VDH Predicts a Counterrevolution

Historian Victor Davis Hanson writes of the current urban malaise for National Review.

We have not seen the full extent of the ongoing counterrevolution that will thin out the violent in the streets and in some ways fall more heavily on those who have empowered it. There will be a counterrevolution because without one there is not much of America left. And about 250 million people liked the America prior to March 1 and finally, in extremis, won’t so easily give it up.

Washington and Lincoln, after all, do not just belong to some unhinged Antifa thug mad at America because he is mostly mad at himself. To almost every Jacobin tactic, from defunding the police to violent attacks on federal property, the people are opposed. And they make no apologies for their past or present.

The first decisive battle in that counterrevolution occurs on November 3, with the reelection of President Trump. Momentum is important, do your part to ensure our side wins. 

A Gloomy Prognosis

Writing at The National Interest, Robert D. Blackwell looks down the road at future China-U.S. relations and finds the prognosis grim. He posts nine theses concerning what will likely happen between the two nations. I'll share the last two with you.

8. Regarding the United States and China, there will be no grand bargain on world order, no strategic modus vivendi, no accepted rules of the road, no staying in agreed lanes, because they are too far apart on their national interests and values.

9. Instead, the two nations will be on the edge of crisis for decades, and only quality diplomacy on both sides will rescue them from likely tragedy.

Betting on people acting in their own self-interest is nearly always a safe bet, and “tragedy” is mankind’s default setting. 

Adventures in Wokeness

You've heard "wokesters" trying to get us to use the term Latinx because Latino and Latina are too gender-specific for the gender-fluid? Disrn reports the Pew polling organization decided to find out what Hispanics thought of the Latinx label; it turns out the answer is "not much."

A survey conducted in Spanish and English in the United States in December 2019 showed that only 23% of Hispanic or Latino adults surveyed know about the term. Only 3% said they describe themselves as "Latinx," while 76% said they had never heard the term.

Translation: Of the 23% who've ever heard the term, roughly 7 out of 8 don't use the term. I intend to continue using "Hispanic" which dodges the gender issue but some believe excludes Portuguese-speaking Brazilians.

A Unique Choice

This is too good to pass up, a Tweet by Robert Barnes reposted by Instapundit:

In order to appeal to disaffected black voters who might lean toward protest voting (Kanye) or not voting (2016), Democrats ingeniously picked the one black candidate whose parents are not from America, whose ancestors had slaves, and who spent her career locking up black men.

Finding someone with those unique qualifications can’t have been an easy task. Dems must have had top men (classical Indie reference) working on it.

Weird Pharmacological Science

A website called Disrn reports the findings of a study looking at autism. Hat tip to Stephen Green at Instapundit for the link.

A recent analysis of more than 500,000 Canadian mothers and their children revealed a 50% increase in the risk of autism in kids whose mothers had used marijuana while pregnant, according to a report published Monday in Nature Medicine.

Researchers found that the rate of autism diagnoses among children with in utero cannabis exposure was 2.2%. Of those whose mothers did not use the drug during pregnancy, only 1.4% were diagnosed with autism.

While it is tempting to speculate that cannabis exposure caused autism, it is equally possible that those mothers with a genetic predisposition to autism were more likely to use marijuana as a form of self-medication. Correlational studies, like this, point to the likelihood of a relationship between two things shown to correlate, but do not establish causality. 

On the other hand, if you contemplate pregnancy, avoiding marijuana wouldn’t do any harm, and could benefit your baby.

About Political Debates

Not all debates are created equal. On TV this evening I saw a talking head interviewing Kamala Harris about her beating up on Joe Biden in the first Dem. debate. Her response, bubbly, laughing: "It was a debate, a debate." 

Her clear implication was the event was like a college debate event where you said whatever was necessary to win, regardless of whether you believed it. In fact in team debating, you might be asked to take either side of the issue and defend it, as a competitive sport.

