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The Case for Kamala Harris

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For the third time in eight years, Americans have to decide whether they want Donald Trump to be their president. No voter could be ignorant by now of who he is. Opinions about Trump aren’t just hardened—they’re dried out and exhausted. The man’s character has been in our faces for so long, blatant and unchanging, that it kills the possibility of new thoughts, which explains the strange mix of boredom and dread in our politics. Whenever Trump senses any waning of public attention, he’ll call his opponent a disgusting name, or dishonor the memory of fallen soldiers, or threaten to overturn the election if he loses, or vow to rule like a dictator if he wins. He knows that nothing he says is likely to change anyone’s views.

Almost half the electorate supported Trump in 2016, and supported him again in 2020. This same split seems likely on November 5. Trump’s support is fixed and impervious to argument. This election, like the last two, will be decided by an absurdly small percentage of voters in a handful of states.

Because one of the most personally malignant and politically dangerous candidates in American history was on the ballot, The Atlantic endorsed Trump’s previous Democratic opponents—only the third and fourth endorsements since the magazine’s founding, in 1857. We endorsed Abraham Lincoln for president in 1860 (though not, for reasons lost to history, in 1864). One hundred and four years later, we endorsed Lyndon B. Johnson for president. In 2016, we endorsed Hillary Clinton for more or less the same reason Johnson won this magazine’s endorsement in 1964. Clinton was a credible candidate who would have made a competent president, but we endorsed her because she was running against a manifestly unstable and incompetent Republican nominee. The editors of this magazine in 1964 feared Barry Goldwater less for his positions than for his zealotry and seeming lack of self-restraint.

Of all Trump’s insults, cruelties, abuses of power, corrupt dealings, and crimes, the event that proved the essential rightness of the endorsements of Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden took place on January 6, 2021, when Trump became the first American president to try to overturn an election and prevent the peaceful transfer of power.

This year, Trump is even more vicious and erratic than in the past, and the ideas of his closest advisers are more extreme. Trump has made clear that he would use a second term to consolidate unprecedented power in his own hands, punishing adversaries and pursuing a far-right agenda that most Americans don’t want. “We believe that this election is a turning-point in our history,” the magazine prophesied correctly when it endorsed Abraham Lincoln in 1860. This year’s election is another.

[From the January/February 2024 issue: If Trump wins]

About the candidate we are endorsing: The Atlantic is a heterodox place, staffed by freethinkers, and for some of us, Kamala Harris’s policy views are too centrist, while for others they’re too liberal. The process that led to her nomination was flawed, and she’s been cagey in keeping the public and press from getting to know her as well as they should. But we know a few things for sure. Having devoted her life to public service, Harris respects the law and the Constitution. She believes in the freedom, equality, and dignity of all Americans. She’s untainted by corruption, let alone a felony record or a history of sexual assault. She doesn’t embarrass her compatriots with her language and behavior, or pit them against one another. She doesn’t curry favor with dictators. She won’t abuse the power of the highest office in order to keep it. She believes in democracy. These, and not any specific policy positions, are the reasons The Atlantic is endorsing her.

This endorsement will not be controversial to Trump’s antagonists. Nor will it matter to his supporters. But to the voters who don’t much care for either candidate, and who will decide the country’s fate, it is not enough to list Harris’s strengths or write a bill of obvious particulars against Trump. The main reason for those ambivalent Americans to vote for Harris has little to do with policy or partisanship. It’s this: Electing her and defeating him is the only way to release us from the political nightmare in which we’re trapped and bring us to the next phase of the American experiment.

Trump isn’t solely responsible for this age of poisonous rhetoric, hateful name-calling, conspiracies and lies, divided families and communities, cowardly leaders and deluded followers—but as long as Trump still sits atop the Republican Party, it will not end. His power depends on lowering the country into a feverish state of fear and rage where Americans turn on one another. For the millions of alienated and politically homeless voters who despise what the country has become and believe it can do better, sending Trump into retirement is the necessary first step.

If you’re a conservative who can’t abide Harris’s tax and immigration policies, but who is also offended by the rottenness of the Republican Party, only Trump’s final defeat will allow your party to return to health—then you’ll be free to oppose President Harris wholeheartedly. Like you, we wish for the return of the Republican Party of Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole, John McCain, and Mitt Romney, a party animated by actual ideas. We believe that American politics are healthiest when vibrant conservative and liberal parties fight it out on matters of policy.

If you’re a progressive who thinks the Democratic Party is a tool of corporate America, talk to someone who still can’t forgive themselves for voting for Ralph Nader in 2000—then ask yourself which candidate, Harris or Trump, would give you any leverage to push for policies you care about.

And if you’re one of the many Americans who can’t stand politics and just want to opt out, remember that under democracy, inaction is also an action; that no one ever has clean hands; and that, as our 1860 editorial said, “nothing can absolve us from doing our best to look at all public questions as citizens, and therefore in some sort as administrators and rulers.” In other words, voting is a right that makes you responsible.

Trump is the sphinx who stands in the way of America entering a more hopeful future. In Greek mythology, the sphinx killed every traveler who failed to answer her riddle, until Oedipus finally solved it, causing the monster’s demise. The answer to Trump lies in every American’s hands. Then he needs only to go away.


This article appears in the November 2024 print edition with the headline “Kamala Harris for President.”

