I still remains somewhat a mystery to me why so many right wing supporters knowingly and willingly accept that their candidate lies not only to the general public, but to them personally, and are fine with it. it can't really be that they embrace the chaos which will certainly ensue from having no policy issues whatsoever other than moving vast amounts of money, which could be used to improve their own relatively impoverished lives, upward to the obscenely wealthy class and therefore eternally unrecoverable.
can their learned detestation of all things vaguely scented with liberal odor be that strong? I suppose the answer to that must be yes, but such a nakedly self-abnegating position remains difficult for me to reconcile to myself. are they so content to wallow in their own shallow 'lives of quiet desperation just so that many others will be forced to lead similarly deprived existences? what a worldview! not to want a better life for yourself and you kin because others might partake of that same fruit.
It's so hard to say. There's a whole industry, though, devoted to making up cases for how this or that particular lie might not exactly be completely false (on the lines, for instance, of "serious questions about some of the precincts in Michigan in 2020" which the speaker won't spell out, because it would be obvious that the questions aren't serious at all). These people down the food chain from Daily Mail to Gateway Pundit aren't just acceding, they're contributing. In some ways they're more important than Trump himself. Then the awful behavior of places like NYTimes changing the subject from "what happened" to "what do some voters believe", like it's not legitimate for a reporter to ask what happened.
I think a lot of voters, perhaps most of them, have no way of knowing. They don't have clear concepts of evidence and logic. They're not worried about chaos as a result of disabling government (they've been taught that government can do no good except in its function of policing). They understand that they can't trust anybody, and take that as permission to select the belief that validates their (mainly patriarchal and racist) fears and rages. That's how the post-truth regime works.
I might have something more optimistic to say in a little while, with some fancy postmodern stuff I've been looking at.
It's complicated, but not too complicated. First, the Republican Party has offically commited to hyping our political system as embodying a Final Battle between Good and Evil, going back to Gingrich in the 90's. That frame goes way back, John Birch Society is a taproot there of paranoid fear. Guess who embodies Evil? When you're at War, you don't quibble about Marquess of Queensbury rules or the supposed humanity of your opponents.
As our hosts mentions below, evidence and logic are not high priorities in this environment. Trumpism is at heart the purest distillation of the Republican strategy/philosophy of building a political party based on feelings. The Republican party was happy to simply manipulate those feelings for votes, the ultimate currency of power, but Trump went further and validated those feelings, embodied and projected those feelings back to them, on a personal level as an icon and avatar. "I am your vengance" he said, and they believe he meant it. The Party never took those feelings seriously the way Trump did, and he owns them now because he did, or appeared to, which is the same thing in the end. This all bypasses thought, logic, argumemt, evidence, truth, lies. The only question is how does this make me feel? He makes them feel smart, strong, powerful, righteous, and in a majority. Fact checking is a fart in the wind compared to faith like this.
One minor quibble. Chait and virtually all pundits in The Club don't chant "pivot to the center" because of anything as gauche as "belief". They do it because they know the electorate like the back of their hand, like the best floor of the best hotel in Manchester New Hampshire, and they know that the coveted Voter Of Many Names, Undecided, Uncommitted, Independent, Swing, however you may call them, are craving a candidate who will change and do as little as possible. The Center is where Peace and Unity reside, like the eye of the hurricane, and only there is safe. The pundit's personal belief (assuming it exists) is irrelevant to the goal of manipulating the voting base to support you, and they're the guys who know how to do it.
"the anti-partisan pundits are literally afraid of taking a position the way a person might be afraid of spilling red wine on a carpet"
This is just brilliant.
Yeah. The red wine thing, on a white carpet [shiver] ...
Note: I spilled an entire glass of red wine on a woman's white jacket during a dinner date.
