Richard Florida was one of my professors in grad school. He was an adviser to a couple of projects that I loved working on and he served as one of my early job references. I think his Creative Class work is interesting despite significant causality concerns of the chicken and egg and its inability to really speak to distributional issues within regions.
The core insight that powers his work is that it is wise to pay a lot of attention to where people with lots of choices end up and concentrate. He focuses a lot on younger people who are heavily educated and who have weak ties to their home geographic area. This is because these individuals can move fairly cheaply and fairly broadly. A twenty seven year old with no kids and no mortgage is far more mobile than a forty three year old with two kids and seventeen years left on their mortgage. This is a really smart insight. Where it goes from there may be another story (bike paths might not save us all).
Why is this important?
Immigration ban and the fear they create is a giant tax on US universities and US innovation…research and R&D will move abroad
— Amitabh Chandra (@amitabhchandra2) January 29, 2017
We’re much less attractive as a country to very smart, mobile international students and researchers this week than we were last week. And I bet that we’ll be less attractive next week than this week. Think about the incentive for a twenty something looking to do a post-doc? They could come here and work with an awesome group but when they need to travel to a conference overseas they might not be allowed back into the country? Or they could go to Canada or Japan or Australia or the EU where they don’t have that new worry as a cost to their calculus of choice.
Will this stop all international brain drain that the US massively benefits from? No, but it will impede it.
scottinnj
Some of us were conversating about this yesterday there is also an economic impact i.e. lots of tourists not coming to the US and spending money (i.e. which supports employment, pays sales tax). From teh Google for example as much as 20% of Disney’s crowds are from overseas and large companies like Macys hav called out that a slowdown in tourist spending (which for the last year or so has been more a function of the strong USD making stuff here more expensive for Europeans/Japanese/Chinese tourists). I also found on teh Google that around 1m jobs relate to tourism in the US and that doesn’t include the multiplier (ie the staff at the hotel then spend their salary and so on). Inbound travel is an export of the US and creates jobs. Not good for hotels either something our President should know.
OzarkHillbilly
Who cares? Only white Christian males are really smart. And besides, they are the real victims of persecution.
Yoda Dog
This alone won’t stop the brain drain, but as Kellyann assured us last night, president asterisk is just getting started.
Had a good friend tell me the other night, “Hey, he won, we gotta give him a chance now.” (sigh) The stupidity of this take leaves me very little room to be polite. How do you tell someone to ‘Wake the Fuck Up’ without ruffling their feathers? I did my best with that and told him when he’d found his line, when his line gets crossed, he should come talk to me.
In the meantime, I’ll be down at RDU airport at around 1pm today to take the pictures and see whats going on down there. Hope everyone has a (relatively) stress-free Sunday.
rikyrah
The attack on the Green Card holders,I.e.-those who followed the rules of ‘the system’, are gonna cost us
glory b
He was talked about a lot when he worked here in Pittsburgh at Carnegie Mellon. I think his theories are interesting, but he seemed to think it was scaleable in a way I couldn’t see. It was never going to be a substitute for the loss of manufacturing jobs, which was the implication.
It was also criticized as the “everyone but black people” theory, because he never had a place for anyone but highly educated white people and immigrants in his vision. It struck me as a bit Thomas Friedman-ish.
But that was a while ago, maybe he’s refined the approach a bit more.
geg6
@glory b:
That’s how I remember him, too.
I’m just beside myself today. Horrific week and only promises to get worse.
Gator90
–Pat Buchanan in my newspaper this morning
In totally unrelated news, my dad thinks it’s an outrage that folks on the left suspect that support for Trump is motivated in significant part by bigotry.
cosima
We have a good friend here who is the VP of something something at a uni, and his job is basically to attract international students. His budget has been cut more than 50%, and there is talk that some of that will have to be passed on to undergrad tuition (currently free), raising that from zero to ??? to offset. Could be that things won’t be quite as tight at his uni as students decide that studying in the US is not worth the cost (dollar & other). Your loss, our gain.
My daughter’s partner is finishing his law degree in the US, and will be finished in May. Their plan is for him to apply to PhD programmes (enviro law focus, which I suspect will be badly needed before too long) here in the UK. They’ve got no kids, no plans for kids (thank glob). Their goal is to get out of the US at this point. If my daughter gets her way it will be close to us, if not, at least they will be closer to us.
Baud
@Yoda Dog: That was a good response.
eric
for those who think that American hegemony is a bad thing, this Administration, in the guise of “restoring” such world dominance, is going to weaken America’s hand as played out over time. The only issue is just how recklessly they go about doing it.
For my money the biggest story is the deliberate omission of jews from the holocaust statement, not because of the number of lives it wrongly impacts (in contrast to the deportation EO), but because of how far American Republicans have given in to a hateful and once-fringe White Nationalism.
We are all jihadists now.
Baud
@Gator90: Uncle Pat, as Rachel calls him, is a racist, but that analysis isn’t wrong.
Kay
Interesting how the opposition is taking shape- all different issues, different groups of people, but they’re showing up and finding others. It goes against the conventional wisdom on organizing – that it has to be focused and narrowed to one or two things to be effective. The Women’s March was immediately compared to the Tea Party, but that’s just that lazy “this is like this OTHER thing” comparison. It isn’t like the Tea Party. The Tea Party was traditional organizing- older white people who are conservatives- commonality- this seems much more spontaneous and, well, DIVERSE. It’s funny because it’s the opposite of “identity politics”. TRUMP actually has his supporters organized around a common identity. The opposition are shaping up as diverse and issue-based because it’s multiple groups.
tpherald
Word is that Bannon is consolidating power and calling the shots. So, yeah, as a country we going to get much less attractive and dumber.
