I'm very thankful for the Bulwark. I post nearly daily on FoxNews and it can be depressing. Their viewers are comprised of those who don't get information from balanced sources...who trust Fox to deliver the news "fair and balanced' and finally...spew such hateful things against Joe Biden., I'm not a huge Joe Biden fan, but he's the right guy at the right moment and there's something very substantial to be said about that. Trust me...I fight back HARD for Joe...he totally deserves it. He's a decent guy and NOT the head of a crime syndicate.
I truly believe that I still see Russian bots on Fox. Perhaps they don't change votes but they certainly seem to "set the hook" on Fox viewers.
Bulwark is a glimmer of a shining light and I hope it gets far bigger and influential and leads to serious change in the politics of our great country. Amen.
I’d still like to know more about what a “centrist approach” is. If it is re-embracing the Republican policies, like “trickle-down economics” that got us to this authoritarian moment, then no thanks.
Hungary was a willing and proud fascist vassal of Nazi Germany. Hungary's Government [sic] of National Unity ruled with the iron fist of the Nazi. National Unity initiatives included so-called "Jewish Laws," exclusion of Jews from national economic and cultural life, prohibition of sex between Jews and Gentiles, forced labor of Jewish men, establishment of Jewish ghettos, and eventual government sanctioned roundup and extermination of Jews as Hungary's contribution to the Final Solution. This is the proud heritage of Viktor Orban. This is the heritage of his right wing party, Fidesz, over which Orban has ruled with absolute control for the past 29 years. This is the heritage of Hungary's now institutionalized absolute fascism.
In Europe. Today. And now for years to come.
PS Would one of the networks please interview Trumpian bootlicker Sebastian Gorka about his stand on genocide in Ukraine? And, by the way, ask him too how he feels about Jews.
And we can thank our lucky stars. Because of Washington's foresight the Brits were not able to conduct massive air raids on the Colonial Army or our vulnerable cities during the Revolutionary War.
The problem with all the 'Eric Adams has all the answers' takes is that he doesn't. And he especially doesn't on crime, because being tougher on crime does not stop crime from happening. If it did, there would have been no crime back when nearly every crime carried the death penalty. The most common crime to be executed for during the French revolution was pickpocketing; and every day yesterday's pickpockets would be executed, most of whom were doing said pickpocketing at the executions themselves.
This is especially true of gun crimes, which are almost always crimes of passion. It's usually a situation where there is a fight, and someone pulls a gun and fires at someone and kills a bunch of people. You can't fight that with tougher on crime policies, especially when the policies that would actually stop crimes, like seizing firearms, are impossible. It's even worse as more states continue to legalize unlicensed open carry; what are police supposed to do when everyone is packing heat? Police are a post-crime response force; they cannot preemptively stop crimes. They cannot stop shooters before they fire.
Adams saying he's going to stop gun crime by being harsher is like saying you're going to stop boats from sinking by making them wetter. You're not going to fix the problem that way, because the problem is people having easy access to weapons and being able to use them.
But hey, I'm sure the guy who put his brother in charge of things and who hawks the ponzi scheme that is crypto is the guy for the job. We already had a GOP con artist, why not put a democratic one in charge?
Adams can't do anything when the DAs won't prosecute. At least Alvin Bragg is an equal opportunity soft on crime guy -- he won't prosecute Trump, either.
I am saddened that so few of the comments here are focusing on the genocide in Ukraine. Shouldn’t a modern genocide under way right now demand a little more of our attention?
My husband and I spent the weekend focused on Ukraine. We discussed it for hours. We talked about it again this morning. We are outraged and shared thoughts best kept between the two of us. We have donated to various Ukrainian charities, and I've sent so many comments to the White House, they probably know who I am by now. I feel confident that most of the people who support the Bulwark and comment feel the same way. Ukraine has our full attention even if we're not addressing it here.
The gist is that this didn't turn Republicans into Democrats but it did break through the silo and caused a significant change of opinion on topics and made these viewers much more skeptical of what they were getting exclusively from Fox.
Raw Story (not paywalled) has a story that Fox paid several of their viewers to watch CNN. End result - not what Fox intended. The viewers began to question Fox's version of the truth!
Two points on the ReTrumplican't candidate Joe Kent and his ignorant like-minded "traitor-speak" colleagues:
1. Kent offered, “It’s banana republic stuff when political prisoners are arrested and denied due process.” Obviously, he does not realize one cannot be a prisoner until AFTER the person is arrested, and also that persons arrested are given due process when court dates are assigned.
2. "Patriot" Joe, now wants to act in a way counter to the oath he took as a Green Beret to defend the country (i.e. the establishment).
He and his fellow dullards don't seem to realize that when their fantasy comes true and they overthrow the current establishment, they become the establishment. So does that mean that he and his fellow nimrods, i.e. the Secession Sisters and the Brothers Sexual Perverts would need to want to overthrow the new establishment?
Among Trumpites, there''s a theme that our institutions are all corrupt, which sits awkwardly with the claims of being more patriotic than the other guys.
The old radical cry of "Bring it all down, man" was echoed among Trump supporters during the 2016 primaries. When Trump got the nomination, they reverted to demands for party loyalty -- and then, for unconditional allegiance to the god-king. Then, every criticism of Trump and every restraint on his actions was cast as evidence of how sinister "the Deep State" was. When he lost reelection -- well, that just proved to the "patriots" that "Our country is corrupt," as DJT said.
Some on the far right propose radically libertarian tactics to bring down "the establishment," and perhaps some are genuine libertarians. But others apparently see those tactics as just a way to clear the ground for building new institutions that will enforce their own vision of a good society, including their own religious orthodoxy as an official creed.
Are you suggesting that NATO physically intervene and attack Russia? As for threatening Putin et al. with prosecution for suborning war crimes, isn't it a bit late for that?
The war is already headed for mutual ethnic cleansing IMO. It's possible or even likely that NATO troops could end it more quickly and decisively, but it's fantasy to think the West can reshape Russia in its own image after 500 years of tsars, commissars and autocrats.
A Russian Jewish immigrant friend died today. :( He liked Trump and Putin. But the last two posts to Facebook in his entire life were of pro-Ukraine graphics. He will have a share in the World To Come.
The poll was conducted by the Levada Center, which has been around for 30 years and which the Russian government has categorized as a stand in for "foreign agents." So it sounds like you and Putin are on the same page here for opposite reasons. In any case I think you are wishcasting. Westerners do that all the time. They think everybody on earth wants the same thing. You'd think that after the 20th Century experience with totalitarianism they'd have learned something about that.
Not wishcasting (as in we hope the Russians do not support Putin) but healthy skepticism. I expect that in an honest poll a majority off Russians would indeed express support, just 72% of Americans expressed support for the War in Iraq at the time. Besides Levada's history is a little checkered. The Russian government shut them down at one point allegedly because of polling showing public disapproval of the Chechen war. In 2016, Russia designated Levada as foreign agents when polling showed disapproval of Putin's party.
The end of your comment looks like a dubious conclusion based on an inaccurate premise. Westerners do not think everybody on earth wants the same thing. How does totalitarianism relate?
I'm not sure what your point is if you're agreeing that Levada's polling is accurate. As for totalitarianism, it could not have survived for long without substantial popular support. The resistance to Hitler in Germany was miniscule, and Stalin has lots of fans in Russia to this day. (Need I add the number of Americans who love Trump?)
The Iraq War (and that in Afghanistan) was a textbook example of the Western romantic conceit that everybody wants liberal democracy. But you can go back to Woodrow Wilson for comparable illusions. Wilson's idea of self-determination didn't engender the "end of history" either, but helped to legitimize tribalism of the worst kind.
I am not agreeing that the polling is accurate. I am saying given Levada's history, skepticism is in order. Why would they want to provoke the government's ire again.? It is possible that Russian approval is of the same dynamic as Iraq war approval. Or perhaps Russian are opposed, but Levada knows what happens when they publish opposition.
Your assertion about Westerners is an overgeneralization. 28% of Americans (like me) opposing the Iraq war is a lot of Westerners not necessarily believing everybody in the world wants the same thing. Two examples does not make a valid generalization.
Things are more complicated than that. It is well-known for example, that lots of Chinese people (privately) oppose their authoritarian government, but on the other hand, they were pretty happy their authoritarian government minimized Covid deaths in their country while still believing the government figures are way understated. They suggest multiplying by 2 or 3, but you would have to multiply by 1000 to equal the US's per capital death rate.
