Welcome to The Cruelest Day: it is Tuesday, March 4, 2025 and National Pączki Day, the Polish version of the American jam donut, but much better, as they’re made with yeast and allowed to rise. Here are some pączki I photographed in Katowice last December during the Science Festival, and one below that purchased and eating in Krakow in 2013. Oy, were they good!
It’s also National Poundcake Day, International Pancake Day, Mardi Gras, National Snack Day, World Obesity Day (!), and National Grammar Day (at least they didn’t say “National Grammar Lover’s Day”).
Given the level of engagement yesterday, I think that the end of the science posts has arrived.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the March 4 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz: The news is thin today as I had a busy day and little time to write here.
*Fricking Trump has hit Canada, China and Mexico with tariffs. He means business, and this is bad for the consumer (see later post for whom the Democrats should nominate in 2028):
China imposed tariffs on various U.S. food exports early Tuesday, responding swiftly to the Trump administration’s latest tariffs and escalating a global dispute that has rattled governments and international trade. Canada, which was also targeted by the Trump tariffs that took effect after midnight, immediately imposed retaliatory measures and Mexico was expected to respond later today.
China’s finance ministry announced 15 percent tariffs on imports of chicken, wheat, corn and cotton from the United States, as well as 10 percent tariffs on imports of sorghum, soybeans, pork, beef, aquatic products, fruits, vegetables and dairy products.
President Trump’s new tariffs — 25 percent on most imports from Canada and Mexico, and 10 percent on imports from China — will make good on his campaign promise to rework America’s trade relations, and they are likely to encourage some manufacturers to set up factories in the United States, instead of in other countries.
Canada responded by imposing 25 percent tariffs on $30 billion worth of goods at 12:01 a.m. Eastern but did not specify which products would be affected. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada said in a statement that the tariffs would extend to $125 billion of American goods in 21 days.
By altering the terms of trade between the United States and its largest economic partners, the tariffs will also probably rattle supply chains, strain some of the country’s most important diplomatic relationships and add significant costs for American consumers and manufacturers.
Here’s what you need to know:
Mexico pushes back: As President Trump uses the hammer of tariffs as a negotiating tool against Mexico, a sense of Mexican nationalism has been strengthened and the country’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has seen her approval ratings rise.
Canadian reaction: It remains unclear what is at the root of Mr. Trump’s love-hate relationship with Canada. But there is widespread consensus in the country that tariffs would inflict major damage on its economy, which is dependent on exports as well as industries that are tightly integrated with the American market.
Tariff basics: Trade wars were a feature of Mr. Trump’s first term in the White House. But his latest tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China could broaden the scale of disruptions. The three countries account for more than a third of the products brought into the United States, supporting tens of millions of American jobs.
Of course prices will go up for us as well as the Mexicans, Canadians, and Chinese. No good will come of this, that’s for sure. Once again we are alienating some of our allies. All I can do is apologize for our narcissistic leader.
*Trump has sort of scuppered himself, foodwise. According to the WSJ, RFK Jr. is trying to eliminate government benefits, like food stamps, being used to buy sugary drinks like Coke and Pepsi.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. calls it “poison.” President Trump has multiple cans of it every day. Welcome to the 2025 soda wars.
At both state and federal levels, the Kennedy-led Make America Healthy Again movement is backing efforts to prevent people from spending food-aid benefits on sugary, carbonated beverages. Now, they are gaining momentum with an administration led by a man who enjoys soda so much that he had a red button installed on his desk for a valet to bring him a Diet Coke.
Beverage companies are nervous about the push and preparing a counterpush of their own.
Liberal-leaning states including New York and Minnesota have tried in the past to strip soda from state food-aid programs, saying it would boost their nutritional impact. But the U.S. Agriculture Department, which oversees the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, has rejected the requests for more than 20 years, saying it would be too complicated to implement. This year, deep-red Arkansas may be the first to get a different answer.
The state is preparing to ask the USDA if it can restrict some less-healthy items, including potentially soda, candy and desserts, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in an interview Friday.
“Nobody is anti-Diet Coke. Nobody is anti-soft drink. I like a soft drink, too. It’s whether or not the government should be paying for it,” said Sanders, who was Trump’s press secretary in his first term.
Currently SNAP recipients can purchase most food with the benefits, but not items such as pet food or alcohol. Sanders said the state is still fine-tuning the language of its waiver request.
Trump’s new agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins, has indicated she is inclined to grant such waivers. She sent governors a letter on her first full day in office, urging them to propose pilot programs testing changes to food aid.
. . . . “When a taxpayer is putting money into SNAP, are they OK with us using their tax dollars to feed really bad food and sugary drinks to children, who perhaps need something more nutritious?” Rollins told reporters recently outside the White House.
Meanwhile in Washington, an alarmed Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and their band of lobbyists are trying to persuade Trump such steps would alienate his core voters. The chief executive of Coca-Cola, James Quincey, spent about an hour with Trump during the transition, presenting him a commemorative inaugural Diet Coke. “Our principal objective is to make sure we offer those consumers options,” Quincey said.
The American Beverage Association, a trade group that represents soda and juice makers, commissioned polling this year showing that nearly 60% of those who voted for Trump last fall support allowing soda purchases with food aid.
Well of course Trump will still be buying sodas; he doesn’t use food stamps! I have mixed feelings. Should we be subsidizing this stuff. If no alcohol, why not no sugary Coke? On the other hand, I drink only diet sodas, and in moderation; would they be exempt? I wonder how readers feel about this one. And don’t mention Social Security or Medicare. . . .
