The combination of Covid and my Parkinson’s has posed certain problems for me as I prepare for the course I shall start teaching August 15. Rather than teaching in Caldwell Hall, where the philosophy department is located, I shall be meeting the class across campus in the Biology building, because Caldwell is utterly handicap inaccessible.
I shall be wearing a mask, whether it is required by the
University or not, because the latest variant is extremely contagious and I do
not want even a mild case of the disease if I can avoid it. But one of the side
effects of my disease is that my voice is somewhat compromised and not as loud as it once was so wearing a mask may make me totally inaudible. The solution is a microphone. I went online
to look for one on Amazon and found a great many handheld microphones with
built-in speakers – just the thing.
There is only one problem. All of them without exception are
described as “karaoke microphones.” I shall explain to the students that if
I burst into song from time to time they must be patient with me.
37 comments:
I am becoming more persuaded that a combined approach of online podcasting and meeting with students in person is better than a purely online course or a purely in person course. I will experiment with this combined or hybrid approach in September 2022 when I start teaching again at UPEI. With regards to lecturing, in this case, you could record a primary lecture in the safety of your home office without a mask and make the students responsible for listening to the lecture or reading the text before the class, as you have put it online on Moodle system at UNC. The class itself then becomes an interaction forum primarily, while the students get raw data, texts and lectures by audio or video podcast online. Your voice could be normally accessible and unmuffled online, and although it is always more work (extra recording, without a real audience to spur you on) to do hybrid teaching like this, the students appreciate this kind of multiple accessibility to the study materials. They want free access, open source everything.
Also, remember that some of the students may be wearing masks and thus when they speak, you won't be able to hear them either. There will be no lip reading for the deaf students. Some podcast lectures can be prepared ahead of time to save time while teaching the classes. The submission of student assignments through the Moodle system is superior to the old manner of hard copy submission and very easy to set up. The use of Moodle Forums in which every student composes a short argument commenting on an assigned class topic is also superior to asking for volunteers to comment in class as many more can participate. But it becomes more work to read all this new commentary.
My hope is that the mechanics of teaching and formal interactions with students for marking purposes can be made more efficient by using a Moodle system pragmatically, as there is added flexibility and accessibility to free raw materials for study online, and the professor in this Panopticon system can also see, hear and secretly surveil the class.
Whether it is microphones or classrooms with video capture and technicians to help record the lecture, technology is flooding into higher education and probably lowering its qualities or shifting its form. Continuing pandemic conditions are making higher education into a more dangerous job for persons more susceptible to the virus, so using the Moodle system correctly and simply should add stability to the educational experience even if there are surges or local shutdowns.
I hope you can work with an assistant or figure out a way to use Moodle at UNC to make the interactions with students work better. I have been running into classes where a majority of the students are struggling and not able to follow instructions or keep up with the class schedule, and about 20-25% of the students cannot complete the course or fail to do enough to get credit. Prior to the pandemic, I would have closer to 4-5% students not able to complete. A student assistant who knows how to work with the Moodle system and could scan things on to it or help students in the forums would be useful, but most of the Moodle course software comes with tutorial videos to help you edit your web site for the course and set things up. If you like Harpo Marx's comedy, you could bring a bicycle horn to get the class's attention and beep at them if needed.
At the weekly darkest moments of teaching I used to stop the lecture/discussion and say "Excuse me while I go bang my head against the wall." With a karaoke microphone the possibilities are endless; my go-to would have been OMD's 'I never know, I never know, I never know why/ You make me wanna cry."
omg that was so funny!!!!!
I have been concerned about you doing an in person class. Hopefully your students voluntarily do the right thing and mask up too (as well as getting vaccinated and boosted) and the school boosted the HVAC. Good Luck!
No need to reinvent the wheel, Prof Wolff. You're surely not the only university professor to have faced these challenges. It might be worth consulting with a good occupational therapist for suggestions on specific kinds of equipment and alternative ways of doing things that are becoming more difficult as a result of your symptoms. (The same might also be true for Susi, btw.)
Another resource to consider is Parkinson's patients support groups. If there aren't any in your local community, there are probably several in other parts of the country, and maybe even internationally, that you can connect with online. You may find that there are folks in these communities who've already tried various products you are considering and who can offer recommendations based on their direct experience. That may be more useful to you than going by product reviews written by random Amazon customers who have completely different needs and expectations.
https://www.razer.com/gear-accessories/razer-zephyr
Can the institution provide you with a clip-on lav (lavalier) microphone, that hooks into the room’s audio system? It might be work that asking, as that can be much less obtrusive than a handheld microphone.
