Via Reuters: Exclusive: Pennsylvania candidate Mastriano posed in Confederate uniform at Army War College. Ok, so at some point in the time (and this was 2014) you have to at least have a rough idea that a lot of people are going to interpret wearing a CSA uniform in a particular way, so a conscious choice is being made. Moreover, as problematic as I find it, I can at least do the math as to how people from the South can rationalize some kind of heritage argument for reenactments and such. But Mastriano is from New Jersey, so this is just odd on a number of levels. Plus, I continually find it cognitive dissonance on a massive level for any member of the United States armed forces to be in love with the CSA.
Megan McArdle has a column criticizing Biden’s tuition program in WaPo: Biden’s student loan ‘fix’? It’s perfect for making the problem worse. While I suppose it is possible that this move starts a cycle of demand for further debt relief, the analogy she makes to the “doc fix” issue is highly flawed because there is a key legislative trigger driving that behavior that simply does not apply to the student loan forgiveness program. Indeed, I am not convinced by “let’s not do a thing, because it might be a thing people will want to do again” and tell me why the thing itself is a bad idea.
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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I’ve declined requests to join the Sons of Confederate Veterans, despite strong credentials (a great-great grandfather was killed at Chickamauga) and have no desire to do anything that commemorates the CSA. Mastriano’s stunt is just an act of rebellion, but it also shows how little good judgment he possesses.
In a vacuum, I could write off the Mastriano story: he’s a history PhD who was teaching at the Army War College, which is within spitting distance of Gettysburg. We’ve had students and faculty wear CSA and USA replica caps during staff rides, so full regalia isn’t much of a stretch. The problem for Mastriano is that there is all manner of other reasons to believe he’s a white nationalist nutcase than this photo shoot.
the analogy she makes to the “doc fix” issue is highly flawed
I haven’t read McArdle since her days as a blogger. She seemed reasonably intelligent but intellectually sloppy and lazy. She would give a few moments thought to something, try to come up with a slightly contrarian twist and then start pontificating on it. Occasionally her posts would touch on things I knew about from either direct personal and professional reason and so would know that a basic building block of her opinion was wrong. No matter how many people pointed it out, she would never investigate, correct or even acknowledge. In other words, she never let actual facts sully what she obviously considered a great post. At the time the typical McCardle post followed this pattern: “Given that no city has more than one professional baseball or football team, here is why it is obvious that conventional liberal thinking is wrong on some seemingly unrelated point, and only I and my fellow libertarian-leaning superior intellects are sharp enough to see it.”
I am not convinced by “let’s not do a thing, because it might a thing people will want to do again” and tell me why the thing itself is a bad idea.
I get what you’re saying* and yet I do think there is something to the argument. Hasn’t it been used to argue against tax cuts (and/or spending) that are set to expire in, say, ten years? Perhaps you object to it then as well — if that is the case, +1 for consistency.
Or, to take it outside the policy arena, we might consider substance use. “Sure, go ahead and smoke some meth…it’s unlikely to ruin you if you do it once, and you will probably find it quite pleasurable.”
Or perhaps less ridiculously, to someone who has struggled to control their drinking: “Sure, go ahead and have a glass of wine…it’s tasty and might even have some health benefits.”
The point being, I think we have to consider the broader context — current and historical — when evaluating this (student loan forgiveness) and other policies. My frustration is when people selectively consider contextual factors — at all and/or specific ones — based on their ideological allegiances.
*The syntax looks jacked up, so perhaps I’m misunderstanding — if that is the case, my bad.
We’ve had students and faculty wear CSA and USA replica caps during staff rides, so full regalia isn’t much of a stretch.
If students and faculty were wearing SS uniforms, would you be similarly blase? This is a problem, and the fact it’s a widespread problem makes the behavior worse, not better.
…and only I and my fellow libertarian-leaning superior intellects are sharp enough to see it.
I knew it was coming! As soon as I saw that you commented, I was sure there’d be some gratuitous libertarian bashing. And you delivered. It’s funny that such a politically insignificant group of incels and sexually inept neckbeards (#amirite) tweak you so.
***I intend this as good-natured ribbing, taking the piss, etc. Because I like you.***
@James Joyner: And it reinforces that the problem in the Republican Party/conservative movement isn’t FG, the problem is what the Republican Party is and who conservatives are.
