Books of 2024

James by Percival Everett

Underground Empire by Farrell & Newman

[Oops, an unfinished version of this post went online December 30 just before midnight.]

This is my annual post listing and briefly discussing books I read in the most recent year. It seems kind of hard to believe, but I have produced such a post every year since 2005. This is a link to the 2023 list if blog readers want to work backwards. You will find that the books are loosely ranked within categories. 

Also, I posted short reviews of almost all of these books at Goodreads. 

Non-Fiction

Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman, Underground Empire

Laura Neack, National, International, and Human Security

Michael Doyle, The Cold Peace

Most of the non-fiction I read this year was related to baseball (see below), but I did manage to complete a few other books. The Neack volume was the text in my spring 2024 Security Studies course and it worked very well. I would use it again, though I'm on sabbatical 2025-26 and don't teach Security in 2024-25. Doyle's book is interesting and offers some thoughtful comparison chapters thinking about autocracy today (especially in China and Russia) versus Mussolini's fascism and Japan's imperial period before World War II. As an international relations liberal, Doyle is concerned about how the domestic characteristics of states shapes their foreign policy behavior. He offers some insights about US competition with China and Russia and thinks about how to avoid disastrous outcomes that are plausible in a new Cold War.

The outstanding non-fiction book of the year for me was Farrell and Newman's Underground Empire. They make a convincing case that the US has exploited widely unknown economic and technical advantages for its own ends. Basically, they describe centralized chokepoints relating to the internet, banking, microchips, etc. The list of examples when the US exploited its leverage includes the nuclear deal with Iran and the Trump administration's sanctioning of an ICC prosecutor and another official. With Trump returning to power,  I would urge everyone to think seriously about this almost hidden ("underground") but potent US power that seems quite vulnerable to abuse. The authors dream about using the tool to stop climate change or corruption, but I'm skeptical that those will be priority items on the US agenda 2025-2028. 

Baseball non-fiction

Roger Angell,  A Pitcher’s Story

Lucas Mann,  Class A 

Tyler Kepner, K: A  History of the Game in Ten Pitchers

John Sickels, Bob Feller

Keith Law, The Inside Game

Barry Svrluga, The Grind: Inside Baseball’s Endless Season

Ron Backer, Baseball Goes to the Movies

Denny Matthews with Matt Fulks, Tales From the Royals

Yes, I read quite a number of baseball books this year and the list above does not even include the annual Baseball Prospectus that I consumed as well. Angell's book is about David Cone who struggled during the 2000 season even as his NY Yankees won another World Series. It's good and I'm not just saying that because Cone was drafted by the KC Royals as a local athlete who later returned to the team and excelled. 

I much enjoyed the books by Mann, Kepner, and Sickels and would recommend all of them. Mann writes about professional baseball in small town Iowa and it speaks to many political issues too -- working conditions for labor, immigrant labor, globalization, the consequences of corn subsidies, etc. 

Since I read Angell at the beginning of the year and the Sickels bio of Bob Feller at the end, I essentially bookended my reading year with 2 interesting stories about very talented pitchers. Feller pitched in the 1930s, when he was a teenage sensation and young star player, then lost multiple years to his voluntary service in WW II, and returned as one of the best pitchers in the game before his fastball lost its heat. He'd probably be very famous if his career had not been interrupted. 

The Kepner book is about pitching too, focusing on 10 different kinds of pitches used by athletes in the highest level of the professional game. 

I'm a big admirer of Keith Law's work but I did not learn that much from this book. Most likely, this is because I've previously already learned a great deal about the game from Law and other similarly analysts. 

The Backer book is OK though I disagreed with the author about the quality of many movies he discusses. The Matthews/Fulks book is really only for KC baseball fans and even then is not great. Too many stories are undeveloped or even untold. 

Literature and Genre Fiction

Percival Everett, James

Matt Haig, The Humans

J.M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians 

John Updike, The Witches of Eastwick

Charles Portis, The Dog of the South

Colson Whitehead, Zone One

Norman Mailer, Armies of the Night

Don DeLillo, Falling Man 

The best fiction I read this year is appearing on many "best of" lists -- James, by Percival Everett. I don't often read new books, but I'm glad I read this one as it is outstanding. You probably already know that is a retelling of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of the runaway male slave that helps Huck.  I really liked the satirical film American Fiction last year, which was based on another of Everett's novels. 

