Musing about my hobby: The evolution of pragmatic rationalism

The political news is bad, cruel and discouraging just about every day now. No surprise there -- it's that been that bad since January 2025. Based on America's current political and social trajectory, it looks like MAGA will try to seriously subvert the 2026 elections if they need subversion to stay in control of both the House and Senate. Of course, MAGA doesn't need and won't use subversion if voters voluntarily choose to keep the GOP in power. Voters just might do that, saving American authoritarianism the trouble of mass subversion.

This blog is my hobby. My hobby is advocating for pragmatic rationalism, a pro-democracy, pro-public interest political meta-ideology. Sure, MAGA and other authoritarian wealth and power movements and ideologies the world over also claim to be basically the same. But they are just liars. Unfortunately, MAGA liars are empowered by tens of millions of Americans who actually believe that MAGA really is pro-democracy and pro-public interest. For the most part, MAGA and its demagoguery is what's killing our democracy, rule of law and civil liberties. That's just fact.

Since engagement here has fallen off a cliff, keeping it going requires minimal time and effort on my part. So, I'll probably keep it going, maybe posting a bit less frequently. Doing the research for posts helps keep me in touch with some of the details of how Trump and MAGA are taking democracy, the rule of law, liberties, wealth and power from us. I'll keep sending my darts to journalists, opinionators, academics, editors, etc., when they let us down or turn against us, whether they know it or believe it or not. In response, they will continue to pretend I don't exist. What fun!

Since my fighting spirit isn't crushed yet and my time is coming to an end, I'll try to go ahead and finish writing a short book, Project 2026. It's a pro-democracy, pro-public interest response to MAGA's demagogic authoritarian-kleptocrat manifesto, Project 2025. To keep it simple, things like "manifesto" and "pragmatic rationalism" won't be in it. Links to data sources won't be in it. Just simple stuff. It'll just be short and non-technical, like Tim Snyder's short warning, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From The Twentieth Century (2017). Who knows? Maybe a couple dozen copies will sell! Woof!! 

(❁´◡`❁)

Here's a bit of Project 2026: 

An example of MAGA's potent demagoguery can be more edifying than abstract explanations. The following is from Project 2025, MAGA's authoritarian manifesto:

It’s not 1980. In 2023, the game has changed. The long march of cultural Marxism through our institutions has come to pass. The federal government is a behemoth, weaponized against American citizens and conservative values, with freedom and liberty under siege as never before. The task at hand to reverse this tide and restore our Republic to its original moorings is too great for any one conservative policy shop to spearhead. It requires the collective action of our movement. With the quickening approach of January 2025, we have two years and one chance to get it right. -- 

A Note On Project 2025, by Paul Dans, Director, Project 2025, page xiv.

The demagoguery in that is obvious. First, cultural Marxism has not marched through and captured any major US institution. Nothing major in America is Marxist. That includes institutions of higher education and the entire federal government. Simply put there is no credible evidence of a coordinated “cultural Marxist” plot to capture American institutions. That assertion is a radical right myth that dates back to the 1990s. It was just as false then as it is today. 

Second, the Manifesto's assertion of the US government being a “behemoth, weaponized against American citizens and conservative values” is an example of the propaganda tactic called rhetorical inversion. Weaponization of government against the people has not been a liberal or progressive endeavor. Instead, America's radical right has weaponized the rule of law, administrative independence, and democratic guardrails. Project 2025’s blueprint explicitly advocates for the politicization of the executive branch, the Justice Department, and the civil service, aiming to purge disloyal staff and centralize power in the presidency. America's radical right political movement is highly focused on twin goals of centralizing wealth and power with elites allied with MAGA authoritarianism. 

An honest version of reality looks something like this:

It’s not 1980. In 2016, the game changed. The long march of corrupt, radical right authoritarianism through our institutions has come to pass. The federal government is a monster, weaponized against American citizens, democratic values and honest governance. Freedom and liberty under siege as never before. The task at hand to reverse this dark, corrupt tide and save our representative democracy before it is swallowed in intolerant authoritarian radical right cruelty, corruption and moral darkness. The task at hand is too great for the broken Democratic Party to spearhead and implement a solid defense of democracy. The Republican Party has fallen to authoritarianism and cannot help. It will resist democratic efforts. The defense requires the collective action of the American people still willing to stand up for their democracy, liberties, wealth and power before it is irretrievably taken from them. With the rapid approach of November 2026, we have just one short year and one chance to get it right. 

Anyway, that's what's on my mind. 

American pathocracy: Stasis, moral cowardice, pathocracy & professional diagnosis

Dr. Bandy Lee 

Yale forensic psychiatrist

MAGA & STASIS

The matter of moral cowardice came up in the context of why it is usually ridiculously hard or impossible to get to stasis when talking to MAGA people about most disputed political matters. Stasis is the point at which people understand why they disagree. Stasis requires enough information exchange to rationally draw conclusions and form opinions. When one of the parties in disagreement refuses to state what facts and reasoning they rely on to form their beliefs, getting to stasis is impossible.

