Combatting DEI

The news aggregator msn.com has a Washington Examiner story dealing with the near-universal university obsession with DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion). It highlights the success FL Govl. Ron DeSantis has had in beginning to dismantle the expensive DEI/critical race theory bureaucracies so common in academia. 

The author believes the ideological commitment of  university folk to DEI is not strong and he cites some evidence to that effect. Perhaps he is correct; I believe there are two other factors to consider. 

First, I believe the author underrates the extent to which DEI efforts are an attempt to keep enrollments and particularly graduations up, the doors open, and state funding flowing. White and Asian kids from the middle and upper middle classes are the cohort of young people who traditionally sustained graduation levels, and kept enrollments growing. 

Birth rates for these groups have been in free fall for decades. To some degree, DEI efforts are directed at trying to "manage" the replacement of the traditional students with BIPOC kids who traditionally have not had high graduation rates. 

Nobody wants to shrink the campus footprint, fire faculty, etc. To keep faculty and administrators employed, it is crucial to sustain graduation levels with whatever students are available and therefore retain public support.

Second, DEI hiring at universities has been a sort of WPA project to create government jobs for the otherwise nearly unemployable graduates of Black Studies, Latinx Studies, Women's Studies and LGBTQ+ Studies programs. 

Not Their Job

At City Journal, James Piereson asks the question, “Is the Supreme Court Out of Step with Public Opinion?” His answer in brief is “No—it is more accurate to say that the Court is at odds with the progressive doctrines of those who make this claim.”

Actually, whether or not the Court is out of step is an irrelevancy. Being “in step” with the public is the job of the legislature and executive. Their degree of  being “in step” is tested every two years with a national election. We do not elect SCOTUS justices nor expect or require them to conform to public opinion. 

The Supreme Court’s job is deciding whether various acts are or are not constitutional. That is, legal under the basic law of the land - the Constitution as amended and subsequently interpreted by former Courts. 

Amendment processes exist by which the constitution can be made to conform to public opinion. They are intentionally cumbersome, slow, difficult and used only rarely.

More Millstone Than Lodestone

The Atlantic has a different “take” on the internal migration story we’ve been tagging “the big sort.” Here msn.com has echoed it for us outside the paywall. 

Author Jerusalem Demsas tends to view internal migration as largely driven by housing costs, whether or not a family with a median income can afford a median house or other dwelling. While she focuses on FL vs. NY, her analysis probably can be generalized to other parts of the country. She concludes:

I don’t have a lot of faith that the Republican regimes now attracting Americans will be invested in … inclusive growth. We’ve seen these states become hostile to LGBTQ rights, educational freedom, voting rights, racial equality, and more. Many Americans are being forced to choose between liberal values and financial security. Reversing that dynamic will require blue states to prioritize (housing) affordability.

Normal folk associate Demsas’ urban liberal values with homeless encampments, open drug use, street prostitution and violent criminals released to commit more crimes. Isn’t it likely that those choosing to move where “liberal values” aren’t so honored are those for whom such values have become more millstone than lodestone? 

The other factor Demsas considers is the work-from-home movement accelerated by the Covid pandemic. Downtown high rise office warrens fed workers by subway systems may be largely a thing of the past, and (personal aside) won’t that be wonderful if true? 

Full disclosure: I did the “commute on public transit downtown to work” thing for six weeks as a new college grad, hated it, and found a job in the suburbs where I could reasonably drive to work. As a CA native I have always considered an ignition key a birthright and my “wheels” a freedom machine.

SOTU

I gather public decorum was not much on display at the State Of The Union speech given last night. I did not watch the Biden speech, I am not by nature a masochist. The talking heads will be pontificating about it tonight on the news, alas. 

Speaking of which, why are we getting nightly updates on some prominent attorney who is charged with killing his wife and son? How is that a national story? That's the sort of stuff I try to avoid by not watching local news, but Bret Baier has been featuring it recently. Bummer.

Perpetrator Alleged

Writing for his Substack site, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, 85, makes a very detailed claim that the U.S. was responsible for planning and executing the sabotage of The Nord Stream II pipeline under the Baltic Sea. 