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jsled
5 days ago
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South Burlington, Vermont
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UK Coal

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The Watership Down rabbits removed an additional 0.1 nanometers constructing their warren, although that was mostly soil. British rabbits have historically mined very little coal; the sole rabbit-run coal plant was shut down in the 1990s.
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jsled
14 days ago
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South Burlington, Vermont
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1 public comment
rickhensley
15 days ago
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Now do the math for how much they added in refuse.
Ohio
kyb
14 days ago
Well really, you add stuff by stealing it from other countries and bringing it back to yours. Of course, the UK did quite a lot of that during times of Empire...
rickhensley
14 days ago
I was thinking refuse = trash (aka landfills), but that tracks, too.
jlvanderzwan
14 days ago
That's the sign of a good sedimentation joke: it has layers
gordol
14 days ago
I refuse to measure the refuse.

God’s Penis Visible In Night Sky For First Time In Millennia

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Stargazers around the world were able to see one of our closest celestial neighbors. God’s Penis peaked in its fullest at 9:35 p.m. EST, but hung proudly in our night sky throughout the night, according to NASA.

The post God’s Penis Visible In Night Sky For First Time In Millennia appeared first on The Onion.

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jsled
14 days ago
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South Burlington, Vermont
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The Upbringing of John Stuart Mill

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PERSON:
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istoner
10 days ago
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"They are having more ignorance!"
Saint Paul, MN, USA
jsled
15 days ago
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South Burlington, Vermont
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jlvanderzwan
14 days ago
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The bonus text if you click through:

> John Stuart Mill was raised by his father James Mill in a very strict, borderline abusive way in order to educate him as much as possible, with the express intent of creating a genius. It's kind of similar to those kids who get sequestered away from a young age to learn gymnastics, in order to try to produce a gold medalist, except for philosophy. Yeah, pretty weird, but it did work.

> James Mill was a follower of Jeremy Bentham and devoting all of his energy to bringing Bentham's ideas into the world, and raising John Stuart Mill to be a "genius" and having him write a greater philosophical justification for Utilitarianism was part of that. It really could not have worked out better for him, and Mill became extremely influential, and laid out a much more rigorous and convincing form of utilitarianism. Ironically, of course, for the theory is that James Mill's own actions hardly seemed like he was trying to create "the greatest happiness" for those he knew, as he abusive and controlling to his children and wife.

> Bentham style utilitarians are pretty notorious for being able to justify almost any behavior with the idea that it will create more happiness in some future time "overall". Bentham himself was obsessed with creating "panopticon" prisons that would more or less mentally tortured the prisoners to "reform" them. John Stuart Mill's system largely addressed this, focusing more on freedom and autonomy as the ideal path to happiness, and distinguishing between types of happiness.

there may be SOME downsides to having t-rex answer professor science's mail... but i'm really not seeing any

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September 9th, 2024next

September 9th, 2024: It's called "Ask Professor Science" not "Get Reasonable Answers From Professor Science"! That's an entirely different feature!!

– Ryan

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jsled
36 days ago
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South Burlington, Vermont
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We Have Updated Our Children’s Menu Options to Better Reflect What We See Your Children Doing in Our Restaurant

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Thing with Ketchup, $10.99
What is the “thing” that comes with this ketchup, you ask? Surely you know by now that it doesn’t matter in the slightest, as whatever it is will serve only as a delivery method for your child to get as much ketchup in their mouth as possible before pulling out the completely uneaten thing once they have sucked the ketchup dry. So whether it’s chicken nuggets, French fries, or something more mysterious but probably nontoxic that we found in the back of the kitchen, rest assured that the only person who might actually digest any of it is you, provided you prefer your food drenched in toddler saliva.

$15
Rather than paying us $15 for an entree your child will insist they want until we actually serve it to them, this option has you just give us $15 in exchange for nothing. It saves you from trying to convince your child to eat, and it saves us from throwing out another untouched mini cheese pizza. Win-win.

Guilt, $8.99
Is it guilt over the amount of food you already know you will waste before even ordering anything? Guilt over having to pull up Cocomelon on YouTube just to get your child to stay seated long enough for you to eat one third of your meal? Guilt over taking them out to dinner in the first place rather than cooking them a delicious and nutritious meal at home? Whatever it is, $8.99 seems fair enough.

Macaroni and Cheese, but We Don’t Cook It the Way You Do, so Even Though Your Child Will Get Very Excited Upon Seeing It on the Menu Since It’s Their Favorite Food, They Will Burst into Tears and Say It Looks Wrong When It Comes Out, and You Won’t Be Able to Calm Them Down, and Everyone Else in the Restaurant Will Spend the Rest of Their Evenings Talking About What a Bad Parent You Are, $12.99
Bon appetit!

All of the Inedible Stuff, $11.99
Who needs all the stress of trying to get your child to eat food when you can instead have the stress of trying to get your child not to eat the straw, crayons, utensils, and placemat? Add three molecules of spaghetti to the crayons for $5 extra.

Braised Haddock, $10.99
We’re not sure why this is on the children’s menu either. No one has ever ordered it, and we’re unsure what happens if you do. Probably some type of Saturday Night Live Diner Lobster scenario.

What Mama Is Having, $8.99
Yes, we know Mama is having a very spicy bone-in chicken dish that made the server’s eyes water, but this does not matter. Mama has it, so it must rightfully and immediately belong to her child, according to her child. Dada can try to offer some of his burger instead, but this will not work.

Thing Your Child Liked Yesterday, $9.99
They don’t like it anymore.

Cheerio Your Child Just Spotted on the Floor, $7.99
Sure, you’ve been unsuccessfully trying to give them Cheerios from a snack container for the past fifteen minutes, but those can’t compare to the tantalizing possibilities offered by the one on the floor that some other family must have left behind. What could that gray speck on it be? A previously undiscovered material that gives superpowers to whoever digests it? Dust? Probably the former, but they should eat it just to be sure.

Lollipop, $42.00
You will be willing to pay any price for this by the end of the meal.

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jsled
50 days ago
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South Burlington, Vermont
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