Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

The next time the wall wtreet journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Why did Dr. Oz lose? well, according to the exit polls, it’s because Fetterman won.

The willow is too close to the house.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

John Fetterman: Too Manly for Pennsylvania.  Paid for by the Oz for Senator campaign.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

You are here: Home / Elections / 2022 Elections / Open Thread: New Hampshire, Leaking Away Its Political Mojo

Open Thread: New Hampshire, Leaking Away Its Political Mojo

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Tourism is one of New Hampshire’s leading industries, and its First in the Nation! presidential primary is an important part of that industry. Not that the average leaf-peeper or outlet store shopper cares, but the quadrennial contest’s high-dollar Running of the Journos has been a reliable earned-media advertisement for the state — all those romantic leafy vistas, against which the quirky natives demand hands-on contact from every political hopeful. But I get the impression that the modern GOP’s increasingly sealed epistemic bubble is swiftly eroding the state’s draw for political junkies.

As far as I can tell, much of New Hampshire’s attraction for the Media Village Idiots has been its status as a mostly-reliable red state isolated in New England’s stalwart blue political sea (that, and its relatively convenient commuting distance from NYC and DC). For the thirty-odd years I’ve been living in what passes for NH’s biggest media market (eastern Massachusetts, which has all the high-power tv/radio stations, especially among the wealthier NH voters who cross over to work in MA) I’ve gotten the impression that New Hampshire has been marketing itself as the Kyrsten Sinema of political venues: Quirky, with a capital Q, because it’s cheap and it catches the attention of the easily bored. But candidates like Don Bolduc aren’t quirky, they’re borderline deranged… and they’re indistinguishable from every other election-denying Trump-cultist mounting their own media on YouTube and TikTok. Why spend the money sending a talking head and a camera crew to Laconia, much less Dixville Notch, when you’ve already got more B-roll than the station interns can get through?



Captain Cosplay, as one snarkster labelled this clip:

The Granite Staters couldn’t even get Ron deSantis to show up before the primary, and deSantis seems to be working every state fair in the Midwest!

No wonder Governor Sununu has gone squishy…

… Sununu conceded there are “elements of fascism and white supremacy” in the U.S. but explained it’s also not true that “all the Democrats are communists.”

“When we allow ourselves just to talk in these extremes, we polarize the country,” Sununu told CNN on Sunday, adding that Biden on the campaign trail had “said he was going to bring everybody together.”

“And then to call half of America fascists?” the GOP governor asked. “He owes an apology. That’s not appropriate. That isn’t leadership.”

… while the glibertarian Free Staters gnaw at his ankles:

Even the bedrock of NH’s right-wing political empire has been quietly unpersonned, for predictable reasons:

Reader Interactions

78Comments

  2. 2.

    Jeffro

    I love the “Republicans In Disarray!” narrative…I just wish I saw more of it!

    Come ON, snooze media!  Half the GOP wants trumpov back, half wants DeSantis*, and the other half is like “somebody please put us out of our misery…we can’t throw in with the Dems but this party is F********CKED”

    *RWNJ Dad decided to text me out of the blue tonight, all hopped up on Fox News’ “reporting” that Ron DeSantis chartered flights – with FL taxpayers’ money! – to send immigrants up to Martha’s Vineyard today.  (Take THAT, Greg Abbott!)  A disgusting stunt that will win ol’ Ron ZERO additional Never Trump, independent (blessed be their name), or Dem voters, of course.  If we thought the 2016 GOP primaries were a race to the bottom, the 2024 GOP primaries are gonna be the World Championships of Depravity.

  3. 3.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    My wife is reading me AP Gov essays from the 1st week.  Not a whole lot of anti – choice teenagers.

  4. 4.

    Anoniminous

    Ref: Running of the Journos

    If they then herded them into a stadium and ritualistically slaughtered them like they do in Pamplona I’d spend money to watch.

  5. 5.

