;)
The Commentariat -- May 24, 2016
Afternoon Update:
Baylorgate. Former Special Prosecutor Impeached or Something over Sexual Assault Cover-up. Matt Young of the Houston Chronicle: "Baylor refused to confirm or deny a report that it planned to fire school president Kenneth Starr in response to the sexual assault scandal rocking the school's football program. On Tuesday morning, Scout.com's Chip Brown reported that Starr had been fired. The Waco Tribune-Herald later published a story saying that numerous current and former regents wouldn't confirm or deny the report. Baylor issued a statement of its own Tuesday afternoon: 'The Baylor Board of Regents continues its work to review the findings of the Pepper Hamilton investigation and we anticipate further communication will come after the Board completes its deliberations. We will not respond to rumors, speculation or reports based on unnamed sources, but when official news is available, the University will provide it. We expect an announcement by June 3.' Baylor is accused of failing to respond to rape or sexual assault reports filed by at least six women students from 2009-2016. There were reports of rape and assault against at least five Baylor football players, with two of those players - Tevin Elliot and Sam Ukwuachu - being convicted of rape." -- CW
*****
Oliver Holmes of the Guardian & agencies: "Barack Obama has said Washington supports Vietnam's territorial claims against Beijing in the South China Sea and promised it greater access to security equipment. 'In the South China Sea, the US is not a claimant in current disputes, but we will stand with our partners in upholding key principles like freedom of navigation,' the US president said in a speech in Hanoi." -- CW ...
... Simon Denyer of the Washington Post: "China warned President Obama on Tuesday not to spark a fire in Asia after he announced the lifting of a longstanding embargo on lethal arms sales to Vietnam. Obama unveiled the historic step on Monday during his first visit to Vietnam, insisting the move was 'not based on China' while simultaneously acknowledging that both nations share a common concern about China's actions in the South China Sea." -- CW
Spencer Ackerman of the Guardian: "According to US officials, the [Obama] administration has deals in place to send approximately two dozen longtime Guantánamo detainees to about half a dozen countries." -- CW
Jonathan Chait: "... it has begun to dawn on some conservatives that the Republican Party faces a distinct handicap: The Democrats will have two popular ex-presidents to campaign for them, and the GOP will have none." Why, oh, why is that? Conservatives attribute this to "bad luck," but "The answer, I'd suggest, is something along the lines of by governing competently rather than presiding over a flaming wreck of a presidency. But this answer presumes a level of introspection ... that is absent from both columns, and from conservative thought in general." -- CW
Ron Brownstein of the Atlantic: "One of the key trends in modern American politics is what I've called the class inversion -- the shift since the 1960s of working-class whites from the Democratic Party to the Republican, and the parallel movement of more white-collar whites from the GOP to the Democrats since the 1980s. A Clinton-Trump race that could prove more competitive than many expected threatens to finally uproot the last vestiges of the class-based political alignment that defined U.S. politics from Franklin Roosevelt through the 1960s." -- CW
John Sides of the Washington Post: "Our internal pictures of the opposite party are terribly inaccurate. When asked about the groups historically associated with each party, we think these groups make up a vastly larger fraction of each party than they really do. In other words, we think each party is essentially a huge bundle of stereotypes -- and this tendency is particularly pronounced when we're characterizing the opposite party.... The more we exaggerate the differences in the social bases of each party, the more tribal partisanship becomes." CW: Hey, how about this, Professor? Ninety-eight percent of Republicans are greedy bigots. The remaining two percent are confused. AmIrite?
Sari Horwitz of the Washington Post: "In November, 17 states will have voting restrictions in place for the first time in a presidential election. Eleven of those states will require their residents to show a photo ID. They include swing states such as Wisconsin and states with large African American and Latino populations, such as North Carolina and Texas. On Tuesday, the entire 15-judge U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in New Orleans is to begin hearing a case regarding the legality of the Texas law, considered to be the most stringent in the country." -- CW
Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times: "Former President Jimmy Carter, who has long put religion and racial reconciliation at the center of his life, is on a mission to heal a racial divide among Baptists and help the country soothe rifts that he believes are getting worse. In an interview on Monday, Mr. Carter spoke of a resurgence of open racism, saying, 'I don't feel good, except for one thing: I think the country has been reawakened the last two or three years to the fact that we haven't resolved the race issue adequately.' He said that Republican animosity toward President Obama had 'a heavy racial overtone' and that Donald J. Trump's surprisingly successful campaign for president had 'tapped a waiting reservoir there of inherent racism.'" -- CW
Ian Millhiser of Think Progress: "One Of The Most Aggressive Gerrymanders In The Country Just Lost In The Supreme Court.... On Monday, the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal brought by three Republican members of Congress who hoped to maintain [Virginia's] old [gerrymandered] maps. Though the Court's decision in Wittman v. Personhuballah expresses no view on the merits of the case, it effectively allows the lower court's order to stand." -- CW
Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court ruled Monday in favor of a black Georgia death row inmate who claimed that prosecutors kept African Americans off the jury that convicted him of murdering an elderly white woman. The court ruled 7 to 1 that Georgia prosecutors had improperly considered race when selecting a jury to judge Timothy Tryone Foster. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority. Justice Clarence Thomas, the lone African American on the court, dissented, saying that the evidence that prosecutors acted improperly was not strong enough to overturn Foster's conviction." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
Brief Return of Sanity. Richard Wolf of USA Today: "The Supreme Court gave a black death-row prisoner new life Monday by ruling that prosecutors unconstitutionally barred all potential black jurors from his trial nearly 30 years ago. The 7-1 verdict, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, reversed Georgia courts that had refused to consider claims of racial discrimination against Timothy Foster for the murder of an elderly white woman. The ruling is likely to fuel contentions from death penalty opponents that capital punishment is racially discriminatory." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... AND ...