Make America smart again
Barbara
@rikyrah: Becoming a nation of men and not laws — and very bad men at that.
@Gator90: Somebody better tell Buchanan that Latinos were either in this hemisphere first or they have European ancestors, and that Spanish is a European language.
Baud
@Kay: Silly. Straight white guys organize around principle, it’s everyone else who organizes around identity.
Just like straight white guys only demand respect, while everyone else demands political correctness.
bemused
@tpherald:
Jared must be on board with all this then despite the talk of power jockeying between him and Bannon, etc close to Rump.
Taylor
The beneficiaries of this are going to be universities in Canada. The signals to watch for are the big name researchers giving up and moving north. Their grad students will found the Googles, Amazons and Microsofts of the future.
cosima
@eric: The Bannon-force is strong with this one. Strong enough to outweigh a Jewish son-in-law + daughter who has converted.
I’ve got a close friend here in the UK who is Jewish (very small Jewish community in this area of Scotland, so it is actually unusual), and she has a brother who is a professor at a uni in CA. We used to have talks about how awful Obama was — her saying that he just wasn’t supportive of Israel, Bibi says blah blah blah, my brother says blah blah blah. He’d almost entirely assimilated that b.s. from whatever people he was friendly with in the US. Anyway, my response was always (ALWAYS) ‘Look at who Bibi is aligning himself with — you play with pigs you get shit on you. Your brother had better wake up & smell the coffee.’
Fast-forward to this election, and her brother was driving his young daughter to Nevada to canvass — he felt that strongly about it. He is also asking around about positions in universities here in the UK. So, he’s gone from ‘Obama isn’t nice enough to Bibi/Jewish people’ to ‘we’d better get the hell out of this crazy place’ fairly quickly.
My friend is also finding her politically-active footing herself, too. The UK will have to work hard to fight against this sort of thing happening here, given that they got a foot-hold with Brexit.
Barbara
@bemused: Jared is a a puppy dog. Seriously, he is a follower not a leader.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
I remember the talk of the Cheney Regency as a little funny joke, but Bush was basically functional and not a raging asshole – and for all his faults, Cheney wasn’t a nihilist.
Bannon is – he’s got an idiot on hand who will sign literally anything, and he’ll take any action to protect that ability. All he has to do is keep the Trump husk walking. Make no mistake – this is the Bannon Regency – the NSA shuffle proves it.
I have a fear that there will be a major foreign conflict underway in the next 60 days, reprisal killings, suspicious domestic attacks on dissenting political and media voices and potential nuclear release in 90 days.
bemused
As of last night, Vox listed only five gopers speaking out against immigration ban,
Rep Charlie Dent
Sen Jeff Flake
Sen Ben Sasse
Rep Justin Amash
Sen Susan Collins
I don’t have strong enough words to express my level of utter contempt for the GOP.
Kay
@tpherald:
Be careful, though. They’re all self-promoters and they’re all egomaniacs. They all believe or want others to believe they are calling the shots. I suspect it’s just incompetence + constant chaos, a situation that allows anyone who yells loudest to prevail that minute or hour or day.
Gator90
@Baud: I don’t think it’s wrong either. I think it’s spot-on. Who better than a bigot to accurately diagnose bigotry in others?
bemused
@Barbara:
Sure looks that way.
Chris
@Kay:
The teabaggers also had zillionnaires astroturfing the SHIT out of them. It can’t possibly be overstated how big a difference that is.
scottinnj
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: yes but we will give all the money to the rich and take away health care from the Blahs, so it will be worth it.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@bemused: This is great news for McCain!
ThresherK
@Gator90: “Preserve” is a funny word for Buchanan to use.
Hey, I’d love to have a mid-60s Volvo P1800 but I’m under no illusions on its use. The idea of preserving small numbers of old cars is one thing; pretending they’re suitable for folks like modern ones is another.
Jeffro
@Yoda Dog:
I often ask “both-sides-ers” the following (usually not all three):
– how would you feel if it was Hillary, clearly aided by China and surrounded by pro-China advisers, going after American capitalism and businesses from Day 1?
– what would it look like if the president was insane, aligned with a hostile foreign power, or both?
– what “red lines” (as you noted) would push you to stand up for the Constitution, even if it meant being pro-impeachment and/or temporarily aligning yourself with Democrats?
And then let them do the describing and talking…quite often, they will lead right into things that are already going on with Presidents Trumpov and Bannonov
Immanentize
@ThresherK: I had a P 1800 E until about 15 years ago. it’s a car. Its use is to drive around while looking very cool!
mai naem mobile
@Taylor: Australia has been gobbling up a bunch of Asian students. Yes,Stanford,MIT,the Ivy League are worth the hassle but a lot of these international students just want a legit western education for their resume. Australia and NZ are more than okay for that.
Kay
@Baud:
Well, we’re about to find out if diversity is strength or common identity politics is strength, right? The opposition and the supporters resemble the two sides of the argument :)
Because I believe the Trump Administration’s incompetence will be their downfall, I think the crowds are beneficial to the opposition because they accentuate the idea that he creates chaos. He’s a bad manager and he hires mediocre frauds, like himself. Their work isn’t good quality and it shows.
Jeffro
@eric:
Yup. From dog whistle to DOG. WHISTLE. Some enterprising reporter should circle back and ask the WH why it was so important to them that others be recognized, but Jews not be singled out for recognition of their loss. Why not name each group the Nazis went after, in that case? Also, what other folks (like, say, Richard Spencer and David Duke) were excited about the non-naming? Why is that?
