Why Trump will win a second term

by HARRY PHIBBS
https://www.thearticle.com/why-trump-will-win-a-second-term

Just because you are paranoid it doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you. Donald Trump is fond of making extravagant attacks on the media for peddling “fake news”. But while we have become familiar with Presidential hyperbole most of the TV networks in the US are unsympathetic towards him in their coverage. But does that mean the polls they commissioned are skewed? I think not. As Peter Kellner has written for this site: “A pollster would go bust if they fixed their results.”

As I write, most of the recent polls have shown Trump trailing his Democrat opponent Joe Biden by around ten points. There is a Rasmussen poll showing a gap of just three points. On the other hand, a Quinnipiac University Poll has Biden ahead by 15 points. It is true that due to the American electoral system last time round Trump won even though Hillary Clinton got a higher national vote share. But she was only ahead by a couple of points.

The Democrats are sure to win California (with 55 electoral college votes) and New York (with 29 electoral college votes) by huge margins. But then if they lose Texas (38 votes) and Florida (29 votes) much more narrowly they find they have millions of votes in the wrong places. It’s a winner takes all system.

This disparity may well be more marked than it was in 2016. Thousands of Americans have been leaving high tax states (such as New York, California and also Connecticut and New Jersey) to move to low tax states (such as Texas, Florida and Nevada.) People decide how to vote for for all sorts of reasons. But these new voters are people who have gone to the trouble of moving house and relocating hundreds of miles to pay less tax. They are more likely to plump for Trump than Biden.

That would only matter in a close result. It might mean that Biden could be ahead by three or four points in vote share — advancing on what Clinton achieved four years ago — yet still lose. But should Biden be ahead by around ten points then he would secure a landslide.

One difficulty for Trump has been the coronavirus pandemic. It’s not just about the confused messaging or the mistakes in the practical management. It’s more that he has found himself on a side of the argument that is unsuited to him. Trump is best suited to exploiting fears rather than appealing for hope. He is the antithesis of his Republican predecessor Ronald Reagan, who exuded sunny optimism and whose campaign commercial proclaimed: “It’s morning in America again.”

Trump was well suited as an insurgent. He message that weak leadership was leaving Americans vulnerable to crime, terrorism, illegal immigration and unfair trade deals resonated. But now he is seeking to downplay fears of coronavirus in order to keep the economy going. That is difficult while the death toll remains persistently high.

Another problem is that Trump’s tone suggests he has more power than he really does under the US federal system. That means that, when there is disorder on the streets, notably over the Black Lives Matters protests, some of his supporters are dismayed that under his Presidency it is allowed to continue.

So far as his personal qualities are concerned, Trump is the least “presidential” president we have ever seen. Some will find his brashness and boastfulness entertaining and candid. Others, including some who voted for him as a protest, might rub their eyes and conclude that for him to be in the White House is some sort of extraordinary accident.

Despite all these difficulties my bold prediction is that Trump will be reelected. Partly that is based on the US economy reviving in the coming months and the coronavirus plague receding — both those propositions are admittedly fraught with uncertainty.

As polling day nears, the focus will be less on whether voters are favourable or unfavourable to Trump and more on the choice between him and Biden. Trump is 74-years-old. Biden is 77. Will Americans feel it is time to make way for an older man? Also, while Biden comes across as a pleasant fellow, he conveys weakness and confusion. Keeping Biden low profile for the campaign surely would not work. Biden will probably lose the TV debates against Trump. But for Biden to refuse to take part would be even worse.

You might not like Trump, but at least he is not a pushover. The warning that the moderate Biden could be manipulated by more radical elements could gain traction. You might prefer Biden to Trump as your next door neighbour, but who could be relied upon to defend the national interest?

It follows that patriotism could well secure Trump victory. The Democrats will struggle if they are regarded as anti-American. Our own General Election last year should give them a warning. Many of the socialist policies that Labour adopted under Jeremy Corbyn were actually quite popular — more spending, renationalisation, tax the rich. The problem was that, under Corbyn, the Labour Party could plausibly be considered to be anti-British.

