2025-11-14 05:00:00
地球人口正在增长，预计到2050年，我们需要多养活20亿人。但如何以可持续和道德的方式满足这一需求？许多人认为水产养殖（即鱼类养殖）是获取动物蛋白最可持续的方式，因为它占用的陆地资源较少。目前，水产养殖是全球增长最快的食品生产形式之一。然而，它究竟是如何运作的？是否真的是最佳发展方向？为了深入了解，Vox视频制作人Nate Krieger深入研究了鲑鱼养殖。鲑鱼目前是美国最受欢迎的鱼类，每个美国人每年平均消费3.2磅鲑鱼，其中超过70%来自养殖场，总计每年生产300万吨鲑鱼。为了理解鲑鱼产业对地球、未来以及鲑鱼自身的影响，我们采访了行业内部人士、海洋生物学家和鱼类福利专家。这是一个复杂的问题，充满各种限制和权衡。但了解我们所吃的食物及其来源，有助于我们做出更负责任的选择。
更多资料和延伸阅读：阅读Vox关于鲑鱼养殖的更多报道。Vox的Future Perfect团队探讨了水产养殖中鱼类饲养所需资源，这实际上是最关键的影响因素之一：* 豆类如何占据美国乃至全球 * 鱼类养殖本应是可持续的，但存在巨大隐患。全球鲑鱼倡议（Global Salmon Initiative）的官方网站，这是几家全球最大的鲑鱼养殖公司合作的平台，我们曾采访其CEO。该倡议的《手册》是了解鲑鱼养殖的重要资源：GSI手册。世界自然基金会关于鲑鱼养殖权衡的页面。本视频由动物慈善评估机构（Animal Charity Evaluators）支持，该机构获得了EarthShare的资助。
Earth’s population is growing. We’re expected to have 2 billion more mouths to feed by 2050. But how can we feed all those people in a way that is still sustainable and ethical?
Many have argued that aquaculture (or fish farming) is one of the most sustainable ways we can consume animal protein, since it requires less land use. It’s currently the quickest-growing form of food production in the world. But how exactly does it work? And is it really the best path forward?
To find out more, Vox video producer Nate Krieger went down the rabbit hole on salmon aquaculture. Salmon is currently the most popular fish in the US: The average American consumes 3.2 pounds of salmon annually. And over 70 percent of that salmon comes from farms, totalling 3 million tons of salmon a year.
To understand the impact that the salmon industry is having on our planet and our future, and on the salmon themselves, we spoke to industry insiders, marine biologists, and fish welfare experts.
This is a complicated issue, full of lots of caveats and trade-offs. But the more we know about the food we eat and where it comes from, the more responsible we can be.
Read more of Vox’s reporting on salmon farming.
Vox’s Future Perfect team reports on what it takes to feed the fish involved in aquaculture, which turns out to be one of the most important impacts to consider:
The website for the Global Salmon Initiative, a collaboration between some of the world’s biggest salmon farming companies, whose CEO we spoke with for this piece. Its handbook is a great resource for information on salmon aquaculture: GSI Handbook.
The World Wildlife Fund’s page on the tradeoffs involved in salmon farming.
This video is part of a series supported by Animal Charity Evaluators, which received a grant from EarthShare.
2025-11-14 03:15:00
在德克萨斯州休斯顿的一个社区里，一栋房子前挂着“待售”标志。| Kirk Sides/Houston Chronicle 通过 Getty Images 提供
《The Argument》的主编杰里米·德姆萨斯（Jerusalem Demsas）对住房问题有独到见解：“拥有房产被高估了。”考虑到70%的美国人认为拥有房产是实现美国梦的关键部分，这种观点显得尤为大胆。德姆萨斯认为，我们的房产拥有社会并非如想象中那样理想，而租房其实可以带来真正的乐趣。“我是个租房者，我热爱租房生活。”她说，“我喜欢能够自由选择何时搬家，也喜欢不用为屋顶是否完好或冰箱是否会坏而操心。房产是一项巨大的资产，即使你是首次购房者，也需要投入大量资金。有很多人从中受益，也享受拥有自由翻修房屋、按自己意愿打造家园的自由。但我认为，我们过分夸大了房产的财务优势。”
在 Vox 的最新一期播客《Explain It to Me》中，我们深入探讨了这种夸大，分析了为何房产拥有并不适合每个人，以及为何“拥有房屋”的梦想在美国人的想象中如此根深蒂固。以下是与德姆萨斯的对话摘录，已进行删减和润色。你可以通过 Apple Podcasts、Spotify 或其他播客平台收听完整节目。如果你想提交问题，可以发送电子邮件至 [email protected] 或拨打 1-800-618-8545。
我们被灌输的房产财务好处有哪些？实际又如何？
我们通常被告知房产有两个主要财务优势。第一是强制储蓄机制：如果你要支付住房费用，要么是租金，要么是房贷。你被迫将这部分钱储蓄起来，最终成为自己的资产，而不是交给房东，之后就再也见不到这笔钱了，这显然是对的。但第二个好处是房产投资回报高，而这一点根本无法保证。要实现房产投资的回报，需要满足很多条件。首先，你必须能够在经济困难时期持有房产，这非常困难。例如，在大衰退期间，或者失业、遭遇医疗紧急情况、需要照顾生病的父母等情况下，很多人不得不在不合适的时机出售房产。这时可能面临高利率、卖价低于买入价，或者即使卖出也赚不了多少钱。
其次，房产通常比租房更昂贵。因此，你原本可以用来投资股市或其他大型指数基金的钱，几乎肯定比投资房产获得的回报更高。那么，为什么我们一直认为买房是积累财富的终极方式？
我想说的是，我不想去贬低那些对拥有房产感到兴奋的人。我认为很多人确实有这种感觉。我的父亲就非常期待拥有自己的房子。我可以理解人们在文化、社会和心理层面上为何觉得拥有房产、不依赖房东非常重要。我不想让任何人觉得这种心理价值不重要。如果它能给你带来心理上的满足，那很好。我只是希望我们在拥有房产的同时，不要欺骗自己关于其财务方面的真相。
这种观念的历史非常心理和政治。认为拥有房产能让你更深入地融入社区，是保守主义思想的一部分。这种想法源于一种观念，即租房者是流动的，可能是移民或年轻人，他们对社区没有归属感。如果你租房，你就会对社区不负责任，可能会乱扔垃圾，或成为不良影响。这种反租房的态度在美国尤其在20世纪初大量移民涌入时开始显现。房产拥有社会逐渐成为人们非常重视的概念，它在美国社会中被心理和法律上定义为“好公民”的标志，即拥有自己的房子，有白墙和栅栏，拥有自己的土地。
我想深入探讨这种社会层面的意义。正如你所说，房产拥有神话的一部分是认为拥有房子意味着你扎根于社区。但我并不这么认为。我是个租房者，而正因为如此，我才能住在比自己经济能力所能负担的更好的地区。如果我和丈夫要买下我现在住的房子，那简直是荒谬的。这意味着我离朋友更近，他可以轻松骑自行车到附近的朋友们那里，我们也能方便地探望他的父母，我上班也很方便，很多朋友都能轻松到我家来。而当人们第一次买房时，往往为了能负担得起的房子而牺牲了地理位置。这通常意味着，他们最终可能在晚年变得根深蒂固，但买房这一行为本身却常常让他们离开自己原本所在的社区，因为需要改变价格区间。
从理性上讲，我非常认同你的观点，但我觉得对一些人来说，放弃拥有房产的梦想在情感上很难。对大多数美国人来说，买房是成为成年人、实现成功的象征。除了财务投资之外，你认为还有哪些因素让房产拥有与我们的美国身份紧密相连？
我认为，房产拥有一直被视为自由的象征。就像拥有汽车并能自由驾驶一样，这些都深深植根于美国文化中：你渴望自由，渴望摆脱老板的束缚，渴望随心所欲地行动。这些都非常棒。人们需要经济自由，需要能提供良好薪资的工作，需要一个能够对房东或雇主进行问责的政府。对我来说，美国梦一直就是自由。我们一直通过房产拥有来推动这种理念。但我的回应是，我认为房产拥有并不意味着自由对每个人而言。我不觉得拥有这样高风险的资产是一种自由。我知道在华盛顿特区，有些人目前的房贷金额已经超过了房屋价值，而且他们还担心失业问题。这真的是自由吗？不。经济自由才是自由。我们如何实现这种自由，是政策和技术层面的讨论，但我认为我们应该重新思考，而不是特别强调房产拥有。
Jerusalem Demsas, editor-in-chief of The Argument, has a hot take when it comes to our housing woes: “Homeownership is overrated.”
