The death toll of the Maui fires, the deadliest in the U.S. in more than a century, now stands at 114 people. Another 1,000 people are still missing. About 1,800 in people are in temporary housing. Displaced or not, people in Maui need food, water, toiletries, and medications. And in the coming days, weeks, and months, all that and more—everything needed for a long, difficult recovery—will have to come from somewhere.

“Imagine building the entire town of Lahaina from scratch, and how many hundreds of millions—or billions—of dollars are needed to recover and rebuild,” Joe Kent, the executive vice president of Hawaii’s Grassroot Institute, a nonprofit public-policy think tank, told me.

A week in, locals are still struggling to find housing and meet their daily needs. The federal government has deployed hundreds of employees to help provide shelter and other assistance to those affected by the blaze. But in some parts of Maui, government assistance has been noticeably absent. Instead, Hawaii residents have been providing shelter, generators, and food.

“This happened in Puerto Rico—a constant clash between community kitchens or mutual-aid centers and municipalities or state agencies,” Roberto Vélez-Vélez, a sociologist at the State University of New York at New Paltz who studies disaster response, told me. When the authorities didn’t step in, community-run aid groups did. “We’re seeing this all over again.”

[Read: Maui’s fire risk was glowing red]

In 2017, Hurricane Maria, the deadliest Atlantic hurricane in the 21st century so far, barreled into Puerto Rico, leaving about 3,000 dead. One week after the storm’s landfall, the island was still crossed with downed power lines and almost entirely dark. In the six years since, recovery has been slow and uneven. Last September, many damaged homes were still covered in blue tarps. Puerto Ricans endure constant power outages after the island’s antiquated electric grid was decimated.

Recovery after any disaster of this scale is bound to take time. But in Puerto Rico—and very possibly in Hawaii—a real, distinct lag slows response even further. Though they are across the continent from each other, devastated by different disasters, these islands’ remoteness and their particular relationship to the United States determine the aid they receive in these moments of crisis.

On the most basic level, geography constrains disaster recovery on an island. If a firestorm happens in the contiguous U.S., responders will have a much easier time getting supplies in and out. But on an island, that process is painstaking, Ivis García, an urban planner who has researched disaster-recovery efforts in Puerto Rico, told me. It involves a lot of ships.

And for Hawaii, as for Puerto Rico, all aid shipped in must adhere to the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, more popularly known as the Jones Act. This law allows only U.S.-flagged ships that are built, owned, and operated by Americans to carry goods among U.S. ports. Under normal circumstances, this results in increased prices for consumers on islands: One 2020 study estimated that the average Hawaii family pays an extra $1,800 a year because of the Jones Act. And as happened in Puerto Rico, these restrictions can make a crisis worse, by slowing the response and making it more costly.

There are 55,000 ships worldwide equipped for carrying cargo from port to port, and fewer than 100 Jones Act–eligible ships in operation today. Just two main operators dominate Jones Act shipping between the contiguous U.S. and Hawaii—Matson and Pasha. Although these operators have been deployed to send in aid, experts worry that the limited amount of ships available could bottleneck aid. Imagine, Kent told me, “all the materials that are needed to build housing and rebuild commercial districts” in Lahaina. All of those materials will have to come in Jones Act–eligible ships. If Japan wanted to send emergency supplies directly to Hawaii, for instance, it would not be allowed to because of the Jones Act, García told me.

The Jones Act can be temporarily waived: Former President Donald Trump issued a 10-day waiver to facilitate disaster relief to Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria. But a short-term waiver doesn’t ease long-term recovery. “Ultimately, the real cost of the Jones Act is going to be borne over a long period of time,” Kent said.

[Read: The relief effort in Puerto Rico]

Hawaii is often packaged as paradise, but that identity, too, can have a specific price following a disaster. Both Hawaii and Puerto Rico are archipelagoes that depend on the tourism industry; they are desirable places, where land is at a premium. The cost of living is high and constantly rising. “Things in general are already more expensive. In a time of disaster, that is really multiplied,” García said. “Everything is disrupted.” Food, shelter, and transportation are all harder to find. Inevitably, after a disaster, people leave their homes, and not everyone comes back.

More than 200,000 people left Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. In the years since, García told me, only a small percentage have returned to the island. On Maui, even before the historic fires, residents were dealing with an influx of wealthy outsiders buying properties and displacing residents. Even in these first days after the fire, one of locals’ first concerns was that this land rush would accelerate—that people who wanted to come back simply wouldn’t be able to afford to. That happened in Puerto Rico. After Hurricane Maria, a wave of foreign investors bought up properties, displacing working-class residents to meet tourism demands and get their own slice of island life. From 2018 to 2021, housing prices for a single family home on the Caribbean island increased by 22 percent.

