Regarding How Social Media Works and What It Does to the Human Mind

This 27-minute video, A Real Doctor Watches "The Social Dilemma", summarizes the key points from the longer NetFlix program The Social Dilemma. A commentator, ZDoggMD, plays key passages from The Social Dilemma and then explains them to make the points clear to his audience. 

Four key points of about five or six:

1. The real customer: "If you are not paying for the product, you are the product." People who use social media are the product being sold. Specifically, people's time and attention is sold to advertisers. The customers of social media companies are advertisers, not the millions of people who use social media. 

2. You are not paranoid, you really are being watched and watched very carefully: Social media tracks everything that people do online in great detail. All of that data is used to profile you and package your profile for sale to advertisers. The algorithms that social media use are sophisticated, powerful and used to predict with you will do next online. In time, the software will improve to the point that it will know more about you than you do, e.g., it will be able predict if you are at risk for suicide before you even know you have a problem. 

3. Social media can damage people and whole societies: Social media is intentionally designed to be addictive and vacuous to better package customers for advertisers. The rise of social media in the hands of children correlates with the rise of various kinds of damage, e.g., increased suicide, especially in teenage girls. The rise of this kind of damage to children was observed in the ~2010-2011 time period. The damage to society includes the new political polarization and accompanying hate, distrust and belief in blatant disinformation. The point is this: Polarization sells and advertisers want it for profit. That also correlates with the rise of social media. In my experience, I believe that the way social media works on the human brain, as described in the video, it causes the polarization, hate, distrust and tribal belief in disinformation.

4. Social media can be designed to be less harmful to people and societies: The owners control the product. They know exactly how and why it works, e.g., little squirts of dopamine in the brain, etc. Social media works exactly the same way a slot machine works, i.e., little squirts of dopamine reward in the brain. The science of addiction and manipulation is sophisticated and getting better all the time as the software improves. The owners are 100% aware of the damage they are causing. But in our significantly unregulated capitalist economy, profit talks and social concerns walk.

Question:

Are me or Dissident Politics a personally or socially damaging or addictive social media source?

Radical Right Activist Judges and the Farce Called Originalism

A Washington Post editorial by Fareed Zakaria describes a bizarre theory called Originalism that the radical right Supreme Court sometimes relies on to get conservative outcomes in the law. According to the late radical right Justice Antonin Scalia, that the U.S. Constitution “means today not what current society, much less the court, thinks it ought to mean, but what it meant when it was adopted.” As pointed out here repeatedly, there is no way to discern “what it meant when it was adopted” because the Founders, the drafters of Constitutional Amendments, congress and the people were bitterly and hopelessly divided on what the much of the Constitution, Amendments and laws meant or should mean. The Founders were divided over whether there should even be a new constitution at all, instead of merely revised Articles of Confederation. 

The historical record is clear. Originalism is irrational because there is no basis in fact for any claim that originalism is authoritative or real for most contested issues. It exists mostly in the minds of conservative authoritarian radicals who desperately need an excuse to do and get what they want using the courts. In general, advanced democracies believe that laws are interpreted based on a combination of changing societal standards, core democratic values and when it is clear, original understanding.[1]

What Originalism delivers is what radical authoritarian conservatives want, not principled law based on defensible sound reasoning (roughly logic) or core democratic values, e.g., the right to vote. In essence, even Originalism itself is beside the point. Radical conservative outcomes is the point, regardless of what the alleged controlling legal theory is. Zakaria writes: 

“And even in the United States, liberals and conservatives alike accept important deviations from originalism. Otherwise we would still have segregated schools, prohibitions against interracial marriage and laws outlawing homosexuality — all of which were deemed unconstitutional by judges who used the 14th Amendment of the Constitution to do so, even though it cannot be plausibly claimed that was the intent of Congress when it passed that amendment.

Many conservatives have argued that originalism is the only way to ensure that judges stay restrained and modest, not imposing their views on a society that did not elect them. (Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. refers to this as calling “balls and strikes.”) And perhaps the self-styled originalists would accomplish their goal if they actually practiced what they preach. But in fact, the new breed of judicial activists seems to be abandoning the restraint that Roberts prizes and is simply seeking conservative outcomes, using whatever means necessary.

The original sin was the 2000 Supreme Court Bush v. Gore decision, when conservative justices flagrantly violated their long-espoused principles to achieve their preferred political aim. The Constitution is crystal clear that states have final authority over the selection of their electors during a presidential election. Courts had long upheld that view.

And yet, in Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court shut down Florida’s recount using a tortuous and novel interpretation of the 14th Amendment, which was ratified to give equal rights to Black people in 1868. The writers of that amendment could not possibly have meant that it prohibited different counties within a state from using their own approaches to counting ballots in an election — an utterly unrelated issue and something that was widespread in 1868 when the amendment was passed.

In a brilliant podcast, “Deep Background,” Harvard Law School professor Noah Feldman outlines this hypocrisy to Jeffrey Sutton, a federal appeals court judge who sees himself as a conservative originalist. Sutton’s response — to my ear — was that he believed Bush v. Gore had been wrongly decided.

And, in fact, after the ruling, judicial conservatives rarely cited or celebrated its rationale. Scalia’s response was usually three words: “Get over it” — not exactly an intellectual argument. Privately, according to Evan Thomas’s reporting, Scalia said he thought the decision was “a piece of s---.” In the most telling admission of its illogic, the majority opinion contains the remarkable guidance that the decision[2] should be viewed as a one-off and not cited as a precedent — contrary to the intended function of Supreme Court rulings.

