Why partisans look at the same planet and see wildly different curvature

and about the murky and obscure Ukraine ‘thing’

@2 ‘If it had just been the Ukraine thing, I would have passed’.

Very wise.

I’ve been trying to identify the “worldview tribes” which institute these group psychologies, draw their borders, and set their priors. So far I’ve got: Religion, Identity, Geography, Politics, Money, Economics, and Science.

Doesn’t matter whether they are true or false, that’s not the point (although of course their believers take them as true). What matters is that they function as group virtues: the clusters of ideas in each one serve as contexts of personal relationship, to increase the trust among their participants, and thus reduce the costs of interaction. The “worldview tribes” save space and time, including grammatical space and time. Which can increase their surpluses of matter and energy.

In the news, while the Ukraine shenanigans have been responded to by each political tribe, in its own way, note that it’s getting Trump impeached — and may well get him removed. And the main reasons will be about the Senate Republican tribe, specifically and ultimately: 1. Trump is a national security risk & he’s setting up the US for future international failures; 2. He’s losing every demographic for the GOP except non-college white males; and 3. He made the cardinal mistake of accusing Joe Biden of wrongdoing, who counts a lot of old, close friends in the foreign policy and national security community, including many on the Republican side of the Senate. Thus, far from being a trifle, the “Ukraine thing” will give us empirical results to test the hypothesis of the inherent powers of a tribe.

Of course now it’s gone on to China… I love how Trump asks a communist dictatorship for help against his political opponent in a democracy — and the patriotic, Constitution-defending media conservatives are all like, “Hey, that is totally OK!” & “He’s wiping out corruption in China!” I literally lmao

Another thing for Tribal Studies: One day, Trump may come to be used as a stellar example of how a tribe — any tribe — will be willing to tolerate very deep psychopathies:

1. The US elected Joe Pesci’s character “Tommy” in Goodfellas: shortsighted, rash, ruthless, incompetent, incurable. 2. Trump adds narcissism & exhibitionism, hiding deep insecurity. 3. He also adds a profound chip-on-his-shoulder resentment, from decades of ridicule in the press & public; being shunned by his international plutocratic jet-set, etc.

Thus, we might have guessed beforehand that Trump is not going to go quietly, and he may try to take everybody down with him.

So the Senate GOP has a couple of problems: How to sell Trump’s removal to his voters, because they need those people to come out and vote, to get themselves re-elected in their own districts & states. And what to do, as Trump reveals that Mike Pence was up to his neck in these Ukraine shenanigans too. Otherwise they’ll be looking at President Pelosi.

Trump could destroy the GOP for a generation.

It looks like their best shot would be to run into Nov. 2020 behind the Right Rev. Dr. Pence while trying to re-brand the GOP as “MAGA + Morals”, or similar sanctimonious nonsense. That means Republicans must secretly be hoping Pelosi wraps it up soon, so they can throw him overboard. In turn, that means Pelosi might try to stretch it out to next spring, to roast them all over the flames.

Relevant-ish. Certainly entertaining.

https://soundcloud.com/citationsneeded/episode-87-nate-silver-and-the-crisis-of-pundit-brain

My personal researches into the shape of the Earth have been that it is neither flat nor spherical, but sort of lumpy. The lumps appear to be of various sizes and durations. I tended to make light of the more aqueous lumps until one of them biffed me rather severely on a visit to the ‘shore’. Anyway, I have brought my researches to the attention of experts, who uniformly rejected them, since their beliefs are religious or tribal rather than the result of careful, direct observation.

Harry @ 7:
The problem with just saying “partisanship generates motivated reasoning,” full stop, is that it barely skims the surface of the sort of analysis that is necessary. Political scientists have long observed that, in the US at least, partisan polarization has been asymmetrical, skewed far to the right. I would suggest that the same is true of partisan identification along issue lines (I am substituting for your term reasoning because I think that calling much of what we are discussing reasoning elevates a great deal of it into something it clearly is not, which is just lining up with whom one thinks is one’s team.) Which is precisely why the “can’t we all be friends” rings so hollow (even putting to the side the questions that we are supposed to bracket to be friends). And why the “on the one hand, on the other hand” tropes appear at best naive.

Murky, yes, -obscure? Only if you are not following the curatorial journalism of Seth Abramson.

As a striking UAW member stated earlier this week about Trump (to a reporter who was exploring Trump support among unionized workers): “He’s a hot dog, but he’s OUR hot dog.” This fellow felt totally disrespected by the coastal elites.

Issues that are tied to people’s need to circle the wagon when they’re attacked are hard to argue based on facts. I don’t know anyone whose self-respect is dependent on whether or not the earth is flat, even if their reasoning is feeble (and I have a brother-in-law who does believe that). In flat earth types of exchanges, fear and anger do not arise. But once you get into areas where people feel their self-worth is being questioned or attacked, reason has a hard time even being heard, much less respected. And that goes for both sides.

Issues that are tied to people’s need to circle the wagon when they’re attacked are hard to argue based on facts.

Who is doing the attacking here? The ‘liberal coastal elites’ are NOT actually attacking them. Their current situation is almost entirely due to the actions of wealthy right-wing oligarchs, who have spent the last 40 years (nearly 90 if you count the hard-core anti-New Dealers ) on a successful propaganda campaign that it is the very people who made the ‘golden age’ of unions possible were the ones responsible for ending it.

A very successful propaganda campaign at that…

Maggie Koerth-Baker deplores, rightly, excessive political partisanship.
Nastywoman attacks the US’s “Obscene, Loathful, Revolting, Nauseating and Sickening President”.
I strongly distrust President Trump for various reasons, but all the same …

@23
”Maggie Koerth-Baker deplores, rightly, excessive political partisanship.
Nastywoman attacks the US’s “Obscene, Loathful, Revolting, Nauseating and Sickening President”… all the same…”

It isn’t ”all the same” –
As nastywoman can’t be ”partisan” – not only because the general definition of ”partisan is ”a strong supporter of a party, cause, or person”- and in the case of the American Duo play we are discussing here – where there are only TWO parties involved.

So somebody who is grown up in a five – six – seven or eight party system never ever can be ”partisan” -(or bi-partisan)

It’s a little bit if you would tell somebody who has four or five nationalities – that one of these nationalities -(the American one) – thinks the earth is flat -(and the German one doesn’t think so)
So in conclusion – the conclusion that Trump is a “Obscene, Loathful, Revolting, Nauseating and Sickening President”… isn’t only a truly ”bi-partisan conclusion – you could even call it a ”all parties” conclusion with no possibility in denying or even questioning it.

Hidari

Side note: What is the POINT of 5:38? Its predictions are almost invariably wrong or at least, not accurate enough to be worthwhile, and its perhaps worse than previous punditry in that its false predictions are wrapped up in the jargon of ‘science’.

I don’t follow 5:38, so I’ve got no insight into it.

But I do know that an oracle which is genuinely literally invariably wrong is exactly as valuable as one which is genuinely literally invariably right. If you have the former, you can rely on knowing that what is going to happen is whatever it is predicting will happen; if you have the latter, you can rely on knowing that what is going to happen is whatever it is predicting will not happen.

That’s so grossly implausible, however, that the more likely explanation is that your characterisation of 5:38 is an inaccurate one, possibly tainted by spite.

EB

But who, at the moment, is voicing contempt for rural people, men, and white people? it’s not the Republicans; it’s various sub-groups of the Democratic coalition.

Citation needed.

Given there is an election every four years we will have to follow 538 for a very long time before we can say it is better than flipping a coin.

– and about the “warm contact” between political leaders” – my fellow American learning right now -(the very hard way) – that you just can’t have any ”warm contacts” to any “Obscene, Loathful, Revolting, Nauseating and Sickening political leaders” – and you need to be very bipartisan about that from the beginning.

Like when the very obvious “Obscene, Loathful, Revolting, Nauseating and Sickening Von Clownstick came down the escalator to announce his candidacy – and we suggested to the New York Times -(we were besty-besty friends with – then) – the headline:

”Racist Birther Runs for President”
(a wonderful poetic headline)

And the NYT just couldn’t do it… because about this… ”warm” thing…?
(and by NOT being ”warm” – we probably could have avoided the whole “Obscene, Loathful, Revolting, Nauseating and Sickening Clownstick?)

@28: ‘But I do know that an oracle which is genuinely literally invariably wrong is exactly as valuable as one which is genuinely literally invariably right. If you have the former, you can rely on knowing that what is going to happen is whatever it is predicting will happen; if you have the latter, you can rely on knowing that what is going to happen is whatever it is predicting will not happen.’

This is yet another in a long line of stunning insights you have chosen to reveal to the world via CT comments’ threads, which you use in the same way that Moses used Mount Sinai: as a pathway via which timeless and unarguable metaphysical truths can be revealed to the enlightenment craving masses. Perhaps in the future, cyberpilgrims will voyage to this comments thread in the same way that tourists now to go Israel, to finally see the place where Truth was unveiled and Doubt vanquished.

And to think I was alive to see this wisdom finally revealed, after Mankind had suffered in epistemological darkness for so long.

538 once again shows its value. Huddy & Yair (2019), linked to by Koerth-Baker at the end of her 538 article, is a very good contribution to the burgeoning literature of “partisan hostility mitigation studies”.

I put that in quotation marks because there is no agreed-upon name for it yet, just as there is no agreed name for motivated group cognition, or perhaps it should be called social cognitive bias. Also ought to write “re-burgeoning”, because the topic has roots as far back as Cold War “Peace Studies” and probably earlier. This literature reports the results of the ways in which partisanship is found to be reduced among participants. And a handful of interesting rubrics have begun to emerge from it that have emotional and intellectual etiologies.

It is fascinating and fertile ground for the future, because it ties into so many other studies: Psychology of emotions. Individual cognitive bias. Group psychology. Political science. Media studies of the rise of many-channels of news media and the resulting business models of extremism and propaganda. Narrative studies. Sociology. History. Economics. Science communication. Etc.

So you can pretty much come at it from any point. For a new-style prediction operation such as 538 this stuff ought to be paramount.

However, my own interests are in the formal logical limits of prediction, the substitution of emotional habit-formation to get along in the world, and how the whole social organism goes from good habit-formation into the social addiction to priors. Because ultimately we are heading into increasing inequality, increasing authoritarianism, climate disaster and species extinction.

So let’s jump up the logical scale a couple of notches, and look at what the “Science Tribe” itself is doing.

Like any of the tribes, when at its worst, the science tribe is subject to its own forms of motivated cognition, intellectual and emotional prejudice, instrumental optimism, hubris.

By contrast the arts and humanities have sort of surrendered: they advanced from the Age of Anxiety (post-World War I) and the end of historical optimism (a hallmark of postmodernism), into the current explosion of artistic polystylism that is curiously non-progressing and tragic: a lot of general despair that is to be leavened by short-term happinesses.

But over the same period, science has gone from great predictive successes within isolable systems, onward to a rather odd position in the field of complex systems, including social systems in which the arts and humanities were once more of a guide. On the one hand, there’s a lot of statistical results that don’t quite amount to a narrative. When the scientists come to the question of the future, they seem to fall back upon a general assumption that individuals, with enough information at their disposal, will automatically coalesce around the best way forward (i.e. the philosophical mix of methodological individualism with voting, price markets, game theory, Bayesianism, etc.).

On the other hand, computation is advancing to replace human reason with technological simulacra. E.g. it won’t always matter how human brains think if AI can do the same job by another means.

Put those two hands together, and you can see the danger. Our commanding methodological reliance upon logic, mathematics, statistics, prediction markets etc. could be taking us right over a cliff.

Nothing has caused more damage to American politics than the fact that the left has internalized a joke from 10 -15 years back. But no, reality does not have a liberal bias. Facts don’t have any bias, and political types of all stripes gladly toss reality by the wayside when it contradicts their ideology.

And climate change…is there anything more genuinely bizarre than the fact that two groups–neither of whom intend to actually do anything about the issue other than using it as a political cudgel–spend so much time bickering about this? The right is delusionally ignoring the problem, but I see more internal consistency in their beliefs than on the left. The right doesn’t think it’s happening, so they do nothing. The left acts like the world itself will end and then…proposes things that won’t even dent the issue while acting preventing it’s ‘smear mud on the wound’ policies is dooming the planet. It even looks like large portions of the neoliberal portion of the establishment sees an opportunity to restrict democracy in the name of ‘solving’ the issue by relegating it to unaccountable ‘technocratic’ councils, like some kind of ‘environmental’ Fed. Others just seem to want to convince the hoi polloi to eat bugs.

Climate change is a real thing, but it’s very hard to believe people who say it’s going to cause the oceans to rise, but who keep buying ocean-front property anyway. Even most of you can’t explain the mechanisms, you just take other people’s word for it–which is as good a way to get conned as to be enlightened. If you genuinely want people to believe it, just saying, ‘trust the experts’ isn’t going to work. The experts promised that free trade would raise all boats, and it has not. The experts told us that smoking was fine for decades before they admitted it was not. The experts tell us that increasing the labor pool won’t really hurt poor people–despite the fact that two historical events (the plague and WW2) prove that decreasing the labor pool most definitely raises wages significantly. The experts are, too often to ignore, bought and paid for. So you have to explain to them how trapping greenhouse gasses work, how human output was more like removing those precious few stones that kept a boulder from flattening us, than it was like building that boulder to begin with, that the atmosphere of this planet was once significantly different and what we’ve done is getting the ball rolling on an otherwise natural process. Because that’s accurate, and a lot of people rightfully find it absurd that we can alter the climate all on our lonesome.

But from what I see, most climate change politicians and the elite either won’t sacrifice their profits to fix the problem, or have simply decided that it’s too late to do anything–they may even see the future with automation and believe that a mass die-off among the poor will be good for them. But the neoliberal elite do not plan on solving this problem from what I see. Obama’s laughable ‘attempts’ at it proved that in my eyes, and no President has been as much of a puppet of the neoliberal than he was.

@39
Do you know that your comment made me very, very angry? –
as I currently live in – what American friends of mine –
when they come visiting – call ”The Green Paradise”- as everything the so called ”New Green Deal” proposes is already reality.

But let’s go step by step – you write:
And climate change…is there anything more genuinely bizarre than the fact that two groups–neither of whom intend to actually do anything about the issue…

Stop!

The area I live in – managed in less than forty years to change a lake which was some kind of a ”toilet” into a lake where you can drink the amazing clean water – while you are swimming in it. And it is NOT a small lake. It is a lake which borders three countries and is the biggest one in the middle of Europe. And you probably would write that this type of ”cleaning up a lake” has not THAT much to do with ”Climate Change” but it has – as the philosophy behind the clean up – also lead to the clean up of nearly all the cities around the lake of inner-city car traffic – and the result of millions of no emission producing bicycles – which have become the major mode of transportation in these cities.

AND ALL of this – due to policies of ONE group who started years ago ”doing something about it”.

And then sometimes – very stupi conservative Americans are showing up here and telling us:
But, but, but it’s only ”local” and if some Chinese don’t join in – it’s helpless – and we tell them:

So why don’t YOU and all the Chinese are ”joining in”?

And then – some of the more self- depreciating and self-critical American visitors we get confess:
BE-cause we are tremendously egotistical, greedy and stupid conservative a… holes.

So far to your point ”but I see more internal consistency in their beliefs than on the left.

When I read people like ph (is he dipper?) I wonder how the Iraq War ever started, given that all right-wingers were against it.

Hidari

Sarcasm!
Is the credit for that use of it yours alone, or did you require assistance?

What impels me to underline platitudes and their implications is finding other people falling short of the acuity necessary to appreciate them fully unaided.

Obligatory Daily Mash

THE BBC is always at pains to present both sides of an argument. Here news editor Nathan Muir discusses the ongoing ‘round or flat Earth’ debate.

A controversy is currently raging as to whether the Earth is flat, or, as some scientists have speculated, spherical.

Certainly photographic images from the Apollo missions would seem to suggest the latter. Others, however, such as the experts at the Flat Earth Society, say this is nonsense and the Earth cannot be round because we’d all roll off.

Therefore in our latest report on the flat/round Earth debate we decided to ask random people in Lincolnshire, far away from metropolitan bias. They maintained that for them the earth is very flat indeed and therefore the whole planet must be the same.

Naturally both sides have accused us of bias.

Flat earthers believe we are in the pay of scientists, who in turn are bribed by NASA – an allegation we take very seriously. Meanwhile ‘Rounders’ insist the BBC should side with them, often in very strong terms such as “Oh for f*ck’s sake!”.

All of which goes to show – we must be doing something right!

So, taking all points of view into account, which is it? Is the Earth flat or round?

As ever in these matters, the truth lies somewhere in between. In all probability the Earth is both flat and round, like a squashed orange.

Just stopped by to disagree with bad Jim @35. I live in a coastal city and have carefully watched from the beach as the 10-story tall cruise ships sail away. As far as I can tell, they just get smaller and smaller, and still show just as much of their superstructure above the horizon as they do when they’re nearby.

I’m aware of the old stories of sailors seeing the topsails of square riggers disappearing last, but my eyes tell me that that effect doesn’t apply these days to the three-masted Elissa on its semi-annual commemorative cruises. However, Elissa has a power assist. Perhaps the weight of all the carbon injected into the atmosphere since the age of steam began has caused the bulge in the center of civilization (always wherever I am, of course) to flatten out.

I don’t think any “warm contact” is going to change my answer to the immortal question posed by Chico Marx to Margaret Dumont, “Who ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?”

@ 40 I’ve never supported an invasion or regime change in the ME, or anywhere else. I live in a country that made war illegal, and I support 45 who’s the only president this century has yet to launch an illegal war of choice, like it or not.

There’s a consequence for supping Clapper swill and making lifelong GOP supporters like Comey and Mueller your friends and allies. You and the rest of the “guilty until proven innocent” crowd on the same side as all the wrong people – Boot, Clinton, Clapper, David Brooks, all the NRO clowns, Paul Ryan, Bill Kristol, etc, etc, etc. Not me. You’re the one full of love for Comey-Clapper-Brennan. Not me. I can’t stand them, or their “we’re just going to have launch another war of choice” on the lucky Libyan or Iraqi people. Not me.

MSNBC and the NYT’s “wanted for treason against America” attacks on 45 are literally exactly what the John Birch Society was doing right up until JFK was shot. How’s if feel?

I mentioned the “Save the planet” coffee cup that serves as some sort of sop/fig leaf/security blanket for climate change hypocrites. Your support for 44’s endless war and for the neocon in a pantsuit tells us clearly where you stand, which is firmly on the side of Bush, Cheney, Clapper, Biden, and Clinton – who, like you, declare that their ‘save the Iraqi/Libyan people’ coffee cups makes them ‘liberal’ in some truly f-ed up sense of the term. The dead in Iraq and Libya died at the hands of 43 and 44, presidents and their minions and apologists, like you, who believe war is the solution.

