Politics over Religion at MD&D

[_Chap]

The kind of uncritical acceptance and gullible belief in evidence-free and baseless propaganda that is reflected in [Candygal's] posts on this thread is largely responsible for the mess in which we find ourselves here in the US.

But how did this become so widespread? Can anything be done to repair this situation, apart from simply pointing out its obvious dangers?

[Guest]

... what knowledge I have is only what I have heard and read.

Well, that is a plain and honest statement. Kudos to you for making it.

But here's a suggestion: You think that the Clintons may be masters of deception and misdirection, so that they have successfully put the forces of law and order off their trail.

Do you think it possible that in fact people who hate the Clintons for largely political reasons may themselves be good at deception and misdirection, and that their purpose in putting around the idea that the Clinton's are criminal masterminds may be to put people off the trail of ... someone else?

[_DrW]

The kind of uncritical acceptance and gullible belief in evidence-free and baseless propaganda that is reflected in [Candygal's] posts on this thread is largely responsible for the mess in which we find ourselves here in the US.

But how did this become so widespread? Can anything be done to repair this situation, apart from simply pointing out its obvious dangers?

Chap,

IMHO this kind of behavior seems to be spreading because the approach it engenders seems to be working. At this point, the loudly expressed views of a relatively small minority (e.g. 35% or so) of the population seems to carry a great deal of weight in our government.

However, if you follow US politics at all, you are aware of what many here consider a glimmer of hope. A heretofore largely ignored and clearly suppressed segment of society in the South, black females, turned out in record numbers for an off-year election and were a major factor in defeating the Republican candidate for US Senate in Alabama - one who had the all-in backing of our pussy-grabber in chief.

It is hoped that this wholly unexpected event (and the important consequences) will be enough to get more rational (but heretofore somewhat apathetic) voters out to the polls in 2018. Trump's promises of tax cuts and better health care to working class families during the campaign are now fully exposed as blatant and cruel lies.

Sometimes things have to hit rock bottom before the population wakes up and does the right thing - votes. Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 by close to 3 million. Many of those legislators who, instead of standing up for what they knew was right and fair, claimed to hold their noses while they voted for Trump's policies and programs are going to encounter the same kind of public sentiment in the 2018.

Once the middle and working classes fully realize how badly they have been screwed by the Republican tax bill in the waning days of 2017, and that more than 60% of the tax cut advantages are going to the wealthiest 1% of the population, leaving the rest of us with an increase the national debt by some 1.5 trillion dollars, they are going to make 2018 a Republican nightmare - and a well deserved one at that.

[_Symmachus]

One of the things I hope people will notice is this: it's true that the party out of power always has a higher degree of crazy while it's out. That's true to an extent on the left now (Rachel Maddow, anyone?) and was in the Bush years, and it was certainly the case on the right during Obama's presidency. What strikes me as different after 2016 is that the right has not descended from the heights of insanity. Despite their being in power in all branches of government and throughout the states, they remain as nutty as they were during their nuttiest years under President Obama. It doesn't bode well.

Also, as I read it, this thread reminds me of how strong the appearance of being fair is in American political culture, and maybe American culture more generally. If we were to put the qualities of Donald Trump down on paper, both positive and negative qualities—and I can think of a couple of positives—in general terms and without putting a name to those qualities, I am quite certain that almost everyone on this thread would see that person as dangerous to deal with in their own lives, let alone as president. Trump is not very attractive in general, and I think it's clear that even a lot of his supporters find much of what he does and says distasteful (though obviously a vociferous minority among them wouldn't go even that far). Yet, there is this imperative to be fair, which is used as a synonym for balance. Consequently, someone like Kish who points out the overwhelmingly negative qualities is being portrayed as not only perhaps unfair but maybe even unbalanced, certainly less balanced than he is usually is.

Neither is true, but frankly this is a larger cultural assumption, however noble it might seem, that makes fertile ground for demagogues like Trump and conspiracists. There is no serious argument about climate change, for example, but this cultural trait in our discourse makes it so that we feel we have to give equal time to crackpot views, and thus anyone who refuses to do so is not being fair-minded and is indeed not being level-headed. I think that is why Candygal feels we need to mention the Clintons, as if they matter. Everything is a debate—that is certainly how journalists treat everything—and as such even facts become debatable. People like Trump and Sanders are appealing in part because they pop this illusion even as they exploit it, especially Trump.