Feldman’s podcast series — which is well worth listening to — highlights a growing divide between conservatives who viewed originalism as part of a philosophy of modesty and restraint and new activists who are untroubled by the hypocrisy and simply seek conservative outcomes. It is these activists who have been able to weaken Obamacare (clearly violating the original intent of the legislature that passed it) and invent new rights for corporations that had never before been found in the Constitution (as they did in the notorious Citizens United case).

All this might come to a head next week. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ruled that ballots sent before the end of the election that arrive up to three days late should be counted. The Republican Party appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, which still had a vacancy and deadlocked 4 to 4, with the new conservatives plus justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Clarence Thomas expressing willingness to intervene, and the liberals, plus Roberts, acting as the voices of judicial restraint. 

On Wednesday, if Trump is ahead in Pennsylvania, the Republicans will again ask the court to shut down the vote count. This time, the court cannot deadlock since there is now a ninth justice, Amy Coney Barrett. She will have to decide whether she actually believes in the ideas she and Scalia espoused — or whether, like her mentor, when the stakes are high, she will choose power over principle.”

My bet is that the new radical conservative court will choose power over principle. Those radical judges were put there to exercise power and remake America in the self-righteous, intolerant, radical right image. They are not there to be principled or concerned with what the American people want.

Footnotes: 

1. The practice in America is called American Legal Realism. I discussed it in this book review, which included this quote from the book: 

“This is an attempt to describe generally the process of legal reasoning in the field of case law, and in the interpretation of statutes and of the Constitution. It is important that the mechanism of legal reasoning should not be concealed by its pretense. The pretense is that the law is a system of known rules applied by a judge; the pretense has long been under attack. In an important sense legal rules are never clear, and, if a rule had to be clear before it could be imposed, society would be impossible. The mechanism accepts the differences of view and ambiguities of words. It provides for the participation of the community in resolving the ambiguity by providing a forum for the discussion of policy in the gap of ambiguity. On serious controversial questions it makes it possible to take the first step in the direction of what otherwise would be forbidden ends. The mechanism is indispensable to peace in a community.”

Forbidden ends include legalized abortion, legalized same-sex marriage, legal interracial marriage and voting rights (to avoid ‘mob rule’), all of which most Americans now support. What used to be a mostly peaceful process of social progress, is now now being reversed by legal, legislative and executive coercion by the radical right. We are on the road to tyranny, kleptocracy and loss of civil liberties.

2. That source summarised the limiting of the scope of its opinion in one sentence. “Loathe to make broad precedents, the per curiam opinion limited its holding to the present case.” In other words, the Supreme Court knew its decision was, as Scalia put it, ‘a piece of s---’. Nonetheless, it did get the job done and Bush got to be president thanks to radical conservative judicial activism pretending to be authoritative and principled in the guise of originalism. 

The Meat and Potatoes of Life: Appreciating the Art of Baloney

 Lisa Smith Molinari

https://hanfordsentinel.com/community/lemoorenavynews/the-meat-and-potatoes-of-life-appreciating-the-art-of-baloney/article_fee722d8-4ef2-54ec-a673-f58332b1a1e9.html

Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, people have sought information to quell fear. Over the last five months, the advice given by “experts” has fluctuated wildly, despite having been given with seemingly well-informed confidence.

By now, I think we all realize that it’s all baloney, bunk, BS. No one really knows, “Is it safe for kids to go back to school?” “Can people contract COVID-19 twice?” “Will a vaccine be ready by the end of the year?” “Will this pandemic ever end?” But when the public demands answers, experts must deliver.

In the military community, baloney is not generally tolerated. We respect clear communication, pinpoint accuracy and straight talk. However, months of widespread pontificating about the pandemic has shown that BSing actually requires skill and chutzpah.

Anyone who has ever been to a golf course has undoubtedly been in the midst of a talented BSer. Or two. Or twenty-seven.

Ex: “Now, unless you want to chili dip that thing into the frog hair and risk army-putting another triple bogey, you oughta milk the grip and let the big dog eat,” Chaz quips between swigs of Bloody Mary, leaning heavily on his Cobra driver after duffing two balls into the pond.

The Golf BSer may not be good at the sport, but his commitment to the craft of baloney-slinging is undeniable. Imagine the hours spent perusing Golf Digest in the proctologist’s waiting room to memorize golf terminology? The thousands spent on trendy golf equipment and over-priced, insignia-embroidered, moisture-wicking golf apparel to overcompensate for his lack of skills? The sunburns he endures while secretly tanning in his backyard wearing his golf glove, so he can sport a characteristic golfer’s pale left hand? Now that’s dedication.

Of course, lawyers, politicians, car salesmen, stockbrokers and their ilk are branded, sometimes unfairly, as BSers, because they are paid to have all the answers whether they do or not.

 Ex: “You see, George, your mutual funds tanked last quarter due to the unprecedented negative rumors of predicted speculations, so I’d be inclined to take the long view here,” a financial advisor might hedge to keep his client confused enough to continue forking over his life savings.

But this questionable style of communication is not reserved for fast-talking professions alone. Even the well-intentioned must sometimes BS. Unable to say, “I don’t know” to her incessantly curious first grade students, my mother mastered the skill of bluffing as a first grade teacher, making stuff up on the fly to answer questions like, “Why is the ocean blue?” and “Why does Mrs. Fletcher have a mustache?”

Graduate students must also maintain their reputation for knowing everything there is to know about everything. Take a stroll through any campus quad across this nation, and you will see them with their longish hair, graded term papers in hand, leaning against ivy covered walls, arguing over whether or not the international relations theory of holistic constructivism is a useful tool in analyzing the efficacy of post-war US foreign policy.

