By that I don't just mean what most of us have come to know--that much of what we read and hear about from the news media is inaccurate.
I mean the news organizations themselves are fake (this is also probably obvious). They are not what they purport to be. They exert very little effort to seek out and provide real, truthful news.
Capitalism loves destruction, and this monolithic industry is priming itself for disruption.
And we are beginning to see that disruption in the form of Substack (disclaimer: I am hoping to move to Substack eventually, I just need time).
I am still endeavoring to find non-partisan, credible, independent journalists who are not part of the establishment media (and are probably not grifting one side). I think Michael Tracy is one of those, at least for now.
So, to provide a data point or two in support of my obvious thesis, please read part 1 and part 2 on the NATO summit from Mr. Tracy. It's pretty sad we have a government and media perfectly fine with shit transparency about an actual and ongoing war in Europe, of which there are profound global consequences. Not to mention the lives, billions of dollars, and great risk involved for NATO members and the region.
Reddit is a dumpster fire. At least the r/all or whatever the front page is now, plus some major subreddits where dissent from the correct opinion is buried deeper than Jimmy Hoffa.
For now, it's still highly useful for very specific and obscure things, such as many of the smaller passionate subreddits filled with skilled amateurs and professionals. For example, when Googling "Oregon vacation" you get 2 pages of ads, questionable travel sites, and a laundry list of other corporate sites.
Go to reddit, search for the same thing, find a thread with a lot of comments and you'll usually get a lot of good info, including the good, bad, and the ugly. Corporate site would have you believe there are no such things as bad and ugly, except perhaps in regard to their competitors.
Google sucks, Bing sucks, DuckCensorGo sucks, and we're living in the suck era of the internet. Gone are the days of the free, un-curated, uncensored wild west internet. The inventive, talented, & entrepreneurial should all start working together to prevent the rent seekers from destroying all the nice things, as they are doing to the internet. Please stop handing over your legacy to thugs!
The above partly contributed to my becoming perpetually skeptical of every single article of news I read. I still need to work on being more skeptical of "news" that fits my worldview, as I'm sure many of us do, but it very much feels like there is a mental cost involved in not letting your brain absorb new information without critically questioning the new information. Especially if you take the time to dig deeper. Who has that kind of time--especially if you have a full-time job and a family? So most of the time I read something, I end up putting it in one of the mental categories of "possibly true, but don't bet on it" or "possibly true, but probably missing valuable details/context." Or the increasingly popular category, "clickbaity headline, probably untrue." These are all subcategories belonging to the larger, "garbage news" category.
This has led me to increasingly avoid reading major news outlets. And since I don't really have much time to verify the credibility of new sources, I am ultimately getting less and less news.
It's clickbaity even without the racial descriptor. So I am intrigued, appropriately horrified, and also skeptical because clickbait and race. I did only a little digging, and several of the other outlets are saying the same thing, most relying on this St. Louis Post-Dispatch article or this one from Newsweek.
The incident happened last year, but is in the news now because of newly released video. The video shows the kidney patient being tackled and not much else. It does not reflect well upon the hospital/security staff, however. But still, the whole context we are getting is from the kidney patient's family and a short video. This is partly because the hospital is reportedly not saying anything about it right now.
Suspiciously, there is more video, but it is not released. Said video includes an interrogation where security allegedly says and does horrible things, but not released. Shit like this makes me trust the news like I trust Joe Biden to keep inflation low.
If everything being reported and claimed in the lawsuit is 100% factual, and there is no important missing context, then yes, obviously the hospital should pay and the security staff involved be replaced and their replacements better trained.
But the world I have become more aware of in recent years rarely provides 100% factual information, and rarely provides all the important context. If you can't clear these hurdles convincingly, you are in the "garbage news" category.
The kidney patient story is but a drop in the ocean. It might even be mostly true, but I can't turn off the Always Skeptical switch in my brain. Even if I wanted to, I don't think it's a great idea. But it is taxing, and I find myself reading more and knowing less. I think I need to change some habits. Maybe something along the lines of less internet, more books. Devote some time to discovering a few new credible, nonpartisan, and respected-but-not-part-of-the-establishment journalists.
I had a random thought that in hindsight, seems rather obvious and somehow lazy. But I think I'll make a note of it here in the chance there is something to it.
I think Russia (or Russian intelligence), has something very sensitive on the American ruling political class, including some significant Democrats. And quite possibly many other Western leaders. Something big, and something worth holding on to.
That theory would explain a lot, including the sudden and alarming rise in Western jingoism propagated by our media in lockstep with our uncharacteristically united political factions.
Even if it were true, and even if the Russians cashed in such a claim, I'd imagine it would take many years, possibly decades to confirm, especially in the face of the immense and inevitable push back from pretty much every Western media outlet.
To be fair, it may not be a Freudian slip. It could just be Mika saying what she (and probably a good many of "they") consciously thinks, no pretense about it.
Last year and in 2016, the news cycle was a constant stream of misinformation, half-truths, spin, negligent omissions, and a clusterf*ck of political hacks throwing shit wherever they could just to see what would stick.
But recently I found a few tools to help me wander with a bit more confidence through our national swamp of news. I've only used them for a few hours so no guarantees. I can only give my first impressions, and they are good:
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Ground News: A website and app that shows how much a story is reported via sources on a left-right spectrum. It has a very nice blindspot feature (most of which is unfortunately behind a pay-wall) which highlights stories reported from mostly left and mostly right sources--so you can see what the other side is reading and probably outraged about that day.
From their "about" page:
Looking to break free from your echo chamber?
We’ve already helped over 250,000 escape theirs and see the news from a different perspective. Ground News was created to be a news destination for everyone, regardless of political ideology.
I hope Ground News is as good as it appears to be. If so, I may even subscribe just for the blindspot feature. You may quibble with their left/right/center attribution to various news outlets, but at a glance, it's not too bad. Unless you think the WaPo is a rightwing rag, then I don't know how to help you.
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Influence Watch: founded in 2016 by Capital Research Center (which kind of explicitly leans right), pretty much gives the downlow on any person or group that has any significant connection to American politics. As my biases tend to lean right and I frequent a lot of right-leaning sites, I am very surprised I've never heard of this site.