Haig's book made me laugh out loud and Coetzee's novel provided valuable insights about colonialism. Both are fairly quick reads. The Portis book is also good and worth reading, though it is a bit dated in parts. If you look at the Goodreads page for Witches of Eastwick, you'll find many reviewers who consider this an offensive book by a misogynist. I honestly do not think it is that bad and feminist author Margaret Atwood wrote a glowing review in the NY Times decades ago.  Would she still like it?

I was a bit disappointed in the Whitehead zombie book because I have had far better experiences with some of his other novels. Mailer was worth reading as history, but is obviously dated. There are other flaws too. It had been a few years since I read a book by DeLillo and this post-9/11 work is not one of his stronger novels, unfortunately. 

Genre Fiction

I.S. Berry,  The Peacock and the Sparrow

Kate Atkinson,  When Will There Be Good News?

Eric Ambler, The Dark Frontier 

Philip Kerr,  The One From the Other

Richard Dean Rosen, Saturday Night Dead

Donald E. Westlake, ,Plunder Squad (as Richard Stark)

David Goodis, The Burglar 

Duane Swierczynski, Fun & Games

Donald E. Westlake, Don’t Ask

PD James, Cover Her Face 

Lawrence Block, Hit Man

The above books are a cut above the ones listed below. The I.S. Berry spy novel is really good and I urge people to read it. I had read a favorable piece about the author in the Washington Post and am glad that I followed up. It won many awards, including an Edgar, and appeared on many "best of" lists in 2023.

Many of these books are parts of series that I am reading. The Atkinson book is an entertaining entry in the Jackson Brodie series, though he's arguably not the most interesting character in the story. Kerr's Bernie Gunther has survived WW II and the Nazis, but still finds plenty of corruption and crime. Rosen's former major league baseball player-turned-detective Harvey Blissberg starts the story with a vague baseball connection, but this is really about a murder involving a TV show similar to Saturday Night Live. The title is thus a play on words. 

Unsurprisingly, since I do virtually every year, I read the next books in sequence in the Parker and Dortmunder series by Donald Westlake (he wrote Parker books as Richard Stark) and these examples were entertaining. I'm having trouble finding the next Parker book but hope to read it soon. 

I had never read the first PD James book featuring Adam Dalgliesh, but now I have.  It was fine, but not outstanding. Obviously I am reading that series out of order, but I am trying to correct that error. I didn't mean to start a new series by Block since I have not finished his Matthew Scudder books, but the work was on my shelf and seemed interesting. It is though the chapters seem more like short stories. Some apparently were originally published that way in magazines.

The books by Ambler, Goodis, and Swierczynski are standalone books worth reading. You will find crime and/or intrigue. Or both. 

Peter Schilling, The End of Baseball

Agatha Christie, ABC Murders

Jason Matthews, Kremlin’s Candidate

Sara Paretsky, Bitter Medicine

Robert Parker, Pale Kings & Princes

Chuck Palahnuik, Choke

Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice

Ross Macdonald,  Trouble Follows Me

 

Sue Grafton, N is for Noose 

Derek Raymond, The Devil’s Home on Leave

I'm not going to say much about the remainder. Most I gave 3 stars on Goodreads, so they are not terrible, but they all lack something. The bottom 2 books here were especially disappointing as I have enjoyed a number of Grafton's earlier books in the Kinsey Milhone detective series and had been recommended Raymond's work. 

As you can see, there are some mediocre efforts here in series involving Christie's Hercule Poirot, Paretsky's VI Warshawski, Parker's Spencer, and Fleming's James Bond. 

I wanted to like the Schilling book, and enjoyed much of it, but in the end I felt it needed both tighter editing and fewer major characters. 

The Red Sparrow series ended in a somewhat disappointing way as far as I'm concerned though I enjoyed the first book quite a bit more and probably liked Kremlin's Candidate more than book #2 Palace of Treason.