That’s a particularly bold perspective when you take into account that 70 percent of Americans think owning a home is a key part of achieving the American dream. Demsas argues that our homeownership society is not all it’s cracked up to be, and that there can be a real joy in renting.
“I’m a renter and I love being a renter,” she said. “I love being able to move when I want to move. I love not feeling like it’s my responsibility to make sure the roof is okay and make sure the fridge isn’t going to break. A house is a massive asset. Even if you’re an entry-level home buyer, that’s a lot of money. There are a lot of people who benefit from it, and who enjoy getting to have the freedom of renovating their home and making it exactly how they want it. But I think that we overhype the financial benefits way too much.”
On the latest episode to Explain It to Me, Vox’s weekly call-in podcast, we dig into that hype, why homeownership isn’t for everyone, and why the dream of owning a home is so prominent in the American imagination to begin with. Below is an excerpt of our conversation with Demsas, edited for length and clarity.
You can listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts. If you’d like to submit a question, send an email to [email protected] or call 1-800-618-8545.
What are the financial benefits that we’re told it has and what are the realities?
There are basically two financial benefits we’re told about. One is the forced savings mechanism. If you’re going to pay for shelter in some way, it’s either going to be rent or a mortgage. You’re going to be forced to save it into a house where that value eventually is yours at the end of the day, versus giving it to a landlord and then you never see that money again, which is obviously true. But the second is that the return on that investment is going to be great, and that’s just not guaranteed at all. There are so many things that have to happen for the return on your investment in a house to be worth it.
First, you have to be able to hold onto that house through bad times, and that’s really difficult. A lot of people — like in the Great Recession for instance, or when you lose a job, you have a medical emergency, or you have to move because your parents are sick — whatever it is, have to sell their house at a time that’s not financially opportune for them. So you’re selling at a time when maybe interest rates are really high, you’re giving up a low interest rate, or selling at a lower price maybe than you bought for it, or you’re not even making that much money on top of what you were able to sell for it.
Secondly, owning a home is often more expensive than renting. So all that extra money that you could use to invest in the stock market, invest in other kinds of large index funds, that kind of investment is almost guaranteed to be higher than what you’re going to get from investing in your house.
How did we get to this point where buying a home is considered the ultimate way to build wealth?
I want to say that I don’t want to disparage people who are excited to own a home. I think a lot of people feel this way. My father is very excited to own a house. I can understand a lot of different cultural and social and psychological reasons why owning your home and not feeling beholden to a landlord feels really important to people. I don’t want to sound like that’s irrelevant. If it gives you psychological value, that’s great. I just don’t want us to lie to ourselves about the financial aspects of it while we’re doing that.
The history of this is quite psychological and it is quite political. The idea that owning a house gives you a bigger stake in your community is a very conservative idea that comes about from the sense that renters are transient, they’re immigrants, they’re young, they have no stake in their community. If you rent, then you’re going to treat your community badly. You’ll put trash on the ground, or you’ll be a bad influence. A very large anti-renter attitude really gets sparked in the United States as we see high levels of immigration coming into this country — in the early 1900s is when we really start seeing that come to fruition. The ownership society becomes something people really, really care about. It becomes psychologically and legally codified in the United States that what it means to be a good upstanding citizen is that you own your house, you have this white picket fence, and you live in a place where the land is yours.
I want to get into that social aspect of it. Like you said, part of the mythos of homeownership is that you have a house and therefore you are rooted in the community.
I don’t even think that that’s true. I’m a renter and because I’m a renter, it means I can live in a nicer area than I could otherwise afford. The house that I’m living in, there’s just absolutely no way that my husband and I could afford it if we had to buy that house. It’s just absurd to even imagine that happening. What that means is I’m much closer to my friends. He is able to bike very easily to his close friends that live nearby. We’re able to visit his parents very easily. I can get to my work really easily. A lot of my friends can easily access my house. A lot of people, when they have to buy a house for the first time, sacrifice on location in order to get closer to a house that they can afford at a size that they want. What that means is often, eventually, maybe later on in life, you’ve become very rooted, but the act of buying a home usually actually moves you out of the community that you’re already living in, because that’s what happens when you have to change price points.
Intellectually, I really get your case, but I think emotionally it’s hard for some people to let go of that dream of owning. I think for most Americans, buying a home is a big part of what it means to be an adult and have “made it.” Beyond that financial investment, what do you think is going on there? Why is homeownership so wrapped up in our identities as Americans?
I think that homeownership was always a proxy for freedom. Similarly to car ownership and being able to drive on the open road, these things are quintessentially American: You want freedom. You want freedom from a boss, you want the ability to move around at will. All these things are really, really great.
People need economic freedom. They need access to good jobs that pay well. They need access to a government that’s going to hold people accountable if they exploit tenants or workers. To me, the American dream is always freedom. We have just always pushed this through homeownership. And my rejoinder to that is that I don’t think homeownership is freedom for everyone. I don’t feel free at the idea of owning an asset that’s that risky. I know people who are underwater on their mortgages right now in DC and don’t know if they’re going to have a job given the layoffs and everything that’s going on. Is that freedom? No. Economic freedom is freedom. How we get there is a matter of policy and a matter of technocratic debate, but I think we should reorient ourselves towards that rather than ownership in particular.