Unfortunately, a candidates' debate is a different animal altogether. In it you are expected to state your actual beliefs and be willing to defend them forever more. It is supposed to be an event where voters learn your values, decide if you represent their views and might earn their votes. 

Untold ink has been devoted to dumping on candidates who state one belief and then later a different, conflicting belief. They are accused of the heinous offense of "flip-flopping." It's apparently one of the worst political offenses, ranking right up there with pandering.

Laughing off having made party nominee Biden look weak on civil rights, because she won debate points doing so, isn't going to work for Ms. Harris. She needs a better excuse.

Tuesday Snark

Headline at The Gateway Pundit.

Flashback: Kamala Harris Launched Her Political Career in Bedroom As Mistress of Married Mayor Willie Brown

Everybody has to start somewhere. In those years, Brown had the levers of CA power at his fingertips.

More Americans Renounce Citizenship

The Daily Wire reports nearly 6000 Americans renounced U.S. citizenship in favor of some other nationality in the first six months of 2020. That's roughly 0.00181% or 1 of every 55,000 citizens, not precisely an avalanche.

In the first six months of 2020, a whopping 5,816 Americans renounced their citizenship, more than twice the number who renounced in all of 2019. The first six months also showed a massive increase over the previous six months – a 1,210% increase from the 444 people who renounced during that time.

The article identifies complications of the IRS tax code for overseas residents as a major reason for changing citizenship. The author tries to ascribe some of the renunciations to Trump, but that doesn't explain the increase over the prior years, as he's been President since early 2017. 

I don't have a problem with people giving up citizenship, as long as they do it before the election. I'd rather grumpy souls didn't vote.

Biden Chooses Harris

Democrat presidential nominee-apparent Joe Biden has selected Kamala Harris as his vice presidential running mate. The Jamaican-Indian woman is CA's junior senator and its former state Attorney General. 

You will see her referred to as African-American, which is not accurate. Her ancestry is Jamaican (father) and Indian (mother), both her parents are immigrants to this country, where she was born. Her husband is white.

I have read she has a claim to Jamaican (dual) citizenship, should she choose to exercise it. I know of no evidence that she has done so.

Sen. Harris was a protégé of CA's Mr. Democrat, Willie Brown, retired after 15 years as Speaker of the Assembly and 8 years as Mayor of San Francisco. Ironically, Brown recently publicly advised her not to accept the VP nomination, advice she obviously choose to ignore.

It will be interesting to see to what extent her prosecutorial role in locking thousands of Black Americans in CA prisons will have on her popularity with that key Democrat constituency. 

When Trump was elected, I predicted the Democrats would never again nominate a white candidate for president. I was wrong, they weren't that smart. 

Recognizing the problem, they have nominated a non-white candidate for VP. If that fails, we'll see ... maybe the failure will convince them.

Watch Cities Decay

Multiple sources are reporting the retirement of Seattle's female, African-American police chief. Apparently the last straw was the decision to cut officers by 100 and the pay of the chief and others. 

Is anyone surprised? Certainly not I. Expect similar retirements and resignations of big city police chiefs across the country, much as you should expect similar actions by lower echelon cadre in these police organizations. 

Today the New York Times has an article (behind paywall) saying retail chains are abandoning Manhattan, finding the location "unsustainable" in the modern era. Can other large, badly-run cities be far behind?

This isn't a year for mayors to shine, weakness in the face of adversity appears to be a prerequisite for office. Bill de Blasio is bad, but so are Lori Lightfoot, Eric Garcetti and the unmemorable mayors of Seattle, Minneapolis, Portland, SF, etc. 

Truman Was Right

Over the last few days people have noted the anniversaries of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One supposes most note those to tut-tut at the immorality of so doing.

COTTonLINE takes this opportunity to restate our opinion President Harry S. Truman was 100% justified in making the decision to end the war quickly. The Empire of Japan richly deserved every bit of punishment they received, including our use of atomic bombs.

