Firehose #142: The Summer of Moynihan

Also: Paul Revere’s Apartheid cigarettes

But then I see Michael Moyn-i-han

Oh God he’s staring right at me

and he looks kinda mad….

You might stop him from showing up to one episode, but clearly it was futile to contain ol’ Hollywood. Herr Moynihan, with a somewhat lumpy mouth, was back in all his his fury this week, perhaps deriving extra strength from the ingestion of plant-based substances offered to him by insane listener Randolph Carter?

* So, about the, uh, clarifying Episode #502, currently hurtling toward most-comments-ever status. (Reminder: Access to Comments & Chat is one of the core privileges of being a paid subscriber.) When I asked MAGA-lefty Batya Ungar-Sargon (who battled previously on #451) about her metrics for tariff success, she mentioned getting some of the 7 million absent working-age men back into the labor force. (This, FWIW, is also one of my measures for whether the tariffing can surprise me by being successful.) That statistical anomaly was the topic of my #376 interview with Nicholas Eberstadt, author of Men Without Work: America’s Invisible Crisis. Eberstadt had a piece out in the New York Post earlier this month, arguing that “Team Trump is trying to fix the problem with the wrong tools.” Excerpt from that:

[T]he overwhelming majority of jobless men nowadays are NILFs (for “not in labor force”). And unemployed men differ fundamentally in both mindset and behavior from NILF men.

The former consider themselves part of the labor force; the latter do not.

The former generally respond to labor market incentives; the latter generally do not.

Thus, while unemployed men tend to be out of work for just a few weeks, NILF men tend to be long-termers — often lifers.

Furthermore, only a tiny minority of NILF men say they are jobless because they could not find work. Even during recessions, most give other reasons. […]

Millions of NILF men live work-free existences financed by an array of disability programs and their associated “poverty” benefits.

This disability archipelago incentivizes helplessness, and at a terrible cost in human potential.

America’s disability system is so dysfunctional that no one in DC can tell you just how many people are currently getting benefits from its crazy-quilt of subcomponents (SSDI, SSI, Social Security, veterans’ benefits, state-level disability programs, worker’s comp programs — and more). […]

It is a critical error to treat the NILF problem as an unemployment question. It will not be solved by more jobs or better workplace opportunities, the way unemployment would.

Another weighing in on the lost-men theory this week was Virginia Postrel (#14).

And as for those listeners anxious about personal strains after a contentious podcast, here’s a postgame report:

* Speaking of frank exchanges of views, here is a Friday conversation on the now-with-its-own-YouTube channel The Moynihan Report with the one and only Sam Harris, talking about the T-word, losing friends, Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, and more.

* The day prior, Hollywood made biscuits with whimsically-voiced old friend Jon Ronson (#149, #356, Members Only #162), discussing Michael’s Jonah Lehrer experiences, Ronson’s journalistic prescience, and a brand new update to The Debutante.

* The Friday previous I was on HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher, on which the most media-noteworthy exchange included him telling me, “If I may address the little shot you just gave me, so fucking what, okay?” Here’s the embeddable Overtime segment, along with Douglas Murray (veteran of Episode #390), and Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.):

* Kmele been out here dropping anti-“race science” science, including this rejoinder to one of those self-described Twitter rationalists:

Individual humans are not averages. Races don't have IQs. And the point i/o raises here isn't too dangerous to confront; it's conceptually hollow and philosophically retrograde. […]

Obsessing over racial disparities is blinkered and obnoxious when social justice activists do it. It manages to be even more pitiful and gross when anonymous "race realists" do it for their own uninspired ends.

If we're committed to being even remotely serious, decent, or honorable, we ought to concern ourselves with human needs — on the basis of our shared humanity. Not on the basis of race. And certainly not on the basis of which direction a particular disparity happens to break.

If an American child is going to be zoned into a perennially underperforming public school in this country, I don't care if it's in Baltimore City or rural Appalachia. I would prefer it not to happen. Full stop.

i/o isn't being brave.

i/o is being almost religiously myopic.

* Cue … Randolph Carter!

