Tag: little evidence
The 2024 Presidential Race: A Cheat Sheet
From a historical perspective, the presidential campaign Mike Pence is announcing today in Des Moines, Iowa, makes sense: After all, it is common for a former vice president to mount his own run and sometimes even to win.
That might be the only perspective from which it makes sense. Pence appears to be running to be the nominee of a Republican Party that no longer exists—one that he semi-unwittingly helped destroy. That was a party that wanted to cut entitlements,
The 2024 U.S. Presidential Race: A Cheat Sheet
Americans hate—or claim to hate—their politicians, but even by those standards, the early shape of the 2024 presidential race is a little bizarre. More than 20 months out from the election, Americans consistently say they don’t want to see a rematch of Joe Biden and Donald Trump. And yet the most likely outcome today is a rematch of Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
As Biden’s political fortunes have risen since late 2022, Democratic elected officials have slowly come around to
The Paradox of Diversity Trainings
This is an edition of Up for Debate, a newsletter by Conor Friedersdorf. On Wednesdays, he rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.
Question of the Week
What do you think of the diversity-training and DEI industries? Do you have personal experiences with them? I’d love to hear from boosters and critics alike, especially if your commentary is grounded in something you’ve observed
The Unexpected Backstory of Guernica
When it comes to art against tyranny, no work is more seared into our consciousness than Guernica, Pablo Picasso’s dark, howling mural against fascist terror. Created in 1937 at the height of the Spanish Civil War, it has in the 85 years since become a universal statement about human suffering in the face of political violence. Throughout World War II, it stood for resistance to Nazi aggression; during Vietnam controversies such as the My Lai massacre, protesters invoked
Joe Rogan’s Show May Be Dumb. But Is It Actually Deadly?
Look, I think it’s fine that Joe Rogan said, with COVID-case rates coming down in April, he wouldn’t tell a healthy 21-year-old to get vaccinated. That’s a value judgment, not a lie. And we may as well ignore the fact that he treated himself with ivermectin in September, after he got sick himself. He was also taking monoclonal antibodies and steroids (and some studies did appear to show, at first, that ivermectin was effective). But a lot of bullshit spewed
The CDC’s Flawed Case for Wearing Masks in School
The debate over child masking in schools boiled over again this fall, even above its ongoing high simmer. The approval in late October of COVID-19 vaccines for 5-to-11-year-olds was for many public-health experts an indication that mask mandates could finally be lifted. Yet with cases on the rise in much of the country, along with anxiety regarding the Omicron variant, other experts and some politicians have warned that plans to pull back on the policy should be put on hold.