Authoritarian Republican vengeance lust; DJT’s vengeance lust; Israeli propaganda machine targeted US tax dollars

As GOP authoritarianism hardens into its full-blown revealed form, the elites lust for vengeance is not hidden. A NYT article exemplifies the seething hate and urge for payback in the wake of DJT’s 34 felony convictions that elite Republican authoritarians are now publicly expressing:

The G.O.P. Push for Post-Verdict Payback: 

‘Fight Fire With Fire’

Republican leaders in and out of government are publicly pushing to prosecute Democrats as legal retribution for Donald Trump’s felony conviction

Republican allies of Donald J. Trump are calling for revenge prosecutions and other retaliatory measures against Democrats in response to his felony conviction in New York.

Within hours of a jury finding Mr. Trump guilty last week, the anger congealed into demands for action. Since then, prominent G.O.P. leaders in and out of government have demanded that elected Republicans use every available instrument of power against Democrats, including targeted investigations and prosecutions.

The intensity of anger and open desire for using the criminal justice system against Democrats after the verdict surpasses anything seen before in Mr. Trump’s tumultuous years in national politics. What is different now is the range of Republicans who are saying retaliation is necessary and who are no longer cloaking their intent with euphemisms.

Stephen Miller, a former senior adviser to Mr. Trump who still helps guide his thinking on policy, blared out a directive on Fox News after a jury found Mr. Trump guilty of falsifying financial records to cover up a 2016 campaign hush-money payment to a porn actress. Mr. Miller posed a series of questions to Republicans at every level, including local district attorneys.

“Is every House committee controlled by Republicans using its subpoena power in every way it needs to right now?” he demanded. “Is every Republican D.A. starting every investigation they need to right now?”

“Every facet of Republican Party politics and power has to be used right now to go toe-to-toe with Marxism and beat these Communists,” Mr. Miller said, using the catchall slurs Trump allies routinely use against Democrats.  

Stephen K. Bannon, the former chief strategist to Mr. Trump, said in a text message to The New York Times on Tuesday that now was the moment for obscure Republican prosecutors around the country to make a name for themselves by prosecuting Democrats.

Mr. Bannon was convicted in a federal prosecution for failing to comply with a congressional subpoena in the Jan. 6 investigation, and faces trial in September in a New York state court — before the same judge who oversaw Mr. Trump’s trial — in a charity fraud case.

As usual, elite authoritarian Republican rhetoric is loaded with insulting, divisive dark free speech. Blatantly false allegations Marxism and Communism are now standard lies and slanders among radicalized, anti-democracy GOP elites and propagandists. 

As I have postulated before, maybe there is a silver lining to unleashing the lawyer-dogs of political vengeance war. At the very least, it should scare essentially all Democratic Party politicians into becoming seriously law-abiding people. Not sure how Republicans would change, in any at all. regardless, Democrats should do the same to Republicans. Also, when false charges are prosecuted, those falsely accused should counter sue for false prosecution. Yes, that could get messy. But in the long run, maybe democracy and the rule of law will benefit. Or, maybe not. 

But it would be an interesting experiment in defending democracy and the rule of law. At least the lawyers would like it.😊

Authoritarian liar, thug & criminal Bannon wants

revenge prosecutions against Democrats

Fun Bannon note: Bannon himself is literally contemptuous of the rule of law as applied to himself, and presumably authoritarian Republicans generally. Reporting in May 2024, MSNBC wrote: Trump White House aide Steve Bannon loses appeal of contempt of Congress conviction -- A federal appeals court on Friday upheld the criminal contempt of Congress conviction of Trump White House senior advisor Steve Bannon. Bannon was convicted in connection with refusing to testify and provide documents to the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

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Another NYT article comments about how DJT sees the vengeance thing: Trump says he might ‘have to’ prosecute his political opponents. -- Former President Donald J. Trump again suggested his political opponents could face prosecution on Tuesday, saying in an interview with Newsmax that it might “have to happen to them” following his conviction by a jury in New York. “You know, it’s a very terrible thing. It’s a terrible precedent for our country. Does that mean the next president does it to them? That’s really the question,” Mr. Trump said in response to a question from the host, Greg Kelly, about whether the conviction could help him politically.

Good grief. DJT is such a shameless, transparent liar. He obviously would be overjoyed to enthusiastically prosecute Democrats for their real or imagined crimes.

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America’s alleged ally Israel quietly fired up its propaganda machinery in the US last year. It wanted to suck more cash out of the US for Israel to use in its apparently spreading war against everyone in the neighborhood:

Israel Secretly Targets U.S. Lawmakers 

With Influence Campaign on Gaza War

Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs ordered the operation, which used fake social media accounts urging U.S. lawmakers to fund Israel’s military, according to officials and documents about the effort

Israel organized and paid for an influence campaign last year targeting U.S. lawmakers and the American public with pro-Israel messaging, as it aimed to foster support for its actions in the war with Gaza, according to officials involved in the effort and documents related to the operation.

The covert campaign was commissioned by Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, a government body that connects Jews around the world with the State of Israel, four Israeli officials said. The ministry allocated about $2 million to the operation and hired Stoic, a political marketing firm in Tel Aviv, to carry it out, according to the officials and the documents.

Targeted US politicians included Ritchie Torres, left, 

and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries

Last week, Meta and OpenAI published reports attributing the influence campaign to Stoic. Meta said it had removed 510 Facebook accounts, 11 Facebook pages, 32 Instagram accounts and one Facebook group tied to the operation. OpenAI said Stoic had created fictional personas and biographies meant to stand in for real people on social media services used in Israel, Canada and the United States to post anti-Islamic messages. Many of the posts remain on X.

X [free speech “absolutist” Elon Musk] didn’t respond to a request for comment.  

On its LinkedIn page, Stoic has promoted its ability to run campaigns backed by A.I. “As we look ahead, it’s clear that A.I.’s role in political campaigns is set for a transformative leap, reshaping the way campaigns are strategized, executed and evaluated,” it wrote.* 

* Meaning AI will be used to lie, distract and deceive in political campaigns and corporate propaganda programs and dark free speech from AI will be evaluated for effectiveness. 

