![](\"https:\/\/cdn.theatlantic.com\/thumbor\/0SyW9vQYX86lU3Hr8xMbO1KOsc0=\/0x0:2500x1406\/976x549\/media\/img\/mt\/2021\/11\/gop_bipartisan_coup\/original.jpg\")
<\/p>\nWhen voting for infrastructure means betraying your country; how dying from Covid is sacrifice in the war against Joe Biden; when safety measures give false confidence; how QAnon and Pakistani radicals are similar; when birthdays were not a thing.<\/p>\n
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The Atlantic, 10 Nov 21: The Right\u2019s Total Loss of Proportion<\/a>, subtitled, “Support an attack on Congress? No problem. Vote for Biden\u2019s infrastructure bill? You\u2019ve betrayed your country.”<\/p>\n How does the Right think all these decrepit bridges are going to get rebuilt? In the 1950s did they oppose the Interstate Highway System too?<\/p>\n \\\\<\/p>\n Amanda Marcotte, Salon, 9 Nov 21: Insurrection by other means: Republicans are ready to die of COVID to spite Biden, Democrats<\/a>, subtitled, “Why are Trump refusing the vaccine and risking mass death? It’s their sacrifice in the war against Joe Biden.”<\/p>\n No, the darker and harder truth is that this isn’t really about intelligence or ignorance. It’s about ideology, and specifically, about how far a good chunk of the GOP base has become radicalized toward\u00a0the politics of insurrection. More than half of Trump voters claim they want to secede<\/a> from the union, and nearly a third say violence is a legitimate means<\/a> to impose their will on the rest of the country. Endorsement of violence\u00a0rises to nearly half of Republicans<\/a> if the question is abstracted to the idea that “a time will come” for such tactics.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \\\\<\/p>\n Slate, 7 Nov 21: Our Worst Idea About \u201cSafety\u201d<\/a>, subtitled, “A concept that took hold in the \u201970s has haunted everything from seat belts to masks\u2014and it\u2019s going to keep putting us in danger.”<\/p>\n The idea here is that any safety measure put into place — like seatbelts in cars, in the 1960s, which of course conservatives vehemently resisted — gives some people a “false sense of security,” as if the one measure will make a person invincible. Of course, life is more complex that. The idea applies to the response to Covid, as well.<\/p>\n \\\\<\/p>\n Religious News Service, 4 Nov 21: Radicalization\u2019s path: In case studies, finding similarities<\/a><\/p>\n About the similarities between a QAnon radical and a Pakistani Islamist radical.<\/p>\n \\\\<\/p>\n Here’s an example of the counter-intuitive ideas I like, in this case simply pointing out that the things we take for granted today haven’t always been true. Things change.<\/p>\n The Atlantic, 2 Nov 21: The Strange Origins of American Birthday Celebrations<\/a>, subtitled, “For most people, birthdays were once just another day. Industrialization changed that.”<\/p>\n The idea that everyone should celebrate their birthday is, weirdly, not very old itself.<\/p>\n Not until the 19th century\u2014perhaps around 1860 or 1880\u2014did middle-class Americans commonly do so, and not until the early 20th century were birthday celebrations a tradition nationwide. In fact, the song \u201cHappy Birthday\u201d<\/a> is not far beyond its own 100th birthday<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When voting for infrastructure means betraying your country; how dying from Covid is sacrifice in the war against Joe Biden; when safety measures give false confidence; how QAnon and Pakistani radicals are similar; when birthdays were not a thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-psychology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12664"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12670,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12664\/revisions\/12670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}