Markets End Down for First Quarter, Worst in Two Years

I hope my retirement accounts didn't take too drastic of a hit. I'm not getting any younger!

At WSJ, "Stocks Post Worst Quarter in Two Years Despite Strong Finish":

A head-spinning quarter came to a disappointing end, with major stock indexes suffering their worst performance in two years and other markets recording some of the most extreme moves on record.

The action reflects a sense of dislocation shared by many traders and portfolio managers who are confronting challenges not seen in years. Yet their unease has been offset in part by a fierce determination among many investors to take advantage of any price declines to add to positions in stocks, bonds and commodities.

Inflation has surged to its highest level in four decades, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has rattled already stretched supply chains and the Federal Reserve has embarked on a rate-increase plan whose pace investors are struggling to handicap.

All three major U.S. indexes declined more than 1.5% on Thursday, with losses accelerating in the final hour of the session as traders dumped stocks to end the quarter. The declines have dragged the S&P 500 down 4.9% over the past three months, snapping a seven-quarter streak of wins. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq Composite have lost 4.6% and 9.1%, respectively, this year.

U.S. oil futures cleared $130 a barrel in early March, a level that flashed a warning signal for many economists. But the futures have since declined to around $100, a price that likely limits immediate economic damage but still marks the biggest quarterly gain since 2008.

“There are different parts of this market that rhyme with history, but really not even that well,” said Eric Veiel, head of global equities at T. Rowe Price, which oversees $1.5 trillion in assets. “This is a truly unique time.”

Underpinning the uncertainty that permeated the first quarter was the Fed’s plan to raise rates. In doing so, the central bank removed a historic wave of stimulus that had driven stocks to dozens of records over the past two years and fueled a rush into some of the most speculative investments in the market.

That made the recent market downturn markedly different from the crash in 2020, which was abnormally short and severe.

“The changes to our market views are just as dramatic as they were when the Covid-19 pandemic emerged two years ago,” Erik Knutzen, multiasset class chief investment officer at Neuberger Berman, wrote in a note to clients after the Ukraine invasion, adding that he is pessimistic about stocks over the next year.

Few assets were left untouched by the volatility. Investors have dumped bonds, sending yields on corporate and municipal bonds as well as Treasurys sharply higher. The Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate bond index—largely U.S. Treasurys, highly rated corporate bonds and mortgage-backed securities—returned minus 6% in 2022 through Wednesday, headed toward the biggest quarterly loss since 1980.

Wheat prices have climbed 31%, logging the best quarterly performance since 2010. The swings in nickel prices during the Ukraine crisis were so large that the London Metal Exchange closed trading in the commodity after a huge run-up in prices inflicted severe financial pressure on producers that sold nickel as a hedge.

“That’s not rational behavior for an instrument, and that’s terrifying,” said Paul Britton, founder of Capstone Investment Advisors, an investment firm specializing in trading volatility. He says he expects the turbulence to continue the rest of the year.

Adding to the pain for many investors was the decline among shares of big technology companies, the biggest market leaders of the past decade.

Facebook’s parent company, Meta Platforms Inc., lost about $232 billion in market value in a single session after posting disappointing earnings, the biggest loss in market value for a U.S. company in history. The next day, Amazon.com Inc. recorded the biggest-ever one-day gain in market value.

Meta had its worst quarter since its shares started trading publicly in 2012 and has been one of the biggest losers within the S&P 500. Other former market leaders also struggled. Netflix Inc. has lost 38% this quarter, its worst period since 2012. PayPal Holdings Inc. has also lost around 39%, its worst quarter on record, and Salesforce.com Inc. finished its worst quarter since 2011.

The S&P 500 outperformed the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite by about 4.2 percentage points, the greatest margin since 2006, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

Other corners of the market have fared better. The S&P 500’s energy sector has soared 38% and notched its best quarter in history. Energy stocks like Occidental Petroleum Corp. and Halliburton Co. have skyrocketed more than 95% and 65%, respectively.

​Some optimism crept back into the market recently. After the Fed raised rates in March for the first time since 2018, a familiar pattern emerged. Investors piled back into stocks and stepped in to buy the dips in shares of tech and growth companies, as well as more speculative bets that had suffered to start the year.

