At the last meeting, I shared some voting data I’d put together about the March 2026 primary. While I didn’t look at every race on the ballot, I looked at the ones that got the most attention.

Some caveats and disclaimers:

For the most part, I’m letting the data tell the story. The below is based on publicly available voting data from the Chicago Board of Elections (with a little Countywide data where applicable). In the rare instances where I offer some kind of analysis I make it clear I’m speculating because we don’t have exit polls or other data-driven analysis to explain things. (I’ve done my fair share of political punditry in the past but not today.)

I’m also not trying to speculate on things that I haven’t looked at in the data. One question I still have is what kind of voters these were – were they more likely to vote for progressive Dems or more centrist / conservative Dems? With the 19th Ward being one of the few racially-mixed areas of the city, I’m also curious about how racial demographics affected these results, if at all. 

With that said, I did pull this all into a dashboard using Claude, the AI tool, to make it easier to read, navigate, and dig deeper into the data if that’s your thing. I am, at most, an occasional user of AI and this was my first major application of it and I used it because I am not a designer or coder. I did not ask it to think and nothing in the dashboard or graphics is speculative. It’s just making the data prettier than looking at a bunch of spreadsheets. Click the images to embiggen.

Turnout

Unlike other areas of the city and suburbs, voter turnout (how many people voted compared to how many registered voters there are) was up in the 19th Ward compared to the 2022 primary. That’s good! The 19th Ward had 38% turnout last month compared to 36% in 2022. (City of Chicago turnout was 24% citywide.)

The number of Dem ballots rose while Republican ballots fell. The Democratic share of all primary ballots went up 12 percentage points. Why? One reason might be that Biden was in office in 2022 and Trump is in office now. That’s been a typical turnout pattern in the last few elections. 

Most of the people voting in this primary were pulling Democratic ballots, even in the western part of the ward that skews Republican. The below graphics show the 15 precincts with the highest turnout while the dashboard shows ballot counts for all 36 precincts in the ward.  Total turnout is in yellow, Democrat ballots are in blue, and Republican ballots are in red.

If you look at total turnout within precincts, the only place where the total number of Republicans reaches 10% of total turnout is in precinct 15 (from 111th to 115th between Homan and Kedzie). The largest number of individual Republican ballots was precinct 29 (107th to 111th between Kedzie and the Grand Trunk railroad tracks) but because more Dems voted there the total Republican turnout is only 8.2%. 

But! This does not necessarily mean all these precincts vote majority Democrat in a presidential election. If you look at the Harris vs. Trump tab in the dashboard or in the graphic below, you’ll see that even precincts that have more Democratic ballots than Republican ballots in a primary still vote majority Trump.

Of course, turnout looks way different in a presidential election. The dashboard has a tab that compares 2022 vs. 2024 vs. 2026 by precinct but here’s what the total turnout looked like in the 19th Ward.

Down-ballot Dropoff

As in any election, the further down you go down the ballot, the fewer people you see voting in those races because people are less interested or informed about individual districts or judicial races. This is referred to as undervoting or dropoff.

This election was no different but an interesting thing happened. Normally, the higher the placement on the ballot, the more participation there is. Not in our ward. More people voting Democrat skipped the U.S. Senate race (4.3%) than skipped the Cook County Board President race (3.3%) even though the former was higher up on the ballot. (This does NOT include Republican ballots since there wasn’t a Republican candidate for that race.) 

Why did this happen? This is pure speculation but I’d guess that the leading U.S. Senate candidates were all running on anti-Trump or progressive platforms that did not appeal to the more conservative Democratic voters in our ward whereas they saw Brendan Reilly as more of an acceptable alternative to the progressive politics of Toni Preckwinkle and therefore wanted to participate in that race more. 

Race-by-Race Results

The race maps in the dashboard show where various candidates got the most votes. In cases where there are only two candidates, I’ve shaded the maps to show where they got the most votes. This helps to see other patterns in the data where candidates won all precincts (Croke for Comptroller and Hynes for Assessor) or where one candidate dominated (Cardenas for Board of Review).

A note on the Board of Review race: Juanita Irizarry won two precincts but by very slim margins. In one precinct, it was by only two votes. 

From these maps, we can see that Congressman Sean Casten easily won the 19th Ward for IL-6, Margaret Croke handily won for Comptroller and Pat Hynes (nephew of former Assessor, Illinois state senator, and 19th Ward committeeman Tom Hynes) won for Assessor.