What the hell, rightwing media? This site is amazing, why aren't you linking it?
So I thought maybe Influence Watch was too one-sided for even the rightwing, but no, it seems to be a refreshingly even-handed wiki of sorts about major political players and journalists. I've only been perusing the site for a couple hours, but I have yet to spot any red-flags or obvious lies, spin, etc.
From their "about" page:
Capital Research Center conceived of this project after identifying a need for more fact-based, accurate descriptions of all of the various influencers of public policy issues. Many so-called “watchdog” groups are instead opponents of the outlets they are watching. Armed with 30-years of research and data on advocacy organizations, foundations, and donors, CRC utilizes a universe of well-trained contributors to help build the individual and organizational profiles that will populate the website.
CRC has a perspective on the public policy process as well, but this resource is more important than that. We let the information speak for itself—information that frequently is not cited in reports about these individuals and organizations.
InfluenceWatch strives to be comprehensive, and profiles are frequently updated and written in a manner that’s accurate and measured. InfluenceWatch brings unprecedented transparency to the funding, motives, and interconnections of the entities profiled.
I've bookmarked both sites and plan to use them frequently. After the last 4+ years of garbage news, these recent discoveries give much needed relief and hope. More of this please.
The more-or-less six-step guide to bringing down popular unrest.
Are people sick and tired of the establishment's garbage? Are they protesting and causing problems? The legitimacy of the left's and deep state's power (excuse the redundancy) must never be questioned.
So they just help set up a new protest.
First, install dozens or hundreds (the more the better) of your own agents who will help organize the event, and then both instigate and escalate any and all untoward mayhem--thus making the movement look bad--proceed to arrest everyone in sight (sans friendly media), taking out any potentially ideologically problematic persons. Notify your friends in congress who will work hand in glove with the media to put on a big show of how scary, terrible, unprecedented, treasonous, and evil the protestersriotersinsurrectionists terrorists really are (and by extension, all of their ideological allies). They must be stopped! If possible, pass a bunch of really bad laws cementing your power quickly after.
Problem solved.
Except they forgot something. The government is incompetent and leftists are stupid.
The FBI has found scant evidence that the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was the result of an organized plot to overturn the presidential election result, according to four current and former law enforcement officials.
Though federal officials have arrested more than 570 alleged participants, the FBI at this point believes the violence was not centrally coordinated by far-right groups or prominent supporters of then-President Donald Trump, according to the sources, who have been either directly involved in or briefed regularly on the wide-ranging investigations.
Seven and a half months later, after hundreds of arrests, and countless lectures about the dangerous right-wing, we get a peak into the real investigation. And it's what everyone who doesn't blindly swallow the left's divisive garbage already thought. Compared to the entire 1/6 protest, it was a small collection of randos who took things too far. But that kind of news doesn't get the left's mentally-challenged base to the polls, nor does it open up their wallets. And as D.C. and the vast majority of news media are Democrats, don't expect things to change.
Frankly, I still expect to see the events of 1/6 being written in the history books as an attempted right-wing insurrection inspired by Trump.
On 1/6, a rag-tag group of protestors, instigators, cosplayers, and undercover agents in full view of the defending forces, were allowed to briefly capture the flag. After it ended, participants returned home and went on with their lives. Just kidding.
Apparently many people think a group of weird randos occupying the capitol building grants the occupiers control, or at least potential control, of the entire country. I for one, welcomed our new cosplaying overlords. Didn't you know stale and hackneyed video game objectives are now directly applicable to real life?
The attempted insurrection/coup/civil war 2.0 lead by captain buffalo man, was ultimately for naught. Unfortunately, the rebel team made a crucial error in strategy. When storming the opposing team's headquarters, they forgot the additional million people and military hardware needed to defend their position. Other than that small oversight, the lego-devised plan was virtually flawless.
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I never once thought the 1/6 incident was even a minor threat to this country. Maybe, possibly a threat to the participants and the people in the area (tragically, one protestor was shot and killed, and an officer who died of unrelated issues). But my brain just cannot get small nor smooth enough to think a relatively small number of unarmed protestors were on the verge of threatening our government in any meaningful way (other than politically and symbolically, which is perfectly fine).
Some of these people should be charged with trespassing, theft, destruction of property, and similar low-level charges. There is no De Jure law against offending the left or right's delicate sensibilities, even if on too many occasions the law is abused in practice.
I expect a dramatic, sensational clown-show lead by ring-master Pelosi on these events. I don't expect fair treatment for most of those currently incarcerated and charged for their involvement that day. I expect they will be in one way or another, tarred and feathered, along with anyone who can be conceivably associated with them ideologically.
I don't expect to know the full truth, or even most of the truth about what happened that day. I don't trust the news on this matter, nor the government in Washington D.C. I don't expect to ever trust them again. And that's too bad.
Excuse me, I'm trying to find the video of Trump inciting the riots.
While I don't doubt Trump is capable of such, and wouldn't be surprised if he did in fact start the riot with a poor choice of words, I am having trouble finding the video of him using language slightly more specific than platitudinous schlock, and at least half as damning as what many, many antifa sympathizers (a lot of which hold office) had to say this past summer.
The president should be held to a higher standard. And Trump falls far short daily when it comes to word-choice and rhetoric. No "buts" here, except this one: every citizen deserves the same due process. Incitement is one of few asterisks to the first amendment, and proving it requires (or should require) a lot more than a mob.
All I could find so far was a short CNN clip where the worst thing I found Trump saying was to "show strength and be strong" which was preceded by images of the rioting--labelled an insurrection--and followed by snarky narration of judgment damning Trump--objective reporting there, top marks.
I didn't want to jump on the GoT hating bandwagon, but after season 8 episode 5, I don't really have any expectation that it will end well. It's already too late to end well.
It's all been said before, but check out r/freefolk and just scroll for days if you want to get a feel for some of the devastatingly salient criticism.