An Israeli news source commented: Report: Israeli fake social media accounts targeted US Congress for military funding -- The covert operation was allegedly commissioned by the Diaspora Affairs Ministry, which allocated approximately $2 million and hired a Tel Aviv-based political marketing company [a/k/a/ professional liars] to execute it. The accounts targeted over a dozen members of Congress, with a focus on Black and Democratic representatives such as Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader from New York, and Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia. “Israel's role in this is reckless and probably ineffective,” Achiya Schatz, the executive director of FakeReporter, an Israeli misinformation watchdog, told the Times. “That Israel ran an operation that interferes in US politics is extremely irresponsible.”

Maybe extremely irresponsible, but what the heck? Who cares? There is no repercussion for Israel merely participating in the America’s pay-to-play political system. It is open to everyone to play any way they want, e.g., setting up fake social media accounts and using them to deceive and influence US politicians, as long as they pay someone. It is just constitutionally protected free speech!

Authoritarianism and populism in the US vs. India

India is one of the world democracies that is sliding into authoritarianism. There, authoritarianism is centered on bigoted Hinduism to create Islamophobia and scapegoat Muslims to help instill a sense of national pride in Narendra Modi’s rank and file Hindu supporters. The recent re-election of Modi and his party indicates that India is likely to move toward bigoted religious authoritarianism. The Hindu nationalist agenda and policies of the BJP are aligned with that anti-democratic trend. 

Modi’s BJP lost 63 seats and he

will need to form a coalition government

In India, one can reasonably expect continued erosion of secular values, worsening discrimination against Muslims, and further religious polarization and human rights violations. An interesting article compares the rising authoritarianism and populism in the US and India:

Comparing and Contrasting the Impact of Religious Nationalism

on Right-Wing Populism in the United States and India

One of the most noticeable political trends has been the emergence of right-wing populism. One prominent event that showed this trend was the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States. Trump’s populism centered on the belief that the government stopped caring about the common man’s interests and that he would be a true representative of the people. This election has shaped the modern Republican Party with figures such as Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA-14) and Matt Gaetz (R-FL-1). This has also become a global phenomenon. One of the best examples of this is Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India. During his run for Prime Minister, Modi frequently bashed the economic stagnation under the ruling Congress Party and framed himself as the champion of the urban middle class and the peasantry.

Along with this trend of right-wing populism, there has also been a rise in religious nationalism. In the United States, the religious right have pushed for America to become a more Christian nation, essentially meaning that to be an American, one has to be Christian. This has culminated in the erosion of the barrier between church and state, restrictions on abortion, and LGBTQ+ content in schools. In India, a prominent ideology of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is Hindutva, the belief that India is to be a Hindu nation. This has materialized in policies that favor the Hindu majority, such as building a Hindu temple on the disputed land of Ayodhya.

Given the similar political environments that both the United States and India have, it is worth comparing both countries to see what the effect of religious nationalism has been on their respective versions of right-wing populism and the policy implications that come from this ideology. To do this, it is important to start with the origins of religious nationalism in both nations.

Origins of Religious Nationalism in the United States and India

Religion in the United States is not a foreign concept. In its founding, many of the people that first settled in what would become the United States were religious groups that wanted to get a new start (a notable example being the pilgrims in New England). Though America may have had religion in its background, the founders of the United States made it clear that the nation was intended to be secular. For example, in the Treaty of Tripoli, the second President of the United States, John Adams, wrote, “As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion.” For a long time, America has held onto secular beliefs. For example, the Supreme Court case of Engel v. Vitale (1962) ruled that schools cannot force students to engage in a school prayer. This decision struck many Christian nationalists. They feared that the removal of God from society, especially from children, would generate immoral individuals. This was fueled even further by the election of Jimmy Carter as President of the United States. Many Christians were upset that Carter refused to push harder for moral legislation. This fused Christian nationalism with the political right as Ronald Reagan actively courted these dissatisfied voters with his support of prayer in schools and his promise to appoint many evangelicals to positions in the government. This led to the evangelical community siding with Republicans, which has stayed true since then.

Similar to the United States, India was founded as a secular nation. In the preamble of its Constitution, India declared itself to be a “…sovereign socialist secular democratic republic”. However, the root of Hindu nationalism came from religious conflicts during the 1930s. British leaders sought to exploit the religious conflicts in the area to divide the local populace, especially by keeping Indians poor through exploitative lending and tax practices. Around this time, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) was created by a group of Brahmins who feared that a long period of non-Hindu leadership in India had removed the populace from their roots. This organization works to preserve Hindu values and scorns the multiculturalism that India has, with Nazi Germany serving as a model to follow. The RSS started to activate as a more potent political force, forming the Jan Sangh Party in 1980, which promoted Hindu nationalism. Its modern iteration, the BJP, formed as a merger between the Hindu nationalist Jan Sangh Party and the Janata Party, a political party created in opposition to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s suspension of civil liberties during the Emergency. Since then, the BJP has been a prominent political party. The 2019 Lok Sabha (lower house) elections further proved this point, with the BJP winning over 50% of the seats.

There are some notable similarities between the United States and India. One of the most notable is that both nations were founded on the belief of a secular government. Each nation’s religious nationalism formed to contest this belief. Notably, while the United States formed as a nation earlier than India, both countries experienced this modern wave of religious nationalism around the 1980s. One explanation for this may be the economic stagnation in both countries. In the United States, the recession in the 1980s fueled anti-Carter sentiments, allowing the Republican Party to bring Ronald Reagan into the Presidency under the promise of economic liberalization. Similarly, in India, the 1980s marked a period of economic liberalization, especially with the deregulation of foreign trade. This economic liberalization contrasted with the Congress Party’s rule during economic stagnation. By this time, religious nationalism was tied with each nation’s right-wing, bringing the ideology into the government through economic liberalization.

Religious Nationalism and Right-Wing Populism

To truly understand right-wing populism, there needs to be a clear definition. For this paper, the definition of populism comes from Professor Cas Mudde, a Dutch political scientist at the University of Georgia, in his influential paper The Populist Zeitgeist. Mudde defines populism as “…an ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite,’ and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people.” From this, there are clear connections between religious nationalism and right-wing populism.

