CROOKS vs. SICKOS (Or, “What’s going on with our politicians and oligarchs?”)
❧ The Harris campaign has unveiled its pitch to Black men, and it’s… not great. For a while now, Democratic pollsters have been fretting about Harris’s appeal, or lack of it, with this particular demographic. According to a recent Pew poll, approximately 72 percent of registered Black male voters intend to vote for the Vice President—which is a strong majority, but actually lessthan Joe Biden had at this point in the 2020 election cycle, and less than the 85 percent of Black women who plan to vote for Harris. With younger generations, Harris’s lead shrinks even further, with theNew York Times reporting that “Ms. Harris leads among Black men under 45, but only by 69-27.” Representative Jim Clyburn, still an influential figure among the Democratic leadership, says he’s “concerned about Black men staying home or voting for Trump,” and that seems to be the attitude of the party as a whole.
In an attempt to win these voters back, Harris has announced what she calls her “Opportunity Agenda for Black Men.” In a nine-page policy statement, she promises to “Provide the tools to Black men to build wealth, support their families, and lead in their communities” if she’s elected president. That sounds good in theory, but when you dig into the actual proposals, many of them don’t seem all that persuasive. For instance, Harris says she’ll “work with the private sector and call for additional funding to expand on proven ways to break down barriers and provide financing and venture capital to entrepreneurs and small business owners in Black communities.” Harris also promises “grant programs for mentorship and leadership development” (no specifics on what that “mentorship” will consist of), “reward[ing] employer participation in employee stock ownership plans,” and “Enabling Black men who hold digital assets to benefit from financial innovation”—by which she means encouraging speculation on Bitcoin, which isn’t actually a legitimate financial instrument.
Any time you see the word “entrepreneur” in a policy proposal, it should be a red flag. Like a lot of U.S. politicians, Harris is trying to sell bootstrap ideology—the idea that American capitalism is basically fine, and Black people just need a little nudge to get out there and Compete™. But capitalism isn’t fine, and you can’t “small business” your way out of generations of racial and economic inequality. In the first place, starting a business is no guarantee you’ll “build wealth”; approximately 20 percent of them fail in the first two years, and 45 percent fail within the first five. Apart from that, only 6.7 percent of Americans own a business of any size, so increasing the diversity of that small class doesn’t help the majority of Black Americans. Most people aren’t “entrepreneurs,” they’re workers, and this agenda has little for them. (Incredibly, there’s no mention of labor unions, which are a much more reliable way of actually closing racial wealth gaps.)
The rest of the Democratic Party isn’t doing Harris any favors, either. For some reason, they’ve decided it would be a good idea to send Bill Clinton—you know, the guy who signed the 1994 Crime Bill and used Black prisoners as unpaid servants in the Arkansas governor’s mansion—to drum up support for her in the critical swing state of Georgia. They’ve also sent Barack Obama out on the campaign trail, and hedecided to scold Black men as a group for their apparent reluctance to embrace Harris:
Part of it makes me think—and I'm speaking to men directly—part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren't feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you're coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that.
As former Ohio state senator Nina Turner points out for Newsweek, this is insulting and paternalistic. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to be skeptical about Harris, from her track record of supporting mass incarceration as a prosecutor to her ongoing support for the atrocities in Gaza, along with the lukewarm “Opportunity Agenda” she’s peddling now. But according to Obama, that doesn’t matter; if you’re a Black man who’s not thrilled by the prospect of a “grant program for mentorship,” you must be sexist. There’s a disturbing echo of the dismissive attitude the Democrats took toward voters during Hillary Clinton’s 2016 run, and if Harris loses with this kind of pitch, she’ll only have herself and her advisors to blame.
Remember guys, vote Blue or you’re sexist. (Image: Kamala Harris via Facebook)
YES, WE KNOW. THAT’S THE PROBLEM.
“Look, I am a capitalist. I believe in free and fair markets.” —Kamala Harris
“I believe capitalism works and it lifts everyone up” —Tim Walz
In other news...