2025-11-14 02:25:00
2019年，抗议者在美国纽约市联邦法院外举着杰弗里·爱泼斯坦和唐纳德·特朗普的标语。美国众议院监督委员会的民主党成员周三发布两封爱泼斯坦与特朗普相关的电子邮件，引发政治风波。随后，共和党成员也公开了数千封电子邮件和文件，揭露其他公众人物的丑闻。然而，共和党及白宫则反驳称，关于特朗普的指控并不如表面那样严重。这些事件只是“爱泼斯坦文件”公开的前奏，目前众议院已获得218个签名支持公开相关文件，预计12月将进行投票，若通过则将提交参议院审议。特朗普对此表示高度担忧，并试图说服一些共和党议员撤回签名，包括要求官员传唤共和党议员劳伦·博比特到白宫情况室。目前尚不清楚特朗普试图阻止哪些内容曝光，但值得关注的是爱泼斯坦与特朗普相关的电子邮件内容。
关键邮件内容分析：
“那条没叫的狗是特朗普”
2011年4月2日，爱泼斯坦写给共犯吉斯兰·麦克斯韦的邮件中提到，特朗普与受害者（后确认为维吉尼亚·罗伯茨·吉乌夫雷）在家中待了数小时，但特朗普从未被提及。吉乌夫雷曾多次否认特朗普参与其性侵事件，仅指责爱泼斯坦将她引荐给其他男性，但明确表示特朗普不在其中。因此，该邮件并未直接证明特朗普的涉案行为，反而可能暗示爱泼斯坦怀疑特朗普在背后推动其法律问题，但动机可能是出于个人恩怨而非正义。
“当然他知道那些女孩，因为他让吉斯兰停止”
2019年1月31日，爱泼斯坦写给记者迈克尔·沃尔夫的邮件中称，特朗普“当然知道那些女孩”，但随后提到特朗普曾要求麦克斯韦停止招募女孩。这可能指特朗普曾试图阻止爱泼斯坦利用马阿拉歌水疗中心招募年轻女性，而非直接参与性侵。尽管如此，该邮件仍被解读为对特朗普的指控，但需注意爱泼斯坦写给记者而非信任的伙伴，因此其表述可能带有主观性。
时间线梳理：
总结：
尽管爱泼斯坦的邮件被部分解读为对特朗普的指控，但需结合时间线和上下文分析。特朗普与爱泼斯坦的关系分为两个阶段：早期密切合作，后期因财产纠纷破裂。目前，众议院正推动公开“爱泼斯坦文件”，而特朗普的担忧可能集中在早期与爱泼斯坦的亲密关系及潜在的丑闻上。这些文件的最终公开仍需等待，但其内容可能进一步揭示特朗普与爱泼斯坦之间的复杂关联。
On Wednesday, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee sent the political world into a frenzy by releasing two damning-looking emails Jeffrey Epstein had sent about Donald Trump.
The committee’s Republicans then followed up by releasing thousands more Epstein emails and documents, containing embarrassing revelations about various other public figures. But the GOP and the White House also pushed back, arguing that the revelations about Trump were less than met the eye.
All of this is just an appetizer for the push for public disclosure of the “Epstein files” held by the Justice Department. A months-long effort to get a majority of the House to sign a petition that would force a vote on the matter finally won its 218th signature Wednesday. A House vote on the Epstein files is now expected in December, and if it passes, the matter will advance to the Senate.
President Trump seems highly worried about this possibility. This week, he tried to strong-arm some Republican House members into dropping their signatures from the petition, including by having officials summon Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) to the Situation Room.
We don’t know what, if anything, Trump is trying to prevent from getting out through the DOJ’s Epstein files. But as we await their potential release, it’s worth taking a closer look at the newly-released Epstein emails about Trump, to assess what they actually show. Doing this requires some decoding.
The email that got the most attention is from Epstein to his companion and co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell. Dated April 2, 2011, it says (typos included):
I want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump.. virignia spent hours at my house with him ,, he has never once been mentioned. police chief. etc. im 75 % there
When House Democrats first released the email, they redacted the name Virginia and replaced it with “VICTIM.” And the release was taken on social media as a bombshell. It appeared to show, well, Epstein saying Trump had spent hours at his house with a victim. And what explanation could there be for that other than a sexual one?
Yet Republicans soon cried foul, revealing the redacted name was Virginia — a reference to Virginia Roberts Giuffre, Epstein’s most prominent public accuser, who died earlier this year.
This changed the email’s meaning significantly because, in years of depositions, litigation, and a memoir published posthumously earlier this year, Giuffre was consistent that Trump was never a participant in Epstein’s sex crimes involving her. She accused Epstein of trafficking her to other prominent men — but said repeatedly that those men did not include Trump. Unless she was lying, this email then does not in fact prove that Trump abused an Epstein victim.
So what could Epstein have meant in the email?
Some important context here is that, according to reporting by Epstein correspondent (and pal) Michael Wolff, Epstein had wondered whether Trump played some part in bringing about his legal woes due to a falling-out they’d had. The emails appear to nod to this idea.
The belief, floated by House Speaker Mike Johnson among others, that Trump helped bring Epstein down by informing the authorities, has been much mocked and lacks any corroboration. However, Wolff did claim that Epstein himself thought this might have been true, though Epstein purportedly believed Trump was motivated by personal pique over a property auction rather than a heroic desire to save abused women.
Trump and Epstein were close pals throughout much of the 1990s and early 2000s — a time when they were frequently photographed together at parties in New York and Florida. This time encompasses Trump’s infamous “birthday book” message to Epstein, and Trump’s similarly infamous quote to a reporter that Epstein was a “terrific guy” who “likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
But in 2004, this friendship came to an end — reportedly because Trump and Epstein had a bidding war against each other over the same Florida mansion, and things got quite bitter.
Shortly after the auction’s conclusion, the Palm Beach police received a tip that young women had been seen at Epstein’s home, according to a later deposition by the department’s police chief.
The first major law enforcement investigation into Epstein didn’t kick off until the following year, in 2005, when a 14-year-old girl and her parents went to the Palm Beach police, accusing Epstein of molesting her during a massage. But — according to Wolff — Epstein had privately wondered whether it was Trump who was responsible for the initial tip.
Epstein resolved that initial investigation with what was later called a sweetheart plea deal, but his victims soon began suing him civilly. These lawsuits were at first filed from “Jane Does,” but in 2011, one of them — Virginia Roberts Giuffre — came forward to put her name to her accusations, becoming Epstein’s most prominent accuser.
