This is my attempt to rank the best places in New York for day-long experiences.  I try to set aside my personal tastes, although they will doubtless be reflected to some extent.

1. Metropolitan Museum and Central Park.  

New York's best museum is full of paintings, artifacts, and curated rooms representing some of the best of man's creation of the past 10,000 years or so.  The cafeteria is a work of art too, and The Met is in Central Park.

2. Greenwich Village (Strand, bars and restaurants, Washington Square Park and NYU; historic sites)

Comprising countless bars and restaurants (several of historical significance), three iconic colleges, and some of the best off-Broadway theaters in the city; and including such landmarks as St. Mark's Church, The Blue Note, The Strand Bookstore, and Washington Square Park, Greenwich Village is the most intellectually important neighborhood in the United States (at least historically).    

3. Brooklyn Botanic Garden and Brooklyn Museum (including Prospect Park, etc.)

Of New York City's two great botanical gardens, the one in Brooklyn is more walkable and better manicured.  It is next to the Brooklyn Museum, which is probably the best museum outside of Manhattan, and very near Prospect Park, the Brooklyn Library, and Grand Army Plaza.  You probably can't see all of these in a day, but your options are vast.

4. Coney Island and New York Aquarium

Constantly evolving in ways that haven't (yet) sacrificed its character, Coney Island is becoming as important to New York now as it was in its golden age.  Beyond the beach and boardwalk are the New York Aquarium, Luna Park, the original Nathan's, the Brooklyn Cyclones - and such events as the Mermaid Parade or the hot dog eating contest if you come on the right day.  A day at Coney Island should be unforgettable. 

5. Times Square and Broadway

Many New Yorkers love to hate Times Square for its commercialism as they fondly recall its past days of seedy and dangerous vitality; but the area is an essential part of New York.  The Broadway theaters are there, as well as giant restaurants, and such commercial museums as Madame Tussaud's and Ripley's.  Times Square is one of the great spectacles in the United States, and you're likely to enjoy it.

6. Bronx Zoo

The Congo Gorilla Forest, the monorail tour, and the Bronx River entranceway are the best of many great spaces here.  The obstacle course, ziplining, and nature walk area, which have nothing to do with animals in captivity are enjoyable too.  You will walk satisfying miles during a day at this zoo.

7. Natural History Museum, NY Historical Society, and Central Park

The Natural History Museum almost rivals the Met in its vastness, beauty, and cultural importance.  The sites - such as the squid and the whale, the planetarium, the gemstone exhibit, the dinosaur bones, and the dioramas - seem endless.  Neighboring the museum are The NY Historical Society (a museum), and the west side of Central Park, where you can visit Strawberry Fields, which commemorates John Lennon, and view the Dakotas, where he lived.  

8. Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) and Central Park

The MOMA holds the greatest collection of modern art in the city; much of it (such as Monet's water lilies) appealing to conventional tastes.  As with the Met and AMNH, the grandeur of the museum itself is as impressive as the pieces.  All three museums border Central Park too.

9. The Cloisters and Fort Tryon Park

New York City's medieval castle can only be accessed via a walk through Fort Tryon Park, which is one of New York City's best.  Those with little interest in the museum's relics, tapestries, and medieval art objects will nevertheless enjoy its courtyards, chapels, and gardens.  The Cloisters' balconies have great views of the Hudson River too.

10. New York Botanical Gardens

The largest, by far, of New York City's botanical gardens are in the Bronx, next to the zoo and Fordham University.  You will walk a great deal here, through both curated gardens and unmolested forests.  The gardens comprise a first-rate restaurant, its own New York Public Library branch, and gift shops where you can buy plants.  The NYBG is four times larger than Brooklyn's BBG, but about equally popular.

11. Statue of Liberty / Ellis Island / Battery Park / Fraunces Tavern

The Statue of Liberty is big enough to inhabit its own island and may be more impressive than you expected.  It is next to Ellis Island, which has its own immigration museum, and a typical tourist's experience involves waiting in line, ferrying to the statue, ferrying to Ellis Island, and then returning. By then, your day may be nearly over, which is why the experience disappoints some tourists.  If you wake up early enough, you can include the historic Fraunces Tavern in your itinerary, and the American Museum of the Native American is also nearby and free.