Kent, for his part, has watched the aftermath of Hurricane Maria closely; he has seen how long recovery can take. “That’s a daunting thought for us, because we’re about to go on a journey that lasts many years,” he told me.

Welcome to Up for Debate. Each week, Conor Friedersdorf rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.

Question of the Week

What do you think of the viral hit song “Rich Men North of Richmond”?

Send your responses to conor@theatlantic.com or simply reply to this email.

Conversations of Note

Last Tuesday, an obscure YouTube channel was updated with a three-minute-and-10-second video of a man with a red beard and a guitar standing outdoors singing an original song called “Rich Men North of Richmond.” As I write, that video featuring the theretofore unknown singer-songwriter Oliver Anthony has exceeded 18 million views. The song has been uploaded to, and is thriving on, all the major streaming platforms. And it is selling copies. The song reached No. 1 on the all-genre iTunes chart, the Los Angeles Times reported; “Anthony’s other songs, ‘Ain’t Gotta Dollar’ and ‘I’ve Got to Get Sober’ have even relegated Jason Aldean’s controversial ballad ‘Try That in a Small Town’ to the No. 4 position on the chart.”

The song’s lyrics probe political themes as surely as Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” or Pulp’s “Common People” or Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright,” so it’s understandable that political magazines and commentators are talking about it. Still, I’m struck by how little coverage there is of “Rich Men North of Richmond” as art. No song goes this viral without resonating with listeners on an aesthetic level. Nevertheless, even publications that rose to prominence based on their art criticism are covering the song through the lens of politics. A headline in Rolling Stone reads“Right-Wing Influencers Just Found Their Favorite New Country Song.” An article in The A.V. Club poses the question, “So, how did [the song’s success] happen?” and answers, “It’s largely conservatives.” Here’s an excerpt from Variety:

Since the Virginia native’s “Rich Men North of Richmond” song began taking off from out of nowhere less than a week ago, the Appalachian country-folk singer has been acclaimed by freshly minted fans as a phenomenon of the people and accused by detractors of harboring ugly right-wing attitudes or suspected of being an “industry plant.”

The suspicions of progressive music fans have largely to do with the fast numbers he’s racked up as an independent artist with supposedly no industry backing … What’s known about Anthony … comes largely through a YouTube monologue he put up … “I sit pretty dead center down the aisle on politics and, always have,” Anthony says … “I remember as a kid the conservatives wanting war, and me not understanding that. And I remember a lot of the controversies when the left took office, and it seems like, you know, both sides serve the same master. And that master is not someone of any good to the people of this country.”

But if an artist is known by the fans they keep, the highest-profile fans Anthony has quickly accumulated are very much on the right … like former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene … and far-right country figure John Rich … If Anthony wants to prove the centrism he professes by picking up some less partisan public figures as fans, he may have his work cut out for him, given the way he’s instantly been embraced as a hero to the right.

I struggle to imagine a mainstream media site reacting to Barack Obama or Nancy Pelosi’s praise of a songwriter by suggesting that the artist is therefore a presumptively leftist act who ought to be covered mainly as a political and politicized phenomenon. At the very least, Anthony should be judged by his own actions and words, not the social-media posts of right-wing opportunists with an incentive to associate themselves with anything popular that is not obviously left-coded. Preemptively assigning figures such as Anthony to existing ideological or culture-war factions is needlessly polarizing and can even be self-fulfilling. Mashable dedicates much of its coverage to the possibility that Anthony has some objectionable right-wing beliefs, whereas almost no one outside the most reactionary right-wing websites cares when a leftist singer-songwriter turns out to have some objectionable left-wing beliefs, because that’s not why millions were attracted to the music. Jay Caspian Kang’s reaction at The New Yorker––co-signed by Eric Levitz at Intelligencer––was among a minority of coverage that took the music seriously.

Kang wrote:

If a collection of right-wing Twitter accounts could boost any song to the top of the charts, Jack Posobiec would be the most powerful record executive in the country. There’s something else going on here that can’t be explained through some silly game in which you match the desires of a population with the words that appear in a song and then declare that a people—in this case the white working class—has found their anthem. Anthony might not be some “authentic” sensation, but that doesn’t mean he’s talentless. More than anything, he reminds me of the type of country singer who sings old songs to great acclaim on “American Idol,” but who may ultimately struggle when it comes time to cut a modern album. For the viewer, the delight comes in seeing someone make it but also in the reassurance that there are talented people all over this country who sing in anonymity and who do not bend themselves to fit every musical trend.

