HOW SIMILAR ARE THE FAR-LEFT AND THE FAR-RIGHT?

 Do the far-left and the far-right ever seem hopelessly similar to you? As odd as this question may sound at first, Horseshoe Theory suggests that the political spectrum is not a straight line with ideologies moving across a line from left to right, but rather a horseshoe, with its farthest outliers bending in toward each other and sharing a number of beliefs. In recent years, violent clashes between the far-left and far-right, at UC Berkeley, in Charlottesville, North Carolina, in Portland, Oregon, and most recently during the George Floyd protests, have challenged society to take a look at the actions of both extremes and ask: To what extent does similarity in action mean similarity in character?

The Far-Left and the Far-Right Are Two Peas in a Pod

 

Victim complex.

People on the outermost poles of the political spectrum, meaning on both the far-left and the far-right, often view themselves as aggrieved parties. Interestingly, one study found that having faced adversity – namely violence, loss of a loved one, or experiencing illness or disability – is indeed a predictor of extreme political views; the more adversity people faced, the more likely they were to lean to the far right or far left in their ideologies. Experiencing adversity may explain the rhetoric of victimization that permeates the far-left as well as the far-right. White Nationalists complain of cultural and economic obliteration at the hands of multicultural movements and affirmative action, while proponents of the far-left demand restitution for the silencing of minority groups via discriminatory legislation, the recent rise in popularity of white nationalists, police brutality and micro-aggressions.

 

By any means necessary.

Militancy pervades the ranks of the far-left and the far-right. More than idolizing violent purveyors of their ideologies (think far-right’s Hitler to the far-left’s Che Guevara), many far-right and far-left movements are vehement in their rejection of non-violence and employ it regularly. Right-wing groups are said to have carried out 150 attacks on US soil – from shooting to bombings – since 1993. Similar crimes have been perpetrated by militant offshoots of left-wing groups, beginning with the 1960’s Weathermen and continuing until today with the Antifa movement.

 

An idle mind is the devil’s playground.

Scientists have connected boredom to the adoption of extreme political stances, calling youth, wealth, and education the most common risk factors of extremism. Before the coronavirus pandemic hit, it could be argued that without families to support or even necessarily the need to support themselves, the average college student has more free time than others to develop defined political views. As such, it is hardly surprising that constituents on the far-right and far-left are overwhelmingly educated and even well-off (a trend that held even for the Hezbollah fighters of the 1980s and 90s).

The Far-Left and Far-Right Are as Different as Night and Day.

 

Different hard-wiring.

Psychologist have determined that liberal and conservative brains literally function quite differently. For example, an examination of the possessions of liberal and conservative college students revealed that the former had more books and travel-memorabilia, while the latter had more items relating to cleaning and organization. This investigation suggested key differences in liberal and conservative mindsets – with one leaning toward the discovery of new experiences and the other emphasizing self-discipline and order. This hard-wiring gives rise to dramatically different value systems – systems that view the basic ideas like fairness, equality, and even right and wrong in radically different terms.

 

History is in the eye of the beholder.

The far-right and the far-left have dramatically different interpretations of the past – interpretations which dictate their political stances and calls to action. The far-right expresses nostalgia for the past and actively works to preserve their history, regardless of what that might mean in today’s context. For right-wing Southerners, like the members of Save Southern Heritage, this means protecting statues of famous Confederates, and decrying the removal of the Confederate flag from public buildings or the removal of Confederate monuments. Conversely, the far-left (and in this case, many liberals) associates the past with its ills – slavery, sexism, and other injustices. History and its institutions are not to be preserved and cherished, but rather, an embarking point from which to begin reform.

 

Superficial similarities.

When two groups utilize similar tactics, it does not necessarily mean that the groups are one and the same. The Antifa and white nationalist movements exemplify key ideological differences that should not be overlooked. While Antifa and white nationalist movements both express distaste for the government (and even a will to overthrow it), their reasons for these sentiments are rather opposite. Antifa, whose members also frequently identify as anarchists, view government as an instrument of inequality, while white nationalists express hostility toward government because they believe it facilitates equality – a notion that offends those whose identity is built upon a defined racial hierarchy.