Bitcoin prices have rebounded in March. Meme stocks like GameStop Corp. and AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. have soared, gaining more than 30% for the month.

Some analysts said individual investors appeared to be piling back into the market, driving some of the gains, a move reminiscent of last year...

 

Nice Catch

I mean the one in the middle.

On Twitter.

Also, Nalva Souza.

And Kari Nautique.

Governor Ron DeSantis Floats Revoking Disney Company's Independent Governing Status in Florida (VIDEO)

This is blowing up the culture war, dang!

At Fox News, "DeSantis broaches repeal of Disney World's special self-governing status in Florida":

Florida's Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis addressed on Thursday the suggestion of repealing a 55-year-old state law that allows Disney to effectively govern itself on the grounds of Walt Disney World, following the company’s public opposition to a controversial parental rights law in Florida.

"What I would say as a matter of first principle is I don’t support special privileges in law just because a company is powerful and they’ve been able to wield a lot of power," DeSantis said during a press conference in West Palm Beach, Florida on Thursday...

Laura Ingraham's video is embedded at the article, "Angle: Disney turns its back on millions of Americans."

'Real Time' Panel Discusses Florida's 'Don't Say Gay' Legislation (VIDEO)

I hate this debate. I'm just sickened by it. 

I also hate attacks on opponents as "groomers." Maybe their are some, but those at the forefront of the opposition are radical trans activists pushing cultural Marxism on society to destroy the nuclear family and incite social revolution (as if that's not happened already). "Groomer" is a bigoted attack on legitimate interest group actors, and it's puerile. 

Fucking just beat these people at the polls, damn! 

The bill, now signed into law, is called "CS/CS/HB 1557 - Parental Rights in Education," and if you read it, it's just common sense. 

Anyways I watched this episode below on HBO because Batya Ungar-Sargon was scheduled and I like her a lot. 

If you haven't yet, get your copy of Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy. It's an outstanding book which should be winning all kinds of awards. 

WATCH: 

Frank McDonough, The Hitler Years

At Amazon, Frank McDonough, The Hitler Years: Disaster, 1940-1945.

Inflation Is Taking Biggest Toll on Nonwhite Voters, WSJ Poll Shows

Batya Ungar-Sargon can't say it enough: Democrat Party identity socialists, woke-leftist mainstream media goobers, craven corporate America, Marxist university elites, and Silicon Valley tech-totalitarians hate the very people they purport to champion and support. 

Biden's now set to release "a million barrels of oil a day" from the strategic petroleum reserves, which won't make a dent in the rising price curve for gasoline, groceries, consumer goods, heavy industry, manufacturing, shipping, and more. 

Inflation's the number one issue driving the concerns of everyday Americans, that is, the American voters. Add the crazy gender assault on morality and the schools, and the Democrats are looking to put themselves out in the political wilderness for a generation. 

It's bad.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Black women and Hispanic men reported the highest levels of inflation worry among different demographic groups":

Nonwhite voters are more likely than white voters to say the highest inflation in four decades is triggering major financial strain in their lives and that appears to be giving Republicans an opening with a growing segment of the electorate that traditionally favors Democrats, the latest Wall Street Journal poll shows.

Eight months before the midterm election, 35% of Black, Hispanic, Asian-American and other voters who said they were something other than white expressed that level of inflationary pain, compared with 28% for white voters. Black women and Hispanic men, both at 44%, reported the highest proportions of major strain among various demographic and gender combinations.

People with the lowest incomes also were most likely to report major financial challenges from inflation. Almost half with incomes of less than $60,000 reported major financial strain, while just 13% of those making $150,000 or more did so.

Some poll participants said they blame President Biden for inflation because he has taken actions to limit oil-and-gas drilling and pipelines in the U.S.

Roger Stephens, a 62-year-old mostly retired airplane mechanic who is Black and lives in the Harbor City neighborhood of Los Angeles, said gas is running close to $6 a gallon in his area. He is troubled by prices at the pump and those at grocery stores and restaurants.

