I find too many people who are simply in denial about what’s happening in the United States. There is an environment of anger that is being exploited by Donald Trump but wasn’t created by Donald Trump. Like Jacob Marley’s chains it was forged link by link, yard by yard. Unlike Marley’s chains it was not girded on by the free will of the people but by the actions of our leaders, frequently in direct opposition to the will of the people. It is the chafing of that chain that is producing the anger.
Slow economic growth, not enough decent jobs, increasing income inequality, environmental injuries like the Gulf Oil spill, the lead poisoning of the water in Flint, Michigan, or the Colorado Gold King mine waste water spill. In all of those official malfeasance, misfeasance, and nonfeasance were directly implicated.
Great cities (or formerly great cities) like Detroit and Chicago in financial ruin. The State of Illinois’s finances left to fester for a year with members of neither political party willing to take action. Once again, official malfeasance, misfeasance, and nonfeasance are directly implicated.
People being gunned down in the streets by police. A sharp uptick in urban homicide rates. Soaring rates of opioid abuse. Declining rates of ontime high school graduation, particularly in large cities.
Terrorist attacks at athletic events and Christmas parties. Continuing, persistent, ongoing violent intervention in the affairs of other countries. Endless saber-rattling.
The anger is typical of Trump supporters but isn’t limited to Trump supporters as the alleged “protests” in St. Louis and Chicago clearly illustrate. It isn’t limited to Republicans, either, as Bernie Sanders’s successful insurgent candidacy illustrates. It’s broad and deep.
People keep asking how we came to the situation in which Donald Trump is on the cusp being the Republican Party’s presidential candidate. It was denial. Years of it. It didn’t happen all at once.
But no mention of immigration, Trump’s trump card.
I guess I could quibble over a few of these, but I think you get most of the topics broadly correct, but this is more than denial. First, talk radio and right wing media have pushed the idea that Obama, and everyone on the left, has been actively trying to destroy the country. If you believe that propaganda, of course you are angry. What are the stats now? Isn’t it about 40% of conservatives believe Obama is a Kenyan, Muslim? This is absurd. By any measure, our two biggest catastrophes of this century are the Iraq War and the financial crisis. Both occurred with a Republican as POTUS, yet Obama is actively trying to destroy the country. LOL. It’s not enough to just say that Obama has made some bad policy choices, he has, or enough to say you disagree with him. It has been acceptable, middle of the road belief among the GOP that Obama is trying to destroy the country. To be clear, during the Bush years some his criticism was also over the top. He was not Hitler. However the mainstream left were not claiming that he was actively trying to destroy the country, he was just wrong.
Next, the media is complicit. Inequality is real, yet they always feel compelled to carry the “other side of the story” where conservatives say it is not real because poor people have flat screen TVs. They give tremendous amounts of coverage to terror killings, and until recently pretty much ignored the opioid epidemic, which is giving us many, many more deaths and ruined lives. They galvanized the terror over Ebola, knowing nothing about the disease and what was really going on. They cover an uptick in violence in some cities, while ignoring that rates of violent crime are still much, much lower than in the 90s. People actually believe Mexicans are rapists because they believe what their media is telling them, an the media is not getting the real stats out there.
This is much more than denial. It is also the result of malfeasance on the part of our media and years of virulence directed towards the political opposition.
Steve
Yes, there’s a lot of denial about immigration. As reading the transcript of the Miami Democratic debate illustrates, open borders has become a valence issue for Democratic candidates, a mismatch with the preferences of Democratic voters. And few want to acknowledge that there are differences among the preferences and habits of mind in cultures. Culture matters and it’s learned. It just just grow spontaneously.
Additionally, there have never been greater barriers to assimilation. Modern technology means new immigrants maintain closer ties with the Old Country than ever before.
All well said, however what I found surprising is not that this anger is coming out, but the particular form it has taken. In hindsight I guess the Trump phenomenon makes sense (he’s an opportunist and read the moment correctly, and he has the means) but I still find it astounding that people are falling for his shtick.