*Deborah Lipstadt was the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism under President Biden. Now she has rejected an offer of a visiting professorship from Columbia University, explaining at the Free Press “Why I Won’t Teach at Columbia.”
My decision to withdraw my name from consideration for a teaching post at Columbia is based on three calculations.
First, I am not convinced that the university is serious about taking the necessary and difficult measures that would create an atmosphere that allows for true inquiry.
Second, I fear that my presence would be used as a sop to convince the outside world that “Yes, we in the Columbia/Barnard orbit are fighting antisemitism. We even brought in the former Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism.” I will not be used to provide cover for a completely unacceptable situation.
Third, I am not sure that I would be safe or even able to teach without being harassed. I do not flinch in the face of threats. But this is not a healthy or acceptable learning environment.
On too many university campuses, the inmates—and these may include administrators, student disrupters, and off-campus agitators as well as faculty members—are running the asylum. They are turning universities into parodies of true academic inquiry.
We are at a crisis point. Unless this situation is addressed forcefully and unequivocally, one of America’s great institutions, its system of higher education, could well collapse. There are many in this country—including those in significant positions of power—who would delight in seeing that happen. The failure to stand up to disrupters who are preventing other students from learning gives the opponents of higher education the very tools they need.
Meanwhile, absent direct and comprehensive action to protect Jewish students and the campus environment, I will not be teaching on Columbia’s campus.
Although the students who recently occupied a building at Columbia were protesting the expulsion of students who broke the rules at the sister school Barnard, Columbia wiggled out of any responsibility this way:
But watching Barnard capitulate to mob violence and fail to enforce its own rules and regulations led me to conclude that I could not go to Columbia University, even for a single semester.
I conveyed this to Columbia’s administration on Friday, which prompted Columbia’s interim president, Katrina Armstrong, to call me. She pointed out that the two institutions, Barnard and Columbia, while affiliated, have separate administrations, security teams, and policies. I know this is true. But its recent history regarding demonstrations suggests that it has far less than a firm commitment to the free exchange of ideas, or to preventing classroom disruptions or even condemning disrupters and their demonstrations.
During the Barnard protest, Columbia issued an anodyne statement disclaiming responsibility because the “disruption” was on Barnard’s campus, not Columbia’s, and asserting its commitment “to supporting our Columbia student body and our campus community during this challenging time.” No condemnation.
*The Oscar winners, except for “Flow”, which I predicted would win for Best Animated feature film, surprised me. Here is the list of winners in major categories.
Best picture:
“Anora” – *WINNER
“The Brutalist”
“A Complete Unknown”
“Conclave”
“Dune: Part Two”
“Emilia Pérez”
“I’m Still Here”
“Nickel Boys”
“The Substance”
“Wicked”
I saw only “Anora” and “A Complete Unknown, but I thought neither was a world-beater.
Best actor in a leading role:
Adrien Brody, “The Brutalist” – *WINNER
Timothée Chalamet, “A Complete Unknown”
Colman Domingo, “Sing Sing”
Ralph Fiennes, “Conclave”
Sebastian Stan, “The Apprentice”
I will be seeing “The Brutalist”
Best actress in a leading role:
Cynthia Erivo, “Wicked”
Karla Sofía Gascón, “Emilia Pérez”
Mikey Madison, “Anora” – *WINNER
Demi Moore, “The Substance”
Fernanda Torres, “I’m Still Here”
Best actress in a supporting role:
Zoe Saldaña, “Emilia Pérez” – *WINNER
Best actor in a supporting role:
Kieran Culkin, “A Real Pain” – *WINNER
Best director:
Sean Baker, “Anora” – *WINNER
Brady Corbet, “The Brutalist”
James Mangold, “A Complete Unknown”
Jacques Audiard, “Emilia Pérez”
Coralie Fargeat, “The Substance”
Best original screenplay:
“Anora” – *WINNER
Annnnnnnd, . , Best animated feature film:
“Flow” – *WINNER
“Inside Out 2”
“Memoir of a Snail”
“Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl”
“The Wild Robot”
All I can say is that I’m going to see “The Brutalist” and that you have to see “Flow”. Here’s the trailer:
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili wants her chair:
A: Could you make a piece of the chair available for me?Hili: Go and wash the dishes.
Ja: Czy możesz mi udostępnić kawałek fotela?Hili: Idź pozmywać naczynia.
*******************
From Godless Mom:
From My Cat is an Asshole:
From Things With Faces; unhappy feet:
I am still pondering whether “gender” has a substantive meaning despite the assertion of many that it is pure superstition, like the Holy Ghost. Here JKR calls out the notion as authoritarian:
🙄The fringe idea that we all have a ‘gender identity’ that may or may not match our biological sex is the whole point of this discussion. Trans activists act as though the existence of ‘gender identity’ is a settled, self-evident point, when to the vast majority of the world… pic.twitter.com/90R4KUGUWP
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) March 3, 2025
From Malgorzata:
Gee, NYT, last I saw the somber Gazans they were dancing around the coffins of murdered children. So spare me. pic.twitter.com/3gPeCKljtv
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) March 1, 2025
Two cat posts from my Twitter feed:
bro is a logo pic.twitter.com/7VQqcoKbjE
— Punch Cat (@PunchingCat) March 1, 2025
Sound up:
Bro really said “👋” pic.twitter.com/AegYWv9qiS
— contents that ll heal your depression 🌻 (@catshealdeprsn) March 3, 2025
. . . and one from my BlueHair feed:
Always wondering how nature can produce such crazy landscape… Well, I know how it happens, but still feels unbelievable.Cappadocia, 2024. aerial.#bluesky #photography #nature #art #landscape #geology
— Armand Sarlangue (@armandsarlangue.bsky.social) 2025-03-03T14:55:12.595Z
From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:
A German woman and her infant were gassed to death upon arriving at Auschwitz, along with 1020 other Norwegian and German Jews.
— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-03-04T11:18:26.847Z
Two from Matthew. Here’s a “kot”:
Be nice or go away.
— MissyBBBobtail (@missybbbobtail.bsky.social) 2025-03-01T17:16:38.797Z
. . . and a post from his recent trip to Asilomar:
Beach outside Monterey with Harbour seals
— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2025-02-27T21:47:29.178Z
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Creativity — like human life itself — begins in darkness. We need to acknowledge this. All too often, we think only in terms of light: “And then the lightbulb went on and I got it!” It is true that insights may come to us as flashes. It is true that some of these flashes may be blinding. It is, however, also true that such bright ideas are preceded by a gestation period that is interior, murky, and completely necessary. -Julia Cameron, artist, author, teacher, filmmaker, composer, and journalist (b. 4 Mar 1948)
John Cleese has a related point he makes, in a video somewhere, how he sort of wakes up and a new piece of e.g. comic material sort of materializes. He finds it mysterious, but it has something to do with maybe “sleeping on it”.
The Muse dances to its own rhythms.
Re : “gender” :
I have five fingers – or, more accurately, four fingers and one opposable thumb – on each hand.
Therefore I have, inscribed on my body, two-opposable-thumb identity, being socially constructed by a special force called opposable-thumb performativity.
That performance creates a prison, incarcerating people with only one or even zero opposable thumbs. That prison must be smashed to attain true freedom and it’s everyone’s duty to destroy that prison by using opposable-thumb-performativity for any number of thumbs.
To achieve this, each person must look – deep within – for a divine spark of opposable-thumb-consciousness – gnosis – for transformation of the numbers of opposable thumb identities by active use of opposable-thumb performativity.
Prove me wrong.
Also give me tenure at U. C. Berkeley.
Clever! Made me wonder… when medical professionals ask “How many fingers am I holding up?” do they ever show or count the thumb?
But for kids learning to count to ten, the thumb is called a finger, but only later on to learn thumbs are not really “fingers,” but separate, with special abilities.
You could be on to something.
Critical Phalanges Theory to unlock the unlimited potential of a New World with the phalanges we deserve!
/satire
An amusing search microproject is to find the Latin for thumb.
Satire, Sartre, whatever.
Pollex, as I recall.
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
True story: my wife had a viral infection in her brain (with wild symptoms). The neurologist who diagnosed her would ask “Show me two fingers” and my wife would hold up both of her hands each with the index finger pointing up. Several weeks later he was sure she was cured (antivirals) when he asked her the question and she held up one hand with index and middle fingers up in the peace sign. Told us this was diagnostic for several kinds of cognitive loss.
Good thing she used the index fingers.
…or very creative!
You deserve an entire department of Thumb Opposition Studies.
Why are you erasing the the polydactyly community? Are you an Amishphobe? TTAT (third thumbs are thumbs). I’m literally shaking and crying.
+1 I’m literally shaking and crying.
Somebody has a disturbed relationship with their own body, and really should be in therapy because of it. Instead, we normalize this by saying his gender identity is that of the opposite sex (i.e., he/she is in the wrong body). I have no gender identity. I’m just a man. I think about that fact rarely. I don’t identify as a man. I am just one.
I recently listened to two interviews with Dr Az Hakeem (one hosted by Andrew Gold and the other by Stella O’Malley & Sasha Ayad, two psychotherapists, both on YouTube), a Welsh psychiatrist and psychotherapist who ran a specialist gender dysphoria adult psychotherapy service in the National Health Service (NHS England) for about 12 years. So he has had a lot of clinical experience dealing with gender-dysphoric individuals. He says that “trans” is an umbrella term under which he identifies 4 different groups:
transsexuals (a small group): people who believe that they should be the other sex and they’re a small number of people
transvestites: they know deep down that they’re not the other sex, but they get something out of cross-dressing, and you can divide them into the fetishistic transvestites and the non-fetishistic; the fetishistic transvestites don’t just get sexually aroused by cross-dressing but also by getting into female-only spaces
autogynephiles (a very very small group): men who get sexually turned on by the idea of having female genitalia and breasts
ROGD kids [ROGD = rapid-onset gender dysphoria]: kids who suddenly come home from school and say “I’m trans or nonbinary,” and these are a youth subculture; there’s nothing psychologically pathological about them, they are just goth mark 5 [mark = version]; it’s a subculture, but because there’s no music attached (like it was with earlier youth subcultures, say, the punks), we don’t see it as that
Hakeem says that there are four main things with gender dysphoria: autism, homophobia, trauma (that leads to certain fetishes) and the subculture stuff.
Anyway, these 2 interviews, I found them very interesting. Hakeem also wrote two books about trans issues (2018 and 2023). About his 2023 book, DETRANS: When transition is not the solution, he said that it’s a critique of the whole gender ideology, that it is debunking the myths that the activists want you to believe.
