Michelle Wu, Mayor of Boston, believes “every human-being has the legal right to come to the United States”: Michelle Wu as a biographical-ideological study of the U.S. elite in the 2020s

A woman by the name of “Michelle Wu” is, for some reason, the mayor of the City of Boston.

Michelle Wu’s ideas on what America “is” and what America is “for” are worth some analysis and commentary, which is what this essay will be. The questions we seek to answer are: “Who is Michelle Wu, how did she get where she is, what makes her think the way she does, and what is she ‘up to’?”

Included will be substantial biographical-investigation elements into the origins and political-career of Michelle Wu, and what these things have to say about the state of the U.S. elite in our time.

Before adding another word of further comment, let me quote the remarks made about immigration-and-nationality policy, delivered by Michelle Wu on May 12, 2023. Quote:

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“Every person, every human being, has the legal right to come to the United States and seek asylum, or shelter. Those policies have been in place for a long time.

…[As for the ‘process’ that allows for a] ‘pathway’ to stay, and/or work-authorization that comes along with that: when that process is so drawn out, people are stuck. They are looking to work, looking to contribute, looking to be in a safe democracy where they can raise their families.

We, at the city level, are now dealing with many of the impacts of the processes [that have] people ‘falling through the cracks’ at the federal level. We’re working very closely with the state.

This is affecting municipalities across [Massachusetts]. [We are trying to] ‘triage’ the situation, to create temporary housing so that families can get settled.”

[End quote from “Michelle Wu,” Mayor of Boston, on Boston Public Radio, May 12, 2023; see timestamp 14:48.]

While these comments might be called “tone-deaf,” they are better seen as a “triumphalist,” braggadocio-tinged assertion of a “post-American future.”

Who is responsible for the decline in family-formation in the U.S. and the rest of the West?

A few months ago, we presented George Gilder’s 1973 “Sexual Suicide” essay here at Hail To You. The essay was the forerunner of a hit book of the same name (Sexual Suicide). From it we get a snapshot of the status of the “opposition” during the genesis period of modern Feminism. It’s a fascinating document in that sense.

The Sexual Suicide book caused quite a storm at the time. Its arguments are still enough to “rile feathers” in 2023, as we shall see in the forthcoming discussion. Except the great bulk of the whole discussion is now a semi-taboo, so no feathers are ever presented for any ruffling.

A commenter here at Hail To You says that both Gilder (a “propagandist”) and those interested in his arguments (“know-it-all menboys who search for truth on slanted pages”) are immoral people who cruelly seek to harm others. (“Others,” namely, women; but also lots more members of historically-oppressed groups, perhaps.) But, if that be the case, what is the correct approach to the family-formation problem in which we seem to be stuck? What is the answer?

The question of family-formation, as such, is seldom raised directly in our time. The taboos against asking it are now strong. And, so, it doesn’t really have a place in U.S. political discourse…

Why was Steve Sailer invited on “The Charlie Kirk Show” for the first time in October 2023?

Steve Sailer recently appeared on The Charlie Kirk Show. Why and how did this happen in mid-October 2023, and not earlier? An investigation into several hypotheses.

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Who is Charlie Kirk? He is a political figure of the day, with a radio show and a political-action organization called “Turning Point USA.” His political persona has been mainstream-conservative, low-mid-brow-MAGA oriented, Fox News-friendly. By the early 2020s he was well-established in the network of approved conservative pundits.

Charlie Kirk has actually made a highly lucrative career for himself as an activist and commentator after emerging in 2016. Given the time of his emergence as a political-activist, it is no great surprise that Charlie Kirk had close involvement with the MAGA movement. As so often the case with such figures, he scooped up publicity and support from people who believed he was “dog-whistling” true beliefs that were more strident or solutions-oriented. Kirk has been extremely well-promoted in his career as a “commentator” thus far, with large follower-counts and a cup of prestige that overfloweth all over the place….

