Darts in defense of democracy; Cult language & thinking control tactics; A glimmer of hope?

Each day I send at least one email to an opinionologist or news reporter at a major outlet. One of my darts yesterday was this to reporter Peter Baker at the NYT in the comments section of his article, Varying Treatment of Biden and Trump Puts Their Parties in Stark Relief:

“Yet we hear crickets from Republicans after their presumptive nominee was incoherent, rambling and utterly divorced from the truth. Oh, and also a convicted felon.” 

Finally, someone in the MSM is starting to pay attention. A major omission from the list of DJT's accomplishments like chronic liar, sex predator and convicted felon, is his far more important achievement of kleptocratic dictator status. I mean that seriously. Just consider his blatant corruption, contempt of the emoluments clause and overt hostility to democracy. 

The MSM's failure to grasp the fundamental essence of DJT constitutes a betrayal of the public interest, democracy and the rule of law. Again, I am 100% serious about this. The evidence to back that up is in the public record and undeniable.

That was in response to the NYT article whining about Biden's bad debate performance. This was one of the few NYT articles since the debate that finally started to call out DJT to some extent:

One of America’s political parties has a presidential candidate who is really old and showing it. The other has a presidential candidate who is a convicted felon, adjudicated sexual abuser, business fraudster and self-described aspiring dictator for a day. And also really old.

One of the parties is up in arms about its nominee and trying to figure out how to replace him at the last minute. The other is not.

But the distinction of recent weeks has been striking. After Mr. Trump was found guilty of 34 felonies by a Manhattan jury in May — a verdict that came after civil judgments against him for personal and professional misdeeds — there was no significant groundswell within the Republican Party to force him out of the race in favor of a less-tainted candidate. Even though many Republican officeholders and strategists privately loathe him, they fell in line and made clear they would stick with him no matter how many scandals piled up.

“While Biden had the worst debate performance in all of presidential history, Trump’s was likely the second-worst,” said Jeffrey A. Engel, director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University. “Yet we hear crickets from Republicans after their presumptive nominee was incoherent, rambling and utterly divorced from the truth. Oh, and also a convicted felon.”

Even with some criticism of DJT, one can sense the restraint with which the MSM and most observers treat him. DJT was not called out as the kleptocratic authoritarian he really is. That is was is critically important for the public to come to understand. public knowledge of DJT's kleptocratic authoritarianism is more important than the knowledge of his chronic lying, business frauds, felony convictions, and sexual predator escapades. Kleptocratic authoritarianism (corrupt fascist, etc.) is what the MSM should be harping on every single day. So far very few in the MSM have had the guts to call him out in those terms. 

Update: Gadzooks & Oh My Dog! The NYT banned me! ☹️ They can't handle legit criticism. Or, is it illegit to call DJT and the GOP kleptocratic authoritarian? Hm, wonder how long it will be before the WaPo bans me. Anyway, at least I know know that at least one of my darts got through and pissed at least someone off.

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This 11 minute video discusses the tactics that cults employ to create a sense of belonging, cohesion and group superiority. A common cult rhetoric tactic is to employ us vs. them to help demonize targeted outside groups. A key goal of cult leaders is to distort reality into false narratives.

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Salon writes about the possibility that when the kleptocratic radical right authoritarian wealth & power movement published Project 2025, it might be causing a bit of backlash:

Project 2025 was supposed to boost Donald Trump's campaign 

but it may be backfiring instead

Trump's authoritarian game plan is breaking through the post-debate noise and it's starting to scare people

When Project 2025 was released, a number of progressives expressed surprise that Donald Trump's army of authoritarian schemers would boldly publish their plan to destroy American government as we know it. The over 900-page document, commissioned by the people expected to run another Trump White House, is a laundry list of the far-right's most politically toxic ideas, from banning abortion nationwide to mass firing federal officials who believe in protecting public health and safety. One would think that Trump and his allies would try to keep their sinister plans out of public view.

The MAGA right learned years ago the value of hiding their wicked plans in plain sight. Authoritarian thought leader Christopher Rufo is the most prominent example. He frequently speaks loudly of his machinations, such as boldly announcing on Twitter that the right is trying to take away birth control, claiming women should not have "recreational sex." Recently imprisoned Trump ally Steve Bannon gloated openly on his podcast about his schemes. Before going to prison, he bragged to the New York Times, "This is a military headquarters for a populist revolt." Kevin Roberts, whose group Heritage Foundation is helping run Project 2025, recently spoke about how Trump will use violence to force the MAGA agenda on the public.

