMdY9BHXgAAOCUU-edited.jpg 1191w, https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/GMdY9BHXgAAOCUU-edited-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/GMdY9BHXgAAOCUU-edited-768x432.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1191px) 100vw, 1191px" /></figure>
  931.  
  932.  
  933.  
  934. <p class="has-drop-cap">The last 24 hours have been very eventful ones in the <a href="https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/campus-crackdowns-escalate/" data-type="link" data-id="https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/campus-crackdowns-escalate/">ongoing campus protests against Israel&#8217;s war in Gaza</a>. As I was browsing xtter this morning over coffee, two xeets about those protests really stood out. Both, unsurprisingly had to do with student actions at Columbia University. The first is how the past is once again present.</p>
  935.  
  936.  
  937.  
  938. <figure class="wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
  939. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Pretty wild. April 30, 1968 &#8211; NYPD bust of Hamilton Hall protestors at Columbia University. <br><br>April 30, 2024 &#8211; NYPD bust of Hamilton Hall at Columbia University. <a href="https://t.co/bn74F0uQhu">https://t.co/bn74F0uQhu</a></p>&mdash; Omar Jimenez (@OmarJimenez) <a href="https://twitter.com/OmarJimenez/status/1785490218025390093?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 1, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
  940. </div></figure>
  941.  
  942.  
  943.  
  944. <p>A heck of a way to mark an anniversary. What&#8217;s especially worth noting is that we have a lot of easily accessible media artifacts from 1968 (especially from Columbia&#8217;s own student Journalists). Here&#8217;s the Columbia Daily Spectator&#8217;s front page from 56 years ago (to the day) reporting on those arrests.</p>
  945.  
  946.  
  947. <div class="wp-block-image">
  948. <figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="730" height="1024" src="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/GMdY9BHXgAAOCUU-730x1024.jpg" alt="Front page of the April 30th 1968 Columbia [University] Spectator." class="wp-image-271060" srcset="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/GMdY9BHXgAAOCUU-730x1024.jpg 730w, https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/GMdY9BHXgAAOCUU-768x1078.jpg 768w, https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/GMdY9BHXgAAOCUU-1095x1536.jpg 1095w, https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/GMdY9BHXgAAOCUU.jpg 1191w" sizes="(max-width: 730px) 100vw, 730px" /></figure></div>
  949.  
  950.  
  951. <p><a href="https://exhibitions.library.columbia.edu/exhibits/show/1968/bust">More media artifacts (including photography from those days)</a> are available via the Columbia archives. </p>
  952.  
  953.  
  954.  
  955. <p>As an aside, that picture in the lower left hand corner of the front page is a reminder that the campus protests of the 1960&#8217;s were not without their violence (from both sides) either. In fact, we&#8217;ve yet to see any protestor actions remotely as significant as <a href="https://www.studlife.com/scene/2020/05/05/a-watershed-moment-reflecting-on-the-burning-of-the-rotc-air-force-building-50-years-later">student activists literally burning down the Air Force  and ROTC buildings at Kent State</a> or <a href="https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2009/04/campus-takeover-symbolized-era-change" data-type="link" data-id="https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2009/04/campus-takeover-symbolized-era-change">carrying guns while taking over a campus building.</a>* And on the opposite side of the equation, there was the Kent State National Guard&#8217;s response. Let&#8217;s hope that for all sides things don&#8217;t escalate anywhere near that far this year.</p>
  956.  
  957.  
  958.  
  959. <p>The second stand out xeet touches on the patina that history puts on past events. It also shows how the reinterpretation of the past can lead to unintentional irony when juxtaposed against current events:</p>
  960.  
  961.  
  962.  
  963. <figure class="wp-block-embed aligncenter is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
  964. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Columbia&#39;s web page discussing its regret for calling in police to arrest students in 1968 is displaying a warning about limited access due to NYPD on campus arresting students.<br><br>May Columbia never live this down. <a href="https://t.co/Z5RAY32udH">pic.twitter.com/Z5RAY32udH</a></p>&mdash; Alejandra Caraballo (@Esqueer_) <a href="https://twitter.com/Esqueer_/status/1785492559252365490?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 1, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
  965. </div></figure>
  966.  
  967.  
  968.  
  969. <p><a href="https://news.columbia.edu/content/new-perspective-1968">This section of Columbia&#8217;s PR site</a> was published as part of the University marking the fiftieth anniversary of the 1968 protests. While it might not go quite as far as directly expressing regret, the tone of the content definitely suggests that those protests played an important role in making Columbia &#8220;one of the most socio-economically diverse student bodies among its peer institutions&#8221; and leading it towards &#8220;a new campus designed to be open to the community and pursues fields of inquiry unheard of a half-century ago.&#8221;<br /><br />One can only wonder how these protests will be reframed half a century from now (and if this &#8220;same as it ever was&#8221; screenshot will be included in that archive).</p>
  970.  
  971.  
  972.  
  973. <hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>
  974.  
  975.  
  976.  
  977. <p>Reflecting on the topic of violence and these protests, I find myself wondering how we (the people we are today, with all of our current beliefs) would have reacted to those protests 60 years ago. Social media yesterday was filled with pictures and comments on a student breaking a building window with a hammer in order to occupy Hamilton Hall.</p>
  978.  
  979.  
  980.  
  981. <p>The general tenor of many of those responses (including here) was: &#8220;look at how violent these protests are.&#8221; In April of 1969, on the morning of Parents Weekend, <a href="https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2009/04/campus-takeover-symbolized-era-change">Black students at Cornell responded to someone burning a cross on campus by occupying Willard Straight Hall for days</a>. I knew that story from my time at Cornell. What I didn&#8217;t know before today is that after White students attempted to eject them from the building, the Black students armed themselves with guns. Even after the resolution of the occupation of Willard Straight, Black students marched across campus holding rifles (see the link above for pictures).</p>
  982.  
  983.  
  984.  
  985. <p>On the one hand, our current narrative about race relations and the 1960&#8217;s risks turning this into a simple &#8220;good/bad&#8221; binary. Yet, at the same time, we are also talking about violent actions and the use of guns as a way to back them up. So, we&#8217;re moving beyond the usual easy discussions about MLK and nonviolence.</p>
  986.  
  987.  
  988.  