I think truth and accuracy are much higher and more significant values. Kish is operating in that mode, so I don't see that what he is doing is particularly passionate as opposed to reasonable, because he is accurate, and I haven't seen anyone refute anything he's said with the precision that comes from fact-based analysis. Truth and accuracy have receded from the pantheon of things we should hold dear: big name journalists are more interested in the appearance of fairness and balance, and even academics in the humanities would have been googly eyed about Alternative Facts Studies if that term had been proposed by Judith Butler rather than Donald Trump.

I have seen two responses to Kish dominating this thread:

1) his responses are perhaps unfair and imbalanced, which I hope I've refuted. He's just calling a spade a shovel.

2) criticism of Trump is unfair because people really are dissatisfied with our government and our culture more generally (which is what I take Ed to mean by "the system"). This has been true for a long time, and I'd count myself in that group, but it's likely we all have various and often ambiguous, if not contradictory reasons for thinking this. Whatever we mean by "the system" being broken, it will only be fixed by a broader, more unified political and cultural response, not by the politics of division that are currently the only tool in toolbox of the Republicans.

Democrats have left this problem on the backburner for far too long. George Packer discusses an interview he did with Clinton during the campaign, in which she finally realized that the policies her wing of the party has pushed over the past four decades have basically favored the managerial classes and the wealthy, which is not different from Republicans; unfortunately, she wasn't able to find a way to overcome this in the campaign in key areas of the country.

But if Democrats have ignored this issue, Republicans have exploited it relentlessly since Gingrich's congress in the mid 90s, and Trump more than any other and with greater intensity—and greater success. For all the talk about changing the system, that change has to be shared and can't just cater to Republicans, rural people, and older white voters (when those aren't the same). The refusal to work with Obama for 8 years, the promotion of birtherism, the use of reconciliation on the Obamacare repeal as a guiding principle rather than a fallback (as it was for the original bill), the attempt to stack the judiciary, and the complete rejection of any Democratic input in drafting this tax bill are signs of an anti-democratic (small d) instinct in the Republican party, and these are not only added to Trump's authoritarian impulses but channeled by them into his narcissistic purposes, which have already been catalogued here.

If you are a Trump supporter who believes the system is rigged, then you have to square that with the fact that he and his party are indeed attempting to rig the system in such away that more than half country is excluded from a say in how this country is run. If you saw this process written about in some book but as occurring in another country in another time, you'd be likely to see that this was not some champion of the people standing up for the average citizen in the face of power. It is what Kish has said it is, and I worry people won't appreciate it until it's too late.

I am not as optimistic as Dr. W because that hard core of Trump supporters are not going away and they are not persuadable. Their political identities have become pre-political, like religion and family. Politics in a democratic society is supposed to be about negotiation and compromise, but when you can't negotiate on your politics, that's not politics: that's the deeper zone of your identity where religion and family loyalties lie. I see this starting to happen on the left as well.

Trump, like all impresarios, is a promoter who doesn't do anything himself but rather feeds of the work of others, and consequently never takes the blame. All the things that you say will happen to the economy from this tax bill are probably likely, Dr W, but Trump already has his narrative about how it's not his fault: it's the evil elites, especially Democrats—they said he'd never get elected, after all, and look where we are now after the largest inauguration in history!—and the hardcore supporters will eat that up because it feeds their sense of persecution (there's our confluence of religion and political identities again).

[_Johannes]

Kish is right, obviously.

Once the middle and working classes fully realize how badly they have been screwed by the Republican tax bill in the waning days of 2017....

"....they will probably look for scapegoats consisting of people who are more marginalised and vulnerable than they are", is how I think this sentence ends. It'll be the same here with Brexit.

And, to pick up on something else that Kish said, the next demagogue will be a lot cleverer and more devious. You're lucky, perversely, that this one is as inept as Trump.

[_Chap]

What strikes me as different after 2016 is that the right has not descended from the heights of insanity. Despite their being in power in all branches of government and throughout the states, they remain as nutty as they were during their nuttiest years under President Obama. It doesn't bode well.

I agree with all you say in your post.

This bit however points to the likely reason why US politics has become so very strange since the Trump inauguration. Once the right committed themselves fully to paranoid conspiracies in the Obama years ('Obama was born in Kenya'; 'The Clintons run a child abuse ring from the basement of a pizza parlor' and so on) they became habituated to living on the heights of insanity and - here is the point - they found it infinitely more congenial than the real world, where a pesky little fact can come along and slay your cherished illusions. Up in the realms of imagination, no such threat can arise.

