As one can imagine, I have some thoughts. Here’s a thread no one asked for:
1. SCIENCE IN THE US IS POLITICAL. No matter how much you want to ignore that fact, it is supported by taxpayer dollars and is therefore, political by nature.
2. BUT it has had bipartisan support for decades, which…— Colette Delawalla (@cdelawalla.bsky.social) August 23, 2025 at 12:15 PM
For at least the fifty years I have been reading the Atlantic, it has made a habit of having one or two excellent stories in every issue… larded with a slurry of pop-cult political faddism and a never-ending stream of ‘all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds’ punditry. Katherine J. Wu’s covid reporting was one of the main reasons I finally broke down and paid for a subscription, and her article treads a careful line in reporting the GOP’s trap [gift link]:
Practicing science in the United States has become more politically fraught in the past seven months than it has ever been in this country’s history. As the Trump administration has fired vaccine advisers, terminated research grants in droves, denied the existence of gender, and accused federal scientists of corruption while publicly denigrating their work, the nation’s leaders have shown that they believe American science should be done only on their terms.
As of late, some in the scientific community have been pushing back, organizing marches and rallies, publicly criticizing government reports and agency priorities, and quitting their jobs at federal agencies. Professional medical societies have banded together to sue the Department of Health and Human Services over Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s unfounded restrictions of COVID vaccines and dismissal of vaccine experts. Academic scientists have done the same, to fight for grant funding. Researchers are convening extragovernmental panels to evaluate evidence on vaccines; the American Academy of Pediatrics has published vaccine recommendations that deviate from the CDC’s, and several states in New England are mulling doing the same. This week, for the second time, hundreds of HHS officials have signed a public letter criticizing the department’s leaders for interfering with the integrity of their work.
And yet, these counterattacks may be ensnaring scientists in a catch-22. Their goal is to defend their work from political interference. “If scientists don’t ever speak up, then the court of public opinion is lost,” one university dean, who requested anonymity to avoid financial retaliation against their school from the federal government, told me: Americans would have little reason to question the government’s actions. But in retaliating, scientists also run the risk of advancing the narrative they want to fight—that science in the U.S. is a political endeavor, and that the academic status quo has been tainted by an overly liberal view of reality. “When you face a partisan attack, it’s extremely hard to respond in a way that doesn’t look partisan,” Alexander Furnas, a science-policy expert at Northwestern University, told me. “It’s a bit of a trap.”…
But Ms. Delawalla is also correct:
2. has made doing science ~feel~ apolitical. We’ve not really ever HAD to fight because everyone could agree this was a good ecosystem to maintain.
3. NUMBER 2 IS NO LONGER TRUE. Sorry, it’s just not. This means we have to do things a little bit different, which can feel uncomfortable 🤷🏻♀️
4. THE STAKES ARE FUCKING HIGH. Every. Single. Day. Someone asks me “but why would they do all this? People are going to die!”
Yes. Exactly.
It’s eugenics. It’s Lysenkoism. It’s what happens when a group of ppl in power want to reestablish a class system that has been threatened by evidence.
4. Cont. The MAGA war on science is happening because a symptom of the cancer of fascism is dismantling every institution that provides evidence against their core tenants (e.g., men and women are equal, one race isn’t genetically better, disabled ppl can live rich lives).
5. SO, YEAH. YOU’RE GONNA HAVE TO PUT YOUR ACTIVIST SHOES ON. Unless you want to be a bystander while millions die because MAGA has wielded pseudo-science bullshit to prop up fresh eugenic flavored policies.
Again, this isn’t comfortable. We aren’t used to this. It’s not our “culture”. And yet…
There isn’t a middle ground.
You DO have to get political. It IS going to mean “looking like you’re taking a side” because…you do have to take a fucking side.
There are lives at stake, a democracy at stake, and the collapse of our society at stake.
Reimagine yourself as an activist.
Follow
@standupforscience.bsky.social for ways to get involved.Time to get off the sidelines, dorks. We have a democracy to save. ✊🏼❤️
Stand Up For Science: The hub for science activism!
Because Science is for everyone.
War for Ukraine Day 1,288: A Brief Thursday Night Update
J. Arthur Crank
Depressing but necessary post.
danielx
Heart breaking…again.
Several times a day.
SpaceUnit
Yeah, or maybe it’s what happens when some foreign adversary manages to install a puppet to bring the United States to ruin.
piratedan
perhaps I am getting jaded about all of this shit, it seems to me that if you believe in the benefits of Science itself, in the scientific method in being applied to solve the problems that we, as humanity, face on a broad swath of fronts, from climate science to medicine to essentially the study of every damn thing, then you have a choice to make and it shouldn’t be that hard if it’s become your life’s work.
These people who oppose “us” politically, they also oppose us morally, ethically and even on the use of knowledge itself. If you can’t stand up in these circumstances, then you need to find another fucking job.