Shortly after that, in 2011, Epstein sent that newly-released email to Maxwell, which I’ll quote again:
I want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump.. virignia spent hours at my house with him ,, he has never once been mentioned. police chief. etc. im 75 % there
The email may be an expression of Epstein’s suspicion that Trump is behind his legal woes. He’s asking, why hasn’t Trump’s name been mentioned in the investigation and lawsuits? He’s saying Giuffre, his lead public accuser, had spent time with Trump, so perhaps he was behind her coming forward. And he’s perhaps alluding to how the “police chief” got his tip, perhaps saying he’s “75% there” toward thinking it was Trump.
A second email that is being treated as damning was sent by Epstein to Wolff on January 31, 2019. It reads:
(REDACTED) worked at mara lago. . she was the one that accused prince andrew. . trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever. . of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop
Epstein’s claim that “of course” Trump “knew about the girls” has gotten a great deal of attention, but it should also be noted that the sentence concludes “as he asked ghislaine to stop.”
This likely refers to the reports that Epstein and Maxwell were recruiting girls from the Mar-a-Lago spa to become his “masseuses” — Giuffre, for one, had worked there. Trump spoke about this earlier this year when he claimed Epstein had “taken” people from his spa, and said he intervened to stop that.
Indeed, as far as back as 2007, an anonymous source told Page Six, about Epstein: “He would use the spa to try to procure girls. But one of them, a masseuse about 18 years old, he tried to get her to do things…Her father found out about it and went absolutely ape-[bleep]. Epstein’s not allowed back.” (The reader may decide whether that anonymous source sounds like John Barron.)
So on one hand, Epstein’s statement sounds damning: Trump knew about the girls! On the other hand, what Epstein then says is that Trump asked Maxwell “to stop” — presumably, to stop recruiting girls from Mar-a-Lago.
That email, then, also doesn’t really corroborate the idea that Trump was a participant in Epstein’s sex crimes — though in assessing its candor, we should keep in mind that Epstein is writing to a journalist, not a trusted associate like Maxwell.
In the frenzy of interest over the newly-released Epstein emails, decontextualized tidbits have been rocketed across social media and been treated as damning. But there have also been a lot of misinterpretations and misreadings. If the DOJ’s Epstein files ever do get released, that will likely continue.
In my view, the most helpful thing to keep in mind when assessing the import of new information about the Trump/Epstein relationship, is that the relationship had two phases:
Naturally, Trump’s defenders are preferring to focus on the second phase. Indeed, after this week’s release of tens of thousands of Epstein’s emails, many claimed there was surprisingly little about Trump. But those emails were from the 2010s.
It’s more likely that the things Trump’s most worried about in the Epstein files would be about the earlier period, when Trump and Epstein really were close — things like Trump’s birthday book message to Epstein: “A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.”
2025-11-14 01:30:00
养殖鲑鱼在它们生命的任何阶段都是有害的。这个故事是Animal Charity Evaluators支持的一系列文章中的一部分，该组织获得了EarthShare的资助。过去几十年，人类在肉类生产方式上经历了前所未有的巨大变革，而这种变革与鸡、猪或牛无关，而是与鱼类有关。
文章内容概要：
鲑鱼养殖如同养殖老虎
鲑鱼养殖是一项相对较新的产业，主要源于人为造成的环境问题。在过去的一个世纪中，过度捕捞、工业污染、气候变化和大量建坝导致野生大西洋鲑鱼数量锐减。到2000年，大西洋鲑鱼在美国几乎濒临灭绝，因此被《濒危物种法案》保护，禁止商业捕捞。欧洲和美国西海岸的太平洋鲑鱼也经历了显著的种群下降。
为了缓解野生鲑鱼的捕捞压力，自1970年代起，海产品生产商开始大规模养殖鲑鱼，政府也提供了大量的研发支持、资金援助和国家资助计划。这被证明是一项商业上的巨大成功。去年，全球鲑鱼养殖公司（主要集中在挪威、智利和英国）生产了约280万吨鲑鱼，相当于约5.6亿条个体。这些鲑鱼通常在陆地上的水箱中饲养一年后，被转移到海洋中的网箱和围栏中继续生长，直到被屠宰（通常会用电击或敲击头部使其失去知觉，但有时未能成功）。大约五分之一的鲑鱼被运往美国，美国的“年轻富裕消费者非常喜爱食用鲑鱼”，据全球最大鲑鱼生产商Mowi公司所说。
这种对鲑鱼的养殖需求，仅在几代人的时间里，就彻底改变了鲑鱼的生活方式。野生鲑鱼拥有极其复杂的生活方式，并进行长途迁徙。但在养殖环境中，它们只能在狭小的水箱中游泳，无法进行迁徙和捕食。纽约大学环境研究助理教授Becca Franks指出，鲑鱼养殖剥夺了它们进行这两种基本自然行为的能力，从而造成了严重的动物福利问题。她将鲑鱼养殖比作试图养殖老虎。
全球鲑鱼养殖联盟（Global Salmon Initiative）的CEO Sophie Ryan则认为，鲑鱼的驯化并未对其造成伤害。她表示：“鲑鱼经过超过50年的驯化，类似于牛或家禽，被选择性繁殖以适应养殖环境。” Ryan指出，养殖鲑鱼的营养需求、游泳模式和能量消耗与野生鲑鱼不同，因为它们所处的环境和用途不同。
选择性繁殖使养殖鲑鱼的生长速度是野生鲑鱼的两倍，这导致了一系列严重的健康问题，包括心脏疾病、脊柱畸形、高程度的失聪以及早逝风险。此外，养殖鲑鱼比野生鲑鱼更具攻击性。为了进一步提高生长速度，鲑鱼养殖场的灯光常保持24小时亮起，这使鲑鱼吃得更多，但也会损害它们的视网膜。更令人担忧的是，养殖鲑鱼的驯化正在伤害野生鲑鱼。自1970年代以来，数以千万计的养殖鲑鱼逃逸到野外，与野生鲑鱼争夺资源，甚至交配，导致“基因污染”，产生了一种新的鲑鱼杂交种。生物学家Mart Gross在1998年的一篇论文中写道：“我们可能需要承认一种新的生物实体——Salmo domesticus，并在它逃逸到野外时将其视为‘外来物种’。”
