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457 lines
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<title>22 January, 2024</title>
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<title>Daily-Dose</title><meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" name="viewport"/><link href="styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><link href="../styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><style>*{overflow-x:hidden;}</style><link href="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.css" rel="stylesheet"/><script src="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.js"></script></head>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Sofia Coppola’s Path to Filming Gilded Adolescence</strong> - There are few Hollywood families in which one famous director has spawned another. Coppola says, “It’s not easy for anyone in this business, even though it looks easy for me.” - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/01/29/sofia-coppola-profile">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>How to Eat a Tire in a Year, by David Sedaris</strong> - Walking and talking with my friend Dawn. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/01/29/how-to-eat-a-tire-in-a-year-david-sedaris">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Rules for the Ruling Class</strong> - How to thrive in the power élite—while declaring it your enemy. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/01/29/rules-for-the-ruling-class">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Woman Who Spent Five Hundred Days in a Cave</strong> - Beatriz Flamini liked to be alone so much that she decided to live underground—and pursue a world record. The experience was gruelling and surreal. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/01/29/the-woman-who-spent-five-hundred-days-in-a-cave">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Trump on the Trail and on Trial</strong> - Is it clever, or deluded, for Trump—who complained last week that he has been indicted more times than Al Capone—to see his trials as a political opportunity? - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/01/29/trump-on-the-trail-and-on-trial">link</a></p></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
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<li><strong>The complicated lives and deaths of TikTok’s illness influencers</strong> -
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<img alt="An illustration from the perspective of a person making a TikTok video. Their reflection, a close up of their eye, is seen on the screen of the smart phone recording the video in the center of the frame. Behind the phone is a ring light. Seen in the background of the image is a desk covered in medical supplies, including several pill bottles and an IV. There is also a vase of orange flowers. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/pgcXauZlkEDikjYHvIMXbfq4z5Y=/453x0:2613x1620/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72929068/231129_xinmei_Vox_Dying_Online_final.0.jpg"/>
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<figcaption>
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Xinmei Liu for Vox
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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A ‘day in the life’ at the end of a life
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qzKM2S">
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Madison Baloy began making <a href="https://www.vox.com/tiktok">TikTok</a> videos at the beginning of the Covid lockdown because her very cute “weenie dog” Binks (as in Jar Jar) deserved an audience. But the real views — the brand deal views — came after her stage 4 cancer diagnosis earlier this year. With 7 million views, her breakout video was a “get ready with me” for the day she got her head tattoo, a depiction of the sun. Baloy has illustrations of two tarot cards, the sun and the moon, hanging above her bed.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5vqPnl">
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Every tarot card has two meanings, which depend on how you’re looking at it. The sun, viewed upright, means contentment, good results for tough struggles, and vitality. Reversed, the sun’s warmth is blocked by clouds, instead symbolizing pessimism, difficult setbacks, and sadness. Baloy’s account, <span class="citation" data-cites="fruitsnackmaddy">@fruitsnackmaddy</span>, radiates both orientations. On it, she’s shared a makeup tutorial for her evening out at the club with her oncologist. She filmed her own PET scan. She talked about the severity of her anxiety while revealing her favorite product to keep her head moisturized: Renee’s Shea Souffle hair and scalp oil by Lush. (Lush later mailed her a package of free products.)
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KdYEnz">
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“Come spend the day with me,” Baloy says in a day-in-the-life video, “because I don’t know how many I have left.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pOAMM2">
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Baloy is just one of a cohort of creators with life-threatening illnesses sharing their lives with the world on TikTok. There’s also Erin Lennon, a 26-year-old with 312,000 followers who makes TikToks (including many poking fun at her own impending death) from her shockingly pink bedroom. Amanda Tam, a 23-year-old in Quebec with ALS, said that her account began as a joke but has quickly become an advocacy tool. Kasey Altman launched a podcast and research fund after documenting her life with a stage 4 rare sarcoma. Altman died in 2022. <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@kasey.altman">Her family now maintains her account</a>.
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The first video of Altman’s that I remember seeing is also <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@kasey.altman/video/7044649738402024710?lang=en">one of her most viewed</a>: a dark joke about getting diagnosed set to the sound of a playlist <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@boiwhatdahelllboi1/">abruptly transitioning</a> from Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” into “Sicko Mode” by Travis Scott — a popular TikTok meme. While some of her videos, that one included, feel like sly infiltrations into TikTok’s meme culture that grab your attention before delivering an unexpected punchline, Altman made others, about people with cancer and her “cancer friends.” Watching her account over time provided a carefully packaged glimpse of a personal experience with terminal illness.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="U9Xs65">
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Personal stories about serious illness are hardly uncommon. Yet the preeminent narrators of sickness and dying in America tend to be people and institutions that are not ill, Anita Hannig, an anthropologist and death educator whose research focuses on the cultural components of the medical system, told me. Before the 19th century, clergy and other religious figures spoke for and to the dying, issuing last rites, guiding the mourning, enforcing the standards required for a religious burial. A burgeoning funeral industry, and then the medical system, then picked up as primary narrators for the dying. Patient voices remain plentiful and important, but not nearly as influential on how we think about sickness and death.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="a3cyJ0">
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Susan Sontag, recovering from grueling treatment for stage 4 breast cancer in 1978, wrote that “illness is not a metaphor.” She was trying to nullify the mythologies of illness as a spiritual test, divine justice, or a poetic coda to how a person’s life was lived. Illness is just illness, she argued. “Sick” and “healthy” are not personality types, and all of us will, at different times in our lives, be both.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TW9VNW">
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When I started getting videos from seriously ill creators on my TikTok For You page, I let myself briefly think that I’d found something Sontag was looking for. If anything can be content, then maybe turning illness into social media posts flattens it within TikTok’s meme culture, rendering it just like anything else. If TikTok’s algorithms can create a custom deck of shuffled cards for each user, then sickness content is just one of the suits.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="thsMm5">
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But these stories — whether held in an archive of personal letters, a widely discussed lecture, or on the For You pages of millions — are all shaped by the expectations of the “well.” Turning sickness into content can get views. And just like any content, not all people, or illnesses, have an equal chance of going viral.