Trump stood by Mount Rushmore and declared: “Today, we pay tribute to the exceptional lives and extraordinary legacies of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt. I am here as your President to proclaim before the country and before the world: This monument will never be desecrated these heroes will never be defaced, their legacy will never, ever be destroyed, their achievements will never be forgotten, and Mount Rushmore will stand forever as an eternal tribute to our forefathers and to our freedom.”

In the past, that pride in US history would not have been felt controversial. It’s not that Biden would be considered to approve of pulling down statues of Washington or Lincoln. The question is how firmly he can repudiate those in his team with such sympathies. For Biden to staunchly proclaim his patriotism would risk alienating some of his activists. But any ambiguity on the matter surely disqualifies him. As the culture wars become ever more antagonistic, some on the American left appear to swing voters as anti-American. It would be hard for Biden to win in November if he is tarnished with that image, whatever the polls say.

Book Review: Critical Thinking

The 2020 book, Critical Thinking, is a short description (181 pages) about the origins of critical thinking, what it is and what values it has. The author, Johnathan Haber, is an educator and researcher in the field of critical thinking. The book is written for a general audience and easy to read.

The origins and status of critical thinking

The concept started with Socrates and Aristotle. Socrates questioned fixed beliefs and advocated leading a life of self-examination. His activities in this area “earned him the title of father of Western philosophy and well as a death sentence from his annoyed fellow Athenians.” The lesson there is don’t annoy Athenians. (oops, bad logic)

Aristotle went much farther. He gathered and systematized existing knowledge into what are now major fields of inquiry including botany, zoology, political science, rhetoric and logic. His work on rhetoric and logic established key areas of education for the ancient world that lasted until modern times.

A major contribution of Aristotle was to uncouple knowledge from the superstitious and plug it into the empirical. Haber writes that “Aristotle’s method of inferring truths from what the human senses could perceive, rather than explaining natural phenomena as the works of gods, was a tremendous intellectual breakthrough.”  Of course, since human senses can be wrong, manipulated, biased and self-deceived, this was just the first of many intellectual revolutions that flowed from what Aristotle had discovered about how to perceive reality.

The progress of critical thinking as a field of research and education unto itself was significantly derailed in 1892 when the “Committee of Ten” educators, led by Harvard’s president, created a new curriculum for K-12 schools. Reading, writing, math and science were included, but rhetoric and logic were not. After that, teaching of rhetoric and logic declined in public education. Critical thinking education began a significant comeback in 1983 when California state universities imposed a critical thinking requirement for graduation. Since then, critical thinking has gained in importance in K-12 education. The intellectual weaknesses of students unskilled in rhetoric and logic became both apparent and acute in the modern information age.

What critical thinking is

There is no universally accepted definition, but a some of a cluster of concepts tend to be included. The concepts themselves tend to be a bit fuzzy, but usually include structured thinking (roughly, logic), communication skill, argumentation skill, creativity, reasonable background knowledge, and IMO, very importantly, personal dispositions or traits. Haber prefers ‘structured thinking’ over logic to emphasize the importance of organized thinking over any particular form of formal logic. Humans tend not to apply formal logic and instead think in terms of informal logic (I call it reasoning or sound reasoning), which can be informed and shaped by things like the structure of arguments, the social situation, emotions, intuitions and personal morals and biases. Modern critical thinking education emphasizes informal logic over true logic, but true logic remains an important part.

Haber argues, reasonably, that you cannot do critical thinking if you do not know what you are talking about. Hence a necessary component is learning and applying sufficient background knowledge to support clear-headed, sound reasoning.

Two important concepts that underpin critical thinking are the difference and prevalence of deductive and inductive arguments, which are different. Deductive arguments are logic constructs where the conclusion of a valid argument must be true if you accept that the premises are true. If the premises are actually true, the conclusion is both valid and sound. This kind of reasoning is rare because it is rare to have premises that are not disputed.[1]

By contrast, inductive arguments are based on premises that make the conclusion or basis in evidence or logic possibly, probably true or very likely true. The conclusion’s strength can vary from weak to near certainty. The relevance and sufficiency of the premises dictate the strength of the conclusion. By definition, inductive arguments are invalid because it is possible to accept the premises but still reasonably reject the conclusion. Counter examples are possible to imagine and usually too numerous to test. Inductive reasoning dominates everyday life, politics and science.
Not understanding the uncertainty that is common in science allows science deniers to point to almost any level of uncertainty as a basis to deny things that are not reasonably deniable, including climate change and the effectiveness of vaccines.