12. Little Italy / Chinatown / Lower East Side

Little Italy is for tourism, while Chinatown is a more legitimate community full of restaurants, temples, and shops of all sorts.  The Lower East Side has a few historically significant Jewish stores and landmarks (such as Katz's deli, Russ & Daughters, and Yonah Schimmel's knish store), but most traces of the Jewish culture that once defined it are gone.

You don't need much knowledge to enjoy Little Italy. For Chinatown, bring a guide if you can.

13. Brooklyn Bridge / Brooklyn Heights (including promenade) and Brooklyn Bridge Park (including Dumbo)

A walk from the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge will end in Brooklyn between the Brooklyn Heights and "Dumbo" neighborhoods.  Visit Brooklyn Heights, to see some of the city's most exclusive brownstone apartments as well as the cinematically familiar Brooklyn Heights Promenade.  Dumbo is full of excellent restaurants and cafes, and includes Brooklyn Bridge Park, which is one of New York's best, largest, and most modern parks.

14. Grand Central Station / New York Public Library / Bryant Park

Grand Central is the most architecturally impressive train station in the United States.  

A block or so away is the New York Public Library; a marvelous museum of books.  The Great Room of the NYPL is a majestic place to sit and read amidst hundreds of thousands of volumes.

Bryant Park is essentially the backyard of the NYPL.  A number of craft, food and drink shops line the park's perimeter.  You can ice skate there too.

15. Other Museum Mile art museums: Guggenheim / Frick / Neue Gallerie, etc.

There are too many notable museums and cultural landmarks in New York's "museum mile," which stretches across the east side of Central Park, to name or rank them all.  Some of the best (not already mentioned) include The Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Guggenheim, the Frick Collection, and the Neue Gallerie which houses Austrian and German art and a Viennese cafe.

16. Central Park itself.

If Central Park weren't included in so many entries above, it would have a higher ranking.  It comprises Belvedere Castle, the Shakespeare in the Park theater, the Ramble, Strawberry Field, the Great Lawn, bodies of water, a forest, and its own zoo.  It is the U.S.'s most famous park.

17. Harlem and East Harlem. 

From the City College of New York to the Hamilton row houses to 125th Street, to the Apollo Theater, Harlem is full of architecturally and culturally important places.  There are also beautiful churches, and soul food and African restaurants.  

Much has been made of Harlem's rapid gentrification, but it's still Harlem, it's still tough, and you don't want to look too much like a tourist when you walk down 125th.

East Harlem is a separate neighborhood (still "Spanish Harlem,"), full of great Latin American food and culture.  Like Greenwich Village, Harlem (and East Harlem) is a place to walk around in and see the sorts of places you might know from books and movies.  

18. Columbia University, Riverside Church, Grant's Tomb

Columbia University is a complete Ivy League campus in Manhattan, full of stately libraries and centuries-old academic buildings.  Near it is the enormous Riverside Church, which may be New York City's most important left-wing historical site - where Martin Luther King gave his speech on Vietnam, and many radical, intellectual clergymen preached.  Across from the church is the domed marvel, Grant's Tomb.  A steep climb down from all of this brings you to Riverside Park, on the Hudson, which spans a large part of Manhattan's length.  (Barnard College is near as well.)

19. Corona Park, including Citi Field, US Open, the NY Hall of Science, etc.

Citi Field is my happy place.  During the US Open, you can watch the pros practice tennis in the park, collect free US Open balls, and later, enjoy a Mets game in New York's best stadium.  If they win, you return in collective triumph with fans crowding the 7 train.  An Edwin Diaz save in a close game, glorified by the trumpets that invoke his entrance, is simply euphoric. 

Corona Park is the Queens analogue to #3 on this list, in Brooklyn.  We have Queens Museum, Queens Theater, New York Hall of Science, Queens Zoo and Queens Botanical Gardens - all of which are nice, but unlikely to justify a trip beyond Manhattan, which is why puts this park is lower on the list.

Corona Park, nevertheless is a place for real New Yorkers to enjoy New York.  On any nice summer day, you will see thousands of us playing soccer, volleyball, baseball, walking our babies or dogs, or barbecuing in the park.

20. Arthur Avenue 

Arthur Avenue, in the Bronx, is New York' other Little Italy.  It is larger and more authentic, less congested of course, and with fewer tourists than the one in Manhattan.