In the United States, the synthesis of religious nationalism and right-wing populism comes from premillennial thinking. This ideology centers on the belief that Jesus will return to Earth before the millennium to set up a holy kingdom and that society is in tribulation to prove itself to Christ. This creates a situation where premillennial believers see the world as a fight between believers of Christ and those who do not believe. With Trump, he is a figure that spent much of his time talking about the nation’s decline. His main campaign slogan was Make America Great Again, explicitly stating that the United States is degenerating. When talking about the groups that are culpable for America’s decline, one of his main targets is Muslims, claiming that Islam is against the West. This distinct religious distinction between good and evil feeds into the premillennial narrative. Trump also pledges himself to be the people’s voice but takes it further by declaring that he will be their retribution against those who have wronged them. This statement feeds into Trump’s messianism, a key component in religious nationalism. Trump’s populism is impacted by religious nationalism by setting up the framework for this battle between good and evil and how he is the only person who can fix it. However, this battle of good and evil is not just relegated to surface-level beliefs but a larger war about morals in which Trump positions himself as a bulwark against the immoral. This unique blend explains how Trump garnered much support from evangelical Christians.

Narendra Modi’s outlook on religion greatly influences his populism. Modi is no stranger to Hindu nationalism as he was a member of the RSS. Modi’s form of populism was fusing economics with religion. During his 2014 run for Prime Minister, Modi positioned himself as Vikas Purush (development man) and pledged to replicate the economic development in Gujarat, where he was the Chief Minister. Many of Modi’s policies also have their roots in hindu belief, with one notable example being “…the panchamrut plan, Modi said it rested on the five major planks of gyan shakti (power of knowledge), jal shakti (power of water resources), Urja shakti (power of energy resources), jan shakti (power of human resources) and raksha shakti (power of defense).” By injecting hindu beliefs into public policy while also positioning himself as an economic developer, he made hindu nationalism much more palatable to the general public. Modi has also positioned himself as a political outsider with a track record of economic success as an alternative to the Nehru-Gandhi corruption, making himself look more like a man of the people. During the 2019 elections, Modi fed into the two antagonistic groups that Mudde talks about by focusing on national security and the threat that Pakistan presents to India, specifically concerning the Jammu and Kashmir conflict. This feeds into the Hindutva narrative about India being a Hindu nation and that Islam is a group bent on destroying the nation.

The main similarity between these populist leaders is that they paint their nations as in decline. With Donald Trump, he frequently comments about how the United States is in decline due to the establishment no longer working for the American people. Modi has frequently attacked the Congress Party and the Nehru-Gandhi political family for its corruption and the years of economic stagnation they have caused. Both figures then present themselves as messianic figures that can save their countries. Trump ran under the slogan of Make America Great Again. Similarly, in 2014, Modi ran under the slogan of ‘acche din aane waale hain’ (good days are coming). While Trump may be harkening back to the past and Modi is looking towards the future, both present themselves as problem solvers who can save their nations. This messianism attracts many religious nationalists because they often paint religious minorities as threats to their respective nations, with both leaders focusing on the threat of Islam. Both Trump and Modi create an environment where religious nationalism can be supported, as well as influence policy decisions.

Religious Nationalism and Policy

Both Trump and Modi have been able to push religious nationalism through the court system. For example, many of the justices that Trump has appointed to the Supreme Court have worked to erode the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. One notable case has been Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (2022). In this case, a high school football coach was fired for performing a silent prayer after school games. In the majority opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch (a Trump appointee) claimed that the firing violated the Constitution’s Free Exercise Clause. The Court also went one step further to overrule Lemon v. Kurtzman formally. Lemon v. Kurtzman established a three-pronged test to see whether a law violated the Establishment Clause, which goes as follows “First, the statute must have a secular legislative purpose; second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion, Board of Education v. Allen; finally, the statute must not foster “an excessive government entanglement with religion.” This rigid test ensured that the Establishment Clause would be hard to violate. Removing this test erodes the separation of church and state and opens the door for Christian values to be promoted by the government.

In India, their Supreme Court has also supported Hindu nationalism. In 2019, the Supreme Court of India ruled in favor of Hindus in the Ram Ayodhya temple dispute. This dispute was caused by Hindus wanting to build a temple on a specific portion of land because they viewed it as a holy site where Lord Rama (a major deity) was born. However, in the 16th Century, the first ruler of the Mughal Empire built a mosque on the land. This eventually led to a group of Hindus destroying the mosque in 1992 with the hope that a temple would be built on the land. The Indian Supreme Court’s ruling favoring Hindus supported Modi’s wishes to build a temple on the land. The Supreme Court of India also gave Rama legal standing, which effectively pitted a Hindu god against the Muslim population. The main takeaway from this case is that the Supreme Court of India has seemingly moved past the secular foundation of India to favor Hindu interests and push the Hindutva agenda.

Both Kennedy v. Bremerton School District and the Ram Ayodhya dispute show that the highest court in India and the United States is willing to challenge the secular nature of their respective country to advance religious nationalism. Unsurprisingly, the executive branch in India and the United States have had a major role in influencing their respective Supreme Courts in this direction. Donald Trump was able to appoint three justices to the Supreme Court, and the Federalist Society influenced his decisions. This conservative legal organization was created to counter perceived liberal bias in the legal profession. The President appoints justices with the Supreme Court of India, as stated in the Indian Constitution. Since the BJP controls the Presidency, they can advance their interests by appointing pro-BJP justices. This system gives more power to the President because they do not need to seek approval from the rest of the legislative body to make these appointments. This wider discretion makes it easier for Hindu nationalism to be more overt, whereas Christian nationalism has to be much more covert. 