The value of critical thinking

Haber frames the issue like this:

“Catastrophic decisions like those that lead to .... being ruled by men and women competent in nothing but playing to our weaknesses are just the most dramatic consequences of refusing to develop or use our reasoning ability ..... If we can increase our odds of success by locating and evaluating evidence, putting it into an informative structure, and analyzing the results, why not follow this critical thinking process rather than shooting first, aiming later?”  

He argues that there is now plenty of evidence, e.g., Russian attacks on critical thinking in the 2016 elections, that there are compelling reasons to up our game in terms of our ability to apply critical thinking to politics:

“Many of those ‘others’ [propagandists] are professional skilled at taking advantage of the flaws in our mental faculties, such as the many cognitive biases that prevent us from thinking critically or the ability of emotion and tribalism to overwhelm reason. .... As demonstrated in recent elections, candidates still spearhead this kind of manipulation, but now they are supported by armies of political consultants skilled in techniques for preventing people from thinking clearly. .... Yet, has the public appetite for bad premises (i.e., ‘fake news’), invalid logic, refusal to develop or apply background knowledge, and uncharitable behavior toward out political enemies diminished at all since we learned how vulnerable we make ourselves by basking in our biases?”

The fits with pragmatic rationalism

What Haber describes is a mindset that is applied in a process of organized thinking. The mindset requires personal traits including but not limited to sufficient open-mindedness to look at an issue form at least two points of view, willingness and discipline to do the necessary learning and mental work, and charity as envisioned by the Principle of Charity (discussed here). That sounds a lot like the mindset and process that I designed pragmatic rationalism to be based on and operate with. It also reflects some of the core personal or mental traits and tactics, e.g., viewing multiple points of view, that Philip Tetlock’s superforecasters had in common.

Unless I am misunderstanding something significant, Haber’s description of the critical thinking mindset and approach to reality sounds much like those of superforecasters and pragmatic rationalists. In other words, pragmatic rationalism appears to be rising naturally out of, or mostly overlapping with, separate lines of research. That sort of looks like some sort of consilience to me.

Or, are my biases and/or misunderstandings leading me down a wrong path?

Footnote:
1. When actually true premises are rejected by a person as false because the person does not like the conclusion the premises lead to, the person may reject both the premises and the conclusion. Sociologists call this implicatory denial (discussed here). It is arguably the most common form of logic fallacy in science denial.

GOP Voter Suppression Tactics

The local constabulary

Context

Like the president, the GOP is anti-democratic and authoritarian. Both are heavily reliant on dark free speech[1] to create false realities and to tear society apart. The GOP ultimate goal is a radical right libertarian movement (RRLM). The RRLM has a vision of a weak, ineffective[2] federal government and weakened civil liberties, with power flowing to state governments from the people and the central government. The RRLM is essentially demagogic, plutocratic and dictatorial with a heavy tinge of vengeful, greedy Christianity exercising its right to feed off a stream of tax dollars. The point of state governments is simple: They are easier to corrupt and subvert than a strong central government with institutions that stand for the rule of law.

The power transfer is falsely billed as return of proper constitutional authority to states. That is a deception. The wealthy plutocrat elites that created and control the RRLM intend to corrupt and control states governments. The elites want the power for themselves.

An important RRLM goal is subversion of voting and democratic participation. Voter suppression is a key tactic that has been underway for years. This OP is about how this is playing out in an obscure federal commission that was intended to help states conduct elections.

