Time with Dad

I am not quite at middle age—I ’ ll be 39 this fall—but I don ’ t remember much of Father ’ s Day when I was a kid .
My father was a pastor and so other responsibilities took precedence on any given Sunday .
There were presents and dessert and maybe Dad put some steaks on the grill for lunch .
It was a good day but by today ’ s standards—the refrain of “ Happy Father ’ s Day ” from casual friends at lunch , the lengthy social media threads detailing funny or touching paternal stories—it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ last several years , there have been just phone calls and maybe a card if I remembered .
Late last summer my father was diagnosed with esophageal cancer .
Three months later he was dead .
He had felt bad for weeks .
He was always a little fussy in a way that we all recognized—ministry was a stressful vocation and he had a slight edge , a holdover from a set of strong Sicilian genes .
My kids spent the weekend at my parents ’ place in Prattville—just outside Montgomery—in late June @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I met the kids and my parents to bring our crew home to our Birmingham suburb , he was in a sort of strange mood .
I thought maybe one of my kids had said or done something and it ’ s possible they had , but I knew he was bothered by something and he knew I knew and so I did my best to step back and avoid unnecessarily pushing any buttons .
There was a repeat episode a few weeks later when he took me and my boys to a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ my brother back out of town before lunch .
No one was expecting a white-table-cloth bistro—barbecue would have been fine—but skipping lunch altogether was weird .
He finally scheduled an appointment with a doctor , and on a preview visit a few days before the appointment , his nurses noticed something and his doctor ordered him admitted .
A week later he was out of the hospital with a cancer diagnosis .
Two chemotherapy treatments were all he managed before he took a turn from which he never recovered .
He died on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by my mother and siblings while the grandchildren played blissfully in the front yard .
I don ’ t remember exactly what I felt in that moment but it lasted forever , and in replaying it I like to think it may have been something like the sound of voices rising in song , the sort of thing that Wendell Berry imagined Jayber Crow hearing when he sat on a bench in the old church once occupied by his dead forebears .
Practically everything I love is something I picked up from my @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what he gave and amplify it to a much greater degree .
He liked jazz , mostly easily approachable artists like Harry Connick Jr .
I came home with a stack of Charlie Parker recordings and the entirety of the Gershwin songbook .
He had a collection of Harvard Classics on the shelf .
I devoured Aristotle and Luther , Burke and Madison , and it has shaped every part of my life and career .
He dressed well—most of the time—and taught me to do likewise , but where he was largely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ ve spent nearly a decade scouring the internet and thrift stores for vintage Harris Tweed and Brooks Brothers oxford .
He loved Italian food , and was willing to push some culinary boundaries , but my risotto milanese was too much .
Just about every avenue I pursued in life originated from under his wing .
I probably overplayed my hand from time to time , and maybe he could have walked further down some rabbit holes with me .
We were both imperfect in that regard , but without him , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the things that have brought me such profound joy in life .
In the end , maybe our imperfections are the most lasting gifts we leave behind for those who love us .
Not long after Dad ’ s diagnosis , David Berman died .
Berman was the driving creative force behind the band Silver Jews .
Silver Jews were , along with Berman ’ s friends in Pavement , the epitome of 1990s , lo-fi indie rock .
For those of us who knew , he was perhaps the best songwriter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s music was replete with the theme of loss ; how we grieve and make sense of our memories .
It was music that would have grated on my father ’ s nerves , and lyrics he would have found nonsensical , but it was on my stereo every afternoon as we exchanged texts while he sat in his hospital bed and I waited to pick my kids up from school .
One of Berman ’ s most poignant lines has been in my head for months .
“ Half hours on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” What was the value of a phone call , or a quick ride with him into town , to pick up God-knows-what from Wal-Mart while we talked and grabbed cheap Mexican food for lunch ?
When I was a boy , we lived for several years in north Alabama along the many branches of the Tennessee River , in an area powered by the Tennessee Valley Authority and its mighty dams .
There was water everywhere—and catfish .
Practically every grown man I knew liked to fish .
I joined him a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on it , at first because I was too young but later because I was indifferent .
Then he moved on to something else—deer hunting , mostly—and I managed to join often enough to feel like we built something meaningful on cold afternoons among the dark pines of Mississippi and Alabama .
Where I supposed we connected most was in running errands and driving around town and grabbing lunch , talking about everything and nothing , as I tried to flex my own intellectual muscles when I probably should have been asking more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as a boy and watching Alabama football in the early ’ 70s , back when the team still played in Birmingham .
What did that New Orleans accent sound like ?
Who made the best French bread ?
What was it like to see Coach Bryant walk out of the tunnel and lumber under the goal post during warmups ?
What was it like in those downtown department stores , the windows frosted at Christmastime and Mitch Miller blaring on the loudspeakers ?
These are the things I would like to know—and maybe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t fully remember .
He was a repository of memory .
Almost everything I know about Birmingham I know from him—he moved here after the marches but knew the city before it was gentrified into the New South , when half the men in town were union employees at the steel mills and furnaces , when the restaurants were almost entirely run by Greeks and Italians , long before anyone knew or cared about a James Beard Award .
I still have an endless stream of questions about all sorts of things @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from him .
I am still , as Camus said , “ losing the faint hues of life that memory may give ” Tomorrow I ’ m going fishing in a crappie lake—the sort of fishing he once did .
When I walk out on the pier , I ’ ll take with me his rods and reels , and hopefully teach my boys and my little girl how to cast and when to reel in the line and maybe we ’ ll catch a small crappie , and we ’ ll notch @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the fading sunset of June .

I am not quite at middle age—I’ll be 39 this fall—but I don’t remember much of Father’s Day when I was a kid. My father was a pastor and so other responsibilities took precedence on any given Sunday. There were presents and dessert and maybe Dad put some steaks on the grill for lunch. It was a good day but by today’s standards—the refrain of “Happy Father’s Day” from casual friends at lunch, the lengthy social media threads detailing funny or touching paternal stories—it was very low-key. And over the last several years, there have been just phone calls and maybe a card if I remembered.
This year I won’t make any phone calls.
Late last summer my father was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. Three months later he was dead.
He had felt bad for weeks. He was always a little fussy in a way that we all recognized—ministry was a stressful vocation and he had a slight edge, a holdover from a set of strong Sicilian genes.
My kids spent the weekend at my parents’ place in Prattville—just outside Montgomery—in late June last year. When my wife and I met the kids and my parents to bring our crew home to our Birmingham suburb, he was in a sort of strange mood. I thought maybe one of my kids had said or done something and it’s possible they had, but I knew he was bothered by something and he knew I knew and so I did my best to step back and avoid unnecessarily pushing any buttons. There was a repeat episode a few weeks later when he took me and my boys to a deer-hunting expo but he rushed himself and my brother back out of town before lunch. No one was expecting a white-table-cloth bistro—barbecue would have been fine—but skipping lunch altogether was weird.
He finally scheduled an appointment with a doctor, and on a preview visit a few days before the appointment, his nurses noticed something and his doctor ordered him admitted.
A week later he was out of the hospital with a cancer diagnosis. Two chemotherapy treatments were all he managed before he took a turn from which he never recovered.
He died on a bright, mild November day surrounded by my mother and siblings while the grandchildren played blissfully in the front yard. I don’t remember exactly what I felt in that moment but it lasted forever, and in replaying it I like to think it may have been something like the sound of voices rising in song, the sort of thing that Wendell Berry imagined Jayber Crow hearing when he sat on a bench in the old church once occupied by his dead forebears.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
Practically everything I love is something I picked up from my father. My tendency was to take what he gave and amplify it to a much greater degree.
He liked jazz, mostly easily approachable artists like Harry Connick Jr. I came home with a stack of Charlie Parker recordings and the entirety of the Gershwin songbook.
He had a collection of Harvard Classics on the shelf. I devoured Aristotle and Luther, Burke and Madison, and it has shaped every part of my life and career.
He dressed well—most of the time—and taught me to do likewise, but where he was largely satisfied with a department store, I’ve spent nearly a decade scouring the internet and thrift stores for vintage Harris Tweed and Brooks Brothers oxford.
He loved Italian food, and was willing to push some culinary boundaries, but my risotto milanese was too much.
Just about every avenue I pursued in life originated from under his wing. I probably overplayed my hand from time to time, and maybe he could have walked further down some rabbit holes with me. We were both imperfect in that regard, but without him, I wouldn’t have found most of the things that have brought me such profound joy in life.
In the end, maybe our imperfections are the most lasting gifts we leave behind for those who love us.
Not long after Dad’s diagnosis, David Berman died. Berman was the driving creative force behind the band Silver Jews. Silver Jews were, along with Berman’s friends in Pavement, the epitome of 1990s, lo-fi indie rock. For those of us who knew, he was perhaps the best songwriter of his time and place. Berman’s music was replete with the theme of loss; how we grieve and make sense of our memories. It was music that would have grated on my father’s nerves, and lyrics he would have found nonsensical, but it was on my stereo every afternoon as we exchanged texts while he sat in his hospital bed and I waited to pick my kids up from school.
One of Berman’s most poignant lines has been in my head for months.
“Half hours on Earth, what are they worth?”
What was the value of a phone call, or a quick ride with him into town, to pick up God-knows-what from Wal-Mart while we talked and grabbed cheap Mexican food for lunch?
When I was a boy, we lived for several years in north Alabama along the many branches of the Tennessee River, in an area powered by the Tennessee Valley Authority and its mighty dams. There was water everywhere—and catfish. Practically every grown man I knew liked to fish. I joined him a few times but I usually missed out on it, at first because I was too young but later because I was indifferent. Then he moved on to something else—deer hunting, mostly—and I managed to join often enough to feel like we built something meaningful on cold afternoons among the dark pines of Mississippi and Alabama. Where I supposed we connected most was in running errands and driving around town and grabbing lunch, talking about everything and nothing, as I tried to flex my own intellectual muscles when I probably should have been asking more questions about his summers in New Orleans as a boy and watching Alabama football in the early ’70s, back when the team still played in Birmingham.
What did that New Orleans accent sound like? Who made the best French bread? What was it like to see Coach Bryant walk out of the tunnel and lumber under the goal post during warmups? What was it like in those downtown department stores, the windows frosted at Christmastime and Mitch Miller blaring on the loudspeakers?
These are the things I would like to know—and maybe I once did but now I can’t fully remember.
He was a repository of memory. Almost everything I know about Birmingham I know from him—he moved here after the marches but knew the city before it was gentrified into the New South, when half the men in town were union employees at the steel mills and furnaces, when the restaurants were almost entirely run by Greeks and Italians, long before anyone knew or cared about a James Beard Award. I still have an endless stream of questions about all sorts of things, but the answers cannot come from him. I am still, as Camus said, “losing the faint hues of life that memory may give”
Tomorrow I’m going fishing in a crappie lake—the sort of fishing he once did.
When I walk out on the pier, I’ll take with me his rods and reels, and hopefully teach my boys and my little girl how to cast and when to reel in the line and maybe we’ll catch a small crappie, and we’ll notch one more memory that lasts longer than the fading sunset of June.


