The Persuaders: At the Front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy

by Anand Giridharadas (Vintage Books, a Division of Penguin Random House, 2022)

Both Indivisible National and my local Indivisible Montgomery both recently featured this as their Book Club choice. I didn’t finish the book in time for the discussions about it, because I had to wait too long to get it from Libby. Then I ran out of time and they took it back before I finished the final chapter! The current wait time is 14 weeks. Yes, you read that right. I will write about the part that I read, and I plan to borrow a copy to finish the last chapter.

Giridharadas focuses on people playing different roles in the progressive movement. Some are famous, some are not. Chapter 1, “The Waking Among the Woke”, features the leaders of the first Women’s March in 2017, Linda Sarsour, Tamika Mallory, and Loretta Ross. The decision to participate in the march was a difficult one for them; they did not trust white women not to push them aside. In the end, they decided to join and lead–but as we know now, that did not end well.

Chapter 2, “Can Love Change a Mind?” is about transracial adoption and white privilege, about how white parents adopting children of color might mean well, but they are truly clueless about how their children experience the world. A “camp” endeavors to get white parents to understand racism from the point of view of their children.

Chapter 3, “A Movement That Grows”, follows Bernie Sanders, and Chapter 4, “The Inside-Outside Game”, focus on Sanders protege Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. Chapter 5, “The Art of Messaging”, was perhaps my favorite chapter, with its focus on Anat Shenker-Osorio, a progressive “communications strategist” whose ideas about how Democrats should communicate their message are radically different from most traditional messaging campaigns (but apparently, they work!). Her “call-out sandwich” must have inspired Indivisible Truth Brigade’s “truth sandwich”–Begin with a shared value; then call out the bad actors for lying (maybe show how they benefit from the lie); and conclude with a vision of a bright future based on the truth.

Chapter 6, “The Vaccine Against Lies”, focuses on Diane Benscoter, whose expertise and lived experience are in deprogramming cultists and conspiracy theorists. Chapter 7, “Meaning Making at the Door”, is about Kyrsten Sinema, the former Democratic senator from Arizona, and Cesar Torres, a “deep canvasser”.

All very different people engaged in the art of persuading others to open their minds to another way of looking at things.

Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy

by Jamie Raskin (HarperCollins 2022)

I live in Maryland’s Sixth Congressional District. I used to live in the Eighth District, but redistricting resulted in a newly configured district map, and that is why Jamie Raskin does not represent me in Congress <sigh>. (He does represent my Congressman, who actually resides in the Eighth District, but that’s another story.) But I love and admire Jamie: when jaded people complain that “all politicians are corrupt,” I tell them about Jamie’s integrity and honesty and dedication to our country, our state, our county, and democracy in general. He’s the real deal. So when I learned that Jamie’s only son, Tommy, had taken his own life on December 31, 2020, I was as shocked and sad as any of his constituents. Then, just six days later, Donald Trump’s mob laid siege to our Capitol in a vain attempt to steal the election from Joe Biden. Jamie was tapped to be the Lead Manager of Trump’s second impeachment, this time for incitement of insurrection, and we all watched him and his team of managers build a superb case to convict the lawless president only to be undermined by McConnell and the other Republican hypocrites in the Senate.

This book is Jamie’s letter to those who wrote to him following Tommy’s death; he received so many condolences that it was impossible to answer them all (though he tried). He writes about Tommy and his family (wife, daughters, siblings, nieces, nephews…), Tommy’s struggle with depression, his amazing intelligence and kindness, how funny he was and how he could make anyone laugh. He writes about his last evening with Tommy, the two of them alone in their Takoma Park home, and how he found Tommy’s body when he went to wake him up the following morning (could anyone think of a worse horror for a parent?). Then how when he went to work to participate in the official electoral vote count on January 6, he found himself and his fellow legislators under attack by Confederate-flag-wielding rioters–just how close those rioters came to being able to physically attack Senators, Representatives, and their staff, as well as the Vice President, there in his official capacity to oversee the counting of the votes (but under intense pressure from Trump to break the law and send the slates back to certain swing states so that Trump could overthrow the election results–and with them, the government). Jamie’s younger daughter Tabitha was also in the Capitol that day with her brother-in-law Hank; they were barricaded inside an office, cowering under a desk as the rioters tried to break down the door. Jamie, still consumed by grief, felt no fear except for Tabitha and Hank.

When the House voted to impeach Trump again for inciting the riot, Speaker Nancy Pelosi “threw him a lifeline” by asking him to manage the impeachment in the Senate. Jamie went to work, feeling that Tommy, with his innate sense of fairness and justice, was with him. Most of the book describes how the team of managers built their case and took it to the Senate, where a majority were convinced to vote for conviction–but not the 2/3 required to convict. As I write, the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol has just finished airing the first five of its public hearings. Jamie Raskin is on this committee too, but he has not yet had his day as the main questioner. I look forward to that hearing.

At the recent Gaithersburg Book Festival, Takoma Park mayor Kate Stewart advised everyone to buy this book so that the truth of what happened on January 6th will not be lost. She said, “Read the book; keep the book; pass the book down to your children and grandchildren, so no matter what happens in the next couple of weeks or months or years, they have a record of this time.” Good suggestion.

You can watch Mayor Stewart’s introduction and Jamie Raskin’s talk here. And be sure to read this book. It should be required reading for all of us.

The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates

by Wes Moore (Random House/One World, 2010)

Born in Baltimore, Wes Moore spent part of his childhood in a rough neighborhood there, later moving with his mother and sisters to another rough neighborhood in The Bronx. He was in trouble a lot, despite the support and discipline he received from his mother Joy and other relatives. They contrived to get him out of the local public schools and sent him to a pretty cushy private school outside the city, but Wes continued to skip school, neglect his assignments, and get into various kinds of trouble. Eventually, Joy carried out her threat to send him to a military school, and it was there that he finally straightened out and began a path that would take him to community college, then Johns Hopkins University, a Rhodes scholarship, a tour in Afghanistan, a White House fellowship and eventually, a run for governor of Maryland (in progress). By all accounts, a success story.

The other Wes Moore grew up in the same Baltimore neighborhood, but his fate would be very different. Despite his mother Mary’s best efforts, he insisted on following his older brother’s example. Tony was “in the game”, dealing drugs. He tried to dissuade his little brother from emulating him, but as we know, children copy behavior more than they listen to warnings. Wes was the same way. Though intelligent and talented, he became mixed up in the world of illegal drugs. He was in and out of prison throughout his adolescence. He and Tony were both arrested and convicted in the murder of a moonlighting Baltimore City police officer, Sergeant Bruce Prothero, in 2000. Tony, convicted as the shooter, died in prison at only 38 years old. Wes was sentenced to life without parole and remains in the Jessup Correctional Institution. A story of failure and blame.

