THE ROCK FOR PRESIDENT!!

 

Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson teases White House run after surprise poll

A poll of more than 30,000 Americans conducted by Piplsay found nearly half of respondents — 46 percent — willing to consider the candidacy of a future President Rock.

https://nypost.com/2021/04/10/dwayne-the-rock-johnson-teases-white-house-run-after-poll/?_ga=2.85544729.1485339358.1618118435-2146874233.1618118435

Evidence of Threat to American Democracy and Its Rule of Law

This discussion is longer than most, but what it contains strikes me as important and urgent.

Several recent discussions here assert that there is an immediate, dire threat to democracy and the rule of law. The threat is asserted to come from radical right groups and propaganda sources like Fox News, the Sinclair Broadcasting behemoth, etc., the republican party leadership and elites and at least some rank and file republicans who are deceived into a sincere belief that they are fighting to defend democracy and the rule of law. 

Obviously, the American people are not a monolith in their beliefs. For example, I characterize the 1/6 attack on the US capitol as terrifying and a coup attempt. But that is a minority opinion. For example, Pew Research found that only 14% of Americans surveyed indicated “surprise/concern for country” and only 13% blamed Trump. Just 9% of Americans were critical of the law enforcement response to the sacking, 8% describe it as a “coup attempt” or as “domestic terrorism” and a mere 3% claimed to be scared about it. That lack of fear by Americans and their failure to connect T**** with the coup attempt really frightens me. A lot. I am undeniably out of synch with most Americans on this issue.

But does that poll data on the 1/6 coup attempt accurately reflect the seriousness of what I firmly claim to be a deadly serious attack by the radical right, including at least the GOP leadership, on democracy and the rule of law? Other people saw the threat going at least back to a couple of days after the 2016 election. Russian journalist Masha Gessen, who witnessed the fall of democracy in Russia to tyrants and kleptocrats, was blunt about what she saw:

“Thank you, my friends. Thank you. Thank you. We have lost. We have lost, and this is the last day of my political career, so I will say what must be said. We are standing at the edge of the abyss. Our political system, our society, our country itself are in greater danger than at any time in the last century and a half. The president-elect has made his intentions clear, and it would be immoral to pretend otherwise. We must band together right now to defend the laws, the institutions, and the ideals on which our country is based.”

 
That, or something like that, is what Hillary Clinton should have said on Wednesday [in her concession speech to T****].

An article in the current issue of Washington Monthly, America’s Next Insurgency, posits this: “The January 6 violence could signal the start of nationwide conflict not seen since the Civil War. Can we stop it?” WM writes:

The present United States may be more polarized than it has been at any time since the 1850s. Large swaths of the population simply refuse to accept the election of political opponents as legitimate. Many of the social issues that divide us, in particular questions of systemic discrimination, stem from slavery.

Most frighteningly, research suggests that a growing number of Americans believe that political violence is acceptable. In a 2017 survey by the political scientists Lilliana Mason and Nathan Kalmoe, 18 percent of Democrats and 12 percent of Republicans said that violence would be at least a little justified if the opposing party won the presidency. In February 2021, those numbers increased to 20 percent and 28 percent, respectively. Other researchers have found an even bigger appetite for extreme activity. In a January poll conducted by the American Enterprise Institute, researchers asked respondents whether “the traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it.” Thirty-six percent of Americans, and an astounding 56 percent of Republicans, said yes.

All of this raises a serious question: Could the United States experience prolonged, acute civil violence?

According to dozens of interviews with former and current government officials, counterterrorism researchers, and political scientists who study both the U.S. and other countries, the answer is yes. “I think that the conditions are pretty clearly headed in that direction,” says Katrina Mulligan, the managing director for national security and international policy at the Center for American Progress and the former director for preparedness and response in the national security division at the Department of Justice (DOJ). The insurrection on “January 6 was a canary in the coal mine in a way, precisely because it wasn’t a surprise to those of us who have been following this.” 

But officials and researchers overwhelmingly agreed on the main source of the threat: the radical right. Despite overwrought warnings of “antifa,” it has been extreme conservatives who have driven into crowds of protestors, killing liberal activists. No leftists have murdered police officers or security guards, as right-wing fanatics did last summer in California. Progressives have not called for a race war or the bloody overthrow of the federal government. “Primarily, this is a far-right problem,” Napolitano said. “We saw it pretty clearly expressed on January 6.” 

