Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Bolsonaro's crime against humanity

What a despicable monster.

Words of wisdom from the late Marshall Sahlins, the famed anthropologist who died last week

Quoted here:  "We all die and we are all wrong. A good career is when the former happens before the latter."

A list of people "cancelled"

Probably overinclusive, but a useful counterweight to those invested in denying the phenomenon.  (The latter is a mix of the benighted and those who are themselves cancellers.)

(Thanks to Mark Couch for the pointer.)

ADDENDUM:  On the distinguishing features of the "cancellation" phenomenon (which is partly fueld by the Internet), see earlier discussions here and here.

The best thing about the late Prince Philip...

...was that he was a window into how the British ruling class really thinks. For that, he will be missed by me!

Who doesn't use the Internet?

Almost everyone in the U.S. does, but age, poverty, lack of education, and living in rural areas are the best predictors of not using the Internet at all (and even then, the vast majority in each group do use it).

What the heck is going on in the Evanston, IL schools?

Evanston is a suburb just north of Chicago, where Northwestern University is located.  This interview with a parent there makes the school district sound like a nuthouse, a place where Ibram Kendi isn't viewed as a slightly ridiculous "anti-racism" grifter, but is instead the intellectual lodestar.  The interview is with Ndona Muboyayi, a parent, and member of the NAACP Evanston/North Shore Branch.  From the interview:

Mboyayi: One day my daughter told me she was taught that all white people are privileged and part of a system of white supremacy. My son said the same thing. So I reached out to my daughter’s teacher to find out what exactly was being taught. It was pretty much like she said: that all white people were part of this system of white supremacy, and that all white people, because of the color of their skin, had privilege. I said, “But that's not true.” And the teacher said, “Well, what do you mean?”

I have traveled a lot. My father was a university professor and taught in both the United States and Paris, France. And when I visited, I saw white people in public housing. I’ve been to Belgium and Switzerland and seen very poor white people. I’ve visited other parts of Europe. I lived in Canada for 10 years. There are poor white people in Canada as well. I’m not saying systemic racism doesn’t exist, but class exists too, and I don’t believe that all white people have privilege. That white person who’s living in the Appalachian Mountains, who has no means or prospect of changing their situation—do they, too, have privilege? Compared to me and my kids?

UPDATE:  An Evanston resident and parent of kids in the public schools there  writes:  “Your comment about Ibram Kendi isn't off the mark at all. Evanston Township High School's Family Action Network actually had Kendi on campus twice to give talks, once in 2018 and 2019. In 2020 they doubled down by having huckster Robin DiAngelo come and give a talk. The last thing you want to be caught doing in this town is questioning the dominant ideology."

An inside look at how the "anti-racism grift" is undermining radical politics

A case study of the Chicago chapter of Democratic Socialists of America.

Biden's infrastructure plan will be good for higher education

This is what normal governments, interested in societal welfare, do:  they spend money improving societal conditions, including higher education.  In addition to $50 million for the National Science Foundation,

Historically Black colleges and universities and other minority-serving institutions would also be in for more funding under the proposal. The plan calls for a $10 billion investment in research and development and $15 billion to create 200 research incubators at those institutions, with the framing that those investments could eliminate racial and gender inequities in R&D and STEM. Of the $40 billion dedicated to improving research infrastructure and laboratories, half would be set aside specifically for HBCUs and other minority-serving institutions.

This is far more sensible than all the "diversity blather," and will ultimately contribute not to "diversity" but to opportunity and advancement for the primary victims of world-historic injustice in the United States.

Faces reveal political orientation?

Maybe so.  Who hasn't noticed that Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz, Sean Hannity...there's something "off" about those faces?   The return of (gasp) physiognomy?

(Thanks to Blake Myers for the pointer to the article.)

On the expanding concept of "anti-semitism"

This essay makes the right points about the ludicrous expansion and weaponization of the concept to silence critics of Israel.

Yes, Canada is a small country, but it's still surprising that the Prime Minister is responding to a professor on Twitter...

...with about 9,000 followers.  California has more people than Canada, but I don't recall the Governor there bothering to speak out about any mid-sized Twitter accounts!  I guess I better make sure the Illinois Governor doesn't follow me on Twitter!

(Thanks to Joshua Selby for the pointer.)

