Category Archives: Random Blogging

Corruption Is Spelled Alito

I have frequently accused the current administration of blatant corruption–and with good reason. But for sheer chutzpah (look it up), Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito really can’t be outdone. 

Just in the past few days, we’ve had reports of the millions of dollars he has garnered from the oil and gas interests that have business before the Court. The Daily Beast reports that Alito has made $2.9 million dollars from fossil fuel interests, and that he is preparing to vote in a case that will determine whether oil companies should pay for their dishonesty about the impacts of climate change. (The Trump administration, you will not be shocked to learn, supports a grant of immunity to those oil companies.)

Several other outlets have also reported on Alito’s fossil fuel investments and his evident intent to weigh in on the upcoming case rather than recuse himself. According to the Guardian, Alito realized that $2.9 million from fossil fuel interests between the years of 2005 and 2024. Alito was tapped for the high court by George W Bush in 2005.

 The findings come as the Supreme Court prepares to take up a case in which the oil companies Suncor Energy and Exxon asked the justices to find that federal law prevents subnational governments from filing lawsuits against fossil fuel producers for the climate-warming effects of their products.

The Supreme Court said it will hear oral arguments in the case on 5 October, the opening day of its new term.

Court Accountability, together with other watchdog organizations, has called for Alito to recuse himself, and for a Senate investigation if he refuses (which he has). They point out that Alito is the only Supreme Court justice with holdings in fossil fuel energy companies, that those holdings are significant, and that they raise a perception of partiality in the pending lawsuit. 

The arguably inadequate Supreme Court ethics code–adopted only in 2023– would force recusal only when a Justice has invested in the specific companies party to pending court cases. A Supreme Court spokesperson, responding to a question from NBC News, said Alito was not required to recuse himself from the pending lawsuit because his holdings don’t include the parties named in the case, Suncor and ExxonMobil.

I agree with Lisa Graves, co-founder of Court Accountability, who points to the obvious–that Alito’s oil-tied wealth will inevitably be affected by the results of a case that will impact the entire sector.

“A reasonable person would think if you’re invested in the industry that could benefit from the outcome of a lawsuit, then you could personally stand to benefit from the outcome, even if you don’t hold the stock in the specific company that happens to be the named plaintiff,” said Graves.

That concern is heightened by the fact that Alito had inherited–and made a small fortune–from ExxonMobil stock, but had sold the stock, conveniently ensuring that the recusal rule would not apply.

The Guardian article pointed to Alito’s history of favoring fossil fuel interests. In the 2007 case Massachusetts v Environmental Protection Agency, he was one of four dissenting justices who argued greenhouse gas emissions could not be regulated under the Clean Air Act, and in 2022, in West Virginia v EPA, he joined Neil Gorsuch’s majority in arguing that the EPA lacked broad authority under the Clean Air Act to require a shift away from fossil fuels. Worse still, he joined the majority in two 2024 cases  overturning the longstanding Chevron doctrine–a decision making it much more difficult for agencies to defend environmental regulations.

A similar article by The New Republic detailed Alito’s considerable remaining investments in fossil fuel companies, and pointed out the significance of the pending case for fossil fuel companies generally. The outcome “will determine whether municipal and state governments can seek damages for decades of Big Oil deception regarding the climate harms these companies knew their fossil fuel products would cause—a make or break decision for Alito’s second stream of income.” 

Anyone who has followed Supreme Court jurisprudence is already aware that Samuel Alito is an ideologue given to highly dishonest approaches to settled precedents with which he disagrees. I have previously highlighted that dishonesty in his majority opinion in Dobbs, the case that overturned Roe v. Wade and partially eviscerated the constitutional doctrine we know as the right to privacy. 

Next to Alito, Thomas–who just takes money and fancy trips– is a corruption piker.

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What’s In A Name?

