Donald Trump's national security advisor Michael Flynn has just resigned for talking with the Russians about removing sanctions Barack Obama had imposed for Russian interference with the American election before Trump was inaugurated. Flynn then lied about this, embarrassing VP Mike Pence, who defended Flynn publicly.
The reason we know Flynn was lying was that the FBI had a recording of Flynn talking to Russian ambassador Kislyak, something that acting attorney general Sally Yates told the Trump administration last month, before Trump fired her for refusing to defend Trump's Muslim ban. (The Republican chairman of the House Intelligence committee is also outraged that the NSA is spying on the Russians.)
So the question is: did Flynn act on his own, or was he just following orders from Donald Trump to reassure the Russians that Obama's sanctions would go away?
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
Monday, February 13, 2017
The Motivating Factors Behind The Support For President Trump
I've been thinking quite a bit lately about why people are supporting Donald Trump. Given the diversity of people who support him, it's not just one factor but several and we can see this through the three main groups of people that support him.
First, let's take a look at the group of people who propelled him over the top: the Obama-Trump voter. Two recent articles summarize these folks quite well. The first is from the Chicago Tribune and the second is from the Minneapolis Star Tribune. In reviewing both of these pieces, it's pretty easy to see that their primary motivation is money. Check out this pull from the first article.
Kramer, who voted twice for Obama, used to watch Trump on "Celebrity Apprentice." ''I said to myself, 'Ugh, I can't stand him.'" When he announced his candidacy, she thought it was a joke. "Then my husband said to me, 'Just think, everything he touches seems to turn to money.'" And she changed her mind.
Actually, everything he touches turns to debt and bankruptcy but that's not what they see. They see a celebrity from "The Apprentice" who is their lottery ticket. They truly believe that Trump is going to make them more money and he plays into that with classic PT Barnum panache. When he holds up his latest executive order, it has the appearance of him getting 'er done. Remember, these folks are not interested in facts and they, like our new president, don't read books. They, along with conservatives, are tired of being reminded that they aren't intellectual.
So, the motivating factor with this group is primarily money and a feeling of inadequacy. Trump makes them think they are going to make that money and, thus, be more important.
The next group of folks to examine are those conservatives (mostly right wing bloggers and commenters) who are just happy to see liberals squirm. Their agenda is to rub the smug elites face in it and laugh about how the silly liberals are complaining about Trump being unbalanced. They LOVE every minute of it because, like most adolescents, they are super hearting the chaos right now. They want the whole playhouse torn down because they are tired of people telling them what to do even it is for their own good and the good of society.
These folks don't really stand for anything even though they issue imperial decree after decree saying that they do. Their ideology in life has one core tenet: antagonize liberals. What's hilarious is they can't yet see they have to be responsible now that their guy is in charge. Worse, they are still under the delusion that they are fighting some sort of resistance. How is that possible when THEY are in charge now? Clearly, they don't get the new dynamic which I predict will ultimately be their downfall. The Obama turned Trump voter is going to hold them responsible and when they continue to blame liberals and the media, people are going to start wondering if they even had any ideas that worked in reality.
The next group of folks who support Trump are just your garden variety Republicans. They will never vote for a Democrat and will always vote GOP. They watch Fox News and read only conservative web sites, relying largely on their social media feeds for their "news." It's this group (along with the right wing bloggers/commenters) who were completely used by Russian intelligence over the last few years. Put out some red mead about liberals and you have yourself a group of useful idiots who will vote in the candidate preferred by the Kremlin.
In essence, it's these three groups that put Trump in the White House. While each one has their own motivating factors, they also have common threads that run between them. The first is fear. All of these folks are deeply afraid of how the world has changed in the age of automation and globalization. They are angry that people from other countries have taken their jobs and, thus, are sick and tired of hearing about diversity. In many ways, this anger has grown in to hate.
They feel insecure, inferior and inadequate. When someone who is more learned and accomplished than them reminds them of facts, their first reaction is to rebel. Why should they have to be reminded of all the crap they have to deal with all the time? All of these groups have been very successful at creating a cocoon or bubble in which outside information is viewed with great skepticism. All of this is also why they love themselves a candidate with zero experience in government. The dumber the better! Once they learn all them fancy book facts that they learned at libral college, then they think they are better than everyone else.
If Democrats want to succeed at a local level, which is where this battle is really being fought, they have to understand all these factors. They need to go into the counties that both Obama and Trump won (and many more beyond that) with the following stark message. Your jobs aren't coming back. They have been taking over by robots. Go back to school and retrain. Find a different vocation. Get a college degree. Join the 21st century and obtain the necessary skills to go along with it. Take some responsibility for your life and stop bitching about the government, the media and liberals.
No more excuses!
First, let's take a look at the group of people who propelled him over the top: the Obama-Trump voter. Two recent articles summarize these folks quite well. The first is from the Chicago Tribune and the second is from the Minneapolis Star Tribune. In reviewing both of these pieces, it's pretty easy to see that their primary motivation is money. Check out this pull from the first article.
Kramer, who voted twice for Obama, used to watch Trump on "Celebrity Apprentice." ''I said to myself, 'Ugh, I can't stand him.'" When he announced his candidacy, she thought it was a joke. "Then my husband said to me, 'Just think, everything he touches seems to turn to money.'" And she changed her mind.
Actually, everything he touches turns to debt and bankruptcy but that's not what they see. They see a celebrity from "The Apprentice" who is their lottery ticket. They truly believe that Trump is going to make them more money and he plays into that with classic PT Barnum panache. When he holds up his latest executive order, it has the appearance of him getting 'er done. Remember, these folks are not interested in facts and they, like our new president, don't read books. They, along with conservatives, are tired of being reminded that they aren't intellectual.
So, the motivating factor with this group is primarily money and a feeling of inadequacy. Trump makes them think they are going to make that money and, thus, be more important.
The next group of folks to examine are those conservatives (mostly right wing bloggers and commenters) who are just happy to see liberals squirm. Their agenda is to rub the smug elites face in it and laugh about how the silly liberals are complaining about Trump being unbalanced. They LOVE every minute of it because, like most adolescents, they are super hearting the chaos right now. They want the whole playhouse torn down because they are tired of people telling them what to do even it is for their own good and the good of society.
These folks don't really stand for anything even though they issue imperial decree after decree saying that they do. Their ideology in life has one core tenet: antagonize liberals. What's hilarious is they can't yet see they have to be responsible now that their guy is in charge. Worse, they are still under the delusion that they are fighting some sort of resistance. How is that possible when THEY are in charge now? Clearly, they don't get the new dynamic which I predict will ultimately be their downfall. The Obama turned Trump voter is going to hold them responsible and when they continue to blame liberals and the media, people are going to start wondering if they even had any ideas that worked in reality.
The next group of folks who support Trump are just your garden variety Republicans. They will never vote for a Democrat and will always vote GOP. They watch Fox News and read only conservative web sites, relying largely on their social media feeds for their "news." It's this group (along with the right wing bloggers/commenters) who were completely used by Russian intelligence over the last few years. Put out some red mead about liberals and you have yourself a group of useful idiots who will vote in the candidate preferred by the Kremlin.
In essence, it's these three groups that put Trump in the White House. While each one has their own motivating factors, they also have common threads that run between them. The first is fear. All of these folks are deeply afraid of how the world has changed in the age of automation and globalization. They are angry that people from other countries have taken their jobs and, thus, are sick and tired of hearing about diversity. In many ways, this anger has grown in to hate.
They feel insecure, inferior and inadequate. When someone who is more learned and accomplished than them reminds them of facts, their first reaction is to rebel. Why should they have to be reminded of all the crap they have to deal with all the time? All of these groups have been very successful at creating a cocoon or bubble in which outside information is viewed with great skepticism. All of this is also why they love themselves a candidate with zero experience in government. The dumber the better! Once they learn all them fancy book facts that they learned at libral college, then they think they are better than everyone else.
If Democrats want to succeed at a local level, which is where this battle is really being fought, they have to understand all these factors. They need to go into the counties that both Obama and Trump won (and many more beyond that) with the following stark message. Your jobs aren't coming back. They have been taking over by robots. Go back to school and retrain. Find a different vocation. Get a college degree. Join the 21st century and obtain the necessary skills to go along with it. Take some responsibility for your life and stop bitching about the government, the media and liberals.
No more excuses!
Trouble In Right Wing Blogger Paradise
When you vote for a candidate with zero experience running a government agency, this is what you get.
You get a national security adviser on thin ice over his conversations with the Russian government.
You get a chief of staff that is perceived in conservative circles as weak.
You get a senior adviser hawking clothing lines like the presidency is QVC.
In short, you have a presidency in complete disarray.
Would we expect anything less from a right wing blogger/commenter president?
You get a national security adviser on thin ice over his conversations with the Russian government.
You get a chief of staff that is perceived in conservative circles as weak.
You get a senior adviser hawking clothing lines like the presidency is QVC.
In short, you have a presidency in complete disarray.
Would we expect anything less from a right wing blogger/commenter president?
Sunday, February 12, 2017
Make America Learn Again
Bill raises some pretty serious questions in this video. Why must people insist on being ignorant? Lately, I've been thinking it's just out of spite towards "smug liberals" and that's not an ideology.
It's an adolescent tantrum.
It's an adolescent tantrum.
Friday, February 10, 2017
Trump's 3 AM Phone Call
During the 2008 Democratic presidential primary the Clinton campaign ran an ad that asked who you wanted answering the phone at 3 AM, implying that Obama was inexperienced, unfamiliar with the military and unprepared for the rigors of international diplomacy.
Now Donald Trump has had his own 3 AM phone call. But it wasn't his phone ringing: it was the phone of Michael Flynn, Trump's national security advisor:
President Donald Trump was confused about the dollar: Was it a strong one that’s good for the economy? Or a weak one?How can Trump not know what kind of dollar he wants? And, as Flynn wondered, why the hell was Trump bugging a general at three in the morning about it?
So he made a call ― except not to any of the business leaders Trump brought into his administration or even to an old friend from his days in real estate. Instead, he called his national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, according to two sources familiar with Flynn’s accounts of the incident.