I’ve never comprehended why ANYONE thinks we need to give the benefit of doubt or “a fair shake” to these folks, all you have to do is look at their deeds, those deeds tell you exactly who they are… support us or fuck you
Jackson
It’s religious fundamentalism that by definition cannot tolerate evidence-based thinking or science, because then Confederate Jesus and the 6,000-year old earth crumble alongside the entire worldview. It’s that simple.
frosty
OT(ish). I subscribed to The Atlantic from the 70s until early in the 2000s when some of their articles started to seem a little squirrelly, as in right-wing squirrelly. I found that they’d gotten a new owner and dropped it. I periodically think about subscribing, because there are good stories being written, but then I see a squirrelly one and decide against it.
AL, I’m glad you’re finding their good stuff to post here.
H.E.Wolf
I wish I could sneak in there and correct “tenants” to “tenets”.
SpaceUnit
Typically the leaders of nationalist regimes don’t demolish and denigrate their country’s scientific infrastructure. They want to promote it as the finest in the world. Weaponize it, perhaps, but not simply destroy it in such wanton fashion. Something weird going on here.
WTFGhost
Man, if only there were some trusted guardian of the public trust, protected by the very first Amendment to the Constitution, that would tell us that the anti-science monsters are full of shit. Why, oh, why, did these United States not develop a strong and effective Press, whose freedom would ensure that the truth gets told, and the liars exposed?
SpaceUnit
@Jackson:
The current WH resident is many awful things, but a raging, true-believing fundamentalist he is not. There’s nothing he does on the basis of faith. Self-interest if his only religion.
Mr. Bemused Senior
Like all human endeavors, science, the press, the law, politics, are conducted by fallible human beings. We try to design systems to compensate for those failings but they are never perfect.
Science has the advantage that results can be compared to objective reality but those comparisons are still made by people with all the same human frailties. Alas, that fact can be exploited by bad actors.
Lately there seem to be a lot of bad actors around. I don’t know what to do about it.
Ruckus
@SpaceUnit:
Something weird going on here.
These are the people that want to be top of the heap. But in a democracy and the modern world, what they want is for everything that comes out of their mouths, but as long as science and humanity have even the slightest chance of actually showing people that want an actual democracy that this is pure bullshit they need to show and prove it regularly. All of us have to speak up, to limit the power of at least the voice of the current president or we stand a chance of losing everydamnthing. The current opposition would rather die than have any concept whatsoever that what they want is going to destroy this country and effectively give power to people that want it but have zero concept of proper use of power and also think that anyone that doesn’t think as badly as they do, who doesn’t look like them, and actually understands that this is not 1800 but 2025. I’m an old fart, who has seen a lot of the world move forward humanity wise, but we have a history of obnoxious, hateful, stupid jackasses who want to have a country built in their images, hate being a rather large segment of their beliefs. They hate that people that don’t look like them and don’t honor them for being hateful jackasses and racist dumb fucks.
NaijaGal
@SpaceUnit: Or both.
TS
Remember the drama when one case of ebola reached the US during President Obama’s time in office
Democratic Republic of Congo declared a new outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus on Thursday, saying there were 28 suspected cases and 15 deaths.
What will happen if it gets to the US again during this administration?
TS
I keep getting this error message usually when opening or posting (not every time)
Error establishing a Redis connection
Is there something I should be doing to fix it?
Redshift
@SpaceUnit: There’s a big distinction between nationalism and authoritarianism (though they can overlap.) We’re not dealing with nationalism, despite them literally wrapping themselves in the flag and claiming they’re “patriots.” Nationalists don’t rant about their own country being in “carnage” while they’re in power.
Hannah Arendt:
As he’s said many times, loyalty is the only quality he’s looking for in the people he hires. There’s no mystery.
Melancholy Jaques
@TS:
I have been getting that from time to time for that last few weeks. I just refresh the page and it goes away.
SpaceUnit
@Ruckus:
All true.
I’m simply invoking Occam’s Razor and asking what a psychotic and amoral narcissist wouldn’t do to keep himself from being outed as a child rapist by some party holding the proof.
It’s just the explanation that requires the fewest assumptions.
TS
@Melancholy Jaques:
I’ve been doing similar but losing the odd post, minor annoyance because my aging brain can’t always remember what it just wrote.
Jay
@TS:
The next pandemic is already here.
On Wednesday’s Covid Post, Anne Laurie posted a thread by a Dr. who say that he and other doctors, in 4 Western States have been seeing many cases of a severe flu. A large number of patients have have to be hospitalized, many have to be intubated.
The viral samples are not testing positive for any current known flu, (that they have common antigens for).
They and others suspect that it’s a bird flu strain, that has mutated for human to human transmission, as none of the patients have links to birds, cats or cattle.
They aren’t getting any answers, because it’s the current CDC.
SpaceUnit
@Redshift:
Well, trump rants all the time about our country being in carnage and then follows it with claims that he’s ushered in some golden age. I think he might just be an idiot.
But also a tool.
Ramona
@SpaceUnit: He really does believe wypipo are better than non-wypipo.