They are willing to provoke their government's ire because they are an independent organization. That's why I credited their polling in the first place. There is no particular reason to believe they have suddenly become subservient to the Kremlin.
The notion that people the world over share a common desire for liberal democracy was a core tenet of Bush-43's rationale for foreign interventionism, and it is arguably implicit in similar arguments about Russia today. I simply think it's naive. As to whether people who opposed the Bush interventions did so because they thought liberal democracy was not universally popular or for some other reason, you'd have to ask them. There's little doubt, however, that, as I said, Westerners regularly fall into that trap.
Yeah, I heard a 538 podcast on the issue of the accuracy of Russian polls, and they were surprisingly positive about their accuracy. And they are the ultimate skeptics when it comes to polling methodology.
As a white male in the 1970s, I missed out on top schools because I sucked at the SATs, which I took three times counting the PSAT.
My guidance counselor was able to help get me into a good small college (his college friend was the Provost). I did well enough to transfer to a "Public Ivy" and graduated with honors and a place in "Who's Who in American Colleges and Universities".
SAT's are good for memorization of test-based facts. The real winners are the for-profit Prep-Test Tutorial mills.
I was lucky, I was (and still am) VERY good at standardized tests, which helped make up for my A-/B+ average in HS because, frankly, my classes bored the crap out of me.
When I was in the Navy, promotion depended upon your score on standardized tests, in part (the other part was job performance as rated by the eval system--and you have to be REALLY shitty to get bad evals). Because of what I did, there was not actually a standardized test for my job (because it was classified), so I took a test for a job that (on the surface) was supposedly similar to mine but wasn't actually.
Pretty much outscored everyone that took the exam that actually did that job (as did my compatriots). That system made it easy to get an early promotion. It kind of ticked of the regular people though.
I sometimes wonder if they ever got around to fixing that.
Another good point. One of my sons is really smart but a terrible test-taker. Because of that he struggled in school until we could get teachers to try oral exams for him and he started acing his classes.
There is a horrific irony to the claims of the American defenders of Putin (in alphabetical order beginning with Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, ....) as the upholder of "traditional Western values," which the atrocities in Ukraine have brought onto the front pages of every major newspaper today. But that is what happens when one defines "traditional Western values" as opposed to liberal democracy, equality, and humanity.
If you look at the way Bannon and his ilk use the term "traditional Western values," they mean Judeo-Christian values, meaning the traditional family - the husband is the patriarch, the wife the producer and keeper of his progeny, no abortion, no gays, prayer in the schools, nothing secular. Liberal democracy has enabled this secular attack by allowing all of these threats with its emphasis on individual rights (see Sohrab Ahmari https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/05/against-david-french-ism). They are engaged in a war against this secularization, AKA the culture war. So, yes, it follows that they support Putin. The atrocities flow from the acts of war. The ends justify the means.
It's looking like the war Putin has started willl divide the world's nations between those that value liberal democracy (the West and Japan) and authoritarian regimes (Russia, China, Iran, India). We're having the same divide within our nation.
Hmmm, but one COULD argue that mass death and genocide IS a traditional Western value... just not one from the 21st century... at least when one looks at what we have done and not what we have said.
We freed Kuwait from Iraq in 1990. 2003 was a different story. Iraq was essentially an American satrapy during the occupation, with lots of graft to spread around.
A terrorist was based in Afghanistan and attacked the US (not, BTW, the Afghan government or what passed for it).. because they would not hand him over to us, we invaded and occupied their country.
Everything looks justifiable from the inside if you squint hard enough.
The US has demonstrated that it is more than willing to impinge on the sovereignty of other nations if we feel like it and they don't have nukes.. and no one else REALLY has the power to stop us short of threatening us with nuclear weapons (which is why some of these countries want them so badly).
We have a long history of shitting on other countries in our own self interest--although I will give us credit for not conducting pogroms and lining people up in the street and shooting them and dumping them in mass graves.
Most of the people we do this to aren't white and are half the world away--and we are horrible about follow up because the public that drives a lot of this has almost zero attention span and no stomach for American casualties.
Don't get me wrong, I served in the US military and I think we do a better job and are better than a lot of other places, we often try to act on principles--but don't pretend we are all that awesome in that regard either.
Yes, the Holodmor and the Holocaust are recognized as genocides by the UN. European, US and Canada treatment of indigenous are not, yet. Many scholars are working on that.
Yes, all of human history is filled with carnage, but the original comment was about "traditional Western values" so that is why my comment was restricted to that. War crimes are different. They were defined in the 1949 Geneva Conventions which was ratified by all UN Member States.
And yet, it seems to be a traditional western value 9as exhibited in practice) to kill mass quantities of your enemies or people who are in the way of you getting your goal. We make a lot of noise about it and TALK about how bad it is.... but it still seems to happen.
Values don't mean much if they are only words. It's what we DO that matters. I would argue that what we have done is far more indicative and informative than what we say.
Values and whether they are "traditional" or not is a matter of perspective, often a very narrow perspective based upon personal prejudice.
By the same sources (scripture) that these people argue against certain things (like social welfare programs) you can argue that it IS in fact a traditional value, because scripture speaks directly to it. We pick and choose our traditions to please ourselves.
Arguing from tradition or on the basis of tradition for pretty much anything is a bad argument... which is one of the reasons many conservative arguments are bad arguments.
Just to clarify why conservatives oppose social welfare, it's not so much opposition to some people getting help - and much of conservative rhetoric is that most of them are "takers" - it's their paying for it. They believe the poor should be helped through private charity. The inadequecy of private charity helping the 25% unemployed in 1932 brought FDR and the New Deal to power. Only the Federal government had the means to help them. Is that still the case today? Don't know.
The Jerusalem Talmud and Maimonides mandate a rather strong and generous social safety net in terms of cash and food support -- and it is not voluntary but mandatory to pay the assessment for support of the poor. Other Jewish sources require community support for education and public works. George H. W. Bush's "thousand points of light" promotion of voluntarism is something the Rabbis of the Jewish tradition knew would not work.
No doubt Western history is full of carnage and mass death. Genocides? If we're using the definition adopted by the UN in 1948, which includes the intention to destroy a whole group of people, not so much.
The American Indian Wars are considered genocidal by some scholars, but have not been declared as such by the UN - obviously the US would object. Canada has made some progress toward defining their treatment of indigenous groups as having elements of genocide. Their Truth and Reconciliation Commission found in 2015 that the state pursued a policy of cultural genocide through forced assimilation.
Sadly so, but perhaps it depends on how one defines "values." If we mean "higher principles" that guide us to a more humane society, then my original comment holds up (I think).
Sounds like Joe Kent is fine with the genocide of Ukrainians. And of course he wants to give the war criminal Putin what he wants. Kent says it's perfectly reasonable. Disgusting human being. Perfect Trumper.
I didn't know this so thank you for sharing. My Dad was so proud of serving in the Army during WWII. When I read Kent's remarks, I thought about my Dad and the men like him. They would have been appalled by Kent.
I think those of us Never Trumpers believe the Republican Party needs better leaders. Almost all of the elected Republicans have proven to be spineless when it came to standing up to a wannabe autocrat taking over the party. But, sadly, at the end of the day, the problem is primarily the GOP voters. We have too many of them who self-isolate themselves from objective facts and choose instead to be brainwashed by a panoply of Trumpian social and traditional media sources. (I don't call those sources "conservative" because such a description would be a bastardization of the term "conservative.") Some Trump supporters, who have isolated themselves, even go so far as to believe the most far-fetched conspiracy theories such as the Qanon nonsense.
With these brainwashed Republican voters, we face exactly the same problem as families who have members who have joined a cult. Cult leaders purposefully isolate their followers from outside information. The way you deprogram cult followers is to physically get them outside the cult information bubble so they are exposed to objective and truthful information.. But how do you deprogram Trump supporters who are intentionally allowing themselves to be brainwashed and who self-isolate from information that doesn't fit the narrative of their cult? I wish I knew.
As a side note, one thing not talked about regarding Ginni Thomas is how she came to become so radicalized. No doubt, it came from self-isolation from truthful information and instead being fed conspiracy nonsense from a constant drumbeat Trumpian social and traditional media sources. The problem is Justice Thomas is in the same household as Ginni Thomas. Maybe he hasn't gone down the same conspiracy-nonsense rabbit hole as Ginni, but you have to wonder.