Some other notes:

Cook County Board President: Western Ave is usually the conservative / progressive Democrat dividing line here, but Precinct 32 is the rare precinct west of western that has been reliably voting for progressive candidates recently. So while the Cook County Board President race mostly split along the conservative / progressive precincts in the ward, Reilly did win two precincts east of Western, but by very slim margins (nine votes in P35 and 26 votes in P36).

19th Judicial Subcircuit: There are a couple interesting results here. Signs for John Harkins were everywhere in the ward, which reflected both the 19th Ward organization’s heavy support for him as well as his ties to family and friends here. But he only won the precincts west of Western Avenue. Monica Somerville won most of the precincts east of Western while Dave Condron won six precincts east of Western, including the two precincts that voted for Reilly for Board President. Why the overlap there? Without exit polls or other data, we don’t know, but perhaps Condron’s work with the Cook County State’s Attorney may have activated some conservative or policy-focused voters in these precincts. (There’s a tab in the dashboard that shows the full 19th Judicial Subcircuit results rather than just the ward results.)

U.S. Senate: Finally, it seems worth noting that the seven precincts that voted for Kevin Ryan in the U.S. Senate were in the most conservative / Republican parts of the ward. On the surface, this makes no sense. Why would these precincts vote for a progressive Democrat who wants to abolish ICE, pass “Medicare for all” and pass the Green New Deal?

Again, this is speculation, but it may be because the three “frontrunners” in the U.S. Senate race were all running on some kind of anti-Trump / progressive platform, which many voters were aware of. If you’re a more conservative voter, you might scan that list of candidates, decide they’re not to your liking, and pick the candidate with the very Irish-sounding name and be done with it. Also, Ryan was the first name listed on the ballot for that race and that typically gives candidates a slight bump. 

I’m curious what other people think about this data or what other data you might like to see. Feel free to leave a comment.  

Interested in attending Politics and Coffee? RSVP here.

The post How did Chicago’s 19th Ward vote in the 2026 primary? appeared first on Our Man In Chicago.

20×2 Chicago is a storytelling/performance series hosted by Andrew Huff. In it, 20 people answer one question in two minutes. This edition’s question was “Are You Ready?” and I was one of the 20 to answer it.

This show is deceptively difficult. Two minutes is no time at all to get across an idea or performance. Your piece has to be tight. More than once when writing something for 20×2, I’ve left funny bits or lines I love in the cut section of the doc because I needed the time back for stuff that was essential.

Many performers include some kind of visual element or audience participation. One time someone did a stage dive. On Saturday night, one of the pieces involved the entire audience trying to throw ping-pong balls into a bucket onstage and ended in Andrew doing a shot of tequila. I am not that clever so I wrote something and this is it.

This will only be two minutes but I’m going to give you the “too long, didn’t listen” version anyway. The answer is “no, but do it anyway.”

Are you ready? No, you never are. Not truly, not in the ways you think you need to be.

At best, you can name the thing. And if you can name the thing, you can know it, defeat it, or demonstrate superiority over it.

“Are you ready?” is the least helpful question in these moments. You may find yourself needing to ask yourself other questions. Like what’s next or what am I doing or what the fuck?

I don’t say this because I think you won’t fail. In fact, you will. Not in big ways, perhaps, but in small ones.

I’ve not been ready plenty of times.

At least twice in my life, I’ve had jobs I wasn’t ready for.

I was once in a marriage I wasn’t ready for.

These are some of the biggest failures one can experience.

But guess what? I did it anyway. And I’m still fucking here. You will be, too.

I’m 48 years old. Your mileage may vary but around 45 I entered my “don’t give a fuck” years.

Here’s what I do instead: Stay inquisitive. Be ready to learn something new. Get challenged. Defend the point of view you spent all this time honing. Hang on to what you’ve earned through experience.

This is not to say you shouldn’t keep your mind and heart open to the needs and concerns of others. This is not about ignoring other people, it’s about ignoring the you that doubts you, the you that worries if it’s not perfect, the you that tells you you aren’t ready.

That’s not your best self.

The one that does it anyway? That’s your best you.

The line between being ready vs. not ready is razor-thin. One moment you’re not, the next you are.

And that moment is now.

