Dissecting Misinformation: A Covid Example

"Misinformation is false or inaccurate information that is communicated regardless of an intention to deceive"

Disinformation is similar but information that is intentionally meant to deceive.  Delineating the two is both increasingly difficult and probably ultimately mostly irrelevant in most cases.  We see mis or dis-information all the time on social media.  Someone posted this and I thought that seems odd so I have taken the time to dissect it.

I will start by pointing out, I see posts beginning with "hmmm" all the time and just about every time they are a tell that the post is of, being generous here, dubious veracity.  Saying "hmmm" implies one is not really willing to stand behind a statement but by golly they are going to insinuate something usually nefarious just the same.  In other words the person is gaslighting or just merely being lame.

So about those numbers.  The post appears to show worldwide numbers.  But worldwide numbers are notoriously inaccurate.  All numbers are estimates and the U.S. has its own problems defining numbers but I believe a better way to assess the numbers would be to focus on the U.S.  And frankly given the America First-ism usually employed by those posting these things I believe it makes even more sense.

The Spanish Flu.  It was a terrible pandemic killing millions worldwide and its mortality rate was apparently materially higher than Covid.  Understanding, of course, medical science at the time was vastly inferior to contemporary medicine, basically if one caught the virus, they put you in a clean bed if available, provided liquids and an occasional cool cloth for your forehead .  The notion of ventilators and ameliorative medicines was largely non-existent. Importantly, the vast majority of those millions occurred internationally (perhaps 10MM+ in India alone).  Researchers have never agreed on how many million died but the estimates range from about 12MM to perhaps 50MM out of a population just short of 2 billion.  So right there you see whomever prepared the above chart, grabbed the high estimate of deaths and compared it to a wrong population base.  Hmmm...makes one wonder about the author's motives.😁 

What about the U.S? The CDC estimates 675,000 Americans died from the Spanish Flu out of a population of about 106MM or .67% of total population.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html

The seasonal flu.  This one has been mangled repeatedly and shamefully to the point, if I see it I immediately want to turn away and go "hmmm, I guess this person really is a willful dumbass".  The CDC estimates annual flu deaths in the U.S. over the past decade to have varied from about 12,000 to 61,000 in the worst year (2017-18, which is naturally the year the author of the meme cherry picked...hmmm). There is a reason while you probably know many who have had the flu including yourself, you likely do not know anyone who was gravely or fatally afflicted with the flu.  There is a reason as well one does not recall many if any public figures who have been killed by the "flu" in contrast to Covid.  Furthermore, even the CDC numbers, as low as they are, are derived by comparing excess death rates over time usually a couple years or longer ex post facto.  Just about everything I have read (despite the protestations of the Covid deniers to the contrary) indicates once researchers are able to review 2020-21 deaths they will find we have materially underestimated Covid related deaths here in the U.S.  Internationally the underestimates are believed be far more material as the public health information in many international countries is incomplete and/or riven with political bias (even more so than in say Florida). https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html

Covid. Per Worldometer as of the end of the day 12/12/2020- 305,000 Americans had died out of a population of 333MM or 0.1%.  Currently deaths are averaging 2,500 per day. Hence by the time vaccines have ended the spread and impacts of Covid we will have likely suffered somewhere 450,000 to 500,000 deaths or 0.15 to .20% of total U.S. population.  So is Covid likely less impactful than the Spanish Flu? Yes.  But having a pandemic kill perhaps 500,000 Americans is an historically awful result.  A result arising despite modern medicine, despite what will hopefully turn out to be a very rapid vaccine development and a result helped by massive mitigation efforts in the form of social distancing etc.  

Net net those folks who post charts like above are not only wrong they are at this point given what we know about the disease, what we know about the pressures it puts on our medical system, and what we know about the horrible way most end up dying alone and in pain. Well I think they are worse than foolish, they are something worse. 

But ultimately this post is not about Covid denial it is about how folks take data manipulate it to serve an agenda with just enough obtusely provided truth that the meme makes enough sense for other folks to spread it far and wide so that their fellow travelers can jump on the threads and cheer the misinformation on with their own snark and in the process make us all just a little bit more stupid.

Burning Down the House To What End? Has a Pandora's Box Been Opened?

 

-From Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice-Brian Hagedorn (conservative appointee) responding to yet another failed Trump legal effort

The chatter on FB has gone pretty quiet.  A few remaining diehards continue to post the memes and accusations from increasingly fringe Trump advocates made invariably without evidence or support from remotely reputable sources.  But most Trumpkins remain passive in the face of the egregious efforts to overturn the election.  Meanwhile Biden supporters rely (with cause) on the assumption that despite Trump and certain enabler's efforts the transition will occur in less than seven weeks with our without Trump's acquiescence.

But the Hagedorn statement reminds us of how surreal our current situation is.  Twenty-five hundred Americans a day, nearly two per minute are dying from Covid but our Potus acts as though it does not exist. He tweets and speaks borderline gibberish about election fraud and it does not raise hackles only because it is expected that he speaks gibberish.  An actual Potus is considered as relevant as a senile uncle.  His statements and tweets are literally at the level of the most unhinged rants I read on social media.  It is as if one of them has become Potus.

