As I sit here this morning I am disturbed. The moral fiber of America is being shredded. The glee people are showing over an election that is rife with corruption is astounding. What is most astounding is the silence of supposed fellow party members.

Up at 3 am reading Google Scholar on why people are attracted to conspiracy theories.

Some broad themes, people are attracted to conspiracies when:
1. They feel powerless or hopeless
2. Feel alienated, low trust
3. Feel angry, like they are victimized
4. Their worldview has been repudiated

This made me think of another concept, which I think is more associated with history, “loss of empire.” All of those concepts—alienation, hopelessness, victimhood, hostility—can, imo, be emblematic of the emotions of loss of empire.

THREAD, PT DEUX -- it was a lovely long weekend, I’m feeling rested and energized, and lucky for you I’ve got some more great criminal justice policy ideas to share. Real exciting stuff, I promise. Let’s flesh these out: 1/9

Ok, so to reduce unnecessary contacts between police and people/communities of color, here’s what we’re going to do: end the war on drugs. 2/9

Right now we needlessly make felons out of 10,000+ Virginians per year for narcotics possession, so for that we’re going to end the war on drugs. 3/9

Reduce court fines and fees, prevent disenfranchisement, demilitarize police departments, eliminate mandatory minimums? I’ve got a great idea for those, as well: end the war on drugs 4/9

Oh, and police and prison budgets are bloated, driving state and municipal governments into debt, with no societal benefit to show for it. So in order to save a crap ton of cash we’re also going to end the war on drugs 5/9

1/ How many times have u been told that ‘Imposter syndrome’ is an internal problem? That it’s your responsibility to make it go away from your mind. That it’s entirely a figment of your own imagination. Well I don’t think so, but the journey to this conclusion has been painful 🧵

2/ Let’s start with the definition of Imposter syndrome: it’s basically those feelings of inadequacy & doubt in your abilities to do the things that you’ve proved successful in doing by virtue of your achievements & qualifications. This in turn affects your confidence to do them.

3/We’re told women, particularly those from minoritised backgrounds, have this more intensely though it can affect anyone. I’ve certainly felt it throughout my life intensifying at times of stress and overload. But is it entirely internally triggered? Well, this is the narrative.

4/ You go to courses, you read articles, you speak to mentors and what they usually tell you is that it’s all in your mind. Perhaps triggered by your social upbringing & cultural background. So you must work on it. But I’ve realised recently that it’s not just that.

5/ Some people in your surroundings trigger this, to be fair to them perhaps unconsciously. They may have in their minds a stereotype of you that is inadequate & incapable of achieving what you’ve achieved in reality. So they do or say things that trigger the feeling in you..

IMHO, this article — https://t.co/wLiWDOZrvm — is an important corrective to fatalism about the new strain. As in, "welp, there are probably already at least a handful of cases of the new strain already here, so no matter what we do now, it's gonna spread." Not necessarily so.

"10 to 20 percent of infected people may be responsible for...80 to 90 percent of transmission."

"An early run of bad [or good!] luck...can produce dramatically different outcomes."

New Zealand had 277 separate introductions; only 19% of them led to more than 1 additional case.

That's all referring to the original COVID strain, but I haven't read anything suggesting that the same pattern doesn't apply to the new variant. Not sure if we know yet, but it's at least possible a lot of people don't spread it (while the few that do, spread it *A LOT* a lot).

Here's what we know, or think we know:

* The new variant is here, with probably at least a handful of undetected cases.

* The new variant is so wildly contagious that, once it gains a foothold, cases WILL spike.

* Cases stopped rising steeply around Nov. 10 (by onset day).

It seems like 1 of 2 things is true:

1) New variant arrived in October or earlier, and helped cause our November spike. We then reined it in, without even realizing it was here.

2) New-variant community spread is low-level thus far, at least thru ~Xmas. No superspreaders yet.

.@claudiahammond introduces the panel discussion on elitism in occupational psychology with @NancyDoylePsych @TomCalvard @PavtweetKhurana and Ben Williams, former Chair of @ABPsychologists

Ben starts by taking a poll on the topic, do we feel the profession is elitist? 22% say yes, 13% say not at all. #DOPconf

Ben says if success comes to the "best" in a profession, how accessible is it? Or do factors such as network bring you to the elite? Challenging to level the playing field. #DOPconf

Turning to @PavtweetKhurana, who takes issue with "best". Who defines it, standards mapped against what? Does school define access? We can have an elite without elitism, it is exclusion that is problematic. #DOPconf

And now @NancyDoylePsych who talks about lack of disability, racial and other areas of representation in Occupational Psychology. #DOPconf

1/ The “No Surprises Act” is deeply flawed. It should not advance in its current form. Work must continue to reach a meaningful remedy to “surprise medical bills” #SMB that keeps patients out of the middle and provides balance.

Here are several concerns w/ the current proposal:

2/ The proposal should require that the initial “interim payment” made by the insurer for out-of-network services be considered the plan’s offer for IDR, to incentivize the insurer to pay a fair initial reimbursement.

But, the proposal does not.

