Attention to the Unseen

Tim Wu writes: We are told that America is divided and polarized as never before. Yet when it comes to many important areas of policy, that simply isn’t true. About 75 percent of Americans favor higher taxes for the ultrawealthy. The idea of a federal law that would guarantee paid maternity leave attracts 67 percent support. Eighty-three percent favor strong net neutrality rules for broadband, and more than 60 percent want stronger privacy laws. Seventy-one percent think we should be…

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Just randomly overheard @realDonaldTrump on @CNN call @RepAdamSchiff "little shifty Schiff." Doubt it will even make the papers. Think for a second what would have happened if @IlhanMN or @RashidaTlaib had said that. Then ask yourselves what explains the double standard — Peter Beinart (@PeterBeinart) March 3, 2019 Paul Waldman writes: The whole purpose of the Democrats’ resolution [ostensibly rejecting anti-Semitism] is to enforce dual loyalty not among Jews, but among members of Congress, to make sure that criticism of…

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Peter Beinart writes: It’s a bewildering and alarming time to be a Jew, both because anti-Semitism is rising and because so many politicians are responding to it not by protecting Jews but by victimizing Palestinians. On February 16, members of France’s Yellow Vest protest movement hurled anti-Semitic insults at the distinguished French Jewish philosopher Alain Finkielkraut. On February 19, swastikas were found on 80 gravestones in Alsace. Two days later, French President Emmanuel Macron, after announcing that Europe was “facing…

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The Guardian reports: There are growing signs of a potentially destabilising rift between the king of Saudi Arabia and his heir, the Guardian has been told. King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman are understood to have disagreed over a number of important policy issues in recent weeks, including the war in Yemen. The unease is said to have been building since the murder in Turkey of the dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which the…

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Arthur C. Brooks writes: Political scientists have found that our nation is more polarized than it has been at any time since the Civil War. One in six Americans has stopped talking to a family member or close friend because of the 2016 election. Millions of people organize their social lives and their news exposure along ideological lines to avoid people with opposing viewpoints. What’s our problem? A 2014 article in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on…

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