SpaceUnit
@Ramona:
Ha. Yeah, I guess that can count as a “faith”.
frosty
@Melancholy Jaques: It’s a FYWP problem. WaterGirl has been working with the site developers for awhile but no fixes yet.
anitamargarita
@frosty: this is my first thought too. I have no confidence in the Atlantic, despite liking and agreeing with some of their writers.
anitamargarita
@frosty: this is my first thought too. I have no confidence in the Atlantic, despite liking and agreeing with some of their writers.
David_C
Katie Wu is an excellent writer. I don’t know if this was noted earlier, but Collette is the leader of Stand Up for Science. SUSF has hosted the various declarations signed by folks in the government, and co-signed by notables and the general public.
Finished up a conference in Europe and they are concerned, since funding woes in the US have ripple effects all around the globe.
cain
@SpaceUnit:
But he will do whatever anybody says to do if they give him money or love. So a lot of this stuff is because people walk into the oval office and ask for things.
cain
@anitamargarita:
Essentially a lot of popular news media is being taken over by “new owners” who are not liberal.
Part of fascism we are facing is that one the institutions being warped is our media. The media is getting fucked things to the internet and google ads. Breaking up google and their ad power is something that needs to be done.
MazeDancer
The health consortiums being created by the blue states are good for many reasons. Not the least of which is that a united resistance can grow past health.
Wondering if they can continue some research, too.
prostratedragon
@SpaceUnit: Synergy!
SpaceUnit
@cain:
Yes, he’s corrupt and needy. But this dynamic isn’t random. He’s deliberately taking a wrecking ball to the country’s well-being and future and standing on the global stage
He’s almost certainly doing someone’s bidding. I just can’t think who it might be.
BellyCat
@H.E.Wolf: Had the exact same thought. #PedantsUnitedForPedantry
montanareddog
@TS:
It will be both the fault of immigrants and a Democratic hoax. There’s no cognitive dissonance when everything is a lie.
Ksmiami
@montanareddog: Ebola won’t care. And unlike covid explosive bleeding out is pretty horrific and hard to hide…
Archon
@SpaceUnit: I think the entire Republican Party from Trump on down believe this is likely their last opportunity to destroy “left leaning” institutions in America.
So beneath the cult of Personality of Trump is a government attempting to implement an unprecedented anti-left social engineering project.
Baud
@Archon:
This is my take too.
To me, it really shows how vulnerable the left leaning institutions have become, due to the corruption of money and the disunity and infighting.
WTFGhost
@Jay: holy *SHIT* was I afraid we’d be ground zero. No, that’s not a joke, that’s me utilizing my gift for understatement to stand in for my inability to express my real fear that this might happen, if it happened, which I sure as eff hope it hasn’t.
@SpaceUnit: I can see a simple explanation in how he’s trying to do the biggest and best everything. Biggest and best conservative wish list/P2025; biggest and best deportation effort ever, and, because he’s dumb as a post, and doesn’t actually have a plan, everything is going to shit.
Remember, Republicans, you could have chosen to call him a liar during Covid, to save lives, or, you could have convicted him post Jan6… someday, children will be taught to spit on your tombstone, but, hey, we’re all going to die someday.
@BellyCat: I have the ever so naughty urge to throw an extraneous n to make it pedants for pendantry, which, as a misspelling, would probably be a doubly annoying defacement.
SpaceUnit
@Archon:
The “left” is really just a bugbear of the fascist imagination. The whole US communist party is two guys doing bong hits in a basement apartment. Nobody gives a shit.
The actual left is just trying to have a rational discussion about trans women in sports and the war in Ukraine.
prostratedragon
The suspense builds …
Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4, 3rd mvmt
Archon
@SpaceUnit: To me the “weird” part to all this is the fact that a political movement that involves a large minority of people in this country (including many in the elite) are prepared to accept America’s economic, social, political and geopolitical degradation if the byproduct of that is the humiliation and suppression of American liberalism
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@SpaceUnit: I am reminded once again that in modern Greek politics, liberals, radical leftists, socialists, and communists are four completely different factions that dislike one another intensely, and pretty much only unite on the view that the only good neo-Nazi is a dead one.
Baud
@Archon:
This is why some of us believe that bigotry and white supremacy (and misogy) are the guiding force behind Trumpism. It’s hard to conceive of another force in society that would cause a people to destroy themselves like this.
To them, a dead America is better than a liberal America.
Baud
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
Labels mean different things in different countries. And Americans in particular are very loose with labels even under US definitions.
Well, they’re a step ahead of us on that front.
satby
Part of their mindset as True Believers is that they don’t believe that will happen, and that any small setbacks will be quickly reversed as soon as they get rid of society’s dead weight (aka: us).
Baud
@satby:
Good point. That’s what the Make America Great Again religion is at bottom.