Logic, consistency, character arcs, and good dialogue have been utterly neglected or just cast aside for whatever reason. And the addition of some very odd things (too much deus ex machina for one) on top of that is rubbing salt in the wound. I don't know if it was laziness, financial considerations, stupidity or all three, but what the hell?
I consider myself a free-speech absolutist. Even when the inevitable cliche counter-arguments arise, insisting that yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater, or worse, hate speech is surely not protected speech. I find myself questioning the details of these hypothetical exceptions to free speech.
If I really, actually yelled "fire" in a movie theater here, sans any threatening flames, I think I would get little more than dirty looks, and perhaps be escorted out. Considering the fact I was on private property, disrupting a service others were paying for, my silencing in that situation would hardly amount to an infringement of my freedom of speech.
Maybe if there was a recent epidemic of fires spontaneously consuming theaters and their patrons--I guess, in that situation, me crying wolf would likely endanger others. In which case, I would also be on private property, disrupting a service, and endangering the lives of others. In both cases, my silencing (or punishment for fake news), wouldn't be such a terrible thing, let alone an infringement of my rights.
You get the idea. I need the details. And even then, I may or may not agree with you for reasons wholly different than why you hold said position.
I'll be the first to admit that people are stupid and on occasion react badly to certain ideas, or at least the vocalization of such (it's amazing how a lot of people can read terrible arguments in text and shrug, but should they hear it aloud from its advocate, especially in the company of others, it's a powder keg in a dry forest on the 4th of July). The potential for certain speech in certain situations can be rightfully considered incitement to riot, thus endangering others and their property.
So yeah, there are exceptions, and those exceptions are not general rules of thumb for which large swaths of people and their ideas can be outlawed. The exceptions are exceptions because they necessitate a closer look, details.
But not for long. People are now apparently allowed to punch or shoot Nazis--at least people who they believe are Nazis. What's Nazism besides a set of ideas? I mean, it's very possible for a pacifist to be a Nazi. A person who couldn't hurt a fly is absolutely free to believe that others can carry out his or her cherished Nazi beliefs.
It's also quite legal and apparently acceptable for large platforms to collude and deny their platforms to those with certain viewpoints. Sometimes very mainstream viewpoints.
It's also quite acceptable and legal to punish some criminals far more severely than others who committed the same crime, because it was argued their motivation was more wrong than the typical criminal.
And it's increasingly in vogue to publicly argue for more exceptions to free speech. To argue in favor of broadening the definition of existing exceptions, to broaden the definition of violence, to empower more and more legal and social entities to silence and punish.
At this rate, free speech absolutists will soon be considered extremists (we already are in certain circles, and I'm not even all that absolutist as you now know).
So as the anti-freedom trends grow, I'll endeavor to censor myself less, to question why and if I should self-censor, to support others' right to spout nonsense, or wrongthink, whatever the case may be.
Even though I am literally disgusted by Alex Jones, and technically he does not have a right to social media platforms, I am more disgusted by the anti-freedom trend and its efforts. The same goes for a lot of scoundrels.
Lately it seems like my only free time is an hour or two in the wee hours, or an hour or two in the morning when I'd rather be sleeping (and sometimes do). So in order to try not to devolve into a lazy waste of space during my free time, I'm going to attempt to occasionally post something here again.
So, to recap what I've missed and what's in the news today, here are some observations and links.
I don't think Trump or any meaningful part of his campaign colluded with Russia. But there is probably a tantalizing something, maybe small, but something. Otherwise I don't see how the FBI and Democrats--which is seemingly redundant these days--can justify this perpetual investigation with virtually nothing to show for it, and survive with any credibility intact. I think, to a significant degree, they're operating on the sunk cost fallacy.
I am almost in disbelief at the North Korean summit. I don't expect it to produce miracles, or much of anything in the way of denuclearization, but the summit alone is quite remarkable. Trump keeps surprising.
Tariffs. I am a believer in free trade, but I also believe in fairness. And I am not opposed to using tariffs as temporary measures to further encourage freer and fairer trade agreements. Naturally, the recipients of increased costs (whether it's from tariffs or fairer trade agreements) don't like it, and are trying various things to stop it. I think the Trump administration expected some push back, but I kind of doubt they expected so much. But one thing I've learned is that Trump, for better or worse, plays chicken quite well. He may yet surprise us again.
Due to new living conditions, I have cable tv now. There is still nothing on. CNN and MSNBC have lost all credibility with me long ago and generally suck; this is still the case. Fox News is getting worse. They always leaned a bit right on most of their shows, especially relative to other news networks, but now it's more blatant, unapologetic, and sloppy. I miss the kind of shows with the integrity and perspective Meet the Press had under Tim Russert.
Pardons. It's about time a president used the power in the middle of a term, and with such frequency. I'm aware it's a slippery slope, especially when it involves political allies, but I think it's worth freeing a few guilty partisans if the innocent and overcharged also go free.
I'm also trying to be more polite while communicating via text, email, or other online media. It's too easy to read something and post your knee-jerk reaction in the heat of the moment. This is partly because my new job involves a lot of emailing and texting, and I've had to force myself to wait a while before responding. Your tone, perspective, and articulation all improve after waiting, even just a few minutes. This precious time also lets you reconsider and reinterpret the possible tone of the text you just read, which is usually very important.
As a Trekkie, my anticipation for a new Star Trek television series began with excited wonderment. News of a new Trek series is always good news. Until it's not.
I don't want to be one of the bandwagonistas kicking a fetus before it's born, but I also don't want it to suck. Let's just say ST:D (wow, what a terrible acronym) has had its share of production problems--according to rumors and I think some other, more reliable sources.
The first trailer didn't inspire much confidence either. I guess it could've been worse:
Something just seems off. I think part of it is that it's meant to be different. Part of it is that I think it has to be different, given the Star Trek copyright mess of Paramount and CBS, and that it has to be modern while sticking to 1960s ST canon. No doubt they are squaring a circle here, and not everyone will be pleased.
Be that as it may, things could have gone better. The Youtuber Midnight's Edge seems to have the down-low on all things ST:D:
He's got a few more informative videos on the topic. Worth a watch if you're interested. By the way, if you haven't seen Prelude to Axanar, give it a watch. It's the best Trek fan film I've seen.