Unfortunately, the Biden administration might not have much more luck fighting insurgents on the home front. The economic dislocation and misplaced cultural grievances that are driving discontent are not easy to fix, especially with our knotty political system. And even if the president can tackle these challenges, the institutions that are trusted by the right—incendiary conservative politicians, Fox News, talk radio grifters, Facebook commentators obsessed with “owning the libs,” and, above all else, Donald Trump—have no incentive to stop peddling lies or to cool their tone. Hate works to their political and financial benefit. 

“We can run around and do targeting operations. The FBI can sweep up dudes nonstop,” says Jason Dempsey, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a former special assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But political violence is, ultimately, a political problem. So long as the GOP remains in thrall to the far right, attackers will have enough support to regenerate. “If you don’t address that,” Dempsey says, “then no amount of tactical action will ever get you ahead of the game.” (emphasis added)

There is also evidence of significant public support for a potential military intervention and/or closing down Congress. The Washington Post indicates that both voters and non-voters share such views:   

Our research finds that, in fact, substantial numbers of U.S. adults say they would embrace ruptures in the constitutional order, which is in keeping with Bright Line Watch findings that experts believe that measures of U.S. democracy have declined under President Trump.

Whether his supporters believe it or not, the former president was and still is not democratic (in my opinion). He was and is an authoritarian autocrat with a lot of hostility toward democracy, especially elections, and the rule of law. Based on that data, most republican believe T****-style democracy, i.e., autocracy, is just fine.

Another cause for concern lies with arguably inadequate laws and/or reluctance to enforce existing laws in the face of right wing domestic terrorism. Once source comments on this:

“When someone like [Tree of Life synagogue shooter] Robert Bowers kills18 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue, and he’s not considered a domestic terrorist because he used a handgun and not a weapon of mass destruction. It really points to the absurdity of the law as it exists today,” Blazakis told The Intercept. “If that were an individual inspired by ISIS, they’d be charged with an act of terrorism. 

Collectively, that evidence is convincing to me that democracy and the rule of law are under a severe attack and most of the danger, about 90% in my opinion, comes from the republican party leadership and radical right conservatism and propaganda generally. 

Questions: Is that content and analysis too biased-prejudiced and/or the evidence too cherry picked to be persuasive? Is Antifa and/or governance by democrats much more of a threat than just ~10%, say ~50% or even 90%? If there is widespread delusional thinking and belief, is it mostly on the left or the right, or roughly equal on both sides? Are the information sources not trustworthy and thus the evidence is not true or believable?

Thanks to PD for raising most of the information this discussion is based on.

An American Culture Divide: Honor Culture

The program Hidden Brain that NPR broadcasts weekly recently aired a segment, Made of Honor, about honor culture. That strikes me as one source of the deep cultural divide that is tearing American society, politics and governance apart. This difference in cultural mindset tends to lead some modern Americans to distrust and dislike or even hate each other. I first came across this concept a few years ago, but this 54 minute broadcast lays it out with clarity and in detail. 

In brief, researchers believe that honor culture came to America mostly from southern Scotland immigrants. Most of those immigrants and their descendants settled mostly in the American south and west. Honor culture tends to thrive in small rural communities. In some contexts this can be a good thing. But when the honor of someone in such a community has received a threat to their honor, the results can be catastrophic. Even relatively small verbal insults to honor can lead to violence.

In a 2021 paper, To be Liked or Feared: Honor-Oriented Men’s Sensitivity to Masculine Reputation Concerns Depends on Status-Seeking Strategy, by the researcher interviewed for this program, Ryan Brown, the honor culture is described like this:

Cultures of honor are societies that strongly emphasize values of loyalty and integrity, as well as the need to defend and maintain one’s reputation. Research has focused heavily on men’s acquisition of repute as tough and masculine and their use of physical aggression for reputational defense, but much less is known about whether men display similar vigilance in managing their reputation for other elements of honor (e.g., loyalty, integrity). The two primary routes for men in honor cultures to acquire reputation—through acts of aggression or integrity—resemble evolutionary accounts of status acquisition in which men can gain status via dominance or prestige.

