Category Archives: Random Blogging

Giving Voice to My Fears….

Andrew Sullivan has a lengthy new article in New York Magazine. It’s terrifying. And it’s hard to dismiss.

For Democrats looking at the polls and anticipating a “wave” election if Trump is the GOP nominee, Sullivan’s article should be required reading–a cautionary tale, and a frighteningly hard-headed analysis of how, yes, it could happen here.

A few paragraphs will give you the general tenor of the article, but I really, really urge you to click through and read the whole thing.

Sullivan’s thesis is that America is ripe for tyranny.

In the wake of his most recent primary triumphs, at a time when [Trump] is perilously close to winning enough delegates to grab the Republican nomination outright, I think we must confront this dread and be clear about what this election has already revealed about the fragility of our way of life and the threat late-stage democracy is beginning to pose to itself…..

He considers, at some length, the function of so-called “elites” in a constitutional democracy, the pluses and minuses of “direct democracy,” and the varying diagnoses of contemporary ills.

The evidence suggests that direct democracy, far from being throttled, is actually intensifying its grip on American politics….

Sullivan’s description of the role played by the media in the age of the Internet is particularly perceptive.

What the 21st century added to this picture, it’s now blindingly obvious, was media democracy — in a truly revolutionary form. If late-stage political democracy has taken two centuries to ripen, the media equivalent took around two decades, swiftly erasing almost any elite moderation or control of our democratic discourse. The process had its origins in partisan talk radio at the end of the past century. The rise of the internet — an event so swift and pervasive its political effect is only now beginning to be understood — further democratized every source of information, dramatically expanded each outlet’s readership, and gave everyone a platform. All the old barriers to entry — the cost of print and paper and distribution — crumbled….

The web’s algorithms all but removed any editorial judgment, and the effect soon had cable news abandoning even the pretense of asking “Is this relevant?” or “Do we really need to cover this live?” in the rush toward ratings bonanzas. In the end, all these categories were reduced to one thing: traffic, measured far more accurately than any other medium had ever done before.

And what mainly fuels this is precisely what the Founders feared about democratic culture: feeling, emotion, and narcissism, rather than reason, empiricism, and public-spiritedness. Online debates become personal, emotional, and irresolvable almost as soon as they begin. Godwin’s Law — it’s only a matter of time before a comments section brings up Hitler — is a reflection of the collapse of the reasoned deliberation the Founders saw as indispensable to a functioning republic.

Yes, occasional rational points still fly back and forth, but there are dramatically fewer elite arbiters to establish which of those points is actually true or valid or relevant. We have lost authoritative sources for even a common set of facts. And without such common empirical ground, the emotional component of politics becomes inflamed and reason retreats even further. The more emotive the candidate, the more supporters he or she will get.

Anyone who cares about America, and especially anyone who dismisses the very real threat posed by a Trump candidacy–the very real possibility that he could win– needs to read the entire essay.

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Strategy and Delusion

This political season just keeps getting weirder and weirder.

As Indiana voters prepare to cast ballots in tomorrow’s primary, we are coming to grips with the fact that there is an unreal reality-TV personality leading the GOP field–a lead largely attributable to the repulsiveness of his nearest competitor. (I mean, when have we ever heard a Presidential candidate described by members of his own party as “Lucifer” and ” a miserable son-of-a-bitch”? When have we ever heard a U.S. Senator explain his  endorsement of that candidate as a choice between a gunshot to the head or poison? Because there might be an antidote to poison…)

Every day brings a new “you’ve got to be kidding me” moment. Last week, it was a story from Talking Points Memo, outlining the Trump campaign’s strategy for going after Bernie Sanders’ supporters.

Are you done laughing hysterically?

There are two ways to analyze the Trump plan. The approach most favorable to the Trump campaign begins with the thesis that Americans are irremediably ignorant. (It isn’t that farfetched; after all, the fact that Trump is winning the GOP nomination is pretty compelling evidence that a significant percentage of the population is missing a few synapses.) Sanders is attracting angry voters, Trump is attracting angry voters, ergo, Sanders’ voters will move to Trump.

If, however, as I believe (and devoutly hope!), Americans really aren’t that far gone, the notion that Bernie’s supporters would even consider Trump is ludicrous.