@Mimai: You are probably right that I dwell overly much on libertarians. No doubt a part of this is because I consider my very brief flirtation with libertarianism when I was in college was one of the two times I read a book and felt like it really opened my eyes, only to gradually realize it was the laziest and mushiest sort of pablum. The other time was when I was 13 and the book was “Chariots of the Gods”. I still cringe a little in embarrassment that I was so gullible.
Used to read McArdle, but when it comes to health care issues she is not very bright. The doc fix was instituted by the GOP as part of their plan to “balance the budget”. However, they weren’t really going to enforce it since that would have been unpopular and lost them some votes. So the GOP under Bush made some revisions but it wasn’t really fixed until Obama was in office and yes it was expensive. It was also something for which there was support and was realistic. Totally different than the fake cut in spending made by the GOP. They have little interest in fixing stuff, just putting into law some stuff that looks good and get them votes but doesnt solve anything.
Which is what we see with student debt. It is a problem but you wont see the GOP addressing it. They just want to make sure that stuff they support, like private lenders and for profit schools get supported, which worsens the student debt issue.
So to be honest I am not entirely happy with this move. The income limits were too high. There is potential to game the 10% payback rule. I think a lot more of this should be directed at the schools themselves. If schools that use lots of loan money turn out grads that cant find jobs or pay back loans then let the schools bear that burden, or at least some of it. That probably destroys the for profit schools but too bad. The law schools telling their grads they will make tons of money and charging a fortune but it doesnt happen? Their students have sued, but its a frigging law school so of course they lose but we can help rectify that. All that said, they at least took a shot at it.
@Mimai: “As soon as I saw that you commented, I was sure there’d be some gratuitous libertarian bashing. ”
Well… the writer he is talking about is a self-described libertarian — so much so that she started out using the pseudonym “Jane Galt.” So while you’re free to consider this libertarian bashing, it’s hardly gratuitious.
And what a perfect libertarian she is on this issue, by the way — she writes rapturously about how people should not be forgiven student loans because everyone has to stand on their own two feet, and then only admits after being called on it that Mommy and Daddy paid for her entire college ride.
@Mimai: There was a missing word (“be”) in that sentence, I have added it back in.
My point is that there is a difference between doing X now and maybe people wanting you to do X again in the future and situation Y that has a specific legislative trigger that requires action.
The “doc fix” thing is not a good analogy because the structure of the law required an ongoing “fix”–that is not analogous to the current debt relief plan.
And really, as it pertains to my point, neither is a sunset provision nor giving a glass of wine to a known alcoholic because those two analogies have known triggers built in. While it is possible that this debt relief action will spark demand for others in the future, there is no built-in trigger to do so (unlike “doc fix,” or sunset clauses, or giving a substance to a known addict).
In a different thread, you mentioned not knowing how to judge whether folks are getting tired of Trump. Here’s my N=1 indicator that it is happening (don’t worry, it’s relevant to our discussion here):
I have a family member who is in his early 70s. He epitomizes negative partisanship: Dems are bad, SF values put our country in peril, etc. Wrt Trump, he was always more of an apologist than a fanboy. But he was an ardent apologist.
Somehow, over the last year or two, he’s found libertarianism. Eg, sends me articles from the Mises Institute, talks about how Hayek got everything right, etc. Nothing yet from Ayn Rand, but I think that is more to do with his short attention span and unwillingness to wade through her prose. Not a peep about Trump in quite a long while. Not even to bemoan how he is being unfairly targeted by the bad Dems.
It’s really quite charming to see an otherwise educated and successful 70+ year old man (and lifelong Republican) go all 13 year-old boy over the course of a year or two. Benjamin Button of political philosophy.
I consider this a good thing — for him, for me, for his very large social network. And potentially a sign that Trump is indeed losing currency with his apologists.
Good follow up, thanks. You are, of course, correct that there is no built-in trigger to the loan program. There is, however, a built-in trigger to the human program. I don’t think we should ignore that — it runs deep.
@Stormy Dragon:
In a similar vein, I always encourage people to replace “Nazi” with “Pedophile” and see how the resulting discussion sounds.
Like, a march of proud pedophiles through the streets would be discussed much differently than one of neo-Confederates or Nazis.
It tells me how much white nationalism, even to the point of being genocidal, has been laundered and defanged of its horror by our media and pundit classes, to where it is merely a debatable sort of topic; Controversial, but one upon which reporters should be objective and neutral.