The pipeline was built to carry inexpensive Russian natural gas to Germany and perhaps a couple of other European countries. It was destroyed before it went into service.

On the other hand, the Washington Examiner reports that the White House and various intelligence and defense sources have denied Hersh's claims. The WE description of his article alleges it cites only one anonymous source. 

I would add that the U.S seems to be the only actor which has a clear and obvious motive for the sabotage. Alleging any other national actor did it requires very convoluted logic and a disguised motive, which is not in itself proof that the U.S. was responsible. 

I can imagine radical environmentalists would have liked to destroy the pipeline. It is unclear they possess the technical ability to accomplish it in 200+ feet of cold seawater.

What Maher Said

On Saturday I wrote praising Bill Maher's rant against woke culture, but complained I couldn't find the text to quote in my note. Now RealClearPolitics has a substantial portion of the Maher text, which I post here for your pleasure.

If you're part of today's woke revolution, you need to study the part of revolutions where they spin out of control because the revolutionaries get so drunk on their own purifying elixir, they imagine they can reinvent the very nature of human beings.

Yesterday, I asked ChatGPT, 'Are there any similarities between today's woke revolution and Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution of the 1960s' and it wrote back, 'How long do you have?

Because, again, in China, we saw how a revolutionary thought he could do a page-one rewrite of humans. Mao ordered his citizens to throw off the four olds - old thinking, old culture, old customs, and old habits. So, your whole life went in the garbage overnight. No biggie. And those who resisted were attacked by an army of purifiers called the Red Guard who went around the country putting dunce caps on people who didn't take to being a new kind of mortal being. A lot of pointing and shaming went on. Oh, and about a million dead. And the only way to survive was to plead insanity for the crime of being insufficiently radical and then apologize and thank the State for the chance to see what a piece of shit you are, and of course, submit to re-education, or as we call it here in America, freshman orientation.

We do have our own Red Guard here, but they do their rampaging on Twitter. Good intentions can turn into the insane arrogance of thinking your revolution is so fucking awesome and your generation is so mind-bendingly improved that you have bequeathed the world with a new kind of human, you're welcome.

With communists, that human was no longer selfish. In America today, that human is no longer born male or female. And obesity is not something that affects health. You can be healthy at any size. Really, we voted on it. A formerly serious magazine (The Atlantic) last year published with a straight face an article called 'Separating Sports By Sex Doesn't Make Sense.' Yes, it does. Because, again, we haven't reinvented homo sapiens since Crystal Pepsi came out.

I've spent 3 decades on T.V. mocking Republicans who said climate change was just a theory and now I have to deal with people who say you know what else is just a theory, biology?

No kidding. 

Big Sort Continues

Breitbart reports about the internal migration from high tax blue states to Florida and its impact on voting trends. They interview the Vice-Chair of the GOP in Florida, Christian Ziegler.

We’re trying to run up that score in voter registration,” he said, explaining that there were 250,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans in Florida when DeSantis first took office in 2018.

Now, there are more than 300,000 more Republicans than Democrats in Florida.

“So we’ve had this massive swing,” he said.

Ziegler provided another stunning data point, noting that one million net new people have moved to the state and registered to vote since DeSantis first took office.

“Out of a million, about half a million have registered as Republican, and only 17,000 have registered as Democrats. So we’re just obliterating the Democrats,” he said.

Power Line's John Hinderaker seems to think it's only Republicans doing the migrating. He writes:

Americans are sorting themselves into red and blue states. To be fair, though, the sort is mostly a one-way street: millions are leaving failing blue states and flocking to Florida, Texas, Tennessee, South Carolina, South Dakota, etc.

I'm not convinced he is correct. My conservative relatives who ranch in Colorado believe a lot of Democrats have moved there, turning their once purple state blue. I'd guess a fair few Democrats have moved from CA to liberal OR, too.

Update on Italy

Power Line's John Hinderaker shares some copy from the London Times (behind paywall) which reports newish Italian PM Georgia Meloni has been doing relatively well in her first 100 days. This, in spite of predictions of trouble as she heads a Conservative party - the Brothers of Italy.