For most MAGA people, both elites and rank & file, it is impossible to reach stasis. By "most", an estimate of ~99% for elites and ~94% for the R&F feels about right. Why? The elites know that their rhetoric, facts and reasoning are mostly lies and crackpottery. They are proud liars for the authoritarian MAGA cause. No way will they ever allow people reach an honest, good faith stasis. They knowingly stick by their lies.

By contrast, the R&F needs to be in denial about the rotten basis for their MAGA beliefs. They are in a self-defense mode against the massive cognitive dissonance they need to protect themselves against. Psychologically, they simply can't let the conversation get to stasis. It's just too painful. They really believe the lies and crackpottery are true. They have to believe that for take a massive hit to their self-esteem and world view.

Moral cowardice

In view of the foregoing, describing the resistance of MAGA people to allowing stasis as moral cowardice seemed reasonable, especially for the elites because they know better. Early in the rise of MAGA authoritarianism in 2016, the R&F had a partial moral shield of being deceived and ignorant. Over time their shield melted away. By now, they should know better because they are adults and the truth is easily accessed. The elites never had the ignorance shield. They always were knowing, cynical liars, slanderers and crackpotters. Moral rot and cowardice was always deep and broad with that crowd.

Pathocracy & the pathocrat

It was pointed out to me that calling the really bad elites in MAGAlandia "moral cowards" is inaccurate. Apparently that is completely or almost completely true. It turns out that some people have little (sociopaths, ~4%) or no (psychopaths, ~1%) conscience. They are (i) influenced by bad life experiences[1], and (ii) atypical neurodevelopment arising from genetic factors in the conscience neural machinery. If a person has little to no conscience, they arguably can't be moral cowards. From what I can tell, MAGA elites like Trump, Russ Vought, Pam Bondi, etc. are at least sociopaths, more likely psychopaths. They have little to no moral compass. They aren't accurately called moral cowards. They are something else, but it's worse.

Pathocrat: An individual with a severe personality disorder—typically psychopathy, narcissism, or Antisocial Personality Disorder—who seeks and gains power over others. Pathocrats are characterized by lack of empathy, absence of remorse, manipulativeness, and an insatiable need for domination. They view other people as objects to be exploited, not moral beings.

Pathocracy: A system of government in which pathocrats occupy positions of power and control. In a pathocracy, a small group of pathological individuals dominates a society of mostly normal people. The pathocrats actively recruit other similarly disordered individuals into the government while systematically removing empathetic and principled people from positions of authority.

Research indicates that psychopathic leaders have a powerful drive for domination. Once in power, a leader with an Antisocial Personality Disorder thrives on continuing conflict and never seeks peace or compromise.

Does any of that feel familiar? 

Ethics: Professional diagnosis & the Goldwater Rule

The Goldwater Rule: An ethical code specific to psychiatry created by the American Psychiatric Association in response to events surrounding the USA presidential election of 1964, in which the integrity of the psychiatric profession was challenged. Some people thought Goldwater was nuts, captured in these opposing campaign slogans:

Repubs: In your heart, you know he's right. .... Dems: But in your guts, you know he's nuts.

The ethical debate boils down to this: Is it more unethical if (1) mental health professionals that the public can trust to diagnoses a MAGA politician like Trump without him being personally diagnosed, or (2) trust the politician to tell us if they are mentally ill or not? 

Having no moral compass, pathocrats are shameless, chronic liars. Lying doesn't faze 'em in the slightest. Neither does shameless hypocrisy. Trump's track record of shameless, chronic lying is rock solid. That includes him lying about his medical conditions.

Back in Goldwater's day, the mental health community deemed it to be unethical to diagnose without direct personal testing. Now, because Trump and other MAGA pathocrats have the power to kill or seriously harm hundreds of thousands of Americans, the ethics balance has tipped. Now, many or most mental health care professionals are OK with diagnosing Trump. The ethical question is this: 

Is it more ethical for professionals with expertise to diagnose from a distance and inform the public what a politician is, or does the potential damage from a mistaken mental health diagnosis outweigh the harm to the politician and/or the public?

Q: Is Trump a pathocrat, or something close to it, who is trying building a pathocracy?[2]

Footnotes:

1. Mostly bad childhood experiences such as relational trauma before age 10​, bad home environments, foster care, and/or​ neglectful or abusive parenting. Emotional abuse is part of the childhoods of most hard core psychopaths.