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
most Latinos are of western European descent (which is why they speak Spanish or Portuguese) Latinos have a near 100% connection to Christianity. They’re mostly Catholic, just like Buchanan.
The only difference is the skin tone – they’re swarthy, like, you know, actual, real life Hey-Zeus. (foto)
Jeffro
More on topic to this post: our creative class and our institutions of higher ed are one of the few advantages we have left over this brave new world of outsourced manufacturing and cheap labor. I know Trumpov’s mouth-breathing supporters won’t understand this (and good for them, they can continue to rot), but the majority of Americans DO get it that we thrive on immigration, imported brainpower, and all that energy.
If only there were someone with, say, the stature of an ex-president to remind folks of that…
satby
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: except that most fudigelicals don’t consider Catholics Christians at all.
ThresherK
@Immanentize: I’m a bit jealous, especially you had the wagonback.
Was it the daily driver in your home?
PPCLI
@Gator90: Spanish is a European language. Latin American immigrants are almost all Christian. In fact they’re almost all Catholic, the flavour of Christianity Buchanan prefers. He’s not even making an effort to disguise his real reasons.
satby
@Jeffro: they will. There’s several ex-Presidents and I bet they all come out expressing that.
PPCLI
@satby: True, but Buchanan is Catholic.
Barbara
@Taylor: I say this not to be combative. First, how much does it matter to be the place where something is started? Second, how much does it matter to those who won’t or can’t acquire skills to participate in the creation? Germany did not create Google and somehow has managed to prosper. The creative class is important but will always be outlier. I see them more as a marker for other important traits about us rather than as something to be fostered in and of themselves.
bemused
@satby:
Yes. I’d like to see Republican ex-presidents do that but won’t hold my breath.
Richard Mayhew
@glory b: yeah, the East Liberty problem of not becoming just north shadyside
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was conning gullible europe into thinking Jesus was a blue-eyed, blonde Aryan surfer.
amk
@Gator90: There is a reason why the new pope is from outside of europe.
pluky
@Yoda Dog: Don’t avoid ruffling feathers. The time for making nice is over. When confronted with a fool, suffer him not. While the chance of changing a mind at that moment is probably slim, leave no doubt that the mind in question is full of it.
Kay
This clusterfuck you’re watching on immigration? That’s what will happen to voting if anyone in the Trump Administration gets anywhere near it. They’re morons. They don’t know how anything works. The “commission” will be packed with low quality hires who will either inadvertently or deliberately disenfranchise millions of people. A federal judge will intervene when the elected branches fail, but the damage will be irreparable. Courts are a last resort- if it gets to a court that means everyone along the line failed.
It is essential that the Trump incompetents be kept away from voting. Voting isn’t like immigration- immigration is a federal issue. States have to protect their voters from the Trump Administration and states can do that. They have a lot of power in that area with state law.
Yoda Dog
@pluky: Agree 99% of the time but this guy is a childhood friend of 20 years who voted for Hill. He’s with us nominally, he just thinks our protest is “pointless and stupid.” I was as forceful as I could be that he was very wrong about that.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Barbara:
People who emigrate tend to work harder and smarter. The creative energy benefits the receiving society, and as innovation comes, the receiving society benefits from the experience of the use AND the enhanced money velocity.
I know there are applicable economic terms, but not being a trained economist and just a dumbass street lawyer, I go by memory and intuition.
Patricia Kayden
@OzarkHillbilly: And the “Billionaire” Donald Trump is the biggest White male victim of persecution ever. Look how the mean media reported that he lost the popular vote without mentioning the millions of Brown illegal voters who made that possible. And look how the mean media failed to report that his inauguration was attended by the most people in the history of the Universe. The Horror!!
It’s hard out here on a Bigot.
Jackie Hutter
I am a patent strategist who works with innovative companies. I just finished up an entire month of drafting 2 patent applications for a company where the CTO is an Iranian national who, fortunately, just got his green card. But, he can’t ever leave, can he? The CEO of the company has searched far and wide for people to work for this company, but there are few people in the WORLD with the requisite technical ability to work in this space. America First? We are all Romans now.
Patricia Kayden
@Gator90: Among the 90% who could trace their heritage back to Europe were African American descendants of the enslaved who have White blood because of the rape of their women ancestors. Buchanan can go off himself with his racism and bigotry. Why is he taken seriously by anyone?
greennotGreen
As we enter dystopian America, one thing I’d love to see happen (but won’t because SCIENCE!) is everyone be required to submit a saliva sample for DNA testing. That way, when abortions are outlawed the fathers of the forced births would be identifiable for 50% support, and a lot of these “white” people who are so concerned with making our country 1950s TV again would find out they’re not quite as “white” as they thought. We’re all related, and it’s a small planet we live on. We can live in fear, or we can live as a community working together for our mutual benefit. We can’t have it both ways.
cmorenc
Talking yesterday with a bud I know from a club focused on sort of science-geek interest we share – bemoaning to each other how much more astoundingly, offensively, awful Trump was turning out to be than we had each even feared going into the election – and in passing, I brought up the fact that in quite a few states, the votes that had been wasted on Stein and Johnson in quite a few states were considerably greater than the margin of Clinton’s loss, often several times over. MY BUD REPLIED: “Well, I voted for Johnson because I simply couldn’t bring myself to vote for Hillary.” It took quite a bit of self-discipline for me to calmly explain why 3P votes amount to pissing into the wind in the current American political system, even though it shouldn’t be that way INSTEAD OF YELLING AT HIM FOR BEING SUCH A STUPID UNICORN-EXPECTING MF.