 

The Bottom Line: Both the far-left and the far-right have a victim-like mentality and employ militant strategies, yet each group has contrasting views on history and personal values. What do you think? Do overlapping tactics and stances in the far-right and far-left amount to a hegemonic portrait of extreme personalities, or is each extremely distinct?

https://www.theperspective.com/debates/politics/similar-far-left-far-right/

Trump's Radical Right Saboteur

Russell Vought - GOP radical right extremist

& rabid religious bigot

In the coming months, memories will start to fade. But some obscure things are worth mention before that process gets underway. The Washington Post writes in an opinion piece:

If, in the new year, pandemic vaccines aren’t available as promised, Americans can’t return to work because economic relief isn’t delivered or an adversary successfully attacks the United States because national security agencies couldn’t pay for new defenses, a hefty share of the blame should be placed on a man you’ve probably never heard of: One Russell Thurlow Vought.

As President Trump’s budget director, he conspicuously failed in his stated goal of controlling the debt. Despite his efforts, the debt increased by $6 trillion on his two-year watch as director of the Office of Management and Budget, the biggest jump in history.

But what Russ Vought is very good at is sabotage. He’s sabotaging national security, the pandemic response and the economic recovery — all to make things more difficult for the incoming Biden administration. That he’s also sabotaging the country seems not to matter to Vought, who has spent nearly two decades as a right-wing bomb thrower.

He has blocked civil servants at OMB from cooperating with the Biden transition, denying President-elect Joe Biden the policy analysis and budget-preparation assistance given to previous presidents-elect, including Barack Obama and Trump himself.

Thursday afternoon, Vought released a bombastic letter accusing the Biden transition of making “false statements” about OMB’s uncooperativeness — and then essentially confirming that it would not cooperate: “What we have not done and will not do is use current OMB staff to write the [Biden transition’s] legislative policy proposals to dismantle this Administration’s work. . . . Redirecting staff and resources to draft your team’s budget proposals is not an OMB transition responsibility. Our system of government has one President and one Administration at a time.”

Vought’s 2017 nomination to be OMB deputy director (he later served 18 months as acting director and has served five as director) was nearly undone over a 2016 article in which he wrote: “Muslims do not simply have a deficient theology. They do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ, his Son, and they stand condemned.”

Vought spent seven years on the vanguard of conservative extremism as a senior official at Heritage Action, the political wing of the Heritage Foundation. The group fought GOP leadership and pushed lawmakers into unyielding positions.

During that time, Vought wrote a series of rambling posts for RedState.com arguing that “incrementalism doesn’t work for the right,” that Republicans “are fundamentally in their DNA unwilling to fight” and that Republicans needed to have “a willingness” to shut the government down. He exhorted Republicans to “embrace the sort of brinkmanship that shows they are playing to win.” He railed against a 2012 infrastructure bill as “communism.”

Lying, incoherent radical right authoritarians like this are now mainstream in GOP leadership. Authoritarians don't compromise. Only democrats compromise. The president gets the blame for all of the damage this incompetent bigoted freak caused.

New Year Musings

Happy New Year!

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It isn't clear how 2021 is going to turn out. The political fissures that grew in 2020 are not going to go away any time soon. American social glue is weak and ways to repair it are not clear. Unfounded conspiracy theories tend to be more persuasive than reality for an angry, insurgent radical right minority. Inconvenient facts, truths and reasoning are all weak and unpersuasive in the eyes of that warring tribe.  

By now it is obvious that an angry minority of Americans have lost some or most of their trust in democracy, including the recent election. They have been persuaded by decades of ruthless propaganda that more authoritarianism and Christianity in government and society generally is their preferred way forward. 