The rap on Bernie is that he wouldn’t be able to accomplish his campaign’s goals: greater social equity, more government transparency, fairer treatment for marginalized constituencies, a higher minimum wage, free university, more equality….in short, despite the decibels at which he delivers his message, the message itself is a kinder, fairer, gentler world–an aspirational social justice writ large.

The rap on Trump is that he doesn’t have positions on most of these issues (or, apparently, even know some of them exist), but to the extent he does, his goals are exclusionary and bigoted: deport immigrants, reject Muslims, put women back in the kitchen (unless they’re good-looking, in which case they can work–albeit for less pay than men), piss on America’s allies and assume the role of world bully. Trump’s goals–to the extent he can articulate any– are dangerous, mean-spirited, uninformed and frequently unconstitutional, and his rhetoric consists of playground-level insults.

Some of the people supporting Bernie may not like Hillary Clinton. Some of the more rabid among them may even stay home in November–unthinkable as I find that. (I also doubt that Bernie has Ralph Nader’s monumental ego and willingness to screw the country to service it.) But a strategy based on the notion that people rallying for economic justice and fundamental fairness can be convinced to go to the polls and vote for Donald Trump is just further evidence that Trump’s narcissism has overpowered his already tenuous connection to reality.

If there ever was such a connection.

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Thanks, Obama!

Yesterday, I got another one of those emails explaining why President Obama has been the worst President in all of human history.

For people who have managed to retain a sense of humor during the seven-plus years of the Obama Administration, there has been plenty of similar material to keep them chuckling. (Now, granted, my own reaction to some of the crazy has been to beat my head against the nearest wall, but people more stable than I am just laugh a lot. And have fewer headaches….)

I do like the Facebook entries making fun of this tsunami of blame: “On this date in [whatever year], the Titanic sank [Or the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Or insert your preferred historical calamity here]. People died. Thanks, Obama.”

The Rightwing crazies have blamed everything from Kim Kardashian to El Nino on our first black President. ( I’m sure the fact that he is the first black President is entirely co-incidental. Also, if you are interested, I have some swampland in Florida for sale….)

At the bottom of all of the Obama blaming is an irony that has evidently escaped most of our President’s determined critics: on the one hand, we are constantly harangued from the Right with accusations about Obama’s deficiencies: what he doesn’t understand, hasn’t accomplished, doesn’t have sufficient experience to appreciate….in other words, we are constantly told how utterly feckless he is.

At the very same time, we are treated to constant admonitions about this President’s absolutely amazing prowess: he has singlehandedly lost wars, destroyed economies, created racial tensions in hitherto loving and peaceful neighborhoods, interfered with your gallstones….I mean, you name it, this dude’s super-powers are up to the task.

I thought about this disconnect (okay, haters gotta hate) when I read about an O’Reilly accusation over at Dispatches from the Culture Wars:

Did you know that it’s Obama’s fault that people use hard drugs? I didn’t either. And do you know why it’s his fault? Because he apparently knows what words mean.

Here’s the quote from O’Reilly in support of this….um ….interesting thesis..

President Obama’s leading the way on this, classifying drug dealing, hard drug dealing, as a, quote, “nonviolent crime.” That sends a signal to the country that, you know what, it may be illegal to sell drugs, but it’s not all that bad. And the left is generally supporting the madness.

As Ed Brayton notes, classifying a transaction as “non-violent” (assuming no violence occurred) is generally seen as–what’s that called?– using words to convey information.

 If I sell you a bag of dope and you pay for it and we both drive away without any physical confrontation, then that transaction was — by definition — non-violent. Still illegal. Still might be very bad for the person who takes the drugs, depending on the drug. But it isn’t violent. Thus ends our lesson in using a dictionary.

What Ed has obviously missed is the central lesson of the past seven years: everything bad is Obama’s fault.

Come to think of it, just where were the Obamas when Prince died…??

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What Is WRONG With These People?

It’s spring! Finally!

And if a recent jaunt around the Internet is to be believed, America seems to be growing more bigots than tulips this year.

In Virginia, supporters of “religious freedom” have prevented a group of local Muslims from building a mosque, demonstrating once again that “religious freedom” bills should be labeled “Christian privilege” bills, since they sure aren’t about extending religious liberty to anyone else.

Speaking of Muslims, a student at UC Berkeley who was returning from an academic conference had the bad judgment to call his uncle on his cellphone while he was in his seat waiting for the plane to load. His uncle lives in Iraq, so he spoke to him in Arabic. This evidently was all the evidence of terrorism required by Southwest Air, which removed him from the plane and called police to interrogate him.