* My Tuesday-night Substack Live tech debacle w/ Josh Szeps (#25, #80, #103, #117, #196, #328, #423, #445, M.O. #231) was mercifully released with better/longer audio/video on Thursday. Here I am (he says, praying that Substack’s “embed” feature actually works on Substack), attempting to concentrate on a conversation about the “abundance agenda,” high speed rail, due process, alarm levels, and God knows what else:

"American Authoritarianism" with Matt Welch

* Been a lot of free-speech related headlines from our universe. Yascha Mounk (#124, #195) has a piece out under the well-yep headline of, “Europe Really Is Jailing People for Online Speech: From Germany to Britain, citizens are now routinely targeted for what they say.” Foundation of Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) President Greg Lukianoff (#216, M.O. #183, #427) described the conflicting emotions of defending speech-miserable Harvard against Trump-administration overreach: “Are we at FIRE taking some punches and kicks over this? You bet. Since many Americans fully understand that Harvard does not have clean hands, they’ve been pretty mad at us for explaining, time and time again, why the government is exceeding its powers here. But that’s part of the job.”

And Jacob Mchangama (#102 & #344) has a sobering Dispatch essay about student-visa deportations, under the more tipsy headline of “A New McCarthyism.” Excerpt:

[A]ppreciation for the First Amendment is something I share with many foreigners—Germans, Iranians, Russians—who now call America home. For some of us, that tradition has become a kind of secular article of faith—the realization of which not only offers a sense of identity, but also a rite of passage into American ideals. Indeed, many of us noncitizens nodded in agreement in February when Vice President J.D. Vance said that European speech restrictions are “shocking to American ears.”

But the very ideal that so many of us noncitizens cherish as America’s “first freedom” is now being curtailed. The administration is invoking a clause of the Immigration Nationality Act of 1952 that allows the secretary of state unfettered discretion to deport aliens, including anyone he believes “would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.” […]

[I]t’s now clear that the government is targeting noncitizens for ideas and speech protected by the First Amendment. The most worrying example (so far) is a Turkish student at Tufts University, apparently targeted for co-authoring a student op-ed calling for, among other things, Tufts to divest from companies with ties to Israel. One report estimates that around 1,700 students from universities across the country have had their visas revoked so far. […]

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently announced that it would begin screening the social media posts of aliens “whose posts indicate support for antisemitic terrorism, antisemitic terrorist organizations, or other antisemitic activity.” Shortly after, the X account of USCIS posted about a “robust social media vetting program” and warned: “EVERYONE should be on notice. If you’re a guest in our country—act like it.” And four days later, White House homeland security adviser Stephen Miller promised to deport “anyone who preaches hate for America.” […]

This has created a wave of self-censorship among the millions of noncitizens who live, study, and work in the U.S. Conversations among expats now center on how many have stopped posting political content or canceled travel abroad, fearing they won’t be let back in. Noncitizens in think tanks and public policy roles I have spoken to are using burner phones and keeping immigration lawyers on speed dial. Universities are advising foreign students and faculty not to publicly criticize the U.S. government or officials. Students are complying, even going so far as to ask to have their bylines removed from articles, refraining from peaceful protests and scrubbing their social media accounts. Even more surreal: People, including me, are receiving constant pleas from friends and family to come home, fearing what might happen if we stay.

* Beloved listener Nika Scothorne took the heartbreaking A.I. parent-ripoff case of community stalwart Alisa G. (mentioned on both M.O. #257 and Mailbucket #13), and made a nifty podcast episode out of it. Alisa’s GoFundMe for her parents is north of $9,000; surely we can kick that up a notch?

* Some comic relief, perhaps? May Allah help anyone who gets all these references, but our very favorite Fifdom fanimator Arch Stanton is back with his rendering of #501, and the always-hungry guest Jesse Singal (#111, #171):

* Who wants to the boss of me? OK, it wouldn’t exactly be that, but: Reason is hiring a full-time podcast producer “to oversee The Reason Roundtable, our weekly news-driven podcast, and The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie.” The position “can be based in our Washington, D.C. office or virtually from anywhere in the United States,” with preference for “candidates based in or willing to relocate to the D.C. area.” Salary estimated at “$60,000–$90,000, depending on experience.” Do it today! You’ll be glad you did.

* Comment of the Week comes from L Brown:

Little did Paul Revere know that a couple of hundred years later he would be the face of a cigarette brand in apartheid South Africa, with 80s tobacco ad spend behind it.

"The reward of the great outdoors. That feeling of freedom. Of wide open spaces. Your kind of life? Then Paul Revere is your cigarette."

Freedom for some I guess. Another one:

Walkoff video, as referenced toward the end of M.O. #257, contains some not-ready-for-2020 visual choices. But! Unlike some others, still has not been made unavailable on my Short People playlist from a few years back.