  989. <p>I think it&#8217;s useful to honestly ask yourself: &#8220;how would I have reacted if I was reading that news at the time? And how is what&#8217;s happening different today?&#8221; </p>
  990. ]]></content:encoded>
  992. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/sometimes-history-rhymes-in-ironic-ways/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  993. <slash:comments>3</slash:comments>
  996. </item>
  997. <item>
  998. <title>Campus Crackdowns Escalate</title>
  999. <link>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/campus-crackdowns-escalate/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=campus-crackdowns-escalate</link>
  1000. <comments>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/campus-crackdowns-escalate/#comments</comments>
  1002. <dc:creator><![CDATA[James Joyner]]></dc:creator>
  1003. <pubDate>Wed, 01 May 2024 10:47:32 +0000</pubDate>
  1004. <category><![CDATA[Education]]></category>
  1005. <category><![CDATA[US Politics]]></category>
  1006. <category><![CDATA[Black Lives Matter]]></category>
  1007. <category><![CDATA[California]]></category>
  1008. <category><![CDATA[Columbia University]]></category>
  1009. <category><![CDATA[counterterrorism]]></category>
  1010. <category><![CDATA[Democratic National Convention]]></category>
  1011. <category><![CDATA[elections]]></category>
  1012. <category><![CDATA[Gaza]]></category>
  1013. <category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
  1014. <category><![CDATA[Ivy League]]></category>
  1015. <category><![CDATA[Manhattan]]></category>
  1016. <category><![CDATA[New York]]></category>
  1017. <category><![CDATA[New York City]]></category>
  1018. <category><![CDATA[NPR]]></category>
  1019. <category><![CDATA[NYPD]]></category>
  1020. <category><![CDATA[protests]]></category>
  1021. <category><![CDATA[Rhode Island]]></category>
  1022. <category><![CDATA[shutdown]]></category>
  1023. <category><![CDATA[Social Media]]></category>
  1024. <category><![CDATA[television]]></category>
  1025. <category><![CDATA[UCLA]]></category>
  1026. <category><![CDATA[Vietnam]]></category>
  1027. <category><![CDATA[Vietnam War]]></category>
  1028. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/?p=271054</guid>
  1029.  
  1030. <description><![CDATA[Police have been brought at universities across the country.]]></description>
  1031. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
  1032. <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="683" src="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/police-crackdown-columbia-1024x683.webp" alt="" class="wp-image-271057"/></figure>
  1033.  
  1034.  
  1035.  
  1036. <p><a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinian-campus-student-protests-war-c6e5549532c85f13493daa22d0d143ac">AP</a> (&#8220;<strong>Police clear pro-Palestinian protesters from Columbia University while clashes break out at UCLA</strong>&#8220;):</p>
  1037.  
  1038.  
  1039.  
  1040. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  1041. <p>The pro-Palestinian demonstration that paralyzed Columbia University ended in dramatic fashion, with police carrying riot shields bursting into a building that protesters took over the previous night and making dozens of arrests. On the other side of the country, clashes broke out early Wednesday between dueling groups at the University of California, Los Angeles.</p>
  1042.  
  1043.  
  1044.  
  1045. <p>New York City officers entered Columbia’s campus late Tuesday after the university requested help, according to a statement released by a spokesperson. A tent encampment on the school’s grounds was cleared, along with Hamilton Hall where a stream of officers used a ladder to climb through a second-floor window.</p>
  1046.  
  1047.  
  1048.  
  1049. <p>Protesters calling on the Ivy League university to stop doing business with Israel or companies that support the war in Gaza seized the hall about 20 hours earlier.</p>
  1050.  
  1051.  
  1052.  
  1053. <p>“After the University learned overnight that Hamilton Hall had been occupied, vandalized, and blockaded, we were left with no choice,” the school said. “The decision to reach out to the NYPD was in response to the actions of the protesters, not the cause they are championing. We have made it clear that the life of campus cannot be endlessly interrupted by protesters who violate the rules and the law.”</p>
  1054.  
  1055.  
  1056.  
  1057. <p>[&#8230;]</p>
  1058.  
  1059.  
  1060.  
  1061. <p>Meanwhile, violence broke out at UCLA overnight between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protesters. Police wearing face shields formed a line but did not immediately intervene.</p>
  1062.  
  1063.  
  1064.  
  1065. <p>People threw chairs and shoved and kicked one another. Some armed with sticks beat others. Before the police arrived, a group piled on one person who lay on the ground, kicking and beating them until others pulled them out of the scrum.</p>
  1066.  
  1067.  
  1068.  
  1069. <p>“Horrific acts of violence occurred at the encampment tonight and we immediately called law enforcement for mutual aid support,” Mary Osako, a senior UCLA official, told the campus newspaper the Daily Bruin.</p>
  1070.  
  1071.  
  1072.  
  1073. <p>Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass spoke to the university’s chancellor and said police would respond to the school’s request, according to a post on social media platform X from her spokesperson Zach Seidl.</p>
  1074.  
  1075.  
  1076.  
  1077. <p>The clashes took place just outside a tent encampment, where pro-Palestinian protesters erected barricades and plywood for protection — and counter-protesters tried to pull them down.</p>
  1078.  
  1079.  
  1080.  
  1081. <p>[&#8230;]</p>
  1082.  
  1083.  
  1084.  
  1085. <p>Police have swept through other campuses across the U.S. over the last two weeks, leading to confrontations and more than 1,000 arrests. In rarer instances, university officials and protest leaders struck agreements to restrict the disruption to campus life and upcoming commencement ceremonies.</p>
  1086.  
  1087.  
  1088.  
  1089. <p>Just blocks away from Columbia, at The City College of New York, demonstrators were in a standoff with police outside the public college’s main gate. Video posted on social media by news reporters on the scene late Tuesday showed officers putting some people to the ground and shoving others as they cleared people from the street and sidewalks. Many detained protesters were driven away on city buses.</p>
  1090.  
  1091.  
  1092.  
  1093. <p>After police arrived, officers lowered a Palestinian flag atop the City College flagpole, balled it up and tossed it to the ground before raising an American flag.</p>
  1094.  
  1095.  
  1096.  
  1097. <p>Brown University, another member of the Ivy League, reached an agreement Tuesday with protesters on its Rhode Island campus. Demonstrators said they would close their encampment in exchange for administrators taking a vote to consider divestment from Israel in October. The compromise appeared to mark the first time a U.S. college has agreed to vote on divestment in the wake of the protests.</p>
  1098. </blockquote>
  1099.  
  1100.  
  1101.  
  1102. <p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/05/01/1248401802/columbia-university-protests-new-york">NPR</a> (&#8220;<strong>New York police have cleared Hamilton Hall and the encampment at Columbia University</strong>&#8220;) adds:</p>
  1103.  
  1104.  
  1105.  
  1106. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  1107. <p>New York police arrested dozens of people on two campuses Tuesday night after officers cleared out a Columbia University building occupied by protesters.</p>
  1108.  
  1109.  
  1110.  
  1111. <p>At Columbia, New York police used a massive armored vehicle to push a bridge into a window of Hamilton Hall, the building demonstrators began occupying the previous night. Officers then streamed over the bridge into a window — quickly retaking the building.</p>
  1112.  
  1113.  
  1114.  
  1115. <p>Elsewhere in New York City, police made dozens of arrests at The City College of New York, less than a mile from Columbia. A large number of students were hauled away.</p>
  1116.  