Kristol and your other new friends want to invade/destroy Iran, N. Korea, and Syria. The only thing stopping them is 45. Once/if he’s gone, America returns to what you call ‘normal.’ Bet you can’t wait.

GMcK , just so! I can watch ships sail away and the hulls don’t disappear while the sails remain visible. When they reach the horizon they’re pretty far away. That story should not be told.

However, the view of a nearby island from the beach is not quite the same as the view from an adjoining bluff, and the view from a thousand feet up is much different. Far more distant ships can be seen. When I start my drive downtown I often spot container ships passing behind Catalina; when I reach sea level they’re out of sight.

Increased partisanship could probably be documented by surveying online news sites and blogs over the past three years – the sites I survey regularly certainly seem to have been circling the wagons, so to speak. (Lawyers, Guns and Money cited @45 above being one example – the [very, very strong] dislike of Sanders, the incipient love for Warren, the snide rejection of publications/writers of whom the front pagers disapprove – are making it more difficult for those attempting to make sense of it all to follow along).

On Ukraine: I am puzzled by the Democrats’ decision to stake their all on this particular hill of wrongdoing, there being so many, many hills available. The argument that “Americans can understand Ukraine” is, frankly, not very compelling for me. And the (Dem) establishment’s casual dismissal of Biden’s son being retained at $50,000 a month as an advisor to a Ukraine natural gas company, viz. “that’s how they do things inside the Beltway” isn’t playing well outside the Beltway. Is it possible the DNC has decided that “Biden’s not the one” and that Ukraine is one way to bring him down without appearing to do so?

On climate change denialism: Yesterday I was thinking about some of the issues raised in previous comments and the following occurred to me, in the wake of torrential and destructive rains this past week where we live: “The rains are God’s tears, weeping in sorrow at the destruction we have wrought on his Creation.” A friend reminded me that this metaphor is useless, given the belief systems of the two sides: the climate change partisans don’t believe in God, and the deniers don’t believe in climate change, apparently hewing to some version of the Word which says, “Here is my Creation. Go and destroy it, and rejoice” or some such.

So there you have it.

I sometimes wonder whether the climate change scientists and movement leaders need to step back and think hard about the basic arguments they are employing to persuade the general public. Clean air, pristine waters, and fertile soil are, after all, goods very much to be desired for their own sake, given that all 9 billion of us depend on them for our survival.

Impeachment is sucking up nearly all the air in the news cycle, and I fear it will do so for many months to come. Meanwhile, via Executive Orders regulations on clean air and water, drilling/fracking/mining/logging, endangered species [did we all note that 3 billion birds have disappeared from North America since 1970?] in previously protected areas are being rolled back at an alarming rate – check out earthjustice.org for the 634 current complaints lodged against the Administration. Shouldn’t some of us be paying attention to this rash of assaults on the commons?

Admittedly despair is not the answer. But sometimes …

Orange Watch

Research project! Excellent! This will be my first time looking at Lawyers, Guns & Money. (Just because I comment here doesn’t mean I’m familiar with everything on the blogroll.) I’m going to start with the most recent post (as at time of commencing the project) and work my way down, and also check the highest-rated comments on each post as I look at it.

The most recent post, ‘The Mastermind Is Revealed’, seems to be directing contempt at Rick Perry, if I’ve understood the sarcasm correctly. The highest-rated comment on it suggests that Donald Trump is a narcissistic sociopath: I’m not sure whether that counts specifically as contempt for Trump, although it’s obviously some kind of negative evaluation. The next highest rated concurs with the negative evaluation of Perry; the next is directed at Trump.

Next is ‘Music Notes’. I’m going to hazard a guess that’s not the kind of post you were referring to and skip forward.

‘Look In My Eyes, What Do You See’ is directed a specific column, the columnist being Nathan Robinson. The evaluation of the column, and by implication of Nathan Robinson, is negative, although I’m not clear on whether it’s specifically contemptuous. Anyway, if Nathan Robinson is being targetted as representative of a class, that class consists of people who admire Bernie Sanders to excess. The highest rated comments are all agreeing in a negative evaluation of excessive admiration of Bernie Sanders (and excessive admiration in general).

‘It’s The Corruption, Stupid’ praises a column dealing with the subject of kleptocracy. The column (and the praise) are anti-kleptocrat, although it would be odd to describe it as expressing, specifically, contempt for kleptocrats. The highest-rated comment points to Trump as emblematically kleptocratic and harshly condemnatory of ’70,000 dumb shitheads in 3 states’ who made Trump President: in other words, the category being targetted is ‘Trump voters’. The next begins by praising Elizabeth Warren; it does move from there to what could fairly be described as a contemptuous reference to ‘stocking the bench with a bunch of FedSoc lunatics’. The next simply replicates a Twitter exchange, in which somebody suggested that the way to get Trump impeached is for Stormy Daniels to give him a blowjob in the White House which he would then lie about, and Stormy Daniels responded that she’s prepared for the sacrifice: if there’s contempt for anybody there, it’s for Republican politicians.

‘BREAKING! Access To Health Care Improves Health Outcomes’ makes a contemptuous reference to ‘the cadre of know-nothing libertarian hacks determined to deny the obvious’: following hyperlinks suggests that Megan McArdle is being indicated as representative of this category. The highest-rated comment offers no contempt but only thanks for ‘President Obama, Governor Northam, and the Democrats in the General Assembly’. The next highest-rated links to a piece in the New York Times whose author refers to her experience on returning to the rural county she came from: what she perceives there among rural (and mostly white) people is a reflexive resistance to government expenditure on anything, even things that might help themselves. The tone I find in it is not contemptuous but despairing. The next is negative about Republicans.

I’m going to hazard a guess that ‘Do You Even Downvote, Bro?’ is another example of a kind of post you weren’t referring to.

‘Saturday Natsec Roundup’ is mostly a collection of links to material elsewhere.

‘Donald Trump, A Man You Have To Take At His Word’ is contemptuous of Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson. The highest rated comments express contempt for him, for Republican politicians, and more generally for their party and its supporters.

‘Bernie Sanders Had A Heart Attack’ expresses no contempt, or anything close to it, for anybody; it invites people to form their own views on the relevance of the heart attack to his suitability for the nomination, and the highest rated comments respond accordingly.

So I have found some contempt being expressed at Lawyers, Guns & Money, but little or none of what I found was being directed at (and I’m quoting EB’s words here) ‘rural people, men, and white people’, unless you suppose that expressing contempt for Republicans is equivalent to expressing contempt for rural people, men, and white people. I imagine that if I systematically trawled through three months worth of posts and all the comments on them I would find some examples of the kind, but it’s not a salient characteristic, and I’m left wondering why you imagined it was.

Also, when I read EB’s reference to ‘various sub-groups of the Democratic coalition’, it would not have occurred to me to define one of those sub-groups as consisting of bloggers and commenters at Lawyers, Guns & Money.

Chetan Murphy@53:

From the top, laughing, crying, and sighing all the way.

That you suggest “various subgroups of the Democratic coalition” can be exhaustively examined by looking at candidates for a national office is actually quite telling. That you suggest their campaigning on the record in a midwestern state is indicative of the prejudices of subgroups that support each of them is either dishonest or breathtakingly naive.

Yes, Eric Loomis blogs at LGM. So does Scott Lemieux. Does Scott Lemieux blog all the damn time about the travails of rural and blue-collar workers? Does Robert Farley? Does Paul Campos? Does Shakezulu? VacuumSlayer? LGM features different front pagers from different subgroups of the Democratic coalition. Your invocation of Loomis is the Democratic factional equivalent of “I can’t be racist; I have a black friend!”. Having said that, there is a prevailing editorial slant, and it is reflected in the commentariat, which I’ll remind you I specifically pointed to and you entirely erased in your reply. Frankly, your reduction of the Democratic Party to prominent pols and pundits while ignoring the actual party membership is by itself telling, and your apparent inclination to define LGM entirely by its frontpagers while eliding its commentors is of a piece with that.

As to LGM being “a buncha lawyers and academics, mang”… how does demonstrate that those lawyers and academics don’t have specific subgroup allegiances, and that their particular allegiances don’t predominantly align with particular subgroups? Seriously, take a lesson from intersectionality: people have more than one identity at once. And beyond that, being lawyers and academics is itself indicative of a class identity that you’re ignoring because of course you are. The frontpagers and commentators are primarily professional class… and that class has particular tendencies WRT what subgroups of the Democratic Party they align themselves with.

As to your final point… it also pretends class isn’t a thing. Which again is very, very telling. Ignoring class identity is in itself a shibboleth of a specific constellation of subgroups of the Democratic coalition.

Overall, your comment was a litany of various fallacies of composition leavened with motivated myopia.

J-D 10.05.19 at 1:21 am @ 29:
‘Anarcissie:
“Anyway, I have brought my researches to the attention of experts, who uniformly rejected them, …”
Citation needed.’

Tribal elders, coastal New Jersey, 1944-1946
Miss Isola, Spring Lake Public School 1st Grade, 1946

dbk@56:

On Ukraine: I am puzzled by the Democrats’ decision to stake their all on this particular hill of wrongdoing, there being so many, many hills available. The argument that “Americans can understand Ukraine” is, frankly, not very compelling for me.

Simplicity has its advantages. And this one is simple. The problem with the Russian interference, collusion, obstruction, etc story, is that there were so many actors, so many events, so much noise. It’s easy to manufacture plausible exoneration, easy to confuse gullible Cletuses.

And as someone who grew up in a town (Weatherford, TX) where my middle-school lunch-line time was spent arguing with half-pint Christianists about evolution, a town where people literally looked with suspicion on “big Eastern universities”, I can assure you that a shit-ton of Americans are stupid. A theory of Don Bedsore’s crimes, that’s going to convince them, MUST be bonehead simple, or they won’t buy it. Or more accurately, Fox News will throw up a screen of disinfo that allows them to not buy it.

Another example of looking at the same planet and seeing different curvature:

It’s amusing, the way that some of the media, bloggers, twitterers, pundits, and commenters, conflate “non-college degree” white people with “The White Working Class” with “The Working Class”, and adduce their support for Don Bedsore as proof that a class-based politics is the necessary cure, when

(a) working-class people of color didn’t vote for Don Bedsore, and with a few notable exceptions, they’re all poorer than the median American
(b) Don Bedsore’s voters weren’t “working class” as much as they were Poujadists. A contractor with a truck, and a few undocumented workers he’d like to pay less, so hey, he sure would like it if they were scared shitless.

And then there’s (of course) the old saw that a class-based politics will clear everything up, everybody’ll get to live in the land of milk and honey. As if that worked the last time it was tried (The Great Depression). Or as if it ever worked for women’s rights.

Lotta motivated reasoning going on there.

@63–

I asked for a virtuous character trait–not a consequence of traits that are much less than virtuous, such as Trump’s obvious self-possession that was translated as “Washington outsider” to his Base. And he’s no avowed pacifist either–he follows paths that all eventually lead (in his mind) to his Base, and magnifying himself. He is a pathological narcissist who so-called self-identified “outsiders” can mold into whatever pleases them in holding on to that amorphous identity, which no doubt includes well-meaning alienated voters but not inconsequentially White Supremacists. Again–name just one real virtuous character trait he himself possesses, and not some weakly defensible consequential factor of his aberrant personality.

Orange Watch

Yes, Eric Loomis blogs at LGM. So does Scott Lemieux. Does Scott Lemieux blog all the damn time about the travails of rural and blue-collar workers?

Some of the posts I mentioned in my earlier comment were by Scott Lemieux, and weren’t about the travails of rural and blue-collar workers. Three more recent posts are about the travails of the Trump Administration and its supporters. If somebody blogs all the damn time about the travails of the Trump Administration, that does not equate to an expression of contempt for rural people, men, and white people, and so cannot be evidence of the accuracy of the earlier characterisation by EB (unless, that is, to repeat myself, you consider any expression of contempt for Republicans to equate to contempt for rural people, men, and white people).

# 47, literally told you my better strategy. You educate yourselves seriously in the mechanisms of global warming, then educate the general population about it. Stop slamming your fists on the table, pointing at authority and going ‘come one!’ and actually reach people why and how global warming happens.

I admit, I’m dismissive over whether or not people like you actually want to solve the problem, but I do want it solved. And this course of action, rather than ‘trust the experts!’ in the middle of a neoliberal technocrat-led breakdown of our society, should have begun a long time ago.

Most people are ignorant, but they are not stupid. If shown the way, they will walk it. If you act too good to bother, they will dismiss you as another snake-oil salesman.

Timothy ReynoldsI am curious to know what category you have in mind when you refer to ‘people like you [that is, me]’. Of which grouping are you taking me to be a member?

Your answer to my question is incomplete because you haven’t told me what success you have had with the strategy you describe. I have myself made attempts to explain to people the mechanisms of global warming, and so far as I was able to observe it had no effect on their attitudes whatever. But perhaps you’ve found the technique works better? If so, I’d appreciate any more specific tips.

Just a note on Biden and the firing of Viktor Shokin, the Ukrainian prosecutor general at the centre of this scandal. Shokin was epically and openly corrupt – his role in the Poroshenko administration was to make sure that in the aftermath of the Euromaidan that certain rocks weren’t looked under, and that people could keep dipping their beaks as they did prior to Yanukovych getting greedy and trying to monopolise things. In the case of Burisma, the gas company Hunter Biden was on the board of, he was sitting on a dormant investigation for reasons that remain unclear.

The IMF, EU and US, who were keeping Ukraine afloat financially at this time, weren’t particularly keen on pissing money up the wall only for it to line the pockets of the same constellation of corrupt grifters Shokin was protecting. In 2015 they began openly demanding his ouster and in 2016 declared any further aid would be dependent on him pounding sand – rightly so. Biden was the messenger for this, but it was an internationally agreed policy. After Shokin’s ouster, the investigation into Burisma was, IIRC, reopened.

The person who first spun the ‘Biden was helping his son’ narrative was Yuriy Lutsenko, Shokin’s also corrupt successor. Incoming president Zelenskiy was looking to fire him (again, the correct move if you’re looking to fight corruption) and Lutsenko thought by spinning this tale to Giuliani he could get an ally in Washington to help him keep his job. Ken Vogel at the NYT, in a spectacular display of both American parochialism and idiotic bothsidesism, took Giuliani’s talking points at face value and wrote an incredibly bad “Biden – questions remain” story, despite several Ukraine specialists having specifically told him that Shokin’s firing was above board. He is now desperately claiming on Twitter that he totally broke the “Trump pushing Ukraine to dig up dirt on Biden” angle.

The TL:DR – whatever one thinks about Biden (not much, in my case) he didn’t do anything wrong here. The circumstances of Shokin’s firing were well established and covered in international media. If people are seeing things differently here, its because of a combination of a) Republicans being terrible people who indulge in conspiracies when their world view is challenged in any way b) the US media being incredibly bad at its job.

Timothy Reynolds @72

I am in agreement that “trust the experts” is not typically a good approach to addressing people´s concerns – I, like most people in the field of science, are happy to explain and provide sources when requested. I find, however, your comment a little perplexing – if you´ll humour me for a moment, I will explain why.

The fundamental mechanism behind AGW is – by most modern scientific standards – absurdly simple (fundamentally based on the vibrational modes of CO2, as it is). Indeed, the mechanism was proposed as early as 1896 (I believe that, rather gratifyingly, “On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground” is open access at the RSC). And, while it is true that it has been considerably refined, and that the subsequent complexities (for example the various feedback loops) make an in-depth discussion of the topic challenging, there are considerable resources available (my personal favourite is Real Climate), which are able to discuss AGW in terms of everything from the fundamental science to economic theory. Moreover, since AGW is arguably one of the most open access areas of research, nearly everything (from research papers to datasets) are available. There is no “trust the experts” required – it is possible to give someone a very brief overview of the topic and supply them with resources to investigate for themselves (i.e to say “don´t take my word for it, here are some links you may wish to look at”).

Perhaps I am mistaken, but as far as I can tell there are plenty of opportunities to educate or be educated as one wishes – and there is a plethora of data which can be used to simply illustrate the point.

The issue I have generally had is that people who dispute these conclusions are not doing so on the basis of “well, how does it work” or “where is the evidence”, but rather they appear to have already decided AGW is a fiction and will justify this position in any way they can. Consequently, AGW researchers are “not to be trusted” and “suspicious” in some way they never seem to be able to describe. They don’t “oppose” AGW, they are merely “not convinced it is a result of human activity” or “don´t think it will occur as rapidly as proposed” or “may even be beneficial” – and, when you try to discuss this further and see where the point of disagreement is, they keep shifting goalposts and pointing to things which are pretty irrelevant. These are pretty common tactics, observable in a wide range of areas where people are opposed to what the evidence shows and – like those other areas – there are always a few people willing to throw up smokescreens or to use “argument from authority” to muddy the waters (e.g. those experts say this, our experts say that, who can know for sure?) while ignoring the data. On the hard edge of this, of course, are the extreme conspiracy theorists, to whom AGW is a plot by the new world order/lizard people/delete as applicable to control the masses. I wouldn´t say these people are stupid by any means – many are, in fact, very smart people – but once someone is convinced of a position, they often find ways to justify it to themselves (and yes, pretty much everyone is guilty of this!). The solution is to have a sound epistemology and to follow the evidence – but this is often so at odds with core identity that people will not follow this path.

And, to be clear, this isn´t me saying “I´m an elite and they should just trust me”, this is me saying “I have spent weeks of my own time providing resources and materials, pointing out where they are misinformed, and gently walking them through (while never patronising or being snide) the whole thing from start to finish”, and the result is always the same: “I´m just not convinced” (but they can´t say why they are not convinced, or what would convince them) or “what you say is true, but I am suspicious of this” or “I´ve just read a blog post on this website where they say [repeat already refuted claim] and this disproves everything” – Zombie myths are persistent, after all.

Frankly, I don´t see a route to convincing these people. If the plethora of resources which already exist (at every level, from “I know nothing about science” to “I am an expert in the relevant field”) are not convincing, I don´t really know what else you are expecting. I don´t say this to be dismissive, I mean it very literally – there are people who are experts, and who spend a vast amount of their free time discussing this with anyone who has questions (and they provide clear arguments and evidence, not just saying “trust me because I am a doctor”), and the net result is…not very much progress.

It seems to me that in countries where AGW is seen as non-political, generally the arguments are about how to address it (with, naturally, different people offering different approaches as influenced by their politics). And here while people exist who are skeptics/denialists, in general they are not the majority. In America, where it appears to me (and admittedly I am an outsider, so please feel free to correct me if I am wrong) to have become a political football, AGW itself is the point of disagreement. This would seem to be in accordance with the OP. The problem is that it would seem tricky to correct people when the very basis of disagreement is “you can´t trust science”, since then everything (from the models of temperature change to the mechanism proposed by Arrhenius) is easily dismissed as being partisan. And, if you can´t use science (or, more specifically, the whole of science from molecules to modelling is not admissible as it is “suspicious”) you are left in a position where it is rather tricky to demonstrate anything.