    Edmund Dantes

    If that is a Sparta shield, isn’t he holding  upside down? Plus the Spartans were very fluid with their sexuality.

  6. 6.

    Bobby Thomson

    Reporters go to New Hampshire for presidential primary stories.  New Hampshire’s governor, senators, reps, etc. are not story bait and never have been.

  9. 9.

    C Stars

    One of the only things I know about New Hampshire is that the town of Grafton is featured in the book A Libertarian Walks into a Bear. I read an excerpt of it somewhere and purchased the book for my dad, who said it was hilarious. A group of libertarians take over a town and in short order everything goes to shit. This whole thing (waves hands at election results) seems very on-brand

     

    ETA Nonfiction

  10. 10.

    Cameron

    @Jeffro: And what country does Florida border on from whence these immigrants come?  Christ, DeSantis is worthless – he really will destroy the country when he takes charge in 2024.

  11. 11.

    Another Scott

    STRZOK

    At this point FBI may have more cell phones than a Verizon store

    Rudy Giuliani
    Victoria Toensing
    Michael McDonald
    Scott Perry
    John Eastman
    Jeff Clark
    Boris Epshteyn
    Mike Roman
    Mike Lindell

    The FBI can’t seize any of them without probable cause they contain evidence of a crime.

    — Peter Strzok (@petestrzok) September 14, 2022

    (via OrinKerr)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  12. 12.

    Cameron

    @C Stars: I got a copy of that along with Lukas’ Big Trouble for GF’s birthday.  All the articles I read about it were entirely too entertaining.

  13. 13.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Bobby Thomson: Ah, but New Hampshire’s state House of Representatives is an endless supply of “politician does something ridiculous” filler stories, because they’re a huge body of nearly unpaid amateurs, often retirees looking for a way to kill time, and one of them says something appalling or commits some peculiar crime a few times a year. They’re a large part of the reason I am skeptical of the idea that random citizens could do a better job than most professional politicians.

  15. 15.

    Rusty

    As a resident I can attest to the outright weirdness of NH politics at the moment.  The incumbent dem in the first congressional district (we only have two) was considered extremely vulnerable.  So the Republicans nominated a 25 year old former Trump White House intern that is all Trump, anti abortion and wants to both cut and privatize social security.  This in a state with the second oldest population in the country.  In the other district they also nominated the most extremest Trumpy candidate.  The Dems ran $300k of ads against him, pointing out he is all for assault weapons, banning all abortions and thinks the election was stolen.  The Republicans whined that the Dems were interfering in the primary (with an add that was 100% truthful and pointed out he is too extreme for NH).  Of course the Republican electorate took the bait and chose him in a crowded field with 33% of the vote.  The Democrats, who were all looking very shaky, are now looking to have a real chance.  Sununu as governor is popular and should easily win reelection, but hopefully the nuttiness of the federal races will blunt his coattails and deliver the state house to the Dems.  The NH senate is a lost cause, extreme gerrymandering the last session means the Republicans can get a minority of the vote but still retain a supermajority that can override the governor.

  16. 16.

    danielx

    A New Hampshire newspaper has removed its onetime publisher from its masthead after disclosures that he had been a child molester.
    “We know now,” the paper wrote, “that William Loeb is not a man to be celebrated.

    Wiiiam Loeb? New Hampshire’s ayatollah of conservatism? He who owned his own version of Der Stürmer, the Manchester Union-Leader?

    Aye, the very same!

  17. 17.

    Mike in NC

    As a former Masshole, I never understood the popularity of the Sununu family in NH. Recall that John Sununu said that Barack Obama “didn’t understand our culture”. What a flaming piece of shit. (Too lazy to look up if he’s still alive.)