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The #BreastCancer hashtag on TikTok has 2.9 billion views. The fight against this illness has a marketing army and deep pockets. Meanwhile, #SickleCellAnemia, an inherited blood disease that is most common in Black people, has just 40 million views.
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People often look for inspiration in the stories of strangers who are sick or dying, says <a href="https://seis.ucla.edu/faculty-and-research/faculty-directory/tonia-sutherland">Tonia Sutherland</a>, an assistant professor of information studies at UCLA, whose work focuses on the intersections of memory, community, and technology. “We want to hold up those stories and narratives and be like, ‘Yes. That was a beautifully lived life,” she said. There’s a judgment there.
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In reality, not every sick or dying person expresses themselves so predictably. At times, viewers seeking an ideal of a “dying person” in a terminally ill person’s TikToks can get angry when they instead find a human being. Some of the creators told me that when their content didn’t meet the expectations of how a sick person is supposed to be, they faced harassment and vitriol from strangers.
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Krystal Lee, a 34-year-old with spinal muscular atrophy who posts to TikTok and Instagram as SuperGimpChick, said she has dealt with commenters trying to fat-shame her and criticize what she’s publicly shared about her end-of-life decisions. Baloy said she’s gotten pushback for swearing in her videos, a trait that some find unbecoming of someone with terminal cancer. One 2019 study suggests that GoFundMe campaigns for people with lung cancer actually do better if the pitch mentions that the beneficiary is a “non-smoker.”
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Sometimes, even posting about illness can feel like a transgression. When Amanda Tam, the 23-year-old with ALS, posted what would become her breakout TikTok video, she was worried her doctor would see it and be mad at her. In the video, Tam dances to a popular TikTok sound called “My Happy Song,” with a caption that reads, “How my doctor thought I would react when she told me I’m dying but I still have to get a job and be an adult.”
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Tam had nothing to worry about. Her ALS team saw the video on their own For You pages, and loved it.
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“We valorize this idea of having a stiff upper lip and not complaining,” said Hannig, the anthropologist. Sick people are supposed to suffer in silence. Those who are dying of their illness, Sutherland noted, are held up as virtuous when they use their final moments to inspire others, so long as they fit the mold of the sort of person whose thoughts are considered worthy.
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Shortly after her diagnosis with life-threatening synovial sarcoma, Natasha Allen told her mom that she was going to make a quick Instagram post letting people know she had cancer.
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“I remember my mom being like, ‘Why do you have to tell people?’ That it should be more of a private struggle, I guess,” Allen told me. But sharing became a way to pull back the pressure of needing to present to the world a version of herself that wasn’t sick. “I need to be more open, to be more graceful to myself. That’s what I told my mom.”
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Plus, finding ways to connect with people isn’t always easy when you’re young and terminally ill. Allen’s particular form of cancer was rare, particularly in younger people. So she couldn’t find people like her online talking about it. Her TikTok account now has nearly 150,000 followers.
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“People have this view of someone being older. I’ve had a lot of people saying, ‘You don’t look sick,’” Allen said. People are also surprised when she mentions that she’s working full-time while going through treatment.
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“Not everyone has the privilege to just be able to be sick,” she said.
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This, I think, is one of the biggest disconnects between creators sharing their lives with serious illnesses and the outsiders gazing in through their algorithmic feeds: that sick people aren’t always just sick. Their status is not always immediately identifiable from a quick glance. Illness is a part of Allen’s identity these days. But it’s not always the main thing she has going on.
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These divisions are also very visible in what I’ll call Disability TikTok. There are three groups of creators who tend to get views in this space: people who have a disability, people who are care partners or loved ones of people with a disability, and medical professionals who work in a related field. These different categories of creators can end up in tension with each other, especially when people who are not living with a disability become the louder voices speaking about it. For instance, dementia content is hugely popular on TikTok, and the overwhelming majority of it is posted by care partners of people who have dementia — for example, people who do not have cognitive decline — raising questions about the ethics of telling the story of someone <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/02/16/1045322/dementia-consent-tiktok-online-ethics/">who cannot consent to being filmed</a>.
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People with serious illnesses face their own version of this. Allen described the phenomenon of “cancer muggles,” an online term popular in some cancer support spaces for people who have not had cancer themselves but feel compelled to offer advice to those who do have it. Some will rattle off hopeful stories of someone they know who “beat” stage 4 cancer. (Which cancer, Allen often mentally replies.) Others hop in the comments of her posts recommending bogus miracle “cures,” like green smoothies and soursop, a fruiting tree with <a href="https://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/integrative-medicine/herbs/graviola">no proven benefits </a>for cancer patients as a treatment. She does what she can to address these comments, debunking and adding context, to minimize the harm caused by this misinformation latching onto her posts.
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The comments section is also where Allen makes some of the most meaningful connections. After wandering the halls at UCLA’s sarcoma oncology center, where everyone she saw looked older than her, she started spending more time on TikTok during her chemo sessions. And she found more people like her. They’d comment on her videos that they had cancer, too, that they remembered that thing about chemo. And they liked her jokes.
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Allen has a self-described dark sense of humor. When she’d try to poke fun at her illness among friends, they’d tell her not to say it. “But then when I would do it online,” she said, “people were like, ‘My gosh, I feel it.’”
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TikTok is a bunch of niche interests smashed together algorithmically, sometimes alongside the overlapping interests of other people. Getting TikTok views beyond a single niche requires knowing how to cross those borders. Baloy showed up on my For You page over the summer, thanks to a video where she rolled a 20-sided die to randomize her choices on a chemotherapy day, a video that bridged the boundaries between Dungeons & Dragons TikTok and cancer TikTok.
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People like me are lurkers on the platform: Sure, I’ve posted about my ridiculously cute cats, but I do not have a following beyond my circle of preexisting friends. For me, the site is like a never-ending movie. But gain a degree of fame within a niche, and you’ll start finding your mutuals.
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“Mutuals,” as it does on any social media site, means two people who follow each other’s accounts on the same platform. There can also be a deeper meaning to the relationship, one that goes beyond the transactional nature of follower and followed. For Baloy, her mutuals became a group chat of other young women with stage 4 cancer.