  1117.  
  1118.  
  1119. <p>[&#8230;]</p>
  1120.  
  1121.  
  1122.  
  1123. <p>Early Tuesday morning, protesters hid in Hamilton Hall until it closed and let other protesters in. There were two security guards present, who Columbia President Minouche Shafik said the school released from the building.</p>
  1124.  
  1125.  
  1126.  
  1127. <p>&#8220;We believe that while the group who broke into the building includes students, it is led by individuals who are not affiliated with the University,&#8221; she&nbsp;<a href="https://publicsafety.columbia.edu/news/letter-nypd-apr-30">wrote in a letter</a>&nbsp;requesting the New York Police Department&#8217;s assistance.</p>
  1128.  
  1129.  
  1130.  
  1131. <p>Protesters then chained the doors, used furniture as barricades and used rope to have people outside the building transfer supplies to them, tactics Rebecca Weiner, NYPD&#8217;s deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism, said were taught to other participants.</p>
  1132.  
  1133.  
  1134.  
  1135. <p>Some of the protesters have been on the New York Police Department&#8217;s radar for years, Weiner said at&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/NYPDnews/status/1785431471702094244">a press conference&nbsp;</a>Tuesday.</p>
  1136.  
  1137.  
  1138.  
  1139. <p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve been saying for days, if not weeks now, that we should have been a peaceful protest,&#8221; New York City Mayor Eric Adams said. &#8220;It has basically been co-opted by professional outside agitators. We were extremely cautious about releasing our intel/information because our goal was to ensure the safety of our students, the faculty, and without any destruction of property.&#8221;</p>
  1140.  
  1141.  
  1142.  
  1143. <p>Adams said he would not let the occupation turn into a &#8220;violent spectacle that serves no purpose,&#8221; and urged parents to contact their children to get them to disperse.</p>
  1144. </blockquote>
  1145.  
  1146.  
  1147.  
  1148. <p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/01/nyregion/columbia-university-protests-arrests.html">NYT</a> (&#8220;<strong>Columbia Said It Had ‘No Choice’ but to Call the Police</strong>&#8220;):</p>
  1149.  
  1150.  
  1151.  
  1152. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  1153. <p>Exactly&nbsp;<a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/25/remembering-columbia-1968/">56 years to the day</a>&nbsp;after the 1968 student occupation at Columbia University was violently cleared by the New York Police Department, hundreds of police officers moved into the Manhattan campus on Tuesday night to quell a different kind of antiwar protest.</p>
  1154.  
  1155.  
  1156.  
  1157. <p>Dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators were arrested as police officers entered Columbia’s main campus, which was on lockdown, and cleared Hamilton Hall of a group who had broken in and occupied it the night before.</p>
  1158.  
  1159.  
  1160.  
  1161. <p>It was a dizzying and, to many students and faculty, disturbing 24 hours on campus.</p>
  1162.  
  1163.  
  1164.  
  1165. <p>Last time, students were protesting the Vietnam War and Columbia’s plans to expand its campus into Harlem. This time, students were protesting the Israeli offensive in Gaza that has killed about 34,000 people, according to health officials there, and trying to force the university to divest from companies with ties to Israel.</p>
  1166.  
  1167.  
  1168.  
  1169. <p>But the students’ tactics were the same: By escalating their protest to the point where the university was unable to function, students forced the hand of administrators, who brought in the police to arrest them. Both times, the students had occupied Hamilton Hall.</p>
  1170. </blockquote>
  1171.  
  1172.  
  1173.  
  1174. <p>The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/05/01/nyregion/columbia-university-protests">NYT Campus Protests live blog</a> includes this map:</p>
  1175.  
  1176.  
  1177.  
  1178. <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="882" height="636" src="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/campus-protests-20240501.png" alt="" class="wp-image-271055" srcset="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/campus-protests-20240501.png 882w, https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/campus-protests-20240501-768x554.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 882px) 100vw, 882px" /></figure>
  1179.  
  1180.  
  1181.  
  1182. <p>It&#8217;s hard to assess the situation from the news accounts. In some cases, leaders are surely overreacting and escalating the situation. In others, they may well be waiting too long, letting the situation getting so far out of hand that there&#8217;s not much alternative to calling in the police. </p>
  1183.  
  1184.  
  1185.  
  1186. <p>Talk of &#8220;outside agitators&#8221; is almost always a distraction. While there are indeed people who glom on to existing protests and try to egg on violence, it&#8217;s just absurd to think that this is happening at two dozen or so campuses across the country. </p>
  1187.  
  1188.  
  1189.  
  1190. <p>The decision by administrators at Brown to give in to protestor demands is interesting. On the one hand, it de-escalates the immediate situation. But if the board votes to divest, it invites every group with a grievance to stage their own shutdown of the campus to get what they want. And, if votes to continue the status quo, I don&#8217;t know why the protestors would be mollified. </p>
  1191.  
  1192.  
  1193.  
  1194. <p>As to the bigger picture, I wonder to what degree these protests have legs. In the case of the Vietnam protests, after all, the students had a direct stake in the war, as they were in danger of being drafted to fight. I&#8217;m skeptical that American college students will spend their summer breaks occupying near-closed campuses to protest a war that they&#8217;re merely watching unfold on television.</p>
  1195.  
  1196.  
  1197.  
  1198. <p>More recently, even the Black Lives Matter protests eventually petered out in a few weeks. It&#8217;s just hard to sustain the energy for mass demonstrations even when the grievances are more immediately salient.</p>
  1199.  
  1200.  
  1201.  
  1202. <p>So, no, I don&#8217;t think we&#8217;re seeing a reprise of 1968 here. There will doubtless be protests outside of the Democratic National Convention in September but I suspect they&#8217;ll be comparatively muted. And I continue to think the impact of the war in Gaza on November&#8217;s elections will be negligible. </p>
  1203. ]]></content:encoded>
  1205. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/campus-crackdowns-escalate/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  1206. <slash:comments>38</slash:comments>
  1209. </item>
  1210. <item>
  1211. <title>May Day Forum</title>
  1212. <link>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/may-day-forum-2/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=may-day-forum-2</link>
  1213. <comments>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/may-day-forum-2/#comments</comments>
  1215. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Steven L. Taylor]]></dc:creator>
  1216. <pubDate>Wed, 01 May 2024 08:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
  1217. <category><![CDATA[Open Forum]]></category>
  1218. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/?p=271021</guid>
  1219.  