Photo: James Allenspach, Flickr

The post 20×2 Chicago: “Are You Ready? – July 8th, 2023 appeared first on Our Man In Chicago.

Maybe you voted for Brandon Johnson. Maybe you didn’t.

Either way, you will at some point in his administration find yourself tempted by cynicism. There are many, many people who will benefit from telling you that Brandon Johnson is some kind of fraud. They will want to create a narrative around his actions or his administration that tells you Brandon Johnson the Mayor is not like Brandon Johnson the campaigner. They will want to paint his inevitable need for compromise as a failure or a lie.

But that’s because campaigns are about possibilities. Governing is about limits. Campaigns are about speaking to specific people. Governing is about the best possible solution for everyone. And that means disappointing some people.

Cynicism is comforting, but it poisons you a little. And that poison numbs you just enough to keep you from being disappointed because you never allow yourself to be hopeful. But cynicism also keeps you from trying. Cynicism is a self-created obstacle we put in our own way when we elevate a candidate above ourselves and they turn out to be unworthy of the pedestal we put them on.

We have to stop falling in love with candidates and learn to be their partners.

Ta-Nehisi Coates said this thing I think about all the time:

“We have this idea of elections as this kind of sacred ritual that one is undertaking, that you should be inspired and in love with the candidate. But I often think people need to think about it more like taking out the trash. It’s a thing that you should do. Brushing your teeth is hygiene. So when I think of who to vote for, the question isn’t how much of my own personal politics do I see in this person so much as how much do I think this person can actually be influenced by my politics or the politics of the people around me.”

You can substitute the word “elections” or “vote” with the phrase “doing politics” in the above paragraphs and it still works. And sums up my own philosophy.

Look, I love civic life. But it is neither meant to be a March Madness bracket nor an Aaron Sorkin production. Most days, there is no “Let Bartlet Be Bartlet” speech to be heard. It is supposed to be boring in the way your refrigerator should be boring: no scary noises; no rotted food; just a quiet, dependable hum in the background. It’s not inspiring, but it provides comfort, care, and calm.

Are you inspired by brushing your teeth? No, but you do it. Because otherwise a very meaningful part of your life will decay, rot, and die. We have to normalize thinking about voting as brushing our teeth even if we’re not inspired by our toothbrushes.

And just like you brush your teeth every day (and my god if you’re not doing that please start) we have to find ways to do politics every day. Some people call this activism. I prefer to call it the exercise of your individual power. Because to quote the title of a book by Eitan Hersh: “Politics Is For Power.” It is not posting articles on social media that you’re mad about or listening to bros on podcasts or even watching that nerdy guy in the khakis and his big-ass map.

The real work of inspirational politics doesn’t happen in the voting booth or in talking about politics at parties. It takes action that happens long before we step in the voting booth and long after. And on this point – Lord help me – I find myself quoting fucking Noam Chomsky which is not a thing I would expect to be doing:

“The left position has always been: You’re working all the time, and every once in a while there’s an event called an election. This should take you away from real politics for 10 or 15 minutes. Then you go back to work.”

As the saying goes, just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you. So if you’re looking for ways to keep yourself engaged, start with the smallest unit of government in your life.

The smaller the unit of government, the more immediately responsive it can be, both in terms of your ability to exert influence on it and the likelihood of you getting a response to your email, phone call, or letter. This could be your alderman, your local school council, your park supervisor, your County Commissioner, or your state rep.

As you think about where to spend your time, think about those who have it worse than you right now.

Broadly speaking, the answer to this question is pretty simple: Those at risk are the people whose point of view is least represented when decisions are getting made.

Who’s dealing with food insecurity? Who feels the most alone? Whose health is most at risk? Who is least likely to receive a just outcome in the criminal justice system? Who feels the least safe?

We could get overwhelmed by the bigness of some of these questions and the problems they reveal. So let’s reduce this to the smallest unit of assistance you can provide each day.

When you’re in a room where a decision is being made ask yourself some questions: How will this affect those who have less access to money and services than I do? Who’s being left out of this conversation? Are you able to speak from a place of knowledge that can guide this decision to a more equitable outcome for that group? If not, can you bring someone into the room who can? Or ask to defer the decision until that point of view is heard? Then do that.

That’s politics.

When you start thinking about all the trouble in your world there’s a tendency to get overwhelmed or to feel like you need to learn how to do a million new things to make a difference.