Weird Bio-Political Science

Steven Hayward of Power Line shares a research finding from the journal Politics and the Life Sciences. Quoting from the abstract of “Effects of Physical Attractiveness on Political Beliefs“:

Controlling for socioeconomic status, we find that more attractive individuals are more likely to report higher levels of political efficacy, identify as conservative, and identify as Republican.

As I’ve reminded you for years, the GOP is historically a party for those for whom this society “works,” produces a good life. The other guys get the rest, those for whom - for whatever reason(s) - it does not “work.”

Afterthought: Regular COTTonLINE readers must be a good looking group.

Where the Cruise Ships Hide

The other DrC and I have done a lot of cruising in the last 20 years, a majority of it on Princess ships where we have “status” meaning we’ve sailed enough (a) to get free WiFi, laundry and priority boarding and (b) to have favorite ships, entertainers and routes. Thus an article in Forbes concerning where the ships are now that cruising is on virus hiatus was interesting.

It turns out most “hotel side” crew - waiters, housekeeping, bartenders, busboys, shopkeepers and entertainment staff - have been sent home, in a process that took a couple of months. The ships are moored where they don’t pay dockage fees in a condition known as “warm layup” where they run the AC, plumbing, power generation, etc. to keep them working.

According to Carnival, the ships in warm layup are staffed with crew members at what is called “safe-manning” levels, which for larger ships is an average of about 100 crew members – including deck officers navigating the ship, engineers in charge of propulsion and power, a security team, and hotel and kitchen staff, along with medical professionals for any crew needs.

Unlike during normal cruising operations, these few crew each have a private room - one of the empty guest rooms - to hold down contagion. They basically keep the ship in good condition, safe and ready to deploy when the epidemic eases. 

Fox News Wins June, July

The following is from The New York Times, of all places, and you have to know it galled them to report it. Hat tip to Lucianne.com for the link.

In June and July, Fox News was the highest-rated television channel in the prime-time hours of 8 to 11 p.m. Not just on cable. Not just among news networks. All of television.

The rest of the Times article is a failed attempt to lessen the impact of the above 4 sentences. If you assume the Fox News viewership is composed almost entirely of Trump voters, what does that tell you about the election in early November? I find it an optimistic omen. 

Police Retiring ASAP

Blogging at Instapundit, Ed Driscoll links to a series of articles reporting large numbers of sworn police leaving the Portland, Seattle, and Minneapolis PDs. Most are going via retirements, some are just bailing.

I can't imagine anyone who reads this blog being even slightly surprised at this outcome. One supposes similar stories exist with respect to police exits in NYC, LA, Chicago, St. Louis, and Atlanta. These are all places tending to diss their LEOs. 

For its own good, our society needs to get over this police-bashing phase. Maybe things will calm down after the election.

President Acts on Covid Relief

The business publication Forbes reports four executive actions President Trump is taking to provide relief to those suffering from the Covid-19 shutdown. He does this in reaction to the inability of Congress to agree on a relief package. The four are these:

Extending enhanced unemployment benefits
A payroll tax holiday
Federal eviction moratorium
Federal student loan suspension

He indicates the first two will last to the end of the year, the duration of the second two remains to be determined. Budget hawks won't love these. It is possible he does this to goad the Congress into reaching an agreement. Trump's willingness to act when Congress cannot or will not won't be lost on voters.

Weird Cohort Research

United Press International reports research findings showing aging baby boomers are not as sharp as their parents were at the same age. The author speculates some reasons for this, but is honestly unconvincing.

I suspect it is more likely that usage of street drugs may be the culprit. When teased for his sluggish response to some snarky repartee directed his way, a touchy boomer colleague of mine replied, "You probably don't realize the drugs take a toll." 

As I recollect, my response was an ironic snort. However, I found the interaction memorable as it occurred over two decades ago, 

A Great Scattering?

