Jesse Singal's July-4-Adjacent Reflections on Modern America

A thoughtful and optimistic column; I enjoyed reading it, and I thought many of you might, too. Singal is somewhat to the left of where I am on economic matters, but he strikes me as an unusually thoughtful and clearheaded thinker, plus a very good writer. An excerpt:

When I was 24 years old or so, working a fun but low-profile job as an online editor at the Center for American Progress's youth wing, I asked Jon Chait, one of my favorite writers, if he'd meet up with me. Because he is a mensch, he agreed to, and we got lunch in D.C. somewhere.

At one point I was complaining about how flawed the U.S. was and how vital it was to fix things, and Chait responded, in his characteristically mild manner something like: Well, a few generations ago our ancestors lived in villages where sometimes other people would come in and just ransack everything and kill everyone. Things aren't that bad.

The point wasn't that the U.S. was perfect — Chait didn't and doesn't think the U.S. is perfect, and around that time he published a book criticizing conservative economic policy for making life harder for Americans while enriching the wealthy. But the sense I get, looking back on that conversation, was that Chait was trying to cool the jets of a young and passionate would-be intellectual type who was reciting lefty mantras rather than really thinking things through.

Whenever I engage in the navel-gazing act of thinking about how my views have changed since I started writing professionally, I remember that conversation, because I think it captured something important….

Comments

[Stephen Lathrop]

Well, a few generations ago our ancestors lived in villages where sometimes other people would come in and just ransack everything and kill everyone. Things aren’t that bad.

Well, at the risk of reciting a lefty mantra, permit me to point out there are people alive today who remember those days. One of them just lost a lawsuit over it in Oklahoma. Of course they are black people, so maybe it doesn’t seem so bad to mild-mannered Jon Chait.

Speaking for myself, I still haven’t got over the shock of discovering that black kids I went to school with through high school were still living in see-through shacks, lacked electricity, and drew their water from a creek not that far from their outhouses.

Those were times of progress. Those kids had been allowed to go to school in the same building I attended, beginning in 3rd grade. That school was surpassingly close to the black kids, shacks, but that neighborhood was tucked away in a patch of woods, invisible from any road that went elsewhere. "Snakes Den," was the name on the map for that place.

Had I grown up elsewhere, and only a few years earlier, of course, I might have met others for whom memories of the folks who arrived to ransack and kill involved the U.S. cavalry. On the cheery side, I did know someone who remembered as a child living in fear of Indians in the Idaho territory.

Maybe we need a few more generations without those kinds of memories before we start patting ourselves on the back about how well we are doing. I will never forget the stark fear on my father’s face when a gas station attendant in South Carolin caught me drinking unawares from a water fountain marked, “Colored.” He needn’t have feared I would continue. The tepid water was also putrid with salt, sulfur, and stench. I was directed to better water at a different fountain.

“Hurrah, hurrah, for Southern rights hurrah, and hurrah for the bonnie blue flag of southern liberty.”

That’s what we all were taught to sing in class—blacks and whites together—after they integrated our schools.

No thanks on the optimism, EV. Not yet.

[Drewski]

"Of course they are black people, so maybe it doesn’t seem so bad to mild-mannered Jon Chait."

I think the best way to judge someone is to imagine what they wrote based on a small excerpt, then imagine what they didn't write, then criticize that.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Even better is a summary of a conversation with that person written by someone else years later!

[MaddogEngineer]

Are you saying that makes the conclusion any less valid? Do you think it was made up?

[Noscitur a sociis]

I’m saying it’s a little silly to read someone saying “this guy once pointed out to me that things in this country now are much, much better than things used to be not that long ago” and conclude from it, “that guy probably doesn’t care about black people.

[David Nieporent]

It's particularly bizarre for Lathrop to take the statement, "We've made a lot of progress" as whitewashing the past rather than as condemning it.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Nieporent, that is one of your most culturally tone-deaf comments. It works the same way as, "All lives matter."

You belittle the concerns by asserting improvements—whether or not the person whose concerns get belittled agrees there are improvements. It's like imagining society gets less racist in proportion to how many folks go around intoning, "I don't see race."

[TwelveInchPianist]

"You belittle the concerns by asserting improvements..."