Meanwhile his administration continues to gut federal agencies and replace respected members of civilian advisory boards with the most hard core if unqualified loyalists.  He is issuing pardons like candy including one to the notorious Mike Flynn who literally has called for an insurrection.

Burning down our house on the way out accomplishes what? Denigrating the validity and sanctity of our electoral processes serves what purpose?  A Pandora's box may have been opened the implications of which we will not know for years.

The world and the U.S. need responsible leadership from our national government and soon.

The Great Gaslighting Expedition of 2020

"Gaslighting is a tactic in which a person or entity, in order to gain more power, makes a victim question their reality. It works much better than you may think. Anyone is susceptible to gaslighting, and it is a common technique of abusers, dictators, narcissists, and cult leaders..."

"...They wear you down over time...They know confusion weakens people...They project...They try to align people against you...They tell you everyone else is a liar..."

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/here-there-and-everywhere/201701/11-warning-signs-gaslighting

TW:  Our elections were held over two weeks ago.  The results but for a handful of local races are well-defined.  The results for Democrats were nationally far from ideal especially in the Congress.  

Yet that is not enough for our gaslighting Potus abetted too frequently by many Republicans elected officials and far too many but not all conservative media.  Daily now increasingly ridiculous, unsubstantiated claims are made which tear at the integrity of our nation, the integrity of anyone not agreeing with a Trump victory and ultimately the integrity of the majority of Americans who voted against this person.

He and his allies are engaged in a classic gaslighting effort.  Read the characteristics (some of which were mentioned above), every single one of them are being blatantly employed in this effort to usurp American democracy and overturn the results of, not all the elections, just the one involving Trump.  All the other elections where the Republicans won receive no mention.  All the great results for the Republicans receive no mention.  Just that one for some reason.

I see far too many on FB, pouring their own fuel on the Trump gaslighting.  The Trump fan sites post every fact free utterance by the Trumpian gas lighters with tremendous adulatory excitement.  Meanwhile individuals on FB post the missives of the crackpots employed by Trump with comments like "Hmmmm...Take your bets. Posturing or valid? If these claims of fraud turn out to be true, then this will be a mess." and "Relax everyone we got this" or "We have not fully engaged the enemy!"

And since FB and Twitter no longer provide sufficient validation for their increasingly unhinged beliefs they eagerly advertise their desire to migrate to MeWe and Parler, platforms with no standards and little regulation so that only the most conspiratorial will participate to reverberate the falsehoods with no counter-arguments whatsoever.

All of this can be as the Psychology Today article mentions, disorienting and depressing. But that is the gaslighter's goal. Frankly if folks want to burrow themselves even more deeply into a Trumpian echo chamber whose primary news source are tomes such as the Epoch Times (a den of conspiracy mongering associated with amongst other nutbags Steve Bannon), perhaps they should just move on, am sure Parler and MeWe can show plenty of cute pet pictures just like FB. In the mean time, we need to get rid of this Trump person so the rest of us can get on with our lives and our nation can resume its role as a rational world leader.

originally published 11/11/20

A Trailblazing Vice President

Originally published 11/7/2020

 

What If Election Night Results Were Shared the Day After

 

Originally Posted 11/4/2020

This Is What Should Happen Soon

 It was what American leaders do.  The amount of grace required must be daunting but it is imperative.

Thus Far Our Institutions Have Held Strong

 

Certainly I was hoping for a Democratic sweep.  Both for partisan reasons and to avoid what I feared might be a chaotic period of uncertainty with the associated institutional fraying.  Thus far while things have been far too close for my partisan result, I have been pleasantly surprised by how our institutions have held up (so far).  Voting appears to have proceeded smoothly without intimidation or shenanigans. State and local governments are counting votes PER THEIR LAWS.  Despite Trump's expected (and dreaded) authoritarian overreach in the middle of the night, to my knowledge no national elected Republicans have supported his scheme.  Our media (at least the reputable ones) were ready for Trump's play (which has to be mentioned continue to be beyond what the pale was until he came along) and pushed back responsibly including and crucially Fox News.  This is not over but sitting here midday amidst a razor close election at the national level to not be getting sucked into a legal societal nightmare (yet) is something to hang a hat on.

https://politicalwire.com/2020/11/04/networks-challenged-trumps-call-to-stop-count/

Looking Forward to Some Normalcy

 

Have been telling friends not to underestimate how much better things will feel once we no longer have not only a potus but his staff tweeting and screaming from podiums rude, obnoxious, misinformation, disinformation and outright lies.  The last four years are not normal.  And as this administration's staff has been whittled down to merely the most craven sycophants or worse the harm has increased.  Biden and his team will be a biased, flawed and imperfect but they will feel like a massive gust of fresh air.  Amidst Covid and such we really could use it.

ps now Fox et al. will not go away but maybe just maybe folks will remember how wrong they have been...