  1220. <description/>
  1221. <content:encoded/>
  1223. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/may-day-forum-2/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  1224. <slash:comments>19</slash:comments>
  1227. </item>
  1228. <item>
  1229. <title>Israelis United Behind War Effort</title>
  1230. <link>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/israelis-united-behind-war-effort/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=israelis-united-behind-war-effort</link>
  1231. <comments>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/israelis-united-behind-war-effort/#comments</comments>
  1233. <dc:creator><![CDATA[James Joyner]]></dc:creator>
  1234. <pubDate>Tue, 30 Apr 2024 15:32:56 +0000</pubDate>
  1235. <category><![CDATA[Middle East]]></category>
  1236. <category><![CDATA[World Politics]]></category>
  1237. <category><![CDATA[elections]]></category>
  1238. <category><![CDATA[Gaza]]></category>
  1239. <category><![CDATA[Hamas]]></category>
  1240. <category><![CDATA[Hezbollah]]></category>
  1241. <category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
  1242. <category><![CDATA[New York]]></category>
  1243. <category><![CDATA[New York Times]]></category>
  1244. <category><![CDATA[Palestinian Authority]]></category>
  1245. <category><![CDATA[Palestinians]]></category>
  1246. <category><![CDATA[Terror]]></category>
  1247. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/?p=271044</guid>
  1248.  
  1249. <description><![CDATA[This is only "one alternative, and this is being murdered."]]></description>
  1250. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
  1251. <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1280" height="720" src="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/yair-lapid.avif" alt="" class="wp-image-271045"/></figure>
  1252.  
  1253.  
  1254.  
  1255. <p class="has-drop-cap">The <em>New York Times </em>has launched a new podcast series called <em>The Interview</em>, the first two installments of which debuted over the weekend. The first, featuring the actress Anne Hathaway, interested not a whit. The second, in which cohost <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/27/magazine/yair-lapid-interview.html">Lulu Garcia-Navarro interviewed Israel&#8217;s Opposition Leader</a>, was a different story.</p>
  1256.  
  1257.  
  1258.  
  1259. <p>Its title, &#8220;<strong>Yair Lapid Says the World Misunderstands Israel</strong>,&#8221; tells the story. By way of context, Lapid, who briefly served as Israel&#8217;s 14th Prime Minister (July-December 2022) heads the Yesh Atid party, one of the very few in the Knesset that did not join the Unity Government in the wake of the October 7 massacre. And yet, while it&#8217;s clear Lapid thinks Netanyahu is a disaster, the amount of light between his view of the war in Gaza and that of his nemesis would not expose a roll of film.</p>
  1260.  
  1261.  
  1262.  
  1263. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  1264. <p>As an Israeli, I’m as worried as I’ve ever been. I feel the fragility of our society. I meet with the hostage families and discuss with them the endless pain and fear and agony they have. And of course, there’s no way for me not to imagine being in their place if my children were there or my mother was there, held by a terror organization. And I’m haunted by memories of Oct. 7, by the implications on our security.</p>
  1265.  
  1266.  
  1267.  
  1268. <p>As a political leader, I’m worried, but a different kind of worried, because I don’t think we have the right leadership to handle the moment.</p>
  1269.  
  1270.  
  1271.  
  1272. <p>[&#8230;]</p>
  1273.  
  1274.  
  1275.  
  1276. <p>We are fighting an existential war. I don’t think people understand the level of fear and angst — I mean the international community, the international media. It is horrifying to me to see this footage of young people marching on American campuses, shouting, “From the river to the sea.” And then you ask them, Do you know what river it is or what sea it is? And they have no clue. They’re putting us on the side of the bad guys without even knowing what happened, what we have been going through.</p>
  1277.  
  1278.  
  1279.  
  1280. <p>[&#8230;]</p>
  1281.  
  1282.  
  1283.  
  1284. <p>First and foremost, I blame it on a cynical radical Islamic movement that is using the lack of knowledge from American youngsters, who are buying this as part of an ongoing struggle between the oppressors and those who are oppressed, or between white privileged people and people who are not. We keep telling them: Anne Frank was not a white privileged kid. And the story is not what you are told, and how come you’re marching in favor of people who want to kill Jews because they’re Jews? Because this is the way Hamas, Hezbollah and the Islamic Jihad are. And they’re supporting them against the democratic country. This is, to me, unbelievable in so many ways.</p>
  1285.  
  1286.  
  1287.  
  1288. <p>But I also blame an Israeli government who doesn’t understand or doesn’t seem to care about its primary duty to make this easier for those who support us in the United States to be supportive. Not, for example, making sure settlers’ violence is restrained, not making sure we’re doing what needs to be done in terms of explaining what is really happening in the war in Gaza. And not doing the simple things like saying: Yes, our heart is broken when children are dying in Gaza. Because children are not supposed to die in grown-ups’ wars, and because we have no war with children. And we try to do our utmost to avoid hurting the innocent. This is a very dense, populated area. This is a very cruel war against an enemy that uses his own people, his own children as human shields, and casualties are sometimes inevitable. But we are sorry. And the ridiculous thing is we are doing our best. The Israeli Defense Army is doing its best to avoid this. And yet the government is not saying so out loud, because they’re afraid of some ignorant, populist voices that might say they are soft on handling the war. This is just outrageous to me.</p>
  1289.  
  1290.  
  1291.  
  1292. <p>[&#8230;]</p>
  1293.  
  1294.  
  1295.  
  1296. <p>What is the alternative? Right now, to engage in this war has only one alternative, and this is being murdered. We never asked for this war. We never wanted this war, and we only went for this war because our children were burned alive. Because our elderly were killed. Because we have, even right now, still hostages in the terror tunnels. And they raped women, and they conquered villages. And more than that, they have openly said — they meaning Hamas — that if they have a chance, they’ll do it again. And therefore we are in Gaza to make sure it will never happen again.</p>
  1297. </blockquote>
  1298.  
  1299.  
  1300.  
  1301. <p>Garcia-Navarro asks the obvious question: </p>
  1302.  
  1303.  
  1304.  
  1305. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  1306. <p><strong>You very deliberately did not join the war cabinet. Can you tell me why? You lead the opposition, and just hearing you speak about your defense of the conduct of the war, I’m wondering what you are in opposition to?</strong></p>
  1307.  
  1308.  
  1309.  
  1310. <p>Part of it is because somebody has to say out loud, We have to maintain our democratic spine. We have to make sure we are handling this at least the best we can, and we have to understand that the future lies also with discussing this with other Palestinians, like the Palestinian Authority. This country needs someone who will speak about the future in different terms. We need in this country somebody who will be able to talk to the American administration or to the American political realm in a different language. And besides, I feel that Prime Minister Netanyahu is part of what led us to or has a huge responsibility for what led us to the current situation. And sitting behind him and becoming a front or legitimizing his premiership doesn’t seem like a good idea.</p>
  1311.  
  1312.  
  1313.  