In his latest disturbing threat, Donald Trump said he would like to use the military against the “enemy within,” including “radical left lunatics,” on Election Day. It’s not clear how he thinks that would work, since he wouldn’t yet be in office to make orders, but it's definitely menacing. (The New Republic)
Some other disconcerting things have been happening at Trump rallies of late, too:
On Saturday, thousands of supporters—many of whom were elderly—found themselves stranded in California’s scorching hot Coachella Valley for hours, as the event organizers allegedly neglected to arrange the proper amount of transportation to return them to their vehicles which were parked more than five miles away. This is not the first time this has happened. (The Independent)
At another overheated rally on Monday in Pennsylvania, two more supporters fainted and received medical attention. Rather than continue to answer questions from the crowd, Trump decided “Let’s not do any more questions. Let’s just listen to music. Let’s make it into a music. Who the hell wants to hear questions, right?” He then proceeded to stand, sway, and dance on stage, mostly silent, for the next 39 minutes while playing an eclectic mix of his favorite tunes. These included “Ave Maria,” “It's A Man's Man's Man's World,” the version of “Hallelujah” from Shrek, “Memory” from Cats, “Rich Men North of Richmond,” and, of course, “YMCA.” (Washington Post)
Kamala Harris says she wants a “bipartisan council of advisors” to “kick the tires of ideas” if she’s elected, along with promising to put a Republican (rumored to be Liz Cheney) in her cabinet. This kind of undercuts the idea that the Republican Party is a threat to democracy, and establishes a key difference between Biden and Harris: her administration would probably be even more right-wing than his. (Reuters)
We blame Doris Kearns Goodwin for popularizing this “bipartisan” nonsense. Also, keep in mind that adding Andrew Johnson to the team did not go well for Lincoln!
Senator Josh Hawley, who’s built his entire career on allegedly being a “populist,” is now under fire for his extensive use of private jets. Because, you know, what salt-of the-earth Midwestern workin’ man doesn’t charter a Lear? (Missouri Independent)
A new video in Politicoprofiles five people who may want New York Mayor Eric Adams’ job after he was indicted for bribery. It’s possible that he’ll continue to weather the storm, but he may also resign from office or be removed. There are some who’d potentially be improvements over Adams, like New York Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, a Democratic socialist who attempted to primary Governor Kathy Hochul from the left in 2022. But Adams could also be replaced by perhaps the one guy worse than Adams: disgraced governor Andrew Cuomo, who Politico suggests may be seeking a “political comeback through the mayor’s race.”
THIS WEEK IN TONE-DEAF HATS
With both the Mets and Yankees on a possible collision course in the upcoming World Series, Mayor Eric Adams wore a hat with both teams’ logos to a Columbus Day parade on Monday—something anyone with even a basic knowledge of New York’s sports rivalries would know not to do.
(Photo: Erik Pendzich, Shutterstock, via the New York Post)
❧ Colin Allred, the Texas Democrat challenging Ted Cruz for his Senate seat, became the first Democrat to release an ad responding to anti-transgender attacks by a Republican opponent. He did not do a good job. Cruz’s multi-million-dollar ad campaign, which has been plastered across TV stations in Dallas and Houston, accuses his opponent of having an “extreme liberal vision for America” and wanting to allow “boys in girls’ sports.” It’s a vile attack that Republicans across the country have launched endlessly in recent years, which seeks to demonize transgender school students who wish to play sports on the team that fits their gender. We’ve seen some Democrats, like North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, and Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear respond effectively to this sort of messaging by launching a full-throated defense of trans children, supporting their rights to personal freedom and bodily autonomy. (For more on why trans athletes and trans children should be defended, see our articles on both subjects.)
Allred, however, did not rise to the occasion. “Let me be clear. I don’t want boys playing girls’ sports or any of this ridiculous stuff that Ted Cruz is saying,” he said in an ad responding to Cruz. This essentially concedes to Cruz’s framing of the issue, agreeing with him that transgender girls playing on girls' teams would be tantamount to “boys playing girls’ sports.” As independent journalist Erin Reed wrote, “Allred’s response to the ad campaign targeting him is significant. He is the first prominent Democratic candidate running for Congress to seemingly acquiesce to anti-transgender advertising.”
There is potentially an alternative reading of what Allred said, which is that the idea of “boys playing girls sports” is ridiculous not because Allred is opposed to trans athletes, but because he believes trans women are, in fact, women. But when Reed reached out seeking a clarification, Allred’s campaign dodged her question, instead pointing to his support for the Equality Act, and directing her to an interview in which he says he supports “basic protections on the basis of their sexual identity, or who they love, or how they identify” to “make sure that they’re not discriminated against.”