一些研究发现，这些杂交鱼的生存率较低。这意味着原本旨在缓解野生鲑鱼种群压力的养殖方式，反而给它们带来了新的挑战。Ryan表示：“防止逃逸是首要任务，公司正在不断改进网箱强度、锚固系统和实时数字监控技术。如果发生逃逸，公司必须报告并配合监管机构评估对野生种群的潜在影响。”
Franks认为，鱼类养殖是一种“圈养去野生化”的过程，即通过人工环境改变动物，使其适应圈养条件，从而承受由此带来的伤害。而这种圈养的现实可能极其残酷。
近距离观察鱼塘
2019年，动物权益活动家Erin Wing在动物权益组织Animal Outlook的协助下，秘密潜入加拿大Cooke Aquaculture在缅因州运营的一个鲑鱼孵化场，进行了为期四个月的调查。Wing记录了工作人员用敲击水箱壁的方式处理患病鱼；将活鱼倒入桶中，任其窒息或被其他鱼压死；出生时就患有脊柱畸形的鱼；以及因严重真菌疾病而死亡的鱼，这些疾病甚至会吃掉它们的脸部。
一名员工告诉Wing：“多年来，你可能会逐渐麻木。” 对于Wing的调查，Cooke Aquaculture的CEO Glenn Cooke表示，公司将重新培训缅因州工厂的员工，并强调公司高度重视动物福利，致力于以最佳实践标准饲养动物。他表示：“我们看到的情况显然不符合这些标准。”
Wing对行业标准持怀疑态度。她表示：“虽然有动物福利标准和指导方针，但最终并没有真正的执行。” 她认为，这些鱼塘会制定对自己和员工有利的规则，然后按照自己的意愿运营，这通常会导致这些动物不必要的痛苦。
一些痛苦源于将养殖动物放入海洋中。在开放水域中，成千上万的鲑鱼被密集养殖，这会吸引海虱——一种微小但痛苦的寄生虫，它们会寄生在鲑鱼皮肤上，甚至可能导致鲑鱼死亡。2023年，挪威养殖鲑鱼中约有17%在被屠宰前死亡，主要死于传染病和伤害。
为应对海虱问题，鲑鱼养殖者多年来一直在水中投放化学物质来杀死它们，同时使用抗生素和其他化学物质来保护鲑鱼免受各种真菌和病毒疾病的侵害。这些污染物与鲑鱼养殖产生的大量动物废弃物一起沉降到海底，污染了海洋生态系统。这反过来导致了Franks所说的“环境去野生化”，即通过人工基础设施（如鱼塘围栏）改变自然水域，并对其造成污染。
然而，海虱已经对这些化学物质产生了抗药性，因此在过去十年中，鲑鱼养殖者转向了其他方法，包括用高温处理鲑鱼，这可能带来痛苦、伤害甚至死亡。国际鲑鱼养殖协会和全球海鲜联盟未对采访请求作出回应。
不只是鲑鱼的问题
如果我们接受鲑鱼养殖对它们自身和养殖环境有害，那么我们就必须接受减少食用鲑鱼。同时，我们还需要重新考虑养殖其他鱼类的伦理问题。Fair Fish团队的鱼类福利研究人员将近100种鱼类的自然行为和福利需求与它们在养殖中的经历进行了比较。据葡萄牙法罗海洋科学中心的鱼类行为研究员João Saraiva以及非营利组织Fish Etho Group的负责人表示，在这100种分析的鱼类中，只有两种——罗非鱼和鲤鱼——“有可能在相对较好的条件下养殖”。但这并不意味着它们的养殖条件真的良好，因为罗非鱼和鲤鱼的养殖场往往拥挤，水质差，疾病发生率高。
相比之下，鲑鱼则“排名靠后”，意味着养殖环境很难满足其基本的福利需求。Fair Fish的研究表明，鱼类养殖行业及其支持其发展的政府，对养殖鱼类的体验关注极少。这也展示了当我们把“鱼类”这个极其多样化的物种群体简化为一个整体时，可能造成的伤害。
Franks认为，行业和政府应放缓对鱼类和甲壳类动物养殖的扩张，因为这是目前全球增长最快的农业部门。她建议：“我认为我们不应该养殖任何新的鱼类或甲壳类动物，并为那些已经养殖这些物种的人提供过渡计划，让他们转向海藻和双壳类动物（如扇贝、牡蛎和贻贝）。” Franks指出，这些双壳类动物的环境和福利问题远少于养殖鱼类和甲壳类动物（尽管双壳类动物是否具有感知能力或能感受痛苦仍存在科学争议）。
Franks是少数愿意提出这一观点的学者之一，她建议我们从根本上重新思考如何生产海鲜以及我们消费多少。她表示：“我认为人们对于改变饮食结构以减少动物蛋白摄入存在巨大的抵触情绪。”
当全球鲑鱼养殖热潮兴起时，许多从业者怀有良好的初衷，看起来也似乎有助于提高全球粮食供应，而不会进一步开发海洋资源。此外，鱼类通常比陆地养殖动物的碳足迹更低（尽管比植物蛋白高）。但很少有人真正思考，快速驯化并圈养数十亿只具有不同需求的动物，以及它们可能感受到的痛苦，会带来什么样的伦理和环境影响。
研究人员如Saraiva和Franks正努力说服世界跟上我们对鱼类的最新认识，并进一步扩展我们的知识。作为消费者，我们也可以做出贡献，从现在开始，多思考一下我们餐盘上的鲑鱼。
This story is part of a series supported by Animal Charity Evaluators, which received a grant from EarthShare.
The last few decades have seen, arguably, the most sweeping transformation in how humans produce meat, and it has nothing to do with chickens, pigs, or cows. It has to do with fish.
Traditionally, the vast majority of fish that people consume has come from the ocean. But in 2022, humanity hit a significant milestone: Seafood companies began to raise more fish on farms than they caught from the sea. And they farm astonishingly large numbers of fish — in tiny, cramped enclosures that resemble underwater factory farms.
It amounts to the fastest and largest animal domestication project that humanity has ever undertaken.
For most of the land animals we eat today, domestication — or, as French fish researcher Fabrice Teletchea defined it, the “long and endless process during which animals become, generations after generations, more adapted to both captive conditions and humans” — has taken place over thousands of years. “In contrast,” a team of marine biologists wrote in the journal Science in 2007, the rise of fish farming “is a contemporary phenomenon,” taking off on a commercial scale around the 1970s.
By the early 2000s, humans were farming well over 200 aquatic animal species, virtually all of which had been domesticated or forced into unnatural conditions in extreme captivity over the course of the previous century, with many in just the prior decade. To put it another way, the marine biologists wrote, aquatic domestication occurred 100 times faster than the domestication of land animals — and on a vastly larger scale. Today, some 80 billion land animals are farmed annually, while an estimated 763 billion fish and crustaceans are farmed each year, a figure projected to quickly grow in the decade ahead.
What’s more, this attempt to speedrun domestication occurred even as a clear scientific consensus emerged in recent decades that fish can suffer and feel pain.
The revolution in how humans produce seafood has enormous implications for our relationship with species we’ve barely given any thought to. To understand why, consider America’s favorite fish to eat, and one of the most difficult to farm: salmon.
Salmon farming is a relatively new industry, and it emerged largely in response to manmade problems.
Over the last century, overfishing — combined with industrial pollution, climate change, and heavy damming — has decimated wild Atlantic salmon populations. By 2000, the species gained protection under the Endangered Species Act after it was nearly driven to extinction in the US, effectively banning the commercial fishing of Atlantic salmon.
