Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the November 7 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*At Quillette, writer Michael J. Totten tells us that “Trumpism is finished“, but the interesting bit is the thesis in the subtitle: “Schoolchildren will learn about Donald Trump more than a hundred years from now, but his successor will likely be a footnote and historical nobody.”
Donald Trump was indestructible until he wasn’t. The midterm election wasn’t a blue wave or even a blue tsunami but the Chicxulub Tsunami, a mile-high wave of death that overwhelmed Republican seawalls in coastal states like North and South Carolina and flooded as far inland as Kansas, bang in the centre of the contiguous 48 states, where voters are sending their first Democratic senator to Washington in almost a hundred years. Trump’s presidency, at least as we’ve known it, is finished. Which means Trumpism is finished aside from its brief upcoming zombie stage.
Trumpism was never an ideology, coherent or otherwise. It has always been a cult of personality around a would-be strongman who vowed to smash the established order and remake America and the world. Aside from a handful of Trump detractors from the ancien régime like Representative Liz Cheney and Senator Jeff Flake, the entire Republican Party discarded its long-held belief in free markets, free trade, the rule of law, the economic benefits of legal immigration, and global democracy-promotion. It no longer agreed that Europe and Canada are allies and that Russia is hostile, or that tariffs and trade wars are mutually destructive. The Republican Party pitched all of its postwar ideas into the sea—not because it suddenly changed its collective mind about everything but because its voters were besotted with a man who promised that only he could fix everything. And that man was governed by his own impulses, ideas, and grievances, most of which were formed decades ago and miles from any Republican milieu.
The results of Trump 2.0 have been predictably and inevitably catastrophic to the American economy, to the global order, and to the Republican Party’s own voters, who believed him when he promised a reduced cost of living and got record-high grocery, diesel, housing, and healthcare prices instead.
And the most interesting part:
The Republican Party may well choose another Trumpy or Trump-adjacent standard-bearer in the next primary election before the 2028 general presidential election. But while schoolchildren will learn about Donald Trump more than a hundred years from now, his successor will likely be a footnote, a historical nobody, as forgotten to time as Joe Biden undoubtedly will become. A cult of personality can’t be transferred from one individual to another. The record is replete with world-historical figures followed by nonentities. Without checking the internet, see if you can name who immediately came after the following leaders, all with personality cults the size of Trump’s, in their respective countries:
Juan Perón
Mao Zedong
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
Ho Chi Minh
Benito Mussolini
Josef Stalin
Fidel Castro
The answers to the above are as follows, in order: Eduardo Lonardi, Hua Guofeng, İsmet İnönü, Lê Duẩn, Pietro Badoglio, Georgy Malenkov, and Raúl Castro. How many of those people have you even heard of? One or two maybe? Unlike the names on the first list, those on the second list are obscure. [JAC: I couldn’t answer any of these except for the last one.]
. . . Henry Kissinger made a memorable observation back in 2018: “Trump may be one of those figures in history who appears from time to time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its old pretences. It doesn’t necessarily mean that he knows this or that he is considering any great alternative.” That seemed right at the time and seems even more right today. We’re ten years into the Trump era with a maximum of two left to go. His role in the project of remaking America and the world is now written: he will never found a new order. He’s just the wrecking ball for the old one.
Yep, twe won’t see the likes of Trump again, thank Ceiling Cat.
*In yesterday’s NYT morning newsletter, Jia Lynn Yang argues that the Democrats have largely dispensed with identity politics:
The number of “firsts” achieved in Tuesday’s election was extraordinary. And yet during the campaign, the candidates themselves hardly uttered a word about breaking barriers. There were no exhortations to vote for a particular person because “representation matters.”
Instead, most of them spoke relentlessly about household finances that had become impossible to manage, an unpopular war and corruption. They did not — and could not — hide their identities. But these facts were not central to their pitches to voters.
This is a major shift in the politics of identity. Not long ago, Democrats ran on diversity with slogans like “I’m with her.” Now they appear to have recognized that voters are just not that interested in the symbolism for its own sake. It’s why millions of Black, Hispanic and Asian voters have whipsawed between the two parties in search of leaders — anyone — who will improve their material conditions.