ADDENDUM:  Someone on Twitter points out the most likely explanation for this:  "Not surprising for Canadians: an easy (and high profile) win for a federalist prime minister about to call an election and reliant on Quebec votes."

AI that can argue with humans?

Meet "Project Debater."

(Thanks to Jerry Dworkin for the pointer.  Jerry sent this to me with a subject line reading "machines that can argue with humans."  I replied:  "Aren't those called 'analytic philosophers'?"  Jerry retorted:  "No. Those are called machine guns. They fire rapidly mostly missing their target and often injuring innocent bystanders.")

Appellate court's decision on Equal Pay Act claim by faculty member...

...may have significant ramifications for retention offers to faculty.

"The Onion" on the bizarre comments by the police on the arrest of the mass shooter in Atlanta

Sadly apt.

The Twitter smear campaign against journalist Jesse Singal

Speaking of Twitter fabrications, this is a useful catalogue of Twitter lies about journalist Jesse Singal, who has had the audacity to write articles on verboten topics (like this). 

Bullshitters more likely to fall for bullshit

Philosopher Christian Miller (Wake Forest) comments on some recent research.

The saga of the NY Times reporter fired for mentioning someone's use of the N-word

An interesting saga, symptom of our times, but this is really the best part and it is very true:

I’m publishing my thoughts here on Medium because I know journalists.

We make America what it is — without a free press, democracy dies. But we’re still jackals. We can befriend you for years, and then bite off your arm just as you’re offering us a treat. We can’t help it. It’s the nature of the job.

At the highest levels, like Watergate, it’s about digging for the truth, no matter what corrupt government official it hurts. At the basest level, when even the crummiest scandal erupts, you have to repeat the accusation, even if you know it’s untrue or half-true, in order to explain the truth — no matter how much you may personally like the source you’re hurting....

Since January 28, I’ve been a jackal circled by jackals. Since not every journalist gets quotes right, on the rare occasions in my life that I’ve answered journalists’ questions, I’ve tried to do so in writing. That way, either they get it right or I can prove I was misquoted....

How the powerful use "identity" as a shield from criticism

Greenwald--who has become a mostly unreadable narcissist--is actually pretty funny and apt on this topic; He uses, as his initial example, a hack NYT journalist, Taylor Lorenz:

[One] reason Lorenz is the topic of recent discussion is that she has been repeatedly caught fabricating claims about influential people, and attempting to ruin the reputations and lives of decidedly non-famous people....

She also often uses her large, powerful public platform to malign private citizens without any power or public standing by accusing them of harboring bad beliefs and/or associating with others who do. (She is currently being sued by a citizen named Arya Toufanian, who claims Lorenz has used her private Twitter account to destroy her reputation and business, particularly with a tweet that Lorenz kept pinned at the top of her Twitter page for eight months, while several other non-public figures complain that Lorenz has “reported” on their non-public activities). It is to be expected that a New York Times journalist who gets caught lying as she did against Andreessen and trying to destroy the reputations of non-public figures will be a topic of conversation.

Some further thoughts on Twitter

The first round of observations was so popular (especially on Twitter!), I thought I'd add a few more based on things I've learned and observed the last couple of months.

1.  I came across this interesting chart via Justin Weinberg's blog, which shows that the vast majority of U.S. adults do not use Twitter at all (thank God!), and that usage varies, unsurprisingly, by generation.  38% of those 18-29 use Twitter (the highest percentage), while only 7% of those over 65 use it.  I'm in the distinct minority in my age range (only 17% of those 50-64 use it), and I mostly use it to provide links to the blog for the benefit the readers who now follow the blog by Twitter. 

2.  This data is consistent with an e-mail shared on Twitter awhile back by the journalist Jesse Singal: 

"[T]he vast majority of both psychologically healthy and accomplished philosophers stay off twitter like their life depends on it. The vast majority of people I know in academic philosophy either ignore, mock, or disdain philosophy twitter." - professional philosopher in email

Although many Twitterati reacted with rage and denial to Mr. Singal's tweet, the claim about "the vast majority" is consistent with the data about usage by age alone.  (Are the non-users psychologically healthier and more accomplished?  Probably, but the preceding data are neutral on that.)   I strongly suspect that relatively few non-Twitter users "mock or disdain philosophy twitter" (although that would be a warranted response were they to look), and that most simply ignore it. 

