State of the Discussion

Okay, delurking.

Carney’s speech was great, in part because he admits that the old order was both useful and also a sham and a lie. They supported it because of its many benefits and ignored the hypocrisy and double standards.

Here is Assal Rad, an Iranian- American who mostly tweets about Gaza, who has family in Iran, doesn’t like the regime, feared for her family’s safety during the recent slaughter by the government but also hates the sanctions that cratered the economy, as Bessent bragged in Davos—

“To be clear, “this bargain no longer works” because it’s targeting them.

They had no problem with a false international order that targeted and subjugated brown people.”

She is absolutely right.

The NYT had an analysis of the speech which totally ignored that aspect. I give Carney a lot of credit for admitting it but any new rules based order should stop pretending this crap is acceptable.

Or in other words, no more genocides and crimes against humanity committed by the self- proclaimed good guys. Hold all war criminals to account to the extent possible and stop this lying.

If we rebuild from the ashes of Trump, let’s not go back to the happy days where we murder people and it doesn’t matter because we aren’t crass about it.

Back to lurking. Any further comments from me would just be more of the same.

First Ursula von der Leyen tells it like it is, now Mark Carney. It has taken too long, but world leaders are finally realizing that appeasement works exactly as well today as it did in the 1930s (and as well as it ever has in the schoolyard, when bullies stand with their expectant hands out).

This speech is a barnburner. Though not the perfect politician we all wish for, Carney is the leader Canada needs right now. Hard to remember that Canadians were thiiiis close to electing a Trump-wannabe candidate until His Orangeness blathered about the 51st state and Canadian voters reacted with rage. Had they not done so, Canada would now be a footstool for the US to rest its dirty jackboots on. Instead, their PM is telling the rest of the world: there is a path forward, we are choosing it, and we invite you to join us on it. And with a literate metaphor, no less!

(Give it five minutes or so, and you'll hear US Republicans zeroing in on a single word in that entire speech -- communist -- and firing up their outrage engines accordingly.)

I like Talarico. He is good at speaking plainly, which is a skill that I had to develop. There is a lot of value in that, IMHO.

BTW, LJ -- I'm von.

Oh, and by the way, the NYT editorial board today say that during his administration he has enriched himself to the tune of $1.5 billion. Wow, brazen corruption in full view. It's almost funny after the accusations about the Biden Crime Family:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/01/20/opinion/editorials/trump-wealth-crypto-graft.html?unlocked_article_code=1.F1A.0fka.QvU7sikLo6lz&smid=url-share

But the overwhelming impression is of a crazy old guy with dementia just going on, and on and on in a totally uncontrolled, rambling fashion with zero sense and concept of a message.

when a political party loves power more than anything, it can excuse almost anything.

Déjà vu all over again.

Oh my God, I'm just listening to Trump's press conference. It's one of the most extraordinary things I've ever seen. He's currently boasting about how many ICE guys are "hispanics", and how great hispanics are. But the overwhelming impression is of a crazy old guy with dementia just going on, and on and on in a totally uncontrolled, rambling fashion with zero sense and concept of a message. Jesus Christ. How is it possible that anyone can see this and not think this man has to be removed from the presidency?

lj -- I’m not sure how much we can bang that drum to indicate our inherent goodness. The fact that he was the first nominated (by a major political party) and went directly on to being elected makes him seem more like an outlier than a true indicator.

I'm not arguing for inherent goodness. Just that we've gotten better. Or less bad, if you prefer.

As for Obama being an outlier, I wouldn't dispute that. He's definitely an exceptionally gifted politician. I'd say the most gifted in my lifetime. But within (my) living memory, no black man, no matter how gifted, could have done what he did. Or even gotten within a thousand miles of getting the opportunity to try. That's a solid indication of progress. IMHO, of course.

wj - I think that, as a nation, we are in the process of moving past it. I say “as a nation” because, while I think that more and more of us have moved past it, clearly there are still a huge number who have not.

As a nation I think we have been here before, which is to say that as a nation we are currently in the midst of the sort of self-sorting that leads to us actually being two nations mixed up in one sack. We have two very different nationalisms facing off and in open conflict with each other.

The question is whether this leads to a forced reunification (as in the Civil War) or into some form of collapse, or just a prolonged dysfunction and are supplanted on the world stage.

I am not optimistic that we can put the toothpaste back into the tube this time.

"would we have the same time for the person who points to accepting white South Africans to the US as springing from the same sort of impulse?"

Russia is not dropping bombs on the heads of white South Africans.

And I'm not sure it's accurate to say there isn't a humanitarian motivation to let those Asian, black, and brown people in, then or now. The safety concern wjca mentions is tangible for many of those folks.

I think the Reagan administration was a negative tipping point for this country, but I absolutely give him credit for the amnesty he granted to folks who were here and contributing. I was living in a predominantly Dominican neighborhood in Salem at the time, and folks were getting booted out who were contributing to the commnity in huge ways.

I'd like to think we have somehow moved past the white supremacist legacy of our history, but I don't think we have. I'm not sure if it's a matter of re-remembering, I don't think it ever went away. Trump just gives it permission to come back out in the light of day.

This is by no means to suggest we not make heroic efforts regarding climate change. Just to say, when it comes to immigration, that’s not going to be part of the solution (supposing that we need one). Economics and safety will. And addressing those is the right thing to do, regardless of your views on immigration.

In a better world, we would be putting our resources into the Global South to help them address climate change. Reducing desertification, creating off grid power, mangrove and rain forest protection and restoration would all have an impact. Unfortunately, the Western model has us look at these sorts of things as extractive, and to be accepted, they have to generate a profit for the people putting money into them.

