Stephan: I wrote this because a reader wrote to challenge me, saying "you say all these negative things about conservatives and the Republican Party. Can you prove any of it with facts, or is it all your political orientation and dislike of Trump?" Here is my answer, and today's only story. Are you listening Georgia? Your vote for two senators is going to change America's future for good or ill.
For the past 15 years I have published in Explore I have tried to make the point that social values determine social outcomes, based on objective quantifiable social outcome data. And that on the basis of that data, it is clear that when forming social policy the best option is always the one that is the most compassionate, life-affirming and fostering of wellbeing. That option proves always easier to implement than the alternatives: more productive, more efficient, nicer to live under, longer enduring, and much much cheaper.1
I know this is going to be controversial, but I want to talk about a second point this data teaches, a trend that is shaping the United States in many ways. It’s components are frequently discussed, but the over-arching trend is rarely mentioned. I am speaking here of the objectively verified failure of conservative social policies to foster wellbeing. Where conservative social policies prevail, Americans, men, women, children, regardless of race or gender, are less healthy and have shorter more miserable lives than people in other developed nations. So it may be controversial but I […]
Stephan: The incompetence and failure of Trump and his administration to deal effectively with the Covid-19 pandemic, and his politicization of mask-wearing has not only killed hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children, it has so over-stressed an already fragile illness profit system that it is at the breaking point. Doctors, nurses, orderlies, technicians are all stressed to the point that they just can't continue.
It is my hope that the end result of all this sadness, stress, and death will be a complete re-evaluation of healthcare in the United States, and the creation of a real healthcare system, universal and birthright, that is based on fostering wellbeing. Why do we settle for less?
Dr. Kelly McGregory had to close down her private pediatric practice outside Minneapolis because of the pandemic. “It was devastating,” she said. “That was my baby.”Credit…Jenn Ackerman for The New York Times
Thousands of medical practices are closing, as doctors and nurses decide to retire early or shift to less intense jobs.
Two years ago, Dr. Kelly McGregory opened her own pediatric practice just outside Minneapolis, where she could spend as much time as she wanted with patients and parents could get all of their questions answered.
But just as her practice was beginning to thrive, the coronavirus hit the United States and began spreading across the country.
“As an independent practice with no real connection to a big health system, it was awful,” Dr. McGregory said. At one point, she had only three surgical masks left and worried that she could no longer safely treat patients.
Families were also staying away, concerned about catching the virus. “I did some telemedicine, but it wasn’t enough volume to really replace what I was doing in the clinic,” […]
Stephan: Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat has said some of the most intelligent things I have encountered concerning Trump and his groupies in and out of office. Her book, Strongmen: From Mussolini to the Present, explains what is going on in the United States better than anything else I have read. We, as a country, must confront this psychotic part of ourselves if we are going to succeed as a country in the future.
Credit: Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat
Republicans have become “lackeys” for Donald Trump, a fascism expert explained on Monday.
“Hey all, it’s later than usual, but it’s never too late to talk about collaborationism,” NYU professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat said in a video posted on Monday evening.
“Authoritarians are nothing without their enablers,” she explained. “And here we have the GOP, which played the classic role of the elites who bring the extremists into the system, thinking they can control him. I call this the ‘pivot delusion’ — that if they give him power, he’ll calm down.”
“Over and over in history, such elites have struck ‘authoritarian bargains’ as they’re known,” she continued. “They are loyal to the leader and he supports their causes.”ON THE PODCAST: Election Day 2000… all over again?
“For many in the GOP — whether it’s [Bill] Barr or [Mike] or [Mike] Pompeo — this means supporting white Christian hegemony,” Ben-Ghiat warned.
Stephan: Ultimately, everything with Trump becomes a self-referential grift, and yet his groupies never seem to care. As with Hitler and Mussolini, all shortcomings are accepted, all psychotic behaviors are excused.
Shortly before the major news networks called the election for Joe Biden on Saturday, Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien dialed into a private call for top donors and allies to insist his candidate could still win the race — and ask them one more time to chip in.
The margins are close, Stepien said, and the campaign is still fighting. And while he recognized the call was meant as a briefing on the recount fights and not a fundraiser, Stepien made an ask anyway: He urged the donors to go to the campaign website and give to Trump’s legal defense fund.
Much of the money raised by Stepien and the Trump campaign won’t go towards challenging election results, however, but to help set the stage for the president’s next act. The Trump campaign has a recount fund, but the money won’t go to it unless someone gives more than $8,333. Rather, 60 percent of a donation up to that amount for Trump’s “Official Election Defense Fund” is routed to a new PAC started this week by […]
Stephan: When you surrender yourself, and adhere to your leader's sicknesses rather than his integrity your behavior becomes an expression of his weaknesses, his hate, his fear. And this is reflected in the social outcome data of the society in which you live. Here is the proof of this.
The number of hate crime murders hit a record high in 2019, while overall hate crime incidents rose by nearly 3% last year, according to the FBI’s annual hate crime report, published on Monday.
“Racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists — specifically white supremacist extremists — will remain the most persistent and lethal threat in the Homeland,” the Department of Homeland Security said in October.
By the numbers: There were 7,314 reported hate crimes in 2019, up from 7,120 the year before. Of 7,103 single-bias incidents — where one or more offenses are motivated by the same bias — reported last year:
55.8% were prompted by race, ethnicity or ancestry bias.
Nearly half (48.4%) of race-motivated hate crimes were due to anti-Black bias.
About 14.1% of race-motivated crimes were anti-Hispanic and 4.3% anti-Asian.
21.4% were motivated by religious bias
There were 953 reports of crimes targeting Jewish people and institutions last year, up about 12% since 2018.
