Tag Archives: Trump

Anti-Intellectualism Will Get Us Killed

A friend sent me a Ted Talk given by Bill Gates in 2015.

If you haven’t already seen it–evidently, several million people have–you need to watch it before proceeding to the blog rant it triggered, below. It’s only slightly over seven minutes, and it’s worth it.

Are you back? Good.

As we are now learning, the Trump administration didn’t just ignore warnings from people like Bill Gates, who knows whereof he speaks because his foundation is deeply involved in issues of global health. The Trump Administration ignored alerts from medical experts, dismissed Intelligence briefings warning of the imminence of the threat, and failed to listen to warnings from Obama officials during transition briefings.

It was behavior entirely consistent with Trump’s war on intellect, science and expertise-the only war this disastrous “President” is winning, as he disassembles federal agencies retaining even a hint of expertise or effectiveness.

Talking Points Memo began a recent report with a sentence that should chill us:

The 20-year Capitol Hill veteran is gone. The 20-somethings remain.

The report detailed the abrupt resignation of Dale Cabaniss, the most recent director of  the Office of Personnel Management. (As with most agencies under Trump, senior officials change with the seasons…)

According to “several reports”garnered from the most leaky White House in most of our lifetimes, there were two reasons for the departure: first, Trump’s persistent efforts to eliminate OPM entirely, and second, the parade of seasoned officials who have been replaced with “a pack of mostly 20-somethings employed by the White House to, more or less, police political officials for loyalty to the President.”

Now, I have long maintained that it is time for generational change; I supported Mayor Pete before he dropped out of the Presidential race. But the “twenty-somethings” installed by Trump in the highest reaches of the administration are far–far–from the educated and talented members of the younger generation represented by Mayor Pete.

The “twenty-something” placed in charge of Presidential Personnel was John McEntee — a 29-year-old who used to be Trump’s body-man. (“Body man” is apparently polite-speak for “goon acting as bodyguard”) and who was only recently given his new title, more than a year after departing his previous job by Trump’s side.” The “skill” McEntee brought to his new gig? Making viral videos showing his football skills.

Axios reported in February that Trump had empowered McEntee to purge “bad people” and the “Deep State” — meaning, those who don’t sufficiently support Trump.

Since his hiring, McEntee has brought on an even less experienced coterie: First, 23-year-old George Washington University senior James Bacon.

Another temporary hire at the Presidential Personnel Office, per Politico, is John Troup Hemenway, who’s expected to graduate from the University of Virginia in December. Hemenway will reportedly help with paperwork for Defense Department political appointees.

And then there’s Anthony Labruna, an Iowa State student who was recently named a deputy White House liaison for the Department of Commerce.

And that’s where we’re left: In the midst of a global pandemic, a crisis that’s thrown the government into chaos, the experienced pro at the top of the government’s H.R. department is gone. But the shallow state that helped push her out remains.

Time to re-read Hofstadter’s classic Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, in which he investigated the roots of the deep and persistent animus toward knowledge and expertise displayed by  people like Trump–and for that matter, most of today’s GOP.

These people– who disdain as “elitists” the individuals most qualified by education and experience to address the issues we face, and who prefer to listen instead to talking heads who substitute loud certitude for knowledge–may end up being responsible for more deaths than history’s bloodiest tyrants.

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Let Me Count The Ways…

On Facebook, Trump apologists are posting angry rebuttals to complaints about the administration’s incompetent response to the Coronavirus pandemic. You can’t blame a president for a disease! This could have happened during any administration! Your criticism is just an example of Trump Derangement Syndrome. Etc.

(I like to think of “Trump Derangement Syndrome” as an accurate description of the Dear Leader’s mental state, but I assume that isn’t what his base intends it to mean…)

Although it is absolutely true that no president can control the timing or severity of a pandemic, a paragraph in Dana Milbank’s column Thursday in the Washington Post actually, factually, described many of the ways in which the Deranged One has made this pandemic much worse for Americans than it should have been.

Milbank neglected to mention what was by far Trump’s worst decision; in his zeal to undo anything and everything his black predecessor had done, early in his administration Trump eliminated the team Obama had charged with preparing for pandemics–and he didn’t replace them, despite several warnings that such a pandemic was likely.

There was also no mention of Trump’s inexplicable–and unforgivable– refusal to accept test kits offered by WHO.