Yes, Steve, there couldn’t possibly be anything bad coming from the last many years of everyone on the left claiming everyone on the right is a Nazi. Reynolds hasn’t ever passed on th e opportunity to call people on the right racists, Klansmen, fascists & Nazis in the ten or eleven years we’ve crossed paths. Not to mention all the open cheering for the assassination of W. Yep, it’s all on the right.
CStanley, it’s not a question of falling for his schtick, it’s that there is nowhere else to turn. Every other candidate has now come out in favour of legalizing all the illegals already here asap. Not to mention the uniformity on free trade, bailing out the rich & no one else, preference for foreign labor over American labor _in_America_, etc, etc.
Again, this isn’t a revolution led by Trump, it’s a riot at the ballot box by voters that know they’ve been hosed by their leaders.
Ice I know that’s true for you, but believe me, many, many people are actually buying what he is selling.
Yes, it can happen here. We can debate the specifics but I want to take a step back and talk generalities, particularly: the national narrative.
We are an unusual country in that we have had a narrative that went beyond “We’re the French,” or, “We’re Japanese.” We are not a single race or people. And given the way we’ve taken new people on-board in large numbers right from the start of the republic, we’ve needed a narrative, an explanation of who and what we are. What are we doing? What’s this about?
The narrative has morphed over time, from expanding frontiers to land of the free. The ideas of expansion and the uniqueness of our liberty have formed a big part of our story. But we are no longer expanding westward and we are no longer the only free nation, or even the freest nation. We replaced those narratives with one thing: money and the pursuit of same. We’ve gone from pilgrims and pioneers and defenders of liberty with great dreams for the future, to people who spend way too much time watching CNBC.
The materialism is wearing thin for lots of reasons, but especially because we came to believe we were playing a rigged game. So the pursuit of wealth seems hollow, and it was never a great mainspring motive anyway, it was always bound to crash. But we have nothing to replace it with. No more boundaries to push against, no stirring tales of standing up for freedom, just a kind of desperate materialism that has turned sour.
We keep telling ourselves we’re special, and that assumed wonderfulness is at the heart of Americanism, but where’s the evidence? We are not the freest nation on earth. We are not the richest. We are not the best-educated, not the most advanced. We are the most powerful, by far, but to what purpose?
What are we doing as a nation? Why are we here? What’s the plan?
We’re becoming European in our pessimism, but in important ways we are not a “people.” Up, down or sideways, a Frenchman is still a Frenchman, which is why they will never really assimilate immigrants. But we are not a people, we’re The Greatest Nation On Earth. . . for reasons we can’t really quite recall.
Denial, plus the destruction of so many ways of living. Trump is just a businessman. He’s not interested or talented as a politician. He has nothing to offer except reappropriation of jobs and money that his voters falsely believed to be theirs by right.
Sanders really is hinting at something else: a return to citizenship, a return to a political economy, a return to the American vision of Emerson. He’s from the counterculture’s old heart, unlike Trump, who is straight out of the mainstream’s spleen.
Steve,
Keep blaming people’s anger on right-wing talk radio, etc., if it gives you comfort.
Michael,
That’s something I’ve argued for a long time. I think that since the end of the Cold War we’ve been adrift, particularly when it comes to foreign policy. Domestically we don’t have a uniting principle, ideology or culture and the two parties are increasingly insular and unrepresentative.
Michael, if you haven’t read Chesterton’s What I Saw in America, you really ought to. Here’s what’s probably the most famous snippet:
That was truly a provocative commentary Dave, followed by some thoughtful responses from others. Also, your concise list of growing problems and chasms were painfully accurate. However, it seems that the more we blame “the other party” the worse everything gets.
What does seem to be clear is that both parties have become dysfunctional as more people have become disengaged from the process of honestly monitoring their government, being vigilant about civil rights/liberty, and advancing and enhancing the core values that this country used to stand for. Instead we have become cohabitants of Stupidity, with our main objectives being to crush political opponents. Working together, bridging issues in a bipartisan fashion, healing old wounds, strengthening new commitments and ideas are passe. Instead we prefer drama, even if it means we all simply bleed out, and perhaps find ourselves incinerated by ignored foes because we are just too busy participating in the politics of self interest, petty bickering, even self destruction.