.... the present work tested the hypotheses that (1) honor endorsement would positively predict both status seeking strategies, (2) that dominance-strategists would be sensitive to masculinity threats and boosts, and (3) that honor-oriented men’s sensitivity to masculinity threats (and boosts) would be indirectly explained by the use of dominance-based, but not prestige-based, strategies to acquire status and reputation. Results supported these hypotheses. We also found evidence that the prestige-based strategy seemed to buffer against masculinity threats.

In honor culture the reputation of a person and their family is paramount. An insult can provoke a physical or sometimes violent reaction. Dignity culture mindsets tend to be less physically confrontational. One source described honor vs dignity culture differences like this: 

Honor cultures place importance on socially conferred worth, reputation, and a positive social image, all of which can be granted or taken away by others. In contrast, dignity cultures place importance on context independent, individual, and inherent worth, which is less affected by the social regard of others. Thus, responding to insults is more important in honor cultures than dignity cultures.

The soil that honor culture grows in: Two factors, (1) insecurity associated with poverty and economic instability, and (2) weak trust or belief in the rule of law tend to give rise to and maintain an honor culture mindset. When those two factors are prominent in a mindset, a solid personal reputation is needed to deal with both concerns, even if the concerns are mostly illusions. One's reputation is what will keep others from messing with a person, their family and their possessions. People know that a person with a solid reputation will respond aggressively and sometimes violently to threats or transgressions. Reputation is protection.

Although honor culture tends to be socially polite, threats or insults can easily and quickly escalate into physical confrontation or occasional violence. Because honor culture a social norm, it carried over into modern America even though the conditions that honor culture arose in centuries ago in Scotland[1] are no longer relevant. In a dignity culture, a person tends to retain their social status, but in an honor culture, lost status tends to be hard or impossible to regain so it has to be actively defended, by force if deemed necessary.

What about politics?

Ryan Brown's research finds a consistent but only modest correlation with honor and conservatism. But if honor's perceived political opposition can be singled out and made to appear to be disrespectful, that can create an illusion that the opposition is an enemy and thus subject to harsh treatment. I suspect that is why phrases such as "the enemy of the people" is used by partisan propagandists to foment negative emotional responses against political opposition. In politics, the enemy is not right in front of the average person. From the broadcast it is not apparent how important honor is in partisan culture wars. I suspect it is not trivial (~10% influential?) but do not have an empirical basis to attach a level of influence.

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Topics touched on in the broadcast include these: 

32:30 - in experiments with actors staging a man verbally attacking his female partner, women in honor culture respond more positively to men showing honor in their attack - honor women try to soften a man's honor grounded attack in public more on a than when a woman is attacked on non-honor grounds (Tammy Wynett: Stand by Your Man)

35:00  - Afghanistan honor culture, probably the most extreme in the world - police responses to domestic violence generally favor men

36:15 - laws in honor states - stand your ground laws & castle doctrine self-defense rises in prominence over murder

~41:00 honor is in defense of self, family and group

42:00 mental health stigmas in honor culture - there is less investment in mental health care funding and availability in honor states 

43:30  honor and suicide - suicide from dishonor and self-inflicted shame among white men is higher, especially as age increases

~47:00 gun ownership - best predictor of suicide rates; suicide rate is higher in honor states than dignity states, regardless of gun ownership

48:13 - honor and politics - red vs blue states - consistent but modest connection between honor and conservatism; honor ideology disconnects from political ideology, but they can sometimes be combined - demonized political out-group in honor mindsets becomes the enemy and needs to be treated harshly (killed)

50:30 - honor means loyalty and caring for close people - but also it's sometimes a hair trigger for self-defense in face of disrespect

Footnote:

1. Honor cultures also arose in other places, including Africa and Asia. The most influential source in modern America appears to be the UK, mainly Scotland. 

Honest Discourse -- fake news, propaganda, and the market of ideas

 I recently discussed a topic in my Philosophy Cafe that you folks would probably get something out of.  It was a set of thoughts and musings about Honest Discourse, fake news, propaganda, and democracy.  Here you folks go -- my Phil Cafe discussion seed:  

 Musings on Fake News and honesty in a democracy

One of the better approaches I have seen to the morality of honesty, is a Libertarian argument.  It goes: 

·         we require knowledge to make effective decisions. 