Learning new things is great! But more than likely, the thing you can do better than other people might be the skill that a non-profit or community organization needs the most from its volunteers.

Can you write? Can you manage projects? Do you have a technical skill? A certain kind of way with design, spreadsheets, or budgeting? The more niche the skill, the more expensive the hire and the bigger the obstacle it is for most organizations. You’re going to be their favorite volunteer.

When it comes to donating money, think small(er). I love the ACLU, too, but if you Google “immigration legal rights,” “environmental justice” or some other cause plus the name of your city, town, or state you’ll find an organization doing the work that needs the money more than a place with built-in name recognition. And this goes double for the do-gooder no one has heard of running for an elected office in your district. That person needs your money a lot more than someone ten states away who is running for the House of Representatives against Mitch McConnell and on MSNBC three times a week.

Finally, look for the people already doing this work. There is a tendency among…well, white dudes, to imagine they have the solution others lack. But for their brilliant insight, the problem would be solved.

My dudes: do not be the person that offers help that isn’t needed. Instead, amplify what others are already doing. These folks do not need your vision or your strategy. They don’t need leadership, they need followship. Allies are fine, but accomplices are better.
You may feel uncomfortable. Doing this work on behalf of others may bring to light things about you or people you’re close to that you would have preferred to keep in the darkness.

The good news is short-term loss will become long-term gains over time – for you and everyone else.

It’s really easy to slip into cynicism. But hope is a much harder drug, if you’re up for it. See, hope is not a fuzzy, rainbow-covered alternative to the facts on the ground. It is a collection of sparks that need oxygen. Cynicism douses the sparks before they become flames. Hope is a vision of a path that begins in your immediate vicinity.

Hope is the ability to clear the path as it gets harder to see. Cynicism pretends that but for all these excuses and the actions of others, we would be in a better place. It’s an imaginary future that means we never have to compromise or accept disappointment.

Hope is the acceptance of our current moment and all its disappointments coupled with the knowledge that we can do better.

Hope is not waiting for someone to save us. Hope is saving ourselves.

The post What’s next after elections appeared first on Our Man In Chicago.

Is it depression or uncertainty?

Are you burnt out or shutting down to recharge?

Why don’t we think about our minds the way we do our bodies? If you have a cold with the accompanying sneezes, coughs, and headache, you don’t try to outthink it. If you slam your knee into the side of a cabinet, you don’t assume you can “snap out of” the pain.

But when your mind is tired? When you start to spiral? When the bottom seems closer to the top? You refuse to rest. You don’t stop and think it’s something that will pass with time. You convince yourself that you’re bad, dumb, slow, untalented.

You should stop doing that.

Bodies don’t necessarily become stronger when they heal from injury. But they do learn new information. So do minds. You won’t come out on the other side of this experience with nothing. But your period of learning must be preceded by a period of rest.

Just shut down for a while. Recharge. Keep yourself from overheating. The machine of your mind can’t run at the same pace forever. If it does, some of the parts will fail.

The post PN #10: just stop for a second appeared first on Our Man In Chicago.

(This is not really a dance for fathers after and daughters about third grade or so. After that it’s really a Fathers Get Abandoned by Their Daughters and Go Play with Their Friends. Which is fine.)

My friend works in public service, too, but in the suburbs and in a way that is more street-level than mine. We’d both described our jobs as some variation of getting yelled at by people. His is more of that than mine is most days though that week I’d seen my fair share of it.

On some level, that’s the job. You’re trying to fix things (usually me) or keep bad things from happening (usually my friend) and people disagree with you so there’s yelling. Sometimes at yelling volume, sometimes not.

But then you leave work, come home, and there’s less yelling.

That’s because neither my friend nor I have our names on the door.

At some point, we decided it was OK to follow that person home and keep up the yelling there, too.

Look, like it or not, we’re public servants. So getting yelled at in public – maybe it’s in a meeting, a political event, or maybe it’s in a restaurant – goes along with the job. You’re being yelled at but they’re not yelling at you so much as they’re yelling at (or about) what you represent.

That third father at the dance? He kinda shook his head at me and my public sector friend as we were taking a break from wondering where our kids were inside a dark gym colored by the strains of Taylor Swift. I don’t think he saw the good that comes with the bad of a job like ours.