“Uncle Joe has put us on a diet,” he said in a reference to Mr. Biden. “I like to have a steak once or twice a month. I can’t do it now.”

Mr. Stephens is a registered Democrat who said he twice voted for Democrat Barack Obama for president and then for Republican Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. He said he was more likely to back Republicans than Democrats in this year’s election. Inflation, he said, is one of the issues he is weighing.

The inflation numbers help explain why almost two-thirds of voters think the economy is headed in the wrong direction even as jobs are plentiful, wages are rising, home values are up and stock prices remain above where they were when Mr. Biden took office. Rising energy, food and services prices pushed inflation to 7.9% last month compared with a year ago. The Consumer Price Index, which measures the cost of goods and services, hasn’t been this high since it reached 8.4% in January 1982. Overall, 58% of poll participants said inflation was causing them major or minor financial strain, up slightly from 56% in a similar survey taken in mid-November.

In a potentially troubling sign for Democrats now running Washington, a 47% plurality of voters said they think Republicans can best tame inflation, compared with 30% who listed Democrats.

Almost 9 in 10 Republican voters think the economy is headed in the wrong direction, compared with 36% percent of Democrats.

Among independent voters—a key group in most close elections—71% say the economy is going the wrong way. Hispanic voters are even more likely to feel that way, with 78% expressing a negative view.

Stronger dissatisfaction with the economy among nonwhite voters could translate to softer support for Democrats in November if things don’t improve before then.

“They’re sour economically,” said Tony Fabrizio, a Republican pollster whose firm conducted the poll with the firm of Democratic pollster John Anzalone...

  

Rural Voters Key to Battleground Races in November's Congressional MIdterm Elections

I love this.

From Josh Kraushaar, at National Journal, "Over half of this year’s toss-up races are in districts with a sizable rural constituency. That reality makes holding the House—or even staying within striking distance—more challenging for Democrats":

The story of Democratic success since the Trump era has been one of political shifts in the suburbs. Well over half of President Biden’s voters in 2020 hailed from the suburbs, and he won suburban voters by a whopping 11 points. Of the 41 House seats Democrats picked up in the 2018 midterms, 38 of them were located in predominantly suburban districts. The suburbs remain the preeminent battleground in the country, as Republicans in 2022 gained back much of the ground they lost with Democrats.

But in this year’s House races, a disproportionate number of battleground races are taking place in either rural districts or districts with a significant rural segment. Of the 20 races that are ranked as toss-ups by The Cook Political Report, over half have a sizable rural constituency. It’s a reminder that Democrats can’t take rural America for granted, at least if they hope to hold a House majority for the long term.

Several of the rural House battlegrounds are newly drawn districts, like North Carolina’s 13th, which combines the burgeoning, Democratic-trending Research Triangle exurbs with the deep-red rural outposts of Harnett and Johnston counties. One is a brand new seat, Colorado’s 8th District, which includes parts of Weld County where “cattle sun themselves on grazing land and feedlots,” as The Denver Post put it. Others have always been competitive, like Maine’s expansive 2nd District, home to one of the most independent-minded Democrats in the House.

The best chance for Democrats to hold down their losses this year is to win many of those seesawing suburban seats. But even if they make a miraculous suburban turnaround, they still could lose their majority by failing to hold onto the smaller number of rural seats held by their party. As national Democrats cater to urban, progressive interests, they’ve all but abandoned the rural constituencies that once made up a major part of their coalition.

As former Montana Gov. Steve Bullock warned in The New York Times: “The Democrats are in trouble in rural America, and their struggles there could doom the party in 2022.” He urged Democrats to “show up, listen, and respect voters in rural America” by finding common ground instead of talking down to them. A good start would be to spend time investing into the pivotal competitive House races taking place there....

If the Democratic Party can’t moderate its message on social issues, for instance, it’s easy to see even the most adept lawmakers getting swept up in the tide. The first step to getting things right is recognizing that, as important as the suburbs are, Democrats can’t write off rural America entirely. A winning political message for Democrats is one that accommodates their coalition to the interests of those being left behind..