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Films of 2024

A couple walking down a sidewalk past a movie theater (public domain stock photo).

There are a large number of 2024 movies I intend to watch and some of the very best ones will be appearing on screens in front of me in the coming weeks of the new year. I say screens because this year I actually saw more than a handful of films in the theater -- for the first time since December 2019 (or maybe early 2020, I don't recall precisely). 

As for the films I saw, readers can find my brief reviews and ratings at Letterboxd. On that site, I have been religiously logging all the films I've seen, not merely those released in 2024. It appears I watched 97 films this year; thus, the list of new films below reflects only a small portion of my total movie viewing. It does include a few foreign films that were technically released in 2023 but were not widely distributed in the USA until this year. 

As longtime readers know, this is an annual list and here is a link to last year's post if you want to work backwards through my viewing experiences. 

Films from this first set of films will probably receive award nominations, or at least deserve strong consideration. Two of them received recognition last year.

Green Border **

Zone of Interest **

Thelma *

The Teacher's Lounge **

Kneecap

Lee *

If you are a film buff, you probably already know about the Oscar nominations for two of the foreign films from 2023 -- Zone of Interest won an Oscar and was nominated for another; The Teacher's Lounge was also nominated. They are powerful and important films with very different subjects (Nazi death camps and elementary school theft). Green Border is an exceptional foreign film about Syrian refugees that opened in Poland in 2023 but was not available until mid-year 2024 in the US.  Though eligible last year, it was not nominated for an Oscar after facing domestic political backlash. 

Thelma is quite a different film, a fairly lightweight comedy action movie. We saw it on a big screen at the State Theater in Traverse City, as part of the reimagined TC Film Festival. Now, through much of the year, Tuesdays are reserved for festival films. Our show featured a Zoom discussion with the director-filmmaker Josh Margolin after the screening, featuring Q&A by Michael Moore. That may have influenced my rating, but it is a very entertaining movie.

Kneecap is about Irish rappers...and British colonialism, so be sure to check it out too. Lee, starring Kate Winslet, is an excellent biopic about a pathbreaking female photo journalist. Its release was delayed by the Hollywood acting/writing strikes of 2023.  We saw this at the State Theater in Traverse City (home of the revamped TC Film Festival  mentioned above) during my fall break in late September. 

Next, these films were quite good and might receive award consideration. More likely, they will be remembered as very solid movies:

Girls Will Be Girls *

Civil War
The Missile *

Between the Temples

Will & Harper

June

Rebel Ridge

The Teacher Who Promised the Sea * & **

Carry-On

The three films with asterisks are foreign films that my spouse and I saw at the Blue Mountain Film Festival in late spring in Canada. There are some terrific acting performances in these movies and all address important topics. Green Border from the above list was also at the festival but we didn't attend, partly because it is very long. 

Readers may be more familiar with two movies I saw on Max and Netflix this summer, Civil War and Rebel Ridge. They are entertaining and definitely worth seeing. Both have been picking up some votes (#32 and #55 currently) on critics' "Best of 2024" lists.  We watched Civil War in the same fall break weekend that we saw Lee and both feature female photojournalists during wartime. 

Between the Temples (#40) is funny thanks to a strong cast with good material. Through no fault of his own, I'm sure, Jason Schwartzman sometimes rubs me the wrong way. He's watchable here.

Will & Harper (#97T) has received a lot of press and it is a thoughtful and entertaining film. June is a documentary about June Carter Cash. I like her music and appreciated the doc.

Carry-On is an action movie on Netflix with a Christmas setting. Will it be the Die Hard of the 2020s (and beyond)? There's a reasonable chance of that. The hero isn't as funny as Bruce Willis sometimes was in the earlier film (iirc).