Today I was watching an interview with 3 political strategists — one a republican and two were democrats. Their serious, somber remarks, about where we are as a country, were jarring. Instead of the usual sparring, they were agreeing with each other that we are on dangerous footing which is not being addressed properly by any of the candidates running for POTUS. It seems we have become so immersed in political gaming, winning an election, that lost in all the nonsense is the ability to forge principled, meaningful campaigns containing rational, fair-minded objectives and policies. This is not a one-party farce, but is demonstrated by both the republicans and democrats. And, where we are today has been a two-party project, not just solely due to one particular political administration someone didn’t like. In fact, IMO, there is little daylight between the two parties. Nonetheless, the hard core sycophants, those who relentlessly point fingers across the aisle, refusing to set aside prejudices, just keep the conflict going.
I guess what I’m doing is agreeing with Dave about all the denial saturating the landscape of this 2016 election…..
“Yes, Steve, there couldn’t possibly be anything bad coming from the last many years of everyone on the left claiming everyone on the right is a Nazi. ”
Sure. Go find me a mainstream Democrat claiming everyone on the right is a Nazi. I will wait (forever). It will take me 2 seconds (I type slowly) to find a GOP politician claiming that Obama is trying to destroy the country. As I said, you could find elements on the left claiming Bush was Hitler, but not anyone in the mainstream.
Steve
“As I said, you could find elements on the left claiming Bush was Hitler, but not anyone in the mainstream.”
Yeah, they were too busy claiming Republicans want to throw Grandma in the snow, poison the water, take your social security away, and secretly wanting to lynch blacks. Yeah, those thoughtful, even tempered lefties ……………..
Dave,
The problem with that creed is that it makes no sense in stasis or stuck in the past. It has to be a living and incomplete thing–otherwise it doesn’t hold up. Otherwise you’re left with George Wallace and Martin Luther King as expressions of the same idea. And it is this living incomplete version of America that is fueling the anger of Trump’s supporters.
I think we now have a right-left split as well as a top-bottom split. We’ve not only been drifting from a sense of national unity, but we’ve also had our political class actively creating rifts because it’s much easier for them to get elected by making their base fear the other party instead of enacting policies that their base will see as beneficial. They’ve been stoking anger for years, playing a game of “let’s you and him fight!” With voters.
Now that the voters see they’ve been duped, they’re mad at the political elite class of their own side, but they are still also fighting mad at the other side in general. I think what we’re seeing is voters taking to the political process to send a message to the elites, but when they see the possibility that this will not work because they’ll lose elections they are beginning to flirt with violence directed toward the voters of the opposing party.
CStanley,
What do you mean beginning to flirt? Trump has been tossing black people from his rallies and praising violence for months. He just offered to pay the legal fees for the guy who sucker punched a protester being led out by security. And as far as elites go–I don’t see any Trump people complaining that it was wrong for the police to pepper spray protesters ‘proactively’ outside his KC rally. Of course not–Trump people love the police attacking innocent protesters. Der Leader’s rights are such that it violates his 1st Amendment liberties to be in his immediate vicinity and opposed to him.
What are we are coming to is a point when the party of George Zimmerman gets its ass handed to it, both politically and after it tried to start a brawl.
MM what I meant is that we haven’t yet seen full scale rioting (or assassinations) associated with the presidential campaign as of yet. I’m not sure why you infer that I would defend Trump’s rhetoric or actions. I do think there’s been irresponsible rhetoric all the way around, so I suspect we differ on whether or not the left wing protest groups are “flirting with violence.”
I think that blaming Trump is crazy, as Dave points out the long coming of this. Attempting to attribute things to one party is just partisan ranting. Further, what happened in IL was simply fraudulent. Paid for rent-a-protesters.
It’s really just about institutions, primarily government institutions, that have grown so influential but remain so ineffectual that people just want to break shit. It’s really establishment/anti-establishment, or Big Guy vs Little Guy, politically connected aggrieved group vs unconnected and not party vs party.
BTW – didn’t take long for black lives matter to start “thinkin right” and focus on the evil Trump and “move on” from the guys who put bullet holes in black kids. Priorities.
