Top 5: Demographics, rights, and Foucault
Plus: predictive policing and getting comfy with China
The Top 5 articles for your week:
“America Hasn’t Lost Its Demographic Advantage” (Foreign Affairs)
Because the United States “demographic exceptionalism” has been a primary source of its strength in foreign affairs, but the 2020 census has the expert who coined that term revisiting this assessment: “The dip in fertility in the United States does suggest that clear-cut U.S. demographic exceptionalism may be over, at least for the time being. The United States will likely surrender its place as the third most populous country in the world to Nigeria at some point before 2050. But it will remain a fairly young and vital society, at least with respect to other developed countries and to competitors such as China and Russia.”
“From Guns to Gay Marriage, How Did Rights Take Over Politics?” (New Yorker)
Because the focus on rights in our politics is tied up in the political sectarianism of our politics. From the article: “‘rightsism’ is less a philosophy than a strategy, by which a minority cause can achieve a fuller political victory than might otherwise be possible.”
“What Rising Secularism Means for America’s Political Future” (Deseret News)
Because Kelsey Dallas takes a look at a vital new book—Secular Surge: A New Fault Line in American Politics by David E. Campbell, Geoffrey C. Layman and John C. Green—on how rising religious disaffiliation will affect both political parties.
“How Michel Foucault Lost the Left and Won the Right” (New York Times)
Because “[I]f Foucault’s thought offers a radical critique of all forms of power and administrative control, then as the cultural left becomes more powerful and the cultural right more marginal, the left will have less use for his theories, and the right may find them more insightful.” Beware, says Ross Douthat.
“Wall Street’s new love affair with China” (Financial Times)
Because as President Biden continues to position his presidency as a response to China’s growing power and his attempt to keep America on top, “American finance has never been closer to Chinese wealth.”