Gator90
@Patricia Kayden: Precisely because of his racism and bigotry.
OzarkHillbilly
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Most Latinos are partially of western European descent with a significant amount of Native American and quite often a large percentage of African heritage as well. My wife is from Spain and has a Spanish name, but she is very white and speaks with a European accent. She is keenly aware of the discrimination she is not subjected to because of her European roots.
I still insist on taking her to vote in our small rural precinct.
Immanentize
@ThresherK: I didn’t has the wagon back, I had the sport model with electric overdrive (hence ‘e’). It was my daily driver in Texas but it did leak in a big storm and it had that friggin Lucas electrical system. I sold it when we had our first child and moved to Boston. But I do miss it!
ETA. I see what I did wrong in the first comment — mine was the S version with ‘e’ overdrive — 1971 gold.
Baud
@Kay: I’m hopeful for ultimate victory, but it won’t come without casualties among innocent people.
Baud
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Supposedly, growth areas for the Church are in the browner parts of the world. It’ll be interesting to see how the Pope responds.
Immanentize
@Baud: with or without?
greennotGreen
@cmorenc: Hillary was not a perfect candidate…but no one is a perfect candidate. She was just the best person running. The choice wasn’t between Ideal and Flawed, it was between human beings. The problem is that too many people who “couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Hillary” were unable to vote for the MSM’s depiction of Hillary which was itself very much more flawed than the actual person.
We had Hillary versus three nutcases. I didn’t have much trouble making that decision, myself.
Immanentize
@Baud: Papa Francis hates Trump. I think he should come here soon.
Patricia Kayden
@Kay:
I assume that blue states with Democratic Governors will be immune from any attempts by Trump to further weaken the Voting Rights Act. Red states, on the other hand, are going to move further to restrict minority voters. By the time Trump gets through putting racists on SCOTUS, the attack on voting rights will be up and running. I’m hoping that the DNC has some game plan to fight back against this assault on such a hard fought for constitutional right.
Baud
@Immanentize: Thanks. Fixed.
Baud
@Immanentize: It would be great if he came to America and didn’t meet with Trump. But they probably would deny him a visa.
Immanentize
@Baud: My son, 15, is potentially on of those of which you speak. “I’m worried” is an understatement.
Immanentize
@Baud: He is from a rebellious area and doesn’t have a green card….
CarolDuhart2
One benefit that doesn’t get mentioned enough is that immigration is a job creator. Not only for the immigrants, but for those who work for them who are here. How many jobs have Google created both directly (work for the company) and indirectly (companies what work with them, websites of small businesses who now can get business from all over instead of just the neighborhood).
Ethnic restaurants who rent otherwise unused real estate. Our downtown would look pretty deserted without those places renting out space. Where a favorite one is, there used to be a Cafeteria-losing money quickly. (After all, how many variations of meat and potatoes can there be). Now there’s a restaurant there that has been there for about 20 years, run by an immigrant family, adding to the flavor of the neighborhood both in culinary and cultural terms.
Neighborhoods that are viable because of immigration. As African-Americans moved to the suburbs, whole neighborhoods have emptied out. Immigrants have moved in (along with gentrifiers) and have paid property taxes, keeping cities viable.
In short, immigrants have added far more to America than they have taken away in terms of jobs and culture.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: I am confident in ultimate victory.
Kay
@Yoda Dog:
With loosely-attached Trump voters or the Trump-curious, use “incompetent”. It allows them a face-saving way to withdraw their support. It allows them cover- they didn’t make an error on his character, instead they made an error on his competence. They won’t respond to moral appeals because that’s a reflection on them. Competence is value-judgment-free. “I voted for him because of his business experience but then he couldn’t get the trains to run on time”.
Moral appeals are for the Dem/liberal base. Loosely attached Trumpers need an exit ramp that preserves their sense of themselves as “good people”. I saw this happen with Bush. They stuck with him until there were a series of fuck ups and then they used incompetence as a face-saving exist strategy. You can’t tell people “you voted for a bad person” because that means they’re bad people.
scottinnj
@Patricia Kayden: Sadly the words “DNC” and “game plan” are seldom used in combination in a factually correct sentence.
“The Women’s March last week proved an uplifting respite for many Democrats left dejected by President Donald Trump’s upset win and inauguration, drawing millions to marches across the country.
But with one exception, the people left to put back together the pieces of the party were nowhere to be found.
The Washington Free Beacon first reported Saturday that only one candidate for chair of the Democratic National Committee — South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg — attended a march.
The rest? They were at a retreat in Florida dedicated to the future of the party, hosted by Democratic activist David Brock for top donors and party members. To some critics, it was more evidence of how the party’s leadership has shunned its grassroots in favor of its donors.”
Patricia Kayden
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Isn’t that true of all Christians and not just European Christians? Wherever you go in the world, you’ll see Jesus depicted as a White guy with long flowing brown hair. This includes the Caribbean and Africa. I doubt White Americans would worship Jesus if they believed he was anything but White.
Hat tip to Megyn Kelly’s shout out to White Jesus and White Santa a few Christmases ago.
Yoda Dog
@Immanentize: If they let him through customs, you mean….
ETA: Dammit, baud beat me there…
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Jackie Hutter:
He can’t even risk a Caribbean cruise.
debbie
@Gator90:
That’s very similar to Richard Spencer’s telling Teri Gross that he wanted to return America to what it was originally intended to be: a nation of Northern Europeans.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Yeah, but we aren’t Americans, what can we do?
debbie
@Yoda Dog:
Honestly? Stop worrying about ruffling feathers. Name this what it is: a putsch. How in any way is Bannon qualified to sit on the NSC and how can anyone in their right mind kick the military off the NSC?