Milbank did remind readers that Trump has depleted the government of scientific expertise–something I’ve repeatedly blogged about.  He also noted that the President has done “little to heed warnings to prepare for a pandemic”– a needlessly gentle way of describing Trump’s hostility to people who know what they are talking about, and his absolute refusal to listen to anyone about anything, expert or not.

Milbank says that Trump blocked Congress from conducting meaningful oversight. That actually might be unfair; Trump is so inept when it comes to dealing with Congress, he could not have blocked oversight without the slavish assistance of Mitch McConnell (aka the most evil man in America) and the Congressional GOP. But Milbank is clearly correct about Trump’s repeated efforts to cut funding for public health and medical research, and about the way in which the chaos and constant turnover in the administration has eroded competence.

His reckless stimulus legislation during an economic boom and his badgering of the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates left few fiscal and monetary tools to stop the ongoing economic panic. His constant stream of falsehoods misled the nation about the threat of the virus and contributed to a delayed, haphazard response. His administration badly misjudged the impact of the virus and was claiming until just a couple of weeks ago that it would require no additional government spending.

Milbank is also correct when he asserts that the bungled handling of the virus is exactly the sort of mismanagement that should disqualify Trump from reelection. But tell that to the bigots and crazies who support him.

The Guardian recently had an article looking at the reaction of Trump’s far right supporters–titled, appropriately, “Disinformation and Scapegoating.”

Apocalyptic narratives – whether of societal collapse, biblical rapture, or race war – are the central way that the a spectrum of far-right movements draw in followers and resources. These narratives use fear to draw followers closer, allowing leaders to direct their followers’ actions, and maybe fleece them blind.

The article details the responses of people and groups on the fringes of politics and sanity–Alex Jones, the survivalists, the televangelists hawking “sure cures,” and Trump’s biggest fans, the Neo-Nazis.

Farther out on the neo-Nazi right, in the Telegram channels where “accelerationists” – who seek to hasten the end of liberal democracy in order to build a white ethnostate – overlap with “ecofascists” – who propose genocidal solutions to ecological problems – groups are openly talking about how to use the crisis to recruit people to terroristic white supremacy.

And of course, the far-right is feverishly concocting conspiracy theories about the causes and origins of the virus–theories that scapegoat immigrants, minorities and liberals. (Alex Jones, for example, claims that Covid-19 is a human-made bioweapon, produced by the Chinese government to bring Trump down.)

Most Americans are responding to this unprecedented challenge with generosity and kindness–looking in on neighbors, buying gift certificates from closed restaurants to provide owners with some much-needed income, sharing credible information and comfort. Then there are are the Trump apologists–those simply refusing to hold him accountable for the government’s delayed and incompetent response, and those inventing theories that absolve him of responsibility while further endangering the rest of us.

Maybe it takes a pandemic to show us who we are.

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Radio, Television And Fake News

When Trump announced his ban on travel to most–but not all–European countries, commentators generally panned the move as irrelevant to containment of the virus, which is already spreading in the U.S. Whether Trump’s loyal cult will understand the uselessness of that move–or grasp the degree of incompetence being demonstrated in the face of the coronavirus pandemic–is unknown, but I’d guess it’s improbable.

What the cult won’t even see or hear about are aspects of the travel ban that certainly don’t surprise the rest of us. According to Politico

President Donald Trump’s new European travel restrictions have a convenient side effect: They exempt nations where three Trump-owned golf resorts are located.

Because of course they did.

This is what happens when stupid meets corrupt. As the article notes, residents of the exempted countries are free to live and work in the United Kingdom, meaning they could fly to the United States from a British airport as long as they hadn’t spent time in their countries of origin within the last 14 days. And as leaders of the EU have emphasized, pandemics are global crises. They aren’t limited to any continent and they require cooperation rather than unilateral action.

Meanwhile, His Idiocy has expressed an intent to continue the Hitler-like rallies where he feeds off the resentments and bigotries of the crowd. Until just the last few days, right-wing commentators had joined him in downplaying the risks and dangers of the coronavirus–which brings me to a recent paper by Yochai Benkler, a Harvard professor and co-author of Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics.

Benkler and his colleagues reviewed four million political news stories over the course of three years. They found that “the right wing media ecosystem is distinct and insular from the rest of the media ecosystem,” which hardly comes as a shock to most of us. But they also discounted the influence of the Internet, concluding (as many commenters to this blog have concluded) that radio and television are far more culpable in conveying misinformation.