Professor Wolff --
The fact that Caldwell Hall is completely inaccessible to you is example number 9,878,966 (give or take a few) why the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 has fallen woefully short of its promise of granting universal access to those with disabilities. That the Act requires updating is no doubt obvious. But your situation also highlights the intersectionality of disability concerns. There was once a point in your life when accessing Caldwell Hall would pose no difficulty. That situation has changed. The point is it should not have. Facilitating universal access does not simply benefit the disabled. It benefits everyone in society.
-- Jim
As the academic world turns its stomach at continuing pandemic conditions which interfere with normally liberated education activities, Noam Chomsky is on a podcast rampage and doing interviews with many political podcasters and academics (search YouTube for Noam Chomsky interviews and check the results). Chomsky is trying to get the world's attention and humanity to face the existential threats of environmental destruction and nuclear war. Here is a July 6, 2022 podcast transcript and video with Canadian group CDA involving Chomsky's pitch to the world that is not listening:
https://cdainstitute.ca/noam-chomsky-the-world-looks-very-dangerous/
Washington and Moscow are equally to blame for bringing us into greater crisis according to Chomsky, and the "escape hatch" to end the current war in Ukraine is dysfunctional diplomacy and social media systems that undermine rational argument internationally. The question before us now is whether humanity has the moral skills and capacity to steer out of this compound crisis situation in which our weapons of mass destruction and technologies of mass communication have outrun our moral controls.
1968 was the summer of love and dawn of liberation from the authoritarian police state system; 2022 is the summer of war and eclipse of reason, or regression into a security state invested in war machines and a war economy instead of stopping environmental destruction. That is the "Negative Dialectics" reading of the current politically compound crises. Our ability to understand our own history and the whole of time is undermined when we lose faith in the dialectical methods of critical philosophy which must be used to create an accurate and truer picture than we are predisposed to believe by immersion in that history.
Tony --
I completely agree with you. I was just watching one recent conversation with Chomsky where he was basically stating that a key problem is how universally accepted and "normalized" neoliberalism economic policies have become. This is what prevents the possibility for environmental protection policies to be enacted or for basic human rights to be enforced. So the Supreme Court rules that the EPA lacks authority to enforce the regulation of corporate emissions and that women are unable to make decisions about their own bodies. So there is a lot of handwringing and a few protests here and there but then people have to get back to work or they find themselves without a job and out on the street. "Negative Dialectics" for sure.
-- Jim
Consider the following series of adjectives/verbs:
1. hot; tepid; cold
2. hard; flexible; soft
3. brilliant; smart; dumb
4. hate; like; love
Groups 1 and 2 are similar in this respect: they are distinguishable in the degree of absence of a particular quality – in the case of tepid and cold, they emanate less heat; in the case of flexibility and softness, they represent different atomic structures, with different bonding. In this respect, they are not substantively different, but different in degree.
Group 3 is distinguishable from groups 1 and 2. They are substantively different, not different by the degree of absence of a quality. Someone who is smart is not simply lacking in brilliance, and someone who may be described as dumb in not simply lacking “smartness.”
Group 4 is a clearer example of group 3 – liking is not simply lesser form of hatred; and love is not simply the absence of hate. They are each distinctly different in character.
My thoughts in this regard were prompted by an article I was reading by Gabriel Rockhill in CouterPunch, titled “Liberalism and Fascism: Partners in Crime.” You can find it here:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/14/liberalism-and-fascism-partners-in-crime/
In the article, Prof. Rockhill condemns Western liberal democracies as just another form of fascism, more palatable, perhaps, but essentially not different in kind. He states:
“[The] framing of the relationship between liberalism and fascism not only presents them as complete opposites, but it also defines the very essence of the fight against fascism as the struggle for liberalism. In so doing, it forges an ideological false antagonism. For what fascism and liberalism share in their undying devotion to the capitalist world order. Although one prefers the velvet glove of hegemonic and consensual rule, and the other relies more readily on the iron fist of repressive violence, they are both intent on maintaining and developing capitalist social relations, and they have worked together throughout modern history to do so. What this apparent conflict masks – and this is its true ideological power – is that the real, fundamental dividing line is not between different modes of capitalist governance, but between capitalists and anti-capitalists.”