  1314. <p>But I’m an Israeli patriot. I think the Israeli Army is conducting itself in terrible, sometimes impossible circumstances in an honorable way and doing its best to avoid hurting the innocent. And therefore I feel obligated to defend the way the Israeli Defense Forces are dealing with themselves. On the other hand, when something terrible happens, like when Israel accidentally killed the employees of the World Kitchen organization, I will be the first one to say: Listen, we are sorry. This shouldn’t have happened. And to demand there will be an investigation, to demand that there will be results to these investigations. So I think this voice is necessary. But I think I did the right thing, staying out of government.</p>
  1315.  
  1316.  
  1317.  
  1318. <p>[&#8230;]</p>
  1319.  
  1320.  
  1321.  
  1322. <p>Because what I think is that — and this is my duty as the leader of the Israeli opposition, to tell the Israeli government — you need to handle this war better than you do now. We understand the need, of course, to defend the country, to defend the people, to react to what happened on Oct. 7 and to eliminate all of Hamas’s military capabilities. And on the other hand, to stay what we are, which is a democracy that is doing its best in terms of defending the idea of humanity. And, as we have discussed, defend this in circumstances that are no less than horrible. And the dialogue we have with the outside world is either with people who are chanting slogans they don’t really understand or who are determined to make this into a one-sided story.</p>
  1323.  
  1324.  
  1325.  
  1326. <p>No, Israel is not committing genocide. No, Israel is not doing anything but defend itself in a war we didn’t want. And these are not pro-government statements. This is just the reality of people who are hurting. The fact that I oppose the government so much doesn’t mean I need to oppose the idea of self-defense.</p>
  1327. </blockquote>
  1328.  
  1329.  
  1330.  
  1331. <p>Essentially, then, the only disagreement Lapid has with Netanyahu and the rest of the Unity Government is that they could be more emphatic about how hard they&#8217;re trying to prevent innocent casualties. </p>
  1332.  
  1333.  
  1334.  
  1335. <p>To be sure, he has a much more moderate view of the Palestinian crisis. He&#8217;s a longtime proponent of a two-state solution, albeit mostly because he thinks that&#8217;s the only way Israelis will ever be safe. But that&#8217;s not exactly his priority at the present moment. </p>
  1336.  
  1337.  
  1338.  
  1339. <p>The bottom line, then, is even if there were new elections&#8212;as Lapid has repeatedly called for&#8212;and Netanyahu were ousted, there would be essentially zero change in Israeli war policy. </p>
  1340. ]]></content:encoded>
  1342. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/israelis-united-behind-war-effort/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  1343. <slash:comments>31</slash:comments>
  1346. </item>
  1347. <item>
  1348. <title>RFK Jr.’s Appeal</title>
  1349. <link>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/rfk-jr-s-appeal/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=rfk-jr-s-appeal</link>
  1350. <comments>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/rfk-jr-s-appeal/#comments</comments>
  1352. <dc:creator><![CDATA[James Joyner]]></dc:creator>
  1353. <pubDate>Tue, 30 Apr 2024 11:59:34 +0000</pubDate>
  1354. <category><![CDATA[2024 Election]]></category>
  1355. <category><![CDATA[US Politics]]></category>
  1356. <category><![CDATA[Bernie Sanders]]></category>
  1357. <category><![CDATA[California]]></category>
  1358. <category><![CDATA[culture wars]]></category>
  1359. <category><![CDATA[Democratic Party]]></category>
  1360. <category><![CDATA[merger]]></category>
  1361. <category><![CDATA[Mississippi]]></category>
  1362. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/?p=271036</guid>
  1363.  
  1364. <description><![CDATA[He's more than just a kook. ]]></description>
  1365. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
  1366. <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="576" src="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Robert_Kennedy_Jr-1024x576.jpeg" alt="Robert Kennedy Jr campaign speech" class="wp-image-271037" srcset="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Robert_Kennedy_Jr-1024x576.jpeg 1024w, https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Robert_Kennedy_Jr-768x432.jpeg 768w, https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Robert_Kennedy_Jr.jpeg 1250w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>
  1367.  
  1368.  
  1369.  
  1370. <p class="has-drop-cap">A veteran journalist and longtime virtual acquaintance I respect considerably pointed me the other day to a <em>Tablet</em> <a href="https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/robert-f-kennedy-jr-is-not-spoiler">essay</a> titled &#8220;<strong>RFK Jr. Isn’t a Spoiler</strong>.&#8221; It&#8217;s subtitled &#8220;<em>He’s a legitimate presidential contender who wrestles with real questions and inspires hope, in the face of well-organized and well-funded efforts to destroy him</em>.&#8221;</p>
  1371.  
  1372.  
  1373.  
  1374. <p>First, considering that he consistently <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/national/">polls around 10 percent</a>, he&#8217;s not a serious presidential contender. Second, the combination of that and the winner-take-all design of our system, he&#8217;s almost by definition a spoiler. That is, since he can&#8217;t be elected President, any vote that he gets is &#8220;wasted&#8221; if the person casting it had a preference between the two candidates who could.*</p>
  1375.  
  1376.  
  1377.  
  1378. <p>That said, the rest of the subhed has merit. The essay (by Teddy Macker, who &#8220;taught literature at UC Santa Barbara for many years&#8221; and &#8220;lives on a farm in Carpinteria, California, with his wife and daughters&#8221;) is rather discursive but hints at his enduring appeal with a sizable chunk of the electorate.</p>
  1379.  
  1380.  
  1381.  
  1382. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  1383. <p>Once the preliminaries are dispensed with, the presidential candidate steps onstage before a full crowd. Standing with a hipshot stance, in a dark suit, with his square shoulders and large hands, Kennedy is less blue-blooded Hyannis Port sprezzatura and more Sicilian boxer on his wedding day. Kennedy proceeds to speak extemporaneously, without notes or a teleprompter, with his rickety-voiced aplomb. When not speaking, Kennedy sometimes nods his head minutely, an effect perhaps of his spasmodic dysphonia.</p>
  1384.  
  1385.  
  1386.  
  1387. <p>Kennedy has been criticized for bowling over listeners with torrents of language. This is an understandable criticism. While speaking about his parents’ close relationship with Chavez and his own relationship with Chavez, the torrent, at times, is buffeting. Names, dates, anecdotes, and mid-sentence digressions pour forth, as he speaks in a somewhat muddled way about Robert and Ethel Kennedy helping Chavez conclude hunger strikes by personally serving Chavez communion. We also hear about how Robert Kennedy Jr. himself worked with the United Farm Workers on dozens of campaigns. At times, one can’t help but feel Kennedy is straining overmuch to prove his Chavez bona fides. Or perhaps the strain mainly reveals honest gratitude. Kennedy recalls how his father wouldn’t have won the state of California (which he did the night he was killed) without the political organization of Cesar Chavez.</p>
  1388.  
  1389.  
  1390.  