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Given the circumstances, what makes sense? Since appeals to facts and reason are generally ineffective with the angry minority, an emphasis on appeals to emotions and morals seems to make more sense going forward. That calls for a different kind of rhetoric. Of course, one can argue that reliance on a different kind of rhetoric (1) capitulates to unwarranted and unjustified means of interaction, and (2) undermines the proper role of facts and reason in politics. It also raises the issue of the morality. If one resorts to lies, deceit, unwarranted emotional manipulation and partisan motivated reasoning, that is a win for darkness and ignorance and a loss for facts, reason and honest democracy. 

What to do differently, if anything, is not clear. I'm personally uncomfortable with significantly abandoning facts and reasoning, which tend to be more objective than dealing with emotions and morals. And, I don't know how to directly speak to emotions and morals.

Some time to cogitate on this is called for. Maybe over the next few days or weeks, something will emerge from the fog.

Normal Everyday Lies From Normal Everyday Liars

Three separate examples illustrate what is normal for politics and political discourse among some in the US and elsewhere. This has been going on for at least decades, but for some reason, personally it feels different and worse than before. Maybe it feels that way because it is that way. Or, maybe it feels that way because knowledge of it is so clear and discouraging.

Stephanie Mohr - presidentially pardoned thug

Hey Sarge, we got a new dog. Mind if it gets a bite? -- He only needed 10 stitches

An opinion piece in the Washington Post discusses the president’s pardon of a police officer, Stephanie Mohr, who was ordered to let her police dog attack a homeless person surrounded by police. The homeless person posed no threat and was in full compliance will all orders the police had given to him. The dog attack was just a test for a new dog to see how it would work out: “A police sergeant later testified that he was approached by Mohr’s supervising officer who said, ‘Hey Sarge, we got a new dog. Mind if it gets a bite?’” In court Mohr downplayed the incident, commenting that the victim needed “only 10 stitches.”

This incident occurred in 2001. The opinion piece was written by Alex Busansky, the former lawyer in the Justice Department’s civil rights division who prosecuted Mohr. Busansky described the incident, the lies by Mohr that led to the pardon, and the lies in the president’s pardon like this:

This was no accident or split-second mistake. It was a willful and deliberate act of police brutality. It was also not Mohr’s first — and there was a pattern to the violence. Evidence at trial showed that Mohr had previously released her dog on a Black teenager sleeping in a hammock in his own backyard. She had threatened the relatives of a fugitive that she would let her dog attack their “black ass” if they did not tell her where he was.

In early December, Mohr made a direct appeal to the president for a pardon by going on Newsmax. She spewed falsehoods about the case, claiming she had been made a scapegoat. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The White House statement announcing her pardon noted that it reflected her “service and the lengthy term that Ms. Mohr served in prison,” adding, “Officer Mohr was a highly commended member of the police force prior to her prosecution.” Actually, she had been sued at least four times for brutality, was twice found to have made false statements to a superior and was flagged as a potential problem officer by the department’s early warning system.

Russia & COVID

Lying about pandemic deaths - fire the statistician

The New York Times reports that COVID-19 deaths in Russia are much higher than officially reported. This comes as no surprise. Experts have been saying for months that the official death toll has been too low in view of the number of reported infections. Like the US president, Russian dictator Putin has not treated the pandemic seriously because, also like the US president, he does not care about the well-being of Russian citizens. Statistical data triples Russia’s Covid-19 death toll. Despite the newly released data, the Russian government still refuses to release the actual death toll. The NYT writes:

The statistics agency said 230,000 more people died through November of this year than did in 2019, a hike attributable to the virus.

After months of questions over the true scale of the coronavirus pandemic in Russia and the efficacy of a Russian-developed vaccine, the state statistical agency in Moscow has announced new figures indicating that the death toll from Covid-19 is more than three times as high as officially reported.