Given my avowals on this blog that I am a liberal Democrat, and not ashamed to say so, the idea that I am no more than a fascist in disguise disturbs me. Hence, my effort to consider semantic analogies to Prof. Rockhill’s dichotomy between fascism and liberalism as no more than differences in degree, but basically the same thing. Is there no substantive difference between fascism and liberalism, because they both, purportedly, are based on maintaining capitalism, a form of fascism? Are they more like the adjective in groups 1 and 2, or like the concepts expressed in groups 3 and 4? Is liberalism simply a less offensive form of fascism, like cold being the absence of heat; or more like hate and love, distinctly different qualities that, really, have little to nothing in common?
I, of course, believe that the dichotomy Prof. Rockhill proposes is more like hate/love, rather that hot/cold. Eric and others disagree with me. Where do you stand, and why?
Postscript:
I am not recommending, and do not support, academic censorship, but Prof. Rockhill teaches at Villanova University, which prides itself as being the only Augustinian Catholic university in the United States. How does he survive there?
"Liberalism" is a vague word. It means one thing in the U.S. and another thing in Europe and Latin America. "Fascism" has also become fairly vague in its use and by now leftists label as "fascism" any far rightwing political doctrine. Is Trump really a fascist in the sense Hitler and Mussolini were? I have no idea by now.
However, I basically agree with Marc.
The word "capitalism" covers a lot of territory from the ultra-neoliberalism of Pinochet to
Nordic social democracy.
The great Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, a member of the German and then British communist party until that party dissolved, remarked in his old age that we make a mistake when we see capitalism and socialism as binary terms. In reality, Hobsbawm points out, Nordic social democracy is a lot closer to one's ideal of socialism than it is to the neoliberalism of Pinochet or Thatcher, although both Nordic social democracy and
neoliberalism are capitalist.
I vote with Professor Hobsbawm, one of the great minds of the 20th and early 21st centuries (he is now deceased) and thinker firmly anchored in reality.
Fascism has "undying devotion to the capitalist world order?" Weren't the Nazi's "National Socialists"? Mussolini a devotee of Adam Smith?
Their "undying devotion" was to power, nothing else.
"Fascism" is a term that gets bandied about often, but has little clear meaning. There is no philosophy of Fascism. It has no John Locke or Karl Marx or, for that matter, Adam Smith.
Marc,
While I don't know a lot about Villanova, it is not my impression that it has any kind of political or other "tests" for its faculty members. A high-school classmate of mine was a history professor there for some years (he now teaches at another univ.). According to something Eric posted on another thread, Rockhill was hired there as a specialist on Derrida etc. That in itself shd suggest something about at least the dept that hired him.
There are some institutions where someone w Rockhill's views might find it difficult to "survive" or be in the first place, but I don't think Villanova is one of them, fwiw.
I finally broke down and purchased a smart phone from Cellular One. At $20/month, it is the cheapest program I could find. For years I used a flip phone, mostly just for emergencies, if, for example, my car broke down on the highway. I hated eating lunch with my colleagues, as they silently flipped through their emails, read silly stories on the internet and played repetitious games which tested their finger speed, leaving me to contemplate my inner thoughts. The smart phone killed intelligent conversation. I was perfectly happy with my flip phone, paying $25 every three months, but AT & T, in what it claimed was improved service, discontinued the pay-as-you-go system. I hope that my acquisition of a smart phone does turn me into one of those mindless smart phone texting zombies, without a creative or original thought in my head. (Eric is thinking, sorry Marc, it’s already too late.)
If not the beginning of wisdom, but at least the preliminary to the beginning of wisdom in these matters, is to recognize that terms like 'liberalism' and 'fascism' are not pointing to political phenomena that have essences, invariant structures and characteristics, a well-defined set of associated practices and institutions, and definitive doctrinal statements. So it's hard not to agree with Rockhill that the idea that there is a simple contrast between 'liberalism' and 'fascism' is a piece of crude ideology; almost any such contrast in politics would be. Still, perhaps more pointed and helpful in a limited range of contemporary contexts would be a contrast between 'liberalism' and 'authoritarianism'.--In Not Thinking like a Liberal Raymond Geuss asserts that the real total ideology of our time is the complex capitalism-democracy-liberalism. There are of course not tight conceptual links among these three, so one can imagine worlds with some version of any two of those and without the third, or just one of those, etc.--In the book Geuss addresses only liberalism, and only that in terms of explicit statements relating to what Locke, Smith, and Mill might be thought to have in common. He thinks that what they really share, and what is at the core of liberalism, is the phantasy of a self-transparent individual, ideally unmoored from attachments, capable of free assent, and a socio-political structure that enforces taboos and boundaries between the private sphere of such individuals and public affairs. He notes that many people (though not he himself) think that liberalism is at least not bound to ideologies of the 'free market'. (If anyone wants to read a bit more about this, and can't be bothered to read the book, I expand one some of this in a review of a few weeks ago, available at some of the least visited parts of the internet, namely my blog and my academia.edu page).