For a long time, Democrats thought the changing electorate would give them an enduring and broad coalition. As the country diversified, the belief went, it would inevitably become more liberal.
This did not occur. After the 2008 election of Barack Obama, the ultimate pathbreaking moment in modern American politics, some Americans became disappointed that their financial outlook did not improve enough. For decades now, unemployment among Black Americans has almost always remained twice as high as it is for white Americans.
This record, over time, has made it difficult for candidates to appeal to the power of representation. Hispanic people, for instance, are now perpetual swing voters. Even with Kamala Harris on the ballot in 2024, Trump won the support of many Black, Hispanic and Asian voters.
The midterm confirmed that many voters were not operating out of loyalty to an identity group. They are fed up with health care bills, low-paying jobs and the difficulty of buying a home. They will follow leaders who project a similar dissatisfaction.
In speeches on Tuesday night, the candidates who achieved “firsts” tended to deal lightly with the history they had just made. Gina Hinojosa, the new governor-elect of Texas, finally alluded to it 20 minutes into a populist oration. “As excited as I am by the history we’ve made tonight, I pray it does not compare to the future we build together,” she said.
That analysis is bogus, for everybody knew from the press (and from the candidates themselves) what their ethnic, racial, or “electable identity” was. Take Abdul El-Sayed, who let the mask slip in his very acceptance speech (see the video below). As Melanie Phillips wrote:
At his victory celebration, he ripped off the disguise. The first thing he did was introduce himself by his full name: Abdulrahman Mohammed El-Sayed. Previously, anyone who referred to him in this way was called Islamophobic. Now he was brandishing it — in a pronounced Arabic accent — to show his true identity was Muslim.
Next, he said the aside he had previously used, “inshallah” or “God willing,” had now turned into “alhamdulillah,” meaning “praise be to God.” The ecstatic crowd went wild.
What had been considered politics was now revealed as Muslim missionary work, a key element of the Muslim Brotherhood strategy to turn American public space Islamic.
No, identity politics is far from dead. Even Yang’s first paragraph above brings it to the for, and the media keeps banging the drum about it.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that he’ll change more than 500 death sentences in the state to life in prison without the possibility of parole, though the state Supreme Court will have the final say in hundreds of those cases.
“I take this action because I firmly believe that state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values, undermines the foundations of our legal system, and diminishes each of us,” Newsom said in a public letter.
Newsom’s decision comes as he prepares to leave office after eight years and considers a run for president. The Democrat, who’s long been opposed to the death penalty, placed a moratorium on executions in California in 2019.
His latest move came after he realized “the limits of what government can justly accomplish,” he said.
Newsom moved to grant clemency to 548 people currently sentenced to death in California, of whom 529 are men and 19 are women, according to numbers provided by his office.
The state constitution requires the California Supreme Court’s approval to grant clemency to anyone convicted of a felony more than once, which means the court would have to approve 382 of those commutations, or roughly 70%, according to Newsom’s office.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Newsom’s action represents the largest mass clemency in American history. If they are all approved, it would reduce the U.S. death row population by nearly 30%, the center said.
I approve of this, of course, as I am against government executions for a number of reasons I’ve stated previously. I’m not sure whther Newsom did this out of principle, because it will make him more electable as President, or both. The electability issue is not that important, and, as the Death Penalty Information Service notes,
This year’s Gallup poll found that support for the death penalty is at a 50-year low of 52%. Gallup also found that 44% of Americans now oppose the death penalty — the highest level of opposition recorded since May 1966.
The California Supreme Court will now have to carefully review all 382 cases required. It would be easy for me: just give them all life in prison without parole.
Welcome back, one and all. This week, a new world was born. Pronouns are going back into bios, and everyone who has an odd-numbered birthday needs to report for their gender reassignment on Monday. Evens are the week after. Asymmetrical haircuts are back, and so are MFAs in creative nonfiction. Pick up your kale or risk immediate hanging. Jews are, I’m so sorry to report, out. But at least it’s a return to form.