If You Cannot Handle a Reporter How Can You Handle Xi/Erdogan/Putin et al.

He is also a propagandist with nothing to fall back on besides his PR schtick.  Nine more days until he is a lame duck.

 

"Stahl said she and her boss met with Trump at his office in Trump Tower in Manhattan after the 2016 election in advance of  https://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-donald-trump-family-melania-ivanka-lesley-stahl/

“At one point, he started to attack the press,” Stahl said. “There were no cameras in there.”

“I said, ‘You know, this is getting tired. Why are you doing it over and over? It’s boring and it’s time to end that. You know, you’ve won ... why do you keep hammering at this?’” Stahl recalled.

“And he said: ‘You know why I do it? I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so that when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.’” "

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/22/trump-told-lesley-stahl-he-bashes-press-to-discredit-negative-stories.html

Responding to a Friend's Questions

 

I have been having some dialogue with a FB friend.  We are on opposite sides of the aisle but especially off-line we have constructive conversations.  He asked me some questions and I banged out a long response so thought I would share.

Friend:

On a different matter, who would Biden put on the supreme court and why won't he tell? Also, would he pack the court? He seems to be riding the "moderate democrat" position to win the white house ( I'm not a socialist, I beat the socialists", but he also agreed to the Biden/Sanders manifesto which sounds to me like Bernie Sanders' socialism philosophy. Also, he chose the co-author of the green new deal to be his running mate at 78 years old. Is he moderate or is he progressive? He is trying to ride two horses here. The media doesn't care. As long as Biden wins, they are happy. I wonder if moderate democrats will be happy if it turns out he was really a Bernie Sanders progressive?

TW:

Biden (he is only 77 btw 😁 and I would argue much more healthy than current potus but I digress) would nominate a partisan Democratic judge, just like Trump has nominated partisan Republicans.  I will say Trump’s SCOTUS picks have been essentially conventional Republicans (i.e. Romney etc. would have picked similar ones).  His picks have been amplified since there are now three of them including one that should have been an Obama pick.  But like I said Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett are not radical just very partisan.  Both parties are now gaming (although I will say Republican have done a better job) the picks such that “moderation” as it existed has been lost (i.e. no more justices that are going to be anywhere close to non-partisan and if we are not careful we are soon going to be getting nominees straight out of law school so that they can serve for 60 years for one partisan view).  I would like to see 18 year staggered terms.  It is not exactly clear to me how “packing” the court by going to 11 justices would solve things for Dems since that would still leave a 6-5 split at this point.  I am guessing Biden is avoiding a clear position as 1) it will be controversial and at this point with a big lead there is no upside, 2) it is not a given what exactly a 6-3 Republican court means, if they overturn Roe, ACA, and block immigration reform then that is one thing if they are less radical then it would be another. 

Re is he a moderate or a Berner? He is a politician he is being ambivalent because that is what good politicians do so that he can retain enough support of centrists and more lefty types to get some things done.  Biden certainly has a long track record and it is clearly centrist understanding the center moves over time.  His instincts are centrist but he understands much energy comes from the left (just like the right energizes the Republicans). 

Folks like Obama, the Clintons, Harris really any mainstream Dem are not all that far apart on policy it is a matter of degrees.  Sanders/AOC they have more ideological policies which get cherry picked by the mainstream folks that is how parties work.  For both parties not only energy but innovative policy can come from the more ideological wings of the party.  The problem with ideologues is their ideology frequently is impractical, good politicians translate or cherry pick ideology into a governable set of realities.

One thing re policy, I do believe the hypocrisy of the Republicans on the deficits (they “cared” about it when Bill Clinton was in office then lost all interest when W. Bush was in office, then “cared” about it with Obama- remember the Tea Baggers-, then lost any interest when Trump came into office) is finally going to come home to roost. 

Until Ronald Reagan came into office both parties felt our country’s budget had to be run like a personal checkbook (i.e. balanced).  Reagan came into office increased defense spending, cut taxes and created big deficits in the process.  The supply side notion that tax cuts pay for themselves was BS then and is BS now (if you can find empirical evidence to the contrary let me know) but certainly has been an effective electoral strategy because who does not want a tax cut?  Clinton balanced the budget without a single Republican vote to do so, then the deficits blew up under W.  Then the Republicans forced fiscal constraint to the point of harming the recovery in 2009-2010 under Obama, then again let Trump cut taxes and now spend without concern for the deficit.

Now we know interest rates can remain very low while running big deficits.  Biden and the Dems assuming they gain control of the Senate will likely initiate aggressive plans to spend on infrastructure (including green programs), education and healthcare.  And why not? At its core Biden’s plan is spend on those things most of which we badly need and re-coup the part of the tax cuts given the wealthiest Americans.  Whereas the budget scolds (myself included) would have previously been nervous now we are like “let’s give it a try”.  By the way in the process with Biden/Harris, we say lets avoid the erratic rhetoric on trade that is alienating our international friends, lets come out with rational immigration policies that allow us to retain the vigor and energy from immigrants without just throwing the borders open and most of all lets do what we need to with PPE, testing, distancing and vaccines to get past Covid.  At that point I think the economy will thrive and the markets along with them as we have much pent-up demand and capital ready to be deployed and the markets do not like the erratic governance currently emanating from the White House.