And all those people in Starbucks deserve some recognition here, too, from the employee with the nose piercing who steams the non-fat milk for your double espresso macchiato, to the metrosexual with the European scarf who ordered a chai tea, to the yoga-pant wearing mom in her SUV yelling into the drive-thru window. Essentially, anyone who has uttered the word “Vente” or referred to something with 20 grams of sugar as “skinny” is a card-carrying BSer, whether she likes it or not.

Surprisingly enough, even parents are masterful BSers. Think about it – what does Dad say when his six-year-old daughter looks adoringly into his eyes and asks, “Daddy, where do babies come from?” And what baloney must Mom come up with to explain what happened to Gus the Guppy who was last seen napping on the bottom of the tank?

Let’s face it – we are a nation of baloney-slingers, and it’s about time we wake up and smell the Grande iced latte. Let’s finally give BSing the respect it deserves!

And if you believed that, I’ve got some really nice swampland in Florida to sell you.

Why the Radical Right Suppresses Millions of Votes

US supreme court upholds state limits on ballot counting based

on no rational basis or evidence

“This is a spiritual battle we are in. This is good versus evil. We have to do everything we can to win.” -- Radical right GOP activist Bill Walton speaking at a Council for National Policy meeting in August 2020; Walton is CNP’s executive committee president

“Be not afraid of the accusations that you’re a voter suppressor, you’re a racist and so forth.” -- Radical right GOP activist J. Christian Adams speaking to GOP elites at the CNP strategy meeting in 2020

For reasons completely unclear to me, the radical right is actually starting to publicly state why it wants an authoritarian regime with minimal or no input from voters. This is as frightening as anything I can recall from the president, the GOP or wealthy supporters since January 2017.

It is not just a matter of raw, blind lust for power by the president, GOP elites and major wealthy supporters. It is also a matter of the rise of a radical ideology that has been weaponized by closed minded, self-righteous morality and the unquestionable certainty that such morality and mindset leads to.

Voter suppression - the election is illegitimate if Trump wins

The Rachael Maddow broadcast last night included a segment on the status of voting. Based on that and reporting elsewhere, several points jumped right out. First, 29 states require that mail-in ballots be received by Nov. 3 at the time the polls close. Other states set various times after Nov. 3 for a ballot to be received and counted. Thus, every single ballot that arrives on Nov. 4 or later will not be counted.

Second, the Trump administration has intentionally subverted US postal service, and because of that, as of yesterday it is too late to send in ballots by mail. One state posted a notice to voters warning them not to send their ballots by mail because they would not be received in time to count. 

Third, various conservative GOP states have limited the time and/or means for voters to vote early. In Texas, without explanation or warning, the republican governor ordered the number of ballot drop sites to be limited to one per county, a ludicrous act clearly intended to suppress as many votes as possible. As discussed here, a 2013 conservative supreme court decision gutted enforcement of the Voting Rights Act in conservative states with a record of voter suppression. Since then, the affected states closed 1,688 polling places, making it harder for African Americans to vote.

In an MSNBC segment by Chris Hayes yesterday, he highlighted a very recent supreme court decision authored by the radical right justice Brett Kavanaugh that upheld state power to not count ballots that cannot all be counted by Nov. 3. Compounding that severe and unjustifiable limit on ballot counting, is a law in some states that ban preparation of mail-in ballots for counting before Nov. 3. Mail-in ballot counting requires several steps including time consuming removing of the ballots from their envelopes and checking to verify voter signatures. This is happening in the key battleground states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

Kavanaugh's nonsense justification for such state laws is a transparent voter suppression effort. In his opinion, he explained it like this: “States want to avoid the chaos and suspicions that can ensue if thousands of absentee ballots flow in after election day and potentially flip the results of an election.” Kavanaugh cited no evidence that of any widespread impropriety in any state counting ballots after election day that indicates any rational basis for any chaos or suspicions. The Kavanaugh ‘rationale’ is nonsense built on crackpot conspiracy theory vapor, not any tangible evidence.

That same Hayes segment also pointed out this is a complete reversal of Kavanaugh's position on counting ballots after election day. A commentator observed that “before Justice Brett Kavanaugh took the position he took in that opinion, lawyer Brett Kavanaugh stood in court and argued that votes could be added to the tally as late as Thanksgiving.” That even applied to ballots that had no postmark at all and could thus have been sent after the time limits for main-in ballots. Lawyer Kavanaugh was arguing for republican Bush and against Gore in the 2000 election. Now justice Kavanaugh argues for Trump and against Biden in the 2020 election. The supreme court has fallen to the radical right and its ideology.

Conclusion: Based on the evidence so far on how some GOP-controlled states are moving to suppress votes, it is reasonable to believe that (i) millions of votes, maybe 10-15 million, will be suppressed by combined GOP suppression efforts in democratic and minority areas of GOP-controlled states, and (ii) evidence of this (the number of uncounted ballots) will also be suppressed, denied or destroyed. From that, one can reasonably conclude that (i) if the president is re-elected, he will be an illegitimate president once again, and (ii) the GOP leadership and wealthy supporters are now full-blown anti-democratic and authoritarian.

America is a constitutional republic, not  a democracy --

democracy is mob rule

This is what explains the overt GOP push to suppress as many votes as they can. This is the ideology that underlies and justifies massive voter suppression. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) stated that the US is not a democracy and the word democracy does not appear in the US constitution. 

The New York Times writes:  

“‘We’re not a democracy,’wrote Mr. Lee, 49, who is in isolation after testing positive for the coronavirus last week.