From a legislative standpoint, religious nationalism has sprung up at the state level rather than the national level. For example, in the United States, 22 states (all of which have Republican-dominated state legislatures) have passed laws excluding transgender youth from seeking gender-affirming healthcare. This is a product of Christian nationalism, where believers in this ideology see being transgender as against Christian values. Similarly, in India, eight states and New Delhi banned the slaughtering of cows. These laws push Hindu values as the cow is a sacred animal in Hinduism, and Hindus are not allowed to consume beef. The reason for the state-level legislation succeeding is that there is less national focus on state legislation until it gets passed, allowing religious nationalists to use the process to pass their policies. Furthermore, state-level legislators are more connected to their voters due to their proximity to voters and smaller constituent size, meaning that religious nationalist rhetoric will have a far greater impact. At the national level, there has been more success in India than in the United States. Notably, in India, the BJP-led government has been able to pass a controversial citizenship bill that makes it harder for Muslims to get citizenship if they enter the country illegally. In the United States, Christian nationalism has had a much more difficult time succeeding in Congress, with the most notable national policy, Trump’s Muslim Ban, happening through executive order. The reason for success in India is that the population is significantly more Hindu. 80% of the population is Hindu, and the majority in 28 of India’s states. Furthermore, many of these Hindus tie religion to national identity, with 64% of them saying that it is very important to be a Hindu to be an Indian. This broad majority, tied with the link between religion and national identity, allows for Hindu nationalism to be enacted much easier. In contrast, while America is still a majority Christian nation, that majority is far more subdivided among the different sects. These different Christian sects are not all in agreement on what policies need to be enacted, weakening the efficacy of Christian nationalism at the federal level. Furthermore, a majority of Americans disagree that the United States should be a Christian nation. Those who do agree with America being a Christian nation see that as being guided by a belief in God or Christian values, not necessarily being Christian to be American. The lack of support for Christian nationalism makes it harder for legislation to pass at the national level.

Counter Argument

Some might argue that former President Donald J. Trump is not a populist and claim that he is just a reflection of the will of the people. However, this is the definition of populism. Returning to the definition of populism that Mudde provides, Trump fits the bill. Much of Trump’s language from 2016 to now has focused on creating an us versus them mentality. From the threat of illegal immigrants to journalists, Trump has used this framework to mobilize a base of voters that Republicans could not have reached previously. What separates Trump from past Republicans stems from his messaging and cult of personality. Regarding his messaging, Trump has been more explicit with his messaging around Christian nationalism than that of previous republicans. For example, in March 2024, Trump announced that he was selling a $60 bible. In this announcement, Trump stated that “Religion and Christianity are the biggest things missing from this country, and I truly believe that we need to bring them back and we have to bring them back fast.” Furthermore, Trump has made christian nationalism a stronger part of his 2024 Presidential campaign. One example of this comes from Project 2025, a policy agenda created by many conservative think tanks, most notably the Heritage Foundation. Project 2025 contains many elements of Christian nationalism, such as encouraging the government to ban transgender individuals from serving in the military, allow religious employers to run their businesses however they want, even if it violates general anti discrimination laws, and limit government funding of abortion. The link may not seem clear between this policy agenda and Trump, but many of the contributors to Project 2025 are Trump officials, such as Kiron Skinner, the Director of Policy Planning at the United States Department of State. Ken Cuccinelli, acting leader of the Department of Homeland Security, and Ben Carson, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Many of these officials are still very close to Trump and could be very influential in a second Trump Administration. Thus, it is likely that the Christian nationalist elements of Project 2025 can come into fruition under another Trump presidency.

Trump has also cultivated a strong cult of personality. Many of his supporters are die hard fans of Donald Trump. Many Trump supporters view his presidency as a time when the economy was better, America had more respect in foreign affairs, and his willingness to say the truth out loud. Trump’s cult of personality stems far beyond just mere support. According to a CBS/YouGov poll, Trump supporters were more likely to trust Trump to tell the truth over their friends, families, and religious leaders. This is emblematic of the messiahism that Trump invokes, as discussed in previous sections. While not all Trump supporters may be die hard Christian nationalists, they are very much supporting someone that is supported by and will support if put in office.

Concluding Thoughts

The link between religious nationalism and populism is clear. With populism focusing on the divide between the pure people and the corrupt evil, religious nationalism can define those groups. The pure people are those who are believers in the religion, and the corrupt elite are those who are not believers or actively work against the nationalists. While the policy impacts of religious nationalism have not yet been seen on a broad scale, the bigger impact is more rhetorical. With the greater acceptance of religious nationalistic rhetoric in both nations, it provides fuel to these movements. The danger that comes from this rhetoric is seen in broadscale attacks on democracy, such as January 6th, or political violence, such as the 2002 Gujarat Riots. What this leads to is further democratic backsliding, where civil liberties and democratic processes are under attack by these populist leaders. What is clear is that this phenomenon is unlikely to subside even with broader secularization; it might just empower religious nationalism. If the democratic processes are broken, then it is likely that these leaders will be able to make religious nationalism policy, ensuring that civil liberties for religious minorities get eroded in favor of a nationalistic state.

Cognitive ability, economic power, politics and policy

Some research indicates that American politics and policy are more heavily influenced by special interests and people with high income than public opinion. In short, wealth appears to be more important than either public opinion, or social or environmental needs.

A 2023 research paper looks to see if there is a link between cognitive ability and high income based on data from a military test of men in Sweden: 

The plateauing of cognitive ability among top earners

Are the best-paying jobs with the highest prestige done by individuals of great intelligence? Past studies find job success to increase with cognitive ability, but do not examine how, conversely, ability varies with job success. Stratification theories suggest that social background and cumulative advantage dominate cognitive ability as determinants of high occupational success. This leads us to hypothesize that among the relatively successful, average ability is concave in income and prestige. We draw on Swedish register data containing measures of cognitive ability and labor-market success for 59,000 men who took a compulsory military conscription test. Strikingly, we find that the relationship between ability and wage is strong overall, yet above €60,000 per year ability plateaus at a modest level of +1 standard deviation [individuals in the top 16% of cognitive ability*]. The top 1 per cent even score slightly worse on cognitive ability than those in the income strata right below them. We observe a similar but less pronounced plateauing of ability at high occupational prestige. 

* The intervals within one standard deviation above and below the mean account for 34.1% of the population. Therefore, approximately 68% of the population is located within one standard deviation above or below the mean.

Do the highest earners and those with the most prestigious jobs indeed have the greatest minds? Elite jobs are of special interest, for two reasons. First, income distributions have strong right skew. In all Western countries, top income shares have been steadily rising since the 1980s, with the 1 per cent highest earners receiving 9 per cent of national income in Sweden and even 20 per cent in the United States— excluding capital gains (Piketty, 2014; Alvaredo et al., 2017; Statistics Sweden, 2020). This extremity of top incomes as well as their public salience render it crucial that they be earned by very capable individuals. Second, those with the most prestigious jobs wield the greatest economic and political power, and the intelligence of their decisions is consequential.