Meloni, 46, has emerged from her unexpectedly smooth first 100 days in office, completed last week, as the most popular leader in the EU.

A fairly conservative budget passed in record time in December has kept Brussels and the bond dealers sweet, while in the past week she has clinched a landmark $8 billion (£6.6 billion) deal with Libya to supply gas and been hosted by the leaders of Sweden and Germany. A trip to Kyiv is expected soon. Her authority over her far more seasoned coalition partners Silvio Berlusconi, 86, and Matteo Salvini, 49, appears unchallenged.

An EU summit starting next Thursday could see some sympathy for Meloni’s tough line on migration, while her approval rating, at 52 per cent, is far higher than that of any of the other leaders who will be seated around the table with her,

COTTonLINE wishes Meloni good fortune and wide public support.

Ryan Goes On Record

I haven't been convinced Donald Trump is our best Republican nominee to run for president in 2024, although I will vote for him if nominated. That said, a point in Trump's favor is that former Speaker Paul Ryan says he would not support Trump if nominated.

Paul Ryan was very nearly the most useless supposed GOP Speaker in living memory. It was said he didn't want the job, but took it because others didn't want it. 

Ryan's behavior certainly said he proposed to do as little as possible in office. Nancy Pelosi demonstrated the speakership can be a powerful office. Paul Ryan demonstrated, if that is the word, that the House can pretty much get along after a fashion without a Speaker.

I was so bummed by Ryan's non-performance that I would seriously consider supporting nearly anything or anyone he opposed.

Saturday Snark

All images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures.

Deepfake Is A Real Threat

I admit I'd been taking deepfakes with a grain of salt, thinking they couldn't be all that good. Then I watched this example of President Biden saying stuff I absolutely know even he wouldn't say and I am convinced I was wrong. It sounds like Biden and he appears to be doing the talking. 

Much as I'd love for him to have said it, I know it is a fake of such quality as to be indistinguishable from the real thing, except for two things. Those are the content - what they have him saying - and the deepfake Biden makes fewer goofs and gaffes. 

Because of this last difference Biden ought to hire the folks who did this deepfake and have them build out his speeches. He'd be perceived as much more with it.

Maher Nails It

With the caveat that there are some F bombs, you really need to go watch Bill Maher's monologue about the woke revolution available on YouTube. If you don't want the entire program, just the monologue, the best way I know to get there is via this Steve Hayward post at Power Line.

Maher argues the woke are latter-day Red Guards, he ridicules them without mercy, and is funny at the same time using good examples and good illustrations. He makes the very cogent point that these crazies believe they can revise human nature - which they cannot do. 

Ignore (or enjoy, your choice) his rough language, savor his humor, and attend to his logic, which is rock solid. I've tried to find a transcription of the monologue to quote, but it doesn't seem to be available and I'm too lazy to create my own.

Friday Snark

All images courtesy of Politico's Cartoonists on the 

Week in Politics.

Death By Smart Phone?

Steve Hayward at Power Line has 3 charts, the first showing that motor vehicle fatality rates have declined dramatically over the past 100 years. The second shows pedestrian fatality rates fell until 2009, after which they began to climb rather steeply. 

The third chart (shown below) is the second chart with the advent of the smart phone superimposed to show that shortly after its introduction pedestrian fatalities began to zoom upward. As Hayward notes, it's probably not a coincidence.

Appetites

Breitbart Europe reports the U.K. Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza has issued a report showing the average teen begins viewing online pornography by age 13, with something like 10% beginning at age 9. By age 18 four out of five are watching porn.

I shouldn't wonder if such findings make some who grew up before the Internet a wee bit jealous. Perhaps we were the lucky ones, and didn't then know it.

A Reminder

UPI reports former President Trump, running for reelection, has made a key campaign promise concerning what he called the "left-wing gender insanity.".

Former President Donald Trump took aim Tuesday at transgender Americans, vowing that if re-elected he will end gender-affirming medical care for minors, ask Congress to pass legislation directing the U.S. government to only recognize one's birth gender and promote "positive education of the nuclear family" and "the roles of mothers and fathers."