Ultimately though, folks spend far more time thinking they disagree on policy when in reality it is personal style and character that drives voter’s actual preferences.  Why would someone vote for Obama then turnaround and vote for Trump over Clinton?  Obama and Clinton’s policies are not that different but for whatever reasons some made that switch.  The problem for Trump is now they are switching back to Biden, whose policies resemble Obama/Clinton.  Why? Well I would argue because Trump is an erratic fraud and after almost four years, most folks have figured this out, while Biden for all his aging drabness is not a freak.  Biden would lose against most Republicans this year but he is a good antidote to Trump.  Correspondingly I believe most Dems would have beaten Trump in 2016 but Clinton was almost uniquely susceptible to Trump.

(Btw regarding your question on media you say “the media does not care”, not sure what you expect from “the media”.  I have many thoughts on this but will leave that to a “media” post or discussion.)

I assure you as a moderate Democrat I am not losing one iota of sleep worrying that Biden is some sort of woke Squad member in disguise.  Understand I believe Trumpism has papered over big issues for the Dems emanating from Jacobin lefty woke types (many worse than AOC) and these problems will have to be addressed because not only Republicans but us moderate Dems do not support their views on many topics.  The economic ignorance and cultural stridency amongst many of the Jacobin left is severe (cancel culture, anti-capitalism etc.).  Mark my word Biden will be getting grief from his left as much as the right. soon enough.  My Berner friends were severely agitated when Biden beat Sanders just like they were in 2016 when Clinton did so and just like their predecessors were in 1968 when Eugene McCarthy lost. But in 2020 Trump’s inability to govern like an actual adult has brought them in line to vote him out instead of stay home like many did in 2016.

If Trump had performed merely as a replacement level Potus (shown empathy, exerted calm, embraced epidemiology instead of quackery) this year instead of going off the rails on Covid/wanting to jail his opponents etc. he might be ahead in the poles.  At this point he literally seems mental.

So About Last Night....

 

This likely and succinctly summed up most viewers perspective.  Someone on twitter had stated earlier in the day that debating Trump was going to be like "trying to play Carnegie Hall while someone in the front row was blasting an air horn". So it was. Most of us ended up with this feeling...

An actual United States sitting president is called a clown and asked to "just shut up man" by his opponent and it gets practically lost in the cacophony.  This is not normal but it is embarrassing for our country.

And from the Japanese news channel this morning: 

But net net, Trump is behind.  He needed a win which he did not attain.

Ultimately Republican candidates woke up left between a rock (the Trump base) and a hard place this guy...

Actually we all know folks like Trump in some form or another and they really are not attractive.  So while I do believe the possibility outlined here is real...

I still hope the ultimate voting will leave little room for any craziness on the part of Trump and his most devoted adherents.  As I told a friend, I woke this morning sadder for my country than I was 24 hours ago but more confident than I was 24 hours ago that Biden was going to win.  After all he did not drool, he did not appear addled, he did not commit a gaffe and at times despite the constant heckling he actually looked into the camera at the American people and said in short "it does not have to be this way, let's get back to a normal presidency".  

A Trumpkin on FB wrote a while back he was pained by the notion that- "Many people I know and love are ashamed of AMERICA". He is wrong, we are not ashamed of America. Neither he nor Trump are America. We will not cede "America" to Trump. We are all part of the beautiful American tapestry and seek to integrate constructively many more people regardless of race, creed, tribe etc. It is a messy process and has been for over 200 years. Our history is portrayed more hagiographically than most understand, this too shall pass.

We need to get back closer to the U.S.A not some form of a D.S.A. (divided states of America) which some appear to seek.  That the question below needed to be asked is sad, the answer even more so.  

The Proud Boys and several of their adherents are not constructive for our beautiful tapestry.  Biden condemns violence without equivocation, for whatever reason Trump will not.  Let there be no doubt who he refuses to condemn.

So again let's make this happen and get the good ole US of A back on a proper path else well I guess there is always this...

ps just kidding I would never leave but would stay and fight 😀

The Penguin Sure Sounds....

...like someone we know...Happy Debate Day everyone...

Batman and Penguin debate in Gotham mayoral race. https://t.co/h7XTnlcAta

— Alex Parker (@AlexParkerDC) September 29, 2020

Trump Taxes: This List Seems Pretty Complete

Most sentient humans know Trump has fought the release of his tax returns due to the stench contained therein.  The same humans realize for Trump acolytes the stench will go in one nostril and out the next without registering the slightest odor. 

