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Trump Part 19

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matthewr said:
Where I think it's relevant to the UK is with respect to the Tories who have very obviously learnt from the GOP that you can get away with acting in outrageous bad faith and just simply say what you want to be true regardless of the reality. And, of course, in both the US and the UK the media has had a vary hard time dealing with this and, worse, rather impaled itself on the idea that facts require balance.
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Parts of the UK media have become very much part of the problem; for example the Daily Mail printing pictures of the Supreme Court judges with the headline 'enemies of the people'. Once implanted, the idea that politicians can, and should, overrule the judiciary and tell them, in effect, what are 'acceptable' verdicts, puts us well on the way to actual fascism (rather than the 'anyone to the right of me is a fascist' argument).
 
matthewr said:
I don't think Brexit, Corbyn-ism or Bernie Bros are cults but rather just people with whom I disagree to a greater or lesser extent and often on foundational issues that teak people's motivated reasoning. I would though say that the GOP is increasingly cult-like and that this predates Trump who is more a symptom of the cult than a cause. I don't think this is an unreasonable view and in fact quite a widely held one for which there are good arguments. See here for example.

Where I think it's relevant to the UK is with respect to the Tories who have very obviously learnt from the GOP that you can get away with acting in outrageous bad faith and just simply say what you want to be true regardless of the reality. And, of course, in both the US and the UK the media has had a vary hard time dealing with this and, worse, rather impaled itself on the idea that facts require balance.
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It's a nice article but I don't agree that it offers a good argument for treating the GOP as a cult, and I don't think that framework adds anything to its analysis. It's not even really a properly worked out framework or a concept, it's just a placeholder for "WTF?!" as it is almost every time. The article itself illustrates how limited mainstream liberal thinking is in the face of illiberal politics: the author is prepared to admit that Trumpism goes beyond "seriousness, good faith and reality-based communications or policy-making" or even "partisanship" but can't think what there actually is beyond that, apart from nameless, meaningless irrationality that there's no point even trying to understand.

I mean it's not like Trumpism and modern Toryism don't represent something new, but it's not that new. It's certainly not incomprehensible in terms of what went before: it's the extension and the consequence of what went before. The right never acted in good faith. The norms they're trampling on: they never believed in them. It's just they're strong enough now not to have to pretend any more. Ultimately I don't like the cult framing because I think it's an attempt to bury that realisation, and to isolate the GOP and the Tories from the broader political culture - which includes not just "normal" Republicanism and Toryism but the Democrats, New Labour and the liberal press.
 
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Joe Hutch said:
Parts of the UK media have become very much part of the problem; for example the Daily Mail printing pictures of the Supreme Court judges with the headline 'enemies of the people'. Once implanted, the idea that politicians can, and should, overrule the judiciary and tell them, in effect, what are 'acceptable' verdicts, puts us well on the way to actual fascism (rather than the 'anyone to the right of me is a fascist' argument).
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It's not just parts of the UK media, it's all of it, more or less. Obviously it's the Mail's denigration of the judiciary, of parliament, of migrants. But it's also national broadcasters channelling No 10's lies, it's the more or less conscious conspiracy on the part of broadcasters and the centre right press to normalise Johnsonism, it's daily stories about black trans students trying to no platform war heroes, it's the liberal papers working flat out for two years to pretend that Labour were an existential threat to Jews. There is absolutely nothing mysterious or unforeseeable about large parts of the country believing obvious bullshit and investing heavily in spite and resentment.
 
Seanm said:
It's a nice article but I don't agree that it offers a good argument for treating the GOP as a cult, and I don't think that framework adds anything to its analysis. It's not even really a properly worked out framework or a concept, it's just a placeholder for "WTF?!" as it is almost every time.
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I have done some reading about cults and have learned that it is indeed a somewhat meaningless concept with a long history of sociologists arguing with each other. Although I would still argue that Trump is a step change from what went before because the lying is not your traditional politicians dissembling but this weird "black is white" reality denying. Which we also saw with Brexit and Johnson.
 
If Trump has 40% plus of the electorate who intend to vote, it's clearly a lot more than a cult. Some of his supporters, probably a small percentage, display cult like tendencies. But you don't appeal to that proportion of the electorate without a multitude of reasons.
 
matthewr said:
Joyce White Vance in Time on the Barr / Berman sacking.

https://time.com/5857466/geoffrey-berman-william-barr/
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The first question in the piece was 'Why did Barr lie and say Berman was resigning?' It was because Barr's orders from Trump were to get rid of Berman, but shield Trump from any responsibility for it. Well, Barr himself didn't have the authority to do it, so he tried to negotiate Berman's sacking-by-promotion, but Berman wouldn't play along. So Barr in desperation tried the clumsy resignation gambit, which Berman promptly shot down. Barr then had no choice but to haul the President into it. Berman at that point was able to extract the concession that his well-qualified deputy would succeed him, not the hack announced earlier. Trump throws in the transparent lie that he wasn't involved, but all he and Barr managed ultimately was to come off as the twats they are.
 