George Gilder’s essay “Sexual Suicide” (1973), a landmark attack on feminism and warning for the future, revisited and reappraised at its 50-year mark

In July 1973, an explosive anti-feminist, anti-sexual-revolution essay titled “Sexual Suicide” appeared on the scene. Viewed from fifty years later, “Sexual Suicide” is incisive and prescient in all kinds of ways.

“Sexual Suicide” first appeared fifty years ago this week in the New York Times, was widely republished in the following weeks, and later became a book. I have converted the essay “Sexual Suicide” into HMTL and hosted it right here at Hail To You, immediately below. (This may be the first time on the Internet that the essay has appeared in HTML format in full form.)

Although an anti-feminist polemic, “Sexual Suicide” was argued with precision and finesse. A beauty of the ‘essay’ form, it is fascinating as historical (‘period’) document from the early-1970s genesis-period for modern feminism, as we continue to see to understand the world we have slid into, the ‘when,’ the ‘how,’ and such questions.

Following the essay, I include several commentary sections on the essay “Sexual Suicide,” written by me after my own July 2023 reading of it. One section has biographical info on the essay’s author. Another is on the reception of the essay and its expansion into book form. A third section points to various highlights and weaves in and out of comparisons with the actual experience of the past fifty years, for, while reading the essay one can put oneself into the essay’s “present” (summer 1973), we also have the gift of seeing “the future” (1973 to 2023).

But before any of my own commentary, I give you the essay “Sexual Suicide,” uninterrupted, just as it appeared in newspapers across the land in July 1973 and beyond.

Without further any ado, then, I present to you the essay “Sexual Suicide” (4800 words), taking you back to late-July 1973, newspaper in hand, you see the bold headline and begin reading:

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SEXUAL SUICIDE

by George Gilder, July 1973

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IT IS TIME to declare that sex is too important a subject to be left to the myopic crowd of happy hookers, Dr. Feelgoods, black panthers, white rats, answer men, evangelical lesbians, sensuous psychiatrists, retired baseball players, pornographers, dolphins, swinging priests, displaced revolutionaries, polymorphous perverts, and Playboy philosophers — all bouncing around on waterbeds and typewriters and television talk shows, making “freedom” ring the cash registers of the revolution.

A study on America’s demographic-national crisis — Early-2020s birth-data by race; and developments in the White birth-share in the USA, 1920s to 2020s

The USA’s ongoing demographic-national crisis: slow but steadily moving, largely downplayed by the system that oversees and manages it, and therefore more “beneath the waves of public-consciousness” than not. What do we call a “crisis” that is seldom talked about in direct terms?

Yes, here in summer 2023, the near-final data is out for all U.S. births covering calendar-year 2022. The news is not good, but there is a way out. A lot of ground will be covered here, all based firmly in data of a kind you are not likely to find elsewhere.

The data herein presented and discussed I have put into easy-to-use, easy-to-share graph form. Visual insights can often be had more easily than text-only one. This is such a case. As I shall be making direct and indirect reference to these graphs often throughout this essay, let me put them up straight-away before going any further:

Graph I. Births in the USA by race of mother, 1989-2022:

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Graph II. The White birth-share (%) in the United States, 1989-2025:

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Graph III. The White birth-share (%) in the United States over one century — 1925-2025:

Note that Graph III is a “zoom-out” on Graph II. It is the same data, extended back to the 1920s.

A few insights derivable from these graphs are easy enough to see and ‘grasp’ immediately; all will be considered in turn.

Tim Scott as “national leader” in the Multicultacracy (2012) — Revisited, 2023

I wrote a post here at Hail To You titled “Tim Scott, a ‘national leader’ in the Multicultacracy,” ten years ago, back when he (the Black politician Tim Scott of South Carolina) was given his political debut. He was then appointed to the U.S. Senate by “Nikki” Haley-nee-Kaur-Randhawa. The latter had somehow been elected South Carolina governor two years earlier.