SpaceUnit
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
I stand with the Greeks
ETA: Christ, it’s 3 AM. I gotta hit the sack.
satby
@prostratedragon: The Barenboim era of Chicago Symphony Orchestra was the best, IMHO.
prostratedragon
@satby:
Hence the starring role of stunning ignorance. When things don’t immediately turn around despite the prophetic warning recently of one Mitch McConnell, these folks will blame the very people whose removal caused the problem. Or at least I tbink that’s what MMcC hopes.
Matt McIrvin
@SpaceUnit: It’s more common than you might think.
We’ve mentioned Lysenkoism. Stalin wrecked his own country’s life-science establishment and created famines just because he thought this crank’s ideas about inheritance of acquired characteristics sounded cool, would enable agronomic miracles and jibed well with his understanding of Communist ideology.
I recall hearing that early on, something similar was going on there in fundamental physics. There was this idea that quantum mechanics, with its nutty rejection of determinism, spooky action at a distance, etc. was a form of “bourgeois idealism” and needed to be rooted out of a properly dialectical-materialist scientific establishment. We had the usual pattern of hacks reporting talented physicists to the political authorities to promote their own careers, etc.
But that actually stopped after World War II because a bunch of nuclear physicists somehow successfully managed to convey to Stalin that he wouldn’t get a nuclear bomb under these conditions. And the USSR built a world-class physics establishment, one whose textbooks were even used in the West.
Where did the physicists NOT manage to convey that message to the leadership? Nazi Germany, where relativity was deprecated “Jewish science”. They were pretty keen on rockets though.
satby
@Baud: It is a strong strain of eugenics too, and it was prominent during the right wing COVID denial (and continues) when they vociferously insisted that the only people at risk of serious illness and death were already unhealthy or old. Healthy people of “good stock” weren’t at any risk and so COVID vaccines and mitigation were draconian restrictions on their rights. In the early days, that the pandemic swept through cities mostly killing minorities was, to them, real world confirmation of that view. That more red state white rural folks paid the ultimate price in the end was underreported in right wing media. So the delusional thinking was reinforced again and now taints all science in their eyes, because facts are “liberal lies”.
satby
You forgot to tag that //
Matt McIrvin
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: Something like that is also true here, it’s just that the American constitutional system relegates third parties to fringe status, so we have the Democrats, and a bunch of more or less unaffiliated leftists bashing them and each other. They all hate the fascists but they take their frustrations out on people who are ideologically closer to themselves.
eclare
@satby:
IIRC there was some official in TX who said older people should just die of Covid for the greater good. Somehow I doubt they considered it the greater good, but who knows.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Wasn’t Mao’s Great Leap Forward and Pol Pot’s killing fields similar?
prostratedragon
@satby: Wasn’t bad. I’ve heard them all back to Reiner, and they all shine imo. Somehow, the band has maintained a consistent personality.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
I think their are some people across the non-right ideological spectrum who don’t necessarily like fascists but see the fascist threat as a useful tool in fighting other factions across the non-right.
satby
@Baud: true. The threat fascists pose is not nearly as serious as the threat that an otherwise compatible group is insufficiently pure.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: That was particularly true in the 2016 cycle, and I think part of it was this very gendered hatred of Hillary Clinton in particular. There was this peculiar phenomenon of the pro-Trump left, or at least anti-anti-Trump, who saw him as this sort of human bomb to destroy the Empire from within, but really at heart they just super duper hated Hillary Clinton.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: You might be interested in a report on last month’s biennial DSA convention. It’s written by two DSA members and published by International Viewpoint, which is associated with the Fourth Internationale.
The article begins:
This article is long, but I wasn’t surprised to learn that it is a condensed version of a longer one with its own pdf provided. These people love to write!
I hope to excerpt some of this tomorrow, but here’s a link that might work:
internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article9126
I learned that:
I counted at least seven caucuses ranging from the more moderate Socialist Majority Caucus to the Maoist Red Star caucus. Did I mention that this article is long?
satby
@eclare: “No one reached out to me and said, ‘as a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren?” Patrick said. “And if that’s the exchange, I’m all in.” Lt.Gov. Dan Patrick
Baud
@Geminid:
I’m not up to speed on lefty happenings. What is this?
eclare
@satby:
Thanks. Pure evil.
RevRick
@Jackson:
It isn’t just religious fundamentalism since many corporate interests are opposed to scientific evidence, especially in the fossil fuels and petrochemical industries. But those interests opposed to science are largely marriages of convenience.
Suzanne
One facet of this incredibly strange and terrible moment that we’re in…. is extreme fat-hate. Much of the “evidence” that the MAHA people use as justification to assert that America is super-sick is the higher rate of obesity. And yet, you would think then, maybe they would be happy about the efficacy of GLP-1s? Oh no…. those allow fat people to pretend to be skinny, in their minds. They want to socially punish and shame fat people as an expression of social dominance.
ETA: “tenets”
Geminid
@Baud: I guess it’s the successor to the Third Internationale. I expect that if you check out International Viewpoints you’ll find out all you want to know about the Fourth Internationale. Maybe even more!