I remember having a disagreement with a former co-worker about the phrase “public servant.” He hated it. Didn’t care for being thought of as a servant to anyone. Or really having to explain himself to the public. He works in the private sector now but is still public-adjacent which I suppose is the best of both worlds but also I don’t think you learn as much.

If you can listen to what’s behind the words or talk to someone when they think no one’s watching them yell? You’re going to learn something.

The exchange has to happen in public though.

I don’t think I’d have been OK getting yelled at during the Father-Daughter Dance. Technically, it’s in public, but … less so. Mainly because there are other fathers and daughters there and they didn’t sign up for that.

Neither do neighbors. So it’s why the tactic of showing up at someone’s house to yell at them strikes me as particularly venal.

I’m all for protest. Uncomfortable protest. The societal pressure of public debate. But that’s what a public space is for.

Home is for rest. For a brief reprieve from the public. For television and birthday parties. For fathers and daughters.

Follow someone home? Keep up the yelling there? I’m not sure what that achieves other than hearing the sound of your own voice. That’s not a public debate, that’s a photo op.

And if you’re afraid of having that debate in public, well…maybe you’re not cut out for jobs like the kind me and my friend have.

The post PN #9: Fathers and daughters appeared first on Our Man In Chicago.

“Martin Luther King, Jr. San Francisco June 30 1964” by geoconklin2001 is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Originally written in January 2022; updated in January 2023

I’ve been thinking a lot about this Martin Luther King quote today:

And the final thing that I would like to say to you this morning is that the world doesn’t like people like Gandhi. That’s strange, isn’t it? They don’t like people like Christ. They don’t like people like Abraham Lincoln. They kill them.

It’s from his Palm Sunday sermon on Mohandas K. Gandhi, delivered on March 22, 1959.

The world did not like people like Martin Luther King. They killed him.

The post The words of Martin Luther King we won’t see on social media this year appeared first on Our Man In Chicago.

It hangs over you, following your thoughts, resistant to the morning.

We tell ourselves there’s a happy ending, a resolution. When we peer inside from far out – unable to offer anything more than applause, cheer, or good feelings – we miss the sharp cuts and the depth of the patterns. We’re supposed to, for their protection and maybe our own.

Then all that’s left is the end. The aftermath. Meager offerings and cleanup.

Meanwhile, the sun rises and the moon remains.

The post PN #8: untitled appeared first on Our Man In Chicago.

A selection of things I enjoyed this month:

This paragraph from Grey Horse’s newsletter, written by fellow OG Chicago Twitter person Kate Gardiner:

It’s easy to look away from potential wrongdoing when you want to believe an optimistic story. The temptation is even greater if you want to emulate the protagonist. “I could be like him,” the thinking goes — and that thinking gets complicated when you take into account that getting to be like him might take some dirty work.

Yes, it’s about SBF but it’s also about why knowing your values can keep you from making mistakes.

Rachel Maddow Presents Ultra: I’ve been enjoying this for months, but it recently wrapped in a satisfying, if cautionary, way. It poses the question “how do you fight fascism in America when it’s supported by a professional PR campaign and reaches the highest levels of government?” It’s a complicated answer best summed up as “it takes all of us doing our part.” I found comfort in the idea that we have been here before and we know the way out, but also discomfort from knowing it’s a cycle. Our form of government allows fascism to rest beneath the surface. We are threatened by an invasive species we can’t ever truly kill because the roots are impossible to dig out of the soil. We can stop its growth if we have the resolve.

This 2012 oral history of Rainbo Club: A ten-year-old profile from Eater Chicago of the legendary Wicker Park bar told through stories from some of the artists who lived, worked, and created there in the 1990s (Dmitry Samarov, Tim Kinsella, Liz Phair, and others).

Lydia Loveless and Nikki Morgan: Last night, I saw both of these women perform at a sold-out show at Golden Dagger (fka Tonic Room), a tiny, warm room with good beer, great cocktails, and a stage just barely big enough to hold the flames coming off Loveless and Morgan (who opened). Lydia Loveless is from Columbus, Ohio with some Chicago DNA due to her complicated, former time spent on Bloodshot Records. Straddling the lines between alt-country, indie punk, and wry humor, she sets fire to sadness, death, and danger. Nikki Morgan describes herself as a girl from North Carolina, but says Chicago made her the woman and artist she is today – someone who mixes soulful vocals and Southern swamp. Lately, something new has often signaled heartache. But in last night’s show, both artists felt comfortable enough in the intimate venue to share new songs, which portended something more hopeful for 2023.