Much like “Idol” contestants, such as Bo Bice or Scotty McCreery, Anthony can really sing. His voice isn’t quite as smooth and virtuosic as the country star Chris Stapleton’s, but it carries a similar depth of tone and his screamy rasp never feels like the affectation of an amateur who is trying too hard, but rather does what it’s supposed to do: communicate emotion. What words are put to that voice are far less important than the nostalgia the music evokes, and, in Anthony’s case, the image of the authentic singer-songwriter.

A nuanced discussion of what “authenticity” even means in this context follows.

A Conservative Critique of “Rich Men North of Richmond”

Mark Antonio Wright published one in National Review:

In a world full of Nashville pop-country sludge, Anthony sings with an authentic passion, and many people were instantly taken with his raw and raspy voice. In just the time that you may have been on summer vacation, he came out of nowhere, going from a complete unknown to a musical celebrity as the song spread virally on YouTube and Twitter.

That’s a great American story, but I don’t understand the adulation on the right for this song’s message.

Anthony sings:

I’ve been sellin’ my soul, workin’ all day
Overtime hours for bullshit pay
So I can sit out here and waste my life away
Drag back home and drown my troubles away

My brother in Christ, you live in the United States of America in 2023—if you’re a fit, able-bodied man, and you’re working “overtime hours for bullshit pay,” you need to find a new job.

There’s plenty of them out there—jobs that don’t require a college degree, that offer good pay (especially in this tight labor market) and great benefits, especially if you’re willing to get your hands dirty by doing things like joining the Navy, turning wrenches, fixing pumps, laying pipe, or a hundred other jobs through which American men can still make a great living. If you’re the type of guy who’s willing to show up on time, every time, work hard while you’re on the clock, and learn hard skills—there’s a good-paying job out there for you. Go find it. And if you go home and spend all night drowning your troubles away—either on TikTok or by drinking too much—my friend, that’s your fault, not Washington’s. Not that Washington is helping any—it’s not. But when we waste our lives, it’s still our own fault … Washington is not the cause of our national sickness; it’s a symptom. We, as citizens, as men, still hold it in our power to ignore the corrosive effects of our politics and the popular culture and get on with living the good life: get a job, get married, raise your kids up right, get involved with your church, read good books, teach your boys to hunt, be present in the lives of your family and friends, help your neighbors.

After a lot of pushback from readers, he doubled down.

“Typically Terrible Arguments”

Songs are ill-suited to ground political debates, Jonah Goldberg argues in a newsletter from The Dispatch:

Now, if the claims of the song were an op-ed, I’d agree pretty much entirely with National Review’s Mark Antonio Wright, who apparently has caught holy hell for daring to disagree with, for want of a better term, the policy substance of a frick’n song. But I find this sort of grading of songs pretty tedious. Give me an hour and I can give you 1,000 words explaining why Lennon’s “Imagine” is otherworldly, romantic claptrap. But why bother? I can give you another 1,000 words on why Edwin Starr’s “War (What Is it Good For)?” would not be well-received by Holocaust victims, American slaves, or Ukrainians resisting Russian genocide.

But songs are typically terrible arguments, so it’s better to spend time debating actual, you know, arguments not set to music. This isn’t a criticism of Wright, who was responding to all of the people hailing “Rich Men North of Richmond” as some bold truth-telling anthem. It is for some people, and that’s fine. That doesn’t mean the people who take the song literally are right about their preferred policies—or that they’re wrong.

I agree. But if you disagree and want to read people who use the lyrics as the basis of political analysis, then see Hamilton Nolan and Noah Smith for two extremely different perspectives.

Some Like It Hotter

Olga Khazan argues in The Atlantic that the growing population of the Sun Belt is explained by three of its features:

The South may be approaching the approximate ambient temperature of Venus, but that’s no deterrent. People keep wanting to move there. (I count myself among these people, as someone who has dedicated the past year of my life to finding a house in Florida.) This unstoppable appeal of Sun Belt cities rests on three factors: These places tend to have less expensive housing, lots of jobs, and warm winters. None of these is sufficient to attract people in large numbers, but together they seem to generate an irresistible force, sucking up disaffected northerners and Californians like a fiery tornado.

These days, you don’t have to wonder how the other half lives. You can open up Redfin and see how much house you can get in Dallas for less than your New York rent. The median home price in Los Angeles is $975,000. The median home price in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler is $520,000. Once you have this knowledge, it can be hard to evict it from your mind. What would you do with an extra half a million dollars? …

The Sun Belt cities that have soared are mostly in states with low taxes, which helps attract businesses. But many are also home to prominent universities that churn out highly educated workers. They’ve successfully created “agglomeration economies” of lots of similar types of companies in close proximity. Austin has the University of Texas, an Apple campus, and throngs of upwardly mobile Californians and New Yorkers who have fled high house prices …

Warm winters seem to act as an accelerant on cheap housing and plentiful jobs. People will vaguely consider a place with lots of new businesses and $300,000 homes, but once they see a few hundred Instagram posts of 70-degree February days, they call the moving company.

