The American Economic Association is becoming stranger and stranger

What is economics according to the AEA? It is becoming murkier and murkier! 

Just weird! Bizarre and esoteric economics! I don't know why I even studied and graduated in economics!

What do we find in the latest edition of American Economic Journal: Applied Economics:

1. Article: "Fighting for Tyranny: State Repression and Combat Motivation" Excerpt from abstract: "We utilize over 100 million declassified Red Army personnel records from World War II to study how state repression shapes soldiers' motivation to exert effort in fighting. Exploiting multiple complementary identification strategies, we find that soldiers from places with higher levels of prewar repression under Stalin's rule were more likely to fight until death and less likely to shirk their duties, but they also received fewer decorations for personal bravery. ..."
2. Article: "Activated History: The Case of the Turkish Sieges of Vienna"
   Excerpt from abstract: "We show that history stored in collective memories and activated by political campaigns can create xenophobia and radicalization. Turkish troops besieged Vienna in 1529 and 1683 and pillaged individual Austrian villages, killing and kidnapping in the process. Attacked places remember those events well but never expressed aversion to Muslims until far-right populists started to campaign against Turks and Muslims in the mid-2000s. ..."