Random Blogging – Page 3

Let’s Call It What It Is

I have a number of kind, well-meaning, “Never Trump” friends who tell me I’m painting with too broad a brush when I characterize the MAGA movement as racist to its core. These nice people (granted, lots nicer than me) are loathe to attribute Trumpism simply to hatred of those “Others”–Blacks, Jews, Muslims, immigrants (ok, Brown immigrants–not those from Norway or Canada), LGBTQ+ folks, and those detested “libruls.”

Sorry, but after coming across a recent news item from the Guardian, I rest my case. The headline really tells the story: “Anti-woke’ dog food and pro-America lipstick: US sees rise in rightwing stores.”

Mammoth Nation and Public Square are among the most prominent in the movement, both offering an Amazon-esque service, but stocking only goods which they claim are made by companies which have “conservative values”. Mammoth Nation makes its values clear on the homepage of its website: “Join Mammoth Nation to fight against Radical Left agendas,” booms a message, with the company claiming to stock only “brands who align with your beliefs”.

“When all of this wokeness started to happen and cancel culture, and then you start to see these companies stand up and say, ‘We’re not supporting this conservative or this Christian value any more,’ and just really lines in sand were starting to get drawn,” Drew Berquist, the national spokesperson for Mammoth Nation, told The Need to Know Morning Show, a North Dakota-based rightwing radio show, in December.

“And a lot of people were trying to figure out: OK, well, who are the good companies? Who are the companies that share our values, that support our constitution, support our troops or, you know, our Christian values as a country.”

Evidently, the Right’s “Christian values” are limited to “anti-woke” commitments. PublicSquare – which touts itself as Amazon for the right wing– claims to list products from more than 70,000 businesses. Unlike Amazon, however, PublicSquare’s merchants tout their allegiance to Republican causes, including opposition to abortion and an ahistorical version of the Constitution.

Evidently, efforts by companies to embrace diversity and inclusiveness–Target carrying Pride merchandise, Bud Light collaborating with Dylan Mulvaney (a trans media personality) – enraged rightwing consumers, creating a market for companies like Mammoth Nation and PublicSquare.

The Daily Wire, a conservative news outlet, launched a range of razors in 2022, after the company’s CEO deemed a rival razor brand to have “canceled” conservatives. The publication has since branched out into chocolate, soap, floor cleaner and, earlier this year, “manly green vitamin capsules”.

“Do you want to buy your men’s health products from a company that partners with drag queens and supports radical organizations that push gender procedures on children?” the Daily Wire asked readers in an article announcing the multivitamin – which at their launch cost 10 times more than Centrum-branded multivitamins.

According to the Guardian, most of these efforts have thus far failed to show a profit.

What they have shown, however, is the real motivation behind right-wing attacks on “woke culture.” Not that anyone paying attention will be shocked, or even surprised.

The word “woke” originally meant “awareness”–awareness of social injustices. The term has been co-opted by the Right, and become shorthand for a raft of cultural changes that enrage MAGA folks: efforts to be inclusive, efforts to combat racism, applications of the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, even mainstream Christian teachings about loving one’s neighbors and welcoming the stranger–in other words, for the America that a majority of citizens want to inhabit. “Woke” is thus the antithesis of White Christian male dominance and superiority, and a favorite epithet of a MAGA movement that is reactionary, racist and misogynistic.

My kinder and gentler friends insist that it is unfair to paint the entire MAGA movement as racist. I think the fairness of that accusation depends upon how one defines MAGA–whether it includes the small Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy wing of the party. We are now seeing that it doesn’t (despite Musk’s own neo-Nazi sympathies), and I’m willing to concede that there is a faction of uber-wealthy “bros”–mostly Silicon Valley techies– whose motives for supporting a mentally-ill felon are purely financial and transactional. (The incompatibility of that faction with Trump’s GOP/MAGA base is currently playing out in real time.)

Non-bro MAGA Americans are replaying the Civil War, albeit thus far with less bloodshed. They are unwilling to share the civic table with those “Others” they insist cannot be “real Americans.” The war against “woke” is a contemporary battle for White “Christian” Supremacy.

It’s an ugly, embarrassing reality, but let’s call it what it is…..

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Speaking Of Unanticipated Consequences…

Forgive me if today’s subject seems unnecessarily repetitive, but I recently came across an article from The Bulwark that eloquently explained my concerns with our digital information environment. The article was titled “American Folklore,” and “Folklore” was an apt description of what has become of my original excitement/thrill/misunderstanding of the then-new communication mechanism called the Internet.

The dream of the internet was that it would create a high-information, high-trust society. Technology was supposed to make facts and primary sources immediately available to everyone, thereby ushering in an age of rationality and data-driven decision-making.

