PROFILE OF A DEPLORABLE?

A personal observation by SNOWFLAKE

I listen almost daily to talk radio, mainly on a station called POTUS, and particularly on "call in" shows.
Almost without fail, the pro-Trumpers that call in to these shows will continually deflect to Hunter and Joe Biden to explain away Trump's actions that got him impeached.
They also spout the nonsense about the "deep state" and "fake news media" and hearing them on the radio gives you a whole new perspective on their ilk, they sound angry, they twist their own words into knots, and frankly sound uneducated.
All of them? Well, NO, not all, but most that I have heard, but then again, that IS talk radio for you.

Then you go to social media, outlets like Disqus used to be, and others, including facebook and twitter, and what you read from Trump supporters is nauseating, and let's for ONCE be honest here, people who post pictures of Michelle Obama having a penis, or Obama being a monkey, or calling everyone on the left Libtards or Libturds, are beneath out dignity to talk to.

There are in fact Disqus offshoots that behave this way, where there is no moderation that I can see, where it is a free-for-all slander of anyone or anything that isn't pro-Trump.

NOW FOR THE OTHER SHOE:

In my private life I know of very few pro-Trumpers, guess it is just the circle of people around me don't lean that way, BUT... I do know a few.

They are hard working honest Americans, admittedly as white bread as you can get, who are NOT bigoted, but will in fact point to the economy, talk about their 401K, their concerns about illegal immigration, but are still socially in the middle, accepting of minorities and gay people.
They don't love Trump, but they like his policies and are willing to look the other way on how he talks and how he behaves.
They might even be willing to drop their support for him, except, in their eyes, they don't see an alternative, they hear and see a Left that wants to impose universal health care on everyone whether they want to keep their private health care or not, who they believe will take away their guns (as opposed to just regulating them), they genuinely believe that China has successfully stripped our nation of manufacturing jobs. 

These people are NOT deplorables, they might, if you care to look at them this way, be delusional, misguided, uniformed, OR...
YOU could argue they have not seen anything better on the Left, other than the constant barrage of impeachment probes from the day Trump took office. 

IT IS ABOUT THE MESSAGING FOLKS:
These Trump supporters see two things: That they are being labeled as "deplorables" and that they want to hear how the Democrats will help them in real ways not in pie-in-the-sky ways and enough of this impeachment business, what about the business of providing real alternatives that speak to average every-day middle class and middle Americans.

These pro-Trumpers I know are not the kind you will find on twitter or facebook or commenting on far right social network platforms or who call into radio talk shows to attack the "libtards", these are people fed up at being talked down to like they are idiots and children, and as long as we treat them like that, they won't change their vote.

YES - in conclusion - even those people I know personally who are pro-Trumpers I do find uninformed, maybe even delusional, BUT they are voters, they are family people, they believe in their community, their church, they would give YOU the shirt off their back if you were in trouble - so the question remains - HOW should we talk to them?

Charting the Flow of Political Power: The 1880 Conspectus of American Politics

The National Museum of American History has an amazing graphic that shows the flow of political power from colonial times to 1880. The museum describes the graphic like this:

Moving from left to right, a timeline of parties, policies, persons, and events courses like a river through graphic space marked in four-year intervals. The analogy between politics and springs and rivulets (that jump and rejoin their banks) is the most conspicuous feature of the timeline. The parties appear in different colors. The ascendance of a party is gauged as its stream rises above the centerline, and above the streams of other parties. The thickness of a stream indicates the party’s strength.

To get control of the graphic, you need to go to the museum link given above, click on the graphic and then you can zoom in and see political parties and their flow over that time period. You can also see key policies the parties advocated over time and how that changed.