“A critical implication of our findings is that it is highly unlikely that technology played a central role in causing this asymmetric media ecosystem,” he explained. “If anything, Democrats tend to be younger, and younger people tend to use online and social media more than older people. [Two separate studies found] that sharing of ‘fake news’ was highly concentrated in a tiny portion of the population, was largely done by conservatives, and interacted with age–primarily driven by people over 65. In other words, the problem of online dissemination seems to be driven by older conservatives–precisely the demographic of Fox News.”

And yet while there is plenty of sharing of fake news and other forms of deceptive propaganda online, Benkler explained, these stories only really “explode” once they appear on Fox News. If they remain solely online, the spread is limited.

Benkler attributed the phenomenon to Rush Limbaugh, whose radio show, starting in 1988, demonstrated that conservative “outrage-bait and propaganda” could generate huge profits.

By attacking the groups who sought to change society — feminists, civil rights activists — Limbaugh captivated white Christian men and tapped into their identities.

“The whole business model was not about informing, but creating a sense of shared identity,” he explained.

Despite right-wing efforts to paint false equivalencies, Fox has no leftwing counterparts–Democratic diversity defeats similar propaganda efforts on the left.

Benkler has a somewhat surprising antidote to the rightwing echo chamber.

The most recent Pew survey of news sources used and trusted by Democrats and Republicans suggests that, surprisingly, the most used and trusted sources by both centrist lean republicans and lean democrats are CBS, ABC, and NBC. It becomes critical that these outlets be particularly attentive to how they cover the news, what sort of frame they offer for propagandist pronouncement by the president, and so forth. The hard core of the Republican base who spend their days purely in Limbaugh-Hannity land are lost. But they are only enough to win a Republican primary, not repeated elections. And so the critical pathway to a more reasoned public discourse is for these core mainstream media, trusted by a substantial minority of lean-republican voters, to be ever more vigilant not to spread disinformation, not to stoke the fires, and to understand that professionalism and truth seeking do not mean neutrality when you are reporting in a highly asymmetric media ecosystem like ours. (emphasis mine)

When the pandemic is finally over, I wonder if anyone will compare coronavirus infection rates in the Trump cult to those in the fact-based population?

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Can A Pandemic Have A Good Side?

Pollyanna here! (I know– this is a rare appearance of my positive side…)

What prompted my question was a series of posts on my neighborhood listserv, which is usually dominated by complaints about trash pickup, potholes and porch thieves. The first of the series was this one:

If there are any elderly or immunosuppressed neighbors who have an errand they cannot run, I’d be happy to help! I work in a nursing facility and know there are many elderly that are fearful of getting to the store.

That was followed by one titled “Be Kind,” which read

Please keep an eye out for neighbors, friends, kids, even people on the street that look stressed. Be kind to everyone since we cannot know the problems they are having with the stress of this slow moving crisis. Whether emotional or financial, it will bring out depression in those trying to keep it together. Domestic violence is likely to increase. It is unlike a hurricane in that we don’t know when, where, how, or how long.

Forty-nine neighbors had responded to that post when I last checked, and the comments were uniformly positive, thanking the poster for the reminder, suggesting ways to be helpful to neighbors, and indicating an intent to check on the well-being of older residents or those with medical problems.

I live in a downtown neighborhood–often referred to (scornfully) as “the hood” by people who assume that urban life is dangerous, faceless and anonymous. I actually know most of my neighbors, who are unfailingly pleasant and helpful, so I was gratified, but not surprised, by the attitudes expressed in these posts.

Also on the potentially positive side is growing recognition that a robust social safety net doesn’t just help “those people”–i.e., the poor or marginalized. If people living paycheck to paycheck (and there are more of them than you think) don’t have paid sick leave, they are likely to come to work when they shouldn’t, and to infect “us.”

And it probably goes without saying that if everyone had access to healthcare, it would be easier to identify and isolate sick folks and thus contain pandemics. Perhaps the virus will help more people understand why a society that protects the most vulnerable is actually better for everyone.

Finally, despite the best disinformation efforts of Faux News, there are signs that this public health challenge is creating a renewed appreciation for the importance of a properly functioning government.