But the radical right authoritarians will be

happy to shoot people who peacefully protest

On Sunday, actress Taraji P. Henson took a break during the BET Awards, which she was hosting, to speak out about Project 2025. "The Project 2025 plan is not a game. Look it up!" she told viewers. "I’m talking to all the mad people that don’t want to vote. You’re going to be mad about a lot of things if you don’t vote."

"You’re going to be mad about a lot 

of things if you don’t vote."

Hm, that gets the Dissident Politics highly prized Understatement of the Week Award!! Congratulations Taraji! ⭐👏👏 

Good news, or not? 

Q: Is it just me hallucinating or dementating (the act of being demented), or are the wheels coming off the fabulous, luxurious American democracy donkey cart?

Settlers settling Utah in 1993

(well, not really, but whatever)

Settlers settling Gaza in 2024

(really, I think)

Laws influence perceptions of reality and thinking

Humans are social creatures. Most everything non-trivial can affect how we perceive reality and how we think about it. That applies to laws.

Perplexity:

Q: Do any laws influence thinking? 

A: There is evidence that laws can influence thinking and moral attitudes in several ways:

1. Changing perceptions of social norms: Laws can affect how people perceive social norms around certain behaviors. A study found that the introduction of lockdown laws during the COVID-19 pandemic helped correct misperceptions about prevailing social norms regarding social distancing measures.

2. Shaping moral attitudes: Laws can influence moral attitudes by recharacterizing previously harmless behaviors as problematic, signaling moral approval for certain actions, or developing a reputation for justice. For example, anti-discrimination laws can change how people view discriminatory practices.

3. Providing information: Laws can act as a source of information about prevailing social values, which in turn shapes people's thinking about what is socially acceptable or desirable.

4. Affecting personal norms: Some studies have found that laws can shift personal norms and beliefs about the appropriateness of certain behaviors.

5. Impacting thinking skills: One study found that education on the rule of law was associated with increases in students' thinking skills and self-assessment of adherence to the rule of law.

6. Legitimacy and procedural justice: When the legal system is perceived as promoting justice and using fair procedures, people are more likely to internalize its principles and comply with laws in general.

However, it's important to note that the effectiveness of laws in influencing thinking depends on various factors:

• Whether the law targets attitudes central to cultural identities
• The level of underlying consensus or disagreement about the behavior
• Whether the law aims to change the meaning of behaviors or just the behaviors themselves
• How well the law is communicated to the target group

Laws can change social norms in several ways. They can change behavior and norms. Laws that change material payoffs or incentives affect people's behavior, which in turn shifts the descriptive social norms (what people typically do) over time. The same applies to morals. Laws can influence moral attitudes by recharacterizing previously harmless behaviors as problematic or by signaling moral approval or disapproval for targeted behaviors or actions.

Social engineering via changing laws is core strategy for America's radical right authoritarian wealth and power movement. The authoritarian elites intend to completely socially re-engineer the US from a secular, pluralistic democracy operating under the rule of law, to a bigoted, intolerant authoritarian kleptocratic state with limited or no rule of law for the elites. But rest assured, there will be plenty of iron fist law for the rest of us.

Some poll data; Court decision fallout; Defending democracy; Thinking about the constitution

Some early poll data indicates that Biden's bad debate performance is costing him some support. USA Today writes:

Republican Donald Trump has edged ahead of Democrat Joe Biden, 41% to 38%, in the aftermath of the candidates' rancorous debate last week, according to an exclusive USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll.

That narrow advantage has opened since the previous survey in May showed the two contenders tied, 37% to 37%.

The findings still signal a close contest, not a decisive lead. The difference in support and the shifts since the spring are within the polls' margins of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. The new survey of 1,000 registered voters was taken Friday through Sunday by landline and cell phone.

There was little change in the standing of third-party candidates, with independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr., at 8% and three others at about 1% each.