  1391. <p>In this part of his speech Kennedy also touches on his immigration policy of “tall fences and wide gates,” a policy he has stated before. According to Kennedy, the “tall fences” would curb an unrestricted flow of immigrants, which he sees as a humanitarian crisis for the immigrants because of horrors endured on their journeys and once they arrive, and an equal crisis for American citizens whose towns and cities are being overwhelmed. The “wide gates,” Kennedy says, would sponsor a more orderly migration, suited to the needs of citizens and immigrants both. Such a vision, Kennedy states, is aligned with that of Chavez who reportedly decried unrestricted immigration as it rendered undocumented migrants easy prey to unscrupulous employers, and harmed the livelihoods of the California field workers Chavez sought to protect.</p>
  1392.  
  1393.  
  1394.  
  1395. <p>Moving on from Chavez, Kennedy turns his attention to the predicament of Latinos in our country, a group which, he says, is suffering the consequences of a deteriorating middle class. “Fifty-seven percent of Americans cannot put their hands on a thousand dollars if they have an emergency.”</p>
  1396.  
  1397.  
  1398.  
  1399. <p>Commenting on the other two candidates, Presidents Biden and Trump, and their purported blindness to such straits, Kennedy offers a metaphor. The other candidates, he says, are overly concerned with small waves on the surface (which are the culture wars, Kennedy adds). Meanwhile, underneath these smaller waves, underneath the surface of our nation, great unspoken currents move—“currents that are sweeping our country away.” Both other candidates, despite differences in temperament, personality, and rhetoric, are in fact similar, Kennedy argues, for both ignore our country’s “existential problems.” Tweaking his maritime metaphor, Kennedy says the other two candidates are merely “changing deck chairs on the Titanic … and the ship is sinking.”</p>
  1400.  
  1401.  
  1402.  
  1403. <p>Kennedy names the alleged unspoken existential problems: our $34 trillion debt, the damaging merger of state and corporate power, our declining health, the war machine. Speaking about these issues, Kennedy’s power is plain. His varied knowledge, his chapter-and-verse exactitude, his considerable capacity for bird’s-eye-view synthesis, his knack for haunting quips (“When I was a kid the Democrats were the antiwar party and the Republicans were the war party. Today they’re both the war party”), and his willingness to step outside the bounds of acceptable discourse and reveal the dark side of our empire (especially insofar as Big Pharma, Big Ag, Big Tech, and the military industrial complex), thereby speaking realities that are felt by many but often insufficiently acknowledged—these traits rouse the crowd filling the old ticket concourse to impassioned applause.</p>
  1404.  
  1405.  
  1406.  
  1407. <p>Kennedy—sweating, his arms moving in an unrehearsed way—is now firing on all cylinders. Soon, a staffer motions to Kennedy to wrap things up (he apparently has a press conference following the event). Perhaps aware that he’s on a roll, Kennedy, with playful warmth, literally thumbs his nose at the staffer, and continues on.</p>
  1408.  
  1409.  
  1410.  
  1411. <p>Toward the end of his speech, Kennedy criticizes the latest iteration of the Democratic Party, linking the protesters outside the train station to the party’s efforts to vanquish him. Of the Democratic Party, he says: “They’re ending democracy in order to save it … this is the kind of cognitive dissonance they want us to swallow.”</p>
  1412. </blockquote>
  1413.  
  1414.  
  1415.  
  1416. <p>It strikes me that Kennedy&#8217;s appeal is similar to that of Trump and Bernie Sanders, in that he says things people want to hear in a way that most politicians don&#8217;t. While he&#8217;s got some truly kooky ideas, he&#8217;s incredibly energetic. For a man of 70, he&#8217;s incredibly youthful and fit. He speaks without a script and connects with the crowd. So, yes, dismissing him as <em>just</em> a kook is to miss the mark.</p>
  1417.  
  1418.  
  1419.  
  1420. <p>That both the Democratic and Republican apparatus are expending so much energy against him is understandable. While they don&#8217;t think he can win&#8212;indeed, I don&#8217;t think he could win under any institutional design, let alone ours&#8212;they see him siphoning off enough voters who dislike both candidates (the so-called &#8220;double haters&#8221;) that he&#8217;s a threat to their chances.</p>
  1421.  
  1422.  
  1423.  
  1424. <p>________________</p>
  1425.  
  1426.  
  1427.  
  1428. <p class="has-small-font-size">*The fact that so few states are competitive complicates this further, of course. There&#8217;s little chance, indeed, that a Kennedy voter in California or Mississippi will impact the allocation of the state&#8217;s Electoral slate.  </p>
  1429. ]]></content:encoded>
  1431. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/rfk-jr-s-appeal/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  1432. <slash:comments>15</slash:comments>
  1435. </item>
  1436. <item>
  1437. <title>Trump’s Second Term</title>
  1438. <link>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/trumps-second-term/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=trumps-second-term</link>
  1439. <comments>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/trumps-second-term/#comments</comments>
  1441. <dc:creator><![CDATA[James Joyner]]></dc:creator>
  1442. <pubDate>Tue, 30 Apr 2024 10:47:52 +0000</pubDate>
  1443. <category><![CDATA[2024 Election]]></category>
  1444. <category><![CDATA[Media]]></category>
  1445. <category><![CDATA[US Politics]]></category>
  1446. <category><![CDATA[Donald Trump]]></category>
  1447. <category><![CDATA[Jeff Sessions]]></category>
  1448. <category><![CDATA[Jonathan Swan]]></category>
  1449. <category><![CDATA[liberals]]></category>
  1450. <category><![CDATA[Maggie Haberman]]></category>
  1451. <category><![CDATA[Tea Party]]></category>
  1452. <category><![CDATA[Unitary Executive]]></category>
  1453. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/?p=271032</guid>
  1454.  
  1455. <description><![CDATA[The NYT is going all-in painting it as "far more radical, vindictive and unchecked" than the first.]]></description>
  1456. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
  1457. <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="800" height="600" src="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/trump-russia-nato-speech.webp" alt="" class="wp-image-269625" srcset="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/trump-russia-nato-speech.webp 800w, https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/trump-russia-nato-speech-768x576.webp 768w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /></figure>
  1458.  
  1459.  
  1460.  
  1461. <p class="has-drop-cap">Yesterday&#8217;s edition of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/29/podcasts/the-daily/second-trump-presidency.html">NYT &#8220;The Daily&#8221; podcast</a> was twice as long as usual. Titled &#8220;<strong>Trump 2.0: What a Second Trump Presidency Would Bring</strong>,&#8221; it&#8217;s described this way:</p>
  1462.  
  1463.  
  1464.  
  1465. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  1466. <p>In a special series leading up to Election Day, “The Daily” will explore what a second Trump presidency would look like, and what it could mean for American democracy.</p>
  1467.  
  1468.  
  1469.  