‘The word ‘democracy’ appears nowhere in the Constitution, perhaps because our form of government is not a democracy. That is a good thing. It’s a constitutional republic. To me it matters. It should matter to anyone who worries about the excessive accumulation of power in the hands of the few. Democracy isn’t the objective; liberty, peace, and prosperity are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that. .... Government is the official use of coercive force — nothing more and nothing less. The Constitution protects us by limiting the use of government force.’

To some extent, Mr. Lee was saying out loud what many conservatives have been saying quietly for years: that redistribution of wealth through taxation or attempts to regulate business are a threat to liberty, even if they are widely popular.” 

There it is. Right out in the open. America is not a democracy, and according to Mr. Lee, democrats are ‘too dangerous to rule’. In view of that, one can see why the radical right views voting by democrats and minorities as dangerous, unconstitutional mob rule.

What Lee is completely oblivious to is the fact that while he complains about widespread voting, which distributes at least a little power to voters, he claims to fear concentrated power. At present, the GOP fighting tooth and claw to concentrate power in the radical right minority, while disempowering the majority by disenfranchisement. In essence, the radical right openly accuses the left of authoritarianism, while it is clearly authoritarian.

I have argued as clearly and directly as I can that the radical right is authoritarian and profoundly anti-government, anti-democracy and anti-civil liberties. Mr. Lee’s comments now complete the picture and the ideological pieces fall into place. As I have argued before, this anti-government effort has been going on at least since the 1954 supreme court Brown v. Board of Education decision that ordered public school desegregation. That decision enraged the radical right and arguably created it as a cohesive political movement that is now in power in the US.

A last point merits comment. Mr. Lee's comments, “Democracy isn’t the objective; liberty, peace, and prosperity are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that”, seem to contradict my assertion that the radical right wants liberty. How can the radicals want liberty, but oppose civil liberties, e.g., voting rights, school desegregation, public schools, discrimination protections, etc., at the same time? The conflict is resolved by understanding that Lee’s conception of liberty means freedom of people to operate in unregulated, free markets. That does not include any right to vote or enjoy the protection of civil liberties. Autocrats and/or an imperial president will have the concentrated, unopposable power to insure the radical right’s vision of what liberty, peace, and prosperity are, whether citizens want it or accept it or not. 

The stakes in this election are even higher than I understood as of yesterday morning. By last night, new evidence and analysis led to a more complete level of comprehension of the radical right. That is just what sometimes happens when one is pragmatic, rationalist and Bayesian when it comes to evidence and reasoning. 

Questions:

What is the real authoritarian political force here, the radical right GOP and its ideology or the democratic party and its ideologies?

Who has been inclusive, the RINO-hunted-to-extinction GOP or the huge tent democratic party?

Does unregulated, laissez-faire capitalism, with its sole moral value of profit above all else, insure protection of civil liberties and the rule of law better than regulation and independent law enforcement and courts?

What is harder to corrupt and capture, state governments with a state voice or a much larger central government with competing state voices?

Senator Lynn Beyak donated to Donald Trump's re-election campaign

 

Ontario Sen. Lynn Beyak — who has been suspended twice from the Senate over her comments about the Indigenous residential school system — donated to the Republican National Committee in May despite a U.S. election law forbidding campaign contributions by foreign nationals.

According to Federal Elections Commission records, Beyak donated $300 to U.S. President Donald Trump's party while reporting a home in Dryden, N.Y. as her home residence and supplying a postal code from that area.

Beyak lives in Dryden, Ont., in the province's northwest.

Under the U.S. Federal Election Campaign Act and commission regulations, foreigners are prohibited from making any contributions in connection with any federal, state or local elections in the United States.

The law also prohibits any contribution or donation to any committee or organization of any national, state, district or local political party.

Those who knowingly and willfully engage in these activities may face an FEC enforcement action, criminal prosecution, or both, according to the commission.

While barred from making donations, foreign nationals can volunteer for a U.S. candidate or political committee as long as they're not being compensated by anyone.

Sen. Lynn Beyak donated $300 to the Republican National Committee in May 2020, according to a Federal Election Commission donation report. A staffer for Beyak told VICE News the donation was made in error. (Federal Election Commission)

In making her contribution, Beyak listed her occupation as "retired," although, at the time, she was still a member of the Red Chamber.

VICE News first reported the campaign contribution.

In a statement to that news outlet, Beyak's office confirmed that the senator did make a contribution but said the money was sent in "error."

VICE reports that after it made inquiries about the donation, Beyak's office said the money would be paid back; a staffer said that the money was "being returned in its entirety, simply because it was erroneous."

Beyak's office did not immediately respond to CBC's request for comment and clarification on whether Beyak, a former real estate agent, holds dual Canada-U.S. citizenship.

In February 2020, Beyak was suspended by her colleagues for the remainder of the parliamentary session after she failed to complete the anti-racism training she was directed to undergo the last time she was temporarily kicked out of the upper house for posting racist letters to her taxpayer-funded website.

The letters in question were sent to Beyak after CBC News reported on comments she made about the residential school system in March 2017.

Beyak praised the "well-intentioned" instructors at these schools and chastised the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for not "focusing on the good" coming out of these institutions.

Beyak's suspension ended when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau prorogued Parliament.

Beyak is again collecting her full salary — $157,600 a year — and has access to Senate resources.

The Senate ethics committee report recommending a vote on reinstating her to the chamber — after she completed her anti-racism education and issued a formal statement of apology — died on the order paper over the summer.

Beyak, who was appointed by former prime minister Stephen Harper, was kicked out of the Conservative caucus in January 2018.