Again, as I have said repeatedly, these people are not brainwashed. They believe the things they believe because, when push comes to shove, they WANT to believe them. They do a lot of work to make sure that their narrative remains intact and undisturbed--even if that means denying family and friends.
Perhaps it’s all a toxic mix in the same bucket. I was going to write that we shouldn’t get mired in the semantic weeds, but I guess it matters somewhat in how best to fight/resist.
That isn't brainwashing, that's pandering. In general, brainwashing (used colloquially) means taking someone and conditioning them to a belief that they did not have originally. The simplest example (of conditioning) is Pavlov's dogs. You can do the same with people if you have the resources and time.
Agree. Although I had one surprise when I pushed back, mildly, on a couple Trumpers during a car ride with just the three of us. They instantly folded. It's one isolated case, but in those two at least, i had some evidence that they were aware that their take on a news story (flight cancelations last autumn) wasn't true. It's performative, required for membership in a club.
Yes - there is something about not being able to stand alone for what you believe to be true. The classic experiment that shows this is the Milgram Shock Experiment that focuses on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience (https://www.simplypsychology.org/milgram.html).
This is exactly correct. Remember that, in reality, most of these "leaders" are not leaders--they simply amplify the thoughts and ideas that they think will get them money and/or power.
The thoughts and ideas were already there. The beliefs were already there. The media (particularly Faux and their major personalities like Tucker and Hannity) plays a larger leadership role than most of these performance artists masquerading as legislators or national leaders.
People, in general, get the leadership they want--because, in a democratic system, it is really easy to replace people if you want to badly enough. So these are the "leaders" they want or at least, they don't dislike what they are peddling enough to get rid of them.
The great weakness of democratic system is that, for the leadership and nation to have character, the people voting need to have character as well.
"If you want to badly enough" is a huge qualifier. It is not "really easy." You have to wait the full term of office and a lot of damage can be wrought in that time. And you need a whole of of "yous" to overcome districting and incumbent advantages.
Or, as John Adams put it, “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people (AKA people with character). It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
It's not JUST that they won't go outside their information silos. I am a never trumper whose family, including parents, one sister, aunts and uncles and cousins, ALL DISOWNED me, CUT ME OFF, think I have been deceived by the devil. They would crucify me for there beliefs because me and my other sister are scapegoats for their delusions, illusions and hypocrisy.
They will SACRIFICE family relationships for their ideology because they think they are morally supreme. They think god is on their side. It is religious zealotry and bigotry wrapped up in Christian nationalism. They don't see it and will do whatever it takes to STAY in that silo, even if they sacrifice their children, extended family, friends and country. Me and my sister confront it when we can but it does little to change anything.
On the plus side, there are many in the next generation (my nieces,nephews, my children) who see their BS and will have NOTHING to do with it. My hope is in that generation. Out of the 9 children between my sisters and I, 5 of them are inclusive and think their beliefs are CRAZY.
You've earned my "1000 likes" comment. I've lost some friends but, fortunately, my family is mostly Dem. That's a LOL...because I was one of the only GOP's among them.
I also agree that most of the next generation sees through it...because they grew up on social media and are much more savvy than many baby boomers.
"They don't see it and will do whatever it takes to STAY in that silo"
Once people have chosen a side as the side of all that is righteous, they can be fearful of confronting any contrary information.
First, it might shake their moral confidence -- "Could it be that my side is not always with the angels?"
Second, it might shake their intellectual confidence -- "Did I let myself be misled?"
Third, beneath the posture of being resolutely on the side of the good, they fear that they cannot defend their position against a challenge.
Fourth, they might fear, deep down, that they are easily swayed: "I thoroughly bought into this narrative without asking a lot of questions. So if I see a different narrative, will I fall for that one too? And then lose my sense of identity?"
Ooo - narrative and identity - the latter is a very powerful construct of the human psyche, especially when the identity gives you membership in a social group.
We humans are social beings. "(W)e share mirror neurons that allow us to match each other’s emotions unconsciously and immediately. We leak emotions to each other. We anticipate and mirror each other’s movements when we’re in sympathy or agreement with one another—when we’re on the same side. And we can mirror each other’s brain activity when we’re engaged in storytelling and listening . . ." (https://www.forbes.com/search/?q=We%20Humans%20Are%20Social%20Beings&sh=59340356279f).
As systems programmers put it decades ago, "It's a feature, not a bug."
It takes guts to stand with an unwelcome opinion! For you, personal conscience is greater than obedience. Isn't that what the American Revolution was about??
I agree with that. Since the Trumpers are mostly old, white people, they will soon die off. What's the expression? Adapt or die? (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugN5aD5p2NU.) If they want to make America Great Again they sure aren't adapting.
I have a feeling Ginni has a lot more free time than Justice Thomas, and that's part of how she got to this point. I have to hope in some way he feels about his wife the way you describe family members who deal with family that has joined a cult. Because if he's into the same stuff she's into, he totally lacks the judgment to be on the Supreme Court.
There's something energizing about the feeling that one is on the side of good, battling resolutely against the side of evil. It gives one a sense of purpose. "My life is meaningful because I'm fighting the good fight against those guys."
At the same time, once you've chosen sides, you don't need to give much thought to what's best in any particular situation. You just line up with the side you've chosen.
For the Trumpites, there's an added thrill: The feeling of discovering that most of your side had been wrong, but you've found the group of renegades who really get it and see the truth of things; who know that your old enemies are still bad but also that most of your old allies were secretly working with your enemies!
Once you've aligned with the renegades, and they have now subjugated most of your old allies, are you going to decide "Maybe those who opposed the renegades got something right after all"? Or would you be more likely to say: "We were right about how corrupt the establishment is, and it's even worse than we realized!" Probably the latter, because it would confirm your sense of moral purpose.
This just came across my Twitter feed, so I haven't read beyond the abstract yet, but it looks very interesting: preprint article titled "The manifold effects of partisan news media on viewers' beliefs and attitudes: A field experiment with Fox News viewers". https://osf.io/jrw26/
"too many of them who self-isolate themselves from objective facts and choose instead to be brainwashed"
I agree with this thought, and it needs to be expressed more often. I've been writing for a while now that many Trump supporters are willfully being fooled by 'Stop The Steal', for example. It gives them an escape from accountability to say that they've been duped, or misinformed.
Without doubt, it's easier to believe simplistic lies than doing the hard work of digging for truth. That's more true recently with the explosion of available media. Too many Americans lack the time required, the education required, and unfortunately the sense of importance required, to do the work of democracy.
Today's internet is the greatest victory for confirmation bias in human history. And it's a shame, because there is so much great information on the internet, but too many people go for affirmation of their priors instead. They want cake, not broccoli.
I wonder if there's any hope that society will adapt to the negative aspects of the internet. Previous media advances, from the printing press to the telephone to television raised fears of negative change. But in the case of the internet it's almost the opposite; everyone thought it was revolutionary in a good way, until the dangers became obvious.
I fear the Internet parallels the printing press. The printing press led to intense disruptions and the tearing down of Catholic hegemony, which led to copious violence in the name of religion and about 200 years of religious wars. But for all of that, we’re in a much better place today than we would have been if we still only had monks copying manuscripts. I think if we survive, your hopes for society’s adaptation to the Internet are likely to materialize. But it will be a very long, very bumpy ride getting there.
I have to say, it's pretty interesting to be witnessing it and being AWARE of the magnitude of it simultaneously, which wasn't the case for the humans alive as the printing press caused such massive upheaval. I'm not sure if the awareness is a blessing or a curse.
Amen. Amen. Amen. I thought the internet would open up the world to more information than ever before. But what it's done is give people an opportunity to isolate themselves from information they don't like.
The problem is that the internet has increased our access to information, but it has not increased man's ability to understand and interpret the information. So, you have a lot of people who read all of this information, but are too dumb/ignorant to understand it. They know just enough to be dangerous!
I remember a radio host discussing a poll/survey which showed that viewers who watched Fox News were less informed/more misinformed, than viewers who watched no news!!
Oh, that's great! The best movie I've ever seen about conmen, that explains how it's done, is "House of Games" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAT7pA83cXY). "Con man" is short for "confidence man." The scene with the Marine shows how he gains his confidence then gets him to give him his money.
