Today’s Lineup
MAGA supporters are wishing for a Red Caesar to end American democracy in January 2025, how not to respond to a terror attack, AI-generated deep fakes in a Slovakian election raise warnings for future elections, the University of Pennsylvania owes Katalin Karikó an apology, remembering former Senator Dianne Feinstein’s moral clarity about torture, Republicans are trying to redefine abortion, and why we should be concerned that so many local elections officials have retired after facing conspiracy-fueled abuse.
#1
‘Red Caesarism’ is rightwing code – and some Republicans are listening (Jason Wilson, The Guardian)
In June, the rightwing academic Kevin Slack published a book-length polemic claiming that ideas that had emerged from what he called the radical left were now so dominant that the US republic its founders envisioned was effectively at an end.
Slack, a politics professor at the conservative Hillsdale College in Michigan, made conspiratorial and extreme arguments now common on the antidemocratic right, that “transgenderism, anti-white racism, censorship, cronyism … are now the policies of an entire cosmopolitan class that includes much of the entrenched bureaucracy, the military, the media, and government-sponsored corporations”.
In a discussion of possible responses to this conspiracy theory, he wrote that the “New Right now often discusses a Red Caesar, by which it means a leader whose post-Constitutional rule will restore the strength of his people.”
For the last three years, parts of the American right have advocated a theory called Caesarism as an authoritarian solution to the claimed collapse of the US republic in conference rooms, podcasts and the house organs of the extreme right, especially those associated with the Claremont Institute thinktank.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
As Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch explains, “If you’re not one of those dudes who thinks about Ancient Rome every day, let me translate. The alleged brain trust of an increasingly fascist MAGA movement wants an American dictatorship that would “suspend” democracy in January 2025 — just 15 months from now.” Yep. Sound the alarm klaxons. Whether we like it or not, these are the stakes of the next year’s election. Democracies are fragile institutions. MAGA leaders are not being subtle. Most Republican leaders (including the just-ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his likely successors) have already refused to acknowledge the winner of one presidential election. Several red states are no longer democracies after gerrymandering and other abuses of electoral institutions. Trump advisors are discussing dismantling the civil service and independent federal agencies. I hope President Biden will focus his re-election campaign’s messaging on defending our democracy, building on his speech last month at the McCain Center. The American experiment in democracy is on the line in 2024.
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#2
How Not to Respond to a Terrorist Attack (Benjamin Wittes, Dog Shirt Daily)
I’m not, to be clear, always against war. And I accept that civilians sometimes get killed in warfare and, tragic as that is, it is an inherent part of the enterprise.
But the intentional targeting of civilians is always unacceptable. It is unacceptable when Russians do it Ukraine. Full stop.
It is unacceptable when Israeli settlers target Palestinian civilians with violence. Full stop.
And it is unacceptable when Palestinians, using thousands of rockets and hundreds of gunmen, indiscriminately kill hundreds of Israeli civilians. Full stop.
Beyond this rather banal insistence on the most basic premise of the law of armed conflict, I am not certain what the right way to respond to the horrific, murderous surprise attack launched last night from Gaza is.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
I am horrified by the reports and pictures coming out of Israel in the wake of the attack by Hamas. Most of the analysis so far has been polarized finger-pointing with little value beyond the social media engagement it creates. We should be clear on a few principles. Civilians should never be targeted in an armed engagement. Civilians should never live in a state of fear over possible terror attacks. Civilians should never live in a state of siege. Wittes’ newsletter includes seven ways not to respond to what has happened, especially while dealing with imperfect information created by the fog of war. Alastair Campbell (the former communications director under Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair) and Rory Stewart (a former Conservative Member of Parliament and Government Minister until Boris Johnson revoked his party membership) had one of the most informative conversations I heard about what is happening in Israel and the events that led up to this horror in today’s emergency episode of their Rest is Politics podcast. While not a conversation for today, I believe Campbell and Stewart are correct to note that we will eventually need to consider the international community’s failures to focus on the Israel-Palestinian dispute even as the situation has obviously been deteriorating.
#3
Slovakia’s Election Deepfakes Show AI Is a Danger to Democracy (Morgan Meaker, Wired)
Just two days before Slovakia’s elections, an audio recording was posted to Facebook. On it were two voices: allegedly, Michal Šimečka, who leads the liberal Progressive Slovakia party, and Monika Tódová from the daily newspaper Denník N. They appeared to be discussing how to rig the election, partly by buying votes from the country’s marginalized Roma minority.
Šimečka and Denník N immediately denounced the audio as fake. The fact-checking department of news agency AFP said the audio showed signs of being manipulated using AI. But the recording was posted during a 48-hour moratorium ahead of the polls opening, during which media outlets and politicians are supposed to stay silent. That meant, under Slovakia’s election rules, the post was difficult to widely debunk. And, because the post was audio, it exploited a loophole in Meta’s manipulated-media policy, which dictates only faked videos—where a person has been edited to say words they never said—go against its rules.
The election was a tight race between two frontrunners with opposing visions for Slovakia. On Sunday it was announced that the pro-NATO party, Progressive Slovakia, had lost to SMER, which campaigned to withdraw military support for its neighbor, Ukraine.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
I am pessimistic about the ability of our political institutions and media outlets to manage the inevitable AI-generated faked audio messages and videos that will emerge during election campaigns next year—including in the United States, India, the United Kingdom, and the European Union. We see examples daily of how rapidly misinformation can spread online. We need to discuss these dynamics more so people are prepared to notice when a fake message appears. Will media outlets focus on debunking such claims? What can we expect from social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter? Are campaigns ready to respond? I am quite pessimistic.
