Ok, I finally got to minute 10 in the transcript. First of all, PLEASE The Bulwark, allow us to open the transcript in a NEW WINDOW. For now, this page gets replaced with the transcript, so I need to go back to my email inbox, click on your email again, then click on "read the full story", and then I'm finally back to this place. Not hel…
Ok, I finally got to minute 10 in the transcript. First of all, PLEASE The Bulwark, allow us to open the transcript in a NEW WINDOW. For now, this page gets replaced with the transcript, so I need to go back to my email inbox, click on your email again, then click on "read the full story", and then I'm finally back to this place. Not helpful.
Secondly and much more importantly, at the tenth minute already Ross claims not to know how to fight against THE characteristic of all FASCIST PROPAGANDA. My guess: he doesn't know because he studied wrestling, not the history of fascism.
There's absolutely nothing new about the "alternative facts" universe that the GOP installed. Read the WSJ 1976 op-ed by Irving Kristol, "The Stupid Party" (Irving is one of the founders of neoconservatism, and yes, Bill's father). "The Stupid Party" is how liberal John Stuart Mill called conservative political parties. Kristol decided to wear it as a medal, arguing that in a "healthy society", intellectuals always stay "at the margins", because as soon as they enter the public debate, conservatives cannot but lose the debate and therefore the elections. To win elections, he argued, conservatives need to play on people's "gut feeling". Obviously, that has always been behind the "circenses" part in the Romans' "pane et circenses" (give the people bread and a circus and they'll stay calm).
How to do that, as 20th century conservatives? First, take over the GOP (done in 2000), then, create a massive fake news machine: Fox (which in court admitted it was pure entertainment, not real news).
That empowered a clown like Trump, who grew up with his father's slogan "In this world you're either a killer or a loser; make sure you're a killer" AND his father's abuse (so who grew up to become a needy man vitally needing to entertain others to have their constant attention and adulation), to use the Fox "circus" and turn it against neocons. All he needed was ONE blatant lie (the Iraq war), and from then on, the GOP base no longer trusted anyone BUT a buffoon who constantly tells him that it's all fake. And yes, that means that Trump thrives on cynicism, electorally. As did and does Fox.
Today, however, something totally different is going on. Trump is ALWAYS manipulated by others. This time, it's by those who took Kristol's idea so seriously that they gave up on democracy altogether and became convinced neofascists. THAT is why what Trump says today is SERIOUS. In his first term, he was manipulated by all kinds of people, with no clear, uniform direction. This time, the guys truly pulling the strings behind the scenes of the Oval Office are NEOFASCISTS (the tech "Network State" ones on the one hand, and the theocratic (Heritage Foundation) on the other - with neofascist populists such as Bannon still hanging around, since he successfully helped Orban to turn Hungary into a fascist state).
Each time, it's the same old story: LIE! Lie and entertain. That's it. Nil novi sub sole.
How do we fight against the cynicism that fuels fascism and the massive lies that its voters (who still support democracy and think that Democrats are fascists...) are plunged into 24/7?
Also in the same way as always: (1) expose the objectively proven truth and (2) teach people how to fact-check. Then have real, respectful conversations with them (do not treat them as "evil" or "stupid", but treat them as the decent, often hard-working people that they are, and who became the victim of a by now very well-oiled propaganda machine).
Finally, what scares me most is the cynicism of Ross himself. "Of course" Democrats will never install free healthcare??!! Obamacare alone by now saved an additional HALF A MILLION American lives, and the fact that so many other lives are saved too, thanks to Medicare and Medicaid, is ONLY thanks to the very hard work of Democrats, while the GOP tries to block and repeal it all again and again!
The day Ross studies the history of fascism (not studying history IS part of a "low culture"), he'll see that its fuel IS cynicism - HIS type of cynicism. And unfortunately, he's not the only Never Trumper who finds this utterly cynical (and frankly immoral) attitude self-evident. It has infected part of this country's progressives too. THAT is why change is so slow, in the US. Each time a president makes huge legislative progress, a whole bunch of people stand at the sidelines yelling "not enough!" and then letting corrupt politicians take over DC again.
CONCLUSION: the way to fight fascism has always been known. It consists of STUDYING THE FACTS, both today's facts and history, combined with learning how the democratic process works, so that no citizens still indulges in the type of cynicism that Ross himself displays. And yes, that means that we've got a lot of work to do...