thebulwark--2020-06-22--What You Learn from Going ‘in the Arena’

Many political analysts and commentators are in the business of explaining how they would have done things differently .
And business has been booming .
The last two decades of crises—from Katrina and Iraq , to the financial collapse and you-can-keep-your-doctor , to ignored red lines and COVID-19 , to our current economic emergency and civil unrest—have provided unending fodder for armchair authorities .
So , perhaps unsurprisingly , this has become a growth industry ; there is no shortage of individuals willing to take to the keyboard to expound on what should have been .
But in surveying the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t help but notice how few of these supposed experts on governing actually have meaningful experience in governing .
When you consider the columnists for major newspapers , the writers for politics-and-policy outlets , the talk-radio or cable-news hosts , and the academics regularly engaged in public affairs , you will certainly find terrific journalists , writers , pollsters , campaign hands , scholars , and social critics .
What you won ’ t find nearly enough of are people who have been personally shaped by extensive work inside of our democratic institutions—and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be responsible for public authority and live with the consequences of those decisions .
Indeed , as the ranks of the commentariat grow , with an ever-expanding supply of programs , political sites , and podcasts—and as many of our public officials behave as though they ’ d rather host a talk show than run a unit of government—we may soon find ourselves with a universe of people eager to analyze and criticize the work of governing but fewer and fewer left to do the work of governing .
This is a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ health of our nation .
I am not making the case that every commentator must have governing experience .
Writers who have spent their careers outside of government can be highly informed and convincing .
Moreover , government service can produce sclerotic habits and beliefs that can only be effectively checked by those with different sets of experiences .
Instead , my argument in favor of elevating meaningful governing service among those shaping our public discourse has two parts : First , citizens aiming to have an outsized influence on the public ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; second , executives and editors in charge of prominent media outlets should prioritize those experienced in public service because they have been shaped in ways that enable them to make particularly valuable contributions to the public discourse .
Both points are related to the concept of “ civic virtue.
” Notable ancient Greek and Roman thinkers , including Aristotle and Cicero , discussed the obligation of citizens to actively participate in public affairs .
This was premised on the view that a polity ’ s population needs to pursue the common good @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is a duty of membership of a community .
Similar themes can be found in Catholic social teaching , which encourages individuals to take an active part in public life .
This belief is rooted in the idea that social justice requires individuals to work collaboratively to advance the common good .
But the same idea is at the heart of republicanism , a political tradition that influenced our country ’ s founding .
Republicanism understands the people as sovereign .
It is an approach to governing that aims to ensure limited , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , it typically includes devices like separate branches of government and federalism that distribute authority to avoid the dangers of concentrated power .
But these also aim to bring about good , effective government of , by , and for the people .
Republicanism is not anarchy or libertarianism .
It assumes that not inconsiderable governing must be done .
It aims to put the people and their representatives in charge and establish arrangements likely to produce wise , prudent state action .
But republicanism isn ’ t merely institutional design .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ good and civic virtue .
In this sense it demands more than liberalism .
It expects a population selfless enough to act in the public interest and active enough to participate in the tasks of governing .
Rather than conceiving of liberty as simply freeing individuals , republicanism attaches civic responsibilities to liberty .
Certainly , this includes voting , knowing history , and following legitimate laws .
But more is required .
We need citizens to serve as town councilors , city administrators , county commissioners , school board members , state @ @ @ @ @ @ @ countless other roles inside of our governing institutions .
This kind of service not only keeps our ship of state afloat , it also teaches the people who do such work how to understand the common good and how to cultivate and practice civic virtues .
In other words , governing is formative .
The common good can ’ t be divined from reason or revelation alone .
Civic virtue can ’ t be acquired by simply reading philosophy .
Both require engaging in public life .
Knocking on doors as a candidate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sitting through a long bill hearing is not just about following the legislative process .
Taking part in public debates in not just about self-expression .
Making a tough governing decision is not just about resolving a policy matter .
Through these activities , the public servant listens to fellow citizens , learns of competing priorities , and witnesses principles in conflict .
The public servant comes to appreciate the value of civility , modesty , curiosity , accommodation , and compromise .
The public servant understands the consequences of a major governing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an essay .
In total , then , governing experience can produce citizens with a deeper understanding of the goals , demands , tools , limits , and implications of governing .
They won ’ t just be more knowledgeable about laws and regulations .
They will likely also better appreciate the larger enterprise of governing in a continental , diverse republic , including the roles of ( and tensions among ) pluralism , democracy , agency , rights , tradition , inequality , and institutional arrangements .
And they will likely have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s demonstration of humility , judiciousness , and gratitude .
There are many ways citizens can contribute to the public good , including working through nongovernmental voluntary associations , advocating , and protesting injustice .
These are valuable ; we should keep pursuing them .
And we should acknowledge the costs of government service—the hours and demands can be grueling , the stress and scrutiny can be grinding , your texts and emails will be FOIAed , you will pay psychic and professional costs for bad decisions .
But we seem to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of participation in governing—how it fulfills our civic obligations and how it forms citizens .
So two humble requests .
First , if you ’ ve made a career around governing—reporting , lobbying , researching , polling , critiquing—consider a stint serving inside one of our governing institutions .
Our republic needs its ablest citizens to give in this way .
Second , if you are in charge of an outlet that offers opinion—advising , analyzing , scolding—on the work of government , make sure that a substantial portion of your voices have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ believe that self-government is good for the government and for the self , our public discourse could be mightily improved by giving more prominence to those personally familiar with the practices , powers , and responsibilities of public leadership .