Left wing protest groups are intentionally entering harm’s way. Trump and his collection of man-boob gun fetishists, all-caps chain email aunts and adult scooter motorists are the harm. It’s not both sides–it’s one side doing the heavy work. But it’s going to end up badly for Trump and minions. (Or well, his minions, unless a 6’3″ dude gets through security and beats the shit out of a feeble guy who hasn’t done anything but commit sexual assault in his life.) They don’t have the numbers on a national level, and they are out of shape physically and mentally. In the end, I’m sure, they will make themselves out to be the victims, just as right-wing Christians have been the victims of the gays they tried to pass laws against.
Ice I know that’s true for you, but believe me, many, many people are actually buying what he is selling.
He’s selling two things.
First, that unfettered immigration has been bad, and that he’s going to do something about it. I’m fine with that part, I’m just don’t believe I can trust him in any number of ways.
As for his wall, I’m fine with that. Mass deportations aren’t happening as a matter of logistics. Deportations COULD be stepped up a good deal, though. The important things would be going after the employers of illegals and curtailing benefits to illegals.
Interestingly, he’s getting swept up by events. He seemed to start out last summer being against illegal immigrants but favoring increasing legal immigration. He brought it up again a couple of weeks ago in one of the “debates” – and immideiately had to walk it back. The H1B scam is finally seeping into the broader consciousness. The Disney IT worker story from last year finally broke through, and even NYTs readers, famously Democratic Party parrots in almost all things, found it to be an outrage. (I remember the NYTs running a front page story of reader reaction a few days after the initial story appeared. The editors seemed a little stunned at the response.)
Second, Trump has also been selling that “free trade” has largely been a scam by which the rich and powerful to become richer and more powerful at the expense of everyone else. I buy that, too. What can he do about it? Not sure about that. He’ll have a screaming mad Congress that is worried the gravy train is going to come to a halt.
But at the very least, he’s been willing to speak out about two issues that have largely been verboten. The fact that it took a loud mouthed billionaire salesman who doesn’t give a shit about what is said about him to do so is a sign of the ongoing failures of the nation’s leadership class. Similarly in Europe, far right (mostly) and far left (somewhat) parties are finally breaking out with voter acceptance not because people like the whole of their agendas, but because those parties have finally found something the voters actually want that their other parties won’t give them.
Hell, not only are the major parties in Europe and the US not giving their voters what they want, they’re making a point of rubbing the voters face in it.
Since some of these groups have actually incited and participated in violence I find it hard to agree with the premise (which is also distorted by your simultaneous desire to insult right wingers while also calling them a threat.) But for the sake of argument if I were to overlook all of that, can you explain the purpose of “going into harm’s way”? What is the intent there?
Sanders really is hinting at something else: a return to citizenship, a return to a political economy, a return to the American vision of Emerson.
You mean the Sanders that idolizes Fidel’s Cuba and the Soviet Union? The Sanders that cheered at Sandanista rallies when they called for the death of all Yankees? Is that the kind of old time citizenship you aspire to?
It’s really just about institutions, primarily government institutions, that have grown so influential but remain so ineffectual that people just want to break shit. It’s really establishment/anti-establishment, or Big Guy vs Little Guy, politically connected aggrieved group vs unconnected and not party vs party.
This isn’t far from the mark, but it misses something essential. The government institutions aren’t at all ineffectual. They’ve been very effectual for the Soroses and Koches and Buffets and Waltons of the US. They’ve been very effectual for the Boehners and Pelosis and McConnells and Reids of the US. And they’ve been very VERY effectual for the Clintons and Bushes.
The problem is precisely that the government has been very effectual, but only if you’re connected.
My last comment was @ MM.
@Ice- I just don’t see a reason to trust his sincerity on any of it, let alone his ability to follow through. Looking back, it’s become clear that he started looking for a way to get a foothold in presidential politics sometime during Obama’s first term. I don’t think he cares any more about illegal immigration or trade than he did about Obama’s birth certificate. Both were a means to an end, the first steps of the long con.
I take it that you are just glad that these issues have been brought to the forefront. Ok, but what now? I don’t see any good coming of it.
But for the sake of argument if I were to overlook all of that, can you explain the purpose of “going into harm’s way� What is the intent there?
