Factual Dispatch #34: As the Dust Begins to Settle

I’m glad I waited to send out this Dispatch, as the last few days have produced a steady pulse of related blips that put everyone’s performance in context. Biden’s doltish “Corn Pop” story may have been the focus, but Warren’s almost Roosevelt-ian speech at Washington Square Park and Castro’s fight back against the corporate-friendly tone-policing by people should not be overlooked. As of Tuesday in California, Harris is in 5th (behind #YangGang), Warren is in 3rd, and Biden/Sanders are tied for 1st. But now, on to the show!

• While Castro started the evening as a great pick for Sec Interior, he felt like the surprise winner by the end of it. Scoring direct hits on Biden during the healthcare debate with his “Are you forgetting?” and “Thank you very much, that’s quite a lot” was not fair at all, but Trump won’t be either, so get used to it. His retort to Yang’s plea for civility of “that’s an election,” was absolutely needed. Having a true primary is critical and faux civility doesn’t help us do that. I liked how he extended the hand to Beto and I think both of them reminding us Black Lives Matter, with Castro intoning Sandra Bland’s name, resonated deeply. Castro answered a question about immigration by throwing Biden under the bus, which, frankly worked. Biden shouldn’t waffle on immigration, and we know he will. His invocation of Uighurs FIRST was quite surprising, while him being cut off immediately after calling out charter schools was kind of perfect.

• Booker…was also there. He managed to be both forgettable and somehow less good at talking the Obama game on racism than Castro. The criminal justice reform conversation could have broadly ruined Biden’s day, yet Booker pulled his punches. He had a huge opportunity to discuss the expanded carceral state. Instead of focusing on millions of people who are in jail for drug crimes, he asked for 17,000 people to be released and called himself a “gun violence hipster” which conjured up images of drive-by shootings on fixie bikes in gentrified areas of Newark. Which is kind of why his MLK #OneStruggle invocation didn’t land at all. Given his record on pot, big pharma, and education, it’s pretty easy to guess why he didn’t push Biden on those things. However, “I want to say no, and I want to translate that into Spanish, NO!” was actually pretty perfect. But finally, Booker should never talk about education again without having to answer for Zuckerberg and the $100 Million Fail.

• Klobuchar took the “both extremes are bad” baton of centrism from the Flamboyance of Bros that didn’t make it out of the first round (Bullock, Swalwell, Hickenlooper, etc.) and power-walked with it. While Klobuchar jumped out into a centrist vein that is kind of well worn these days, given her soccer mom vibe, it ended up being pretty on brand. She didn’t really have a good concept or vision, but she does feel like a more polished, corporate-friendly candidate than Biden at this point. When called out on her history of putting LEO’s first, her suggestions on how to fight officer involved shootings were…extremely bad, and did not convince anyone that she’d get justice for them. Billboards? Finding the “shooter?” Going after white collar crimes? As an explanation of police-involved racist shootings, she has absolutely no idea why what she’d said was wrong, and is absolutely not going to figure it out in the next few months. Her support of steel tariffs is antiquated, myopic frankly stupid, and speaks to her “my districts first” mentality, that is super easy to dismantle. The few good comments she made about Trump were encouraging, but being able to do that is table stakes to get to the next level.

• Of all the candidates on stage, Beto looks the most wizened and exhausted since the last debate. El Paso sobered him in ways that no campaign strategist possibly could. His point about the gaping lack of mental health parity and funding in Medicare-for-All plans Warren has put forth was one of the shots that actually landed on Warren so far in this media circus. It’s an important point and I’m glad it was made. The call out to El Paso directly by ABC (vs Pete’s qualitatively poor handling of his officer involved shooting) was unexpected, but he took it and ran with it. He’s evolved significantly since the race began, and the reparations call out by the Texan was massive. “Beto is Good” as a response to Biden resonated with millions of kids who were just happy some authority figure got their name right. But the “You did good, Kid” tone that he kept being addressed in will probably bite the people closer to the center of the stage. He stood up for something and I believe the people will reward him for it. “There weren’t enough ambulances, hell yes we’re going to take your AR-15s” was POWERFUL, and he’s already gotten a ton of crap for it. “And if you read the rest of the article..” was a really good retort to the visa overstay gotcha question. Houston, TX being diverse & El Paso being safe BECAUSE they are a city of immigrants, is the messaging the DNC need to own, and any DC beltway person who says otherwise wears boat shoes. “Legalize America” is a rallying cry for millennial democrats of all stripes, and I’m shocked I can’t buy a t-shirt with that on it yet. Lastly, his answers on climate change were surprisingly presidential, mentioning no-till farming and other terms that resonated with agriculture people, should keep him in the game a little longer.