The present paper departs from prior work by swapping the axes, focusing on the relative intelligence of those with better jobs. .... In other words, we hypothesize that there are starker ability differences between adjacent ranks at moderate levels of income and prestige than at the highest levels. Our argument draws on the role of two key non-meritorious determinants of occupational success: Family resources and luck. The class- and network-advantages of those with elite family backgrounds are assumed instrumental for gaining access to the most privileged and best-paying jobs (Bourdieu, 1984; Lamont, 1994; Rivera, 2015; Friedman and Laurison, 2020). Second, rich-get-richer processes are assumed to allow inequalities in job success to grow between those who got a lucky break early in the career and those who did not (Merton, 1968; DiPrete and Eirich, 2006; Salganik, Dodds and Watts, 2006; Bol, de Vaan and van de Rijt, 2018). Our argument relies on these two determinants of occupational success, family resources and luck, having distributions in which extremely high values are common (Denrell and Liu, 2011; Frank, 2016). Because extreme ability is rare, extreme occupational success is more likely driven by family resources or luck than by ability. Hence, at higher levels of occupational success additional degrees of success will be less and less associated with greater ability.

While ‘cognitive ability’ lacks a generally agreed upon definition, it is broadly used to indicate the capacity of the brain to perform a variety of cognitive tasks, including verbal understanding, technical comprehension, spatial ability, and logic (Borghans et al., 2016). Such skills are thought to be partly learned, partly genetically determined, and partly acquired through interaction between genes and social environments.

Achievement tests such as the Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT) have been found to correlate more strongly with wages than tests of general intelligence (IQ) as the former capture closely related personality characteristics also relevant for job-market success (Fischer et al., 1996; Borghans et al., 2016).

To the best of our knowledge, there are no empirical studies that systematically probe cognitive ability at different levels of occupational success. Several studies have looked at traits of highly successful people. Wai (2013) uses elite US college attendance as a proxy for extraordinary intelligence based on the logic of very high SAT score requirements for elite college entry. He finds that roughly 40 per cent of Fortune 500 CEOs, federal judges, billionaires, and Senators have elite college degrees. However, high school grades and achievement tests have been found to be significantly impacted by other factors besides cognitive ability such as family background and personality traits (e.g. Borghans et al., 2016). Several studies find that top jobs in the private sector are not characterized by excessive cognitive ability.

That data and analysis suggests that cognitive ability does correlate with high income and prestigious jobs, but also that luck and family status are often important. A recent USA Today article comments about the role of being born rich:

You don’t have to be born rich to be rich but it sure helps.

For the first time since 2009, none of Forbes World’s Youngest Billionaires under 30 are self-made this year. The billionaires under 30 all inherited their wealth, which Forbes reported is due to the self-made ones aging into their 30s and the start of the “great wealth transfer.”

The annual list named a few people who built their own wealth, but they top the age of 30. They include Snap co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel (33), Gymshark co-founder and CEO Ben Francis (31) and Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey (31).

 Clearly, luck sometimes plays a role in economic success and accumulation of wealth. That seems to be unrelated to cognitive ability. But in America’s pay-to-play political system, it is the money that counts, but the cognitive ability of the person who buys politicians and policies. Those policies are usually favorable to the person (or interests) who pays for them. That usually happens with little or no concern for adverse impacts on the public interest (including the environment) or even democracy and the rule of law. Money alone is truly a powerful political force with limited to nil moral concerns, regardless of the cognitive ability of the people and interests buying what they want.

A key goal of Christian nationalism: Tax dollars; DJT threatens violent insurrection

A WaPo article comments about another incremental advance in two of the most important goals for America’s Christian nationalist theocratic wealth and power movement, (1) complete elimination of secular public education, and (2) taxpayer funding for all Christian religious activity in the US:

Billions in taxpayer dollars now go to religious schools via vouchers

 

The rapid expansion of state voucher programs follows court decisions that have eroded the separation between church and state

Billions in taxpayer dollars are being used to pay tuition at religious schools throughout the country, as state voucher programs expand dramatically and the line separating public education and religion fades.

School vouchers can be used at almost any private school, but the vast majority of the money is being directed to religious schools, according to a Washington Post examination of the nation’s largest voucher programs.

Vouchers, government money that covers education costs for families outside the public schools, vary by state but offer up to $16,000 per student per year, and in many cases fully cover the cost of tuition at private schools. In some schools, a large share of the student body is benefiting from a voucher, meaning a significant portion of the school’s funding is coming directly from the government.

In just five states with expansive programs, more than 700,000 students benefited from vouchers this school year. (Those same states had a total of about 935,000 private school students in 2021, the most recent year for which data are available.) An additional 200,000 were subsidized in the rest of the country, according to tracking by EdChoice, a voucher advocacy group. That suggests a substantial share of about 4.7 million students attending private school nationwide are benefiting from vouchers — a number that is expected to grow.

The programs, popular with conservatives, are rapidly growing in GOP-run states, with a total of 28 states plus D.C. operating some sort of voucher system. Eight states created or expanded voucher programs last year, and this year, Alabama, Georgia and Missouri have approved or expanded voucher-type programs. Some recently enacted plans are just starting to take effect or will be phased in over the next few years.

The growth follows a string of recent victories in [America’s Christian theocratic] Supreme Court and state legislatures by religious conservatives who have campaigned to tear down what once were constitutional prohibitions against spending tax money directly on religious education. It also marks a win for the school choice movement, which has spent decades campaigning to let parents use tax money for any school they see fit.

Voucher programs, which vary in their details, have grown particularly large in a half-dozen states. In each of these, participating families have overwhelmingly chosen religious schools, sometimes using the subsidy for schools their children were already attending before the programs began.

Like it or not, American taxpayer dollars are increasingly supporting and empowering radical, anti-democratic Christian nationalist (CN) theocracy in America. The Christian nationalist elites deny their authoritarian goals and corrupt tactics, but they are morally rotted liars with no credibility. Most of the CN rank and file are mostly clueless, most of whom have either never heard of CN labeled as a wealth and power political movement, or they are not aware of its bigoted, intolerant authoritarian Christian fundamentalist theocratic goals.  