But after thinking about it a bit, especially given how so many relatively recent tv dramas have been very good if not excellent, I thought maybe this could be great too. Probably not, but you know, it could be. So I'm still pessimistic, but not quite as much now. I hated the new Klingons at first, but now, who cares? ST has a history of changing the appearance of alien races. As long as they don't depart too much from canon, Klingons will be Klingons. Besides, they look more alien than they used to, which I think is good.
I felt I've rambled enough about a show that hasn't even aired yet. So here's the latest trailer:
Ugh, some things in it just bother me. I hope it's not a train wreck.
Oops: Forgot to mention that it's set to debut Sunday, September 24, 2017 on CBS.
I suppose it's not a good sign when you start to think everyone is crazy except you.
I jest, somewhat, but we're back where we were. Of course, as it has always been, we're seemingly getting worse regarding civility, political toxicity, hyper-partisanship, etcetera (although I think humanity tends to succeed despite itself--as if we repeatedly fail upwards, and are nevertheless continually disheartened by the failures--but that's a topic for another day).
So, in this era of #FakeNews, misleading commentary, political hackery, censorship, and other lame hashtags, your mostly absent host here at the Daily Mud will dust off his degree and try to get back to the basics of politics.
Think of it as a public service. I won't be arguing, explaining, nor defining political issues, rather I will attempt to list the concepts behind them and adequately summarize how they work with respect to our political processes--at least in my as yet unnamed series of upcoming blog posts. Maybe something like Modern Political Theorems, or some similarly pedestrian title. While politics is both science and art, I think it will still be useful to provide a sort of guide or reference for why politics is the way it is. Especially for anyone who was smarter than me by not majoring in Political Science.
In other news, I have recently suffered the loss of a family member, and shortly after became ill. The loss was rough, but I've been through it before and am coping fairly well. The illness is nothing too serious, but I've been out of commission for a couple weeks now. I think for some reason my immune system was not nearly up to par and just couldn't handle the flu (I didn't get flu shots because I never got the flu, until now). I'll try to get more sun and exercise in the future.
Comments have been temporarily disabled because I mostly get spam and don't want to deal with it. I will re-enable them soonish, I think.
In the long run, we're all spiritual servants of a spaghetti monster who manages a universe of self-replicating paperclips. Which is to say, we're all dead, but it's still super cool to think of nascent spaghetti-run paperclip economies and galactic culture dynamics. I guess.
I mean, I wouldn't know since I'm not getting a comfortable salary to think about that stuff.
And all three of these [Trump v. Clinton & historical] differences are small compared the variation in
such things across the history of human-like creatures so far, and also
compared to that history yet to come.
Put your crypto-nihilism down and deal with life and loss like a reasonable human being.
There are bad ways to deal with adversity and there are less bad ways. I'll go out on a limb and say that pretending to rise above and see this through some pantemporal lens is of the worse bad variety.*
People don’t seem to understand this: you need to adapt and change and
look outside of your tiny enclaves not out of some moral obligation, but
because you are losing on every imaginable front. You don’t
have to get in touch with the rest of the country because that’s the
right thing to do. You have to get in touch with the rest of the
country because they’re kicking your ass. The Republicans will
control the House, the Senate, and the presidency, have the chance to
appoint at least one and probably several Supreme Court justices, run 68
out of 99 state legislative houses, and hold 31 gubernatorial seats.
That is domination on an unimaginable level. Every minute you spend
signal-boosting people who say that it’s Republicans who have to get on
board with liberal values is a minute you’re not doing anything to
change that condition.
Despite the Republicans winning pretty much everything, this election was close, percentage-wise. If a few more democrats turned out in a handful of states, we would be having a very, very different conversation. Unfortunately, neither conversation is good.
I agree having an "insular, self-aggrandizing book club that treats looking at other parts of the country as an anthropology exercise" is extremely off-putting. But maybe the assumption behind this thinking is also insular, self-aggrandizing, and so far off from much of the country that it is equally off-putting.
So here we are, talking about changing strategy just so we can stop
getting our asses kicked. Fuck flyover country's backwards ideas, we
just need to trick a few more of them to give us a win.
Apparently the old liberal maxim of re-evaluating one's views when faced with contrary evidence, only applies to peripherals, like strategy and messaging. You're so smart, therefore you must be right. Heaven forbid you soften or change some views.
If you want something to look forward to, then rest assured, Donald Trump will face much more scrutiny and criticism than George W. Bush. Why? Because you and your book club hate him, and you now have, more than ever, good reason to:
Yet, beginning in his first month in office and continuing through today, Obama not only continued many of the most extreme executive-power policies he once condemned, but in many cases strengthened and extended
them. His administration detained terrorism suspects without due process, proposed new frameworks to keep them locked up without trial,
targeted thousands of individuals (including a U.S. citizen) for execution by drone, invoked secrecy doctrines to shield torture and
eavesdropping programs from judicial review, and covertly expanded the nation’s mass electronic surveillance. ...
The president-elect frightens them, so they are now alarmed. But if they
want to know whom to blame, they should look in the mirror.
If you want to start genuinely courting the Other, start befriending people like Rand Paul. Most Republicans will probably just go along with whatever power grabs Trump can get away with. There are some however, like Senator Paul, who not only disagree with Trump on several major issues, but would be a far more tolerable opposition leader in the future.
* I'm not saying discussions of the future, even distant future are folly, but I am saying that it's a poor way to accept and deal with loss. And holy hell is it out of touch. It's fine if all you do is think about far-off and lofty ideas, but it is by no means constructive or helpful for those dealing with real or perceived adversity in the here and now.
Lefty bubbles. Insulated warm, fuzzy cocoons. Walled gardens. Epistemic closure beguiled by positive feedback loops. The pleasant echos lulled half a country and its "elite" into a false sense of authority.
And then it all came tumbling down. Crashing. I think it was a surprise for nearly everyone. Good for some, bad for others.
I'm not sure I have much to say given what's already been said. So what follows is a roundup of reactions to the election, a bit of the more poignant commentary, and my thoughts on each. Some of which I don't quite understand, but am trying to. Some of it I agree with wholeheartedly and think needs a bit more sunlight, and then some I disagree with.