Open thread, so - this gift article (headlined Americans are Turning Against Gay People) from today's NYT talks about an astonishing resurgence in America of anti-gay sentiment. wj in particular always uses the decline of homophobia in America as an example of social attitudes getting better, and I totally believed that that was the case (not just because of what wj says). This, if true, is pretty horrifying:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/opinion/heated-rivalry-gay-prejudice.html?unlocked_article_code=1.FlA.L4lQ.cS0Hh2JNow0A&smid=url-share

nous -- I do worry, however, that this simplification might obscure the degree to which economics and safety are entangled with climate.

Certainly true.

But at this point, we can do something about economics and safety relatively quickly. Not solve them completely by any means, but visibly start making progress. Having solid reasons to hope and expect things will get better, because they are already visibly improving -- that puts a big weight on the side of "I think I'll just stay where I am and work on doing better here." Most people don't like the idea of up and moving to an unfamiliar place, especially one with a different language and a different culture. Give them a reason to avoid it, and mostly they will.

Climate change, on the other hand, is something where we can, at most mitigate some of the damage. But, no matter what we do, it will continue to get worse before it gets better. We can manage "get worse more slowly" and "not get as much worse". But that's the most we can do at this point.

This is by no means to suggest we not make heroic efforts regarding climate change. Just to say, when it comes to immigration, that's not going to be part of the solution (supposing that we need one). Economics and safety will. And addressing those is the right thing to do, regardless of your views on immigration.

wj - Answering that requires answering the motivation question: Why do they come? The simple answer: economics and safety. Not macroeconomic generalities, but the microeconomics of individuals. Combined with, and overlapping with, the legal environment. There are other motivations, such as moving to be near family members, or even climate. But those are tiny in comparison.

I can understand the desire to simplify the way we talk about immigration in order to reframe the asylum seekers in an empathetic way - to put ourselves in their shoes. That's an essential strategy in this age of tech driven propaganda and outrage.

I do worry, however, that this simplification might obscure the degree to which economics and safety are entangled with climate.

When a Salvadoran farmer can't afford to buy seeds because his crops keep getting ruined, climate is economics. When groups of farmers like him become desperate and have to go to the city where they have no place to live and no aid, they find themselves at the mercy of the gangs in the cities, both economics and safety. To avoid the violence of working for the gangs, they have to find somewhere else to go, which means paying the gangs to take them someplace safer.

But all of that starts with the climate making their rural agricultural lives unlivable. Climate change is a threat and vulnerability multiplier. It's hugely destabilizing. Decarbonization and humanitarian aid work together to reduce threat, and ignoring the ways that they are entangled undercuts our ability to reduce the economic hardship and the political instability that drives mass migration.

"Alaska, Minnesota, North Dakota, Vermont, and Washington are the US states with parts that can only be accessed by road through Canada."

US States Accessible Only Through Canada

Hard to spot, but up in the NE corner of South America, French Guiana is no longer a colony but part of France. The 300,000 residents are French citizens and vote in French elections. Ask someone who thinks they are clever for their opinion on the EU's lengthy land border with Brazil :^) 15-20% of the economy is the Guiana Space Center, owned by the European Space Agency and operated by Arianespace.

Any guess (other than Africa being outside their area of study) why Ethiopia isn’t included in the “never colonized” group?

Over about 50 years, Italy claimed it as colonial property and significant numbers of Italians settled there. (See, Italian East Africa.) Post-WW2, it went through much the same sort of protectorate process that other European colonial holdings in Africa did, eventually gaining independence. Sorting out all the borders, many influenced by Italian colonial status, didn't get fully sorted out until the 1990s.

This is slightly related, not really enough for a post, but in regards to Tony noting the belief that Christians have a monopoly on decency, there was this Brooks and Capehart segment on the PBS newshour.
https://youtu.be/a2a7_mGi3yA?si=_we14pUU6ZV3FDgb

Brooks' had some audio difficulties, so it was mostly Capehart, but before his mike went out, he had this observation

And I have long thought, if Americans see deportations of respectable families, they will finally rebel against this regime, and not just the progressives and not just Democrats, but normal people who are like, what the heck is going on here? And so that's where we're headed.

I'm hoping that the implication that Progressives and Democrats don't count as normal people had someone in the soundbooth say 'fuck him' and shut off his mic.

Thank you nous. The NYT "transcript" is a totally unformatted wall of text. You have to figure out from context who is speaking any given sentence.

I've been aware of both Talarico and Crockett for a while now. I like them both, and one reason I'm glad I don't live in Texas is that I don't have to chose between them in the primary.

Talarico's Christian schtick (not disparaging it; just can't think of a better word) may be exactly what's needed to win a general election in Texas -- or just what's needed to raise false hopes again. I repeat what I've often said before: I'm done chasing "electability", and anyway Texas Dems ought to be better judges of it than I am in this case.

I have a couple of reservations about explicit appeals to Christianity as a political strategy. First, it reinforces the lamentably wide-spread view that Christians have some sort of monopoly on decency. Second, I worry that Christ-like impulses like "judge not", and "turn the other cheek", and forgiveness of sins, may be impediments to the deMAGAfication the US sorely needs. But I absolutely accept that a Christian like Talarico is better able to weaken the support that Old Testament Christians have garnered from voters who think of themselves as devotees of Jesus.

--TP

I assume that the absence of Tibet is related to transitivity, in that Tibet is currently controlled by China so on a map that indicates current borders, it would be inside of China, which was partially controlled by Europe.

That also accounts for the grouping of the Koreas with Japan. Korea was a colony of Japan, which was never colonized by Europe, so gets the same color as japan.