Salmon populations in Europe, along with Pacific salmon populations on the West Coast of the US and beyond, have also experienced significant declines.
To take pressure off depleted wild populations, seafood producers began to scale salmon farming in the 1970s, with ample help from governments in the form of R&D, grants, state financing programs, and more. It’s proven to be a smashing commercial success.
Last year, salmon farming companies — which are most concentrated in Norway, Chile, and the UK and export their product around the world — produced 2.8 million metric tons of the fish, or around 560 million individual salmon. They’re typically raised in tanks on land until they’re a year old then transferred to nets and cages floating in the ocean just offshore to be fattened up and eventually slaughtered (they’re supposed to be rendered unconscious prior to slaughter, with either electric stunning or a club to the head, though some aren’t successfully stunned).
About one out of every five are shipped off to the US, where “young affluent consumers love to eat salmon,” according to the Norwegian company Mowi, the world’s biggest salmon producer.
This taste for salmon and the farming industry it has necessitated has, in just a few generations, dramatically transformed what it means to be a salmon. In the wild, salmon live incredibly complex lives and embark on epic journeys. But on farms, they can’t do any of that.
According to Becca Franks, an assistant professor of environmental studies at New York University, salmon farming has created grave welfare problems by denying the animals the ability to engage in two of their essential natural behaviors: migrating and hunting.
In the US, Atlantic salmon begin their lives as eggs buried a foot under freshwater riverbeds in Maine, where they remain for six months until they hatch and emerge in search of food. At a few years old, they migrate hundreds of miles northward into the salty Atlantic ocean, then hundreds of miles further out into the Labrador Sea, near Greenland. There, they quickly put on weight — feeding on krill, herring, and crustaceans — which they’ll need for the long journey home that they make after a couple years of dining out at sea.
Following scents and using the earth’s magnetic field, Atlantic salmon swim over 1,000 miles back to their home streams to spawn the next generation.
The salmon’s life cycle inspires more awe and reverence than most species in the animal kingdom, but on farms, they’re reduced to swimming in tiny circles for years and subsisting on small, manmade pellets. Their “welfare is harmed through loss of agency and choice,” Franks told me in an email. She likens salmon farming to trying to farm tigers.
Sophie Ryan, CEO of the Global Salmon Initiative — a coalition of salmon farming companies — challenged the idea that domestication has harmed salmon. “They have been domesticated over more than 50 years — similar to cattle or poultry — and have been selectively bred to thrive in a farm environment,” Ryan told me in an email. “Their nutritional needs, swimming patterns, and energy use are different from wild salmon, because their environment and purpose are different.”
The selective breeding that Ryan speaks of has been used to make farmed salmon grow twice as fast as their wild counterparts, which has led to a number of serious health issues: heart problems, spinal deformities, high levels of deafness, and increased risk of an early death. They’re also more aggressive than wild salmon.
To boost growth even further, salmon farms keep their lights on up to 24 hours a day, which makes the fish eat more and can damage their retinas.
And in a concerning twist, the domestication of farmed salmon is hurting wild salmon. Since the 1970s, tens of millions of farmed salmon have managed to escape and compete for resources with wild salmon and even mate with them, leading to “genetic pollution” that has resulted in a hybrid line of salmon.
“We may now need to recognize a new biological entity — Salmo domesticus,” biologist Mart Gross wrote in a 1998 paper, “and treat it as an ‘exotic’ when it escapes into the wild.”
Some research has found that these hybrid fish have lower survival rates. That means that the farming of salmon, which was intended to give wild salmon populations a break, created a new challenge for them.
“Escape prevention is a top priority, with ongoing improvements in net strength, mooring systems, and real-time digital monitoring,” Ryan of the Global Salmon Initiative said. “Where escapes do occur, companies are required to report them and work with regulators to assess potential impacts on wild populations.”
Franks considers fish farming a form of “captive dewilding”: the process of modifying animals to conform to captivity and to the harms that befall them as a result. And the reality of that captivity can be incredibly cruel.
In 2019, animal rights activist Erin Wing worked undercover with the group Animal Outlook for four months at a salmon hatchery in Maine operated by Cooke Aquaculture, one of the world’s largest salmon farming companies. Wing documented workers culling diseased fish by hitting them against the sides of tanks multiple times; fish thrown into buckets still alive, left to suffocate or be crushed to death by other fish; fish born with spinal deformities; and fish dying from nasty fungal diseases that ate away parts of their faces.
“Over the years, you kinda get desensitized,” one employee told her.
In response to Wing’s investigation, Cooke Aquaculture CEO Glenn Cooke said in a statement that the company would re-train employees at the Maine facility. “We place animal welfare high in our operating standards and endeavor to raise our animals with optimal care and consideration of best practice,” Cooke said, adding that “what we saw today is most certainly not reflective of these standards.”
Wing, who has spent her career investigating factory farms, is skeptical of industry standards. “There are these [animal welfare] industry standards that are in place, and there are these guidelines, but at the end of the day, there’s not really any enforcement,” Wing told me. “So these farms will make up whatever rules they want that will work for them, for their workers, and then they’ll operate as they see fit. And that usually results in a lot of these animals suffering needlessly.”
Some of the suffering stems from putting farmed animals in the ocean, as crowding hundreds of thousands of salmon together in open waters attracts sea lice — tiny, painful parasites that feed on the salmon’s skin and can even kill them. In 2023, almost 17 percent of Norwegian farmed salmon died before they could be slaughtered for meat, largely from infectious diseases and injuries.
To combat the scourge of sea lice, salmon farmers had, for years, dumped chemicals into the water to kill them, along with antibiotics and other chemicals to protect the fish from a range of fungal and viral diseases. These pollutants, combined with vast amounts of animal waste generated by the salmon, fall to the ocean floor and pollute marine ecosystems.
That, in turn, contributes to what Franks calls “environmental dewilding,” or the process of modifying natural water bodies with artificial infrastructure — in this case, fish farm pens and cages — and polluting them.
Sea lice have since developed resistance to these chemicals, so, over the last decade, salmon farmers have switched to other methods — including subjecting salmon to high heat — which can cause pain, injuries, and death.
The International Salmon Farmers Association and the Global Seafood Alliance didn’t respond to interview requests.
If we accept that farming salmon is bad for them and the environments in which they’re raised — and that we should protect dwindling wild populations — then we’ll have to accept eating a lot less salmon. We’ll also have to reconsider the ethical implications of farming many other fish species.
Fair Fish, a team of fish welfare researchers, has compared the natural behavior and welfare needs of nearly 100 fish species with the conditions they experience on farms. Out of the 100 analyzed species, only two — tilapia and carp — have “the potential to be farmed in somewhat decent conditions,” according to João Saraiva, who researches fish ethology at the Centre of Marine Sciences in Faro, Portugal, and runs the nonprofit Fish Etho Group. But that doesn’t mean that they actually are; both tilapia and carp farms tend to be overcrowded, with poor water quality and high rates of disease. (Saraiva has worked with Fair Fish on its analyses but is no longer involved in the project.)