Megan McArdle grew up in one of the richest zip codes in America, where her rich Upper West Side parents paid for her to attend a rich, exclusive New York private school, then paid for her college education.
Meanwhile, an estimated 95% of Dark Brandon’s student debt relief is slated for households making $75k or less. It’s lifting at least half a million young black folk from a net negative balance sheet to net positive one, and it will wipe out debt for nearly half of Latino borrowers.
Someone should tell the media’s trust fund kids and privileged elite that outside of journo Twitter, they look completely out of touch sneering at a generation whose Social Security trust is being stolen to fund Boomer retirements getting debt relief equivalent to 2.5 weeks of media bro income.
The press should consider promoting beat reporters with working class roots up to write these screeds, because the optics of Megan McArdle and editorial boards full of 1%ers crying about people who make $67,000 a year getting $10,000 of student debt relief is not playing on the streets like they think it is.
@Mimai: This does seem like a hopeful sign. I’m projecting on him here, but if Trump is going to lose votes I think there will be one hundred people who don’t show up at the polls because they simply got tired of Trump’s BS, for every one person that actually has a sincere change of heart.
It’s funny that such a politically insignificant group of incels and sexually inept neckbeards (#amirite) tweak you so.
That insignificant group seems to include Paul Ryan, Alan Greenspan, the Koch Bros., Drew Carey, Tyler Cowen, Clint Eastwood, Uncle Milty Friedman, Alex Kosinski (Chief Judge of the 9th Circuit), Rupert Murdoch, Ron and Rand Paul, Peter Thiel (who wants to be free to own a senator), and as far as I can tell, most of the GOP funding Billionaire Boys Club. WIKI even has a list.
The “semi-fascist” threat to the Republic Biden spoke of is not the MAGAts, it’s the glibertarians who are manipulating the MAGAts.
@gVOR08: Exactly. The danger is the powerful sociopaths who have hit upon libertarianism, and the earnest gullibles attracted to it, as a cover for looting the country.
@Stormy Dragon: It’s a battlefield staff ride where students are asked to place themselves in the position of the commanders of the two sides. It’s not some pining for a lost cause.
So again, if the war college was doing a battlefield staff ride of a WW2 battlefield where students were asked to place themselves in the position of the commanders of the two sides and some of the students and faculty said they couldn’t possibly do that without wearing an SS officers hat, how would that go over?
It’s lifting at least half a million young black folk from a net negative balance sheet to net positive one, and it will wipe out debt for nearly half of Latino borrowers.
[CRT TRIGGER WARNING]
I dunno, but you may have hit on the real objection for many of those who oppose the decision.
because the optics of Megan McArdle and editorial boards full of 1%ers crying about people who make $67,000 a year getting $10,000 of student debt relief is not playing on the streets like they think it is.
Meh. I’m not sure I’d go that far. Lot of IGMFU on the streets. 🙁
I’ve declined requests to join the Sons of Confederate Veterans, despite strong credentials (a great-great grandfather was killed at Chickamauga) and have no desire to do anything that commemorates the CSA. Mastriano’s stunt is just an act of rebellion, but it also shows how little good judgment he possesses.
In a vacuum, I could write off the Mastriano story: he’s a history PhD who was teaching at the Army War College, which is within spitting distance of Gettysburg. We’ve had students and faculty wear CSA and USA replica caps during staff rides, so full regalia isn’t much of a stretch. The problem for Mastriano is that there is all manner of other reasons to believe he’s a white nationalist nutcase than this photo shoot.
I haven’t read McArdle since her days as a blogger. She seemed reasonably intelligent but intellectually sloppy and lazy. She would give a few moments thought to something, try to come up with a slightly contrarian twist and then start pontificating on it. Occasionally her posts would touch on things I knew about from either direct personal and professional reason and so would know that a basic building block of her opinion was wrong. No matter how many people pointed it out, she would never investigate, correct or even acknowledge. In other words, she never let actual facts sully what she obviously considered a great post. At the time the typical McCardle post followed this pattern: “Given that no city has more than one professional baseball or football team, here is why it is obvious that conventional liberal thinking is wrong on some seemingly unrelated point, and only I and my fellow libertarian-leaning superior intellects are sharp enough to see it.”
I get what you’re saying* and yet I do think there is something to the argument. Hasn’t it been used to argue against tax cuts (and/or spending) that are set to expire in, say, ten years? Perhaps you object to it then as well — if that is the case, +1 for consistency.