→ Now, in the bright blue light of November 5, all the legal Dems are saying “Lawyer up,” because it’s lawfare time. Not that Trump didn’t pressure law enforcement to go after his enemies (he did and does! And it’s wrong!). But, like: The political enemies of this movement should be scared a little because the nominally pro-democracy party wants to. . . sue all their political rivals into financial ruin and jail the rest. And that’s the best-case scenario.
Hopefully, she keeps her shirt on.
→ What comes next for Israel now that funding’s been cut?: In an Election Day Hail Mary, Trump announced that the U.S. will stop sending $4 billion in annual aid to Israel after this year. That will surely placate the anti-Israel movement, right? No, you fools. Here’s Darializa Avila Chevalier, the hot, newly elected progressive congresswoman from Upper Manhattan: “Ending military aid is not enough. We need to end U.S. taxpayer funding for Israel’s war crimes, a full arms embargo, and the Palestinian right of return.” The goalposts keep moving because the movement’s actual goal isn’t keeping tax dollars at home—it’s the destruction of Israel and subjugation of the Jews, but they can’t quite say that. Not yet, anyhow.
Congresswoman-elect Darializa is also a prison abolitionist in the perfect old way. She’s a purist. Here’s part of her answer to what she would do with someone who shoots another person. “We’re talking about an incident that already happened, where a man was shot, right? The world that we’re trying to build is one where that isn’t something that can come to pass.” That’s so beautiful. Snap snap in agreement from me. I’m shaking my tambourine in agreement, Congresswoman. I also await the world without crime, without sin, without killing. And until then, I want big, beautiful prisons to keep people who try to like, murder children away from mine, for example. A rapist-free world cannot “come to pass” while rapists are still coming and passing and raping. I am with you in your dreams of a peaceful unity garden but until then, let’s build those barbed wire fences nice and high. Let’s get those Flocks fired up, ’kay? My ruthless El Salvador–style prison vision is just temporary until that world comes,
→ No Halloween Harry Potter: The town of Gibsons in British Columbia got in trouble for putting up Harry Potter–themed Halloween decorations. Gibsons felt they had to issue a public apology: “We understand that the Harry Potter series has become a difficult subject for many.” Similar uproars played out in London. I feel like if I can still like Kanye songs, the far left can handle Harry Potter. Some things get a carveout. It’s gonna be okay, guys. J.K. Rowling’s big, bad belief is that biological females shouldn’t be, like, in prison with biological males. You’re gonna make it through. Voldemort (he/she/they who must not be named) isn’t coming to misgender you. Gender dysphoria isn’t one of the spells. Just walk past the decorations. I know you can do it.
*Well this NYT piece is clickbait for me, though I was dubious that Talarico wears the boots except to get votes: “The many meanings of James Talarico’s cowboy boots“. It turns out that he likes them:
Increasingly, though, the lawmakers whose campaigns broke through seemed to have appropriated the tools of self-branding for their own ends.
Consider, for example, Abdul El-Sayed, whose signature black T-shirt, jeans and slogan — “Minimal look, maximal politics” — helped propel him to national prominence and then to the election as a progressive senator-elect from Michigan.
And then cast an eye toward James Talarico, the first Democrat to win a Senate race in Texas in 33 years. As much as anyone, he understood the role of clothing in political messaging and how that could be used as a form of voter outreach. Of course, the race turned on more than image — it had to do with the economy, the war in Iran, unhappiness with President Trump and the baggage of Talarico’s opponent, Ken Paxton — but, nevertheless, image played an important part. Indeed, his upset campaign was practically a case study for the power of the personal prop.
Or, rather, his cowboy boots were.
He wore them pretty much everywhere: in the State Capitol during his years in the Texas House of Representatives, on the campaign trail in both city and outback, to debates, when being interviewed. He wore them so much that in nearly every article written about him, the boots were part of the story.