“Does Color-Blindness Perpetuate Racism?”

The writers Coleman Hughes and Jamelle Bouie squared off in a debate about that question that you can watch here.

Provocation of the Week

In an Atlantic article titled “I’m a Black Professor. You Don’t Need to Bring That Up,” Tyler Austin Harper argues that “anti-racists are overcorrecting.” He writes:

As a Black guy who grew up in a politically purple area—where being a good person meant adhering to the kind of civil-rights-era color-blindness that is now passé—I find this emergent anti-racist culture jarring. Many of my liberal friends and acquaintances now seem to believe that being a good person means constantly reminding Black people that you are aware of their Blackness. Difference, no longer to be politely ignored, is insisted upon at all times under the guise of acknowledging “positionality.” Though I am rarely made to feel excessively aware of my race when hanging out with more conservative friends or visiting my hometown, in the more liberal social circles in which I typically travel, my race is constantly invoked—“acknowledged” and “centered”—by well-intentioned anti-racist “allies.”

This “acknowledgement” tends to take one of two forms. The first is the song and dance in which white people not-so-subtly let you know that they know that race and racism exist. This includes finding ways to interject discussion of some (bad) news item about race or racism into casual conversation, apologizing for having problems while white (“You’re the last person I should be whining to”), or inversely, offering “support” by attributing any normal human problem you have to racism.

The second way good white liberals often “center” racial difference in everyday interactions with minorities is by trying, always clumsily, to ensure that their “marginalized” friends and familiars are “culturally” comfortable. My favorite personal experiences of this include an acquaintance who invariably steers dinner or lunch meetups to Black-owned restaurants, and the time that a friend of a friend invited me over to go swimming in their pool before apologizing for assuming that I know how to swim (“I know that’s a culturally specific thing”). It is a peculiar quirk of the 2020s’ racial discourse that this kind of “acknowledgement” and “centering” is viewed as progress.

My point is not that conservatives have better racial politics—they do not—but rather that something about current progressive racial discourse has become warped and distorted. The anti-racist culture that is ascendant seems to me to have little to do with combatting structural racism or cultivating better relationships between white and Black Americans. And its rejection of color-blindness as a social ethos is not a new frontier of radical political action.

No, at the core of today’s anti-racism is little more than a vibe shift—a soft matrix of conciliatory gestures and hip phraseology that give adherents the feeling that there has been a cultural change, when in fact we have merely put carpet over the rotting floorboards. Although this push to center rather than sidestep racial difference in our interpersonal relationships comes from a good place, it tends to rest on a troubling, even racist subtext: that white and Black Americans are so radically different that interracial relationships require careful management, constant eggshell-walking, and even expert guidance from professional anti-racists. Rather than producing racial harmony, this new ethos frequently has the opposite effect, making white-Black interactions stressful, unpleasant, or, perhaps most often, simply weird.

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Welcome to Up for Debate. Each week, Conor Friedersdorf rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.

Last week, I put this question to readers: “Donald Trump is guilty of deplorable actions, under indictment for multiple crimes, and yet remains the most popular candidate with voters in the Republican Party’s presidential primary. Why do you think he is still their first choice?”

Replies have been edited for length and clarity.

Randall R. argues that Trump supporters earnestly desire national greatness:

The reason many support Trump (if you have the decency to listen to them) is because they want to make America great again, and there’s no one else close to matching Trump in both prominence and apparent ability to make what they’d say is the most promising and important part of America great, in the face of the internal conflicts that currently exist.

That’s an illusion spread by a politician, offering an addictive thrill that disconnects people from parts of reality. It doesn’t make America great. But making America great, recognizing how it has long been great and how it can be more great, remains important.

Listen to the Trump voters: the neglected, the deplored, the doomscrollers, the people who want to make something of themselves, those who want to raise their family in a better world. Those who vote against Trump fit these same descriptions. It’s essential, for people on opposing sides of what’s become Trump’s divide, to listen to each other with respect, so we can build our way out of America’s problems without being exploited by political operators. You or I have no shortage of illusions in our parts of the political spectrum; shouldn’t we be reexamining those illusions instead of looking down on Trump’s followers?