Baud
@Geminid:
I prefer ignorance. Thanks.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Yeah. That’s super dumb.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: And, to a lesser extent, the general suspicion of academics (including scientists) during the McCarthy Era. It’s just that during the Cold War, in the aftermath of the stunning appearance of nuclear weapons and the knowledge that World War II had been a war of technological superiority, the notion that we had a military need for scientific advancement tempered the attacks.
Science was establishment-coded at that time, joined at the hip to technology. What we’re seeing now is the culmination of frustration on the right that science, as an institution and a process, refuses to just be the handmaiden of technology, and sometimes tells us that a thing is impossible or would have bad consequences, or that the world isn’t what conservatives think it is. They see all this as a product of corruption, some kind of virus introduced by the Sixties counterculture, and not fundamental to the nature of science itself.
I’ve been seeing this simmering under the surface at least since the 1980s. The “creation science” movement was fueled by the idea that science had lost its way and that the REAL science would tell us things consistent with an evangelical understanding of the Bible. Its “scientific” supporters were often engineers of some sort. Same with climate denialism. The REAL science would tell us that everything was okay; the scientific establishment had just been corrupted by left radicals.
I recall some Usenet folk in the Nineties advocating an extreme form stating that we no longer needed scientists at all: that the REAL science was being done by engineers now, and they could pick up the torch and just do all further progress themselves. And it went well with “they used your tax money to put a shrimp on a treadmill!” mockery of scientific projects.
I think we’ve gone from a world in which science is primarily seen as part of the military-industrial complex, to one in which it gets critiqued as not enough part of the military-industrial complex, because people have figured out that its worldview won’t always take orders.
satby
Well, if they keep plugging away they might hit the lofty membership of the John Birch Society’s highest years (approx.100,000).
OTOH, with the media’s view from nowhere assistance, the Birchers effectively took over the Republican party, so fringe isn’t always irrelevant.
Ramalama
Stand up for Science is doing a thing in response to RFK Jr’s being a quack, as seen in that hearing…
Quack O Gram
http://www.standupforscience.net/quack-o-grams
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
That’s part of their general approach to everything. “Value things only to the extent they serve us and our status. Treat them as a threat when they don’t.”
Suzanne
@Baud: It’s very dumb. Anyone who has a genuine interest in health would be very supportive of GLP-1s at this point. (Of course, that could change as there is more evidence.)
But fatness is correlated with lack of discipline in their minds, and GLP-1s are seen as cheating. There was deep resentment in the manosphere during the years of body positivity that “liberals want to lie to us and make us find these cows attractive”. That’s part of why they latched onto Sydney Sweeney, even before the American Eagle ad. There has always been an expectation of entitlement on that side of the aisle, that even fairly gross men deserve beautiful women — which is part of the appeal of FFOTUS to them, BTW. GLP-1s let people lose weight with less suffering, and they want people to suffer.
Gvg
These people are a lot of not really religious people who have been brought up to think they are. A lot of them do not go to church, and the ones that do are ignoring the most basic parables and actions of their founder Jesus Christ. “The church” has had some of the problems since medieval days, but the not even going to church plus total ignorance is new I think. I really think the corruption began with televangelism and the age of gurus plus advertising. For some reason I think The death of a salesman is a good analogy for some of our gullible public.
The believe down is up and are attending anti churches.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Really? I would like to subscribe to their newsletter.
The right wing creed.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: Sydney Sweeney is hot and doesn’t say things they don’t like (as far as I know). That is key. Nothing drives them more insane than a beautiful movie star or pop singer (or, God forbid, an attractive woman politician) who is vocally liberal or feminist, and there are a lot of them to hate on. Brie Larson became the devil. Taylor Swift is “no longer hot”. Whatever.
I think one aspect of the nuclear Hillary Clinton hate was that back in the 1990s when it started, Hillary Clinton was hot. They glammed her up, in a very 1990s establishment way, but she kept saying this feminist stuff. That drove them absolutely around the bend.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
I still have the calendar.
lowtechcyclist
@Suzanne:
They could blame obesity on the corporations that sell us on very unhealthy fast foods, or they could harass overweight women. Unfortunately not a tough choice for that crew.
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin: Sydney Sweeney is hot in a very conventional, non-edgy, male-gaze-y way, specifically. And yes, HRC was much less hated when she was styled as a more conventional, attractive political wife. As soon as she cut her hair shorter and started wearing more pantsuits….. well, that was part of her evolution into the evil ex-wife of men’s nightmares.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
Yep. MAHA is completely giving the Trump administration a pass on all the truly unhealthy stuff they’re doing.
I’m not a fan of zealots, but hypocritical zealots are the worst.
lowtechcyclist
@Matt McIrvin:
Damn, I missed that moment (of Hillary being hot) entirely. By 1994, Hillary hate was already over the top – I remember Clinton’s attempt at universal health care was damned as “Hillarycare” and was evil just because her name was attached to it.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: the GLP-1 case is an interesting one because much as with vaccines, you’d think people subscribing to the “technology over science” mindset I was describing above would be all about the cheap technical fix.