If you lived in Bumblefuck, Missouri, the internet meant that you were no longer beholden to the limited stream of news provided by your local paper, three broadcast networks, and assorted cable news players. You’d be able to see the information with your own eyes.

A Senate committee issued an important report? A scientific journal published a landmark study? You’d be able to sit in your living room and pull up the actual study or report and read it yourself, from soup to nuts. Your local newspaper might run a 600-word story about a speech some politician gave. The internet meant that you could watch the entire speech, unfiltered, and draw your own conclusions.

It was a lovely dream. And as we all know now, incredibly unrealistic..

As the article acknowledged, the internet has, indeed, made all of that data readily available to people. But the magnitude of even credible information is overwhelming, and much of it is too complicated for non-experts to understand. Furthermore, as the author says, the “bigger problem has been the sheer volume of noise that the internet gave rise to.” That noise has overwhelmed the information, and is largely the reason for the decline of trust in institutions.

I think there is another, even bigger problem.

Not only does the massive amount of information and disinformation challenge ordinary citizens, the way in which the Internet distributes information– the way that information is made accessible–requires each of us to be our own gatekeeper. It requires us to know what it is we need to know, and then to search it out and determine its credibility.

Let me use an example. A site called Chalkbeat provides vetted, credible information about education in several states, including my own state of Indiana. A couple of years ago, I asked over twenty reasonably bright, educated people if they had ever heard of the site or visited it; every one of them was unaware of its existence.

When we had local newspapers that were widely read, gatekeepers (editors) determined what subjects were important to disseminate–what informed citizens needed to know. They weren’t uniformly right, but those papers included education news, and readers who may not have had children in school or who were unaware of or disinterested in how education policy affected them (think property taxes, the effects of school reputation on sales price of homes, etc.) would at least see headlines that might lead them to better understanding of why they should keep informed about the subject.

The gatekeepers weren’t perfect, but they were helpful. Today, we can remain blissfully unaware of what is occurring in many policy areas and the relevance, let alone the existence, of sources of information on the topics.

The scattered nature of our information environment not only puts the onus on the individual to determine what s/he needs to know and where to find trustworthy sources, but it is the major reason that we Americans occupy incompatible realities. The “zone”–that is, the Internet–has been flooded with propaganda, misinformation, and conspiracy theories, as well as sincere but different ideological approaches to most subjects. There’s a reason so many people have turned to social media for their “news”–it is simply unreasonable to expect every American to decide what subjects s/he needs to know and then to search out and evaluate information on those subjects.

As the linked essay notes,

The result of all of this [changing economics of media] is a growing consumer alienation from the actual sources of information, a return to a kind of folk-story society ripe for manipulation by demagogues who promise simplicity in an increasingly complex world…

We are now a folk-story society. The drones. The immigrants eating cats and dogs. The crime wave and “economic hardships” that haven’t been real since 2022.

It’s all folklore. Stories that a post-literate people pass on to one another in the oral tradition.

Our information environment isn’t the only cause of our current dysfunctions, but it is a major contributor.

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An Uninformed Electorate

Over the years I’ve been writing this blog, one of my more frequent laments has been the collapse of America’s local newspapers. The last time I looked, the United States had lost a over a quarter– 2,100 – of its local newspapers, and that number doesn’t include the “ghost” papers that are theoretically still functioning, but no longer able to adequately cover local news.

What do we lose when we lose local newspapers?

We lose “news you can use” about local government agencies, schools and the goings-on at the State legislature. As I’ve previously noted, we also lose a common information environment that builds community and is more trusted than national media sources. And that trust matters.

Research confirms that the loss of a properly functioning local paper leads to diminished participation in municipal elections, which become less competitive. Corruption goes unchecked, driving costs up for local government. Disinformation proliferates because people turn to social media to get their “facts.”

A recent study confirms the importance of local newspapers to the maintenance of an informed citizenry. I’ve previously reported on a statistic I found stunning (and depressing)–the fact that people who follow the news (presumably including Fox “News”) voted for Harris by a considerable margin, and people who reported seldom or never following the news voted for Trump by a much larger margin. But that finding didn’t distinguish between local and national news sources.

This study–cited by the Local News Initiative-– did.

Donald Trump won the 2024 election with one of the smallest popular-vote margins in U.S. history, but in news deserts – counties lacking a professional source of local news – it was an avalanche. Trump won 91% percent of these counties over his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris, according to an analysis of voting data by Medill Journalism School’s State of Local News project.

The study didn’t confuse correlation with causation; researchers were careful to note that Trump’s dominance in the country’s news deserts isn’t a simple matter of cause and effect.

That is, people didn’t necessarily vote for Trump because they lack local news. Instead, a simpler and more obvious correlation may be at work: News deserts are concentrated in counties that tend to be rural and have populations that are less educated and poorer than the national average–exactly the kind of places that went strongly for Trump in 2024 and in 2020….