Eric is right - I already misspoke - "does not turn me into ..."
Marc, maybe in the future you could look into one of those contemporary minimalist phones - contemporary because they have touch-screens (unlike flip-phones), minimalist because they dispense with just about every smartphone feature except for the call and text functions (so, e.g., no Internet browser). They do exist; I think one of the better-regarded ones is called the Light Phone. I was thinking about getting one myself a while ago, but my work began to require a standard smartphone.
DP: There was an Italian idealist philosopher, Giovanni Gentile, who was known as “the philosopher of fascism.” He was a major figure in Italian intellectual life from about the beginning of the 20th century until his assassination by Italian antifascist partisans in 1944. He frequently butted heads with Benedetto Croce, especially after his full-throated conversion to fascism. Gentile was minister of education for a while, and a close friend of Mussolini’s. He got a lot of attention for his prefascist philosophy among the Oxford idealists in the first couple of decades of the century, and at least one of his books (Theory of Mind as Pure Act) was translated into English and published by Macmillan in 1922. R.G. Collingwood thought highly of Gentile, until Gentile turned fascist. And then Collingwood changed his mind 360 degrees about him. In his Autobiography, Collingwood has some interesting things to say about fascism, from the perspective of a moderately conservative English intellectual near the end of the 1930s. One of these things is Collingwood’s bon mot about the historical connections of socialism, fascism, and capitalism: he says that whereas the Marxist slogan is “workers of the world—unite,” the fascist slogan really should be “capitalists of the world—unite.” Anyway, one can find an interesting (if intemperate and wayward) discussion of this on pages 156-159 of Collingwood’s Autobiography. My copy of that book came out in 1978, which was probably the first re-issue of it since 1940 or so; it’s been recently re-issued by Oxford (under the watchful eye of Collingwood’s extant daughter) so the thing is around. Also, I am aware that Internet Archive has a borrowable copy of it, which one can access and read for free. The few pages I cited above are worth one’s time, if one is interested in this sort of thing. (For what it’s worth, Collingwood’s Autobiography is probably my favorite philosophy book. When I first read it in the 1970s, I thought he was crazy (and reading his New Leviathan and his Essay on Metaphysics contributed to my take on him then). But I’ve long since changed my mind about him.) Anyway, fascism did seem to have a philosophy—not that that made any real difference to the fascists.
Yep, there apparently is such a thing as fascist philosophy. I didn't want to click around any further once I sensed I was veering toward a far-right rabbit-hole, but Amazon once recommended me Julius Evola.
Wikipedia: According to the scholar Franco Ferraresi, "Evola's doctrine can be considered as one of the most radical, consistent, rigorous expressions of anti-equalitarian, anti-liberal, anti-democratic and anti-popular thought in the twentieth century". Ferraresi claims “it is a singular (though not necessarily original) blend” of several schools and traditions, including German idealism, Eastern doctrines, traditionalism, and the all-embracing Weltanschauung of the interwar conservative revolutionary movement with which Evola had a deep personal involvement. Historian Aaron Gillette described Evola as "one of the most influential fascist racists in Italian history".
Evola admired SS head Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler, whom he once met. Autobiographical remarks by Evola allude to his having worked for the Sicherheitsdienst, or SD, the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party. During his trial in 1951, Evola denied being a fascist and instead referred to himself as "superfascista" (lit. 'superfascist'). Concerning this statement, historian Elisabetta Cassina Wolff wrote that "It is unclear whether this meant that Evola was placing himself above or beyond Fascism".
Evola has been called the "chief ideologue" of Italy's radical right after World War II. He continues to influence contemporary traditionalist and neo-fascist movements.