Connected by the coincidence of having the same name, the similarities and differences in the lives of these boys/young men are the focus of this book. Wes Moore, the gubernatorial candidate, asks, “What made the difference?” Why did one grow up to be a criminal, while the other went on to serve with distinction in the army, receive an extraordinary education, and enter politics? Wes the politician doesn’t have an answer. He was fascinated enough by their parallel lives to reach out by letter to the other Wes Moore in prison. A correspondence ensued, and eventually, he began visiting him in prison; their conversations form part of the basis for this book. In the Introduction, the author writes, “The chilling truth is that his story could have been mine. The tragedy is that my story could have been his. . . . It’s unsettling to know how little separates each of us from another life altogether.”

In the beginning of Part III, “Paths Taken and Expectations Fulfilled”, Wes-the-Success asks, “Do you think we’re all just products of our environments?” Wes-the-Failure replies, “I think so, or maybe products of our expectations.”

“Others’ expectations of us or our expectations for ourselves?”

“I mean others’ expectations that you take on as your own.”

I realized then how difficult it is to separate the two. The expectations that others place on us help us to form the expectations of ourselves.

“We will do what others expect of us,” Wes said. “If they expect us to graduate, we will graduate. If they expect us to get a job, we will get a job. If they expect us to go to jail, then that’s where we will end up too. At some point you lose control.”

Successful Wes is dismayed at how easily Prisoner Wes dodges his responsibility for the actions that brought him to where he is. But he is unable to pinpoint just how he escaped his namesake’s fate. reflecting on the different fates that could easily have been exchanged for one another.

An inspirational book, which does not leave the reader with a pat answer to the question it poses.

The Fifth Risk

by Michael Lewis (W.W. Norton, 2018) This is a pretty peculiar book. It was really interesting, but I can’t quite figure out what it is about. I mean, it seems to be about some really amazing federal workers and how the people Donald Trump put in place as their bosses didn’t know squat about what they did or what their agencies were charged with. But according to the blurb on the back cover, it is a “narrative of the Trump Administration’s botched presidential transition”. Yes, parts of it mention the transition (the period of time between before the election and the inauguration, when a potential incoming administration prepares to take over, guided by its predecessors), but much of it doesn’t. The way I see it, Lewis focuses on three agencies (the Department of Energy, or DOE; the Department of Agriculture, or USDA; and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, which is part of the Commerce Department) and some of the individuals who worked there, in order that readers better appreciate the amazing work our federal workforce does, and the role federal workers play in protecting us from various risks.

Oh yes, risks: What is the fifth risk of the title? What are the first four risks? The answer to these questions appears in the first chapter, “Tail Risk” (I have no idea what that refers to!). Lewis asks the DOE’s first chief risk officer what the top risks to the nation are. He lists five: nuclear accidents, North Korea, Iran, the failure of the electrical grid, and project management. Yes, project or program management is The Fifth Risk, “the existential threat you can’t imagine,” “the risk a society runs when it falls into the habit of responding to long-term risks with short-term solutions.” I guess the agencies described and the civil servants profiled here are charged with focusing on those long-term risks; from the get-go, Trump and his people had no understanding of the risks facing the country, the work done to mitigate them, or the people who manage them under various administrations, nor did they care to learn.

(The way Lewis tells his story by profiling people in government, bringing the reader along as he interviews them, reminds me of how John McPhee uses profiles of people to explore what they do or study–shadowing and interviewing geologists to write about geology, for example.)

The book starts with “Prologue: Lost in Transition.” This section focuses on Trump’s reluctance to prepare for the presidency. He actively resisted having a transition. Former NJ governor Chris Christie jumped into the void by offering to help, but he was quickly dumped. Trump was so arrogant that he truly thought he had nothing to learn from the people who had run the country for the past eight years! Lewis also writes about Max Stier, who attempted to “fix” what was wrong with the government by recognizing the best work done by federal works with his “Sammie Awards” and creating the Partnership for Public Service, which “trained civil servants to be business managers; it brokered new relationships across the federal government; it surveyed the federal workforce to identify specific management failures and success; and it lobbied Congress to fix deep structural problems.” (It was Stier who lobbied Congress to pass the laws requiring a formal transition from one administration to the next.)

In Chapter I, “Tail Risk”, the focus is on the DOE. This chapter describes the transition, or complete lack thereof. It talks about what the DOE is responsible for: nuclear weapons, nuclear energy, environmental clean-ups, loans to energy startups, and 17 national science labs. Lewis writes, “Some of the things any incoming president should worry about are fast-moving: pandemics, hurricanes, terrorist attacks. But most are not. Most are like bombs with very long fuses that, in the distant future, when the fuse reaches the bomb, might or might not explode. It is delaying repairs to a tunnel filled with lethal waste until, one day, it collapses. It is the aging workforce of the DOE–which is no longer attracting young people as it once did–that one day loses track of a nuclear bomb. It is the ceding of technical and scientific leadership to China. It is the innovation that never occurs, and the knowledge that is never created, because you have ceased to lay the groundwork for it. It is what you never learned that might have saved you.” The two men profiled are the above-mentioned Chief Risk Officer, John MacWilliams, and Arun Majumdar, who created ARPA-E to fund research that could change the world.

Chapter II, “People Risk”, focuses on the USDA, which is in charge of U.S. national forests and grasslands, conducting scientific research, inspecting meat, fighting fires, lending money, managing rural programs, administering free school lunches, protecting animal welfare, and lots more. The people profiled are Kevin Concannon (Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services; he was in charged of school-provided meals and the food stamp program), Cathie Woteki (chief scientist at the USDA under Obama, she was responsible for the science underlying nutritional standards, food security and the safety of the food supply, and biofuels), and Lillian Salerno (Rural Development, funding loans to small towns).

Chapter III, “All the President’s Data”, is the longest chapter, taking up a good third of the book. Focused on NOAA, it profiles DJ Patil, who first hacked into NOAA’s weather data to use for a project when he was a graduate student at UMD and ended up at NOAA as Chief Data Scientist of the United States. We learn how weather forecasting changed from guessing to modeling forecasts using many different conditions to come up with a cone of likely forecasts (“ensemble forecasting”); about threat reduction and chaos theory and how to design a system so that the failure of one part of it doesn’t cause the failure of the entire system (Think: Challenger disaster). (Lewis describes Trump’s man Barry Myers being put in charge of NOAA, when Myers, who was CEO of AccuWeather, used the data provided free by NOAA to compete with it and disparage it. Also profiled is Kim Klockow, NOAA’s first social scientist, who studied how to get people to heed warnings that could save their lives.