If it is just a matter of “showing the way”, why will people then turn around and say “no, your path is full of rocks, is probably the wrong way, and I expect you are in the pocket of ´big roads´ who just want my tax money to pay for this way in the first place”. It seems to me that if people are motivated to not believe something (for example, because it is a point of ideology), it is rather difficult to change their minds – particularly if there are wealthy companies with a vested interest in muddying the waters.

Perhaps you have a different perspective – maybe you think the books, blogs, websites, twitter accounts, magazines, journals, and yearly global report on AGW (to name but a few resources) are not sufficient, and that something is lacking. If so, I would welcome it if you can suggest what the missing ingredient is.

What is it you said to an AGW skeptic/denier which changed their mind? How did you approach it? What was the point they went “ah yes, I get it now”? I am 100% serious here, as science communication is important and – even though it is not one of my responsibilities – I certainly would be interested to learn what you believe is the best approach, and why others are lacking.

@72
Excuse ME –
as I probably completely misread your first comments here – because I agree 100 percent with your:
”You educate yourselves seriously in the mechanisms of global warming, then educate the general population about it – and the you actually reach people why and how global warming happens”.

And as – with the examples I posted -(about the already existing ”Green Deal”) –
and how truly pleasant it is to live in such an environment – I also found myself 100 % agreeing with your:
”Most people are ignorant, but they are not stupid. If shown the way, they will walk it”.
-(as again – the area I’m currently residing in – has proven)

So I just have THE (last?) question –
How can somebody who writes:

”You educate yourselves seriously in the mechanisms of global warming, then educate the general population about it – and the you actually reach people why and how global warming happens”.
AND
”Most people are ignorant, but they are not stupid. If shown the way, they will walk it”

– WRITE before:
”the fact that two groups–neither of whom intend to actually do anything about the issue…”

IF the proven fact is – that one of the ”two groups” did so much about it – that I’m now so happily can enjoy – what the one group did –
while you probably can’t?
-(or do you also live in one of these areas – which already prepared themselves so well agains ”climate change” – and if – in which one do you live?)

J-D@58:

I imagine that if I systematically trawled through three months worth of posts and all the comments on them I would find some examples of the kind, but it’s not a salient characteristic, and I’m left wondering why you imagined it was.

I, on the other hand, am wondering why you seem to be suggesting that looking at three days of posts and some small, unspecified number of the literal hundreds of comments per day would give you insight into the salient characteristics of that site’s readers and writers. Personally, if I were trying to review a large body of online writing, I’d avail myself to modern search technologies – although tragically the comments are not so easily searched. I do appreciate you looking even if you didn’t spend your time well – I garnered my own impression of that masthead’s slant over years of reading the site and its comments, and much of its contempt is expressed tonally.

Some of the posts I mentioned in my earlier comment were by Scott Lemieux, and weren’t about the travails of rural and blue-collar workers.

Scott Lemieux is a fascinating specimen who periodically makes derisive comments about white men’s excessive participation in American politics and punditry. Unironically. On a site where the majority of the posts are from white men. His opinions are, to coin a phrase, indispensable.

Chetan Murthy@66:

You make my point for me with your snarky attempt to conflate analysis based on intersecting class identities and essentialist identities with class-only political analysis. There is a world of political discourse beyond only-class-matters and class-never-matters.

Alan White 10.07.19 at 2:28 am @ 68 —

I do not have the power to look into the hearts of men (and other beings) and judge their virtue; I can only go by their external behavior. Unlike the Clintons, Kerry, Bush, McCain, Obama, and so on and on and on, Trump, as far as I know, did not start or actively support any new wars, and seems to be slacking off on some of the old ones. I regard this as a virtue. A thin or temporary or illusory one, maybe, but I have to take what I can get and make the best of it. Do you think such issues are unimportant?

“I’ve never supported an invasion or regime change in the ME, or anywhere else. I live in a country that made war illegal, and I support 45 who’s the only president this century has yet to launch an illegal war of choice, like it or not.” {etc.}

Sure, but I didn’t ask who participated directly/individually in which actions, or who supported what, but who ran which scam and in whose interests. The answer to my question is a very simple one, but I don’t find it here. That much having been acknowledged, it doesn’t sound like we have a lot to talk about, but I’d like to leave you with a thought — which is that it’s harder to get most people to apologize for having been lied to than you might think. Sorry for unpleasantness.

bekabot

That much having been acknowledged, it doesn’t sound like we have a lot to talk about, but I’d like to leave you with a thought — which is that it’s harder to get most people to apologize for having been lied to than you might think.

I have had the experience of being deceived. It’s an unpleasant one. It’s unsurprising that people find it painful to admit having been deceived, and so I wouldn’t expect it to be easy to get them to do so. I’m not clear, though, on why you would expect people to apologise for having been deceived.

John Quiggin 10.08.19 at 12:32 am @ 91 —
Some of the resistance to the climate change theory purveyed by experts and elites is probably rooted in the priesthood of all believers, from which we also get such ideas as the liberal rights. It would not be surprising to find them conveyed by the relics of the Protestant revolutions, for example the Evangelicals.

There is also the very persistent charge (see this very discussion) that those who believe differently from oneself are either stupid or evil or both. I think most people are doubtful about taking advice from people who despise them.

“None of that changes the quite obvious facts in my first paragraph. Trump appears to have committed a crime.” #67

And conservatives would care if Obama had not used a dossier paid for by his underling, Hillary Clinton, as an excuse (by lying to the FISA court about the generally accepted validty of said document) to investigate a candidate from the other party.

Sure, you can BS yourself into believing there are real ‘differences’ between the cases. But no Trump supporter cares. Obama changed the game. If he can have his successor’s opponent investigated, then not one of us will give any kind of damn about him investigating his opponent. Neither the media, nor any other neoliberal institution, commands enough respect amongst the population to change our mind. You should not have done that–we all know that, even you know that. Once you did, that changed every rule of the game. Now everyone will do it. There is no escaping that. Had you not, most of us would indeed support impeaching Trump. But you all did that. And you were fine with letting your crooked little king do it. So we don’t care if our crooked king does it, either.
Turnabout is always fair play.

@95
Nixon didn’t start any wars either (assuming you don’t count the covert bombing of Cambodia). Was he a ‘peacenik’ too?

It’s certainly true that Trump is not as bad as he is painted by the ‘liberal’ media, and that, although there are an almost infinite number of good reasons to despise Trump, most ‘mainstream’ pundits have gone out of their way to find bad ones. As has been pointed out (if memory serves it was by Duncan Black (‘Atrios’) but I could be wrong), not only is Trump not the worst American President of the 21st century, he’s not even the worst Republican President of the 21st century. Which is lowering the bar by quite a bit.

Nonetheless the fact that a morally squalid charlatan like Trump is by no means the worst American President says a lot about the American political system. But what it says about this is not palatable to the liberals who have spent their careers extolling the virtues of that same system. So, mainly, it goes unsaid. Instead we get told over and over again (and wrongly) that Trump is an ‘outlier’ a ‘renegade’ ‘one of a kind’ a ‘rotten apple in a barrel of shining spotless perfect apples’ and (the biggest lie of all) that if and when Trump is finally removed from office ‘everything will go back to normal’.

A few comments to add to my remarks above, in response to further remarks by others.

Orange Watch @82 & 83: On NC, the Jacobin, Current Affairs, LGM et al.
I agree that NC is probably a better site for Sanders support(ers); the site has more clearly delineated the considerable differences between the platforms of Sanders and Warren than others I read regularly.

Re: LGM in particular: I have been reading the site daily for about a decade, and read nearly every post by Lemieux, Campos, and Loomis (don’t follow military stuff, so I don’t read Farley). And yes, it’s the tone which has visibly changed since the 2016 election. For J-D@58, @93: LGM is a site run by academics (primarily) and its readership is mostly urban/suburban. A search for “rural” isn’t going to come up with much, frankly. I haven’t done such a search as yours – I read the site daily, after all – but you might have better luck with “Trump voters,” “Trump’s base,” and similar. There is a general feeling that those “left behind” need to abandon their homes and move to cities, where there are jobs (I’m generalizing, but that’s the drift). The exception is Erik Loomis, who, notably, supported BS in the 2016 primary and has considerably more empathy for the rural and working-class population (having grown up in timber country in Oregon) and for the dispossessed, both rural and urban. He gets a lot of push-back, though, particularly on posts related to integration, particularly of the U.S. public schools.

tim@85 re: the religious beliefs of climate change deniers
My original statement was a generalization and I thank you for the link to Laudato, which I will read and reflect upon. But in general, as JQ remarked above @91, Christian Evangelicals, who form a key segment of Trump’s base, do not accept AGW.
OTOH, many religious organizations /groups are actively involved in Extinction Rebellion NYC; generally speaking, the more liberal faiths in the U.S. do accept AWG.

notGoodenough@78: on the dilemma(s) of conveying the significance of AGW to the general public

This was a really fine statement of the “information gap” dilemma scientists and environmentalists face.
I too am puzzled about how to reach, well, everyone; many scientists have begun to despair (cf., for example https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/07/weight-of-the-world-climate-change-scientist-grief/). George Monbiot and Chris Hedges (among others) have concluded that, given the urgency of change, only mass protests will be effective – something Extinction Rebellion is attempting to bring about (mottoes: Tell the Truth/ Act Now/ Beyond Politics/ and (in the U.S.)/ Just Transition) through its targeted “actions.”

Daragh McDowell @76: on Ukraine/Biden, etc.
I’d be interested in your reaction to Moon of Alabama’s take on the same events, cf. https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/10/biden-timeline.html#comments (the piece, by the way, excerpts from one published at NC by Richard Smith, a generally very reliable investigator/analyst).

I don’t really care about our various takes on the blog / news aggregation sites we all read – I don’t read FiveThirtyEight, so didn’t endeavor to comment on it. And I’m sure that all the commenters have their go-to sites and favorites. That’s fine, that’s normal.

But partisanship on climate change – well, that’s a different matter. Debating how to best effect mitigation / adaptation is one thing, and needs to be conducted on an ongoing basis in many public fora; debating about whether AGW even exists is quite another.

OR WAIT!

I just saw Ellen -(and how she explained her hanging out with Bush) – and that made totally and absolutely sense.

So I take it all back – EVERYTHING!

I love – absolutely LOVE the ph and Reynolds types .
AND NO MORE ”Partisanship” anymore – ever!

I – ME – WE agree with everything these ph and Reynold types have to say about anything!

Whew –
(and now – as this is out of the way – can we now go back – fighting the Climate Crisis and one of the worst offender FF von Clownstick?)

#79

The Steele dossier was not the foundation of the investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia. You’re repeating nonsense.

Trump’s ties to Russia were of long standing concern. Google “Felix Sater” for example. Trump’s call outs to Russia predate the Steele dossier. Repeating nonsense doesn’t change anything.

And again, trump committed a crime when he used tax dollars to extort dirt on his opponents. This is very clear, and talking about the Steele dossier won’t change it.

– and actually the major problem might be ”bipartisanship”?

As there are so many Americans now – who are so confused, that they write stuff like this:
”The Democrats’ alternative to Trump’s efforts to establish a form of presidential dictatorship and create a fascist movement based on anti-immigrant racism and extreme nationalism is to install a government directly run by the CIA and the Pentagon”
– and then they probably think: That’s ”bipartisan”?

While any ”good partisan” -(and not ”partisan” of ”the Dark Side”) knows – that:
”The Democrats’ alternative to Trump’s efforts to establish a form of presidential dictatorship and create a fascist movement based on anti-immigrant racism and extreme nationalism is NOT to install a government directly run by Trump –
(and his CIA and the Pentagon) – as Trump very obviously is the head of the head of the CIA and if just two whistleblower of the YUUUGE CIA whistleblow on Trump – it’s even less than one of Trumps children telling him:

”Dad your are a criminal idiot and you should be impeached”!

Murthy@87:

Remind me again whether a plurality of the commentariat of a blog whose frontpagers are academics in relevant fields lost their mind when the labor historian academic in their midst had the gall to post about educational inequality. Lawyers, academics, and other professionals can and do have shared class values, and those can and do color their politics and prejudices, mang, and just because someone fancies themself a forward-thinking progressive who doesn’t SEE class doesn’t mean that they’re not perched comfortably atop a mountain of unexamined privilege they’re loathe to lose, nor that such privilege doesn’t draw them towards specific subgroups of like-minded individuals within the larger tent of their political party.

BTW, on the subject of class, it’s super classy when you engage someone condescendingly but then proceed to not respond to their response to you directly in favor of continously throwing vague passive-aggressive barbs in their direction while conversing with other people because you know they’re still reading the thread.

J-D@93:

I didn’t mean to suggest that you were digging into that for my sake; I really do appreciate that you were willing to do some research based on a random other commenter’s suggestion. It reflects well on you, and I wasn’t giving you enough credit.

Having said that… if you look at what a professional athlete does in the offseason, and during the week you look they’re not doing sports or training, I’d still hesitate to say sports is not a salient part of their identity. To touch on a theme from the other conversation I’m carrying on in this thread, identities are multivalent. If the news of a particular week doesn’t touch on a particular part of that person’s beliefs and biases, it can rest unseen.

As to tone, that further complicates things. Information encoded pragmatically rather than semantically is far more likely to rely on a shared dialect of cues, allusions, and strategic omissions. To try to drag this sub-conversation back closer to the original thread topic, a reason why people look at a set of utterances and draw wildly disparate conclusions about its meaning can be that its meaning is not always a matter of semantics. Reading LGM long-term as someone who does not feel like a member (and let’s be clear, LGM’s commenters are very given to in-group/out-group dynamics) makes my interpretation of their utterances different from an outsider who doesn’t read it regularly – but while my comprehension is closer to that of a long-term insider’s, even then it’s not the same for a number of reasons; of those my observing rather than internalizing shared values is probably the most helpful for me, while the narrowness of my vocabulary in the common pragmatic dialect from my non-exposure to it outside that one forum is the most hindering.

More briefly: you looking over LGM to try to clearly see what is obvious to me because I’ve had years to learn a vocabulary of small offhand remarks and idiomatic allusions was frustratingly informative about problems with ontological intelligibility.

As a parting note, I’ll leave this 2016 LGM post by Eric Loomis which aims some relevant criticism at the rest of that blog’s blindspots and overgeneralization, among other things. Even this is not terribly explicit, but then it doesn’t need to be, because it’s part of an ongoing conversation with continuity of reference, shared interpretations, and particular nuances that were previously established. Sadly, the post has no comments; I think it dates back to before Disqus was adopted as the site’s commenting platform, but I can’t remember exactly when that happened. The Economic Anxiety “Debate” (28/11/2016).

Timothy Reynolds@96 pretends to even-handed “live by the sword, die by the sword” realism. But the issue is about smearing opponents as traitors. It was his superiors who ranted about email servers, Benghazi and Clinton Cash long before. And that’s to amnesty the unbelievable pile of crap similar trash spouted in the Nineties. All of it was hinting treason, treason, treason. Reynolds is whining because his tin god is getting some payback. Trying to claim some sort of evenhandedness in this is contemptible, especially given the man openly asked Russia to do more DNC type dirty tricks.

No sensible, decent human being took the malignant buffoonery of conservatives crying treason against Clinton seriously. And no sensible, decent human being takes smears of treason against Trump seriously either. This was viciously reactionary, hateful politics back during the great purges called McCarthyism. It’s only gotten rottener with time.

People have also tried to present factual information in respectful and digestible ways that the economy is booming, not least Trump himself. Or that NAFTA would help the whole country. Or that a college education would pay off, especially if you lost your previous good job. Or….

I’m starting to appreciate the virtues of hypocrisy.
Doing the work of creating a durable cover story for an indictment, or mixing a few actual criminals into a targeted “corruption probe”, or finding an self-consistent excuse for new regulations – even if the motives are venal, there is some theory of mind involved. An acknowledgement of shared values, or at least the need for a semblance of same, beyond the partisan struggle. More cynically, doing the work of hypocrisy adds some friction to the whims of power – there will be cases where it’s just not worth the effort to build a believable frame job. This new era of “saying the quiet parts out loud” comes with a deep sense of impatience and frustration radiating from those in power – all they want is loyalty and obedience, so why are they constantly hampered by underlings who still expect a convincing excuse?
Most of the time, you can replace “deep state” with “rule of law” and incur no loss of meaning. I think this goes beyond partisanship.
If all I can hope to do is replace your crooked king with my crooked king, our common project of maintaining the facade disappears. That facade is containing forces, not just concealing them.

dbk@102:

Thank you for concisely summing up what I had been poorly and verbosely trying to communicate. I need to work on my focus and succinctness.

JQ: I went and re-read Tim Reynolds’ comments, and yeah, it’s clear he’s a climate troll. To put it succinctly, in every other technically-sophisticated field, we accept “epistemic learned helplessness” as the obvious and wisest course. But in the case of climate change, somehow he’s expecting those who believe it’s happening, to actually *convince* those who don’t.

I’m reminded of the arguments over evolution, and how even doctors sometimes end up on the side of creationism, of all the idiocies.

@109
”If you believe that whether a leader starts new wars or not is unimportant, then we have a deeper difference of values which we would have to resolve to continue the discussion without talking past one another”.

I believe very much that it is ”not unimportant” wether a a leader starts new wars –
but you wrote:
”I do not have the power to look into the hearts of men (and other beings) and judge their virtue; I can only go by their external behavior”.

And so I posted some examples of Trumps ”external behavior” concerning war and after
explaining that ”we once interviewed a Trump Fan who told us (on tape)
”To own the Libs all you have to do is to pretend that you are anti-war – then they even vote for Trump”?

I asked:
So did you get ”owned” by all people – a drunk Trump Fan or by Baron FF von Clownstick himself?

And as you didn’t answer this question in your last response – we indeed – might be talking ”one another”.
And please – if you respond – don’t tell me – that my question is a silly question – as I have found out – that this argument that ”Trump didn’t start any new Wars” get’s used by the Trump Team to the utmost degree in order to ”own” the Libs again – and make a lot of naive Americans – who are NOT aware that Trump and his Fans just pretend to be ”anti-war” – vote for him again.

@118
”Striking that Timothy Reynolds first appeared as a concern troll, talking about how the left wasn’t messaging correctly on climate change, before revealing himself as a rightwing conspiracy theorists”.

Yes! –
it is very ”sad” that the Clownsticks of these world have learned so… let’s not say ”well” but perhaps ”viciously” to play some of US Progressives or so called ”Libs”.

And as we have one of the best examples – of their currently most successful ”Game” –
-(The ”Trump Never Started A War-Game”) – AND at the last election even very clever anti-war posters like Glenn Greewnwald fell for this ”Trump-Team-Trick”.
We HAVE to expose such Games anytime somebody plays them with us.