1880 Conspectus of American Politics

Chapter Review: Lies for the Public Good

Chapter 12 of Sissella Bok's book (1999 edition), Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life, focuses on the rationales and consequences of governments and politicians lying to the public for its own good. In general, Bok finds good reasons to not lie to the public for its own good, except possibly in rare, extraordinary circumstances. She lays out the main excuses for lies like this: “.... three circumstances have seemed to liars to provide the strongest excuse for their behavior -- a crisis where overwhelming harm can be averted only through deceit; complete harmlessness and triviality [of the lie]; and the duty to particular individuals to protect their secrets.”

She rejects all three defenses for lies as almost always inadequate because lies easily and usually expand to more lies that create harms of their own that outweigh whatever good there may have been. Lies often beget more lies and that may decrease belief in truth for most people. That is just human biology. She also points out that when the liar’s rationale for lying is examined closely, is it usually far less compelling than the liar asserts. In other words, liars tend to lie about why they lie. All three rationales constitute often overlapping streams of lies that can flow together to “form the most dangerous body of deceit of all.”

Bok argues that government and politician lies, allegedly to avert public harm from imminent threat, are usually intended to avoid official or personal embarrassment and/or crimes. The threats tend to be overblown or non-existent. Lies to protect secrets in the public interest tend to be excuses to hide and protect private gain. A problem that some liars suffer from is human bias. They underestimate or even completely reject the ill and morally corrupting effects of lies. Many liars have the arrogance to believe that if the lies are revealed, the public would not complain and might even be grateful to have been duped. Other liars know better, but don't let that to hold them back. Different liars operate on different levels of immorality.

In that regard, three wars are relevant, WW1, WW2, and Vietnam. Bok discusses WW2 and Vietnam. For WWI, the federal government mounted a massive propaganda campaign to coax isolationist America into the slaughter in the name of making the world safe for democracy. In WW2, FDR nudged isolationist America into accepting the war in a series of steps of deceit. In Vietnam, Johnson lied about wanting peace to win the election although he fully intended to escalate the war. Bok asserts that maybe FDR’s lies might be justified in view of the very real threat, but that was not close to the case for WW1 or Vietnam. Vietnam was purely for Johnson’s political career. Arguably, support for the war in Iraq was also grounded in lies to the American people, e.g., it will be over fast and not cost much in lives or treasure. Bok describes Johnson's deceit and its consequences:

“[Johnson repeatedly told the American people] ‘the first responsibility, the only real issue in this campaign, the only thing you ought to be concerned about at all, is: Who can best keep the peace?’ The stratagem succeeded; the election was won; the war escalated. .... President Johnson thus denied the electorate of any chance to give or refuse consent to the escalation of the war in Vietnam. Believing they had voted for the candidate of peace, American citizens were, within months, deeply embroiled in one of the cruelest wars in their history. Deception of this kind strikes at the very essence of democratic government.”

Bok also points out that government and politicians usually falsely believe that their lies will never become public. An excellent example is the recent revelation that, after three of fighting for the documents in court, that the American government repeatedly lied to the American people about the dismal status of, and prospects for, the war in Afghanistan. Government fought hard to keep the American people deceived, but eventually the truth came out and more public trust in government was lost.

People cannot consent - power flows to the liar

Bok argues that when people are lied to, they cannot consent to what the lie leads to. Power flows from the people to the liars and the interests they protect. Most people believe that political candidates and government lies often and that alienates and leads many people to not vote or trust much or anything a candidate or government says. Lies damage democracy, honest governance, civil society and the rule of law. The power of political lies can be summarized like this:

“When political representatives or entire governments arrogate to themselves the right to lie, they take power from the public that would not have been given up voluntarily. .... But such cases [that justify lying] are so rare that they hardly exist for practical purposes. .... The consequences of spreading deception, alienation and lack of trust could not have been documented for us more concretely than they have in the past decades. We have had a very vivid illustration of how lies undermine our political system. .... Those in government and other positions of trust should be held to the highest standards. Their lies are not ennobled by their positions; quite the contrary. .... only those deceptive practices which can be openly debated and consented to in advance are justifiable in a democracy.”