Finally, these films in the last set were less interesting to me though generally watchable and entertaining in one way or another:

Hit Man

A Quiet Place Day One

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice 

Problemista

Love Lies Bleeding

Trap

This list actually includes several films that are appearing on critic "best of" lists. Love Lies Bleeding is currently standing at #24 on that list, making it arguably the best film I saw this year. While I think I know what it was trying to say, too much of it didn't really click with me. Likewise, my spouse and I didn't find Hit Man or Trap (#32 and #46) to be all that great. They were too formulaic and predictable, even when they were going for novelty, if that makes any sense. 

In contrast, we had very low expectations for the Beetlejuice sequel and we kind of liked it. We rewatched the old one in preparation too. Problemista  (#88) was both quirky and fun (and was also delayed by the Hollywood labor strife). The Quiet Place prequel was OK but it didn't have that much to offer beyond what the prior films in the series did.

I'm obviously missing a large number of highly rated films from 2024 and plan to see them through 2025 (and beyond). I used to provide a list (and I still might) of top-rated films that I have not yet seen, but I didn't do it the last couple of years and no one complained. 

NOTES: 

* I saw these movies in theaters!

** Foreign releases from 2023 not really distributed in the US until 2024. 

I will update this if I watched any new films before midnight on the 31st.

I also saw "Blood of Angels" in a theater, a film made by local artists that I know personally. 

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Vote No on Trump

Donald Trump notoriously refused to have a second debate against Kamala Harris -- perhaps because polls and critics overwhelmingly thought he lost the September debate. His verbal mistakes and ridiculous claims during that performance have given way to physical stumbles this week. The guy is 78 years old and his supporters spent months attacking the apparent decline of an aging opponent earlier this year. The electorate obviously absorbed that and Joe Biden was supplanted as the Democratic nominee as a result of the fear of a geriatric president. I don't think Trump wanted America to see another contest highlighting the stark contrast between him and the far more vigorous and quick 60 year old Harris. 

However, anyone can watch video of Trump campaigning in 2016 and it is quite evident that he is a shadow of his former self. His messages are less coherent, he rambles, and he misspeaks with great regularity. Those are links to articles, but just search YouTube for old footage of him from 2015 until 2020.

Through 2020, America became increasingly unimpressed with Trump and his daily COVID TV show. Many analysts say that the 2020 election was a referendum on Trump's handling of the pandemic -- and he lost. Biden won by 7 million votes nationally. 

In any case, despite the lack of a second debate to highlight the contrasts between the candidates, there is still time for the Harris campaign to emphasize the stark differences in their views of America. I intend to make another post highlighting why Harris is the far superior candidate -- not only in temperament, but also because of her pro-choice stance, climate change policy, the importance of Supreme Court nominations, her plans to restore higher and fairer tax rates on the richest Americans, the survival of the Affordable Care Act, etc. Trump is far worse on all those points. 

In this post I'm going to pick some choice Trump remarks that highlight some horrific stances the former President has taken regarding his plans for those opposed to his ideas and policies.

Before I begin, however, I would note that this clip from the 2016 campaign would have been disqualifying for someone seeking to be a junior high school assistant principal let alone President of the United States. I'm not sure new young voters are familiar with it:

Indeed, I've seen credible claims that the youngest voters don't really know anything about Trump's notorious Access Hollywood video footage. This also seemed disqualifying at the time -- and many Republicans said so:

Those words, which Trump and his followers dismissed as "locker room talk," were seemingly very accurate as reflected in Trump's civil defamation trial where a jury found that the former playboy committed "sexual abuse" and even "rape" against a female journalist -- and then denied it. 

I have not even mentioned the 34 felony convictions for business fraud that were again returned after a jury trial. Average Americans, not partisan competitors, heard the evidence presented by prosecutors in NY and decided he filed fraudulent documents concerning his under-the-table payments to porn star Stormy Daniels. Basically, instead of using personal funds to buy her silence, which might have been legal, Trump used business funds and recorded that the payments were for legal services. All of this was in an attempt to hide the facts of his tryst from a voting public in 2016. In other circumstances we'd call that "hush money." 

As I've blogged previously, some of my greatest concerns about Donald Trump center on the fact that the former President regularly makes the kinds of claims and threats that people associate with dictators and tyrants -- he fantasizes about not relinquishing power (and sought to remain in power after losing an election), describes his political opponents as "vermin" or enemies of the people, and threatens to turn the powerful US military against those enemies. 