These protesters came from the ranks of people Trump is demonizing. These are 20-year old Muslims and Hispanics who feel–oddly enough–the urge to stand up to a bully, so they’re going to stand up to him.
As for the rest, mockery from the sidelines is not fighting speech. Standing up and holding a sign or chanting while someone is speaking is not an inducement to violence. It’s telling that so many reactionaries from Trump on down really can’t handle being insulted–that somehow, they feel it’s an act of violence when they’re antics are treated caustically. Apparently Trump himself was devastated when Obama poked fun at him at some DC function. This after Trump was out there braying about birth certificates.
You mean the Sanders that idolizes Fidel’s Cuba and the Soviet Union? The Sanders that cheered at Sandanista rallies when they called for the death of all Yankees? Is that the kind of old time citizenship you aspire to?
My god–someone mentions Cuba’s literacy rate and you go to pieces? Or the lovely Contras are besmirched?
There’s some crap in the Old Left. But living in terror of progressives instituting a totalitarian regime right now–in 2016–is just pathetic. It’s like you aspire to be the master’s finger on the button and the rat being shocked.
We’ve not only been drifting from a sense of national unity, but we’ve also had our political class actively creating rifts because it’s much easier for them to get elected by making their base fear the other party instead of enacting policies that their base will see as beneficial. They’ve been stoking anger for years, playing a game of “let’s you and him fight!†With voters.
Yep. And the nature of the divisions have been interesting, too. Gay marriage, abortion, gun control, abortion again, gun control again, flag burning, and so on.
All of those issues are either inconsequential, or issues that cannot be resolved at the ballot box because the courts have removed them from the electoral process, or issues that as a practical matter simply cannot be resolved by any means. (Some fall into more than one category.)
Meanwhile, trillions were spent propping up the financial markets with very little dissent within either party, and very little discussion period. Wars have been fought and argued about, but largely everyone has been on board with the wars when they were popular and against them when they aren’t popular. But the wars keep getting fought anyway.
The neoliberal position adopted by both parties of open borders and highly managed “free” trade doesn’t really get questioned. After all, only bigots can doubt that Mexicans and Somalis aren’t exactly like the people of Vermont in every particular, and only fools question the brilliance of free trade, because Ricardo, duh.
It’s been a magnificently conducted shell game, helped greatly because the “eyes” of the people have largely been bought up & consolidated to the point where the press isn’t really all that important anymore. Seriously, if the government shut down all the newspapers and television & radio stations and magazine news companies tomorrow and replaced them with a Voice of America newspaper, radio & TV stations, and magazines, do you really think it would make much difference?
To me, Sanders’ dive into silence re: Israel is far more damning that any sympathy he might have had for the female assassins of the Sandanistas.
But living in terror of progressives instituting a totalitarian regime right now–in 2016–is just pathetic.
Said a man that is shitting himself over the Nazi threat of Donald Trump.
Don’t forget climate change. I believe that’s happening too. My leftist fears are legion….
I take it that you are just glad that these issues have been brought to the forefront. Ok, but what now? I don’t see any good coming of it.
And if the issues aren’t brought up, how much good will come of that? They’ve struck a nerve, they matter to people, yet the issues are not allowed to be discussed at all without charges of Nazism.
We’re near our high water mark for foreign born people living in the US right now. When it has been this high in the past there have been repercussions. That’s happening now, too.
It’s especially important now because of the mobility of the world’s population. What’s that number Schuler likes to cite, something like 5.5 billion people live in countries with lower per capita GDP than Mexico’s? Are we supposed to invite all of them here too? That seems to be the plan at the moment. That’s not so bad, maybe, if you’re some rootless rich douchebag than can just move to another gated community when your current neighborhood gets overrun by Third World people with unsavory habits, but the rest of us have to live with it.
I think it would be nice to discuss these things with a bit of sobriety, calm reflection, and the acknowledgement of a few basic facts about culture and people. Instead, bring up any of it and you’re a bigot, at best. That’s not something I’ve chosen, that’s something that has been insisted upon by the people in charge.
@CStanley
… I’m not sure why you infer that I would defend Trump’s rhetoric or actions. …
It is simple. You will dutifully put on your hairshirt, begin grovelling, and begging for forgiveness for the crime of possibly having offended somebody. You, Cruz, Rubio, and Kasich are no different than Hillary Clinton or the Left. You either do what they want, or they call you names until you do.