She subsequently backed People's Party Leader Maxime Bernier in the last election campaign.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/lynn-beyak-donated-to-trump-republican-national-committee-1.5778988

Why Some Eligible Citizens Will Not Vote in 2020

The New York Times interviewed some eligible citizens who will not vote in 2020. The main reasons boil down to (i) distrust in both parties and politics, and (ii) a wish to avoid the anger and nasty tone of it all. The latter group have succumbed to the intentional goal of the radical right to get as many potential voters to not vote as they can by any means possible. By making politics unpleasant, the radical right has probably driven millions of voters out of politics entirely. That constitutes a huge political win for the right because most of these people would probably vote democratic if they weren't so alienated. The NYT writes:

"But Ms. Fedrick, who works two jobs, at a hotel and at a department store, does not trust either of the two main political parties, because nothing in her 31 years of life has led her to believe that she could. She says they abandon voters like “a bad mom or dad who promises to come and see you, and I’m sitting outside with my bags packed and they never show up.”

That is why Ms. Fedrick does not regret her decision in 2016 to skip the voting booth. In fact, she plans to repeat it this year — something that she and a friend have started to hide from people they know.

“We said we’re just going to lie, like, ‘Oh yeah, I voted,’” she said. “I don’t feel like getting crucified for what I think.”

An analysis of Census Bureau survey data from the 2016 election shows a deep class divide: Americans who did not vote were more likely to be poor, less likely to have a college degree, and more likely to be a single parent than the people who voted. They were also less likely to be in the labor force.

But with razor-thin margins in a number of states last time, nonvoters have taken on outsize importance: Even a small victory in converting some of them may tip the scales.

They [non-voters] expressed a profound distrust of politics and doubted their vote would have an effect. They felt a sense of foreboding about the country and saw politics as one of the main forces doing the threatening. Many were not particularly partisan, and said they shrank from people who were.

“I try to avoid it because it gets angry and nasty,” said Susan Miller, 42, a waitress at Compton’s Pancake House in Stroudsburg, who said she had voted once in her life, for Barack Obama in 2008.

Like many people interviewed for this article, Ms. Miller was scrambling to pay rent and buy groceries. Monroe County’s unemployment rate stood at around 13 percent in August, as the coronavirus pandemic bit into the county’s tourism industry. Her tips have fallen by half and she is now working for Instacart to make up the difference. Two close relatives have died of Covid-19. “Politics? It’s the least of my worries. I’m just trying to make it through,” she said. 

Marriage mattered, too: Just 45 percent of single women who had children and were eligible to vote cast ballots compared with 70 percent of married mothers.

Jennifer Martin, 46, a single mother waiting in line in her car at the Pleasant Valley Ecumenical Network food pantry in Sciota, Pa., said the last time she voted she was in her 20s. Politics, she said, has little relevance to her life. The two political parties seemed about the same. “I work at a day care where they pay their workers nothing,” she said. “That’s why I have to come to places like this to feed my family.” Might the election change things? “I’m not interested in it,” she said.

Ms. Sanchez is part of a demographic that also had low turnout in 2016: American-born Hispanics. She said that in 2008 she swallowed her cynicism and cast the first vote in her life, for Mr. Obama. “I had to just close my eyes and say, ‘If this is fake, I don’t care. I want to be part of this.’” But she did not vote for him again. Politicians are noisy, but ultimately of no use. “They rent space in my brain and they frustrate me, but in the end, they do what they want anyway,” she said."

That speaks for itself. These people have lost trust, hope and/or just want to avoid the anger and nastiness. Some fear even voicing their opinions because they do not want to lose friendships. They just want to live their lives as they have been. Sure, most of them appear to want their lives to be better, but they no longer believe that will happen. 

Is Morality an Existential Threat to Democracy?

Note: This post is long. However, it discusses one of the most important and enlightening broadcast programs that I recall hearing in the last 30 years or so.

The program: A broadcast on NPR entitled Moral Combat produced by the Hidden Brain program discusses what happens when morality is injected into a political issue or tends to be inherent in it. The effects are almost completely socially corrosive and anti-democratic. In essence, most issues can be politically weaponized by moralizing them. Playing on conflicting moral beliefs is an effective way to divide, distract and polarize a population. That affords demagogues and dictators the most common pathway to authoritarian political power.  The 55-minute podcast is here. Several key points of the research the program discusses are summarized below.

Moral certainty neuters facts, truths and reason: Major moralized issues in the US include immigration, same-sex marriage, abortion, gun control, police violence, religious dogmas, euthanasia laws, trade policy and even political ideologies, e.g., evil socialism, liberal tyranny, etc. For many people, moralized issues are not generally debatable because the moral issue is clear in their minds. People see their moral belief as obviously correct and therefore not subject to debate or contrary facts, truths or reasoning. People who try to convey moral inconvenience or threat are generally rejected as not trustworthy because they are perceived to be talking obvious nonsense.

The more self-righteous, the more anti-democratic: People who have moderate to limited moral feelings about an issue such as a euthanasia law, tend to accept court decisions about the law without experiencing much positive or negative reaction toward the court. By contrast, when a court decides against people with strong moral convictions, they tend to see the court as less trustworthy, less procedurally fair and less legitimate. A court decision that morally weaponized people agree with tends to foster a perception of trust, legitimacy and fairness. Thus by morally weaponizing an issue and publicizing court decisions on it, both the courts and political opposition can be delegitimized and made to appear untrustworthy and/or illegitimate.