Just this week, Trump discussed having Republican Liz Cheney, who co-chaired the January 6 investigation in Congress, face a firing squad for her political opinions. 

This is on top of Trump expressing open admiration for non-democratic rule in March 2018 -- and the press reported that the Republican donors in attendance applauded!

Chinese President Xi Jinping recently consolidated power. Trump told the gathering: “He’s now president for life. President for life. And he’s great.” Trump added, “I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll give that a shot someday.”

I know that the Trump campaign has been trying to play up Joe Biden's recent slip of the tongue inadvertently calling Trump supporters "garbage," but Biden is not the candidate, he clarified his remark to make clear he was talking about specific speakers at the Trump rally in Madison Square Garden, AND Trump himself makes similar comments all the time. For example, on Veterans Day in November 2023, Trump called his political opponents "vermin" and an "enemy within" that his administration would persecute: 

“We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections,” Trump said toward the end of his speech, repeating his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. “They’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American Dream.”

It is clear from the speech context that Trump was not talking about some small slice of people who actually identify as communists or Marxists (though a new round of McCarthyism would be horrible). He imagined that this collective group is more dangerous than China or Russia. It's a lot of people.

Trump went on further to state: “the threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within. Because if you have a capable, competent, smart, tough leader, Russia, China, North Korea, they’re not going to want to play with us.”

Trump has called Kamala Harris supporters garbage and scum. Just about a week ago, he called the US the "garbage can for the world." 

While words matter and these words are especially concerning, all voters should be frightened about how a new Trump presidency would address the so-called vermin/scum/garbage enemy within. Trump himself claims his response would involve setting the National Guard and military on these foes. Consider his words from an interview on Fox in mid-October 2024:

"I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within,” Trump said. He added: “We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the big — and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.”

Now circle back to that quote about Cheney above -- and the many documented times Trump has encouraged political violence. Former top national security and political aids who worked for Trump have warned that he is a dangerous wannabe fascist who should not be anywhere near the presidency again. I believe them. 

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The F Word

Nope, not that one. I mean fascism. Not all readers may know what that term means or implies, historically. Most have a vague idea that the term is associated with Hitler (and maybe Mussolini), but don't realize that the word isn't merely a label for a type of politics that may seem obscure to them. It's a label for a particularly dangerous type of authoritarian politics that ends democracy. 

Political scientists often point to numerous examples where fascists and fascist-adjacent authoritarians came to power VIA ELECTIONS and then do everything in their power to assure that their political opponents (along with academics, journalist, artists, and other voices of dissent) are silenced, thrown in prison, and even killed. They do not relinquish power and subsequent elections are effectively "rigged" by the fact that opposition has been illegally crushed.

It's been shocking to me for some time that the European Union, a democratic institution, has not done something dramatic about Victor Orban's Hungary. His rise to power -- and many years in office -- exactly reflect this danger. Many Americans on the right are openly infatuated with this pathway and celebrate Orban as if he were someone to emulate. 

In any case, it is important to realize that the road to fascism is the road to the end of democracy, even if a democratic election lies along the pathway. The presence of a prominent (and successful) fascist in American politics poses great potential dangers.

For those wanting more detail, the Council on Foreign Relations provides a helpful definition of fascism: 

Many experts agree that fascism is a mass political movement that emphasizes extreme nationalism, militarism, and the supremacy of the nation over the individual. This model of government stands in contrast to liberal democracies that support individual rights, competitive elections, and political dissent.

In many ways, fascist regimes are revolutionary in nature. They advocate for the overthrow of existing systems of government and the persecution of political enemies. However, such regimes are also highly conservative in their championing of traditional values.

And although fascist leaders typically claim to support the everyman, in reality, their regimes often align with powerful business interests.

Why would John F. Kelly, Donald Trump's longest-serving Chief of Staff, a former four star general in the US Marines, call Trump a fascist? 

Shall we go through the definition?

First, does Trump lead "a mass political movement that emphasizes extreme nationalism, militarism, and the supremacy of the nation over the individual"?