Twitter as symptom of the end of writing (and thinking)

This little essay by philosopher Charlie Huenemann (Utah State University) is quite important, and everyone should read it and share it (longtime readers will know I don't say that very often!).  Some excerpts and some comments:

The internet broadens the public square, and allows many more people to participate in the exchange of ideas (or, failing that, memes). This is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, more participation means a more vibrant and eclectic breeding ground for culture: more diversity, more creativity, more involvement, and more communication, which are all good things. On the other hand, the “moremoremore” tends to drive shorter attention spans and shallower content.

It is simply false, as the whole Internet demonstrates, that "more participation means a more vibrant and eclectic breeding ground for culture":  all culture worth the time depends on exclusion, judgment, and screening.  Most people have nothing to say that is worth hearing (vide Twitter again!), which is why the Internet is an unmitigated disaster for culture, even if prior intermediaries were often deficient along many dimensions.  Despite that normative disagreement, I agree fully with Professor Huenemann's next observation:

Two social parasites aired their grievances about the social parasites in their extended family

This is the funniest takedown of this absurd and irrelevant display, courtesy of The Irish Times:

The contemporary royals have no real power. They serve entirely to enshrine classism in the British nonconstitution. They live in high luxury and low autonomy, cosplaying as their ancestors, and are the subject of constant psychosocial projection from people mourning the loss of empire. They’re basically a Rorschach test that the tabloids hold up in order to gauge what level of hysterical batshittery their readers are capable of at any moment in time.

The most recent internecine struggle is between the royal family and a newly disentangled Prince Harry and his wife, the former actor Meghan Markle. Traditionally, us peasants would be nervously picking a side and retrieving our pikes from the thatch. Luckily, these days the pitched battles happen in television interviews....

DSA candidates sweep leadership elections of Nevada Democratic Party...

...and all the staff quit.  Wow!

"Hostage Chess"

MOVING TO FRONT FROM FRIDAY EVENING--FOR THOSE WHO MAY HAVE MISSED IT

Philosopher John Leslie (emeritus, Guelph) writes about a chess variant that he designed:

It tries to capture the spirit of Shogi, the great Japanese chess game in which men change sides when captured. Instead I make captives into “hostages” which are exchanged.   The variant is therefore called “Hostage Chess”. Larry Kaufman, a western-chess Grandmaster, and for decades the strongest western player of Shogi, judges it “the most interesting, exciting variant that can be played with a standard chess set”.

Enjoy your "Hostage Chess"!

"Academic Freedom Alliance"

This new organization will provide moral and in some cases legal support for faculty whose academic freedom rights (including their right to engage in extramural speech) are under attack.  CHE has an article about the new organization here.   I will note that in recruiting initial members, it was made very clear that the AFA would have defended Ward Churchill and Steven Salaita, as well as Amy Wax and Adrian Vermeule.  That is how a principled defense of the academic freedom rights of faculty should proceed.

ADDENDUM:  While the delusional Wokerati in academia pose a growing threat to academic freedom, it's worth noting that in the examples mentioned above, the two faculty who lost their jobs were targeted, successfully, by reactionary forces outside the universities.

Jason Brennan on Dr. Seuss

This is amusing.  The anti-Irish racism is indisputable!

"Defund the police" drove voters to Trump

Not a surprise, really, but here's some data and analysis:

What we found is that Clinton voters with conservative views on crime, policing, and public safety were far more likely to switch to Trump than voters with less conservative views on those issues. And having conservative views on those issues was more predictive of switching from Clinton to Trump than having conservative views on any other issue-set was.

This lines up pretty well with trends we saw during the campaign. In the summer, following the emergence of “defund the police” as a nationally salient issue, support for Biden among Hispanic voters declined. So I think you can tell this microstory: We raised the salience of an ideologically charged issue that millions of nonwhite voters disagreed with us on. And then, as a result, these conservative Hispanic voters who’d been voting for us despite their ideological inclinations started voting more like conservative whites.

"Defund the police" is like "we need more charter schools" in urban areas:  it focuses on a symptom, rather than the causes of the problem (police violence, poor outcomes in urban public schools).  (Earlier discussion.)

America is doomed, part 501: how long will the "United States" remain united?

A substantial minority now favor splitting up the country:

The survey finds the political divide in America has gotten so bad 29 percent of voters would entertain the idea of spitting the country into smaller regions. One in three Republican respondents support their state seceding from the union.

