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Apocalypse Now: What’s Behind the Volatile Mood of Today’s American — and European — Voters

Across the world, a spirit of anarchy is in bloom — an aimless desire to smash the liberal order, with only the distant, inchoate hope that a better world will emerge from the wreckage. That spirit apparently motivated many Trump voters, who didn’t mind that their tribune spoke in clownish generalities, possessed no relevant experience and exhibited an itchy trigger finger. Many of these voters admitted, with little compunction, that they wanted to implant his brash persona in the seat of power to shock the system, because the system deserved a shock

This is an important, erudite and flawed book about the deepest roots of this inflamed moment, which was shipped to the printer before the outcome of the American election.

NEW YORK — Scores of lawsuits involving thousands of former players touched by concussions and brain injuries have been consolidated into one master complaint, setting up a massive and potentially costly case for the NFL.

"The NFL, like the sport of boxing, was aware of the health risks associated with repetitive blows producing sub-concussive and concussive results and the fact that some members of the NFL player population were at significant risk of developing long-term brain damage and cognitive decline as a result," the complaint charges. "Despite its knowledge and controlling role in governing player conduct on and off the field, the NFL turned a blind eye to the risk and failed to warn and/or impose safety regulations governing this well-recognized health and safety problem."

A sense of proportion, once the conservative virtue, is considered treasonous on the right today

how large a stake conservatives have in convincing themselves and voters that Reagan failed. Think about it: if they conceded ideological victory they would have to confront the more prosaic reasons that entitlements, deficits and regulations continue to grow in Republican and Democratic administrations alike. They would be forced to devise a new, forward-looking agenda to benefit even their own constituencies, like ensuring that American business can draw on an educated, healthy work force; can rely on modern public infrastructure; and can count on stable, transparent financial markets. And they would have to articulate a conservative vision for those welfare state programs that are likely to remain with us, like disability insurance, food stamps and Head Start.

Conservatives have always been great storytellers; it is their fatal weakness. They love casting their eyes back to the past to avoid seeing what lies right under their noses. The story always involves some expulsion from Eden, whether by the hippies of the 1960s, or the suffragists, or the wretched refuse of the shtetls, or the French Revolution, or the Enlightenment, or Luther, or Machiavelli or the sack of Rome.

It may be taboo to say it, but certain ethnic, religious and national-origin groups are doing strikingly better than Americans overall.

These facts don’t make some groups “better” than others, and material success cannot be equated with a well-lived life. But willful blindness to facts is never a good policy.

Comprehensive data published by the Russell Sage Foundation in 2013 showed that the children of Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese immigrants experienced exceptional upward mobility regardless of their parents’ socioeconomic or educational background.

that doesn’t mean we should stop striving for a bit more trust in our society and our economy. Trust is what makes contracts, plans and everyday transactions possible; it facilitates the democratic process, from voting to law creation, and is necessary for social stability. It is essential for our lives. It is trust, more than money, that makes the world go round.

, as more and more people lose faith in a system that seems inexorably stacked against them, and the 1 percent ascend to ever more distant heights, this vital element of our institutions and our way of life is eroding.

But events — and economic research — over the past 30 years have shown not only that we cannot rely on self-interest, but also that no economy, not even a modern, market-based economy like America’s, can function well without a modicum of trust — and that unmitigated selfishness inevitably diminishes trust.

When you write that many "vastly more Palestinian families have been killed..because of differences in offensive weaponry and defensive systems and other factors" you might mention that the "other factors" included the Hamas government's refusal to build shelters and defensive systems to protect their people, as well as their use of civilians as shields to hide behind when they shoot rockets at Israeli civilians.

From Inside and Outside the Iron Dome, Once Again "If you continue looking up to the sky, you will not notice that the house is already burning from within." A reader in Jerusalem on the real threat to his country. James Fallows Jul 19 2014, 1:17 PM ET

When you write that many "vastly more Palestinian families have been killed..because of differences in offensive weaponry and defensive systems and other factors" you might mention that the "other factors" included the Hamas government's refusal to build shelters and defensive systems to protect their people, as well as their use of civilians as shields to hide behind when they shoot rockets at Israeli civilians.

As Tocqueville observed after visiting the new republic, the widespread perception that anyone can get ahead creates a presumption that everyone has an obligation to at least try.

two centuries later, both the perception and the sense of obligation that follows are still firmly in place. According to the World Values Survey, while 60 percent of Europeans say they think “the poor are trapped in poverty,” only 29 percent of Americans think so. Instead, 60 percent of Americans think “the poor are lazy,” compared with just 26 percent of Europeans.