The aspect of our current political reality that has distressed me the most has been my realization that the South really has risen again–that Trump and MAGA are a new form of the Confederacy. I used to think that racist attitudes were held by ten or fifteen percent of the population, at most, and the evidence that the number is far higher has been a very unpleasant awakening.

At Can We Still Govern, Dan Moynihan recently noted that in one recent Republican primary, a candidate who had dropped out had beaten the candidate endorsed by Trump, because Trump’s choice had a Muslim-sounding name. In Michigan’s 8th district, Thomas Smith–who had suspended his campaign–beat Amir Hassan. Soundly.

The threat to Abdul El-Sayed, who is running for Senate in Michigan, is obvious.

Moynihan notes the difficulty of studying racism. Even in anonymous surveys, most people are reluctant to express views they know are subject to societal disapproval, including racist views. And a lot of people lie to themselves about the extent of their own bigoted attitudes.

And so researchers came up with an ingenious way to get at people’s willingness to engage in discriminatory behavior: the audit study. The audit study is an experiment, where people are usually asked to respond to information about two people who are identical except in terms of a key characteristic, such as gender or race.

The classic version of the audit study involves sending two sets of fictional resumes out to employers, where the resumes are identical except for one factor: the name. One name might be a White-sounding name. Another might be a name that sounds more likely to belong to a minority: someone who is Black, or Hispanic, or Middle-Eastern. People will infer the race of the sender by the name. If the responses to the two resumes are the same, no discrimination. But if one name gets systematically less responses, it is reasonable to infer discriminatory behavior.

Research has clearly demonstrated the persistence of bigotry. In these studies, White job applicants receive many more callbacks than Black or Latino job candidates with identical credentials, and Moynihan notes that this pattern has not improved over time. When it comes to housing discrimination, researchers get the same result; bias against non-white renters and buyers is significant and has remained relatively stable over time.

The cited studies pitted people with identical resumes against each other. In the Michigan Congressional race, however, the minority candidate was advantaged–and rather clearly better (at least, employing MAGA criteria.) Neither Smith nor Hassan had the advantage of incumbency. Hassan had Trump’s “complete and total” endorsement. He had Speaker Mike Johnson’s endorsement. He was a Navy veteran. Smith had only raised $1850. dollars. And Smith had dropped out.

Yet Smith received 50% of the GOP primary vote to Hassan’s 33%.

Hassan Nehme, another Muslim Republican candidate, blamed the Christian nationalist movement. Moynihan notes that Hassan had faced a wave of bigotry, including lies accusing him of being an immigrant and Muslim. He was neither–he’d once been Muslim but converted, and is “now an avowed Christian who has become fairly critical of his former faith.”

There was really nothing Amir Hassan could have done to win this Republican primary that he did not do. He had every advantage and an opponent who had so little confidence in his campaign that he exited the race. None of it mattered. Hassan’s name did not match the imagined bio it created, but that imagined bio of a Muslim candidate was enough to sink him…

Which brings us to another name in Michigan: Abdul El-Sayed. The Democratic nominee for Senate has already become a national figure for Republicans, who hope to persuade all Michigan voters to treat him they same way that Hassan was treated. Reduced only to a Muslim name. Tied to every Muslim stereotype that Republicans fear. His record as a physician working on public health buried from public view. A debate on actual policies avoided at all costs.

El-Sayed is Muslim, and has been sharply critical of support for Israel’s war. If people want to argue about that issue, fine. But instead, his opponent Mike Rogers claimed that El-Sayed believes that “America deserved 9/11.” He also said El-Sayed is a “RADICAL ISLAMIST” who would “unleash terror.”

Granted, Hassan lost a Republican primary, not a general election. But El-Sayed–who holds two doctorates and was born and raised in Michigan– faces the widespread bigotry that MAGA’s Christian nationalism has encouraged and rewarded.

I guess we’ll see just how widespread that bigotry really is… and what’s in a name.

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Democrats, Socialists, Communists…

Ah, labels!