By contrast, he said, salmon is “way down on the list,” meaning it’s especially hard for farms to meet their basic welfare needs.
Fair Fish’s research demonstrates how little attention the fish farming industry, and the governments that helped it take over the seafood sector, has paid to the simple question of how its captives experience being farmed. It also illustrates the damage we can do when we flatten “fish” — an incredibly diverse group of species — into a monolith.
Franks said industry and government need to pump the brakes on the expansion of fish and crustacean farming, which is currently the world’s fastest-growing agricultural sector, noting, “I think we should not be farming any new species of fish or crustaceans and putting in transition programs for folks already farming those species to move towards seaweeds and bivalves.” The latter is a class of invertebrate animals that includes scallops, oysters, and mussels, which Franks said have far fewer environmental and welfare concerns than farmed fish and crustaceans (whether bivalves are sentient or can feel pain remains an ongoing scientific debate).
She’s one of the few academics studying fish farming willing to go there, to suggest that we ought to fundamentally rethink how we produce seafood and how much of it we consume. “I think there is a huge reluctance to even broach the possibility of shifting diets away” from animal protein, said Franks.
When the global fish farming boom took off, many in the field had good intentions, and it looked good on paper; a way to boost the global food supply without further exploiting oceans. Plus, fish tend to have a lower carbon footprint than farmed land species (though higher than plant-based proteins). But few questions were asked about what it would mean, ethically and environmentally, to rapidly domesticate, then confine and slaughter, hundreds of billions of animals annually with distinct needs — let alone the capacity to feel pain.
Researchers like Saraiva and Franks are trying to convince the world to catch up with what we now know about fish and to further expand our knowledge. As consumers, we can help, and we can start by thinking twice about the salmon on our plates.
2025-11-13 21:30:00
今天，11月13日，Vox将与欧莱雅集团共同举办一场晚宴，以表彰2025年欧莱雅美国“为女性科学奖”的获奖者。自2003年以来，该计划已表彰了数百名女性科学家，为她们的科研工作提供了超过500万美元的资助。美国项目是全球欧莱雅-联合国教科文组织“为女性科学奖”国际奖项的一部分，专门支持博士后女性科学家的科研工作。据联合国教科文组织统计，全球女性科研人员仅占三分之一。欧莱雅“为女性科学”计划旨在通过激励更多女性投身各类科学领域，提高这一比例。今年的获奖者包括：
在活动中，Vox Media Creative将首映五部短片纪录片，介绍每位获奖者及其开创性研究。2026年“为女性科学”奖学金的申请现已开放。
Today, November 13, Vox is co-hosting an evening with L’Oréal Groupe to honor the 2025 L’Oréal USA For Women in Science awardees. Since 2003, the program has recognized hundreds of women in STEM fields, awarding more than $5 million in grants to support their continued research.
The US program is part of the global L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science International Awards, which specifically supports research by postdoctoral women scientists. According to UNESCO, women make up only one-third of the world’s scientific researchers. L’Oreal’s For Women in Science initiative aims to raise that number by inspiring more women to pursue careers across all scientific disciplines.
This year’s awardees are:
Kaveeta Kaw: Biomedical — Emory University, School of Medicine
Researching, with the use of 3D modeling, pulmonary arterial hypertension so that the disease is better understood and treatment therapies can be tailored to each individual patient.
Kaitlyn A. Webster: Developmental — Harvard Medical School
Studying the Mexican tetra fish to better understand the factors that influence reproductive biology: how males and females develop from the same biological starting point, how environment affects fertility, and how sperm and eggs select each other.
Rebecka J. Sepela: Sensory — Harvard University
Conducting curiosity-guided research on naturally occurring molecules and how their interaction with animal chemical receptors influences behavior and physiology.
Georgia Squyres: Microbiology — California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
Studying biofilm communities of bacteria, and how in these communities each bacteria takes on specialized roles to carry out group tasks. Specifically working to understand how biofilms are able to work to build antibiotic resistance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
Sydney Aten: Physiology — Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School
Researching the body’s internal clock, also known as the circadian rhythm, and its effects on sexual and reproductive behavior in mice with a focus on female fertility. Studies include temperature changes and how night shift work might affect reproductive outcomes.
At the event, Vox Media Creative will premiere five short documentaries profiling each recipient and their groundbreaking work.
Applications for the 2026 For Women in Science grants are now open.
2025-11-13 20:00:00
2016年5月9日，马萨诸塞州波士顿，尼克·弗uent斯（Nick Fuentes）在电视节目上与 Tucker Carlson 进行了访谈，随后引发了一场关于保守派内部联盟的激烈争论。这场风波从 Carlson 在播客中邀请一位反犹太主义的年轻网络影响者开始，最终演变为美国共和党智库“传统基金会”（Heritage Foundation）的公开危机。Jonah Goldberg 认为，这不仅是保守派内部的“内斗”，更预示了未来关于保守派本质和联盟构成的更大冲突。
事件的主要人物包括：传统基金会这一历史悠久的智库，其主席 Kevin Roberts 近年来将基金会推向更具民粹主义和特朗普倾向的方向；Tucker Carlson，一位曾与 Fox 新闻有长期合作的主持人，后因被解雇而创办独立媒体；以及 Nick Fuentes，一位以极端言论著称的“Groypers”组织领袖，曾参与夏洛特镇“团结右翼”集会，并承认自己是新纳粹主义者。
Roberts 在回应争议时发表了一段视频声明，称“不会与 Tucker Carlsons 断绝关系”，并暗示反对者背后有“犹太人操控”的影子。这一言论被广泛认为是严重的失误，导致传统基金会陷入舆论风暴。尽管 Roberts 声称不应取消有争议的人，而应通过思想市场进行辩论，但这一立场与 Tucker Carlson 的做法相悖，后者只是为 Nick Fuentes 提供了发声平台。
部分保守派支持者认为，这场争论实质上是围绕 JD Vance 的“代理人战争”，但作者认为这种说法夸大了其影响。Vance 曾公开支持一些年轻共和党官员，这些官员对纳粹话题持宽容态度，而 Vance 本人也因 Tucker Carlson 的支持才得以成为副总统候选人。因此，若这些支持者被清除，将对 Vance 造成不利影响。
这场争论反映了美国保守派内部关于“大帐篷”联盟的分歧：一方主张包容不同立场的人，以吸引年轻群体和活力；另一方则批评这种包容是虚伪的，认为保守派应清除“新保守主义者”等对立派别。作者认为，这种矛盾将持续存在，因为特朗普的影响力终将消退，而保守派正试图在“后特朗普时代”重新定义自身。
Over the past few weeks, the American right has been fiercely debating a drama that begins with Tucker Carlson hosting an antisemitic young influencer on his podcast, and ends with a very public breakdown at the Republican Party’s premier think tank.