·         and every lie told, degrades the quality of information available to us

·         therefore lying is a form of theft from everyone, and causes everyone else’s situation to worsen.  

There is a similar form of argument relative to the policy choices of a democracy, and fake news:

·         democracies must make choices about policy direction

·         those choices  will be effective only if there is a reasonably working Free Market of Ideas, plus valid data to evaluate and inform those Ideas

·         Fake news – propaganda – sabotages that free market of ideas, and poisons the data supply

·         Propagandists are therefore anti-democracy, by weakening effectiveness, also anti-the welfare of the nation they operate within (anti-patriots).

*What do you folks think of these two arguments, and how important/relevant do you consider them to our current political discourse? 

However, “rhetoric” (the art of persuasion, whether dishonest or not) was a skill taught in the ancient democracies, and there was nothing like a free press to provide them real rather than fake news.  So our ancient democracies were formed in an environment with dishonesty, and likely fake news as features.  Also, the idea of dishonesty in political speech, and the spreading of fake news, was considered a major public good by one of our major political theorists, Machiavelli.  And our current democracy has had political calumny, and propagandizing newspapers, plus a yellow press, as central features of its politics from the beginning. 

*So – is democracy robust enough to survive fake news, and intrinsic dishonesty by politicians and their supporters?  Does history show it is?  Or, because ancient democracies fell, and modern ones appear to be easily subverted, does it show they are instead fragile/unstable? 

I tend to trace the current situation to the Soviet Union, whose Communist party adopted the principle that “everything is politics”.  IE, power is the end all and be all of any moral thinking, and if one is in the right (Communism was a moral movement, to break the eternal monopoly of power of the robber baron oligarchs), then one SHOULD do everything possible to get and keep power, to prevent the evil “others” from displacing one’s morally just movement from implementing good policies.  In the area of honesty and news, this leads to what I call “Pravda truth” after the Soviet party newspaper, Pravda.  It very absurdly could change policy daily about what was “true” in a given subject, based on the party-identified political advantages of the day. 

Politicians have long recognized that the unrestricted pursuit of “Pravda Truth” in politics can lead to national catastrophe.  This lead to a guideline in US politics “politics ends at the nation’s borders” or “at the edge of the sea”.  The idea was that political lies to gain power that don’t affect foreign relations are OK, but that once one gets involved with other countries, the harm to the nation from “Pravda Truth” is severe enough that politicians should forego any short term advantage Pravda Truth offers.   I consider the unrestricted application of Pravda Truth to our politics to have been initiated by Newt Gingrich,  and subsequently to have been adopted by much of the Republican party.  Its spread, primarily to Republicans since then, but increasingly across the entire political spectrum, strikes me as a new event – WORSE than what the US politics looked like relative to truth in the past. 

*Is my tracing of this extreme approach to truth to the Soviets appropriate? 

*Do you folks agree that Newt Gingrich was a key negative actor, and that the spread across the Rep party today, and beyond in the future, is a reasonable description of what is happening? 

*Is the current US truth environment really a major change of mode?

*If it is new, is the history I noted no longer relevant? 

One further point -- Fake News/propaganda for it to serve a political movement, faces a major challenge. A political movement benefits form its own Free Market of ideas, where it can find better policies, tactics, and rationales. But such a dialog cannot take place in a propaganda Fake News forum. The policy that is being propagandized for, cannot be debated or tweaked in a propaganda forum. It seem to me that such movements therefore must either operate secret discussion fora, which creates an extreme risk of leaks that could sabotage the propaganda, or must do without any self-examination and revision whatsoever.

* Is the problem of difficulty of tuning/revision of a political message actually a problem for Fake News movements?

*Can two levels of fora work?

*What happens to propaganda movements that cannot operate two levels of discussion outlets, the public and the secret?

Here is one possible answer to my last question: https://getpocket.com/explore/item/most-dictators-self-destruct-why?utm_source=pocket-newtab. It notes that propaganda movements that believe their own propaganda (don't operate an effective "realism" fora) make gross mistakes, that lead to their falling. Of course, there was almost 2000 years between the Roman Republic and the American Revolution, so history adds the caveat that they may fall, but then get replaced with another propaganda movement ...

 

by dcleve