But news deserts do have the potential to affect voting behavior in important ways. When voters lose access to local news, they tend to gravitate toward national news sources, according to research by Joshua P. Darr, a professor of public communications at Syracuse University. This kind of news, by definition, focuses on broad national issues—abortion, immigration, the economy, etc.—without regard to local conditions.

Individuals exposed only to national news are thus unlikely to know how a given candidate’s priorities will affect their cities or states. They base their votes on a few national issues that tend to reinforce basic partisan identities. Voters in news deserts are also more likely to engage in ballot “roll off” – that is, vote for president but leave local and statewide races blank. Others will simply vote a straight ticket for candidates who share the political party of their presidential choice.

Those practices can hardly be considered informed votes by thoughtful citizens–those needed by a democratic system.

Several of the studies I’ve previously cited have found that citizens tend to place more trust in local sources of news than in national media. The absence of a local newspaper doesn’t just deprive them of important information about their own communities–the disappearance of those trusted local sources leaves them with a choice between inadequate alternatives: they may stop following the news altogether, or they may ignore the so-called “legacy” media in favor of less credible sources that reflect their partisan leanings and biases.

I agree with the researchers that Trump’s victory in America’s news deserts is not a “simple matter of cause and effect.” The study’s results should not be reduced to “Trump won because people were uninformed.” But it would be equally wrongheaded to dismiss that argument entirely. It is at least plausible to assume that more information from a more trusted source might have influenced at least some of these voters–if not to withhold a vote for Trump, at least to consider their choices for down-ballot candidates. (The presence of a local newspaper has been found to increase ticket-splitting, for example, indicating more informed voting.)

Life in a news desert leads to more political corruption, higher taxes, lower bond ratings, greater social alienation, misinformation, and loss of social cohesion. It also leads to more votes for enormously unfit candidates.

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The Patriarchal Backlash

Supporters of the draconian abortion bans passed by Red states like Indiana like to pooh-pooh allegations that those bans are part of a “war on women.” But a woman’s ability to control her own reproduction is absolutely essential to her ability to participate equally in economic and civic life, and depriving her of that control is a major goal of those who want to take America back to patriarchy, to a time when women were subservient.

MAGA’s war against women doesn’t stop with abortion bans and restrictions on birth control. The Guardian recently reported on Republican proposals to cut a variety of federal subsidies that disproportionately help women.

As they prepare to take control of the White House and Congress next month, conservatives are eyeing cutbacks to federal programs that help tens of millions of women pay for healthcare, food, housing and transportation.

The ferocity of the backlash to women’s growing equality raises obvious questions: why is it that the United States, with our vaunted celebration of individual rights and civic equality, has never had a female President, as other countries have? Why are women still under-represented in our legislative bodies, compared to numerous other countries?

Recently, Yascha Mounk posed those questions to Alice Evans, a scholar who focuses on them. Evans has a book coming out titled “The Great Gender Divergence,” and her observations are instructive.

Evans noted that there are wide differences in labor force and leadership participation across the globe.

Across Scandinavia there is a very strong share of female representation. In Latin America there are 11 legislative assemblies which actually mandate gender parity, and you’ve just seen two women fight it out for the presidency in Mexico.

When Mounk asked Evans to speculate about why these differences exist, her explanation began with a history of women’s emancipation that was very similar to the one Morton Marcus and I offered in our book From Property to Partnership.

As she noted, in 1900, much of the world was very patriarchal.

Our Enlightenment, our scholars, our scientists, our parliaments, and our judiciary were incredibly patriarchal, a total sausage fest. But then there is a big disruption, and I do think economics and politics are important here. So over the 20th century, skill bias and technological change are ramping up demand for skilled labor. That happens across the world. These factories open up and women seize the economic opportunities they create. It’s also mediated by technology: When women have contraceptives they can control their fertility, further their education and then build careers.

So what accounts for the striking differences in female political and economic participation across the globe? Culture. Especially the persistence of patriarchal cultures, where male status depends upon “protecting” women and keeping them submissive, and where a “husbands’ status is contingent upon them being the breadwinner and women remaining at home.”

The interview is wide-ranging, and focuses largely on the situations of women in countries where male resistance to female empowerment is far more powerful and effective than in the U.S. But Evans’ observations about culture–especially patriarchal culture–have obvious pertinence to America, where our citizenry includes a wide variety of subcultures, many of which are patriarchal to a greater or lesser degree.

There has been a lot of hand-wringing over the fact that Trump pulled more than the expected vote percentage with some traditionally Democratic-voting constituencies. Pundits have offered various theories, almost all based upon policy differences, ignoring the likely effect of the “macho” elements of some of these cultures, and the corresponding belief that women are unfit for the Presidency. Then there is the influence of fundamentalist religions, virtually all of which circumscribe the role of women. The recent resurgence of White Christian Nationalism is at least partially a backlash against the growing role of women and gays in American society.

