The meritocracy isn’t working. We need something new.

When universities like Harvard shifted their definition of ability, large segments of society adjusted to meet that definition. The effect was transformative. Universities should serve as society’s primary sorting system, segregating the smart from the not smart. Intelligence is randomly distributed across the population, so sorting by intelligence will yield a broad-based leadership class. Intelligence is innate, so rich families won’t be able to buy their kids higher grades.

The system is rigged: Students from families in the top 1 percent of earners were 77 times more likely to attend an Ivy League–level school than students from families making $30,000 a year or less. Many elite schools draw more students from the top 1 percent than the bottom 60.

If I were given the keys to the meritocracy, I’d redefine merit around four crucial qualities.
Curiosity. A sense of drive and mission. Social intelligence. Agility.

If we sort people only by superior intelligence, we’re sorting people by a quality few possess; we’re inevitably creating a stratified, elitist society. We want a society run by people who are smart, yes, but who are also wise, perceptive, curious, caring, resilient, and committed to the common good. If we can figure out how to select for people’s motivation to grow and learn across their whole lifespan, then we are sorting people by a quality that is more democratically distributed, a quality that people can control and develop, and we will end up with a fairer and more mobile society.

Time to pause and reflect How to think about this current moment
Open Letters, from Anne Applebaum, Nov. 17, 2024

I do believe that not enough attention has been paid to the fact that perceptions of reality, as received through one’s telephone, are now more powerful than real reality. As the editor of the New Republic points out, that online reality is now dominated by the far right. The expression “mainstream media” is so far out of date as to be laughable. The New York Times, CNN and the Wall Street Journal are not the mainstream. They do not set the agenda. They reach far fewer people than the network created by Fox, Sinclair, iHeart, OANN, X and the Russian government’s extensive troll farms and paid influencers.

Both of my recent, shorter books address some elements of this story too. Twilight of Democracy, published in 2020, attempted to explain how and why “elite,” educated people living in democracies might be attracted to the far-right. Autocracy Inc, published last summer, describes the network of dictatorships that now seek to undermine liberal democracy, economically, politically and above all through propaganda and information war. This international background helps to explain the extraordinary danger of the current moment, especially give the president-elect’s initial military and intelligence appointments.

The Phantom Campaign, Digital Oligarchy vs. the Democratic Future
Thinking about, Tim Snyder, Nov. 17, 2024

A phantom political force was born: oligarchical money + psychographic information about individuals + social media delivery system + demotivational message.

This recent history can help us to understand what has just happened in our most recent presidential election.  Now, thanks to some important reporting in the Washington Post by Michael Scherer and Josh Dawsey, we know that the same techniques were refined and applied on behalf of Trump and against Harris.  This time the oligarch was Elon Musk, and this time the demotivational messages were deceptive to an even higher degree: they were presented as Harris campaign ads.

The majority of news influencers are conservative men, study finds
The latest Pew Research report on news content creators paints a damning picture of our skewed information ecosystem
Taylor Lorenz, User Mag

According to Pew’s sample, men dominate the news influencer space space by a margin of roughly two to one, comprising 63% of all news content creators compared to just 30% who are women. This gender disparity is compounded by a political tilt: 27% of news influencers explicitly identify as conservative, significantly outnumbering the 21% who lean liberal—a gap that balloons on platforms like Facebook, where right-leaning influencers outnumber left-leaning ones by a staggering three-to-one ratio. 39% of news influencers explicitly identify as conservative on Facebook, compared with just 13% who identify as liberal.

It’s Time for Outgoing Democrats to Play Hardball
Paul Rosenzweig, The Bulwark

Much can still be done between now and Inauguration Day to put limits on the excesses of the incoming Trump administration.

The range of unilateral options open to President Biden in his remaining few days is surprisingly broad. All options—to skip the inauguration, to provide more weapons to Ukraine, to make legally binding commitments to NATO, and still others—should be on the table.

Here’s one creative idea: At the end of his first administration, Trump proposed to create a new “Schedule F” that would convert many civil service positions to at-will positions whose appointment he, as president, would control. The proposal was based on a novel interpretation of a statutory authority that had never been used in that way before.1

One of the principal promises Trump has made is to re-implement his Schedule F proposal as a first swing of the axe against the deep state. Of course, the fired employees will sue—but Trump’s “fire first, litigate later” strategy would have significant effects, even if the employees eventually won. Some employees would resign rather than fight; others would be cowed into grudging subservience. And, in the end, even if only for a brief period of time, Trump would be able to begin populating the civil service with his sycophantic toadies.

This American won’t bow, and neither should you
Steve Schmidt, The Warning Nov. 17, 2024

The key difference between the two parties doesn’t just lie in the chasm between Trumpism and Americanism. It is also in the plain fact that MAGA has a plan. The defeated Washington, DC, Bidencrats/Schumercrats do not.

The incompetency of the Washington, DC, Democrats should offend, outrage and inspire you to action. I urge you to drop the disposition of fandom towards politicians whose powerful positions are supposed to come with an obligation of service towards you, not the other way around.

The first decision for Washington, DC, Democrats is a simple one. It is about facing reality, and letting Joe Biden go along with a raft full of octogenarian party leaders who have finished the race and lost.

The Morning: Mika and Joe go to Mar-a-Lago
Chris Cillizza, So What

They Want to Blow It All Up
William Kristol and Andrew Egger

Tracinski points out that each of these nominees is radically unfit for office. But he doesn’t just discuss them individually. He considers their significance as a group, as a kind of statement by Trump about the government he will soon head.

He is constructing a kind of anti-government . . . Every appointee is selected as a deliberate negation, even a mockery, of the function of government he or she will be in charge of. . . . These individuals are not merely unqualified for their offices. They are disqualified. They are anti-qualified—the antithesis of what the offices call for.

1000 Days of War
Reflecting on one thousand days since the 2022 Russian large-scale invasion, and some thoughts on the trajectory of the war into 2025
Mick Ryan, Futura Doctrina

Besides reflecting on the tremendous sacrifices of the Ukrainian people since February 2022, the thousand-day point since that awful February 2022 day should also permit a certain amount of taking stock.

Resistance HQ Bulletin 7, 11/18/24
Ron Filipkowski, Meidas Touch +

Joe and Mika from MSNBC’s Morning Joe inexplicably traveled to Mar-a-Lago this weekend to patch things up with Trump and “restart my communications with Trump.” Trump repeatedly accused Scarborough of murdering a staffer in his district office to possibly cover up an affair, and has called Mika dumb and ridiculed her plastic surgery. Gross. I guess legacy media feels they have to humiliate themselves for access and ratings, because that’s what this is. Count me out.