And – sometimes the Gamer might be playing it in ”good faith” – honestly believing that Trump indeed is ”anti-war” BUT then WE have to inform – him or her – that such a belief is NOT the case!

AND about this ”Ukrainian” thing –
and somehow – understandable? – that Americans have this idea – that Biden –
– or Obama or THE CIA – or any Americans played some kind of an ”important role” in the chaos of a country – trying to become a democracy and thusly trying to move away from Russia – and in the arms of the comparably much more pleasant EU?

Yes!-
Americans played some ”role” – about as YUUUGE as the 400 000 Bucks Trump didn’t want to give to the Ukrainians – in comparison to the Billions the Ukraine get’s from the
EU.

In other words:
It’s really strange – that all these conspiracy theorists on the Internet -who came up with these theories – that it WASN’T mainly ”the Russians” – or certain ”Ukrainian Groups” themselves – who created the terrible chaos – didn’t point to ”Some Great EU” – they instead pointing to some of their fellow countrymen -(mainly THE CIA)

Does that have something to do with OUR exceptionalism? – and this weird way of seeing – even countries which are very, very faaar away from US entirely from our perspective?

And I once had to post an entire history of the Ukrainian War – IN German –
(as them Germans are pretty thorough about this history-stuff) – just in order to convince somebody on the Internet – that there wasn’t a single American name in there. AND even that Bidens bragging to pull some Ukrainian prosecutor was actually done by the EU and the IWF and some Ukrainian ”Influencers”.

-(and please no comeback with the argument – that the IWF is nothing but ”a tool of the US” or something like that)

Timothy Reynolds #97: “lying to the FISA court about the generally accepted validity of said document”

This is false.

From the FISA warrant October 2016: “Source #1, who now owns a foreign business/financial intelligence firm, was approached by an identified U.S. person, who indicated to Source #1 that a U.S.-based law firm had hired the identified U.S. person to conduct research regarding Candidate #1’s ties to Russia (the identified U.S. person and Source #1 have a long-standing business relationship). The identified U.S. person hired Source #1 to conduct this research. The identified U.S. person never advised Source #1 as to the motivation behind the research into Candidate #1’s ties to Russia. The FBI speculates that the identified U.S. person was likely looking for information that could discredit Candidate #1’s campaign.” –pp. 15-16.

This appears to be all that is necessary for a FISA warrant, in the proper language, and all that is legally required.

Trump’s Republican propagandists, or at least Nunes and Gowdy among them, grudgingly conceded this point, all the way back in early 2018: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/05/fbi-footnote-carter-page-warrant-390795

Obviously this falsehood is still being propagated, although it is now updated with qualifying locutions such as “…generally accepted validity…” Still false.

Rewritten, to identify the participants: “Christopher Steele, who now owns a foreign business/financial intelligence firm, was approached by Glen Simpson, who indicated to Steele that Perkins Coie [Clinton’s law firm] had hired Simpson to conduct research regarding Trump’s ties to Russia (Simpson and Steele have a long-standing business relationship). Simpson hired Steele to conduct this research. Simpson never advised Steele as to the motivation behind the research into Trump’s ties to Russia. The FBI speculates that Simpson was likely looking for information that could discredit Trump’s campaign.”

Remember, the dossier is raw intelligence for a warrant to authorize further investigation, like a tip to the cops — it is NOT a sworn affidavit to be entered as evidence in a trial.

Other falsehoods we read and hear from Trump supporters (to try and head them off):

1. Steele’s antipathy to Trump is legally relevant in a warrant application.
2. The Steele dossier was the only basis for the Carter FISA warrant.
3. The FISA warrant was the basis for the Mueller investigation.
4. All of the items in the Steele dossier have been proven false.
5. The Mueller investigation proved there was no collusion and no obstruction.

So far as we know, these too are all FALSE.

John Quiggin 10.09.19 at 2:10 am @ 118 —
I don’t see any concern trolling on my part. Only because you ask: I figured out climate change would occur as a child. This was in the late 1940s. I saw a picture of people burning smoky stuff in orange groves threatened by freezing, and asked one of the tribal elders why that would help, since it did not appear that smudge pots would heat up acres of trees much. I was told that the gases and particulate matter in the smoke would reflect the heat radiating from the ground and thus keep the trees warmer. I thought this was quite remarkable, which is why I remember it now. Later, I asked, ‘Since people burn a lot of stuff and kick up a lot of smoke and gasses and so on, won’t this make the world warmer?’ ‘Yes,’ the elders said, ‘No doubt you’ll see palm trees growing in New York any day now. Har har.’ Later still I saw the same theory in Popular Science or some such magazine. So, when the theory began to be noised about decades later, I was all ready for it. By then, as now, however, you could see gross environmental destruction everywhere, so it was no surprise. Today, I think it’s about 90% probable that things are going to get really, really ugly. But there is nothing much I can do about it, because the institutions which guarantee this result, to wit, capitalism, imperialism, and endless war, are sacred and may not be impugned. Nor may the lifestyles of the rich, famous, and powerful be seriously questioned. Is this view concern trolling? I don’t get it. Yes, you are going about trying to change people’s minds in the wrong way, as Mr. Carnegie could tell you, but does it matter?

Presidential primary seasons have a way of bringing out the worst in people. A lot of left-leaning blogs went off the rails in 2008. And in 2016, LG&M went all-in against Sanders, with particularly nasty and over-the-top behavior by commentators. After the Trump election the place had an absolute melt-down, and I stopped reading them for quite awhile.

As a leftist, I find Loomis valuable and he’s why I go there now. Campos can be interesting. Lemieux (2016 era) was consistently wrong in his predictions, and incapable of fairly characterizing people who disagree with him. Maybe he’s changed, but as I no longer read anything that he writes, I wouldn’t know. And I had such horrible interactions with people in the comments there – abusive and awful – that I don’t read them either.

So, there are people who are *not* right wing trolls who had really bad experiences at that place, and I view the characterization by Orange Watch as actually pretty fair based on what it was like when I was reading.

Chetan Murthy: “As I’m sure you’re aware, the demonization of anybody *one* *scintilla* to the left of the GrOPer movement is a long-standing thing, going back as far as Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and his list of words to use and not use, as well as the well-known and widely-respected (on the right) pollster and political operative Frank Luntz. The idea that somehow it’s the left/progressive/liberals who engage in demonization is laughable on its face. Let’s not forget all the GrOPer pols who accused Hillary Clinton of treason for doing exactly what her (GrOPer) predecessors as Secretary of State did, either.”

Indeed, whenever the left try to reduce the demonization by moving a bit to the right, the GOP rump simply take a step of their own further rightward and recommence the demonization.

98 And there’s been huge solicitude for the supposedly left-behind voters who backed Trump.

How does this even make sense? If you’re a “supposedly left-behind voter who backed Trump,” what are you hearing, right now, from the left and from the Democrats? How awful Trump is. The Democrats running for president are not trying to appeal to swing voters, they’re trying to appeal to their base. How can you be “huge[ly] solicit[ous]” toward any group of Trump voters when you are constantly implying bad things about anyone who would vote for Trump?

When it comes to the general election, then I would imagine that the Democratic nominee might temper their rhetoric somewhat in ways meant to appeal to the larger body of potential voters. As bad as Trump is, I don’t think he’s really as bad as most left-wingers think, whose view of Trump is naturally skewed by their dislike of Republicans and Republicans generally. (Alan White asks for a virtuous trait – isn’t there something somewhat virtuous about Trump’s consistency and genuineness and transparency? He doesn’t – well, much – rely on deceit or shiftiness, he is what he is? Even in his bullying or “fake pugnacious” behavior, he’s genuine, and even caves and whines in a genuine fashion?).

Maybe JQ meant that on blogs like CT or LGM there was “huge solicitude” for these voters. (Not that they would be reading them, so probably not, but). Actually the LGM post Orange Watch links to in 110 is about this, but the hugeness of the solicitude is somewhat tempered in a somewhat typical fashion:

These are voters that Democrats can probably get back without appealing to racism, which it absolutely must never do.

“Probably” But maybe not…. (I enjoyed the “which it absolutely must never do” also – in the debate about what LGM is really like, somehow “schoolmarmish” hasn’t come up).

@135– “isn’t there something somewhat virtuous about Trump’s consistency and genuineness and transparency? He doesn’t – well, much – rely on deceit or shiftiness, he is what he is? Even in his bullying or “fake pugnacious” behavior, he’s genuine, and even caves and whines in a genuine fashion?”

This is the funniest thing I’ve read this week. I guess I parse “genuineness and transparency” in our own actual world rather than some remote possible one. Do you think he genuinely loves his Base more than himself, or that he really wants to be transparent about his tax returns? And that’s just two small examples!

As they say on ESPN–c’mon man!

The thing about narcissistic injury is that it’s the most painful thing in the world, of a different nature and degree to any other sort of suffering.

Under those circumstances, comparisons are offensive and completely unacceptable.

anon/portly:

Chetan Murthy in 113 brings up Gingrich, who was a politician and not a “commentator,”

But it wasn’t merely that Gingrich used his list: he enforced a rule that his entire caucus would use it, and from there via the right-wing messaging machine, it was used all over media. Similarly, Frank Luntz (who -is- a comentator, but also an influencer) changed the way the entire right-wing talked about Dems/progressives/liberals. And let’s not forget that GrOPers were using words like “treason” to refer to Hillary Clinton’s email server issues. [And it bears reminding that if she’d been using official state department servers, her emails WOULD have been hacked along with all the others when those servers get penetrated, whereas so far nobody has any evidence that her personal server was ever penetrated. Also worth reminding is that those servers were set up for her husband’s office, hence vetted by the Secret Service.] And the list goes on, I mean, don’t we remember that Barack Obama was a Secret Muslim?

If you really care about this question, you might consult David Niewert’s writings about this. He’s been on this beat for decades.

anon/portly:

How does this even make sense? If you’re a “supposedly left-behind voter who backed Trump,” what are you hearing, right now, from the left and from the Democrats? How awful Trump is.

Three thoughts:
(1) perhaps you haven’t been listening to Joe Biden? Or Buttigeig? the Dems are a broad movement, and the idea that they speak with a single voice is ….. just incorrect. Most Dems have taken great pains to try to convince ‘white working class’ voters that they’re on their side.
(2) Perhaps you haven’t noticed the innumerable “Cletus Safaris” put on by the media, to the point where even Doonesbury made fun of them? The media has bent over backwards to pander to these imbeciles.
(3) I must say, that you seem to have slept thru the Obama years. Completely forgotten about what happened then, and the insane levels of demonization to which he was subjected.

Or maybe, just maybe, you’re a troll.

Alan White asks for a virtuous trait – isn’t there something somewhat virtuous about Trump’s consistency and genuineness and transparency? He doesn’t – well, much – rely on deceit or shiftiness, he is what he is? Even in his bullying or “fake pugnacious” behavior, he’s genuine, and even caves and whines in a genuine fashion?

I can’t imagine what White is talking about here. It is widely acknowledged among liberals that Trump’s incompetence has benefits, and that his transparent dishonesty has some advantages over clever deception. I think you would struggle to find someone on the left who wants Trump to substitute actual pugnacity for his fake pugnacity.

As for consistency, well, I guess that’s a word you could use for a consistent lack of consistency. (Just this week, witness his wildly varying statements on the Kurds and Turkey, and his sudden shifts in policy there. It’s true that this sort of thing has been a consistent hallmark of his presidency.)

But really, it’s the Right that refuses to acknowledge Trump’s consistent grifting, erratic behavior, racism, sexism and narcissism.

Tens of thousands of people are displaced after Trump invited Turkey to invade Syria, throwing his own former allies the Kurds, who they paid most of the cost of the fight against IS, to the crocodiles.

Trump hasn’t technically started this war but he is fully responsible, he is fully willing to further destabilise the region, exacerbate ethnic conflict and again strengthen the fascistic and terrorist forces in the region.

Message to Trump apologists: if he had wanted to decrease the military footprint of the US, he would have had plenty of opportunities to do so. Ending this rare case of an actually stabilising military force was not among them. This action was not just reckless, it was taken to intentionally destabilise a fragile peace.

One more remark, if “hasn’t started a war in his first threes years in power “ counts as a positive distinction, don’t forget to give Hitler his due.

I am impelled by some recent comments by faustusnotes to make the following points clear:

I came into this discussion without any views about Lawyers, Guns & Money, positive or negative, because I have never been a reader of it.

Having looked it now, just a bit, the only definite view I have formed about it is that there seem to be some interesting posts there. I still don’t have any strong view about it, positive or negative, beyond that.

I enjoyed investigating it the way I have described, and found it interesting, but I don’t think my research findings approach being conclusive. They’re suggestive only. A much more extensive investigation would be required to form definite conclusions about Lawyers, Guns & Money, and I don’t feel impelled to undertake it (although I have found some of the comments about it, positive and negative, interesting and suggestive although not conclusive).

I still think, what I’ve observed before, that the important point for this discussion is that any resentment felt against the Democrats by Trump supporters, or Trump-supporting rural white men specifically, or any other sub-group of Trump voters, or rural white men in general, is not even a little bit a consequence of attitudes towards themselves they’ve seen being expressed at Lawyers, Guns & Money, because the number of them who follow the blog must be insignificant.

If it’s true that rural white men resent the Democrats, it might be important to know why, but the answer to that question is not ‘Because of the awful things Lawyers, Guns & Money say about them’. Much, much earlier in this thread, EB suggested that the Democrats are losing the support of rural white men as a result of the contempt Democrats voice for them. If that’s really happening, Lawyers, Guns & Money is not the place where it’s happening. Citation still needed. A relevant one.

139 This stuff is trivially easy to investigate and confirm yourself, and anyone with even a passing knowledge of Fox News, hate radio or the rest of the American political climate would know these things. Why adopt this pose?

133 I’m genuine curious – what’s an example (or a few examples) of an American right-wing commentator who commonly makes this sort of implication or statement?

98 Can you point to any rightwing commentator who has referred to liberals or progressives, let alone socialists, without the implication (or direct statement) that they are evil and stupid? I read widely and I can’t recall any.

Emphasis mine. I was curious about who or what JQ reads that is like this, at least in the American context. I’m guessing he’s not reading Fox News or “hate radio,” whatever that is, even if they do come in readable form, which as far as I know they don’t. And whether or not I have a “passing knowledge of the rest of the American climate,” or am adopting some pose, I’m still curious.

Watching “liberals” cheer for Clapper, Comey, Brenner is something of an eye-opener, to say the least. Now that 45 has elected to end US involvement in northern Syria, with a plan of a kind (unlike 44) to replace US troops with others from a NATO state in good standing (like it or not), we now have “liberals” resurrecting Barry Goldwater’s attack on Richard “soft on the commies” Nixon for abandoning US allies in Viet Nam to the blood-thirsty reds.

I don’t like 45, but I feared his opponent’s enthusiastic and proven appetite for destroying UN nation states would lead the US deeper into ME conflicts.

Exactly which “liberals” support continuing US meddling in Syria and other ME nations?

“Liberals” like TM are lining up along side Boot, Goldberg, Sullivan, the corpse of Charles Krauthammer, and the rest of the “war brings peace” goons who love nothing better than bombing the crap out of folks who can’t fight back. If 45 sends more troops in (see JQ above) or takes troops out ™ – 45 is always “starting” new wars.

Given that neither solution seems to satisfy critics, perhaps the best bet is for the US president to listen to the US people, and most of the citizens of the world, who want an end to US wars in the ME. Silly me.

@139
”But here’s the thing: Sanders is a fraud and a show pony, and any real leftist would hold him in contempt”.

Okay – I also -used to love Bernie – BUT not even as close as you do?
And as you are one of my fellow – so called ”Lefties” – perhaps I can ask you you what bothers me for a long time.

Why are so many of US such amazingly wonderful rational, reasonable and sane people -(compared to all of these crazy Clownstick)
BUT THEN there are some of US – who have this completely irrational LOVE or should we call it ”tick” – or as a Japanese friend of mine would say: TEH HOTS – for somebody or something?

Why?

I mean – if you love Bernie that much – make ”Nookie” with him – and then you will come back here – refreshed – and all ready to encounter the Clownsticks –
(together wit ME – MOI and US!)

Alan White #149: “…it’s a foundational-type puzzle for me…”

It has a long history. Tyrants have arisen in royal families to take control of states since ancient times, and often gained fervent followers. The framers of the US Constitution knew history and designed the system to correct against these occasional, inevitable sociopaths. (They were also particularly concerned with the case of foreign influence upon factions, because of course almost everyone in the US colonies had contacts in the old world.) The occasional arising of sociopaths in democracies is to be expected. The Nazis for example gained power largely through democratic means. The winning combination for success appears to be: economic distress + moral fear + outgroups that you can hate. In Trump’s case it is also clear that some of his voters believed his campaign rhetoric was a stage act, and that he would straighten-up and be normal after he was elected. Now his supporters stick with him via other sins well-attested by time: ignorance, self-pride and inertia.

@faustusnotes

Sanders has his flaws, as does every other politician, but your characterization of him is, frankly, ridiculous. This stuff about he’s-rich-so-he-can’t-be-an-actual-leftist is funny. (Of a piece in a way with your (inaccurate) assertion, made here some months ago (maybe it was more like a year or two ago) that Marx was wealthy, when in fact he lived a good deal of his life in what a biographer aptly described as genteel poverty.)

Btw I don’t care that LGM is critical of Sanders and thinks he’s a fraud — if that’s their view, fine. What bothers me a bit, though, is that it almost never seems to enter their mind that they ever could be mistaken about anything.

Now that 45 has elected to end US involvement in northern Syria, with a plan of a kind (unlike 44) to replace US troops with others from a NATO state in good standing

The liberal media never cease to amaze me with their insistence on ignoring the good things that Trump does. You won’t believe this, but in the US, the media are reporting that nobody replaced the US troops, and Turkey promptly invaded.

The framers of the US Constitution knew history and designed the system to correct against these occasional, inevitable sociopaths.

Did they? I mean, understand history.

I’m not a historiographer, but the deposition of James II was a pretty major event less than a century prior, so there should be some reasonable documentation of how the mechanisms that lead to its being much less bloody than the deposition of his father were understood in north america in the later 18th century. I mean, it’s comparable with modern-day stuff like world war one and the russian revolution, stuff that we [with our admittedly-better education system] teach to Literally Every Fifteen-Year-Old; we’d expect textbooks and encyclopedias to be full of it. We should be able to see how the US constitution was shaped by these concerns and understandings; maybe the well-documented debate process explicitly mentions this, or something?

Because from my perspective all I can see is that the US constitution replicated the shitty stuart constitution that killed squillions in wars, with the single addition of a mechanism to impeach the king that’s useless because it’s too slow-moving.