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That Trump vs. US USSC decision that converted a president loosely bound by the rule of law, to a corrupt dictator bound by nothing, is starting to have serious ramifications. Here is a two page letter DJT's lawyers wrote to judge Merchan asking to have the business fraud convictions against DJT set aside:

The letter reads in part:

We respectfully submit this premotion letter seeking leave to file a motion to set aside the jury’s verdicts, pursuant to CPL § 330.30(1), based on today’s decision from the Supreme Court in Trump v. United States, 2024 WL 3237603. As explained below, the Trump decision confirmed the defense position that DANY [New York District Attorney] should not have been permitted to offer evidence at trial of President Trump’s official acts. We respectfully request until July 10, 2024 to submit a memorandum of law in support of the motion. Because of the complexity of the issues presented, President Trump does not object to an adjournment of the July 11, 2024 sentencing date in order to allow adequate time for full briefing, oral argument, and a decision. See People v. Turner, 222 A.D.2d 206, 207 (1st Dep’t 1995).

By way of background, on March 7, 2024, President Trump filed a motion in limine to preclude evidence of his official acts based on the presidential immunity doctrine. In that filing, we objected to anticipated testimony from certain potential witnesses, evidence of President Trump’s social media posts and public statements, and a 2018 filing with the Office of Government Ethics (OGE). ....

Under Trump, this official-acts evidence should never have been put before the jury. Consistent with arguments that we made before and during the trial, the Supreme Court held in Trump that President Trump “may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled, at a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts.” 2024 WL 3237603, at *25. The presumption applies “unless the Government can show that applying a criminal prohibition to that act would pose no ‘dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.’” Id. at *12 (quoting Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 731, 750 (1982)). DANY cannot make that showing here.

The rationale the USSC gave to allow a US president to break laws as he desires boils down to this: The president will be subject to lawsuits by the political opposition, so we need to protect the president's ability to perform "official acts" by (1) granting absolute immunity of all official acts, (2) not defining what an official act is, (3) not allowing evidence of any wrongdoing to be submitted to the court for consideration of motive, and (4) erecting a presumption of immunity of all presidential acts. The only thing left, is for persecutors to prove something was (i) not an official act, and (ii) it broke a law. The presumption of immunity makes the burden of proof of law breaking so high that is it practically speaking, impossible to meet.

The USSC simply swept aside the facts that no president has ever been seriously harassed or prosecuted for any non-corrupt official acts and sitting presidents are not subject to prosecution for law breaking anyway. 

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In defense of democracy, the rule of law, civil liberties and actual reality: Today, I wrote to six opinion writers at the NYT complaining about all the whining and hair on fire about Joe Biden and his bad debate performance, but no comparable whining and hair on fire about DJT, his far worse debate performance, his kleptocratic authoritarian supreme court or his morally rotted Republican Party and its kleptocratic authoritarianism. I wrote to one NYT journalist complaining about wrongly calling DJT supporters conservative when they in fact are undeniably radical right authoritarians who support kleptocracy over democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties.

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In some recent comments, ulTrax raised a major point (thanks) about what radical right authoritarianism has done with the law. This point needs to be understood. Really.

Instead of a document that protects individual liberty by reining in government power, the radical authoritarian judges and lawyers say that the constitution protects government power by reining in individual liberty. It is not the job of the courts to determine what our rights are. The courts are to define what government powers are. If those powers don't exist in the constitution, all other the rights should be held by the people.

That is ass backward. This is the gigantic lie that underpins most or all of the anti-democracy, anti-civil liberties and anti-rule of law USSC decisions in the last few years. It will be the lie that underpins future anti-democracy, rule of law and civil liberties cases in the coming years.

Perplexity explains this critically important point of constitutional law like this:

Q: Does the constitution protect individual liberty by limiting government power, or does the constitution protect government power limiting individual liberty?

A: The Constitution primarily protects individual liberty by limiting government power, not the other way around. This is a fundamental principle of American constitutional law and governance. Here's a breakdown of how the Constitution achieves this: 

1. Limited Government Powers: The Constitution establishes a system of checks and balances and separation of powers, which diffuses and limits the power of the federal and state governments. This structure is designed to prevent any single branch or level of government from becoming too powerful and infringing on individual rights.

2. Bill of Rights: The first ten amendments to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights, explicitly protect specific individual liberties from government interference. These include freedoms of speech, religion, press, assembly, the right to bear arms, protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, and due process rights, among others.

3. Additional Constitutional Protections: Beyond the Bill of Rights, other parts of the Constitution also protect individual rights, such as the right to trial by jury in criminal cases (Article III) and protections in the Civil War Era Amendments like the 14th Amendment's Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses.

4. Fundamental Rights: The Supreme Court has interpreted the Constitution to protect certain fundamental rights, even when not explicitly enumerated in the text. This has expanded the scope of individual liberty protections over time.

5. Restrictions on Government Action: Many constitutional provisions are framed as prohibitions on government action rather than grants of power to the government. For example, "Congress shall make no law..." in the First Amendment. 

 

6. Ninth and Tenth Amendments: These amendments clarify that the enumeration of certain rights in the Constitution does not deny or disparage other rights retained by the people, and that powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the states or the people.

The founders believed that protecting individual liberty from government overreach was crucial to the American experiment in self-governance. As Thomas Jefferson stated, "A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, and what no just government should refuse." 

In summary, the Constitution's primary function regarding individual liberty is to limit government power in order to protect and preserve the rights and freedoms of individuals, not to empower the government to limit individual liberty.

For an example, consider abortion. The Constitution is silent about abortion. Because of that, government has no power to deny abortion access to anyone. Roe v. Wade was a workable compromise that allowed states to ban abortions in the 3rd trimester, which many states did. But now, governments in most or all red states have used state power to write and enforce forced birth laws. Before the rise of the American authoritarian radical right, those forced birth laws, arguably including Roe v. Wade, were unconstitutional. But now that the authoritarian radical right tells us the constitution protects government power limiting individual liberty, those laws are constitutional.

See the terrible, morally rotten sleight of hand here that most radical authoritarian legal reasoning stands on? We have been betrayed by traitors in our midst.

Christian nationalism gets hyper-aggressive with public schools; Fighting kleptocratic tyranny

This 6:48 video discusses a new requirement to teach Christianity in all public schools in Oklahoma. The requirement demands immediate and strict compliance, or teachers will be fired for failure to properly comply. Teachers must teach from the Bible itself. The administrator imposing this requirement arrogantly and blithely dismisses criticisms as nonsense coming from the left.

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This morning in my defense of democracy efforts, I sent sharp criticisms to four NYT reporters for under reporting about the kleptocratic authoritarian threat of DJT, his hideous, lies-packed "debate" performance, recent Supreme Court decisions and the Republican Party in general. I pointed out that calling DJT, GOP elites and Republican Supreme Court judges "conservative" is unjustifiable and wrong. Those people are not conservatives. They are aggressive kleptocrats and authoritarians, i.e., autocrats, plutocrats and Christian theocrats. Calling them conservative softens the threat and normalizes both kleptocracy and authoritarianism at the expense of democracy, the rule of law, civil liberties and transparent, competent governance. It also insults actual pro-democracy, pro-civil liberties, pro-rule of law, pro-rationality conservatives.

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To drive home the argument I keep making that Christian nationalism (CN) is kleptocratic, this video affords a glimpse of the scope of the lust for tax dollars that drives essentially all Christian theocratic elites. Getting access to tax dollars has always been a key goal of the authoritarian CN wealth and power theocratic movement.

So, now what?

We are in serious distress and need help

Our democracy, the rule of law and our civil liberties have entered what looks to be a deadly game ending in some form of kleptocratic authoritarianism. If that is mostly true, and I believe it is, one can reasonably ask, what can I do? Is there anything meaningful that any regular person can do? 

I plan to be more aggressive about criticizing people in the media who put out bad content about Biden while saying little or nothing about the far worse kleptocratic DJT and America's radical right authoritarian monsters are. The MSM keeps referring to the authoritarian wealth and power movement as "conservative", and I will keep calling that out as a lie. True conservatives are not authoritarian or kleptocratic. It is an insult to conservatives to smear them by calling authoritarians "conservatives."

I will try to engage at radical right authoritarian sites that allow me to engage. There may be none of those left, but I can at least check it out.

Things that some say are ways to protect democracy, civil liberties and the rule of law from openly hostile American authoritarianism:

• Stay informed and engaged: Keep up with reliable news sources and fact-based information about threats to democracy. Understanding the issues is crucial for effective civic participation.

• Vote in all elections: Participate in local, state, and national elections. Free and fair elections are fundamental to democracy, so exercising your right to vote is essential.

• Support organizations defending democracy: Contribute time or resources to nonpartisan groups working to protect voting rights, civil liberties, and the rule of law.