Bob puts forth a theory of populism:

Populist movements arise from widespread dissatisfaction with cultural and economic conditions and the inability of the government to deal with public concerns. This is fertile ground for charismatic and authoritarian leaders offering quick and simple solutions. Though Trump may be a person of low character, to many of his supporters, he seems like the sort of fighter that is needed—someone who does not follow the rules because the rules are believed to be the problem. James Madison would be sad and disappointed.

Jaleelah analyzes what she sees as the incentives of Trump supporters:

Trump’s supporters sincerely believe that he is being framed, not only because he has been priming them for his conviction for years, but because they have to believe it lest they become severely depressed. Imagine dedicating yourself to a false religion or an unfulfilling career or a bad partner. Imagine losing relationships with your lifelong friends and your adult children who strongly disagree with your choices. When you’ve committed to something at a great cost, it is hard to admit that your commitment was all for nothing.

I don’t think it is strange that so many people insist Trump is innocent. I do, of course, believe he is a fraud who is corrupt enough to have committed the crimes he is accused of. But genuine revolutionary figures get locked up on fake charges all the time. Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi were charged, convicted, and imprisoned. Most reasonable people alive today believe their imprisonments were unjust and that states are capable of fabricating evidence against popular figures who threaten the social order. Trump’s supporters are simply applying a reasonable idea in an unreasonable context.

Liberals and progressives do not seem keen to accept repentant Trump supporters. There is little benefit to switching teams. There is a very high cost. Towns that have unified behind Trump are just as keen on cancel culture as their liberal counterparts. No one wants to be confronted by a horde of their neighbors at church or accused of supporting degeneracy at the grocery store. Peer pressure is probably keeping a lot of people in line.

Dan argues that “most people assume that voters look at a candidate’s record and personality,” but “what really matters is whether a candidate gives a voter an identity.” He explains:

The voters are, because of their support for a candidate, a “somebody.” Trump has done this better than any candidate in 50 years. To voters whose worlds have been destroyed by elites, Trump says: You matter. Become a part of this movement and you are standing up to the elites. You can get your life back with me, and be a SOMEBODY again. Trump’s legal cases are easily rationalized as the price he has been willing to pay, personally, to represent all of the people who see him as validating their lives and giving them identities once again. To his supporters, he is sacrificing for “the cause.”

Christopher scolds Trump’s critics for what he sees as a failure to understand their country:

Trump supporters believe that the economic and cultural game is rigged. Trump supporters disagree with teaching little children about gender or allowing gender-reassignment care to impressionable minors and are branded with a pejorative label for it. They see branding that Florida law as “Don’t say gay”––despite the fact that a majority of Americans would likely support the content and intent of Florida’s efforts to ensure age-appropriate instruction––is wrong. Similarly, when someone supports law enforcement or opposes affirmative action, they are labeled “racists,” even though there are principled reasons to take issue. Trump has tapped into the frustration that comes from playing a rigged game. Trump supporters see Trump as challenging the cultural and economic system that excludes them and their views.

The elites and media need to stop dismissing Trump supporters as some fringe group. Trump received more votes in 2020 than did Obama [in 2008] and came in second in 2020 only to Biden. The 2024 election is likely to be close. The issues Trump has tapped into are not fleeting.

Geoff describes a type of voter he has observed as a retail manager in Colorado, in a store that catered to a Trump-voting demographic:

They are white, working-class, and very knowledgeable about stuff and fixing it, but they don’t value education as it is systematized in America. They are very transgressive in their everyday language but are model citizens overall. The most notable sentiment, for me, was commonly phrased as, “Wouldn’t it be great to vote for a POTUS sitting in prison?!” They defend him out of reaction: It’s “unpopular,” and they are raging against the machine. Think if supporting Nixon was the most “punk rock” thing you could do.

Patricia shares how she became a Democrat and describes some Trump supporters she has observed:

I’m 90 years old, a retired hospital administrator. My late husband and I were brought up in Republican families in California and voted that way until we watched Bill Clinton’s impeachment and witnessed the mean streak and hypocrisy of the Republicans.

We have voted for Democrats ever since.

My co-grandma is currently 89. She immigrated from Argentina at the age of 22, so you’d think she’d recognize authoritarians when she smells them, but no, she likes Trump. She loved watching The Apprentice and watches Fox. And her friends email around crazy stuff they find online. She has a Ph.D. in education and taught at a university for years.

I have a 65-year-old in-law who lives in Orange County, California, and has a successful business. A smart man, but not formally educated. He is a Trump supporter because of taxes mostly.

My granddaughter and her husband recently moved to northern Idaho from the Seattle area because they don’t like the regulations in Washington State. They think Trump is not a nice man but are pretty well aligned with libertarianism—they don’t want government interfering in their freedom, so they think Trump is the only choice. Both are college graduates.