Seems like Scottland, MD has improved quite a bit since what you are describing. With indoor plumbing and everything.

[Michael Ejercito]

Are you denying that society is less racist now than in the past.

I mean, the 1990's were far less racist than the 1960's, despite the Good Ol' Boys Roundup scandal.

[MaddogEngineer]

I was just having this argument elsewhere. I don’t get what your complaint about this excerpt is.

Do you think it would have been somehow historically possible for us to jump to the end, achieve a fully egalitarian society with no oppression? How would that work?

Do you think anyone here is suggesting we should not condemn bad actions or minimize them?

How about recognizing that progress in human relationships does not always come quickly? This is what I take as Chait’s point, repeated by Singal. Acknowledging that is not ignoring the bad moments of our history.

The 20th century communist movement preached economic and political equality among all peoples, both the sexes and the races. Their attempt to implement it was a totalitarian nightmare, to prevent any enemies of the revolution undoing it. There are always enemies after all.

It’s impossible to get IMMEDIATELY from point A to point B here without totalitarian oppressive measures to enforce such “equality”, which always collapses into a permanent state of affairs…unless or until a liberation movement arises.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Do you think anyone here is suggesting we should not condemn bad actions or minimize them?

I think too many commenters here are on the wrong side of arguments about which actions are bad. For instance, I think it is especiallt bad to attack affirmative action in college admissions for blacks, by pretending to boost Asian Americans who already tend to be better off than the blacks who will be displaced. I see that as an especially evil way to promote the already-evil notion that anti-racists are the real racists.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

I bet you're also one of those White saviors who think blacks are too stupid and retarded to have a state issued ID, but totally in a non-racist way.

And the people that go, "wow, that's pretty racist of you to think blacks are too stupid and retarded to have a state issued ID" are the REAL racists.

[JasonT20]

Have you ever looked into or thought about why Black people might have the required IDs at lower rates than white people? I always figured, at least as a plausible guess, that elderly Black people, especially in the South, would have been born outside of hospitals (at least, white hospitals) more often. And they might have not been issued birth certificates, if so. That would have made it more cumbersome to get a state-issued ID.

You might think, well, how could they have gotten by without one for so long? Surely, they were able to navigate local and state bureaucracy at some point. And for someone that has never had that kind of problem, that might not seem like a big deal. But the fact remains that both surveys and research shows that Black and Hispanic people do have government issued photo-ID at lower rates than white people. So, why is that? It doesn't make any claim about their intelligence or whatever you are talking about to simply state a fact like that.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Lack of having a valid DL or other form non expired ID is correlated with below poverty income and lack of high school education.

Further, you’re talking about a group that’s the size of a rounding error, and nominally is more White than not.

Additionally, look at the key findings in this example of a recent study critically and you’ll see all the spin and manipulation.

https://today.umd.edu/umd-analysis-millions-of-americans-dont-have-id-required-to-vote

E.g.:
– “valid … or non-expired”, that group includes people who have invalid and expired forms of ID. If you have you an expired DL or expired government ID, it isn’t any systemic racism keeping you from getting current identification.

– “An estimated 1.86 million Black non-Hispanic Americans (6.2%) and 1.86 million Hispanic Americans (6.1%) lack a photo ID, as do 4.5% of those who identify as Native American, Native Alaskan or another race. This compares to just 2.3% of White non-Hispanic Americans and 1.6% of Asian, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander Americans.” Isn’t it weird how they show the nominal numbers for blacks and Hispanics but not for Whites and Asians? Further, their math doesn’t even add up. Earlier they say that group totals 7M, but 1.86M + 1.86M + 2.3% of Whites and 1.6% of Asians is greater than 7M.

There are others. These numbers get further reduced, by about half, when you consider voter participation rates. ~3M people in a nation of 340M who may or may not wish to even vote does not justify insecure elections.

You are being manipulated by people who do not want secure, verifiable elections.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Since the data does not make a compelling case for forbidding photo ID, you must ask yourself what other reasons might one not want voter ID verification? These same people also do not even want signature verification, or citizenship verification.

Why would someone want an election with no photo, signature, or citizenship verification of the voters? And they are so opposed to these things that they go to extreme lengths to ban them?

