The Force of Decency Awakens - Paul Krugman

[4now]

A funny thing is happening on the American scene: a powerful upwelling of decency. Suddenly, it seems as if the worst lack all conviction, while the best are filled with a passionate intensity. We don’t yet know whether this will translate into political change. But we may be in the midst of a transformative moment.

You can see the abrupt turn toward decency in the rise of the #MeToo movement; in a matter of months ground that had seemed immovable shifted, and powerful sexual predators started facing career-ending consequences.

You can see it in the reactions to the Parkland school massacre. For now, at least, the usual reaction to mass killings — a day or two of headlines, then a sort of collective shrug by the political class and a return to its normal obeisance to the gun lobby — isn’t playing out. Instead, the story is staying at the top of the news, and associating with the N.R.A. is starting to look like the political and business poison it should have been all along.

And I’d argue that you can see it at the ballot box, where hard-right politicians in usually reliable Republican districts keep being defeated thanks to surging activism by ordinary citizens.

This isn’t what anyone, certainly not the political commentariat, expected.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/26/opinion/the-force-of-decency-awakens.html?&moduleDetail=section-news-2&action=click&contentCollection=Opinion®ion=Footer&module=MoreInSection&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&pgtype=article

[NBachers]

1. Three cheers for not getting what political commentariat expected.

[Hortensis]

8. But those pink pussy hats may have represented the beginning...

There was really precious little coverage of the planetary reaction to the indecency of electing Trump if that woman-dominated protest was the beginning. And how exciting looking back to realize that just maybe it was.

Regarding "regime change cascade," we did that once before, in the 1930s when we empowered our Democratic Party leaders to cut us a New Deal. Well, national wealth quadrupled in the last third of the 20th century and virtually all was funneled into creation of new, massively powerful centimillionaire and billionaire classes. Unfortunately, that was a period of resurgent conservatism, the electorate supported "getting off the backs of business," and our appalled party was unable to hold back that tide.

I've watched the decline in our wellbeing without being able to do anything for 40 years now. I'd be satisfied with stepping back from the brink, a return to the decency of Obama's era, of Making America America again.

But Krugman seems to be wondering about something much more, a national will to do what we were only able to start under Obama: a new new deal, a reverse of the engineered flow of our nation's power and wealth back to the people.

Regime change cascade: Here’s how it works: When people see the status quo as immovable, they tend to be passive even if they are themselves dissatisfied. Indeed, they may be unwilling to reveal their discontent, or to fully admit it to themselves. But once they see others visibly taking a stand, they both gain more confidence in their dissent and become more willing to act on it — and by their actions they may induce the same response in others, causing a kind of chain reaction.

Such cascades explain how huge political upheavals can quickly emerge, seemingly out of nowhere. Examples include the revolutions that swept Europe in 1848, the sudden collapse of communism in 1989 and the Arab Spring of 2011.[ ...

I nevertheless find the surge of indignation now building in America hugely encouraging. And yes, I think it’s all one surge. The #MeToo movement, the refusal to shrug off the Parkland massacre, the new political activism of outraged citizens (many of them women) all stem from a common perception: namely, that it’s not just about ideology, but that far too much power rests in the hands of men who are simply bad people. ...

Again, there’s no guarantee that the forces of decency will win. In particular, the U.S. electoral system is in effect rigged in favor of Republicans, so Democrats will need to win the popular vote by something like seven percentage points to take the House. But we’re seeing a real uprising here, and there’s every reason to hope that change is coming.

COUNTDOWN TO GIVING AMERICA DEMOCRATIC CONTROL OF CONGRESS: 250 days

[longship]

2. Add this to it.

I nevertheless find the surge of indignation now building in America hugely encouraging. And yes, I think it’s all one surge. The #MeToo movement, the refusal to shrug off the Parkland massacre, the new political activism of outraged citizens (many of them women) all stem from a common perception: namely, that it’s not just about ideology, but that far too much power rests in the hands of men who are simply bad people.

And Exhibit A for that proposition is, of course, the tweeter in chief himself.

At the same time, what strikes me about the reaction to this growing backlash is not just its vileness, but its lameness. Trump’s response to Parkland — let’s arm teachers! — wasn’t just stupid, it was cowardly, an attempt to duck the issue, and I think many people realized that. Or consider how the Missouri G.O.P. has responded to the indictment of Gov. Eric Greitens, accused of trying to blackmail his lover with nude photos: by blaming … George Soros. I am not making this up.

Or consider the growing wildness of speeches by right-wing luminaries like Wayne LaPierre of the N.R.A. They’ve pretty much given up on making any substantive case for their ideas in favor of rants about socialists trying to take away your freedom. It’s scary stuff, but it’s also kind of whiny; it’s what people sound like when they know they’re losing the argument.

BING, BING, BING, BING, BING!
(I think that's the universal game show winning sound. No sad trombones here.)

[Pluvious]

3. Thanks 4now - here's a helpful tip for cleaning up links

You can usually clean off the URI meta data to the right of, and including, the question mark (use preview button to confirm).

Cheers

[4now]

4. Thanks I was wondering what to do about that

[Paladin]

5. Thank you, Paul Krugman.

From your keyboard to God's ears.

[DavidDvorkin]

6. It awakens periodically

And then goes right back to sleep.

[Hortensis]

7. Suddenly, it seems as if "the worst lack all conviction,

while the best are filled with a passionate intensity."

Oh, it is starting to look that way. For those who don't remember that dread-ful poem that has had its own second coming,

The Second Coming, by Willilam Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?