Patricia Kayden
@scottinnj: Republicans used Tea Baggers to move their party to the right. I hope that protesters will be able to get organized enough to force the Democratic Party to the left despite the apparent uselessness of the DNC. This anti-Trump movement that has sprung up in the wake of his inauguration must be harnessed and shame on the DNC for not jumping all over it.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: That is pretty optimistic and clear. As it is coming from you, that counts double. That actually raised my spirits — thanks!
CarolDuhart2
@Kay: I agree. But slowly introduce them to the fact that Republicans don’t want to be competent. Competence means doing things that benefit everybody without prejudice. They want to pick and choose. But the reality is that you just cant pick and choose in a democratic society, no more than you can make bad roads only in some places and not others without also inconveniencing everybody.
As we get further into this, I also want to have pushback against what seems to be a cross-national meme of Muslims/Latinos as swarthy rapists who rape white women. That seems to be most of the justification of the Muslim ban in a lot of minds. Also, that they abuse Muslim women horribly (not that they really care about that part-it just reinforces the meme).
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: I can’t make that argument without the obligatory “I told you so.” because I did tell them so, in exactly the terms of how he ran his business.
Patricia Kayden
@mai naem mobile: Or Canada which has a very progressive Prime Minister who is proud to personally greet arriving refugees.
debbie
@Kay:
Kay, even worse is the GOP Congress, who will say nothing because they’re too busy passing their agenda. They will let horrible things happen just so they don’t lose their agenda. Which is worse? I can’t decide.
OzarkHillbilly
Yeah, you keep fucking that chicken.
JMG
Regaining control of the Supreme Court was the GOP’s biggest goal in 2016 as a party. What happens to that goal if Trump’s order is ruled unconstitutional by that court and he goes into a rage fit and defies the ruling? Why would any of the rest of us then obey said court?
CarolDuhart2
@debbie: Did anybody tell him that if that was the case, the population would have simply clung to the coasts? There were never enough Northern Europeans who would have populated the continent. That’s why there were slaves in the first place: even if you had included the dregs in the slums of Europe, there were simply not enough to work the plantations, mines or other projects. And there were never enough Native Americans either even when the tribes were at full strength.
The result would have been that Britain would have eventually taken back the barely thriving colonies as they would have been unable to expand beyond the Ohio valley. And would certainly never have been able to hold onto New Orleans, the major entrance to the Mississippi.
It was immigrants from Italy, Poland, Germany, China, and a thousand points east and west who provided the muscle to defeat the Confederacy (soldiers drafted from the docks) and fill the interior with enough settlers to tame the continent. Perhaps that’s why they resent those immigrants-they defeated the Confederacy. First, by being the muscle in the Union Army. Secondly, by being the workers that outproduced and outworked the worn-out old older.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
Right, but it’s one of those situations where you can make your point or win. OR. We want to win.
It doesn’t matter with Trumpsters- the loyal followers- but ordinary people need an out. Give them an excuse. He’s (basically) unpopular. They’ll be looking for one. Give them one they like.
Baud
@Kay: No one could have predicted what we all predicted.
Aimai
@Kay: 100 percent this! I also tell people they were lied to by the republicans who led them to believe he was competent.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: I live to serve (humbly bows)
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@JMG:
If he goes into a rage fit with regard to SCOTUS, he’ll find himself on the losing side of an 8-0 vote there.
Calouste
@JMG: At one point whether things are legal or not will no longer matter and it will be purely about force. That point might not be far off.
Baud
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Roberts is consecutive as anything but he is also a judicial institutionalist. He’ll be interesting to watch.
Barbara
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I understand the theory. I also understand that those whose lives are worse relatively and sometimes even more than relatively might have trouble understanding how it benefits them. We need a way of talking that does not focus so much on the people who make up the creative class but on the dynamism that has made us prosperous from the beginning.
Baud
@Aimai: You think we can finally break the lie that business people make the best presidents?
MomSense
@OzarkHillbilly:
My grandmother always said they were European and that explained her very dark skin. Yes, we do have some European ancestry but like a lot of Appalachians DNA testing revealed African and Native American ancestry.
debbie
@Baud:
Also, this will be the end of executive orders. Enough already.
geg6
@debbie:
Congressional GOPers are worse, by a mile. Trump and Bannon and Miller have true beliefs, as disgusting and deplorable as they. McConnell and Ryan and their ilk don’t believe any of this crap but are perfectly happy to shit on the Constitution and all the nation’s ideals for power. They are sub humans.
Barbara
@Baud: Even more interesting to see how American prelates respond. They have been nothing short of reactionary even as a higher than ever percentage of their members come from Latin America.
mai naem mobile
@Baud: you can forget it for a generation until there’s new generation of suckers born in this country . See: Nader/Stein
Gator90
@debbie: Buchanan and Spencer have a lot in common; they both say the quiet parts loud. And if somebody punched out Buchanan, I can’t say it would upset my breakfast too much.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: I’m too much of an asshole for that. Sorry.
Barbara
@geg6: Yes. This 1000x.
Baud
@debbie: Doubt that. The president still had to run the executive branch.
Peale
@scottinnj: ok. Imma gonna be fair here. If the party itself is going to grow, it needs to have “retreats” where strategy is discussed face to face. And it will need to have donors. We don’t know who else was at that retreat. Who else was in the mix.