... Lydia Wheeler of The Hill: "The Supreme Court dimissmed a GOP challenge Monday to a court remedy for an unconstitutional congressional redistricting plan in Virginia. A unanimous court held that Reps. Rob Wittman and other Republicans from Virginia, including Reps. Randy Forbes and David Brat, lacked standing to pursue the appeal because none of them could show they were injured by the new court-ordered race-neutral plan." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
... Akhilleus: Bet you can't guess the lone dissenter in the first case. There'd have been two if you know who was still around. In the Virginia case, I'm surprised the standing argument worked, even though it's one of Roberts' favorite strategems for refusing to act on a claim. Brat and the other Virginia Confederates could sustain great injury now that their power grab has been found unconstitutional. They could be voted out of office in a truly democratic election. Jeez, Johnny, c'mon. ...
... Thomas Advocates Low-Tech Lynching. Ian Millhiser: "In his dissenting opinion, Justice Thomas appears astounded that his colleagues could care that new evidence shows that Foster's constitutional rights were violated. 'The notion that this "newly discovered evidence" could warrant relitigation of a Batson claim is flabbergasting,' Thomas writes.... Indeed, Thomas appears much more concerned with the extra work Foster is going to create for himself and his fellow justices than with the fact that a man was going to be executed unconstitutionally." -- CW ...
... Charles Pierce: "Before we go on, it's important to remember that Justice Clarence Thomas was appointed to the Supreme Court to replace Justice Thurgood Marshall, the legal titan who first brought down separate-but-equal and who drove a stake through the heart of Plessy v. Ferguson.... [The Foster case] was so nakedly About Race, although nothing ever is About Race, and the prosecutorial misconduct so egregious, that it revolted even Chief Justice John Roberts, the man who never misses a chance to declare the Day Of Jubilee." -- CW
Kim Palmer of Reuters: "A federal judge in Cincinnati temporarily blocked the implementation of a[n Ohio] state law that would have effectively de-funded 28 Ohio Planned Parenthood clinics, in a ruling on Monday. U.S. District Judge Michael Barrett granted a two-week stay halting the diversion of federal funding in a ruling on a May 11 lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio and Southwest Ohio. The Ohio law signed in February by Republican Governor John Kasich stripped $1.3 million in federal taxpayer funds from any healthcare organization that provides abortion services. The law was scheduled to go into effect on Monday." -- CW
Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "Federal prosecutors are investigating campaign contributions to Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), and what they consider to be suspicious personal finances, as part of a public integrity probe that has lasted for more than a year, according to two officials familiar with the inquiry." -- CW
Presidential Race
Rachel La Corte of the AP: "More than a million voters have sent in their ballots for Washington state's presidential primary, even though the results will be used only to allocate delegates to the Republican National Convention. Washington has both a presidential primary and a caucus system. Democrats opted for the caucus system to allocate their delegates and will therefore ignore the results of Tuesday's primary.... Sanders overwhelmingly won the district caucuses March 26." -- CW
Trump economics is a recipe for lower wages, fewer jobs, more debt. He could bankrupt America like he's bankrupted his companies. I mean, ask yourself: How can anybody lose money running a casino? Really. -- Hillary Clinton, Monday ...
... Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "... Hillary Clinton has turned down an invitation to debate Senator Bernie Sanders ahead of California's primary, her campaign said on Monday. The announcement came hours after Mrs. Clinton unleashed a biting critique of Donald J. Trump while addressing a union convention, mocking his business record and offering a glimpse at how she might confront him in the general election. Mr. Sanders's campaign last week tentatively accepted an invitation by Fox News to participate in a debate before California's June 7 primary, and expressed hope that Mrs. Clinton would agree to face off against the senator." -- CW ...