 

Disney Admits It Wants to Queer Your Kids

From Rod Dreher, at the American Conservative, "Well, here you go."

BONUS: It's Karol Markowitz, at the New York Post, "I’m quitting Disney after seeing it boast about pushing ‘gender theory’."

Flaming Skull: Washington Post Verifies Some But Not All of Hunter Biden's Laptop Using Third-Party Cryptographic Signature Analysis ... Which the Daily Caller Did 17 Months Ago and Thereby Verified All of the Laptop's Contents

At AoSHQ, "Thanks to ... for that great 'Hunter Biden Flaming Crack Pipe' gif. I hope you'll forgive me for using it again. John Sexton at Hot Air reports on that, and in the except here, notes that the Post has finally verified that a Ukranian energy tycoon met with Joe Biden -- and Hunter Biden; but note "The Big Guy" was here for this meeting ... Twenty fucking months after the New York Post confirmed it."

'Hot Fun in the Summertime'

Sly and the Family Stone:

Emily Ratajkowski at Vanity Fair Oscar Party

At London's Daily Mail, "Emily Ratajkowski puts on a VERY busty display in racy orange split top at the 2022 Vanity Fair Oscar party."

Wow, she did!

PREVIOUSLY: "Flashback, "Nude Emily Ratajkowski Stars for Jonathan Leder´s Limited Edition Photobook."

Vivek Ramaswamy, Woke, Inc.

At Amazon, Vivek Ramaswamy, Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America's Social Justice Scam.

Will Smith 'Perpetuated Stereotypes' About Black Americans

Following-up, "Academy Awards Condemns Will Smith and Begins Formal Review (VIDEO)."

*****

This was one of the first things I said to my wife as I was following this story on Twitter on Monday (like everyone else). 

After almost a decade of anti-police protests and Black Lives Matter riots, chaos, and destruction --- not to mention the epic surge in crime over the last year or two, especially black motherfucker "smash and grab" attacks -- people see African-Americans as violent thugs. 

And why wouldn't they? 

Will Smith is one of the top stars in Hollywood, of any race. He would have given a triumphant acceptance speech for his Best Actor win but instead got up there to credit the Lord for how wonderful he is, how deserving, beyond criticism of his actions, or whatever. He for sure did not apologize to Chris Rock until yesterday, and that was on Instagram. I don't know, but if you did someone bad, slapping him on live television with tens of millions around the world watching, hurting him and humiliating him, the decent godly thing to do is say you're sorry in person, or at least by a phone call.

That Will Smith could not do, and it pained me in the moment to think how he was simply confirming so many bigoted prejudices against blacks. 

You may not care, and I understand, but it's a tragic moment for black Americans, and the country as a whole. My dad was black and he spent most of his adult life trying not only to protect himself against racism but to defeat the stereotypes that coincided with violence and murder of people of his race. (My dad was highly educated, cultured, and professional. But he told me many stories. He was born in St. Louis in 1913 and lived through Jim Crow segregation, first in Missouri and then in Chicago and New York City, where he met my mom.)

When I was just 5-years-old I saw Lew Alcindor at the UCLA barber shop, where my dad used to take me for haircuts. This was of course before he converted to Islam in 1971, taking the name Kareen Abdul-Jabbar. Seen by many as the greatest basketball player of all time, his comments certainly carry weight. 

As his Substack, "Will Smith Did a Bad, Bad Thing"

Slapping Chris Rock was also a blow to men, women, the entertainment industry, and the Black community.

When Will Smith stormed onto the Oscar stage to strike Chris Rock for making a joke about his wife’s short hair, he did a lot more damage than just to Rock’s face. With a single petulant blow, he advocated violence, diminished women, insulted the entertainment industry, and perpetuated stereotypes about the Black community.

That’s a lot to unpack. Let’s start with the facts: Rock made a reference to Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, as looking like Demi Moore in GI Jane, in which Moore had shaved her head. Jada Pinkett Smith suffers from alopecia, which causes hair loss. Ok, I can see where the Smiths might not have found that joke funny. But Hollywood awards shows are traditionally a venue where much worse things have been said about celebrities as a means of downplaying the fact that it’s basically a gathering of multimillionaires giving each other awards to boost business so they can make even more money.