But I think a number of things are going on. One is that all this is contrary to grifts going on in the self-help and supplements industries, which are gigantic and used to be relatively politically neutral, but are increasingly tied to the political right. Another is, as you say, a sort of eugenic mindset that bad medical things happen to bad, weak people and are the victim’s fault.
Suzanne
@lowtechcyclist: They like to blame obesity on birth control and women having jobs outside the home, meaning that they buy ultraprocessed food instead of staying home to cook meals from scratch.
Geminid
@satby: I found it an informative article. For one thing, I finally got a handle on the term “Campism.” I’d seen it but did not understand that it refers to alignment with socially reactionary groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, as part of an “Anti-Imperialist Camp.”
Personally, I think the DSA’s foreign policy is a liability when it comes to U.S. politics. Their International Committee enjoys a semi-autonomous status within an organization otherwise directed by the National Political Committee, and its platform could have been written by Noam Chomsky. They’re happy Campists!
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: But are they going to actually regulate food products? God no, they’ll find a way to stick it to the poorest consumers buying the stuff.
Baud
@Suzanne:
It’s always someone else’s fault.
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin: They will do none of the things that actually enable people to live healthier lives: more time away from work for exercise and cooking, more affordable and readily available nutritious food, more home economics and recess in school, more walkable and less car-dependent communities, easier access to healthcare.
And never forget that attitudes toward weight are not only deeply tied up with misogyny, they’re also deeply racialized and sorted by class. Obesity is just another axis for all the ways we already hate each other.
Anyway
I hate the MAHA framing and don’t buy it —refuse to use it. Going after RFKJr, not letting up on criticism of his actions is good on the merits plus Cheeto may be susceptible to the argument that Brainworm is part of the reason for his drop in the polls and may be open to firing him.
Baud
@Suzanne:
As everyone here remembers, the right hated Michelle Obama’s healthy foods initiative.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
satby
The GPL-1 drugs are showing that obesity is more complex in many people than a lack of discipline or poor food choice. The drugs are showing a lot of promise in addiction treatment too. And the reduction of risk factors tied to reduced obesity is a medically valid reason for a lot of people to take them, not just vanity.
I lost 30 lbs over the last 6 months, but really should lose another 50 (I’m still obese, just less so). I’ve hit a hard plateau doing it the old fashioned way and have been following research on GPL-1 treatments for a while now. Turned my attitude from a hard “no way” to a “hmm, maybe”. There’s still lots we don’t know about body chemistry, and the science is fascinating.
Suzanne
@Baud: Of course they did. And don’t forget that Forever FLOTUS’s initiative also included “Let’s Move”. The MAHA version of health is essentially toxic masculinity: eating tons of meat and protein, supplements, and weightlifting. The goal is to build muscle and look bulky — but only dudes. Deeply fascist aesthetics.
Vegetables and cardio and weight loss are women-coded and thus bad. Oodles of scholarship out there about “effortless perfection” being expected of women.
Baud
@satby:
Congrats!
I’m not really overweight, but my fat to muscle ratio needs to be a lot better than it is.
Baud
@Suzanne:
I think weight training for women is also healthy, but I agree about the fetish on the right with sex coded roles.
satby
@Geminid: I have no doubt it was informative, and I’ll read it in full. The history of how the Birchers went from fringe nutbags to mainstream Republicans shows how we should always pay attention to groups that intend to “take over” political parties.
eclare
@satby:
Anecdatotal, but a guy who writes a blog that I follow has been on those drugs for a while. He said the change in his appetite has been eye opening. He usually eats only two meals a day, and he has to force himself to do that.
And he used to (practically) live at The Olive Garden, with all of the pasta and breadsticks that entails.
Best of luck in your research and decision making. And yay on the thirty pounds!
Suzanne
@satby: GLP-1s are fascinating. There’s evidence that they affect all manner of addictive behaviors, even things like gambling and shopping that literally do not involve food intake at all.
I asked my doctor about them, and she did not advise them for me, because she said the current ones make you lose muscle mass (part of the reason the manosphere is hostile) and maintaining muscle mass is important for women. But apparently the next-generation versions are solving that issue. Might be something to keep in mind.
Suzanne
@Baud: Weight training for women is very healthy….. but we’re supposed to not look like we do it! We’re supposed to wake up perfect! Yes, they deride women who have visible musculature as unfeminine and unmotherly.
Baud
@Suzanne:
The late great efgolfman coined the perfect response to that attitude.
Professor Bigfoot
@SpaceUnit: The Tsar.
If we accept that Trump has been on the receiving end of Russian money for decades, then it easily follows that he owes them.
The Tsar is also a KGB trained intelligence officer; and if there’s one thing the KGB studied, it was Enemy Number One. They would know very well just where the fault lines lie.
Who would benefit most from a US Collapse? Not China- while they will definitely take any advantage, truth is that the US has been their best customer. They have much less of a need for that customer now; but it would still be a serious source of revenue for companies all across China.