Afterword: “The Drift of Things” profiles Art Allen of Coast Guard Search and Rescue, who developed a way (SAROPS, an algorithm that uses what Allen learned about leeway, how things move in ocean currents) to better predict where to look for something in the open ocean.

I guess the point of the book would be that an extraordinary amount of expertise has been developed in government agencies over time by professional civil servants who disregard partisan concerns to do their jobs to make things better and safer for all of us, and Donald Trump’s (and his people’s) refusal to acknowledge that expertise, to appreciate it, and to use it for the common good constitute a serious danger for the country and for all of us. (Not only did they not appreciate what these people knew and did; they actively worked to remove them from their jobs, to get them to quit or to transfer them to jobs that did not utilize their expertise.)

But I still don’t know what “tail risk” means.

Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy

by Adam Jentleson (Liveright 2021)

Jentleson, who worked for Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, had me convinced by the end of the Introduction (“The Little Harm Thesis”) that the filibuster must be abolished . The rest of the book explains what the framers of the Constitution wanted and didn’t want regarding minority rights; details the creation and history of this tool of minority rule; and suggests how to solve the problem of the filibuster in our times.

Part 1, RISE OF THE FILIBUSTER

Chapter One, “Birth of a Notion”: The case of the background checks bill that went down to defeat after the Sandy Hook shooting illustrates how a tiny majority of Senators can doom extremely popular legislation. The Framers of the Constitution, fresh off the failure of the Articles of Confederation, strongly believed in majority rule. However, John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, John Quincy Adams’s Vice President, would create the concept of unlimited debate, a tool with which a small minority could prevent popular legislation from passing.

Chapter Two, “Victorious in the Midst of Unbroken Defeats”: the “previous question rule” was used to control and limit debate when it became obstructionist. In 1806, it was accidentally removed by Aaron Burr. No one really noticed at the time, but this would prove very significant. Calhoun, presiding over the Senate as J. Q. Adams’ VP, weakened the ability of the presiding officer to control obstructionists. Later, as a Senator himself, Calhoun developed the concept of nullification (i.e., individual states could simply nullify laws with which they did not agree) to give the minority (Southern white supremacists) a tool to block legislation, by combining the concepts of extended debate and minority rights: he claimed that the minority have the right to continue debate as long as they like, never accepting the concept of majority rule. His goals were to preserve slavery and the rich planter class to which he belonged. Calhoun had “created a bug in Madison’s code” with his concept of extended or unlimited debate (which was not yet called a filibuster).

Chapter Three, “Dawn of the Supermajority”: In the early part of the 20th century, Senate reformers created Rule 22 as a tool to end debate that went on too long, but obstructionists later used it to block bills from reaching a final vote. They considered a vote for cloture as “toxic”, impinging on the rights of the minority to be heard. Without cloture, however, the minority could hold the entire Senate hostage indefinitely, be refusing to yield the floor.

Until the 20th century, filibusters frequently delayed bills but could not stop them completely, with the exception of civil rights bills. The Southern bloc ensured discrimination against African Americans the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the first time a southern filibuster against a civil rights bill was broken.

Senator Richard Russell, a white supremacist and leader of the Southern Caucus, expanded Rule 22 during the Truman administration to include cabinet and judicial nominations as well as other types of Senate work that had previously been exempted. Russell made it extremely difficult to modify the rule going forward.

Calhoun had wanted a Senate that would “give to each interest or portion of the community a negative on the others.” Russell used Rule 22 to strengthen the minority’s veto power, ensuring that “the supermajority Senate would become an enduring feature of modern American life.”

Chapter Four, “An Idea Whose Time Has Come”: Lyndon Johnson’s improbable rise to power, and how Johnson transformed the Senate, for the first time empowering the Senate Majority Leader to control the body by giving him power over committee assignments. Johnson and Russell worked together to keep Rule 22. After the breaking of the filibuster in 1964, the choice was to end the filibuster or to expand it; they expanded it.

Part 2, TYRANNY OF THE MINORITY

Chapter Five, “The Superminority“: During Obama’s administration, the GOP filibustered all of Obama’s nominees, resulting in hamstrung, understaffed agencies and a critical shortage of federal judges. Finally in 2013, Majority Leader Harry Reid (Jentleson’s boss) employed the so-called “nuclear option” by exempting certain kinds of Senate votes from the filibuster, which was seen by everyone as radical at the time (“the Reid Precedent”). However, polarization (“safe” states vs. “swing” states), negative partisanship (= obstruction > achievement), bias in favor of less populated states, and the power of wealthy white anti-choice conservatives (WWACs) all work against cooperation and progress.

Chapter Six, “Outside In”: The Tea Party “superminority” takes power over establishment Republicans; Speaker Boehner, unable to control his caucus, resigns. Ted Cruz and the newly formed House Freedom Caucus force a government shutdown, and Tea Party candidates start using direct mail fundraising (very successfully) and winning primaries and elections, “surrounding” the establishment GOP with hostile forces that “reveled in defying the establishment.” Jesse Helms created right-wing organizations which made him a force to reckon with and a Senate power broker. It was he who saved Reagan’s floundering campaign, and his organizations funded much of Reagan’s presidential bid. He also brought evangelical Christians into the GOP for the first time. Although the filibuster to stop the ACA was broken, Helms’ superminority remained very powerful in the Senate.

Chapter Seven, “Means of Control”: Harry Reid: his background and how he increased the power of the Majority Leader, who since the 19th century, when the position was created, until the time of Lyndon Johnson, had not held power at all. Johnson gathered power by taking control of committee assignments and doling them out as rewards. Reid controlled his caucus using a method called “filling the tree”, which prevented Senators from amending or voting on bills he didn’t want (think of McConnell’s graveyard for Democratic bills).

Chapter Eight, “What It Takes”: Details McConnell’s rise to power in the Senate, how he got rid of the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations, and how Democrats have used the filibuster.

Chapter Nine, “The Uniter”: Obama’s promise to unite Americans “made gridlock his Achilles’ heel,” and McConnell dedicated himself to exploiting it by filibustering everything, making legislating impossible after the ACA and forcing Obama to govern by executive order. He was able to do this due to rule changes implemented after the breaking of the 1964 filibuster of the Civil Rights Act; these changes made the filibuster much easier to use–“the crucial development that gives the minority veto power over everything.” The changes included a new tracking system which allowed the Senate to go about other business during a filibuster and the “silent filibuster.” Today, the intent to filibuster replaces actual speech. McConnell invoked the “nuclear option” of exempting SCOTUS appointments from the filibuster in 2017. Jentleson writes, McConnell did not transform the Senate himself. He had the foresight to open the floodgates to corporate cash, and to use the blockade of Garland to unify the Tea Party base with the GOP establishment. He pioneered the blanket deployment of the filibuster, far beyond anything contemplated by previous leaders, But McConnell followed generations of white supremacist southern obstructionists who had come before him. Ever since John Calhoun set foot in the Senate, they had fought against Madison’s vision of a majority-rule institution, forging new ways to impose their will on a country where progress threatened their power. Under McConnell, the Senate was finally remade in Calhoun’s vision of minority rule.