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The first ~1:30 of this video shows the convicted felon DJT threatening a violent insurrection if he is sentenced to house arrest or jail. He makes a clear, public plea for violence. He falsely claims that the American people would not stand for his confinement. This is disgusting. He insults the American people. But as we all know by now, Trump’s shamelessness, mendacity and moral rot have no bounds. 

The usual question pops right up again: What about the rank & file who still support this lying, domestic terrorist and dictator-kleptocrat? Are they mere innocents, or something worse? Does ignorance justify their false beliefs if they think he is an innocent patriot who has been smeared and martyred?

Cognitive ability and voting: Is there causation, or even correlation?

The matter of cognitive ability or IQ for Trump supporters comes up occasionally. My understanding was that cognitive ability is not strongly causally or correlatively related to any particular political or economic ideology, mindset or candidate. But is that belief supported or contradicted by modern research? 

Remember, correlation is not necessarily causation. One needs to be very careful about that concern when it comes to politics, IQ and a lot of (most?) other psychological, cognitive and social science research.

A 2022 paper:

Do Smarter People Have More Conservative Economic Attitudes? 

Assessing the Relationship Between Cognitive Ability and Economic Ideology

Evidence on the association of cognitive ability with economic attitudes is mixed. We conducted a meta-analysis (k = 20, N = 46,426) to examine the relationship between objective measures of cognitive ability and economic ideology and analyzed survey data (N = 3,375) to test theoretical explanations for the association. The meta-analysis provided evidence for a small positive association with a weighted mean effect size of r = .07 (95% CI = [0.02, 0.12]), suggesting that higher cognitive ability is associated with conservative views on economic issues, but effect sizes were extremely heterogeneous. Tests using representative survey data provided support for both a positive association of cognitive ability with economic conservatism that is mediated through income as well as for a negative association that is mediated through a higher need for certainty. Hence, multiple causal mechanisms with countervailing effects might explain the low overall association of cognitive ability with economic political attitudes. 

In the political arena, actors often describe their opponents as incompetent or stupid. Indeed, empirical evidence supports the view that a link between cognitive abilities and political attitudes exists. More specifically, most studies indicate that lower cognitive abilities are linked to the endorsement of conservative political views. However, a closer inspection of the evidence on the ideology-ability link reveals that the association between lower scores in cognitive ability tests and conservative political preferences holds in particular for sociocultural attitudes while the evidence with respect to economic attitudes is much more inconsistent. In fact, some studies indicate that the correlation between cognitive abilities and economic conservatism tends to be positive rather than negative. 

Currently, a large body of work indicates a negative association between measures of cognitive ability and the endorsement of conservative sociocultural attitudes. For example, higher scores in right-wing authoritarianism have been shown to be associated with lower scores in cognitive tasks. In a large-scale, nationally representative UK sample, lower general intelligence in childhood has been found to predict the endorsement of conservative ideology at an adult age when controlling for education and socioeconomic status. With respect to voting behavior, lower cognitive abilities were associated with more intentions to vote for Donald Trump and less intentions to vote for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 US presidential elections through effects on right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation. (citations omitted)

That seems to indicate that there probably is a correlation between lower cognitive ability and endorsement of conservative sociocultural attitudes in politics, but maybe no correlation for conservative economic beliefs. 

A 2023 book chapter:

Politics and Intelligence: Running Against the Cognitive Elite

The 2016 election split the country in large part across educational lines. According to the statistician Nate Silver’s analysis, Clinton won handily in the fifty most well-educated counties in the nation, while Trump similarly prevailed in the fifty least. In Berkeley, home of the nation’s most prestigious public university, Clinton received ninety percent of the vote, while Trump, with three percent, finished third, behind the Green Party candidate. White men without college degrees voted for the Republican candidate at the highest rate since exit polls began; when Trump famously proclaimed his love for “the poorly educated,” it was not without ample justification. .... In a geographical reflection of this educational divide, Trump carried those areas well outside the city center that still relied substantially on manufacturing—the blue-collar workers who had constituted the Democratic base half a century earlier—while the Democrats were now what a Stanford political scientist called “the party of urban, postindustrial America.”

In classic populist fashion, Trump exploited this educational division to create a narrative of conflict between a privileged, parasitic elite, undeserving of its position, and the common folk—between a highly educated but aloof class of people who exercised power to their own advantage as multicultural, global citizens, and the real Americans, a silent majority who sensed instinctively what was right for the country without having to rely on “expert”—i.e., elite—advice. As Trump himself expressed it in the Wall Street Journal six months before his election, “The only antidote to ruinous rule by a small handful of elites is a bold infusion of popular will. On every major issue affecting this country, the people are right and the governing elite are wrong.” People in general in this rhetoric were not meant to be synonymous with “the people,” only some of the former qualifying for inclusion in the latter.

Thus, rather than campaigning on any substantive agenda, Trump ran as a representative of an aggrieved minority resentful of the worldview espoused by The Bell Curve, in which differences in intelligence are offered as justification not only for income inequality but for differences in social status. Neither the book nor its remaining author was mentioned during the campaign, and Trump’s frequent reference to the “elite” was never preceded by the word “cognitive”; indeed, given his limited range of information, it is possible that the future president was not even aware of the academic controversy. But it was clear that this notion of an elite—a “natural aristocracy,” as Herrnstein and Murray had put it—entitled by intellect and education to its prerogatives, provided Trump with a foil against which he posed as avatar of the rage of those average people who sensed their exclusion from this favored group; Trump’s policies might not help them, but he hated the same people they did. Instead of recognizing the “hoi aristoi,” as The Bell Curve had predicted, the “common people” apparently resented them, and the fact that Trump’s opponent, clearly considering herself a member of the elite, characterized so many of his supporters as “deplorables” only served to confirm these feelings of resentment on their part.

From what I can tell, as a group America's rich and/or powerful elite are privileged. In my firm, evidence-based opinion, they have rigged society and our system of government and commerce to further increase their already massive wealth and power. But does that group as a whole, however it is defined, have high cognitive ability compared to the average or the median score? Low education does not necessarily mean low cognitive ability.