No wonder that people distrust our democratic government and each other. We are awash in an ocean of unjustifiable political lies. Dark free speech is winning its endless immoral war against democracy, honest governance and the rule of law.

Truth Is Under Attack

A New York Times article lays out an argument that truth itself is under a major direct attack. Is the argument persuasive? The NYT writes:

“An impeachment hearing on Capitol Hill presented radically competing versions of reality. An F.B.I. inspector general report punctured longstanding conspiracy theories even as it provided ammunition for others. And a trove of documents exposed years of government deception about the war in Afghanistan. 

While truth was deemed an endangered species in the nation’s capital long before President Trump’s arrival, it has become axiomatic in the era of ‘alternative facts’ that each person or party entertains only their own preferred variant, resisting contrary information. Rarely has that been on display as starkly as on Monday, underscoring the deep distrust that many Americans harbor toward their leaders and institutions. 

‘We’re in a dangerous moment,’ said Peter Wehner, a former strategic adviser to President George W. Bush and a vocal critic of Mr. Trump. ‘The danger is people come to believe that nobody is giving them the facts and reality, and everybody can make up their own script and their own narrative.’ 

In such a situation, he added, “truth as a concept gets obliterated because people’s investment in certain narratives is so deep that facts simply won’t get in the way.” 

“The story of the past half-century is the steady degradation of trust in the institutions and gatekeepers of American life,” said Ben Domenech, the founder of The Federalist, a conservative news site. ‘Everything from politics to faith to sports has been revealed as corrupted or corruptible. And every mismanaged war, failed hurricane response, botched investigation and doping scandal furthers this view.’”

Is truth under attack from the president and his supporters? Is there equivalence or near equivalence on this matter among republicans, democrats and the business community?

Reasons to say Bah Humbug! at Christmas

Ebenezer Scrooge had it right. There is so much palaver about Christmas these days that we should just skip it altogether.

Here are the five biggest reasons why I'm over Christmas! 

In my father’s time, people from his rural village in Ireland walked to the big town for midnight mass, rain or shine.

They wore shoes, perhaps for the only time that year, determined to show the townies they were as good as them. During the day, after the simple presents, they walked to the rambling house, the one in the village where the storytelling began. It was a simple Christmas just like it should be.

Now we can hardly walk on the sidewalks here in New York so vast are the throngs seeking the bargains to give to the kids who have everything but nothing.

Did you know Christmas was on the wane before Charles Dickens reinvented it?

That’s how fake it is.

The victoriaweb.org says:

“It was 'A Christmas Carol,' by Dickens, published on December 19, 1843, that has preserved the Christmas customs of olde England and fixed our image of the holiday season as one of wind, ice, and snow without, and smoking bishop, piping hot turkey, and family cheer within. Coming from a family large but not-too-well-off, Charles Dickens presents, again and again, his idealized memory of a Christmas associated with the gathering of the family which ‘bound together all our home enjoyments, affections, and hopes.’”

The most annoying thing for me is how political the term “Merry Christmas” has become.

You can’t say Happy Holidays, including Hanukkah or Kwanza, without the religious right seeking to castrate you for being inclusive. PS, dear religious right, Jesus was Jewish last time I checked. Thanks to Fox News there was a phony war on Christmas and Donald Trump has very deliberately stated “Merry Christmas” in recent remarks.

And did you know Coca-Cola invented Santa as we know him, plump, jolly and merry?

Until 1931, Santa was often an elf or a skinny old man in a green coat. Then Coke got involved.

According to the Coca-Cola archives in 1931 the company began placing Coca-Cola ads in popular magazines. Archie Lee, the D'Arcy Advertising Agency executive working with The Coca-Cola Company, wanted the campaign to show a wholesome Santa who was both realistic and symbolic. So Coca-Cola commissioned Michigan-born illustrator Haddon Sundblom to develop advertising images using Santa Claus — showing Santa himself, not a man dressed as Santa. Not blaming Coke but the “real” Santa is as fake as a three dollar bill.