Researchers find similar moral reactions in court cases that decide on cases of vigilante justice. People who strongly morally believe that a person is guilty or immoral tend to be more sympathetic to the vigilantes and less trusting of the court that punishes vigilantes. The lesson is that probably most people with moral convictions about an issue generally do not care a lot how the moral conviction is defended or vindicated, e.g., by legal or illegal means. Moral self-righteousness tends to override concerns that get in the way, including the rule of law. Another cited example of moral self-righteousness justifying the means is Mitch McConnell's refusal to consider Obama's Supreme Court pick in 2016 saying "of course, of course" the people should have a say, but in 2020, simply denying that people do not need to have any say. Lying, cheating and hypocrisy tend to justify self-righteous moral ends over other concerns.

Most people's reaction to institutions that make decisions they strongly morally disagree with is to question the institution, not their own strong moral convictions. Thus by morally weaponizing as many issues as possible, a political group can delegitimize an entire government for reasons that are not objectively reasonable.

The decline in trust, science and experts: Poll data from the last 30 years shows that public trust in various institutions and political opposition has significantly declined. Public trust is one of the glues that holds a democracy together. Public trust is a bulwark against demagogues, tyrants, crooks, liars, lawbreakers and kleptocrats. When distrust is based on moral grounds, evidence is usually not needed to justify what people feel, and thus know, is true. That leads to distrust of (i) science that contradicts moral beliefs, and (ii) the experts who try to convey the inconvenient truth. Feeling or emotion usually overrides facts, truths and sound reasoning when strong moral convictions are at play.

False belief in moral objectivity and its truth = closed minds: People with strong moral convictions tend to believe that their belief is objectively true, like 2+2 = 4 is objectively true. Again, personal moral knowledge is usually certain. But in fact, moral beliefs are usually more subjective than objective. Moral convictions feel objectively true and thus are not open to debate or contrary facts, truths or reasoning. Based on such feelings, people or institutions, e.g., courts, who hold contrary moral beliefs must be objectively wrong. Those feelings are usually objectively wrong because personal moral truths are falsely but sincerely believed to be universal moral beliefs that should apply to everyone, everywhere, always or almost always. 

The problem with this false belief in objective moral truth is that when a person engages with or hears another who has a different moral belief, that person usually concludes that since they believe in something that is immoral or evil, that person must also be immoral or evil. Then, trust usually bites the dust, especially when the "immoral" person tries to explain their belief and its basis. 

Moral conviction and confirmation bias: Another corrosive effect on truth and trust that strong moral conviction tends to have is that it limits or blocks efforts to look for contrary evidence or reasoning that contradicts the moral conviction. Confirmation bias tends to shut down open-mindedness and strong moral conviction tends to create confirmation bias. This is another example of how strong moral and other beliefs tend to shut down open-mindedness and the psychological discomfort that contradictory evidence and/or reasoning can lead to.

The researcher that was interviewed for this program, Linda Skitka, commented that a person simply looking for reasons or contrary evidence about a genuinely felt moral certainty can lead to social pressure to not even inquire because the moral belief is obviously true and universal. Why question what is sincerely believed to be true and universal? It raises questions about the morality of the person doing an inquiry that could lead to finding contradictory evidence or reasoning. In other words, strong moral convictions can lead to social siloing, along with distrust. 

In addition to potential social ostracism or motive questioning, doing research into an morally-charged issue has a tendency to reduce the intensity of the moral conviction when contrary evidence or reasoning is encountered. That is a socially beneficial impact of having enough moral courage to overcome both confirmation bias and social pressure that tends to keep minds closed and thus usually misinformed. 

Inquiry into a matter of moral certainty also runs the risk of it leading to moral relativism, making everything up for grabs and personal while nothing is universally true. That invites the question of whether there is such a thing as a universal moral truth. 

Disregarding the rules: Experiments have shown that people with a moral conviction tend to break rules more when they have been exposed to court decisions they morally disagree with. There is something about moral disagreement that loosens other glues that holds democracy together, namely respect for the rule of law and simple respect for other citizens. Strong moral convictions can simply destroy those glues and weaken democracy.

In the case of the 2012 mass shooting in Newtown CT at the Sandy Hook elementary school, some gun rights activists claimed online that the parents of children who were murdered were not real and that the mass shooting was a faked conspiracy to foment gun more regulations. Some believed that the parents were paid to stage the gun attack. Some of the parents of murdered children were harassed in real life, not just online. That kind of blind, deranged hate and hideously false belief was grounded in strong moral convictions that guns were good and thus could not possibly have been used to murder 26 innocent people including children in an elementary school. 

Killed compromise: People in disagreement without a moral basis for the disagreement can usually find common ground and compromise far more easily than when strong moral convictions are clashing. In the moral conflict scenario, people have a hard time simply coming to agreement on how to simply talk about the issue. 

Personal observations

This research on the effects of moral belief on politics and political issues makes a lot of sense. It helps explain one of the key bases for how and why the radical right has relentlessly moralized issues in politics and used moral disagreements to polarize and divide American society. This moralization process has been a conscious, sustained effort by the radical right to gain influence and power at least since the mid-1950s. And, since colonial times in the US, various extremist groups also appear to have recognized the power of moral weaponizing to build in-group cohesion, typically by vilifying various convenient out-groups. The in-group extremists are morally good and the out-groups are at least immoral, if not evil.

The decades-long radical right effort to paint reasonable compromise as ideological or tribe betrayal or treason has been successful. The GOP has had RINO hunts for years and the party is now mostly ideologically cleansed. The GOP has become anti-democratic and pro-authoritarian in breaking norms that used to be frameworks for compromise. The party now looks for obedience based on intolerant moral condemnation, not diversity of ideas and moral tolerance. Morally weaponizing politics and political issues has been a major tool that helped sink the GOP into this moral morass that it has become. 