... Abby Phillip of the Washington Post: "An army of Hillary Clinton's surrogates in battleground states will blast Donald Trump on Tuesday over his past statements about the housing market and his business record, according to a campaign aide. The coordinated push is the first of their efforts to frame the likely Republican nominee in the minds of swing voters...." CW
Jordain Carney of the Hill: "... Hillary Clinton should not pick a senator from a Republican-controlled state as her vice president, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) warned Monday. 'If we have a Republican governor in any of those states, the answer is not only no, but hell no. I would do whatever I can, and I think most of my Democratic colleagues here would say the same thing,' Reid told MSNBC's 'AM Joy' when asked about the possibility of Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) or Sherrod Brown (Ohio) being named Clinton's No. 2. Reid added that he would 'yell and scream to stop that.'" -- CW ...
... Paul Waldman: "One alternative scenario: if Clinton pickedWarren and she resigned her Senate seat immediately, there would be an early special election that could elect another Democrat in time for the start of Clinton's presidency." -- CW
Cathleen Decker of the Los Angeles Times: Campaigning in California over the weekend, Bernie Sanders & Bill Clinton appear to have declared a truce. "Gone were some of Sanders' harshest condemnations of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, and Bill Clinton's tenure in the White House. Gone too was Bill Clinton's occasional belittling of the Vermont senator's policy proposals." -- CW
Anne Gearan of the Washington Post: "Sen. Bernie Sanders was given unprecedented say over the Democratic Party platform Monday in a move party leaders hope will soothe a bitter split with backers of the longshot challenger to Hillary Clinton -- and Sanders immediately used his new power to name a well-known advocate for Palestinian rights [-- James Zogby --] to help draft Democratic policy." -- CW ...
... Ben Kamisar of the Hill: "Top Bernie Sanders supporters Dr. Cornell [sic.] West and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) will be among those on the Democratic Party's important Platform Drafting Committee after the Vermont senator won a key concession as he looks to leave his mark on the party's platform." -- CW ...
... CW: Worth mentioning here: Cornel West is a blowhard loon, who, to say the least, does not play well with others. He belongs on a platform committee (or any committee) like a fox belongs on a committee of broody hens fighting for free-range justice.
Jose DelReal & Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump is reviving some of the ugliest political chapters of the 1990s with escalating personal attacks on Bill Clinton's character amid a concerted effort to smother Hillary Clinton's campaign message with the weight of decades of controversy. Trump's latest shot came Monday when he released an incendiary Instagram video that includes the voices of two women who accused the former president of sexual assault, underscoring the presumptive Republican nominee's willingness to go far beyond political norms in his critique of his likely Democratic rival." -- CW ...
Eric Levitz of New York: "On Monday, the grotesquely misogynistic Republican nominee released an Instagram ad titled, 'Is Hillary really protecting women?' The 15-second spot layers clips of women tearfully accusing Bill Clinton of sexual assault over a menacing photograph of the former president smoking a cigar -- until the voices of the victims are drowned out by Hillary Clinton's maniacal laughter." -- CW ...
... digby: "In other words, there is nothing he won't do to win. And as he's made clear in the past, he believes that once you have won something, you are given license to bully and dominate.... When are we going to start thinking about this is psychological terms? That's not a normal way of thinking for a well-balanced, mature adult." -- CW ...
... Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post: Donald Trump "frequently proclaimed himself to be an admirer of [Bill] Clinton.... For years, Trump dismissed or minimized the sex allegations against Clinton, even after [Kathleen] Willey and [Juanita] Broadderick went public with their claims. His main concern is that Clinton did not handle the public relations of the Lewinsky scandal right; Trump dismissed the women involved as losers and not attractive. Trump even suggested that Americans would have been more forgiving if Clinton had slept with more beautiful women. Trump's bottom line, even years later, was that the Clinton sex scandals were 'totally unimportant.'" -- CW ...