Flynn has a long record in counterintelligence but not in macroeconomics. And he told Trump he didn’t know, that it wasn’t his area of expertise, that, perhaps, Trump should ask an economist instead.
This is not the only time something like this has happened. When Trump was on the phone recently with Putin discussing nuclear arms, Putin mentioned extending a treaty that had been signed with the Obama administration. Trump didn't know what Putin was talking about, so he put the president of Russia on hold to ask his aides about it. Then:
Trump then told Putin the treaty was one of several bad deals negotiated by the Obama administration, saying that New START favored Russia. Trump also talked about his own popularity, the sources said.First, it's patently ridiculous that Trump didn't know about the treaty to begin with. Didn't his aides briefed him before the phone call started? Or maybe they had, but Trump had already forgotten about it.
Second, Trump is making snap judgments about national security based on a two-minute conversation with "an aide" while Putin was on hold. Might the secretary of defense or the secretary of state want to weigh in on this?
What's really disturbing about Trump is that he doesn't know anything, and he makes important decisions based on what the person who happens to be in the room with at the time. What if the only other person in the room is the janitor when Trump's phone rings with news of an impending nuclear strike?
Republicans have got to be worried sick about this: not just because Trump is so stupid, but because his administration leaks like a sieve. In the last few weeks there have stories daily about Trump not knowing something basic; he doesn't even read the executive orders he signs; he doesn't think he needs a security briefing; he planned an attack on a terrorist base over dinner, and then didn't bother to monitor it in the situation room (getting one American killed on several civilians, including children).
There have already been a dozen idiotic scandals like this since Trump took office, things that would have had Republicans screaming for Obama's head if his administration had been so incompetent and amateurish.
Trump is not prepared to be president and has no interest in the job. His staff does not respect him (why else all the leaks?). The intelligence agencies all think he's an idiot. They think that Trump supporters will have their heads if they move against Trump, but he will bring the entire Republican Party and the conservative establishment down when he really screws the pooch. And he will.
Republicans need to remove Trump soonest. They can start by amping up the investigation of Russian interference with the election, and Michael Flynn's contacts with the Russians before the election, and then again after the election but before the inauguration. And then Trump's conflicts of interest, like making the Pentagon rent space in Trump Tower...
And releasing Trump's tax returns -- which Congress and Congress alone can do -- should be high on the priority list as well.
Wednesday, February 08, 2017
Besieged by Crime?
Yesterday, President Trump said our nation has been besieged by crime. Meeting with a group of our nation's sheriffs,Trump told them, “the murder rate in our country is the highest it’s been in 47 years.” He blamed the news media for not publicizing this development, then added, “But the murder rate is the highest it’s been in, I guess, 45 to 47 years.”
This is, of course, not true. How do I know this? Well, gun rights activists on the inter webs remind me of this fact all the time. Here are the facts.
The murder rate is defined as the number of murders and non-negligent homicides per 100,000 residents. Beginning in 1957, when the rate was 4.0 murders per 100,000 residents, the rate rose steadily to a high of 10.2 in 1980. It then steadily dropped, to 7.4 in 1996, to 6.1 in 2006, to 4.4 in 2014. It went up in 2015 to 4.9. But that is less than half the murder rate of 1980. The raw number of homicides in America has actually declined from 19,645 in 1996 to 15,696 in 2015, even while the population has risen from 265 million in 1996 to 321 million in 2015.
The violent crime rate in America also has plummeted over the years. Defined as murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, violent crimes peaked at a rate of 758 per 100,000 residents in 1991, and the rate was about 373 violent crimes per 100,000 in 2015, again a decline of more than half. The statistics for 2016 are not yet available. Here is the FBI’s violent crime table for the years 1996 to 2015.
Today, Trump doubled down on these claims in what has become yet another example of this administration's cognitive dissonance. Like the right wing bloggers and commenters that religiously follow him, they create their own reality in which their anger, hate and fear are more justified.
Alternative facts indeed.
This is, of course, not true. How do I know this? Well, gun rights activists on the inter webs remind me of this fact all the time. Here are the facts.
The murder rate is defined as the number of murders and non-negligent homicides per 100,000 residents. Beginning in 1957, when the rate was 4.0 murders per 100,000 residents, the rate rose steadily to a high of 10.2 in 1980. It then steadily dropped, to 7.4 in 1996, to 6.1 in 2006, to 4.4 in 2014. It went up in 2015 to 4.9. But that is less than half the murder rate of 1980. The raw number of homicides in America has actually declined from 19,645 in 1996 to 15,696 in 2015, even while the population has risen from 265 million in 1996 to 321 million in 2015.
The violent crime rate in America also has plummeted over the years. Defined as murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, violent crimes peaked at a rate of 758 per 100,000 residents in 1991, and the rate was about 373 violent crimes per 100,000 in 2015, again a decline of more than half. The statistics for 2016 are not yet available. Here is the FBI’s violent crime table for the years 1996 to 2015.
Today, Trump doubled down on these claims in what has become yet another example of this administration's cognitive dissonance. Like the right wing bloggers and commenters that religiously follow him, they create their own reality in which their anger, hate and fear are more justified.
Alternative facts indeed.
Tuesday, February 07, 2017
Puzder: Automatic Disqualification
Say it ain't so! Another Trump cabinet nominee is a raging hypocrite!
Andrew F. Puzder, who as President Trump’s pick to head the Labor Department has come under fire for criticizing worker protections, acknowledged on Monday that he had employed an undocumented immigrant to clean his house.Trump ran on a platform of kicking illegal immigrants out of the country, and with his Muslim ban has tried to kick out legal ones as well.
Puzder's crime is completely inexcusable: everyone knows when they hire illegals. And it's not the lack of English language skills, or the failure to adopt American customs: it's because they work for so little. Real Americans won't accept the slave wages that rich folks like Puzder want to pay their household employees.
It's preposterous to think that Puzder, the multi-million dollar CEO of a giant corporation, was fooled by an undocumented worker's fake Social Security card. A little research and a query against the Social Security Administration's database will quickly tell you whether they're legit.
And it's even crazier than that: to save a few bucks, Puzder gave an undocumented foreigner free run of his house. They could have ripped off his TV and his wife's jewelry, planted surveillance devices for corporate espionage, accessed his computer and got passwords for all his accounts, or used the access to kidnap family for ransom -- that's a thing in Mexico, Republicans keeps telling us, be afraid!
Am I to believe that, given all the dangers wealthy Americans face from undocumented workers, he didn't vet this person at all? Is Puzder really that naive and trusting? It's far more likely that he did vet this person, knew they were undocumented, and got references from a former employer who also knew the worker was undocumented.
The only reason that there is an illegal immigration problem is that people like Puzder hire undocumented workers because they'll work for less. Without people like Puzder who flagrantly violate employment laws by hiring undocumented workers, the influx of undocumented workers would be tiny.
Several other Trump nominees have hired illegals or haven't paid taxes on household employees:
Mr. Trump’s choice to lead the Commerce Department, Wilbur Ross, said last month that he had employed an undocumented household worker for several years. And Representative Mick Mulvaney, Republican of South Carolina and the nominee for White House budget director, said that he failed to pay taxes on a nanny that he and his wife employed after their children were born. They had to pay more than $15,000 in taxes and penalties to the I.R.S.Bill Clinton had similar troubles: two of his attorney general nominees were forced to step aside for the nanny problems. The senate should give Puzder the same treatment: his appointment should be automatically denied.
Of course, Puzder should be rejected for paying employees who work at fast food joints like his Carl Jrs. and Hardee's restaurants so little that they qualify for $7 billion in public assistance.
Republicans constantly bitch about welfare, but when a company pays their workers so little that they can get public assistance, it's really the company that's on the dole.
Monday, February 06, 2017
Not So Innocent
Well, President Trump finally said something that was dead on right. In his interview with Fox News' Bill O'Reilly that aired before the Super Bowl, Trump responded to Mr. O'Reilly's comment that Putin was "a killer."
"There are a lot of killers. You think our country's so innocent?" Trump replied.
He's right. We aren't innocent. About 30 thousand people die every year due to gun violence. We bomb the crap out of people all over the world although I think most of this is largely justified.
Yet imagine if Barack Obama had said this. What would the reaction be from the alt right? How many right wing blog commenters would spew venom on the forums over how much he hated America? Fox would run a breaking news segment with the headline "Obama Hate America-Thinks We are Killers!" There's barely been a peep from any conservative over these comments.
This latest interview also underscores just how much Trump is owned by Vladimir Putin. He refuses to accept the type of person Putin is and what he has done. Worse, all of those mouth foamers who warned of the boiling pit of sewage that is the totalitarian state of Russia are now suddenly rolling their eyes and shaking their heads at the silly liberals.
Can't they see that Russia is completely innocent?
"There are a lot of killers. You think our country's so innocent?" Trump replied.
He's right. We aren't innocent. About 30 thousand people die every year due to gun violence. We bomb the crap out of people all over the world although I think most of this is largely justified.
Yet imagine if Barack Obama had said this. What would the reaction be from the alt right? How many right wing blog commenters would spew venom on the forums over how much he hated America? Fox would run a breaking news segment with the headline "Obama Hate America-Thinks We are Killers!" There's barely been a peep from any conservative over these comments.
This latest interview also underscores just how much Trump is owned by Vladimir Putin. He refuses to accept the type of person Putin is and what he has done. Worse, all of those mouth foamers who warned of the boiling pit of sewage that is the totalitarian state of Russia are now suddenly rolling their eyes and shaking their heads at the silly liberals.
Can't they see that Russia is completely innocent?
The Unchained Goddess
I love old science films. It's probably because when I was a kid in the 1970s they still showed these films in class. They actually showed them on 16mm projectors and it wasn't until the 1980s when they started showing stuff on 3/4 inch videotape.
This film, from Bell Labs, is stunning considering that it shows how long we have known about the devastating effects of climate change.
This film, from Bell Labs, is stunning considering that it shows how long we have known about the devastating effects of climate change.