The interview with Stella O’Malley and Sasha Ayad, you can also access it via their substack (it’s free, the substack is called Gender: A Wider Lens), and then you could just read the transcript provided there. (It does contain some errors, but if something in it does not make sense, you can use the time stamp in the transcript and listen to the video.)
Incidentally, Hakeem has read a lot by Judith Butler and he talks about in the interview with O’Malley and Ayad.
Yes Peter:
“Dr Az Hakeem (one hosted by Andrew Gold and the other by Stella O’Malley & Sasha Ayad, two psychotherapists, both on YouTube”
I’ve listened to nearly everything the above have said publicly. The ladies’ podcast with various people in the genderwang scandal runs to several hundred hours.
I’ve learned so much over the years with them about this issue that has effected me, very negatively, personally. They interview all sorts. They’re in GENSPEC also.
Andrew Gold is excellent in many domains.
I endorse Peter’s recommendations here – good routes to understanding a harrowing and complicated issue of our time.
D.A.
NYC
Thanks for the tip!
Dr Az Hakeem is an interesting guy and always comes across very well.
I also only drink diet sodas, and in moderation. I remember reading the book “Sugar Blues” when I was a kid. I’m not sure how good the science in it is, but I stopped drinking sugary drinks after that. I later started drinking diet sodas.
They are not nutritionally necessary, so I see the point of being able to use food stamps to purchase them. I’m not sure how you can determine what is and is not covered. That is apparently the reason the USDA gives.
I always thought, simplistically, that the name of the program “Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program” should drive what is covered. There is no nutritional component to sugar free soft drinks. (You could argue that at least the sweetened ones contain bioavailable energy – no matter how negatively packaged – although it’s not a position I’d take.)
However, I also recognize that it’s difficult to administer a program with multiple exceptions.
?? I do not understand: “Given the level of engagement yesterday, I think that the end of the science posts has arrived” ??
Same here, Jim. I looked back at yesterday’s WEIT — too much engagement? Not enough engagement?
In situations like this, I’ve learned to blame myself.
I suppose Jerry thinks that not enough people read the post. The discussion of it was fine with 42 comments and good content of the comments.
I hope my contributions yesterday were not a net negative. I read the Journal of Sexual Medicine paper and thought it had good data but important flaws. Maybe I expressed myself badly. Like Bryan I’ve learned to blame myself 🙁
Too depressing to discuss politics – but I note that the ‘Stand up for Science” protests will be at major cities across the country on Friday. Noon in Chicago.
So, on to the Oscars. I’ve seen six of the best pic nominees, and Anora wasn’t in my top three. I thought either The Substance or The Brutalist were more interesting. (FWIW I thought Conclave and Dune were also better movies than Anora.)
I can’t argue that Mikey Madison wasn’t deserving, but there was a certain irony in her youthful performance beating out the older Demi Moore – given that The Substance is a retelling of The Picture of Dorian Gray. Oh well, I’m sure there will be more verdicts to disagree with next year.
“Stand up for Science” site is: standupforscience2025 . org
I mention this, as I’m on most everyone’s mailing list (left & right) including theirs, and hadn’t heard about this protest yet.
Thanks Sue – I have only seen them on BlueSky – but I don’t do any other social media so I just figured it was me being isolated. Lack of advertising could be an issue, I mentioned this at lab meeting this morning and everyone else seemed blissfully unaware. .
Re The Substance, IMO it’s cringeworthy. Attempts to group it with, say,
John Carpenter’s version of the classic SF The Thing, or with Frankenstein, are wildly off base. The world-building is shallow, scientific and sociological consistency is thoroughly lacking, even the “monster” is ridiculous. Yes, there’s high-production-value blood and guts, and the ham-fisted social commentary is relevant, but this in no way compensates for the egregious abuse of one’s voluntary suspension of disbelief.
/rant
Artificial sweeteners have many downsides as well: “…people should not rely on any sugar substitute — including stevia and monk fruit — to control their weight. Long-term use of low- or no-calorie sweeteners may lead to an increase in eating (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29159583/) and greater amounts of body fat (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41366-023-01336-y) known as adipose tissue, additional research has shown.”
https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/23/health/artificial-sweetener-reduction-wellness/index.html
A couple of years ago I gave up my diet soda habit (3 or 4 a day) and stopped putting sweetener in my coffee. I now put a small dash of salt in my coffee, which does not make it taste salty, but inactivates one’s bitterness receptors so the coffee tastes milder and the sweetness of the added cream is increased. (Salt is added to almost all cookies, candies and cakes largely for this reason.) After giving up sweeteners, my constant craving for sweets has disappeared.
At the risk of TMI, I had a Diet Coke habit which I quit. I had thought prior to that that I had developed lactose intolerance. Within a few months of quitting, that was no longer a problem. I now avoid artificial sweeteners.
Yes, there are many possible downsides to such highly processed and artificial drinks, and artificial sweeteners may be worse than sugar. I can’t imagine why school programs are allowed to feed young kids this garbage during their formative years.
Good for Lipstadt. Folks may remember Deborah Lipstadt as the defendant in a libel action brought by the British historian David Irving after she called him an anti-Semite and a Holocaust denier. His suit failed spectacularly. Lipstadt wrote a memoir of the experience, called History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving. The expert witness on Irving’s historical scholarship was the historian Richard Evans. He also wrote a book, called Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, And The David Irving Trial. Both books are good, but I recommend Evans’s book, in particular, for the light it sheds on how people abuse History.