Vast inequality may be acceptable to most citizens if anyone, or at least anyone’s grandchild, has a fair shot at the top. But if wealth and poverty simply perpetuate themselves within families, ever wider inequality becomes ever harder to justify. In America, the debate about inequality is, inevitably, also a debate about mobility.

does Napoleon deserve to be called Great? As Roberts concedes, the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars cost a total of around three million military and one million civilian deaths. Of these, 1.4 million were French. For this Napoleon must share much of the responsibility. Roberts also accepts that naval warfare was an almost total blind spot for Napoleon. Even after Trafalgar, he remained convinced that he could build a fleet capable of invading Britain, wasting men, money and material on a doomed enterprise. To this we might add Napoleon's abandonment of his army in Egypt, the abduction and execution of the Duc d'Enghien, the reintroduction of slavery in French colonies in 1802, catastrophic defeat in Russia, and other similar blemishes to his reputation. And, of course, Napoleon ultimately brought France to her knees.

Roberts however is in no doubt that the epithet is deserved. A general at 24, Napoleon lost only seven of 60 battles fought. In 1814 he won four separate battles in five days. His capacity for decision-making and daring on the battlefield was extraordinary. If he did not invent new military strategies, he perfected them, using new formations and artillery to maximum effect. Like Napoleon himself, his superbly trained and disciplined armies moved fast, in one case covering 400 miles in 20 marching days. None of this would have been possible without the creation of a new military culture based on honour, patriotism and devotion to Napoleon's person.  Napoleon's military achievements, Roberts further contends, were matched and have been outlasted by his civil achievements. Having put an end to the violence of the Terror and the disorder of the Directory, Napoleon built upon and protected the best achievements of the 1789 Revolution: meritocracy, equality before the law, property rights, religious toleration, secular education, sound finances, and efficient administration. Napoleon, Roberts writes, was no totalitarian dictator but rather "the Enlightenment on horseback". Despite this rather disconcerting image, there is little here with which even the most stern of Napoleon's critics would disagree. For good or ill, he can justifiably lay claim to being the founder of modern France. Finally, there is the fascination aroused by the man himself. "For sheer intellectual capacity and its persistent application in government," Roberts concludes, "there has probably never been another ruler in history to match him."

Coates demonstrates that white Americans’ fear of black Americans, and their impulse to control blacks, are integral to the rise of the carceral state. A result is that one of every four black men born since the late 1970s has spent time in prison, at profound cost to his family. For this, Coates holds Moynihan, in part, responsible.

My argument is that mass incarceration is built on a long history of viewing black people as unequal in general, and criminal in the specific.

Moynihan presented a portrait to the president of an America riven by two groups—hard-working, law-abiding, working-class whites and criminal and scheming blacks.

In the years I was assigned to Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or Fincen, I observed many formal requests for assistance having to do with companies associated with Delaware, Nevada or Wyoming. These states have a tawdry image: they have become nearly synonymous with underground financing, tax evasion and other bad deeds facilitated by anonymous shell companies

A study by researchers at Brigham Young University, the University of Texas and Griffith University in Australia concluded that America was the second easiest country, after Kenya, in which to incorporate a shell company.

A recent World Bank study found that the United States was the favored destination for corrupt foreign politicians opening phantom companies to conceal their ill-gotten gains.

we Americans are waddling toward the moment when calorie counts like the ones at Lenny’s are posted in every chain restaurant across the nation.

As part of the Affordable Care Act, any restaurant in America with at least 20 locations must follow

the American Medical Association voted to classify obesity as a disease

What is wrong with the economies of the West—and with economics?

With little or no effective policy initiative giving a lift to the less advantaged, the jarring market forces of the past four decades—mainly the slowdowns in productivity that have spread over the West and, of course, globalization, which has moved much low-wage manufacturing to Asia—have proceeded, unopposed, to drag down both employment and wage rates at the low end. The setback has cost the less advantaged not only a loss of income but also a loss of what economists call inclusion—access to jobs offering work and pay that provide self-respect.

The classical idea of political economy has been to let wage rates sink to whatever level the market takes them, and then provide everyone with the “safety net” of a “negative income tax,” unemployment insurance, and free food, shelter, clothing, and medical care

There are lots of ways water in the West is being mismanaged: farming subsidies for water-intensive crops; arcane laws encouraging waste; leaky infrastructure. But none may be more significant than refusing to accept the fact that the West’s water resources are interconnected.