From the start of the pandemic early this year, the health crisis has been enveloped and, say critics, distorted by political calculations as President Vladimir V. Putin and Kremlin-controlled media outlets have repeatedly boasted of Russian successes in combating the virus and keeping the fatality rate relatively low.

But the release of the data received little coverage on state media and the news was crowded out by upbeat reports ahead of a lengthy national holiday to celebrate the new year. State television focused on what it said was the eagerness of foreign countries, especially Belarus, to roll out a vaccine developed in Russia.  

Russia has reported more than 3 million cases of infection, making it the world’s fourth-hardest-hit country, but only 55,827 deaths, fewer than in seven other countries. A demographer at a government agency who questioned the official fatality figures, dismissing them as far too low, was fired over the summer.

China & COVID: We are not gonna tell you what we know

Like the US president and Russian dictator Putin, the Chinese government does not care much about the well-being of people, at least ones outside China. The AP reports that the Chinese government has shut down access to research information on the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. This is an example of government lying by withholding information. The AP writes: 

Deep in the lush mountain valleys of southern China lies the entrance to a mine shaft that once harbored bats with the closest known relative of the COVID-19 virus.

The area is of intense scientific interest because it may hold clues to the origins of the coronavirus that has killed more than 1.7 million people worldwide. Yet for scientists and journalists, it has become a black hole of no information because of political sensitivity and secrecy.

A bat research team visiting recently managed to take samples but had them confiscated, two people familiar with the matter said. Specialists in coronaviruses have been ordered not to speak to the press. And a team of Associated Press journalists was tailed by plainclothes police in multiple cars who blocked access to roads and sites in late November.

More than a year since the first known person was infected with the coronavirus, an AP investigation shows the Chinese government is strictly controlling all research into its origins, clamping down on some while actively promoting fringe theories that it could have come from outside China.  

The government is handing out hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to scientists researching the virus’ origins in southern China and affiliated with the military, the AP has found. But it is monitoring their findings and mandating that the publication of any data or research must be approved by a new task force managed by China’s cabinet, under direct orders from President Xi Jinping, according to internal documents obtained by The AP. A rare leak from within the government, the dozens of pages of unpublished documents confirm what many have long suspected: The clampdown comes from the top.

People Are Sharing Photoshopped Pictures Of Trump — Again

 The doctored image makes Trump appear larger than his actual size.

An image of President Donald Trump that has been photoshopped to make him appear larger than he is has gone viral, with many Twitter users sharing the image as if it were accurate

"I don’t think William Barr resigned...I think @realDonaldTrump ate him guys," tweeted one person, in a tweet that's been shared more than 800 times.

The original photo was taken June 28 by AFP/Getty photographer Nicholas Kamm. As you can see in a side-by-side comparison, in the viral image, Trump's appearance has been altered to make his stomach and neck larger.

This isn't the first time that photoshopped images of Trump have gone viral as if they were real.In fact, throughout the four years of his presidency, there have been a number of controversies concerning widely shared images of him that were later proven to be photoshopped.

As the image of so-called fat Trump began to spread, people on Twitter began to call out those sharing the image for spreading misinformation.

"I hate this motherfucker more than anything, but this is a photoshop  of a real photo from June and you forfeit your right to complain about disinformation if you can’t be bothered not to spread it," writer and comedian Daniel Kibblesmith wrote in a tweet comparing the original and doctored photos.

However, even before the image was debunked, people started calling out those sharing the image for body-shaming under the guise of criticizing Trump.

"Goddammit. I hate this shit because now I gotta defend trump. There are a million reasons #TrumpIsNotWell, but we’re gonna rag on him for being fat?" one person tweeted. "Your fat friends, family, coworkers see this & it doesn’t make them feel great. Let’s stick to the ACTUAL reasons why Trump sux."

"It doesn't matter that he mocks other people or that he lies about his weight," Hollowell added. "This isn't the GOTCHA you think it is, you're just fatphobic."

jules rylan ✡︎

@radiantbutch

tw: fatphobia extremely unfriendly reminder that donald trump will never see this kind of shit, but all your fat friends will.

ken olin

@kenolin1

My god, he’s actually inflating.