In 1980, when I ran for Congress as a Republican, I was labeled conservative. Indeed, a few people told me that they liked me personally, but that they hadn’t voted for me because I was “too conservative.” My political philosophy hasn’t changed at all (although my position on some issues has changed as I have learned more), but now I’m routinely described as a “Leftist.”

Same philosophy, different time, different label.

It’s apparent that most voters can’t define or distinguish between libertarianism, conservatism and far-Right radicalism/fascism, or explain the differences between socialism, social democracy and communism.

Back in 2019, I offered a “primer” on some of that terminology.

Socialism (probably the least specific term) is generally applied to mixed economies where the social safety net is much broader and the tax burden is somewhat higher than in the U.S.—Scandinavian countries are an example.

Communism is summed up in the adage “From each according to his ability; to each according to his needs.” All property is owned communally, by everyone (hence the term “communism”). In practice, this meant that all property was owned by the government, ostensibly on behalf of the people. In theory, communism erases all class distinctions, and wealth is redistributed so that everyone gets the same share. In practice, the government controls the means of production and most individual decisions are made by the state. Since the quality and quantity of work is divorced from reward, there is less incentive to innovate or produce, and ultimately, countries that have tried to create a communist system have collapsed (the USSR) or moved toward a more mixed economy (China).

At the other end of the political spectrum, while Fascism is sometimes called “national Socialism,” it differs significantly from socialism. Fascist systems elevate the nation—fervent nationalism is central to fascist philosophy. There’s a union between business and the state, and although there is nominally private property, government controls business decisions. Fascist regimes focus upon a (glorious) past, and uphold traditional class structures and gender roles as necessary to maintain the social order. Three elements of Fascism are 1) a national identity fused with racial/ethnic identity and concepts of racial superiority; 2) rejection of civil liberties and democracy; and 3) aggressive militarism.

The recent rise of the Democratic Socialists, or DSA, has exacerbated the confusion and led to a torrent of labeling. A recent article in The Bulwark helpfully identified two different “flavors” of the DSA.

In Group A, it placed the people who want to move America closer to the Scandinavian model, with universal health care, subsidized college tuition, beefed-up regulation of big business, and more power for organized labor. What Group B wants is something very different–a robust safety net, but also undoing America’s ties to Israel, “defunding” police, and blowing up what they call “the uniparty.”

Group A fits pretty well with the Democratic party. Group B sees the Democratic party as an enemy indistinguishable from the Republicans…

DSA Group A represents a chance for the Democratic party to road-test new ideas and evolve. DSA Group B wants to do to the Democratic party what MAGA did to Republicans.

The challenge is that the amorphous DSA catch-all makes it hard to signal the difference between Groups A and B.

Those in Group A, like AOC, Ro Khanna, and Mamdani, are actually social democrats; their policies put them rather firmly in the European tradition, and it would be extremely helpful if they explicitly distanced themselves from the priorities of Group B, although it probably wouldn’t change the name-calling.

And that reality gets us back to my longstanding concerns about politicians who label and dismiss rather than engage.

In 2003, I wrote that the mania for labeling people so that we don’t have to engage with the validity of their ideas had accelerated, and I attributed it then to talk radio, with its tendency to reduce everything to name-calling sound-bites. (Admittedly, it was more efficient to call women  “feminazis” than to discuss why feminist positions were untenable.)

In 2020, I reminded readers of the time when issues we now consider “left” were held by many on the right: lots of limited-government Republicans used to be pro-choice and pro-gay-rights, for example, asserting that–as Barry Goldwater put it–government didn’t belong in your boardroom or your bedroom.

As I insisted in that post, partisan labeling and name-calling are simply no substitute for considered analysis. It’s lazy. Not only is name-calling no substitute for an evidence-based explanation of why you disagree, it’s also unlikely to change anyone’s opinion–although, given today’s political tribalism, and the unwillingness of today’s zealots even to consider contrary positions, probably nothing is.