When bubbles burst, it's usually a shock to those inside. Their thoughts and behavior during the aftermath can be illuminating.
The Left
I'll start with J. D. Vance at the NYT, who like so many others after the election, acknowledge the bubbles they've been living in:
Failed political prognostication is hardly a grievous sin, but it raises difficult questions about the other bubbles I live in. Few would accuse me of lacking compassion for the Trump voter, but the same can hardly be said for many other coastal
elites.
Meanwhile, our country has other groups deserving of compassion. Shortly after Mr. Trump’s victory became clear, a black friend told me that his kid brother had been subjected to racial taunts at school. I wonder now whether I’m empathetic enough to my friend and his family, and I worry whether those who cast their ballots for Mr. Trump have much understanding for why so many fear a
Trump presidency. The benefits and prejudices of a life lived within a bubble are hardly limited to urban progressive professionals.
You will see this narrative over and over. "Out of touch," "living in a bubble," "we have some reflecting to do," but also the usually subtle implication that the racists have taken over, and super-racist Nazi America is but a shoe drop away.
How do they know? Because Trump once said he wants to ban Muslim immigration. Trump then walked back that stance. Also something about building a wall. I'll admit Trump is brash and far from eloquent, but wanting tighter, more secure immigration and the occasional verbalization of stereotypes does not a Hitler make. And of course, the only kind of person willing to vote for that kind of a man, is a racist.
But people are scared now apparently. I get that for some, relatively very few, discrimination is a real and ugly thing they have to deal with and I want to help them. But for most in modern America? Call me skeptical, but I'm going to have to ask for proof.
Still, for a lot of people, this election is proof enough for them. From Reddit:
click image to enlarge
"I'm a Muslim living in the States. Trump doesn't scare me as much as his supporters do."
"I'm Jewish and I'm right there with you in fearing his supporters..."
Am I in my own bubble? I've never personally witnessed racial or political violence, or threats thereof. Such reports I see are from the same news sources (mostly) "coastal elites" use. I don't see large-scale racial violence or discrimination happening, or even medium-scale. It's generally the occasional something-bad-happened-to-one-person story. Like police going too far, but even then it's not always so clear.
Are they afraid, like we're living in Europe, or the third world hellholes many leftists fetishize?
I want to say I did some looking around for this fear, but no. Just skimming the various newzy and social sites it became abundantly clear. Trump really is the next Hitler to them. The following images are screenshots I took in the hours following the election results:
There was even a "homophobia" in there! Despite Trump being the first Republican presidential nominee to embrace marriage equality, and prominently supported by Peter Thiel. Fucking come on, the Republicans are, and will continue to get, on board the LGBTQ train--so long as it's compatible with individual and religious liberty.
No matter, frequently fallible Paul Krugman will set things straight:
What we do know is that people like me, and probably like most readers of The New York Times, truly didn’t understand the country we live in. We thought that our fellow citizens would not, in the end, vote for a candidate so manifestly unqualified for high office, so temperamentally unsound, so scary yet ludicrous. ...
There turn out to be a huge number of people — white people, living mainly in rural areas — who don’t share at all our idea of what America is about. For them, it is about blood and soil, about traditional patriarchy and racial hierarchy.
He says he truly didn't understand the country, then in the very next paragraph, half a day after the election, he now claims to know: and its name is backwardness. Jesus Christ; and they wonder why half of America collectively gave them the fucking finger. Arrogant condescending pricks, the whole lot of them.
Might as well get it all out. What insulting buzzwords are America you say?
Way to be civil. Want some grace from the winners? Maybe try not spitting on them.
Trump wasn't my preferred candidate, but the racist labeling only made me want to support him more. Why? It was unfair. If he said the N-word in the last several years, and/or displayed any other overtly racist behavior I would be calling him that myself. But now, in many circles, merely opposing lax immigration is 100% straight-up racist.
But it doesn't even matter. If he's a scumbag then he's a scumbag. What matters is what he'll do as president. What policies he'll bring. What judges he'll appoint. Scumbagerry doesn't translate well into policy, although there are exceptions.
Reagan, Bush Sr., Bush Jr., and a Republican congress didn't overturn Roe v. Wade. There was some pushback on gay marriage, but look where we are now. We're even legalizing drugs!
After all the hysterics, I feel it's time to Voxplain a thing or two.
Oh my. Vox can't even keep a cool head. People sure aren't taking this well:
So there's the reactions. Fear, sadness, anger, resentment, disgust, combinations of denial and acceptance. But what does it all mean? What brought about this Trump victory?
The Democrats
To paraphrase President Obama, we need to spread the blame around. Hillary's campaign miscalculated. Badly:
“They are saying they did nothing wrong, which is ridiculous,” said
one Clinton surrogate. “She was the wrong messenger and everyone
misjudged how pissed working class people were.” ...
In interviews with close to a dozen top Clinton allies and
former operatives, who did not want to publicly criticize the losing
campaign or candidate, many expressed a deep frustration that the party
had pinned its hopes on a divisive establishment candidate. ...
The issues were crystal clear as early as January 2015, but the campaign thought it could overcome it.
“Make a virtue of her longevity,” Palmieri advised in an email that
month to Podesta, released by WikiLeaks. “Embrace all the Clinton-ness —
the forty years in politics, the decades on the national stage...”
A lot of commentators are saying Trump won because Hillary and the
Democrats colossally fucked up. All that nastiness you see above, well Trump supporters were experiencing that every time they opened their mouths prior to the election. Not the best persuasive technique. The left in general and Democrats in particular really didn't do much to dissuade that strategy. There's more to it
than that--which I'll get to later--but Jonathan Pie nails it:
The Media
Lets not forget the media. For a long time the left and the media would mock the right for complaining about bias. What a time we live in when they openly admit it, and try to justify it. Of course, it was the wrong thing to do. Not because it was unethical, you see, but because it backfired:
John King of CNN proclaimed to his huge election night audience that
during the previous couple of weeks, “We were not having a reality-based
conversation” given the map he had before him, showing Mr. Trump with a
clear opportunity to reach the White House.