But seriously, we can’t exactly be on call for this all the time. The draft order that leaked earlier this week seemed only to apply to non-immigrant applicants and a suspension of refugees going forward. I remember reading it and thinking it smart because it focused on people who really don’t have much recourse because they won’t have standing in court. You can’t sue the government if you are outside the US and your visa was denied. I’m not saying it was a wise policy and it isnt cruel, but there isn’t a lot that could be done.
Fast forward to what was actually released and it’s immediate impact at airports. Immigrants targeted as well as non-immigrants. Existing visas denied. Legitimate visa holders in handcuffs at JFK. Jesus. I can see how people would be slow footed in their response, though, if they had read the leaked draft.
Barbara
@Immanentize: My friend with an Iranian wife (and inlaws) is freaking out on FB. He is genuinely shocked but among other things, he also loves to travel.
ETA: he was not a Trump supporter.
Baud
@mai naem mobile: So in 2028 then?
debbie
@geg6:
There’s been so much talk about Trump’s narcissism. An article by a psychologist popped up on my FB feed this morning talked about his “malignant narcissism.” I think he’s right.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Passengers reacted to pilot’s announcement last night that protests were causing delays at JFK.
Baud
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Good.
Maybe this is what we have to go through to birth a new, better nation.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Lyft “will oppose Pres Trump’s refugee ban by refusing “to be silent” & donating 1M over 4 yrs to ACLU.”
Baud
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Take that, Uber.
Barbara
@Peale: Maybe we weren’t the only ones they were trying to lull into inaction.
ArchTeryx
Boy, as an intellectual, researcher, and scientist myself, all I can see in this is doom. What jobs that are left in bioscience in the U.S. will move overseas, whereas I can’t thanks to my load of pre-existing conditions. There’s of course the ever-present specter of O-care repeal.
But the more I read of what is going on with this immigration thing the more horrified I get. The Border Baboons have been completely let off their chains and are busy defying and ignoring federal court orders. Rumors now abound of U.S. citizens being deported as well as visiting nationals. Generals being thrown off the National Security Council and white nationalist bigots installed in their place.
This is the Beer Hall Putsch now.
I’ve noted something at my local post office (Clifton Park, NY) – they do passport applications. The number of people, almost all native U.S. citizens, almost all white, that have been applying for passports has been overwhelming the last couple of months. They’ve been hammered trying to get them all in. Most of us are trying to get our passports before Trump puts his own people in the State Department and just freezes them all.
Insane, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Jeffro
@Calouste: that’s what he will be calling for at the very end when he is being forcibly removed from the oval office… here’s hoping that the good folks to run the government at all levels see it coming
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: No, as long as there is an Executive, there will be Executive orders.
philadelphialawyer
@Gator90: The racism, xenophobia and religious bigotry are indeed obvious.
Perhaps less so is the stupidity. The USA is NEVER going to be 90 per cent white, Christian or European again, no matter what Trump does. Even if every non citizen is deported and literally no non white, non Christian is allowed to enter the US again, still, demographics mean that the US will soon be only plurality white. And Christianity is dying a natural death. More and more folks born into Christian families are rejecting it, and more and more folks are born into non Christian families. The wall, as Buchanan seems to dimly realize, is merely a symbol, a “representation,” of the racist, conformist, nostalgia that he is celebrating.
You can’t wall in a past that is gone. And you can’t wall out a diversity that is already inside.
Gin & Tonic
@ArchTeryx:
This was the big story yesterday, not the EO. EO’s can be (and this one was) appealed to the judiciary. The staffing of the NSC cannot, and now in place of the Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs we have a racist, avowed Leninist and a general who was fired for incompetence and is very likely on the Kremlin payroll. But the sleight-of-hand worked as well as a professional magician’s. Everybody will spend the weekend screaming about the refugees and green card holders, and nobody will say a word about two borderline-insane people who couldn’t possibly otherwise qualify for a security clearance, getting in at the highest possible NatSec level.
amk
some dem woman on teann
panelshoutfest was bothsidesdoiting by saying obama’s eo’s are the same as this bigot thug’s. with ‘surrogates’ like this, who needs enemies?greennotGreen
@philadelphialawyer: I don’t believe Christianity is dying a natural death. I believe it is being murdered by Christofascists.
There are good people of all faiths. Unfortunately, it is the nature of religion (as opposed to spirituality) to enforce the status quo or, in the case of our resident theocrats, to force the rest of us to live by their rules, their status quo. Cultural rules written in the first century BCE for the first century BCE don’t apply very well to the 21st century, and that drives people away.
BTW, I don’t think someone has to believe in the mythology of the Bible (Jesus literally rose from the dead) to find a meaningful ethos in his teachings.
However, I’m still a pagan.
SiubhanDuinne
@Gin & Tonic:
Both/And, not Either/Or.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Gin & Tonic: I’m pretty sure files started disappearing from the various intelligence agencies weeks ago. Names of assets passed along to our once (and future?) allies to handle, etc. The writing was on the wall as soon as Flynn sat in on that first briefing.
glory b
@Richard Mayhew: I live in Homewood, so I definitely know what you’re talking about.
However, developers are eyeing East Liberty, because they’re no trying to call it “Eastside.”
Gin & Tonic
@SiubhanDuinne: Not one mention of the NSC matter on the first page of Google News results this morning. So, unfortunately, either/or.
khead
@Jeffro:
They basically “All Lives Matter”ed the Holocaust.
scottinnj
@Peale: The donor retreat referenced was the weekend of the Women’s March, the date of which was known essentially a few days after the election. Perhaps the scale was surprising but not the timing of the march itself. Yesterday – agree you can’t have all 48 Dem Senators on call to go anywhere at any time.