Sunday, February 05, 2017
Saturday, February 04, 2017
Whither The Shy Trump Voter...
The president's recent poll numbers show him underwater in terms of approval. Yet this recent piece from Politico reminds us of the "shy" Trump voter. These are the folks who are embarrassed to admit that they support President Trump and do so quietly. I have a few problems with this theory.
First, has anyone out there ever known a Trump voter to be shy? They seem all id to me and right in your fucking face. And if they are so shy, why are the being shy? Why don't they want to admit that they support the guy? I'm nearly certain that Trump's merry band of right wing bloggers and commenters would foam at the mouth about persecution and play the reverse racism card. Of course, if they did that. they'd essentially become the very thing they claim to be against: victims.
I submit that the real reason why they are so shy is they (once again) refuse to want to admit they are wrong. Worse, they are probably having trouble dealing with being in charge. Clearly, their guy can't handle it and neither can they. It must be incredibly foreign to them to not be in attack/block mode all the time and actually having to govern...if you can call it that. So, they hide their support because they don't really have any sort of foundation on which to stand.
Btw, holding up a decree after decree (in what looks like a Steak and Chop House menu) sure does make it look like he's "getting it done." PT Barnum and the all powerful Oz would be most proud...
First, has anyone out there ever known a Trump voter to be shy? They seem all id to me and right in your fucking face. And if they are so shy, why are the being shy? Why don't they want to admit that they support the guy? I'm nearly certain that Trump's merry band of right wing bloggers and commenters would foam at the mouth about persecution and play the reverse racism card. Of course, if they did that. they'd essentially become the very thing they claim to be against: victims.
I submit that the real reason why they are so shy is they (once again) refuse to want to admit they are wrong. Worse, they are probably having trouble dealing with being in charge. Clearly, their guy can't handle it and neither can they. It must be incredibly foreign to them to not be in attack/block mode all the time and actually having to govern...if you can call it that. So, they hide their support because they don't really have any sort of foundation on which to stand.
Btw, holding up a decree after decree (in what looks like a Steak and Chop House menu) sure does make it look like he's "getting it done." PT Barnum and the all powerful Oz would be most proud...
Friday, February 03, 2017
Great Words
A friend of mine just wrote this on Facebook in his status update...
Our president says that freedom of religion is under threat all around us as he bans people from one religion from entering the country. The jibberish has escalated to new heights from this snake oil salesman. Buy my snakeoil, and the people bought it. It's bloody embarassing to have him represent a country with a rich history of smart and interesting people and thinkers from all political parties. We are better than this sad display of self serving garbage.
Amen.
Our president says that freedom of religion is under threat all around us as he bans people from one religion from entering the country. The jibberish has escalated to new heights from this snake oil salesman. Buy my snakeoil, and the people bought it. It's bloody embarassing to have him represent a country with a rich history of smart and interesting people and thinkers from all political parties. We are better than this sad display of self serving garbage.
Amen.
The Bowling Green Massacre
To give you an idea on just what kind of fantasy world Trump supporters and the alt right live in, look no further than the Bowling Green "Massacre." Senior Adviser to the president, Kellyanne Conway, was on Chris Matthews' show and regaled him the story of two Iraqi men.
“I bet it’s brand new information to people that President Obama had a six-month ban on the Iraqi refugee program after two Iraqis came here to this country, were radicalized, and they were the masterminds behind the Bowling Green massacre,” Conway said. “Most people don’t know that because it didn’t get covered.”
First of all, no such ban ever took place. So, straight out of the gate, she's lying. But then to completely make up a massacre when NO SUCH EVENT EVERY FUCKING TOOK PLACE is mind boggling. Is this what we have to put up with for the next four years? The paranoid, fever dreams of short wave radio turned email forwarder turned blogger turned social media troll dimwits?
The good news is that the interwebs don't leave stuff like this alone:)
I think the last one is my favorite.
“I bet it’s brand new information to people that President Obama had a six-month ban on the Iraqi refugee program after two Iraqis came here to this country, were radicalized, and they were the masterminds behind the Bowling Green massacre,” Conway said. “Most people don’t know that because it didn’t get covered.”
First of all, no such ban ever took place. So, straight out of the gate, she's lying. But then to completely make up a massacre when NO SUCH EVENT EVERY FUCKING TOOK PLACE is mind boggling. Is this what we have to put up with for the next four years? The paranoid, fever dreams of short wave radio turned email forwarder turned blogger turned social media troll dimwits?
The good news is that the interwebs don't leave stuff like this alone:)
Unlike Bowling Green, the Oak Creek massacre did take place & the Trump Republicans have never decried the white supremacist terror attack.
Thursday, February 02, 2017
How This Autocracy Will Play Out
David Frum has an interesting piece up about how President Trump's first term might play out. Actually, it's more frightening than interesting. Frum details how everyone could easily fall in line, largely due to apathy. After all, this is how Trump got elected.
Here's my favorite part.
Nobody’s repealed the First Amendment, of course, and Americans remain as free to speak their minds as ever—provided they can stomach seeing their timelines fill up with obscene abuse and angry threats from the pro-Trump troll armies that police Facebook and Twitter. Rather than deal with digital thugs, young people increasingly drift to less political media like Snapchat and Instagram.
In many ways, this has already happened. The Pro-Trump troll armies were already formed out of right wing bloggers and commenters that had been honing their hate, anger and fear for years.
So, will Frum's prediction end up coming true?
Here's my favorite part.
Nobody’s repealed the First Amendment, of course, and Americans remain as free to speak their minds as ever—provided they can stomach seeing their timelines fill up with obscene abuse and angry threats from the pro-Trump troll armies that police Facebook and Twitter. Rather than deal with digital thugs, young people increasingly drift to less political media like Snapchat and Instagram.
In many ways, this has already happened. The Pro-Trump troll armies were already formed out of right wing bloggers and commenters that had been honing their hate, anger and fear for years.
So, will Frum's prediction end up coming true?
Wednesday, February 01, 2017
Russia Arrests Hacking Experts for Treason
With four arrests Russia has essentially confirmed that the CIA and FBI reports that concluded Russia interfered with the American election to get Donald Trump elected are true:
Russian news agencies are reporting that former members of the domestic security agency and a cybersecurity expert have been formally charged with treason.Russia denies they were involved with the hacking of the DNC, but these arrests started coming in December, right after US intelligence agencies issued reports on Russian hacking and Trump being compromised by the FSB while in Russia for the Miss Universe contest.
Reports emerged last week that three officials of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and an executive for cybersecurity company Kaspersky Labs had been arrested for treason. Government officials haven’t commented on the case.
This shows why the CIA is so leery of releasing any information at all to the general public: when the Russians find out we know something, there are only so many ways we could have found out.
The people privy to the information that was leaked are the first suspects, and once you're suspected, it doesn't take long for the FSB to bust into your office, put a bag over your head and haul you off to Lubyanka.
Now, I wish someone would put a bag over Donald Trump's head so we don't have to see his stupid hair or hear the nastiness that constantly spews from his snarling lips...
Coup?
Interesting piece up at the now black listed CNN regarding President Trump and Steve Bannon. Are we witnessing typical actions which usually follow a coup?
Besieging your targets until nothing makes any sense -- giving them no time to absorb or recover from attacks -- is a time-tested strategy in the history of war and authoritarian takeovers. One might cite what's gone on in Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It's now being employed at the pinnacle of American democracy. It's particularly useful in situations where the leader is vulnerable due to possible investigations, blackmails or other circumstances that close off gradualist approaches to implementing an agenda. With all the emergencies going on, who is bothered at the moment about those Trump tax returns, or even his ties to Russia?
Exactly. I have to admit I've been pretty disheartened by many of Trump's actions. His supporters, who supposedly are against this sort of authoritarian action, are all in. As longs as it's one of their own, it's all good.
Yet, as I was reading the back pages of the New York Times the other day, I saw this headline on the other page....
New Italian Trial Set for Berlusconi in a Corruption Case
...and it made me smile.
Besieging your targets until nothing makes any sense -- giving them no time to absorb or recover from attacks -- is a time-tested strategy in the history of war and authoritarian takeovers. One might cite what's gone on in Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It's now being employed at the pinnacle of American democracy. It's particularly useful in situations where the leader is vulnerable due to possible investigations, blackmails or other circumstances that close off gradualist approaches to implementing an agenda. With all the emergencies going on, who is bothered at the moment about those Trump tax returns, or even his ties to Russia?
Exactly. I have to admit I've been pretty disheartened by many of Trump's actions. His supporters, who supposedly are against this sort of authoritarian action, are all in. As longs as it's one of their own, it's all good.
Yet, as I was reading the back pages of the New York Times the other day, I saw this headline on the other page....
New Italian Trial Set for Berlusconi in a Corruption Case
...and it made me smile.
Tuesday, January 31, 2017
Trump Inspires Terrorist Attack
Just two days after Donald Trump issued his Muslim travel ban the first terrorist attack of the Trump presidency occurred in the Americas. It happened in Quebec City, where six people were murdered. And despite Trump and his cronies telling us that Muslim immigrants are unspeakably dangerous, a Muslim didn't do it.
No, it was a white, Trump-loving , racist, sexist Internet troll who hates immigrants murdered six people in a mosque:
The suspect in the deadly attack on a Quebec City mosque was known in the city's activist circles as an online troll who was inspired by extreme right-wing French nationalists, stood up for U.S. President Donald Trump and was against immigration to Quebec – especially by Muslims.
Alexandre Bissonnette, 27, a student at Laval University, grew up on a quiet crescent in the Cap-Rouge suburb of Quebec City and lived in an apartment a few kilometres away.
It doesn't matter that it happened in Canada -- Trump used the attack on a Christmas celebration in Germany as part of his rationale for the Muslim ban.
Donald Trump is now in the same league as ISIS. He is spreading chaos and fear around the world, inspiring a terrorist attack in idyllic Quebec City, which hadn't had a murder in almost two years.
Yeah, Bissonnette is probably unhinged. As is Dylann Roof. And the guy who shot up the pizza joint in Washington looking for nonexistent pedophiles. And every whack-job Muslim who shoots up a mall or drives a truck through a crowd.