You're assuming they went outside their information silo to learn information contradicting their previous position, i.e. so they know they've been duped. I so wish that was happening, but sadly it is not.
Apparently someone did a study paying fox viewers $15 per hour to watch CNN properly paired with a “placebo” group. After watching CNN, at least some of those realized that they weren’t being informed or told the truth by fox.
To a large degree it is. It depends somewhat on your job and who you work with more than anything else, I think.
If you only look at certain media sources and you are surrounded largely by fellow-travelers, you can have a very limited window on the world.
If you want to avoid the angst, for short periods as a break, the best thing you can turn is stop consuming media of any kind that you have not carefully curated--PARTICULARLY social media.
Don't know if it is or not. But if it is and you find out how that's done, please let me know. Would be nice to take a break now and then by some means other than the funeral home.
Yeah, I would very much disagree with this. Anyone who thinks today's Republican Party is the same today as it was during Reagan and Ike years is not paying attention.
The old GOP was comfortable identifying itself with classical liberalism. The New Right says that classical liberalism was destructive.
Trumpers arose on the explicit premise that the existing form of conservatism was a failure and needed to be replaced, and that virtually all Republican leaders of the past were wrong -- unless they chose to get on the Trump Train. Many politicians did so for cynical reasons. Many lifelong Republicans quit the party because it became unrecognizable. That's one reason why The Bulwark exists.
As for the rank and file: while Trump alienated many Republicans, he also brought in many people who hadn't been very political, or who had been Democrats. So if the worst elements of the Trumpy GOP are just saying what the base wants to hear, it isn't exactly the same base as 10, 20 years ago.
There's no doubt some truth to the idea that Trump gave people permission to say out loud what they already believed, that doesn't translate into "the GOP was always this bad, but just covered it up better."
Another factor is how Trump and his hardcore base encouraged the further radicalization of conservative media, which in turn radicalized the people who rely exclusively on those outlets.
Long before Trump brought in Dems, in 1980, Reagan brought in Dems who were also political, like my mother. They were called Reagan Democrats. Her generation of Irish Catholics were anti-Semitic and racist. That was the quiet, unspoken part.
The GoP wasn't always bad--but they started going bad quite some time ago. Reagan was part of that trajectory, but his actor persona and charisma helped cloud that.
There has always been a fairly large number of Americans who are actually pretty deplorable by the standards of modern civilization. They have wandered around in politics for some time, surfacing here and there when circumstances allowed.
Sometimes they were Dems. Sometimes they were Republicans. Sometimes some wanky third party. But they have always been there and probably always will be.
The current GoP has kind of selected for these people over the last 30-40 years in a continually reinforcing cycle of excrement. When the current iteration of this dies (for whatever reason or accident of history) they will go quiet for a bit and then reappear again when the circumstances are right.
The GoP might not survive, but the excrement they current increasingly represent will remain alive and well.
TC...have you ever read "I Love You, Ronnie"? My take from that book...is that Ronald Reagan had a soul, was compassionate and was thoughtful.
I'm only pointing this out because Trump is so FAR from that...so far as to be on the edge of ridiculousness to compare them.
If you want to argue that Reagan was simply a tool that got used to soften an otherwise hard and sharp edge of the GOP...I won't argue, but I truly think that Reagan would be very broken-hearted about today's GOP. Possibly...and my hopeful thought would be...that he would love the Bulwark and would also despise today's GOP.
Rufo is slime, but Donny Deutsch just repeated his claim about Disney's President on MSNBC as if it was fact, without any hosts pushing back. On the supposedly liberal network.
I think Morning Joe's hosts and panelists are a lot more straight shooters politically than those on Fox and Friends. I certainly wouldn't say they are universally or overly liberal. Still, I find Mika to be annoying, and frequent guest Katy Kay, super annoying. Donny Deutch is a bit of a douche. And what is the deal with Joe Scarborough's love affair with soccer? Does he not realize he's in America? At least Joe likes baseball, so he redeems himself a bit.
Soccer is a popular sport among American youth. I've got multiple younger relatives who play or have played it in their school years. You can get a lot of kids involved, at very low cost.
You know how long I have been hearing that soccer is going to take off in popularity in US because young people play it? 45 years at least. Still hasn't happened. It's popular with youth and their parents because it's a low cost sport to participate and is great exercise. But as a spectator sport, it's a snooze fest that is unappealing to about 95% of American adults. You're not going to get Americans with their short attention spans excited about 90 minute games that end up 1-0. Never going to happen. Those kids playing soccer now are unlikely to be soccer fans when they grow up. Most likely they will be (American) football, basketball or, my preference, baseball fans.
Baseball has to do something about its cheating. It is right up there with Professional Wrestling. First greaseballs, then amphetimines, then cocaine, then steroids, then sign stealing -- the past 60 years have been an abomination.
Joe has never called himself a liberal; in fact he goes out of his way to state that he is a conservative. Yet like many on the Bulwark, he understands the threat posed by men and women like Trump, Hawley, MTG, etc. I say he is squarely in the tradition of people like John Adams, Winston Churchill, Joe Ball and Dwight Eisenhower, men on the center right and right who understood that liberal democracy is the best protector against oppression. No true conservative could support authoritarianism because ultimately that form of government will not result in a limited government and protection of individual liberties. In fact it will do the opposite.
The people like Trump and his merry band of misfits really are not conservatives, they are traditionalists; they do not seek to limit government, but to impose upon people their own views on morality, social hierarchy and even economics. In that sense, they are more in line with the old right of Europe of the late 1800s and early 1900s, the people who led the old European empires in to WWI and then WWII. Sadly, I think that this fire must burn out before people will learn. Unfortunately, many young people will be forced to suffer for the errors of their parents and grandparents (just like WWI and WWII).
| “We must be pragmatic,” he said. His pragmatism appears to consist of granting Putin what
| he covets: “Putin has laid out what he wants in Ukraine — a decent starting point,” and his
| demands for control over Donetsk and Luhansk are “very reasonable.”
Didn't Chamberlain believe Hitler's demands for the Sudetenland were reasonable. How'd that turn out?
I'm very thankful for the Bulwark. I post nearly daily on FoxNews and it can be depressing. Their viewers are comprised of those who don't get information from balanced sources...who trust Fox to deliver the news "fair and balanced' and finally...spew such hateful things against Joe Biden., I'm not a huge Joe Biden fan, but he's the right guy at the right moment and there's something very substantial to be said about that. Trust me...I fight back HARD for Joe...he totally deserves it. He's a decent guy and NOT the head of a crime syndicate.
I truly believe that I still see Russian bots on Fox. Perhaps they don't change votes but they certainly seem to "set the hook" on Fox viewers.
Bulwark is a glimmer of a shining light and I hope it gets far bigger and influential and leads to serious change in the politics of our great country. Amen.
I’d still like to know more about what a “centrist approach” is. If it is re-embracing the Republican policies, like “trickle-down economics” that got us to this authoritarian moment, then no thanks.
Let us not forget:
Hungary was a willing and proud fascist vassal of Nazi Germany. Hungary's Government [sic] of National Unity ruled with the iron fist of the Nazi. National Unity initiatives included so-called "Jewish Laws," exclusion of Jews from national economic and cultural life, prohibition of sex between Jews and Gentiles, forced labor of Jewish men, establishment of Jewish ghettos, and eventual government sanctioned roundup and extermination of Jews as Hungary's contribution to the Final Solution. This is the proud heritage of Viktor Orban. This is the heritage of his right wing party, Fidesz, over which Orban has ruled with absolute control for the past 29 years. This is the heritage of Hungary's now institutionalized absolute fascism.
In Europe. Today. And now for years to come.
PS Would one of the networks please interview Trumpian bootlicker Sebastian Gorka about his stand on genocide in Ukraine? And, by the way, ask him too how he feels about Jews.
Trump getting Bin Laden is historically on par with that time Washington's army seized all the airports. ;P
I'm still hoping for a "Did we give up when the German's bombed Pearl Harbor?" moment.
Your hope on that one will probably not go unrewarded. The Trump years inadvertently made the Onion a reliable news source.
And we can thank our lucky stars. Because of Washington's foresight the Brits were not able to conduct massive air raids on the Colonial Army or our vulnerable cities during the Revolutionary War.