  1470. <p>In the first part, we will look at Tump’s plan for a second term. On the campaign trail, Trump has outlined a vision that is far more radical, vindictive and unchecked than his first one.</p>
  1471.  
  1472.  
  1473.  
  1474. <p>Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman, political correspondents for The Times, and Charlie Savage, who covers national security, have found that behind Trump’s rhetoric is a highly coordinated plan to make his vision a reality.</p>
  1475. </blockquote>
  1476.  
  1477.  
  1478.  
  1479. <p>My first instinct was that this effectively made the NYT political team part of the Biden re-election effort, as so many of its staffers and liberal commentators have been demanding. As I listened though, I decided that this is simply deep reporting, staying on <em>just</em> this side of commentary. While it&#8217;s rather clear that neither the show host nor the reporters are Trump fans&#8212;or, indeed, likely Republican voters even in more normal times&#8212;they were, as Swan rightly noted, not engaged in &#8220;fan fiction.&#8221; They are merely taking the words that Trump says over and over again in his campaign rallies both seriously and literally.</p>
  1480.  
  1481.  
  1482.  
  1483. <p>There&#8217;s not yet a transcript available (given them another day or so) but the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/27/magazine/trump-rallies-rhetoric.html">Charle Homans</a> <em>Magazine</em> feature &#8220;<strong>Donald Trump Has Never Sounded Like This</strong>&#8221; that I <a href="https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/trumps-increasingly-fascistic-speeches/">dissected Saturday</a> and the December 4 essay &#8220;<strong>Why a Second Trump Presidency May Be More Radical Than His First</strong>&#8221; by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/04/us/politics/trump-2025-overview.html">Savage, Swan, and Haberman</a> are presented as background reading.</p>
  1484.  
  1485.  
  1486.  
  1487. <p><strong>UPDATE: </strong>The first comment, by @Scott, reminds me that a key takeaway of the piece is that Trump has decided that the chief problem of the first administration was that he surrounded himself with too many people who were more loyal to the system than to him. He won&#8217;t make that mistake again. </p>
  1488.  
  1489.  
  1490.  
  1491. <p>While I was quite displeased with the performance of &#8220;Trump&#8217;s Generals&#8221; as well as figures like Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr, they nonetheless at least cared somewhat about norms and the rule of law. Second term appointees won&#8217;t be so encumbered.</p>
  1492.  
  1493.  
  1494.  
  1495. <p>Indeed, one of the panelists noted that as much as liberals hate the Federalist Society, it was precisely lawyers brought up under that system that was the chief restraint on Trump. Yes, they have a different view of the law than those in the Democratic establishment. But, fundamentally, they believe that the law&#8212;and the Constitution&#8212;matters.</p>
  1496.  
  1497.  
  1498.  
  1499. <p>The other point that I recall striking me is that, unlike Establishment&#8212;or, indeed, even Tea Party&#8212;Republicans, the people who would serve in key posts under Trump next go-round do not want a smaller, less powerful government. They think those guys are &#8220;suckers.&#8221; No, they want to use every bit of power that a Unitary Executive can muster to get wins for people like them and to crush everyone else. </p>
  1500. ]]></content:encoded>
  1502. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/trumps-second-term/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  1503. <slash:comments>32</slash:comments>
  1506. </item>
  1507. <item>
  1508. <title>Adios, April Forum</title>
  1509. <link>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/adios-april-forum/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=adios-april-forum</link>
  1510. <comments>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/adios-april-forum/#comments</comments>
  1512. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Steven L. Taylor]]></dc:creator>
  1513. <pubDate>Tue, 30 Apr 2024 08:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
  1514. <category><![CDATA[Open Forum]]></category>
  1515. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/?p=271019</guid>
  1516.  
  1517. <description/>
  1518. <content:encoded/>
  1520. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/adios-april-forum/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  1521. <slash:comments>26</slash:comments>
  1524. </item>
  1525. <item>
  1526. <title>Politics, Memory, and Reality</title>
  1527. <link>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/politics-memory-and-reality/?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=politics-memory-and-reality</link>
  1528. <comments>https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/politics-memory-and-reality/#comments</comments>
  1530. <dc:creator><![CDATA[James Joyner]]></dc:creator>
  1531. <pubDate>Mon, 29 Apr 2024 11:53:32 +0000</pubDate>
  1532. <category><![CDATA[2024 Election]]></category>
  1533. <category><![CDATA[Public Opinion Polls]]></category>
  1534. <category><![CDATA[US Politics]]></category>
  1535. <category><![CDATA[CBS]]></category>
  1536. <category><![CDATA[Contests]]></category>
  1537. <category><![CDATA[debates]]></category>
  1538. <category><![CDATA[Donald Trump]]></category>
  1539. <category><![CDATA[elections]]></category>
  1540. <category><![CDATA[Inflation]]></category>
  1541. <category><![CDATA[Interest Rates]]></category>
  1542. <category><![CDATA[Joe Biden]]></category>
  1543. <category><![CDATA[Michigan]]></category>
  1544. <category><![CDATA[Pennsylvania]]></category>
  1545. <category><![CDATA[polarization]]></category>
  1546. <category><![CDATA[Wisconsin]]></category>
  1547. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/?p=271023</guid>
  1548.  
  1549. <description><![CDATA[Americans look back more fondly on the Trump economy than they did in 2020.]]></description>
  1550. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
  1551. <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="539" src="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/survey-polling-phone-app-up-down-1024x539.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-215607" srcset="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/survey-polling-phone-app-up-down-1024x539.jpeg 1024w, https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/survey-polling-phone-app-up-down-768x404.jpeg 768w, https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/survey-polling-phone-app-up-down.jpeg 1520w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>
  1552.  
  1553.  
  1554.  
  1555. <p class="has-drop-cap">The <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-trump-poll-michigan-pennyslvania-wisconsin/">report</a> &#8220;<strong>CBS News poll finds Biden-Trump race tight in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin</strong>&#8221; is fascinating not so much for what it tells us about the current state of play in three Rust Belt swing states but about the nature of perception in American politics. </p>
  1556.  
  1557.  
  1558.  
  1559. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  1560. <p>For years, they&#8217;ve been three of the handful of states that decided presidential elections. In the summer of 2020, amid the COVID pandemic and lockdown debates, sizable majorities in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania rated state economies badly. Incumbent President Donald Trump trailed in polls, and ultimately, the three close contests were won by challenger Joe Biden.</p>
  1561.  
  1562.  
  1563.  
  1564. <p>Four years on, some things haven&#8217;t changed. We have the same two candidates locked in close — effectively even — races. And there are still negative views of the economy that now, as then, weigh on the 2024 incumbent, President Biden.</p>
  1565.  
  1566.  
  1567.  
  1568. <p>Given the views of these candidates, the summer campaign here might be an argument about who is the less bad option: both candidates elicit more feelings of worry than confidence, more insecurity than security, and plenty of anger.</p>
  1569. </blockquote>
  1570.  