Trump apologists will blame Marine Le Pen, citing reports that Bissonnette was inspired after her visit. But Trump and Le Pen are two sides of the same coin. They, ISIS and Al Qaeda are all using the same playbook of fear, hatred and division.
The problem isn't Muslims. The problem isn't conservatives. The problem is demagogues of all stripes who seek to gain power by hyperventilating over the dangers of the other and inspiring hatred in marginal personalities who want to carry out the heinous acts those demagogues are implicitly or explicitly calling on them to perform.
Maybe Canada should institute a ban on Americans coming to Canada. Or build a wall along the 5,500-mile-long US-Canadian border. And make Donald Trump pay for it.
Trump's Symbiotic Relationship with Terrorists
From most reports Donald Trump's Muslim travel ban was crafted in the White House without any input from the Pentagon or the Justice and State departments. Republican senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham blasted Trump and his ban with both barrels in a joint statement issued two days ago.
The ban was the baby of Steve Bannon, Trump's propaganda minister and political strategist. And there's been wide speculation about why Bannon made such a mess of it.
There are two schools of thought: incompetence and malfeasance.
My first inclination was to blame the incompetence of the Trump administration. My second inclination was that the chaos was intentional and malicious, as elucidated by Kevin Drum:
In cases like this, the smart money is usually on incompetence, not malice. But this looks more like deliberate malice to me. Bannon wanted turmoil and condemnation. He wanted this executive order to get as much publicity as possible. He wanted the ACLU involved. He thinks this will be a PR win.My third inclination is that the intent is far more sinister. Trump loves saying "I told you so." Every time there's an attack by a Muslim terrorist anywhere in the world he says he predicted it and that it proved him right about banning Muslims.
But terrorist attacks by Muslims have been going on for decades, pretty much non-stop since the state of Israel was created and Arab states have been exporting oil. Their grievances with the West started long before ISIS and Al Qaeda existed, since before Osama bin Laden was even born.
Perhaps Trump and Bannon intentionally crafted a faulty travel ban with the ulterior motive of having it be struck down. Then, when the inevitable terrorist attack happens, they can claim credit for "predicting" it, and whine that all those lives would have been saved if only the travel ban had been in place.
What makes this so sinister is that the Trump administration has absolutely no motivation to stop terrorist attacks. Every attack that occurs will actually strengthen his case for a ban and even more stringent restrictions on Muslims.
This is why Trump is creating so much chaos. The more chaotic the country is, the greater the demand for order. Trump is intentionally making a mess to provide the pretext for giving himself broad authoritarian powers to destroy the media, silence his opposition and crush dissent.
It's a classic fascist tactic.
Now, what happens if no Muslim refugee steps up and attacks Americans for Trump? Will one of those ratfucking New York FBI Trump supporters who torpedoed Hillary Clinton's candidacy entrap some refugee Muslim schlub with a phony sting operation?
Or does Trump actually need American blood to get what he wants? Will Trump's FBI mooks let an attack they know about go forward in order to sow fear and give Trump his pretext?
Or will they actively recruit and supply an attacker with weapons, with the justification that by killing a few innocent Americans today they will save thousands tomorrow?
As conspiracy theories go, it's a lot more compelling than John Podesta being involved with a pedophile ring that kept kids in the nonexistent basement of a pizza restaurant.
Or maybe the Russians will do it for Trump: Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov provides this sort of service to Vladimir Putin whenever he needs a fall guy. For example, a Chechen comes to the United States seeking asylum and blows up a public place.
Oh, wait: that already happened with the Boston Marathon bombing. (Lest you blame Obama for the bomber coming to the US, the Tsarnaevs first gained entry to the US in 2002 and obtained green cards in 2007, during the Bush administration.)
So here's my prediction: Trump's Muslim ban will falter because it was designed to. Trump supporters will be outraged. While it's in judicial limbo, some Muslim somewhere will hurt someone. Trump will crow that he predicted it and issue angry tweets demanding Congress pass a Muslim ban and give him special powers to fight terrorism.
Trump is intentionally inciting Muslims to hate the United States. He's giving them the pretext to commit terrorist acts, so that they will give him the pretext to turn the United States into a fascist dictatorship.
Trump, like so many other tyrants, has a symbiotic relationship with the terrorists: if they succeed, he succeeds. That is, unless congressional Republicans and the American people see through the lies, and hold Trump accountable for creating an atmosphere of chaos and hatred that spawns violence.
If any Americans are killed by terrorists on Trump's watch, their blood is on Trump's hands.
Monday, January 30, 2017
The Cracks Begin To Show
The Times has yet another (yawn) piece up about Steve Bannon and his Dick Cheney like influence in the White House. It's mostly more of the same but this tidbit was most interesting.
In theory, the move put Mr. Bannon, a former Navy surface warfare officer, admiral’s aide, investment banker, Hollywood producer and Breitbart News firebrand, on the same level as his friend, Michael T. Flynn, the national security adviser, a former Pentagon intelligence chief who was Mr. Trump’s top adviser on national security issues before a series of missteps reduced his influence.
Missteps? Say what?
But Mr. Flynn, a lifelong Democrat sacked as head of the Pentagon’s intelligence arm after clashing with Obama administration officials in 2014, has gotten on the nerves of Mr. Trump and other administration officials because of his sometimes overbearing demeanor, and has further diminished his internal standing by presiding over a chaotic and opaque N.S.C. transition process that prioritized the hiring of military officials over civilian experts recommended to him by his own team.
Ah, I see. I was fairly concerned about Flynn but not so much anymore. It looks like Bannon is going to be around to mind him which makes the whole thing even more of a mess.
Again, folks, the best way to combat a Bannon type is to ignore them and go about the business of registering voters in key counties in swing states. Let's take all this energy from the protests and turn it into votes in 2018!
In theory, the move put Mr. Bannon, a former Navy surface warfare officer, admiral’s aide, investment banker, Hollywood producer and Breitbart News firebrand, on the same level as his friend, Michael T. Flynn, the national security adviser, a former Pentagon intelligence chief who was Mr. Trump’s top adviser on national security issues before a series of missteps reduced his influence.
Missteps? Say what?
But Mr. Flynn, a lifelong Democrat sacked as head of the Pentagon’s intelligence arm after clashing with Obama administration officials in 2014, has gotten on the nerves of Mr. Trump and other administration officials because of his sometimes overbearing demeanor, and has further diminished his internal standing by presiding over a chaotic and opaque N.S.C. transition process that prioritized the hiring of military officials over civilian experts recommended to him by his own team.
Ah, I see. I was fairly concerned about Flynn but not so much anymore. It looks like Bannon is going to be around to mind him which makes the whole thing even more of a mess.
Again, folks, the best way to combat a Bannon type is to ignore them and go about the business of registering voters in key counties in swing states. Let's take all this energy from the protests and turn it into votes in 2018!
Sunday, January 29, 2017
When Right Wing Bloggers/Commenters Run Things...
....they fuck them up because they don't know what they are doing. What an absolute cluster fuck the last 24 hours has been with President Trump's latest imperial decree. Nikto has chimed in already but I'd like to point out some facts.
1. Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, no one has been killed in the United States in a terrorist attack by anyone who emigrated from or whose parents emigrated from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, the seven countries targeted in the order’s 120-day visa ban, according to Charles Kurzman, a sociology professor at the University of North Carolina.
What does "no one" mean? It means ZERO FUCKING PEOPLE. So, why is this considered a threat?
Because of the paranoid fever dreams of alternative facts land (aka Right Wing Blogs and Right Wing Blog Commenters).
2. 123 people have been killed in the United States by Muslim terrorists since the 2001 attacks — out of a total of more than 230,000 killings, by gang members, drug dealers, angry spouses, white supremacists, psychopaths, drunks and people of every description. So the order addresses, at most, one-1,870th of the problem of lethal violence in America. If the toll of Sept. 11 is included, jihadists still account for just over 1 percent of killings.
And where are those jihadists from?
Saudi Arabia. Egypt. And, of course, our own country.
Yet there are Trump Inc. business interests in these countries so they get a pass. Wow...
3. The Muslim ban violates the US Constitution, specifically the due process clause of the 5th amendment. Did they get a fair hearing? Nope.
It's also in violation of US federal law itself. The 1965 law, the Immigration and Naturalization Act, clarifies that people should not experience preferences or discrimination on account of their "race, sex, nationality, place of birth or place of residence."
Man oh man, did our new president step in it big time. What a fucking buffoon.
I realize the facts listed above will fall on the deaf ears of those who know only hate, anger, and fear but they need to be aired anyway. We live in a country of immigrants and to haphazardly ban people from coming in based on nonsense is not what we stand for.
Not now.
Not ever.
1. Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, no one has been killed in the United States in a terrorist attack by anyone who emigrated from or whose parents emigrated from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, the seven countries targeted in the order’s 120-day visa ban, according to Charles Kurzman, a sociology professor at the University of North Carolina.
What does "no one" mean? It means ZERO FUCKING PEOPLE. So, why is this considered a threat?
Because of the paranoid fever dreams of alternative facts land (aka Right Wing Blogs and Right Wing Blog Commenters).
2. 123 people have been killed in the United States by Muslim terrorists since the 2001 attacks — out of a total of more than 230,000 killings, by gang members, drug dealers, angry spouses, white supremacists, psychopaths, drunks and people of every description. So the order addresses, at most, one-1,870th of the problem of lethal violence in America. If the toll of Sept. 11 is included, jihadists still account for just over 1 percent of killings.
And where are those jihadists from?
Saudi Arabia. Egypt. And, of course, our own country.
Yet there are Trump Inc. business interests in these countries so they get a pass. Wow...
3. The Muslim ban violates the US Constitution, specifically the due process clause of the 5th amendment. Did they get a fair hearing? Nope.
It's also in violation of US federal law itself. The 1965 law, the Immigration and Naturalization Act, clarifies that people should not experience preferences or discrimination on account of their "race, sex, nationality, place of birth or place of residence."
Man oh man, did our new president step in it big time. What a fucking buffoon.