We’ve written repeatedly about things causing people to abandon cities, about the move to outer suburbs and exurbs, about working from home. As we noted yesterday, three factors push this: Covid-19, BLM/Antifa, and high taxes. The impact of these things possibly could be as large as was the industrial revolution.

Writing for The Atlantic, Derek Thompson does a good job of looking at the pros and cons of this happening. He makes the point that arrival of a good Covid vaccine and subsidence of urban unrest might lure people back to their offices and urban life.

His three main “might happen” things are these. First, “The ‘Telepresence’ Revolution Will Reshape the U.S. Workforce.” Second, “Remote Work Will Increase Free-Agent Entrepreneurship.” And third, “A Superstar-City Exodus Will Reshape American Politics.”

The third references the supermajority of Democrats in large cities moving out into less urban areas, thus improving Democrat electoral prospects. I think Thompson overlooks the impact of Mile’s Law here.

Move city Democrats to the country and, since where they sit has changed, where they stand on issues is likely to change as well. People with green space around them don’t need as much “nanny state” control of neighbors who are now at arm’s length or greater rather than packed together elbow to elbow.

I’ve lived on a city lot (for 9 years) and in the country (for decades), if my neighbor in the city belched in his back yard, I heard it. If he burned leaves I smelled it. If he threw a BBQ party, I heard that chatter. Where I live in the country none of those things impact me. My neighbors have much more latitude, as do I, before either of us bothers the other. It is much easier to be libertarian or laissez faire when density is lower.

Regardless, Thompson’s discussion is a good one, worth your time and interest.

Using the Purse Strings

Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR, no known relation) has introduced legislation entitled the Campus Free Speech Restoration Act (CAFSRA). It's intent is to force higher education campuses to protect free speech rights of faculty and students, something they don't now do. As Power Line notes:

It provides that colleges and universities that promulgate restrictive speech codes, so-called free-speech zones, and other unconstitutional speech policies will lose their eligibility to receive federal student loans and grants through the Higher Education Act. Private universities will also lose eligibility unless they both fully disclose their policies on free expression and accept contractual responsibility for enforcing those policies.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has signed on so it is likely the bill will be voted on, perhaps pass the Senate. The House will not bother, and the issue will be used as campaign fodder in the run-up to Nov. 3. For what it's worth, COTTonLINE endorses this modest effort to counteract the leftward bias in higher ed.

The New Mobility

Various sources report both Mayor Bill De Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo, leaders of New York City and State respectively, are desperately trying to lure 'home' the wealthy who left the state during the corona virus epidemic. Good luck with that, their tax base must be hurting big time.

If the wealthy have found they can manage their lives and fortunes from where they are now, why go back? Some will of course, (many?) others won't. They can count on lower taxes where they are now, perhaps better living conditions as well. Shopping online works (even in rural WY) plus who wants to go to a crowded theater and sit elbow to elbow when the "Chinese flu" is killing people.

Add together the contagion factor of public transportation and crowded living, plus the unrest and property destruction of the Black Lives Matter movement egged on by Antifa, and the high taxes cities impose. Urban life doesn't look even as good as it did before, and at its best that was a mixed blessing.

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California has gotten away with blue state craziness because it offers so much in lifestyle options - ideal weather and virtually any terrain you fancy (mountains, seashore, desert, farmland). You can literally go skiing one weekend, surfing the next, and dune buggy riding a third - CA people do this and much more. 

Californians put up with the high taxes and eco-nuttiness, or have so far. That may be changing, the outmigration of middle class tax payers is substantial. They are being replaced with "tax eaters," poor immigrants whose taxes don't pay for the government services they consume. 

As long as wealthy techies stay in CA, their taxes may cover the tab. When they wise up and go where taxes are low, CA will be in the same hurt NY and NJ are in now. If government breaks up the tech monopolies, tech fortunes will be fewer, smaller, harder won, and that outmigration may occur.

As an old Chinese curse had it, "May you live in interesting times." 

We do.