I haven’t read Lipstadt’s book History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving, but I did read Richard Evan’s book about the Irving trial. It’s very good. (Evans is one of the most important living historians on Hitler’s Third Reich.) There’s also a decent movie about the Irving trial:
Denial (2016, United Kingdom & USA), directed by Mick Jackson, starring Rachel Weisz, Tom Wilkinson & Timothy Spall
I read Lipstad’s book about the Eichmann trial (it was published around the 50th anniversary of that trial, in 2011 or so). It’s good (would recommend).
I’d recommend Lipstadt’s book over the movie. As always, the book is better. 🙂
Robert Jan Van Pelt, one of the other expert witnesses, also turned his testimony into a book: The Case for Auschwitz: Evidence from the Irving Trial. I haven’t read that one, yet, however.
Interestingly, for years Irving himself had the complete transcripts of the court case on his website. He doesn’t appear to anymore, though.
Yes, a great statement from Deborah Lipstadt. I first came across her via the David Irving legal case.
In principle, the idea of banning sodas from SNAP seems reasonable, but why stop at sodas? Candy bars? Potato chips? Many fruits are mostly sugar.
But eating an orange or an apples is still, nutritionally speaking, quite different than drinking a soda or eating a candy bar.
But Trump thinks tariffs will be good for the consumer. Plus a bunch of big hedge fund guys said Trump will be great for the economy. Also funny about how “realist” intellectuals like Niall Ferguson are acting as though Trump is playing a complex foreign policy game instead of being a demented and impulsive old man who must constantly be flattered lest he turn into Gollum. For all of the serious problems of the Dems, most notably the government spending, this guy is gonna make Sleepy Joe look like a man in his prime.
And we could have avoided all this if the Dems had just cared more about centrist voters instead of catering to the left fringe of the party (the faculty lounge politics).
Exactly.
I don’t think transgender women should be allowed to play in women’s sports. I think it is extremely unfair. I also don’t like everything being about race. If these issues were brought to the center I’m skeptical of claims that the Dems just achieve victory. Many of my fiscal views lean conservative fwiw. I mean I’d bet they’re more conservative than a large part of MAGA. My deeper suspicion is a very large fraction of Americans just don’t like liberalism. They like chest puffing. They like celebrities. A disturbingly high percentage may like the idea that women should be raped. There does seem to be some push back on the last one from some Republicans though. God save masculinity damnit! I definitely think that wokeness has done a good deal of damage, but I wouldn’t bet the house that discarding it saves the Dems. I feel your frustrations though. Hell, half of me enthusiastically agrees with you.
John, if you look at the last 45 years, the Dems held the presidency for 20 years, the Reps for 25 years (8 years of Clinton and Obama, 4 years of Biden vs 8 years for Reagan and Bush Jr, 4 years Bush Sr and 4 years Trump). That does not support your suspicion that “a very large fraction of Americans just don’t like liberalism.”
The Dems’ defeat in the last presidential election was caused by the Dems themselves. Of course, it’s always more comforting to blame other people for one’s own failings. Hence, we get the pundits saying that Kamala lost because of race, because she was a woman, because the other side had more money to spend, because too many voters abstained or voters are just stupid, in general. No, the Dems did themselves in. I recommend (it’s free, the author is a US sociologist):
Musa al-Gharbi: A Graveyard of Bad Election Narratives. Nov 11, 2024
All the prominent but obviously false narratives about the 2024 election prepared for burial in one convenient post.
https://musaalgharbi.substack.com/p/a-graveyard-of-bad-election-narratives
FWIW, here’s a crude take on Trump’s electoral popularity. If someone feels they’re being severely bullied then an obvious solution is to get a bigger bully on their side. My thug’s bigger than your thug.
A Republican spitefully burns down the economy and somehow it’s the Democrat’s fault?
Why couldn’t the Republicans have chosen a candidate who wasn’t a perverted, lying, impulsive, sleazy asshole?
You must have no idea how awful the US looks on the world stage right now. This is 100% on Trump and the people who voted for him.
https://x.com/guelphgirlchris/status/1896220805245358571
As someone remarked, the problem with this meme is that it is unfair to Beavis and Butthead.
+mucho!
Mystifying especially w regard to Canada, who has done much to meet his Demands about protecting our northern border.
So I think he always intended to mount these tariffs with the view that this will push manufacturers in Canada and Mexico to set up shop in the US, with US workers.
“[T]his will push manufacturers in Canada and Mexico to set up shop in the US, with US workers.”
Good point.
The central banker who is poised to become the new leader of the Liberal Party of Canada (“Our Natural Governing Party” tm) and thus Prime Minister did exactly that: moved the head office from Toronto to New York. Of course he was the chairman of the board of an investment fund, not a manufacturing company, so not many US workers will be hired. But still he’s doing his part. I hope it will mollify the orange menace – these tariffs will be tarrible if they go on for long.
Trump is using tariffs as a source of revenue. He needs to find a way to pay for his tax cuts, which benefit the wealthy the most. Musk’s attempts to find fraud and waste aren’t finding nearly enough.
Even Trump knows he can’t cut programs like Medicare. But while economists consider tariffs counterproductive many average citizens don’t.
There’s some truth that low wage China has hurt manufacturing in the US. But that doesn’t apply to Canada, where our main exports are raw materials: oil, aluminum, potash, hydropower and uranium.
