Five Best Tuesday Columns

Scott Galupo thinks we've hit "peak Republican," Jonathan Chait on boycotting Israel's universities, Greg Sargent on the "Medicaid gap," Marc Tracy thinks Ross Douthat is wrong about women's sexual liberation, and James West on how Beyoncé is saving the planet.

Scott Galupo at The American Conservative thinks we've hit "peak Republican." "Republicans made a budget deal and didn’t shut down the government. Hear, hear," Galupo jokes. But "alas, there’s reason to believe the GOP’s recognition of the primacy of stability is merely temporary. The party may simply be lying in wait until the next kulturkampf over Obamacare." Galupo thinks Republicans are "miscalculating" if they think they can challenge Obamacare in any real way again. Former Republican budget official Bruce Bartlett recommends the post. 

Jonathan Chait at Daily Intelligencer on boycotting Israel's universities. "The American Studies Association, which represents the left-leaning “American studies” discipline, has voted to impose a boycott of Israeli universities as a form of protest against Israel’s human-rights policies," Chait explains. But "absurdly discriminatory academic boycotts" — the ASA isn't boycotting any other countries' universities — "make anti-occupation (but not categorically anti-Israel) liberals ... forget what's so terrible about the occupation and remember what's so terrible about the anti-Zionist left," Chait argues. Atlantic national correspondent and Bloomberg View columnist Jeffrey Goldberg tweets, "@jonathanchait calls the American Studies Assoc. boycott of Israel the 'best news Netanyahu has had in months.'"

Greg Sargent at The Washington Post on the "Medicaid gap." "As of now, over two dozen states are not opting in to Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, thanks largely to hostility to the law among GOP governors who are turning down huge sums of federal money that could otherwise go towards expanding coverage to their own constituents," Sargent explains. This is causing people to fall into the "Medicaid gap" — "making too much to qualify for traditional Medicaid, yet too little to qualify for subsidies on the exchanges." Middle East scholar Andrew Exum tweets this statistic, "Some 79 percent of those who fall into the Medicaid gap are from the south."

Marc Tracy at The New Republic thinks Ross Douthat is wrong about women's sexual liberation. Douthat wrote a column for The New York Times this week arguing that our libertine culture may cause parents of daughters to become Republican. Douthat used Adelle Waldman's The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P to make his point that free love eventually hurts women. "Douthat makes the classic, noble conservative mistake of assuming that rigid social conventions must do the work that we cannot trust young adults to do themselves," Tracy argues. "Waldman’s opinion (and mine) is that granting young men and women the social freedom to make their own way will result, most of the time and more times than not, in liberated decision-making that leaves everyone better off." Jezebel founder Anna Holmes recommends the post. Douthat takes issue with Tracy characterizing his argument as "biological essentialism."

James West at Mother Jones on how Beyoncé is saving the planet. "Let's take a moment to enjoy what Beyoncé's digital-first release means for the planet. Given its size, and recent industry trends, this may well be one of the most climate-friendly major studio releases yet," West argues. "And let's not forget Beyoncé's complete lack of pre-promotion for the album." By not shipping out "tens of thousands" of CDs to radio stations, Beyoncé saved quite a few metric tons of CO2. The shift towards digital music consumption is good for the planet. Nolan Feeney, a contributor to The Atlantic's entertainment channel, calls the column, "The environmental case for being a Beyoncé fan."