  18. 18.

    piratedan

    @Another Scott: and you just know that there’s more to come.  It’s strange to be the ones finding out that all of that projection was so pervasive; I can’t help but imagine how many MOC, in the Senate and in the House are hip deep in this.

    watching it spread to the states, how many of these false electors are going to jail?

    you get the idea that someone is going to talk to cut themselves a deal… just going to be interesting to see who its going to be…

    Have seen some speculation that it may be Babb, the Mar-a-Lago attorney who swore on a affidavit that they had searched MAL and turned over everything, she also happened to be in attendance for the hotel mtg on Jan 5th….

  19. 19.

    Edmund Dantes

    @Another Scott: I hate these types of arguments. The FBI is not above abusing their authority.

    perfect example is a recent case out of California. Where they got a search warrant to go after a safe deposit box company. The warrant explicitly excluded the contents of the boxes of the customers as the probable cause was only for the store and not its customers.

    Did that stop the FBI from seizing the enclosure of the boxes, then since the boxes were now in their control they had to catalog them, and oops now everyone has to come in and prove they owned the content of the boxes the FBI was never supposed to look in.

    And people were forced to get lawyers to get their stuff back that was never supposed to be seized in the first place as the fbi/prosecutors  were explicitly told in the warrant they didn’t have rights to the boxes.

  22. 22.

    JaneE

    And then to call half of America fascists?

    Half my foot.  A minority of a minority.  Even 74 is not half of 300+.  But he knows that already.

  24. 24.

    Craig

    @brendancalling: I saw him once with the Murder Junkies in NYC. Remarkable. Kinda beyond music at that point. There’s a really good version of Warren Zevon’s Carmelita, raggedly beautiful just GG and an acoustic guitar.

  26. 26.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Peter Vroom@PeterVroom1 8h

    Poor Mitch. McConnell‘s Sen Leadership Fund spent $4.5 million in NH ads over the last 2 weeks to support Morse and attack election denier Bolduc. They also announced plans to spend $23 m more in TV ads starting primary day. Bolduc will never see that $. Congrats Maggie Hassan!

    Moscow Mitch losing his mojo?

    Anybody else remember rumors that Mitch will pack it in if they don’t retake the majority this year? Seems to me I heard that story a few months back, but nothing since. Could’ve been speculation, I suppose

  27. 27.

    different-church-lady

    Meanwhile one state south it appears DeSantis has shipped some migrants to Martha’s Vineyard. Folks there appear to be welcoming them with open arms. Bright move there: DeSantis is talking like it’s some kind of own, but instead he looks like a creep and a blue state gets to be the heroes.​
     
    P.S. See Jeffo at #2 got there first.

  28. 28.

    Bill Arnold

    @Edmund Dantes:

    The FBI is not above abusing their authority.

    The FBI got their feelings on D.J.Trump matters clarified a bit by MAGA callls for the elimination of the FBI.

  30. 30.

    Cameron

    @Amir Khalid: WTF?  Indians were building palaces when Brits were eating each other.  Say one thing for Tuck – he doesn’t dog-whistle anything.  There just isn’t any way to pretend he’s saying something different than what he actually is.

  32. 32.

    Another Scott

    @Edmund Dantes: Made me look.

    LATimes (from April 2021):

    In an indictment against U.S. Private Vaults, Inc., the U.S. attorney for Los Angeles accused the company of marketing itself deliberately to attract criminals, saying it brazenly promoted itself as a place customers could store valuables with confidence that tax authorities would be hard-pressed to learn their identities or what was stored in their locked boxes. To access the facility, customers needed no identification; it took just an eye and hand scan to unlock the door.

    “We don’t even want to know your name,” it advertised, according to prosecutors.

    Prosecutors also allege that an owner and employees of the company were involved in drug sales that took place at the business and helped customers convert cash into gold in amounts that would avoid suspicion.

    Even before charges were announced, the case set off a court fight over the legality of the government’s seizure of the contents of every safe deposit box in the store. Earlier this week, one customer went to court claiming that the government overreached by confiscating the belongings in every security box without showing why it suspected each person of committing crimes.