Neutering the federal Election Assistance Commission

A ProPublica article, How Voter-Fraud Hysteria and Partisan Bickering Ate American Election Oversight, describes the decline of the Election Assistance Commission (EAC). Some congressional republicans want to get rid of the EAC, because it had completed its mission of fixing election problems in the wake of the 2000 voting disaster in Florida. Maybe that was true at one time, but these days, some states are desperately asking for assistance and guidance about how to deal with the upcoming Nov. 3 election. Despite claims to the contrary, the EAC is unable to act. ProPublica writes:

“Election Assistance Commission to plead for help. The EAC is the bipartisan federal agency established for the precise purpose of maintaining election integrity through emergencies, and this was by every account an emergency. In a matter of weeks, the coronavirus had grown from an abstract concern to a global horror, and vote by mail was the only way ballots could safely be cast in the states that had not yet held their primaries. But many officials didn’t know the basics: what machines they would need and where to get them; what to tell voters; how to make sure ballots reached voters and were returned to county offices promptly and securely. “I have a primary coming up, and I have no idea what to do,” Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske said on the call.

She and her colleagues didn’t get the help they were looking for. Of the EAC’s four commissioners, only chair Ben Hovland spoke, and his responses were too vague to satisfy his listeners. The lack of direction was “striking,” said one participant, Jennifer Morrell, an elections consultant and a contractor for The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). “It felt to me that there was no leadership. Nobody was saying, ‘Hey, let’s figure this out.’ Questions just went unanswered.”

Dogged by partisan infighting, the constant threat of elimination and a budget that bottomed out last year at less than half of what it once was, the EAC has long failed to be effective or even relevant. Current commissioners have dramatically decreased the number of votes taken on important issues. The EAC also hasn’t approved a full set of voting machine standards since 2005. In 2018, new machines pegged to the old standards malfunctioned in Indiana, and decades-old machines in Georgia failed to record a stunning 150,000 votes for lieutenant governor, spurring ongoing litigation.”

EAC chairman defended the agency: “[The EAC has] one of the smallest budgets in the federal government, and without a dime of the supplemental funding we requested from Congress [for pandemic response]. Now is not the time for keeping score. It’s time to focus on getting the job done. ... I am confident that when we look back at this year, and where the EAC was coming from, we will be proud of what we accomplished.” The chairman pointed out that distributed $825 million in grants to state election officials in 2020.

The EAC is hamstrung in party by partisan disputes. Two of the four commissioners are repeating the president’s unfounded fraud allegations about voting by mail. There is no evidence to show that voting by mail is significantly fraudulent. ProPublica comments: “Voter fraud is vanishingly rare. .... Voting methods once thought routine, like absentee ballots, became grist for partisan bickering. The escalating fight over voter fraud has crippled the EAC, often sabotaging its most dedicated commissioners while emboldening those who are less effective. .... In 2007, the EAC hired two respected researchers to study voter fraud. But after they found little evidence of a problem, the commission decided not to adopt their report, saying the extent of voter fraud was open to interpretation.”

It is reasonable to believe that GOP-backed voter suppression to advance the RRLM’s goal of undermining democracy is well underway right now. One question is how many voters will be disenfranchised on Nov. 3. For the RRLM, the ends justify all legal means and probably some illegal ones. This is about gaining power and wealth by subverting democracy, not serving the public interest.

Footnotes:
1. Dark free speech: Constitutionally or legally protected (1) lies and deceit to distract, misinform, confuse, polarize and/or demoralize, (2) unwarranted opacity to hide inconvenient truths, facts and corruption (lies and deceit of omission), (3) unwarranted emotional manipulation (i) to obscure the truth and blind the mind to lies and deceit, and (ii) to provoke irrational, reason-killing emotions and feelings, including fear, hate, anger, disgust, distrust, intolerance, cynicism, pessimism and all kinds of bigotry including racism, and (4) ideologically-driven motivated reasoning and other ideologically-driven biases that unreasonably distort reality and reason. (my label, my definition)

2. Based on their acquiescence to how the president has handled it, the ineffectiveness the GOP favors is seen in the failed federal response to the pandemic. The president has used executive power to undermine federal public health activities.

Evangelical Christianity and Its Failing Moral Core

This 18 minute video interview with Reverend Robert Schenck discusses the status of Evangelical Christianity and the influence of its involvement in American politics and culture wars. Schenck is blunt about the losing moral situation the church has put itself in.