... AND Kenny Likes Bill. Bill Clinton is the most gifted politician of the baby boomer generation. His genuine empathy for human beings is absolutely clear. It is powerful, it is palpable and the folks of Arkansas really understood that about him -- that he genuinely cared. The 'I feel your pain' is absolutely genuine. -- Ken Starr, Whitewater Independent Counsel, this week
Dana Milbank: "A generation after Ronald Reagan denounced the 'welfare queen,' the Grand Old Party is evidently on the verge of nominating its first welfare king.... The Post's Drew Harwell reported over the weekend that, for at least two years in the late 1970s..., Trump paid no federal income taxes. Several tax experts I spoke with said it's entirely possible that Trump has continued to report negative income -- and therefore not pay taxes -- because of loopholes and dubious deductions that benefit powerful real estate interests.... The corporate welfare Trump receives is nothing to be proud of -- not least because Trump ... has condemned corporate executives who 'make a fortune' but 'pay no tax.'" -- CW
Ed Kilgore on the dying of the right -- or at least the fading of #NeverTrump. -- CW
Beyond the Beltway
Joe Heim & Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post: "A judge found police officer Edward M. Nero not guilty of all criminal charges in the case of Freddie Gray, whose death last year in police custody sparked riots and widespread anger in the city. The acquittal by Judge Barry G. Williams, announced Monday in a packed courtroom, is the first verdict reached in the Gray case. Nero is the second officer to face trial on charges related to Gray's arrest and subsequent death. The first officer's trial ended in a hung jury." -- CW (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Way Beyond
Alison Smale of the New York Times: "Alexander Van der Bellen, a 72-year-old economics professor and former Green Party leader, won Austria's cliffhanger presidential election on Monday, defeating his far-right rival by the slimmest of margins and pledging to unite the divided country. Austria had to wait almost 24 hours after polls closed on Sunday for the authorities to count almost 700,000 valid mail-in ballots." -- CW ...
... CW: If you followed the Austrian election at all, you know that it could have gone either way. AND, as Steve M. notes, "... the demographics of this election look very similar to polls of the U.S. presidential election -- not just in terms of social class or place of residence, but in terms of gender."
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Reader Comments (20)
I said some time ago that the real welfare queens are the Welfare Kings riding around in their Rollers, a la trump (I've taken out the link to pics of his Silver Shadow). Dana Milbank in today's WaPo (I've removed the link as I have been unable to post) writes an informative, reasonable and balanced article. There could be financial, business and taxation controversies swirling around trump we nice people would never want to allude to, just as he would never want to touch upon discredited Clinton conspiracies from way back.
The comments section to Milbank and the Horwitz article linked above are depressing. Paranoid, wild, deranged. Many seething over Va's move permitting some ex-felons to vote (giving voting rights to criminals), and voter ID laws needed to even that out a bit. This is the WaPo, so they are probably the more erudite of the trumpoids. Despite that we have had on these pages video after video of Con-men saying their voter ID laws are working as intended to disenfranchise Dem voters, commenters insist they only disenfranchise bums too indolent to get ID. And we know who they are.
Looking at the John Sides data, and not spending any real time analyzing the raw data, I gained the impression that people's perception of who "democrats" are is more aligned with reality than people's perception's of who "republicans" are. But, these data relate to their demographics (age, income, race, etc.) and not to their beliefs or policy preferences. If you are a campaign manager trying to parse your audience and tune your message, those data are useful. But they don't really tell you much about what those subjects want from their political system, nor what they intend to do with their votes. So, interesting observations, but they don't really support (or refute) the author's assertion of polarity. They do support something we see all the time, that people are not really very good at estimating reality in matters they don't work with all the time.
@Patrick Your observation that "...people are not really very good at estimating reality in matters they don't work with all the time" seems to explain Paul Krugman's blog entry today "The Truth about the Sanders Movement" http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/.
I don't think his categorizations of Sander's supporter's work and his entry seems patronizing, however well intentioned.
I was a student in the 60s and John Kennedy was president while I was in law school. As an incurable romantic, I turned down a draft deferment after graduation and signed an eight year enlistment contract in the Navy Reserve. As you observed, I really had no idea about the reality of active duty in an organization as vast, complex and different as the Navy. Fortunately as I gradually became more aware of my ignorance, my experiences so far exceeded my expectations, that half a century later, I have an abiding admiration for the operating Navy and its veterans. Consider this remarkable editorial in today's New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/24/opinion/moving-on-in-vietnam-but-remembering-its-lessons.html?ref=opinion
Professor Krugman is a brilliant, talented and highly likable human being. But it is my hunch that many of Senator Sander's supporters are entirely rational and effective individuals who are well aware of the limits and problems Professor Krugman discusses. It is my further hunch that many of them were like me, lucky enough to have a mentor like the mustang (a formerly enlisted sailor who becomes an officer) who once said to me: "Kid, you're never going to be comfortable, because you care too much."
So as a still incurable romantic, I am not angry or bitter, just decidedly uncomfortable about politics on the national level in the United States. I have a hunch the same is true for many of the contributors and readers of this website. My thanks to all of you for the acts of hope that are your contributions.
I think sometimes that my brain is getting mushy. Reading Carney's piece about why Hillary should not pick Warren or Brown for Veep because they both come from states governed by a Republican, I failed to grasp, at first, the reasons behind this. Suddenly the mush moved away and the light went on and I remembered that governors are the ones who choose the replacements. Tim Kaine's name has been bandied about for Veep––he's from Virginia where the democratic governor Terry McAuliffe is being investigated for possible problems with campaign contributions. And thats not good.