    […]

    The search, prosecutors claimed, turned up an unspecified number of weapons, along with fentanyl, OxyContin and “huge stacks of $100 bills” sniffed out by drug dogs. One box allegedly contained $1 million in cash.

    […]

    “Just as the tenant of each apartment controls that space and therefore has a reasonable expectation of privacy in it, each of the hundreds of renters of safety deposit boxes … has a separate reasonable expectation of privacy in his or her separately controlled box or boxes,” the person’s attorney, Benjamin N. Gluck, wrote in the complaint.

    Gluck is seeking a court order to stop the FBI from requiring anyone whose items were seized and inventoried by the government to identify themselves and subject themselves to an investigation to verify their legal ownership of the valuables.

    […]

    IANAL.

    I don’t find the argument persuasive that a customer of a business that (allegedly) deliberately marketed itself as a place that, somehow, was outside the reach of law enforcement has some over-arching right to privacy.

    “I just happened to be getting lunch here in this heroin den! How dare you detain me!!”

    Lie down with mangy dogs, wake up with fleas.

    But, as I said, IANAL.

    Of course, the details (of the warrant, the indictment, etc.) probably matter a lot. And yes, we know law enforcement over-reaches a lot.

    But I have to believe that those working on the January 6 investigation and all the rest know that they have to get it right.

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  35. 35.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @Edmund Dantes: Traditional Spartan shields were full body length long, and usually thrown away if a soldier ran away from a battle.  Hence the classic Spartan soldier’s Mom phrase “return with your shield or on it”.

  36. 36.

    counterfactual

    @Edmund Dantes: Yes, it’s upside down. The “flexible sexuality” seems to be state-sanctioned rape and abuse, so the GOP wouldn’t actually mind that.

    I recommend Bret Devereaux and his This.Isn’t.Sparta series, but mark out a few hours for well-written, well-reasoned historical argument. The TL:DR is ”

    Sparta was – if you will permit the comparison – an ancient North Korea. An over-militarized, paranoid state which was able only to protect its own systems of internal brutality and which added only oppression to the sum of the human experience. Little more than an extraordinarily effective prison, metastasized to the level of a state. There is nothing of redeeming value here.

    Sparta is not something to be emulated. It is a cautionary tale.”

    https://acoup.blog/category/collections/this-isnt-sparta/

    He also has a good series on “The Fremen Mirage,” the notion that harsh conditions make great barbarian warriors that has no real basis in history

  41. 41.

    Amir Khalid

    @ian:

    The story was reported from an Indian point of view. So it would have been the BBC’s reporters in India doing their job. Carlson does need to get called out whenever he airs this kind of ignorant, bigoted shit.

  42. 42.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Bill Arnold:

    Y’know, given how traditionally conservative the FBI has historically been, I wonder how the rank and file agents feel about the calls to defund their agency from the GOP and all the wacko MAGA death threats? All to defend a man who stole state secrets? And that, like you said, perhaps this has clarified things for them

  43. 43.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Jeffro:

    southpaw @nycsouthpaw 38m

    Almost certainly the summer people who were on the vineyard are gone by now, and this falls on the unfailingly kind people who live in a remote place year round. DeSantis waited until after Labor Day so he could get the headline but not discomfit his donors and his lawyers.

    Probably also people who are looking to hire people to help fix the roof on Huntington Emerson Codswallop’s (IV) cottage so HEC (IV) will pay that bill

  44. 44.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Jacob Kornbluh @jacobkornbluh
    On trail today, Mastriano suggests @JoshShapiroPA has “disdain” for ppl like him becuz he “grew up in a privileged neighborhood, attended one of the most privileged schools in the nation as a young man.. sending his four kids to the same privileged, exclusive, elite school.” 1/2

    2/2 Shapiro grew up in Elkins Park, went to the Forman Hebrew Day School and later to Akiba Hebrew Academy.