I just checked: correct! Thank you so much for the tip!
Still, to have a real debate it's best to be able to quote the arguments we disagree with (so that any reader can show us where we misunderstood those quotes, whenever we did), so I'd love to have the transcript open in a new tab, which would make it easy to switch from the text to the comment section.
If you right-click on the "transcript" button and choose "Open in Reading Mode" it opens in a different, smaller window beside the video. Does that help?
Thank you. I truly appreciate your response and how thorough and thoughtful it is. I agree that it is Ross’ type of cynicism which is prevalent in privileged folks (i.e. mostly white people middle and upper middle class who can afford the luxury of cynicism) that is an obstacle to more change more quickly. I am unsubscribing from The Bulwark primarily due to podcasts like this where these folks like to talk and hear their own voices but dont offer anything new and dont offer ways to get out of the deep hole of shit we’re in. They just want to sell their own books while it all burns down.
Make sure not to buy into the fascist anthropology that assumes that certain people just ARE somehow "inferior" by nature... . Because as soon as we indulge in imagining that those who disagree with us must somehow be morally inferior to us, we ARE adopting a fascist, hierarchical view of human nature. There are no scientific studies backing up those claims...
As to unsubscribing from The Bulwark: how will that help us move forward? Imho, there is only one way forward, namely actively go toward people who disagree with us and engage in real, respectful debates with them. That is and has always been the only way to obtain a thriving democracy. And with fascism being installed, cultivating a real debate culture is imho more urgent than ever before.
The problem is that given the facts (average IQ under 100; 80% of us overweight; overpopulation, etc.) I doubt our version of humankind is capable of studying "today's facts and history." A democracy is fueled by participation, and we are not up to participating. Hence, a grim outlook. Lie and entertain. Little buyer's remorse to be seen as Rome burns.
Not at all a helpful suggestion and I question where your stats are coming from.....a better suggestion is anyone is capable of learning; the subject matter needs to be presented in a coherent manner with reasonable arguments backed up by FACTS. This is the reason why we have to fight against the efforts to dismantle the education system in US and return to teaching as it was before this crusade to turn America fascist began. Also we must watch carefully to stem the tide to ban books...it happened under Hitler, it can happen under Trump if we let ourselves be afraid of their bullying.
I'd counter-argue that... we cannot afford such a cynical outlook on the American people, the present and future. So let's unpack your arguments for a moment.
First of all, by definition the average IQ is set at 100, so what do you mean by "average IQ under 100"?
Secondly, studying is a SKILL that anyone can develop, not some kind of innate personality trait. All that is needed is that we help others develop it (and taste the joy of develop it), that's all. Why would we miraculously no longer be able to do that... ?
Third, it's precisely when social media and unhealthy diets lower our political literacy and knowledge of the most relevant facts that we need to step up and invest in (formal and informal) methods of education again. And here, AS a progressive (defined as someone espousing most of the ideals that the vast majority of the American people today want to see Congress put into law, and who believes in the democratic process as the best way to get there), I have to admit that "the left" is in part to blame. For decades now, universities (which are mostly left-wing, if only BECAUSE conservatives turned away from believing in basic fact-checking and critical thinking for a long time already) mistakenly saw their first job (when it comes to pedagogy) as VALIDATING a student's "personal opinions" (as if these would by definition be valuable), with the explicit goal of making him/her feel valuable AS an individual, rather than prioritizing debunking false ideas and TRANSMITTING the many wonderful things people in the past (who mostly happen to be "dead old white men", for past political/cultural reasons) have invented, discovered, and created.
That's imho how today so many journalists (including most people working for The Bulwark) have such a superficial take on what is going on.
Add to that the tendency of the English-speaking world to have an aversion for "ideas" (which even made The Bulwark reduce MAGA 2.0 mostly to Trump's clownish behavior without truly refuting the neofascist ideology that was behind it and made it SO dangerous in the first place), ever since Hume saw ideas/thinking as something less real/important than the sensory level of experience... and it becomes more understandable why we got where we are at today.
Still, for all these important problems, there is only one solution: tackle them head-on. Imagining that somehow we could skip that stage and just "jump" to a well-educated society, and if not should give up altogether, is again, imho, a stance that is not only demonstrably false, we just cannot afford to indulge in those types of idealism/pessimism...