Hidari: TL;DR LG&M attacks many, many candidates. Out of glee, and out of conviction. But of the top-tier candidates, yeah, as JQ says, the ones who come in for a drubbing are Sanders and Biden. This doesn’t mean the also-rans don’t get ridiculed — but at some point, that’s no fun, kicking down.

LG&M also …. attacks …. well, maybe I should say farts in the general direction of, while casting aspersions as the stench of her father (of elderberries) at Tulsi Gabba-Gabba-Doo? Erm, I mean, Tulsi Gabbard, of course. And of course there’s been multiple posts about Williamson, too. I mean, brutal, brutal stuff.

They’ve also turned their firehose of scorn at Delaney (though they don’t bother, b/c he’s gone gone gone, gone baby gone). And Licken-Hooper. And DeBlasio. And …. who else? I know there’s another one ….. damn … damn …. damn …. oh right … Bennet/Bullock/Ryan/SleeStack (oh, sorry, I meant Sestak)/Steyer/Moulton. But they don’t focus on these jokers much, except to point out that they could be usefully running for Senate, b/c …. they’re not goin’ anywhere, and why bother? Except for Moulton and Ryan, who are handy pinatas b/c they failed to unseat Pelosi, and NOW they’re gonna run for President? Guffaw.

I left out Yang, but again, he’s …. well, why bother?

Hidari asked, Not that I care what LGM say about anything but do they ever attack other candidates with the same vehemence that they attack Sanders?

While my overall take on LGM is a slightly milder version of what LFC says at 160, this is just obviously wrong. Biden is by far the biggest target for attack there. After Biden, it’s probably Gabbard (rightly), and then the parade of hopeless white guy candidates. Sanders himself is only rarely attacked. (In fact, Farley and, I think, one other poster there were even advisors on Sanders’ 2016 campaign.) Sanders’ more stupid supporters – the ones who see him as unique and indispensable – are regularly and rightly attacked, but that’s a different issue all together.

@157
”Everything is working precisely as it’s supposed to work”.

– with – perhaps? the exception of the HealthCareSystem and the missing Well Paying and Secure Jobs for the People and the Missing Vacations and the Free Education?

But don’t worry – it also will come to America – it always just takes a little longer in my homeland than here in Europe – and about ”the nature of the feral, amoral rat race that is American capitalism is to select the worst people in America” – I thought so too after the Clownstick was erected and after you mentioned ”the Zuck” –
Do you know – that he was really worried about being outed as an a…hole by this… movie – and then he was sooo relieved that WE ”the people” actually seem to love a… holes and even erect them as Presidents.

BUT that’s all changing now and after Elizabeth will become President – it will get a lot better – and then we just have to have a lot of patience – like they had here in Europe – where it also didn’t happen in a few year – that ”things” got a lot better.
And sometimes I get this impression that some here prefer some kind of ”a revolution” instead BUT as we just had our ”revolution of idiocy” – it was kind of proven that these type of revolutions really… suck and so let’s just turn ”Social-Democratic” – like all the pretty ”cool” countries I know – and then – from time to time make vacations – in ”Marienbad” –
(remember: ”Last year in Marienbad”?)
As – there everything is STILL working precisely as it’s supposed to work.

Forgot the link –

https://youtu.be/yc6n2McMAnY

Dear faustusnotes,

For heavens’ sake, I like LGM. What person in their right mind would follow a politics blog for a decade if they didn’t admire it?
That said, you are right that my policy preferences are more progressive than those of the majority of LGM commenters. But isn’t it important to read a wide range of views in order to make better decisions? Isn’t that part of becoming an “informed citizenry”? I also read The American Conservative and National Review, because I consider it important to understand others’ political views.
Yes, I prefer BS’s platform over that of other candidates, but note that my preference is not for BS qua individual, but for a number of domestic policies which I believe will begin to remediate serious issues confronting the U.S. Generally speaking when I consider candidates for office (at all levels), I look to their proposed policies and not their personalities.
There are two issues that trouble me, one having to do with how some commenters address – or more properly, do not address in any substantive way – the economic despair which plagues de-industrialized regions (the “Rust Belt,” “Heartland,” “flyover country”) and the other with how the commentariat have responded to direct challenges by Erik Loomis on schools and racial integration, of which he has issued not a few. People only started accepting (not entirely, but more) his position when he posted excerpts from a recent book review he published in the Boston Review, after years of commenters telling him he had no right to challenge them on school integration because he is childless. There’s been quite a bit of NIMBYism exhibited in comment threads on integration – schooling – housing until quite recently, and I found it disheartening. [I recommend the review itself, where Loomis includes an extensive discussion of his interactions with LGM commenters on the subject. Indicative quote: “The fury these posts generate among commenters, who as a whole are upper middle-class white liberals, far surpasses the ire provoked by anything else on the blog.”]
To the point: I understand that you became very angry with me and lashed out, which for some people comes easier than for others. I was upset by your ad hominem criticism, but took a couple days to reflect, and concluded that in fact I do read my own positions into posts at LGM.
Re: BS’s personality and character / “bad” foreign policy positions, etc. I can’t respond. I don’t know him personally, haven’t followed his entire career, and frankly, U.S. politicians’ positions on the ME/NE leave much to be desired regardless of what politician one’s discussing. My own interests and reading focus lie in domestic policy.
So: we can agree to disagree – though courteously, please – or we can attempt to achieve a deeper understanding of one another’s views/positions.
It’s up to you.
Which kind of takes us back to the theme of the OP, doesn’t it?

Hidari, has it ever occurred to you that Sanders deserves the vitriol directed at him from the left, and that the complaints against him from the left are worth taking seriously?

Politicalfootball, Vox suggests that Trump isn’t withdrawing any troops from Syria or replacing them – just moving 50 away from a unilateral Turkish military action.

BUT on the other hand?
-(and after having a truly great breakfast) I now know that we all watching a dying cult!
And soon all of our troubles will be over –(even if Hidari doesn’t believe it)

AND there will be ”a new day” -(with even better breakfasts) and Greta will finally get her ”Noble” – and ALL of the Clownsticks will be locked away and I can go back to Marienbad. -(and to London and Laguna Beach)

Hidari@161, JQ@163:

The only candidate they might attack more vehemently than Sanders is Gabbard, and since she polls much lower she gets less venom. There was a brief period when they seemed fixed on the idea that the media was pushing Williamson so they upped the vitriol going her way, but generally the only candidates they can’t mention w/o attacking are Sanders and Gabbard. Tellingly, especially in the comments, anti-Biden screeds will be softened with statements how they don’t want to attack him too vigorously since he could well win the nomination or assertions they’ll still enthusiastically campaign for him if he wins. The few times I’ve seen that discrepancy mentioned, a grudging “I guess I’d do the same for Sanders” will be brought up, but I’ve never seen that without an accompanying attack on him to wash the taste out of the speaker’s mouth (which again, professions of contingent support for Biden lack). Biden supporters also get little to no abuse, while Sanders supporters are dismissed as “Bernie Bros”, “Trump curious”, “Putin fellators”, traitors who cost Clinton the election, etc. etc. etc.

It’s probably also worth noting that LGM wasn’t pro-Warren out of the gate; the original alignment was strongly pro-Harris until her campaign failed to gain any noticable momentum. A lot of commenters still favor her above all others even as they cheer for Warren and reluctantly state they could support Biden.

fn@139:

Orange Watch, my reference to the March 2016 posts was clearly a response to dbk, and I gave a separate response to you which you conflate, as you are wont to do.

The statement that a tonal shift occured after the election was in dbk’s comment you purported to respond to with your March 2016 link. It was not in my own comment. You’re conflating everyone you’re disagreeing with into an amorphous amalgamation and obviously not going back to double-check the prior comments you’re making pious pronouncements about. There’s little to no point arguing with you, because you’re not arguing with what I or anyone else said, but rather with your remembered but unverified impressions of what we said.

LFC@141’s observation applies as well to you as LGM. Consistent contemptuousness for those you disagree with coupled with an unwillingness to be self-reflective make it harder to pick out useful insight, and makes that insight harder to trust because past mistakes go unmentioned and unaccounted for.

154: Trump enthusiastically supports Israeli occupation and annexation of Palestinian lands, supports Saudi war crimes in Yemen, actively seeks conflict with Iran, reversing Obama’s deescalation policy, he just provoked a new military escalation in Syria in an area that has been relatively peaceful for years. But apparently it’s us “liberals like TM” who are responsible for US meddling in the Middle East.

I almost never respond to Trumpist/fascist apologists and am making an exception only because I was directly named. But the dishonesty is and remains breathtaking.

Ana 159: precisely when you look at the context – see above – the claim that Trump is less belligerent than his predecessors doesn’t hold water. Also, don’t judge the evil a leader is capable of doing from less than three years of data.

do they ever attack other candidates with the same vehemence that they attack Sanders?

No, they don’t. They attack Joe Biden with considerably more vehemence.

Now that 45 has elected to end US involvement in northern Syria, with a plan of a kind (unlike 44) to replace US troops with others from a NATO state in good standing

Ha ha ha! Is it any surprise that ph (kidneystones, need I remind?) is now on the record in support of ethnic cleansing (complete with the resettlement of Arabs in the “cleansed” areas*) , if not genocide?

I have previously described ph as a “pseudo-leftist” and “crypto-fascist”. Time to drop the “crypto-” now, I think.

*The resettlement of parts of Ukraine by Russians after the mass ethnic cleansing of the holodomor was all right, so why not? /s

“Hidari, has it ever occurred to you that Sanders deserves the vitriol directed at him from the left, and that the complaints against him from the left are worth taking seriously?”

No. This makes no sense. If “ the left”, meaning liberal Democrats, hated Sanders because he isnt sufficiently socialist or anti imperialist then they would hate all the other Democratic candidates much more. You mentioned Israel upthread, I think. Among Democratic presidential candidates Sanders is by far the most critical of Israel. At LGM I’ve seen commenters praise Harris and she is about the most grovelling Israel supporter there is among the Democratic candidates. Asked by the NYT if she had any criticism of Israel on failure to live up to democratic values, she couldn’t think of anything.

I think Sanders is hated for a mixture of mostly bad reasons. Essentially, though, he did in 2016 what people said Nader should have done. He was a radical by American standards but he ran within the Democratic Party, fought to pull it to the left on various issues, criticized corporate corruption and then campaigned for Clinton when she won the nomination. And he was still hated almost as much as Nader by the liberal Democratic mainstream.

Personally I like both Sanders and Warren. I prefer Sanders, but don’t expect him to win and will be reasonably happy to support Warren, at least on domestic issues, but it is clear that the mainstream Democratic Party and the liberal press prefers her. I don’t trust those supporters, but it’s not close to being a dealbreaker for me.

Besides, I’d even vote for Biden over Trump.

@ Miguel Diaz Canel,
I would like to encourage you to throw your hat in to the the ring to become the ruler of the USA, Canada, Uk, Australia, and the EU. You have the expirience and track record
to get the job done right. It is true that no one but me ccould possibly imagine that you could hold all of these positions at once. But many years ago no imagined that a pro wrestler could get elected as the govorner of a very important US state without having a manor party endorsement. No one imagined that a game show host could become Pres. of the USA. And no imagined that a comedian could become the leader of the Ukraine , or the future leader of South Africa.
Do not get me wrong. I really do not think that you could win a free or fair election in any of the areas that I just mentioned. There are many reasons for that. Therefore I would like you to take power by more creative means.

Dear Miguel, your success would really piss a lot of people off. But I encourage you to not pay any attention to them. Once the Artic ice cap melts what ever anger people have is going to turn in to terror rather quickly. So those who were pissed off at you are really not going to have much time to dwell on the fact that you were the last leader of their country.
Yet there is an even more important consideration. Lots and lots of people would be afraid of you if you were to be decoding their economic futures, ooops maybe I meant to say deciding their economic features. The thing is these people have a lot in common with my daughter when my daughter was 2 years old.
When my daughter was two we went to the play ground and I should her how much fun the slide was. But when ever she climbed to the top of the slide by herself she was afraid to actually slide down. She cried because she was disappointed in herself that she could not let go. So finally I gave her a shove and down she went. She loved it and had a lot of fun on the slide after that. It was even more fun than the teeter toter.
That is what the last years of humanity will be like once you take charge of things.
Well of course that last comment may not sound very encouraging. It should not discourage you. It is an important time for good leadership n the world and no one has built a better leadership team than you have.
Miguel!
Miguel!
Miguel!

I’m gratified to see the pro-US endless war “liberals” on record. Their justifications are precisely the same as Kissinger’s, Cheney’s, Bush’s, Obama’s, and Clinton’s: inside every citizen in the world is an American trying to emerge. We’re not.

The Assad government, like that of Iraq, China,Russia, Libya etc. is that of a sovereign state with a seat at the UN.

Americans of all stripes are so used to bullying and punishing smaller nations around the globe, US troops have been dispatched across the globe at the whim of US intelligence and military decision makers, with a big bump after 9/11.

Botched US military interventions and invasions in the ME intensified the already brutal struggles for power across the region. Shi/Sunni ethnic cleansing in Iraq dramatically increased after America destroyed the existing Iraqi government and disbanded the Iraqi army. America, France, and Britain intervened in the Syrian civil wars against the Assad government (an already brutal regime), effectively eliminating the Assad government’s ability to maintain already minimal services in many parts of Syria.

Members of the Kurdish community, many of whom fled to Syria from Turkey, created a mini-state in northern Syria, similar to the mini-state members of the Kurdish community in “liberated” Iraq did. These communities have been formed as independent states within sovereign states.

That’s the modern genesis, with all the attendant naked political cynicism, lies, promises and demonstrations from US, British, and French intelligence agencies and their elected stooges. The long, sad history of western powers abandoning their “allies/tools” repeats itself again and again.

Predictably, the American citizens who pay in blood and money for US interventions in countries and cultures on the other side of globe have little enthusiasm for long-term wars, especially if those at home are being left behind.

I watched a pair of American academics discuss impeachment yesterday. The pro-impeach individual waved the orange scare doll and warned that 45 could start a war with Korea (North Korea) any day. North Korea is the one nation in the world 45 cannot start a war with.

Why not? Because the US is already atwar with N. Korea and has been for 70 years. This appalling fact that is so much a feature of US life that few Americans seem aware that those living on the Korean peninsula have been waiting 70 years for a formal end to US -N. Korean hostilities. https://time.com/5535864/us-north-korea-war-history/

The hubris of American academics and their support/defense of US military interventions and invasions across the globe is a matter of record. We see it here with academics arguing that US troops must remain within the borders of a sovereign state to maintain order in a state Hillary Clinton and Lindsay Graham et al have done their best to destroy.

A significant percentage of the American electorate no longer supports endless US wars in the ME. These Americans are at odds with the “experts” in the intelligence communities who promote these wars and interventions as “solutions,” otherwise known as “life-firing exercises” in which the military gets to test new weapons systems on the living.

45 isn’t about peace. 45 is the voice of hope for Americans left behind by their own rulers, indifferent to the plight of the lower orders at home. These voters in Michigan and Wisconsin watched the promises of hope and change turn to dust in their mouths, even as wars of intervention and choice continued under 44 raged, drawing America and Americans ever deeper into the ME. It was like Nixon redux from 2009: out of Iraq, into Afghanistan, in 2011, hey, let’s destroy Libya. Syria is the current playground for the masters of the universe who run our world.

The military and intelligence community isn’t about to let 45 take their takes away without a fight. https://taibbi.substack.com/p/were-in-a-permanent-coup

America is still at war with North Korea after 70 years after it started. And because few Americans are affected directly by this war, a frightening number of Americans are unaware of the fact. Out here in Asia, we haven’t forgotten. The Korean people certainly haven’t forgotten. 45 is the first sitting American president to actually visit the North Korean leader and try to build some sort of personal relationship with the isolated leader.

70 years of war. 70 – Give it some thought, and then tell us how US troops can’t leave Syria and the ME until….?

Hidari

I have noticed that … the corporate media have been pretty down on Biden.

What negative message about him have they been spreading?

But it’s certainly true, to repeat, that the preferred candidate of the corporate media (and therefore the corporations which control the corporate media) is Warren.

What positive message about her have they been spreading?

In any case it’s noticeable that LGM (like most ‘liberal’ news outlets) hates (or at least distrusts) Sanders …

What negative message about him have they been spreading?

… Corbyn … is openly loathed … across the entire media spectrum (including the allegedly liberal Guardian and ‘Independent’).

What negative message about him is being propagated across the entire media spectrum? (Also, incidentally, why is it that you do not put Guardian in quote marks but you do put Independent in quote marks?)

I don’t pay enough attention to observe what sort of messages about politicians are being propagated in the media, but since you mention them I find I’m curious.

Lee A. Arnold

Meanwhile, those who suppose that Trump is better because he said he doesn’t like war are almost endearingly, charmingly childish. It ignores the danger obvious to anyone who has studied history, foreign policy and military strategy that Trump is setting up a big risk of World War III in about 20 years because this “demilitarizing” necessarily entails betraying allies and cozying up to dictators, while he’s also losing trading partners and downsizing to within domestic US borders of hatred, fear and suspicion, yet with advanced militarism.

Consequently if the US falls behind in standard of living, technology and infrastructure while its capitalists run out of the dollar to get a better ROI in Chinese assets that are valued in their separate trade bloc, most of the people in the US will be whooped-up for war, again. And this will be directly traceable back to Trump.

It’s not apparent to me which are the historical observations which support this conclusion, so if you could provide more details I would appreciate it.

What interests me about Trump’s military policies is whether the rate of deaths (and other forms of harm, but I imagine the rates correlate) caused by US government violence has increased or decreased since Trump became President, but I’m not sure whether there’s any way of estimating this.

and how come everybody started to write about another blog and not ”the Intercept”?

The Intercept is another blog too?

Steven T. Johnson has a sad.

He drops his Lefty Puritan turds . . . er, I mean offerings, at LGM on a regular basis, and almost never gets an upvote!

In general, on the subject of LGM: Who fucking cares? It’s mainly a political blog; I read it, and occasionally comment, because there are sometimes posts on subjects that interest me (e.g., history and English, my undergraduate majors).

All this talk of contempt and what-have-you is garbage. Of course LGM is sometimes contemptuous, and even vituperative. So fucking what?!

That style of comment is called “polemic”.

Last time I checked, political polemics are not a thing that is unfamiliar to the left. Whence all the goddamned self-righteousness?

J-D you can find a lot of left wing critiques of Sanders (and links to others) on LGM and also the blog Balloon Juice (which I guess is considered another “liberal” or “centrist” blog by the Putin-friendly US “left”). Some criticisms are general critiques of his work ethic or competence, which I think are actually really important but which a lot of the Trump-friendly left dismiss because they think anyone who is a professional politician is bad (see also the recent ideas being floated around on twitter about the “professional managerial class”, i.e. the modern American left’s version of “kulaks”).