  46. 46.

    Feathers

    @Jeffro: Yeah, they are working on it, setting up cots in a church and sending out calls for volunteers. Baker is promising to coordinate with locals.

    Martha’s Vineyard can’t even house their own workers.  Luckily they have wealthy residents to raise cash to send people where they want to go. Mass also has cities like Worcester that are growing through accepting immigrants. You’re right red states are shipping people to blue states and blue states are just – handling it.

    Tweet thread from local reporter

  47. 47.

    different-church-lady

    @Feathers:

    [DeSantis] told Fox News: ” States like Massachusetts, New York, and California will better facilitate the care of these individuals.”

    Way to admit the state you run sucks compared to the blue ones, dumbass.

  48. 48.

    Ksmiami

    @Feathers: blue states have a labor supply deficit in everything from restaurants to the construction trades. It’s partly to blame for our current inflation issues so ok Ron and Greg, kill off your economies on the altar of hate; they’re both flaming assholes as are their supporters

  49. 49.

    different-church-lady

    @Feathers: ​  Jesus, it’s truly remarkable how many idiots responding to that tweet thread think we’re in a terrified panic over this. Like they just can’t believe we’d be anything but horrified by the actual immigrants themselves, when instead we’re horrified by someone using them for a stunt.​

  50. 50.

    Ken

    @Cameron:  Indians were building palaces when Brits were eating each other.

    Reminds me of a line in one of Harry Turtledove’s novels, Guns of the South. Some other member of the Confederacy’s cabinet has insulted Judah Benjamin’s ancestry, and he replies “My ancestors were kings of the earth when yours were painting themselves blue.”

  51. 51.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    A group 50 Venezuelan migrants, some of them children, landed on Martha’s Vineyard on Wednesday. The migrants arrived by plane at Martha’s Vineyard Airport.

    Honestly, I’m surprised he did this to Venezualans. I thought they were the new Cubans in FL politics

    Schools superintendent Richie Smith told The Times the refugees are mostly men and women ranging in age from 25 to 35 years old. He said there are 10 to 12 children who are elementary age.

  53. 53.

    RaflW

    re: Freestaters, wow. About 330 libertarians each year of the the past two decades have managed to program their (government supported) GPSs and navigate themselves to New Hampshire. What a fabulous service – to us normal people in several Blue and Purple states that are glad to have you gone.

    How about getting the other 13,500 to hurry up?

  56. 56.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Speaking of Judi Nathan, considering the NYC Emergency Response Center was located at the WTC so she and Rudy could keep their affair private, this is a pretty sick joke:

    She was a managing director of philanthropic consulting firm Changing Our World and a founding board member of the Twin Towers Fund

    Yikes

    ETA: This place is pretty dead tonight, huh?

  58. 58.

    Brachiator

    @counterfactual:

    He also has a good series on “The Fremen Mirage,” the notion that harsh conditions make great barbarian warriors that has no real basis in history.

    Not even the Mongol Horde?

    ETA. I know that even the Mongols benefitted from relatively lush grass lands, but curious to see if there is any more about this.

  61. 61.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Another Scott:

    That’s a pretty good one

    In related news, I tried looking up whether John Mearsheimer ever responded/reacted to being put on a list of public figures that promote Russian propaganda by the Security Service of Ukraine. I couldn’t find anything; he recently published an article on August 17th in Foreign Affairs, Playing With Fire in Ukraine: The Underappreciated Risks of Catastrophic Escalation

    Western policymakers appear to have reached a consensus about the war in Ukraine: the conflict will settle into aprolonged stalemate, and eventually a weakened Russia will accept a peace agreement that favors the United States and its NATO allies, as well as Ukraine. Although officials recognize that both Washington and Moscow may escalate to gain an advantage or to prevent defeat, they assume that catastrophic escalation can be avoided. Few imagine that U.S. forces will become directly involved in the fighting or that Russia will dare use nuclear weapons.