#4
After Shunning Scientist, University of Pennsylvania Celebrates Her Nobel Prize (Gregory Zuckerman, The Wall Street Journal)
The University of Pennsylvania is basking in the glow of two researchers who this week were awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine for their pioneering work on messenger RNA.
Until recently, the school and its faculty largely disdained one of those scientists.
Penn demoted Katalin Karikó, shunting her to a lab on the outskirts of campus while cutting her pay. Karikó’s colleagues denigrated her mRNA research and some wouldn’t work with her, according to her and people at the school. Eventually, Karikó persuaded another Penn researcher, Drew Weissman, to work with her on modifying mRNA for vaccines and drugs, though most others at the school remained skeptical, pushing other approaches.
Karikó hasn’t only proven her detractors wrong but also reached the pinnacle of science. Her research with Weissman helped lead to the mRNA vaccines that protected people worldwide during the Covid-19 pandemic and now shows promise for flu, cancer and other diseases.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
Even for an Ivy League institution, the University of Pennsylvania demonstrated extravagant hubris by taking public credit for Karikó’s Nobel Prize even after demoting her in 1995 and stating that her work was “not of faculty quality.” Where’s the apology? The sorry for the misunderstanding? Our bad? We owe Karikó a debt for persevering in her research. Penn should note how badly she was treated earlier in her career. And I also recommend reading this 2021 Glamour magazine profile of Karikó: The Scientist Who Saved the World.
#5
Let’s Not Forget Dianne Feinstein’s Moral Clarity on Torture (Jeff Stein, Spy Talk)
The debate over the use of torture in the post-9/11 era has been one of the most contentious and morally charged issues in American politics. At the center of this storm stood Senator Dianne Feinstein, a figure whose principled stand and unwavering commitment to transparency redefined the discourse surrounding CIA torture practices.
…
Lost in all the rightful distress about octogenarians in Congress (not to mention the White House) reignited by Feinstein’s passing, is her landmark work exposing the evils and inefficiencies of waterboarding, beatings and sleep deprivations employed under the CIA’s “enhanced interrogations” program. To this day, many of the CIA’s post-9/11 leaders and their boosters refuse to call it torture, even though we prosecuted Japanese officers as war criminals for using the exact same techniques on American prisoners.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
I appreciated Jeff Stein’s focus on the late Senator Dianne Feinstein’s (D-California) vital efforts to expose the CIA’s post-9/11 torture regime. It may have been her most important work in a historic—if complicated—career in public life. She had to fight the CIA and other elements of the Obama Administration to bring this report to the American people. It would have been easier for her to go along with the flow and minimize the torture regime. But Feinstein took the Congressional oversight role on this issue seriously. The Senator and her staff fought to expose what happened and to get our nation to learn from this moral failure. If you’d like to learn more, this Connie Bruck New Yorker article from June 2015 details what Feinstein and her team faced as they did this vital work.
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#6
Now Republicans Are Trying to Redefine Abortion Itself (Jessica Valenti, New York Times)
In the year since Roe v. Wade was overturned, the Republican Party has tested out constantly changing talking points and messages on abortion in an attempt to make its anti-abortion policies sound less extreme. Conservatives are even considering moving away from the term “pro-life,” fearing that voters have newly negative associations with the label.
With post-Roe outrage showing no sign of waning, strategists are pushing a new lexicon on abortion — medically, legally and culturally. Some Republicans have abandoned the term “ban” when speaking about anti-abortion legislation, for example. Now they’re pushing for a 15-week “standard” on abortion — which, to be clear, would be a ban. Americans overwhelmingly oppose strict abortion bans, so Republicans are moving away from the term.
Republicans hope that by changing the way Americans talk about abortion, it might help change the way they feel about abortion — which is, right now, very pro-choice.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
Jessica Valenti, the author of the Abortion, Every Day newsletter, has been tracking how Republican politicians have tried to spin their unpopular efforts to ban abortion and other reproductive health procedures. We are already seeing some reporters and pundits adjust how they describe these abortion bans due to these efforts. We are witnessing Republican candidates in Virginia run ads falsely claiming they do not favor an abortion ban through these misleading techniques. We do not need to fall for it. We can also insist that reporters refuse to go along with these attempts to deceive the electorate. Valenti does an outstanding job of uncovering and tracking these issues in her must-read newsletter.
#7
In some states, more than half of the local election officials have left since 2020 (Miles Parks, National Public Radio)
In some battleground states, more than half of the local election administrators will be new since the last presidential race, according to a new report from the democracy-focused advocacy group Issue One shared exclusively with NPR before its release.
“Local county clerk is not a glamorous job,” Daniels said. “We’re not paying people in local election administrative jobs enough to be the subject of public scrutiny, particularly when that public scrutiny is often misguided and misinformed.”
The Issue One report focused on 11 western states and found that the problem of voting official turnover is particularly acute in the region’s swing states, where conspiracies have flourished.
WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING:
The loss of experienced election officials could lead to horrible outcomes in the 2024 elections. This turnover could result in mistakes that will be spun into election conspiracies by people unwilling to accept that their opponents can win an election. We have allowed these public servants to experience extreme criticism from people not acting in good faith. We should prepare for the inevitable efforts to steal close elections next year. I do not believe our institutions are prepared for what is coming.
Post-Game Comments
Today’s Thought:
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.” — William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming
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