Conclusion: How to Save the Senate: Jentleson claims fixing the Senate could be “comparatively easy. All it takes is fifty-one votes, political will, and a reasonable plan.” We only have to (1) restore real, open debate, (2) restore majority rule, which “narrows the minority’s options to helping the majority achieve a victory or sitting on the sidelines,” while making their choice less consequential because one way or another, the legislation supported by the majority will pass, (3) restoring senators’ ability to offer amendments to legislation, (4) take away the leadership’s monopoly on power, (5) eliminating “the incumbent-protection racket”, and (6) approving statehood for DC and other territories that want it. The goal is to make the Senate “capable of producing intelligent solutions.”

Final thought: As long as the Senate remains a kill switch that reactionary white conservatives can hit whenever they choose, it is difficult to see how America can meet the challenges it faces. No kidding!

Finding Latinx: In Search of the Voices Redefining Latino Identity

by Paola Ramos (Vintage 2020)

Daughter of a Mexican journalist and a Cuban mother, journalist Paola Ramos sets off on a journey around the United States in search of what it means to be Latinx, the term chosen to replace Latino/a/os/as or Hispanic because it is more inclusive. She aims to show not only what Latinx people have in common but also what separates them: language and culture in the case of the indigenous people of Guatemala and other parts of Latin America; race in the case of Afro-Cubans, Afro-Mexicans, Afro-Colombians, etc.; politics in the case of Democrats, Republicans, and Trumpists; social class; and gender identity.

Ramos’ book explores the lives of individuals, starting with herself (brought up in Spain and Miami), rarely resorting to statistics and academic research. I see it as a personal journey more than an academic one (which is why I categorized it as a memoir). She made me aware of groups that had flown under my (and most people’s, apparently) radar all my life, like the “silent” Mayan asylum seekers who were called Latino/a even though they could not speak Spanish, and therefore chose not to speak at all. And I have long been curious about the descendants of African slaves in Latin America. They are Black, and they are Hispanic (or Brazilian); how to choose only one identity for oneself in this case? Also, gay and trans Latinx have their own perspective and struggle. Ramos shines a light on them as well. She interviews a young Afro-Cuban man who is a Trump supporter and president of the Miami Proud Boys chapter. Huh? She interviews drag queen Sicarya Jr., drag persona of Ado Arevalo. So many aspects of the Latinx population of the U.S.

Favorite quotation: “It’s okay to differ. It’s okay not to see eye to eye. The point is there is not one way to be Latino in the United States. There is not one way to feel Latino in this country. Not one way to look Latino or sound Latino. And at the moment, the only label that can honor that collective truth and accommodate that spectrum of ambiguity is the Latinx banner.”

Alexander Hamilton

by Ron Chernow (Penguin 2004)

Chernow’s biography of the architect of American government is more than 700 pages. I started it on e-book borrowed from the library in mid-October and continued with a borrowed paperback. All in all, it took me about two months to read it. Why now? Well, with the horrible Trump administration as background, I was hoping to read something that would distract my attention from the negativity and back-biting of 21st century American politics. Little did I know that in Alexander Hamilton’s time, negativity, back-biting, lies, slander, libel, nastiness, hatred, greed, incompetence, jealousy, fits of temper, and more make the 18th century more like a precursor of the 21st than a distraction from it. It was the same shit, all over again. The Federalists hated the Republicans; the Republicans hated the Federalists. Hamilton hated Jefferson, who returned the favor. Burr was disliked by pretty much everyone. Adams was similar in many ways to Donald Trump, having frequent temper tantrums and often disappearing to his home in Massachusetts for months at a time, leaving the government to run itself. Only Washington was universally respected. . . until he wasn’t. It’s a mystery to me how our infant nation managed to survive.

The Republican Party at the time, which I realize is not the party of today (now The Trump Party in everything but name), stood for slavery, states’ rights and a very weak federal government (they thought 130 civil servants were too many!), while Hamilton’s Federalist Party, which barely survived Hamilton’s own demise, championed a powerful executive. We are still fighting these battles today.

Hamilton was truly an exceptional man, mostly self-taught, who had a vision for the country before it was a country and somehow managed to build that vision into a viable republic. He invented the banking, commerce, taxation, and many other systems that still characterize the United States today. He wrote constantly, reams upon reams of arguments for (or against) this or that idea or proposal or law or person.

He was scrupulously honest (never embezzled a dime as the first Secretary of the Treasury; worked double time as a lawyer to compensate for his low government salary), a loving husband and father of eight, and capable of prodigious amounts of work.

He had plenty of faults, too, which Chernow does not shy away from. He was unfaithful to his wife. He made some spectacular errors in judgment, particularly in his later years. But Chernow writes that we have Hamilton to thank for over 200 years of American success. He may not have written the Constitution, but he sold it to the American people in his Federalist Papers, and he fought to protect it through the stormy early years.

Stop reading here! End of post __________________________________________________________________________

Some Interesting Quotes from the e-book

CH 4 – The American Revolution was to succeed because it was undertaken by skeptical men who knew that the same passions that toppled tyrannies could be applied to destructive ends.

The selection of Washington was the first of many efforts by the north to please and placate the south.

Hamilton lacked the temperament of a true-blue revolutionary. He saw too clearly that greater freedom could lead to greater disorder and, by a dangerous dialectic, back to a loss of freedom. Hamilton’s lifelong task was to try to straddle the resolve this contradiction and to balance liberty and order.

Chapter 6 – The American revolution had been premised on a tacit bargain that regional conflicts would be subordinated to the need for unity among the states. This understanding dictated that slavery would remain a taboo subject.

…a recurring paradox of Hamilton’s career that he grew enraged when accused of being an outsider and then sounded, in response, very much like the outsider evoked by his critics.

Chapter 7 – Elizabeth Schuyler–whom Hamilton called either Eliza or Betsey–remains invisible in most biographies of her husband and was certainly the most self-effacing “founding mother,” doing everything in her power to focus the spotlight exclusively on her husband.

Ralph Earl portrait of Eliza Hamilton; John Trumbull’s portrait of Angelica Church

Ch 9 – He advocated duties on imported goods as America’s best form of revenue. For a nation still fighting a revolution over unjust duties on tea and other imports, this was, to put it mildly, a loaded topic.