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

That first group also includes people who have an invalid DL but do have a valid government ID of a different form.

Why didn't they state the size of the group that has no form of any government issued photo ID?

Probably because it's near zero and it would be patently obvious that this argument is a ruse.

[Michael Ejercito]

Does affirmative action treat people differently on the basis of race?

[TwelveInchPianist]

"permit me to point out there are people alive today who remember those days... so maybe it doesn’t seem so bad to mild-mannered Jon Chait."

Huh? There are people alive today of every race and color who remember those days. Most of them aren't in the US, though. That's kind of the point.

And it was fairly common for people of every race and color to lack running water and indoor plumbing during the time frame you describe, even in areas considered first-world.

[Kazinski]

Yep, my mother grew up on a cattle ranch during the depression, no electricity, no refrigeration, they had trucks but still used wagons too. She and her 4 siblings went to a one room schoolhouse with only one other family attending, they were black and the rich kids, they had been ranching a lot longer, and homesteaded the better land.

When I look around I see my black neighbors living in 3-4 bedroom houses like I do, but then it is a small sample size only 4-5 out of the 20 or so families on our block, plus all the houses are less than 2 years old.

[Absaroka]

Indeed. My (white) maternal grandparents got indoor plumbing for the first time around 1970, when they were in their late 60's. When we visited them there was an outhouse and a pump in the yard. You put the bucket of water on a shelf overnight to let the rust settle out. Baths involved dragging a galvanized tub into the kitchen.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

I mentioned this in reference to Dred Scott—in America a second class citizen is not a citizen.

[AmosArch]

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Speaking for myself, I still haven’t got over the shock of discovering that black kids I went to school with through high school were still living in see-through shacks, lacked electricity, and drew their water from a creek not that far from their outhouses.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Well obviously Chait and Volokh aren't talking about ye olden times. I'm not sure whens the last time you looked around but people living in literal shacks without electricity or running water isn't a common thing anymore in the US even for black people. Unless maybe they're some druggie in san francisco.

[Carl_N_Brown]

In the fifties the neighbors on either side of me had outhouses (we had a septic tank). One neighbor kept pigs in a sty, fed them table slop all summer, and had a smoke house to cure hams in the fall.

The neighborhoood had been built pre-WWII on a flat plateau to accommodate the influx into the city of folks from the mountains and coalfields attracted by the job opportunities of the Planned Industrial City. Mom told me when she was a kid, first moved onto town, there was one communal well pump in the neighborhood surrounded by yards with outhouses and pig sties. When we went to visit family in the mountains, every farmhouse had an outhouse and a well or spring up the hill from the outhouse.

The city eventual ran pipes from the waterworks and every household had running water by the time I was a kid. We even got hooked into the santitary sewer system. When I was a kid and I came in from play to make a sandwich and there was only bread and mayo, I made a mayonaise sandwich (sometimes with a slice of homegarden grown tomato). I was never told to think of it as a "wish sandwich". There would eventually be days with cheese or bologna. Walt Disney Tomorrowland progress, ever onward and upward, was what I was raised on. Optimism. And 4th of July fireworks.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I watched a televised report yesterday (or maybe the day before) of a developing project to provide electricity to more than 10,000 families in a part of the United States that has never had electrical connection. I think it was the southwest. Utility companies and workers from a number of states have volunteered to build the system.

10,000 families. Never connected to the power grid. In 2024. In the United States of America. How many children? That is shameful.

You are an uninformed dumbass, AmosArch. As always.

[gormadoc]

I don't understand your complaint. The events you're talking about haven't happened for a few generations, which is exactly what Chait was pointing out. The US Cavalry last fought in 1945, well after the Indian Wars; they haven't even existed for a few generations.

[Longtobefree]

"The US Cavalry last fought in 1945, well after the Indian Wars; they haven’t even existed for a few generations."

I know a lot of guys who sing Gary Owen who disagree with you.

Korea, Vietnam, Gulf war, Iraq war, Afghanistan - - - - - - - -

[Noscitur a sociis]

I assume gormadoc means, "fought as cavalry" (i.e. while mounted on horses). Obviously there are still American soldiers in units with "cavalry" in the name.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Wrong. They last fought ON HORSES in 1942, at Bataan.
They still exist:

They were then absorbed into the "Armor" division of the Army, with the mechanized cavalry designated "Armored Calvary" and (with the introduction of the Huey in the 1960s) the Helicopter-borne cavalry designated the "Air Calvary."