Project 2025 proposes an agenda that is thoroughly paternalistic and patriarchal, and anyone who thinks the Trump administration won’t try to impose its provisions on American society is, as they say, “smoking something.” (The extent to which his chosen clowns, conspiracy theorists and buffoons will succeed is a different question.)

James Davidson Hunter coined the term Culture Wars back in 1992. It was an apt phrase then, and it is even more appropriate now. The divisions between modernists and “traditionalists,” between urban and rural Americans, between resentful Whites and people of color are all essentially cultural.

Today’s “cold civil war” isn’t between Republicans and Democrats. (Face it, there aren’t any real Republicans anymore.) It’s a culture war between a MAGA movement that wants to reinstate a racist, homophobic, patriarchal society and those of us who want to live in an inclusive 21st Century.

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Doxxing Nazis

A recent essay from The Bulwark defended the act known as “doxxing”–revealing the identity of people who make controversial (or in this case, horrifying and hateful) assertions online.

Anyone who follows such matters can hardly be unaware of the steep rise in the magnitude of online hate, much of it facilitated by Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter. The essay repeats some of the tweets Musk has promoted, and notes–quite accurately– that “this isn’t winking and nodding. It’s goose-stepping.”

The essay began by noting that the Texas Observer had doxxed four Twitter users who had authored those “goose-stepping” posts, and defended the publication’s decision to unmask those individuals.

“Doxxing” has long had negative connotations. Supposedly it’s a bad thing.

I’ve never understood that.

My general view is that if you say things in public, you are accountable for your words. It’s fine to hide behind anonymity, but no speaker should reasonably expect that to be absolute. If someone pulls the mask off, the speaker has no grounds to cry foul.

Musk isn’t the only prominent person to follow and amplify explicitly neo-Nazi posts. According to the article, Republican U.S. Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky follows three neo-Nazi accounts and GOP Arizona state Senator Wendy Rogers follows two, while the account belonging to Sebastian Gorka, former and future deputy assistant to Donald Trump, follows one of the most “out there” neo-Nazis and Chuck DeVore, an executive at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, has retweeted at least one post from that account.

Which leads to my first point: Nazism/white supremacism has been mainstreamed to a degree that many people may not quite realize. This stuff isn’t just buried on obscure message boards or circulating via photocopied handouts. It’s just out there. And the social stigma about interacting with it is shrinking by the day.

The author then makes an important point about the anonymity offered by these internet platforms:

None of these four wadbags would have been willing to say this stuff out loud if they’d had to have their names attached to it.

It was only the warm blanket of anonymity that permitted them to enjoy the fruits of liberalism while secretly poisoning liberal society.

Liberal societies require robust codes of social stigma precisely because you can’t legislate morality. Morality has to emerge from the society itself. How does that happen? It’s not because of laws. It’s because of social mores.

If you walk around your neighborhood wearing a Nazi t-shirt and shouting “Sieg Heil!” at people, no one will talk to you. The people at the coffee shop won’t serve you. Steady employment will be difficult. Good luck finding a date.

Internet anonymity allows people avoid social stigma by leading dual lives. This is toxic.

I have been one of those people who enthusiastically welcomed the Internet, believing in its multiple social benefits. And those benefits are very real. But we are now seeing the downsides–the ability of small groups of disgruntled, resentful, bigoted and hateful individuals to connect with others who share their anti-modern, anti-American world-views.

The Nazis–“neo” may be a misnomer–can now connect to and make common cause with other fringe groups, including the emerging White Christian Nationalists, in an effort to disrupt and reverse an increasingly inclusive culture. They want to take America “back” to a time when straight White Christian males were dominant.

Although I wouldn’t call it “doxxing,” exactly, an important film that sheds light on “Christian” Nationalism is “Bad Faith,” and for those interested in seeing it, it will be presented by Indianapolis’ Common Cause chapter at the Kan-Kan Cinema on January 8th. You can get tickets here. (Common Cause chose the date because that is the day that Micah Beckwith–Indiana’s own White Christian Nationalist– and his fellow travelers take office.)

These allied fringe movements represent a minority of Americans, but gerrymandering, the Internet and social media have allowed them to gain power vastly disproportionate to their numbers. They have captured the GOP, and they are a significant part of Trump’s base. In order for the rest of us to counter them, we need to engage in our own form of “doxxing.” We need to make them truly visible to the millions of Americans who simply haven’t noticed.

Most of us don’t follow people on Twitter/X. Unfortunately, most of us don’t follow the news, either–especially political news. (That’s why so many Americans who do follow the news were shocked by Trump’s election–surely no one who understood what he was could vote to put him in the Oval Office.)

We need to shine a very bright light on these anti-American movements. Call it “doxxing.”

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