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Allen’s first TikTok “cancer friend” left a comment on one of her videos, saying, “Hey, I also have a rare sarcoma,” Allen recalled. It was Kasey Altman, the TikToker I’d seen on my feed a couple of years ago. Altman was living in New York City at the time, working for Google. Allen, who was in LA going through treatment, had always wanted to move to New York. Before Altman messaged her, she’d even looked up which cancer center she’d go to for follow-ups in New York. Allen eventually made it happen, and she and Altman met up in New York. They talked. They understood each other. It felt nice.
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Both were in remission when they met. Then Altman’s cancer came back, and then Allen’s did, too. When Altman died, Allen went to her Celebration of Life, where she met her friend’s parents and boyfriend. They all still check in from time to time.
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Baloy, the TikToker with the sun tattoo, knows that, in many ways, she’s a highly marketable sick person. She’s young, white, educated, and knows what she’s doing on social media. Plus, she says, beauty companies love to get brand deals with people going through chemotherapy. So even though she didn’t start posting in order to get famous, she knew what would get views.
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“To a degree, it’s following the formula, right?” she said. “I had something that was just a few degrees away from ‘normalcy.’ I had the relatability factor of conventionally attractive 25-year-old. Many people can see me and recognize themselves as that.” She also has little else to do these days, since she stopped working as a kindergarten teacher shortly after beginning treatment. Even so, maintaining a TikTok presence can amount to more than a hobby.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zUXkFo">
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There are many immaterial reasons someone might become an <a href="https://www.vox.com/influencers">influencer</a> while dying or seriously ill. A number of creators told me they’d forged personal connections on TikTok and found an outlet for feelings that were difficult to express in their offline lives. But there are also material reasons to post. Being a good content creator and a marketable sick person can lead to financial support in addition to being heard.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dxqIE2">
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Baloy, Allen, and Tam all have active GoFundMe campaigns to support their costly treatments, and those campaigns have benefited from the size of their social media presences. Allen’s family was on an HMO when she sought treatment for her rare cancer, but none of their local oncologists had treated that particular illness before. So she found a doctor at UCLA, which was not in her insurance company’s network. Her family had to pay out of pocket. The TikTok-fueled boost to her GoFundMe helps.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6zWtZL">
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“If you’re going to be spotted by somebody who might be able to throw some cash your way, somebody who’s doing an experimental treatment, that kind of visibility is what could save your life,” said Sutherland.
|
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0ybYMq">
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A successful social media career could also allow you to set up your family with financial stability after you die. It could raise funds for research, and it can make a rare illness visible. But being a content creator, even for the “well,” is exhausting.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vZ2run">
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When Baloy and I spoke, she was preparing for another chemo day. She wanted to film her chemo but was in a bit of a content rut. Her working concept was “how to serve at chemo,” as in the <a href="https://www.elle.com.au/culture/rupauls-drag-race-dictionary-19207">drag queen version</a> of “serving” an impeccable look on a runway. How-tos do well on TikTok, and that juxtaposition of “serving” and going to chemotherapy had an obvious dark humor to it.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MgMMZW">
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She did not serve, I learned later that week when she texted me. “I put together a bunch of clips, and I felt super uninspired,” she said. Several days later, <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@fruitsnackmaddy/video/7301786472846232875?lang=en">she posted a very different video</a>. It was supposed to be a tutorial for pork fried rice, an easy video to promote her tongue-in-cheek reminder to “eat like shit,” because a lifetime of healthy eating didn’t prevent her from getting cancer.
|
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XHlCaY">
|
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|
She opens the video in tears. She woke up that morning bloated from the previous night’s dinner. She looked in the mirror and thought she looked pregnant. The thought reminded her that she couldn’t get pregnant because of, you guessed it, the cancer. Then she wanted to make a soup to cheer herself up, but the carrots she wanted to use were “limp.”
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="b03oTd">
|
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|
“People comment, ‘I don’t know how you handle this so well,’” she tells the camera. “I don’t! I don’t! I’ve been crying over these carrots for an hour. I know it’s not the carrots, but I don’t want to think about the stuff that’s actually making me cry.”
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="N9XBeN">
|
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|
Then the video cuts back to the stove, where Baloy has regrouped, found some sausage and frozen vegetables, and is throwing together a fried rice dish. She throws the carrots in the trash, takes a bowl of food outside, and takes a bite.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mjU3hm">
|
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Baloy smiles. “Cancer? I hardly know ’er.”
|
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</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><strong>Is Nikki Haley a moderate or a conservative? Yes.</strong> -
|
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|
|
<figure>
|
|||
|
|
<img alt="A sign that reads “independents for Nikki” is stuck in the New Hampshire snow." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/H7xe08JLl4swj84dTyX4OmPsiBs=/25x0:2692x2000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73075024/1943353567.0.jpg"/>
|
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|
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<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
A campaign sign in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, urging independents to vote for Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images
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</figcaption>
|
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</figure>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
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She’s a down-the-line conservative on almost every issue — except for one really important one.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YU8Bzj">
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|
People often refer to <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/2/14/23599194/nikki-haley-donald-trump-2024-presidential-campaign">Nikki Haley</a> as a “moderate.” But what<a href="https://jacobin.com/2023/12/nikki-haley-republican-anti-worker-conservative-presidential-candidate-union-busting"> does that really mean</a>?