Then there’s Mississippi.

I’m not sure who these good “Christians” are gunning for, but according to news reports, Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant has signed into law something called the Church Protection Act. It allows churches to empower designated members of their congregation as part of a security team with a “shoot to kill” authority equivalent to a police officer but with less government oversight. Who Would Jesus Shoot? (What could possibly go wrong…??)

And of course, in Mississippi, North Carolina and elsewhere, there is the (to me, at least) inexplicable paranoia about bathroom use. Evidently, males are more susceptible to this condition–at least, according to a recent article in Slate:

For many men, taking a piss at the office is apparently a “nightmarish” experience. That’s one of the many fascinating things we learn in Julie Beck’s engrossing essay on the psychological minefield that is the public bathroom, published today in the Atlantic. We all know people who do their best to avoid defecating outside the privacy of home, but the fears and fantasies that Beck explores in her piece are almost Sadeian in detail—paranoia about seeing and being seen, elaborate attempts to construct sonic shields, and most of all, a deep sense that the perils of humiliation and social opprobrium waiting on the other side of the restroom door may very well outweigh the relief of relieving oneself.

If there is one thread connecting these depressingly regular eruptions of insanity, it would seem to be fear–fear of “the other”–fear of people who are perceived as different from “normal” (i.e., from “me.”) People who speak a different language, pray to a different god, love differently, pee differently…

For people who see difference as threatening and dangerous, the world must be a really scary (and uninteresting) place. I’d feel sorry for them, but the incredible stupidity of it all makes sympathy awfully hard to summon up.

I’m going to go water my tulips…..

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Entrails, Tea Leaves and Other Prognostications…

The just-announced Pulitzer Prizes for 2016 included the award for Drama, which this year went to the smash hit Hamilton.

At Political Animal, the irony of that award was duly noted:

What’s so fascinating about all this is that – in the midst of a nativist Republican backlash to “take our country back” – the hottest thing in the country is a rap musical performed mostly by people of color that is all about our lily white founding fathers. Ain’t life grand?

At risk of reading too much into these particular “tea leaves,” I think the success of Hamilton does  rest on more than the admitted brilliance of its music and staging (we were fortunate enough to see it a few months ago, and I can attest to that brilliance). I think it signals an embrace of the culture change that–among other things– is driving our contemporary toxic politics.

I have previously suggested that this is a time of paradigm shift–a time when our previous understandings of the world we inhabit are being challenged by globalization, scientific discovery and diversity.

A “paradigm” is a pattern of received beliefs that we use to make sense of the world. The term was popularized by Thomas Kuhn, a physicist who—in the course of research for his dissertation—picked up Aristotle’s Physics and found that it made no sense to him. Reasonably enough, Kuhn assumed that neither he nor Aristotle was stupid, so he concluded that they were operating from such different realities that communication was not possible. He subsequently wrote a book about the way science adapts to new discoveries, or “shifts” its paradigms.

It isn’t only science. Cultures shift in much the same way.

Our paradigms, or worldviews, are formed through a process of socialization into a particular culture–a constant transmittal of messages about the way the world works, about the reality we inhabit, about the “natural order” of things. Every so often, in human history, that “natural order” is challenged, and the result can be disorienting.

Most social change is incremental, evolutionary–and even then, it can be hard for people to navigate. But we seem to be at one of those junctures where the shift is both relatively sudden and massive. Long-held belief systems–religious and secular–are being called into question.People who can’t deal with the pace and scope of this change are understandably terrified.

Think how you’d feel if you awoke one morning in an unfamiliar environment–surrounded by people (including your own children and/or grandchildren) speaking a language you didn’t understand except for tantalizing bits and pieces, with customs that were both alien and familiar, and expectations you couldn’t fulfill.

As hard as it sometimes is to be sympathetic, we need to realize that for inhabitants of the “old” reality, the world really is ending. Same-sex marriage, empowered women, an African-American President, “press 1 for English,” drones, social media….We wake up every day to a million and one reminders that we inhabit a new and uncharted world; a rap-music, multicultural portrayal of America’s founding fathers is just one of them.

And for so many people, it’s a reality too hard to accept. Too hard to get one’s head around.

So..back to a (mythical) simpler past with Trump? Or an embrace of a different, fairer, more equal world? I guess we’ll see.

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