That was an extraordinary admission; if the news media failed to present
a reality-based political scenario, then it failed in performing its
most fundamental function. ...
They
think something is so wrong that all the fact-checking of Mr. Trump
this year, the countless reports of his lies — which he uttered more
than Mrs. Clinton did — and the vigorous investigation of his business
and personal transgressions, bothered them far less than the perceived
national ills Mr. Trump was pointing to and promising to fix.
In
their view the government was broken, the economic system was broken,
and, we heard so often, the news media was broken, too. Well, something
surely is broken.
Ya think? That's the end of the article. The time for coyness has long passed. Why don't you grow a pair and just say what you think is broke. It hit you square in the nose and you still don't say it. Ah but then you might have to risk appearing to agree with those racist cavemen.
If you view a Trump presidency as something that’s potentially
dangerous, then your reporting is going to reflect that. You would move
closer than you’ve ever been to being oppositional. That’s uncomfortable
and uncharted territory for every mainstream, nonopinion journalist
I’ve ever known, and by normal standards, untenable.
Whoops! I don't want to say I accidentally helped elect Trump, but I accidentally helped elect Trump.
Any objective observer of the news media’s treatment of Trump can
certainly conclude that reporters are taking a side in this election
— and they don’t have to be wearing a button that says “I’m with her”
for this to be readily apparent. The irony is that the media’s Trump
bashing may wind up having the exact opposite of its intended effect.
Polls
shows that journalism is one of the least respected professions in the
country, and with Trump calling out media organizations for their bias,
widespread slanted reporting is bound to reinforce this point — and to
backfire. Trump’s campaign is throwing down the gauntlet to the
political class. If journalists are seen as the mouthpiece of that
class, they may soon find themselves covering Trump’s inauguration.
The schadenfreude never ends. I hope Trump's presidency brings about positive change, and is otherwise uneventful, but the dark twisted part of me is cheering on for more entertainment.
The
triumph for Mr. Trump, 70, a real estate developer-turned-reality
television star with no government experience, was a powerful rejection
of the establishment forces that had assembled against him, from the
world of business to government, and the consensus they had forged on
everything from trade to immigration.
The results amounted to a repudiation, not only of Mrs. Clinton, but of President Obama, whose legacy is suddenly imperiled. And it was a decisive demonstration of power by a largely overlooked coalition of mostly blue-collar white and working-class voters who felt that the promise of the United States had slipped their grasp amid decades of globalization and multiculturalism.
Ah
yes, the establishment. The establishment Republicans didn't want him,
nor the Democrats, nor Wall Street. I couldn't think of a better
endorsement.
5. Listen when they say the jobs have left their areas. That they
can’t afford their health insurance premiums or the penalties for not
having it. They can’t afford their tax rates. They can’t afford to take
their kids to see the doctor, can’t afford to take vacations with their
families, live in fear one-paycheck-to-the-next of missing their
mortgage payment. Listen when they say they are afraid of losing jobs to
overseas and to immigration. Listen when they say they are afraid of
terrorism inside the U.S. Listen, and don’t reflexively dismiss their
concerns as closet racism.
6. Listen when they say how seriously they take their right to own
and bear arms. Don’t reflexively dismiss them as redneck fetishists.
Don’t sneer on social media about how they must have some anatomical
shortcoming for which to compensate. Listen when they say they will die
on the hill of the Second Amendment because they are afraid of an
authoritarian leader taking control of the country.
That burning?
That’s irony.
7. Listen, as well, to why they didn’t like the other candidate. How
they feel about entrenched political dynasties who sell access to make
millions, who conspire to rig the economy for their friends in the 1%,
and do nothing while the poor and middle class fall further behind.
Is Trump authoritarian? I don't know. I hope not, but he's displayed a mildly alarming tendency to favor an authoritarian style. Will that, if it's his thing, translate into authoritarian policies? Maybe, thankfully he's not a religious zealot, nor a drug warrior, nor a hawkish warmonger. At least he wasn't more often than he was, while campaigning.
He's not a very consistent politician. He's just not a politician. He's a blank slate with a few stains.
Trump might be easily compared to a comic book villain, but that doesn't make his supporters one-dimensional minions. Ken White (Popehat), bless his heart, insultingly explains that Trump supporters aren't racist, they just have a little attention deficit problem:
... attributing a Trump victory to racism and misogyny is a quick, cheap,
easy way out. People aren't that simple. Americans didn't
conclusively reject racism by electing President Obama, and didn't
conclusively embrace it by electing President Trump. Trial lawyers know
this: people don't make decisions like computers. People don't tend
to weigh all the evidence or consider all the factors or evaluate every
counter-argument to every argument. People tend, in small decisions and
big ones, to latch on to a few main ideas, come to a conclusion, and
then stop considering contrary evidence. A man sees what he wants to
see, and disregards the rest. Obama's election didn't mean Americans
were free of racism; it meant that Obama effectively communicated big
ideas that connected and shut down the other voices whispering in our
ears. Certainly some Trump supporters are avowedly racist, but some of
them latched on to big ideas and stopped listening to the rest — like
his troubling flirtation with evil.
I get what Ken is saying; it's a lot like confirmation bias, and perhaps a little laziness. But for an eloquent lawyer, that paragraph is damning with faint psychological process explanation.
And the "Troubling flirtation with evil!" Did I miss some evil Trump speech or something? Did he say he likes to kill puppies?
I have some disagreements with protectionism, nationalism, strict immigration, and "locker-room talk," but I wouldn't go so far to call them flirtations with evil.
I honestly don't get this Trump-is-evil stuff. Everybody says it, but damn if I can find direct evidence of it. I guess I'm supposed to "latch on to [those] ideas, come to a conclusion, and then stop considering contrary evidence" regarding Trump's evilness.