21. Williamsburg and other gentrifying neighborhoods of Brooklyn

Several neighborhoods in Brooklyn, for better or worse, are famous for rapid gentrification.  Williamsburg and Bushwick are the most famous of these.  There are many restaurants and bars in these areas.  I will avoid controversy by saying more.

22. Flushing Chinatown, Queens

The other Chinatown is in Flushing, Queens.  It is about as large, and more "pan-Asian" than the one in Chinatown, with many Korean restaurants complementing its Chinese restaurants and stores.  

There is more room to build in Queens, and as a result, Flushing Chinatown has larger, and more exclusive and expensive restaurants, although most places to eat in Flushing are affordable.

23. Snug Harbor in Staten Island

Defunct stately mansions now belonging to the public, and gorgeous Chinese gardens mark Snug Harbor in Staten Island.  Snug Harbor might rank higher if it were in another borough; Staten Island being the least accessible and least appreciated borough. 

24. The High Line and Chelsea Market

Dilapidated train tracks were transformed into "The High Line" several years ago.  Part of this popular walking path is adjacent to Chelsea Market, which, in most other cities, would be the definitive market to shop and eat at.

25. Circle Line tour around Manhattan.

The best way to glance at most important sites in Manhattan is via a Circle Line boat tour.  It's nominally for tourists, but it's the best way to see "all of Manhattan" in an hour or two.

26. Orchard Beach and City Island

Orchard Beach is the Bronx's best beach, which in itself guarantees that it is full of energetic and friendly visitors who barbecue and plant Puerto Rican and Dominican flags by their beach towels.  Across the bridge is City Island which is a "small town" in a giant city and New York's most famous location for seafood.

In the neoliberal era (1978 - 2008), the study of Economics was badly corrupted.

In this era, conservatives such as Milton Friedman, routinely won what we now call "The Nobel Prize in Economics" (in fact, it wasn't a real Nobel Prize, but a similarly named award set up by conservative Swedish bankers).

Friedman and his ilk used their undeserved authority to preach nonsense - such as the notion that minimum wage increases would always cause job losses, because workers were already earning the maximum wages that they could fetch in an already-perfectly-efficient economy.  Or, that tax cuts would pay for themselves - which has never happened since the Reagan era.

These ideas have left the mainstream, and Economics has begun to reclaim its own sanity.

The discipline of International Relations, by contrast, continues to be in a bad way .

When we look at the world through the eyes of International Relations, we tend to view states as rational actors and relegate the agency of humans (who comprise those states) to the margins.

We consider it within states' natures to fight wars for domination, to maximize their power, and to act as illegally as they can.

We thus ignore the paradox that "state nature" is often contrary to human nature.  People tend to hate wars, but states don't.  People tend to cooperate and be peaceable and coexistent, far more than states.

Most people would never kill anyone in peace; but many more do kill in wars, because a state told or compelled them to.

Far too many powerful Americans embrace an International Relations view when it comes to issues of war and geopolitics.

We killed a million people in Iraq, in part, because we viewed the conflict in terms of its effect on states instead of humans.

Afghanistan was as disastrous for similar reasons.

Now, Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.  It has been bombarding and starving Gazans for months - while depriving them of fuel, electricity, medicine, and often internet access.

Israel's crimes are monstrous, as is U.S. complicity to them.

No one in the State Department seems to care.  

We support the crimes of Israel and Saudi Arabia for the vaguest and most callous of reasons; because they're "our allies."  

This is almost a tautology; pathetic and inane, except to the sort of State Department hacks (or wannabe hacks) who dominate the study of International Relations.

Like neoliberal Economics, a corrupted International Relations, also fails on its own terms.

Neoliberalism gave us the 2008 economic disaster, which (mercifully) ended that ideology's dominance in its field.

International Relations - as studied and practiced by U.S. elites - has given us disastrous war after disastrous war, which have devastated U.S. power and prestige.

Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Gaza.

Each became catastrophic; each was obviously so from its outset - unless you were an "International Relations" genius, such as Powell, Rice, Clinton, or Pompeo.

I do not believe that the field of International Relations is corrupted in its very essence.  I believe that it is a worthy and necessary field of study.

But we need to turn away from an International Relations that almost completely subordinates human interests to state interests, and human nature to state nature.

That is perversity, by definition, and the source of much evil - and all of it depressingly banal.

Joe Biden has codified his commitment to 100% clean electricity throughout the U.S. by 2035.   But New York's political leaders will not help Biden achieve this goal.  Too much energy will be needed for crypto-mining, which New York is unwilling to seriously regulate.

