If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
By which I mean, the bedrock consensus of political science appears to have been disproved. Broadly speaking, political scientists believe that lawmakers and regulators only respond to the policy preferences of powerful people. If economic elites want a policy, that's the policy we get – no matter how unpopular it is with everyone else. Likewise, even if something is very, very popular with all of us, we won't get it if the super-rich hate it.
Just take a look at the gap between public opinion and policy outcomes: most people think "capitalism does more harm than good"; most Canadians, Britons and Australians aged 18-34 think "socialism will improve the economy and well-being of citizens"; 72% of Brits support a national job guarantee; the majority of Californians support permanent rent-controls; and most people in 40 countries want CEO salaries capped at 4X that of their lowest-paid employees:
The inability of the public to get its way isn't just an impressionistic view – it's an empirical finding, based on a representative sample of 1,779 policy outcomes, that politicians ignore the will of the people in favor of the will of billionaires:
economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.
It's a mystery. There's no policy that would be harder on billionaire wealth and power than vigorous antitrust enforcement (not least because preventing corporate concentration is key to preventing regulatory capture):
Certainly, there are a lot of merely obscenely rich people who are angry that the farcically rich people are screwing them over, and this class division between the 0.01% and the 1% has opened up some political space:
But that wouldn't be enough, not without the massive supermajorities of everyday people who are sick to the back teeth of being abused by corporations, and who are desperate for any outlet to strike back.
Take juries. Orrick is a big corporate law firm that represents the kinds of companies that might find their future in the hands of a jury in a state or federal courthouse. Orrick periodically surveys representative samples of people who show up for jury service to get a picture of their attitude towards the kinds of companies that can afford to hire a firm like theirs:
Their latest report contrasts the results of a pre-pandemic 2019 survey with a 2025 survey of 1,011 jurors in California, Florida, Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Texas, New Jersey, and New York.
They found that jurors' trust in the court system has plummeted since 2019 (67% in 2019, 48% in 2025); hostility to cops has tripled (11% to 33%); anti-corporate sentiment is way up (27% then, 45% now). The percentage of jurors who believe that they should use the courts to "send messages to companies to improve their behavior" has risen from 58% to 62%; and 77% want to award punitive damages to "punish a corporation" (up from 69%).
And jurors are notably hostile to pharma companies, energy companies and large banks, but they especially hate social media companies.
It's no wonder that corporations are so desperate to take away our right to sue them, and why "binding arbitration" clauses that permanently confiscate your legal rights are now part of every corner of modern life:
The business lobby has been trying to take away workers' and customers' and citizens' right to seek justice in court for decades, ginning up urban legends like "A lady's coffee was too hot so McDonald's had to give her $2.7 million":
Don't believe it. The courts are rarely on our side, but the fact that sometimes, every now and again, a jury will seize an opportunity to deliver a smidgen of justice just drives plutocrats nuts. Billionaireism is the belief that you don't owe anything to anyone else, that morality is whatever you can get away with. You don't have to be a billionaire to contract a wicked case of billionaireism – but you do have to be stinking rich to benefit from it:
1. “His pathological sexual needs certainly explain his motivation for committing these crimes, but they did not appear to cause him a ‘substantial lack of capacity’ for purposes of non-responsibility,” noted Dr. Frederick Fosdal, who evaluated Dahmer on behalf of the prosecution. “He admitted to being fully aware of the illegality, impropriety, and ‘unlawfulness’ of his behavior, and that he lived in ‘horror’ of being discovered. He described several steps and behaviors he took from which it can be inferred that he understood the unlawfulness of his conduct.” The other three doctors who argued that Dahmer was not mentally ill under Wisconsin law made similar arguments.
2. Intentional homicide in the first degree
3. Each of the fifteen charges against Dahmer in Wisconsin was listed in full for the juries.📋
"It makes me sick to see this man trying to evade what he did by saying he was crazy." -
Some say federalism is for Republicans and centralization is for Democrats. But if that idea may have had some salience at points in the past, it's hard to look around today and conclude that there's a right/left valence to federalism. Whatever the merits of the following ideas, notice that without federalism Colorado couldn't experiment with policies requiring a percentage of electricity sold in-state to come from renewable energy sources, and California couldn't experiment with more demanding animal welfare laws for livestock whose meat is sold in-state. As Professor Heather Gerken of Yale Law School observed in pointing to similar examples (such as the $15 minimum wage and the movement to put body cameras on police officers), "it is useful to remember that rights are built, not born. . . . And social movements are almost always built from the ground up, moving through local and state sites before hitting the national stage."
California Sate Supreme Court Justice Goodwin Liu reminds us of a particularly poignant example. For decades before and after the U.S. Supreme Court's 1896 decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, federal courts routinely upheld deeply unjust segregation laws as consistent with the federal Constitution. "What is lesser known," Justice Liu reminds us, is that "despite Plessy . . . between the period from about the mid-1800s to 1900, there were several dozen state court decisions about school segregation. More than half of those cases granted relief to the black plaintiffs, largely on state constitutional or statutory grounds, within the confines of Plessy." In fact, as Justice Liu continues, the road to Brown v. Board of Education was paved with state court decisions. So much that, "in 1955, when the U.S. Supreme Court rendered its disposition in the Brown cases, it reversed . . . three federal courts and affirmed . . . one state high court. I think that alone should give us pause in thinking about who are the heroes and who are the villains."
The pattern more or less repeated itself when it came to racially biased juries. Again as Justice Liu notes, not long after Brown, the Supreme Court issued a decision that many lower federal courts interpreted as placing a "crippling burden of proof" on criminal defendants who sought to establish that they had been victims of unconstitutional racial bias in the jury selection process. A number of state courts, however, took a different view and applies a more modest burden of proof on state court defendants under their state constitutions. More than twenty years passed before, finally, the Supreme Court overruled its initial decision and moved federal law in the direction many state courts were already headed.
In truth, the push and pull between national and local authorities that federalism allows has nothing to do with benefiting one part or another; it has more to do with the fact that no single government can always get it right. Protecting federalism means ensuring that when one government loses its way, another can help light the way back.
Justice Neil Gorsuch and Janie Nitze, OverRuled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law (2024)
Like most, I'm a little disappointed. Especially because I just remembered last year and that... that was the best of Eurovision. That was Europe standing behind Ukraine and showing them all the love that you can in a silly little dance show. I liked last year so much!
There were people being worried that it was going to be rigged last year too. And I could see why they would be worrying about that. BUT then Stefania was SO good. It was such a great piece. I heard it and I knew nobody needed to rig anything because this was by far the best song in the competition!
Now, this year. Starting with the host: UK, sweety, I like you. I really do. But what the fuck was that? Why did you make that all about yourself? That was SO uncalled for! Who made that decision? You took the spotlight from a war torn country that WON. That is just... WHAT?!?!?!? Why?!? That's basic human decency 101. That's like don't hit a toddler and don't steal from the elderly. Like, do we have to even say this?
But instead of giving the time to Ukraine - THEIR time, you know, because THEY won - you made it about people who almost won 30 years ago and all the "memorable" ESC acts of the last decades? Like. What?!? Nobody liked that, that was a dick move. Whoever is responsible for that decision: Shame on you. You did your country such a disservice by stealing Ukraine's spotlight.
Now, for the winner, I feel icky about the jury votes too. Don't get me wrong, it is a nice enough song. But Sweden got so many 12 points. So many. When there were other strong songs (Norway, my queen! That was great!).
I'm also sorry for everyone who feels let down today. Last year was the best if Eurovision, this year was just... a pretty disappointing meh.