Ch 12 – Hamilton’s besetting fear was that American democracy would be spoiled by demagogues who would mouth populist shibboleths to conceal their despotism. George Clinton, Thomas Jefferson, and Aaron Burr all came to incarnate that dread for Hamilton.

Ch 13 – Hamilton’s mind always worked with preternatural speed. His collected papers are so stupefying in length that it is hard to believe that one man created them in fewer than five decades. Words were his chief weapons, and his account books are crammed with purchases for thousands of quills, parchments, penknives, slate pencils, reams of foolscap, and wax. His papers show that, Mozart-like, he could transpose complex thoughts onto paper with few revisions. At other times, he tinkered with the prose but generally did not alter the logical progression of his thought. He wrote with the speed of a beautifully organized mind that digested ideas thoroughly, slotted them into appropriate pigeonholes, then regurgitated them at will. To understand Hamilton’s productivity, it is important to note that virtually all of his important work was journalism, prompted by topical issues and written in the midst of controversy. He never wrote as a solitary philosopher for the ages. His friend Nathaniel Pendleton remarked, “His eloquence . . . seemed to require opposition to give it its full force.” But his topical writing has endured because he plumbed the timeless principles behind contemporary events. When in legal briefs or sustained polemics, he wanted to convince people through appeals to their reason. He had an incomparable capacity for work and a metabolism that thrived on conflict. His stupendous output came from the interplay of superhuman stamina and intellect and a fair degree of repetition.

Madison had many reservations about the document (the Constitution), especially the equal representation of states in the Senate, . . .

Federalist number 10, the most influential of all the essays, in which he took issue with Montesquieu’s theory that democracy could survive only in small states. . . .

Madison . . . defended the small, elite Senate against charges that it would grow into “a tyrannical aristocracy”

[Hamilton’s] lifelong effort to balance freedom and order . . .

Ch 14 – That Hamilton could be so sensitive to criticisms of himself and so insensitive to the effect his words had on others was a central mystery of his psyche. (DJT?)

Washington was simply more attuned to Hamilton than he was to Jefferson. . . . Washington willingly served as the political shield that Alexander Hamilton needed as he became America’s most influential and controversial man.

Ch 15 – discrimination (in favor of former debt holders)

Ch 16 – assumption: Hamilton’s plan to have the federal government assume the twenty-five million dollars of state debt

Madison thwarted attempts to enact assumption.

For Hamilton, assumption was his make-or-break issue.

Ch 18 – Hamilton did not create America’s market economy so much as foster the cultural and legal setting in which it flourished. . . . He converted the new Constitution into a flexible instrument for creating the legal framework necessary for economic growth. He did this by activating three still amorphous clauses–the necessary-and-proper clause, the general-welfare clause, and the commerce clause–making them the basis for government activism in economics.

For Jefferson, banks were devices to fleece the poor, oppress farmers, and induce a taste for luxury that would subvert republican simplicity.

For Adams, a banking system was a confidence trick by which the rich exploited the poor.

Hamilton was not the master builder of the Constitution: the laurels surely go to James Madison. He was, however, its foremost interpreter, starting with The Federalist and continuing with his Treasury tenure, when he had to expound constitutional doctrines to accomplish his goals. He lived, in theory and practice, every syllable of the Constitution. For that reason, historian Clinton Rossiter insisted that Hamilton’s “works and words have been more consequential than those of any other American in shaping the Constitution under which we live.”

Some Notes from the Paperback

Ch 19 “City of the Future”: the affair with Maria Reynolds; the SEUM (Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures) and Hamilton’s prescient plan to make America an industrial power; William Duer’s antics and downfall

Ch 20 “Corrupt Squadrons” – enmity between Hamilton/Federalists and Jefferson/Madison/Republicans; the rise of factions/parties; Philip Freneau and the National Gazette, rival to the Gazette of the United States; 18th century “journalism” – more like opinions based on lies.

Ch 21 “Exposure” – Hamilton’s affair unmasked. Quote: “The Reynolds affair was a sad and inexcusable lapse on Hamilton’s part, made only the more reprehensible by his high office, his self-proclaimed morality, his frequently missed chances to end the liaison, and the love and loyalty of his pregnant wife.” My thought: how interesting how the men bent on exposing Hamilton’s corruption backed off immediately when he confessed that his misbehavior was an extra-marital affair, not any official shenanigans. “The small delegation seemed satisfied with Hamilton’s chronicle, if not a little flustered by the awkward situation. They apologized for having invaded his privacy.” This brings to mind how the press ignored Kennedy’s and Bush’s dalliances, and how Democrats were disgusted by Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky, but not enough to remove him from office. It is only now that a scandal of this kind can (sometimes) derail a politician’s career. #MeToo

Chapter 22 “Stabbed in the Dark” – The enmity between Jefferson (with Madison on his side) and Hamilton continues. Another adversary was Aaron Burr, “a lone operator, a protean figure who formed alliances for short-term gain”. Hamilton, a man of deep principles, despised Burr’s transactional character. Virginian congressman William Branch Giles and Marylander John Mercer piled on as well.Philip Freneau continues to publish lies about Hamilton, and former Treasury Dept clerk Andrew Fraunces accused Hamilton of wrongdoing. Hamilton was attacked and maligned from all sides, accused to using his office to benefit himself, which he never did. Washington “distraught over his bickering cabinet”. The malicious intent behind the attacks reminds me of the infighting in Congress today, One wonders how the nation survived it.

Chapter 23 “Citizen Genêt” – Jefferson’s Republicans were in love with the French despite the excesses and violence of the aftermath of the Revolution; Washington, Hamilton, and the Federalists were appalled by these excesses and more attracted to England–which the Republicans hated. Edmond Charles Genêt served as minister to the U.S. “Vain, extravagant, and bombastic”, he “did not behave with the subtlety and prudence expected of a diplomat”. Complications as Hamilton and Washington try to keep the US out of the war between France and England and other European countries.

Chapter 24 “A Disagreeable Trade” – An epidemic of yellow fever in Philadelphia; the Hamiltons both get sick. Shades of 2020. After-effects slow Hamilton down… a little. A break between Washington and Jefferson, who resigns as Secretary of State. The Republicans take over Congress–bad news for Hamilton, who begins to dream of leaving government.

Chapter 25 “Seas of Blood” – England makes trouble. Chief Justice John Jay is sent to negotiate with the British. The violence in France worsens. French refugees come to America.

Chapter 26 “The Wicked Insurgents of the West” – The Whisky Rebellion of Western Pennsylvania was a huge challenge for Hamilton. He persuades Washington to make a show of great force and the tax-hating farmers back down. Hamilton deeply unpopular, leaves government service, needing to earn money to pay off debts, after writing Report on a Plan for the Further Support of Public Credit, a plan to pay off the federal debt.