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="StSbSB">
|
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|
|
In the traditional three main policy areas in <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics">US politics</a> — economic, social, and foreign policy — the former South Carolina governor’s platform is deeply conservative. Haley has endorsed<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/nikki-haley-doubles-down-promise-send-special-ops-eliminate-drug-cartels-mexico-border"> invading Mexico</a> and<a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4402756-trump-campaign-hits-haley-social-security-new-ad/"> increasing the age</a> at which Americans can receive Social Security benefits. She has called herself a proud “<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/20/scott-and-haley-attack-unions-as-uaw-strike-threatens-to-escalate.html">union buster</a>” and said that Florida’s infamous “don’t say gay” law<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/17/nikki-haley-ron-desantis-dont-say-gay-law"> doesn’t go far enough</a>. She wants to<a href="https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/what-nikki-haleys-tax-and-budget-platform"> cut taxes for the wealthy and hike them on green energy companies</a>. Those positions are not extreme enough to be out of step with the MAGAfied modern GOP, but they are not “moderate” by any reasonable definition of the word.
|
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</p>
|
|||
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="INbu06">
|
|||
|
|
But since the rise of <a href="https://www.vox.com/donald-trump">Donald Trump</a>, a fourth policy area has become central to American politics in the past few years: democracy. And in this area, Haley really does break with the GOP’s extremists. She has said Biden won<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/01/11/nikki-haley-january-6-republican-debate/"> the 2020 election and attacked Trump for denying it</a>. She called January 6 a “<a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2024/01/06/january-6-anniversary-nikki-haley-ron-desantis-vivek-ramaswamy-donald-trump-lessons-learned/72133439007/">terrible day</a>,” supported prosecutions of rioters, and even suggested Trump should be held responsible.
|
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|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="X8Ozmz">
|
|||
|
|
Haley hasn’t made her campaign <em>about</em> these issues. But it’s very clear that, if elected, she wouldn’t wage war on the American political system<a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/5/13/23708595/trump-second-term-cnn-town-hall"> in the way Trump would</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WrwdeG">
|
|||
|
|
This kind of basic support for free elections and the rule of law would not, prior to Trump, have been remotely controversial. But in today’s Republican Party, where a large majority of voters believe that Biden did not legitimately win the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020-presidential-election">2020 election</a>, it requires a certain kind of political courage.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Y6ysri">
|
|||
|
|
These stances are what truly earn the otherwise-conservative Haley the moniker “moderate.” But the very fact that she qualifies shows how far American politics has strayed from normal.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="nNbMVs">
|
|||
|
|
Democracy, moderation, and the right
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QhHe1n">
|
|||
|
|
Prior to Trump, the term “moderate Republican” was typically used to refer to Republicans who advocated that the party take a more conciliatory approach in specific policy areas like<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/624581-rnc-autopsy"> immigration</a>,<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/how-politicians-came-support-criminal-justice-reform-n309966"> criminal justice</a>, and<a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2012/01/post-huntsman-climate-may-pose-perils-for-gop-071555"> climate change</a>. These kinds of moderates understood “moderation” in terms of traditional policy issues — arguing that, for some combination of substantive and political reasons, the Republican Party would be better off softening its rough edges. Such Republicans have generally conservative views but are willing to compromise with Democrats and sometimes embrace relatively liberal policy ideas.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aJpGnK">
|
|||
|
|
When Mitt Romney was governor of Massachusetts in the 1990s, he passed<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/23/mitt-romney-admits-romneycare-had-to-precede-obamacare.html"> a state health care program that worked a lot like Obamacare</a>. In the late 2010s, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan signed<a href="https://goccp.maryland.gov/governor-larry-hogan-announces-implementation-justice-reinvestment-act/"> bills eliminating mandatory minimums for drug convictions</a> and requiring a<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/hogan-signs-environmental-bills-and-a-benefits-bill-for-surviving-children-of-police-officers-killed-in-the-line-of-duty/2016/04/04/ae686530-fa6c-11e5-80e4-c381214de1a3_story.html"> 40 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030</a>. After the <a href="https://www.vox.com/scotus">Supreme Court</a> <a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/5/3/23055125/roe-v-wade-abortion-rights-supreme-court-dobbs-v-jackson">overturned <em>Roe v. Wade</em></a>, Sens. Lisa Murkowski (AK) and Susan Collins (ME) proposed legislation<a href="https://www.collins.senate.gov/newsroom/senators-collins-and-murkowski-introduce-bill-to-codify-supreme-court-decisions-on-reproductive-rights_roe-v-wade-and-planned-parenthood-v-casey#:~:text=Washington%2C%20D.C.%20%E2%80%93%20U.S.%20Senators%20Susan,Casey%20(1992)."> codifying <em>Roe</em>’s abortion protections into federal law</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jq325l">
|
|||
|
|
This is what moderation looks like within a stable democracy: a willingness to compromise with the other side in specific policy areas. But when democracy itself is at risk of collapse, it makes sense to think of “moderate” in a somewhat different fashion: referring not to stances on the issues of the day, but to a more fundamental view on the proper relationship between conservatives and democratic institutions. When people call Haley a “moderate” today, this other meaning — or something like it — is what they have in mind.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gP7Bm7">
|
|||
|
|
To clarify this alternative understanding of moderation, it’s helpful to turn to<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Conservative-Democracy-Cambridge-Comparative-Politics/dp/0521172993"> <em>Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy</em></a>, Harvard political scientist Daniel Ziblatt’s treatment of 19th- and early-20th-century Europe — the period during which democracy dethroned monarchy as the continent’s dominant governing ideology. Ziblatt shows how conservative parties (meaning those factions representing the interests of the elite classes and others hostile to social change) worked to accommodate their supporters to democracy. They would not have been called “moderate,” but they did play a moderating role.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ty9btk">
|
|||
|
|
Ziblatt’s research shows that countries with strong conservative parties tended to have relatively straightforward and stable paths to democracy. By contrast, those with weak conservative parties tended to democratize more erratically, often involving bloodshed and right-wing counter-coups.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZJIzv4">
|
|||
|
|
This, he argues, is a result of the conservative parties’ role in changing their backers’ attitudes toward democracy. In countries with strong conservative parties, elites felt as though they could get enough of what they wanted through elections to be comfortable with democracy. In countries with weak conservative parties, by contrast, these classes felt as though democracy itself posed a danger to their wealth and status — and felt a need to strike at the system to protect their positions of privilege.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rALkSV">