@ Islander: Glad to hear you are still an incurable romantic––so few left these days. I would have to say feeling "uncomfortable" is not how I would describe MY state of mind these days––more like furious, outraged, sad, and scared–––the movements toward the right in this country and abroad give me the willies. So––those acts of hope you mention need to be acted on and pushed forward or we are going to lose in all sorts of ways.
And, as always, so good to hear from you again.
@Patrick writes, "... they don't really support (or refute) the author's assertion of polarity."
But don't they? The fact that Republicans greatly exaggerate the percentage of Democratic minorities, LGBTs & atheists & that Democrats similarly overestimate the percentage of Republican rich, evangelicals & Southerners reflects ingrained biases & overly-"otherizes" the opposing party. Republicans who don't really like Drumpf will vote for him anyway because they fear Hillary would usher in the Age of Deviance & Depravity on accounta 123 percent of her "base" being "non-traditional" Americans. When we exaggerate the prominence of sub-groups-we-don't-like within a larger group (in this case political party), we're really just emphasizing our own prejudices against these sub-groups.
The most recent, best example of that is the deplorable "bathroom laws"; Republicans are readily able to imagine that hordes of transgender people will be descending upon the ladies' lavs of America, perhaps endangering their daughters, a mindset that is preposterous.
When I was working on Obama's campaign in 2008, I had to shush -- more than once -- fellow-campaign workers who made derisive remarks about Republicans -- right in front of Republicans who were working the phones for Obama. It never occurred to these Democratic Obama supporters that there could be any decent Republicans, much less that Democrats shared some of the same objectives & "values" as Republicans who were sitting merely feet away from them. I'll admit that with the recent extreme ideological constriction of the GOP, some of these moderate Republicans probably have become reluctant Democrats; that is, polarization today is greater than it was eight years ago.
Marie
@Islander: I don't think it's a good idea to take seriously anything Krugman says about Sanders. Krugman's prejudice against Sanders is as outsized as those people who think 32 percent of Democrats are lesbians, etc. Krugman has extended that prejudice to knocks of Sanders' supporters, suggesting we're all a bunch of anti-feminist Bernie Bros, which is just as fair as the 2008 Hillary supporters who insisted that Obama supporters (and especially female Obama supporters) were anti-feminists.
(Krugman does let on that there might be a teeny-tiny few of us who have noble goals or something.)
Marie
Samantha Bee breaks down HOW the GOP "Legitimized" the Abortion Issue (Part Two):
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/samantha-bee-gop-abortion-issue_us_5743f676e4b00e09e89fe561
The press is having a field day with the internecine warfare raging between the Clinton and Sanders camps. Over on the opposite side, things appear to be all sweetness and light. I have yet to perform any sort of rigorous survey of reports but my perception, I believe, is based on more than just anecdotal observation and headline scanning.
All campaigns have a tide to them, an ebb and flow, and the narrative can change in a moment with significant new information. Usually. The Rat's nasty quip (talk about overly otherizing) about the 41 percent group of moochers and layabouts certainly had that kind of effect, although rather than offer new information about the candidate it served to authenticate and crystallize impressions that had been abroad for some time.
The major elements of this current campaign storyline are mostly in place. Hillary will say anything to get elected, Benghazi, Whitewater, Monica, etc, etc. For Trump it's simply Trump being Trump. And that's a problem for Democrats. This morning I heard the former communications director for Ted Cruz talk about Trump's unusual ability to survive gaffes and the kind of outrageous statements that would have deep sixed any standard issue pol. He's right. Attacking a decorated officer who survived years of torture in a Vietcong prison, his eye popping misogyny (multiple occasions), painting an entire country as one filled with rapists and murderers....any one of these would have sunk many another candidate. But not Trump.
And there's the problem for Hillary.
There won't be a 41% moment for Trump. His brand is already set in stone. Supporters wouldn't care if you turned up evidence of an S&M dungeon in the basement of Trump tower where he "entertains" nuns and underage girls. Seriously. They wouldn't blink. Because it would just be Trump being Trump.
So what to do? The press will, and have been doing so for some time, jump up and down on Clinton instead. It used to be there'd be a few stories every week about how incredibly unlikely it would be for Trump to win. Pretty soon those stories will start featuring Clinton. It doesn't matter if it's true or not. The "Trump Can't Win" stories are played out. The media needs a new bone to chew on. Over just the last few days, I've read stories about "How Trump Can Win" and "Trump Bests Hillary in Polls" and "Republicans Come Together for Trump Win".
And the longer the Clinton Sanders fracas goes on, the more fun it will be to pretend that Trump is becoming the favorite.