The idea of 100% clean energy by 2035 was a bold one that has recently and rapidly gained traction.  The national Democratic Party adopted it as a platform plank during its 2020 convention.  At the time, only a few U.S. states had committed to 100% clean electricity.  New York had become the first U.S. state to commit to 100% by 2040, when it did so in 2019 via the CLCPA.  No others had committed to 100% earlier than 2045.

Biden tried to effectively legislate 100% clean energy by 2035 via his initial version of the Build Back Better plan.  When it failed, Biden signed an executive order for the federal government to be carbon-free by 2035.  Its effects have been significant, as it required the Tennessee Valley Authority to reach the same goal.  It has also prompted the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Army to set goals for fully clean electricity by 2030.  And recently, the Biden Administration pledged, along with all other G-7 countries, to reach 100%, nationwide, by 2035, thereby establishing his goal as an international treaty.

Some blue state politicians, in turn, are moving towards requiring fully clean grids by 2035 or earlier.  Rhode Island seems poised to require 100% clean electricity by 2033.  Massachusetts' leading Democratic gubernatorial candidate Maura Healey is running on 100% by 2030.  In Maryland, eight gubernatorial candidates signed pledges to enact 100% by 2035.  California's grid has seen moments of 100% clean electricity already, and could foreseeably achieve 100% year-round by 2035, even without legislation codifying this.  For its part, Washington State has been required to achieve a "carbon-neutral grid" by 2030, via 80% clean electricity and the purchase of carbon credits, since 2019.

New York state is missing in action.  None of its Democratic gubernatorial candidates - Kathy Hochul, Tom Suozzi, and Jumaane Williams - has planned to accelerate New York's transition to an emissions-free grid.  Nor has any legislator proposed such a bill.

This is especially surprising in light of New York's Democratic party's success in the 2020 elections.  There, it grew its Senate majority to a supermajority, and helped elect several democratic socialists to legislative offices.  

A major reason for this inaction is New York's unwillingness to regulate the greatest waste of electricity in the world today: cryptocurrency mining.  An entire half-percent of the world's electricity is used just to mine crypto.  Eleven percent of that mining occurs in the U.S.  And 16% of that happens in New York, making the Empire State the beating heart of an amoral, world-heating monster.

State senators made an effort to solve the problem in 2021.  Senator Kevin Parker sponsored a bill that would have instituted a three-year moratorium on "proof-of-work mining."  "Proof-of-work mining" is the name for the wasteful process in which supercomputers mint crypto-currency coins by solving complex math problems.  An alternative, known as "proof-of-stake mining" is exponentially less wasteful and will soon be adopted by Ethereum, which is the world's second largest cryptocurrency.

Parker's bill failed to gain traction, so he settled for a far less ambitious alternative.  His revised moratorium would ban new permits for proof-of-work mining operations that emit carbon.  But any crypto mining, however wasteful, that uses carbon-free energy, would still be allowed to operate.  

This bill passed the senate and the assembly, but its future before Governor Kathy Hochul remains unknown.  Hochul claimed in a recent debate that she still needs time to form an opinion on the bill.  New York City mayor, Eric Adams, meanwhile, is urging her to veto it.*  

Even if the moratorium passes, proof-of-work mining can continue to flourish in New York.  The state will be required to use 70% clean electricity, by law, by 2030, and crypto-miners can use as much of that as they please.  Then, as now, crypto is likely to use a substantial part of New York's renewable energy resources; enough to significantly slow the state's transition to 100% renewable energy, and enough, it appears, to prevent any hope of a carbon-free grid by 2035. 

*Another powerful New York politician, U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, has introduced a bill at the federal level that would establish a crypto regulation regime that would be highly favorable to the industry.

Chris Hedges is one of the U.S.'s great intellectuals.  America's empire is his subject, and he portrays its perverse elites and deluded masses with blistering precision.  In his columns and his books, such as Death of the Liberal Class (written in 2011), Hedges savages the Democratic Party for its unwillingness to oppose wealthy elites, and for its embrace of neoliberalism, war, and the military- and prison- industrial complexes.

In his recent article, entitled, "Jan. 6 committee is spectacle taking the place of politics: It will accomplish nothing," Hedges strikes his familiar prophetic tone.  He predicts that the January 6th Committee hearings will fail to curb the rise of right-wing fascism in the United States.  He implies that fascists are winning in the United States because our politicians are incapable of bringing about necessary changes on a number of direly important issues.  