 

It Can Happen Here: Carving the Salami One Small Slice at a Time

 “…[the leader] has never hidden his desire to entrench himself in power. Before taking office in 2XXX, he remarked ominously: “We have only to win once, but then properly.” True to his word, when handed a big enough majority by...voters, Mr [Leader] hollowed out the...state, rewriting its constitution, purging the country’s courts and nobbling the media. In 201X he told an interviewer: “In a crisis, you don’t need governance by institutions.” Again, he has followed through. A law enacted on XX means Mr [Leader] can rule by decree—bypassing parliament—until the coronavirus crisis is over. In films the villain is thwarted after revealing his hand. But Mr [Leader} is up against the...not James Bond, so he succeeds.

No one can say there was no warning. [Leader’s] career—which has encompassed everything from anti-Soviet liberalism to right-wing nationalism…—has been dedicated to the accumulation and maintenance of power, rather than the pursuit of principle. Those who knew him well saw what was to come. In 2009 [the Leader’s biographer], the author of a critical biography, warned: “Once he is in possession of a constitutional majority, he will turn this into an impregnable fortress of power.” A combination of careful strategy, political cunning and a dash of luck have made this prediction come true.

To the frustration of those who have spent the past decade trying to stop him via legal means, [the Leader] is more astute than they think. His “reforms” tend to reach the edge of legal acceptability, but no further. If [the Leader] ever does hit an obstacle, he surrenders some gains, while keeping the bulk of them. (The…leader even has a name for this legal waltz: the peacock dance.) Opposition figures, civil-rights monitors and commentators around the globe have denounced the latest move as a big step towards dictatorship…This mealy-mouthed response stems from the fact that its lawyers see little glaringly wrong with the act as it is composed. On paper, [Congress] can end the state of emergency if the government oversteps the mark. In practice, this probably would not happen. [The Leader’s] …party—over which he has had near-absolute control… It is in this gap between legal theory and political reality that [The Leader] thrives…

…he is even luckier in his allies…[the Leader] was treated as an unruly teenager while rearranging the…state, rather than a tumour in [our] body politic…Bluntly, [the Leader] has not been removed because a majority of [his enablers] were keen to keep him. It was the [Leader’s party’s] dwindling band of liberals who winced at [the Leader’s] actions. Now they are outnumbered by a nationalist strand, who broadly agree with [the Leader’s] on things like shutting out [immigrants]. The… leader is less of an outlier… than he first appears.

No happy ending

The tsunami of international criticism, in which [the Leader] has been labelled everything from an autocrat to a latter-day Hitler, will not bother the…leader or his acolytes. It is a fight they want to have. In their minds, the coming crisis is another chance to prove their critics wrong….[the Leader] does not mind being called a dictator. As long as he stops short of outright tyranny, he can paint foes as hysterical. He can also point out that other democracies grant the government extra powers during an emergency, and pretend his intentions are no different.

Reining in [the Leader] will be hard, but not impossible. “The only language he understands is power and money,”…

TW:

I have watched nervously as country after country internationally the past decade has moved away from robust multi-party democracy towards authoritarianism clothed in a cynical shroud of democracy- Poland, Turkey, India, Philippines, and most of all Hungary (amongst others).  Viktor Orban the actual "leader" portrayed in this Economist article from last spring has been an early and aggressive acolyte of carving away liberal democracy one slice at a time.  Now by hiding his name and making a few (not very material) edits one can read the article and almost wonder if the article is about someone closer to home for us Americans.  This should be inconceivable, but every day that goes by it seemingly becomes less so.

https://www.economist.com/europe/2020/04/02/how-hungarys-leader-viktor-orban-gets-away-with-it

How the Supreme Court Will Play Out the Next Four Months

Trump will nominate a justice pre election, then they will seek to confirm post election (pre inauguration of Biden). This will motivate base for election while mitigating the blowback pre election. Post election the Republicans will have little to lose by confirming the new nominee regardless of whether they win or lose the 2021 Senate majority but especially if they lose the majority. They will sell the confirmation as a way to control the post inauguration Dems.

Update:

Well that did not take long...presumably they knew Ginsburg was on her deathbed.

John Santucci (7:04 pm 9/18/20)

@Santucci

Multiple sources close to President Trump with direct knowledge tell ABC News he is expected  put forth a nominee to fill Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat in the coming days via me & @KFaulders

I suppose a downside for Republicans is there may be a few voters on the margin who will think "well we have control of SCOTUS now, maybe I don't really have to vote for a fascist in order to overturn Roe v. Wade etc."

I ascribe to the notion that many Machiavellian Republican leaders do not really want to overturn Roe v. Wade as it has been a powerful wedge issue to use to motivate their voters. Of course Roe v. Wade is not the only matter at hand. All of these voter suppression efforts are real and ultimately subject to SCOTUS oversight. An oversight led by Kavanaugh, Thomas et al. and now another one is not a comforting thought.

He Opposes Violence without Equivocation

 

This is not rocket science.  Our current potus only makes such statements from a potus seem as if they are.  Many query what would Biden do?  Well for one thing he would not pour gasoline on conflict at every opportunity.  He would attempt to dampen conflict, reduce the stridency.  Lead the entire country not vocal minorities from any side.
 