I realize the facts listed above will fall on the deaf ears of those who know only hate, anger, and fear but they need to be aired anyway. We live in a country of immigrants and to haphazardly ban people from coming in based on nonsense is not what we stand for.
Not now.
Not ever.
Broccoli vs. Mustang Convertible
There have been all kinds of reasons cited for Trump's victory in November: Russian meddling, fake news, the FBI, sexism, racism, etc.
But the real question is why anyone would vote for Donald Trump in the first place. He's unqualified to be president at every level: in terms of competence, emotional stability, experience, even his physical health.
All the things people give as reasons for Trump's win are marginal: they just barely put him over the top. What provided his base of support in the first place?
After some consideration, I have discovered the answer: broccoli vs. the Mustang convertible.
Hillary Clinton -- and all the Republicans who ran against Trump in the primary -- was the mom who tells the kids to eat their broccoli.
She acknowledged real-world problems and offered real solutions.
Donald Trump was the divorced dad trying to win over the kids by promising them all Mustang convertibles.
He promised his core of true believers the moon and vowed to exact petty retribution for every imagined slight they've felt over the last eight years.
In the end, we really do need to eat our broccoli. And the divorced dad will never give us a Mustang convertible.
But the real question is why anyone would vote for Donald Trump in the first place. He's unqualified to be president at every level: in terms of competence, emotional stability, experience, even his physical health.
All the things people give as reasons for Trump's win are marginal: they just barely put him over the top. What provided his base of support in the first place?
After some consideration, I have discovered the answer: broccoli vs. the Mustang convertible.
Hillary Clinton -- and all the Republicans who ran against Trump in the primary -- was the mom who tells the kids to eat their broccoli.
She acknowledged real-world problems and offered real solutions.
Donald Trump was the divorced dad trying to win over the kids by promising them all Mustang convertibles.
He promised his core of true believers the moon and vowed to exact petty retribution for every imagined slight they've felt over the last eight years.
In the end, we really do need to eat our broccoli. And the divorced dad will never give us a Mustang convertible.
Sheer Incompetence
Donald Trump acted on one of his campaign threats on Friday: he instituted a ban on Muslims entering the United States:
The president’s order, enacted with the stroke of a pen at 4:42 p.m. Eastern on Friday, suspended entry of all refugees to the United States for 120 days, barred Syrian refugees indefinitely and blocked entry into the United States for 90 days for citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.One problem: legal residents of the United States who hold green cards were also banned.
On Saturday, a day after the order was issued, airports were marked by scenes of confusion and protest as officials tried to interpret the order, including how to handle green card holders.So, a day after Trump signed the executive order, Reince Priebus (I always want to call him Prince Rebus) had to walk back half of it:
Around the globe on Saturday, legal residents of the United States who hold valid green cards and approved visas were blocked from boarding planes overseas or detained for hours in American airports.
Mr. Priebus appeared to change that position Sunday morning. “As far as green card holders, moving forward, it doesn’t affect them,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program.This is sheer incompetence. These clowns are so oblivious they didn't consider green card holders from those countries until after thousands of people got stuck in airports? Did any thought at all go into writing this executive order? How does Trump expect to run an entire country if he can't get this right?
Federal judges have already issued stays against Trump's order, preventing the deportation of some travelers returning home to the United States.
Now, I know there are bad people out there. But by hurting the good people with stupid and incompetent executive orders, Trump is only serving to alienate the good people and provide more ammunition to the real bad guys. A Trump presidency is a coup for ISIS recruitment.
To further illustrate how oblivious Trump is, he also wrote the following tweet: "Our country needs strong borders and extreme vetting, NOW. Look what is happening all over Europe and, indeed, the world - a horrible mess!"
Guess who's responsible for the problem in Europe, Donny boy? Your buddy, Vladimir Putin. By propping up Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, instead of helping Europe and Obama take Assad down and prolonging the Syrian civil war for years, Putin has created a huge refugee problem. Putin has strengthened ISIS forces by directly attacking Assad's non-ISIS foes -- who oppose ISIS -- destroying legitimate opposition to Assad and ensuring his survival.
If we want to stop the Syrian refugee problem, we need to take out the guy who's creating refugees: Bashar al-Assad. But Trump's puppet master Putin likes Assad, and Trump apparently does too, prompting Assad to say that Trump is a "natural ally."
Those tin-pot dictators like to stick together, don't they?
Saturday, January 28, 2017
The Definition of A Real Leader
To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada
What The People Are Readng
You can always tell the mental state of the public by what they are reading. "1984" is flying off the digital shelves at Amazon as is Sinclari Lewis' book, "It Can Happen Here," which tells the story of a loudmouth populist who wins the presidency but ends up secretly being a fascists dictator (!).
I'm still wondering who is going to be the first in the alt right to cave and recognize that what they have feared for years from liberals is coming true right now with their guy. Were they just fucking posers all along, secretly dreaming of authoritarianism? Or are they just too childish to admit what they have wrought?
I'm still wondering who is going to be the first in the alt right to cave and recognize that what they have feared for years from liberals is coming true right now with their guy. Were they just fucking posers all along, secretly dreaming of authoritarianism? Or are they just too childish to admit what they have wrought?
Friday, January 27, 2017
Yet Another Stomp Down The Hallway (Complete With Door Slam)
So, apparently Steve Bannon had yet another hissy fit yesterday and launched into a very played tirade against the media. Only he knows the truth and the media are all liars blah blah blah....stomp stomp stomp....fuck you dad!! (SLAM!!) Like most adolescents, he does this sort of thing to get a reaction and rile up supporters. His rant, like most right wing bloggers and commenters, smacks most of jealousy and insecurity more than anything else. Why do these guys view themselves as so inadequate?
Bannon's latest outburst made me realize something much larger. It's not just the media that they hate but the entertainment world in general. Why? They have a very deep envy of the elites and that's exactly why they vilify them on a daily basis. Because THEY aren't a part of it. Somewhere along the line in their lives they got dissed by someone who was more successful than they were and petty jealousy took over. They just want to be part of the "Hollywood Club."
So, every time a Meryl Streep or some media giant like the New York Times speaks the truth about the alt right, they not only get pissed about what was said but by who said it: the people who they are massively jealous of every day. My advice to people who get pissed off at Bannon and other right wing bloggers and commenters is to ignore them. That's what I do with teenagers who act up. They just want the attention because they then feel like they are important.
Oh, one more thing. The media and the public in general knows why Trump won. In the following order...
1. Russian Propaganda/Psi-Op
2. Voters as conduits of anger, hate and fear
3. Electoral math
4. Mistakes made by the Clinton Campaign
5. Weak, establishment type candidate who ran in a change/populist year.
The same people that voted for Barack Obama twice voted for Donald Trump. I wonder what Steve Bannon has to say about that.
I'm more interested to see how Bannon is going to take responsibility for what he does. Will he own it when his policies don't work? Or will he continue to blame the media/libtards/everyone else?
Bannon's latest outburst made me realize something much larger. It's not just the media that they hate but the entertainment world in general. Why? They have a very deep envy of the elites and that's exactly why they vilify them on a daily basis. Because THEY aren't a part of it. Somewhere along the line in their lives they got dissed by someone who was more successful than they were and petty jealousy took over. They just want to be part of the "Hollywood Club."
So, every time a Meryl Streep or some media giant like the New York Times speaks the truth about the alt right, they not only get pissed about what was said but by who said it: the people who they are massively jealous of every day. My advice to people who get pissed off at Bannon and other right wing bloggers and commenters is to ignore them. That's what I do with teenagers who act up. They just want the attention because they then feel like they are important.
Oh, one more thing. The media and the public in general knows why Trump won. In the following order...
1. Russian Propaganda/Psi-Op
2. Voters as conduits of anger, hate and fear
3. Electoral math
4. Mistakes made by the Clinton Campaign
5. Weak, establishment type candidate who ran in a change/populist year.
The same people that voted for Barack Obama twice voted for Donald Trump. I wonder what Steve Bannon has to say about that.
I'm more interested to see how Bannon is going to take responsibility for what he does. Will he own it when his policies don't work? Or will he continue to blame the media/libtards/everyone else?
Why Trump Thinks His Inauguration Crowd Was Large
Donald Trump is still whining about the Park Service and the media, claiming that they underestimated his crowd. There's a reason why: Trump was looking at only the rich people and political insiders who had tickets close to the action.
Disagreement about the crowd size is literally a matter of viewpoint -- not different opinions, but different physical vantage points from where the crowd was viewed.
Photos from opposite ends of the National Mall show this quite clearly.
This is Obama's inauguration (from the New York Times), looking at the crowd from the Capitol, from behind where the president was standing. It's a huge crowd that you can see stretches all the way to the Washington Monument at the other end of the mall, more than a mile away.
This is Trump's inauguration from the same vantage point. His crowd doesn't go all the way to the Washington Monument, and has gaps in the middle.
They look pretty much the same, right? Obama's crowd was clearly larger, but it's hard to tell by how much from this viewpoint. The blank spots in Trump's crowd look small because they're at such a shallow angle.
But the fact is, Obama's crowd was so large that is literally impossible to see all it -- from this distance that many people look like so many ants.
You can see why Trump and his cronies insist that his crowd was large. It looked large from where they were standing. Obama's crowd dwarfed Trump's -- Obama's inauguration audience was literally ten times larger: 1.8 million compared to Trump's 160,000.
To see this you need to look at it from the opposite viewpoint: here's the scene from the other end of the National Mall for Obama's inauguration. The entire length of the mall -- a whole mile -- is mostly packed with people for Obama's inauguration.
And here's the scene from Trump's inauguration. There's literally nobody in Trump's crowd near the Washington Monument, while Obama's crowd is so large that it spills off the bottom.
The higher angle of this photo really shows how dense Obama's crowd was compared to Trump's, especially at the furthest reaches from the podium.
That "huge crowd" Trump saw right in front of him stretched only a few hundred yards away, with the most densely packed portion near the podium. Obama's crowd went for an entire mile, with the most densely packed portion of the crowd the furthest away the podium.
