What's the Matter with New Hampshire?
Tomorrow, a good chunk of the National Review gang will be in Manchester, New Hampshire for our debate-analysis and podcast-taping event. It's sold out now; sorry if you missed the chance to attend. This may not be the New Hampshire we thought we knew. It's a state with a stunning drug problem: New Hampshire saw at least 385 drug deaths in 2015, according to the latest tally from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner -- but the actual total could be even higher, as some 45 cases are still pending toxicology. Toward the end of last year, state officials began warning that the state could end up surpassing 400 drug deaths total for 2015. Even if the current figure remains the same, however, that would still make 2015 the deadliest in recent years when it comes to drug overdose fatalities. Local officials paint a grim portrait: "The [Manchester] fire chief said the epidemic is affecting everyone: The youngest person firefighters treated was 16 and the oldest, 69. The overdose victims have been found in hotels, public buildings, restaurants, parked vehicles and while driving motor vehicles. The youngest fatality, he said, was 18; the oldest, 51." It's affecting the schools: "Citing concern about illegal drug use, the Berlin school board will be making the anti-overdose drug Narcan available in its schools. Berlin becomes the fifth school district in New Hampshire to allow the use of Narcan, according to a state official who did not immediately identify the other four. It's not just drugs; this is arguably the hardest-drinking state in the union: "The Granite State averaged a per capita consumption of ethanol from alcoholic beverages of 4.65 gallons in 2012, nearly twice the national average of 2.33 gallons and the largest mark for any state." (That figure could be inflated by cross-border sales, which the New Hampshire Liquor Commission says accounts for about half of all alcohol sales in the state.) Maybe it's the cold winters, but something has teenagers drinking more, too: "35 percent of New Hampshire 12-20 year olds report drinking alcohol in the past 30 days; by comparison, nationally the number is closer to 25 percent and 29 percent in the Northeast." What's really troubling is that the state is enduring this crisis when a lot of other factors are going well: "New Hampshire survived the Great Recession better than many states. Today it ranks at or near the top in several categories that measure a state's health, like median household income, level of education and general well-being. Its rates of unemployment, crime and people living below the poverty line are among the lowest." However, the figures may not be telling the whole story: While many Massachusetts residents previously moved to New Hampshire, that migration is no longer occurring, according to Steve Norton, executive director of the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies. With baby boomers retiring, there is no one to replace the working-age population, he said, adding the amount of working-age residents in New Hampshire is expected to soon decline by about 10 percent. "Counties losing population are also losing economic vibrancy," explained Norton. In order to look ahead at the state's future, he said New Hampshire must look toward migration . . . The state's electric rates are about 46 percent higher than the national average, he said, adding large businesses will likely not move to New Hampshire if the electric costs are higher here than other areas of the country. This is the third-oldest state, and there's been a lot of turnover in the voter pool: "More than 30 percent of potential voters this year were either not old enough to vote in 2008, or resided somewhere other than New Hampshire . . . Among those 25 and older, who make up the bulk of the voting age population, just 33 percent of New Hampshire residents were born in the state." Remember this jaw-dropping study? The mortality rate for white men and women ages 45-54 with less than a college education increased markedly between 1999 and 2013, most likely because of problems with legal and illegal drugs, alcohol and suicide, the researchers concluded. Before then, death rates for that group dropped steadily, and at a faster pace. The debate in New Hampshire would be a good time and place for the candidates to offer their prescription to revive the economic and social prospects of white, working-class voters. Hillary Clinton: My Conspiracy Theories Make Sense, but Yours Are Crazy! Hillary Clinton, Wednesday night: Anderson Cooper: Do you still believe there's a vast right-wing conspiracy? Hillary Clinton: Don't you? (laughter) Anderson Cooper: I'm asking you. Hillary Clinton: Yeah. It's gotten even better-funded. They brought in some new multi-billionaires! . . . They want to rig the economy so they continue to get richer and richer! Clinton Iowa state director Matt Paul, this morning: In Iowa, the Sanders camp started floating conspiracy theories leading up to the caucus. First, it was one week ago when they posited that Microsoft might steal the caucus from them. Now that the caucus is over, they are calling into question the results that were reported by Iowans. So she's the only one who gets to offer conspiracy theories, is that it? As conservatives, we're much less invested in the outcome of the Democratic primary than the Republican one and we're not particularly motivated to come to the rescue of Bernie Sanders. But the evidence is mounting that we ought to scrap caucuses forever: Democratic Party officials in Iowa say they can't do a recount of Monday's razor-thin presidential caucus results between Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders, even if they thought it was appropriate. And both candidates, in their debate later Thursday night, said it was no big deal . . . "People physically aligned in groups," Sam Lau, the communications director for the Iowa Democratic Party, said in a statement. "There are no paper ballots to recount. Monday's caucuses were a unique event that involved more than 171,000 Iowans and their neighbors at a specific time and place, and thus they cannot be re-created or recounted." Lau doesn't seem to realize he's admitting that if anything is recorded incorrectly, there's no way to know or correct the error. If you wanted to design a system for minimal accountability, it would look something like this. Finally, an Academic Rebellion against 'Maoist Moral Bullying' on Campus Jonathan Haidt, professor of Ethical Leadership at NYU's Stern School of Business and one of the editors of the five-month-old site, "Heterodox Academy," might be the most fascinating and consequential figure in the American academic world today. From his recent interview with John Leo: JONATHAN HAIDT: Look, I graduated from Yale in '85. Yale is very devoted to social justice. It's very devoted to affirmative action. Now no place is perfect. But it's probably among the best places in the country. And to have protesters saying it's such a thoroughly racist place that it needs a total reformation -- they call the protest group "Next Yale" -- they demand "Next Yale"! JOHN LEO: Everybody saw that. JONATHAN HAIDT: And these were not requests. This was not a discussion. This was framed as an ultimatum given to the president -- and they gave him I think six days to respond, or else. And I am just so horrified that the president of Yale, Peter Salovey, responded by the deadline. And when he responded, he did not say, on the one hand, the protesters have good points; on the other hand, we also need to guarantee free speech; and, by the way, it's not appropriate to scream obscenities at professors. JOHN LEO: Or the threat to one professor: "We know where you live"? JONATHAN HAIDT: I didn't even know about that. The president was supposed to be the grown-up in the room. He was supposed to show some wisdom, some balance, and some strength. And so we've seen, basically what can really only be called Maoist moral bullying -- am we saw it very clearly at Claremont McKenna. The video is really chilling -- the students surrounding this nice woman who was trying to help them, and reducing her to tears. As we've seen more and more of this, I've begun calling it, "the Yale problem," referring to the way that left-leaning institutions are now cut off from any moral vocabulary that they could use to resist the forces of illiberalism. As far as I'm concerned, "Next Yale" can go find its own "Next Alumni." I don't plan to give to Yale ever again, unless it reverses course. ADDENDA: After a long week, you probably need my pop-culture podcast with Mickey featuring a preview of the Super Bowl and an assessment of Manning brothers' sibling rivalry; the commercials to watch for in conversation that went roaring off the rails; the surprising qualities of the FX miniseries, The People vs. O.J. Simpson; whether your toys are watching you and when fingerprint-scanning technology became mainstream; and finally, the perpetual riot that is Twitter these days.  | 
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