Many political analysts and commentators are in the business of explaining how they would have done things differently. And business has been booming.
The last two decades of crises—from Katrina and Iraq, to the financial collapse and you-can-keep-your-doctor, to ignored red lines and COVID-19, to our current economic emergency and civil unrest—have provided unending fodder for armchair authorities. So, perhaps unsurprisingly, this has become a growth industry; there is no shortage of individuals willing to take to the keyboard to expound on what should have been.
But in surveying the landscape of critics, one can’t help but notice how few of these supposed experts on governing actually have meaningful experience in governing. When you consider the columnists for major newspapers, the writers for politics-and-policy outlets, the talk-radio or cable-news hosts, and the academics regularly engaged in public affairs, you will certainly find terrific journalists, writers, pollsters, campaign hands, scholars, and social critics. What you won’t find nearly enough of are people who have been personally shaped by extensive work inside of our democratic institutions—and who know what it’s like to be responsible for public authority and live with the consequences of those decisions.
Indeed, as the ranks of the commentariat grow, with an ever-expanding supply of programs, political sites, and podcasts—and as many of our public officials behave as though they’d rather host a talk show than run a unit of government—we may soon find ourselves with a universe of people eager to analyze and criticize the work of governing but fewer and fewer left to do the work of governing.
This is a problem for those who care about the health of our nation.
I am not making the case that every commentator must have governing experience. Writers who have spent their careers outside of government can be highly informed and convincing. Moreover, government service can produce sclerotic habits and beliefs that can only be effectively checked by those with different sets of experiences.
Instead, my argument in favor of elevating meaningful governing service among those shaping our public discourse has two parts: First, citizens aiming to have an outsized influence on the public’s business have a duty to serve; second, executives and editors in charge of prominent media outlets should prioritize those experienced in public service because they have been shaped in ways that enable them to make particularly valuable contributions to the public discourse.
Both points are related to the concept of “civic virtue.”
Notable ancient Greek and Roman thinkers, including Aristotle and Cicero, discussed the obligation of citizens to actively participate in public affairs. This was premised on the view that a polity’s population needs to pursue the common good ahead of mere private interest. Service is a duty of membership of a community. Similar themes can be found in Catholic social teaching, which encourages individuals to take an active part in public life. This belief is rooted in the idea that social justice requires individuals to work collaboratively to advance the common good.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
But the same idea is at the heart of republicanism, a political tradition that influenced our country’s founding. Republicanism understands the people as sovereign. It is an approach to governing that aims to ensure limited, publicly responsive state authority. In practice, it typically includes devices like separate branches of government and federalism that distribute authority to avoid the dangers of concentrated power. But these also aim to bring about good, effective government of, by, and for the people. Republicanism is not anarchy or libertarianism. It assumes that not inconsiderable governing must be done. It aims to put the people and their representatives in charge and establish arrangements likely to produce wise, prudent state action.
But republicanism isn’t merely institutional design. It is rooted in concepts like the common good and civic virtue. In this sense it demands more than liberalism. It expects a population selfless enough to act in the public interest and active enough to participate in the tasks of governing. Rather than conceiving of liberty as simply freeing individuals, republicanism attaches civic responsibilities to liberty. Certainly, this includes voting, knowing history, and following legitimate laws. But more is required. We need citizens to serve as town councilors, city administrators, county commissioners, school board members, state representatives, judges, clerks, and countless other roles inside of our governing institutions.
This kind of service not only keeps our ship of state afloat, it also teaches the people who do such work how to understand the common good and how to cultivate and practice civic virtues. In other words, governing is formative.
The common good can’t be divined from reason or revelation alone. Civic virtue can’t be acquired by simply reading philosophy. Both require engaging in public life. Knocking on doors as a candidate is not just about winning votes. Sitting through a long bill hearing is not just about following the legislative process. Taking part in public debates in not just about self-expression. Making a tough governing decision is not just about resolving a policy matter. Through these activities, the public servant listens to fellow citizens, learns of competing priorities, and witnesses principles in conflict. The public servant comes to appreciate the value of civility, modesty, curiosity, accommodation, and compromise. The public servant understands the consequences of a major governing decision are dramatically higher than those of an essay.
In total, then, governing experience can produce citizens with a deeper understanding of the goals, demands, tools, limits, and implications of governing. They won’t just be more knowledgeable about laws and regulations. They will likely also better appreciate the larger enterprise of governing in a continental, diverse republic, including the roles of (and tensions among) pluralism, democracy, agency, rights, tradition, inequality, and institutional arrangements. And they will likely have learned the importance of a public servant’s demonstration of humility, judiciousness, and gratitude.
There are many ways citizens can contribute to the public good, including working through nongovernmental voluntary associations, advocating, and protesting injustice. These are valuable; we should keep pursuing them. And we should acknowledge the costs of government service—the hours and demands can be grueling, the stress and scrutiny can be grinding, your texts and emails will be FOIAed, you will pay psychic and professional costs for bad decisions.
But we seem to have lost sight of the enormous value of participation in governing—how it fulfills our civic obligations and how it forms citizens.
So two humble requests. First, if you’ve made a career around governing—reporting, lobbying, researching, polling, critiquing—consider a stint serving inside one of our governing institutions. Our republic needs its ablest citizens to give in this way.
Second, if you are in charge of an outlet that offers opinion—advising, analyzing, scolding—on the work of government, make sure that a substantial portion of your voices have significant governing experience. If we still believe that self-government is good for the government and for the self, our public discourse could be mightily improved by giving more prominence to those personally familiar with the practices, powers, and responsibilities of public leadership.


thebulwark--2020-06-22--MLB Is Trying to Use the Pandemic to Force the Designated Hitter on America

Name one player you admire in any team sport who will look you in the eye and say with a straight face “ I don ’ t play defense.
” I ’ ll wait .
No one says this .
No parent would tolerate their child developing such an attitude even at the pee-wee soccer level .
Because any athlete who utters those four words is telling you they don ’ t pitch in , they don ’ t have your back .
They ’ re announcing that there ’ s no “ i ” in “ team , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the middle of “ win.
” The “ I don ’ t do defense ” mindset is inimical to the very concept of the shared endeavor of team sports .
And yet this is exactly what Major League Baseball seems to want .
The league and players ’ union may yet fail to come to terms for an abbreviated 2020 season .
But they do seem to agree on one thing : forcing the designated hitter on the National League this year , next year , and forever after .
The DH @ @ @ @ @ @ @ history of professional sports .
Worse than instant replay , even .
And that ’ s because the DH undercuts much of what makes baseball good , in the sense of being virtuous .
The designated hitter is , by definition , a man set apart .
He takes at bats , but he never takes the field .
He is , by his designation , the man unwilling—or unable—to actually play baseball .
He hits baseballs , but he does not play the game .
Which is to say that he isn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so much as a guy who makes special guest appearances every 40 minutes or so .
Some people , inevitably from New York or Boston , will insist that the DH has given their great players a few more years in the game and one last payday .
Good for them , I guess .
Major League Baseball is obsessed with modernism .
The league has spent the last decade looking at declining TV audiences and trying to make itself more into the image of the NFL .
That ’ s why baseball @ @ @ @ @ @ @ clock .
It ’ s why the league has been “ experimenting ” with robot umpires and starting a runner on second in extra innings .
And apparently the big brains at the league office also think that what baseball really needs to connect with the modern audience is a late career jobs program for aging stars on the back end of their contracts .
It is baseball ’ s curse that the stewards of the game often misunderstand – or just disdain – why fans love it .
Because the median baseball @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dodger ’ s Stadium to be like going to a Raiders game .
The attraction of baseball is that it functions as America ’ s patrimony .
There is the history and heritage , yes , but there is also the deep reservoir of lessons it has to teach us about life .
For example , baseball—more than any other sport—ingrains humility in players from their first steps .
Even the best batter fails twice as often at the plate as he succeeds .
A kid in Little League learns early on what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he sticks with the game , he only becomes more deeply immersed in the feeling .
This feeling will eventually teach the kid how to manage life ’ s failures and it is a real and meaningful point of connection between the 10-year-old in the sandlot and the major league all-star .
This connection is to be treasured among all players—including among pitchers , who are not , at least in the National League , a protected class .
Yes , pitchers statistically underperform their teammates at the plate—as you would expect , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ number of games and now come from minor leagues that excuse them from batting .
But there is something noble , instructive , and necessary , about watching a pitcher standing at the plate , denuded of the menace he can project from the mound , himself exposed in his turn .
It inculcates both humility and courage that each man must take his turn , no exceptions .
You would think the MLB would cling to what few institutional examples of those qualities it has , because they are what separates baseball @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rest of sports entertainment .
Instead MLB views such ancient strictures as weeds in its garden .
Forcing the DH on the National League under the pretext of the COVID-19 pandemic is about par for the executives on Madison Avenue , for whom the breach between alleged-cause and desired-effect has long been a chasm .
The usual rationale trotted out to justify the pitcher/slugger job share is “ generating more offense ” —which is an offensively stupid explanation to any observer familiar with the false promises of the American League , which collectively @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ahead of the National League game-for-game .
And of course if merely “ generating more offense ” was what the MLB wanted , they have other options .
They could , to pick just one example , remove the position of shortstop .
That sounds insane to you ?
Well , it is .
But so is any rule change undertaken merely because it will increase scoring under the pretext that this outcome is “ good for the game.
” No , universalizing the DH is really about just one thing : television @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as the motivating force for all “ reform ” ( read : “ vandalism ” ) of the professional game .
As always happens when money and markets gain the whip hand over culture and values , the result is moral corrosion .
Robot umpires , instant reply , the Houston Astros—all that is most soulless and debased in modern professional baseball is rooted in television becoming the alpha and omega of MLB ’ s operating creed .
The real reason for imposing the DH , at least from the league ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to grab channel surfers .
In the mind of league executives , baseball fans have the intelligence and attention span of fruit flies .
They can ’ t be expected to appreciate or care that how you cover for a pitcher ’ s batting is part of the game , or understand that a bunt can be far more impactful than a swing for the fences .
All that matters is how instantly watchable the situation is , how closely the TV broadcast can be made to resemble live action pinball , how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ highlight on TikTok .
And because television is infinitely corrupting , this is all hunky-dory with the players ’ union .
Cosseting pitchers and running a workfare program for aging stars is a double-play for them .
This is , after all , the same union that stymied any real punishment for the serial cheaters of the Astros and maybe , possibly , question mark , the Red Sox .
They , as much as the league itself , have long since abandoned any pretense of concern for the integrity of the game @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whenever it is finally inked into National League law , will have been won not from the field or among the fans but in boardroom negotiations .
It is just another piece of the game ’ s virtuous tradition , traded away by management and players who think it will get them 30 more pieces of silver .
To paraphrase the Godfather : they ’ re all commodities anyway , let them lose their souls .