Is it a bit inside baseball? Yes. But it’s worth understanding. The details tell us a lot about where the conservative movement is, and where it’s going.
“Not to be too grandiose, but it’s the Spanish Civil War,” Jonah Goldberg, editor of the center-right publication The Dispatch, told Today, Explained co-host Noel King. “It’s previewing the bigger wars to come about what the right is about, who can be tolerated as part of the coalition, and who can’t be.”
Goldberg spoke with King about the crackup at the Heritage Foundation, the characters involved, and how it’s putting the maxim ‘no enemies to my right’ to the test.
Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
Who are the main characters in what has unfolded in the past two weeks or so?
One is an institution, the Heritage Foundation, a storied think tank in Washington that’s over a half-century old. Second is the president of the Heritage Foundation, a guy named Kevin Roberts, who has moved it in a very populist, very Trump-aligned direction over the past few years. And then there’s Tucker Carlson, a guy I’ve known for more than 30 years, used to be a colleague at Fox, who after being fired from Fox, has launched his own independent media thing on the web and is doing strange things. And then lastly, is this really horrible gargoyle of a human being named Nick Fuentes. (Sorry, I try very hard not to think about the guy.)
He’s a leader of a group of mostly alienated, angry young men that in internet parlance or in social media parlance, people tend to call “Groypers.” He has made a real impact out there for saying the most horrendous things you can say in many respects. But he was one of the guys from the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. He does not dispute being called a neo-Nazi. And so maybe because I have the most Jewy name this side of Shlomo Abramowitz, you might not be surprised that I don’t feel like I can be in the same coalition as someone like a Nick Fuentes.
And this is about coalitions. Ultimately, this became about who is in whose camp. Tell us what happened.
Tucker Carlson had Nick Fuentes on his web show, Tucker Carlson Tonight or whatever it’s called. [Editor’s note: Carlson interviewed Fuentes on The Tucker Carlson Show. Tucker Carlson Tonight was the name of Carlson’s canceled Fox News show.] Very friendly, very softball interview where Carlson basically pushed back on none of Fuentes’ past statements and current beliefs or anything like that. And it was appalling. It was particularly appalling because we know that Tucker can ask hard questions. He can grill people. When he disagreed with Ted Cruz about the bombing of Iran, he barely let Ted get a word in edgewise and was constantly quizzing him to knock him off his game.
But when he talks to a guy who says he loves Stalin and Hitler and thinks women really want to be raped and all of these sorts of things, he’s like, Hmm, tell me more. You know, sort of channeling his old Barbara Walters or something like that. And so a lot of people were very cross about this at the Heritage Foundation, which advertises with Tucker Carlson. Tucker [was] the keynote speaker at their 50th anniversary gala [in 2023].
The Heritage Foundation got a lot of grief for its association with Tucker, and so Kevin Roberts came out and issued a video statement. Nobody disputes that the video statement was a complete frigging disaster. He said, “We will not disavow Tucker Carlson anyway. We will not cancel Tucker Carlson. We are joined at the hip with Tucker Carlson.” And then he said, “And besides, we’re not going to cave into a quote ‘venomous’ coalition that is representing other interests.” It was this serious dog whistle that suggested that string-pulling Machiavellian Jews were behind this [controversy], and we’re not going to cave into it. That was definitely the way it was interpreted by a lot of people outside of Heritage and a lot of people inside Heritage.
The video utterly backfired and caused a whole firestorm of controversy. And [Roberts] had this whole very high-minded explanation about how we shouldn’t cancel people. We should engage in their ideas, and we should confront them and argue in the marketplace of ideas — which all sounds great, except that’s not what Tucker Carlson had done. What Tucker Carlson had done was basically just give a megaphone to a neo-Nazi.
Kevin Roberts had an all-hands meeting at the Heritage Foundation. A big chunk of it was dedicated to warning staffers that they’ll be fired if any video or audio or quotes from this meeting leak. And almost before the meeting was over, the full video had been leaked. So everyone in my world has watched big chunks of it, if not all of it.
One of the things that the video revealed was that there are people at Heritage, young people at Heritage who are not neo-Nazis, but they liked Kevin Roberts’ initial statement. They’ve got some issues with Israel; they’ve got some issues with people who defend Israel. And then there were other people who were like, “You guys are losing your minds. We cannot be associated with antisemites and crazy people.” Kevin Roberts did not resign, as many people wanted him to, and many people thought he was going to be fired. But he did basically throw his chief of staff under the bus.
Kevin Roberts’s defense was basically that he is the right-wing Ron Burgundy. And if you put it in a teleprompter, he will read it. So it was not a profile-in-courage moment.
What does all of this mean? What is all of this about?
It’s about a lot of different things. Part of it is just simply an argument about what kind of coalition you’re going to have, but it’s broader than that.
One of the things that the defenders of Tucker Carlson and the defenders of the Heritage Foundation will say often — with a little more paranoia than I think is warranted — is that this is really all a proxy war about JD Vance. I think that’s overstated. It is not all a proxy war about JD Vance, but JD Vance does lurk in the background here, because Vance has blazed a path here where he defended young Republican officials who have these chats about how awesome Auschwitz jokes are and how Nazis are cool.
He also would not be vice president, but for the fact that Tucker Carlson lobbied extensively for him. And if Tucker becomes radioactive, that’s bad for Vance. If this crowd that [Vance] has defended and considers part of his coalition is purged, that’s bad for him. And so I do think that that’s part of what’s going on.
But I also think that, look: There are a lot of people who don’t think that the right should be a popular front. Historically popular fronts are this thing [that are] more popular, more common on the left — which on the left [meant that] there used to be no enemies to the left. It was like: Don’t shoot inside the tent. So what if we have Stalinists in our coalition? We’re trying to stop the bad guys. That’s the argument that is being used on the right right now, is that the right needs to become a popular front, needs to be a big tent. We need Groypers and Groyper-curious people to be part of our coalition, because they bring youth and passion and energy and yada, yada, yada.
I think it’s all nonsense. But it’s also hypocritical, because the very people like JD Vance and others who are trying to make the Republican coalition a safer place for these people say that we have to purge the neocons from the conservative movement — that we don’t want to hear from the zombie Reaganite crowd. They have no problem silencing and trying to cancel members of the coalition they consider to be rivals. They just use the language of inclusiveness for some of the worst people in the world, because they think there’s a political advantage to it.
It’s going to be a fight that’s going to unfold for a while, because Donald Trump — either for actuarial or constitutional reasons — is not going to be around forever. People are already trying to figure out what the post-Trump right looks like. And this is one of these early skirmishes in that longer-term battle.