mastodon 4.7.3Author of Icebound: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World; One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps; and The Secret History of Vladimir Nabokov. Also: words in WaPo, NYRB, & all over. I'd rather be on a boat in the Arctic.
I got a chance to talk with the splendid Anat Shenker-Osario, who laid out out why the message of moderation from reactionary centrists is lethal and explained how to build a better country by reframing our public conversations. https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/no-thing-that-they-believe
I wrote about why it's useful to think of our democracy as a sick society, in which we have no shortage of diagnoses and prescriptions for the patient, but in the end are faced with that pesky public health challenge of persuading individuals and communities to embrace change.
https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/a-sick-society
I wrote about how smart people convince themselves Trump will effectively carry out their pet policy, and the way that David Boies and Nassim Nicholas Taleb rooting for Trump at different times reveals the danger of monkey-paw wishes.
https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/monkeypaw-wishes
"In his embrace of corruption that seeks to supplant independent justice and open society with thug enforcers and a warped economy of bribes and favors, Trump doesn’t just want to be a player, able to operate in unlawful ways in illicit spaces—he wants to run the whole game." I wrote about all this garbage from the last week. https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/corruption-overload