A 2024 paper:

Intelligence is correlated with a range of left-wing and liberal political beliefs. This may suggest intelligence directly alters our political views. Alternatively, the association may be confounded or mediated by socioeconomic and environmental factors. We studied the effect of intelligence within a sample of over 300 biological and adoptive families, using both measured IQ and polygenic scores for cognitive performance and educational attainment. We found both IQ and polygenic scores significantly predicted all six of our political scales. Polygenic scores predicted social liberalism and lower authoritarianism, within-families. Intelligence was able to significantly predict social liberalism and lower authoritarianism, within families, even after controlling for socioeconomic variables. Our findings may provide the strongest causal inference to date of intelligence directly affecting political beliefs.

Two meta-analyses of this literature have been performed. Onraet et al. (2015) meta-analysis found intelligence to be negatively correlated with right-wing ideological attitudes (r = .20). However, the correlation depended on the type of right-wing attitude measured, with higher correlations with authoritarianism (r = .30) and ethnocentrism (r = .28) compared to conservatism (r = .13). Jedinger and Burger (2022) found a very small but significant correlation between intelligence and fiscally conservative beliefs (r = .07). Overall, intelligence has been found to be associated with beliefs that can be described as socially liberal and possibly also fiscally conservative. 

Although IQ is known to be associated with political belief, it is not known why this is the case. The relationship between intelligence and political belief could be confounded or mediated by socioeconomic factors and environmental factors more broadly. In this study, we employ polygenic scores, within-family designs and controls to causally identify the direct effect of cognitive ability on political beliefs. We might believe intelligence directly changes political beliefs. Political beliefs likely reflect our ethical values and our empirical beliefs, both of which might be altered by intelligence. Intelligence is related to greater general knowledge (Furnham & Chamorro-Premuzic, 2006), knowledge of economics (Caplan & Miller, 2010) and financial literacy (Lin & Bates, 2022). Moreover, intelligence may be related to subjective values, as it shows correlations with patience (Shamosh & Gray, 2008), openness (Anglim et al., 2022), “emotional intelligence” (MacCann, Joseph, Newman, & Roberts, 2014) and moral judgement in the Defining Issues Test (Derryberry, Jones, Grieve, & Barger, 2007). Onraet et al. (2015) suggested that the use of stereotypes and socially conservative beliefs function as heuristics, utilizing fewer cognitive resources than thinking about social issues on a case-by-case base. This could cause lower cognitive ability to be associated with right-wing views.

Genotypic IQ had a significant effect on all our measures of political beliefs: political orientation, authoritarianism, egalitarianism, social liberalism, fiscal conservatism and a composite of these scales. Across all these traits, genotypic IQ was associated with left-wing beliefs. After we controlled for the average parental polygenic score, we found genotypic IQ still significantly predicted social liberalism, the political composite, and lower levels of authoritarianism. Consistent with Onraet et al. (2015) meta-analysis, we find the largest effect sizes for authoritarianism rather than other measures of ideology.

The authors here argue that higher cognitive ability causes belief in social liberalism and especially lower authoritarianism. That seems to be the general belief that social science research is coming to adopt. Conservative and radical right authoritarian groups and think tanks might push back against this, but maybe that would be expected.

I'll do a separate post about cognitive ability among high income earners. That is important because top earners and wealth generally has more a lot influence on politics and policy than public opinion or social or environmental needs.

Some history of American sentencing in criminal law; Thoughts on sentencing DJT

The US has come a long way in evolution of its society, democracy, civil liberties and law. Now that the US is on the verge of de-evolving under the pressure of kleptocratic radical right authoritarianism and returning to the dark ages, a bit of history might be of some interest to see some of what we might lose. Writing for the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology in 2010, law scholar and retired federal judge Nancy Gertner commentated:

A Short History of American Sentencing: 

Too Little Law, Too Much Law, or Just Right

I. COLONIAL JURIES AND SENTENCING

In colonial times, and particularly in the period before American independence, juries were de facto sentencers with substantial power. Many crimes were capital offenses. The result was binary—guilty and death, or not guilty and freedom.  There were few scalable punishments, or punishments involving a term of years. This is so because penitentiaries were not common until the end of the eighteenth century. Jurors plainly understood the impact of a guilty verdict on the defendant because of the relative simplicity of the criminal law and its penalty structure, and often because of the process by which they were selected. They were picked from the rolls of white men with property. Indeed, steps were sometimes taken to secure better qualified people to serve on juries. Juries were hardly representative in the sense that we understand today. The substantive criminal law was the province of the states, and was, for the most part, state common law, often deriving from cases with which the jurors were familiar. 

Like the modern jury, colonial jurors were authorized to give a general verdict without explanation, but unlike the modern jury, the colonial jury was explicitly permitted to find both the facts and the law. If capital punishment were inappropriate, they would simply decline to find guilt, or find the defendant guilty of a lesser crime in order to avoid the penalty of death. No one disparaged this as “jury nullification.”  Ignoring the law to effect a more lenient outcome was well within the jury’s role. In fact, several colonies explicitly provided for jury sentencing.

Thus, in the colonial division of labor, juries had a preeminent role. There was no need for a priori punishment standards or rules, because there was, for the most part, a single punishment. Penal philosophy, at least as a formal matter, was retributive. There was little national federal law, even after independence. Most criminal law derived from the common law and in time, statutes from state legislatures—law with which jurors were familiar.

II. THE ERA OF INDETERMINATE SENTENCING

The turn of the nineteenth century brought scalable punishments— penitentiaries and, in time, reformatories—and thus, a more complex set of sentencing outcomes. The jury could no longer link conviction to a particular sentence even if it had the power to sentence or decide questions of law—and it did not. Now, they were explicitly instructed to find only the facts; judges determined the applicable law. Federal substantive criminal law began to evolve, although most criminal prosecutions were still state-based. And the jury changed: it was more diverse as barriers to serving as jurors were lifted for minorities and women, as were property restrictions. With more and more access to education, a professional class of judges and lawyers evolved, and with it, the power of the jury declined, including the power to affect the sentence.

Unlike other common law countries, appellate review of sentences was extremely limited in American courts. In the federal system, the “doctrine of non-reviewability” prevailed until 1987, when the Federal Sentencing Guidelines became effective. Likewise, only a few states had appellate review of sentencing, and even then it was used “sparingly.” A trial judge’s authority to sentence was virtually unquestioned.