• Speak out against authoritarianism: Use your voice to condemn antidemocratic actions and rhetoric. Share factual information to counter disinformation.

• Contact elected officials: Regularly communicate with representatives at all levels of government to express support for democratic principles and opposition to authoritarian policies.

• Volunteer as a poll worker or election observer: Help ensure the integrity of elections by participating directly in the electoral process.

• Engage in peaceful protest and civil discourse: Exercise your First Amendment rights to assemble and speak out in defense of democratic values.

• Build cross-ideological coalitions: Work with people across the political spectrum who share a commitment to democratic principles, setting aside partisan differences to defend core values.

• Support independent journalism: Subscribe to and share quality journalism that holds power to account and provides factual information.

• Educate others: Have conversations with friends, family, and community members about the importance of democratic norms and institutions.

• Participate in local government: Attend town halls, city council meetings, and other local government forums to stay engaged in community decision-making.

• Support civic education: Advocate for robust civics education in schools to ensure future generations understand and value democratic processes.

• Donate time or money to pro-democracy efforts 

I do some of those things now, but the urgency feels much greater today than last week. 

About Dem messaging

Well, the USSC just finished blowing our formerly nice little democracy and rule of law to smithereens. In view of that, it now seems reasonable to turn our troubled minds to the Democratic Party. What it is going to do to save American democracy, the rule of law and our civil liberties? 

As we all know by now, Dem messaging is at a serious disadvantage. Dems use mostly honest speech against the mostly DFS (dark free speech) the Repubs routinely use. As one can imagine, since DFS can be and usually is detached from facts, truths and sound reason, that gives the Repubs a great advantage in messaging. How great an advantage? My estimate is that DFS generally has ~1.5 to 2-fold the persuasive power that comparable honest speech has. 

We saw an excellent example of that advantage in the Biden vs. DJT debate a few days ago. DJT lied, slandered, blithered and crackpotted on us the whole time. Despite a worse than dismal showing by DJT, most regular folk saw him as the winner and Joe as the loser. So much for respect for fact, truth and reason among most of the regular folk.

Speaking of the power of DFS messaging, Salon posted an interesting article about it:

"Trump is all dominance, all the time”: 

New research reveals "his most formidable political asset"

UC Berkeley professor M. Steven Fish explains the way Trump's "character defects manifest what looks like bravery"

Political scientist M. Steven Fish believes that the Democratic Party’s inability, despite their many policy successes, to conclusively defeat the Republicans and the larger “conservative” movement and American neofascists, is rooted in much bigger and systematic failings. A professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley, Fish has appeared on BBC, CNN, and other major networks, and has published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Foreign Policy, among others. His new book is “Comeback: Routing Trumpism, Reclaiming the Nation, and Restoring Democracy's Edge.”

In this conversation, Fish warns that Donald Trump and the other Republican leaders use a high-dominance approach to politics and communication that allows them to set the agenda, which in turn puts the Democrats, who tend to be more passive and consensus-oriented, in a consistently weak position of reaction and defense. It is this failure of messaging and leadership style that has largely made the (white) working class so attracted to the Republicans and Trumpism.

Fish counsels the Democrats to learn from and model their behavior on such high-dominance liberal leaders as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President Kennedy, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who acted and spoke with force, clarity, moral vision, courage, and who actively sought to shape the terms of the debate and policy through the force of their personalities and clarity of vision.  

We haven’t seen a more serious threat to democracy and liberal values since WWII. But I also firmly believe that we can beat this threat back, too, just as we did then. We just have to be clear about the nature of the danger and act now to defeat it.  

The problem is that the Democrats don’t unmask Trump’s essential cowardice and overmatch his dominance game. Liberals often seem to think that people just need to evolve past their need for dominant leaders and get on with creating a world in which everyone gets along, and nobody seeks to dominate anybody else. But as the eminent psychologist Dan McAdams notes, our desire for commanding leaders is baked into our DNA. It isn’t all we seek in our leaders, but seek it we do, and that isn’t going to change anytime soon. McAdams argues that no American president has tapped into what he calls “the primal psychology of dominance” as effectively as Trump has. In fact, McAdams suggests that Trump has little but dominance going for him.  

Of course, many voters are repelled by Trump’s style. But overall he has gained more than he has lost because of his high-dominance strategies.

Maybe the Dems should pay some attention to the Fish and think about tweaking their messaging protocols in light of his commentary.