For inspiration, Sundblom turned to Clement Clark Moore's 1822 poem "A Visit From St. Nicholas" (commonly called "'Twas the Night Before Christmas"). Moore's description of St. Nick led to an image of a warm, friendly, pleasantly plump and human Santa. (And even though it's often said that Santa wears a red coat because red is the color of Coca-Cola, Santa appeared in a red coat before Sundblom painted him.)

Sundblom’s  Santa debuted in 1931 in Coke ads in The Saturday Evening Post and appeared regularly in that magazine, as well as in Ladies Home Journal, National Geographic, The New Yorker and others.

I also dislike how early Christmas is starting nowadays.

There are Christmas shops open all year round, and in Ireland, a major store started Santa in September. Here in America Thanksgiving gets in the way, but don’t be surprised if someone begins a campaign to move Thanksgiving to the week after July 4th in order to make more money jingle in their pockets.

So, as I say, Bah! Humbug! Boo!

Niall O'Dowd

Dec 09, 2019

https://www.irishcentral.com/culture/craic/bah-humbug-christmas

Government Lies About Afghanistan

In another deeply discouraging revelation, the Washington Post has obtained documents clearly showing that American officials were, yet again, lying to the American people about the status of the Afghanistan war. WaPo obtained the documents after a three-year legal fight under the Freedom of Information Act. This is Vietnam deja vu all over again. The WaPo writes:

A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable. 

The documents were generated by a federal project examining the root failures of the longest armed conflict in U.S. history. They include more than 2,000 pages of previously unpublished notes of interviews with people who played a direct role in the war, from generals and diplomats to aid workers and Afghan officials.

“We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan — we didn’t know what we were doing,” Douglas Lute, a three-star Army general who served as the White House’s Afghan war czar during the Bush and Obama administrations, told government interviewers in 2015.

With most speaking on the assumption that their remarks would not become public, U.S. officials acknowledged that their warfighting strategies were fatally flawed and that Washington wasted enormous sums of money trying to remake Afghanistan into a modern nation.

In her 2015 book, Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security (book review here), Sarah Chayes pointed out that for years American efforts in Afghanistan were grossly ignorant of the situation there. Due to astounding US ignorance, US activities were utterly incompetent. Worse yet, at times State Department attempts at effective US policy were directly undermined by CIA activities that both negated useful action and fomented hatred of the US presence. The CIA secretly supported kleptocrats and brutal warlords, apparently in return for very little. Many ordinary Afghan people came to see the US no better than the brutal kleptocrats and murderers who ran the country.

The WaPo documents corroborate the story that Chayes figured on her own based on her personal experiences in trying to help the Afghan people.

Things like this provide good reasons to distrust the US government and its role in global affairs. This failure is bipartisan and long-running. This is another example of why I have given up on both parties and their incompetent, corrupt, self-centered two-party system. They have learned nothing from history. They afford the American people no trust or respect, keeping us in the dark and feeding us lies and BS. They operate in opacity and squander the people's wealth and blood in service to hiding the embarrassment of their own corruption and incompetence. Three presidents have failed so far, Bush, Obama and Trump. All three have failed to deliver on promises to prevail in Afghanistan.

US experts have argued that the war is lost. The end game is a desperate search for the least worst failure. No politician wants to look bad, so the end will be spun as peace with honor or some other such nonsense. The president's negotiations with the Taliban will lead to either no resolution or failure. That is despite him being self-described as the world's best negotiator.

What next?

So, what should America do? If we withdraw, people who tried to help the US to nation build will be slaughtered and women will go straight back to the dark ages. Under GOP anti-immigrant policy, we cannot allow those illegal immigrants to come here now, even if they did risk their own lives to help us. The Afghan kleptocrats we propped up and funded will quietly leave the country and live in luxury off of their stolen wealth. American taxpayers provided that wealth.

This really is the Vietnam quagmire all over again.