The First Calvary Division still has horses and is used for ceremonies -- arguably related to recruitment efforts.

[not guilty]

Calvary?? A/k/a Golgotha?

[Noscitur a sociis]

“Armored Calvary”
“Air Calvary.”
The First Calvary Division

You cannot, as I've noted, make this shit up.

[GKHoff]

"Well, a few generations ago our ancestors lived in villages where sometimes other people would come in and just ransack everything and kill everyone. Things aren’t that bad."

Spoke too soon: https://www.ktvu.com/news/video-dozens-ransack-gas-station-flash-mob-robbery

OK, they didn't kill anybody. That may have been because no one tried to stop them.

[Dr. Ed 2]

"sometimes other people would come in and just ransack everything"

It still happens -- just now it is done by the government so you can't lawfully defend yourself nor sue for damages.

I don't think anything is better now because back then you could shoot the invaders.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Never underestimate the ability of Dr. Ed to spectacularly and gloriously miss the point.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The fuck I did.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I'm adding this -- it's amazing how far to the left economically something like this makes one go -- I will have no problem with the government confiscating ALL IRAs and the rest because the government needs the money.

No one cared when my stuff got looted, why should I care when anyone else's is -- and in a country based on rule-by-majority, when the majority (of the total, i.e. all age groups) don't have an IRA, expect for them to be looted. And that will not be a bad thing.

[Kazinski]

I like Chiat also long for the old days of a summer vacation of drunken rapine when my ancestors sailed their longships along the coasts of Europe.

[Dr. Ed 2]

That was my point - those along the coast could LEGALLY shoot back.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

>“Well, a few generations ago our ancestors lived in villages where sometimes other people would come in and just ransack everything and kill everyone. Things aren’t that bad.”

If it's under $900 in ransacking and a black killing or raping a White, then that still is the expectation in any 3rd world Democrat shit hole.

[SimonP]

Eugene blithely endorsing intellectual sloth. Must be settling right into the “research only” position, huh?

I just wonder how any informed former law professor, observing the Supreme Court abandon broad swaths of settled law in favor of an ambitious and radical conservative agenda, while the country teeters on the precipice of handing power back to a con man and felon whose least aggressive agenda would still dramatically impact the country’s legal, governmental and social institutions for the worse, could look at all of that and observe meekly, “well, it could be worse.”

Indeed, it could. And someone with the spare time to read about degrading democracies should understand that this is how we get to “worse”, and that is why there are plenty of other academics - people who haven’t given up on maintaining their intellectual rigor - who are sounding the alarm. It took Hitler years to get to “worse,” it took Putin several terms, it took a slow push by Xi and a generation by Netanyahu, it is taking Erdogan and Orban several years, and Modi has hit a slight road bump on his path, etc. And let’s not forget what is happening in France today.

This kind of post may not age very well at all, Eugene. You can guarantee that you will be example 1 in my mind of the intellectual collaborators who helped usher in American authoritarianism, if that’s what comes to pass here.

[Kazinski]

Yeah but none of those examples are what we are trying.

We're going to follow Milei, and use a chainsaw to get to better.

And we are going to usher in authoritarian Iiberatarianism to aggressively leave you alone.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

You are not going to do anything, Kazinski, except rant impotently about your disdain for modern America from that off-the-grid kook shack you inhabit as a tribute to Ted Kaczynski.

Well, that and continue to comply with the preferences of the culture war's victors. Thank you for your continuing compliance, clinger.

[SimonP]

As a gay New Yorker, I feel fairly confident in saying that a Trumpist agenda will not “leave me alone,” aggressively or otherwise.

I am well off and white, so I have that going for me. But it will be some kind of miracle if Trump’s spite-driven agenda doesn’t wreck the economy of the Northeast sector, taking down a chunk of the national economy and tax revenues with it.

[Michael Ejercito]

Why would they not leave you alone?

[Noscitur a sociis]

What in the conceivable universe induces you to think that’s going to remotely resemble Trump’s agenda?