This is typical Trump (and typical Republican) behavior. He will point at some picture or reference some anecdote to "prove" his case, then he'll ignore everything else that contradicts him.
The real mystery is why the president of the free world is worried about such nonsense. There are lots of reasons why Obama's crowd was bigger: number one being that he was the first black president, and a lot of black Americans live in and near Washington DC. Clearly, many of them turned out for the historic occasion of Obama's inauguration, while they passed on the inauguration of the man who constantly dissed blacks during a presidential campaign that he ran like a KKK rally.
But that's not the only reason. Trump is really unpopular. Most people who voted for him did so unwillingly. They knew he was a liar and a crook, but they voted for him anyway because a) they thought Hillary was a bigger liar and crook, b) they found him entertaining, c) they wanted to screw over "the elites" (who Trump turned around and nominated to his cabinet), and d) he is a man, and they think only men should be president.
To see how unpopular Trump is, compare his crowd to the crowd that turned out for the women's march the next day, in protest of Trump's inauguration:
This crowd was three times bigger than Trump's inauguration crowd (many people were in the street in this photo).
To make it worse, that same day Trump went to Langley to mend fences with the CIA after rejecting daily intelligence briefings prepared by the CIA and bashing intelligence agencies over their report on Russian interference in the US election. He gave a speech in front of the the Memorial Wall dedicated to CIA personnel who died in service of their country.
But instead of remembering the fallen, Trump bragged about himself and whined about media lies, again insisting his crowd size was bigger than Obama's. Current and former CIA employees were not pleased.
The CIA conducts this kind of analysis on surveillance photos to determine what's going on in other countries all the time. They will look at these photos and they will make their own expert judgments about who is right and who is wrong.
A president cannot function without accurate intelligence. Trump rejects intelligence, dismisses facts and antagonizes the people who provide him with both.
George Bush ignored explicit intelligence warnings about Al Qaeda activities in the first nine months of his presidency. Trump has blamed Bush for 9/11.
Given all these factors, the American people should have no patience for Trump's excuses if there's another terrorist attack. Especially after we find out that it was called out in a report that Trump couldn't be bothered to read.
Disagreement about the crowd size is literally a matter of viewpoint -- not different opinions, but different physical vantage points from where the crowd was viewed.
Photos from opposite ends of the National Mall show this quite clearly.
This is Obama's inauguration (from the New York Times), looking at the crowd from the Capitol, from behind where the president was standing. It's a huge crowd that you can see stretches all the way to the Washington Monument at the other end of the mall, more than a mile away.
This is Trump's inauguration from the same vantage point. His crowd doesn't go all the way to the Washington Monument, and has gaps in the middle.
They look pretty much the same, right? Obama's crowd was clearly larger, but it's hard to tell by how much from this viewpoint. The blank spots in Trump's crowd look small because they're at such a shallow angle.
But the fact is, Obama's crowd was so large that is literally impossible to see all it -- from this distance that many people look like so many ants.
You can see why Trump and his cronies insist that his crowd was large. It looked large from where they were standing. Obama's crowd dwarfed Trump's -- Obama's inauguration audience was literally ten times larger: 1.8 million compared to Trump's 160,000.
To see this you need to look at it from the opposite viewpoint: here's the scene from the other end of the National Mall for Obama's inauguration. The entire length of the mall -- a whole mile -- is mostly packed with people for Obama's inauguration.
And here's the scene from Trump's inauguration. There's literally nobody in Trump's crowd near the Washington Monument, while Obama's crowd is so large that it spills off the bottom.
The higher angle of this photo really shows how dense Obama's crowd was compared to Trump's, especially at the furthest reaches from the podium.
That "huge crowd" Trump saw right in front of him stretched only a few hundred yards away, with the most densely packed portion near the podium. Obama's crowd went for an entire mile, with the most densely packed portion of the crowd the furthest away the podium.
This is typical Trump (and typical Republican) behavior. He will point at some picture or reference some anecdote to "prove" his case, then he'll ignore everything else that contradicts him.
The real mystery is why the president of the free world is worried about such nonsense. There are lots of reasons why Obama's crowd was bigger: number one being that he was the first black president, and a lot of black Americans live in and near Washington DC. Clearly, many of them turned out for the historic occasion of Obama's inauguration, while they passed on the inauguration of the man who constantly dissed blacks during a presidential campaign that he ran like a KKK rally.
But that's not the only reason. Trump is really unpopular. Most people who voted for him did so unwillingly. They knew he was a liar and a crook, but they voted for him anyway because a) they thought Hillary was a bigger liar and crook, b) they found him entertaining, c) they wanted to screw over "the elites" (who Trump turned around and nominated to his cabinet), and d) he is a man, and they think only men should be president.
To see how unpopular Trump is, compare his crowd to the crowd that turned out for the women's march the next day, in protest of Trump's inauguration:
This crowd was three times bigger than Trump's inauguration crowd (many people were in the street in this photo).
To make it worse, that same day Trump went to Langley to mend fences with the CIA after rejecting daily intelligence briefings prepared by the CIA and bashing intelligence agencies over their report on Russian interference in the US election. He gave a speech in front of the the Memorial Wall dedicated to CIA personnel who died in service of their country.
But instead of remembering the fallen, Trump bragged about himself and whined about media lies, again insisting his crowd size was bigger than Obama's. Current and former CIA employees were not pleased.
The CIA conducts this kind of analysis on surveillance photos to determine what's going on in other countries all the time. They will look at these photos and they will make their own expert judgments about who is right and who is wrong.
A president cannot function without accurate intelligence. Trump rejects intelligence, dismisses facts and antagonizes the people who provide him with both.
George Bush ignored explicit intelligence warnings about Al Qaeda activities in the first nine months of his presidency. Trump has blamed Bush for 9/11.
Given all these factors, the American people should have no patience for Trump's excuses if there's another terrorist attack. Especially after we find out that it was called out in a report that Trump couldn't be bothered to read.
First Regrets
I have a friend named Bill who owns a manufacturing concern here in the Twin Cities. His hatred of Hillary Clinton was so all consuming that he voted for Trump. He tried a few times to defend him and has always voted Republican but after Trump's first week in office, Bill has finally started expressing regret. Why?
Beer, snacks and cars: How a 20% Mexico tariff could cost US shoppers
President Trump wants so slap a 20% tariff on goods coming from Mexico and use the money to pay for his wall. As any economist knows, this would be a disaster for our country and for Mexico.
Bill can't believe it. His main client has a plant down in Mexico. If there ever actually is a tariff, this client will lose millions of dollars and, thus, Bill will be out of business. I gave him a call yesterday to hear his comments on Trump's announcement.
"Crazy," he said. "What was I thinking? At least with Hillary, I had just another crooked politician. This...this is erratic."
I had explained to him many times during the campaign that this is what Trump was going to do. Bill didn't believe me. He thought Trump was just saying those things and wouldn't really follow through.
I suspect this will be the first of many regrets...:)
Beer, snacks and cars: How a 20% Mexico tariff could cost US shoppers
President Trump wants so slap a 20% tariff on goods coming from Mexico and use the money to pay for his wall. As any economist knows, this would be a disaster for our country and for Mexico.
Bill can't believe it. His main client has a plant down in Mexico. If there ever actually is a tariff, this client will lose millions of dollars and, thus, Bill will be out of business. I gave him a call yesterday to hear his comments on Trump's announcement.
"Crazy," he said. "What was I thinking? At least with Hillary, I had just another crooked politician. This...this is erratic."
I had explained to him many times during the campaign that this is what Trump was going to do. Bill didn't believe me. He thought Trump was just saying those things and wouldn't really follow through.
I suspect this will be the first of many regrets...:)
Thursday, January 26, 2017
Peter Thiel Should Lose His American Citizenship
Peter Thiel is a billionaire who, like Elon Musk, made his money with PayPal. Originally from Germany, Thiel became a US citizen as a child.
Thiel is a gay, women's-rights-hating, Ayn-Rand-loving libertarian who secretly bankrolled Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against Gawker because they had outed him a few years before.
Thiel is also a creepy vampire-wannabe, mortally afraid of aging and dying. He wants to inject the blood of the young to preserve his own craven existence. It brings to mind visions of Erszebet Bathory, the infamous blood countess who bathed in the blood of virgins to preserve her youth.
Thiel is one of the few in Silicon Valley who supported Donald Trump's candidacy. He served on Trump's transition team.
It has now come to light that Thiel has New Zealand citizenship. He got it in 2011, apparently by buying someone off. He didn't meet the residency requirement of spending 1,350 days in the previous five years, because he spends most of his time in California.
Why does Thiel want to be a citizen of New Zealand? He says it's a "utopia," which seems odd. The politics of New Zealand are much more liberal than the United States -- New Zealand ticked off the United States in the 1980s with its nuclear-free zone policy. Maybe it's because they filmed the Lord of the Rings movies there.
I have a friend from New Zealand, and I went there to attend his wedding. It's a nice place, reminiscent of England or Wales, with rolling green hills dotted with sheep. But it's just another first-world country. And it's not a utopia -- too many earthquakes.
The real reason Thiel got New Zealand citizenship appears to be that he plans to flee there when the US economy melts down -- which is now much more likely given Trump's disastrous policies -- or the world is hit by a pandemic -- more likely because of Trump's anti-science, anti-vaccine policies -- or some other doomsday scenario -- like that idiot Donald Trump getting elected president and starting a nuclear war with China or North Korea.
A lot of rich Silicon Valley types have this mindset, according to one of Thiel's VC pals:
Saying you’re ‘buying a house in New Zealand’ is kind of a wink, wink, say no more. Once you’ve done the Masonic handshake, they’ll be, like, ‘Oh, you know, I have a broker who sells old ICBM silos, and they’re nuclear-hardened, and they kind of look like they would be interesting to live in.’In his inauguration speech Donald Trump said, “the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America.” Clearly Peter Thiel does not have total allegiance to the United States.