These protests are for the Sanders supporters. The Left cannot lose them. They may say they will vote for Trump, but they will mostly just not vote. The Left needs them to vote, and they need that vote to be for Hillary Clinton. They intend to do that by turning the Sanders supporters into Trump haters.
If you are known by the company you keep, what does it say about the Republican Trump haters – Cruz, Rubio, and Kasich ? I guess it is a case of the old – the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
In my view Trump is an effect (or perhaps a catalyst), not a cause. He’s exploiting issues that existed for quite some time and became worse over time. These issues were caused by systematic failures in the two parties and the political elite in this country.
In my career I’ve spent a lot of time studying other countries to include political systems. The simple truth is that when political communities do not have a voice in the political system at large, they almost always turn to violence. Here in the US if those who’ve been shutout believe they can no longer influence the existing system, then violent action is inevitable. We’re not there yet, but if the establishment is successful and suppressing the unwashed they’ve ignored for years, then it will get much worse.
IMO, if you are a citizen of the US, you should get a say in how this country is run – that includes gun-clinging bigoted rural white people, overly self-confident Harvard grad douchebags and everyone in between. Anyone who is actually interested in a “United States of America” should understand the consequences of trying to shove one’s worldview down everyone else’s throat.
Well said, Andy.
One final thing, these Nazi Trump comparisons are just stupid. People trying to equate the two either know nothing about Trump or no nothing about Nazi’s (probably both). They aren’t even in the same league. What Trump is proposing doesn’t even begin to approach what FDR did with the Mexican Repatriation, Japanese internment, and his other immigration/ethnic policies, to say nothing of FDR’s other executive actions.
Took me a couple of readings to follow this:
These protests are for the Sanders supporters. The Left cannot lose them. They may say they will vote for Trump, but they will mostly just not vote. The Left needs them to vote, and they need that vote to be for Hillary Clinton. They intend to do that by turning the Sanders supporters into Trump haters.
But I believe you are right. It’s the same old game but the stakes are getting higher.
@Icepick
Cracks, baby, cracks. They are everywhere, and the things that are not supposed to happen, cannot happen, and are settled are happening everywhere.
Nothing is working like it should, and the excuses do not fool the people who are spouting them. The stimulus was an abject failure, and the economic theory that supports it is garbage. President Obama is the most progressive president since FDR or Wilson, and the rich have gotten not just richer but beyond imaginably richer. The poor, especially the black poor, are worse off.
Obamacare, AGW, foreign policy (especially Putin), and coming oil shortage have all been total failures. Now, the Democrat majorities as far as the eye can see is about to collapse. Apparently, they were using the bad eye.
Black voters have been treated like a pair of dirty drawers, and they are beginning to notice. It may take several more years before they get it together, or the Left may be able to patch it up. The Right has gotten away with it for quite a while, and finally, some have had enough.
Andy–
On this thread, the only people making explicit Nazi references are the people defending Trump against being a Nazi. Dave cited Sinclair Lewis, and I called Trump Der Leader. So you’re basically arguing that nobody should call Trump an authoritarian or a demagogue, or anything else, or even point to the fact that whatever has happened, Trump is basically advocating a huge tax cut, mass deportation, and hatred for anybody who thinks differently, and not in that order. They aren’t solutions, and as I said upthread, he will probably lose and make things far worse.
I find myself incredulous hearing the shrill laments of those criticizing the recent episodes of violence emanating from Trump events, when they were absent dealing with the lunacy of far left demonstrations and movements. The inconsiderateness, physical debris/destruction of city parks/streets and general message incoherence of the Occupy Wall Street movement is one example. Then there is the racial animosity of the “Black Lives Matter,” group, who dismissed facts in order to validate their uncivil, racially inclusive unrest. The random pedestrian knock-outs, burnt-out businesses following police shootings, flash mobs were also all out of control events generated from either a leftist POV or monies from move-on and other leftist fringe organizations.