I still remains somewhat a mystery to me why so many right wing supporters knowingly and willingly accept that their candidate lies not only to the general public, but to them personally, and are fine with it. it can't really be that they embrace the chaos which will certainly ensue from having no policy issues whatsoever other than moving vast amounts of money, which could be used to improve their own relatively impoverished lives, upward to the obscenely wealthy class and therefore eternally unrecoverable.
can their learned detestation of all things vaguely scented with liberal odor be that strong? I suppose the answer to that must be yes, but such a nakedly self-abnegating position remains difficult for me to reconcile to myself. are they so content to wallow in their own shallow 'lives of quiet desperation just so that many others will be forced to lead similarly deprived existences? what a worldview! not to want a better life for yourself and you kin because others might partake of that same fruit.
It's so hard to say. There's a whole industry, though, devoted to making up cases for how this or that particular lie might not exactly be completely false (on the lines, for instance, of "serious questions about some of the precincts in Michigan in 2020" which the speaker won't spell out, because it would be obvious that the questions aren't serious at all). These people down the food chain from Daily Mail to Gateway Pundit aren't just acceding, they're contributing. In some ways they're more important than Trump himself. Then the awful behavior of places like NYTimes changing the subject from "what happened" to "what do some voters believe", like it's not legitimate for a reporter to ask what happened.
I think a lot of voters, perhaps most of them, have no way of knowing. They don't have clear concepts of evidence and logic. They're not worried about chaos as a result of disabling government (they've been taught that government can do no good except in its function of policing). They understand that they can't trust anybody, and take that as permission to select the belief that validates their (mainly patriarchal and racist) fears and rages. That's how the post-truth regime works.
I might have something more optimistic to say in a little while, with some fancy postmodern stuff I've been looking at.
Handing the reins of one of our two powerful political parties to a cult of godbotherers is one way to burn a country down.
It's complicated, but not too complicated. First, the Republican Party has offically commited to hyping our political system as embodying a Final Battle between Good and Evil, going back to Gingrich in the 90's. That frame goes way back, John Birch Society is a taproot there of paranoid fear. Guess who embodies Evil? When you're at War, you don't quibble about Marquess of Queensbury rules or the supposed humanity of your opponents.
As our hosts mentions below, evidence and logic are not high priorities in this environment. Trumpism is at heart the purest distillation of the Republican strategy/philosophy of building a political party based on feelings. The Republican party was happy to simply manipulate those feelings for votes, the ultimate currency of power, but Trump went further and validated those feelings, embodied and projected those feelings back to them, on a personal level as an icon and avatar. "I am your vengance" he said, and they believe he meant it. The Party never took those feelings seriously the way Trump did, and he owns them now because he did, or appeared to, which is the same thing in the end. This all bypasses thought, logic, argumemt, evidence, truth, lies. The only question is how does this make me feel? He makes them feel smart, strong, powerful, righteous, and in a majority. Fact checking is a fart in the wind compared to faith like this.
Most certainly it is in large measure the End Times Narrative. The cultists do not go down without a fight.
One minor quibble. Chait and virtually all pundits in The Club don't chant "pivot to the center" because of anything as gauche as "belief". They do it because they know the electorate like the back of their hand, like the best floor of the best hotel in Manchester New Hampshire, and they know that the coveted Voter Of Many Names, Undecided, Uncommitted, Independent, Swing, however you may call them, are craving a candidate who will change and do as little as possible. The Center is where Peace and Unity reside, like the eye of the hurricane, and only there is safe. The pundit's personal belief (assuming it exists) is irrelevant to the goal of manipulating the voting base to support you, and they're the guys who know how to do it.
Of course it's not personal. It's The Faith.
The High and Holy Church of Broderism, Driftglass calls it.
Did he take that from Jay Rosen ("High Broderism") or did Rosen take it from him? I like Rosen's name for the "Church of Savvy"
Don't know, but he's very aware of Rosen so it.'s likely riffing on Rosen. Calling it a Church is a very Driftglassian spin
Last Reformed.