• Mayor Pete’s performance proves why consultants appear so polished and put together under the heat of the stage lights. His privilege ensured CNN didn’t press him to explain his terrible response to the officer-involved shooting in his city, and he got to also-run reparations without actually saying it. His “Douglass Plan” as a take on the Marshall Plan is an interesting choice, but I doubt the naming convention will resonate with everyone who grew up too poor to pay attention in HS History. Hearing “Anyone who supports Trump’s immigration plan is racist” was important from Pete, especially when he followed it up with reminders that they hate because they don’t “know immigrants.” The “community renewal visa” idea was actually interesting and is similar to how a few European countries shunted immigrants into small towns. Discussion of Trump’s foibles and inability to debate Xi, invoking Hong Kong, is where consulting-Pete shines, and boy did he. Foreign Policy is where he can win, but he can’t stay in the clouds forever. Pete’s idea about looking soldiers in the eye is a bad one, given the propensity of fragging in Vietnam. Though his dunk on DeVos was GREAT, his continued reference to “choice” and “trusting the American people” when discussing healthcare is a supremely poisoned concept. People don’t need choice, they need coverage, as GM reminded us on Tuesday.

• Harris took a page from the Warren playbook, going after Trump, speaking directly into the camera, and not picking fights with candidates she’s scared she’ll need to be a VP for. The re-focusing on Trump accompanied by a side of shade directed at the rest of the stage, is the tactic they hope gets her away from the pack and into the conversation about who the DNC is replacing Biden with. Given how she dropped in the polls afterwards, I’m not sure it worked. Harris' mentioning IP and a possible climate partnership with China was a bit too policy wonk for the moment, and she couldn’t stop laughing at her own jokes. In between snickering at herself, CNN called out her record as a cop, and like Klobuchar, she didn’t answer it remotely correctly. Her actions on FOSTA/SESTA alone caused deaths, and being the first to yell “Yes we can” on stage isn’t bringing those sex workers back. Calling Trump short landed about as well as her “we can all do things to prevent climate change” individualist rhetoric, which is…not at all. Lastly, if she wanted me to believe her claims of education advocacy, she should have threatened fewer parents of truant kids with jail.

• Andrew Yang, or “3 Redditors in a trenchcoat” went with a sweepstakes and some casual racism about Asians being doctors. I was quite disappointed in Yang’s performance, as his “big ideas” made me think he grabbed a tech start-up PR guy to run his campaign, which is why he felt somewhat out-gunned by Castro and others. However, his peanut farm immigration story and reminder that immigrants are quite common as tech start-up founders and venture capitalists definitely resonates. But he muddled this somewhat, by stating we should return to Obama-era immigration numbers, which conflicts with his rhetoric that we should “throw the doors open.” Mentioning the idea that we can’t rebuild Puerto Rico, is both gross and exactly what the centrist neoliberals want to hear. His invocation of “Democracy Dollars” and “people on one side vs. money on the other” was definitely super bad and his discussion of education inequality, while extremely important, is not solved by giving everyone YangBucks.

• I’m extremely annoyed at CNN for the way Sanders’ vocal fry and makeup was handled. I get that the guy had a cold, but the idea that a top broadcaster and a team of make-up aides couldn’t make the guy sound & look like everyone else on stage feeds my conspiracy lizard brain in the worst possible way. Aside from that, $50 trillion in insurance spend vs $30 spent on medicare-for-all, is the exact correct way to frame the HC debate, with Biden giving Bernie a supremely useful window to dunk on him about costs related to those sectors. While Bernie swung for the fences when it came to what was possible politically, he did remind us all of the very real costs of employment changes, improper/non-sufficient insurance coverage, and drew that thread through to the discussion on trade. NAFTA dunking on Biden was lovely and will earn him many supporters in the heartland. One of the great lines: “THE YUGE MISTAKE WAS BUSH/CHENEY” is even more relevant now that Liz Cheney is beating the drums of war with Iran, and Bernie’s record of not supporting trump’s military budgets and calling out the forever war will be critical in the coming months.