. . . “Not only does the state lawmaker drive a Chevy Colorado truck and own Lucchese cowboy boots engraved with the Texas state seal,” wrote The Economist, “but he invokes so many Bible teachings in conversation that you may get Sunday-school flashbacks.”
Now Lucchese boots aren’t really custom boots, but I suppose someone with Talarica’s clout could get custom boots made, and by that I mean boots not just engraved (the proper word is “tooled”) with a seal, but made to fit his feet after extensive measurements, and then laboriously made from scratch. The article doesn’t give me a clue. But when dissecting the meaning of the boots, the article goes off into la-la land:
“He barnstormed the state for months in his signature Lucchese cowboy boots,” wrote The Guardian.
Lucchese cowboy boots haven’t played such a prominent supporting role in a Texas campaign since Senator Ted Cruz made them part of his story in 2013. Even though Paxton was also known to wear cowboy boots — a custom-made kangaroo-top pair from Olsen Stelzer and his own Luccheses — his footwear never became as ubiquitous a part of his personal semiology. Which raises the question: Why did Talarico’s boots matter so much?
In part, because of what they represent: a certain mythology of manliness having to do with the frontier and wide-open spaces, where wind-toughened men carve a life for themselves out of the land, which was one of the subtexts of the election in general. Talarico may look like a choirboy and talk like the seminarian he is, but his boots added a layer of machismo to his image that spoke to an entirely different audience.
Jebus! I don’t wear boots to be “manly” and evoke the frontier, but because they’re really the only kind of footwear that is attractive on men. Women have tons of shoes to choose from ranging from gorgeous to dumpy, but men’s shoes are all pedestrian—except for cowboy boots. My advice for Talarico would be to get his tuches to Austin and have Lee Miller, the best bootmaker in America, to make him a pair of true custom boots. True, there’s a three-year waiting list just to get measured, but then you get something like this (my custom boots, with my name in mirror writing and the yellow rose of Texas):
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is resting beneath the pear tree.
Dictators want three of us dead for the crime of fighting for freedom! We are getting ready for this year, #BerlinFreedomWeek,
One year ago, my friends and my brothers in arms Garry Kasparov, Leopoldo López and I stood together to build Berlin Freedom Week. One year later: @khamenei_ir is dead. Maduro is in jail. Putin is counting his days.
We are not done. We fight until every tyrant faces the fate they deserve, and until the people of Iran, Venezuela, Russia and every oppressed nation are free.
Ending military aid is not enough. We need to end U.S. taxpayer funding for Israel’s war crimes, a full arms embargo, and the Palestinian right of return.
And one from Doctor Cobb, who comments, “I have been in this part of Scotland a few times. It is amazing. Not climbed this mountain, but have gone up one if the nearby peaks you can see here”:
One stunning day wrapped up into two and a half minutes. I think I might have exclaimed a 'f**k!' under my breath when I reached the top of Creag nan Calman and saw *that*. Makes a refreshing change for a peak to end abruptly with a precipice below. No false summits, no teasing. OH YEAH! 😎
Music: I first heard “I can’t get started” on an LP owned by my parents, and I still love it, especially the old references and the trumpet solos, done by singer Bunny Berigan. The tune is by Vernon Duke with lyrics by Ira Gershwin.
Bunny Berigan, a trumpeter with Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey, started a band in 1937 and chose “I Can’t Get Started” as his theme song. He had been performing the song during the previous year at a club in New York City. He made a recording for Vocalion on April 13, 1936, but gradually he made subtle changes in the arrangement. After forming his band, he recorded “I Can’t Get Started” again, this time for Victor.
Jazz trumpeter Dick Sudhalter noted the changes that had been made since the Vocalion recording. “An introduction—an extended cadenza over four different sustained chords in the key of C—had been added by this time, but otherwise Berigan’s routine had not changed since the Vocalion recording. But whereas the Vocalion comes across as a virtuoso performance of a great song, the Victor version presents itself as a kind of concerto, a tour de force for a trumpeter of imagination and daring to have an impeccable command of his instrument.”
Berigan, like many jazz greats, drank himself to death. He died at only 33, so we missed out on many years of great music.