Chapter 27 “Sugar Plums and Toys” – Hamilton returns to work as a lawyer in private practice, spends lots of quality time with Eliza and the children. He works to get John Jay’s very unpopular treaty with England approved. He continues to write voluminously under various pseudonyms.

Chapter 28 “Spare Cassius” – (I gave up taking notes here)

Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump–and Democrats from Themselves

by Rick Wilson (Crown Forum/Random House 2020)

In this book, Wilson tells the Democratic Party and its as-yet-unknown nominee how to defeat Donald Trump in November 2020. The two most salient takeaways:

1. Make the election a referendum about Trump. Period.
2. Put all your money and effort into 15 Electoral College swing states.

In addition, don’t scare off unhappy Trump voters and independents with a too-progressive agenda. Recognize that middle America is not New York or Boston or San Francisco.

What’s eerily interesting is that when Wilson was writing the book, there was no pandemic; there was no economic shutdown; there was no presumptive Democratic nominee. He assumed that Trump would be running on a strong economy. But sometimes he seems prescient (“the sweeping crisis… or financial meltdown…”).

I hope those in charge of directing Biden’s campaign have read Wilson’s book and are paying attention to it, even if they don’t follow his advice to the letter. He’s like the spy come in from the cold, and we had better take advantage of what he knows.

Contents:

1. Part I: The Case Against Trump, or Four More Years in Hell
   1. Four More Years in Hell (Make this election a referendum on Trump.)
   2. American Swamp (A look at the “lavish and obvious” corruption of this man and this administration. And if you think the last four years were bad, the next four will be exponentially worse.)
   3. The Crazy Racist Uncle Act…Isn’t an Act (Yes, he really is as bad as he seems. And aging is not improving him.)
   4. Cruelty as Statecraft (This administration’s cruelty to immigrant children can be used against it.)
   5. Trump’s Economic Bullshit Machine (Trump lied to middle-class voters with his Tax Scam.)
   6. Generalissimo Trump and Pillow Fortress America (How Trump’s America is at a disadvantage in the world.)
   7. All Rise: President McConnell’s Courts (How McConnell has taken advantage of Harry Reid’s undoing of the judicial filibuster to pack the federal courts with young conservative judges “who will have a profound effect on the legal landscape of this country”)
   8. The Environment (Expect the worst if Trump wins in 2020.)
   9. Imperial Trumps (After the Donald, The Large Adult Sons, “creepy automaton Jared Kushner” and Ivanka)
   10. Our National Soul (The next generation will emulate Trump, devoid of compassion, ready to mock others; they will think it’s OK bully, lie, and cheat. “Trump is a complete package of the Founders’ greatest fears…”)
   11. The Mission (Defeat Trump, in spite of yourselves.)
2. Part 2: The Myths of 2020
   1. It’s a National Election (Keep your eyes on the prize: the Electoral College. A major theme.)
   2. The Policy Delusion (Democrats are addicted to policy, but average voters make choices based on emotions, language, presentation, charisma. The Democratic base “will crawl over broken glass to vote against him.” Target the rest: make the election about Trump.)
   3. America Is So Woke (Social-media Dems vs. actual Dems. Candidates should not get too far out in front of the voters. The Hidden Tribes’ five categories of Dem voters. Basically: not as woke as we Progressive Activists think.)
   4. Kumbaya (Wilson’s plea that the Democratics winnow the field and get down to the business of running against Trump)
   5. You’ll Get Obama’s Minority Turnout (Don’t assume anything. Enlist the wildly popular Obamas to turn them out.)
   6. Muh Youth Vote (Don’t count on young voters to turn out in their masses to defeat him. “Old people vote…. [and] in the swing states… really old people.”)
3. Part 3: Army of Darkness: Trump’s War Machine
   1. The Trump 2020 War Machine (the GOP, Fox News, “earned media propelled by social media”, Data Propria [fka Cambridge Analytica], paid TV ads, mammoth fundraising, field organizing, opposition research, Russian help)
   2. Never Underestimate Incumbency (presidential whims, unilateral actions, surprises…)
   3. Trump’s Messages and Strategies (“grievance culture”, Trump as hero, instill fear in voters)
   4. No Heroes in the GOP (Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell, Congressional Republicans terrified of Trump’s anger and his “mob”)
   5. His Fucking Twitter Feed, Fakebook, and Fox Agitporn (Fox News is “an unmatched weapon in Trump’s arsenal”; “[Trump’s] Twitter feed is the very maw of hell.” Fact-checking is useless and makes the base believe the lies all the more.
   6. The Mainstream Media (They can’t stop reporting on Trump’s antics. Democrats must attack; they must push out their own messages, not just push back on Trump’s lies.)
   7. Deepfake Nation (Doctored video clips pushing out lies: “an existential threat to the Democratic nominee”)
   8. You Have No Secrets (You can’t hide, so assume every secret will out; think how it can be turned into an attack; the best way to counter attacks is “an endless, chainsaw offense.”)
   9. The Death of Truth (You can’t persuade Trump voters with facts. Instead, discredit the liar.)
4. Part 4: How to Lose
   1. Flying by the Seat of Your Pants (Democrats are terrible at politics.)
   2. Playing the Campaign, Losing the Reality Show (Use TV to your advantage; debates are crucial; attack Trump’s ego and story.)
   3. Asking the Wrong Polling Questions (Beware the Socially Desirable Response; court shy Trump voters, shy Democrats, and Never Trump Republicans.)
   4. Magical Thinking (Democrats want to believe the best of people. It won’t work. Don’t believe national polls; they tell you about the popular vote only. Don’t depend on voters  to think through complicated policies. The base is not enough. Organize, plan, be disciplined, depend on data, metrics, and accountability.)
   5. The Culture War: Where Democrats Go to Die (“Democrats who get lured into playing the Social Justice Olympics of Political Correctness are going to lose forty-plus states.” E.g., (3rd trimester) abortion, which more voters oppose than progressives suppose.)
   6. Reviving the Clintons (Keep them out of it.)
   7. The Danger of Democratic Trumps (Ambitious Democrats looking beyond 2020)
   8. Taking the Infrastructure Week Bait (You can’t make a deal with Trump, so stop trying.)
   9. Externalities Are a Bitch (October surprises can be engineered or “external”. Our external events are the novel coronavirus and the economic collapse, but Wilson could not have predicted those specifically; he says only, “the sweeping crisis, international incident, or financial meltdown that no one plans for….” And of course, they didn’t come in October, so maybe we will confront still more weirdnesses before the election. In 2016, it was Comey and the renewed review of Clinton’s emails. Anyway, expect a load of lies. Be prepared to respond, and laugh down the accuser.)
5. Part 5: How to Win
   1. Only Fight the Electoral College Map (You will never make a dent in deep-red states; the deep-blue ones take care of themselves. “The election is already over in roughly thirty-five states.”) Based on a Cook Partisan Voting Index of fewer than 10 points either way, the battleground states are Florida (29 electoral votes), Pennsylvania (20), Ohio (18), Georgia (16), Michigan (16), North Carolina (15), Virginia (13), Arizona (11), Minnesota (10), Wisconsin (10), Colorado (9), Iowa (6), Nevada (6), Maine (4), and New Hampshire (4). Wilson devotes a paragraph to each.)
   2. Speaking American (How to communicate with the masses: different words for different folks. Specific examples are given. “I’m teaching you to lie.” Tell voters they matter.)
   3. The First Rule of Trump Fight Club (“Once you attack, you must press on.” “Decency is your enemy.” Attack Trump personally, in ways that will upset him most.)
   4. Start Early (Obvious)
   5. Start Advertising. Now. (Same)
   6. No More Potemkin Campaigns (An empirical campaign, driven by data. Forget ideology. Hire the right people, not your friends or also-rans. Register new voters. Capitalize early voting, mail-in ballots [Yes! He says this.], and field operations.)
   7. Make the Worst of Trump’s Base His Running Mate (Bannon, Gorka, Stephen Miller, Richard Spencer, David Duke, etc. Make Trump own them.)
   8. Reaching Trump Voters, If You Must–and Sadly, You Must (Find a way to accepting disillusioned Trump supporters into the fold. “Turn regret and remorse into votes….” Trump’s Republican support is high because many Republicans don’t identify as Republicans in polls. J. D. Vance notwithstanding, “The tribal nature of Trumpism is seated in a host of racial and ethnic hatreds.”  Ignore the evangelicals; they are a lost cause.)
   9. Be the Party of Markets, Families, and Security (Democrats have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take over traditionally Republican brands which have been abandoned by Trump. Focus on the pre-existing conditions issue in healthcare.)
   10. Third Parties and Spoilers (Did you know Republicans are responsible for many of the third-party candidates that have split the Democratic vote in past elections? Wilson recommends Democrats turn the tables and use this same tactic. Get billionaire Democratic donors to support “real and fake third-party options” like the Libertarian Party [but he predicts the national and state GOP will fight hard to discourage challengers–which they did.] And winnow down your field quickly. Well, we are past that, and it kind of worked out that way–thanks to the pandemic.)
   11. Investigate + Interrogate > Impeach (Wilson warns against impeachment unless removal follows. “Trump cannot be shamed. Ever.”)
   12. The Target List (Attack Trump enablers and consultants, like those with scam PACs, David Bossie, Corey Lewandowski, Steve Bannon, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, Roger Stone (too late!)
6. Part 6: Epilogue
   1. Election Night, November 3, 2020 (Fantasizing how it might go if Democrats follow Wilson’s advice)