Beginning at ~10:30 in the interview, Schenck points out that millions of people under the age of 45 are leaving the church because they see the moral hypocrisy and emotional manipulation the church foists on its flock. Church membership losses have been occurring for the last 13 years straight. At 11:42, Schenck flatly states that fund raisers directly told him that to get money flowing in, he needed to instill fear and anger in his congregation: “The madder they are, the more fearful they are, the more money they are going to send you. .... Well, young people are sick of that.”





Earlier in the interview beginning at ~4:40 Schenck is blunt about why Evangelicals supported the president. Specifically, they want the supreme court packed with a majority of religious Christian judges. They want a solid majority. They are willing to tolerate what they know and privately admitted early on is an immoral president to get the power in government they desperately want for Christianity. But apparently, the Evangelical moral mindset has changed. Beginning  at ~6:16 Schenck says that he does not hear such private admissions any more from other Evangelical leaders.

He interprets this to not mean that Evanelical leaders are drifting away from the president. Instead he sees the leadership as having internalized and accepted the president’s moral poison. Schenck calls this ‘a kind of final conversion’ that he fears puts the president’s Evangelical supporters in danger of losing their immortal souls and the church itself of becoming a relic “and not a good one at that.”

If Schenck is correct in his analysis, there is a potentially lethal moral failure in Evangelical leadership and its involvement in politics and culture wars. The failure flows directly from supporting a vulgar, immoral president. That moral failure is what is driving people away from the Evangelical church, and maybe for some, from all of Christianity.

One thing that merits comment here is the willingness of the Evangelical leadership and what is left of the church to impose their will and morals on a society that increasingly does not share those values. This plays directly into the rise of GOP authoritarianism. The president’s penchant for authoritarianism is clear. Schenck asserts that the political and social culture the president has fomented is extremely dangerous, especially Christians who endanger their souls.

Fortunately, some other Evangelicl leaders have concluded that the president is dangerous. Thirty leaders have written essays on the danger the president represents. The essays are published in the book, The Spiritual Danger of Donald Trump.

Conservatives are flocking to a new 'free speech' social media app that has started banning liberal users

 Many of Parler's users have voiced their disapproval of how mainstream platforms such as Facebook and Twitter moderate content.

July 3, 2020

Last week, Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, both announced on Twitter that they were moving to a new social media platform.

"I'm proud to join @parler_app -- a platform gets what free speech is all about -- and I'm excited to be a part of it," Cruz tweeted.

Many others followed suit. Parler, founded in August 2018, touts itself as an "unbiased" social media platform focused on "real user experiences and engagement." In recent weeks, it has become a destination for conservatives who have voiced their disapproval of how mainstream platforms such as Facebook and Twitter moderate content.

But as with every other platform on the internet, Parler's free speech stance goes only so far. The platform has been banning many people who joined and trolled conservatives.

"Pretty much all of my leftist friends joined Parler to screw with MAGA folks, and every last one of them was banned in less than 24 hours because conservatives truly love free speech," a user wrote on Twitter.

Writer and comedian Tony Posnanski also received a ban from the app. "Free speech my a--! I literally said less than here and I got banned," he tweeted.

John Matze, the founder and CEO of Parler, said Thursday in an interview with CNBC that the company remains firm in its promise that it supports free speech.

"Our general premise is that we believe in the good of the American people as a whole and that people should be able to have these discussions," he said. "People don't want to be told what to think. People don't want to be told what to say anymore."

Parler did not respond to a request for comment.

The move to Parler by conservatives comes as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other social media platforms remain under pressure from Republicans over how they decide to remove content posted by users. Conservatives for years have claimed that they are unfairly silenced on the platforms, although many Republican politicians and pundits enjoy large audiences on them.

The pressure has increased in recent weeks since Twitter labeled multiple tweets from President Donald Trump as misleading and Snap, the owner of Snapchat, announced that it will stop promoting Trump's content. Facebook, which did not take similar action, has faced both a major advertiser boycott over how it handles hate speech and unrest from employees over how it handled Trump's statements.

Republicans have countered by pushing legislation to curtail the tech industry's legal protections, coupled with an executive order from Trump.

Parler is not the first alternative platform to try to capitalize on displeasure with the major platforms. Its user experience is similar to that of Twitter and other microblogging websites. Users can make posts on the platform and receive likes, comments and shares.

Some people who joined the platform described it as a conservative version of Twitter. Rees Paz, who calls himself a left-leaning centrist in his Twitter bio, tweeted that all of the users recommended for him on the app were conservative figures, from Trump's son Eric to Laura Loomer, a conservative activist who was previously banned from Twitter.

But even some conservatives find fault with the platform, which, in addition to stating that it is a free speech haven, promises to "never [share] your personal data."

Its privacy policy says it "may collect ... information such as your name, email address, username, and profile photo."

For people who choose to join the app's "influencer network," the company may ask for information "such as your Social Security number (SSN) or your tax identification number."

Some users have been dissatisfied with the company's efforts to protect their privacy.

Mindy Robinson, a conservative political commentator, criticized Cruz for endorsing the app.

"The minute it asked for a copy of my driver's license to access normal features Twitter already has ... I knew something was seriously wrong with Parler," Robinson wrote.

She then clarified that she was not able to send a direct message on the app without providing a photo of her driver's license.

Another user wrote: "I signed up prior to it requiring a phone number. It hasn't asked me to provide it yet. The moment it does I'm out."

In his CNBC interview, Matze defended Parler's policy on phone numbers and identification, saying people say "nasty things" online because they can stay anonymous.

"On Parler, people get verified, people have phone numbers related to their accounts. People know they're acting and behaving as they would in a town square," he said.

"We are a town square, not a publication," Matze added. "I think people will come around to this idea more and more — society can solve these problems without regulation of the social media platforms."

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/conservatives-flock-free-speech-social-media-app-which-has-started-n1232844

DO NOT SIGN UP TO CHECK THEM OUT, they require your phone number.

I used to think independence was everything. A pandemic and a goofy little cat taught me otherwise

By Megan Burbank
Seattle Times features reporter

The morning I was supposed to file this story, I was cleaning cat vomit out of the carpet in my apartment, something that I could not have imagined doing three months ago, when the idea of a pet seemed nice, but I couldn’t imagine leaving an animal alone all day. “My lifestyle doesn’t really allow for it,” I would say to friends, as if they were suggesting I adopt a human child and not a self-contained house cat.

What I really meant was: I like living alone and I’m afraid of change and commitment.

Living alone is a privilege, and before the coronavirus pandemic, I loved everything about it. I’ve always been an introvert with a hyperactive imagination, so to spend time alone is not a curse, but a pleasure. I love sleeping alone, watching movies alone, taking walks alone and coming home alone, and doing chores and cooking alone, with a podcast or audiobook in my earbuds for company.

After a busy day of work-related back-and-forth and my phone’s relentless pings, I love nothing more than to put my devices in airplane mode and read a paper-and-ink book, undisturbed, until I’ve truly come home to my own brain again and feel ready to deal with the demands of the outside world once more.

In my 20s, when I was still living in a limbo of roommates and cohabitation, I had taken Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own” as literally as some people take the Bible (conveniently ignoring the existence of Leonard Woolf). I am the kind of person who, at the end of a three-year relationship in my late 20s, was devastated AND subtly excited that I could go grocery shopping again without having to make compromises in the frozen foods section at Trader Joe’s.

I took a perverse pride in being responsible for nothing but myself and an ever-growing plant collection. How embarrassing — how domestic — it would be to have to take care of anyone or anything else. My dream was to live alone, or in the event that I fell in love again, down the street from a hypothetical future partner, who would also Live Alone and Like It!

On weekday nights, I’d wipe down countertops in communal kitchens I shared with various sundry roommates, and long for the day when I could dispense with them altogether. If this all sounds mildly sociopathic, it may have been.

It is possible for fierce independence to teeter into its unpleasant cousin, unfettered solipsism, and living alone under a COVID-induced lockdown revealed the weak points in my “No man is an island but I, a woman, am one” routine.