William of Ockham keeps pointing towards Moscow.
Geminid
@satby: It sounds like DSA members are conflicted about workung with and through the Democratic Party. Some view it as a diversion from organizing a true working class movement. And aside from the sizable New York chapter which comprises ~10% of the DSA membership, they have struggled to make any impact on electoral politics.
schrodingers_cat
Hi guys, I am back, still pretty tired and beat but nice to be back home.
Geminid
@schrodingers_cat: That’s good to hear. I hope you have some good weather up there this weekend.
zhena gogolia
@Jackson: Lysenko was not religious. Not at all. Neither was his master Stalin.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Welcome back. Hope it was a good trip.
schrodingers_cat
@Geminid: I hope so, it is more humid here than in Mumbai right now.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Thanks. It was bittersweet and tiring.
satby
Interesting. And yes, I did read they affected all manner of addictive behaviors.
@Baud: @eclare: Thanks. I’ve reverted to the way I ate when I was in my 20s, before kids, which was basically 16 / 8 intermittent fasting. Back then I never ate before noon until I got pregnant and EVERYONE insisted I needed to eat more. Especially breakfast. Left to my own choice, I naturally eat a meal in the early afternoon and another about 6-8 hours later. But I’m not rigid about it. I had no problems controlling my weight then, but as I said it’s only gone so far now.
satby
@schrodingers_cat: welcome back! 🙂
Baud
@satby:
Hmm. Maybe I should consider it for my BJ addiction.
schrodingers_cat
@satby: Thanks.
satby
And I wonder if Paul Krugman still reads here occasionally: Why Does the Right Reject Progress?
BellyCat
My (someday) evil ex-wife of my nightmares grew her short hair long and started wearing dresses after we separated.
Professor Bigfoot
Fits right in with “the cruelty is the point,” doesn’t it?
schrodingers_cat
Still severely jetlagged and nursing a cold. So I am going to tuck myself in and go back to sleep.
Baud
eclare
@schrodingers_cat:
Welcome back, hope you feel better!
schrodingers_cat
@eclare: I have no plans for the weekend but to unpack and rest. Hoping that will do the trick.
Professor Bigfoot
@satby: I’m in the same boat— I’ve lost around 30 the hard way this year (partly due to a “major health scare”) but have hit a hard plateau.
Meanwhile, Mrs. B who was diabetic through most of her adult life went on Ozempic, lost a LOT of weight, watched her A1C and blood sugar numbers *plummet,* and it’s got me thinking about it.
Professor Bigfoot
@schrodingers_cat: Welcome back!!
schrodingers_cat
@Professor Bigfoot: Thanks!
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Considering that Tesla’s current stock price seems to be the result of an anti-gravity machine run amok, and considering that other companies will make better electric cars than Tesla does, it sounds like the $1 trillion figure is as meaningless as Tesla’s stock valuation.
It also appears from the article that a good deal of Elmo’s compensation would be in the form of Tesla stock.
Professor Bigfoot
@schrodingers_cat: Sleep is always good for what ails you.
Rest! We’ll be here.
Teresa
@Baud:
I saw that this morning. It’s crazy.
Putting all their eggs in a broken basket.
stinger
@Suzanne:
“They like to blame obesity on birth control and women having jobs outside the home, meaning that they buy ultraprocessed food instead of staying home to cook meals from scratch.”
Then, buddy, you’d better start earning a bigger paycheck if you’re going to support your quiver all by yourself.
Kosh III
“while millions die because MAGA”
It would help if it is cultists of President Pussy-grabber. Red states are generally less healthy.
Soprano2
@satby: I remember the sinking feeling in my stomach in the middle of April 2020 when I read the first article that detailed who was dying from Covid at that time. I knew right then that the cooperation from rural white people was going to stop, because it reinforced the idea that it was only in the crowded cities that Covid was a problem. I had someone tell me that “we don’t live on top of each other” like they do in the cities, that’s why it’s so bad there.
ETA – I heard that shit from my mother, of all people. She was convinced that all of the people who were dying from Covid were old and fat, and if you weren’t old or fat you weren’t at risk. Of course, she signed up for the shot as soon as she could because she was 86……..
suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot:
Yes. I would characterize America as fairly culturally mean to one another. Probably baked into a strong ethic of individualism and WASPy worship of “hard work”.
stinger
@schrodingers_cat: Welcome home! Now, post more art! ;-)
Soprano2
@Suzanne: They think using drugs to lose weight is “cheating”. They think it’s as easy as eating less and exercising more. That seems logical, yet it’s more complicated than that.
Another Scott
@prostratedragon:
+1
“Throw the bums out” seems to be a continuing world-wide problem, and may even be accelerating.
E.g. DW.com:
CFR.org:
Democratic-Erosion.org:
And on and on.
Something something except for all the others.