The problem with all the 'Eric Adams has all the answers' takes is that he doesn't. And he especially doesn't on crime, because being tougher on crime does not stop crime from happening. If it did, there would have been no crime back when nearly every crime carried the death penalty. The most common crime to be executed for during the French revolution was pickpocketing; and every day yesterday's pickpockets would be executed, most of whom were doing said pickpocketing at the executions themselves.
This is especially true of gun crimes, which are almost always crimes of passion. It's usually a situation where there is a fight, and someone pulls a gun and fires at someone and kills a bunch of people. You can't fight that with tougher on crime policies, especially when the policies that would actually stop crimes, like seizing firearms, are impossible. It's even worse as more states continue to legalize unlicensed open carry; what are police supposed to do when everyone is packing heat? Police are a post-crime response force; they cannot preemptively stop crimes. They cannot stop shooters before they fire.
Adams saying he's going to stop gun crime by being harsher is like saying you're going to stop boats from sinking by making them wetter. You're not going to fix the problem that way, because the problem is people having easy access to weapons and being able to use them.
But hey, I'm sure the guy who put his brother in charge of things and who hawks the ponzi scheme that is crypto is the guy for the job. We already had a GOP con artist, why not put a democratic one in charge?
Adams can't do anything when the DAs won't prosecute. At least Alvin Bragg is an equal opportunity soft on crime guy -- he won't prosecute Trump, either.
I am saddened that so few of the comments here are focusing on the genocide in Ukraine. Shouldn’t a modern genocide under way right now demand a little more of our attention?
Silence doesn't condone it or mean that people aren't outraged by it. We have to blow off steam.
I think that the entire world needs to refuse trade with Russia until Putin is out of office.
My husband and I spent the weekend focused on Ukraine. We discussed it for hours. We talked about it again this morning. We are outraged and shared thoughts best kept between the two of us. We have donated to various Ukrainian charities, and I've sent so many comments to the White House, they probably know who I am by now. I feel confident that most of the people who support the Bulwark and comment feel the same way. Ukraine has our full attention even if we're not addressing it here.
Matty Yglesias has an interesting piece up today at Bloomberg Opinion (paywalled):
What If Fox News Viewers Watched CNN Instead?
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-04-03/what-if-fox-news-viewers-watched-cnn-instead?srnd=opinion&sref=rMMJuv3g
The gist is that this didn't turn Republicans into Democrats but it did break through the silo and caused a significant change of opinion on topics and made these viewers much more skeptical of what they were getting exclusively from Fox.
Raw Story (not paywalled) has a story that Fox paid several of their viewers to watch CNN. End result - not what Fox intended. The viewers began to question Fox's version of the truth!
Two points on the ReTrumplican't candidate Joe Kent and his ignorant like-minded "traitor-speak" colleagues:
1. Kent offered, “It’s banana republic stuff when political prisoners are arrested and denied due process.” Obviously, he does not realize one cannot be a prisoner until AFTER the person is arrested, and also that persons arrested are given due process when court dates are assigned.
2. "Patriot" Joe, now wants to act in a way counter to the oath he took as a Green Beret to defend the country (i.e. the establishment).
He and his fellow dullards don't seem to realize that when their fantasy comes true and they overthrow the current establishment, they become the establishment. So does that mean that he and his fellow nimrods, i.e. the Secession Sisters and the Brothers Sexual Perverts would need to want to overthrow the new establishment?
Among Trumpites, there''s a theme that our institutions are all corrupt, which sits awkwardly with the claims of being more patriotic than the other guys.
The old radical cry of "Bring it all down, man" was echoed among Trump supporters during the 2016 primaries. When Trump got the nomination, they reverted to demands for party loyalty -- and then, for unconditional allegiance to the god-king. Then, every criticism of Trump and every restraint on his actions was cast as evidence of how sinister "the Deep State" was. When he lost reelection -- well, that just proved to the "patriots" that "Our country is corrupt," as DJT said.
Some on the far right propose radically libertarian tactics to bring down "the establishment," and perhaps some are genuine libertarians. But others apparently see those tactics as just a way to clear the ground for building new institutions that will enforce their own vision of a good society, including their own religious orthodoxy as an official creed.
"Perhaps acts of genocide require a more robust response than economic sanctions."
Meaning what exactly? Putin's 83% favorable rating in Russia suggests what will happen if the West ups the ante even more. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-31/russians-embrace-putin-s-ukraine-war-as-kremlin-muzzles-dissent
Are you suggesting that NATO physically intervene and attack Russia? As for threatening Putin et al. with prosecution for suborning war crimes, isn't it a bit late for that?
The war is already headed for mutual ethnic cleansing IMO. It's possible or even likely that NATO troops could end it more quickly and decisively, but it's fantasy to think the West can reshape Russia in its own image after 500 years of tsars, commissars and autocrats.
A Russian Jewish immigrant friend died today. :( He liked Trump and Putin. But the last two posts to Facebook in his entire life were of pro-Ukraine graphics. He will have a share in the World To Come.
Russians outside Russia say that Russian polls should not be believed. Probably 0% of Russians expressed disapproval.
The poll was conducted by the Levada Center, which has been around for 30 years and which the Russian government has categorized as a stand in for "foreign agents." So it sounds like you and Putin are on the same page here for opposite reasons. In any case I think you are wishcasting. Westerners do that all the time. They think everybody on earth wants the same thing. You'd think that after the 20th Century experience with totalitarianism they'd have learned something about that.
Not wishcasting (as in we hope the Russians do not support Putin) but healthy skepticism. I expect that in an honest poll a majority off Russians would indeed express support, just 72% of Americans expressed support for the War in Iraq at the time. Besides Levada's history is a little checkered. The Russian government shut them down at one point allegedly because of polling showing public disapproval of the Chechen war. In 2016, Russia designated Levada as foreign agents when polling showed disapproval of Putin's party.
The end of your comment looks like a dubious conclusion based on an inaccurate premise. Westerners do not think everybody on earth wants the same thing. How does totalitarianism relate?
I'm not sure what your point is if you're agreeing that Levada's polling is accurate. As for totalitarianism, it could not have survived for long without substantial popular support. The resistance to Hitler in Germany was miniscule, and Stalin has lots of fans in Russia to this day. (Need I add the number of Americans who love Trump?)
The Iraq War (and that in Afghanistan) was a textbook example of the Western romantic conceit that everybody wants liberal democracy. But you can go back to Woodrow Wilson for comparable illusions. Wilson's idea of self-determination didn't engender the "end of history" either, but helped to legitimize tribalism of the worst kind.
I am not agreeing that the polling is accurate. I am saying given Levada's history, skepticism is in order. Why would they want to provoke the government's ire again.? It is possible that Russian approval is of the same dynamic as Iraq war approval. Or perhaps Russian are opposed, but Levada knows what happens when they publish opposition.
Your assertion about Westerners is an overgeneralization. 28% of Americans (like me) opposing the Iraq war is a lot of Westerners not necessarily believing everybody in the world wants the same thing. Two examples does not make a valid generalization.
Things are more complicated than that. It is well-known for example, that lots of Chinese people (privately) oppose their authoritarian government, but on the other hand, they were pretty happy their authoritarian government minimized Covid deaths in their country while still believing the government figures are way understated. They suggest multiplying by 2 or 3, but you would have to multiply by 1000 to equal the US's per capital death rate.
They are willing to provoke their government's ire because they are an independent organization. That's why I credited their polling in the first place. There is no particular reason to believe they have suddenly become subservient to the Kremlin.
The notion that people the world over share a common desire for liberal democracy was a core tenet of Bush-43's rationale for foreign interventionism, and it is arguably implicit in similar arguments about Russia today. I simply think it's naive. As to whether people who opposed the Bush interventions did so because they thought liberal democracy was not universally popular or for some other reason, you'd have to ask them. There's little doubt, however, that, as I said, Westerners regularly fall into that trap.
Yeah, I heard a 538 podcast on the issue of the accuracy of Russian polls, and they were surprisingly positive about their accuracy. And they are the ultimate skeptics when it comes to polling methodology.
Just my usual adoration for your wit, clarity, and readability. And of course, you are right.
The SATs may not necessarily be discriminatory but the over reliance on them for college admissions does have discriminatory effects.
Not only for minorities.
As a white male in the 1970s, I missed out on top schools because I sucked at the SATs, which I took three times counting the PSAT.