Or, to take it outside the policy arena, we might consider substance use. “Sure, go ahead and smoke some meth…it’s unlikely to ruin you if you do it once, and you will probably find it quite pleasurable.”
Or perhaps less ridiculously, to someone who has struggled to control their drinking: “Sure, go ahead and have a glass of wine…it’s tasty and might even have some health benefits.”
The point being, I think we have to consider the broader context — current and historical — when evaluating this (student loan forgiveness) and other policies. My frustration is when people selectively consider contextual factors — at all and/or specific ones — based on their ideological allegiances.
*The syntax looks jacked up, so perhaps I’m misunderstanding — if that is the case, my bad.
@James Joyner:
If students and faculty were wearing SS uniforms, would you be similarly blase? This is a problem, and the fact it’s a widespread problem makes the behavior worse, not better.
@MarkedMan:
I knew it was coming! As soon as I saw that you commented, I was sure there’d be some gratuitous libertarian bashing. And you delivered. It’s funny that such a politically insignificant group of incels and sexually inept neckbeards (#amirite) tweak you so.
***I intend this as good-natured ribbing, taking the piss, etc. Because I like you.***
@James Joyner: And it reinforces that the problem in the Republican Party/conservative movement isn’t FG, the problem is what the Republican Party is and who conservatives are.
@Mimai: You are probably right that I dwell overly much on libertarians. No doubt a part of this is because I consider my very brief flirtation with libertarianism when I was in college was one of the two times I read a book and felt like it really opened my eyes, only to gradually realize it was the laziest and mushiest sort of pablum. The other time was when I was 13 and the book was “Chariots of the Gods”. I still cringe a little in embarrassment that I was so gullible.
Used to read McArdle, but when it comes to health care issues she is not very bright. The doc fix was instituted by the GOP as part of their plan to “balance the budget”. However, they weren’t really going to enforce it since that would have been unpopular and lost them some votes. So the GOP under Bush made some revisions but it wasn’t really fixed until Obama was in office and yes it was expensive. It was also something for which there was support and was realistic. Totally different than the fake cut in spending made by the GOP. They have little interest in fixing stuff, just putting into law some stuff that looks good and get them votes but doesnt solve anything.
Which is what we see with student debt. It is a problem but you wont see the GOP addressing it. They just want to make sure that stuff they support, like private lenders and for profit schools get supported, which worsens the student debt issue.
So to be honest I am not entirely happy with this move. The income limits were too high. There is potential to game the 10% payback rule. I think a lot more of this should be directed at the schools themselves. If schools that use lots of loan money turn out grads that cant find jobs or pay back loans then let the schools bear that burden, or at least some of it. That probably destroys the for profit schools but too bad. The law schools telling their grads they will make tons of money and charging a fortune but it doesnt happen? Their students have sued, but its a frigging law school so of course they lose but we can help rectify that. All that said, they at least took a shot at it.
Steve
@Mimai: “As soon as I saw that you commented, I was sure there’d be some gratuitous libertarian bashing. ”
Well… the writer he is talking about is a self-described libertarian — so much so that she started out using the pseudonym “Jane Galt.” So while you’re free to consider this libertarian bashing, it’s hardly gratuitious.
And what a perfect libertarian she is on this issue, by the way — she writes rapturously about how people should not be forgiven student loans because everyone has to stand on their own two feet, and then only admits after being called on it that Mommy and Daddy paid for her entire college ride.
@Mimai: There was a missing word (“be”) in that sentence, I have added it back in.
My point is that there is a difference between doing X now and maybe people wanting you to do X again in the future and situation Y that has a specific legislative trigger that requires action.
The “doc fix” thing is not a good analogy because the structure of the law required an ongoing “fix”–that is not analogous to the current debt relief plan.
And really, as it pertains to my point, neither is a sunset provision nor giving a glass of wine to a known alcoholic because those two analogies have known triggers built in. While it is possible that this debt relief action will spark demand for others in the future, there is no built-in trigger to do so (unlike “doc fix,” or sunset clauses, or giving a substance to a known addict).
@MarkedMan:
In a different thread, you mentioned not knowing how to judge whether folks are getting tired of Trump. Here’s my N=1 indicator that it is happening (don’t worry, it’s relevant to our discussion here):
I have a family member who is in his early 70s. He epitomizes negative partisanship: Dems are bad, SF values put our country in peril, etc. Wrt Trump, he was always more of an apologist than a fanboy. But he was an ardent apologist.