The next three months will feature name-calling, not illumination.

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A MAGA Typology

In the age of Trump and MAGA, one of the big questions I have trouble getting my head around–perhaps the biggest question–is “what motivates people to vote for a demonstrably ignorant, incompetent and mentally-ill man? What compels a person to put on a red hat and identify with a MAGA movement that is waging war on virtually everything America stands for? 

My conclusion–as regular readers know–has been that it’s bigotry. Fear of the “other.” Grievance and the need to find scapegoats for life’s disappointments. As numerous pundits have opined, they vote the way they do because Trump and MAGA hate the same people they do.

I have no doubt that bigotries are at the very heart of support for Trump and MAGA, but honesty also compels me to recognize that racism and misogyny can’t explain it all. So, on a day when I didn’t have much else to do, I took a moderately deep dive into the psychological literature. And while there is certainly no unanimity among researchers, what I found (with, admittedly, the help of Claude) was helpful.

“Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition” was a landmark meta-analysis published in the journal Psychological Bulletin. It is probably the most-cited work of its kind, and it argues that people adopt political conservatism in large part because it serves a psychological need to manage uncertainty, fear, and threat. According to the authors, at the very core of conservative ideology are two stable components: Resistance to change, and acceptance/justification of inequality.

The authors analyzed decades of psychological research, and identified several factors which they found to be “significant dispositional and situational variables that correlate with political conservatism.” Those factors included dogmatism and an inability to tolerate ambiguity–in other words, these individuals have a “high need for cognitive closure, order, and structure” (what we might call “bright lines.”). Such individuals demonstrate high levels of fear: fear of threat, of loss, and of instability. They typically had low openness to new experiences and a low tolerance for uncertainty.

The research concluded that those embracing a Rightwing philosophy have a high level of desire for certainty, predictability, and clear answers–characteristics that make complicated or ambiguous social changes unappealing or threatening. The study concluded that the need to manage distress or danger drives these individuals to cling to tradition and traditional social structures–and to rationalize and justify existing social hierarchies.

This analysis seems on target to me. And while it certainly explains the wholesale embrace of the MAGA beliefs that we erroneously dub “conservatism,” it also goes a long way toward explaining other rigid ideologies, very much including those of the far Left. 

Think about it.

We’ve all known people who have “converted”–who have gone from being doctrinaire liberals or conservatives to being equally doctrinaire adherents of the opposite ideology. Unlike people who gradually leave a rigid belief system as they mature and recognize the complexities and nuances of social and communal life, these people may change the content of their belief systems, but not the intensity. They desperately need certainty–that “bright line” between Truth (with a capital T) and error.  

I recently reread Eric Hoffer’s classic, The True Believer. It has lost nothing since 1951, the year it was first published. As one recent reviewer has put it, it may even be more incisive today. The book focuses on the psychology of fanaticism, and the parallels with Trump’s ‘America First’ politics are abundant. 

The bottom line, in Hoffer’s analysis, is that it is immaterial whether a movement is cultural, ideological, religious, or political. They are  broadly interchangeable, due to the psychological makeup of movement adherents. He notes the phenomenon of “flipping” from one philosophy to another, and explains those “flips” by noting that extreme and fanatic movements not only tend to attract the same types of dissatisfied people but employ strikingly similar tactics and rhetorical tools. 

Assuming that both Hoffer and the authors of the cited social cognition paper are correct–and I find both to be pretty persuasive–we’re faced with some thorny issues. What percentage of the population is represented by these True Believers? Is there any way to moderate their zealotry–to get through their fear of diversity and ambiguity? 

Eventually, perhaps, mental health professionals will find mechanisms to moderate extreme psychological rigidity. In the meantime, people who can deal with the reality, diversity and ambiguity of contemporary life need to vote.

In large numbers.