Name one player you admire in any team sport who will look you in the eye and say with a straight face “I don’t play defense.” I’ll wait.
No one says this. No parent would tolerate their child developing such an attitude even at the pee-wee soccer level. Because any athlete who utters those four words is telling you they don’t pitch in, they don’t have your back. They’re announcing that there’s no “i” in “team,” but there’s one smack dab in the middle of “win.”
The “I don’t do defense” mindset is inimical to the very concept of the shared endeavor of team sports.
And yet this is exactly what Major League Baseball seems to want.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
The league and players’ union may yet fail to come to terms for an abbreviated 2020 season. But they do seem to agree on one thing: forcing the designated hitter on the National League this year, next year, and forever after.
The DH is the single worst innovation in the history of professional sports. Worse than instant replay, even. And that’s because the DH undercuts much of what makes baseball good, in the sense of being virtuous. The designated hitter is, by definition, a man set apart. He takes at bats, but he never takes the field. He is, by his designation, the man unwilling—or unable—to actually play baseball. He hits baseballs, but he does not play the game. Which is to say that he isn’t really on the team, so much as a guy who makes special guest appearances every 40 minutes or so.
Some people, inevitably from New York or Boston, will insist that the DH has given their great players a few more years in the game and one last payday. Good for them, I guess.
Major League Baseball is obsessed with modernism. The league has spent the last decade looking at declining TV audiences and trying to make itself more into the image of the NFL. That’s why baseball now has instant replay and the countdown clock. It’s why the league has been “experimenting” with robot umpires and starting a runner on second in extra innings.
And apparently the big brains at the league office also think that what baseball really needs to connect with the modern audience is a late career jobs program for aging stars on the back end of their contracts.
It is baseball’s curse that the stewards of the game often misunderstand – or just disdain – why fans love it. Because the median baseball fan does not want July evening at Dodger’s Stadium to be like going to a Raiders game.
The attraction of baseball is that it functions as America’s patrimony. There is the history and heritage, yes, but there is also the deep reservoir of lessons it has to teach us about life.
For example, baseball—more than any other sport—ingrains humility in players from their first steps. Even the best batter fails twice as often at the plate as he succeeds. A kid in Little League learns early on what striking out feels like. And if he sticks with the game, he only becomes more deeply immersed in the feeling.
This feeling will eventually teach the kid how to manage life’s failures and it is a real and meaningful point of connection between the 10-year-old in the sandlot and the major league all-star.
This connection is to be treasured among all players—including among pitchers, who are not, at least in the National League, a protected class.
Yes, pitchers statistically underperform their teammates at the plate—as you would expect, since they play a fraction of the number of games and now come from minor leagues that excuse them from batting. But there is something noble, instructive, and necessary, about watching a pitcher standing at the plate, denuded of the menace he can project from the mound, himself exposed in his turn. It inculcates both humility and courage that each man must take his turn, no exceptions.
You would think the MLB would cling to what few institutional examples of those qualities it has, because they are what separates baseball not only from football but from the rest of sports entertainment. Instead MLB views such ancient strictures as weeds in its garden.
Forcing the DH on the National League under the pretext of the COVID-19 pandemic is about par for the executives on Madison Avenue, for whom the breach between alleged-cause and desired-effect has long been a chasm.
The usual rationale trotted out to justify the pitcher/slugger job share is “generating more offense”—which is an offensively stupid explanation to any observer familiar with the false promises of the American League, which collectively manages to score barely a rounding error ahead of the National League game-for-game.
And of course if merely “generating more offense” was what the MLB wanted, they have other options. They could, to pick just one example, remove the position of shortstop. That sounds insane to you? Well, it is.
But so is any rule change undertaken merely because it will increase scoring under the pretext that this outcome is “good for the game.”
No, universalizing the DH is really about just one thing: television.
For years, television has served as the motivating force for all “reform” (read: “vandalism”) of the professional game. As always happens when money and markets gain the whip hand over culture and values, the result is moral corrosion.
Robot umpires, instant reply, the Houston Astros—all that is most soulless and debased in modern professional baseball is rooted in television becoming the alpha and omega of MLB’s operating creed.
The real reason for imposing the DH, at least from the league’s perspective, is to deliver more moments to grab channel surfers.
In the mind of league executives, baseball fans have the intelligence and attention span of fruit flies. They can’t be expected to appreciate or care that how you cover for a pitcher’s batting is part of the game, or understand that a bunt can be far more impactful than a swing for the fences. All that matters is how instantly watchable the situation is, how closely the TV broadcast can be made to resemble live action pinball, how many shares you can get of the highlight on TikTok.
And because television is infinitely corrupting, this is all hunky-dory with the players’ union. Cosseting pitchers and running a workfare program for aging stars is a double-play for them. This is, after all, the same union that stymied any real punishment for the serial cheaters of the Astros and maybe, possibly, question mark, the Red Sox. They, as much as the league itself, have long since abandoned any pretense of concern for the integrity of the game.
The victory of the DH, whenever it is finally inked into National League law, will have been won not from the field or among the fans but in boardroom negotiations. It is just another piece of the game’s virtuous tradition, traded away by management and players who think it will get them 30 more pieces of silver.
To paraphrase the Godfather: they’re all commodities anyway, let them lose their souls.


thebulwark--2020-06-22--Three Recent Reversals Highlight the Challenges of COVID Science

