1/Today's Substack post is about Biden's chances of becoming a truly transformational president -- someone who will move U.S. economic policy onto a leftward track, as Reagan once moved it onto a rightward

2/Political scientist Stephen Skowronek has a theory that says we're due for a "reconstructive" President who will define a new paradigm for the next few decades.

https://t.co/p1usloRmsD
3/Like most people, I thought Biden would be an incrementalist centrist who would get little done other than restoring competence and morality to the executive branch (and that alone would have been plenty of reason to vote for him!).
4/When I read Skowronek's theory, I read it as a prediction of a Bernie or Warren presidency.

I did not imagine that Biden could be a transformational president.

BUT, it's looking like he just might be one!
5/Check out @mehdirhasan's rundown of Biden's rapid blitz.

https://t.co/o6nqPL97S8
6/Or check out @drvolts' rundown of Biden's climate actions!

https://t.co/FrFhE1RLSp
7/Biden has done more executive actions in the first 3 weeks of his presidency than Obama and Trump combined at the equivalent mark. Here's a list.

https://t.co/UkqOTmu49E
8/His legislative agenda is breathtakingly bold. It's -- dare I say it? -- Rooseveltian.
9/Now, Biden might be stymied on the legislative front. Mitch McConnell might filibuster much of his agenda to death (though I'm remaining cautiously optimistic this will not happen).
10/But remember, this sort of happened to Ronald Reagan too!
11/Reagan's true transformational influence came from:

1. Executive actions and appointments that weakened unions and regulation, etc.

2. An enduring ideological shift, which led eventually to Clinton's welfare reform and deregulations.
12/In the same way, Biden might usher in a new age where economic progressivism -- in the form of government sending people cash -- is the norm, and leaders of BOTH parties compete to see who can do it better.

Maybe this is the first glimmer:

https://t.co/eOQEeeroo4
13/Maybe individual leaders' temperaments and preconceptions are less important than the necessities of the times in which they lead.

Maybe it's not Biden. Maybe it's COVID making America finally realize that Reaganism is inadequate to the challenges we face.
14/In other words, maybe Skowronek is right -- maybe it's simply TIME for a transformational President. Maybe Biden just happens to be the person that the Hand of Destiny tapped on the shoulder.

(end)

https://t.co/k5xqLQ88Xq
And remember, if you like this kind of content, sign up for my free email list and get it delivered direction to your inbox! :-)

https://t.co/FGppA1M8W6

More from Noah Smith 🐇

"Competitive wokeness", like "virtue signaling" and "preference falsification", seems to be something people on the right say in order to pretend that people on the left don't really believe what they claim to believe.


Basically we have a whole bunch of ways of saying "You can't possibly believe that!!". Which helps us avoid the terrifying fact that yes, people generally do believe it.

Of course, "believe" doesn't mean what it means in econ class. It means that people get a warm feeling from asserting something, even if they don't know what it means. "God is omnipotent", etc.

A lot of times we believe extreme things, simply because asserting those things all together in a group gives us a warm feeling of having an army on our side.

It's not competitive wokeness. It's COOPERATIVE wokeness.

"Virtue signaling" isn't fake or pretend. It's real.

"Virtue", when it comes right down to it, means membership on a team.

Sometimes, to prove you're on a team, it helps to say something people on the other team could never bring themselves to say.
Time for panel #3: Big Tech and regulation!

I will be live-tweeting again, and you can also watch video at either the Twitter or Facebook links below!


Kaissar: Every industry gets regulated when it gets big. The question is what kind of regulation Big Tech will get,and whether the companies will be proactive in shaping it.

Kaissar: More profitable companies have higher returns. Why? Maybe it's a risk factor, because more profit = higher risk of getting regulated.

Bershidskyis showing a diagram of GDPR complaince pop-ups. What a massive ill-conceived bureaucratic mess.

Ritholtz: It's 2018 and we're still talking about Facebook privacy settings?! If you're still giving your personal data to Facebook, you just don't care about privacy!
Yes, we have been more divided than we are now. Within living memory.


Labor disputes used to kill hundreds of people!

In 1932 Douglas MacArthur called in tanks on protesting veterans, injuring over a thousand people!

In 1967 there were 159 race riots in cities across

In 1921, rioters used airplanes to bomb black businesses in Tulsa, Oklahoma! Hundreds were killed in the riot!
1/I'm thinking about the end of Apu in the context of the national debates on immigration and diversity.


2/Apu's presence in Springfield represented a basic reality of America in the late 20th and early 21st century: the presence of nonwhite immigrants.

3/As Tomas Jimenez writes in "The Other Side of Assimilation", for my generation, immigrants from India, China, Mexico, and many other countries aren't strange or foreign. On the contrary, they're a

4/But that America I grew up with is fundamentally ephemeral. The kids of immigrants don't retain their parents' culture. They merge into the local culture (and, as Jimenez documents, the local culture changes to reflect their influence).

5/Simpsons character don't change. But real people, and real communities, do. So a character who once represented the diversity that immigrants brought to American towns now represents a stereotype of Indian-Americans as "permanent foreigners".

More from Biden

I got overnight via email a query from @briansflood at Fox News, the principal part of which I reproduce below. I answered by email too. I'll append that reply in the next threaded tweet:


My reply:


Hunter Biden's dubious business activities have been reported for years. Here for example is @TheAtlantic in September 2019, year *before* @nypost
https://t.co/qZBTpyuysM


That emails attributed to Hunter Biden were circulating was also known well before the NYPost story in October. Here's TIME magazine https://t.co/JvpEKdG0U4


What @NYPost added to the work earlier done by others was a new *origin* story for the materials that circulated in Ukraine in 2019. When other media organizations attempted to corroborate that story, hijinx ensued. https://t.co/ZJGZWq7etU @thedailybeast account
Did you miss the Inauguration of the 46th President of the United States,Joe Biden?This Thread is the perfect synopsis for everything you need to know!

Donald Trump left the White House Wednesday morning. For the first time in 150 years the sitting president didn’t attend the swearing-in of his successor.


Kamala Harris, the first woman and person of color to hold the office of vice president was sworn in by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latina member of the Supreme Court.


Chief Justice John Roberts later administered the presidential oath to Biden as Jill Biden held the bible and as his children, Hunter Biden and Ashley Biden, stood by.


President Joe Biden gave his Inaugural address. Check out the full transcript below.

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