Some specific examples of policy-specific complaints are:
– the green new deal is not specific enough and not achievable
– medicare for all would create a huge disruption in american healthcare and there’s no evidence that anyone outside the dems would vote for it in the general
– medicare for all would kick a lot of union members off their employer-based insurance without adequate compensation for the years of pay rises and working condition compromises they made to get it
– Sanders’s employees and surrogates are vicious, disruptive bovver boys who create trouble
– Sanders is not a Democrat but wants to use the Dem machinery without doing the hard work to build the party
– Sanders doesn’t understand race issues and this is a killer problem for a left wing politician in the USA

Incidentally someone above said that the LGM crowd love Brockington but in my experience the below the line response to his posts is almost universally negative. And what a contrast it is too that people here are criticizing him for his attitude to Corbyn when Brockington is actually working for Labour in the UK. So simultaneously dismissing the views of an actual political worker while misrepresenting the way he is viewed by his own audience. Legendary move!

‘I’m gratified to see the pro-US endless war “liberals” on record. Their justifications are precisely the same as Kissinger’s, Cheney’s, Bush’s, Obama’s, and Clinton’s: inside every citizen in the world is an American trying to emerge. We’re not.’

Ah, yes, now I’m remembering those awesome arguments that anyone who opposed the Iraq invasion was ‘objectively pro-Saddam.’ Congrats on updating that old chestnut. Now being appalled at the massacre of the Kurds makes you objectively pro-Kissinger. Nice.

faustusnotes@202 “Incidentally someone above said that the LGM crowd love Brockington but in my experience the below the line response to his posts is almost universally negative. And what a contrast it is too that people here are criticizing him for his attitude to Corbyn when Brockington is actually working for Labour in the UK. So simultaneously dismissing the views of an actual political worker while misrepresenting the way he is viewed by his own audience. Legendary move!”

Brockington posts at LGM, which is conclusive about how much the collective approves of him. The commenters are not so negative, but the few who venture that way tend to be actually in England. The Brockington defenders are unbelievable trolls. One was shameless enough to pretend socialism was an upper class con job and only public school snobs were Corbynites. (The political insight and intellectual rigor at all levels of LGM is shockingly low.)

Apparently Brockington is a Cooperative Party member, first, too. This seems to be a defunct crackpot scheme serving to issue credentials to various fakers like Brockington. The idea Brockington works for the Labour Party is dubious in the extreme. Posting red-baiting hatchet jobs at LGM certainly isn’t working for the Labour Party. Indeed in the US venue, Brockington has never found any Tory as objectionable as Corbyn.

The thing of course is that Corbyn isn’t very left wing at all. But Brockington like all his friends at LGM are underneath the facade pretty reactionary. They flatter themselves they are left, but they’re like the ACLU putting Elizabeth Gurley Flynn on trial. They’re volunteer members of informal Congress for Cultural Freedom. They’re the woke version of the ADA. They’re zombie Kennedy liberals, supporting freedom in Vietnam and All the Good Stuff at home.

As to what Brockington does in England? He spends his time fighting against Corbyn. Very likely he leaks complaints and gossip about the Labour Party to various and sundry friends, including those who will reliably pass on information to parties better able to use gossip against Corbyn. He has openly attacked fellow constituency members! What he does openly strikes me as showing him to be a Blair-ite who pretends to wish—now that it’s so obvious being a Blairite is being a turd—for somebody who wasn’t so blatantly at heart an imperialist, a class collaborationst and a resolute opponent of all fundamental change. What he does in his social and professional contacts I think would often be condemned as blatant disloyalty and subversion in any other context than the struggle against the left/Corbyn.

@Wm S Berry

I don’t give a **** that LGM is contemptuous. My objection is that, even for a political blog, they seem unreflective, ie they seem to assume their own infallibility. This is the last comment from me on this.

@184: ‘Ana 159: precisely when you look at the context – see above – the claim that Trump is less belligerent than his predecessors doesn’t hold water.’

I never made such a claim. I merely stated that, as far as I knew, he had not started any new wars. I seem to have stirred up quite a bit of Manichaean passion!

Long time lgm reader. More recent lgm commenter. Noted neoliberal shill. Couple notes:

Cletus safari – this is a press criticism. Ftfnyt goes to talk to 6 rural working class whites who voted for trump and are undecided. One has been to 26 Trump rallies. One is the former county tea party leader, one is chief of surgery at the local hospital, etc etc. Undecided? Like, come on, man!

Economic anxiety – in quotes.

http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/?s=Economic+anxiety

Carry on.

I’m not offended by bad political humor, and I’m an immense fan of good political humor. The Griffin “joke” was bad and was condemned by many who don’t like 45. For a slightly less slanted version of what actually happened when the surfaced, the famously pro-45 BBC has the ritual condemnations by all the “right” people.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50039287

I don’t believe that Griffin should have been banished to the wilderness, and I’d prefer people stop apologizing for statements and jokes. Punishing people with job loss etc. for bad taste is far more unjust and damaging to the public good than saying “bad words” on TV, or at forums at universities. But that’s me.

@214
”I’m not offended by bad political humor”

Everybody is aware of this fact as you voted for the worst political joke EVER – but what’s about ”good” political humour – by NEVER EVER voting for a Clownstick Erection?

Taking off from @214—
cutting political counter-speech such as—

https://crookedtimber.org/2019/10/13/no-true-war-is-bad/#comment-765688

—should be plastered all over feel-good-ness, kumbaya, or how you prefer to recognize it.

Note that LGM has a piece, right now on the front page, about the Matt Tabibi piece ph links to in comment 192.

http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2019/10/and-i-do-not-support-a-full-investigation

It would be difficult to respond to Tabibi’s argument any more wrongly and annoyingly than by asking the following question, as the LGM writer does:

Is “Trump’s opposition is worse than Trump” the point where any distinction between “anti-anti-Trump” and “supports Trump” becomes meaningless?

Right above the extended Tabibi quote ends after Tabibi says “the people pushing hardest for Trump’s early removal are more dangerous than Trump,” but before Tabibi explains what he means by this:

The Trump presidency is the first to reveal a full-blown schism between the intelligence community and the White House. Senior figures in the CIA, NSA, FBI and other agencies made an open break from their would-be boss before Trump’s inauguration, commencing a public war of leaks that has not stopped.

I don’t know what to make of Tabibi’s points or claims, myself, I’m not really informed enough to comment on them one way or another. But if the LGM writer thinks Tabibi is wrong, either he should explain why Tabibi is wrong or else not respond. Tabibi isn’t talking about “Trump’s opposition,” he’s talking about a specific government bureaucracy/media phenomenon. What is the point of the response the LGM writer makes, which is to ask the question quoted above and three other questions which have nothing to do with Tabibi’s points? (You never see anything even remotely like this at CT, I would say).

To prevent the usual suspects from hectoring me in their usual fashion for my obvious stupidity, lapses, etc., let me emphasize that I’m not endorsing Tabibi’s arguments, or commenting on them one way or the other. Nor am I endorsing ph’s view of anything – I’m generally the inverse of ph, political-wise. (For example, whatever ph’s actual argument about NK in 192 really is, I assume it’s nutty, and though at times ph claims to be a Sanders fan, it seems somewhat eccentric for a Sanders fan to write Sean Hannity level swill like the first sentence of the last paragraph of 169).

Anyway, I haven’t read enough of LGM to really say much, but to me the discussion in this thread has missed the point that you can go there and immediately find low-quality offerings – that’s generally been my experience.

Trump differs from every president I have seen in my lifetime (in my opinion) as illustrated in this anecdote:

Sportscaster Mike Tirico tells this story of the time he played golf with Trump. As Trump sped toward the green in a golf cart, MT was hitting what he thought was the best shot of his life. The green was raised so he couldn’t see it land, but it looked like it hit on the front of the green and was heading straight for the flag. When he got to the green, his ball was nowhere in sight. Trump’s caddy whispered to him, “Your ball was ten feet from the hole. Trump picked it up and threw it into the sand trap.”

Trump claims he has won the annual club champion ship at his favorite golf club something like 11 years in a row, and has had plaques made stating this for those years. Other club members remember things differently.

Source: “Commander in Cheat”, by Rick Reilly.

I am sure that some other presidents cheated at golf by improving their own lies and such, but I don’t think even Nixon (had he played golf) would have gone as far as Trump. This seems like psychopathic behavior to me. Do even psychopaths have some virtues? Maybe, but if so not out of any compassion or consideration for others. (See also his cheating of Charities, his support of the death penalty, etc..) (Recall too that he wanted to send the Army to shoot people trying to cross into the USA at the southern border.)

Psychopathy often prospers , as Shakespeare would say.

@ 220 Record improvements in employment for women, minorities under 45 – this can’t possibly be true: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/04/black-and-hispanic-unemployment-is-at-a-record-low.html

As this thread is about why some people seem dumbfounded when confronted by fact, or just dumb, it’s worth noting that the information deficit on display @220 is likely to be exacerbated by a general reluctance to step out of the bubble. I don’t think anyone here, including @220, is dumb. But a few could stand to vary their information diet a bit. I liked LFC, Orange Watch and other comments on this thread.

The easiest way to get both sides of the ongoing bun fights is to make RCP a regular stop. On any given morning, afternoon, and evening, one can choose articles from VOX, NYT, Wapo, the Nation, Guardian, FOX, NBC, Gallup, Nate Silver 538, etc.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/

The Taibbi piece linked above is the most widely read currently at RCP, and the number 1 story of the past week. If Taibbi’s arguments seem unfamiliar, then imagine the FBI and CIA spent 2009 and every year after trying to prove 44 really was a secret Muslim Manchurian candidate. The current Putin-puppet follies and “whistleblower” drama are the children of rebellious CIA, FBI, and leaders hostile to the current president.

Of course, many just don’t care. If you do, then visit RCP to read something different and surprise yourself.

Lee A. Arnold

Considering all the conditions currently at play, domestically in each country and internationally with the rapid emergence of multiple powers and interests, I’m not sure we can point to one historical circumstance which combines them all. So the response would be book-length.

If you can’t give a full account of the historical observations you’re drawing on, I’d appreciate any partial indications.

Re fielding candidates in all districts:

I witnessed the midterms 2006 in Arkansas and at the time, I think half or more of seats in the legislature were uncontested. I remember reading in the very same newspaper that a delegation from Ukraine was visiting to learn about American democracy and I thought, Americans really have no self-reflection. I emailed the journalist and he found my observation interesting…

Ironically, at the time Arkansas was Democratic dominated. Within a few years of a black man elected president, the state completely flipped.

To my mind it is a shame for any democracy if voters don’t even get a nominal choice. And this is far from normal. Even a choice between only two candidates is pretty poor.

Uncontested elections are an impoverishment of political debate and it is a stupid strategy for a large party to not field candidates. Of course they won’t invest much money in long shot races.

Anarcissie @ 217

Personally, I too am not overly concerned with what is within someone’s heart – except in the physiological sense, perhaps – as it would seem to be difficult to ascertain and less impactful than their actions.

It is interesting to see your comment though, as it would appear that we are reading very different comment threads. I did not, for example, see you suggest that there may be a “scintilla of virtue in Trump somewhere”, but rather that he is deserving of credit for not starting a war. I didn’t see a “frightful outcry among the faithful”, but rather the majority of people responding clarifying their objections with a range of arguments, including ‘judging a presidency by one metric is overly simplistic’ and ‘one does not need to start a war in order to destabilise the geopolitical situation’. Perhaps you find these arguments unconvincing, but to imply these were not made or represent cultish behaviour would seem a little overwrought.

It is just my opinion, of course, I am not convinced your suggestion that ‘Donald Trump is being unfairly characterized by people ignoring his actions’ is best served by your unfairly characterising people by ignoring what they’ve written – particularly when you choose to do so in such a dismissively condescending fashion.

But, you know, you do you.

‘Your complaint is basically a long, self-indulgent rant about how you don’t like the democrats pursuing a winning strategy’.

The idea of the Democrats pursuing a winning strategy is not an easy one for me to get my head around.

anon/portly

To prevent the usual suspects from hectoring me in their usual fashion for my obvious stupidity, lapses, etc.

Tabibi, Taibbi? Taibbi, Tabibi?

Tm

I witnessed the midterms 2006 in Arkansas and at the time, I think half or more of seats in the legislature were uncontested.

A single example is easy to look up.

The Democrats ran candidates for 80 out of 100 seats in the State House. The Republicans ran candidates for 52 out of 100 seats. This data point does not count as evidence for the idea that rural voters are moving away from the Democrats because the Democrats don’t offer them candidates to vote for: if anything, the opposite.

Hidari

The idea of the Democrats pursuing a winning strategy is not an easy one for me to get my head around.

Democrats win presidential elections less often than Republicans do, but only a bit less often: if election results reflect party strategies, this suggests that Democratic strategies are only slightly less effective at winning than Republican ones. I suspect the picture would not be much different if other elections as well as presidential ones were factored in, though I admit I haven’t attempted the calculation.

J-D #226: “partial indications”

Weimar Republic – acute indications for the social psychology of how the US might deteriorate and lash out, into a big war.

The external pressures would have a different causation. In place of Germany’s external conditions of “The Economic Consequences of the Peace” (Keynes’ foreboding prediction) and the rising Nazi right’s call for Lebensraum, substitute instead 1. a declining standard of living vis-a-vis much of the world due to decreases in trade and due to underinvestment in education & infrastructure, and 2. a falling dollar & rising interest rates due to financial flight to balmier shores and to avoid taxation for education & infrastructure.

And instead of Germany’s rising resentment and hatred of WWI’s victors and its own internal “internationalists” (the Jews), substitute instead 1. frustration at the developing countries who are turning to do trade deals with China (thereby shutting out US producers & tech standards) which is going to lead to endless unilateral arguments, 2. Trump’s pushing away of the European allies, and 3. Russia’s remarkably effective cyber-exploitation of US’s internal political divisions, in concert with Russia’s aggressive foreign policy moves which are causing unease among US elites and the dwindling numbers of old allies who still trust the US. At the same time, 4. the US is expanding its military and security apparatus to try to forestall the next terror attack.

So aside from the additions and emendations, an historical example of danger: the sense of insecurity, unease, aloneness, & suspicion of the external world, along with the interior, domestic resentments and hatreds, parallels the Weimar Republic social psychology.

@221 & @222 — Well, we have a difference of opinion. I have a hard time believing Trump is consistent enough to be Absolutely Evil, so when Alan White 10.04.19 at 11:00 pm @ 25 asked anyone to provide a single virtue, I thought hard and came up with the widely held notion that he had not started any new wars. (Some disagree.) I think that is probably all I have said in Trump´s favor, yet this modest suggestion has morphed into my being a dupe and slave of Trump. Now, one way to resolve differences of opinion is to choose some objective measure of the facts being contested. I think I have already suggested body counts, Trump versus his predecessors and competitors. Or is this yet more blasphemy? Is Trump really worse than G.W. Bush, who got maybe a million people killed in Iraq, to say nothing of the tortures, terrors, mutilations, rape, imprisonment, enslavement, and other harms that inevitably attend any war?

@230 — Yes, we do seem to be reading different comments threads, maybe from different universes. In the one I seem to be in, I made an extremely limited suggestion in response a very narrow request, and some people got very excited about it, interpreting it in a most remarkable manner! What happened at your end?

J-D 234: „This data point does not count as evidence for the idea that rural voters are moving away“ …
I never claimed otherwise. Likewise, fn 235, I didn’t imply this was specifically a problem of the Dem party. I think it’s a problem for democracy for various reasons. But the deeper, underlying problem is an electoral system that ensures that a large portion of votes are wasted. Under Proportional representation, every vote has approximately the same impact.

@238
”I have a hard time believing Trump is consistent enough to be Absolutely Evil”

I know – and as I had – and have – identified this belief as the one of the major reasons why so many Americans voted for Trump I’m -(and somebody like JimV) are working really hard against such a belief. And I didn’t call you ”a dupe” or a ”slave” of Trump – but as it was you – who mentioned ”the war” and rightfully explained that ”starting a war” is NOT unimportant – it was very important to inform you – that Trump just pretended to be ”anti-war” in order to have ”uninformed” Americans vote for him.

And can you believe it? he currently is trying the same… am I allowed to call it – ”trick”.

And as you now asked (again) for ”body counts, Trump versus his predecessors and competitors” – and this argument – also – is one of ”the most popular arguments of the Trump Team -(in order to get ”the Moron”) re-elected – it is also the utmost self-defeating one – because it is based on this pretty popular Internet belief – that ALL US President -(even the President who had the YUUUGEST body count in WW2) – are kind of ”war criminals” –
BUT if this would be true -(just by being a US President) – the real decisive differences between these Presidents – would be their ”personality and character” –

Right?

Like the difference between the really ”evil” and ”sadistic” ones –
and the ones who are NOT really ”evil” and ”sadistic” – and as I have explained before – I have met Trump only once – BUT my Dad had watched him in the 70th a few times -(in action) and he can promise you – Yes! – Trump is consistently ”Evil”!

Hidari, that paragraph was directed at Tm and Orange Watch, not you.

Tm, I don’t think that proportional representation is the only problem for America’s system. You have too many elections over a very wide range of positions, your primary system is a huge resource drain, and you have a massive urban/rural polarization. And worst of all you have no government funding for parties and a huge problem of money in politics. With an arms race of electoral funding going on it becomes inevitable that you need more and more resources for every seat, which will drive parties to make calculations about which seats to abandon. This is especially true if you have to burn millions and millions of dollars on a primary that takes a year and ends up being a choice between the same three people everyone expected to be in the running, who basically have the same policies.

But you also need, at that local level, people who are willing to step up and do the work. My guess is that in large areas of Arkansas there are so few democrats and the election is such a pointless drubbing that no one is willing to stand up and take on the job. But a good start would be people who complain the Dems aren’t left enough and complain no one is running in their district. They could get out there, run, and drag the party to the left as they do so.

Or they could complain about the DNC on the internet while they wait for someone else to do the hard work.

Fn, beside the point but I‘m not American although I have lived in the US. And sure, there are many problems with US democracy.

Anarcisse @ 238

I am reluctant to reply too in depth, as a) going point-by-point over my perspective would seem to be of limited interest to anyone other than myself and b) I thought I was relatively clear in my previous post @ 230.

However, since you have asked me directly, I will respond – perhaps then we can agree to disagree, and end the matter there.

As far as I can tell:

Your original claim @ 63 was in response to Alan White, where you stated Donald Trump has not started any new wars is virtuous trait which may be ascribed to him. People have responded, essentially explaining why they don´t agree.

Now, you may find these arguments unconvincing – as is your prerogative, of course – or perhaps you feel the responses do not address the comment in the spirit it was meant (though it would appear others would level the same at you), and had that been the end of the matter I wouldn´t have said anything, as your point of responding in a narrow context to a specific point would have some validity.

