Destabilized Saturday Edition #15
A face made for Twitter, politics vs. law, Orbánism in Florida, "I'm not getting in that car"
Whatever else you do this weekend, be sure to watch this (9 minutes).
My Work
Fight, flight, sex, and cocaine
But as we know, social media isn’t all pleasure. In fact, two features of content that drives outsize engagement are 1) the use of words with both moral and emotional resonance, like “shame,” “punish,” and “evil,” and 2) references to out-groups, i.e. talking about liberals to a conservative audience, and vice versa.
As psychology professor Jay Van Bavel and co-authors wrote in 2021:
[S]ocial media may be creating perverse incentives for divisive content because this content is particularly likely to go “viral.” We report evidence that posts about political opponents are substantially more likely to be shared.
Interesting Reads
The Supreme Court Has Never Been Apolitical
[T]he idea of an apolitical court is a fairly recent development. For the better part of American history, the U.S. Supreme Court was a much more partisan and political institution than we remember. The justices who sat on its bench were once and future elected officials, advisers to presidents and even presidential aspirants themselves. From John McLean and Salmon P. Chase in the 19th century to William O. Douglas in the 20th, justices often kept a wandering eye on the White House. Abe Fortas had a direct phone line to the president of the United States and even wrote some of his speeches. Justices also accepted outside income and affiliated with third-party interest groups.
Whether the U.S. Supreme Court should keep politics at a far distance is one question. Whether it historically did is another.
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If you’re interested in the topic, this post-Soviet NATO history thread, complete with several counterfactuals, is worth your time.
Tweets of the Week
Extreme Weather Watch
[Overnight low of 30 degrees Celsius = 86 degrees Fahrenheit.]
This is one piece of the context of the historic and deadly heat in India and the surrounding region:
Creeping Authoritarianism Watch
From the article:
“About the Don’t Say Gay law, it was in fact modeled in part on what Hungary did last summer,” Rod Dreher, a senior editor at the American Conservative magazine, said during a panel interview in Budapest. “I was told this by a conservative reporter who ... said he talked to the press secretary of Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida and she said, ‘Oh yeah, we were watching the Hungarians, so yay Hungary.’”
(When I asked DeSantis press secretary Christina Pushaw about a possible connection, she initially denied knowing of Hungarian inspiration for Florida’s law. After I showed her the quote from Dreher, she did not respond further. Dreher did not reply to two requests for comment.)