Pragmatic rationalism

The research findings discussed in the Moral Combat program are satisfyingly and fully compatible with pragmatic rationalism (PR) on moral grounds. PR is built on four core moral values: (i) fidelity to trying seeing fact and true truths with less partisan bias, (ii) fidelity to applying less biased or partisan conscious reason to the facts and truths, (iii) service to the public interest based on factors including the facts, truths and sound reason, and (iv) willingness to reasonably compromise according to political, economic and environmental circumstances suggest are reasonable. Inherent in those morals are a strong bias toward democracy, the rule of law, and social trust and tolerance and against authoritarianism, law at the whim of those in power and social divisiveness and distrust.

One of the concerns built into the four moral values is the matter of their universality, not the moral issues that now divide and poison American society and the federal government. As far as I can tell, most Americans would claim that they adhere to all four of those values, especially the first two. Unfortunately, respect for all of those moral values, especially compromise have been under decades of relentless radical right attack propaganda (dark free speech). Those core values are slowly eroding in America. I have argued that this semi-consensus on the acceptance of facts, true truths, sound reasoning (~logic), service to the public interest and compromise constitute a basis to claim high moral authority for them. I believe those values transcend the other moral values (abortion, gun control, etc.) that demagogues, tyrants, special interests and kleptocrats are now using to disinform, distract and tear American society apart.  

PR is not silent about morals related to dark free speech (lies, deceit, irrational emotional manipulation and bogus partisan reasoning), all of which are targeted as detrimental. 

PR is silent about toxic morals such as abortion, gun control or same-sex marriage.  Instead, it depends heavily on respect for facts, truths and sound reasoning. That is focused on the always disputed concept of service to public interest, and to a less extent compromise. Thus, PR inherently is anti-strong moral conviction by virtue of be inherently anti-confirmation bias and anti-motivated reasoning. As the Moral Combat program points out, simply looking for contrary evidence tends to weaken the intensity of moral convictions. Exposure to inconvenient but sound reasoning will have the same beneficial effect. 

A key goal of PR is to open minds to look for all the relevant evidence and apply sound reasoning to it from one or more points of view, liberal, conservative, centrist, capitalist, socialist, cost-benefit, etc.  PR is not a means to get rid of moral convictions, but instead it defines a mindset that should at least partially rationalize their intensity and irrational emotion-generating effects. The goal is to make moral convictions somewhat more compatible with democracy, facts, truths and sound reasoning, without unduly limiting people's ability to act on their personal moral beliefs within the limits of laws. 

Questions:

Can the four core moral values PR is built on be considered transcendent over other moral values, or are all moral values equal?

Is there such a thing as a universal moral value?

Is it a mistake to consider the intellectual framework of PR a moral one, and if so, what should the mental constraints that PR attempts to impose be considered purely secular with no moral component?

(keeping in mind Sisella Bok's view of the immorality of lying in politics)  

Is democracy more inherently moral than authoritarianism?

(that's a core assumption that PR is based on - if authoritarianism is just as good, then why be concerned about facts, truths, sound reasoning, etc., and just accept what the leaders say and tell people to do?)

What Some Voters Think and Why

 

Trump at Day 1374

Some black voters who did not vote in 2016 but will vote in 2020

Jason Hooper of Greensboro, N.C., says that in 2016, 

“I didn’t like either of the candidates” --

He will reluctantly vote in 2020 for Biden

Louis Johnson, New Orleans 

“Even though I have been a registered Democrat my entire life, I am also a conservative Catholic, and I don’t see the Democratic Party as very moralistic. President Barack Obama sank the party when he allowed same-sex marriage. Trump has protected us from that; he has some strong religious views and is protecting the church as we know it. Anyone with Christian values has to vote for Trump, as I will, in person on Nov. 3. Joe Biden is like the Titanic iceberg: I see the tip. I don’t want to see any more.”

Gloria J. Young, Woodbridge, Va. 

“Come hell or high water, I was going to vote this year”

“Come hell or high water, I was going to vote this year: President Trump is incompetent, ignorant, insensitive, racist and disgusting. I feel responsible for not voting in 2016 — like my vote might have made the difference. And I know that by voting this year, I’m honoring my mother, who volunteered for many years as a poll worker in Gary, Ind., before she died in 2013. I haven’t always been focused on the importance of every citizen exercising their rights, even though she always was. But Mom, I don’t plan to make that mistake again.”

Tamicka Lowe, Mableton, Ga.: I don’t like the way Trump addresses people: He says a lot of crass stuff. The simplest way to put it is that he’s politically incorrect. I do customer service, and you have to be inclusive of everybody. You can’t put some people below others.

But, ugh, Biden. It’s a double-edged sword: Who is the worst — him or Trump? But I really don’t want Trump to be reelected. The comments he has made about Kim Jong Un and other countries that threaten the U.S.? Not that I care that they don’t like us, but sometimes you have to be diplomatic. He could cause World War III.

Why some people will vote for Trump in 2020: Jobs & Immigration 

The New York Times writes: 

“I spent 35 years in the steel business and I can tell you unfair trade deals were done by Republicans and Democrats,” Mr. Haines [Bruce Haines, Bethlehem PA] said. Both parties, he complained, had given up on manufacturing — once a wellspring of stable middle-class jobs. “Trump has been the savior of American industry. He got it. He’s the only one.”