    Washington and its allies are being much too cavalier.

    The rest is behind a pay wall, but I do wonder if the recent Ukrainian successes have changed his mind.

    I recently found an excellent article critiquing his opinions of the Ukraine conflict at the Duck of Minerva website,

    What Walt and Mearsheimer Get Wrong about the Security Dilemma

  62. 62.

    counterfactual

    @Brachiator: As I remember, Devereux concentrates on the Roman Empire and its barbarian problems, since he’s a Roman specialist.

    The Mongols, though they didn’t yet build cities, were “civilized” enough to have a sophisticated and flexible governing system that let them insert themselves into local cultures and bind them into an empire.

  63. 63.

    Kent

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):Western policymakers appear to have reached a consensus about the war in Ukraine: the conflict will settle into aprolonged stalemate, and eventually a weakened Russia will accept a peace agreement that favors the United States and its NATO allies, as well as Ukraine.

    The section you just quoted is bullshit.  Complete bullshit.  Western policymakers have settled on no such consensus.  They don’t have consensus on trivial shit like cod quotas in the Barents sea or labeling requirements for organic food.  They certainly don’t have consensus on Ukraine.  Western nations are all over the map as are western policymakers.

    This is an example of the “foreign policy blob” trying to assert consensus when none in fact remotely exists.  Sort of like they did with the endless war in Afghanistan which we could NEVER leave because our credibility would be forever diminished.  Right.

    Ukraine is in the driver’s seat and it only takes a couple of allies to keep it supplied with materials and the war will continue.  Basically as long as the US and UK and neighboring states like Poland are on board.  It will make little difference what any other western states think or want.

    Total victory for Ukraine would be something like reverting to pre-2014 borders with enforceable security guarantees.  For example, Ukraine agrees not to join NATO as long as Russia demilitarizes the Ukrainian border.  And if Russia reneges then all bets are off and Ukraine can join NATO.  Something like that.

  65. 65.

    Feathers

    Here’s more on the immigrants from the Cape Cod Times:

    A receptionist at Martha’s Vineyard Community Services looked up late Wednesday afternoon to find a group of 50 people – men, women and children – standing in the center’s parking lot.
    The immigrants from Venezuela didn’t speak English but, with the help of a Spanish translator from the nearby Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School, community services staff learned the group was from Venezuela and had been put on a plane with nothing but a brochure from the island’s service center.
    They had walked the two miles or so from the airport to the center.
    …
    Islanders were given no notice but are coming together as a community to support them.”
    Carla Cooper said volunteers ordered pizza, salad and soup to feed the people, aged 3 to adults in their 40s, “who had had no food or water since 6 a.m.”
    “
    People were just showing up (at the church) with food, rice and beans,” she said. “When something happens to our island, we come together to help. We are going to take care of these people.”
    Cooper, head of the Democratic Council of Martha’s Vineyard, said, “It is disgusting and repulsive that these people were herded like cattle onto a plane, not told where they were going and our community was not notified. This is not a joke, this is insanely ridiculous.”

    Link

  66. 66.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Kent:

    I already thought John Mearsheimer was full of shit, but thanks for the explanation re: foreign policy blob. And I agree UKR is in the driver’s seat. I think realist takes like Mearsheimer’s ignore the agency of Ukraine

  67. 67.

    ian

    @Brachiator: If you haven’t checked out his website, I join the people here recommending it.  He does a bit on nomadic horsemen as well, focusing on the Mongols and the Plains people of North America.

  68. 68.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Brachiator: It’s worth reading the “Fremen Mirage” series.  Seriously.  IIRC, his assessment of these horse nomads was two things:

    1. they didn’t have any innate advantage over the citified empires they attacked
    2. BUT they did have the advantage that they could retreat into the vast untracked steppes (and sure, shedding casualties as they were attacked) and out there regroup, repopulate, and then attack again

    So eventually they were bound to win some battles.  But they weren’t actually intrinsically better, for being primitive.  Deveraux adduces all sorts of historical information about the effectiveness of various sorts of tactics, and the importance of training that can only be accomplished when you have an agricultural surplus to sustain those troops who are training/training/training (and their equipment) instead of out in the fields tilling the soil.