NASA’s Mars InSight probe goes quiet: Do you like to feel sad about anthropomorphized space vehicles? Well then this story (and the related Twitter account) is for you.

A thread of life advice from former Chicago Tribune writer/editor Kevin Williams: Unlike most “what I’ve learned” threads like this, which are often about showing how wise, clever, and interesting the poster is, Kevin’s is about how to improve the lives of others, starting with yours. He’s apparently moving to Portugal, which is good for him but bad for Chicago.

The post Reading, listening, liking: NYE ’22 edition appeared first on Our Man In Chicago.

Is it a perfect song? Yes. Yes, it is. Do you know WHY it’s a perfect song? Because you can’t explain why. That’s why. It’s otherworldly. It came to this planet on a mission of peace but found us unable to fully accept its gift.

It was written by the same two men (!!!) who wrote “Live A Virgin,” “Eternal Flame,” and “I Touch Myself.” The same two dudes wrote all of those songs.

We get real wrapped up in the mythos of Robert Johnson going down to the crossroads to make a deal with the devil meanwhile we are ignoring the fact that two white guys from Illinois and California, respectively, dropped all that plus “Alone” and “True Colors” over the course of ten years.

Another reason why it’s a perfect song? It works on just about any template and defies your efforts to name one version as “definitive.”

The Roy Orbison one comes closest to marrying function and form. A song called “Drove All Night” evoking the transmission of a muscle car, two-lane highways, and longing? 10/10, no notes even though it is the most Jeff Lynne production to every Jeff Lynne.

(God, I forgot Jason Priestly and Jennifer Connelly are in the video. What if “Wild At Heart” was extremely wholesome and wanted to sell you Gap jeans? That’s this video.)

Then the Cyndi Lauper one slides up behind you and whispers in your ear inside a Vegas night club before absolutely knocking you out with the business end of a vodka bottle. You have not heard louder drums since David Bowie recorded “Let’s Dance.”

Hers was the first version to be a hit (Orbison’s version was recorded two years earlier, but would be released three years after Lauper’s.) Like most of Lauper’s hits, it is demanding and self-assured but vulnerable thanks to the same keyboard fills that lit up her She’s So Unusual album anytime things got a little too serious.

Also, let’s take a moment to appreciate Lauper stealing the hell out of Madonna’s Breathless Mahoney vibes right out from under her a year before Dick Tracy came out.

I want to say nicer things about Celine Dion’s version but twenty-odd years later it a) is clearly the beginning of her hiatus era; b) sounds like a blurry copy of Cher’s “Believe”; and c) is perfectly calibrated to sell minivans to people who wish they owned luxury sedans. It’s…fine.

The strength of “Drove All Night” is fully realized when you head down a YouTube rabbit hole. Want a heartbreaking, slowed-down acoustic version with a soaring vocal? Done. Latin outlaw country? Done.  A British woman who looks like she should be in a West End production of Phantom of the Opera who sounds like the Celine Dion version should sound like? We got you.

Chisel that shit on a mountain somewhere.

The post PN #7: “I Drove All Night” is perfect appeared first on Our Man In Chicago.

I know it’s Christmas Eve but you’ll have to forgive me for going deep on the notion of science and moral responsibility.

The Biden administration has reversed a decades-old decision to revoke the security clearance of Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist called the father of the atomic bomb for his leading role in World War II’s Manhattan Project.

In stripping Oppenheimer of his clearance, the Atomic Energy Commission did not allege that he had revealed or mishandled classified information, nor was his loyalty to the country questioned, according to Granholm’s order. The commission, however, concluded there were “fundamental defects” in his character.

Oppenheimer wrongly stripped of security clearance, US says

In hindsight, it’s hard to divorce the revocation of Oppenheimer’s security clearance from his complicated views on his role as the “father of the atomic bomb.” Especially when you look at how that revocation has been used in the past: to punish those who spoke out against the use of the power of the state to bring violence.

It’s tempting to see the revocation of Oppenheimer’s clearance as punishment for speaking out, and the restoration as an endorsement of his views.