5:51 AM · Dec 29, 2020

282

56 people are Tweeting about this

"Trump isn’t bad because he’s fat, he’s bad because he’s a fascist," Rylan wrote in a follow-up tweet. "Think about what you’re actually trying to criticize before you hurt every fat person who sees your reckless words."

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ellievhall/trump-viral-photoshop-fat-fake-twitter

American Social Unease

Is there going to be a calm?

A topic of intense personal interest is what is going on in people's heads. What are they thinking, feeling and why. IMO, the social glues that used to hold us together have been attacked by the radical right for DECADES. The glues are seriously weakened or broken entirely. Partisan political distrust is slowly destroying American democracy and the concept of the rule of law. Apparently, some other people seem to be having similar thoughts. AP writes in an article, A divided nation asks: What’s holding our country together?:

Weeks after the votes have been counted and the winners declared, many Americans remain angry, defiant and despairing. Millions now harbor new grievances borne of President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud. Many Democrats are saddened by results that revealed the opposition to be far more powerful than they imagined.

And in both groups there are those grappling with larger, more disquieting realizations: The foundations of the American experiment have been shaken — by partisan rancor, disinformation, a president’s assault on democracy and a deadly coronavirus pandemic.

There is a sense of loss.

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Trump immediately began sowing doubts about the vote, tossing out specious claims of fraud. Tens of millions of Americans — 36 percent of Republicans in a recent Fox News poll — now believe the claims that the election was rigged and he was the rightful winner.

“I think the election was totally paid for and rigged by the Democrats. I believe there was huge amounts of fraud and representation and illegal processing,” said Pamela Allen, a 72-year-old retiree from Holiday, Florida, who has supported Trump since he came down the escalator in Trump Tower in 2015 to announce his candidacy.

Allen, who worked as a poll watcher in Pasco County, said she saw no problems on Election Day.

“Here in Pasco I have to admit it was very well done,” she said. But she believes things she’s seen on the conservative Trump-favored Newsmax about alleged voter fraud in other states. She is “baffled” as to why Attorney General William Barr didn’t arrest anyone, and “amazed” that the Supreme Court didn’t rule in Trump’s favor. Barr, viewed by Democrats as a staunch Trump loyalist, instead made clear before leaving his job that he had seen no evidence of widespread fraud.

Allen believes that if Biden takes office, he will retire quickly, leaving the presidency to Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. She also thinks House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will become vice president. However, Allen hopes Trump will prevail prior to Inauguration Day, Jan. 20.

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In suburban Michigan, a coalition of suburban women achieved what it set out to do — help evict Trump from the White House. But Lori Goldman, in Oakland County, Michigan, who runs the group Fems for Dems, can’t shake the sense that the mission now is more critical than it’s ever been.

“We got rid of this blight, this cancer,” said Goldman, 61. “We cut him out. But we know that cancer has spread, it’s spread to soft tissue, other organs. And now we have to save the rest of the body.”

Trump isn’t gone, not really, she said. She is horrified at the number of Americans who believe his unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud.

“That’s a dangerous, dangerous place to be in,” she said. “This country is in a lot of trouble.”

It feels to her that the United States is caught in a period of great transition. The bright, progressive future she longs for seems inevitable. But she thinks a large portion of America would prefer to turn back the clock.

Goldman can’t understand why 74 million Americans voted for Trump. She went on national television and said she was ashamed that most of her own relatives were among them. Now some of her siblings don’t want to talk to her anymore.

To her, this is a microcosm of one of the greatest challenges this country has faced: that tribalized politics has pitted people against each other in a way far more profound than ever before. It is no longer Republicans versus Democrats. It has splintered families and friends.

She weeps when she talks about the rift.

The AP article is long. It discusses the feelings of other people who are uneasy about what is happening and what is to come next.