 

Everything Trump Touches Dies: A Republican Strategist Gets Real About the Worst President Ever

by Rick Wilson (Simon and Schuster 2018)

Rick Wilson, one of the founders of The Lincoln Project, is a staunch Never-Trumper. I think this is his first book about Trump; the second is Running Against the Devil, which I have begun but not yet finished. I read a review of ETTD in which the reviewer wonders who the target audience is; I was wondering the same thing, because Trump supporters won’t read it, and Democrats and others opposed to Trump already know pretty much everything he writes. I was not surprised by his claims, but I was sometimes put off by the vehement, nasty tone–it seems Wilson almost never has anything good to say about anybody, and uses lots of obscenity, just to make sure the reader knows how he feels. For example, in Chapter 1, he addresses Trump supporters, defining a word he assumes they won’t know and adding nastily, “I know you’re in an oxy stupor much of the time, so I’ll try to move slowly and not use big words.” Wilson has seen the light and recognized Donald Trump for what he is, and he has no patience for anyone who hasn’t. (Well, me too.)

Wilson also has advice for us Democrats (which he will no doubt expand upon in Running Against the Devil): like don’t insist on a set of national standards because regions are different. For example, we should not insist on our candidates’ supporting reproductive rights. Similarly, Democrats’ position on gun control turns off “almost every white male in the country over the age of 35.” (The same could be said for Republicans. How well do they tolerate pro-choice and pro-gun-control candidates?)

Wilson acknowledges that today’s Republicans have ceded the high ground on fiscal discipline, so he suggests that Democrats could make this issue their own (not likely).”The reality of the Trump-Ryan tax cut,” he writes, “is that it is a spectacular, budget-busting payday for Wall Street. Full stop.” He denies sounding like a Democrat; instead, he claims to be “a fiscal conservative who believes in a tax system that is broad and simple and treats every American equally.” But when fighting the Tax Scam, as we called it, we said the same thing, and have been criticizing it ever since.

He notes that most Americans do not trust the federal government (no surprise there, and thanks to the Republicans!). Trumpism, Wilson writes, is fundamentally pessimistic; “a central tenet of Trumpism is to run down the people of this country and describe a nation so weak and lost it requires an authoritarian strongman.” (True: remember “American carnage” at his inauguration?)

Wilson places much of the blame for Trump’s excesses on Fox News, which “actively elected to elide Trump’s endless catalogue of ideological sins, thinly veiled racism, moral shortcomings, mob ties, Russian money men, personal weirdness, endemic cheating, trophy wives, serial bankruptcies, persistent tax shenanigans, low-grade intellect, conspiracy email-forwarding kooky grandpa affect and disregard for American values and standards.” I don’t think he misses much. And we’ve certainly heard it before from our side. Of Fox, he writes that it presents “counterfactual conspiracy nonsense, yahooism, . . . jingoism, deep and overt bias. . . , and out-of-context smears.” He is horrified by Trump’s ” war on the press.” So yes, he does kind of sound like a Democrat sometimes!

Wilson claims not to like us Democrats, despite agreeing with us on a lot of issues, and he doesn’t have any faith that we can beat Trump in the coming election. In Running Against the Devil, he will attempt to explain to us how to do it. In the Epilogue, he writes, “Everything about Donald Trump’s presidency is a disaster for America. The victories Republicans think they have achieved are transitory and ephemeral and come at the cost of their principles and, probably, their immortal souls. He is a stain on the party, on conservatism, and on this country that won’t easily wash out.”

What he said. But I’m still not sure who the audience is supposed to be, because I already knew that.