Once that happens, the storyline develops a life of its own. He'll crow, the press will applaud, and pundits will shake their heads and marvel at the Downfall of Hillary and her imminent defeat.
And off we go to our very own ring of hell.
Am I overreacting? I sure hope so. As I say, I still believe that American voters will reject Trump, but for a number of reasons, this race should not be as close as it's likely to be. And if Trump ends up in the White House.....well....we'll jump off that ledge when we come to it.
Sides' report on research about the perception people have of our political parties, their own and that other one, is useful as far as it goes to remind us that people seldom let the data get in the way of their judgments.
It just doesn't dig deeply enough to explain much of what is really going on within the parties and in the shift in party affiliation since the 1950's that Brownstein's "Atlantic" article covers.
More fundamental than our beliefs are the reasons we hold them, and the reasons some of hold them more dearly than others.
To get at those reasons, the researches Sides cites would have had to employ a fearometer, a simple device that measures one's comfort with real and imagined change, and then graph those readings against the other data points.
Goodness knows, things are changing globally and nationally at an historically furious pace. That change bothers all of us, but some far more than others.
The equivalent to today I see is how life must have felt to Native Americans as the European incursion changed their lives forever in only a few generations or the African tribes that were disrupted by the German, French and English invaders who moved into their established territories in the late 1800's, unalterably changing their economies and entire cultures in only a few years.
Faced with that kind of change, people have three possible responses. Fight (or build walls), flight (but these days, there's nowhere to go, so go with the walls) or accommodation (the hardest of all).
If, as Patrick suggests, Democrats's perceptions are a little more on the mark than Republicans' that's exactly what one would expect from the group that I'm guessing would rank lower on the fear-of-change scale. Their minds are not closed quite as tightly as the oppositions'.
And those who fear less, maybe because they know and understand more, and maybe because they see change as interesting and adventurous in itself, as challenge and as an opening of opportunity for human progress would tend to be more comfortable in one party than in the other.
The problem?
Holding ourselves open to change is a tough sell, and though most of the R's likely don't understand what's happening to them and their world, their manipulators use very well the fears that lack of understanding generates.
Way up there at about 4:30 a.m. I wrote my impression of Sides' data backwards. What I wrote: "I gained the impression that people's perception of who "democrats" are is more aligned with reality than people's perception's of who "republicans" are."
It was my mistake, not a test. But if you look at the plot, which gauges "Americans'" perceptions, and not D perceptions of Rs and v.v., in most categories (which by the way are different pseudocharacteristics for each perceived party) "Americans' " perceptions (prejudices?) of R's are closer to "true" than are "Americans' " perceptions of D's. And, for funsies, the big misperception about R's ("they're all rich") seems a bit dated and probably could not be replicated if you ran that study today ... there have been so many recent articles involving blue collar R's, Trump etc. For those who read.
So a take-away from the article should be, people ("Americans") have a hard time estimating things, but they have a comparatively rough idea of who R's are. Except most R's WANT to be rich but aren't. Which is probably true of most D's, too. And then there are the D's who become R's when they become rich.
It's complicated.
Patrick,
Thanks for the followup. Yeah, it's complicated, something else the Dems are more likely to tolerate.
That said, I didn't read what you wrote carefully enough either, took the easy path and just fit it neatly into my own bias, so I was no help at all.
In the meantime had another thought about walls: Voting restrictions. They're more than metaphorical.
So Marie reports that "Kenny likes Bill" and within the day Baylor fires Starr (for campus sex assault problems, right).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2016/05/24/kenneth-starr-reportedly-to-be-removed-as-baylor-president-amid-football-scandal/
Good work, Marie!
Patrick wrote: "...people are not really very good at estimating reality in matters they don't work with all the time."
I think this is probably more true than less. In fact, I'd say that there are plenty of people who aren't so great at determining reality in a lot of things, especially where politics are concerned.
A good part of this problem has to do with ideology. We all live to some degree or other in an ideological haze. I once heard ideology described as a set of beliefs shared by a group with more or less common interests, beliefs which provide a kind of moral map of the universe and allow those in the group to find themselves in relation to actions and statements both within and without the group. Of course the term Ideology is much more complicated. It's one of those ideas which can be interpreted a bit (or a lot) differently depending, in part, on one's own....well, ideology, but that gets us into a whole big megillah so let's take another tack.
Somewhere in "Being and Time", Heidegger (and I know what some of you are thinking about Heidegger--Nazi rat bastard--but hold on for just a moment--Hannah Arendt didn't see him quite that way, and his work doesn't smack of totalitarian or fascist or racist influences, so...), says something like "We all live in narrative". Don't make me have to comb through B&T to find out where. Christ, it was hard enough the first time. What he was talking about though, was Authenticity and his essential concept of "Dasein", which he took to mean not just "being" but of how we are, as individuals, living in the world among others and among many other things and ideas. He spends a lot of time trying to determine the best way to achieve "being in the world" and how to arrive at a certain kind of authenticity. It's a tremendously useful concept, unless an inauthentic existence is okay with you (lookin' at you Donaldo...).
