Infrastructure Dreams and Living Nightmares

In recent weeks, there’s been a great deal of media attention on a train that derailed in Ohio. The derailment highlights a contradiction that has haunted American politics. On one hand, there is an increasingly vocal set of progressives and libertarians who have dreams of revitalizing American cities with big infrastructure projects. They want high-speed rail, fifteen minute cities, lots of cycling, walkable streets, and tall apartment buildings. These movements often rally around acronyms – YIMBY, NUMTOT, and the like. On the other hand, there is the infrastructure that actually exists in the United States. It’s crumbling, and it’s expensive to maintain, let alone replace. Between urbanist dreams and rusty realities there sits President Biden. Biden was faced with a pivotal decision. He could shore up the existing infrastructure, fighting back against the rust. He could commit America to a new paradigm, replacing what’s decaying with new ideas. He could not do both. He chose to do neither.

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Nord Stream Deflections

A journalist has alleged that the United States sabotaged the Nord Stream pipelines. The United States has suggested that Russia blew up the pipeline, but it has not provided evidence to substantiate this claim. The attack on the pipeline makes it much harder for the European Union to import gas from Russia, making the EU more dependent on expensive liquified natural gas from North America. By removing the prospect of resuming Russian gas imports in the near-term, the attack on the pipeline gives the EU less reason to seek a swift end to the war in Ukraine. It diminishes Russian leverage. The American narrative – that Russia destroyed the pipeline to deny Europe gas – doesn’t make a lot of sense. Russia controls the tap. It can turn the gas on and off as it pleases. The sabotage destroys Russia’s capacity to turn the gas back on, and therefore it takes away Russia’s diplomatic option to offer to turn the gas back on as part of a settlement.

Given these facts and the absence of conclusive evidence as to who is responsible for the attack, it is reasonable to question the US government’s narrative and to demand the US government provide evidence to support its account of what happened. The journalist is just one of many people who have asked questions about Nord Stream. But a funny thing has happened. Instead of discussing the issues at hand – the pipeline, the energy crisis, the war – media outlets are increasingly focused on the journalist’s character. He’s accused of being a crank, a conspiracy theorist, a crazy person. Those who think it’s important to question the US government’s narrative have increasingly become preoccupied with defending the journalist. Many people now know the journalist’s name and can tell you all sorts of things about the journalist’s career. But what does this have to do with anything?

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A Class Analysis of the Twitter Crisis

In recent weeks, there have been extensive conflicts between Twitter workers and Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk. One user made an attempt to analyze the conflict in class terms, framing it as a clash between “entrepreneurial capital” and the “professional-managerial class”:

I think this badly misreads the situation. The professionals who work at Twitter are wage-earners who don’t even have a labor union. They don’t dominate anything. But it also made me think–why isn’t there a better class-based reading of the conflict? Let’s give it a go.

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The Midterm Elections Don’t Matter

As the midterm elections approach, the political class is working very hard to increase voter turnout. President Biden has given a big speech accusing the Republicans of posing a grave threat to democracy. We are inundated with political ads in which the Democrats accuse the Republicans of plotting to ban abortion and the Republicans accuse the Democrats of causing inflation. None of the arguments offered by either side have much to do with reality, and it is increasingly difficult to find anyone who will even make a sincere effort to discuss what’s going on without incorporating distorted partisan messaging. If we look at the issues, it’s clear that the composition of Congress is not going to make much difference over the next two years.

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