And beyond them, I’ve observed that there are people with a seemingly “genetic” trait who simply enjoy seeing a person “stick it” to others. Trump is exceptionally good at ridicule.

Nick thinks his experience of being young and right-leaning helped him understand support for Trump:

Pre-2016, I identified as a conservative. While in college, if I tried to offer a different opinion on topics such as immigration, I felt ridiculed and looked down upon. I decided my two options were to be met with scorn or to hold my tongue. I know I wasn’t the only one. My good friend started a club to bring liberals and conservatives together to talk about major issues. He did everything he could to get conservatives to show up but just couldn’t get it to happen. I am not surprised because I don’t think I was the only conservative who felt like they couldn’t share out of fear of being “canceled” or called a racist or bigot for not going along with the mainstream liberal line. Perhaps Republicans are rallying around Trump despite his egregious undemocratic and immoral acts because they see themselves in him, a conservative being constantly ridiculed by liberals for his beliefs, except he actually speaks up. I don’t think all conservatives are power-hungry autocrats like Trump, and I don’t think most of them share his views. But I do think that we tend to support someone when we see ourselves in them. Identity politics play in both parties; maybe we’re just seeing the conservative version.    

T. argues that we’re witnessing a reaction to cultural change:

I’m an architect in a progressive city out west. I abhor Donald Trump, but I understand why my in-laws in Tennessee support him without reservation. What’s mystifying to me is that so many bright, liberal folks of my acquaintance don’t grasp it. Do you recall the deafening silence after the 2016 election, when Hillary lost to the worst presidential candidate in American history? There were a couple of months of serious self-examination among Democrats, but it quickly cooled, and I haven’t heard anything like it since.

I think our lack of understanding is due to the inability of most of us to put ourselves into the shoes of disadvantaged Trump voters. What you’d see coming your way is an all-consuming political, economic, and cultural wave––one that represents not only change, but also disdain for your way of life and destruction of your sense of who you are. I’m not saying that’s true, but the impression is very real. It’s cultural imperialism, which we understand very well when we talk about gentrification, but we miss completely when the encroaching force comes from our side of the fence. After all, how would we feel if confronted by a way of life that mocks our religion, siphons up our brightest young people and convinces them we’re hopelessly ignorant, sells us out to the global economy, promotes behavior that’s been taboo for thousands of years, and cancels us if we disagree? It fits with the experience of Indigenous cultures that were overrun by modern industrial society during the past 250 years. Those Tennesseans are being sold a bill of goods by a flimflam man, but we set them up for it.

JP describes the Trump support of his loved ones:

They do not go to Trump rallies, nor do they look or sound like those abhorrent Trump supporters you see in interview-reel compilations. They are compassionate, kind to strangers, and even have friends in people of all political stripes. We are a racially diverse bunch: Black, Hispanic, and white. And yet, these same people believe in their bones that for every lie Donald Trump has told, the liberal media has told more. For every crime Donald Trump has committed, the liberal elites in our politics and culture have committed more.

And regarding his claims of election fraud, despite lack of hard evidence, they feel in their gut that he is right on some level. I doubt I could do or say anything to convince them otherwise.

Paul describes the pull of tribes:

Part of being a human being is wanting to belong. One way we do that is to identify with someone or something. Passionate sports fans are a good example. And once we link our identity, our sense of who we are, to those teams, we look at everything about those teams through a positive perspective. People have identified with Trump and now their well-being and self-image are tied to him. That prevents them from viewing any reality other than the one that he creates. It will take some sort of disruption to break up with him, but it doesn’t look like that will occur. When their identity is at risk, the most comfortable path is to stay with Trump and distort new data to fit their views.

Michael believes that demographic insecurity is a factor:

I suspect that support for Trump is rooted in people’s fears of becoming a minority and suffering economic demise due to competition from immigration by humans who are unlike them.

Tim believes that Trump’s appeal is even simpler:

Give someone a reason to feel good about their anger and resentment and you can gain their loyalty.

When Keir Starmer wanted to change the Labour Party’s stance on sex and gender, he didn’t give a set-piece speech or hold a press conference. Instead, the leader of Britain’s main opposition party stayed in the background, leaving Anneliese Dodds, a shadow minister with a low public profile, to announce the shift in a short opinion column in The Guardian. In just over 800 words, she made three big declarations. One was that “sex and gender are different.” Another was that, although Labour continues to believe in the right to change one’s legal gender, safeguards are needed to “protect women and girls from predators who might abuse the system.” Finally, Labour was therefore dropping its commitment to self-ID—the idea that a simple online declaration is enough to change someone’s legal gender for all purposes—and would retain the current requirement of a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria.