Another way of thinking about living in narrative might be to examine the stories we tell ourselves and each other just to get through the day. "That guy in the meeting today gave me a funny look. He doesn't have any clue about what I was saying" or "Whoa, look at that crazy lady, she just cut me off! She's a lunatic". When in fact, there's a good chance the guy in the meeting was a hundred miles away, thinking about his wife in the hospital, and the lady who cut you off is so worried about some aspect of her life, she didn't even see you.
I live in a blood red state and I often find myself trying to calm down and see if there's another possible reason for seemingly nice, thoughtful people to think that Obama is trying to fuck them from the minute they wake up in the morning to the time they drift off at night, or why so many of them seem to see nothing wrong with drunk guys in bars being allowed to wave loaded weapons around. I'm often not very successful, but it's no good to simply cast them all aside as blithering idiots.
They're living in their own world. But so am I.
The other day I read, for the first time, a commencement address given about eleven years ago at Kenyon College by David Foster Wallace (at this point you're either scratching your head, rolling your eyes, or wanting to hear more). So, okay, I know Wallace is an acquired taste, but I love the guy. And no, I haven't finished "Infinite Jest" if that's what you're thinking, but I love his essays.
Anyway, Wallace in this wonderful speech, addresses the point that concerned both Heidegger and Patrick. It's not entirely an epistemological question (how do we know what we know?), but more a psychological one (why do we know what we know, or think we know?). Wallace is interested in the way we direct and focus our attention.
He reminds us of how boundlessly solipsistic we can be as humans. "...everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe...it is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive, instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologue inside your own head...I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience."
The ability to do this, to step outside ourselves and see other points of view is the bridge to a much more authentic life. I'm not suggesting that liberals are the only ones able to do this. Clearly this isn't necessarily the case. But I do think that Confederates have a much harder time of it (can you picture Ted Cruz entertaining an entirely different point of view?).
Nonetheless, as Wallace (and Heidegger) points out, it's a bear. You have to stay on it all the time. But it gets easier with practice. Isaiah Berlin's very humanistic political philosophy rests on this exact capacity in order to exist in a pluralistic society with competing interests and needs. It ain't easy. And I'm not suggesting that Confederates don't do it because it's not easy, I think it has more to do with the unquestioned seamlessness of ideology that makes such attentiveness so challenging. Remember Mark Twain's aphorism about those whose self certainty is absolute: "What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so."
So when Marie has to remind fellow liberals that not everyone shares their beliefs and sentiments, you know you are hearing the voice of someone who at least has an appreciation for authenticity and a realization that her particular political ideology may not have all the answers, that there is room for other points of view.
That's the power, and insidiousness, of ideology. A set of beliefs is a necessary thing for making sense of the universe, as long as we recognize that, in the quest for authenticity, humility and perspective are both valuable and crucial.
Wallace ends his commencement address with a similar reminder:
"It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out. Which means yet another grand cliché turns out to be true: your education really IS the job of a lifetime. And it commences: now." And it it never ends.
Or shouldn't.
Holy molee! Ken Starr fired for NOT chasing penises. Isn't that how he got to be so high and fucking mighty in the first place?
All those penises to chase and...nothing.
But it's interesting how he seems to see Bill Clinton in such a better light, lo these many years after his attempt to destroy him. I guess he was just following his ideological urges, uncomplaining, unquestioning, just another winger apparatchik cog in the vast right-wing conspiracy machine, on his way to prestigious appointments as dean of a law school and president of a big university.
Unfortunately we can't say "Kenny we hardly knew ye" as Starr shuffles off the scene in well deserved disgrace. We knew him all too well.
More's the pity.
Akhilleus: Wallace's conclusion ... "It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out. Which means yet another grand cliché turns out to be true: your education really IS the job of a lifetime. And it commences: now." And it it never ends." ...
... is a paraphrase of what Drill Sergeant Gibson told us at Ft. Polk basic : "You better learn this shit and pay attention how to use it or you gonna die."
@Patrick & Akhilleus: I hate to think what kind of civic-minded, upright citizen-geniuses make up the Baylor Board of Regents, but it seems safe to say they are more-or-less the kind who would hire Ken Starr in the first place (possibly for his prude creds), then ignore a wave of football-player rapes & sexual assaults & instead reward the rapists by building them a new $266MM stadium, then fire the prude when the courts begin convicting the rapists. They will go home, have a stiff drink & pat themselves on the back for being upright, civic-minded citizen-geniuses.