Overall, just 21 percent of Democratic voters also support secession however, the idea is even more popular on the left in areas where Democrats hold power.

Changes in Australian higher education over the last half-century...

...with a particular focus on the decline of teaching in the humanities.

First, the fake "napping while Black" scandal at Yale, now the fake "eating while Black" scandal at Smith

We recently noted the outrageous treatment of Sarah Braasch by Yale, but now comes a similar story from Smith College, where an alleged racial incident attracts wide media attention, but then turns out to be nothing of the kind.   The only difference this time is that the NYT has noted that the original story was a fake:

In midsummer of 2018, Oumou Kanoute, a Black student at Smith College, recounted a distressing American tale: She was eating lunch in a dorm lounge when a janitor and a campus police officer walked over and asked her what she was doing there.

The officer, who could have been carrying a “lethal weapon,” left her near “meltdown,” Ms. Kanoute wrote on Facebook, saying that this encounter continued a yearlong pattern of harassment at Smith.

“All I did was be Black,” Ms. Kanoute wrote. “It’s outrageous that some people question my being at Smith College, and my existence overall as a woman of color.”

The college’s president, Kathleen McCartney, offered profuse apologies and put the janitor on paid leave. “This painful incident reminds us of the ongoing legacy of racism and bias,” the president wrote, “in which people of color are targeted while simply going about the business of their ordinary lives.”

The New York Times, The Washington Post and CNN picked up the story of a young female student harassed by white workers. The American Civil Liberties Union, which took the student’s case, said she was profiled for “eating while Black.”

Less attention was paid three months later when a law firm hired by Smith College to investigate the episode found no persuasive evidence of bias. Ms. Kanoute was determined to have eaten in a deserted dorm that had been closed for the summer; the janitor had been encouraged to notify security if he saw unauthorized people there. The officer, like all campus police, was unarmed.

 

Sarah Braasch's legal battle with Yale continues

Readers will recall that Ms. Braasch was the victim of an Internet-fueled "cancellation"--the fake "napping while Black" case at Yale--and that she is now locked in a legal battle with Yale to release the police bodycam footage that she believes will vindicate her account of what happened.  Ms. Braasch writes about the status of the case here; as her legal costs mount, please consider supporting her either with payment directly to her lawyers (put "Sarah Braasch" in the reference line) or through her GoFund me page.

(For a useful short account of what happened to Ms. Braasch, see this New York Daily News piece by Cathy Young.)

"The Other Woman"

Pleasingly quirky and evocative reflections by my colleague Agnes Callard.

The inflation of "bullying," a continuing saga

I've mentioned a number of times before the sociologist Randal Collins's excellent diagnosis of the inflation-of-bullying phenomenon, a key part of the New Infantilism that has gripped parts of academia and the culture at large. Like other cases of "concept inflation," the aim is a kind of Stevensonian "persuasive definition" in which the "inflaters" piggyback on the negative emotive valence of the original concept, but change the concept's referent as a way of weaponizing it for different purposes--in this case, for purposes of speech suppression (or making the speech too costly for the speaker by associating it with the negative valence of the original concept).

Loury on "truths" about race in America

African-American economist Glenn Loury (Brown) has penned an essay that is generating, unsurprisinlgy, a lot of discussion.  As regular readers know, I think "diversity" blather is a fraud, and that racism, while obviously real, is mostly an epiphenomenon of the class politics of capitalism.   And while Loury has sometimes been scathingly accurate about the absurd posturing of the academy about race issues, this latest essay seems to me more deluded than illuminating, many of its "truths" being falsehoods, predicated on a quasi religious faith in autonomous or moral agency (no doubt this faith was important to his own recovery from personal traumas and missteps).  

"Wokism" and the theory of ideology

Yes.

The next time "The Guardian" asks for a donation...

...don't give them a dime.  This is disgraceful (and my view of Mr. Robinson is mixed, but his being terminated for a tweet critical of Israel is appalling, and the editor's rationalization of it even worse).

On meritocracy and Michael Sandel's Harvard-centric view of the universe

Apt analysis by philosopher and law professor Christopher Kutz (Berkeley).

Philanthropy and the ideal of "civil society"

Political philosopher Chiara Cordelli (Chicago) comments.

