.png)
Happy Friday, everyone! It's properly cold here in Toronto this week, making it the perfect weekend to stay inside with a mug of something hot and catch up on something worth listening to.
I'm one of more than 2 million listeners of The Daily, the weekday news podcast from The New York Times. Statistically, you probably are too, or at least have heard the name before. Michael Barbaro's soft-spoken, interested voice and the slate of NYT reporters featured on the show make it an engaging way to stay informed about events south of the border and, occasionally, around the world. The ~25-30min runtime fits perfectly behind my morning cup of coffee and playtime over trains with J., which helps!
This week there were two episodes that dealt with political questions well beyond the immediate U.S. situation, and if you're interested in world history, current affairs, or big-picture questions about how a society that disagrees with itself should attempt to get along, I'd encourage you to give these a listen this weekend.
Aleksei Navalny is Russia's loudest critic of President Vladimir Putin and his ruling party, a group he's been calling a partiya zhulikov i vorov (a party of crooks and thieves) since 2011. He began as an anti-corruption activist empowered by the publishing platforms available online, engaging with supporters and fellow protestors on Twitter, and using YouTube to share deeply-researched exposés of Russian businessmen and politicians -- including, in 2017, Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev. Since then he's become the face of popular opposition to the Russian government.
Last August, Navalny was poisoned. He was eventually transferred to Berlin for treatment, and this past weekend he returned to Russia, only to be promptly arrested. Russia has a long, fascinating history. It remains to be seen where the country's current arc is heading, but it's possible that this is an important fragment of the story. For more on how Navalny was poisoned and what happened when he arrived back in Moscow, listen to the episode (30m39s).
In the U.S. Senate, like in the U.S. House of Representatives, a bill needs a majority of votes to pass. (Currently, the Democrats have just enough to get to 51%.) However, if the minority of senators oppose a bill they can criticize and complain about it ad infinitum and, unlike in the House, it takes a 60% vote to move from debate to voting. In effect, it's not enough for half the Senate to agree on a bill, because it needs three-fifths of the group to agree to vote on it in the first place. In the best-case scenario this creates more space for debate and conversation and pushes the chamber towards bi-partisan government; in the worst-case it means that significant new bills are next to impossible to pass into law and the government struggles to make decisions. The filibuster rule has been reduced in recent years, and Republicans now fear that the Democrats will do away with it altogether, removing the strongest tool of opposition for a minority in the U.S. political system.
This story will interest politics buffs, but I've also been thinking lately about how one of the key tensions in friendship is playing out in North American society, namely, the tension between individuation and participation. How you are different than your friend is a key part of your friendship, as is what the two of you share and engage in together. Disappointed voters in the recent U.S. elections insist that they are not represented by their elected officials, that they are distinct from their governing bodies and the people who elected them.
How does a society divided 51-49 make decisions? How does the slim majority respect the disagreement of the slim minority? How can the minority disagree? More and more the average person in the American street is individuating themselves, and it's a lot more complicated than "why can't we all just get along?" The answer is that "we" can get along just fine; the problem is who "we" are.
Commentaires