Trump is a self-described nationalist and ran as a populist, claiming to support the little guy who elites had trampled in the past. He claims to lead a very popular mass political movement. Trump lied and said he won the 2016 election in a "landslide" and repeated the lie after the election of 2020. 

The movement's slogan is literally "Make America Great Again" (MAGA), which is not the same as the liberal democratic objective to prioritize individual rights and dissent. I refer to liberal democracy here as a form of limited government -- the type America has attempted to create since its founding, open to free flowing information, equal protection under the law, minority rights despite majority rule, the rule of law, and a market economy. Americans aspire for a more perfect union, but this can require struggle. America's orginal voters were property-owning white men. Only gradually were other men, women, people of color, adults aged 18 to 21, etc. allowed to partake in this democratic experiment.  

Numerous Trump policies and/or proposals put his view of national goals over individual liberty -- the Muslim ban, the family separation policy, recision of Title IX protections for transgender students, and many more.  If none of that seems bothersome to the reader, don't forget the famous classic poem "First They Came" by Pastor Martin Niemöller.

What about militarism? Trump's efforts to MAGA included (in his first term) an effort to "make our military stronger than ever" as his then-Secretary of Defense said at the time. Trump perhaps wanted to be viewed as the "peace candidate" in 2016, but he repeatedly made (or makes) outlandish military threats against other states -- including North Korea, Iran, and now "the enemy from within." That's militaristic. Trump talks openly about deploying the US military against alleged internal threats -- despite laws designed to prevent that exact scenario. 

Incidentally, that Defense Secretary statement about military strength was from former four-star Marine General Jim Mattis, who reportedly agrees with Kelly and called Trump “the most dangerous person ever.” Notoriously, Trump appointed numerous generals to fill top slots in government, including to positions that are typically reserved for civilians, worrying some scholars of civil-military relations and democratic governance.

Beyond Kelly and Mattis, others from that group have offered similar warnings about Trump as a fascist threat to democracy:

Mark Milley, who was appointed by Trump to be the nation's highest ranking military officer as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called him "fascist to the core" and "the most dangerous person to this country" in comments to journalist Bob Woodward.

Some of the non-military former staffers have also agreed with Kelly and signed an open letter.

Second does Trump "advocate for the overthrow of existing systems of government and the persecution of political enemies"? Was his regime "also highly conservative in...championing of traditional values"? 

After January 6, the answer to the first question seems obvious. Trump has been offering the "big lie" since losing to Joe Biden in 2020 and still does not accept the results of the election even though he lost dozens of court cases and all of the "evidence" for a stolen election has been convincingly  and thoroughly debunked. Even when Trump sympathizers attempted to recount ballots in Arizona, they arrived at a result that favored Biden by even more votes than the original count. Trump knew that he lost -- according to his Attorney General and his political advisors. His own daughter (Ivanka, who served in the administration) admits that he lost. 

Some people might consider all this and merely think Trump is a "sore loser." But there's much, much more. He gathered protesters and extremists to Washington in an effort to stop the certification of the 2020 election, he worked with political figures in various states to manufacture fake Electoral College electors and ballots, he is charged with inciting protesters to criminal and violent behavior, and he both privately and publicly urged Mike Pence to take actions that are not in the power of the Vice Presidency. 

Since losing, Trump has repeatedly said he will seek revenge on his political enemies -- it's a growing list that includes lots of Republicans that have spoken out against his lies. I do not have time or energy to document each case as an "NPR investigation has found that Trump has made more than a hundred threats to investigate, prosecute, jail or otherwise punish his perceived opponents, including private citizens." By name he has mentioned Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, Liz Cheney, Anthony Fauci, etc. Trump openly says he wants retribution. 

The championing of conservative values is part of Trump's message so I won't belabor it. He appointed judges who eliminated the right to abortion and calls now for a "states-right" approach, which is what segregationists wanted for civil rights. He supports tax cuts and gun rights and makes anti-immigration and massive deportation a central argument for his election. These are now all conservative causes -- to say nothing of his recent use of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. 