|
|||
|
|
“Well-organized and highly institutionalized partisan old regime interests provided a way of ‘lowering the costs of toleration,’ and thus making democracy safe for key segments of old regime elites,” Ziblatt wrote.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="J0RT6E">
|
|||
|
|
Nikki Haley is a “moderate” in a related sense. With American democracy under threat from Trump and his MAGA movement, there’s a desperate need for a faction to play the role of 19th-century English Tories: convincing the right-wing sectors of American society that they can advance their policy aims through the system, without resorting to Trump-style radicalism.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ohtDXY">
|
|||
|
|
The best case for Haley is that her victory could theoretically turn the GOP into such a party.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="RkgxrB">
|
|||
|
|
Why Haley-style moderation isn’t working — for her or democracy
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kdAb9e">
|
|||
|
|
But there’s a fundamental difference between the 19th century and today. Back then, the parties served to domesticate a threat to democracy emanating from the social elite. Today, the Republican Party is the source of the threat. The party has been <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22274429/republicans-anti-democracy-13-charts">institutionally captured by its extreme faction</a>, to the point where<a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/7/6/23144343/end-of-conservatism-roe"> many moderates in the pre-Trump sense have been driven out</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BltqsX">
|
|||
|
|
In such a radical environment, Haley obviously couldn’t run as an old-school moderate. She couldn’t flee to Trump’s right: That strategy has been tried repeatedly (<a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/24034491/iowa-caucus-results-polls-desantis-trump-haley-ramaswamy-republican-party">most recently by Ron DeSantis</a>) and found wanting. And she couldn’t wage a frontal assault on Trump’s authoritarian tendencies in a party where large majorities believe the 2020 election was stolen; <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2024/01/christie-drops-out-blasts-other-trump-rivals-as-cowards.html">that’s why Chris Christie flamed out</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BaV0gR">
|
|||
|
|
So Haley tried to thread a very difficult needle: campaigning as a true conservative on policy, while adopting a sunny affect and distancing herself from Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="b5UBrY">
|
|||
|
|
This looks, in hindsight, like a better tack than the ones taken by her rivals. In New Hampshire, an open-primary state with a tradition of moderation, it may yield some limited dividends.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9LOPmg">
|
|||
|
|
But in her home state of South Carolina, she’s down by 30 points in the <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2024/president/2024gop.html">RealClearPolitics poll average</a>. Nationally, she’s down by about 50. Haley’s brand of “moderation,” limited as it is, is out of touch with the Republican electorate and Party as a whole.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="p32G0x">
|
|||
|
|
Once she loses, the rubber will hit the road for Nikki Haley’s moderate bona fides. Will she choose to endorse Trump and campaign for him, maximizing her relevance in the Republican Party? Or will she choose to put her commitment to democracy first and oppose him?
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zXyBah">
|
|||
|
|
On this, her track record is not very promising. You may recall she served as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, standing by him through the first two and a half tumultuous years of his presidency. And she has already said she would vote for Trump if he won the party’s nomination — <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/nikki-haley-vote-donald-trump-convicted/story?id=102524719">even in the event that he was found guilty of a felony</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RWESlG">
|
|||
|
|
Perhaps Haley will surprise us. But I have a nagging feeling that her commitment to democracy is subordinate to her commitment to her party and to her future success within it. If that proves correct, then her brand of moderation will be exposed to be something worse than limited: fake.
|
|||
|
|
</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><strong>How do you become a billionaire? Try having billionaire parents.</strong> -
|
|||
|
|
<figure>
|
|||
|
|
<img alt="A drawing of one set of hands offering a bag with a dollar sign on it to another set of hands." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Z2OGnmr0enGJjWqTVzxrRhdy2jE=/1494x0:8301x5105/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73074959/GettyImages_1312670162.0.jpg"/>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
Most Americans have never received an inheritance — but among billionaires, inheritance is a key tool of growing already-enormous family fortunes. | Getty Images/iStockphoto
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
The great billionaire wealth transfer means people born very, very rich are going to stay very, very rich.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YMGwQ1">
|
|||
|
|
In late 2023, the richest woman in the world <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-28/l-oreal-heir-francoise-bettencourt-meyers-is-first-woman-to-hit-100-billion">became a centibillionaire</a>. But she didn’t get there by building an <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/23553730/jeff-bezos-philanthropy-giving-pledge-charity">online shopping empire</a> or by <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22218999/elon-musk-richest-person-world-jeff-bezos">selling sleek EVs</a>. She did it the good old-fashioned way: by inheriting it.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LRKmqz">
|
|||
|
|
The scion of the French beauty brand L’Oréal, Françoise Bettencourt Meyers saw the value of her stake in the company shoot up during the <a href="https://www.vox.com/money/23728283/luxury-designer-boom-nike-lvmh-pandemic-le-creuset">rush of cosmetics and luxury fashion spending</a> that’s taken place in the last few years. She’s far from alone in receiving billions from a parent. A <a href="https://www.ubs.com/global/en/media/display-page-ndp/en-20231130-the-great-wealth-transfer.html">recent report</a> from the investment bank UBS highlighted a milestone: In 2023, for the first time in the nine years it’s been publishing this data, inherited billionaire wealth outstripped new billionaire wealth.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bB9X6U">
|
|||
|
|
Billionaires have been minted at a dizzying pace in the last few decades — in 1987 Forbes counted 140, while in 2023 the tally was 2,640 — and we’ve now returned to the point in the cycle where enormous piles of wealth are passed on to the next generation. “This is how wealth dynasties are formed,” says Chuck Collins, director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the left-leaning think tank Institute for Policy Studies. The only thing that’s new in 2024 is that the piles of money are bigger than ever.
|
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Not only are there more billionaires today, their average wealth keeps ticking up too, thanks to historic <a href="https://www.vox.com/stock-market">stock market</a> returns. On top of that, heirs are receiving wealth transfers earlier in life, rather than waiting for the death or near death of a family member. All this underscores the truth that having money remains the best way to get more money. Perhaps there’s nowhere that’s truer than in the US, home to the most billionaires, despite the pervasive myth of hardscrabble, self-made entrepreneurs climbing to the top of the socioeconomic ladder. If you’re born poor, you’re <a href="https://opportunityinsights.org/national_trends/">likely to stay poor</a>; if you’re born super rich, you’ll probably get even richer.
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</p>
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<h3 id="Y31v47">
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What do billionaires do with their riches anyway?