21 Lessons for the 21st Century

by Yuval Noah Harari (Spiegel & Grau, 2018) (I read the randomhousebooks.com electronic version)

As Yuval Noah Harari explains in his Introduction to 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, “In this book I want to zoom in on the here and now. My focus is on current affairs and on the immediate future of human societies. What is happening right now? What are today’s greatest challenges and most important choices? What should we teach our kids?”

Although I was spellbound by Harari’s Coursera MOOC “A Brief History of Humankind” in 2013, this is the first of his books I have actually read (though Sapiens has been on my to-read list since I took the MOOC, and Homo Deus is already in my Nook library). I remember Dr. Harari’s video presentations. He always sat in the same armchair with a floor lamp beside it. There was a video screen next to him, but he rarely used it. Instead, he kept us enthralled with his words, sitting there with no notes, just talking into the camera. It was amazing. 21 Lessons reminds me of that, a little. While I was not enthralled (more like depressed) as I read it, he constantly got me to look at things in a fresh new way, just as he did in the course.

I was expecting something more along the lines of On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, but 21 Lessons is more like the reworking of previously published articles, supplemented by responses to reader questions. That said, there is plenty here to learn and think about, written succinctly and clearly, with relevant examples taken from numerous countries around the globe as well as from Harari’s personal experiences (something he did not talk about at all in the MOOC).

Order of chapter topics:

Part I: The Technological Challenge (Ch. 1: Disillusionment; Ch. 2: Work; Ch. 3: Liberty; Ch. 4: Equality)

Part II: The Political Challenge (Ch. 5: Community; Ch. 6: Civilization; Ch. 7: Nationalism; Ch. 8: Religion; Ch. 9: Immigration)

Part III: Despair and Hope (Ch. 10: Terrorism; Ch. 11: War; Ch. 12: Humility; Ch. 13: God; Ch. 14: Secularism)

Part IV: Truth (Ch. 15: Ignorance; Ch. 16: Justice; Ch. 17: Post-Truth; Ch. 18: Science Fiction)

Part VI: Resilience (Ch. 19: Education; Ch. 20: Meaning; Ch. 21: Meditation)

Some of the main take-aways:

• People think in stories. Most of them are fictional. The one my friends and I prefer is “the liberal story”. But it’s not the only one out there. (A related thought: “from a political perspective, a good science fiction movie is worth far more than an article in Science or Nature.)
• In the future, most people could become irrelevant (“a massive new ‘useless class'”) as powerful elites use bio-technology to turn themselves into a kind of super-human. “It is much harder to struggle against irrelevance than against exploitation.” We might even split into two separate species. The crucial difference is “who owns the data”. But how do we regulate data?
• The Artificial Intelligence Revolution will transform the future job market.  “No job will remain absolutely safe from automation.”
• Humans make most of their decisions based on emotion, not rational thought. Emotions are “biochemical mechanisms that all mammals and birds use in order to quickly calculate probabilities of survival and reproduction”. In other words, “feelings. . . embody evolutionary rationality.”
• Human communities have always been characterized by inequality. Equality gained ground in the 20th century, but inequality is now growing again.
• All humans today share a global civilization which recognizes nation states, money, and shared scientific, medical, and technological knowledge.
• The success of Homo Sapiens is due in large part to our propensity to think in groups and to cooperate.
• People don’t like too many facts. “The world has simply become too complicated for our hunter-gatherer brains.”
• The three main challenges facing humankind are the nuclear challenge, the ecological challenge, and the technological challenge, which together “add up to an unprecedented existential crisis.” Four questions for any candidate for office:
  • If elected, how will you reduce the risk of nuclear war?
  • How will you fight climate change?
  • How would you regulate technologies such as AI and bioengineering?
  • How do you see the world of 2040?
• There are three kinds of problems: technical problems, policy problems, and identity problems. Religion is relevant only to identity problems.
• Immigration is a deal with three basic conditions.
  • Term 1: The host country allows the immigrants in.
  • Term 2: The immigrants embrace at least the core norms and values of the host country.
  • Term 3: If the immigrants assimilate enough, over time they become equal and full members of the host country.
  • We need to have a consensus on the meaning of the three terms before we can have a debate on immigration.
• Terrorism is a military strategy used by groups that are too weak to really damage their enemy materially. Don’t panic over terrorist actions because in the end their effect is usually very small. “There is an astounding disproportion between the actual strength of the terrorists and the fear they manage to inspire.”
• Jews are less important in world history than either they or their detractors think.
• Monotheism made people less tolerant of others.
• A moral person is one who reduces the suffering of others.
• Two rules of thumb:
  • If you want reliable information, you should be prepared to pay for it.
  • If an issue is really important to you, read the relevant scientific literature about it.
• Students don’t need more information (facts). They need to know how to make sense of the information they have.

Favorite quotes:

• Democracy in its present form cannot survive the merger of biotech and infotech. Either democracy will successfully reinvent itself in a radically new form or humans will come to live in “digital dictatorships.”
• Intelligence is the ability to solve problems. Consciousness is the ability to feel things such as pain, joy, love, and anger.
• The economic system pressures me to expand and diversify my investment portfolio, but it gives me zero incentive to expand and diversify my compassion.
• If you don’t feel at home in your body, you will never feel at home in the world.
• We are all members of a single rowdy global civilization.
• Xenophobia is in our DNA.
• Identities are a crucial historical force. . . . All mass identities are based on fictional stories, not on scientific facts or even on economic necessities.
• Terrorists resemble a fly that tries to destroy a china shop. The fly is so weak that it cannot move even a single teacup. So how does a fly destroy a china shop? It finds a bull, gets inside its ear, and starts buzzing. The bull goes wild with fear and anger, and destroys the china shop. This is what happened after 9/11, as Islamic fundamentalists incited the American bull to destroy the Middle Eastern china shop. Now they flourish in the wreckage. 
• Questions you cannot answer are usually far better for you than answers you cannot question.
• Home sapiens is a post-truth species, whose power depends on creating and believing fictions.
• When a thousand people believe some made-up story for one month, that’s fake news. When a billion people believe it for a thousand years, that’s a religion. . . .
• Humans have a remarkable ability to know and not know at the same time. Or, more correctly, they can know something when they really think about it, but most of the time they don’t think about it, so they don’t know it.
• Truth and power can travel together only so far. Sooner or later they go their separate paths. If you want power, at some point you will have to spread fictions. If you want to know the truth about the world, at some point you will have to renounce power.
• As a species, humans prefer power to truth.
• A ritual is a magical acts that makes the abstract concrete and the fictional real.
• If by “free will” you mean the freedom to do what you desire, then yes, humans have free will. But if by “free will” you mean the freedom to choose what to desire, then no, humans have no free will.

One thing I really enjoyed in particular was how Harari explains his points with reference to art (Hamlet, Inside Out, Brave New World, The Lion King…).