As for the auto industry, back in the 60’s manufacturers moved part to Canada to encourage Canadians to buy Ford, GM, etc. It worked.
Trump is an idiot who cares mostly about his billionaire buddies. But you knew that already.
A couple of thoughts:
Billionaires and other wealthy folks, regardless of their politics, pay a higher percentage of their earnings to the government. While some claim they don’t pay enough, or don’t pay their fair share, the tax tables verify that the more you make, the higher your tax rate; also, everyone enjoys tax breaks, even those who take a standard deduction;
We have many able-bodied individuals in this country who have the right to vote, but who don’t lift a finger, being recipients of welfare.
In regards to the first, many suggest that the wealthy don’t pay enough, to which I say “Bollocks”.
In regards to the second, it ought to be “No pay, no play”, if you can but choose not to, you don’t eat, at least not on my dime.
By the way, I’m far from wealthy.
I’ll see your “bollocks” and raise “bullshit”. Yes the tax tables are indeed progressive, but the tax realities are not. All that money buys a lot of lobbyists and legislators who riddle the tax codes with sometimes-absurd special-interest loopholes, and buys a lot of legal and accounting expertise to exploit those loopholes.
Sure, everyone enjoys tax breaks, which is why this sometimes-absurd system is tolerated and even welcomed by the suckers.
/rant
You seem to claim that you know exactly what the right amount of tax is for the very wealthy.
Tariffs can’t raise revenue and simultaneously encourage domestic production and consumption. To be fully successful at one they have to fully fail at the other. I doubt that President Trump expects tariffs to fund tax cuts, regardless of his motive for the tax cuts.
Early in its history Canada wanted to create a (belated) Industrial Revolution in what was then an entirely agrarian and resource-extraction economy to compete with the Colossus to the south. (Sound familiar?) It used import tariffs aggressively to protect the Ontario (and British-owned) manufacturing cartel from American competition, and to favour trade with Britain and the Empire. This annoyed the hell out of farmers on the Canadian prairies who had to buy their machinery from Ontario and ship it west, rather than cheaper, closer goods from Chicago and Minneapolis.
Note that the tariffs generated little revenue. The goal was to keep imports from crossing the border in the first place as an industrial strategy, not to tax them. Nonetheless, “No truck or trade with the Yankees” was a campaign slogan that won the 1911 election for Wilfred Laurier’s Liberals. The sentiment never went away here in the East, kept burnished by the manufacturing trade unions who, with the Left, bitterly opposed the first Free Trade Agreement in the 1980s. Being a union in a protected oligopolistic industry is the sweetest gig next to the civil service.
If President Trump’s tariffs bring about reshoring of manufacturing, expect to see the resurgence of industrial trade unions as they seek to extract rents from the higher prices of domestic goods they produce. This will be an additional stimulus to price and wage inflation beyond the direct effect of the tariffs. Of course this is likely only if business can be confident that tariffs will stay in place long enough to justify the capital investment. Early Ontario and Quebec were resolute in their support for tariffs, which the federal government kept in place for over a hundred years….and we still impose them on politically sensitive supply-managed agricultural products.
A final note: as Frau Katze notes, much of what we export to the U.S. is, still, raw materials and energy, which make up a small portion of the price of finished goods. It’s likely that by the time a 25% tariff on potash makes its way to a bag of fertilizer, or 25% on uranium pitchblende makes its way to retail electricity, American consumers won’t notice them. (American firms can avoid tariffs on Canadian automobile parts by relocating into the U.S. the robots that make them.) Canadian retaliatory tariffs on the other hand would be ruinous for us if they were sufficiently widespread to cause serious harm to American producers. And the many, many things we don’t make at all, like orange juice and glass, we would just have to pay the higher price imposed by our own government and suck it up, not hurting the American producer at all unless we bought less. Few American firms rely heavily on the export market to anything like the way Canadian producers do.
Another plan the Prime Minister just announced, to compensate workers for losses from bilateral tariffs, will have to come from taxes or borrowing. Can we afford either after we already kick ourselves in the teeth with retaliatory tariffs? We did that during Covid, expecting the bump would rescue us. But this appears to be a permanent dislocation. Where is the end of the tunnel?
Compensating us for tariffs: another dumb Trudeau idea. Our taxes are high enough already.
People are furious about the tariffs and it’s letting Trudeau pose as Mr Tough Guy. At this rate we are going to get another Liberal win.
Thanks, Trump!
Leslie and Frau K.
I just don’t understand how anybody who has taken Eco 101 and passed it doesn’t have some kind of voice in the Trump Admin. I mean…. REALLY?
I was an options/equity trader but my knowledge of economics like this is pretty vague but even I – a midwit – get how tariffs are a bad idea.
But they’re been pushing it for years and it doesn’t add up.
Is it some wider scam as part of hedging their crypto bros. interests or something as corrupt as that? Even THAT’D be better than ignorance.
D.A.
NYC
Can’t get into President Trump’s mind, David, but he’s not the only tariffer. Canada imposes prohibitively high tariffs (250-300% — yes, that’s two hundred and fifty to three hundred per cent) on foreign dairy products in order to prevent them, especially tax-subsidized American dairy, from undercutting the high prices maintained by the dairy farming cartel to ensure their profitability. The tradable cash value of the quota licenses are essentially the retirement pension fund of dairy farmers because without a licence a young farmer can’t keep dairy cows. (Beef cattle and most other agricultural products aren’t quota’d.) This obviously makes most Canadians worse off from higher dairy prices as Eco 101 would predict, but it makes a few thousand dairy farmers so much better off that the system lives on even though it is a trade irritant not just to the United States but to other dairy-producing countries we try to negotiate free trade with. A certain amount of anti-American propaganda about MAGA hormones in milk keeps Canadians from complaining too much about it, so much so that it is a hill that Canadian politicians will die on.