While supporting the Equality Act is obviously better than opposing it, it’s a worrying sign that Allred is unwilling to mount a clear defense of trans athletes. Unfortunately, Allred’s response may have opened the floodgates of other Democrats feeling like they need to get defensive about Republican attacks on trans issues. As Reed reports, shortly after Allred’s ad went out, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown released one that was even worse, in which he denies supporting legislation allowing “transgender biological men to compete in women’s sports.” It suggests that both of these candidates worried about the optics of appearing too pro-trans in a red-leaning state.
The thing is, they don’t need to be. Again, see Beshear and Cooper, both of whom won re-election in red states (in Beshear’s case, one of the reddest states in the country) after vetoing bills from Republicans that banned trans athletes and aggressively defending those decisions. Despite Republican candidates’ obsession with the topic, Trans Stuff is relatively low on the list of things their voters say they care about, according to the latest Gallup poll. (Hence why anti-trans messaging has flopped in basically every election.) But Allred does have to worry about losing support from his own base, who are much more likely to say that transgender rights are “extremely important.” Other polls, like this one from GLADD, show that the majority of voters say they’d oppose “a political candidate [who] speaks frequently about restricting access to health care and participation in sports for transgender youth.”
But even if transgender civil rights were an electoral albatross, that wouldn’t make it right to abandon people who are under attack. When Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights act in 1964, he supposedly lamented that he’d “lost the South for a generation,” but he passed it anyway. If Democrats truly believe in their stated values, they need to be willing to defend groups who come under threat, regardless of whether it’s popular.
In other news…
Confirming basically every negative stereotype about cops, a sheriff in Cobb County, Georgia called three deputies to back him up with sirens blaring after Burger King got his order wrong. (WSB-TV Atlanta)
Trying to explain abuse of police power to Americans: “Think of a burger…”
Property owners in Boise, Idaho are trying to prevent a new homeless shelter from being built, mainly because they fear it might decrease property values nearby. The case has gone to the Idaho Supreme Court, with a ruling expected “within the next few months.” (Idaho Statesman)
The Hunt family, owners of the Kansas City Chiefs, have donated at least $300,000 to the “Vote No” campaign against abortion rights in Missouri’s upcoming referendum. Of that sum, at least $32,000 has gone for anti-abortion radio ads, which appear to be the only ones currently running in the state. (Missouri Independent)
The Hunt clan does not like people having reproductive rights. (Image: Kansas City Chiefs)
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has signed two bills that will allow home care workers—who are paid through Medicaid services—to organize a statewide union of more than 35,000 people. (Capital and Main)
The Environmental Protection Agency is requiring every lead pipe in the United States to be removed within the next ten years. According to the National Resources Defense Council, “there is no safe level of lead” in drinking water, and yet, more than nine million homes still receive drinking water through a lead pipe. (Washington Post)
AROUND THE WORLD
❧ Workers in Southeast Asia are turning to methamphetamines to “work without stopping.” In countries like Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Indonesia, the last few decades have seen a dramatic economic boom that the World Economic Forum calls “the rise of the Asian century.” But as Daniel Zak and Vuthra Srey write for the Diplomat, that boom has come at a terrible cost for the region’s workers. Facing new demands for productivity from their bosses, many of them are turning to methamphetamine use to deal with long hours and grueling workloads.
In Thailand, for instance, a 2019 study found that 73.5 percent of agricultural workers used some form of illicit drug, with methamphetamines being the most popular option. Often, Zak and Srey write that these come in the form of Ya ba or “crazy medicine” pills, which mix methamphetamine with caffeine and allow people to stay awake for much longer than they normally would. In 2016, the Cambodia Daily newspaper reported that roughly 80 percent of commercial truck drivers tested positive for a form of methamphetamine called “yama” during long night shifts. In the Philippines, a medical anthropologist found that meth use was “common” among dock workers, who called the drug “Pampagilas”—the “enhancer of skills.”
As Zak and Srey point out, this is the exact opposite of the opioid crisis in the United States, where it’s often unemployed peoplewho resort to drug abuse and end up suffering “deaths of despair.” In Southeast Asia, people turn to meth because they’re being exploited and given far more work than they can handle. The Diplomat writers interviewed a furniture builder from Cambodia:
Drugs “are necessary for the work,” said Ngo, who did not give his family name… He said that when he first came to the capital, Phnom Penh, he found that all of his new coworkers at an aluminum works were smoking methamphetamines in a crystallized form known as “ice.” They told him that it would help him get through the long days.