Dodds supplemented her article with a few explanatory tweets, but didn’t go on television to reiterate the message. The next day, Labour declined to provide a spokesperson for comment on the BBC’s flagship radio news show. Although Starmer did eventually answer questions on the subject, as part of a wider interview two days later, the overall effect was that of a man who had chucked a hand grenade over his shoulder and walked away, whistling.

To anyone not following the turbulent and sometimes arcane debate that has been raging in Britain, Dodds’s statements might sound uncontroversial, but they are not. Since 2015, when the Conservative politician Maria Miller first proposed self-ID in Britain, the idea that such a system might be abused has been called a transphobic myth by LGBTQ campaigners. Demands for single-sex sports teams, locker rooms, and prisons were thus “exclusionary” and analogous to whites-only buses, schools, and water fountains under apartheid and Jim Crow. Labour, the main party of the British left, has now declared that these arguments are unfair and untrue. The internal dissent has been notably muted.

[Helen Lewis: What happens when politicians brush off hard questions about gender]

That shift has broader implications, not least in America, where combatants on both sides of the gender war closely follow the debates in Britain. (Queer activists in the U.S. dismissively call the country “TERF Island.”) Labour’s new stance shows how the left can simultaneously acknowledge the needs of an embattled transgender minority, accept the importance of biological sex to public policy, and look for political and social compromises. Admittedly, huge questions remain about how the party’s proposals will work in practice and whether its Welsh and Scottish branches will fall in line. But Labour has signaled the beginning of a serious democratic conversation, after years of implicitly agreeing with the LGBTQ activists who insisted that no debate was acceptable.

As a leader of a left-wing party, Starmer has sent an important sign by disassociating himself from the radical postmodern idea that the distinction between males and females is a social construct, and that biology has nothing to do with women’s historical oppression. (“Women are not, in fact, subordinated or oppressed by our bodies,” the feminist legal scholar Catharine MacKinnon wrote recently. “We do not need to be liberated from our chromosomes or our ovaries.”)

Labour’s new position represents a big ideological shift, but it wasn’t presented as one. That is typical of Starmer’s personality, which is unshowy but ruthless. Unlike many American politicians on either side of the spectrum, he has tried to find a position that will make the debate less inflammatory, and to appeal to the wider country rather than his activist base.

In the three years since the Conservatives dropped their commitment to self-ID, some of their politicians have gleefully seized on the vote-winning potential of gender as a culture-war issue. By contrast, during that time, Starmer and his ministers have been fumbling over their answer to the question What is a woman?, talking about cervices far more than anyone outside a gynecology department would wish to. A desire to stick to the progressive line has meant that Labour politicians have ended up saying baffling things like “A child is born without sex.” Some have attacked interviewers for even bringing up the subject, which just drew more attention to their tortured answers. Stuck arguing about the exact percentage of women who have a penis, Labour couldn’t talk about Britain’s housing crisis, high energy costs, crumbling infrastructure, poor economic growth, and high inflation.

That era is now over, if rank-and-file Labour politicians want it to be. Two days after the Dodds column appeared, Starmer was asked to define woman. He responded simply, “An adult female.” If that answer is permissible in left-wing circles, interviewers have been deprived of an easy gotcha question, and Labour can go back to talking about economics and trying to win over the median voter.

For fear of harming trans people or aligning with outright bigots, some on the left have avoided voicing misgivings about policies such as self-ID, and over the past decade Labour activists have vilified feminist commentators who did speak up. Starmer has now broadened the limits of the discussion. Across Europe, medical associations are recommending caution over so-called affirmative models of gender care for minors. The possibility that social contagion may affect teenagers’ professed identities is being discussed among doctors, as is the suggestion that, at least in some cases, puberty itself can resolve gender dysphoria. The lack of evidence for the safety or effectiveness of puberty blockers is becoming sayable.

[Helen Lewis: The only way out of the child-gender culture war]

In sports, international bodies are undoing previous policies that put trans women in competition with natal-female athletes. The latest organization to change its rules is British Rowing, which has restricted women’s events to biological females, while also creating categories for transgender participation. Two weeks before that, cycling’s world governing body, the Union Cycliste Internationale, restricted the female category to individuals born female who have never taken testosterone, while also creating an “open” competition for anyone who has been through male puberty or has taken male hormones.