Point being that tariffs can have “national interest” (domestic or foreign policy) purposes (whether achievable or not) unrelated to purely economic considerations of making everyone on average Pareto optimized. That’s what a trade “war” just is.
“President Trump’s new tariffs . . . are likely to encourage some manufacturers [U.S, I gather?] to set up factories in the United States, instead of in other countries.” (Assuming these U.S. manufacturers despite their best efforts can’t import low wage Third World workers.)
“There’s some truth that low wage China has hurt manufacturing in the US.”
I reasonably gather that it would help the U.S. economy (overall, but not U.S. workers) if U.S. citizens working in manufacturing were paid sufficiently less, resulting in (some) U.S. jobs off-shored to China (and elsewhere in the Third World) being brought back to the U.S.
What if any loyalty do U.S. businesses offshoring their manufacturing owe fellow U.S. citizens/manufacturing workers? If they do not owe any loyalty, why should any U.S. citizens – whatever their other motivations for joining – join the military on behalf of these businesses (and consumers)?
I should think these U.S. businesses (and by extension U.S. consumers) do not want the U.S. (military) threatening China (and other Third World sources of cheap labor). I also contemplate what if any interests of U.S. manufacturers (and U.S. consumers) are accommodated and accomplished by fellow citizens joining the military to go in harm’s way possibly to be killed or maimed for life.
There was a time when a U.S. manufacturing job income was sufficient for one spouse to work and sufficiently support a family. How did the U.S. consumer possibly survive prior to all this off-shoring of manufacturing jobs to cheap labor Third World countries?
It would seem that a sufficient amount of employment uncertainty (re: the “saintly” Alan Greenspan’s congressional hearing testimony) needs to exist among the U.S. populace/workforce so that a sufficient supply of military recruits exists. (After all, U.S. businesses and citizens expect SOMEBODY to join up.)
I completely agree about China. It’s had a bad effect on manufacturing in the US (and Canada) because of the low wages they pay.
China is also not progressing towards democracy (one of the original hopes) is in fact close to Russia and North Korea.
The low-wage economy was a shock to me when it became personal. After getting laid off I found myself competing with a lot of more-desperate H1-B tech workers. Until then this was SEP; “The brain just edits it out, it’s like a blind spot” (Douglas Adams).
@Barbara I’m glad I’m retired !
I’m so annoyed by Trump’s tariffs, which will affect the stability of global—and domestic—markets. When the sh*t hits the fan, will he have enough sense to change course? Or will stubbornness prevail and destroy the global economy? I really don’t know.
Deborah Lipstadt probably made the right call in refusing to teach at Columbia. Did you notice that one of her reasons was fear for her personal safety? This is what it has come to.
Finally please don’t give up presenting posts on science. They are always excellent. Sometimes I don’t respond simply because I have nothing to add without being up on the literature. But I read them all with interest.
+1 particularly on paragraphs 2 & 3 Norman!
I also say what Norman says: “Finally please don’t give up presenting posts on science. They are always excellent. Sometimes I don’t respond simply because I have nothing to add without being up on the literature. But I read them all with interest.”
Agreed in spades. Your science posts are the best! A real service to the scientific community. Please don’t stop.
Norman speaks for me too.
Yes.
D.A.
NYC
Concur with other posters. While I was a biology major, I did not work in the field (though as I’ve been able I’ve read to learn more). I don’t feel competent to add anything other than my great appreciation for your enlightening posts, and for your taking the time and effort to compose and present them.
One possibility to consider is politically-relevant science posts. For an example, https://www.razibkhan.com/p/more-than-kin-less-than-kind-jews [and Palestinians as Canaanite cousins].
I would very much miss the science, and the WEIT book is what got me to this site in the first place.
Remember when Republicans were up in arms when Michelle Obama was trying to make government-funded school lunches healthier? Now that one of their own (OK, he’s not exactly a Republican but he’s part of the administration) is proposing a similar thing, they’re on board. Politics is funny. I wonder what the reaction from both parties would be if this had been proposed during the last administration.
I’m fully in favor of allowing individuals to make their own decisions as to their choices with their own money, but when it comes to the government funding and providing things, then I’m in favor of limiting that to either just basics or at least only items that are healthy. I’ll guess that most SNAP recipients are not receiving only SNAP benefits as their sole incoming income or benefits, so they would still be free to purchase sugary soft drinks using money from either their other benefit checks or from the income from any job they may have.
I also agree it would be hard to administer such a program when you start making exceptions. However, I believe that the WIC (Women, Infant, and Children) food program only allows healthy foods, so this could be used as a model for other government food programs.
The government imposes conditions on all kinds of other benefit programs: for the credit on home improvements, they must meet energy efficiency requirements; for the credit for purchasing electric cars, they must meet domestic production requirements; for the charitable contribution credit, the charity must be accredited; SS benefits are tiered based on age; and so on. Attaching conditions to money that we as taxpayers are paying out is not cruel or unusual.