However, your subsequent post @ 84, where you seem to suggest that other people are trivialising ´not starting wars´ as a virtue when they propose DT has overall decreased geopolitical stability, @ 94, where you suggest that some in this discussion people are characterising those they disagree with as stupid and evil, and @ 217 where you suggest that CT is behaving in a cultish fashion appeared, at least to me, to be part of conversation which is increasing in heatedness.

As I pointed out in my comment, the phrase the “suggestion has caused a frightful outcry among the faithful” carries with it (at least to me) certain implications about the people you have been responding to. I hope you can appreciate (even if you may disagree) that, from my perspective, characterising those who are disagreeing with you as being of the sheep-like disposition is not particularly constructive to engendering a fruitful discussion – particularly given you make that very point in your post @ 94. My intention was to merely note this, in an attempt to suggest people might wish to deescalate the discussion and bring it back on course. Clearly this has not been particularly successful.

As the conversation has now devolved into whether or not people see Trump as Absolute Evil, and you invite the comparing of body counts as a metric, it seems to me the discussion is increasingly defensive and decreasingly carrying any degree of good faith.

Since I don´t currently foresee this evolving into anything particularly fruitful, I hope you will understand that I intend to refrain from getting involved in this particular discussion from now on – particularly as I suspect this comment will already trespass on the good nature of the bloghost as it is veering dangerously off topic.

As this thread is about why some people seem dumbfounded when confronted by fact, or just dumb, it’s worth noting that the information deficit on display @220 is likely to be exacerbated by a general reluctance to step out of the bubble. I don’t think anyone here, including @220, is dumb.

The easiest way to get both sides of the ongoing bun fights is to make RCP a regular stop. On any given morning, afternoon, and evening, one can choose articles from VOX, NYT, Wapo, the Nation, Guardian, FOX, NBC, Gallup, Nate Silver 538, etc.

Hmmm. Okay, I have an “information deficit.” Let me quote 169:

However, if 45 manages to hang on, we can expect continued improvement in the conditions of minorities, more jobs, better educational choices, and a more opportunities for women and others.

At first glance, of course, there’s nothing wrong with this statement. Things improve over time. In particular, the economy tends to improve over time, leading to “more jobs” and “improvements in the condition of minorities,” at least. Why should we expect these things to not improve because “45 manages to hold on?” We should expect that they will improve.

And if 45 doesn’t manage to hold on? ph didn’t cover this case, but we should still expect that they will.

Or should we? I don’t think ph wrote this intending it to be a sort of “no content” statement. I think the clear implication is “we will get these good things if 45 stays, and not get them if 45 doesn’t stay.” (Maybe instead of “not get them” ph thinks something like “more likely to not get them” – it’s not clear if he’s thinking here in terms of probabilities or certainties).

I said ph didn’t intend this to be a content-free statement, but I didn’t say he succeeded.

If we’re going to get these good things if 45 stays and not get them if 45 goes, well, why?
Why? Why? Why why why why why why why? What exactly has Trump done, or is doing, that has brought about these good outcomes, and why will his absence prevent them from continuing?

I suppose at this point ph could say that if I bothered to get out of my information bubble, I would understand his statement. But that’s not true. I am actually quite aware of the possible not-so-zany arguments that could be made in defense of his view, but since he chooses not to advance one, I have no way of knowing what it is.

The problem here isn’t the reader being in a bubble, it’s the writer not actually saying anything.

My advice for people – I’m not singling anyone out here – who have trouble discerning when they are or are not actually making meaningful statements, or when they are or not making statements aptly described as “Hannity level swill” would be to avoid going to RCP and stop keeping up with “both sides of the ongoing bun fights.” More information doesn’t necessarily mean you’re outside a bubble. Or that you are learning anything that is really useful.

Example:

192 45 is the voice of hope for Americans left behind by their own rulers, indifferent to the plight of the lower orders at home. These voters in Michigan and Wisconsin watched the promises of hope and change turn to dust in their mouths….

Unlike the quote from 169, ph is saying something here, this isn’t content-free. But what is he saying? What does he really know? It’s pretty vague. I understand the “left behind” part, which reasonably reflects economic realities in some parts of the Midwest. I think “by their own rulers” is just silly, as the causes of the “left behind” phenomenon are complex, and not in some instances all that closely related to (or deriving from) the actions or inaction of their elected representatives. (Maybe ph believes American presidents can solve all problems – it’s hard to imagine what RCP could be linking to, if it’s pushed his thinking in this direction).

Mainstream R’s and D’s are “indifferent?” “45 is the voice of hope?” Well, maybe. 45 offers new old ideas, to be sure, going after China on trade and immigration generally and promising to bring back manufacturing jobs. Have his actions had any positive effects for “left behind” Midwesterners, as a whole? I think the answer is “obviously not” but maybe this is just the information bubble I’m in again, steering me wrong.

“Watched the promises of hope and change turn to dust in their mouths?” Well, what where their expectations, really? Why were those expectations thwarted? Here maybe ph is smarter than I think and has some argument to make about u-shaped recessions and “austerity” and Fed Policy and so on. With a long period of excess unemployment, obviously some areas of the US suffered more than others. Midwest voters expecting a quick rebound would be certainly disappointed.

Was that Obama’s fault? Is Trump offering real hope? “Too much easy money!” Candidate Trump has been replaced by “not enough easy money!” President Trump, so if Trump could just get some of his wacko/crony Fed picks through Congress….

Sorry, I went on too long there, trying to imagine ph’s underlying argument, or if he really has one. Verdict: the passage from 192 quoted above is just more Hannity-level swill. No doubt I’m only saying that because in failing to read RCP every day, I’m just a complete ignoramus and am missing the obv left right and center. Verdict: (“dumbfounded when confronted by facts, or just dumb”) dumb. Dumb! Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb!

or
@238

should I just have said it like this:

https://youtu.be/wb219dz_NeA

And also why don’t you sign up to run for office instead of complaining the dems don’t field candidates and aren’t left enough? Here’s your chance! Why don’t you take it!?

OW: some of your points about electoral strategy are no doubt correct. Of course the Dems have made mistakes. They concentrated too much on presidential politics and neglected the states. My impression is that this has been understood and corrected: in 2018 Dems won back many state houses and governorships, as well as the House.

Nevertheless the Dems have won the popular vote in six of the seven last presidential elections. In any other country, this would count as a roaring success.

At the state Level, the Dems have been hampered by shameless gerrymandering, voter suppression and also structural factors – due to America‘s less than democratic electoral system, urban votes generally count less than suburban and rural ones. Now one could talk about what can be done to overcome these disadvantages. One can certainly criticise the leadership for mistakes made. What I find odd is your insistence that the Dem leadership is itself to blame for all the deficits of US democracy. And worse, if I understand correctly you are insinuating that the leadership isn’t just making mistakes as everybody does, they are making those mistakes on purpose as if they were secretly playing for the other side. This is impossible to take seriously.

@249 Kudos. I think you’ve got this precisely right. I apologize if you believe that I’m calling you dumb. I know how to do that in that event I find that necessary.

I was trying to point out that contra what the NYT tells us, a great many 45 supporters really do see the current president as a symbol of hope and for good reason – record unemployment among minorities, more new jobs going to women than men, and more school choice for families denied access to high-income/high-quality public schools.

I’m going to suggest that part of the reason this sounds like swill to you is because you’ve permitted yourself to believe that many/most of the 50 million or so 45 supporters are racist/misogynists who can’t possible be happy when good things happen to women and minorities. But, perhaps I’m wrong about that. @231 provides an extremely useful comment which provides other reasons why many regular voters tune in to 45 and tune out 45. I’ll close, since you asked, with a few reasons why 45 matters, and what will happen when he leaves.

Adjustable rate Affordable Care Act pricing. In order to sell the rubes on the ACA boondoggle, Dems took a page from the housing crisis and buried the ballooning payments consumers would have to pay once the teaser rates ended in 2016-17.

Outsourcing American jobs: recall that sending your job to Mexico/China is as much a Democratic party platform as it one beloved by Paul Ryan et al. The choice between Blue and Red was which party will make the rich richest while keeping the rest of us docile, dumb, and safely on porn and opioids. (Don’t forget just how much money Big Pharma made during the 44 years fueling opioid addiction.) Got your six, middle America!

Endless wars of regime change – another f-ed policy beloved by both parties. On JQ’s other thread, we have a wonderful comment by a “liberal” longing for the good old days when Daddy (Bush/Obama) would simply knock the unruly Asians heads together to get them to ‘behave.’ Really.

As you don’t watch FOX, or want to visit RCP, you missed Mollie Hemingway’s astute observation on what’s happening in the GOP and in Washington. As she noted, in the 2015-6 season, Republican voters had a clear choice between wars of choice Bush/Rubio/Graham, and Orange Man Bad, who promised to end stupid wars, stupid trade practices, outsourcing jobs, and build a big wall – all anathema to Ryan and the GOP establishment. GOP voters went with Orange Man. Then, voters in America were presented with the same choice – more of the same, or radical change. Voters went with radical change. Surprise!

As I put it to one California Democrat, the only thing Dems seem to be promising America’s young people is a mountain of student debt, a fifteen-dollar an hour minimum wage, a job as a barrista after graduation, mastering the art of foam, and half-assed health insurance while you live in parents’ home until you’re thirty. That doesn’t sound like much to anyone.

Orange Watch has this exactly right – at the state and local level Dems got killed. There’s a chance that change is on the way, but not if the Versailles liberals at the top continue to hold sway. Dems don’t need a leader who can beat 45. They need policies that inspire hope in capitalism and the American dream of making it big.

Cause that’s what Trump is selling – “you, too can make your dreams come true if you work hard and play by the rules. As he put it, in Dallas (lying his face off as usual) we operate by two rules here in Texas “buy American, and hire American.” I tried listening to the Dem debates. Painful, really – Tulsi Gabbard is the only one worth a fig and she’s being damned as a Russian asset by the NYT and CNN for promising to end endless wars.

Under 44, Dems learned to trust Clapper, Brennan and the rest of the regime-change crowd as geniuses. Bad thinking. Now, those who used to oppose the Iraq invasion are freaking out that the US might actually leave the ME.

The US stays in the ME, forever, being Daddy. That’s what happens when 45 leaves.

In other news: While ethnic cleansing by Turkey with US backing is in full swing in North Syria, Trump has ordered thousands more US troops to Saudi Arabia in order to continue his successful and popular program „stop US meddling in the Middle East“.

fn@253:
You’re trying to make an ad hominem argument by way of appeal to accomplishment, which is as disingenuous as such appeals always are. If someone is running for local office, they would do well to not say they are online when seeking to be pseudonymous. If they are not, there are many valid reasons they might not be beyond your false dichotomy of “running for office or irresponsible whiny hypocrite”, and those reasons have no bearing whatsoever on the argument at hand. If someone learning basketball who was trying to shoot freethrows using their feet with their eyes closed, Stephan Hawking would have been correct in saying they should be using their hands and keeping their eyes open – even if Micheal Jordon insisted they should keep using their feet and not looking. Appeal to accomplishment is almost without fail an attempt to narrow the range of individuals who can criticize someone without actually addressing any of their criticism – and when that criticism is aimed at the status quo, it’s even more insidious as it increases the odds that potential critics will be limited to those currently invested in that status quo.

Also, if we’re tacking on addenda, let me add that the strategy that you claim no major first-world political party has ever tried such an insane political strategy like the “50-state strategy” I mentioned… I didn’t pull that idea out of thin air. It was Howard Dean’s explicit strategy during his tenure as DNC chair from ’05-’09. It didn’t get abandoned until Tim Kaine took over in ’09 and moved to more of a top-down, fundraising über alles, and hold-the-line strategy. It’s debatable whether that abandonment was the cause of the Democrats losing control of Congress, but it’s not deniable that it didn’t prevent them from taking control of it, nor that Republicans became significantly better entrenched after it was abandoned.

Tm@255:
Nothing I said implies that old guard centrist Dems are “playing for the other side”. fn has leveled such accusations at the old guard’s critics, but I’ve made no such claims about them. It’s not that they are to blame for all US democracy’s deficits, either: it’s that they’re refusing to act in a way that acknowledges or mitigates those deficits. Why? By all appearances, mostly because of the Iron Law of Institutions. Their critics are younger, to their left, and have their strength in mass movements; the 3rd Way types have as their foremost advantage their entrenched hierarchy and large-scale donors. Preserving their power within the party requires maintaining control of the party. That alone is enough to explain why they resist democratizing party mechanisms and strategies, while seeking to maintain hierarchy, centralization, and de facto patronage systems. Their assumption is that they can win (enough) elections while also crushing leftist insurgents inside the party. Watching the progression from 2014-2016-2018 suggests they may be right, but they probably aren’t.

Meantime your opponents have provided actual verifiable evidence that influential subgroups of the Republican Party hold rural whites in contempt.

And? This has nothing to do with what I’ve said. Many Republicans absolutely hold the rural working class in utter contempt. That does not absolve Democrats for engaging in lazy Kulturkampf against the inhabitants of “flyover country” more-or-less as a red-meat bonding exercise. This is not an either-or; both sides do it because the subgroups that are doing it share a particular identity that intersects with their identity as partisan members of the Republican or Democratic party. Pretending that “Republican” and “Democrat” are monolithic identities is insane, but that appears to be what you’re arguing – if Democratic policies are a net benefit for rural poor populations, it can only mean that they all intended that and any expressions of contempt were not real – and vice versa WRT Republican indifference and veiled contempt to the populations they pay lip service to even as they routinely push policies that in practice hurt them a great deal. And of course, all this distracts from the fact that the original point was WRT voicing contempt. Even the most sneering and contemptuous regressive Republicans are not given to voice contempt for ” rural people, men, and white people” – and no amount of demonstrating how Republican policies betray unvoiced contempt (because yes, of course they do) will provide the slightest “actual verifiable evidence” that they’re voicing contempt.

(Also, I’ve expressed some frustration at how hard it is to capture contempt for “yokels” is because it’s expressed in comments, which are neither easy to search nor easy to link. Let me reiterate that. You can disagree if you want. I’m not going to go digging through months of frustratingly, infuriatingly self-congratulatory but myopic comments in hopes of finding those I’ve seen before. Believe me or don’t – at this point I think we’ve beat this dead horse quite long enough.)

J-D@256:
I do think you’re doing ph an injustice, albeit not a huge one. They really do seem to be trying to convey information. It’s skewed by a very tight filter, and omits a great deal of critical context, and frankly suffers from many of the same “American-politics-as-spectator-sports” issues that fn’s comments do, but they are unquestionably trying to convey information and persuade their interlocutors. At a bare minimum, they’re trying to plant the seeds of doubt in readers’ political narratives.

(To be clear, I wildly disagree with essentially all their conclusions and a decent chunk of their framing. But they’re clearly trying to convey information and persuade readers. It’s not just virtue signalling.)

@260 Largely agree on the analysis, but I still favor capitalism as the better solution. There’s nothing necessary about war. And haven’t seen you or anyone else make a persuasive case war is a necessary function of capitalism. The key point of your position (for me) is that we too frequently overlook the fact that less than a hundred years ago women couldn’t vote, and most of the world was literally divided into empires. The post WWI national empires created the FP problems we’re trying (or not) to disentangle ourselves from.

@making it about individuals rather than arguments, various commenters. Several of the most frequent are among the most argumentative and uninformed on these threads, whose obsessions consist of a/an ongoing nervous breakdown repeated as ALL-CAPS!, etc., or b/tendentious accusations that other commenters arguments are either incomplete, or unclear. For my part, I credit everyone with the ability to make an argument and understand one.

If Orange Watch’s summation of the recent history of events in the Democratic party strikes you as novel and/or surprising, then be assured that you’ve succeeded in insulating yourself from basic fact. OW is not embarking on an investigation into new territory, but rather revisiting well-worn territory utterly familiar to the informed, irrespective of political alignment. I tend not to offer my two cents on matters of economics, because I’ve little to add and much to learn from the better informed.

Claiming to be unaware of the collapse of the Democratic party during 44 years, or the rise in income inequality during, or the bs. defenses mounted by 44 loyalists for why bankers keep their bonuses while black folks lose their houses (yes, African-Americans were disproportionately impacted by the Democrats’ “solution.”) is exactly like arriving in an undergraduate (not graduate) seminar, and announcing to everyone that you never read the newspaper, and ‘hate books.’

No further comment required.

‘Largely agree on the analysis, but I still favor capitalism as the better solution. (I) haven’t seen you or anyone else make a persuasive case war is a necessary function of capitalism. ‘

This is a lovely idea, but it’s probably false. In theory one can imagine a capitalism without imperialism (and imperialism almost always needs war) but it’s interesting that no one has tried it, and no one seriously proposed it. As one of those pictures books you can easily download for free on your Kindle on Amazon Prime (hey! Capitalism working! For a bit)…I think it was called Capitalism for Beginners….pointed out that if one ignores Weber’s nonsense about Protestantism (and you really should) the roots or Western capitalism come from banking arrangements that were put in place to fund the Crusades. The first proto-Capitalist states were places like Venice…and the Venetian navy was used in the Crusades. The link between proto-Capitalism and Western imperialism was there from the start.

But things only really got started after the Black Death, which brought down the feudal system (as the Plague of Justinian brought down the slave empires of antiquity, and as climate change may well bring down our own Empire and system).

Right from the very beginning of the capitalist system there was a global hegemon, an ultimate guarantor of the ‘worth’ of the capitalist system. And it was always Western and it always ultimately relied on military power. Jayman gives the names.

‘Portugal 1494 to 1580 (end of Italian Wars to Spanish-Portuguese Union). Based on Portugal’s dominance in navigation.
Spain 1516 to 1659 (Ascension of Charles I of Spain to Treaty of the Pyrenees). Based on the Spanish dominance of the European battlefields and the global exploration and colonization of the New World.
The Netherlands 1580 to 1688 (1579 Treaty of Utrecht marks the foundation of the Dutch Republic to the Glorious Revolution, William of Orange’s arrival in England). Based on Dutch control of credit and money.
Britain 1688 to 1792 (Glorious Revolution to Napoleonic Wars). Based on British textiles and command of the high seas.
Britain 1815 to 1914 (Congress of Vienna to World War I). Based on British industrial supremacy and railroads.’

(Napoleon, Hitler, and the Russian Communists were of course atempting to break out of the Anglo-American financial and political traitjacket and of course they failed, because the odds were stacked against them).

One may question some of this (you could make a case for arguing that British hegemony lasted as long as the late 1940s or even the mid 1950s). What is not up for debate is the idea that the British are no longer the ultimate guarantors of the global capitalist world order.

It’s the United States, the last and ‘greatest’ of the de facto European Empires.

And it’s obvious why capitalism needs a guarantor: in Foucault’s little aphorism, wherever there is power, there is resistance to power. You need an Empire to do the dirty work: to subvert democratic opposition to capitalism, to destroy trade unions, to ‘discipline’ workers, and, ultimately, to use guns to ensure that the ‘rules based international order’ stays in place.