  1571.  
  1572.  
  1573. <p>So, nothing newsworthy there. But here&#8217;s where it gets interesting: </p>
  1574.  
  1575.  
  1576.  
  1577. <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="867" height="488" src="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/CBS-now-vs-looking-back-state-economy.png" alt="" class="wp-image-271024" srcset="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/CBS-now-vs-looking-back-state-economy.png 867w, https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/CBS-now-vs-looking-back-state-economy-768x432.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 867px) 100vw, 867px" /></figure>
  1578.  
  1579.  
  1580.  
  1581. <p>Stipulating that a poll of registered voters in 2024 isn&#8217;t by any means a perfect overlap with a 2020 exit poll of actual voters, the wild swing between people&#8217;s real-time perception of the economy versus their recollection of it less than four years later is fascinating.</p>
  1582.  
  1583.  
  1584.  
  1585. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  1586. <p>With inflation looming large in their minds, most voters don&#8217;t say there&#8217;s even been improvement in their state&#8217;s economy post-pandemic: only a quarter say it has improved in the years since, with about half saying it has actually gotten worse.</p>
  1587. </blockquote>
  1588.  
  1589.  
  1590.  
  1591. <p>I don&#8217;t have time to do a deep dives into the economic reality of these three states but it&#8217;s obviously just nonsense that things haven&#8217;t wildly improved since the end of the pandemic. And that&#8217;s true even if, like me, you don&#8217;t assign Trump much of the blame for the downturn or given Biden much of he credit for the rebound.*</p>
  1592.  
  1593.  
  1594.  
  1595. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  1596. <p>And few say their own finances are better compared to before the pandemic. This may be an essential part of their memory — comparing to before the coronavirus.</p>
  1597. </blockquote>
  1598.  
  1599.  
  1600.  
  1601. <p>I suspect this is what is going on here. In 2020, voters punished Trump for the extant reality. In 2024, they think of &#8220;The Trump Economy&#8221; as the state of play circa 2018-2019.</p>
  1602.  
  1603.  
  1604.  
  1605. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  1606. <p>Amid those poor economic numbers, here&#8217;s a change that&#8217;s working against Mr. Biden: he narrowly trails Donald Trump on &#8220;understands the needs and concerns of people like you.&#8221; That means he&#8217;s losing an edge he enjoyed in the summer of 2020 when we asked voters in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin this question.</p>
  1607. </blockquote>
  1608.  
  1609.  
  1610.  
  1611. <p>The swing is rather considerable, with Biden down 4 points and Trump up 5 from the 2020 numbers (albeit in a survey with a 3.2 point margin). I find it baffling but, were I to hazard a guess, it&#8217;s the lack of major speeches on the economy from Biden.</p>
  1612.  
  1613.  
  1614.  
  1615. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  1616. <p>The choice between Mr. Biden and Trump now predominantly draws out negative feelings like worry and anger.</p>
  1617.  
  1618.  
  1619.  
  1620. <p>Twice as many say Mr. Biden makes them feel worried as say he makes them feel either secure or confident. He trails Trump on making voters feel confident and secure.</p>
  1621.  
  1622.  
  1623.  
  1624. <p>Trump, for his part, elicits more feelings of anger, which does fuel opposition to him, helping keep Mr. Biden in these races, despite sour economic views.</p>
  1625. </blockquote>
  1626.  
  1627.  
  1628.  
  1629. <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="867" height="488" src="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/make-you-feel-biden-pa.png" alt="" class="wp-image-271026" srcset="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/make-you-feel-biden-pa.png 867w, https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/make-you-feel-biden-pa-768x432.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 867px) 100vw, 867px" /></figure>
  1630.  
  1631.  
  1632.  
  1633. <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="867" height="488" src="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/make-you-feel-trump-pa.png" alt="" class="wp-image-271025" srcset="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/make-you-feel-trump-pa.png 867w, https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/make-you-feel-trump-pa-768x432.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 867px) 100vw, 867px" /></figure>
  1634.  
  1635.  
  1636.  
  1637. <p>That neither candidate cracks 50 in any of the good categories is more an indicator of our deep polarization than anything else. I&#8217;m not sure what to make of the sky-high &#8220;worried&#8221; reactions to both.</p>
  1638.  
  1639.  
  1640.  
  1641. <p>Back to the economy and my main takeaway:</p>
  1642.  
  1643.  
  1644.  
  1645. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  1646. <p>As we&#8217;ve seen nationwide, voters today recall their state&#8217;s economy &#8220;when Donald Trump was president&#8221; quite differently from the way it was viewed back in 2020, specifically. Ratings of the economy were quite low that year. So it may well be that when they think back about the Trump years, they&#8217;re thinking back to before the pandemic. That matters a lot for how they perceive their choice of Trump and Mr. Biden now.</p>
  1647. </blockquote>
  1648.  
  1649.  
  1650.  
  1651. <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="867" height="488" src="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/CBS-state-economy-summer-2020-vs-retrospective.png" alt="" class="wp-image-271027" srcset="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/CBS-state-economy-summer-2020-vs-retrospective.png 867w, https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/CBS-state-economy-summer-2020-vs-retrospective-768x432.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 867px) 100vw, 867px" /></figure>
  1652.  
  1653.  
  1654.  
  1655. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  1656. <p>Thinking in retrospect about the economy under Trump while skipping over the pandemic in 2020 lends itself to a more favorable comparison with the economy now, under Mr. Biden. Moreover, many voters say their own finances today are worse than during the time before the pandemic.</p>
  1657. </blockquote>
  1658.  
  1659.  
  1660.  
  1661. <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="867" height="488" src="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/CBS-finances-now-vs-pre-covid.png" alt="" class="wp-image-271028" srcset="https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/CBS-finances-now-vs-pre-covid.png 867w, https://otb.cachefly.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/CBS-finances-now-vs-pre-covid-768x432.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 867px) 100vw, 867px" /></figure>
  1662.  
  1663.  
  1664.  
  1665. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
  1666. <p>And so, today we find plenty of voters want to change back: in all three states, many believe they would be financially better off with Trump back in office. Voters who feel this way are voting for him in large numbers.</p>
  1667. </blockquote>
  1668.  
  1669.  
  1670.  
  1671. <p>Again, none of this is rational. People&#8217;s feelings are at odds with not only the economic data but their own real-time perception of the economy. But, of course, that doesn&#8217;t matter. They feel what they feel and it&#8217;s up to Biden and company to change their mind.</p>
  1672.  
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  1679. <p class="has-small-font-size">*Trump wildly mismanaged the crisis in all sorts of ways but the economic hit was global. Biden gets modest credit for pumping so much money into the economy, albeit quite possibly so much so that it overheated, leading to inflation and higher interest rates.</p>
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