How this could possibly have happened? they might ask. I mean, for starters, all you had was the glorification of football violence, the commercialization of teenage boys' talents for violence, the suppression of normal adolescent sexual behavior & elevation of abstinence, the cover-up or feigned ignorance of a pattern of sexual violence.... And God.
If you wonder how Southerners can be so mixed up that they think Dana Milbanks' Welfare King has their backs, bear in mind that they have grown up in an environment where the "code of honor" is impossible, contradictory & hypocritical. When you hold to a belief system that doesn't make sense, it's not surprising that you can transfer that non-sense to other areas of life.
Marie
@Akhilleus: If there's one thing we learn from Heidegger's (Nazi) & Wallace's (suicide) examples -- as opposed to their philosophies -- it's the value of moderation. (In fairness, I believe Wallace's psychological problems were all rooted in physiological anomalies.) I find myself quite repulsed by the idea of these two abusive loons lecturing the rest of us, albeit I suppose there is some value & perhaps some necessity, being the imperfect creatures we are, to "do as I say, not as I do."
Marie
Marie wrote: "When you hold to a belief system that doesn't make sense, it's not surprising that you can transfer that non-sense to other areas of life."
Exactly: the veritable marrow of unexamined right-wing ideological appurtenances. The "truth" of accepted "truisms" like "Football, yay, bitches, nay" come embedded with certain understandings of the world and without the naturally occurring sense of right and wrong.
But there is also, along with the boys will be boys, wink-wink, look-the-other-way proclivity as long as touchdowns are being scored or baskets dunked, a righteous pretension that good Christianist boys on these sacred teams, are gentlemen who obey the Ten Commandments, read the Bible every night, and never indulge in that awful, yucky, non-Jesus approved pre-marital sex, a sentiment much ballyhooed in Confederate circles surrounding a guy like Tim Tebow, who, at 28, goes out of his way to pat himself on the back for not having sex--never even getting past first base with a woman--because Jesus. Wingers LOVE this guy.
Interestingly, the team this avatar of Jesus, Mr. Tebow, played for, a team beloved by southern wingers, the University of Florida, "...had the most athletes -- 80, or 24 percent of its rosters -- named as suspects in more than 100 crimes from 2009 to 2014. But along with having the most athletes involved in alleged crimes, Florida also had the most repeat offenders. Twenty-five Florida athletes had multiple run-ins with police, often without facing charges or any public airing of what they did. Several police reports gathered by Outside the Lines also revealed that Florida athletes, if not suspected of criminal activity themselves, often hung out with people who were known offenders."
Oh...they're just playful boys...c'mon, lighten up. They WIN!
As long as you play football (or coach) at a big school ( lookin' at you, Penn State) you're golden. And the team's fans could care less. But ask them if they voted for Obama, and they'll provide a frenzied litany of made up crimes for which he must be hung from the nearest tree, his wife and kids as well.
So it makes perfect sense (in a weird, Twilight Zone, speedball injection sort of way) that they can cozy up to a misogynistic asshole with ties to the mob, a tax cheat, a multiple bankrupt, and a perpetual liar with a mean streak to rival Dickless Cheney's.
The thing is, religion, for these "true believers" is only another cherry picked element in their lives. They love to excoriate liberals as godless but at least most non-religious liberals don't pretend to be holier than thou while worshiping and supporting criminals and rapists and demanding that those accuse their heroes bebe flung down into the gutter where they belong.
And even if their stories are true, the school will bail them out to keep the victims quiet.
I have yet to hear a single Confederate complain.
Now that's what I call a successful transfer of total nonsense.
Marie,
I would very much hesitate to categorize Wallace as a loon. He certainly had more than his share of psychological problems, but so have many other very thoughtful artists, writers, and philosophers. I suppose one could deem Anne Sexton, Vincent van Gogh, and Friedrich Nietzsche as "loons" (all three spent time in institutions) but who could possibly deny the value of their works? They are people who have lived out on the edge and whose experiences shaped the hard won observations they have passed on to the rest of us, to our everlasting benefit. Moderation, very likely, was not in the cards for them, even if its adoption is a rational choice for most of us.
And I don't really feel that Wallace's commencement address is in any way a lecture. He goes out of his way numerous times to say so. It's the perception of one who had had a tough time figuring it all out for himself. And "Being and Time" certainly is no lecture. It's a carefully wrought examination of the difficulties of living in the world, Heidegger's huge personal imperfections aside. I don't think (at least I hope) that I could have spent all that time working my way through it if I thought it was the egotistical wanking of some fascist schmuck.
At least I hope so...
@Akhilleus: Wallace stalked women & had affairs with his students (so did Heidegger on that latter point). I'll stand by my "loon" assessment.
Marie