3/ The proposal should allow the IDR process to consider UCR and an independent charge-based database. Lest it be a form of price-fixing by insurers since the qualifying payment is indexed to the insurer-set in-network median rate (w/CPIU adjustment).

But, the proposal does not.

4/ The proposal should avoid a complex administrative burden that threatens practice viability and leads to consolidation and higher healthcare costs for patients. Cost effective independent physician practice provides patients choice.

But, the proposal does not.

5/ The proposal should explicitly prohibit the IDR process from considering Medicare, Medicaid, and other public payer rates. These are well known to be below the cost of providing care and these programs are not implicated by the #SMB provisions.

But, the proposal does not.

The republican speeches today are familiar to any abuse survivor.

"I hate that you made me hit you. I've never hit anyone before, so that's how awful you've been to me to make me do that. And the way you keep pushing this, it feels like you're trying to make me go there again."

1/ More thoughts on impasse over organizing Senate/committees. McConnell demands Democrats commit that they won't "go nuclear" to ban legislative filibusters. Schumer says no. The organizing resolution can be filibustered, hence McC's potential leverage. So what's going on here?

2/ Democrats are highly unlikely to make such a commitment, even if McC sees the ploy as a clever way to split the Democrats. Even if Dems *did* agree, both parties know it's not a credible commitment. The last time the party leaders shook hands on such an agreement (2011)...

3/ the agreement didn't stick. McConnell and the GOP's concerted effort to block judicial and executive nominees encouraged Reid and Democrats to nuke most nomination filibusters in 2013-- in a Congress that was covered by the 2011 agreement. Granted, that agreement was informal

4/ in the sense that it wasn't written into either the organizing resolution or one of the "standing orders" Senate agreed to in 2011. (Here, I highly recommend @ProfStevenSmith The Senate Syndrome. If we weren't in a pandemic, I'd pull out my hard copy to pinpoint the chapters!)

5/ Of course, even if agreement had been formalized beyond the 🤝, that wouldn't have stopped the Dems in 2011 (minor nuke of the cloture rule) or 2013 (major 💣of cloture rule) or the GOP in 2017-- once the party felt it could shoulder the political costs of bending the rules.

Conspiracy theories attempt to explain events as the secretive plots of powerful people. While conspiracy theories are not typically supported by evidence,
this doesn’t stop them from blossoming. Conspiracy theories damage society in a number of ways. /1 (THREAD) #TTP

So, I was asked to write down my thoughts on the coup for a major newspaper earlier this week.

I told them no, and let me tell you why.

In 2016, after the election I wrote an op-ed on white nationalism and the alt-right for a major newspaper and appeared on MSNBC.

I was hyped to have the opportunity to share my expertise with a wider audience.

I wasn't prepared for what came next.

The op-ed was shared pretty widely. It is probably as close as I've come to a viral piece.

I wrote for a prestigious pub, and people were reading about my scholarly research.

Cool, right?

Not quite.

The day the op-ed was published I was at an amusement park with my partner, two kids, nephew and niece, one of my sisters and her partner.

While waiting on the kids to get off a ride, I started getting messages from folks asking if I was okay.

I was confused. Why wouldn't I be okay?

Well, then, folks were like, "Uh, there are some pretty nasty threats being lobbed at you on Twitter."

Kamala Harris is not eligible to be VP or POTUS under Article II & the 12th Amendment of the Constitution.

So much cultural criticism boils down to chewing on the strange result of popular genre chum--guilty pleasure stuff--being taken more seriously than it was really designed for or capable of sustaining.

Im thinking about the furors around American Dirt, Bridgerton, and WW84, which, in different ways, are all objects meant to be consumed for pleasure without thinking too much about why and how. And then you think about them and you're like "wow, this sucks."

Scads of thrillers as bad or worse than American Dirt are published constantly, and no one but their readers notices, but THIS one got lots of "serious" attention, so it was held to real literary standards and eviscerated.

Bridgerton is an adaptation of romance novels--not serious alt-history--but when claims for the progressive work it was doing were made, lots of folks were like "wow, this seems pretty silly and kinda careless?"

And the conversation around WW84 is fascinating because of the strange way "comic book movie" is simultaneously "stupid goofy fun, not supposed to make sense" and "this is an allegory for America under Trump" (doubly vexed by the "saving cinema!" role WW84 was slotted into)

1/14 As a rabbi, the moment something significant, if not historic occurs, there is pressure to weigh in, put out a statement or write a post. The luxury of time to process, think, study, consider and consult is gone. In the absence of commenting immediately people draw their own

2/14 conclusions and assumptions about what you believe. So while I wish I had time, here it goes:

3/14 What happened yesterday needs no nuance and should take no time to comment on. The attack on our Capitol and on our Democracy, both the symbolism of it and more importantly the physical attack, was horrific, reprehensible, indefensible and intolerable. It was categorically

4/14 different from other rioting and looting that has been happening and to compare or make equal is an insult to those who were threatened and to all who hold that building and space sacred. All those who participated must be brought to justice. Guilt and accountability lie not

1/14 As a rabbi, the moment something significant, if not historic occurs, there is pressure to weigh in, put out a statement or write a post. The luxury of time to process, think, study, consider and consult is gone. In the absence of commenting immediately people draw their own