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to remind us just how messy and maddening science can be .
At times , it seems that we ’ re making real headway , and then abruptly , the progress is stalled .
Or worse .
Three recent examples of high-profile reversals highlight the challenges of working on urgent problems at the cutting edge of medical science .
The most recent , and perhaps most conspicuous reversal is the FDA ’ s recent revocation of the Emergency Use Authorization ( EUA ) it has originally issued for hydroxychloroquine ( and chloroquine ) on March 28 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the treatment of malaria .
Hydroxychloroquine is also used to treat some autoimmune conditions , such as rheumatoid arthritis and lupus .
The EUA for the treatment of COVID-19 was granted on the basis of embarrassingly little scientific evidence , but in the presence of exceptional political pressure from President Trump .
Encouraged by aides , including his U.S. Trade Adviser Peter Navarro , the president believed there was real promise in the medication , and comparatively little risk , given that the drug had been around for so long and common @ @ @ @ @ @ @ When data , including a gold-standard randomized-control study , revealed that the drug apparently offered no benefit to COVID-19 patients , the EUA was withdrawn .
While most scientists agree with the latest decision , there is almost universal consensus that the original approval represented a political , rather than a scientific , decision .
As Dr. Ashish Jha , Faculty Director at the Harvard Global Health Institute , told the Washington Post , “ Until six months ago , I never worried that the FDA decision-making was being driven primarily by political @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some of that.
” In the context of the hydroxychloroquine decision , he says , the FDA must “ try and do something to restore faith in their agency.
” One particularly worrisome consequence of the apparent political meddling is that future medicines—especially vaccines—are less likely to be trusted .
Before COVID-19 , there was already a distressing amount of vaccine hesitancy , and this despite the robust data supporting their use .
Add to this Trump ’ s fervent desire to announce a vaccine success prior to the election .
( Vice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wall Street Journal op-ed that “ we are well on the way to having a viable vaccine by fall.
” ) The obvious concern is that under intense pressure from the administration , a “ viable vaccine ” could get the green light from the FDA based on inadequate data around safety and efficacy , potentially placing healthy future recipients at risk .
And an equally worrisome concern is that a truly safe and effective vaccine could be heroically developed , but then struggle for adoption given the widespread distrust of Trump , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ agencies over which he is now thought to exert undue influence .
While an excessively permissive FDA fails to serve the public good , an overly rigid and conservative FDA isn ’ t what we need either—especially during a pandemic .
The FDA by its very nature exists between two opposing forces : one encouraging it to expedite approvals of good drugs for patients , the other urging it to protect patients from bad drugs .
Yet these tensions tend to be manifest asymmetrically since the failures—products that were approved but then discovered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ visible than the products never developed because of an excessively cautious review process .
You might think of the FDA as a place constantly torn between committing sins of commission and sins of omission .
So we ought to have sympathy for how hard the institution ’ s job is .
Some critics on the libertarian side of the spectrum have wondered whether the country might do better by skipping most of the review processes , letting more products reach consumers , and essentially letting the market determine quality .
In the context @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to a preview of what this parallel libertarian universe might have looked like , when the agency initially authorized a number of coronavirus antibody tests without requiring the customary quality check by the agency—essentially , relying on manufacturers for the evaluation of their own tests and mandating only a disclaimer .
Many tests didn ’ t work as advertised .
The New York Health Department had to warn doctors not to use them , Politico reported .
Former FDA Commissioner Dr. David Kessler commented , “ If the FDA is not looking at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not doing its job.
” The agency soon reversed course .
On May 4 it announced that such tests must be submitted to the FDA , and are required to meet pre-specified performance criteria .
As Scott Becker , CEO of the Association of Public Health Laboratories told Politico , “ We ’ ve long been concerned that allowing tests on the market that have not been approved and authorized for use is a recipe for disaster.
” He added that the “ revised policy makes a lot of sense and should have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ weeks.
” This makes sense , given the indefensibly poor quality of some of the antibody tests hitting the market .
But the flip side of this coin is that , had this process worked—had the tests been solid—then right now we would be crediting the FDA for thinking creatively and for cultivating the sort of innovation the some crises require .
Certainly , this is how the FDA sees its initial failure .
On a recent panel discussion I moderated at this year ’ s ( virtual ) BIO2020 meeting , FDA @ @ @ @ @ @ @ me that in the context of COVID-19 , “ We have all had to figure it out really fast.
” Abernethy noted that companies have recognized that , Added Abernethy , “ We have issued a number of EUAs that have taught us what is okay to do .
And sometimes it doesn ’ t work , so sometimes we have to pull back.
” She cites the change of policy around COVID-19 antibody tests as a prime example : “ As FDA , we ’ ve been right-sizing right along with companies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ really important opportunity to try and ultimately figure out how do we innovate better , especially in areas that are historically incredibly risk-adverse.
” The challenge facing regulators is in a sense similar to that facing other large legacy organizations , as Safi Bahcall detailed in his recent book , Loonshots .
The dilemma is that innovation requires risk , and even calculated risk includes the possibility of being wrong .
If we insist on punishing all mistakes , we ’ ll also disincentivize the inescapable risk that innovation and change require .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the FDA but prestigious medical journals : The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine .
Each journal recently retracted a COVID-related paper that relied on a questionable dataset aggregated by a company no one had heard of ten minutes ago .
The Lancet paper purported to examine the outcome of hospitalized patients treated with hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine ( or neither ) , and concluded that these medicines didn ’ t help patients and seemed to increase the risk of cardiac arrhythmias and death .
The NEJM , meanwhile , had found @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were more likely to die from COVID than similar patients without heart problems—but the risk didn ’ t seem to be aggravated by several categories of hypertension medicines that had previously raised concern .
In some ways , this reversal is perhaps the most worrisome of all , in that it threatens an emerging and important category of information known as real-world data .
Real-world data basically means data from all the patients routinely engaged with the healthcare system .
It encompasses everything except for typical clinical trials , which generally exist outside @ @ @ @ @ @ @ randomized clinical trials—and certainly those involved in the initial evaluation of novel therapeutics—involve very deliberate and systematic approaches to the evaluation and treatment of patients .
A patient enrolled in a clinical trial is studied according to a highly detailed , meticulously crafted , rigorously reviewed , and ( hopefully ) stringently followed protocol .
The goal is to conduct a high-quality experiment that seeks to establish whether a defined intervention can impact a specific disease , and do so in a way that is relatively safe—that does appreciably more good than harm @ @ @ @ @ @ @ required to maximize the chance of detecting a meaningful efficacy signal .
But here ’ s where things get weird : Once an approach is established—whether a new drug that ’ s approved , or an innovation to an existing therapy that ’ s adopted—the approach is essentially out there , to be used or not , as providers or hospital systems see fit .
In other words , you have remarkably little visibility into how patients are faring in the real world .
Even though this is what matters most .
Is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there patients who are doing better than expected ?
Or worse ?
Are there tweaks introduced by front-line providers that may help a medicine work better , or be better tolerated ?
Most of the time , the providers have only their inevitably limited experience ( plus what they may have heard anecdotally ) to go on as they try to assess whether a particular approach is actually effective in their hands .
Even most hospital systems lack the ability to assess how well a particular approach may be working .
( Though @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a particular procedure were done , and calculate how much revenue was generated . )
There are reporting requirements for severe adverse effects and there are often follow-up clinical studies performed .
But the vast , vast , majority of clinical experience is not meaningfully incorporated into our collective understanding .
While isolated aspects of an individual ’ s interaction with the healthcare system are captured ( through a combination of insurance data , lab reports , and physician notes ) it is often prohibitively difficult to track the trajectory of most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ disease .
This is rarely done effectively at individual hospitals and the task is complicated by patients receiving care at multiple institutions ( and also by changing insurers relatively frequently ) .
Information in electronic medical records—much of it in service of billing responsibilities—is notoriously inaccurate and often represents prepopulated templates ( such as physical exams ) or sections of previous notes simply cut and pasted .
On the other hand , if you had a high-quality , comprehensive , up-to-date dataset , imagine how useful it would be—especially in a crisis like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ FDA itself is seeking to facilitate through the COVID-19 Evidence Accelerator because with this sort of information at your fingertips , you could rapidly evaluate whether categories of commonly administered medicines—such as hydroxychloroquine—were effective and whether other categories of medicines—like some anti-hypertensives—made things worse .
In other words , we would be able to routinely evaluate exactly the sort of questions tackled by the recent Lancet and NEJM papers .
Real-world evidence , in other words , represents the critical part of the feedback loop required for learning in medicine .
It ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ healthcare systems iteratively optimize and figure out how to offer better treatments .
It could also help tune AI algorithms seeking to identify subtle clinical patterns .
But the full promise of real-world data—and the dramatic improvements in care it might enable—may be prohibitively difficult to realize , given the challenges of pulling together all the required information , and ensuring the quality and accuracy of what ’ s assembled .
In fact , it was the unusual completeness of the dataset used for the Lancet and NEJM papers ( along with other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ roused the suspicion of outside experts , who called on the journals to investigate .
The company providing the relevant data was Surgisphere , an obscure Chicago-based outfit whose “ handful of employees , ” according to the Guardian , “ appear to include a science fiction writer and an adult-content model.
” The company , the Guardian continues , “ has provided data for multiple studies on COVID-19 co-authored by its chief executive , but has so far failed to adequately explain its data or methodology.
” Surgisphere , for its part @ @ @ @ @ @ @ integrity of our studies and our scientific researchers , clinical partners , and data analysts.
” But they have reportedly refused to cooperate with independent investigations .
Over time , we ’ re sure to learn more about Surgisphere , as well as the review processes that led two top journals to overlook such critically flawed papers .
It ’ s possible that the editorial appeal of the conclusions—indictment of Trump ’ s favorite drug , acquittal of two common blood pressure medicines—helped speed things along .
Because it turns out that Donald @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : Science , as practiced , can be as political , as personal , and as petty as every other area of human endeavor .
But science—unlike our chief executive—also tends to be self-correcting .
And for all its flaws , science still remains our best hope to defeat this deadly virus .