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xD3gmY">
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Many heirs are involved with the family business in some way, often weaving in and out of it. Bettencourt Meyers, the 70-year-old L’Oréal heir, sits on the company’s board but mostly chooses to live a quiet life as a writer who enjoys playing the piano. America’s richest heirs, the Waltons of Walmart fortune, collectively command <a href="https://www.forbes.com/families/list/">almost $250 billion</a>. Rob, the eldest son of the founder, was a longtime chair of Walmart’s board of directors. In 2022, he spearheaded a <a href="https://www.nfl.com/news/nfl-owners-approve-walton-penner-family-s-purchase-of-denver-broncos-franchise">family effort to buy the Denver Broncos</a>. Jim, the youngest son, is the former CEO and current board chair of the family-owned bank. Alice, the only daughter, collects art (she even founded her own museum) and is soon opening a <a href="https://www.axios.com/local/nw-arkansas/2023/09/05/bentonville-medical-school-health-nonprofit-alice-walton">health institute and medical school</a>. Their family foundation has mostly <a href="https://www.waltonfamilyfoundation.org/learning/flash-cards/25-years-of-public-charter-schools">prioritized expanding charter schools</a>.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TRlMBM">
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Whatever heirs do with their hand-me-downs, chances are they’ll stay extremely rich — if not grow much richer. Though there are a surprising number of <a href="https://www.rbcwealthmanagement.com/en-us/insights/inheritance-planning-beating-the-shirtsleeves-to-shirtsleeves-adage">proverbs</a> about the “<a href="https://business.smu.edu.sg/master-wealth-management/lkcsb-community/how-beat-third-generation-curse">third-generation curse</a>” in which grandchildren fritter away the family fortune, when you inherit billions with a B, the real challenge appears to be spending that largesse down. The same goes for newly minted billionaires: Just look at MacKenzie Scott, whose wealth comes from her marriage to <a href="https://www.vox.com/amazon">Amazon</a> founder <a href="https://www.vox.com/jeff-bezos">Jeff Bezos</a>. She has given away over $16 billion to charity since 2019, when her net worth was <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-mackenzie-bezos-divorce-official-settlement-38-billion-2019-7">about $38 billion</a>. As of January 2024, she was worth more than <a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/mackenzie-scott/?sh=6b8ca0f2243d">$41 billion</a>.
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<div class="c-float-right">
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<aside id="ikZD61">
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<q>When you inherit billions with a B, the real challenge appears to be spending that largesse down</q>
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</aside>
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</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="q4I7Dd">
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This is by and large a testament to the blockbuster stock market returns shareholders have received in recent decades. If you invested $10,000 in 1980 into the S&P 500 — a stock index tracking the 500 biggest companies on the market — it would have amounted to <a href="https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/heres-what-10000-investment-sp-500-index-fund-1980-would-be-worth-today-2018-02-08">$760,000 in 2018</a>. Alongside the explosion of double- and even triple-digit billionaires, managing wealth has become a <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-01/how-new-wealth-few-rules-fuel-family-office-boom">professionalized industry</a>. We’ve seen <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-01/how-new-wealth-few-rules-fuel-family-office-boom">an explosion of so-called family offices</a>, whose employees work full time on preserving and growing a single clan’s assets. A <a href="https://ips-dc.org/report-americas-wealth-dynasties-2021/">2021 Institute of Policy Studies report</a> on American wealth dynasties found that 27 of the top 50 richest families on Forbes’ <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2020/12/17/billion-dollar-dynasties-these-are-the-richest-families-in-america/?sh=30f7fbb772c7">2020 Billion-Dollar Dynasties list</a> were already represented on the magazine’s list of 400 richest Americans in 1983 — and their wealth, collectively, had multiplied more than tenfold since then.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BrxbLD">
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Don’t hold your breath for an onslaught of billionaire heirs suddenly giving their inheritances away for the betterment of society. One insight from the UBS report is that heirs tend to be much less interested in <a href="https://www.vox.com/philanthropy">philanthropy</a> than first-gen billionaires. A theory as to why, according to Collins, is that “the first generation has some confidence in their ability to create wealth,” while the second generation doesn’t. “We know that the second generation, third generation are more concerned about protecting wealth than creating it,” he continues. “They invest a lot in wealth defense; they invest a lot in lobbying.” That means opposing any <a href="https://www.vox.com/money/23634085/biden-2024-budget-billionaire-tax-capital-gains">wealth tax</a> or income tax hikes on the rich, or fighting regulations that would close loopholes that have long allowed billionaires to minimize what they owe to the government. It’s a sign that “the tax system on wealth has become more optional,” says Collins.
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</p>
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<h3 id="0sF5Il">
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The ultrarich are passing money down to their kids earlier out of fear
|
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="atKXJH">
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There are a lot of reasons why ultrarich parents might be handing over some of their net worth — whether it’s via cash, stocks, a nice piece of property, a family business, or an art collection — sooner rather than later. Most of them involve fear of how their wealth might be lost.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VpsS6N">
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For one, there’s the gnawing anxiety that estate tax and trust laws could tighten up. Circumstances have been <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2023/1/4/23413342/us-tax-havens-billionaires-wealthy">pretty friendly for transferring wealth</a> (in 2024, the first $13.6 million being passed on is completely exempt from the federal estate tax). But that could, in theory, change. The rich are well aware of the mounting political hunger to address yawning wealth inequality in the US, including by implementing a wealth tax that would apply to their assets (which they have a lot of) rather than just taxing income (which they tend to rely much less on).
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="phim3B">
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The wealth-transfer rush may also have to do with a different kind of fear. Some ultrarich are “fearful of what the next generation will do with it,” says Michael Kosnitzky, co-chair of the law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman’s Private Client & Family Office practice group. “There have always been differences in how older and younger generations view wealth. But I believe that today there are very profound differences in how the next generation thinks about wealth and money. And the older generation believes that there is a need to get ahead of that now.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lJMr3j">
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There are trusts that simply stop heirs from <a href="https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/investing/estate-planning/spendthrift-trust">impulsively wasting their money</a>; some feel that “the next generation just doesn’t have the work ethic,” says Kosnitzky. But parents transferring wealth earlier is another way to proactively control how it’s spent because they’ll still be alive to see it used. Predecessor and heir often don’t see eye to eye on the best use of a fortune — whether it’s how to run the family business, what political causes to donate to, or, in some cases, whether keeping such a great fortune is even ethical or should be <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/23141993/anticapitalist-investing-rich-heirs-explainer">given away</a>.