A loudmouth politically incorrect dirty old man, sure. An evil man, I don't see it. Popehat continues:
Hillary Clinton won an epic, historic struggle to be the worst
Presidential candidate ever. Ultimately she won that struggle — and
thus lost the Presidency — because she did not persuade. She did not
articulate her core ideas effectively enough, and so not enough people
latched onto them and disregarded the bad things about her. Trump
dallied with racism — hell, Trump nailed racism in the coat closet and
walked out smirking — but Clinton still did worse with Latinos,
African-Americans, and Asians than Obama did. It may be that she was
doomed from the start — too much baggage, too many vulnerabilities. Or
it could be that she lacked Obama's power to persuade. She couldn't get
them to accept her simple pitch and shut everything else out. Trump
could.
It falls to realistic Trump opponents not to crush the people who
voted for him, but to persuade them. In this election the GOP showed
that it could fight back against demographic change — not just by
marshaling high percentages of white voters, but by persuading
higher-than-expected percentages of minorities. The Democrats can't
respond to that by writing 40% of the country off as irredeemable.
Hubris and Entitlement: The catastrophic polling failures of 2016 reflect the fatal pride of Clinton's team and what I'll call "the establishment."
Americans are stubborn and proud. They'll be persuaded, but they
won't be told who to vote for like you'd tell a recalcitrant child to
eat his vegetables. The media, childishly obsessed with Donald Trump
(and frankly unenthused with Hillary Clinton) promoted a us-versus-them
mentality. It was far more class-based than race-based — it was the
message "isn't it unbelievable and hilarious that those people support
Trump." The message was "of COURSE vote Clinton, you idiot" or "you're
pretty dim but at least you can see how to vote on THIS one." Generally
people can't be expected to embrace stories that demean them.
There was another way, but hardly anybody took it. There was the way
of "let me earn your vote by persuading you why these policies are
right," conveyed as part of an effective set of ideas. There were far
too few forceful and effective advocates of how free trade makes us
richer and freer. There were too few people willing to risk a genuine
discussion of the costs of frequent military intervention. Everyone was
too busy arguing what immigration policies they didn't support to debate specific policies that they did support.
The anti-Trump message was based too strongly on entitlement — based on who you are, we are entitled to your vote, by right.
You can see that in the frothing rage at third-party voters after
Clinton's defeat. You'll see it in the ugly backlashes coming at the
minority voters who didn't vote "correctly." But voting isn't a matter
of entitlement. "Vote for me because the other guy's horrific" is not
an effective method to persuade or get out the vote. It's an idea that
focuses on the other guy, not you. You've got to deserve victory.
Clinton didn't. Clinton stank of entitlement to rule, the
media conveyed that message, and that message fatally amplified
Clinton's scandals, conveying that Clinton was entitled to follow the
rules differently, to act differently, to be treated preferentially.
This is what a lot of Hillary voters don't get. Just because Trump was a terrible candidate, doesn't automatically translate to the alternative being a saint. Especially when accompanied by name-calling, silencing, and plain old bullying. I was an undecided voter right up until the last day. I didn't want to vote for Trump, nor Clinton. But everyday on my GAMING twitter feed, there was some insult lobbed toward Trump supporters, liked and retweeted several times. If they weren't racist, misogynist, homophobic, or xenophobic, then they were called idiots. Who wants to join a bunch of assholes? Keep your circlejerk of political hate.
I wanted to vote for Trump just to stick it to those guys. I ended up voting for Johnson, but it was a difficult decision. Even in a safe state where my vote didn't matter.
Before I ramble further, I really want to quote at length from John Michael Greer at Archdruid Report, hardly a Trump supporter, who wrote this a week before the election:
The talking heads insisted that handing over tax dollars to various corporate welfare queens would bring jobs back to American communities; the corporations in question pocketed the tax dollars and walked away. The talking heads insisted that if working class people went to college at their own expense and got retrained in new skills, that would bring jobs back to American communities; the academic industry profited mightily but the jobs never showed up, leaving tens of millions of people buried so deeply under student loan debt that most of them will never recover financially. The talking heads insisted that this or that or the other political candidate would bring jobs back to American communities by pursuing exactly the same policies that got rid of the jobs in the first place—essentially the same claim that the Clinton campaign is making now—and we know how that turned out. ...
We’ve got the news
articles insisting, in tones by turns glowing and shrill, that things have
never been better in the United States and anyone who says otherwise is just
plain wrong; we’ve got the economic pronouncements predicated on continuing
growth at a time when the only things growing in the US economy are its total
debt load and the number of people who are permanently unemployed; we’ve got
the overblown displays of military might and technological prowess, reminiscent
of nothing so much as the macho posturing of balding middle-aged former
athletes who are trying to pretend that they haven’t lost it; we’ve got the
tame intellectuals comfortably situated in the more affluent suburban districts
around Boston, New York, Washington, and San Francisco, looking forward to
their next vacation in whatever the currently fashionable spot might happen to
be, babbling on the internet about the good life under predatory
cybercapitalism.
Meanwhile millions of Americans trudge through a bleak round
of layoffs, wage cuts, part-time jobs at minimal pay, and system-wide
dysfunction. The crisis hasn’t hit yet, but those members of the political
class who think that the people who used to be rock-solid American patriots
will turn out en masse to keep today’s apparatchiks secure in their comfortable
lifestyles have, as the saying goes, another think coming. ...
Thus the grassroots movement that propelled Trump ... might best be understood as the last gasp of the American dream.
Maybe it's true people are voting for memberberries. Things were nice for them back in the day. Now everything seems to be going to shit. And it is for them. It is for me. Health insurance prices go way up every year. Roads and bridges are falling apart, jobs haven't really come back, there doesn't appear to be an end to terrorism or the war against it. And now the American dream that nearly every adult prior to 2008 could reasonably expect, is absurdly out of reach for millions. Even if you're college educated. Stick to a tiny apartment, ramen noodles, and in 40 years you too could own your own small house! Or retire. Pick one.
So some guy comes up to you and says, "I feel you. I will bring the jobs back. I will make America great again." And then this lady you know, but aren't so sure about says, "What's he talking about, America is already great. Don't be a racist."
The election was in the bag. Only fringe racists supported Trump. Who cares about some email thing, you racist!
The Future
I have to admit, I am a little bit glad to see the hubris
explode in their faces. And now I feel icky. That's another
thing. The level of vitriol and hate toward the opposition is
worse than during the Bush years, worse than either Obama election.