My guidance counselor was able to help get me into a good small college (his college friend was the Provost). I did well enough to transfer to a "Public Ivy" and graduated with honors and a place in "Who's Who in American Colleges and Universities".
SAT's are good for memorization of test-based facts. The real winners are the for-profit Prep-Test Tutorial mills.
I was lucky, I was (and still am) VERY good at standardized tests, which helped make up for my A-/B+ average in HS because, frankly, my classes bored the crap out of me.
When I was in the Navy, promotion depended upon your score on standardized tests, in part (the other part was job performance as rated by the eval system--and you have to be REALLY shitty to get bad evals). Because of what I did, there was not actually a standardized test for my job (because it was classified), so I took a test for a job that (on the surface) was supposedly similar to mine but wasn't actually.
Pretty much outscored everyone that took the exam that actually did that job (as did my compatriots). That system made it easy to get an early promotion. It kind of ticked of the regular people though.
I sometimes wonder if they ever got around to fixing that.
Another good point. One of my sons is really smart but a terrible test-taker. Because of that he struggled in school until we could get teachers to try oral exams for him and he started acing his classes.
There is a horrific irony to the claims of the American defenders of Putin (in alphabetical order beginning with Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, ....) as the upholder of "traditional Western values," which the atrocities in Ukraine have brought onto the front pages of every major newspaper today. But that is what happens when one defines "traditional Western values" as opposed to liberal democracy, equality, and humanity.
If you look at the way Bannon and his ilk use the term "traditional Western values," they mean Judeo-Christian values, meaning the traditional family - the husband is the patriarch, the wife the producer and keeper of his progeny, no abortion, no gays, prayer in the schools, nothing secular. Liberal democracy has enabled this secular attack by allowing all of these threats with its emphasis on individual rights (see Sohrab Ahmari https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/05/against-david-french-ism). They are engaged in a war against this secularization, AKA the culture war. So, yes, it follows that they support Putin. The atrocities flow from the acts of war. The ends justify the means.
It's looking like the war Putin has started willl divide the world's nations between those that value liberal democracy (the West and Japan) and authoritarian regimes (Russia, China, Iran, India). We're having the same divide within our nation.
Hmmm, but one COULD argue that mass death and genocide IS a traditional Western value... just not one from the 21st century... at least when one looks at what we have done and not what we have said.
We went in and freed Kuwait from Iraq. Is Iraq a US satellite? Are we threatening to invade them again if they don't do what we say?
Please give your country some credit.
We freed Kuwait from Iraq in 1990. 2003 was a different story. Iraq was essentially an American satrapy during the occupation, with lots of graft to spread around.
A terrorist was based in Afghanistan and attacked the US (not, BTW, the Afghan government or what passed for it).. because they would not hand him over to us, we invaded and occupied their country.
Everything looks justifiable from the inside if you squint hard enough.
The US has demonstrated that it is more than willing to impinge on the sovereignty of other nations if we feel like it and they don't have nukes.. and no one else REALLY has the power to stop us short of threatening us with nuclear weapons (which is why some of these countries want them so badly).
We have a long history of shitting on other countries in our own self interest--although I will give us credit for not conducting pogroms and lining people up in the street and shooting them and dumping them in mass graves.
Most of the people we do this to aren't white and are half the world away--and we are horrible about follow up because the public that drives a lot of this has almost zero attention span and no stomach for American casualties.
Don't get me wrong, I served in the US military and I think we do a better job and are better than a lot of other places, we often try to act on principles--but don't pretend we are all that awesome in that regard either.
Examples, please, not just a claim.
Charlie gave you a few, and...
the genocide of native population of the Americas;
the Holodomor and Holocaust;
the firebombing and nuking of cities during WW2 (if what Putin is doing is a war crime then THAT certainly, as well--but hey, we won).
The history of humanity (not just western civ) is replete with mass death inflicted by humans on other humans for a variety of reasons.
Yes, the Holodmor and the Holocaust are recognized as genocides by the UN. European, US and Canada treatment of indigenous are not, yet. Many scholars are working on that.
Yes, all of human history is filled with carnage, but the original comment was about "traditional Western values" so that is why my comment was restricted to that. War crimes are different. They were defined in the 1949 Geneva Conventions which was ratified by all UN Member States.
And yet, it seems to be a traditional western value 9as exhibited in practice) to kill mass quantities of your enemies or people who are in the way of you getting your goal. We make a lot of noise about it and TALK about how bad it is.... but it still seems to happen.
Values don't mean much if they are only words. It's what we DO that matters. I would argue that what we have done is far more indicative and informative than what we say.
Values and whether they are "traditional" or not is a matter of perspective, often a very narrow perspective based upon personal prejudice.
By the same sources (scripture) that these people argue against certain things (like social welfare programs) you can argue that it IS in fact a traditional value, because scripture speaks directly to it. We pick and choose our traditions to please ourselves.
Arguing from tradition or on the basis of tradition for pretty much anything is a bad argument... which is one of the reasons many conservative arguments are bad arguments.
Just to clarify why conservatives oppose social welfare, it's not so much opposition to some people getting help - and much of conservative rhetoric is that most of them are "takers" - it's their paying for it. They believe the poor should be helped through private charity. The inadequecy of private charity helping the 25% unemployed in 1932 brought FDR and the New Deal to power. Only the Federal government had the means to help them. Is that still the case today? Don't know.
The Jerusalem Talmud and Maimonides mandate a rather strong and generous social safety net in terms of cash and food support -- and it is not voluntary but mandatory to pay the assessment for support of the poor. Other Jewish sources require community support for education and public works. George H. W. Bush's "thousand points of light" promotion of voluntarism is something the Rabbis of the Jewish tradition knew would not work.
Okay, examples, from modern Europe. Numbers are approximate.
Expulsion of Jews from Spain and Portugal, followed by the Inquisition.
French Wars of Religion (3 million dead).
Time of Troubles in Russia (1 million dead).
Thirty Years War (8 million dead, much of Germany destroyed)
Polish Deluge (Much of Poland destroyed)
War of the Spanish Succession (1 million dead)
Seven Years War (600,000 dead in the first truly World War)
Napoleonic Wars (4 million dead)
And I am not even up to 200 years ago. Much of this carnage was in the name of God. Putin is acting in the great European tradition.
No doubt Western history is full of carnage and mass death. Genocides? If we're using the definition adopted by the UN in 1948, which includes the intention to destroy a whole group of people, not so much.
The American Indian Wars are considered genocidal by some scholars, but have not been declared as such by the UN - obviously the US would object. Canada has made some progress toward defining their treatment of indigenous groups as having elements of genocide. Their Truth and Reconciliation Commission found in 2015 that the state pursued a policy of cultural genocide through forced assimilation.
Sadly so, but perhaps it depends on how one defines "values." If we mean "higher principles" that guide us to a more humane society, then my original comment holds up (I think).
Sounds like Joe Kent is fine with the genocide of Ukrainians. And of course he wants to give the war criminal Putin what he wants. Kent says it's perfectly reasonable. Disgusting human being. Perfect Trumper.
I didn't know this so thank you for sharing. My Dad was so proud of serving in the Army during WWII. When I read Kent's remarks, I thought about my Dad and the men like him. They would have been appalled by Kent.
I think those of us Never Trumpers believe the Republican Party needs better leaders. Almost all of the elected Republicans have proven to be spineless when it came to standing up to a wannabe autocrat taking over the party. But, sadly, at the end of the day, the problem is primarily the GOP voters. We have too many of them who self-isolate themselves from objective facts and choose instead to be brainwashed by a panoply of Trumpian social and traditional media sources. (I don't call those sources "conservative" because such a description would be a bastardization of the term "conservative.") Some Trump supporters, who have isolated themselves, even go so far as to believe the most far-fetched conspiracy theories such as the Qanon nonsense.
With these brainwashed Republican voters, we face exactly the same problem as families who have members who have joined a cult. Cult leaders purposefully isolate their followers from outside information. The way you deprogram cult followers is to physically get them outside the cult information bubble so they are exposed to objective and truthful information.. But how do you deprogram Trump supporters who are intentionally allowing themselves to be brainwashed and who self-isolate from information that doesn't fit the narrative of their cult? I wish I knew.