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to remind us just how messy and maddening science can be. At times, it seems that we’re making real headway, and then abruptly, the progress is stalled. Or worse. Three recent examples of high-profile reversals highlight the challenges of working on urgent problems at the cutting edge of medical science.
The most recent, and perhaps most conspicuous reversal is the FDA’s recent revocation of the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) it has originally issued for hydroxychloroquine (and chloroquine) on March 28.
These drugs were developed decades ago for the treatment of malaria. Hydroxychloroquine is also used to treat some autoimmune conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. The EUA for the treatment of COVID-19 was granted on the basis of embarrassingly little scientific evidence, but in the presence of exceptional political pressure from President Trump.
Encouraged by aides, including his U.S. Trade Adviser Peter Navarro, the president believed there was real promise in the medication, and comparatively little risk, given that the drug had been around for so long and common side effects had been well described.
When data, including a gold-standard randomized-control study, revealed that the drug apparently offered no benefit to COVID-19 patients, the EUA was withdrawn.
While most scientists agree with the latest decision, there is almost universal consensus that the original approval represented a political, rather than a scientific, decision.
As Dr. Ashish Jha, Faculty Director at the Harvard Global Health Institute, told the Washington Post, “Until six months ago, I never worried that the FDA decision-making was being driven primarily by political considerations, even when I disagreed with some of that.” In the context of the hydroxychloroquine decision, he says, the FDA must “try and do something to restore faith in their agency.”
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
One particularly worrisome consequence of the apparent political meddling is that future medicines—especially vaccines—are less likely to be trusted. Before COVID-19, there was already a distressing amount of vaccine hesitancy, and this despite the robust data supporting their use. Add to this Trump’s fervent desire to announce a vaccine success prior to the election. (Vice President Mike Pence suggested in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed that “we are well on the way to having a viable vaccine by fall.”)
The obvious concern is that under intense pressure from the administration, a “viable vaccine” could get the green light from the FDA based on inadequate data around safety and efficacy, potentially placing healthy future recipients at risk.
And an equally worrisome concern is that a truly safe and effective vaccine could be heroically developed, but then struggle for adoption given the widespread distrust of Trump, and the ever-expanding number of processes and agencies over which he is now thought to exert undue influence.
While an excessively permissive FDA fails to serve the public good, an overly rigid and conservative FDA isn’t what we need either—especially during a pandemic.
The FDA by its very nature exists between two opposing forces: one encouraging it to expedite approvals of good drugs for patients, the other urging it to protect patients from bad drugs.
Yet these tensions tend to be manifest asymmetrically since the failures—products that were approved but then discovered to be dangerously flawed—are by nature more visible than the products never developed because of an excessively cautious review process.
You might think of the FDA as a place constantly torn between committing sins of commission and sins of omission. So we ought to have sympathy for how hard the institution’s job is.
Some critics on the libertarian side of the spectrum have wondered whether the country might do better by skipping most of the review processes, letting more products reach consumers, and essentially letting the market determine quality.
In the context of COVID-19, we were briefly treated to a preview of what this parallel libertarian universe might have looked like, when the agency initially authorized a number of coronavirus antibody tests without requiring the customary quality check by the agency—essentially, relying on manufacturers for the evaluation of their own tests and mandating only a disclaimer.
The result was a mess.
Many tests didn’t work as advertised. The New York Health Department had to warn doctors not to use them, Politico reported. Former FDA Commissioner Dr. David Kessler commented, “If the FDA is not looking at validation studies, then FDA’s not doing its job.” The agency soon reversed course. On May 4 it announced that such tests must be submitted to the FDA, and are required to meet pre-specified performance criteria.
As Scott Becker, CEO of the Association of Public Health Laboratories told Politico, “We’ve long been concerned that allowing tests on the market that have not been approved and authorized for use is a recipe for disaster.” He added that the “revised policy makes a lot of sense and should have been in place over the last six weeks.”
This makes sense, given the indefensibly poor quality of some of the antibody tests hitting the market.
But the flip side of this coin is that, had this process worked—had the tests been solid—then right now we would be crediting the FDA for thinking creatively and for cultivating the sort of innovation the some crises require.
Certainly, this is how the FDA sees its initial failure. On a recent panel discussion I moderated at this year’s (virtual) BIO2020 meeting, FDA Principal Deputy Commissioner Dr. Amy Abernethy told me that in the context of COVID-19, “We have all had to figure it out really fast.” Abernethy noted that companies have recognized that,
. . . it’s really important to take a few risks, especially if those risks are calculated and you have understood how to best manage them. Meanwhile, on the FDA side, we’ve realized that we need to have regulatory flexibility in many different directions, and then learn from that regulatory flexibility on the fly and actually be clear about that.
Added Abernethy, “We have issued a number of EUAs that have taught us what is okay to do. And sometimes it doesn’t work, so sometimes we have to pull back.”
She cites the change of policy around COVID-19 antibody tests as a prime example: “As FDA, we’ve been right-sizing right along with companies and I think COVID-19 gives us this really important opportunity to try and ultimately figure out how do we innovate better, especially in areas that are historically incredibly risk-adverse.”
The challenge facing regulators is in a sense similar to that facing other large legacy organizations, as Safi Bahcall detailed in his recent book, Loonshots. The dilemma is that innovation requires risk, and even calculated risk includes the possibility of being wrong.
If we insist on punishing all mistakes, we’ll also disincentivize the inescapable risk that innovation and change require.
A third recent scientific reversal involves not the FDA but prestigious medical journals: The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine. Each journal recently retracted a COVID-related paper that relied on a questionable dataset aggregated by a company no one had heard of ten minutes ago.
The Lancet paper purported to examine the outcome of hospitalized patients treated with hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine (or neither), and concluded that these medicines didn’t help patients and seemed to increase the risk of cardiac arrhythmias and death.
The NEJM, meanwhile, had found that hospitalized patients with underlying heart problems were more likely to die from COVID than similar patients without heart problems—but the risk didn’t seem to be aggravated by several categories of hypertension medicines that had previously raised concern.
In some ways, this reversal is perhaps the most worrisome of all, in that it threatens an emerging and important category of information known as real-world data.
Real-world data basically means data from all the patients routinely engaged with the healthcare system. It encompasses everything except for typical clinical trials, which generally exist outside the system of routine care.
Most randomized clinical trials—and certainly those involved in the initial evaluation of novel therapeutics—involve very deliberate and systematic approaches to the evaluation and treatment of patients.
A patient enrolled in a clinical trial is studied according to a highly detailed, meticulously crafted, rigorously reviewed, and (hopefully) stringently followed protocol. The goal is to conduct a high-quality experiment that seeks to establish whether a defined intervention can impact a specific disease, and do so in a way that is relatively safe—that does appreciably more good than harm.
The randomization and the rigor are required to maximize the chance of detecting a meaningful efficacy signal.
But here’s where things get weird: Once an approach is established—whether a new drug that’s approved, or an innovation to an existing therapy that’s adopted—the approach is essentially out there, to be used or not, as providers or hospital systems see fit.
In other words, you have remarkably little visibility into how patients are faring in the real world. Even though this is what matters most.
Is a medicine working as intended? Are there patients who are doing better than expected? Or worse? Are there tweaks introduced by front-line providers that may help a medicine work better, or be better tolerated? Most of the time, the providers have only their inevitably limited experience (plus what they may have heard anecdotally) to go on as they try to assess whether a particular approach is actually effective in their hands.
Even most hospital systems lack the ability to assess how well a particular approach may be working. (Though they can usually determine exactly how many of a particular procedure were done, and calculate how much revenue was generated.)
There are reporting requirements for severe adverse effects and there are often follow-up clinical studies performed. But the vast, vast, majority of clinical experience is not meaningfully incorporated into our collective understanding.
While isolated aspects of an individual’s interaction with the healthcare system are captured (through a combination of insurance data, lab reports, and physician notes) it is often prohibitively difficult to track the trajectory of most individual patients longitudinally, through health and disease.
This is rarely done effectively at individual hospitals and the task is complicated by patients receiving care at multiple institutions (and also by changing insurers relatively frequently). Information in electronic medical records—much of it in service of billing responsibilities—is notoriously inaccurate and often represents prepopulated templates (such as physical exams) or sections of previous notes simply cut and pasted.
On the other hand, if you had a high-quality, comprehensive, up-to-date dataset, imagine how useful it would be—especially in a crisis like COVID-19.
This is exactly what the FDA itself is seeking to facilitate through the COVID-19 Evidence Accelerator because with this sort of information at your fingertips, you could rapidly evaluate whether categories of commonly administered medicines—such as hydroxychloroquine—were effective and whether other categories of medicines—like some anti-hypertensives—made things worse.
In other words, we would be able to routinely evaluate exactly the sort of questions tackled by the recent Lancet and NEJM papers.
Real-world evidence, in other words, represents the critical part of the feedback loop required for learning in medicine.
It’s what’s required to help healthcare systems iteratively optimize and figure out how to offer better treatments. It could also help tune AI algorithms seeking to identify subtle clinical patterns.
But the full promise of real-world data—and the dramatic improvements in care it might enable—may be prohibitively difficult to realize, given the challenges of pulling together all the required information, and ensuring the quality and accuracy of what’s assembled. In fact, it was the unusual completeness of the dataset used for the Lancet and NEJM papers (along with other methodological and data integrity concerns) that roused the suspicion of outside experts, who called on the journals to investigate.
The company providing the relevant data was Surgisphere, an obscure Chicago-based outfit whose “handful of employees,” according to the Guardian, “appear to include a science fiction writer and an adult-content model.” The company, the Guardian continues, “has provided data for multiple studies on COVID-19 co-authored by its chief executive, but has so far failed to adequately explain its data or methodology.” Surgisphere, for its part, says “we stand behind the integrity of our studies and our scientific researchers, clinical partners, and data analysts.” But they have reportedly refused to cooperate with independent investigations.
Over time, we’re sure to learn more about Surgisphere, as well as the review processes that led two top journals to overlook such critically flawed papers. It’s possible that the editorial appeal of the conclusions—indictment of Trump’s favorite drug, acquittal of two common blood pressure medicines—helped speed things along.
Because it turns out that Donald Trump is instinctively right about one thing: Science, as practiced, can be as political, as personal, and as petty as every other area of human endeavor.
But science—unlike our chief executive—also tends to be self-correcting. And for all its flaws, science still remains our best hope to defeat this deadly virus.


