Welcome to the weekend edition of the Editorial Board, where you will find a roundup of everything produced over the last week by our amazing stable of writers.

This week featured me, too. Here’s what you may have missed. (Reminder: I send my stuff out every weekday around lunch time. There is no paywall for my stuff. This is an effort by the Editorial Board to rebuild the public square and the common good. Contributions to the Editorial Board from other writers are behind a pay wall.)

• August 6, 2021
The next time the GOP attempts a coup d’état, it won’t be loud. It will be quiet. It will be legal Read more

• August 5, 2021
We can enrage liars by telling them the truth or we can neutralize them by telling them to stop lying Read more

• August 4, 2021
People who desire a leader to save them from the humiliations of democracy are people who will do what they’re told Read more

• August 3, 2021
Here’s why a vaccine mandate would convince authoritarian holdouts to get the shot voluntarily Read more

• August 2, 2021
For all its sophistication, the Washington press corps exhibits a startling degree of naivete Read more

Reminder: Subscribers who can’t wait for the weekend edition can visit the website or follow me on Twitter, where I post material fresh daily and talk politics and trash. Follow me @johnastoehr. Any material that I did not write is behind a pay wall and is therefore reserved for subscribers only. So please … don’t miss out! Support the Editorial Board and its mission to rebuild civil society and restore the common good!

—JS

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On that note, here’s the weekend edition …

August 6, 2021

At his best and most useful: Richard Trumka (1949-2021)

Erik Loomis: In the pantheon of American union federation leaders, we should remember Trumka as one of the very best. 

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August 4, 2021

The Harvey Weinstein of politics

Lindsay Beyerstein: The New York attorney general’s report not only documents a pattern of predatory behavior by the governor, but also an inner circle run like a criminal conspiracy that bent the rules, and likely even broke the law in a bid to discredit a victim.

READ MORE

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August 4, 2021

Is the era of NIMBYism giving way to a new era of YIMBYism? Data suggests big changes ahead

I’m asking in all seriousness, writes Editorial Board member Christopher Jon Sprigman. How much of NIMBYism is driven by genuine but dubious concern for rising housing prices? How much of it is older people who just dislike change?

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August 4, 2021

Performative masculinity is killing us

I asked him, “What’s it going to take to get people’s attention? The death of someone’s child?” He did not answer, nor did I expect him to, writes Editorial Board member Teri Carter.

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August 3, 2021

We conquered the moon, the genome and the microchip. We can’t get people vaccinated?

Yet in a sea of laser-guided tools and technology, asks Editorial Board member Matt Robison, the best idea we’ve seen from the government is arming church groups with clipboards and telling them to canvas the neighborhood?

READ MORE

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August 2, 2021

Simone Biles just needed to rest

From the perspective of a symbolic interactionist, facts create feelings, which are themselves scientific facts, which we must, in turn, try to understand as well as we can, writes Editorial Board sociologist Rod Graham.

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August 2, 2021

Everyone’s already subsidizing cars. How about we subsidize more and better public transit instead?

Our public transportation infrastructure is a few generations behind, because the United States has consistently neglected it, writes Editorial Board member Brandon Bradford..

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