Agree we need donors and need to work out a strategy. However seems to me those working on strategery are those that lost the majority of governiships, state legistlatures, House Senate and couldn’t beat Donald Freaking Trump. In simple terms, our current leadership sucks. To be fair I’d say the GOP Leadership sucked in like 2006-09 but they had a plan, and executed. It don’t know who is the leaders we need or how to do it but as the saying goes the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
Immanentize
@SiubhanDuinne: This. The choosing and lecturing about which offense is the most important — and how Trump is really a geniouz and just hiding the real important stuff — is bullshit. It is all important. Important to different people in different ways. And some people have tools to resist certain crap but not others. So I am asking folks not to prioritize my resistance.
ETA How ironic given the upthread discussion of religions pushing their status quo on others.
Immanentize
@khead:
I am so stealing this. Are you the originator for credit?
Barbara
@greennotGreen: Christianity was supposed to be a radical identification with the dispossessed. This can never be a long term sustainable strategy, so movement to the center was inevitable. But throughout history there have usually been elements of that original ethos — let’s call it intentional material poverty — sufficient to keep the original ideal intact. The prosperity gospel kills Christianity by trying to pretend that whole chapters and books don’t even exist. The youngs aren’t buying it.
ArchTeryx
I know I’ve been Johnny One Note since I first delurked. But I also am a very firm believer in, “First they came for the Communists…” sort of death slide. I may be worried about my own siloed issue, but being an activist for as many years as I’ve been, I can walk and chew gum at the same time.
I originally thought the whole immigration brouhaha was a classic Shiny Object – throw a few hundred people into legal limbo, get everyone protesting, and then execute the real putsch out of sight of the cameras.
I was completely wrong. It’s far bigger in scale and far worse then in my most pessimistic imaginings. It’s as big or bigger then my own “silo” and while I’m late to the party, I’m also man enough to admit I done fucked up.
MomSense
@Immanentize:
It’s all important which is why authoritarians always act quickly and overwhelm the country with changes on multiple fronts. We will have to respond on all fronts every time.
Barbara
@Richard Mayhew: Morningside and Highland Park are still up for grabs.
Actually, I wonder if Morningside is East East Liberty. Think about it. So West Liberty could be called Eveningside!
khead
@Immanentize:
I thought I was ahead of the curve – I did drop it on some folks yesterday – but it looks like Twitter and Slate got there last night while I was watching the new Ghostbusters. So, no credit needed. Thanks though.
glory b
On A.M. Joy just now, Parisian reporter said that Marine Le Pen may now be hurt by her relationship with Trump.
He said that there are too many memories of fascism there, it’s still different than the U.S.
Immanentize
@khead: thanks for the linky.
greennotGreen
@Barbara: Agree, but I also think young people are very sensitive to hypocrisy, and there’s a lot of that in institutionalized religion.
scottinnj
@glory b: Khizr Khan on again, still very powerful to hear him.
frosty
@Immanentize:
Just like my Bugeye Sprite and TR-3!! Welcome to LBC* world!
*Little British Car
Barbara
No longer on a mobile device, but I wanted to let David know why I find the “creative class” theorizing to be incomplete and to some extent offputting. First, it focuses to much on individuals, and in that, it is almost Randian — that there are these really special people that we should try to attract and placate. But that’s a small quibble. It has been my experience that there are brilliant, smart, hard working people throughout the world. The real question is, why are they able to truly blossom in the USA? Partly, because we accept them. Partly, because we have a social and economic order that encourages and rewards innovation. We are open to the new. And so on. Many innovators are not immigrants. When we are seeing a situation in which most innovation is being driven by immigrants, we should be asking ourselves why that is happening, because to some extent it is ahistorical. Which of our own institutions are failing? Most of us have an idea. But I find it more appealing and useful to focus on what it is about America that lets anyone succeed than what it is about America that lets immigrants succeed, and that is not because I am anti-immigrant. I am not.
glory b
@Patricia Kayden: not that I disagree with your overall premise, but the DNC has a charter/creating document, and none of this is included. After Wilmer got all overheated over DWS, people ascribed powers to the DNC it didn’ t have. I’ll note that this image got wind in its sails by DWS being invited to the Sunday gasbag shows.
Can’t link, but my recollection is that the DNC is there to assist the local parties and the national with fundraising and logistics, plan and run the national convention and set schedules for debates.
glory b
Joy Reid just called Bannon “his Rasputin.”
Brachiator
This may also be true to some degree for a BREXIT embracing UK.
And Trump, with his narrow focus on America first deal making, is blind to the implications of this.
bowtiejack
@Kay:
Applying Occam’s Razor to this weekend’s Executive Order Bingo, the clear answer is that the role of Rasputin is being reprised by Steve Bannon.
Why on Saturday? Because Ivanka and Jared Kushner are members of the Jewish Lubavitcher sect and observe an especially strict no-business Sabbath. So they were out of the way.
Barbara
@glory b: I suggest we start referring to him as President Bannon to get at Trump’s ego.
Brachiator
@Barbara:
What? America is a nation of immigrants, and innovation often has come from those who have come over most recently, as much as it comes from the earlier arrivals.
Barbara
@Brachiator: Thomas Edison wasn’t an immigrant. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs (adopted and raised by citizens even if his father was an immigrant), Mark Zuckerberg, etc. Yes, I know we are a nation of immigrants — but that makes the point: why are we so good at extracting innovation from people who couldn’t make a dent in their own countries, or other countries that they might have immigrated to? It is not solely the fact that they are immigrants (although obviously it takes a lot of moxie to immigrate). They succeed here largely for the same reasons that anyone might succeed. The openness to immigrants is a reflection of a society that makes fewer rather than more class distinctions. That Obama could succeed, that Bill Clinton, son of a hairdresser, could succeed. I think Chris Hayes’ Twilight of the Elites has his finger on the pulse of this issue. What makes us open to immigration is what makes us open to innovation. It’s not just that we “need” immigrants to innovate. If we do, then the conditions for their success have also deteriorated.