thebulwark--2020-06-23--Public Diplomacy and the Risk of Overmoralizing

In August 2011 , Norman Eisen , then the U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic , joined diplomats from a dozen other countries in voicing support for Prague ’ s first gay pride march .
The backlash was as swift as it was unexpected and the controversy over what was seen as inappropriate interference in domestic affairs became a defining moment of Eisen ’ s ambassadorship .
It was not just fringe figures on the Czech right who spoke out against it , but also the country ’ s conservative president , Václav Klaus .
Even Karel Schwarzenberg , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pushed back , saying that “ expressions of support to rights that nobody in the Czech Republic is denied are counterproductive and redundant.
” If a post-Trump United States is to get back into the business of promoting democracy , freedom , and human rights around the world , special care must be given to avoiding a recurrence of the situations from past administrations in which the United States would insert itself into other countries ’ divisive domestic debates .
Public diplomacy has suffered under the Trump administration .
The president is notorious @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Meanwhile , the promotion of democracy and core American values has been on autopilot—just occasionally punctured by dismal news such as the appointment of a Viktor Orbán admirer , Merritt Corrigan , to the position of the White House ’ s liaison with USAID , or more recently the firings at Voice of America ( VOA ) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty ( RFE/RL ) .
A course correction is vitally needed—but the next administration ought to be wary of an overcorrection .
To be effective , U.S. public diplomacy and the promotion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through wild swings every election cycle .
In the past , efforts at promoting democracy , good governance , and the rule of law generally sought to avoid political and ideological controversy , and thereby commanded bipartisan support .
In an time of growing polarization and bitter culture wars , that will be no easy feat .
The Prague gay pride example demonstrates even the most innocuous acts in support of an obviously worthy cause can backfire—even under favorable conditions .
The Czech Republic has been a reliable ally .
It is also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ region , by a wide margin , and as early as in 2006 , the Czech legal system began to recognize registered partnerships for same-sex couples , with little controversy .
In short , little suggested that backing a gay-pride march in the country ’ s capital could backfire so spectacularly .
And that , mind you , was nearly a decade ago .
Compared to the relative idyll of 2011 , the divisiveness of “ cultural ” and values-related questions in Central and Eastern Europe has only grown .
Russian propaganda actively @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as a bulwark against Western decadence .
Hungary ’ s Orbán has actively exploited LGBT issues and migration to distract from his authoritarian practices and corruption at home .
As he put it in a recent speech , Hungary “ is an island of peace and security ” in comparison to Western Europe , which is “ twisting in the multicultural grip of their vindictive colonies.
” With the United States largely absent from the scene , the ire of Orbán and his ilk has been directed mostly at Brussels .
And often @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Two years ago , while the Hungarian government was seeking to chase out our foreign-funded NGOs and the Central European University founded by George Soros , the European Parliament ’ s Sargentini Report lambasted Hungary for failing to “ to adapt working conditions for pregnant or breastfeeding workers , ” for the “ prevalence of negative stereotypes and prejudice against lesbian , gay , bisexual and transgender persons , particularly in the employment and education sectors , ” and for the fact that Hungary ’ s “ constitutional ban on discrimination does not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” To be sure , such criticisms may not be without merit .
But they have also helped Orbán make his case to Hungarian voters that the real issue was not his rewriting of the country ’ s constitution and purges in the judiciary but a wholesale attack of Western elites on traditional values .
If November brings a Democratic victory , the next administration must avoid the risk of overreach by the left , particularly given the rising prominence of illiberal , iconoclastic voices who depict traditional American , and Western , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and free speech—as a façade for white supremacy and other forms of oppression of women and minorities .
Inevitably , that will play into the hands of ruthless leaders who never believed in those principles to begin with .
The ultimate driver behind the Black Lives Matter movement—the effort to eradicate police brutality and racism—is noble and just , and the movement ’ s recent protests resonated around the world , as a paradoxical testament of America ’ s continuing cultural dominance around .
Yet the failures and excesses of the movement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ form of the so-called “ cancel culture , ” street mobs tearing down statues , and a deeply revisionist attitude toward history—are unlikely to travel well , particularly outside of English-speaking countries .
The reason is not that Europe ’ s history is without blemishes—quite the contrary .
Marked by serfdom , pogroms , ethnic cleansing , and colonialism , and culminating in two world wars and the Holocaust , Europe ’ s past is a treasure trove of grievances .
Yet , after the horrors of the first half of the 20th @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in keeping a tight lid on the ghosts of the past .
Hence President Emmanuel Macron ’ s flat refusal to consider taking down statues of controversial figures of French history , and hence the sense of panic around European capitals whenever past traumas—lost territory , language rights of ethnic minorities , or reparations for old injustices—resurface in political conversations .
The progressive agenda of seeking to dismantle all lingering structures of oppression and to purify the public square , university campuses , and the corporate environment of sins of the past will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it has before .
But if , in an atmosphere of political triumph after the defeat of Trump and Trumpism , such ideas permeate policy choices made by the next administration—especially over what causes and values the U.S. government lends its support overseas—then the 2011 kerfuffle in Prague will be nothing compared to the controversy progressive America risks stirring by its moralizing in Central and Eastern Europe , the Balkans , and beyond .

In August 2011, Norman Eisen, then the U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic, joined diplomats from a dozen other countries in voicing support for Prague’s first gay pride march. The backlash was as swift as it was unexpected and the controversy over what was seen as inappropriate interference in domestic affairs became a defining moment of Eisen’s ambassadorship. It was not just fringe figures on the Czech right who spoke out against it, but also the country’s conservative president, Václav Klaus. Even Karel Schwarzenberg, the foreign minister and a staunch Atlanticist, pushed back, saying that “expressions of support to rights that nobody in the Czech Republic is denied are counterproductive and redundant.”
If a post-Trump United States is to get back into the business of promoting democracy, freedom, and human rights around the world, special care must be given to avoiding a recurrence of the situations from past administrations in which the United States would insert itself into other countries’ divisive domestic debates.
Public diplomacy has suffered under the Trump administration. The president is notorious for cozying up to authoritarian leaders. Meanwhile, the promotion of democracy and core American values has been on autopilot—just occasionally punctured by dismal news such as the appointment of a Viktor Orbán admirer, Merritt Corrigan, to the position of the White House’s liaison with USAID, or more recently the firings at Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).
A course correction is vitally needed—but the next administration ought to be wary of an overcorrection.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
To be effective, U.S. public diplomacy and the promotion of American values overseas cannot go through wild swings every election cycle. In the past, efforts at promoting democracy, good governance, and the rule of law generally sought to avoid political and ideological controversy, and thereby commanded bipartisan support. In an time of growing polarization and bitter culture wars, that will be no easy feat.
The Prague gay pride example demonstrates even the most innocuous acts in support of an obviously worthy cause can backfire—even under favorable conditions. The Czech Republic has been a reliable ally. It is also the least religious country in in the region, by a wide margin, and as early as in 2006, the Czech legal system began to recognize registered partnerships for same-sex couples, with little controversy. In short, little suggested that backing a gay-pride march in the country’s capital could backfire so spectacularly.
And that, mind you, was nearly a decade ago. Compared to the relative idyll of 2011, the divisiveness of “cultural” and values-related questions in Central and Eastern Europe has only grown. Russian propaganda actively seeks to depict Putin’s regime as a bulwark against Western decadence. Hungary’s Orbán has actively exploited LGBT issues and migration to distract from his authoritarian practices and corruption at home. As he put it in a recent speech, Hungary “is an island of peace and security” in comparison to Western Europe, which is “twisting in the multicultural grip of their vindictive colonies.”
With the United States largely absent from the scene, the ire of Orbán and his ilk has been directed mostly at Brussels. And often, the would-be authoritarians have half-a-point. Two years ago, while the Hungarian government was seeking to chase out our foreign-funded NGOs and the Central European University founded by George Soros, the European Parliament’s Sargentini Report lambasted Hungary for failing to “to adapt working conditions for pregnant or breastfeeding workers,” for the “prevalence of negative stereotypes and prejudice against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons, particularly in the employment and education sectors,” and for the fact that Hungary’s “constitutional ban on discrimination does not explicitly list sexual orientation and gender identity.”
To be sure, such criticisms may not be without merit. But they have also helped Orbán make his case to Hungarian voters that the real issue was not his rewriting of the country’s constitution and purges in the judiciary but a wholesale attack of Western elites on traditional values.
If November brings a Democratic victory, the next administration must avoid the risk of overreach by the left, particularly given the rising prominence of illiberal, iconoclastic voices who depict traditional American, and Western, tenets of liberal democracy—representation, limited government, and free speech—as a façade for white supremacy and other forms of oppression of women and minorities. Inevitably, that will play into the hands of ruthless leaders who never believed in those principles to begin with.
The ultimate driver behind the Black Lives Matter movement—the effort to eradicate police brutality and racism—is noble and just, and the movement’s recent protests resonated around the world, as a paradoxical testament of America’s continuing cultural dominance around. Yet the failures and excesses of the movement’s leadership and intellectual undercurrents—in the form of the so-called “cancel culture,” street mobs tearing down statues, and a deeply revisionist attitude toward history—are unlikely to travel well, particularly outside of English-speaking countries.
The reason is not that Europe’s history is without blemishes—quite the contrary. Marked by serfdom, pogroms, ethnic cleansing, and colonialism, and culminating in two world wars and the Holocaust, Europe’s past is a treasure trove of grievances. Yet, after the horrors of the first half of the 20th century, the continent has been consistent in keeping a tight lid on the ghosts of the past. Hence President Emmanuel Macron’s flat refusal to consider taking down statues of controversial figures of French history, and hence the sense of panic around European capitals whenever past traumas—lost territory, language rights of ethnic minorities, or reparations for old injustices—resurface in political conversations.
The progressive agenda of seeking to dismantle all lingering structures of oppression and to purify the public square, university campuses, and the corporate environment of sins of the past will provoke a reaction in the United States—as it has before. But if, in an atmosphere of political triumph after the defeat of Trump and Trumpism, such ideas permeate policy choices made by the next administration—especially over what causes and values the U.S. government lends its support overseas—then the 2011 kerfuffle in Prague will be nothing compared to the controversy progressive America risks stirring by its moralizing in Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and beyond.