It’s interesting now to revisit this late-2012 commentary — as both these people, Tim Scott and Nikki Haley-Kaur-Randhawa, are second-tier presidential candidates for the Republicans, as shown and discussed in my recent post: “The 2024 Republican nomination — betting market update, May 2023 — Trump 50%, DeSantis 28%, Other 22%.”

Both of these individuals are positioned as important second-tier presidential candidates for 2024, after their entry into politics in the early 2010s as minor “bush-league” figures (just after the capital-B Bush era ended). Both may be products of the “Tea Party movement” of the time. It’s as if they were, have been, groomed for their positions and for national leadership. That was the main theme of my 2012 post on the meaning of Tim Scott. The man was being spoken of immediately as a “national leader”, in late 2012, upon his appointment to the U.S. Senate, by Haley. Out of nowhere…

This would seem to say something about Regime politics.

Hail To You

TIM SCOTT, “national Leader,” 2013-?

NPR: “The choice is full of firsts — Scott will be the only African-American in the Senate, the first black Republican in the Senate in decades, and only the second since Reconstruction. The one-term congressman immediately becomes a national figure”.

David Woodward, a Clemson University professor: “I think he [Tim Scott] represents an opportunity for conservatives to rally behind somebody who could be a national leader.”

A national leader!

An obscure, one-term Congressman. A graduate of a third-rate university (his alma-mater, Charleston Southern, ranks 15th of the 20 colleges in South Carolina in terms of enrolled-student SAT scores; the average attendee did not even manage 500 per section on the SAT).

NIKKI HALEY (nee Nimrata Kaur Randhawa), champion of ‘minority’ advancement

Why did Governor Haley appoint this man?

Nikki Haley, Governor of South Carolina:

“It is very…

View original post 78 more words

The 2024 Republican nomination — betting market update, May 2023 — Trump 50%, DeSantis 28%, Other 22%

Using PredictIt better-market data, here is a look at the state of the Republican nomination race for 2024. I made a previous version of this kind of report in August 2022, and will here compare the May 2023 with the August 2022 data (derive from the PredictIt betting market), along with other relevant commentary and developments.

(1250 words)

(from cartoon by Ben Garrison, Nov. 9, 2022.)

–The first-tier candidates are: Trump and DeSantis.

— The second-tier candidates are: Tim Scott, ‘Nikki’ Haley, Mike Pence, and perhaps Glenn Youngkin and/or Kristi Noem.

— A small group of long-shot bettors put real money on the nominee being Tucker Carlson after his firing, an effect which still remained in mid-May 2023.

On the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF), its turn towards Wokeness, the OSF Board, and the role of Asians in the USA

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“Our motto, almost from the beginning, has been: ‘What’s past is prologue’.” — Jerry Turner, artistic director, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, 1991

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The role of Asians in the USA: the “diasporic ethics”; the instinct towards monopoly; the low social-trust and lack of magnanimous civic-mindedness, despite being (as is often said) “nice people”; the striving over-competitiveness; the “passport shopping” phenomenon by which they change citizenships without changing identity in any meaningful way and even retain primary ties to the mother-country or mother-group, just with a new (U.S.) passport; the social-cultural quirks, traits, and distortions that come from these people’s interactions with the Regime, and the Regime’s ideology; and the effects on these people of interactions with other groups within the 21st-centuy prison-house-of-nations called the USA; the way the Asian applies his or her cultural-political instinct to conditions as-encountered, both as an individual seeking personal gain and as a member of a group seeking collective gain; the auxiliary role embraced by many Asians, particularly the ambitious young ones, within Wokeness-ideology. Such are some facets of the of the role of Asians in the USA.

Some interesting data on this question of the role that Asians play in the USA in the 21st-centuy USA comes to us recently from a frankly unexpected place: the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF), an organization dedicated to the performing arts. Its leadership — the Board of Directors and artistic-directorial staff — has six Asians. A look at these people yields some interesting insights and lessons into one “role” of Asians in the USA.