The propaganda film shown at the Trump rally preceding the stormtrooper riot

Philosopher Jason Stanley (Yale) comments on it here.   He's certainly right about the echoes of fascist rhetorical tropes and themes, although he overstates the supposed anti-semitism (e.g., "Hollywood" has been the conservative code word for "liberal elites" for decades now, not for Jews; indeed, most of the best-known "liberal" representatives of Hollywood who attract reactionary ire are not Jews).   Of course, fascist-like rhetoric emanating from Trumpworld is not the same as fascist ideology or practice, as others have noted.  (This may be closer to how fascism really works.)

America is doomed, part 478: Oligarchy edition

I can't find a lot to disagree with in this assessment, alas.  An excerpt (but read it all):

The death spiral of the American Empire will not be halted with civility. It will not be halted with the 42 executive orders signed by President Joe Biden, however welcome many are, especially since they can, with a new chief executive, be immediately revoked.

It will not be halted by removing Donald Trump, and the crackpot conspiracy theorists, Christian fascists and racists who support him, from social media.

It will not be halted by locking up the Proud Boys and the clueless protestors who stormed the Congress on Jan. 6. and took selfies in Vice President Mike Pence’s Senate chair. It will not be halted by restoring the frayed alliances with our European allies or rejoining the World Health Organization or the Paris Climate Agreement.

Which of the "top 25" PhD programs in the U.S. have Black faculty in tenure-stream positions?

Philosopher Jason Stanley (Yale) recently remarked on Twitter that in 20+ years, he had taught at four leading departments--Cornell, Michigan, Rutgers, Yale--and had only one Black colleague on tenure-track during that time (Howard McGary at Rutgers, who is now retired).   I'll return to the question of causation and racism (which seems to have overwhelmed the online discussion [and here]), but the facts are indisputable.   Very few of the leading PhD programs have any Black faculty, and even fewer have African-American faculty.  I list below the "top 24" PhD programs with the names of their Black tenure-stream faculty, when there are any.  Please e-mail me with any corrections.

NYU:                 Anthony Appiah

Rutgers:            Derrick Darby

Princeton:        ---

Michigan:        ---

Pittsburgh:       ---

Yale:                ---

MIT:                 ---

"Wokeness" as the new ideology of the American elite

Interesting essay by the writer and social critic Michael Lind.

A new shade of blue

MOVING TO FRONT FROM JANUARY 28:  UPDATED

Who knew it was possible?

(Thanks to Phil Gasper for the pointer.)

UPDATE:  Philosopher Mark Eli Kalderson (UCL) writes:

Just a quick comment. The discovery of a new blue pigment is not the discovery of a new shade of blue. The former is some material stuff, the latter is a property. This distinction was drawn by Aristotle and the Peripatetic author of De Coloribus (both claim that color mixture is not to be understood on the model of mixing pigments.) So the relevant conceptual distinction has been in place for over two millennia. It remains newsworthy that the first new blue pigment has been discovered in centuries. But a new shade of blue? Fake News!

ANOTHER:  Philosopher Mohan Matthen (Toronto) writes:

Mark Kalderon is clearly correct to say that there is a distinction between shades of blue and blue pigments. He’s probably also right to say that YInMN blue is not a new shade. 

But (and no doubt this is not what Mark was suggesting) it’s not impossible to discover new shades. Vantablack is a shade of black that had never been seen before. Presumably, it existed in the Platonic world of possibles, but being absorbent beyond any pigment or natural substance ever seen before, it was indeed a new shade, at least as far as colours realized on this planet go. It’s possible that YInMn blue is new in this sense. It’s supposed to be extremely brilliant.

I'll open this for further comments from philosophers and others knowledgeable about the metaphysics and science of color.  Signed comments (full name, valid e-mail, which will not appear) will be strongly preferred.

America is doomed, part 421: the millions of "seditionists" in our midst

This makes for a bracing read:

For want of a better term, I’m calling all of them seditionists—not just the people who took part in the riot, but the far larger number of Americans who are united by their belief that Donald Trump won the election, that Joe Biden lost, and that a long list of people and institutions are lying about it: Congress, the media, Mike Pence, the election officials in all 50 states, and the judges in dozens of courts.

In December, 34 percent of Americans said they did not trust the outcome of the 2020 election. More recently, 21 percent said that they either strongly support or somewhat support the storming of the Capitol building. As of this week, 32 percent were still telling pollsters that Biden was not the legitimate winner.