Still, despite one of the worst years in recent American history, the issue on which Mr. Trump gets his highest approval ratings remains the economy. It points to the resilience of his reputation as a savvy businessman and hard-nosed negotiator. And it is evidence that his most enduring economic legacy may not rest in any statistical almanac, but in how much he has shifted the conversation around the economy.  

In the process, he scrambled party positions on key issues like immigration and globalization, and helped topple sacred verities about government debt. He took a Republican Party that preached free trade, low spending and debt reduction and transformed it into one that picked trade wars even with allies, ran up record-level peacetime deficits and shielded critical social programs from cuts. 

“He completely moved the Republican Party away from reducing Social Security and Medicare spending,” said Michael R. Strain, an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.   

The Democrats changed in turn. Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has positioned himself as the champion of immigrants, pledging to reverse Mr. Trump’s most restrictive policies, while rejecting more radical proposals like eliminating the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

He has also been pushed to finesse his position on fracking and the oil industry, promising not to ban the controversial drilling method on private lands, and trying — with mixed success — to walk back comments he had made during the presidential debate about transitioning away from fossil fuels.

Shifts on trade were more momentous. Mr. Biden and other party leaders who had once promoted the benefits of globalization found themselves playing defense against a Republican who outflanked them on issues like industrial flight and foreign competition. They responded by embracing elements of protectionism that they had previously abandoned.

The reshuffling is clear to Charles Jefferson, the managing owner of Montage Mountain Ski Resort near Scranton, Pa. “Those were not conversations we were having five years ago,” he said. “The exodus of manufacturing jobs, that was considered a fait accompli.” 

Mr. Jefferson, who said he voted for Mr. Obama, supported Mr. Trump in 2016. He plans to do so again. 

As a result, in this election, unlike the last, the significance of manufacturing and the need for a more skeptical approach to free trade are not contested.

Mr. Biden, after decades of supporting trade pacts, is now running on a “made in all of America” program that promises to “use full power of the federal government to bolster American industrial and technological strength.” He has also vowed to use the tax code to encourage businesses to keep or create jobs on American soil.

Even voters who don’t particularly like Mr. Trump credit him with re-energizing the U.S. economy.

What does all of that mean?

Some research after the 2016 election indicated that white voter unease with the impending rise of minorities to majority status and accompanying social changes was the most important factor in the president's electoral college win. I suspect it will be the first or second most important factor in 2020. If that is true, Biden is making a huge mistake, possibly a lethal one, by not clearly and repeatedly telling people that (i) he will not tolerate illegal immigration, but (ii) he will humanely deal with the issue. There is plenty of room to deal with the problem of illegal employers and illegal immigration without the shocking cruelty that the president has embraced.

The other big issue seems to be jobs and how to protect US manufacturing. I am not an economist, but from what I think I understand, that will be impossible without massive economic changes that will take years to implement. It will also cause huge increases in the cost of almost everything Americans buy. At the same time, the GOP is rigidly opposed to increasing wages, so the American standard of living will probably have to decrease for most workers.

And there is the federal debt time bomb. The GOP has completely abandoned meaningful concern for the debt. They increase it when they are in power, even in good economic times, but complain vehemently about it when the dems are in power. Sooner or later American debt will come back to haunt us. When investors lose faith in American debt, the mindset change will cause the American standard of living to significantly decrease for most workers. 

The other puzzle is whether free trade has been a net positive or negative for the American economy and standard of living. Some argue that it has been a net benefit, but that policies to deal with job losses have not been effective in the US. GOP anti-domestic spending policies tend to limit or completely block government efforts to support workers who have lost jobs to foreign competition.  

HAPPINESS IS THE WEEKEND

 PUT ASIDE THE GLOOM AND DOOM

Too much Trump, election news and Covid getting you down?

Try discussing something different, like maybe, what is your favorite escape on the weekend?

MUSIC?

A BOOK?

FRIENDS?

OR JUST

IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER

Another anomalous “perfect storm” or an orchestrated, coordinated “rigged storm”?

Consider this: 

Trump and his supporters like to say that if he loses, it’s because the election was rigged.  In light of the latest national polling numbers (and especially the more important individual state polling numbers), I’d submit that if Biden loses, then the election was definitely rigged… but rigged for Trump and against Biden.  How so?  

My evidence:

My evidence is NOT some conspiracy theory made up of surreptitious, under the table, covert tactics. No. I’m talking about right out loud, in your face, takes some major balls of steel, tactics. I’m talking about: 

1. Hacked state/local election systems and “intercepted” ballots by Russia and other foreign actors who favor a Trump presidency 

2. Voter suppression laws

3. USPS antics perpetrated by Trump supporter and contributor, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy

4. Limiting of polling places, especially in “blue” areas

5. Fake / limited / set ablaze / other ballot drop-off boxes 

6. Super long voting lines in non-white areas leading to hours of waiting time

7. The threat of militia-type gun-toting Trump supporters at polling places, intimidating prospective voters

8. The status quo of a country now in shambles and disarray (pandemic, economy, political, climate)

Therefore my conclusion:

The current evidence, some 11 days before the election, points to the conclusion that Biden *should* win.  Barring a Trump “ace up his sleeve” in an act of political desperation, how can Biden NOT win?

If all my evidence is wrong, and if Biden doesn’t win, what can account for the polling discrepancy?  A bipolar electorate? A dishonest polling electorate?  Last minute voter apathy? Incompetent and/or biased pollsters? Can the polling numbers really lie/be skewed to such a degree?

*        *        *

Am I seeing things incorrectly?  Explain it to me.  What am I missing?

(links below)

1. 

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3. 

4. 

5. 

6. 

7. 

8. (personal opinion)