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</p>
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<h3 id="cJrzdb">
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How billionaires shrink our opportunities
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ixLv9n">
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Getting an inheritance remains a rarity in the US. As of 2022, data from the Federal Reserve shows, only about <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/11/10/inheritance-america-taxes-equality/">a fifth of American households</a> had ever received an inheritance. According to New York University professor Edward Wolff, the most common inheritance amount as of a few years ago was <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/22320272/inheritance-money-wealth-transfer-estate-tax">between $10,000 and $50,000</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EJs33p">
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The <a href="https://realtimeinequality.org/">Realtime Inequality tracker</a> indicates that the bottom 50 percent of American adults — about 125 million people — collectively owned about $1.1 trillion as of January 2023. That’s about how much the eight richest people in the US own together, based on their <a href="https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/#5d2315613d78">current net worth listed on Forbes</a>. This is despite the fact that the <a href="https://theintercept.com/2022/10/21/economy-wealth-pandemic-inflation/">wealth of the bottom 50 percent doubled</a> in the past few years.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oWD3US">
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The immense wealth of billionaires is not <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-bad-is-inequality-trickle-down-economics-thomas-piketty-economists-2021-12">trickling down</a>. It just gets passed to a handful of people from generation to generation. And this closed loop has repercussions on the rest of society. Economic research shows that high wealth inequality coincides with lower intergenerational mobility, meaning the presence of a lot of really rich people goes hand in hand with ordinary people struggling to do better financially than their parents did — an observation dubbed the <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/696058?mobileUi=0&">Great Gatsby Curve</a>. According to <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.27.3.79">research</a> by City University of New York economist Miles Corak, wealth chasms make it more likely for “family background to play a stronger role” in determining your success in adulthood, with your “own hard work playing a commensurately weaker role.”
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</p>
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<div class="c-float-right">
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<aside id="kFo6tg">
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<q>Economic research shows that high wealth inequality coincides with lower intergenerational mobility</q>
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</aside>
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</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xWQOA8">
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For all that America is championed as a land of opportunities and bootstraps, the hundreds of billionaires that have popped up here since the ’80s may actually mean your hustle and grind matter less today.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jRxqzk">
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According to economist Salvatore Morelli, director of the <a href="https://wealthproject.gc.cuny.edu/">GC Wealth Project</a>, the US once had a relatively low incidence of inheritance compared to other developed countries, but it has started to shift to a “European level” of inheritance. The gap between the haves and have-nots shapes “the opportunity and the chances that people start with in their life,” he tells Vox. Examples of unequal opportunities include things like education: You might have the grades to attend an Ivy League school, but if someone’s parent is a billionaire who can outspend yours to hire the most expensive college consultants and even make a generous donation to the school, that heir may just snatch your spot. With an exploding number of ultrarich families in the US, the bar for having a chance at financial success — even a slim chance — keeps getting raised.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gGYZZh">
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It seems like at some point, this inequality will become impossible to bear — an “oligarchy tipping point,” Collins calls it — due to too much instability and polarization.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WPHPXz">
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But rather than become disillusioned with the idea of fairness, growing inequality may actually lead to people believing more strongly that society is fair, according to <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ser/article-abstract/19/1/7/5299221?redirectedFrom=fulltext">research by sociologist Jonathan Mijs</a>. The theory goes that inequality is so great that it needs similarly great justification — something like believing the explosion of American billionaires proves how much they’ve been working harder, innovating harder, being geniuses harder than ever before. The American dream and the idea that so many “self-made” rich people in the US went from rags to riches may paradoxically make Americans more accepting of inequality. Don’t let the reality that many of those billions come from Mom and Dad get in the way.
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</p></li>
|
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</ul>
|
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
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<ul>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Hussamuddin returns to India’s World Qualification Tournament boxing squad</strong> - KOLKATA</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Australian Open 2024 tennis | Red-hot Alcaraz races into quarterfinals, Medvedev wins</strong> - The Spanish second seed, who will next face sixth seed Alexander Zverev, is locked in a fierce battle with Novak Djokovic for the world number one spot and is also after his Melbourne crown.</p></li>
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Suryakumar Yadav named captain of ICC men’s T20I team of the year</strong> - Three more Indians in the team are Yashasvi Jaiswal, Ravi Bishnoi and Arshdeep Singh.</p></li>
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Paris Olympics 2024 | India placed in tough Pool B in men’s hockey competition</strong> - Bronze medallist in Tokyo Olympics have been clubbed with Belgium, Australia, Argentina, New Zealand and Ireland</p></li>
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>IND vs ENG | Virat Kohli withdraws from first two Tests against England citing personal reasons</strong> - The BCCI urged the fans and media to refrain from speculating about the reason for his forced break. The five-match series begins in Hyderabad on January 25.</p></li>
|
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|
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</ul>
|
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
|
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|
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<ul>
|
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|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Lok Sabha elections 2024 | Karnataka has 5.38 crore voters in final electoral rolls</strong> - Between the draft and final rolls of 2024, as many as 10,81,110 electors have been added and 6,72,457 electors have been deleted</p></li>
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>It has become a habit for top BJP leaders to behave irresponsibly and spread rumours: T.N. CM Stalin</strong> - Mr. Stalin dismissed Governor R N Ravi’s claim that there was sense of fear among the priests of a temple in Chennai saying it was a “jaundiced view.”</p></li>
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Two TSRTC buses gutted in Hyderabad’s Dilsukhnagar depot</strong> -</p></li>
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Elanthoor human sacrifice case: Kerala High Court dismisses bail plea of accused</strong> - Petitioner submits that she has been behind the bars since October 25, 2022. As investigation is over and final report has been filed, there is no need to detain her in custody any longer</p></li>
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>BJP is mixing politics with spirituality, Governor Ravi has joined hands with them: T.N. Minister Sekarbabu</strong> - The Minister said the allegations about the T.N. government’s ban on special pujas during the consecration of the temple in Ayodhya, was an attempt to portray the government as being against spirituality; he reiterated that there was no interference whatsoever in the conduct of temples</p></li>
|
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</ul>
|
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
|
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<ul>
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>In Ukraine’s river war, drones mean nowhere is safe</strong> - Ukraine aims to build a million military drones in 2024. In Kherson, the BBC saw how vital they are.</p></li>
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Donetsk: Deadly blast hits market in Russia-held Ukraine city, officials say</strong> - Ukraine rejects accusations from the region’s Moscow-installed leader that it was responsible.</p></li>