I’d like to suggest, furthermore, that the fixation on
personalities—or, again, malicious parodies of personalities—has played a huge
role in making politics in the United States so savage, so divisive, and so
intractably deadlocked on so many of the things that matter just now. The
issues I mentioned a few paragraphs back—US foreign policy toward a resurgent
Russia, on the one hand, and US economic policy regarding the offshoring of
jobs and the importation of foreign workers—are not only important, they’re
issues about which reasonable disagreement is possible. What’s more, they’re
issues on which negotiation, compromise, and the working out of a mutually
satisfactory modus vivendi between competing interests are also possible, at
least in theory.
In practice? Not while each side is insisting at the top of
its lungs that the other side is led by a monster of depravity and supported
only by people who hate everything good in the world. I’d like to suggest that
it’s exactly this replacement of reasoned politics with a pretty close
equivalent of the Two Minutes Hate from Orwell’s 1984 that’s among the
most important forces keeping this country from solving any of its problems or
doing anything to brace itself for the looming crises ahead. ...
I’m not sure how many people have noticed, though, that the election of
Donald Trump was not merely a rebuke to the liberal left; it was also a defeat
for the religious right. It’s worth recalling that the evangelical wing of the
Republican Party had its own favorites in the race for the GOP nomination, and
Trump was emphatically not one of them. It has not been a propitious autumn for
the movements of left and right whose stock in trade is trying to force their
own notion of virtue down the throats of the American people—and maybe, just
maybe, that points to the way ahead.
It’s time to consider, I suggest, a renewal of the
traditions of American federalism: a systematic devolution of power from the
overinflated federal government to the states, and from the states to the
people. It’s time for people in Massachusetts to accept that they’re never
going to be able to force people in Oklahoma to conform to their notions of
moral goodness, and for the people of Oklahoma to accept the same thing about
the people of Massachusetts; furthermore, it’s time for government at all
levels to give up trying to impose cultural uniformity on the lively diversity
of our republic’s many nations, and settle for their proper role of ensuring
equal protection under the laws, and those other benefits that governments, by
their nature, are best suited to provide for their citizens.
It's hard for me to disagree with Greer. The "coastal elite," the liberal bubbles, all the people who don't understand flyover country--you've seen them, you know many of them have difficulty accepting political loss. When you've sufficiently defined your opponents as bigoted, then summarily dismiss them (as civility demands), your brain interprets losing to such people as totally unacceptable, virtually unconscionable, as if the Joker killed Batman, as if the world is suddenly just wrong. "This wasn't supposed to happen!"
There's a good chance they won't understand. A good chance they won't listen. A good chance they will crawl back into their bubbles and ignore and/or dismiss us. Decentralizing the federal government might well be a good idea for both sides, but power is addicting. And I doubt the "coastal elite" will willingly trade in their heroin for some weed.
Besides, it's back to business as usual, according to Kos:
If Trump wants to pass a new Voting Rights Act, or renominate Merrick
Garland, then we can work with him. Anything else, he can go fuck
himself. Infrastructure spending? Let him get the votes from his own
caucus. Anything else he might propose, even if we might agree with it?
Let him get the votes from his own caucus while we hurl metaphorical
molotov cocktails from the sideline.
They broke it, they own it.
Soon
the president will no longer be black; it'll be okay to oppose him
guys. Remember when we used the nuclear option to overcome vote hurdles
and filibusters? Remember when we used executive orders to bypass congress? Well, times change and it's not cool anymore.
Several years ago I quit consuming political news on a daily basis. With seemingly rare exceptions, political news largely consisted of partisan hacks screaming about the other partisan hacks. Then the ignorant would take their cues and proceed to yell at each other.
Having an ignorant, naive, and/or biased media report on such goings on only contributed to my despair. So I quit. Mostly. I kept a healthy distance.
As the years went by, the increasingly toxic political atmosphere only served to reinforce my decision. Things got worse. The concept of "loyal opposition" seemed to have gone out the window.
Even now, even after Hillary walked back her "deplorables" comment, you can't step foot in a political forum without Trump supporters being called racists/sexists. And as we all know, people labeled racist or sexist tend to lose their jobs, friends, social media privileges, etc. Essentially, you risk being ostracized for voicing a political opinion. Sometimes, even for not voicing the right one.
It's not Republicans vs. Democrats. It's the more extreme leftist factions (stupidly united under the big Democrat tent) vs. anyone threatening their narrative.
The parallels to oppressive authoritarian regimes aren't always hyperbole. They may not go to the same lengths as the Stasi or NKVD, but the difference is in degree, not in kind.
In a perverted way, this was kind of tolerable, at least in Western democracies. Because we Westerners don't have (by most observations) secret police. There is no significant government-sanctioned thought-policing going on. It's all social. And we all knew it was coming from the same loudmouths we try to ignore.
But I'm not sure it's going to stay that way. This social authoritarianism is growing, and I worry it may catch on as a viable strategy for other groups. Only because we're letting it work.
What am I getting at, you ask? Well, I'm still sick of political hacks yelling about each other and don't think that will change anytime soon, but this social authoritarianism is another beast. I hate it, and won't sit idly by while we are relentlessly nudged and prodded into safe-space Ingsoc chambers.
There's good news and bad news about this. The bad news is that the gains made by this newly empowered social authoritarian beast haven't gone unnoticed. Like I said, we're letting it work. Because it's working, the political hacks are allying with, co-opting, doing whatever they can to use it. Hell, maybe they invented it. But the scope of the beast is much larger than politics.
The good news is that even while most ignorant people are blind to partisan hackery, and most informed people are blind to their own side's hackery, the social authoritarianism is much harder to miss.
I've been sporadically blogging about this kind of stuff for awhile now.
The phenomenon got me consuming news and commentary on a regular basis
again.
So it's refreshing and reassuring to see more and more people take notice, re-examine their views, and wise up. Like Dave Rubin. He hosts my new favorite talk show. It surpasses the quality of any talk show on cable. He talks a lot about this kind of stuff too, including his most recent interview:
