Effects of Consuming and Believing Conservative Misinformation

Three recent studies have generated evidence indicating that misinformation from conservative media sources is linked to higher COVID-19 infection rates. Although there are multiple reasons for the failed US response including, a lack of a cohesive federal policy, botched testing and tracing, and a culture that emphasizes individualism, data is accumulating that indicates misinformation and false conspiracy theories are another factor in the failure. The Washington Post writes:

“The end result, according to one of the studies, is that infection and mortality rates are higher in places where one pundit who initially downplayed the severity of the pandemic — Fox News’s Sean Hannity — reaches the largest audiences.

“We are receiving an incredible number of studies and solid data showing that consuming far-right media and social media content was strongly associated with low concern about the virus at the onset of the pandemic,” said Irene Pasquetto, chief editor of the Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review, which published one of the studies.

A working paper posted by the National Bureau of Economic Research in May examined whether these incorrect beliefs affected real-world behavior.

The authors used anonymous location data from millions of cellphones to explore how the popularity of Fox News in a given Zip code related to social distancing practices there. By March 15, they found, a 10 percent increase in Fox News viewership within a Zip code reduced its residents’ propensity to stay home, in compliance with public health guidelines, by about 1.3 percentage points.

Given total stay-at-home behavior increased by 20 percentage points during the study period, that effect size is “pretty large,” said Andrey Simonov, the study’s lead author. It’s comparable to Fox’s persuasive effect on voting behavior, as identified in a 2017 paper[1] by a different team.”

If the show does not take the virus seriously, 
viewer behavior is affected

One of the studies focused on Fox News viewers 55 and older in areas where Sean Hannity’s show is more or less popular than Tucker Carlson’s program. Hannity viewers changed their pandemic-related behaviors like hand-washing or canceling travel plans four days later than other Fox News viewers. By contrast, Carlson’s viewership changed behaviors three days earlier. The results were that a one standard deviation increase in Hannity viewership compared to Carlson was associated with approximately 32 percent more COVID-19 cases on March 14 and approximately 23 percent more COVID-19 deaths on March 28. The differences fade after the end of March presumably because since the middle of March, Hannity’s coverage had become quite close to Carlson’s in treating COVID-19 seriously.

Footnote: 

1. That 2017 study includes these comments:

“The largest elasticity magnitudes are on individuals from the opposite ideology of the channel. Were a viewer initially at the ideology of the median Democratic voter in 2008 to watch an additional three minutes of Fox News [FNC] per week, her likelihood of voting Republican would increase by 1.03 percentage points. Another pattern that emerges from the table is that Fox is substantially better at influencing Democrats than MSNBC is at influencing Republicans. This last feature is consistent with the regression result that the IV effect of Fox is greater and more consistent than the corresponding effect for MSNBC.

We find a persuasion rate of 58 percent in 2000, 27 percent in 2004, and 28 percent in 2008 for FNC. FNC is consistently more effective at converting viewers than is MSNBC which has corresponding estimated persuasion rates of just 16 percent, 0 percent, and 8 percent.

Our estimates imply increasing effects of FNC on the Republican vote share in presidential elections over time, from 0.46 points in 2000 to 6.34 points in 2008. Furthermore, we estimate that cable news can increase polarization and explain about two-thirds of the increase among the public in the United States, and that this increase depends on both a persuasive effect of cable news and the existence of tastes for like-minded news. Finally, we find that an influence-maximizing owner of the cable news channels could have large effects on vote shares, but would have to sacrifice some levels of viewership to maximize influence.”

She Wanted to Be a Republican President. She’s Voting for Biden.

The former Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina tells The Ticket that she plans to vote for Joe Biden.

Republicans who say Donald Trump should lose in November but insist they won’t vote for Joe Biden aren’t being honest, Carly Fiorina argues.

Fiorina was a Republican candidate for president just four years ago, and was briefly Ted Cruz’s prospective running mate. Trump needs to go, she says—and that means she’s voting for Biden.

Fiorina is not going to keep quiet, write in another candidate, or vote third-party. “I’ve been very clear that I can’t support Donald Trump,” she told me, in an interview that can be heard in full on the latest episode of The Ticket. “And elections are binary choices.” She struggled with the decision, and whether to go public. But she said that this struggle is one Republicans need to have—including those who have rationalized supporting Trump despite their disagreements, because of some of his policies or judicial appointments.

“As citizens, our vote is more than a check on a box. You know, it’s a statement about where we want to go, and I think what we need now actually is real leadership that can unify the country,” she said. “I am encouraged that Joe Biden is a person of humility and empathy and character. I think he’s demonstrated that through his life. And I think we need humility and empathy everywhere in public life right now. And I think character counts.”

Of course, Trump diehards will dismiss her. She has said over the years that Trump isn’t a real businessman, that he lacks character, that he is the definition of an autocrat, that impeachment was “vital.” But she’s not the stereotype of a Republican squish: Before her 2016 run, she was a Tea Party–type candidate for Senate in 2010 and the CEO of Hewlett-Packard. Four years ago, she voted for Trump—even after he’d been caught saying about her, “Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?”

Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who said she agrees with former Defense Secretary James Mattis that Trump is a threat to the Constitution, but is “struggling” with whether to vote for him, is putting politics over principle, Fiorina told me. John Bolton, who has said he hopes for America’s sake that Trump loses but that he’ll write in a conservative Republican, looks to Fiorina like he’s “desperately trying to preserve some position in the Republican Party as a conservative Republican.” As for Cruz, who’s turned into an avid Trump defender—she said she hasn’t spoken with him in years. And Trump, she told me, can tweet whatever he wants about her.

It hasn’t been an easy journey to backing a Democrat, especially when she thinks about issues that she cares deeply about, such as limiting government spending and restricting abortion. But as she’s been working with her Unlocking Potential Foundation, which focuses on increasing diversity among corporate leadership, she’s also been watching how the coronavirus pandemic has exposed inequality in America. She needed to speak up, too. Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are right, she said: The structures of power have been bent too far toward corporate control. But if conservatives really want to do anything about it, she said, they need to start by standing up for their principles.

What follows is an edited and condensed transcript:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/carly-fiorina-vote-biden/613474/

Democracy's Institutions are Falling to the Demagogue

Department of Justice lawyer Erica Newland

An article published in April in The Atlantic, The President Is Winning His War on American Institutions, lays out the status of the president's attacks on institutions that were supposed to stand in defense of democracy and the rule of law. This is very ugly. If the president is re-elected, he could very well push this country into a downward corrupt, authoritarian trajectory that it cannot recover from. The Atlantic writes:

“After three years, the adults have all left the room—saying just about nothing on their way out to alert the country to the peril—while Trump is still there. 

James Baker, the former general counsel of the FBI, and a target of Trump’s rage against the state, acknowledges that many government officials, not excluding himself, went into the administration convinced “that they are either smarter than the president, or that they can hold their own against the president, or that they can protect the institution against the president because they understand the rules and regulations and how it’s supposed to work, and that they will be able to defend the institution that they love or served in previously against what they perceive to be, I will say neutrally, the inappropriate actions of the president. And I think they are fooling themselves. They’re fooling themselves. He’s light-years ahead of them.” 

The adults were too sophisticated to see Trump’s special political talents—his instinct for every adversary’s weakness, his fanatical devotion to himself, his knack for imposing his will, his sheer staying power. They also failed to appreciate the advanced decay of the Republican Party, which by 2016 was far gone in a nihilistic pursuit of power at all costs. They didn’t grasp the readiness of large numbers of Americans to accept, even relish, Trump’s contempt for democratic norms and basic decency. It took the arrival of such a leader to reveal how many things that had always seemed engraved in monumental stone turned out to depend on those flimsy norms, and how much the norms depended on public opinion. Their vanishing exposed the real power of the presidency. Legal precedent could be deleted with a keystroke; law enforcement’s independence from the White House was optional; the separation of powers turned out to be a gentleman’s agreement; transparent lies were more potent than solid facts. None of this was clear to the political class until Trump became president. 

When Trump came to power, he believed that the regime was his, property he’d rightfully acquired, and that the 2 million civilians working under him, most of them in obscurity, owed him their total loyalty. He harbored a deep suspicion that some of them were plotting in secret to destroy him. He had to bring them to heel before he could be secure in his power. This wouldn’t be easy—the permanent government had defied other leaders and outlasted them. In his inexperience and rashness—the very qualities his supporters loved—he made early mistakes. He placed unreliable or inept commissars in charge of the bureaucracy, and it kept running on its own. 

But a simple intuition had propelled Trump throughout his life: Human beings are weak. They have their illusions, appetites, vanities, fears. They can be cowed, corrupted, or crushed. A government is composed of human beings. This was the flaw in the brilliant design of the Framers, and Trump learned how to exploit it. The wreckage began to pile up. He needed only a few years to warp his administration into a tool for his own benefit. If he’s given a few more years, the damage to American democracy will be irreversible.

[Department of Justice lawyer Erica] Newland and her colleagues were saving Trump from his own lies. They were using their legal skills to launder his false statements and jury-rig arguments so that presidential orders would pass constitutional muster. When she read that producers of The Apprentice had had to edit episodes in order to make Trump’s decisions seem coherent, she realized that the attorneys in the Office of Legal Counsel were doing something similar. Loyalty to the president was equated with legality. ‘There was hardly any respect for the other departments of government—not for the lower courts, not for Congress, and certainly not for the bureaucracy, for professionalism, for facts or the truth,’ she told me. ‘Corruption is the right word for this. It doesn’t have to be pay-to-play to be corrupt. It’s a departure from the oath.’” (emphasis added)

Despicable John Bolton

In a recent interview, John Bolton said that he would not vote for the president or Joe Biden. Instead, he will find what he considers to be an acceptable conservative and write that person in as his vote for president. For all the good that tactic will do, Bolton should just write in himself or Mickey Mouse or anyone else real or imagined. It will be just another vote for the president that he so bitterly criticizes. Given Bolton’s insider knowledge and experience, his write-in tactic is idiotic and unpatriotic. He knows far better than most of us. Bolton’s lunacy is just another example of how incoherent, authoritarian and tribal the GOP and its radical ideology have become among GOP elites and probably many of the rank and file. Despite his first-hand knowledge, he still doesn’t have the moral courage to bring himself to defend the country against a demagogue tyrant-wannabe.

The irrational John Bolton

Coronavirus Déjà Vu All Over Again

The New York Times is reporting that COVID-19 is out of control most everywhere south of the US border. The NYT writes:

“Inequality, densely packed cities, legions of informal workers and weak health care systems have undermined efforts to fight the pandemic, as some governments have fumbled the response. 

The coronavirus was always going to hit Latin America hard. Even before it arrived, experts warned that the region’s combustible blend of inequality, densely packed cities, legions of informal workers living day-to-day and health care systems starved of resources could undermine even the best attempts to curb the pandemic. 

But by brushing off the dangers, fumbling the response, dismissing scientific or expert guidance, withholding data and simply denying the extent of the outbreak altogether, some governments have made matters even worse. 

In many ways, the faltering, scattershot approach to the pandemic in parts of Latin America resembles the disorganized approach in the United States — with some presidents in the region questioning how dangerous the virus is, championing unproven, baseless or even dangerous remedies, clashing bitterly with state governors and refusing to wear face masks in public. 

And as the virus storms through Latin America, corruption has flourished, the already intense political polarization in some countries has deepened, and some governments have curtailed civil rights. In El Salvador, thousands of people have been rounded up, many for violating stay-at-home orders, despite the Supreme Court’s demands that the detentions end. 

Economies already stretched thin before the virus lie on the precipice of ruin. Millions are out of work, with millions more at risk. The United Nations has said the pandemic could result in a drop of 5.3 percent in the regional economy — the worst in a century — forcing some 16 million people into extreme poverty.

In Brazil, where President Jair Bolsonaro spent months downplaying the threat of the virus — calling it a “measly flu” and railing against shutdowns imposed by governors — ....

In Mexico, where President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has suggested that a clean conscience helps ward off infection — ‘no lying, no stealing, no betraying, that helps a lot to not get coronavirus,’”

Does that sound like déjà vu or what? As the old saying goes, what goes around in the US comes around south of the border. Well, at least for bad stuff. Not so sure about good stuff.

Obrador: no lying, no stealing, no betraying

Trump: it's a democratic hoax, it will go away like magic, drink some bleach

Hm. Is Obrador is ahead of the president regarding COVID? Or, are they tied? Since the president is the world’s best negotiator and smartest stable genius with the best vocabulary, how could he not be ahead? 

The Psychology of Men and Facemasks

I'm a manstud!

Context

1. I've now progressed in my thinking about politics that, assuming I can do it and there is some supporting data, most every politics OP I post should be linked to cognitive or social science in some way. The reason is simple: Cognitive and social science describe politics and the human condition better than any political partisan, special interest, blowhard, crook, liar, demagogue, political or religious ideologue or murderer ever would. I am sure there are a few or some major business people, politicians, etc., who are significantly, mostly or completely exceptions to that blanket condemnation. Well, pretty sure. I hope.

2. Over my lifetime to date, I've come to believe that for modern times, men in power have been and still are probably (~85% personal confidence) significantly worse than women in power would be in terms of acceptance of facts and true truths, rational reasoning, governing, reasonable empathy and civility, honesty** and exercise of soft power (non-war and /or mass slaughter) effectiveness. Exercise of hard power, i.e., the military and kinetic force, seems to come way too easy to men. The caveat on that belief is that I am not a historian and thus no expert.

3. Is there a historian in the house? I really need one right now.

** No, reasonable empathy, civility or honesty does not mean anything close to gullibility, stupidity or any other weakness. IMO, reasonable (not stupid) empathy, civility and honesty are strengths, not weaknesses and when circumstances merit, they need to be mostly or completely withdrawn.

Bad boys

An article my home town newspaper the San Diego Union Tribune published today was interesting. The article, Why more men aren't wearing masks -- and how to change that, reported data indicating that men are less prone to wear face masks than women. Duh. Observing unmasked men in public compared to women and children with their moms inspired Hélène Barcelo of the Mathematical Science Research Institute in Berkeley, to look closely. A study by Barcelo and Valerio Capraro of London’s Middlesex University generated data indicating that men are less likely than women to wear face covering.

The SDUT writes:

“Posted online in mid-May, the resulting study of 2,459 U.S. participants, “The Effect of Messaging and Gender on Intentions to Wear a Face Covering to Slow Down COVID-19 Transmission,” offers an interesting glimpse into why some men resist the call to cover up — and provides some clues as to how to influence that behavior. In addition to finding that men are less inclined to wear a face mask, the study found that men are less likely than women to believe they will be seriously affected by the coronavirus. 

Further, it found a big difference between men and women when it came to the self-reported negative emotions that come with that simple strip of fabric across the face. 

As study co-author Capraro explained, “We asked [participants to rank] on a scale of one to 10 how much they agreed with five different statements: ‘Wearing a face covering is cool,’ ‘Wearing a face covering is not cool,’ ‘Wearing a face covering is shameful,’ ‘Wearing a face covering is a sign of weakness’ and ‘The stigma attached to wearing a face covering is preventing me from wearing one as often as I should.’ 

“The two statements that showed the biggest difference between men and women,” Capraro said, “were, ‘Wearing a face covering is a sign of weakness’ and ‘The stigma attached to wearing a face covering is preventing me from wearing one as often as I should.’”

To reorient the male mind on this point, the researchers suggest these:

1. Emphasize the benefit to community over than family, country or self. That tactic appeared to be the biggest motivator for men. (Germaine: Wot? Over family? No wonder we're on the road to hell. -- See, that exemplifies why I think women are better suited for rule than men.)

SDUT quotes a researcher o this point: “One of my areas of research is in benevolent sexism. So one way to rebrand this is instead of [making it about] protecting yourself, make it about protecting other people. [Make it about being] paternalistic and chivalrous. You’re saying, ‘I’m protecting the weak, the elderly, [and] I’m being a hero.”

I don't know how anyone else reads that, but I read it like this: (whining voice) I'm a big stud. You've gotta listen to and obey me. 

I'm not impressed with that. The only question in my mind is how accurate it is or is not. (I need to do more research on this point, so CAVEAT)

2. “According to Alex Navarro, assistant director of the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan and one of the editors-in-chief of the American Influenza Epidemic of 1918-1919: A Digital Encyclopedia, an overt appeal to patriotism was used to encourage mask-wearing in the early stages of the Spanish flu epidemic as the country was still fighting World War I.”

Apparently, this appeals to most men more than facts and reason 

-- what a stud!

3. SDUT writes:

“If stereotypical masculine behavior is part of the problem, might it be part of the solution? Could some of the traits traditionally associated with manliness be Trojan Horsed to increase the number of masked men? Glick, who back in April penned a piece for Scientific American titled “Masks and Emasculation: Why Some Men Refuse to Take Safety Precautions,” thinks the approach might work. 

‘Of course you’d be playing into this kind of masculinity,’ Glick said, ‘but I think tough-looking masks — MAGA masks, camouflage[-print masks], [masks printed with] shark teeth — might. They wear masks in wrestling, right? And what about superheroes and villains?’”

That speaks for itself. 

4. And there's this about the power of humor with men:

“‘I think [humor] definitely could work,’ he said. ‘A lot of men communicate this way. They have serious conversations but in humorous ways because [they] can’t fully own it so [they] joke about it. For example, guys in the locker room might be talking about the difficulties in [their] marriages but by joking about it. It’s kind of a code they use to communicate, to admit they’re having a hard time.’ 

Englar-Carlson said he wasn’t exactly sure what a humorous messaging campaign around mask-wearing might look like, but with Glick’s comment about wrestlers, superheroes and villains echoing in my ears, I floated one possibility: a PSA featuring Darth Vader, Bane from “The Dark Knight Rises” and a cadre of Lucha Libre wrestlers playing it tough while urging guys to put on their own masks.”

Is it me, or do many or most men look mentally weak? You can't present them with reality so you have to deflect, cajole, pull rabbits out of hats and otherwise massage fragile egos.

The SDUT article continues in this vein.

Questions: 

1. Does this reasonably indicate that men as leaders are too wuss in terms of self-confidence or mental power and compensate with unjustified violence, including not wearing a facemask in the face of COVID-19, and war too often? Or is just one thing insufficient to draw such a sweeping conclusion?

2. Are men’s egos really as fragile as I think this article reasonably conveys?

Viral Photo Misidentified as Trump Tulsa Crowd

Quick Take

Social media accounts supportive of President Donald Trump have been sharing a photo of a large outdoor crowd with the false claim that it shows the scene outside of Trump’s Tulsa rally. It actually shows the Rolling Thunder event near Washington, D.C. in 2019.

Full Story

Although President Donald Trump had expected to fill the 19,000-seat arena for his rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma — with overflow crowds next door — there were whole sections of empty seats at the June 20 event.

The Tulsa Fire Department reported that about 6,200 tickets were scanned for the event. The Trump campaign has disputed that number, saying that the attendance figure was actually closer to 12,000.

What’s not in dispute, though, is that the campaign cancelled speeches that were planned for an outdoor overflow crowd when that crowd didn’t materialize.

But you wouldn’t know that by looking at Trump fan accounts on social media, which have been posting a picture of an outdoor crowd near Washington, D.C. in 2019 with the bogus claim that it shows the overflow crowd in Tulsa.

Many of the pictures were shared with a caption attached that claimed: “A small crowd has gathered for the Trump Rally in Tulsa “

The Berks County Republican Committee’s Facebook page posted the picture the day after Trump’s rally with this claim: “SHARE THIS FAR AND WIDE AS THE LEFT IS TRYING TO MAKE IT LOOK LIKE TRUMP SUPPORTERS DIDN’T SHOW UP FOR TRUMP!”

But the picture actually shows the start of an annual motorcycle ride through Washington, D.C. that highlights veterans’ issues and honors prisoners of war. It’s hosted by an organization called Rolling Thunder. The picture shows a crowd of participants gathered in the north parking lot of the Pentagon, where the ride began on May 26, 2019.

Other photos from that day, some of which were featured on the Facebook page for Rolling Thunder Washington, D.C., show a similar angle of the scene as is featured in the picture now being shared with the false information. The same white Jeep is visible in the foreground as is the black truck in the crowd and the white-topped tents.

Artie Muller, executive director of Rolling Thunder confirmed to FactCheck.org that the photo being shared on social media shows the event. “That’s how it always looks,” he said.

So, the picture shows a crowd near Washington, D.C. in 2019, not the crowd for Trump’s Tulsa rally.

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/06/viral-photo-misidentified-as-trump-tulsa-crowd/