Ok, I finally got to minute 10 in the transcript. First of all, PLEASE The Bulwark, allow us to open the transcript in a NEW WINDOW. For now, this page gets replaced with the transcript, so I need to go back to my email inbox, click on your email again, then click on "read the full story", and then I'm finally back to this place. Not helpful.
Secondly and much more importantly, at the tenth minute already Ross claims not to know how to fight against THE characteristic of all FASCIST PROPAGANDA. My guess: he doesn't know because he studied wrestling, not the history of fascism.
There's absolutely nothing new about the "alternative facts" universe that the GOP installed. Read the WSJ 1976 op-ed by Irving Kristol, "The Stupid Party" (Irving is one of the founders of neoconservatism, and yes, Bill's father). "The Stupid Party" is how liberal John Stuart Mill called conservative political parties. Kristol decided to wear it as a medal, arguing that in a "healthy society", intellectuals always stay "at the margins", because as soon as they enter the public debate, conservatives cannot but lose the debate and therefore the elections. To win elections, he argued, conservatives need to play on people's "gut feeling". Obviously, that has always been behind the "circenses" part in the Romans' "pane et circenses" (give the people bread and a circus and they'll stay calm).
How to do that, as 20th century conservatives? First, take over the GOP (done in 2000), then, create a massive fake news machine: Fox (which in court admitted it was pure entertainment, not real news).
That empowered a clown like Trump, who grew up with his father's slogan "In this world you're either a killer or a loser; make sure you're a killer" AND his father's abuse (so who grew up to become a needy man vitally needing to entertain others to have their constant attention and adulation), to use the Fox "circus" and turn it against neocons. All he needed was ONE blatant lie (the Iraq war), and from then on, the GOP base no longer trusted anyone BUT a buffoon who constantly tells him that it's all fake. And yes, that means that Trump thrives on cynicism, electorally. As did and does Fox.
Today, however, something totally different is going on. Trump is ALWAYS manipulated by others. This time, it's by those who took Kristol's idea so seriously that they gave up on democracy altogether and became convinced neofascists. THAT is why what Trump says today is SERIOUS. In his first term, he was manipulated by all kinds of people, with no clear, uniform direction. This time, the guys truly pulling the strings behind the scenes of the Oval Office are NEOFASCISTS (the tech "Network State" ones on the one hand, and the theocratic (Heritage Foundation) on the other - with neofascist populists such as Bannon still hanging around, since he successfully helped Orban to turn Hungary into a fascist state).
Each time, it's the same old story: LIE! Lie and entertain. That's it. Nil novi sub sole.
How do we fight against the cynicism that fuels fascism and the massive lies that its voters (who still support democracy and think that Democrats are fascists...) are plunged into 24/7?
Also in the same way as always: (1) expose the objectively proven truth and (2) teach people how to fact-check. Then have real, respectful conversations with them (do not treat them as "evil" or "stupid", but treat them as the decent, often hard-working people that they are, and who became the victim of a by now very well-oiled propaganda machine).
Finally, what scares me most is the cynicism of Ross himself. "Of course" Democrats will never install free healthcare??!! Obamacare alone by now saved an additional HALF A MILLION American lives, and the fact that so many other lives are saved too, thanks to Medicare and Medicaid, is ONLY thanks to the very hard work of Democrats, while the GOP tries to block and repeal it all again and again!
The day Ross studies the history of fascism (not studying history IS part of a "low culture"), he'll see that its fuel IS cynicism - HIS type of cynicism. And unfortunately, he's not the only Never Trumper who finds this utterly cynical (and frankly immoral) attitude self-evident. It has infected part of this country's progressives too. THAT is why change is so slow, in the US. Each time a president makes huge legislative progress, a whole bunch of people stand at the sidelines yelling "not enough!" and then letting corrupt politicians take over DC again.
CONCLUSION: the way to fight fascism has always been known. It consists of STUDYING THE FACTS, both today's facts and history, combined with learning how the democratic process works, so that no citizens still indulges in the type of cynicism that Ross himself displays. And yes, that means that we've got a lot of work to do...
When you open the transcript, isn't there a little x in the top right that you can click to close the transcript and return to this page?
I just checked: correct! Thank you so much for the tip!