The Smiths could have reacted by politely laughing along with the joke or by glowering angrily at Rock. Instead, Smith felt the need to get up in front of his industry peers and millions of people around the world, hit another man, then return to his seat to bellow: “Keep my wife's name out of your fucking mouth.” Twice.

Some have romanticized Smith’s actions as that of a loving husband defending his wife. Comedian Tiffany Haddish, who starred in the movie Girls Trip with Pinkett Smith, praised Smith’s actions: “[F]or me, it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen because it made me believe that there are still men out there that love and care about their women, their wives.”

Actually, it was the opposite. Smith’s slap was also a slap to women. If Rock had physically attacked Pinkett Smith, Smith’s intervention would have been welcome. Or if he’d remained in his seat and yelled his post-slap threat, that would have been unnecessary, but understandable. But by hitting Rock, he announced that his wife was incapable of defending herself—against words. From everything I’d seen of Pinkett Smith over the years, she’s a very capable, tough, smart woman who can single-handedly take on a lame joke at the Academy Awards show.

This patronizing, paternal attitude infantilizes women and reduces them to helpless damsels needing a Big Strong Man to defend their honor least they swoon from the vapors. If he was really doing it for his wife, and not his own need to prove himself, he might have thought about the negative attention this brought on them, much harsher than the benign joke. That would have been truly defending and respecting her. This “women need men to defend them” is the same justification currently being proclaimed by conservatives passing laws to restrict abortion and the LGBTQ+ community.

Worse than the slap was Smith’s tearful, self-serving acceptance speech in which he rambled on about all the women in the movie King Richard that he’s protected. Those who protect don’t brag about it in front of 15 million people. They just do it and shut up. You don’t do it as a movie promotion claiming how you’re like the character you just won an award portraying. By using these women to virtue signal, he was in fact exploiting them to benefit himself. But, of course, the speech was about justifying his violence. Apparently, so many people need Smith’s protection that occasionally it gets too much and someone needs to be smacked.

What is the legacy of Smith’s violence? He’s brought back the Toxic Bro ideal of embracing Kobra Kai teachings of “might makes right” and “talk is for losers.” Let’s not forget that this macho John Wayne philosophy was expressed in two movies in which Wayne spanked grown women to teach them a lesson. Young boys—especially Black boys—watching their movie idol not just hit another man over a joke, but then justify it as him being a superhero-like protector, are now much more prone to follow in his childish footsteps. Perhaps the saddest confirmation of this is the tweet from Smith’s child Jaden: “And That’s How We Do It.” 

The Black community also takes a direct hit from Smith...

Keep reading.

 

Americans More Worried About Energy Crisis U.S. Than Any Time in Last Ten Years

This is just such a visceral issue for people. As pollsters ask respondents, "If the presidential election were held today, for whom would you vote?"

Whoever it is, it wouldn't be no Democrats. Frankly, Biden should be primaried. If not, he should drop Kamala off the ticket --- and that's if the grumpy old man even runs for second term.

In any case, at Gallup, "Americans' Energy Worries Surge":

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Americans are significantly more worried about the energy situation in the U.S. than they have been in a decade. Nearly half of Americans, 47%, say they worry a great deal about the availability and affordability of energy. This is up from 37% a year ago and is more than double the percentage in 2020, when energy concern was at its low point in Gallup's trend.

Americans have expressed similar levels of concern about energy in the past, including in 2001, 2006 through 2008, 2011 and 2012.

The March 1-18 poll was conducted as gasoline prices reached record highs in the U.S., averaging more than $4.00 per gallon nationwide. High gas prices have often been a factor in prior years when energy concern was high, including 2006 through 2008 and 2012.

In addition to the 47% who worry a great deal about energy, another 30% say they worry a fair amount, 17% only a little and 5% not at all.

The survey also finds 44% of U.S. adults describing the energy situation in the U.S. as "very serious," with 46% identifying it as "fairly serious" and 10% "not at all serious." A year ago, 32% said the energy situation was very serious.