We Must Do Better

Race is America is a fraught topic.  Literally it has been so since our earliest days as a nation else our constitution would not have defined a black person as worth 3/5 a person (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Fifths_Compromise).  Progress has been made but in many respects we have never recovered from this original barbarous compromise.

Race is a topic one approaches with trepidation but here goes.

This summer's protests, violence and resulting backlash repeat a cycle we have experienced over and over.  A cycle with similar results- not enough progress and the majority asserting its political will over the minority as the majority reacts with fear, grievance and resentment communicated through the ballot box (a place where the majority has an inherent advantage).  I would strongly recommend reading Rick Perlstein's books documenting the political environment of the 1960s ("Before the Storm" and "Nixonland") or perhaps if one wants to focus more narrowly on Chicago "American Pharoah" a biography about Richard Daley.  I cannot imagine what it would have felt like if the violence which occurred in the 60's had been amplified by social media the way they are today.

I get violence is not the answer.  This a photo taken from my balcony of looters pillaging a coffee shop in the middle of the night 8/11.

MLK got violence was not the answer.  Famously in his speech accepting the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize he called the award:

 "a profound recognition that nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression...”

But MLK did not operate in a vacuum.  He spoke in this interview a couple of years later of why violence might arise and also why race and ethnicity are flawed comparisons for some.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K0BWXjJv5s

It is entirely feasible to oppose gratuitous violence and oppose Maoist cultural revolution like BS such as below:

BUT to also have tremendous empathy for the heartfelt emotional pleas from the folks below:

The NBA is interesting.  It is an industry unlike most others, as it is an African American dominated industry.  Everyone from the players who have tremendous power (like say the star leaders at an investment bank or law firm), to the management to the ownership respect that without African Americans there is no league in its current manifestation.  This respect is prevalent not because so many AAs are the star players, but the managers and even owners as well.  In other words it is like most industries except the roles of AA and whites are flipped.

The republicans are now in full throated, unabashed "instill fear, fan resentment and encourage grievance" mode.  It appears to be their best and perhaps only hope to reverse their electoral challenges.

My hope is that Doc River's question does not fall on deaf ears.  No responsible party condones violence but I perceive far too many of my fellow citizens cowering in the face of short term violence, the vast majority of which only impacts them vicariously and using it as an excuse to avoid confronting the long-term systematic racism permeating our nation.  This has been a dynamic repeated far too many times in our history.  It plays into the hands of demagogues and scoundrels.

What is the antidote?  Perhaps a leader who gets the pursuit of justice, liberty and security is not a zero sum game to be traded one for the other:

As opposed to a leader who embraces division, fear and grievance.  We have had leaders who embraced white backlash and law and order (see Nixon, Richard; Wallace, George amongst others) but never one who has embraced so cynically and with such apparent heartfelt gusto.  Here is to hoping for better.

We Must Compete

Gabby Giffords represents someone who is willing and able to compete.  Someone when faced with adversity persevered.  Gabby Giffords represents the best of America.  The better parts of our nature.

Something that has struck me hard over the past several years is the unwillingness of too many Americans to compete.  They seek to build walls and "bring back the 'good ole days"  They claim to be strong.  They wrap themselves in the our flag.  They yell and pound the table. They embrace conspiracy. They seek to bask in the efforts and accomplishments of their predecessors.  Ultimately they are weak whilst claiming the opposite.  They do not represent the resiliency and strength of America. They wallow in grievance and resentment. They do not want to compete.  

Donald J. Trump, his enablers and too many of his supporters represents the worst parts of our nature.  Selfish, insecure, defensive, fundamentally weak.  We can and will do better.  America remains strong and resilient.

Donald J. McCarthy

Yesterday we wrote of Trump's syntactical style.  Today we bring up a character from the way back machine- Senator Joseph McCarthy (Republican Wisconsin).  Memories of McCarthy and his associated era of paranoia regarding communist infiltration into the U.S. government and culture have now mostly receded beyond living memory.  But the dynamic and the lives ruined without cause was not a proud one for the U.S.  McCarthy and our current Potus share numerous characteristics.  As the article relates toward the article's end, a mediocre, alcoholic senator who served but a couple of terms did damage, a Potus is and can do immeasurably more harm.  Folks speak of today's environment with social media and political polarization being rife for controversary and innuendo.  The 1950s had no online technologies and a relative level of bi-partisanship vastly different than today and yet we begat a McCarthy.  Perhaps the resentments and grievances perceived to fuel today's politics really are not that new merely lying in wait for a demagogue to embrace and fan them.

Conveniently if unsurprisingly, our Potus yesterday when asked about yet another birther trope instead of disowning it, he in his inimical way (see yesterday's post) just fanned it.  He is a propagandist on the level of Joseph Goebbels.  