Still, to have a real debate it's best to be able to quote the arguments we disagree with (so that any reader can show us where we misunderstood those quotes, whenever we did), so I'd love to have the transcript open in a new tab, which would make it easy to switch from the text to the comment section.
Anyhow, thanks again!
If you right-click on the "transcript" button and choose "Open in Reading Mode" it opens in a different, smaller window beside the video. Does that help?
Thank you. I truly appreciate your response and how thorough and thoughtful it is. I agree that it is Ross’ type of cynicism which is prevalent in privileged folks (i.e. mostly white people middle and upper middle class who can afford the luxury of cynicism) that is an obstacle to more change more quickly. I am unsubscribing from The Bulwark primarily due to podcasts like this where these folks like to talk and hear their own voices but dont offer anything new and dont offer ways to get out of the deep hole of shit we’re in. They just want to sell their own books while it all burns down.
Make sure not to buy into the fascist anthropology that assumes that certain people just ARE somehow "inferior" by nature... . Because as soon as we indulge in imagining that those who disagree with us must somehow be morally inferior to us, we ARE adopting a fascist, hierarchical view of human nature. There are no scientific studies backing up those claims...
As to unsubscribing from The Bulwark: how will that help us move forward? Imho, there is only one way forward, namely actively go toward people who disagree with us and engage in real, respectful debates with them. That is and has always been the only way to obtain a thriving democracy. And with fascism being installed, cultivating a real debate culture is imho more urgent than ever before.
YES WE CAN! ;-)
Thank you
The problem is that given the facts (average IQ under 100; 80% of us overweight; overpopulation, etc.) I doubt our version of humankind is capable of studying "today's facts and history." A democracy is fueled by participation, and we are not up to participating. Hence, a grim outlook. Lie and entertain. Little buyer's remorse to be seen as Rome burns.
Not at all a helpful suggestion and I question where your stats are coming from.....a better suggestion is anyone is capable of learning; the subject matter needs to be presented in a coherent manner with reasonable arguments backed up by FACTS. This is the reason why we have to fight against the efforts to dismantle the education system in US and return to teaching as it was before this crusade to turn America fascist began. Also we must watch carefully to stem the tide to ban books...it happened under Hitler, it can happen under Trump if we let ourselves be afraid of their bullying.
I'd counter-argue that... we cannot afford such a cynical outlook on the American people, the present and future. So let's unpack your arguments for a moment.
First of all, by definition the average IQ is set at 100, so what do you mean by "average IQ under 100"?
Secondly, studying is a SKILL that anyone can develop, not some kind of innate personality trait. All that is needed is that we help others develop it (and taste the joy of develop it), that's all. Why would we miraculously no longer be able to do that... ?
Third, it's precisely when social media and unhealthy diets lower our political literacy and knowledge of the most relevant facts that we need to step up and invest in (formal and informal) methods of education again. And here, AS a progressive (defined as someone espousing most of the ideals that the vast majority of the American people today want to see Congress put into law, and who believes in the democratic process as the best way to get there), I have to admit that "the left" is in part to blame. For decades now, universities (which are mostly left-wing, if only BECAUSE conservatives turned away from believing in basic fact-checking and critical thinking for a long time already) mistakenly saw their first job (when it comes to pedagogy) as VALIDATING a student's "personal opinions" (as if these would by definition be valuable), with the explicit goal of making him/her feel valuable AS an individual, rather than prioritizing debunking false ideas and TRANSMITTING the many wonderful things people in the past (who mostly happen to be "dead old white men", for past political/cultural reasons) have invented, discovered, and created.
That's imho how today so many journalists (including most people working for The Bulwark) have such a superficial take on what is going on.
Add to that the tendency of the English-speaking world to have an aversion for "ideas" (which even made The Bulwark reduce MAGA 2.0 mostly to Trump's clownish behavior without truly refuting the neofascist ideology that was behind it and made it SO dangerous in the first place), ever since Hume saw ideas/thinking as something less real/important than the sensory level of experience... and it becomes more understandable why we got where we are at today.
Still, for all these important problems, there is only one solution: tackle them head-on. Imagining that somehow we could skip that stage and just "jump" to a well-educated society, and if not should give up altogether, is again, imho, a stance that is not only demonstrably false, we just cannot afford to indulge in those types of idealism/pessimism...