The dumb thing tho, as you passively-aggressively suggest in your tagging, is that the man's got a point. It's the WHY of the point that's so fucking galling. On the one hand we had twelve years of neoconservativism followed by eight years of neoliberalism followed by eight years of neoconservativism followed by eight years of neoliberalism followed by four years of fascist populism and while everyone making under $50k a year knows inherently that the only real difference is whether you consider foreign as well as domestic corporations to count more than people, the Acela crowd views the world in exactly two ways: - science and institutions are to be trusted OR - science and institutions are to be trusted if and only if they parrot neoconservative ideology. Brett Stephens doesn't give the first fuck about authority. He has no respect for science. There is no aspect of consensus knowledge that appeals to him in the slightest. He's a Bell Curve man, a twist-the-numbers-til-they-scream ex-post-facto truthiness man whose ideology will happily parrot any facts that may align and malign any facts that don't. So in this one instance? Where the neoliberal faith in multinational NGOs was demonstrably misplaced? The fact that he's making hay on this like he has ever given the first FUCK about facts is pretty goddamn galling. More like what you were looking for?
Yes, vintage. Thanks. Upon reflection the tag is inept. I was trying to be cute, but I #CaptainHindsight should have used Edit: Tom cotton would be the blind squirrel here, not Brett Stephens, as he said something that was getting at a tooth through no fault or foresight of his own.