Somehow, over the last year or two, he’s found libertarianism. Eg, sends me articles from the Mises Institute, talks about how Hayek got everything right, etc. Nothing yet from Ayn Rand, but I think that is more to do with his short attention span and unwillingness to wade through her prose. Not a peep about Trump in quite a long while. Not even to bemoan how he is being unfairly targeted by the bad Dems.
It’s really quite charming to see an otherwise educated and successful 70+ year old man (and lifelong Republican) go all 13 year-old boy over the course of a year or two. Benjamin Button of political philosophy.
I consider this a good thing — for him, for me, for his very large social network. And potentially a sign that Trump is indeed losing currency with his apologists.
@wr:
Fair point. I retract the gratuitous part.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Good follow up, thanks. You are, of course, correct that there is no built-in trigger to the loan program. There is, however, a built-in trigger to the human program. I don’t think we should ignore that — it runs deep.
@Stormy Dragon:
In a similar vein, I always encourage people to replace “Nazi” with “Pedophile” and see how the resulting discussion sounds.
Like, a march of proud pedophiles through the streets would be discussed much differently than one of neo-Confederates or Nazis.
It tells me how much white nationalism, even to the point of being genocidal, has been laundered and defanged of its horror by our media and pundit classes, to where it is merely a debatable sort of topic; Controversial, but one upon which reporters should be objective and neutral.
Megan McArdle grew up in one of the richest zip codes in America, where her rich Upper West Side parents paid for her to attend a rich, exclusive New York private school, then paid for her college education.
Meanwhile, an estimated 95% of Dark Brandon’s student debt relief is slated for households making $75k or less. It’s lifting at least half a million young black folk from a net negative balance sheet to net positive one, and it will wipe out debt for nearly half of Latino borrowers.
Someone should tell the media’s trust fund kids and privileged elite that outside of journo Twitter, they look completely out of touch sneering at a generation whose Social Security trust is being stolen to fund Boomer retirements getting debt relief equivalent to 2.5 weeks of media bro income.
The press should consider promoting beat reporters with working class roots up to write these screeds, because the optics of Megan McArdle and editorial boards full of 1%ers crying about people who make $67,000 a year getting $10,000 of student debt relief is not playing on the streets like they think it is.
@Mimai:
This is, of course, fair. And if she had written that column, I likely wouldn’t have commented on it.
But she stacks the deck by picking an example with a built-in reason to keep doing the same thing over and over.
@DK:
As far as I know, journalists haven’t had working class roots in decades.
@Mimai: This does seem like a hopeful sign. I’m projecting on him here, but if Trump is going to lose votes I think there will be one hundred people who don’t show up at the polls because they simply got tired of Trump’s BS, for every one person that actually has a sincere change of heart.
@Mimai: @MarkedMan:
That insignificant group seems to include Paul Ryan, Alan Greenspan, the Koch Bros., Drew Carey, Tyler Cowen, Clint Eastwood, Uncle Milty Friedman, Alex Kosinski (Chief Judge of the 9th Circuit), Rupert Murdoch, Ron and Rand Paul, Peter Thiel (who wants to be free to own a senator), and as far as I can tell, most of the GOP funding Billionaire Boys Club. WIKI even has a list.
The “semi-fascist” threat to the Republic Biden spoke of is not the MAGAts, it’s the glibertarians who are manipulating the MAGAts.
can I see some edit?
ETA – that worked and I was able to fix a little typography in my previous comment. Thank you, gods of the blogosphere.
@gVOR08: Exactly. The danger is the powerful sociopaths who have hit upon libertarianism, and the earnest gullibles attracted to it, as a cover for looting the country.
@Stormy Dragon: It’s a battlefield staff ride where students are asked to place themselves in the position of the commanders of the two sides. It’s not some pining for a lost cause.
@James Joyner:
So again, if the war college was doing a battlefield staff ride of a WW2 battlefield where students were asked to place themselves in the position of the commanders of the two sides and some of the students and faculty said they couldn’t possibly do that without wearing an SS officers hat, how would that go over?
@Mimai: “Fair point. I retract the gratuitous part.”
You keep up acting all gracious like this and you’re going to destroy the internet…
@DK:
[CRT TRIGGER WARNING]
I dunno, but you may have hit on the real objection for many of those who oppose the decision.
@DK:
Meh. I’m not sure I’d go that far. Lot of IGMFU on the streets. 🙁