By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Bird Song of the Day
Northern Mockingbird, Edith G. Read Wildlife Sanctuary, Westchester, New York, United States. “Amazing repertoire of other species’ songs woven into this song.”
In Case You Might Miss…
- New Covid charts: No bad news.
- Adolph Reed makes another call.
- Blame Cannons: The Democrat’s “leftward” turn.
- Boeing puts a finance guy on the board, layoffs.
Politics
“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles
Trump Transition
“Trump’s team skips FBI background checks for some Cabinet picks” [CNN]. “President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team is bypassing traditional FBI background checks for at least some of his Cabinet picks while using private companies to conduct vetting of potential candidates for administration jobs, people close to the transition planning say. Trump and his allies believe the FBI system is slow and plagued with issues that could stymie the president-elect’s plan to quickly begin the work of implementing his agenda, people briefed on the plans said. Critics say the intrusive background checks sometimes turn up embarrassing information used to inflict political damage. The discussions come as Trump has floated several controversial choices for high-level positions in the US government – including Matt Gaetz for attorney general and Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence. Ultimately, the president has the final authority on who he nominates and decides to share intelligence with, regardless of the established protocol set in the wake of World War II to make sure those selections don’t have unknown foreign ties or other issues that could raise national security concerns. But circumventing background checks would be bucking a long-established norm in Washington. It also reflects Trump’s deep mistrust of the national security establishment, which he derides as the Deep State. Sources say he has privately questioned the need for law enforcement background checks.” • I don’t understand this. Surely the organs of state security are completely apolitical?
2024 Post Mortem
“Trump broke the Democrats’ thermostat” [John Burn-Murdoch, Financial Times]. “[T]he data shows Democrats taking a sharp turn leftward on social issues over the past decade. This has distanced them from the median voter, just as Wright’s cartoon depicted. We see this not only in Democratic voters’ self-reported ideology, but in their views on issues including immigration and whether or not minorities need extra help to succeed in society. Notably, .” I think the chart shows the change began in 2008, and accelerated in 2015. More: ” This suggests that Trump’s election radicalised the left, not the right. Some counter that this is simply what progressive politics is, but the evidence suggests otherwise. America’s decades-long progress towards racial and sexual tolerance and equality has been a gradual shift, led by progressives with the centre and right quickly following. The pivots of the past decade, by contrast, have been abrupt and are leaving the majority behind. They are better characterised not as moves towards greater tolerance and equality but as shifts in rhetoric or proposed solutions for addressing disparities, where there is plenty of room for disagreement without bigotry. Many of these pivots originated with the activists and non-profit staffers that surround the Democratic party. In an invaluable piece of research carried out in 2021, political scientists Alexander Furnas and Timothy LaPira at the think-tank Data for Progress found that these “political elites” or tastemakers hold views often well to the left of the average voter — and even the average Democratic voter — on cultural issues.” • Handy chart:
One reason the 2020 Sanders campaign messaging changed to idpol. (Of course, “leftward,” as is usual in mainstream discourse, is a misnomer:; identity politics is just another flavor of liberalism. Leftism means putting the working class first; no serious Democrat believes in that, though of course lip service is occasionally paid.
Realignment and Legitimacy
“A Triumph for Trump’s Republicans” [Peggy Noonan]. “It is worth being moved that in our huge, restive, cynical and yearning nation we peacefully, and with complete public acceptance of the outcome, made a dramatic national judgment this week. Just about every adult citizen took part and took it seriously. All together they produced something we needed: a clear outcome, one delivered without charges of large-scale chicanery or even small-scale so far as we know. There will be a peaceful transfer of power. A lot of people had to do a lot of things right to make this happen.” Allow me to note that I (paraphrasing) always qualified “the Democrats cannot allow Trump to take office” with “if they believe what they say” (about “fascism”, “our democracy”, etc. As happens so often, no matter how hard I try, I’m never cynical enough; that Kamala’s 2024 Democrats would be as cynical about deploying “fascism” as Obama’s 2008 “Democrats”… .Well, doggone it. Back to Nooners, who concludes: “I like what Liz Cheney tweeted Wednesday: ‘Our nation’s democratic system functioned last night and we have a new President-elect. All Americans are bound, whether we like the outcome or not, to accept the results.’ We also have a responsibility as members of ‘the greatest nation on earth’ to ‘support and defend our Constitution, preserve the rule of law, and ensure that our institutions hold over these coming four years.’ She singled out the courts, the press, ‘and those serving in our federal, state and local governments’ to be ‘the guardrails of democracy.’” • That “guardrails” metaphor shows lazy thinking and lazy writing (the metaphor presumes we’re on the right road, there’s gas in the tank, there’s gas at the next gas station, as opposed to feral mobs with torches, etc.). I’m surprised to find it in Nooners’ peroration. Yet another sign of civilizational collapse; Nooners creates clichés for other people; she doesn’t retail them.