There are people who have dual citizenship because they were born to American parents in another country: for example, Ted Cruz was born in Canada. This was an embarrassment to Cruz because so many Republicans had insisted that Obama wasn't an American because he had a Kenyan father, but Cruz was born in Canada to a Cuban father. Both claims were bogus: both Cruz and Obama's mothers were American, so Cruz and Obama are Americans. In any case, you can't question the loyalty of people born into circumstances beyond their control.
So, even though Peter Thiel was born in Germany, I wouldn't have questioned his loyalty to the United States. Up until I found out he bought New Zealand citizenship.
When foreigners become naturalized American citizens they take an oath to this country:
"I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God."By choosing to buy New Zealand citizenship and sell out America as an adult in his forties, Thiel is in violation of this oath. He plans to flee the United States to New Zealand in his private jet when the going gets tough.
Thiel should be stripped of his American citizenship, retroactive to 2011, when he became a New Zealand citizen. That would also mean that, as a foreigner, the money he spent to get Donald Trump elected was all illegal. And Thiel should go to jail.
But nothing will happen to Thiel. Because he's rich. And in Trump's America, the rich get whatever they want.
Our French Revolution
Last night I was at a baseball association meeting. My son plays high level baseball and I serve as the fundraising coordinator. The mother of one of my son's teammates from last year came up to me and wondered if she could help out with fundraising. We talked briefly about how she could support the organization and then I remembered a conversation we had last spring about the election.
She told me back in June that she had this feeling that Trump was going to win. She seemed gleeful about it. After talking with her for a bit, I realized that she was one of the folks not very connected to politics who went on pure emotion. She's wealthy, white and pissed off about the direction of our country. This is actually a more accurate demographic than the stereotype that's out there about the Trump voter (dumb, toothless, racist etc). At the time, I thought she was nuts but she ended up being right.
The question I'm pondering today is why was she right? How can such a large group of people be so irrational as to vote for Donald Trump? By any indication, he's a despicable person and a horrible image for our country. Yet he is going to keep behaving the way he does until he loses because up until this point, it's worked. People who support Trump are convinced that everything he does is great and the criticism against him is all lies.
When I brought up the Access Hollywood tape, she said that she didn't believe it was him and that it was all taken out of context. She called it a witch hunt! Even his own voice saying his own words didn't fucking matter. I realized in the that moment that we weren't fighting the last battle of the Civil War, as I previously thought.
We are experiencing our own French Revolution complete with massively high levels of irrational thought and behavior.
Consider Trump's assertions over voter fraud and his recent call for an investigation. Even proceeding down this path is crazy. He won. Hillary Clinton lost. The popular vote does not matter. Why seek to undermine your own election? Further, it was Donald Trump himself and his own lawyers who called Jill Stein's recount efforts crazy and worthless and sought to stop them. So, when she says it's rigged it's not true but when he does it is true? Republicans and Democrats alike have called his claims entirely baseless. All 50 secretaries of each state have stated unequivocally that there was no voter fraud in this election and for millions of illegals to vote around the country would be completely impossible. Trump has also misrepresented the studies he says that show there is voter fraud but that doesn't really matter. He believes it's true. His followers believe it's true. So, it's true.
This same kind of thinking was in full gear during the French Revolution. People were so angry at their leaders that they would believe anything. The only saving grace we have now is that Trump takes office with the lowest approval rating of any president. My thought is that patience is required right now. It does indeed seem that Trump is invincible. He can do whatever he wants. But let's remember that's what Al Capone thought as well. They tried many conventional ways to bring him down and in the end it was something small like tax evasion. This is what I think is going to happen with Trump. Interestingly, Vegas has Trump's odds of being impeached in the first six months at 4 to 1. I think that might be a little too good but who knows?
In the meantime, I'm still really bummed that so many people out there are that irrational. How can we bring them down to more grounded reason? The fate of our nation rests on our ability to be critical thinkers and accept reality for what it is. We can ill afford to behave so erratically when it comes to these serious issues. Leaders like Trump and his followers are why civilizations decline and fall apart. Oddly, I think some of Trump's followers want this. They want to tear down the whole playhouse merely because they don't like stuff.
Can we stop them? How?
She told me back in June that she had this feeling that Trump was going to win. She seemed gleeful about it. After talking with her for a bit, I realized that she was one of the folks not very connected to politics who went on pure emotion. She's wealthy, white and pissed off about the direction of our country. This is actually a more accurate demographic than the stereotype that's out there about the Trump voter (dumb, toothless, racist etc). At the time, I thought she was nuts but she ended up being right.
The question I'm pondering today is why was she right? How can such a large group of people be so irrational as to vote for Donald Trump? By any indication, he's a despicable person and a horrible image for our country. Yet he is going to keep behaving the way he does until he loses because up until this point, it's worked. People who support Trump are convinced that everything he does is great and the criticism against him is all lies.
When I brought up the Access Hollywood tape, she said that she didn't believe it was him and that it was all taken out of context. She called it a witch hunt! Even his own voice saying his own words didn't fucking matter. I realized in the that moment that we weren't fighting the last battle of the Civil War, as I previously thought.
We are experiencing our own French Revolution complete with massively high levels of irrational thought and behavior.
Consider Trump's assertions over voter fraud and his recent call for an investigation. Even proceeding down this path is crazy. He won. Hillary Clinton lost. The popular vote does not matter. Why seek to undermine your own election? Further, it was Donald Trump himself and his own lawyers who called Jill Stein's recount efforts crazy and worthless and sought to stop them. So, when she says it's rigged it's not true but when he does it is true? Republicans and Democrats alike have called his claims entirely baseless. All 50 secretaries of each state have stated unequivocally that there was no voter fraud in this election and for millions of illegals to vote around the country would be completely impossible. Trump has also misrepresented the studies he says that show there is voter fraud but that doesn't really matter. He believes it's true. His followers believe it's true. So, it's true.
This same kind of thinking was in full gear during the French Revolution. People were so angry at their leaders that they would believe anything. The only saving grace we have now is that Trump takes office with the lowest approval rating of any president. My thought is that patience is required right now. It does indeed seem that Trump is invincible. He can do whatever he wants. But let's remember that's what Al Capone thought as well. They tried many conventional ways to bring him down and in the end it was something small like tax evasion. This is what I think is going to happen with Trump. Interestingly, Vegas has Trump's odds of being impeached in the first six months at 4 to 1. I think that might be a little too good but who knows?
In the meantime, I'm still really bummed that so many people out there are that irrational. How can we bring them down to more grounded reason? The fate of our nation rests on our ability to be critical thinkers and accept reality for what it is. We can ill afford to behave so erratically when it comes to these serious issues. Leaders like Trump and his followers are why civilizations decline and fall apart. Oddly, I think some of Trump's followers want this. They want to tear down the whole playhouse merely because they don't like stuff.
Can we stop them? How?
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
The Republican Brain Part Eight: Don't Get Defensive
The last time we looked inside Chris Mooney's insightful and amazing book, The Republican Brain, conservatives and how they respond to authority was viewed through the cognitive lens. After the results of the 2016 election, this has never been more important. In fact, all of Mooney's book should be read by Democrats who want to win in the midterms in 2018 and take back the presidency in 2020.
In the next section we will be looking at, "Don't Get Defensive," Mooney cautions that people tend to get defensive when we talk about psychology and neuroscience. Mental health is a very personal issue for most Americans and there is still a great stigma attached to it. Considering that conservatives brains are on display in this book, Mooney spends the next chapter considering the possible outrage over what he has said.
Mooney with an outline of the chapter and summary of what is to come. He wonders whether it's fair to lump all conservatives together. Certainly a libertarian is vastly different from a Christian conservative. And don't conservatives lump liberals together? Can liberals be just as close minded as conservatives? The answer, based on what we have seen so far, is no and it's, once again, because of neuroscience. But what about independents? There sure are plenty of them. Can someone also be converted from left to right or vice versa? Mooney states that the left-right conversion is fairly easy if one employs fear and distraction. So here is Mooney, poking holes into this own research.
Who's a conservative...really? The answers to this question certainly varies from country to country. England's conservatives are ideologically more akin to our moderate liberals. When people answer questions on surveys about their ideology, invariably it's in opposition to something. Given that the word "liberal" has been effectively demonized in the United States, many people claim to be more conservative than they actually are out of fear of being looked down upon. Yet, John Jost's research (here and here) shows that there is a consistency in terms of behavior and political conservatism, even across countries.
What do all conservatives share? This question can best be answered by looking at the common traits, psychologically speaking, that most conservatives share. They are not as open to the world as liberals and fear change. New experiences frighten them and they are resistant to progress. Recall William F Buckley when he declare that the National Review "stands athwart history yelling Stop!!" Mooney, in one has to be an epic foreshadowing, notes, "the change that conservatives seek is not progressive; rather it is in the direction of restoring something they perceive as prior and better."
Like making America great again? :)
Mooney goes on to correctly note that the earlier status quo may not be one that ever existed. As long as they think it did, that's what drives their policies and agenda.
Why aren't we psychoanalyzing liberals too? Well, we are. There are an equal number of studies that show that liberals are more prone to appeasement and indecision than are conservatives. Again, this is merely because of the way their brains are made. Like conservatives, liberals tend to allow emotions affect their decision making process and the result is indecision and appeasement. Mooney notes for us all to remember that belief systems address psychological needs, whatever the ideology may be.
What about the difference between economic and social conservatives? While there are some differences, it's important to note here that both employ the "work hard and you will get ahead" model. Most conservative Christians I know are also die hard capitalists. It doesn't matter that they accept Darwin's "Survival of the Fittest" economically but not spiritually. The root force is still there: pull yourself up by your bootstraps and don't rely on the government.
What about the cultural cognition model? Let's recall the basic traits of conservatives and liberals. Conservatives are generally hierarchical/individual types while liberals are egalitarian-communitarian types. Isn't there something in the liberal personality type that would lead them to reject the science of something like nuclear power or vaccines in the same way that conservatives reject climate change? Not quite, notes Mooney. Cultural cognition models do show us interesting things about liberal reaction to these issues but they still don't react in the same way as conservatives do. They may understate the research or spin it but they don't outright reject it.
What about leftist regimes? Well, they aren't really all that "left" when you think about it. Communist regimes say that they are egalitarian but they usually end up being authoritarian and thus share more in common with a conservative psychological framework.