(Oregon Shakespeare Festival [OSF] promotional material, 2010s.)

On ‘Immigrationism’ ideology, its future, and elite-dissent: Economists Tyler Cowen and John Cochrane on the impact of foreigners upon the U.S. elite

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They say the future for Western Man is “oblivion.” The Regime does have us on the track to oblivion. Our elite rides in the first-class train-car, at the head of the train-to-oblivion. They spend their time congratulating each other on how good they are, how good everything is. Consensus prevails. But sometimes, whispered conversations of dissent are heard, even in the first-class car of this train-to-oblivion. These men have the influence and power to redirect the train, or stop it. We should be interested in what they say, even in whispered-conversations. The future is not yet written. How and when we take control of the train is the great question of our time.

The U.S. elite’s received-wisdom on “immigration” is central to the USA’s problems. It is a key plank in our road to oblivion. Elite dissent on immigration is, therefore, a matter of interest.

I want to spotlight the views of two influential economics professors, Tyler Cowen and John Cochrane. Cowen interviewed Cochrane in a discussion that was, in part and in effect, the equivalent of one of those “whispered conversations” on that train-to-oblivion in my opening metaphor. To my surprise, they were both (uncharacteristically) critical of immigration.

The USA’s “Guiding Maxim on Immigration”: analysis of and commentary on a discussion between Nicolas Eberstadt, John Cochrane, H. R. McMaster, and Niall Ferguson

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A Hoover Institution talk of March 13th, 2023 (link), about demographic decline, contains an exchange about immigration to the USA that is such a good encapsulation of Regime ideology (and mantras) that it is worth reproducing here in text form. This I do here.

After reproducing the commentary of greatest interest, I contextualize who was saying these things, why, and what it means for us.

We all wonder what the solution to the demographic problem is. Embedded in this discussion we see some outlines of the true nature of the problem itself, and perhaps the hazy outlines of path towards our revival and future.

The part of the March 13th “Hoover” talk of greatest interest comes when Nicolas Eberstadt, the eminent scholar and demographer, says that he is puzzled or worried or bemused about the USA’s lack of “any immigration policy.” The Regime’s embarrassingly feckless border policy looks so bad, so insulting to Middle America, he says, that it “may poison popular attitudes towards immigration.”

A tale of two Garlands: A study of U.S. political development through the contrast of two U.S. attorneys general, 1880s vs. 2020s

The editor-in-chief of the political blog Peak Stupidity issued a missive in late March 2023 against one of the USA’s top government officials, Attorney General Merrick Garland (“The Potomac Regime’s Lavrentiy Beria,” March 25, 2023).

This man, Merrick Garland, is in the process of using his powers to raid, arrest, prosecute, and jail up to 2,500 political opponents (political prisoners) including some former government officials for what seem frivolous reasons but which really amount to l’ese majeste offenses (insulting the Regime). For that, and for his role in promoting the Ukraine War and many other things, Peak Stupidity concludes that “Merrick Garland is an evil individual.”

Not many know that Merrick Garland is the second man named “Garland” to hold the position of U.S. attorney general. He is the second “Attorney General Garland.” The first was President Grover Cleveland’s attorney general from 1885 to 1889. That 19th-century Garland’s name was Augustus Garland.

it is one of those instructive studies-in-contrasts to take a look at the two side-by-side: The 19th-century Garland and the 21st-century Garland. This “Garland vs. Garland” comparison hold lessons for the USA and its political development.

The emergence of the Regime, as we now recognize it, is symbolized by the 21st-century Garland. The traditional America and the core of the nation over which the Regime rules, is symbolized by the 19th-centuy Garland. What follows is a look at these two men and just how the works.

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“A TALE OF TWO GARLANDS”: A STUDY OF U.S. REGIME DEVELOPMENT THROUGH THE CONTRAST OF TWO ATTORNEYS GENRAL, 1880s vs. 2020s

(10,000 words)

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