    Worth a read.

  69. 69.

    Kent

    @Chetan Murthy: The Romans took over the western world basically because they were the only society with a full time professional army.  They had a whole class of citizens who spent their productive lives in the legions rather than putting down their hoes and pitchforks when the need arose as was the case with most of the opponents they faced who were not also Roman

    The Mongols were another professional army and society organized around perpetual warfare.

  71. 71.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Chetan Murthy: From near the end of the piece:

    Now, on the one hand, for any military system to be competitive for c. 2750 years is absolutely incredible. This is part of why I say that the Steppe nomads live up to their billing. On the other hand, the state emerges around 3100 BCE (in Egypt and Mesopotamia; this is a conservative date – there are smaller ‘petty’ states in these regions much earlier) and remains the most effective and dominant way to organize humans for war from then to the present. In the c. 5,000 year run of recorded history (which maps over the lifespan of the state as an innovation because of its connection to writing) the steppe nomad system is technologically viable for about half of it – a slice that shrinks every year. Whereas the state has been the dominant form of organizing humans for war for that entire span and remains so today.

    Again: that’s not a criticism. That’s a long time to bat well above replacement! But it should put some perspective on the idea that even these most Fremen of the Fremen are somehow generally better at fighting: their system of war made them competitive, but not dominant, and only within a broad, but limited time-frame. Because it was never based on the aspects of the Mirage (purity born of poverty) which ought to offer a permanent advantage but instead based on specific skills and technologies which might be dominant for a time and then fade. The Mongols were absolutely the real deal, but they cannot save the Mirage, because their strength didn’t come from the Mirage.

  72. 72.

    Amir Khalid

    @Kent:

    Ukraine agrees not to join NATO as long as Russia demilitarizes the Ukrainian border. And if Russia reneges then all bets are off and Ukraine can join NATO. Something like that.

    I have to disagree with this suggestion. One of Putin’s reasons for invading was to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO. By promising not to join NATO, Ukraine would be handing him a win on that score. I wouldn’t trust any Russian promises to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty in the future. I promise you that at some point Putin (or someone after him) will be emboldened to try another invasion.

    Upon driving all the Russian invaders off its soil, Ukraine needs to join NATO, promptly. That is the most significant thing it can do to deter Russia from trying again.

  75. 75.

    Spc

    @Matt McIrvin: Yeah – I’ve worked with a few. One of the biggest perks was being able to speed to get to Concord in time for a session. I wouldn’t call NH a red state these days, more of an unpredictable swing state.

  76. 76.

    J R in WV

    @Another Scott: ​
     

    Thanks for sharing this! Hysterical to compare the forest which was the not-yet-existent capital of Russia when Kiev was building beautiful cathedrals. And India was building the Taj Mahal !!

  77. 77.

    dnfree

    @Edmund Dantes: I have never trusted the FBI since  they tried to discredit and shame MLK.  And why is their building still named for the deplorable J. Edgar Hoover?  They don’t find him an embarrassment?  And what was Comey up to before the 2016 election?  And why would two FBI professionals use their work phones and emails to communicate about their affair?  It is a strange feeling to be hopeful that they’re somehow going to save the day here.

  78. 78.

    StringOnAStick

    @dnfree: I see your point, though what might be somewhat different this time is the people the FBI identified with and thought of as their supporters are now calling for their defunding.  Institutions tend to eventually become all about preserving themselves more so than about their original mission, so hearing threats by the side that used to support their preservation as being as important as mom and apple pie might have upset a few worldviews.  We can hope.

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