As a side note, one thing not talked about regarding Ginni Thomas is how she came to become so radicalized. No doubt, it came from self-isolation from truthful information and instead being fed conspiracy nonsense from a constant drumbeat Trumpian social and traditional media sources. The problem is Justice Thomas is in the same household as Ginni Thomas. Maybe he hasn't gone down the same conspiracy-nonsense rabbit hole as Ginni, but you have to wonder.
Again, as I have said repeatedly, these people are not brainwashed. They believe the things they believe because, when push comes to shove, they WANT to believe them. They do a lot of work to make sure that their narrative remains intact and undisturbed--even if that means denying family and friends.
I'm sorry....I think that brainwashing is exactly that...tell them what they want to believe...and continually reinforce it.
Perhaps it’s all a toxic mix in the same bucket. I was going to write that we shouldn’t get mired in the semantic weeds, but I guess it matters somewhat in how best to fight/resist.
That isn't brainwashing, that's pandering. In general, brainwashing (used colloquially) means taking someone and conditioning them to a belief that they did not have originally. The simplest example (of conditioning) is Pavlov's dogs. You can do the same with people if you have the resources and time.
That isn't what is happening.
Totally!
Agree. Although I had one surprise when I pushed back, mildly, on a couple Trumpers during a car ride with just the three of us. They instantly folded. It's one isolated case, but in those two at least, i had some evidence that they were aware that their take on a news story (flight cancelations last autumn) wasn't true. It's performative, required for membership in a club.
Yes - there is something about not being able to stand alone for what you believe to be true. The classic experiment that shows this is the Milgram Shock Experiment that focuses on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience (https://www.simplypsychology.org/milgram.html).
Not exactly better leaders, there are some better leaders. The party needs better followers.
This is exactly correct. Remember that, in reality, most of these "leaders" are not leaders--they simply amplify the thoughts and ideas that they think will get them money and/or power.
The thoughts and ideas were already there. The beliefs were already there. The media (particularly Faux and their major personalities like Tucker and Hannity) plays a larger leadership role than most of these performance artists masquerading as legislators or national leaders.
People, in general, get the leadership they want--because, in a democratic system, it is really easy to replace people if you want to badly enough. So these are the "leaders" they want or at least, they don't dislike what they are peddling enough to get rid of them.
The great weakness of democratic system is that, for the leadership and nation to have character, the people voting need to have character as well.
"If you want to badly enough" is a huge qualifier. It is not "really easy." You have to wait the full term of office and a lot of damage can be wrought in that time. And you need a whole of of "yous" to overcome districting and incumbent advantages.
Or, as John Adams put it, “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people (AKA people with character). It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Wow...great Adams reference. I think he had more to do with our form of government than any of the Founding Fathers.
It's not JUST that they won't go outside their information silos. I am a never trumper whose family, including parents, one sister, aunts and uncles and cousins, ALL DISOWNED me, CUT ME OFF, think I have been deceived by the devil. They would crucify me for there beliefs because me and my other sister are scapegoats for their delusions, illusions and hypocrisy.
They will SACRIFICE family relationships for their ideology because they think they are morally supreme. They think god is on their side. It is religious zealotry and bigotry wrapped up in Christian nationalism. They don't see it and will do whatever it takes to STAY in that silo, even if they sacrifice their children, extended family, friends and country. Me and my sister confront it when we can but it does little to change anything.
On the plus side, there are many in the next generation (my nieces,nephews, my children) who see their BS and will have NOTHING to do with it. My hope is in that generation. Out of the 9 children between my sisters and I, 5 of them are inclusive and think their beliefs are CRAZY.
You've earned my "1000 likes" comment. I've lost some friends but, fortunately, my family is mostly Dem. That's a LOL...because I was one of the only GOP's among them.
I also agree that most of the next generation sees through it...because they grew up on social media and are much more savvy than many baby boomers.
It must hurt to be cut off from your family. My heart goes out to you.
I too have hope in the next generation. I am blessed to be able to work with them as an educator.
"They don't see it and will do whatever it takes to STAY in that silo"
Once people have chosen a side as the side of all that is righteous, they can be fearful of confronting any contrary information.
First, it might shake their moral confidence -- "Could it be that my side is not always with the angels?"
Second, it might shake their intellectual confidence -- "Did I let myself be misled?"
Third, beneath the posture of being resolutely on the side of the good, they fear that they cannot defend their position against a challenge.
Fourth, they might fear, deep down, that they are easily swayed: "I thoroughly bought into this narrative without asking a lot of questions. So if I see a different narrative, will I fall for that one too? And then lose my sense of identity?"
Ooo - narrative and identity - the latter is a very powerful construct of the human psyche, especially when the identity gives you membership in a social group.
We humans are social beings. "(W)e share mirror neurons that allow us to match each other’s emotions unconsciously and immediately. We leak emotions to each other. We anticipate and mirror each other’s movements when we’re in sympathy or agreement with one another—when we’re on the same side. And we can mirror each other’s brain activity when we’re engaged in storytelling and listening . . ." (https://www.forbes.com/search/?q=We%20Humans%20Are%20Social%20Beings&sh=59340356279f).
As systems programmers put it decades ago, "It's a feature, not a bug."
Spot on! It was really hard for me to finally say..."I'm no longer GOP" because I knew it would be crossing a line.
I sort of had to brace myself for my opinion not really being welcome any more.
However...that being said...there was some freedom in being able to say EXACTLY what I wanted to say.
It takes guts to stand with an unwelcome opinion! For you, personal conscience is greater than obedience. Isn't that what the American Revolution was about??
I agree with that. Since the Trumpers are mostly old, white people, they will soon die off. What's the expression? Adapt or die? (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugN5aD5p2NU.) If they want to make America Great Again they sure aren't adapting.
I have a feeling Ginni has a lot more free time than Justice Thomas, and that's part of how she got to this point. I have to hope in some way he feels about his wife the way you describe family members who deal with family that has joined a cult. Because if he's into the same stuff she's into, he totally lacks the judgment to be on the Supreme Court.
I agree with Sandy G. in that I think he's probably 75% "all in" on her beliefs. She says everything that he can't as a SCOTUS.
To think that she wasn't sharing what she just texted Mark Meadows is beyond reason.
I think he belives the same thing she believes, something they share in their conservative Catholic faith: The Left is destroying the country because it's secular; the US without Christianity is doomed. Bill Barr, another conservative Catholic, spoke to this in his 2019 speech to the Notre Dame Law School (https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-william-p-barr-delivers-remarks-law-school-and-de-nicola-center-ethics). You can see this belief in her tweets.
Does he believe the Qanon conspiracy, or that the Bidens are a crime family? Who knows?
There's something energizing about the feeling that one is on the side of good, battling resolutely against the side of evil. It gives one a sense of purpose. "My life is meaningful because I'm fighting the good fight against those guys."
At the same time, once you've chosen sides, you don't need to give much thought to what's best in any particular situation. You just line up with the side you've chosen.
For the Trumpites, there's an added thrill: The feeling of discovering that most of your side had been wrong, but you've found the group of renegades who really get it and see the truth of things; who know that your old enemies are still bad but also that most of your old allies were secretly working with your enemies!
Once you've aligned with the renegades, and they have now subjugated most of your old allies, are you going to decide "Maybe those who opposed the renegades got something right after all"? Or would you be more likely to say: "We were right about how corrupt the establishment is, and it's even worse than we realized!" Probably the latter, because it would confirm your sense of moral purpose.
This just came across my Twitter feed, so I haven't read beyond the abstract yet, but it looks very interesting: preprint article titled "The manifold effects of partisan news media on viewers' beliefs and attitudes: A field experiment with Fox News viewers". https://osf.io/jrw26/
"too many of them who self-isolate themselves from objective facts and choose instead to be brainwashed"
I agree with this thought, and it needs to be expressed more often. I've been writing for a while now that many Trump supporters are willfully being fooled by 'Stop The Steal', for example. It gives them an escape from accountability to say that they've been duped, or misinformed.
Without doubt, it's easier to believe simplistic lies than doing the hard work of digging for truth. That's more true recently with the explosion of available media. Too many Americans lack the time required, the education required, and unfortunately the sense of importance required, to do the work of democracy.
Today's internet is the greatest victory for confirmation bias in human history. And it's a shame, because there is so much great information on the internet, but too many people go for affirmation of their priors instead. They want cake, not broccoli.
I wonder if there's any hope that society will adapt to the negative aspects of the internet. Previous media advances, from the printing press to the telephone to television raised fears of negative change. But in the case of the internet it's almost the opposite; everyone thought it was revolutionary in a good way, until the dangers became obvious.