From New Yorker:  

“… he had a reputation as a scofflaw. He had exaggerated his war record…Questions had been raised about whether he had dodged his taxes and where his campaign funds had come from…He plainly had no ethical or ideological compass, and most of his colleagues regarded him as a troublemaker, a loudmouth…

…The other senators on McCarthy’s subcommittee stopped attending the hearings, since McCarthy dominated everything, and so it became his personal star chamber. He could subpoena anyone...and was answerable to no one…

McCarthy was a bomb-thrower—and, in a sense, that is all he was. He would make an outrageous charge, almost always with little or no evidentiary basis, and then he would surf the aftershocks. When these subsided, he threw another bomb. He knew that every time he did it reporters had two options. They could present what he said neutrally, or they could contest its veracity. He cared little which they did, nor did he care that, in his entire career as a Communist-hunter, he never sent a single “subversive” to jail. What mattered was that he was controlling the conversation.

McCarthy had the support of a media conglomerate, the Hearst papers, which amplified everything he said, and he had cheerleaders in the commentariat, such as the columnists Westbrook Pegler and Walter Winchell, both of whom reached millions of readers in a time when relatively few households (in 1952, about a third) had a television set. He tried to block a hostile newspaper, the Milwaukee Journal, from his press conferences, and he egged on the crowds at his rallies to harass the reporters.

Right from the start, McCarthy had prominent critics. But almost the entire political establishment was afraid of him. You could fight him, in which case he just made your life harder, or you could ignore him, in which case he rolled right over you. He verbally abused people who disagreed with him. He also had easy access to money, much of it from Texas oilmen, which he used to help unseat politicians who crossed him.

To his supporters, he could say and do no wrong. Tye quotes the pollster George Gallup, in 1954: “Even if it were known that McCarthy had killed five innocent children, they would probably still go along with him.” His fans liked that he was a bully, and they liked that he scandalized the genteel and the privileged.

…What distinguished McCarthy’s claims was their outlandishness. He didn’t attack people for being soft on Communism, or for pushing policies, like public housing, that were un-American or socialistic. That is what ordinary politicians like Richard Nixon did. McCarthy accused people of being agents of a Communist conspiracy. In 1951, he claimed that George Marshall, the Secretary of Defense, the former Secretary of State, and the author of the Marshall Plan, had been, throughout his career, “always and invariably serving the world policy of the Kremlin.” Marshall, he said, sat at the center of “a conspiracy on a scale so immense as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man. A conspiracy of infamy so black that, when it is finally exposed, its principals shall be forever deserving of the maledictions of all honest men.”

Even Republicans were aghast. Marshall was almost universally regarded as a selfless public servant and a model of personal probity. The leader of the Party’s conservative wing, Robert Taft, expressed regret that McCarthy had overstated his case. But that was about as far as most Republicans had the nerve to go. Nothing came of McCarthy’s attack. For McCarthy, though, the important thing was that he had said something that was manifestly preposterous and had got away with it. He must have realized that he could get away with anything.

McCarthy lied all the time. He lied even when he didn’t need to lie…When he didn’t have any facts to embellish, he made them up. He found that, if he just kept on repeating himself, people would figure that he must be onto something.

He was incapable of sticking to a script. He rambled and he blustered, and if things weren’t going his way he left the room. He was notoriously lazy, ignorant, and unprepared, and he had a reputation for following the advice of the last person he talked to. But he trusted his instincts. And he loved chaos. He knew that he had a much higher tolerance for it than most human beings do, and he used it to confuse, to distract, and to disrupt.

…he preferred eternal damnation to admitting that he had ever been wrong.

…Tye wisely does not propose to draw many lessons for today from the story of McCarthy’s career. Our demagogue is far more dangerous than a senator who was not very popular even in his own state. Ours is the President, and he has henchmen running the State Department and the Justice Department who are dedicated to clearing a legal path for him to eliminate whoever stands in his way. The Trump Administration has done serious damage to the entire executive branch. It will take a long time to repair it.

But what is puzzling about McCarthy is also puzzling about Trump. Once McCarthy was in a position of power, he was incapable of modifying his behavior. He could not shut it off, even when everyone around him was begging him to. He had a single explanation for everything, and the only way he knew how to do his job was by threatening and prevaricating. Trump, too, is a one-trick pony. He says the same things on every issue and in response to every crisis.

Voters get tired of one-trick ponies. Not every civil servant with progressive views can be a spy, despite McCarthy’s insistence, just as not every story Trump finds unflattering can be fake, and not every investigation he dislikes can be a hoax. Endlessly recycled charges lose their sting. That is what happened to McCarthy. It was not that the public decided that Communists were not a real danger. They just got sick of the constant snarling and browbeating. They wanted it to go away.

When Joseph Welch arrived in Washington for the famous hearings, some of the people involved in the Army’s defense were shocked that he did not seem to have studied the case. They worried that he was unprepared. But Welch knew that he could not beat McCarthy on the facts, because McCarthy would just make up new facts. He saw that the only way to destroy McCarthy was to give him the opportunity to destroy himself. He let McCarthy rant and bully and interrupt for thirty days, and then, as the clock was winding down, he closed in for the kill. It was pure rope-a-dope, and a lesson, possibly, for Joe Biden…”

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/08/03/joseph-mccarthy-and-the-force-of-political-falsehoods

How He Does It

Certainly it has been frustrating for many of us to watch a person we regard as personally foul and politically despicable gain office and then continue to hold the fawning loyalty of too many.  One thing I have mentioned to friends over the past few years is the one clear skill I give him credit for which is he understands PR and he is a highly effective carnival barker.  The way by which Trump communicates is central to his success.  The Economist breaks down his syntax.  His use of phrases reflects several of his core communication tenets which make him quite effective (or perhaps more descriptively dangerous).