2. So far, no mental health professionals have diagnosed Trump as a pathocrat. But, multiple mental health professionals have publicly assessed Trump from a distance. That breaks with the Goldwater Rule. They say that he represents a unique, deadly danger to public safety, justifying the rule breaking. Their assessments describe him as having traits associated with severe personality pathology, including malignant narcissism, a dangerous combination of narcissism, psychopathy, antisocial traits, and sadism. 

Guess why MAGA elites constantly

attack and discredit experts

Getting to stasis: Why so freaking hard?

CONTEXT

Stasis in rhetoric is a systematic method for analyzing arguments and identifying the key point of disagreement in any debate or controversy. The term derives from the Greek word meaning "standstill" or "conflict," referring to the point where an argument must be resolved for discussion to either reach a resolution of disagreement or a point of understanding why disagreement remains. Points of disagreement that cannot be resolved often, probably usually, are grounded in conflicting definitions of concepts. Trying to reach stasis is valuable for political disagreements because it is a way to begin to talk more calmly, more rationally, about any dispute, by uncovering the ways people talk past each another. That helps people actually address the real issues.

This post illuminates the stasis issue using the Abe Lincoln debates with Stephen Douglas. FWIW, Lincoln won the debate but lost the election.

In the 1990s, political rhetoric from the right sounded more and more like nonsense. By November 1998, that prompted my serious dive into politics. It was a quest to understand why I often could not understand what those people were saying. Well now I know. They speak or appeal to things like intuitions, emotions, unconscious cognitive biases, and social loyalties to tribe or ideology. Back then I didn't speak primarily to those things. Still don't.

Speaking different political languages makes getting to stasis hard. So does the often present plague of You can't handle the truth! I call it moral cowardice. 

An example

A few other folks have the same issue. Here's an example from the ProfsBlawg, where lawyers commentate and whatnot. Lindsey Halligan is the utterly inexperienced and grossly unqualified MAGA lawyer that Trump "dubiously appointed" to abuse federal law in pursuit of his alleged enemies such as former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Adam Schiff. 

Beyond conclusions

Anna Bowers has an unbelievable Lawfare piece about her text exchanges with dubiously appointed EDVa US Attorney Lindsey Halligan. Halligan initiated contact with Bowers out of the blue to complain about Halligan retweeting a NYT story on the Letitia James indictment and then to retroactively take the exchange off the record.

The exchange captures what I hate about exchanges between reporters and public officials, especially attorneys–it never gets beyond conclusions, whining, and insults. Halligan repeatedly tells Bowers her reporting is inaccurate but never (despite Bower’s repeated requests) explains why. When Halligan requests details–more than conclusions–Halligan insults her and her reporting with more unsupported conclusions (you’re biased, you’ll be completely discredited, you don’t report fairly). Bowers pushed back and demanded more detail rather than letting the conclusions stand; that pushed Halligan to more whining and insults, before making a demand that no reporter would grant and that no competent public official would make.

Halligan’s conclusory responses–conclude, repeat talking points, insult–resemble what we hear from Trump and other government people every day. Bowers’s pushback distinguishes this from every news conference and talk-show interview, exposing the vacuousness of the conversation.

Qs: See why it's hard to get to stasis? See why I call the difficulty of facing reality as a matter of moral cowardice? See why MAGA rhetoric doesn't make sense most of the time?

MAGA's public health insanity: Innocents will be killed

MAGA's reality and reason-detached world is a strange thing to behold. Watching its nuttery and stupidity grow from fringe to mainstream shows the human condition and how the mind can operate when poisoned by demagogic pseudoscience. 

An AP article, Anti-science bills hit statehouses, stripping away public health protections built over a century, makes clear MAGA's anti-science public health insanity. In Minnesota, Republican state legislators introduced a proposed bill to ban mRNA vaccines as bioweapons. Through November 2022, after two years of vaccination, COVID-19 mRNA vaccines prevented ~3.2 million deaths and more than 18.5 million hospitalizations in the US. Vaccinations saved about $1.1 trillion in medical costs. The mRNA vaccines are very safe. The only bioweapons involved here are MAGA Republicans. Democrats are not part of MAGA's anti-science lunacy.

MAGA anti-science freaks in Arkansas want to make harm from vaccines illegal. 

 

Instead of making it illegal to refuse to get vaccinated and causing harm or deaths to others, MAGA gets ass-backwards what makes scientific sense. They want the opposite. These MAGA freaks are both malicious and insane.

In Oklahoma, MAGA freaks want to legalize selling raw Donkey Milk. That is going to kill some people too.

The AP article quotes an expert stating the obvious, MAGA's anti-science stupidity is going to kill people:

“The march of conspiracy thinking from the margins to the mainstream now guiding public policy should be a wake-up call for all Americans,” said Devin Burghart, president and executive director of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, who has tracked the anti-vaccine movement for decades. “People are literally going to die from it as a result.”