Paul Offit has two recent posts on RFK Jr and measles. Free to read:
https://pauloffit.substack.com/p/a-death-in-texas
https://pauloffit.substack.com/p/rfk-jr-and-the-texas-measles-outbreak
Yep, he’s touting Vitamin A if you get measles. Fine if you get it because there are no effective anti-virals once you get it, and it won’t hurt you, but if vaccinated, you won’t get it to begin with. For Junior Kennedy (JrK), this is apparently a subtlety that he is incapable of grasping.
Offit also mentions how antibiotics greatly impacted measles mortality, by providing a solution to secondary infections acquired as a result of ablation of the host immune memory by the virus, something I only recently learned.
Tangentially, since we’re about music here too, I think antibiotics also impacted bluegrass music, which early-on had a heavy theme of mournfulness about death at a presumably early age. That seemed to change around 1950, just as more antibiotics became available.
Tuberculosis for sure. The scourge of penniless artists, bohemians, railroad hoboes, and blues singers who gave us so much.
There is also a new 20minute Beyond the Noise video on the measles, autism, vaccines issue with Vincent Racanello and Paul on microbe tv special TWiV at url https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v35GmuxEagQ.
A very nicely done discussion!
Wait, wasn’t the big news from yesterday that all Democratic senators voted to keep allowing men in women’s sports?
Oh, and I need to share this with Ceiling Cat: https://x.com/PunchingCat/status/1896726787695972846
Video is very cute!
I didn’t know about the Dem senators. So disappointing.
Roz, read this commentary by Leor Sapir on all Democratic senators voting to keep allowing men in women’s sports:
http://x.com/LeorSapir/status/1896863898336170163
I also recommend:
Polarization in U.S. politics starts with weak political parties. Yale News, Nov 17, 2020
Ian Shapiro, Sterling Professor of Political Science at Yale, says weak political parties are responsible for the polarization in American politics.
https://archive.li/fqdGu
Great points. Thank you for that link.
What is the definition of an “unrepresentative” voter?
I was thinking the same thing – while they don’t represent the mainstream, a voter’s a voter. If some issue drives people of a certain leaning to vote than others, well, that’s a product of the system. Design is destiny.
Note: it’s not just Trump who was elected by a very small portion of the US voting population.
Trump got 6.1% (14,015,993 votes) of the overall eligible electorate vote in 2016 and 7.6% of the overall electorate vote in 2020.
Biden received about 8% of the overall electorate vote in 2020 and 6% (14,465,859) of the overall electorate vote during the primaries in 2024.
The primary process is flawed, but at least it does represent a pseudo electoral college system in which each state has an individual vote to help decide who gets the nod, and also can serve as information to the final candidate as to the preferences of the voters in each state.
Note: I searched a long time and couldn’t find numbers for the vote count for Harris to replace Biden for the Democratic Party, but I think her overall vote count was even lower.
The extremes of the parties. The ones who are most fired up and show up for primaries and caucuses. That old phenomenon: Play to the party extremes to get the nomination and then shift to the center for the general election.
Though this may not be true anymore.
Dems need to rethink their attitudes toward funding after all the good that $2 billion did for Kamala. They would do better to tell the extremist donors to shove off.
One problem with primaries is that they are not simultaneous. By the time the 6th or 7th one is held, most of the candidates have given up. Another problem its the ease of re-registration. Many people cross parties temporarily to vote for crazies.
Anora was borderline porn. No depth of character in my opinion, and the nudity seemed to be done for titillation purposes. But that’s just my opinion. I have a hard time with sex scenes in movies – I tend to view these as something that I would not see in normal life, so why am I subjected to them in a movie? They feel uncomfortably voyeuristic to me.
Plus, these scenes put me in a mindset of watching two actors on a set rather than two characters in a movie, which spoils the effect. I start wondering about why the actors would choose a role in which they need to get naked in front of a roomful of people and pretend to have sex, why a writer would write such a role, how the auditions for the roles were done, etc.. Maybe I’m just getting old, or maybe the Weinstein “casting couch” stories have changed the way I view this.
Joan Smith wrote a good piece about the depiction of prostitution in Anora: https://archive.is/dSx9s
Having at various points of life watched people use food stamps for convenience store food only to then pull out their cash for alcohol and cigarettes, and having gazed in dismay at the Walmart shopping carts in the poor, rural South full of barely edible, highly-processed foodstuffs, I remain skeptical about the degree to which government can change undesirable personal behavior. On the other hand, if governments stop funding soft drinks because people are too ignorant to know what is good for them, then we’ll have extra money for kids to opt for sex “change” operations.
Doug my experience (fmr defense attorney and drug user myself) in “the Ghettos” of NYC confirms this. Markets win out.
You can buy single mothers diapers/nappies but there’s always a crack to diaper exchange market.
People who don’t use food stamps etc don’t imagine these markets existed and I didn’t until I saw it in action. Prob better to just give poor people cash.
D.A.
NYC
My food stamps story.
I was a very new graduate and relatively poor. I was saving (slowly) to afford a $600 canopy (capper) for my very cheap, plain-Jane pickup truck. This was circa 1985.
I was at my local grocery store at the checkout line. They guy in front of me is buying a large amount of candy. He pays with food stamps. This raised my eyebrows a bit. He acted somewhat offended by being observed.
When I left the store, I observed this guy getting into the driver’s seat of a very new Corvette (which was way beyond my ability to afford). This really raised my eyebrows!