Willingly overlooking that fact amounts to a fundamental failure of water management that has left states more vulnerable to drought and less prepared to adapt to the effects of climate change. Moreover, it has left them blind to an honest accounting of their total supply. How can anyone plan for the future if there isn’t agreement about something as basic as how much water there actually is?

In much of California and Arizona — two of the states with arguably the most severe water crises and water management challenges in the nation — state and local authorities continue to count the sources of water as if they were entirely separate, two distinct bank accounts.

What’s different about this moment is the emergence of a political culture — on blogs and Twitter and cable television — that so loudly and readily reinforces the dark visions of political extremists, often for profit or political gain.

the problem would seem to rest with the political leaders who pander to the margins of the margins, employing whatever words seem likely to win them contributions or TV time, with little regard for the consequences.

Popular spokespeople like Ms. Palin routinely drop words like “tyranny” and “socialism” when describing the president and his allies, as if blind to the idea that Americans legitimately faced with either enemy would almost certainly take up arms.

“Anywhere in the world that social psychologists see women or minorities underrepresented by a factor of two or three, our minds jump to discrimination as the explanation,” said Dr. Haidt, who called himself a longtime liberal turned centrist. “But when we find out that conservatives are underrepresented among us by a factor of more than 100, suddenly everyone finds it quite easy to generate alternate explanations.”

The fields of psychology, sociology and anthropology have long attracted liberals, but they became more exclusive after the 1960s, according to Dr. Haidt. “The fight for civil rights and against racism became the sacred cause unifying the left throughout American society, and within the academy,” he said, arguing that this shared morality both “binds and blinds.”

“If a group circles around sacred values, they will evolve into a tribal-moral community,” he said. “They’ll embrace science whenever it supports their sacred values, but they’ll ditch it or distort it as soon as it threatens a sacred value.” It’s easy for social scientists to observe this process in other communities, like the fundamentalist Christians who embrace “intelligent design” while rejecting Darwinism. But academics can be selective, too, as Daniel Patrick Moynihan found in 1965 when he warned about the rise of unmarried parenthood and welfare dependency among blacks — violating the taboo against criticizing victims of racism. “Moynihan was shunned by many of his colleagues at Harvard as racist,” Dr. Haidt said. “Open-minded inquiry into the problems of the black family was shut down for decades, precisely the decades in which it was most urgently needed. Only in the last few years have liberal sociologists begun to acknowledge that Moynihan was right all along.”

The page-by-page detail of the book is much of the reason to read it, but if you reduced its complexities and tangles to their essence, they would amount to these three points:

First, through most of human history, people have chosen to intertwine religion with all their other activities, including, notably, how they are governed. This was “not because ambitious churchmen had ‘mixed up’ two essentially distinct activities,” she says, “but because people wanted to endow everything they did with significance.”

econd, this involvement with politics means that religions have often been tied up with violence: Crusaders, conquistadors, jihadists and many more. But — a point Armstrong cares about so much that she makes it dozens of times — the violence almost always originates with the state and spills over to religion, rather than vice versa

what we see is that some lives matter more than others, that some lives matter so much that they need to be protected at all costs, and that other lives matter less, or not at all. And when that becomes the situation, then the lives that do not matter so much, or do not matter at all, can be killed or lost, can be exposed to conditions of destitution, and there is no concern, or even worse, that is regarded as the way it is supposed to be

we have to remember that under slavery black lives were considered only a fraction of a human life, so the prevailing way of valuing lives assumed that some lives mattered more

when and where did black lives ever really get free of coercive force? One reason the chant “Black Lives Matter” is so important is that it states the obvious but the obvious has not yet been historically realized. So it is a statement of outrage and a demand for equality, for the right to live free of constraint, but also a chant that links the history of slavery, of debt peonage, segregation, and a prison system geared toward the containment, neutralization and degradation of black lives,

America and the Torture Debate

history shows that governments tend to overreact or act badly when they are attacked or threatened

It kept citizens perpetually in fear of known and unknown threats, and so in blind awe of the ever-expanding security state within a state.

Yevgeny Savostyanov, the head of Russia's Coordination Council on Intellectual Property Protection, said in an open letter that he was "ashamed" of Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky and no longer wished to work with his ministry.

Savostyanov, a former FSB official and deputy chief of the Kremlin staff, condemned Medinsky and his ministry for turning a blind eye to the frequent disruptions of concerts, exhibitions, and shows of artists critical of the government.