In this case, it’s too simple a formulation. Oppenheimer never apologized for his part in the creation of man’s most horrific weapon, nor did he regret its use in the war. He did, however, take responsibility for all it unleashed and the death it wrought. But he also saw scientific knowledge as an end worth pursuing, no matter the costs.

It’s a complicated legacy and worth revisiting.

Oppenheimer’s most famous quote comes from a 1965 documentary about the atomic bomb. In it, he intones a line from the Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu book: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

This BBVA OpenMind piece delves into the quote’s original context within Gita and within Oppenheimer’s supposed pacifism:

Vishnu wants to convince Prince Arjuna that he must go to war, something that he refuses because it would involve killing his own relatives and friends. But Vishnu convinces him that he cannot shun that duty greater than he—it is his obligation, and it is not in his hand to choose. In the end, Arjuna goes to war.

Oppenheimer, Hijiya concluded, did not see himself as Vishnu. He did not arrogate the role of a god. He was Arjuna, the prince destined to fulfill that unavoidable duty, a terrible test for a pacifist who had always been one, both before and after the bomb.

Alex Wellerstein at the Nuclear Security Blog (linked in the article above) goes deeper on the context of Gita and speculates on Oppenheimer’s place in the atomic age:

Oppenheimer is not Krishna/Vishnu, not the terrible god, not the “destroyer of worlds” — he is Arjuna, the human prince! He is the one who didn’t really want to kill his brothers, his fellow people. But he has been enjoined to battle by something bigger than himself — physics, fission, the atomic bomb, World War II, what have you — and only at the moment when it truly reveals its nature, the Trinity test, does he fully see why he, a man who hates war, is compelled to battle. It is the bomb that is here for destruction. Oppenheimer is merely the man who is witnessing it. 

What I find strange and somewhat abhorrent in Oppenheimer is his laissez-faire point of view on what comes next. Personally, I’ve always been more of a Malcolmist in my views.

At the risk of seeming like I’m putting words in Oppenheimer’s mouth, here he is in his farewell speech to Los Alamos in 1945 – the year the bomb dropped:

If you are a scientist you cannot stop such a thing. If you are a scientist you believe that it is good to find out how the world works; that it is good to find out what the realities are; that it is good to turn over to mankind at large the greatest possible power to control the world and to deal with it according to its lights and its values.

Later in the speech, Oppenheimer addresses the common occurrence of technology’s creation moving faster than our ability to reckon with it:

There was a period immediately after the first use of the bomb when it seemed most natural that a clear statement of policy, and the initial steps of implementing it, should have been made; and it would be wrong for me not to admit that something may have been lost, and that there may be tragedy in that loss. But I think the plain fact is that in the actual world, and with the actual people in it, it has taken time, and it may take longer, to understand what this is all about.

We have not yet solved for our inability to reckon with the uses of new technology before its consequences are unleashed. This is true whether we are speaking of drugs, social media, or crypto. Some tools contain inherent harm, some are merely harmful when abused.

Oppenheimer wrote this piece for The Atlantic in 1949, four years after he wrote the above, and five years before his security clearance was stripped. It’s a beautiful piece of philosophy and a meditation on the use of the unimaginable power of the state to create or destroy. In it, Oppenheimer somewhat fulfills his call for the consideration of this technology after the fact and begins to reckon with it:

In foreign affairs, we are not unfamiliar with either the use or the need of power. Yet we are stubbornly distrustful of it. We seem to know, and seem to come back again and again to this knowledge, that the purposes of this country in the field of foreign policy cannot in any real or enduring way be achieved by coercion.

[SNIP]

It is true that one may hear arguments that the mere existence of our power, quite apart from its exercise, may turn the world to the ways of openness and of peace. But we have today no clear, no formulated, no in some measure credible account of how this may come about. We have chosen to read, and perhaps we have correctly read, our past as a lesson that a policy of weakness has failed us. But we have not read the future as an intelligible lesson that a policy of strength can save us.

Back to 1965 and the Gita. In another clip, Oppenheimer suggests the hope that the mere existence of atomic bomb would mean it would not need to be used and would bring an end to the war.

Oppenheimer and the scientists he worked with may indeed be Arjuna. But in their conversation with Vishnu, with technology’s most terrible form come to life, how could they look upon it and not reckon more with its use before unleashing it on the world?

There are no simple answers here. But if science is separated from philosophy then we are at the mercy of its effects. That’s Oppenheimer’s legacy.

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