Brachiator
@Barbara:
I meant to throw this into my earlier post. It is not just that America is a land of opportunity, but that immigrants often come from a place driven by corruption, rigid class, tribal, religious or ethnic restrictions, or which lack a suitable economic infrastructure to support their efforts.
And immigrants may have an extra incentive in needing to support other family members, while a non-immigrant may have the luxury of dabbling and trying to “find” himself or herself.
Vhh
@debbie: A bit late. This was widely known a year ago and less widely known two decades ago.
Brachiator
@Barbara:
Edison wasn’t an immigrant. Nikola Tesla was an immigrant. Bill Gates wasn’t an immigrant. Sergey Brin of Google is an immigrant. Satya Nadella, current head of Microsoft, is an immigrant.
We can ping pong this all day.
There are also, I suppose, internal immigrants. A lot of innovation occurred from people who moved to California after WW II, and when black Americans moved north in large numbers.
Barbara
@Brachiator: Right, and one reason why Trump’s adulation of Putin is so alarming is that Putin has basically eviscerated the ability of smart, well-educated Russians to contribute to Russian prosperity. Sergey Brin is probably Exhibit A of what Russia could be but never will because Putin (among others) can’t stand the notion of an independent, creative well-educated class of people. He seizes on oil and gas (like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela) to try to reverse the tide of the natural forces that make societies successful.
Barbara
@Brachiator: Yes, that’s my point. Of course immigrants (or, really children of immigrants) are way over represented. I am not here to tell you they aren’t. But I go back to my first point: being open to immigration is in its own way a feature of being open to innovation. It’s a virtuous cycle that immigrants and non-immigrants alike can capitalize on. I just want us to focus a bit more on the openness of our social institutions rather than a specific class of individuals. It’s just a degree of emphasis.
Brachiator
@Barbara:
Fair point. But it’s just a historical fact that immigrants and children of immigrants are often hungrier to take advantage of what an open society offers. If I had to sneak my ass across the border, I may apply that energy more than someone who just rolls comfortably out of bed before he or she starts the day. The world always belongs to those who stay hungry.
debbie
@Vhh:
Well, this was the first I’d seen “malignant” attached.
Barbara
@Brachiator: A lot of people — maybe an increasing number of people — have come to see life as a zero sum game. Another person’s increase is defined as their own decrease. The counter to this message is that we are as wealthy as we are not just because we have immigrants (though we are unquestionably wealthier because of their many contributions) but because we have a society in which the ideas and talents of immigrants are valued along with those of everyone else. Other places are not like that. Russia is not like that. That’s why Google is an American company even though one of its founders is a Russian Jewish emigre.
rikyrah
@Kay:
The Tea Party was an astroturfed FRAUD that never once got to half the size of the crowds that protested against Walker in Wisconsin.
rikyrah
@bemused:
Jared is a slave catcher – how many times do I have to say this?
rikyrah
@Jeffro:
They ALL LIVES MATTERED THE HOLOCAUST??
rikyrah
@Kay:
Kay,
you are a decent person. Cause I am just going to call them stupid muthaphuckas who have ruined this country
Steeplejack (tablet)
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Hey, there’s something wrong with your link. It goes to a picture of Osama bin Laden!
rikyrah
@Baud:
it would probably be 6-2, with the same clowns as the 2
rikyrah
@Immanentize: I saw it as a tweet yesterday, and stole it.
fuckwit
Upside? It might finally pop the US tuition cost bubble that is massively overinflated and more than ready to burst.
Adria McDowell (formerly Lurker Extraordinaire
@Patricia Kayden: Don’t you know anything about Korean Jesus? :-)
Sam
@Baud: the essential fallacy is that nobody can go back to 1960. Like it or not, it is 2017 and we are never going back to 1960. That is a factual statement, not a political statement. The purveyors of nostalgia memes just do not seem to get that.
artem1s
I am hoping the major research institution start making noise over this refugee EO. The President of the institution I work for sent out emails recommending foreign students not travel. I don’t see how that is going to work for our faculty or grad and phd researchers. I have no idea how many of them are in danger of having their student visas expire. I can see this becoming a PR, recruitment, and fundraising nightmare for lots of institutions. If Twitler starts rounding up people next, universities are going to have to decide if they are going to become sanctuaries. Or not. I don’t see much future for them to side with the know nothings.
artem1s
the resistance is spreading…
from the Association of American Universities
AAU URGES QUICK END TO ADMINISTRATION ORDER BARRING RETURNING STUDENTS AND FACULTY
http://www.aau.edu/news/article.aspx?id=18366
David Anderson
@Barbara: My issue with the Creative Class is basically the same as yours; there is a cultural mileau of that allows for some pretty awesome things to happen and it is fostering that instead of bike paths of cool renovated condo lofts that will lead to a lot of high paying jobs. My issue with Florida etc. is disentangling causality from correlations with the data sets that they use make figuring out the chicken and the egg problem very difficult. If you can’t figure out causality, then making policy recommendations is basically a pundit fallacy (good policy is what I or my focus group likes) which has massive selection and class biases inherent to that. Finally, I could never figure out the East Liberty or Homewood So What from the creative class arguments — Shadyside and the Strip would always be fine… what about the rest of the city?
But the point that paying attention to where people with the most options move to as having some value is a very good point