Third, despite Trump claiming "to support the everyman," did he, "in reality...often align with powerful business interests"? Trump's main legislative victory as president was a huge tax cut that primarily aided wealthy people and business interests. He appointed a large number of billionaires to his Cabinet -- and very few women or people of color. Elon Musk, the world's richest man, has been advising Trump and openly campaigning for him in person and on his social media site. 

That's the CFR list, but I could easily add more points. Trump has said he would be a dictator on day one. He has stoked violence in American politics -- a critique I have been making for many years. Trump repeatedly praised authoritarians and dictators while he was president -- and after. The list includes Russia's Vladimir Putin, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, Hungary's Victor Orban, and Chinese President Xi Jinpin. Behind the scenes he apparently admired Adolph Hitler. He has "joked" about serving as president beyond two terms (contrary to the US constitution) and reportedly made all kinds of policy suggestions that would not be legal. Some of the generals and other former Trump officials speaking out against him say he has no understanding of the rule of law. 

I haven't even mentioned his almost unfathomable propensity to lie -- notably even claiming falsely that his January 6 speech encouraged merely peaceful protest, that no one was killed that day, or that no one was armed. All readily disproved. Oh, and by the way, this lying is buttressed by his constant criticism of the media, which he has called "the enemy of the people," and threats to jail reporters and strip away broadcast licenses. 

Anyone thinking of voting for this man should take into account the views of the numerous inner circle Republicans -- including former Vice President Dick Cheney -- who are courageously speaking out against Trump and urging his defeat in November's election. 

NOTE: I may update this piece with links and ideas that I overlooked.

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Immigration and Crime

I participated in a panel in my department today on Foreign Policy and the 2024 election. I talked about NATO and climate change -- with these questions in mind: Will these policy issues influence the outcome of the election (maybe climate change); and how will the election results influence policy going forward?

Colleagues talked about Russia/Ukraine, Gaza/Lebanon, China, and immigration.

The last issue was the most controversial as the panelists (and student audience members) had the deepest disagreement on this issue during the Q&A.

I feel compelled to fact-check some of the statements that were flying around the room.

Contra to alarming claims, the Biden administration has not had an "open borders" policy. This claim is basically a Republican talking point in recent presidential campaigms, not some settled matter of public policy. The libertarian Cato Institute, which used to be reliably Republican, agrees. On the left, advocates of open borders certainly do not view the US border as open. 

Next, immigrants do not commit "most crime" or even a disproportionate share of them.  A number from New York City referenced in today's discussion was essentially made up by "police sources" and reported in the tabloid New York Post.  Meanwhile, a more thorough dive by the NY Times this past February revealed quite different official data from the NYPD:

But police data indicate that there has been no surge in crime since April 2022, when Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas started sending buses of migrants to New York to protest the federal government’s border policy.

More than 170,000 migrants have arrived in the city since then, and it is difficult to know what crime statistics would show had they not come. But as the migrant numbers have increased, the overall crime rate has stayed flat. And, in fact, many major categories of crime — including rape, murder and shootings — have decreased, according to an analysis of the New York Police Department’s month-by-month statistics since April 2022.

The story also quotes (by name) experts: "Jeffrey Butts, director of the Research and Evaluation Center at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said that there was no discernible migrant crime wave."

Beyond NYC, the paper also referenced academic studies: 

"In 2023, researchers at Stanford University found that immigrants were imprisoned at lower rates than people born in the United States. In 2020, a University of Wisconsin-Madison study noted that undocumented immigrants in Texas tended to have fewer felony arrests than legal residents."

The Department of Justice's National Institute of Justice recently discussed a study it funded conducted using Texas data, which is perhaps the one referenced by the TImes (or a follow-up): 

 An NIJ-funded study examining data from the Texas Department of Public Safety estimated the rate at which undocumented immigrants are arrested for committing crimes. The study found that undocumented immigrants are arrested at less than half the rate of native-born U.S. citizens for violent and drug crimes and a quarter the rate of native-born citizens for property crimes.