“Going Forward from the Edge of the Abyss” [Adolph Reed, Nonsite]. Must-read. “Trump has no new coalition; he can’t because those “groups” aren’t real as groups, and people identify with them largely around thin identities more like consumer taste “communities” or partisan fans of sports teams. (Recall that some people got cues for what they should believe or how to line up on current issue positions from watching Archie Bunker.) That’s why so much of this politics reduces to “you say potAYto; I say potAHto.” This is not to say that the reified categories couldn’t become constituencies on the same principle as the Heisenberg effect; part of the beauty of interest-group politics is that tossing some resources around will produce constituencies—or at least people who claim to speak for them. And it’s not just the right; that’s also how the Democrats have been reinventing every four years under differing labels that magical constituency of “reasonable” upper-status, suburban, moderate Republican (white) women, which hasn’t materialized in thirty years or more, or their happy-face version of Passing of the Great Race in the simple-minded contention that changing racial demographics would provide yet another way to win without confronting capitalism’s contradictions. Indeed, constructing those taxonomies of identity configurations and reifying them into bodies of shared political interests is, ironically within a so self-consciously and performatively antiracist ‘left,’ quintessentially racist. Of course, those won’t be the takeaways.” No, they won’t. Crucially: “We have to face up to the fact—finally—that all we can expect from Dem success is kicking the can of confrontation with fascism down the road for four years. But for that approach to make sense someone, and only the labor-left can lead it or maybe even do it, has to spend another four years between elections organizing a real constituency for a different way of talking and thinking about and doing politics. To put it bluntly, we won’t be able to face up to the fascist juggernaut without working to build an actual popular constituency for a different, openly working-class-based politics. I’m not alone in noting that Trump/ism is not an anomaly; it’s now the point of the lance of what’s clearly a fascist international…. [W]e may be facing the equivalent of a T-intersection at which there are only two possible, totally opposite directions to take.” • If Reed is willing to make the call… Well, I’m gonna have to examine my priors by returning to Paxton; as readers know, Reed has an excellent track record, having called his shot on Obama in 1996. It would be so like the Democrats to so pollute the discourse on fascism that nobody could take it seriously (and certainly I veer in that direction, because I process so much of their output). My immediate reaction is that people should be thinking of that general strike on May Day, 2028, and not the next Presidential cycle, let alone the midterms…..
Syndemics
“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison
Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).
Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!
Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (wastewater); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).
Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).
Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).
Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, KF, KidDoc, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).
Stay safe out there!
| Wastewater | |
| ★ This week[1] CDC November 11 | Last Week[2] CDC (until next week): |
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| Variants [3] CDC November 9 | ★ Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC November 9 |
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| Hospitalization | |
| ★ New York[5] New York State, data November 14: | ★ National [6] CDC November 14: |
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| Positivity | |
| National[7] Walgreens November 11: | Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic November 9: |
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| Travelers Data | |
| ★ Positivity[9] CDC October 28: | ★ Variants[10] CDC October 28: |
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| Deaths | |
| Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11] CDC November 2: | Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12] CDC November 2: |
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LEGEND
1) ★ for charts new today; all others are not updated.
2) For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open image in new tab.”
NOTES
[1] (CDC) Good news!
[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.
[3] (CDC Variants) KP.* still popular. XEC has entered the chat. That WHO label, “Ommicron,” has done a great job normalizing successive waves of infection.