• Warren continues her ascendancy by staying on message and correctly running with the progressive football when it comes to terrible/repetitive gotcha questions about healthcare funding. Instead of yielding to the corporatist-friendly framed discussion of taxes, she embraced the Medicare-For-All rhetoric, and didn’t pull any punches. Biden, Klobuchar, and CNN continued to serve up talking points Warren will get huge mileage out of in TV ads & social media spots. The questioning on immigration allowed her to appear presidential, and helped her to add some details to a vague border policy most of us aren’t familiar with. Her mentioning Latin/Central American funding could have been worded better, as her language was bit neoliberal/colonialist, and she needs to get out of the shadow of Hillary’s state department legacy on that. A smart pivot was her deploying the idea of trade as a way to elevate labor protections across the world, which she did before anyone else on stage, but has been growing in popularity in leftist circles. I was surprised by her no-deal withdrawal offer of troops in Afghanistan, which seems defensive against Bernie. “We’re not going to bomb our way to solution in Afganistan” paired with invoking McCain, is a strong position, but I want to hear more push back from her against the forever war. Lastly, positioning herself as the only school teacher on the stage, who was waiting for the question about education, was quite smart. Her demand that the next SecEducation is a public school teacher is a direct shot across the bow of the USS DeVos. If we see DNC buy-in for a two cent wealth tax to pay for public education, universal child care, universal pre-K and wage increases, this is how we get debt cancellation over the plate. Being “tough but fair” is exactly what the opposite of Trump’s narrative will be.

• Biden’s first words were dependent on you literally forgetting how corrupt the last time he invoked the idea of a “cancer moonshot.” The non-profit was forced to suspend their operations indefinitely after…a whole bunch of bad stuff came to light. Biden went on to mix up COBRA, Medicaid, and M4A, in a semi-embarrassing kind of way. Not only did he seem to contradict his previous statements on the public option, he rapidly shifted when questioned as to what exactly Medicare-For-Choice allowed for. To the point where, under cross-examination, he told Bernie that he would want a diagnosis of cancer to let you allow Americans to bypass COBRA and go directly to Medicare. While I would absolutely advocate for this change to occur, why would COBRA exist if everyone has access to healthcare coverage independent of their employer? Even the one non-stupid idea Biden mentioned, breaking Afghanistan into three countries along pre-colonial lines, was a brain fart and immediately skipped over. I really don’t understand how he can keep going, and the chorus of calls for him to drop out is getting louder. Some of his more choice foolish takes for the evening included:

Eye-Watering Data Visualization of the Week: Android vs. iOS installation across the planet…

Also, why giraffes are always late when you tell them to meet at sundown…

Vaguely Dystopian News of the Week: Even though Twitter & Facebook is banned in China, Foreign Policy has a great look at how their digital soldiers have fought the HK protest narrative, on the other side of The Great Firewall. Meanwhile, on our side of the Atlantic, ICE is just straight up shooting people in the street now.

Annoying-But-Correct Take of the Week: For years, neuroscientists touted a long-held belief that neurological activity preceded action or even thought, pushing back against the idea of free will. Apparently that activity is noise, so reports of the demise of Free Will are greatly exaggerated.

“Huh, Interesting” Read of the Week: Because many short-term rental laws designed to defend against AirBNB require reporting from the public, a tiny cottage industry of rental snitches has mushroomed up in response.

Royal Sampler

America’s elderly population is spending more and more time in front of screens, to the tune of ten hours a day for citizens 65 and older, 33% more than 18-34 daily screen consumption.

The Atlantic did a great summary of how Dark Patterns (like the ones discussed in a previous dispatch) can affect a person’s shopping patterns.

The New Republic studied The Right’s favorite grift, nootropics & nutriceuticals.

Resident Advisor put together an amazing look at the state of streaming economics.

Dunk of the Week: LolSob is the next emoji reaction Zuckerberg needs to create.

Don’t get beguiled by the changing of the colors, we’re not out of the woods yet.

T