Correction: I should have said: Collingwood changed his mind 180 degrees (not 360 degrees) about Gentile after Gentile's conversion to fascism.
No mention yet of Heidegger or Carl Schmitt about whom there can be little doubt that they were Nazis. I guess the question is whether their ways of thinking were compatible with the politics they came to adhere to, or whether they altered their ways of thinking to fit their adoration of the god they imagined would save them. I'm pretty sure that Richard Bernstein, who died a few days ago, thought that Heidegger's way of thinking, even when not obviously Hitlerian, was imbued with proto-Nazi underpinnings and expressions.
@ John Rapko
I wouldn't call an academia.edu page that has more than 7500 views, as yours does, one of "the least visited parts of the internet."
Marc, Prof. Rockhill writes of communism as if it is still a thing that could be. I wish he would explain that. Capitalism is quite malleable and can survive in a wide range of polities. Henry Ford built factories in the USSR in the late 1920s so we had Ford factories in Communist USSR and Nazi Germany. Ditto many large US corporations.
I'm not sure why he insists on doing bad history. Khrushchev had a better take on WW II:
https://www-hrono-ru.translate.goog/libris/lib_h/hrush28.php?_x_tr_sch=http&_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc
An interesting take on capitalists and fascism is at the end of the beer garden scene in Caberet where Brian asks Max if he still thinks he can control them and Max just shrugs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDuHXTG3uyY
Fritz Poebel
I claim no expertise in the area. My only source is Robert Paxton’s book, “The Anatomy of Fascism,” which I read recently. He writes:
“Fascism rested not upon the truth of its doctrine but upon the leader’s mystical union with the historic destiny of his people, a notion related to romanticist ideas of national historic flowering and individual artistic or spiritual genius, though fascism otherwise denied romanticism’s exaltation of unfettered personal creativity.”
Paxton mentions Gentile a few times, once in noting that fascism appealed to a diverse group that included street brawlers, “a professor of philosophy like Giovanni Gentile or even, briefly, a musician like Arturo Toscanini.”
He writes that, “Fascism’s deliberate replacement of reasoned debate with immediate sensual experience transformed politics…into aesthetics.” He quotes Hanna Arendt saying that Mussolini “was probably the first party leader who consciously rejected a formal program and replaced it with inspired leadership and action alone.”
I read Paxton to argue that someone like Gentile was a philosopher who was also a fascist, but that doesn’t make him (or Heidegger) a philosopher of fascism.
Your references to Collingwood spur me to read him again. I first heard of Collingwood when I was a senior in college in 1959-60. I ran into a friend who began raving about Collingwood’s “The Idea of History,” so I got a copy, read it and enjoyed it, but I suspect much of it went over my head. Sometime in the ‘70s I found several books of his in a used bookstore and picked them up. One was the autobiography and the other his Essay on Metaphysics.
I read them both at the time, but recall nothing of the Essay on Metaphysics and little of the autobiography except that he wrote while going around the world on a tramp steamer. You’ve provoked my interest. I’ll get a copy of the autobiography and, I hope, re-read The Idea of History. (I previously read the first edition of this, but now have the revised edition which I read some time ago.)
aaall, your opening words, addressed to Marc, at 4:51 PM, sound awfully end-of hsitoryish to me. But however, malleable capitalism has proved to be, doesn’t it deserve to be explored critically, especially since its successes are now as always accompanied by such enormous liabilities, some of which even seem to be posing existential threats to life on earth? Of course, it is, as someone remarked, easier for us to imagine that life might be exterminated than it is to imagine the end of capitalism.
As to communism, what’s in a name (but see below)? I guess I’ll go along with Fredric Jameson’s argument that “whatever its other vicissitudes, a postmodern capitalism necessarily calls a postmodern Marxism into existence over against itself,” That’s at the end of his essay on “Actually Existing Marxism,” which begins with words that seem to directly challenge your words to Marc: “The end of the Soviet Union has been the occasion for celebrations of the “death of Marxism” in quarters not particularly scrupulous about distinguishing Marxism itself as a mode of thought and analysis, socialism as a political and societal aim and vision, and communism as an historical movement.” But perhaps you were being scrupulous? Anyway, you now have the opportuniity to set me staight, to clarify more precisely what you meant.