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine drones hit St Petersburg gas terminal in Russia</strong> - An official in Kyiv tells the BBC the “special operation” is an economic blow to Russia.</p></li>
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Football racism: Forfeit matches when fans are racist - Fifa’s Infantino</strong> - Fifa president Gianni Infantino calls for an automatic forfeit of games for teams whose fans commit racist abuse.</p></li>
|
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Australian Open 2024 results: Novak Djokovic reaches quarter-finals with ruthless victory</strong> - Novak Djokovic moves ominously into the Australian Open quarter-finals with a ruthless thrashing of Adrian Mannarino.</p></li>
|
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|
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</ul>
|
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
|
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<ul>
|
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What happens when an astronaut in orbit says he’s not coming back?</strong> - “If you guys don’t give me a chance to repair my instrument, I’m not going back.” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1994083">link</a></p></li>
|
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What happens when you trigger a car’s automated emergency stopping?</strong> - Experiencing the sequence of events in a car programmed for automated emergency stopping. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1995333">link</a></p></li>
|
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Microsoft network breached through password-spraying by Russian-state hackers</strong> - Senior execs’ emails accessed in network breach that wasn’t caught for 2 months. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1997633">link</a></p></li>
|
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Elizabeth Holmes barred from federal health programs for 90 years</strong> - The former Theranos CEO is barred from receiving payments from federal health program. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1997609">link</a></p></li>
|
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>WordPad out; 80Gbps USB support and other Win 11 features in testing this month</strong> - Microsoft’s next batch of Windows 11 feature updates is taking shape. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1997547">link</a></p></li>
|
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|
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</ul>
|
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
|
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<ul>
|
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A married man was having an affair</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
|
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<div class="md">
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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A married man was having an affair with his secretary. One day, their passions overcame them in the office and they took off for her house. Exhausted from the afternoon’s activities, they fell asleep and awoke at around 8 p.m. As the man threw on his clothes, he told the woman to take his shoes outside and rub them through the grass and dirt. Confused, she nonetheless complied and he slipped into his shoes and drove home. “Where have you been?” demanded his wife when he entered the house. “Darling,” replied the man, “I can’t lie to you. I’ve been having an affair with my secretary. I fell asleep in her bed and didn’t wake up until eight o’clock.” The wife glanced down at his shoes and said, "You liar! You’ve been playing golf!
|
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</p>
|
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</div>
|
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<!-- SC_ON -->
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/dp37405"> /u/dp37405 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/19ckclh/a_married_man_was_having_an_affair/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/19ckclh/a_married_man_was_having_an_affair/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>One Monday morning, a man calls his boss and says, “I<code>m sorry sir, but I</code>m really sick. I think I am going to have to take the whole week off.”</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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His boss says, “This is going to be a very busy week, I really need you to be here. Whenever I feel sick, I just have a really good, hard, rough, doggy style fuck with my wife, then I always feel better. You should try that and see if it works for you.”
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Later that afternoon, the man calls his boss and says, “Sir, I tried what you suggested, and it worked! I feel way better! I will be in to work tomorrow morning at 9:00AM.”
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The boss says, “That`s great! See you tomorrow.”
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The man replies, " And by the way sir, your mahogany bedroom suite is absolutely beautiful."
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Steve_Starr"> /u/Steve_Starr </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/19cpfqw/one_monday_morning_a_man_calls_his_boss_and_says/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/19cpfqw/one_monday_morning_a_man_calls_his_boss_and_says/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A few days ago, I was out for my weekly 10k jog with my friend. We ran through a swarm of bees. He was stung, and collapsed within about 30 seconds</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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He was looking in severe distress and was having trouble breathing, so I called 911. The ambulance got there in about 5 minutes, but he had already lost consciousness. They tried to revive him on the scene, but they said it was too late. He was gone. I was in total shock.
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</p>
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I went to his wake yesterday. I offered my condolences to his wife Liz. She was in total shell-shock. He was 52 but in fantastic health. Jim ran every day, but we’d also meet up once per week to run 10k for fun, just to push each other a bit.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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So I told her “Liz, before Jim lost consciousness, he reached into his running shorts and pulled out this blue and yellow thing that says ‘EPI-PEN’ and gave it to me. It seemed to be very important to him, so I want you to have it”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/edfitz83"> /u/edfitz83 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/19cevsa/a_few_days_ago_i_was_out_for_my_weekly_10k_jog/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/19cevsa/a_few_days_ago_i_was_out_for_my_weekly_10k_jog/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A lady comes home from her doctor</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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A lady comes home from her doctor’s appointment grinning from ear to ear. Her husband asks, “Why are you so happy?” The wife says, “The doctor told me that for a forty-five year old woman, I have the breasts of a eighteen year old.” “Oh yeah?” quipped her husband, “What did he say about your forty-five year old ass?” She said, “Your name never came up in the conversation.”
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</p>
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</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/dp37405"> /u/dp37405 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/19ckbbb/a_lady_comes_home_from_her_doctor/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/19ckbbb/a_lady_comes_home_from_her_doctor/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>An owl is sitting at the top of his very own pine tree</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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One day, the tree starts violently shaking. He looks down and sees an elephant at the bottom starting to climb the tree.
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</p>
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“What do you think you’re doing?” Asks the owl.
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</p>
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“Oh don’t mind me, I’m just coming up to eat some apples” Says the elephant.
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</p>
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“You idiot, this is a pine tree, there are no apples up here” Says the owl.
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</p>
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The elephant says “I brought my own”.
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</p>
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</div>
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<!-- SC_ON -->
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/brutalanglosaxon"> /u/brutalanglosaxon </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/19cksp9/an_owl_is_sitting_at_the_top_of_his_very_own_pine/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/19cksp9/an_owl_is_sitting_at_the_top_of_his_very_own_pine/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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</ul>
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