What about left wing ideologues? Extremism is extremism, right? I hear this all the time. Both sides are just as bad, especially as you move out from the center. Yet the evidence does not support this assertion. Conservatives are far worse in terms of rigidity and inflexibility. Researcher John Jost conducted 13 separate studies and not a single one showed increased rigidity on the left. They ALL showed it on the right, however. In fact, when Jost run more studies, he found that the more extreme one was on the left hand side of the spectrum, the more open they were. Robert Altemeyer confirmed this when he went on a search for the Loch Ness Monster of political psychology-the left wing authoritarian. He found none but did find plenty of right wing authoritarians.
If you stop and think about it logically for a moment, all of this makes sense. Liberals' biggest fault is their penchant for being too flexible and changing their minds often. That is psychologically valid. So, how on earth could they be authoritarian?
Why not better distinguish conservatives from authoritarians? Consider the three basic groups of conservatives: libertarians, status quo folks, and out and out authoritarians. The reason Mooney doesn't distinguish between these three types are that each one still has that fear of uncertainty, rigidity and antipathy towards progress. This gibes with what I have always seen which is that even libertarians have closet authoritarians inside of them:)
What about centrists and independents? Let's take a look at the four types of independents.
Libertarians: Lean conservative.
Post Moderns: Young, hip, secular, pro-environment, not very liberal, in the classical sense, on economic issues
Disaffected: Financially stressed, hate politics (AKA Trump voters)
Bystanders: Young, not politically engaged
In looking at these four types, we can see that these folks aren't really centrist at all. Sure, they don't want to be labelled as a "Democrat" or a "Republican" but libertarians and disaffecteds are really conservatives and postmoderns are more liberal. Psychologically, Mooney's classification system still applies. The libertarians and the disaffecteds are less open to change with the post moderns more flexible and more open to new experiences.
What about political conversions? In the final section of this chapter, Mooney takes a look at the psychological triggers that cause these shifts. Too much authoritarianism may cause some conservatives to shy away from populous shifts within the GOP. Fear invariably causes liberals to become more conservative.
Linda Skitka of the University of Illinois in Chicago set up a study in which both liberals and conservatives were asked to stop and think about what they were proposing to check on fear as a motivating factor. Participants were asked to consider different groups of people who have AIDS and whether or not they should receive government assisted help for their disease. Some of the AIDS victims got through no fault of their own and others got it just because they were careless. Both liberals and conservatives said that the latter group should not get government help but after some considering, liberals' natural psychological tendencies kicked in and they said they should. Conservatives did not waiver. Yet, if liberals were asked to do another task, like listening to music while considering this decision, they behaved just like conservatives.
Mooney also notes a University of Arkansas study in which alcohol and political ideology were studies. Scott Eidelman and his team of researchers literally set up shop outside of a campus bar and found that when people drink, they become more conservative. This makes sense because booze disrupts cognitive reasoning and more emotional responses take over. In looking at the states that went for Trump last November, one can see higher incidences of alcohol, particularly in the Rust Belt, and drug abuse. I'll have more on this later as I think it directly relates to how Democrats have to connect with disaffected voters who left them and went for Trump.
So, in looking at all these question, research shows we came back with the same answers. The conservative brain responds much differently than the liberal brain despite a critical look. The peer reviewed evidence holds up under scrutiny. But what about the actual physical makeup of the brain? Can we see actual differences between conservative brains and liberal brains? That's the topic of the next chapter. Are conservatives from the amygdala?
In the next section we will be looking at, "Don't Get Defensive," Mooney cautions that people tend to get defensive when we talk about psychology and neuroscience. Mental health is a very personal issue for most Americans and there is still a great stigma attached to it. Considering that conservatives brains are on display in this book, Mooney spends the next chapter considering the possible outrage over what he has said.
Mooney with an outline of the chapter and summary of what is to come. He wonders whether it's fair to lump all conservatives together. Certainly a libertarian is vastly different from a Christian conservative. And don't conservatives lump liberals together? Can liberals be just as close minded as conservatives? The answer, based on what we have seen so far, is no and it's, once again, because of neuroscience. But what about independents? There sure are plenty of them. Can someone also be converted from left to right or vice versa? Mooney states that the left-right conversion is fairly easy if one employs fear and distraction. So here is Mooney, poking holes into this own research.
Who's a conservative...really? The answers to this question certainly varies from country to country. England's conservatives are ideologically more akin to our moderate liberals. When people answer questions on surveys about their ideology, invariably it's in opposition to something. Given that the word "liberal" has been effectively demonized in the United States, many people claim to be more conservative than they actually are out of fear of being looked down upon. Yet, John Jost's research (here and here) shows that there is a consistency in terms of behavior and political conservatism, even across countries.
What do all conservatives share? This question can best be answered by looking at the common traits, psychologically speaking, that most conservatives share. They are not as open to the world as liberals and fear change. New experiences frighten them and they are resistant to progress. Recall William F Buckley when he declare that the National Review "stands athwart history yelling Stop!!" Mooney, in one has to be an epic foreshadowing, notes, "the change that conservatives seek is not progressive; rather it is in the direction of restoring something they perceive as prior and better."
Like making America great again? :)
Mooney goes on to correctly note that the earlier status quo may not be one that ever existed. As long as they think it did, that's what drives their policies and agenda.
Why aren't we psychoanalyzing liberals too? Well, we are. There are an equal number of studies that show that liberals are more prone to appeasement and indecision than are conservatives. Again, this is merely because of the way their brains are made. Like conservatives, liberals tend to allow emotions affect their decision making process and the result is indecision and appeasement. Mooney notes for us all to remember that belief systems address psychological needs, whatever the ideology may be.
What about the difference between economic and social conservatives? While there are some differences, it's important to note here that both employ the "work hard and you will get ahead" model. Most conservative Christians I know are also die hard capitalists. It doesn't matter that they accept Darwin's "Survival of the Fittest" economically but not spiritually. The root force is still there: pull yourself up by your bootstraps and don't rely on the government.
What about the cultural cognition model? Let's recall the basic traits of conservatives and liberals. Conservatives are generally hierarchical/individual types while liberals are egalitarian-communitarian types. Isn't there something in the liberal personality type that would lead them to reject the science of something like nuclear power or vaccines in the same way that conservatives reject climate change? Not quite, notes Mooney. Cultural cognition models do show us interesting things about liberal reaction to these issues but they still don't react in the same way as conservatives do. They may understate the research or spin it but they don't outright reject it.
What about leftist regimes? Well, they aren't really all that "left" when you think about it. Communist regimes say that they are egalitarian but they usually end up being authoritarian and thus share more in common with a conservative psychological framework.
What about left wing ideologues? Extremism is extremism, right? I hear this all the time. Both sides are just as bad, especially as you move out from the center. Yet the evidence does not support this assertion. Conservatives are far worse in terms of rigidity and inflexibility. Researcher John Jost conducted 13 separate studies and not a single one showed increased rigidity on the left. They ALL showed it on the right, however. In fact, when Jost run more studies, he found that the more extreme one was on the left hand side of the spectrum, the more open they were. Robert Altemeyer confirmed this when he went on a search for the Loch Ness Monster of political psychology-the left wing authoritarian. He found none but did find plenty of right wing authoritarians.
If you stop and think about it logically for a moment, all of this makes sense. Liberals' biggest fault is their penchant for being too flexible and changing their minds often. That is psychologically valid. So, how on earth could they be authoritarian?
Why not better distinguish conservatives from authoritarians? Consider the three basic groups of conservatives: libertarians, status quo folks, and out and out authoritarians. The reason Mooney doesn't distinguish between these three types are that each one still has that fear of uncertainty, rigidity and antipathy towards progress. This gibes with what I have always seen which is that even libertarians have closet authoritarians inside of them:)
What about centrists and independents? Let's take a look at the four types of independents.
Libertarians: Lean conservative.
Post Moderns: Young, hip, secular, pro-environment, not very liberal, in the classical sense, on economic issues
Disaffected: Financially stressed, hate politics (AKA Trump voters)
Bystanders: Young, not politically engaged
In looking at these four types, we can see that these folks aren't really centrist at all. Sure, they don't want to be labelled as a "Democrat" or a "Republican" but libertarians and disaffecteds are really conservatives and postmoderns are more liberal. Psychologically, Mooney's classification system still applies. The libertarians and the disaffecteds are less open to change with the post moderns more flexible and more open to new experiences.
What about political conversions? In the final section of this chapter, Mooney takes a look at the psychological triggers that cause these shifts. Too much authoritarianism may cause some conservatives to shy away from populous shifts within the GOP. Fear invariably causes liberals to become more conservative.
Linda Skitka of the University of Illinois in Chicago set up a study in which both liberals and conservatives were asked to stop and think about what they were proposing to check on fear as a motivating factor. Participants were asked to consider different groups of people who have AIDS and whether or not they should receive government assisted help for their disease. Some of the AIDS victims got through no fault of their own and others got it just because they were careless. Both liberals and conservatives said that the latter group should not get government help but after some considering, liberals' natural psychological tendencies kicked in and they said they should. Conservatives did not waiver. Yet, if liberals were asked to do another task, like listening to music while considering this decision, they behaved just like conservatives.
Mooney also notes a University of Arkansas study in which alcohol and political ideology were studies. Scott Eidelman and his team of researchers literally set up shop outside of a campus bar and found that when people drink, they become more conservative. This makes sense because booze disrupts cognitive reasoning and more emotional responses take over. In looking at the states that went for Trump last November, one can see higher incidences of alcohol, particularly in the Rust Belt, and drug abuse. I'll have more on this later as I think it directly relates to how Democrats have to connect with disaffected voters who left them and went for Trump.
So, in looking at all these question, research shows we came back with the same answers. The conservative brain responds much differently than the liberal brain despite a critical look. The peer reviewed evidence holds up under scrutiny. But what about the actual physical makeup of the brain? Can we see actual differences between conservative brains and liberal brains? That's the topic of the next chapter. Are conservatives from the amygdala?
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