So they decided to stick to that mode when in power. That is why, on the slightest pretext, they will meet any hint of dubiety about the probity or effectiveness of the Trump administration (who, let us remind ourselves, have responsibility for running the country and dominate both houses of congress) with a full-on denunciation of the leaders of the departed administration.

I am not as optimistic as Dr. W because that hard core of Trump supporters are not going away and they are not persuadable. Their political identities have become pre-political, like religion and family.

I share your lack of optimism. These people are open to neither argument nor evidence. Trump himself realised this explicitly when he told us that he could shoot someone dead on the street and he would lose nothing of his core vote. I really don't think he would lose anything by doing that. Indeed, if the person killed was a gay hispanic democrat he would probably gain support.

[_Johannes]

Truth and accuracy have receded from the pantheon of things we should hold dear: big name journalists are more interested in the appearance of fairness and balance, and even academics in the humanities would have been googly eyed about Alternative Facts Studies if that term had been proposed by Judith Butler rather than Donald Trump.

Terry Eagleton (yes yes, I know, but I quite like him) warned about this years ago. Back when postmodernism was seen as being a left-wing phenomenon and was being attacked by the likes of Allan Bloom and William Bennett, Eagleton was perceptive enough to warn that it was a weapon that could be wielded by fascists as much as by Foucauldians.

[_Symmachus]

Terry Eagleton (yes yes, I know, but I quite like him) warned about this years ago. Back when postmodernism was seen as being a left-wing phenomenon and was being attacked by the likes of Allan Bloom and William Bennett, Eagleton was perceptive enough to warn that it was a weapon that could be wielded by fascists as much as by Foucauldians.

I think the manipulation of reality has always been a centerpiece of totalitarian regimes: there were Jewish facts and Jewish science in 1930s Germany, for example. I don't think Trump is Hitler—at least Hitler was about something, Professor Sobchack might reminds us—but Trump's use of authoritarian tactics should give his supporters pause. Why don't they mind that he behaves like a third world dictator rather than an American president?

True story (to tie this back to Mormonism): Terry Eagleton taught at BYU for a year.

[_Uncle Ed]

The fact that Americans who voted for Trump were conned is as plain as the nose on your face. The information was all out there. And, like Symmachus, I am not impressed by the statistic of poorly populated counties largely voting for Trump. Trump won because he won some important counties by tens of thousands of votes.

He may continually lie about how big his victory is, but I go by the facts. In point of fact, he lost the popular vote by a pretty wide margin. I am not going, like some, to complain about the electoral college. *That* would be crying over spilled milk. By the same token, I am not going to allow misleading statistics in the service of Trump's constant stream of lies to go unanswered.

You do think facts are important?

Facts are tricky things. We have so many "facts", created out of selective Medía harvesting, both sides doing it endlessly. Go figure, human nature at work appealing to self-interest.

The "popular vote" is meaningless since there is no such thing. That too is a Medía creation. And Clinton's vaunted "wide margin" came almost entirely from Cali. Not a good recommendation!

You are right not to diss the Electoral College, since that organ is what protects smaller states from the huge metro areas and the states that contain them.

Yes, everyone is waking up. LOL. It is a great catch phrase, at least. If waking up means voting for unqualified con artists, then waking up is the same thing as going to sleep. Waking up means being knowledgeable and wise, making good, informed choices, not believing propaganda and lies. Propaganda swirls all around us, coming from all sides, and choices are limited. Making the best choice when no choice is close to ideal is difficult, but that is the task we have before us. People who have woken up do not put idiots into office. That's not awake.

So Hillary was the best choice, I get it that you believe that. She was not, for some very clear reasons. Being a product (and abuser of) the political machines, and being a liberal to the core, her policies were not to be added to Obama's dreadful eight years of failure as a leader. She would have led us beyond recovery, down the path of Fed deep state control. Our economy would have tanked before she was through. It won't tank under The Donald.

Even more high priority than the economy is the push for individual liberty. He's all for that. She's a control freak.

They both lie. But comparatively her lies are far worse and actually endanger our National security. His are almost entirely about what he did or did not say/mean. And half the time his denials are mockery of his detractors.