To sum up, judges and parole authorities had the most power relative to the other sentencing players. They were the acknowledged sentencing experts. There were few a priori rules or standards. Each case was resolved on its own merits; to the extent there were standards, they evolved from the day-to-day experience of sentencing individuals. There was little or no appellate review of sentencing.

III. GUIDELINE MOVEMENT 

In response to widespread calls to reform the indeterminate system, a number of states implemented sentencing guidelines. The sentencing guideline approach introduced a new institutional player, an administrative agency—the sentencing commission—charged with generating sentencing standards.36 The role of the commission, its powers vis-à-vis the other sentencing players, and its animating penal philosophy varied from state to state. 

In 1984, the federal government entered into the act with a version of sentencing reform that by the end of the decade would be widely criticized. Congress passed the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 (SRA), creating the United States Sentencing Commission and abolishing parole. The Commission was supposed to do what Congress had been wholly unable to do, namely, to rationalize sentencing free of political influence, separate from the ever popular “crime du jour.” At the same time, the dominant penal philosophy changed. The public, and certain members of the academy, gave up on rehabilitation as a central purpose of sentencing, instead championing a philosophy known as “limited” retribution. With that change, the locus of sentencing expertise moved from the judges and parole authorities to the Commission, Congress, and, to a degree, the public. Retribution made sentencing more accessible to the public and, ironically, to Congress. What the crime and the criminal deserved could be the subject of debate with the late night talk show host, or in time, the blogosphere.

A. POPULIST PUNITIVENESS 

Crime became the fodder of political campaigns; “lenient” judges were parodied on the evening news and the bourgeoning 24/7 cable outlets. But the popular rage went beyond judges who were supposedly “soft on crime.” Efforts to restrict or even eliminate judicial discretion in sentencing paralleled efforts to strip judges of authority in a number of other areas. In 1981 and 1982 alone, more than two dozen bills stripping or altering federal courts’ jurisdiction were introduced in the Ninety-Seventh Congress. And the anti-judge, significantly anti-federal judge language was vituperative. 

B. MANDATORY MINIMUMS 

Congress, propelled by this atmosphere, passed a succession of mandatory minimum statutes, statutes that were wholly inconsistent with the SRA’s approach and surely with deference to the new “expert” Commission. Indeed, over time Congress directly intervened in Guideline determinations, ordering the Commission to increase this or that guideline. Congress’s role grew as the criminal law became more and more federalized, now accounting for the prosecution of more and more local gun and drug offenses, the kind of street crime that had traditionally been the state’s bailiwick.

Things are not what they used to be. If DJT and the Republicans succeed in overthrowing American democracy and the rule of law, one might expect that over time, the role and power of the jury will shrink and judges will have a lot more leeway to make partisan decisions for partisan purposes. In essence, judges will do what authoritarian politicians tell them to do.

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Writing an opinion for the NYT (not paywalled), Gertner argues for not jailing DJT in the wake of his 34 felony convictions:

While the statute under which he was convicted permits imprisonment, I would not send him to prison. .... My conclusions are based on the public record, my years of experience as a federal judge and a criminal defense lawyer and my decades teaching courses on sentencing at Yale and Harvard Law Schools.

Because falsification of business records in the first degree is a Class E felony under New York law, the possible sentence for each count ranges from probation to up to four years in state prison, a fine or a period of supervised probation that ends with the charges being dismissed as long as Mr. Trump has fully complied with the terms of the probation. New York judges have discretion to pick a punishment within the statutory limits.

One starting point in considering the sentence is looking at treatment other defendants have received who were convicted of the same or similar offenses. While defendants convicted of this offense can be sentenced to some prison time, most are not, especially first offenders, as Mr. Trump is. To be sure, this case is unique. It involved more than falsification; it was about efforts to interfere with an election.

Some have pointed to the fact that Mr. Trump showed no remorse after the verdict. Anyone who has a pending appeal — as he will have after he is sentenced — cannot admit to the charges. His admissions would make it impossible for him to defend himself in a second trial, were this conviction overturned.

But not expressing remorse for the crime is one thing. Attacking the jury is another. Prosecutors, like Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, are elected officials who exercise discretion in bringing charges. They are fair targets for a defendant. Still, his decision was tested by a jury, 12 neutral citizens who spent six weeks of their lives listening to the evidence, against a standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, in an adversary system in which Mr. Trump had virtually unlimited resources to hire lawyers. There is no question that his attacks reflect a fundamental lack of respect for the rule of law, which points to imprisonment.

I would also consider Justice Merchan’s contempt findings. Mr. Trump willfully ignored the court’s rules — behavior that strongly suggests that he will not follow other laws.

But the bottom line is this: The factors pointing to imprisonment are outweighed by Mr. Trump’s unique position. Justice Merchan pulled his punches in imposing fines, not detention, for Mr. Trump’s repeated violations of his court orders. Anyone else would have been jailed. Mr. Trump no doubt will be treated differently — that is, less harshly — than other criminal defendants in our extraordinarily punitive criminal legal system. But we shouldn’t equalize the treatment of defendants by ramping up everyone’s punishment. Our criminal legal system is far too retributive and leans too heavily on imprisonment, no matter what the crime. Besides, Mr. Trump is different, because he was president and could become president again.

The other opinion in the article is by Norman Eisen, who argues that DJT should be jailed. Eisen was special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee for the first DJT impeachment and trial.

I had mixed feelings about putting DJT in the slammer. Home confinement and supervised probation seemed like a possibly better choice. But after reading Gertner’s argument for not jailing him, jailing him now seems to be the more appropriate punishment. 

In Gertner’s moral reasoning, DJT should not be jailed because of his unique position. In my moral thinking, he should be jailed for the same reason. Yes, DJT was unique. He is openly contemptuous of the rule of law and democracy itself. He was a sitting US president who knowingly broke laws to hide his sex scandal to help his deceit-based election. The dates of the records that DJT falsified range from February 14 through December 5, 2017. 

Q1: Should DJT not be jailed because of his unique, elite situation, or should he be treated like anyone else?

Q2: Does America have a two-tiered system of justice, one generally more lenient toward wealthy and/or powerful elites, and the other for everyone else? Put another way, when politicians sanctimoniously tell us that no one is above the law, is that mostly false or a flat out lie?