This is true on many issues of gravity.  Biden has reneged on his commitment to make Saudi Arabia a "pariah state," which means genocide will persist in Yemen.  Each new president's Pentagon budget exceeds the last's.  And universally free, single-payer healthcare still seems out of reach in the U.S.

Yet much of Hedges' doom prophecy is unfounded, or even objectively false.  He claims that U.S. politicians will never deliver on issues that they have already made notable progress on.  

He writes, "Spectacle takes the place of politics. It is a tacit admission that all social programs, whether the Build Back Better plan, a ban on assault weapons, raising the minimum wage, ameliorating the ravages of inflation or instituting environmental reforms to stave off the climate emergency, will never be implemented."

In fact, Democrats have had big successes on several of these issues.  Where they haven't, they have been obstructed by Republicans or their use of the filibuster. 

Nearly every solid blue state has legislated a $15 minimum wage.  This list includes California, New York, Massachusetts, Maryland, Washington, Washington D.C., New Jersey, Illinois, Delaware, Rhode Island, and Delaware.  Hawaii's legislature recently passed an $18 minimum wage, which its governor intends to sign.  

The U.S. House of Representatives also passed $15 minimum wage bills during both this legislative session and the previous one.  Yes, the 50-50 U.S. Senate failed to pass the wage, with eight Democrats opposing a measure that would have overridden the Senate Parliamentarian in doing so.  But Hedges' notion that politicians in the U.S. will never "raise the minimum wage" seems absurd on its face.  Over 1/3 of the country lives under $15 minimum wage laws, thanks to Democrats having done what Hedges claims they will never do.    

Hedges' claim that a "Build Back Better plan" can never pass amounts to a conspiracy theory.  The House passed the bill.  President Biden, of course, effectively staked his presidency on it.  Before Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema whittled the bill from $3.5 trillion to less than $2 trillion, it seemed guaranteed to pass in some form.  Few expected Manchin to fully quash the bill after spending months signaling that he wanted to pass a version of it.

Apparently, for Hedges, America's "ruling political entity," which includes the Democrats, Liz Cheney, the Bushes, and anti-Trump Republicans, never seriously intended to pass it.  Build Back Better was just an elaborate ruse that 99% of Congressional Democrats participated in by supporting the bill.  Biden of course was in on it too, even though the bill's failure has been a body-blow to his presidency.

Democrats, you see, are incapable of acting to harm the wealthy.  Never mind that they cut child poverty in half via Biden's American Rescue Plan, which itself cost $1.9 trillion.  Never mind that Noam Chomsky praised Biden's domestic policies as "a rather pleasant surprise," and "better than I would have expected" - in perhaps Chomsky's first words of sincere praise for a contemporary president in his lifetime.

Blue states and cities, meanwhile, have been adopting Build Back Better-like social programs.  Paid Family Medical Leave is law in California, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Washington, Maine, Washington D.C. and Oregon.  More blue states are guaranteeing sick leave and universal pre-kindergarten.  There's even near-universal free tuition in New York state.

There has also been a wave of Democratic action on environmental issues in recent years.  Before Trump's presidency, few states had legislated paths to 100% clean electricity.  But since Democrats' successes in the 2018 midterms, through today, most blue states have enacted paths to 100% by 2040, 2045, or 2050.  

Biden has tried to accelerate the shift, attempting to achieve 100% clean electricity, nationwide, by 2035 via Build Back Better.  Despite that bill's failure, Biden remains dedicated to his goal, committing the U.S. to 100% clean electricity by 2035 at this year's G-7 meeting.  He has also ordered the federal government's electricity to be carbon free by 2030 and The Tennessee Valley Authority's to be the same by 2035.  Meanwhile, he has ordered strict tailpipe emissions standards, and taken action to cut methane emissions and environmentally harmful refrigerants.  

Democrats are, of course, flawed. They are too corporate-influenced to speak clearly and act effectively enough on many issues where the ruling class opposes them.  Not to mention that the party continues to allow genocide in Yemen, starvation in Afghanistan, and apartheid in Palestine - while it gives the Pentagon whatever it wants.