Even the condemned “violence” presently erupting at Trump events is openly funded by Soros, leaving liberals aghast, livid and hypocritically solely blaming crazy Trumpsters as the bullies, rather than some of those paid and planted at rallies to incite an unseemly, media-played reaction .
As for climate change, MM would probably agree with the tone of the DOJ seeking ways to prosecute those who aren’t with the climate change program. Their focus is supposedly on “climate change denial,” which would probably more broadly include “skeptics” as well.
Yep, what a free society MM and his ilk are demanding!
Oh yeah, remember that animated “Fight for Fifteen” Seattle movement demanding an immediate rise in minimum wage — an appendage grown from progressive thinking? Well, the sad epilogue to that movement is that 10,000 jobs were lost in matter of 3 months, while areas outside of Seattle grew 57,000 jobs. That really worked out well, didn’t it!
As for climate change, MM would probably agree with the tone of the DOJ seeking ways to prosecute those who aren’t with the climate change program. Their focus is supposedly on “climate change denial,†which would probably more broadly include “skeptics†as well.
I do. Denialism was a scam, funded by people who knew it was a scam. It’s no different than a company paying a hack scientist to say everything is fine as they knowingly pollute a river.
But the DOJ isn’t advocating prosecution. They’re looking into, I guess, doing what the government did to the tobacco companies, which was take them to the cleaners for funding the same sort of denialism.
And jan, even though I’m a total fan of the knock-out game, I’m also of the opinion that the quarry gets to fight back. That’s part of the game, after all…
@jan
I find myself incredulous hearing the shrill laments of those criticizing the recent episodes of violence emanating from Trump events, …
Does that include Cruz, Kasich, and Rubio? They were blaming Trump also.
If the Trump supporters decided to have an anti-illegal immigration march through an area with a large number of illegal aliens, I am sure that the same people criticizing would be supporting their right to protest.
Now, where did I leave the bong?
CStanley, here’s a bit from a NYTs article on Trump supporters in Tampa:
I’m reminded of the fact that financial corruption tends to get exposed in downturns instead of bull markets. Madoff’s scam did fine as long as the financial economy boomed, but once the worm turned down he couldn’t hide the criminal activity.
The Great Recession and the Obama Recovery have exposed how out of touch & corrupt the ruling class is – they can’t hide it. They may yet get away with it, but they can’t hide it anymore.
Or as TB put it above, “Cracks, baby, cracks.”
, I’m also of the opinion that the quarry gets to fight back.
MM
It’s hard to fight back when you’ve been ambushed and then knocked senseless, isn’t it?
Does that include Cruz, Kasich, and Rubio?
It’s, everybody, Tasty. The world has gone mad, IMO.
Ice, I’m still not getting the part where, as these cracks appear, we decide to hand a few sticks of dynamite to a crass, wealthy real estate developer/reality tv star/ scam artist.
MM,
“So you’re basically arguing that nobody should call Trump an authoritarian or a demagogue, or anything else, or even point to the fact that whatever has happened”
Thanks for making my point. I specifically said that Nazi Trump comparisons are stupid. For some reason, you’ve interpreted that as me arguing that “nobody should call Trump an authoritarian or a demagogue.” I shouldn’t have to point out something this obvious, but those two are not equivalent, ie. one can be an authoritarian and/or a demagogue and yet not be a Nazi or even a fascist.
“Denialism was a scam, funded by people who knew it was a scam.”
That all depends on what people are denying and how you define “denialism.” Unfortunately, the label “denier” gets liberally applied to anyone who doesn’t agree with certain interpretations of the science as well as people who disagree about the implications and the policy responses that flow from those implications.
Also, I’ve found that very few people who scream “denier” have actually read any of the actual science or the IPCC reports which summarize the science. Instead they’ve read what some politically-motivated non-scientist wrote about what they were told about the reports. If you actually read them, especially the summary for policymakers which is very approachable, you’ll find that very, very little of the science is described in terms of facts or conditions of certainty. Most things are described in terms of probabilities and confidence levels along with the evidentiary basis for conclusions.