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About That War On Science…And Fauci

I have periodically quoted one of my cousins, a noted cardiologist who frequently writes op-eds that are published in his local Florida newspaper. He shared a recent one in which he examined the growth–and danger–of the increasing attacks on science and scientists.

Titled “Why are Biomedical Scientists Being Vilified?” he cites to “The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science” by the Dean of Baylor’s medical school, who–along with Dr. Fauci– has been the target of vicious attacks by anti-science groups. A recent survey of biomedical researchers found that an astonishing 40% have received similar threats.

The savage nature of those attacks were on display in the recent Congressional assaults on Fauci,  who directed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease from 1984 to 2022, and who played a key role in diagnosing and treating a wide variety of contagious illnesses, most notably AIDS and COVID-19.

The growth of what can only be called an anti-science, anti-evidence, anti-reality movement began with a bogus study linking vaccines to autism– claims that have been overwhelmingly debunked in numerous credible studies. Other claims. that vaccines are unsafe, have also been consistently refuted.

Attacks on science intensified during the COVID epidemic, mostly among Right-wing political extremists, and were amplified by the Right-wing media ecosystem. There were a number of motives for that assault, including the fact that quack medicine is big business. (Can we spell ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine?) Whatever the motivations, the result was that Red states now have the highest levels of mortality from diseases that are preventable via vaccination–just as COVID death tolls were highest among “freedom lovers” who refused to wear masks. Deaths per capita in America’s Reddest counties, where vaccine resistance is highest, have been almost three times as high as in its Bluest counties.

I was especially disturbed by the recent efforts to vilify Dr. Fauci, who was on the frontlines battling AIDS and Ebola while clowns like RFK– who has zero medical training (and who reminisces about sniffing cocaine off a toilet seat) remains in charge of the nation’s health. No wonder we have experienced a huge surge in measles cases and are currently witnessing a parasite infecting the nation’s food supply.

These current assaults on science, expertise and verifiable knowledge are being enabled and abetted by the dim bulbs voters have sent to Congress. At Lincoln Square, Kristoffer Ealy examined one of the dimmest, Tommy Tuberville. Tuberville is one of those vilifying Fauci, and Ealy provides a thorough history of the man’s embarrassing ineptitude before addressing his recent fixation with Fauci. (I wrote Tuberville off soon after his election, when he was unable to identify the three branches of U.S. government.)

As Ealy points out,

Whatever else you want to say about Fauci, the man is not a partisan hack. He led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for 38 years and advised seven presidents, four Republican and three Democratic, beginning with Ronald Reagan and ending with Joe Biden. George W. Bush gave him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2008 for his work on HIV/AIDS. Biden, upon his departure, called him a man who made the country “stronger, more resilient, and healthier.” His title was always meant to be apolitical, because science, done honestly, isn’t out to get anyone. It just tells you what’s true, whether or not that’s convenient.

As Ealy points out, of the seven presidents Fauci served, Trump is the only one who had a problem with him. “That tracks. Fauci’s whole job was to explain what the evidence said; Trump’s whole political brand depends on yelling until evidence gets tired and leaves the room.”

The bottom line is that Fauci did his job, and did it well, for more than half a century under presidents of both parties. If any retired public servant had earned a quiet retirement, it was him. Instead, he needed round-the-clock federal security because of threats fueled by Trump and his followers. And when Trump returned to office, one of his first acts was to revoke that protection, telling reporters Fauci could “hire his own security” and that he would “certainly not” feel responsible if anything happened to him. 

As Ealy concludes, “if Tommy Tuberville’s political career has taught us anything, it is that putting a United States senator’s title in front of nonsense does not magically turn it into wisdom. Sometimes it just gives Gomer Pyle a government office.” That’s equally true of a “President’s” title.

And that’s what at stake in November. Science versus idiocy, humanity versus viciousness, expertise versus arrogant Know-Nothingness. It has never been more important for sane, humane people to vote.

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