I fear the Internet parallels the printing press. The printing press led to intense disruptions and the tearing down of Catholic hegemony, which led to copious violence in the name of religion and about 200 years of religious wars. But for all of that, we’re in a much better place today than we would have been if we still only had monks copying manuscripts. I think if we survive, your hopes for society’s adaptation to the Internet are likely to materialize. But it will be a very long, very bumpy ride getting there.
I have to say, it's pretty interesting to be witnessing it and being AWARE of the magnitude of it simultaneously, which wasn't the case for the humans alive as the printing press caused such massive upheaval. I'm not sure if the awareness is a blessing or a curse.
I think so, but not the current generations of adults.
Amen. Amen. Amen. I thought the internet would open up the world to more information than ever before. But what it's done is give people an opportunity to isolate themselves from information they don't like.
The problem is that the internet has increased our access to information, but it has not increased man's ability to understand and interpret the information. So, you have a lot of people who read all of this information, but are too dumb/ignorant to understand it. They know just enough to be dangerous!
I remember a radio host discussing a poll/survey which showed that viewers who watched Fox News were less informed/more misinformed, than viewers who watched no news!!
I heard somewhere that "the con" is the least reported crime, because that would require an admission of some failure of intellect.
Oh, that's great! The best movie I've ever seen about conmen, that explains how it's done, is "House of Games" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAT7pA83cXY). "Con man" is short for "confidence man." The scene with the Marine shows how he gains his confidence then gets him to give him his money.
You're assuming they went outside their information silo to learn information contradicting their previous position, i.e. so they know they've been duped. I so wish that was happening, but sadly it is not.
Apparently someone did a study paying fox viewers $15 per hour to watch CNN properly paired with a “placebo” group. After watching CNN, at least some of those realized that they weren’t being informed or told the truth by fox.
Yes it is. You just tell yourself anyone who presents you with any information that doesn't conform to your worldview is "fake news".
To a large degree it is. It depends somewhat on your job and who you work with more than anything else, I think.
If you only look at certain media sources and you are surrounded largely by fellow-travelers, you can have a very limited window on the world.
If you want to avoid the angst, for short periods as a break, the best thing you can turn is stop consuming media of any kind that you have not carefully curated--PARTICULARLY social media.
Don't know if it is or not. But if it is and you find out how that's done, please let me know. Would be nice to take a break now and then by some means other than the funeral home.
Yeah, I would very much disagree with this. Anyone who thinks today's Republican Party is the same today as it was during Reagan and Ike years is not paying attention.
Indeed, many in today's GOP and conservative media world are openly scornful of the GOP is it was before Trump.
The old GOP was comfortable identifying itself with classical liberalism. The New Right says that classical liberalism was destructive.
Trumpers arose on the explicit premise that the existing form of conservatism was a failure and needed to be replaced, and that virtually all Republican leaders of the past were wrong -- unless they chose to get on the Trump Train. Many politicians did so for cynical reasons. Many lifelong Republicans quit the party because it became unrecognizable. That's one reason why The Bulwark exists.
As for the rank and file: while Trump alienated many Republicans, he also brought in many people who hadn't been very political, or who had been Democrats. So if the worst elements of the Trumpy GOP are just saying what the base wants to hear, it isn't exactly the same base as 10, 20 years ago.
There's no doubt some truth to the idea that Trump gave people permission to say out loud what they already believed, that doesn't translate into "the GOP was always this bad, but just covered it up better."
Another factor is how Trump and his hardcore base encouraged the further radicalization of conservative media, which in turn radicalized the people who rely exclusively on those outlets.
Long before Trump brought in Dems, in 1980, Reagan brought in Dems who were also political, like my mother. They were called Reagan Democrats. Her generation of Irish Catholics were anti-Semitic and racist. That was the quiet, unspoken part.
But that base actually started building with Nixon in '68 with the Southern Strategy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy).
Also conservative media began long before Trump when the GOP-controlled FCC abolished the Fairness Doctrine. See https://www.britannica.com/topic/Fairness-Doctrine.
The GoP wasn't always bad--but they started going bad quite some time ago. Reagan was part of that trajectory, but his actor persona and charisma helped cloud that.
There has always been a fairly large number of Americans who are actually pretty deplorable by the standards of modern civilization. They have wandered around in politics for some time, surfacing here and there when circumstances allowed.
Sometimes they were Dems. Sometimes they were Republicans. Sometimes some wanky third party. But they have always been there and probably always will be.
The current GoP has kind of selected for these people over the last 30-40 years in a continually reinforcing cycle of excrement. When the current iteration of this dies (for whatever reason or accident of history) they will go quiet for a bit and then reappear again when the circumstances are right.
The GoP might not survive, but the excrement they current increasingly represent will remain alive and well.
TC...have you ever read "I Love You, Ronnie"? My take from that book...is that Ronald Reagan had a soul, was compassionate and was thoughtful.
I'm only pointing this out because Trump is so FAR from that...so far as to be on the edge of ridiculousness to compare them.
If you want to argue that Reagan was simply a tool that got used to soften an otherwise hard and sharp edge of the GOP...I won't argue, but I truly think that Reagan would be very broken-hearted about today's GOP. Possibly...and my hopeful thought would be...that he would love the Bulwark and would also despise today's GOP.
Rufo is slime, but Donny Deutsch just repeated his claim about Disney's President on MSNBC as if it was fact, without any hosts pushing back. On the supposedly liberal network.
Donny Deutsch is horrible. So are Mika and Joe and probably 75% of their panel. But MSNBC is the liberal version of FOX. :rolleyes:
I think Morning Joe's hosts and panelists are a lot more straight shooters politically than those on Fox and Friends. I certainly wouldn't say they are universally or overly liberal. Still, I find Mika to be annoying, and frequent guest Katy Kay, super annoying. Donny Deutch is a bit of a douche. And what is the deal with Joe Scarborough's love affair with soccer? Does he not realize he's in America? At least Joe likes baseball, so he redeems himself a bit.
Soccer is a popular sport among American youth. I've got multiple younger relatives who play or have played it in their school years. You can get a lot of kids involved, at very low cost.
You know how long I have been hearing that soccer is going to take off in popularity in US because young people play it? 45 years at least. Still hasn't happened. It's popular with youth and their parents because it's a low cost sport to participate and is great exercise. But as a spectator sport, it's a snooze fest that is unappealing to about 95% of American adults. You're not going to get Americans with their short attention spans excited about 90 minute games that end up 1-0. Never going to happen. Those kids playing soccer now are unlikely to be soccer fans when they grow up. Most likely they will be (American) football, basketball or, my preference, baseball fans.
Baseball has to do something about its cheating. It is right up there with Professional Wrestling. First greaseballs, then amphetimines, then cocaine, then steroids, then sign stealing -- the past 60 years have been an abomination.
The United States is a perennial power in women's soccer.
The main point is that the soccer comment was irrelevant.
I don't disagree, except to note that there's something to be said for a participatory sport that many kids can enjoy playing.
As for a snooze fest -- there's golf.
I'm American, and I'm a fan of snooker! And I think Eton fives is pretty cool.
Well sure, if you compare them to Fox and Friend or The Five then Morning Joe is a beacon of liberalism.
Joe has never called himself a liberal; in fact he goes out of his way to state that he is a conservative. Yet like many on the Bulwark, he understands the threat posed by men and women like Trump, Hawley, MTG, etc. I say he is squarely in the tradition of people like John Adams, Winston Churchill, Joe Ball and Dwight Eisenhower, men on the center right and right who understood that liberal democracy is the best protector against oppression. No true conservative could support authoritarianism because ultimately that form of government will not result in a limited government and protection of individual liberties. In fact it will do the opposite.
The people like Trump and his merry band of misfits really are not conservatives, they are traditionalists; they do not seek to limit government, but to impose upon people their own views on morality, social hierarchy and even economics. In that sense, they are more in line with the old right of Europe of the late 1800s and early 1900s, the people who led the old European empires in to WWI and then WWII. Sadly, I think that this fire must burn out before people will learn. Unfortunately, many young people will be forced to suffer for the errors of their parents and grandparents (just like WWI and WWII).
Trump supporters have so denigrated the word "liberal" they no longer even know what a "liberal democracy" is. They think it is an oxymoron.