Anon, I was responding to the article Marc referenced. One of the items has a point:
"Capitalist states refused to form an antifascist coalition with the U.S.S.R., a country that fourteen of them had invaded and occupied from 1918 to 1920 in a failed attempt to destroy the world’s first workers’ republic."
Namely the intervention against the revolution was stupid but "workers' republic," really? That "all power to the soviets" thing didn't last long.
Since capitalism in some form exists in regimes that range from fascist through illiberal democracies, liberal democracies, social democracies, and seems to always creep into those that are communist, Prof. Rockhill's central point seems to fail. The stickiness of neo-liberalism is a problem,
related is the growth of a parasitic financial sector.
"...easier for us to imagine that life might be exterminated than it is to imagine the end of capitalism."
We evolved as a species that is inclined to truck and barter. Given our refusal to deal with climate a niche may open up in the next few decades. Different species, different priors.
aaall,
Of course an orthodox Marxist (I'm not one myself, but) would say that in Russia in 1917 the objective conditions of capitalist development necessary for socialism did not exist and that when they do exist, socialism will be possible. We'll have to wait to see if that is true or not.
s.w. indeed! I believe Prof. Leiter once speculated that might be in a century or so. In that case we septuagenarians will never know. The problem is that folks on the way down become more conservative and on the way up they seek profit.
aaall,
Exactly. I was thinking of Leiter myself.
DP: If you’re interested in Collingwood, you might find a recent biography of him by Fred Inglis worth your time. It’s entitled “History Man—The Life of R.G. Collingwood.” It was published back in 2009 by Princeton University Press. Though a pretty highbrow work written by a British academic, it’s not heavy going and has some nice pictures in it. The text is about 350 pages in length. It covers in a fair-minded way a lot of personal things and other arcana that Collingwood didn’t elaborate on in his 167 page “Autobiography.” Anyway, I liked it.
p.s. to J. Rapko
I downloaded your review of Geuss. Haven't had a chance to read it yet.
LFC--Well, I hope you find the review worth reading, but the book is vastly more interesting. I was surprised to learn that my stuff has 7500 views; that must mean that my mother has looked at it 7,495 times.--On the Collingwood question, for a short overview and critical examination of the core issues in his thought, with emphasis on the opening chapters of An Essay on Metaphysics, I would recommend Bernard Williams's essay collected in The Sense of the Past.
Update.
We now know who the US’s preferred Atlanticist Tory candidate is. Yesterday, the awful Bret Stephens told his NYT readers Tom Tugendhat was the one. In a style which I blame on the equally awful Friedman (who is always implying his close relationship with influentials), he inevitably mentions his phone conversation with T. T. Stephens asserts: “The Prime Minister Britain needs now: A West that confronts the challenges of war need a warrior to lead it.” Especially one decorated by the 82nd Airborne Division for his service at Musa Qala in Iraq?
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/12/opinion/uk-prime-minister-tom-tugendhat.html?searchResultPosition=1
Not only is Tugendhat the choice of a right-winger, he is also the choice of Neal Katyal, a professor of law at Georgetown who served in several capacities in the Obama administration and who describes himself (according to Wikipedia) as “an extreme centrist.” He makes his case in today's Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/14/who-should-succeed-boris-johnson-as-tory-leader-our-panels-verdict
Having been urged by Stephens that T.T. is the one, the British Tories are now being urged by Katyal that T.T. is a soulful warrior—we are told that on at least two occasions T.T. shed tears. He is also an intellectual, he understands inflation: “He understands just how to fight it, and knows the key root causes: Russia and China.” [sic] “He is,” Katyal concludes, “the right person to lead all of us, my country included, towards more hopeful days.”
Needless to say, as other commentators in the Guardian piece and as the results of the most recent round of voting by the Parliamentary Tories prove, not everyone is smitten by T.T. He just made it into the next round, but with fewer votes than in the first round. It seems likely he won’t make it through that next round. Maybe the Atlanticists in the Tory Party prefer a billionaire candidate who until recently was in possession of a US green card? Besides, one would have thought that the failure of previous American interventions, as, notoriously, that by Obama in the case of the Brexit referendum, to try to influence British political choices would have cautioned the pundits and would-be pundits to leave well alone.
Neal Katyal is a talented appellate advocate and US Supreme Ct litigator, but unless there's something relevant about him that I don't know, I can't imagine why anyone would care who he thinks the next Tory leader and prime minister should be.
I suppose, LFC, that's a question only the Guardian editors can answer.
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