"Why Trump isn't a fascist"

This is right as far as it goes.  He of course had an authoritarian mindset and contempt for democracy and democratic norms.  The analogy made to the fascism of the 1930s may be highly imperfect (it is), but the fact that there are any points of similarity is bad enough, and there is plenty of potential for world-historic wickedness and disaster without being just like Hitler.

(Thanks to David Lobina for the pointer.)

Cancel culture redux: think tank fires VP for funny tweet that offended Repugs

Story here.  I thought that was a pretty good joke, actually, and Mr. Wilkinson should not have apologized.  But for God's sake, everyone on Twitter posts jokes that fail or tweets something off the cuff they later regret.  Shame on the Niskanen Center.

(Longtime readers may recall Mr. Wilkinson from when he was more of a "free market" utopian:  see, e.g., here or here.)

UPDATE:  This is amusing.  Hypocrisy, thy name is Jerry Taylor!

ANOTHER:  Philosopher Jerry Dworkin (UC Davis) writes:  "I also was involved years ago with a critical correspondence with him [Wilkinson] about libertarian issues.  I was pleasantly surprised by his definite shift to more reasonable views at Nikansen. This latest firing is abysmal. That Taylor tweet is hilarious in light of his actions."

The East Timor genocide

Indonesia was the immediate perpetrator, the U.S. was one of many international supporters.  45 years ago.   Worth remembering.

UPDATE:  Dr. Roger Albin (Michigan) writes:  "An excellent complement to the link you posted on the East Timor genocide is Geoffrey Robinson’s The Killing Season, a first-rate monograph on the slaughter that brought the Suharto regime to power.  It contains abundant documentation of American complicity in the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of Indonesians."

How the Wokerati talk: a guide

This was a rare gem from one of the old metablogs; it's a shame the author can't be given credit for their guide to the special (mis)use of language by the "woke":

The vocab is hard to keep up with. Should we start a running glossary?

"Problematic": adj. (of arguments) false; (of pratices) must be banned; (of utterances) must be retracted and apologised for; (of tweets) must be deleted;

"Free speech": n. a problematic concept [see above]

"Censorship": n. the alleged suppression of problematic ideas, a largely mythical practice. [compare "silence"]

"Silence": v. (1) to ignore, not talk about. (2) to disagree with (3) to discuss a marginalized individual [see below] in terms they would prefer not to be discussed

"erase": v. synonym for silence

"identity": n. an (esp. marginalised) individual's conception of themself. NB all other definitions, such as those which have been explored by philosophers over the past two millennia, are problematic [see above]

MLK's philosophy of "Personalism"

Interesting essay by philosopher Aaron Preston (Valparaiso), about an aspect of King's thought I was not familiar with.

Another perspective on the open letter on academic freedom opposing the anti-Stock letter

Philosopher Teresa Marques (Barcelona) writes with an interesting observation:

The importance of this letter is not the in-fighting among factions in philosophy, but the broader conflict of rights at issue, and threats to academic freedom in universities around the world across a range of academic areas. The letter has been signed by more than 450 people, from clinicians and psychologists to sociologists, chemists, historians, surgeons, journalists, school teachers, etc., and by people based in more than 30 countries. Had it been open to signatories a bit longer it would have reached more people in Latin America, the south of Europe (although there were already 10 people based in Spain who signed it), and Eastern Europe. I've been contacted by many people who wanted to sign it and were surprised to see it closed.

Trump, social media, the future of democracy

A good piece of writing by journalist Ross Barkan; an excerpt:

Many on the left cheered Trump’s banishment from social media and the quick move by Amazon to dump Parler, the right-wing Twitter-like app, from its cloud computing services. Greg Bensinger, a member of the New York Times editorial board, praised the decisions from Facebook and Twitter, calling for “more direct, human moderation of high-profile accounts; more prominent warning labels; software that can delay posts so that they can be reviewed before going out to the masses, especially during moments of high tension; and a far greater willingness to suspend or even completely block dangerous accounts like Mr. Trump’s.”

This was general consensus. The problem wasn’t that the ban had come—it was that it had come so late. Trump, of course, had four years to incite violence and hatred from his Twitter account. Imagine what would have happened if the tech elites in Silicon Valley decided to neuter him back in 2017. Imagine the weakness of that presidency....