But Hedges is just objectively wrong about the Democrats.  Their domestic achievements are significant, and would be cause for hope if they could remain in power.  They would be more likely to if doom-prophets such as Hedges would stop lying about them. 

There is a segment of the political left, which is sometimes referred to as “class reductionists,” who claim to eschew culture war issues and “wokeism” in favor of economic issues.

If you scratch the surface, you quickly learn that these “populists” aren’t even that far left on economic issues.

Three cases:

Krystal Ball.  

Ball claims to value labor issues above all others; but rarely says a word against charter schools.  I find this to be damning since Ball, herself, was a big charter school supporter in her 2010 House campaign.  Charter schools, almost by definition, replace unionized schools with non-union ones, and are a powerful anti-labor force in the U.S.’s largest unionized profession (education).

It's easy to claim to support unions in general as Ball does (almost all Democrats do).  It’s harder to stand strong against charter schools, which have a huge foothold in the Democratic Party – especially among its wealthiest and most influential members.  Since Ball criticizes these wealthy elites (“wine moms”) quite often, her failure to attack charters is highly conspicuous.  

My own theory is that she still has a lot of friends in the powerful “education reform” industry, and does not wish to offend them.

Ball also absurdly supported Andrew Yang in his 2021 NYC mayoral run, long after almost all leftists rightly viewed Yang as a centrist on economic issues.  (Ball later retracted her support for Yang, but remarkably late in the game.) 

And Ball was one of Tulsi Gabbard’s biggest backers for far too long.

Zaid Jilani.  

Jilani wrote a regrettable article in The Intercept, which lauded Josh Hawley’s populism, largely based on Hawley’s rhetoric, as opposed to his actions.  Jilani also seemed to conflate “economic populism” with ordinary social conservatism, as one of Hawley’s actions might have protected children against video game addiction, for example.

Jilani later wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal which opposed ending all student debt.  He referred to student debt cancellation as a “Brahmin bailout,” and in doing so, used exactly the same arguments that conservatives and centrists use against debt cancellation.

Of course, Jilani has been writing “anti-woke” articles for the National Review since 2019, so it’s remarkable that he ever had much credibility as a serious leftist.

Matt Stoller.  

Stoller claims to value anti-trust issues to the near-exclusion of all others (which in itself could undermine the notion that he is a legitimate economic leftist), but wrecks his credibility by heaping undue praise on Republicans for their anti-trust posturing. 

In an article that should embarrass Stoller, Stoller praised the Populist Thought Collective, which included Tucker Carlson, Peter Navarro, Saagar Enjeti, and Senators, Hawley, Cotton, and Rubio.  

He has gone on to argue – without compelling evidence – that the left is primarily responsible for monopolism.  He gives Republicans credit for their vapid attacks on Big Tech, as he did, months ago, on the Majority Report.*  

Honest people can argue about whether “anti-woke” left populism is a defensible or serious school of political thought.  

But strikingly, the biggest proponents of "anti-woke" leftism aren't that left in the first place.

*Watch from the 44:00 mark.

By helping Manchin kill Build Back Better, Kirsten Sinema is killing millions of people, as the loss of $.55 trillion that BBB would have spent on emissions reduction will have significant consequences for all human life on earth.

A recent presidential historians' survey ranked Ronald Reagan as the U.S.'s ninth best president in history.  

C-Span, which conducted the survey, lauded its results as reflecting great demographic and philosophical diversity, suggesting that they purposefully included conservative historians.  And indeed, the list of participants includes professors from conservative think tanks, such as The Heritage Foundation, notoriously right-leaning universities, such as Liberty and Regents University, and several reputable right-leaning colleges, such as Washington and Lee, Pepperdine, and Texas A&M.  There are even representatives from the Naval War College, and the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation.

This is all fair enough, ostensibly.  These are accredited academics, who should be qualified to render an honest and reasoned historical judgment.

But the choice of Reagan at #9 is simply insane.

Let's take a bird's-eye view of some of Reagan's worst abuses:

Reagan supported right-wing dictatorships and paramilitaries in Guatemala and El Salvador, as well as the Contras in Nicaragua - who were responsible for over 90% of war crimes (and crimes against humanity) in conflicts in each those countries.

The "tactics" that these groups engaged in included torture, gang-rapes of civilians, castrations, assassinations, unspeakably horrifying massacres, and even the raping of nuns and "acts of genocide."  