thebulwark--2020-06-23--How Trump Undermines the Push for Human Rights Abroad

The United States has a long record of criticizing its adversaries ’ records on human rights—not just because a concern for liberty , justice , and democracy is baked into the nation ’ s DNA , but also because such criticism can be a valuable tool of foreign policy .
The encouragement of senior American officials can inspire courage for rebellions and can guilt passive Europeans into taking actions against human-rights abusers .
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been relying on this tactic a lot .
But he is constantly being undermined by his boss ’ s conduct .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ secretary tweeted to condemn the Hong Kong government ’ s violation of its citizens ’ right to “ peaceful assembly.
” Six weeks later , the world watched as the Trump administration violently dispersed peaceful protesters near the White House .
Another example : On May 3 , the spokesperson for the Department of State , Morgan Ortagus , posted a tweet , condemning the recent imprisonment by China of a journalist who had criticized the Chinese Communist Party ( CCP ) .
It was a nice reminder of World Press Freedom Day @ @ @ @ @ @ @ President Trump posted a tweet celebrating Kim Jong-un ’ s health .
Kim ’ s North Korea ranks 180th out of 180 countries in this year ’ s Reporters Without Borders index of press freedom .
And another example , the most damning of all : John Bolton says that President Trump gave a nod to the Chinese president , Xi Jinping , to continue building concentration camps for Uighur Muslims .
Assuming Bolton ’ s account is accurate , Trump ’ s actions represent an epic bankrupting of U.S. moral authority .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of course ; the U.S. government is not a human-rights nonprofit and does not have the luxury of total consistency in adherence to its ideals .
But in some cases , the hypocrisy is shameful and damaging .
As in the case of the Saudi government ’ s assassination of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi .
President Trump released a statement and swept the whole affair under the rug with realpolitik reasoning .
Later , in a forum in Germany , Iran ’ s foreign minister , Javad Zarif , was asked about Iran @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spent the entire time pointing out Western hypocrisy since Saudi Arabia had literally gotten away with murder .
Again , hypocrisy is inevitable—but this degree is unprecedented in the postwar era , and it can undermine the president ’ s agenda with the American people , adversarial dictators , and allies .
When the president tried to attack Iran on the grounds of human rights and called for freedom in Iran , the American people who didn ’ t already support him called him a hypocrite and refused to support him .
Zarif @ @ @ @ @ @ @ allies , too , have been inattentive to America ’ s efforts to coerce Iran ’ s behavior , unless out of fear for secondary sanctions , because of this hypocrisy .
How many souls can Pompeo and Ortagus possibly hope to convince ?
In recent weeks , Ortagus has tweeted to condemn bigotry and to celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month .
She has tweeted to condemn the CCP ’ s “ xenophobia ” against Africans in China .
Secretary Pompeo , attacking China , talked of religious freedom in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But their boss began his political career by questioning the citizenship of America ’ s first black president .
He has been trying to make COVID-19 into a xenophobic campaign against the Chinese people .
His 2016 campaign emphasized xenophobia toward Mexicans and Americans of Mexican descent , as well as Muslim Americans .
This Trump record makes it hard for Trump administration officials to condemn other countries ’ actions with a straight face .
How effective can a public diplomacy campaign be when the loudest member of that campaign undermines it at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t practice what it preaches ?
Most postwar presidents have at least paid lip service to human rights abroad .
( Nixon is perhaps an exception . )
Yes , the rhetoric didn ’ t always match the actions .
Ronald Reagan gave many wonderful speeches about human rights and democracy , including his extraordinary Westminster address in 1982 .
But he also vetoed a bill that would have imposed sanctions on the apartheid regime in South Africa .
George W. Bush ’ s second inaugural address was the most pro-liberalism speech ever @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bush also hung out with the Saudi crown prince to get a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority .
Barack Obama frequently spoke about human rights , but he also shook hands with Raul Castro and reached a nuclear deal with Iran that enriched the Iranian mullahcracy .
But nobody thinks that Reagan , Bush , or Obama actually liked dictators—just that they made bitter but necessary compromises .
And , to a variety of degrees , they also pressured allies to open their societies , be it Reagan in Chile @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , or Obama in Saudi Arabia .
But no president has done what Trump has done—setting a terrible example here at home while celebrating grotesque human-rights violators abroad .
Nobody thinks that Trump cares about human rights .
He has barely ever paid lip service to human rights , and indeed has endorsed human rights violations by the United States—as when he called for targeting families of terrorists , pardoned disgraceful war criminals , and called for tightening the freedom of the press .
He joked about the Egyptian military strongman as “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kim Jong-un is unprecedented , unproductive , and downright bizarre .
When he or members of his administration go to a reluctant American people for support for human rights in an adversarial state , it is very natural that people question their sincerity .
In foreign policy , shame goes a long way , too .
Sovietologist ( and Bulwark contributor ) Tom Nichols once told me that Soviet leaders hated President Jimmy Carter because he kept lecturing them ( even though he didn ’ t do much more than lecturing ) .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ because they are shamed by them .
They hate them because the peoples and leaders of liberal countries are shamed for dealing with them .
America ’ s European allies are , for many reasons , always reluctant to put too much pressure on dictatorships .
Nevertheless , the European Union frequently passes human rights sanctions because European peoples are still sensitive to human rights abuses , which American leaders take advantage of frequently .
The Trump rhetoric and record makes that aspect of U.S. public diplomacy that much harder .
Against our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
President Trump can ’ t play it .

The United States has a long record of criticizing its adversaries’ records on human rights—not just because a concern for liberty, justice, and democracy is baked into the nation’s DNA, but also because such criticism can be a valuable tool of foreign policy. The encouragement of senior American officials can inspire courage for rebellions and can guilt passive Europeans into taking actions against human-rights abusers.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been relying on this tactic a lot. But he is constantly being undermined by his boss’s conduct.
For instance, in April, the secretary tweeted to condemn the Hong Kong government’s violation of its citizens’ right to “peaceful assembly.” Six weeks later, the world watched as the Trump administration violently dispersed peaceful protesters near the White House.
Another example: On May 3, the spokesperson for the Department of State, Morgan Ortagus, posted a tweet, condemning the recent imprisonment by China of a journalist who had criticized the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It was a nice reminder of World Press Freedom Day. But just one day earlier, President Trump posted a tweet celebrating Kim Jong-un’s health. Kim’s North Korea ranks 180th out of 180 countries in this year’s Reporters Without Borders index of press freedom.
And another example, the most damning of all: John Bolton says that President Trump gave a nod to the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, to continue building concentration camps for Uighur Muslims. Assuming Bolton’s account is accurate, Trump’s actions represent an epic bankrupting of U.S. moral authority.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
Some degree of hypocrisy is unavoidable, of course; the U.S. government is not a human-rights nonprofit and does not have the luxury of total consistency in adherence to its ideals. But in some cases, the hypocrisy is shameful and damaging.
As in the case of the Saudi government’s assassination of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi. President Trump released a statement and swept the whole affair under the rug with realpolitik reasoning. Later, in a forum in Germany, Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, was asked about Iran’s human rights record. He spent the entire time pointing out Western hypocrisy since Saudi Arabia had literally gotten away with murder.
Again, hypocrisy is inevitable—but this degree is unprecedented in the postwar era, and it can undermine the president’s agenda with the American people, adversarial dictators, and allies. When the president tried to attack Iran on the grounds of human rights and called for freedom in Iran, the American people who didn’t already support him called him a hypocrite and refused to support him. Zarif simply ignored the attempted shaming. Our allies, too, have been inattentive to America’s efforts to coerce Iran’s behavior, unless out of fear for secondary sanctions, because of this hypocrisy.
How many souls can Pompeo and Ortagus possibly hope to convince? In recent weeks, Ortagus has tweeted to condemn bigotry and to celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. She has tweeted to condemn the CCP’s “xenophobia” against Africans in China. Secretary Pompeo, attacking China, talked of religious freedom in America and the rule of law. But their boss began his political career by questioning the citizenship of America’s first black president. He has been trying to make COVID-19 into a xenophobic campaign against the Chinese people. His 2016 campaign emphasized xenophobia toward Mexicans and Americans of Mexican descent, as well as Muslim Americans. This Trump record makes it hard for Trump administration officials to condemn other countries’ actions with a straight face.
How effective can a public diplomacy campaign be when the loudest member of that campaign undermines it at every turn—when the preaching government doesn’t practice what it preaches?
Most postwar presidents have at least paid lip service to human rights abroad. (Nixon is perhaps an exception.) Yes, the rhetoric didn’t always match the actions. Ronald Reagan gave many wonderful speeches about human rights and democracy, including his extraordinary Westminster address in 1982. But he also vetoed a bill that would have imposed sanctions on the apartheid regime in South Africa. George W. Bush’s second inaugural address was the most pro-liberalism speech ever delivered by a U.S. president. But Bush also hung out with the Saudi crown prince to get a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Barack Obama frequently spoke about human rights, but he also shook hands with Raul Castro and reached a nuclear deal with Iran that enriched the Iranian mullahcracy.
But nobody thinks that Reagan, Bush, or Obama actually liked dictators—just that they made bitter but necessary compromises. And, to a variety of degrees, they also pressured allies to open their societies, be it Reagan in Chile and South Korea, Bush in Egypt, or Obama in Saudi Arabia.
But no president has done what Trump has done—setting a terrible example here at home while celebrating grotesque human-rights violators abroad.
Nobody thinks that Trump cares about human rights. He has barely ever paid lip service to human rights, and indeed has endorsed human rights violations by the United States—as when he called for targeting families of terrorists, pardoned disgraceful war criminals, and called for tightening the freedom of the press. He joked about the Egyptian military strongman as “my favorite dictator.” His bromance with Kim Jong-un is unprecedented, unproductive, and downright bizarre. When he or members of his administration go to a reluctant American people for support for human rights in an adversarial state, it is very natural that people question their sincerity.
In foreign policy, shame goes a long way, too. Sovietologist (and Bulwark contributor) Tom Nichols once told me that Soviet leaders hated President Jimmy Carter because he kept lecturing them (even though he didn’t do much more than lecturing). They don’t hate the lectures because they are shamed by them. They hate them because the peoples and leaders of liberal countries are shamed for dealing with them. America’s European allies are, for many reasons, always reluctant to put too much pressure on dictatorships. Nevertheless, the European Union frequently passes human rights sanctions because European peoples are still sensitive to human rights abuses, which American leaders take advantage of frequently. The Trump rhetoric and record makes that aspect of U.S. public diplomacy that much harder.
Against our adversaries, we have the winning card. President Trump can’t play it.