In the United States, though, political polarization is freezing a highly unproductive discussion in place. One of the most frustrating aspects of writing on this subject is that many liberals don’t know what they don’t know. Punitive red-state bans, coupled with overtly anti-LGBTQ rhetoric by Republicans, have made Democrats instinctively defensive of puberty blockers and gender surgery for minors even as European experts grow warier. A proper, evidence-based debate about child transition in America is inhibited by the fact that medical groups are wedded to the affirmative model, despite their overseas colleagues’ qualms about the evidence base. The board of the American Academy of Pediatrics just voted unanimously to continue backing the affirmative approach for now.

Clearly, a broad middle ground exists. About three-quarters of Americans are opposed to discrimination against transgender people in housing, colleges, the workplace, and obtaining health insurance, according to polling conducted late last year. But more than 60 percent of American adults also believe that trans women and girls should not compete in female sports at any level, and solid majorities also oppose hormone treatments for under-18s. Even among trans adults themselves, the same poll found that three in 10 support sex-based restrictions in sports, and the same number said it was inappropriate for younger children to receive puberty blockers. (The Washington Post, which published the polling, notes that it was conducted before the introduction of hundreds of red-state bills restricting medical care and sports participation.) It seems as though most Americans are happy to support trans people in everyday life, while also believing that trans women are not identical to other women, with all that implies. But this position is rarely articulated among elites on either side. “It’s not just tribalism; it’s extremism,” the writer Lisa Selin Davis told me. “It’s the two-party system, and it’s each party catering to its most radical constituents. And of course, that’s the story of social media too.”

Davis came to the American gender debate as the parent of a masculine daughter. When she wrote about that experience in The New York Times, she received letters urging her to let her “son” transition and warning that “he” might die by suicide otherwise. She still considers herself to be on the left but believes that her natural allies have lost perspective. “When it comes to the Democrats, they have invested so much political capital in supporting things that not only probably don’t matter to most Democratic voters, but I think probably are a bit of a turnoff,” she told me. “Staking your claim on supporting drag-queen story hour, as opposed to a $25 minimum wage, is really silly.”

Davis is particularly dispirited that Democrats do not make life easy for lawmakers who depart from the party’s orthodoxy on gender issues. Shawn Thierry, a Black female Democratic state representative in Texas, faced censure motions and a primary challenge after supporting a Republican bill to limit gender-related hormone therapies to people over 18. Her Democratic colleagues accused her of parroting GOP talking points, but she insisted that she had looked at the evidence and found it wanting. Her detractors were also unhappy that she met with two detransitioners ahead of the vote. Imagine that—a lawmaker being criticized for listening to people with personal experience of the issue under discussion.

[Daniela Valdes and Kinnon MacKinnon: Take detransitioners seriously]

Deviations from the Republican Party line also attract ferocious pushback. In 2021, Asa Hutchinson, then the governor of Arkansas, vetoed a child-gender-care bill, drawing criticism from Tucker Carlson and the state party. But Hutchinson gave a compelling rationale: He opposed surgeries on minors but felt the bill was unconstitutional and deprived parents of their rights. (His veto was overturned, but the law has since been struck down by a judge.) Earlier this year, Utah Governor Spencer Cox approved restrictions on transition care in his state only after meeting with families affected by the change, telling reporters: “If you’re not willing to sit down and listen to transgender kids and their families, then you’re probably doing policy the wrong way.” Cox is now using his year as chair of the National Governors Association to promote an initiative called Disagree Better.

Here in Britain, Starmer is betting that most voters will gratefully accept his proposed compromise—one that both assuages their concerns and takes some of the heat out of the debate. Labour has made concessions to trans activists, too, by proposing a system that will allow patients to receive a dysphoria diagnosis from their family doctor, rather than having to apply to an anonymous panel. Starmer has so far declined to apologize on the party’s behalf to feminists who were harassed for views that Labour now officially shares.

Frankly, treating this as a tough but mundane problem to be solved rather than an emotive means of attacking the opposition is what is needed. It’s the only way to make the American conversation around gender more like the British one. Democrats need to meet detransitioners, and Republicans need to meet transgender activists. Both sides need to hear the best version of their opponents’ arguments—and ensure that the debate is being conducted on the basis of the best available evidence. Alongside any evidence reviews, Davis wants a bipartisan commission on child gender care. “The best thing to do would be to stop fighting and get the data,” she said.

Until then, the left must be able to defend trans rights without denying the meaningful differences between males and females. The right must be able to air concerns without demonizing trans people. Both liberals and conservatives should stop throwing around accusations of child abuse toward parents doing their best. The gender war can end—if the broad, tolerant middle asserts itself.

Imagine AI one day composing quality music and sounds. It’s a reality that may be closer than you think. Today (Aug. 2), Meta announced it has released three open-sourced generative AI models—MusicGen, AudioGen, and EnCodec—that allow users to generate environmental sounds and sound effects, from a dog barking to cars…

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