[4] (ED) Down.
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Steadily down.
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). Actually improved; it’s now one of the few charts to show the entire course of the pandemic to the present day.
[7] (Walgreens) Down.
[8] (Cleveland) Down.
[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Down.
[10] (Travelers: Variants). Now XEC.
[11] Deaths low, positivity down.
[12] Deaths low, ED down.
Stats Watch
Manufacturing: “United States NY Empire State Manufacturing Index” [Trading Economics]. “The NY Empire State Manufacturing Index climbed to 31.2 in November 2024, up from -11.9 in October and surprising analysts who expected it at -0.7. It was the best reading since December 2021.”
Manufacturing: “United States Industrial Production” [Trading Economics]. “Industrial Production in the United States decreased 0.3% year-on-year in October 2024, following a downwardly revised 0.7% fall in September.”
Manufacturing: “Boeing appoints former Vanguard CEO Tim Buckley as new board member” [Reuters]. “Boeing board has elected former Vanguard Group CEO Tim Buckley as its newest member, effective Jan. 1, the U.S. planemaker said on Friday. Buckley, 55, will be Boeing’s tenth director since 2019, the company said, adding that he will serve on the board’s Finance and Governance & Public Policy committees. Prior to becoming Vanguard’s CEO, Buckley held multiple roles during his over three-decade career at the top U.S. asset manager, including chief investment officer and chief information officer.” • A finance guy? Really?
Manufacturing: “Hundreds of SPEEA employees included in Boeing layoffs, union confirms” [KING5]. “Hundreds of SPEEA employees are included in Boeing’s sweeping job cuts, the union confirmed to KING 5 on Thursday night. SPEEA, the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, represents more than 17,000 engineers, technical workers, pilots and other aerospace industry professionals. The union confirmed that 438 of their Boeing employees will be laid off, including 218 members of their professional unit and 220 technical employees… . The company did say both union and non-union employees and managers, and executives are included. In October, Boeing said striking machinists with the IAM District 751 would not be impacted by the job cuts.”
Manufacturing: “Boeing spending millions to save major supplier” [SAN]. “Boeing is making a big financial move to save one of its key suppliers. The jet maker this week confirmed it’ll advance $350 million to Spirit AeroSystems. Spirit makes the fuselage for Boeing planes. Boeing is doling out money to keep Spirit afloat. This comes as the supplier is experiencing high levels of inventory and financial problems. Spirit is the largest employer in Wichita, Kansas. The company has announced it might not be able to keep operating due to billions of dollars in losses over the last four years.”
Manufacturing: “Boeing Stock Sale Was Supposed to Mark the Bottom. Shares Just Keep Dropping.” [Barron’s]. “The biggest factor in the recent decline in shares just might be the election. President-elect Trump has promised tariffs on China. A trade war with China would hit Boeing more than just about any other company. China is a big buyer of planes and has accounted for roughly 20% of Boeing’s total deliveries before recent turmoil. How the trade relationship with China will develop under Trump is anyone’s guess.”
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 49 Neutral (previous close: 60 Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 62 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Nov 15 at 1:41:16 PM ET.
“Virality in cartography: What makes a map go viral?” [GeoAwecome]. “While researching viral cartography, Penn State geographer Anthony Robinson found that the above map had spawned a series of copycat maps, many of which also went viral. These included both the serious (what ‘if only people of color voted’) and the silly (‘If only goats voted’). Robinson found more than 500 such unique maps on the internet. And in the context of our battle with fake news, this is a very dangerous thing. When a map conveys more validity than it deserves, it becomes very easy to fabricate the truth; we all know how convincing auto-generated videos called ‘deep fakes’ seem. As Robinson says, ‘It’s cool that anybody can make a map now. They can take election data and do something creative with it, and it can be very helpful. But it’s also easy to make something that looks like it’s authoritative and use it as a weapon.’” • Some would urge that maps are always used as weapons; the original Red/Blue distinction was amplified by a map (I don’t think we had a concept of virality back then). Anyhow, here is the “above” map:
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Well, tapping the sign didn’t work…
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