These crimes were so horrible that the U.S. Congress forbade our government from aiding the government in Guatemala and the Contra rebels in Nicaragua - even after Reagan's historic landslide re-election in 1984.

Reagan didn't care.  He secretly supported Guatemala anyway - and was so dedicated to helping the Contras that he sold weapons to Iran and drugs to Americans in order to secretly fund them.

In an obscene lie that might make Donald Trump blush, Reagan referred to the Contras as "the moral equivalent of our founding fathers."

How do Reagan's defenders justify his crimes in Central America?  

Many give him a pass because they think he was too stupid or senile to know what he was doing - which Reagan outright admitted (or claimed) in an address that Reagan devotees have come to fondly remember.

Of course, they also claim that since the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and leftists in Guatemala and El Salvador were imperfect, whatever we did in Central America was justified anyway (rarely discussing the details of what the paramilitaries and death squads actually did).

And Central America just scrapes the surface.  Reagan also supported a white-supremacist, fascist dictatorship in Argentina, reversing Carter's policy.  And he supported South Africa's apartheid to the bitter end, even after the rest of the world stopped doing so.  

Less famously, despite his avowed anti-Communism, Reagan actually supported the two worst Communist humans of his day, including Ceaucescu in Romania, and Pol Pot in Cambodia, whom he tried to bring back into power in order to discredit Vietnam's Communist government.

Few Reagan apologists ever discuss much of this - at least not in clear terms - as doing so would be tantamount to defending "crushing a few eggs to make an omelet," Stalin-style.

It is true, of course, that the Soviet Union fell a few years after Reagan's presidency - - - but attributing this to the mass-raping of Nicaraguan peasants is so obscene that few intellectuals even try to do so.

Nor did the U.S. actually compel the Soviet Union to increase military spending, as many historians baldly lie that we did.  Soviet military spending remained flat in the decade before Communism fell.

To the extent that Reagan deserves much credit - which is too often simply taken for granted - our Cold War victory could never redeem his unspeakable crimes throughout the world.

As for Reagan's economic policies, they charted a course for the U.S.'s yawning wealth inequality.  Real wages have more or less remained flat since Reagan's presidency - even as corporate profits and per capita GDP have skyrocketed.

Reagan also advanced us towards nearly every major and intractable problem that we face: mass incarceration, monopolistic corporate behemoths, an unaccountable financial sector, an unaccountable military-industrial-national security complexes, and a private health care sector that prevents the U.S. from achieving a first-world level life expectancy or a decent standard of living for tens of millions of us.

Reagan also evinced a gratuitous contempt for environmentalism -as he famously ripped Carter's solar panels from the White House, and preposterously questioned the beauty of redwood trees.

As for relatively ephemeral issues, Reagan ignored the AIDS crisis for years, and humiliated a significant portion of the U.S.'s Black population through his outright lies about welfare queens.

Reagan's entire legacy is of catastrophe, failure, and horrific human rights abuses.  Even Central Europe and Central Asia are in awful shape now - largely thanks to the Reagan-inspired neoliberal shock therapy that the IMF, World Bank, and other institutions subjected these countries to.

Democracy is dead in Russia, and on life support in Hungary and Poland, and throughout Eastern Europe as the far right menaces and in some cases, rules.

Little of what I have written is even controversial.  Elite intellectuals in the U.S. tend to just ignore the massive volume of inconvenient facts.

But Reagan was handsome, and often delivered his speeches with actorly charm.

That's enough for a consensus of American historians to rank him as one of our best presidents ever?

Only in a degraded, anti-intellectual culture in which right-wing apologists from The Heritage Foundation to Liberty University enjoy undue credibility and power.

There is a popular narrative on the left that although left-leaning candidates are not faring well in this year’s NYC mayoral election, a DSA-backed leftist could win city-wide in 2025 or 2029.

Here is why I view that as an almost-worthless prediction:

- Unseating an incumbent in a Democratic primary in a mayoral election is exceedingly difficult. Indeed, it’s difficult enough that the DSA-left would likely be smarter to not even try it in 2025 - and instead, back city council candidates as it did this year. If they do try to win the mayor’s seat, there is simply no good reason to believe that they will succeed.

- Far-left New Yorkers gave tepid support to Maya Wiley, who was the only decent progressive with a shot at winning this year’s mayoral election.