Part of what had allowed me to enjoy being alone was a vast network of friends and family I knew I could call on whenever I needed to, and who frequently called on me. In the early days of Washington state’s “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” order, our interactions were limited to video chats. I could hardly remember the last time I’d been hugged. Living alone had never felt so isolating.

Holden Caulfield laments at the end of “The Catcher in the Rye” that eventually “you start missing everybody.” And it was true. I missed seeing my friends and family in person. I missed high-fives and handshakes. I missed the people I used to see on my bus route. I missed the women in my ballet classes. I even missed my dentist’s office.

I missed everybody. And if I was struggling, I couldn’t imagine what this was like for extroverts. I felt so bad for all of us. I felt so bad I volunteered to foster a cat.

After having no luck at the Humane Society, where my application to adopt an older cat with some emotional challenges joined 900 others, I took in a goofy little cat named Luna for a breed-specific rescue. For the first time in my life, I would be solely responsible for a living thing bigger than a plant.

In the photo from the rescue, Luna wore a severe lion cut, a jaunty bow tie and a sour-looking expression. As it turns out, that’s just what her face looks like.

Luna, who has been described by her vet as “a funny little lady,” is an exotic shorthair whose bottom-line breeding means she has an extremely smooshed face and a teeny-tiny nose, and she’s small for an adult cat. A friend has compared her to a slightly inbred royal with a Habsburg chin but a positive attitude, and this does not seem inaccurate. (Please don’t buy purebred animals.) The effect is a tiny cat who is as friendly as a dog and breathes like a monster. I love her.

She had been surrendered because she was never appropriately socialized as a kitten, and was being aggressive and rude toward the other cats in her home. She needed to be in a space where she would be cared for and loved but where she could be the only cat. I could relate to this petite menace and her need for solitude, and immediately agreed to foster her. No cat is an island.

Luna enjoys: watching “Cheers” on the couch, murdering bugs who have the misfortune of crossing her path, taking luxurious naps on surfaces meant for humans, trying to eat the comb I brush her with weekly.
Luna does not enjoy: eyedrops, her carrier, having her paws handled, the vacuum.

Everyone who meets Luna falls in love with her. She is an objectively adorable cat who gets rave reviews at the vet, with huge amber Halloween eyes and a beautiful gray-white coat with blue markings.

I told myself I was “only fostering” but as we spent our first evening together watching horror movies on the couch side by side, I knew I wanted to keep her.

And so a global pandemic turned me from a “Room of One’s Own” purist into one of those annoying people who make up voices for their pets (Luna’s is sort of like an imperial guard in “Star Wars”) and complain about fireworks’ impact on their animals’ mental health. I am above starting a dedicated Instagram account for Luna, but not too proud to hashtag. I clean up her messes and take her to the vet and sometimes even unhygienically let her sleep at the foot of my bed, which would likely horrify the person I was in my twenties.

I still love being alone, but if the past few months have taught me anything, it’s that the American myth of self-sufficiency and bootstrapping is a dangerous one that reinforces long-fortified systems of oppression. It may be possible to get through this time, but it can’t be done alone. That’s why my neighbors now wear masks to protect strangers they’ll never meet, why they’ve put up homemade Black Lives Matter signs in their windows, why waving kindly at a fellow stranger wearing a mask is the new smile-and-nod.

I always prided myself on being self-sufficient, but the truth is I’m not. No one is. Not really. Mutual care is the only way we survive. It’s a luxury to have a room of one’s own; it is harder to acknowledge your own need for care. It requires more vulnerability, at a time of tremendous, deep-rooted and lasting pain, to accept the importance and imperatives of softness, kindness and communion.

So I am leaning into those things right now — driving my cousin and her newborn daughter home from the hospital; drinking wine with my mom in her yard; paddling lazily across Green Lake with my brother in separate, inflatable dinghies; Venmoing drinking money to furloughed friends; and, yes, occasionally cleaning up cat vomit. No funny little lady is an island.

https://www.seattletimes.com/life/i-used-to-think-independence-was-everything-a-pandemic-and-a-goofy-little-cat-taught-me-otherwise/