Magically, “the Donald” reminds us of why he seemed a breath of fresh air in 2016. He is the guy who will say the things the rest of us are thinking but have been bullied into not saying because some snowflake's feelings might be hurt. He advocates what we wish were public policy, stuff the swamp will never push.

Most of us think if someone is unhappy with the plumbing they were born with, the problem is between their ears, not between their legs. He is the guy who will say it and act on it, driving society’s neurotics wild.

Historically his very brashness offends a fair number, especially in the legacy media and among the perpetually aggrieved. Many of us experience it as refreshingly direct, realistic and commonsensical. He speaks for society’s non-victims, which is (or should be) most of us.

Trump's forthrightness doesn’t answer the question of whether he would, if reelected, be able to get the federal bureaucracy to act on his wishes. In his first term his mastery of the bureaucracy was spotty at best, and his appointments were often a disappointment. 

Those may well be issues where Gov. Ron DeSantis scores better than Trump. And DeSantis has also been outstanding at confronting the woke head-on.

When Circumstances Change ....

The website Bizpacreview.com quotes Newsmax host Greg Kelly claiming that a Nikki Haley quote from April 2021 disqualifies her as a candidate for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. The article has a link to the video and here's her quote:

I would not run if President Trump ran.

Her change of heart can be explained by Trump's behavior since the comment was made. I can imagine her responding "Yes, that is how it looked two years ago, but both Trump and our circumstances have changed. I believe a president needs to deal with current realities."

Gainers and Losers

Speaking of statistics, I've written a fair amount about internal migration within the U.S. Recently a CBS News story provided a link to a website by the National Assn. of Realtors which reports the relative as well as absolute population losses or gains experienced by the 50 states.

Big percentage gainers - each gaining 1% or more during 2022 - were the following, in declining order of gain. FL 1.9%, ID 1.8%, SC 1.7%, TX 1.6%, MT and SD 1.5%, DE 1.4%, NC and AZ 1.3%, TN, GA, and UT 1.2%, and NV 1.0%. 

In absolute numbers of people moving from one state to another, FL gained over 300,000, TX gained over 200,000, and all others listed above gained fewer than 100,000. SD got on the list with fewer than 8500 emigrants, because their population is quite small.

The big losers in absolute numbers were CA, NY, and IL Certainly that is not news to those following the internal migration story. 

Fading Faith

Power Line's Steven Hayward posts a chart or two every day, showing in pictorial form some set of statistics that might be of interest. Today's charts deal with the prevalence (or lack thereof) of religion in the daily lives of people in the U.K. and Europe. In large parts of the U.K. nearly half the population identifies as "atheist or non-religious." 

The chart asking about belief in hell - as a proxy for religious belief - lacks reports for Kosovo, Ireland, Moldova and Belgium. Fewer than one in five believe in hell in Scandinavia, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Czechia. 

Few of Europe's other supposedly Christian countries have a lot of belief in hell, except Poland and Romania. Muslim countries Turkey and Bosnia/Herzegovina have lots of such belief while Muslim Albania has about the same amount as France - roughly 1 believer in 4.

Optimism ... Perhaps Unjustified

Recently a couple of DC insiders have predicted we might find ourselves at war with China in 2025. If they are correct, that is no small thing.

George Friedman of Geopolitical Futures looks at their statements, reviews his own earlier predictions which don't see a war developing, and concludes he remains of that more pacifistic opinion.

Friedman however concludes with this comment:

Perhaps I am reverting to bad habits. Answering my own questions with my old views is admittedly poor intelligence. Feel free to let me know which questions I didn’t pose and which answers were insufficient.

The gist of his argument is that it is not in China's own interests, rationally considered, to go to war. My response is that going to war is often a less-than-rational decision on the part of autocrats. 

I offer Putin's decision to invade Ukraine as an example of this. It appears he envisioned himself as a restorer of the currently depleted Russian empire, wearing the laurel leaves of victory. Such visions can be heady stuff.

His vision was emotional rather than rational, as subsequent events have seemed to demonstrate rather conclusively. Who is to say Xi is more rational than Putin? Or more constrained? Or less determined to be enshrined in his country's millennia-spanning pantheon of heroes?