Reuters collected an array of academic studies in mid-summer debunking the myth of out-of-control immigrant crime. "A meta-analysis of more than fifty studies on the link between immigration and crime between 1994 and 2014 found there was no significant relationship between the two." . 

The evidence seems overwhelming. The American Immigration Council looked at data from 1980 to 2022 and found "that as the immigrant share of the population grew, the crime rate declined." The Council also looked at recent data from the FBI and Census Bureau:

Using Uniform Crime Reporting data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and population data from the U. S. Census Bureau, the Council also explored the relationship between total crime rates and immigrant shares of the population between 2017 and 2022 at the state level. Using beta regression analyses and data from all 50 states, the result shows no statistically significant correlation between the immigrant share of the population and the total crime rate in any state. This means higher immigrant population shares are not associated with higher crime rates, which aligns with a wealth of prior research on this topic.

The Brennan Center for Justice links to numerous studies. The Center notes that the immigrant crime myth goes back to at least the 1930s and has been used to tarnish "Irish, Catholic, Jewish, Italian, Mexican, Japanese, Chinese, and German people" who immigrated. One study by a Northwestern scholar referenced in the Reuters story I noted above uses data going back 150 years. The results showed that more recent immigrants are even less likely to commit crimes and become incarcerated than previous waves of immigrants. 

Personally, I've referenced stats in my classes from the Anti-Defamation League that reveal much the same information -- immigrants commit fewer crimes than citizens. By the way, links in this quote are in the original and not all of them currently work. The bolded parts are also in the original. 

Study after study has shown that immigrants – regardless of where they are from, what immigration status they hold, and how much education they have completed – are less likely than native-born citizens to commit crimes or become incarcerated.

According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, while the overall percentage of immigrants and the number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. both increased between 1990 and 2016, the violent crime rate in the U.S. during that time plummeted 48 percent and the property crime rate dropped by 41 percent. More recent population and crime data from the Pew Research Center reveals the continuation of this trend. Studies have consistently found that immigrants are less likely to be incarcerated than native-born Americans and that there is a negative correlation between levels of immigration and crime rates.

Other studies have found that crime rates are lowest in states with the highest immigration growth rates, and that states with larger shares of undocumented immigrants tend to have lower crime rates than states with smaller shares.

The ADL also debunks myths about terrorism, non-citizen voting, public health, etc. Customs and Border Protection also post annual stats. While those numbers undoubtedly reflect growing border encounters, they do not show a great number of criminals coming across the border as a percentage of the total. This is a link to the obviously non-alarming crime numbers from CBP.

When pressed for numbers, the Trump campaign responds with anecdotes about specific crimes. In a nation of 330 million people, this is a terrible and misleading way to document anything. Spend a few minutes on the internet and one can find misleading instances of all sorts of horrible crimes committed by all sorts of trusted people -- mothers, coaches, teachers, priests, etc. Those specific cases would not necessarily make any generalizable point. 

Michael Light, the University of Wisconsin-Madison professor, said U.S. research overall does not indicate immigrants are more likely to commit crime.

"Of course, foreign-born individuals have committed crimes," Light said in an interview. "But do foreign-born individuals commit crime at a disproportionately higher rate than native-born individuals? The answer is pretty conclusively no."

 

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Firsts

Here are 2 striking paragraphs from a (free access) column by Kate Cohen in the WaPo earlier this month:

When [Kamala] Harris was born, 60 years ago this month, women could not serve on a jury in all 50 states. They had to have a male relative sign a business loan. They had no legal recourse against sexual harassment or marital rape. There was no no-fault divorce. They could get the pill, but only if they were married. They could not get a legal abortion unless their lives were in danger, and they could be fired for getting pregnant. They could not be admitted to Harvard College or the U.S. Military Academy or join their local Rotary, Kiwanis or Lions Club. Among the Fortune 500 companies, there was not a single female CEO.

To get to the point where she might become the first female U.S. president, Harris first had to become the first female district attorney of San Francisco, the first female attorney general of California and the first female vice president of the United States.

Many of my students are about 20 years old and do not know about events from 10 or 12 years ago. My guess is that even middle-aged adults won't realize the history mentioned here. 

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