Timely Reminders

Biden has yet to hold a solo press conference in 2023

— New York Times Pitchbot (@DougJBalloon) January 1, 2023

Sad New Year to all!! https://t.co/upvgrbWSNE

— George Conway🌻 (@gtconway3d) January 1, 2023

Sadder New Year:

Deranged. Sociopath. Unhinged. pic.twitter.com/JzTnl1zc23

— Republicans against Trumpism (@RpsAgainstTrump) January 1, 2023

That one has to be in context:

This is a great example—albeit one of many—of what psychologists and psychiatrists call "concrete thinking." Trump takes the idea of "no corners" literally, and doesn't understand Bush's metaphor.

An inability to think abstractly is common among sociopaths and psychopaths. https://t.co/FTsOAvTFHu

— George Conway🌻 (@gtconway3d) January 1, 2023

"At the end of 2022, Putin is still Putin. The mullahs are still the mullahs. Trump is still Trump. Those actors have not changed. But the world around them changed." https://t.co/Qk8jvSU7qZ

— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) December 31, 2022

I'm old enough to remember when Bill Kristol was a real downer and spoke darkly of the inevitable collapse of Western Civ due to "liberals". Of course, I'm old enough to remember when Nixon tried to carry on some of LBJ's "Great Society" momentum because he understood people voted against Vietnam, not against LBJ's social agenda. Kristol was central in turning that around so don't take him too much to heart now. Still, the enemy of my enemy is my friend: 

Perhaps we will one day look back at 2022 not just as a lucky bending of the curve, but as an inflection point—as a true Zeitenwende, to use the term invoked by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

But we don’t know. More to the point, we can’t know. Nothing about the future—nothing about 2023—is inevitable.

It’s equally possible that we could look back on 2022 as a bear market rally for democracy. That we will one day judge it to have been a false dawn, a brief surge of democratic willpower and energy on behalf of freedom that peters out in the face of the illiberal forces arrayed against it.

But the successes of 2022 have given those who care about liberty and democracy, about human decency and human dignity, a fighting chance in 2023.

In 2022 democracy and liberty didn’t just hold the line—they gained some ground. The defenders of liberalism fought back more effectively than the last decade suggested they were capable of doing.

What comes next will be the product not just of implacable forces, but the choices and actions of real people. Some of those people will be consequential and their choices will be seen by the world. You will know—or learn—their names. The vast majority will not be. Many of the choices will be made by ordinary people, acting individually or collectively, often in quiet—but important—ways.

And sound analysis is sound analysis.  Speaking of which:

"Focusing on just the twentieth century and after, it is clear that there is a strong undercurrent of anti-democratic thought in American conservatism." @Joshua_A_Tait from the archives: https://t.co/5VM7dpgOIx

— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) December 31, 2022

(The racism recorded in that article is really kind of stunning. By which I mean the history, not the opinion of the author.)

Onward, through the fog!

(Keeping the flame of the "old" Austin I knew and loved flickering but alive!)