1) He simplifies complex issues into soundbites (MAGA is an example and regardless of what one thinks of him or its implications it will go down as an historically impactful slogan)

2) He exhibits supreme and unwavering self-confidence and self-belief

3) He NEVER admits error

4) He always acts with a swagger that enraptures his supporters

If one had read much history and steps back to think of those leaders in the past who have used these techniques some pretty scary examples come to mind...

From the Economist:

"His linguistic quirks reveal the salesmanship that has made his career"

“Underpinning Mr Trump’s distinctive language is an extreme confidence in his own knowledge..Mr Trump creates his own “reality distortion field”. One of his signature tropes is “not a lot of people know…” He has introduced the complicated nature of health care, or the fact that Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican president, as truths that are familiar only to a few. A related sound-bite is “nobody knows more about...than I do”. The fields of expertise Mr Trump has touted this way include campaign finance, technology, politicians, taxes, debt, infrastructure, the environment and the economy.

His critics have often attributed this to narcissism, but a complementary explanation is that it is also one of his strengths—salesmanship. In Mr Trump’s framing, he is in possession of rare information. He is therefore able to cut a customer a special deal “not a lot of people know” about. Should you be tempted to take your business to a competitor, he will remind you that “nobody knows more about” what is on offer than he does.

And how does he convince listeners he really does know what he’s talking about? His language constantly indicates self-belief. …Mr Trump rarely hesitates and hardly ever says “um” or “uh”. When he needs to plan his next sentence—as everyone must—he often buys time by repeating himself. This reinforces the impression that he is supremely confident and that what he’s saying is self-evident.

Perhaps the most striking element of Mr Trump’s uncompromising belief in his sales technique can be glimpsed in an unusual place: his mistakes. Mr Trump is often presented as a linguistic klutz, saying things that make so little sense that his detractors present them as proof of major cognitive decline.

All people make some slips and stumbles…Mr Trump regularly makes errors but his signature quality, by contrast, is to lean into them. Take a recent interview with Fox News, in which he talked about governors’ differing attitudes towards masks. Some are keener than others about requiring people to wear them to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Or, as Mr Trump put it, “they’re more mask into”.

What is remarkable is not the mistake. It is easy for anyone to go down a syntactic blind alley. Many people will say something like “they’re more mask” and then realise there is nowhere to go. The sentence, in linguists’ terms, requires “repair”, which usually involves backtracking. Unless, that is, you are Mr Trump, in which case you confidently intone “into” and move on, giving no hint of trouble.

This refusal to concede blunders shows up in more serious ways, of course, such as the president’s unwillingness to take responsibility for his administration’s missteps during the pandemic. It also helps explain two mysteries. The first is the odd disjunct between words that seem nonsensical on the page and a stage presence that enraptures audiences—it is Mr Trump’s assertive persona that convinces more than his words.

The second is how this works on his fans. In a recent survey conducted by Pew, Americans were asked to rank Mr Trump and Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, on a number of characteristics. The trait for which Americans give Mr Trump the highest mark is telling. Despite a notably light schedule and a stated disdain for exercise, the president’s incessant speaking style is almost certainly the reason he received a good score on one quality in particular: 56% of voters, and 93% of his supporters, describe him as “energetic”.

https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2020/08/08/donald-trumps-language-offers-insight-into-how-he-won-the-presidency

Times They Have Changed

 

Would say the above is true.  But how much have times changed that choosing a woman of color is the safe pick instead of bold.  To me this is a sure sign of progress. 

River North Looting Round 2

Could say many things about these looting experiences.  But will leave it at I am very sad for my city.  Will say the folks getting arrested at 7 am outside the Nordstrom's (see the photo with the escalator) still trying to loot indicates pretty severe stupidity but then of course the judgment exhibited by all concerned is lacking.  Things were quiet last night (as they should be on a Sunday night especially with thunderstorms passing through), then at 1 am or so the looting caravans showed up and went straight through until 5 am.  The bottom photo from our balcony was taken at 4:23 am, all those cars were looters having a final go at the retail shops in on the ground floor of our building.  The photo above with the broken window is one of the stores in our building.  The top photo is the coffee shop across the street as the looters did their looting.  The middle photo above was also from our balcony when a police was hit with a bottle I believe.  The guy with the bottle of Johnnie Black down below was really starting to run out of gas by 6 am when I took the photo.  ATMs are sturdy machines, the one in the photo was from Walgreens.  Final note whatever the freaking strategy is of the authorities, they need to revise it as it is not working (and I hear all kinds of rumors most of which make no sense to me hence my lack of comment on the performance of the authorities).