The workshop provided made-to-order aluminum furniture for the city’s restaurants and hotels. In a country where the hospitality sector is estimated to have anastounding 13 percent yearly growth rate, these types of facilities have constant demand. Ngo was assembling furniture for 10 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Needless to say, methamphetamines are highly addictive and associated with all kinds of long-term harm to the user’s health, both physical and mental. Ngo reports that he “lost control of [him]self” as he became addicted to the “ice,” and that he often “felt lethargic, and had trouble eating and sleeping.” This is yet another example of the damage international capitalism inflicts on people and their communities, forcing them to become dependent on dangerous drugs just to make a living. And for what? More profits for the owners of an aluminum furniture company. That’s not an economic system anyone should have to live under, in Southeast Asia or anywhere else.
In other news…
A new report from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz revealed what many observers had already known about the Israeli government’s aims as it continues to bombard Gaza:
According to senior defense officials, the Israeli government is not seeking to revive hostage talks and the political leadership is pushing for the gradual annexation of large parts of the Gaza Strip.
The report also acknowledged that the intention of the latest onslaught in the northern part of the Strip was “apparently aimed at pressuring civilians in the area to relocate.” Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is examining a plan to seal off humanitarian aid to northern Gaza in an attempt to starve out Hamas militants, a plan that, if implemented, could trap without food or water hundreds of thousands of Palestinians unwilling or unable to leave their homes.
In light of Haaretz’s reporting, the mass starvation of civilians does not seem to be an unfortunate side-effect of the operation, but its goal.
Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike on the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Central Gaza caused a massive fire to sweep through a tent camp where displaced Gazans were sheltering. “There were so many burned and charred bodies all over the place. The amount of fire and explosions was enormous. We witnessed one of the most horrible and brutal nights,” said one of the survivors, Om Ahmad Radi in a quote to Al Jazeera. One horrifying video shows a man being burned to death while trapped in the camp while others flee or seek to extinguish the flames. At least four are believed dead while dozens of others are wounded—one surgeon said some of them had burns on 60 to 80 percent of their bodies and likely won’t survive.
Canada has expelled Indian ambassador Sanjay Kumar Verma and five other top diplomats from the country after they refused to cooperate with a government investigation. The Canadian government alleges that Indian officials were involved in the assassination of dissident Sikh cleric Hardeep Singh Nijjar last June, along with other criminal activity to intimidate Sikh separatists. India, in turn, has expelled Canadian diplomats as retaliation. (New York Times)
Algeria just made a major investment in water desalination, committing $5.4 billion to expand its facilities for converting seawater to fresh drinking water by 160 percent before 2030. As droughts generated by climate change continue to hit North Africa hard, it’s a vital program. (Bloomberg)
THE BOOK IS OUT!
If you’ve been waiting for release day to get your copy of The Myth of American Idealism, co-written by Professor Noam Chomsky and Current Affairs editor-in-chief Nathan J. Robinson, wait no further! It’s out there in the world right now!
And for a little extra info on the book, you can hear an interview with Nathan on the Converging Dialogues podcast here:
Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk has announced the suspension of asylum rights. He has justified this by accusing neighboring Belarus—with which Poland has a tense relationship due to Minsk’s closeness with Putin—of sending people smugglers into the country as a method of destabilization. However, immigration activists point out that restrictive policies have made immigrants more, not less, likely to turn to traffickers for assistance. (Al Jazeera)
The Sahara Desert experienced its first flood in half a century last month, as Southeastern Morocco received nearly 4 inches of rain within a 24-hour period. “As a result of rising temperatures, the hydrological cycle has accelerated. It has also become more erratic and unpredictable, and we are facing growing problems of either too much or too little water,” said Celeste Saulo, the secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization. (The Guardian)
PIKA FACT OF THE WEEK
Pikas “puff” up their bodies to regulate body temperature!
Pikas are small, adorable mammals closely related to rabbits, who live mostly on rocky mountain slopes across Asia and North America. It gets cold up there, so the pikas have developed a unique mechanism to warm themselves up: when it gets cold, they compress their whole bodies into a round ball with “minimal surface area” to conserve body heat. Then when summer comes, they relax into a more spread-out body shape that helps them radiate heat outward and stay cool. The two forms are called “puff” and “lounge,” and they look like this:
Writing and research by Stephen Prager and Alex Skopic. Editing and additional material by Nathan J. Robinson and Lily Sánchez. Header graphic by Cali Traina Blume. This news briefing is a product of Current Affairs Magazine. Subscribe to our gorgeous and informative print edition here, and our delightful podcast here.
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