- What a no-immigration economy looks like;
- A profound psychological question: why is RFK Jr. so convinced he’s right?
- A thought for the day about childhood religion;
- Briefly noted items about an administration of liars; how MAGA is tearing apart following Charlie Kirk’s death; the Christian lies behind Alabama’s voucher program; more about the demise of DOGE; and about the incompetence of the Trump administration.
NY Times, guest essay by Wendy Edelberg, 23 Nov 2025: We’re Seeing What a No-Immigration Economy Looks Like [gift link]
Right now, job growth is low. Given President Trump’s immigration crackdown and the attendant decline in net immigration, we need to start thinking about low job growth as the new normal.
Let me explain: Net immigration in 2025 is on track to be close to zero or even negative — more people will probably end up leaving the United States than entering for the first time in decades. Fewer immigrants overall means fewer immigrants entering the work force and fewer immigrants spending money.
We’re conditioned to think that job growth of 40,000 a month is a terrible omen for our economy — a sickly labor market or a sign of an impending recession. But if Mr. Trump’s restrictive immigration policies continue, it might simply be what the sustainable pace of new employment looks like.
Reality is never as simplistic as conservatives imagine.
Proponents of Mr. Trump’s approach to immigration tend to see it differently. Last year, then-Senator JD Vance essentially argued that fewer immigrants would lead to more job openings for native-born job seekers, particularly men, and that the resulting increase in wages would entice more native-born men to join the ranks of job seekers.
But I have my doubts. Empirical analyses suggest that reductions in immigration bring little change to the wages of native-born workers with skills similar to those of the immigrants who would otherwise be doing the same work. The percentage of native-born men between the ages of 25 and 54 in the job market has shown a long downward trend since 1960, with periods of strong wage growth doing little more than temporarily slowing the decline.
Republicans seem not to understand that immigrants grow the entire economy; they take jobs, but they also pay taxes and buy the products and services that all the “native born workers” with jobs produce, thus expanding *those* jobs. And this is true whether or not the immigrants are “legal” or “illegal.” Republican obsession with “illegals,” despite their indifference to the crimes of the President and others in his cabinet, indicates that they’re not concerned with legality so much as expressing white-supremacy animus against brown-skinned people.
\\\
Very long piece from the January 2026 issue. A profound question about human nature.
The Atlantic, Michael Sherer, 23 Nov 2025: Why Is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. So Convinced He’s Right?, subtitled “How an outsider, once ignored by the public-health establishment, became the most powerful man in science”
It begins with personal background, as the essay opens:
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. somehow knew, even as a little boy, that fate can lead a person to terrible places. “I always had the feeling that we were all involved in some great crusade,” Kennedy once wrote, “that the world was a battleground for good and evil, and that our lives would be consumed in that conflict.” He was 9 years old when his uncle was assassinated and 14 when his father suffered the same fate. I happened to be sitting next to him this fall when he learned that his friend Charlie Kirk had been shot. We were on an Air National Guard C-40C Clipper en route from Chicago to Washington, D.C., and one of Kennedy’s advisers, her eyes filling with tears, whispered the news in his ear. “Oh my God,” he said.
This is very sad, but of course, the world is not a simplistic battleground between good and evil. This is typical conservative black and white thinking. Again, very long article; I can’t begin to do it justice, except to note the predictable patterns. No patience for nuance. His family’s mystique.
Here’s a striking passage:
Science, unlike fairy tales and courtroom dramas, does not always offer a clear narrative. Initial results may fail to replicate. Real findings can get drowned out by statistical noise. Catastrophic side effects may take time to emerge. In the evolving search for truth, the public can find itself whipsawed: Margarine was a healthy butter alternative—until studies found it to be a source of the artificial trans fats that cause 50,000 premature deaths a year. The Merck drug Vioxx was a miracle pain reliever—until researchers estimated that it was associated with as many as 140,000 excess cases of heart disease. The food pyramid of the 1990s, which emphasized processed carbohydrates over fiber and protein, now looks like a sick joke given what research has shown about the roots of our current obesity epidemic.
Followed by this completely wrong-headed advice:
Kennedy thinks more people should follow his lead by consuming science directly. “ ‘Trusting the experts’ is not a feature of science,” he likes to say. “It’s not a feature of democracy. It’s a feature of totalitarianism and religion.”
It goes on and on. As with most things, there is no single, easy explanation.
\\\
Thought for the day: Staying with your childhood religion is like knowing about the outside world but choosing to live in your bedroom the rest of your life.
\\\
Briefly noted:
- The Bulwark, Jill Lawrence, 24 Nov 2025: We’re Led by an Administration of Liars, subtitled “And the Comey case hypocrisy is as bad as the incompetence.” — — The administration lost its case because it *lied*.
- Salon, Amanda Marcotte, 24 Nov 2025: Charlie Kirk’s death is tearing MAGA apart, subtitled “The killing of the Turning Point USA founder didn’t unify the base — it triggered infighting” — — I’m sitting on the sidelines, eating popcorn.
- Friendly Atheist, Hemant Mehta, 24 Nov 2025: Taxpayer dollars, Christian lies: What Alabama’s voucher program really buys, subtitled “Christian textbooks that deny evolution, downplay slavery, and avoid critical thinking are now being subsidized with public funds” — — Of course. See subtitle; this is what conservatives do.
- More about the demise of DOGE: Reuters, 24 Nov 2025: Exclusive: DOGE ‘doesn’t exist’ with eight months left on its charter (Via)
- MS NOW (formerly MSNBC), Steve Bene, 24 Nov 2025: Amateur hour: The White House keeps tripping over its own incompetence, subtitled “On multiple fronts, Donald Trump and his team are failing for the most embarrassing of reasons: They don’t appear to have any idea what they’re doing.” — This was exactly predictable, given the host of incompetents Trump got into his cabinet.