Periodically, America’s historic penchant for anti-intellectualism and distaste for “pointy-headed” experts facilitates the election of a “politically-incorrect” public official.  Previously, this has been a more common outcome at the state and local level, but in 2016 it elevated a toxic and profoundly ignorant man to the Presidency.

When resentment of knowledge unites with fear of social displacement–in our case, the escalating panic of less-educated white “Christian” males facing loss of their dominant status–it creates an opening for the con men and would-be autocrats who view government office as an opportunity for graft rather than a call to serve.

Unfortunately, when an emergency arrives that requires a government solution, the utter inability of these bozos to perform–to use the powers of government for their intended purpose– becomes too obvious to ignore.

The Trump administration’s multiple transgressions against science, the environment and the most basic principles of good government will be responsible for many deaths that  might have been avoided. There isn’t much average Americans can do about that at this point–but going forward, we can and must learn a lesson: competent government matters.

And at a time where so many Americans have displayed their ugliest sides–their racism, sexism, anti-Semitism and more–we can take comfort in the humanity and genuine goodness of so many ordinary citizens.

It may not be enough, but it’s important.

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Laughing So We Won’t Cry….

Credit where credit is due… one thing Trump has been truly– even magnificently– good for  is satire and snark.

It isn’t only the late-night comedians, although they have dominated. Editorial comics have been unrelenting. Then there are Andy Borowitz’ headlines…Trump Plans to Destroy Coronavirus with an Incredibly Mean Tweet..Mexico Tightens Border After Trump Pardons White-Collar Criminals…Cruise Ship Passengers Demand to be Housed at Mar-a-Lago….

Think too about Randy Rainbow, whose most recent song parody is “Any Dem Will Do,” (Play it over and over if your favorite candidate isn’t the nominee), but who has issued dozens–maybe hundreds–of clever and devastating take-offs of popular songs, aimed directly at the buffoon pretending to be President.

Even the legacy press has gotten into the game; Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank has been turning out some of the best snark anywhere. I particularly loved his column about “Dr. Trump.”

Do you have a nagging medical concern? A rash that won’t go away? Unexplained hearing loss? Are you currently bleeding out from a severed femoral artery?

Well, fret no more. America now has a leading medical expert — some say the best — who will dispense diagnoses and prognoses to all — for free! This bold new telemedicine initiative, “Ask Dr. Trump,” will be offered on an unpredictable but highly frequent basis to all Americans (whether they like it or not).

Granted, Trump has given him an enormous amount of material to work with.

Dr. Donald J. Trump, of course, is the pioneering scientist who first determined that climate change is a hoax and, more recently, discovered that windmills cause cancer. In between, he proved that forest fires could be contained by “raking”and identified a previously unrecognized tropical cyclone pattern targeting Alabama.

Dr. Trump acquired what he calls “a natural instinct for science” not through formal education but because “my uncle was a great professor at MIT for many years.” Sadly, the elder Trump didn’t live to see his nephew’s greatest discoveries in the medical field: The flu shot is basically “injecting bad stuff into your body” and exercise can shorten your life. Dr. Trump used his instinctive grasp of medicine to become “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency” with an innate life expectancy of 200 years.

Milbank went on to incorporate recent quotations from our idiot-in-chief, whose “pathbreaking epidemiology” has allowed him to dispute the World Health Organization’s report that 3.4 percent of people with reported cases have died. Trump says that’s a “false number.”

Trump’s research, based extensively on “my hunch,” puts the true figure at “way under 1 percent.”

The entire column is worth reading. I also highly recommend the “oeuvre” of Randy Rainbow for those mornings when we get up, have coffee, listen to the news and contemplate suicide.

Laughing is better than crying…

I personally liked the advice of a young Facebook friend who says that–should he be diagnosed with the Coronavirus–he will spend the three-week quarantine period traveling to MAGA rallies….

Speaking of the Coronavirus, there may be one positive to emerge from the administration’s mismanagement of the pandemic.  It is demonstrating the massive incompetence of the administration and the increasingly demented behavior of the President to millions of voters who haven’t been laughing at the late-night jokes or reading the Washington Post. Recent polling finds large numbers of people saying the mismanagement makes them less likely to vote for Trump.

“By a 20-point margin, voters say his administration’s handling of the virus makes them less likely to vote for him this fall,” Public Policy Polling reported. “Independents say they’re less likely to vote for Trump by 32 points because of how he’s dealt with this issue.”

The day when the “Doctor” is out can’t come soon enough….

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