Gallup first asked the question about the seriousness of the U.S. energy situation in 1977, during the 1970s energy crisis, and updated it frequently the rest of that decade. The current percentage describing the energy situation as very serious is similar to what it was in the late 1970s, as well as between 2006 and 2009.

The trend high point of 58% saying the energy situation was very serious came in May 2001, when energy prices were rising and the state of California issued rolling blackouts to deal with energy shortages there...

Click through at the link. Gallup also asked respondents to "consider the tradeoffs in protecting the environment and developing new energy supplies..."

William T. Vollmann, Europe Central

At Amazon, William T. Vollmann, Europe Central: A Novel.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Warns Democrat Party: 'We're in Trouble'

She also wants Clarence Thomas impeached. Democrats. Always tearing down. Never building up.

They are in deep trouble though, and I'm glad. 

At New York Magazine, "The progressive star says she’s been vindicated about Joe Manchin and that President Biden must go it alone to save their party in the fall."

War in Ukraine: No Breakthroughs But Peace Talks Spark Hope

Well, don't get your hopes up. Moscow's just pulling back from Kyiv to reposition its forces and bide time for further gains in other parts of the country. Putin's campaign to "topple" Kyiv has been a complete disaster, and in my mind, it raises questions about Russia's great power status. I mean, Russia's like a Third World petrostate with nukes. 

No matter. The country's a threat to Europe, and by extension to the U.S. through our alliance commitments. 

At the Washington Post, "Ukraine-Russia talks in Turkey stir optimism, but Western allies urge caution":

ISTANBUL — Ukrainian negotiators in Turkey said Tuesday they had offered a detailed peace proposal to their Russian counterparts, exchanging military neutrality for security guarantees, as Moscow said it would “drastically reduce” military activity near the Ukrainian cities of Kyiv and Chernihiv “to increase mutual trust and create the necessary conditions for further negotiations.”

The declarations from the two sides followed hours of negotiations hosted by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government in an ornate palace on the Bosporus strait. They signaled a rare moment of optimism after weeks of halting negotiations that have done nothing to slow the bloody invasion.

But U.S. and other Western leaders were skeptical, saying they would judge Russia by its actions and not its words. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said there were continued strikes Tuesday on Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. “We’re not convince that the threat to the capital city has been radically diminished,” he said.

Russia, whose forces have bombarded Ukrainian cities for weeks, said in a statement that Tuesday’s talks had focused on “humanitarian issues." The Kremlin also signaled it will keep fighting for Mariupol, a key southern port city, saying that unless “Ukrainian nationalist militants” stop resisting and lay down their arms, it will be difficult to “resolve the acute humanitarian situation” there.

The centerpiece of the Ukrainian proposal was a pledge that the country would give up its bid to join NATO in exchange for a security system guaranteed by international partners including the United States, Turkey and others. Ukrainian negotiators likened the offer to Article 5 of NATO’s charter, which ensures the alliance’s collective defense.

The guarantor parties — including European countries, Canada and Israel — would provide Ukraine with military assistance and weapons if it were attacked, the negotiators said. Ukraine, in turn, would ensure it remained “nonaligned and nonnuclear,” although it would retain the right to join the European Union.

The Ukrainian proposal also offered a 15-year timeline for negotiations with Russia over the status of Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014.

Vladimir Medinsky, Russia’s lead negotiator, characterized the talks to reporters afterward as a “substantive conversation.” Mevlut Cavusoglu, Turkey’s foreign minister, said the discussions amounted to “the most meaningful progress since the start of negotiations."

Reaction from the United States was mixed, even as Moscow’s pledge to reduce military activity boosted U.S. stock markets on Tuesday morning. Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed skepticism about the talks in Turkey, saying Moscow’s brutal, month-old military offensive leaves little room for optimism...

Keep reading.