- Sure, Wiley is a flawed left-liberal, and not a democratic socialist. But she took a few strong-but-difficult stances that should have excited leftists much more: 1) She backed cutting the police budget, 2) she opposed raising the cap on charter schools, 3) She effectively supported introducing affirmative action into New York City’s best public high schools, and 4) she unequivocally embraced the endorsement of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

- Instead of giving full-throated support to Maya Wiley (as AOC did), too many leftists “supported” her as a hold-your-nose-and-vote candidate - - - emphasizing her ties to DeBlasio and some of her past imperfections, as opposed to her actual policies, which were substantive and categorically to the left of all of her serious competitors.

- By downplaying Wiley’s decent policies, and instead focusing on her past and personal character, leftists played straight into the hands of New York’s centrist and right-wing media outlets – especially the New York Post – which painted Wiley as an MSNBC “limousine liberal” type who did not truly represent progressives or the Black community. (These sorts of attacks seemed rather sexist and racist to me, in light of their sheer number and ad hominem nature. Google search Wiley's name, and you might agree.)

- Recall that in 2018, many of New York’s DSA members enthusiastically backed Cynthia Nixon, AOC, Jumaane Williams, and Democratic opponents of the New York Senate’s IDC caucus. In doing so, they backed many left-liberal types who were arguably not very far to Wiley’s left.

- Allergic to praising Wiley, New York’s left wing currently seems too disunited and fractured in its messaging to win a city-wide election soon, or even in the foreseeable future.

- Any notion that a leftist might win in 2029 is too confounded by unpredictable variables. As obvious examples, no one knows whether crime will return to low levels by then, how the climate crisis will affect our politics, or even whether the U.S. will remain a legitimate democracy by then.

- I like the DSA, and have phone-banked for several of its candidates – but its confidence that it can win city-wide seems unfounded at this point.

I worry that Biden's notion of "infrastructure," will evolve as Obama's notion of "energy independence" did.

Let's remember...

Obama as candidate: "Don't worry lefties.  When I say 'energy independence', you know I mean clean energy.  I just have to phrase it in the most jingoistic way possible to get popular support for my programs."

Obama as president: "Drill motherfu##er! Drill our way to energy independence, cheap gas, and more huge SUV's and pickup trucks. Let's forget that the U.S. auto industry went bankrupt by 'foolishly' betting its future on inefficient vehicles. Let's reward their greed."

Biden as candidate:  "You all know when I say 'infrastructure,' I mean zero-carbon electricity and all electric cars by 2035; the most ambitious clean energy agenda in U.S. history."

Biden as president: "Sorry, but we might have to leave clean energy out of our infrastructure bill in exchange for zero Republican votes and Joe Manchin's insistence that we secure those zero votes.  We need infrastructure now.  Saving humanity from an uninhabitable future can wait until after we lose Congress in 2022." 

*Footnote: "No climate, no deal" is exactly the right moment for progressives in Congress to take a strong stand; far more likely to succeed than "force the vote" would have been. People should call their Congresspersons to demand, "no climate, no deal."

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/06/09/no-climate-no-deal-dems-warn-biden-against-cutting-green-energy-infrastructure-plan

Q: Who knows that New York has already implemented a successful and popular composting program in many neighborhoods - - - and that with 100% composting collection as a next step, we can reduce methane emissions, save transportation costs and landfill space, and create a lot of high quality soil?

A: Every environmentalist in the city, and every NYC mayoral candidate, except for Andrew Yang. Yang didn't know that NYC"s popular and successful composting program even existed, and opposed 100% composting at last night's debate. 

Q: Who is livid that Bitcoin is the most obscene and gratuitous waste of electricity in the world - - - and is a critical life raft for the otherwise-endangered coal industry in the U.S? 

A: Every serious environmentalist in the world, but not Andrew Yang - - - who wants to use NYC's precious real estate to harm the planet as efficiently as possible. (How has he not walked this back yet?) 

Q: Who understands that the planet cannot be saved without rapid action by the U.S., whose per capita carbon emissions dwarf those of China and India?

A: Not Andrew Yang, who grossly downplays the U.S.'s contribution to carbon emissions. 

Yang might simply be ignorant about the climate emergency - - - in which case, he is not the genius technocrat he is reputed to be. Or, Yang understands the climate emergency, and just doesn't care that much about it. In either case, Yang's positions and rhetoric on climate change suggest that a Mayor Yang could be a disaster for climate in the world's most important city.