[ sigh ]
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: I was talking with someone the other day about the GLP-1 drugs because my husband needs to drink more water (seems strange, I know). They said that they’re finding that one side effect of these drugs is that people aren’t thirsty, so they don’t drink enough fluids, which can lead to more tooth decay and other mouth problems. It’s always something….
Soprano2
@Suzanne: Paul Campos wrote a book about the pathology surrounding people’s attitudes toward overweight people. One part of it is the belief that somehow you can “catch” being fat. We’ve also been taught that it’s unattractive, especially in women.
Another Scott
@schrodingers_cat: Welcome home. I hope the trip let you recharge some and that you’re rested and raring to go for the upcoming battles!
Best wishes,
Scott.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: One reason I’ve come to love Jazzercise is because it combines cardio and weights (not at the same time!). You do both type of workouts during the same routine. They even have one class that’s just strength training. I’ve gotten stronger as a result, but I don’t have to spend time working out on boring machines.
Soprano2
@schrodingers_cat: It’s good to sleep in your own bed again. Welcome back!
bluefoot
@piratedan: It should be easy to “take a side” if you’re in the sciences, but most scientists historically like to think that science is above it all, that they can ignore politics. It’s part of the mindset that reality is reality, and you can argue against it all you want (say, climate change) but reality will catch up to you eventually.
But I am severely disappointed in my fellow scientists – everyone has to change their mindset and quick. Of my friends and colleagues, the white people think they can weather this if they keep their heads down, they think this will pass. Nearly all the non-white people I know are pretty f*ing clear that this is an existential threat and if we don’t hold the line now, there isn’t any going back. And I’ve gotta be honest – at least some of us PoC are feeling like redshirts…
karensky
@frosty: Agree 100%
chemiclord
@Soprano2:
Well, part of the problem is that for a lot of people, the hunger drive and the thirst drive are linked (which is why for some people a way of curbing their hunger is to drink more fluids).
So for those people, something that curbs their hunger will also curb their thirst, even if that isn’t specifically the problem.
satby
@Professor Bigfoot: yeah, my main motivation is to get what were “prediabetes” numbers lower and keep them there. Type 2 galloped through my family and I don’t intend to follow that history if I can avoid it.
schrodingers_cat
@Soprano2: It definitely is. Thanks.
Paul in KY
@SpaceUnit: ‘That’s some killer shit, comrade (cough, cough)’
Paul in KY
@Soprano2: and dehydration! Which is very bad for an old person.
Bill Arnold
@Jay:
If it’s an influenza, even a novel influenza, then it is (probably) not as infectious as even the early wild strain COVID-19.
Influenzas seem to top out with novel strains at R=1.8 historically (there is some scholarly literature on the subject). Early wild-strain COVID-19 was like 2.5+. (Number of people an infected person infects on average in a naive population with no infection control measures, roughly. Current COVID-19 strains are like 5++, though no populations are immunologically naive.)
That means that good masks/respirators (N-95/equivalent or better) will work very well, and could even stop epidemic spread in a disciplined population.
Matt McIrvin
The “political trap” is just a general principle: The other side gets a vote on what is politically salient. The right can MAKE anything a partisan issue just by coming out en masse against it. Then if you’re for it, that’s partisan. There’s no way to not do it.
It’s just like the way people blamed Democrats for making gay rights this huge partisan thing, and then trans rights. Why are Democrats harping on trans rights in such a divisive way? Why do they care so much about trans people all of a sudden?? Well, it’s not Democrats doing it. It’s because Republicans turned these into partisan issues by being bigoted, because they figured it’d work for them as a wedge. You can’t just dodge it without willfully ignoring massive abuse and bigotry.
Ruckus
It is also more than just one point as many seem to think, that they do not understand, well anything. Because what they understand is they want power and want it not because they understand, it’s greed, pure and simple. In a world that didn’t have so many that depend on the rest of humanity not to be greedy it was far less important. But the world of today is not the world of 75 or 100 years ago, where food and shelter were the most important and not all that easy to fulfill. Actually within the lifetime of many old folks of today.
Ruckus
@Baud:
A liberal America lets those people exist and roam freely. The people that oppose this are people that HAVE TO HAVE the concept that they are the greatest, bestest, smartest jackasses alive. They can not conceive of a world that allows those people (what/whom ever those people are) to exist, because allowing that we are all considered equal means that they have to debase themselves to that lower level or raise the level of those they hate. It’s racism to the next level, except it’s the limiters that are the problem, because they are superior (just ask them…). It’s all bullshit because to understand the concept of this country – WE ARE ALL EQUAL – they have to give up their privilege of being superior. It is the premise of this country from its inception. Not that they would believe, understand, or accept this. It’s just takes them too long and too much effort to actually attempt to actually be equal. And they’d have to admit equality. And they are incapable of that.
Kayla Rudbek
@satby: I went on them after my diabetes diagnosis, and I do notice not just a food appetite change but also a spending pattern change when I am on the meds (I had to go off them before the colonoscopy). Sometimes too much of a spending pattern change as I don’t get necessary things for the house on schedule.