'Now or Never'

It's Halsey:

The End of Citizenship

From Michael Lind, at the Tablet, "Having converted their own republic into a borderless credit union, Americans have to borrow other people’s national pride":

In the spring of 2022, speculation in the commentariat that partisan rivalries were bringing the United States to the verge of actual civil war abruptly came to an end. With few exceptions, Americans of left, right, and center rallied around the national colors. Postmodern multiculturalism and anti-Enlightenment paleoconservatism suddenly were marginalized by romantic nationalism of the 19th-century variety. As war fever swept America, progressives and conservatives joined in denouncing not only the enemy government but also the enemy people and their enemy music, enemy literature, and enemy cuisine. Americans displayed the national flag in every imaginable form and pledged undying hatred of the nation’s foes.

The nation that Americans celebrated was not their own, but rather Ukraine, following the brutal Russian invasion of the former Soviet republic. Liberal Americans who would have thought it vulgar if not fascist to wave the Stars and Stripes took selfies with the blue and gold of Ukraine’s national flag. Democrats and Republicans who routinely demonize the leaders of the rival American party engaged in a kind of sentimental, uncritical hero worship of Ukraine’s president, Volodomyr Zelensky, which would have been mocked had its object been Joe Biden or Donald Trump. Neoconservatives and centrist liberals used the Ukraine war as an opportunity to settle scores by accusing opponents in the rival party and rivals in their own parties of moral if not legal treason for less than total and uncritical support of a foreign country with which the United States does not even have an alliance.

Whether the war in Ukraine is a final aftershock of the first Cold War or the first major proxy war in Cold War II remains to be seen. The sudden outburst of vicarious Ukrainian patriotism on the part of many Americans—as well as people in similar North Atlantic democracies—seems like a Freudian “return of the repressed.” Taught that celebrating their own national traditions is racist and xenophobic, and deprived of opportunities to play a meaningful role in national defense, many Americans and Western Europeans have found an outlet for a lost sense of belonging by borrowing the national pride of another nation.

Long before the United States began selling green cards—the tickets to U.S. citizenship—to rich foreigners by creating the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Visa Program in 1990, American citizenship had been devalued. From the days of the Greek city-states and the Roman republic to the city-republics of the Renaissance and the cantons of Switzerland, citizenship in the fullest sense originally involved active participation of citizens—a group not only male but also usually smaller than the population as a whole—in the government of their communities, as electors, office-holders, jurors, and citizen-soldiers.

In practice, the ideal of the amateur, omnicompetent citizen—a member of the militia today, a town or county council member tomorrow and a juror next week—could be realized only in small, relatively undeveloped communities. The ideal of the self-sufficient family farmer with a musket and a copy of the Constitution on the fireplace mantle was a casualty of economic centralization and modernization. Most Americans are proletarians who live from paycheck to paycheck, and a majority of American workers are employed by firms with more than 500 employees and supervised by salaried corporate bureaucrats.

The ideal of the male citizen-soldier who earns his civil rights by contributing to the defense of the republic survived for a while by being transferred to the colossal modern nation-state, whose citizens, mostly unknown to one another, are united by common culture, institutions, location, or some combination of the three. For a time, the mass national conscript army and its reserves were thought of, however implausibly, as the heir to the local militia. The older tradition of civic republicanism inspired the linkage of military service to government benefits like the GI Bill and other privileges for veterans. That link was all but eliminated by the abolition of the draft in 1973. Today’s American military is a professional force, more like those of premodern European bureaucratic monarchies than frontier militias.

The right to vote remains, but its power has been diluted, even as it has been extended in law and practice—first to white men without property, then to white women, and finally to nonwhite citizens. In a world of industrialized nation-states, in which even small countries are vastly more populous than the city-republics of antiquity and the Middle Ages, scale alone ensures that the influence that any one individual can exert by voting periodically in free and fair elections is negligible.

While the positive duties formerly associated with citizenship have gradually been discarded, there has been a trend to establish government requirements for the provision of positive rights or benefits, from public or publicly funded education and public retirement spending to guaranteed health care. As a result, in the United States and other Western democracies, it is widely accepted in the 21st century that national citizens have a right to various public goods and welfare services without any need to earn the benefits at all, purely on the basis of their status as citizens of a particular nation-state.

Already by the 1960s and the 1970s, the link between a citizen’s personal contribution and a citizen’s right to government benefits was being questioned...

Keep reading.

 

Julia Cavanaugh

A wonderful lady.

At Instagram.