For example, there is the critical question on how much warming happens when you double atmospheric CO2, which is hugely important in determining just how serious climate change actually is. What does the science actually say?:
“Likely” they define as between 66-100% probability. Confidence levels are not quantified, but “high confidence” is one step below the top level, “very high confidence.” There is a huge difference between 1.5 and 6 degrees of warming and even that range is an estimate, not a fact. Questioning estimates is not denialism, yet it’s constantly labelled that.
Now, I used to read a lot of climate blogs and people who thought climate sensitivity was in the low part of that range (less than 2.0C) were also routinely called deniers. So were people who were opposed to, usually progressive, policies to combat climate change. “Denier” is now a term without any real meaning, it’s thrown around to club political opponents and nothing more.
@jan
It’s, everybody, Tasty. The world has gone mad, IMO.
Chaos has never bothered me. I am not a Trump supporter, but I do not like seeing them being put down @michael reynolds is not wrong about poor and black working class people getting sh*t on for a long time, and as soon as anybody starts putting them down, I will start defending them. I would like to see them get pissed-off at the Democrats.
One thing that makes Trump more effective than anybody else is that he is one of them. For whatever reason, he has turned on his own people, and that is what makes him different. He was a puppet master, but he has decided to take the stage. If he gets elected, there will be no puppet master.
The political class is going batshit crazy because he means they are unemployed for four or eight years. They cannot sell access to the President. The lobbyist will be in the same line as Ma and Pa Kettle from Kansas. He does not need the job, and he does not need the usual ex-Presidential gigs after he leaves office.
TB,
“The political class is going batshit crazy because he means they are unemployed for four or eight years. They cannot sell access to the President. The lobbyist will be in the same line as Ma and Pa Kettle from Kansas. He does not need the job, and he does not need the usual ex-Presidential gigs after he leaves office.”
That deserves quoting.
“Now, I used to read a lot of climate blogs and people who thought climate sensitivity was in the low part of that range (less than 2.0C) were also routinely called deniers.”
Still read some occasionally. Have never seen that. Must read the wrong ones. Also, while I agree with you about Nazi comparisons, it would also be nice to see the communist comparisons go away too. Just suggesting top rates could be 39% instead of 35% gets that name thrown at you.
Steve
@steve
… Just suggesting top rates could be 39% instead of 35% gets that name thrown at you.
I have been after them for some time now. They are very selective in their anti-Keynesian policies, and somehow, it is never when it affects their economic interests.
Steve,
Just look at what’s happened to Judith Curry, an actual climate scientist. Many people now call her a “denier” or “anti-science” or various other made-up terms to label someone as not a part of the consensus tribe. Or look at someone like Roger Pielke Jr., who is labelled a denier because of policy criticism (he doesn’t have any argument against the science). And there are even “strange new forms of denialism” at work – if you don’t believe the studies that show renewables can meet our energy needs, then you’re just another damn, dirty denier….
Or you can read the broad definition of denialism in this academic paper which argues that Climate Denialism should be illegal. Basically, one of the tenets of denialism is dishonesty and, naturally, anyone who doesn’t believe the consensus is dishonest. Part of the abstract:
What is interesting about Curry is that she acknowledges that there is a consensus, she just doesn’t understand why there is one. I would not see her as a denier, but she is an opportunist.
Steve
Andy,
The accusation against the ‘denialists’ is pretty simple. There was never anything but consensus on CO2 being a greenhouse gas and the driver of rising global temperatures. That it became debatable was not because of science but because there was a ton of money spent by petroleum companies to make it so. These corporations of course knew that CO2 was harmful to the climate, they just chose profit over the truth. So the endless dumb list–Spencer Lindzen Christie McIntyre Bob whatever his name was von Storch Anthony Watts and so on–were disingenuous hacks. And there was no there there, as far as the skeptics were concerned.
I last bothered with Watts’ blog around the time he was getting ready for the guy in Berkeley to destroy the conspiracy once and for all by correcting the surface temps. But woops–it was a bust. Judith Curry showed up on Watts’ site too, if I’m not mistaken, babbling about the grave sin of correcting the record in climate reconstructions. How did that turn out?
The bottom line is that it will be a humiliating experience if the government goes after what happened to make the skeptic movement pseudo-real. Anyone who basically took any of that stuff seriously is going to look no more intelligent than a Scientologist about to use the powers of a full Thetan.