Robert F. Kennedy’s has, rather ingeniously, situated himself at the intersection of the most important trends in American politics and society, including but not limited to post-COVID anger at government overreach, the polarization of vaccine skepticism, the rise of anti-institutional crusaders in the GOP, the emergence of performative health as a branch of pro-masculine politics, and the triumph of anti-elite elitism. His specific views may not deserve support. But his political style deserves attention.
~ Derek Thompson

via RFK Jr. Is a Bellwether
published by The Atlantic

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Robert F. Kennedy’s outspoken position on vaccine safety has revealed—and also helped drive—the GOP-ification of the anti-vax position. Until just a few years ago, vaccine skepticism was nonpartisan. It was associated both with a hippie approach to health, which chiefly appealed to affluent lefties, and with the doctrine of political liberty, which appealed more to conservatives.
~ Derek Thompson

via RFK Jr. Is a Bellwether
published by The Atlantic

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We are in an age of politics when every victory is Pyrrhic, because to gain office is to become the very thing—the establishment, the incumbent—that a part of your citizenry will inevitably want to replace. Democrats have been temporarily banished to the wilderness by a counterrevolution, but if the trends of the 21st century hold, then the very anti-incumbent mechanisms that brought them defeat this year will eventually bring them back to power.
~ Derek Thompson

via How Donald Trump Won Everywhere
published by The Atlantic

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If Robert Putnam felt the first raindrops of an antisocial revolution in America, the downpour is fully here, and we’re all getting washed away in the flood. From 2003 to 2022, American men reduced their average hours of face-to-face socializing by about 30 percent. For unmarried Americans, the decline was even bigger—more than 35 percent. For teenagers, it was more than 45 percent. Boys and girls ages 15 to 19 reduced their weekly social hangouts by more than three hours a week. In short, there is no statistical record of any other period in U.S. history when people have spent more time on their own.
~ Derek Thompson via The Atlantic

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