As I say, this is not necessarily the case: one can just about imagine a capitalist system without a global hegemon. But it’s interesting that no one has tried it.*

So to all intents and purposes, capitalism means Empire, and Empire means war.

*And these things are path dependent. Becasue we have always relied on a global hegemon before, this makes it more likely that we will continue to seek one, because we have persuaded ourselves we need one. It’s the same with climate change. It’s just about possible to imagine an advanced capitalist system without fossil fuels, but it’s difficult, and now we are in a world where fossil fuels are the main source of energy, we seem to be ‘locked in’ to this mode of development. The idea that the capitalist system will reform itself and decarbonise itself, without massive pressure from protest groups and governments, is science fiction.

But! Surprise! The more climate change, scientists tell us, the more war. And the more capitalism, the more war (‘cos Empire). And the more war, the more climate change (the American Armed Forces are the worst polluters on the planet). So: we seem to be in some kind of a death spiral.

steven t johnson #260: “seems to take me to task”

Perhaps I needed an introductory paragraph but we do essentially agree.

My argument is with Taibbi, who hasn’t examined his own presuppositions in another way. He’s worried about the public onslaught by the intelligence agencies. (I would think that more transparency about their involvement, and speaking on camera, would be good for the public to see.) But Taibbi omits to observe that they are not alone — and that their public speaking might be necessary, if there is something serious in Russiagate.

First let’s look at the factions. It might be easy to explain why a faction of the establishment (e.g. the Republican “Freedom Caucus” + some of the FBI in the NY office, etc.) is against Clinton. It boils down to political partisanship.

But the same explanation will not account for the anti-Trump faction, which is much larger: it includes all of the Democrats (of course) + most of the rest of the intelligence & law enforcement community (which is probably 70% Republican, at a wild guess) + the majority of the establishment Republican politicians, in secret (but who have begun to break with Trump publicly, thus returning to their pre-nomination statements, i.e. before he won the primaries).

The sizes of the anti-Clinton and anti-Trump factions in the establishment are vastly asymmetrical.

Well then, what are the motives? Why is such a larger faction of the establishment against Trump? It cannot be because they are the “swamp creatures” and he is “draining the swamp”. He is the biggest swamp creature of all time; his Cabinet is full of corporate crooks and lobbyists, he has enacted high-end tax cuts and increased military spending, and he has been willing to let Congresspeople line up to the porkbarrel in the time-honored tradition.

And it is not due to partisanship. Most establishment Republicans agree with the Democrats on being anti-Trump.

That leaves two other possibilities. 1. They sensed that the shortsightedness of his psychopathy would make him a terrible Commander-in-Chief, and/or 2. He is so corrupt that he has been compromised, and there is something to Russiagate.

Next to consider: Russiagate and Clinton’s emails do not appear to be equivalent.

Indeed the Republicans do not appear to believe that Hillary Clinton is a criminal. They haven’t done much to investigate her, although they had control of both houses of Congress for two years and still control the Senate. (Trump has complained about their lack of investigations.)

To be sure, there are investigations into Clinton & the Democrats, but all of them were instigated by Trump’s command and control of the Executive branch. So far, no results. Just yesterday, Trump’s own State Dept. concluded the same thing that Comey did in 2016: there was no deliberate wrongdoing in Clinton’s handling of emails (just the usual mistakes which have been made for decades, back to when emails were first used).

There are at least three other probes instigated by Trump which are still outstanding: 1. Horowitz/Huber’s investigation of the FISA process (supposedly due soon, and which the Trumpies insist will prove corruption at the highest levels of the FBI). 2. Barr/Durham’s circus to foreign capitals to discover who-said-what about Trump & Russia (as if foreign intelligence services would reveal anything to the White House that might make its way back to Putin!). 3. Giuliani’s lovefest with the Ukrainian-Russian mob to find the DNC server, or dirt on Biden, or…something, anything else, who knows. And which employed a quid pro quo that will be an article of impeachment.

On the other hand there’s Russiagate. Mueller did not exonerate Trump.

The Mueller Report states, “…given these identified gaps, the Office cannot rule out the possibility that the unavailable information would shed additional light on (or cast in a new light) the events described in the report.” (Vol.1 p.10.)

In other words, they did NOT see all of the evidence, and Trump may have committed a criminal conspiracy with Russia. (Or it could mean: they saw all the evidence, but it’s in the counterintelligence portion of the Mueller investigation that is unavailable to the public court, so we can’t charge him with conspiracy here.) And the Report also outlines several charges of obstruction, which will probably be added into the bill of impeachment.

So that’s my argument with Tabbi, who writes, “My discomfort in the last few years, first with Russiagate and now with Ukrainegate and impeachment, stems from the belief that the people pushing hardest for Trump’s early removal are more dangerous than Trump.” — But this is to ignore the whole story, the actors, the motivations, & the evidence so far.

Here, Lemieux is on point: the first thing you should do with your belief is to thoroughly test all of its presuppositions. Otherwise you end up writing a “mood piece” that is more akin to the Thomas Friedman/Maureen Dowd/Peggy Noonan/David Brooks style of column-filler.

Orange Watch @ 263: Surely you know that while not all Greeks are Socrates, Socrates most certainly is a Greek.

When Paul Ryan’s “destroy Medicare by voucherizing it” plan was described by pollsters to voters, nobody could believe that it was real, or that Ryan had proposed it, b/c it was too cruel, too obviously designed to inflict maximum suffering on the middle and working classes. The GrOPers -talk- about protecting workers, but it’s just talk: their only solicitude is for the rich, as we’ve found out these last three years.

You’re right, that after 1988 the Dems turned to the right. You would to, if you’d lost every election since 1968 (setting aside Carter, which was a fluke — you can’t *rely* on the GrOPers electing someone so crooked they resign to avoid impeachment): that’s twenty years, friend. No shit the Dems moved to the right. And sure, Obama wasn’t exactly a firebrand[1]: but he passed the ACA, including the Medicaid expansion, which was a massive, massive thing. Yes, it’d have been nice to do better: but remember that whatever got passed, had to be OK by Holy Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, and Evan Bayh. Amongst others. Too many Blue Dogs with veto power.

[1] The idea that the first black president would be a firebrand is wishful thinking. Imagine how angry white America would have become, if he’d actually been an angry black man, ffs. Now that he’s safely retired, we can speak of our fears that he’d be assassinated. Which were very real.

@271

That article (and the comments thread) are horrific. But this one is funnier:

http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2019/10/the-end-of-the-american-republic

Oh noes! Says Mr White American Liberal man. We is losings ours Republic! Boy get me pearls t’clutch!

Well Mr White Man, perhaps this might have something to do with how you lost your Republic many decades ago?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df4R-xdKvpM

Putting aside the ridiculous comparison to Weimar, the real (and obvious and self-evident and therefore never made) comparison is to (and hey…the clue is in the name) the old Roman Republic. Like the Roman Republic, when the 13 States liberated themselves from the British Empire, they were poor, agrarian, tiny and backward. And the Constitution was written for this state of affairs.

Just as with Rome, the way of doing Government of the US is now almost literally creaking under the strain of running a globe-spanning Empire with unparalleled wealth being sucked into the US from its many colonies. That money is swirling around, rotting away the moral foundation of the country. Trump isn’t Hitler: a much better comparison would be Crassus a man who ‘ amassed an enormous fortune through real estate speculation.’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Licinius_Crassus). When you have enough plutocrats it’s completely obvious that eventually some of them will start to try to turn their financial power to political power. Trump essentially bought the last election, because American politics is now an auction, for sale to the highest bidder, in a country where the worst people on Earth (AKA the ‘friends of Epstein’) are worshipped and handed the keys to the castle. The so-called Russiagate farce and the current ‘impeachment which isn’t really an impeachment’ aren’t what they appear to be: their antecedents are the ‘lawfare’ in which, using concerns about corruption as the alleged causus belli, democratically elected leaders are removed from power by elites. CF the end of Berlusconi: CF also events in Russia and Brazil. ‘Corruption’ is a safe accusation as to make sense of this accusation one has to accept that the system is stable and ‘good’ and that only ‘breaches of the law’ by individual actors are bad. Accusations of corruption by definition make sense only if one accepts that ‘law and order’ (a right-wing phrase) is the desideratum, the laws and rules of the country are just, and that the only problem is that individual actors are not being punished with the full force of the law. The real problem, which is that the whole country is morally and politically rotten from top to bottom and that Trump is a symptom of this (one of many), not a cause, can then be ignored.

Lawfare is warfare by another name: so this is really an undeclared civil war by elites against other elites (watch how the Democrats did not do anything during the endless Russiagate blather: as soon as one of their own was threatened (the corrupt son of the corrupt sexist, racist Biden) they sort of move to impeach…sort of. To a certain extent. This is a battle between white male elites for control: no ideology is involved (another reason that elites love to talk about ‘corruption” : the phrase implies that political problems are really legal ones and that they can be solved by legal means. They can’t)).

As long as the USA keeps its Empire, all those bases abroad (the ‘lilypads’), the largest armed forces the world has ever seen (despite the fact that the US faces no threats and hasn’t done since 1992) de facto control of the World Bank, de facto control of the UN via the Orwelllianly named ‘Security Council’, de facto control of the IMF, the dollar as de facto global currency, all that money being sucked into the country, the political crisis that the US is now in is literally unsolvable.

This does not mean that it won’t be solved. All human-made problems are solvable by humans. The question is: what kind of solution will the Americans choose?

The entire American political system is simply creaking under the weight of the US’ imperial engagements. It’s not fit for purpose and it will therefore collapse. There are three option: either the US divests itself of its Empire as the Brits, French, Portuguese (etc.) did.

Or there is civil war (which one could argue has already started).

Or ‘the third option’: a man or woman who promises to ‘restore the Republic’ but who really has quite a different purpose in mind. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus)

(Note: the fear of liberal elites, some kind of fascist dictator, is, of course, possible, but unlikely. For reasons too long and boring to go into in a comment, one of the key tropes of Orientalism is that ‘we’ are democratic and ‘they’ have dictators. This goes back to Ancient Athens. So an aspiring dictator is unlikely to get the educated middle classes onboard (as Hitler DID get the educated middle classes onboard) which is really what you need for a stable dictatorship.

It’s much more likely that a de facto dictator will instead use the rhetoric of protecting us from a fascist dictator and ‘restoring the Republic’ (as Augustus did). Perhaps the CIA and the NSA are the nearest analogues to Augustus and Brutus in this analogy).

Please note how long it took for the Roman Republic to fall, incidentally. This crisis might well go on for decades or even centuries until it’s resolved. What is certain is that impeaching Trump will solve nothing, even if it happens, which it won’t, because this is not a legal problem, it’s a political one and is only amenable to a political solution.

fn@265:

Orange watch, I’m not making an argument from accomplishment, I’m asking you to think about why there are no candidates in certain seats.

But of course you are. When was the last time you argued that someone should join the local police while encouraging like-minded individuals to do so in order to effect national-scale police reform, and suggested that they’re lazy, hypocritical do-nothing whiners who don’t understand the problem if they don’t? Have you ever suggested that someone enlist in the military in order to effect reform of that institution? For that matter, do you insist that only vegan locavores living off the grid and intimately involved in regional cooperatives can call for top-down environmental reform of large social institutions? You can attempt to reframe your prior statement “What makes you special, that you should complain about a lack of representation in the seat you live in, but should not be required to provide that representation yourself?” as pointing out the difficulty of doing something rather than insisting that those you disagree with maximize individual actions before engaging in collective actions, despite the two not being equally effective. It also is typical rhetorical tunnel vision, insisting that one must either walk or chew gum, but not both. There are leftists organizing in rural areas neglected by the national party, even if your high and distant vantage point doesn’t let you see them. See, here’s the thing: I’ve been voting in the US for a while, and there’s been a decrease in ballot diversity over time. You, OTOH, are a spectator posturing from the sidelines who’s never voted in a US election nor done anything to affect any US election beyond lecturing Americans online. You’re spouting an ideology without having to live with the consequences of it where your interlocutors live – or to even see those consequences.

Also maybe the reason the dems abandoned the dean strategy is they can’t afford it? Remember you don’t want them beholden to big donors. How are they going to fight all those elections without money?

Small donors. Duh. And more importantly, organizing. Politics is not just about money, else Clinton would have won in 2016. For that matter, and very much to the point, Crowley would have beat AOC. The DNC has moved from organizing and voter engagement to expensive consultants helming media campaigns and voter disengagement. Remember Obama’s ’08 electoral organization? That didn’t last. See, here’s the thing. If you were more than a posturing spectator and had instead ever worked in a political campaign, you’d understand that there’s more to politics than money raised – and even when that money is raised, how it’s spent is more important. Areas w/o seasoned organizing personnel and infrastructure coupled with indifferent or hostile electorates have trouble attracting the sort of people who can succeed as candidates. Electoral experience matters – and not just for the candidates. As you yourself said, people have their lives, and reckless personal crusades for the sake of virtue signalling is not an attractive proposition. For someone supposedly on the left, you’re putting a disturbing amount of faith into money and individualism over collective action, shared experience, and mutual aid.

Do you think it’s a spectator sport for the iraqis that your idol voted to starve and kill? What a disgusting thing for a rich America at the center of the American empire to say.

My idol? I can only assume you mean Sanders, but WTH? You’re not exactly refuting the accusation that you’re ignorantly blustering and virtue-signalling w/o really bothering to understand what you’re talking about. Sanders voted against the Iraq war. Remember? HRC as a pragmatic centrist “grown-up in the room” voted for it (and repeated her hawkishness as SecState WRT Libya and Syria). She was also there when WJC bombed and imposed sanctions on Iraq and WJC’s Secretary of State famously opined half a million Iraqi children dead to those sanctions were “worth it” – or are we only supposed to consider her time as FLOTUS when tallying up her experiences becoming the most qualified candidate EVAR but not when examining the complicity that would imply? Or are we instead to only focus on individuals rather than the movements they belong to and champion? That’d be of a piece with your (selective) appeals to accomplishment, after all.

J-D@267: See above.

In the above, for “her tweets” I should have written “the interview”. As in Hillary’s interview, where she leveled the accusation. And (heh) she also named Jill Stein for good measure. And again: good for her!

“Gabbard has said the war in Syria was a regime change war using jihadi groups as allies, which happens to be true”

Backing up what Steven T Johnson says —

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/24/magazine/aleppo-after-the-fall.html

I will post a long excerpt in the next post.

Orange Watch

J-D@267: See above.

Depressing reading, but thanks for providing the links. Better to know than not to know.

It’s not clear to me that the strategic mistake arises out of an attitude of contempt for rural people, but it doesn’t seem to matter, because it’s a strategic mistake no matter how it arose.

Donald@279:

You raise a very important point. Making common cause with the Assad regime is not something to be admired, but it’s certainly not impossible to reconcile that with good intentions. Even as liberals decry Gabbard on one hand and Trump’s betrayal of the Kurds on the other, the government of Rojava has made accommodations with the regime for the simple reason that not doing so would be worse for them. For most people in Syria, life would probably have been better if Assad had swiftly and brutally suppressed the 2014 revolution – it’s hard to argue otherwise when 0.5m have died and 6m have been displaced. Likewise, for most people in Iraq life would most likely have been better if the US had never invaded. It’s ugly, and messy, and very unsatisfying because it’s tempting to hold out hope for something better to arise out of the blood and death… but it’s blinkered and selfish to decry the idea of not wanting to be voluntold to die for a cause, and given the history of unintended consequences and regional destabilization stemming from US intervention abroad it’s outright delusional to assume that THIS time it’ll be different. Pragmatism is supposed to be the domain of pragmatic centrists, not the DFHs, but when it comes to hawkish foreign policy pragmatism seems to be a dirty word among the “responsible grown-ups”.

Gabbard is a problematic candidate, but the particular attacks leveled at her are problematic in ways that would have her critics howling in fury were their favorites similarly treated. It’s quite tempting to assume the visceral rage she induces is tied to the affront caused by a young woman of color publicly voicing opinions that are supposed to be strictly the domain of old white men.

@272
YOU write the utmost fascinating comments – as there is so much to agree with (and not?)
And as the title of this OP is: ”Why partisans look at the same planet and see wildly different curvature” – and there seems to be this very mysterious ”bipartisan” -(or even World-wide) agreement that ”the American Empire” is dead -(and not?) – and it was you who brought up the empire-thing – there is this major question.
Traveling a a lot and meeting all these ”Americans” – who are sooo ashamed -(because of the Clownstick) that they are often pretending that they are ”Canadian” -(or Australian – or even British) – is that a sign for ”teh empire” being dead?
(or not?)
As – as you write – at the same time the dollar is still the reserve currency of the world and all of this money get sucked into the country -(because everywhere else it is even more chaotic than in my homeland) – and as you brought up Russia – and I went to this wedding in St. Pete (Russia) – and so I have these new Russian Relatives – with some of them really making fun of my ”American” -(not ”German”) side – by joking that they elected the US President with a bunch of ”Internet-savy Gamers”?

And then you write about: ”the largest armed forces the world has ever seen” BUT compared to all of this ”money might” the ”military might” seems to be so… so ”outdated” and less effective to keep any ”empire” alive?

I mean – if even some completely deranged moronic Clownstick ”wins” by yelling ”the American Dream is dead and most Americans can’t afford to live in their own country anymore – because health care, housing or just the basic needs are far too expensive?

Is that really still ”An Empire”? -(like ”them Old Roman Empire” some old dudes always like to bring up?)
And about – this is a battle between white male elites for control – what’s about my friend AOC who will be the next US President after the next US President?

So in conclusion about your three option – there is actually only OPTION –
(as ALL of the Clownsticks PARTISAN efforts to burn down the house – will NOT – and please believe me – WILL NOT – succeed!!)
And as you seem to believe in ”burning down the house” (like so many on the Intertubes) from… the other PARTISAN side?
Note: the fear of ANY Americans of (not necessarily ”fascist”) dictators – AND as you might be right that: ”The real problem, which is that the whole country is morally and politically rotten from top to bottom and that Trump is a symptom of this – the way it will turn out –
that FIRST ”the symptom” gets removed – and then –
WE! (US) start a slow recovering –
until US –
(with the help of politicians like Bernie and Warren and AOC and YES! also my Surfer friend Tulsi)
will become as NOT rotten anymore as the country of Denmark –
(Bernie loved to quote)

Or NOT?

Further to previous exchanges:

There is a difference between these two statements:

A. The Democratic Party is alienating important constituencies (rural people, white people, rural white people, whatever they may be) by expressing contempt for them.

and

B. The Democratic Party is losing potentially important support by abandoning previous strategies directed at campaigning in all parts of the country and in as many electoral contests as possible and/or by subordinating grassroots campaigning groups to the institutional interest of the Democratic Party machine and (when in office) Democratic Presidential administrations.