The wise choice in picking Trump was based on a condition which you deny: that our peril was (and is) the erosion of our Constitutional systems beyond repair. Judges have interpreted the law from the bench for so long, asserting the Constitution to be a "living" document that needs revising to suit our times, that the very meaning of words is in mortal danger of extinction. We are buried in PC and flipped memes. Obama went to extremes to fill as many judgment seats with socialist liberals as possible. This is used against us constantly. By electing Trump there is the barest chance of reversing enough of the damage that his successors might have enough recovery to continue forward and repair the deep damage already done by the likes of the Clintons (and to a lesser degree the Bushes).

Well, I suppose this well reflects what Fox News has told you to think about what he has done. Recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital was nothing less than pandering to the Evangelical base and Jews on the Right. Successive American presidents, from Bill Clinton on (including George W. Bush), have wisely refrained from making such a provocative move that hinders the peace process. Trump seems intent on starting a war with someone because he has few cards to play as a wildly unpopular and incompetent president. The recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital is just one more evidence of his lack of qualifications for the job.

Of course it could be that our past Presidents were just too weak. Wisdom can take the form of forcing the issue, with the intent to end this stalemate once and for all. War is not a given outcome. Violence, surely, is unavoidable because the Muslim extremists are violent.

By declaring Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and honoring the Congressional pact of 1995, Trump is compelling everyone to declare their intentions. This will clear the field of neutrals who are useless to everyone. Israel has a right to exist, and a right to far more land than she has kept back. Her overtures of peace have been thrown away because her enemies want her extinction. They do not want a "two state solution". Even though Trump has voiced interest in such a solution he is not sincere. He is being disingenuous. This is to prove that there is in fact no such thing as a "two state solution": the so-called Palestinians will sabotage it at every point. This will bring on the "final solution", which is to remove all non citizens within Israel's borders, along with takeover of the West Bank and Gaza and probably more land held before Israel withdrew as part of previous peace accords. Why is this all a good thing? Because if done soon it will pull the eyeteeth of the jihadists. Israel can keep up the momentum and will survive stronger than before. The "Palestinians" will be absorbed by Muslim countries in the ME, and emigrate even further. Watch and see: Trump and Israel will create a "United Fund" (by whatever name) to minister to displaced "Palestinians", helping with housing, education and so forth: proving that Israel and the US are not against the "Palestinians", but only against unworkable "solutions" that guarantee Israel's annihilation.

Almost no reputable economist (and there are many reputable economists!) thinks Trump's tax cuts for the wealthy and the corporations are needed. The economy is booming (no thanks to Trump). Big tax cuts could spike inflation. Moreover, his tax cuts fly in the face of his promises to his supporters. In the long run, they will pay *more* taxes than they do now, and the wealthy and corporations will pay less. Trump promised exactly the opposite. And, these tax cuts have not yet happened. Much of what you are spouting is empty verbiage from Trump.

...

Yes, Trump's appears on tv, talking vaguely about all the things he is doing. I want to see the facts of what he has done.

And the bottom line here, in my view, is that he promised his voters that he would, essentially, fight for the little guy. That he would lower their taxes, that he would improve their healthcare. None of that is really happening.

Those 90% of US counties voted for Trump. They believed the lies, and now they will pay for believing them.

Trump has this big mouth. You listen to it too much.

Orrin Hatch is enthusiastic about the "tax reform bill". He even calls it "my bill", which is annoying. But the point is that the working class are getting big deductions with it, and will take home thousands of dollars a year that have been going to taxes. So your assertion that "almost no reputable economists" believe the bill is a good reform is possibly only that.

I don't watch Fox or any other TV Neewz. I read headlines at Refdesk.com and open what seems like informative pieces. "Informative" is at least as facile by reading puff pieces and liberal propaganda.

[_Chap]

The "popular vote" is meaningless since there is no such thing. That too is a Medía creation.

What a weird thing to say. The term 'popular vote' simply refers to the total numbers of votes cast for the candidates by the people who voted in the election. It is a completely clear and objective concept, and its definition depends on simple arithmetic.

(Of course nobody is denying that the election of the President is ultimately decided through the Electoral College mechanism, which does not necessarily produce the same result as would the popular vote. But that is not your point.)

And Clinton's vaunted "wide margin" came almost entirely from Cali. Not a good recommendation!

No. It came from the total of votes cast for her nationwide. There is no reasons to treat the parcel of votes from the largest state as more or less significant than the votes of the six smallest states taken together. You can make any candidate win or lose if you are allowed to discount states at will. What would have happened to Trump's vote, for instance without Texas?