“In the U.S., to acknowledge the truth would be to complete the task Russia set itself in discrediting the U.S. leadership class,” writes Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. He concludes, “A coverup is the only way to go.”[1] It’s an awfully interesting argument. I think it’s wrong—Hillary Clinton has too much of her ego invested in blaming everyone but herself for her defeat, so much so that she and her sympathizers are clearly willing, perhaps even anxious, to risk exacerbating the new Cold War—but it’s interesting.
Alice Rivlin breaks down the Republican divisions in their effort to (mostly not really) “repeal and replace” Obamacare more precisely than I’ve seen elsewhere.[1] It turns out this is a relatively old article, dating to February, but well worth the read.
David Roberts notices that “Blue America” is going its own way in open defiance of “Red America” and worries about what might happen when the latter figures it out.[2] (Secession)
Prime Minister Theresa May’s response to the fire had been abysmal,[3] but, at least for now, she retains her job. Others are now having to resign.[4] But as the cartoon (figure 1) shows, and part of what May has failed to answer for, is what this tragedy says about neoliberalism, in which, as I have said, money is more important than lives:
What I want to highlight is the hazard of monetary abstraction. [John] Gordon objects to “solving the problems of the world with other people’s money.”[5] What this means is that property rights outweigh other internationally recognized human rights, specifically the rights to a decent job paying a decent salary so a worker can live in dignity.[6] It means that, for Gordon, property has become more real than the human.[7]
I’ve seen neoliberalism come under withering criticism far too many times now to believe that it surely now is dead even in Britain. Fundamentally, it makes the wealthy more comfortable, which means that as soon as public attention is diverted even for the briefest moment—Donald Trump is here reliably useful—it is restored full force as a governing ideology. “There is,” after all, as Margaret Thatcher is said to have said, “no alternative.”[8] Squeezing the poor to make the rich richer is a dirty job, but I guess somebody has to do it. And then all it will take is for one capitalist libertarian to point out that the council that bought that cladding for Grenfell Tower is a government agency and the elites can be reassured that all is well.