DonQuixote99 said:
In particular, the South will rise again, with Mar a Lago the capital of the 'new Confederacy.' Biden had best not shy from the use of force early. Don't give them time to consolidate resistance like the last time. I hope to gosh he has a group working on how to win a civil war already.
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Perfect, rising sea levels and stronger hurricanes are very likely to wash it away
 
Seanm said:
It's a nice article but I don't agree that it offers a good argument for treating the GOP as a cult, and I don't think that framework adds anything to its analysis. It's not even really a properly worked out framework or a concept, it's just a placeholder for "WTF?!"
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sean.

i agree with you completely, but i also want to (possibly) challenge you and argue that the layman "racism" analyses we are living through right now are similarly problematic. actually, i would say they are many, many times more problematic. that which actually places so many poor blacks in the path of awful policing and so many poor whites to latch onto to scapegoat hatred is ultimately the same thing: capitalism working as normal, with all sorts of competing interests on the profit front, but almost identical practices on the labour battleground. stage 2 being political influence and purchase.

human beings are affiliative by nature. in direct contact, we are motivationally compelled to get along and like one another. in the sort of abstract contact that happens over the internet or is simulated on television, our nature is actually the opposite, dominated by cognitive bias, amplified by ideological bias. yet, the way mass media reports (constructs) narratives suggests the exact opposite. from the corporate left: look at those primitive people with immoral views! meanwhile, from the corporate right: look at those anarchists and looters! it's a perspective the beneficiaries of economic systems built upon imperialism and racism just love. all the blame can be placed on regular, bottom-rung deplorables expressing morally offensive ideas, regardless of what forced them there and keeps them there. meanwhile, the likes of amazon virtue-signal against it like nobody can imagine, while "living" off of and propping up the whole foundation.


edit / p.s. ha! maybe the revolution will happen, or google totally messed up, but i just got this recommendation on youtube:

 
TheDecameron said:
What is it about the political right and conspiracy theory? Is it just that they’re utterly gullible, the ones the huckster can always sniff out in the audience and manipulate?
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Conspiracy theories are hardly confined to the right, unfortunately. Indeed, the right has seized on some of the hate-figures of the left (Big Pharma, the military-industrial complex, billionaires like George Soros and Bill Gates) and melded them into their own unifying model of the universe. Trump has identified himself as anti-establishment, and the only person willing and able to slay such monsters.
 
vuk said:
i agree with you completely, but i also want to (possibly) challenge you and argue that the layman "racism" analyses we are living through right now are similarly problematic.
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Yet another black guy gets stamped to death by a racist cop in an authoritarian state, but you know, big corporations, capitalism, that’s the “important” stuff, right?...

PS Do you ever actually read the hopelessly pompous, straight, white pseudo-intellectual elitist shite you post here? Seriously WTAF? You so need to analyse your own biases as they are just laughably/transparently obvious.
 
Tony L said:
Yet another black guy gets stamped to death by a racist cop in an authoritarian state, but you know, big corporations, capitalism, that’s the “important” stuff, right?...

PS Do you ever actually read the hopelessly pompous, straight, white pseudo-intellectual elitist shite you post here? Seriously WTAF? You so need to analyse your own biases as they are just laughably/transparently obvious.
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At the risk of simplifying vuk's post, I see two main premises:

1. Human beings are affiliative by nature, and will try to get along when in groups.
2. Social, political and economic structures may help or hinder this tendency.

The broad conclusion he wishes to draw is that capitalism (especially when combined with imperialism) creates an environment where racism can flourish.

This might be wrong, but it's a respectable line of argument, and there is some evidence for it. For example, racial scapegoating (and worse) increases when economic conditions get worse - as happened in Germany between the wars, and is happening now, following the 2008 crash. An alternative view is that humans are naturally inclined to treat differently-coloured members of the same species with suspicion and hostility, but that's a bleak scenario.

Anyway, if I were replying to @vuk, I would ask him to imagine his ideal society in which social and economic justice prevails. Allow it to run for several generations, to wash out any lingering effects of the old regime. Would racism still exist in such a society?

I think this is a useful thought experiment and, I must admit, my intuitions are conflicted. I'm sure racism would be much reduced, but I find it hard to imagine it would be entirely eliminated. Perhaps that reflects the limits of my imagination.

For what it's worth, I don't think vuk means to minimise the importance of racism (to be frank, I think he has more of a blind spot about feminism and LGBT issues) but to dig deeper into its underlying causes. Of course there's room for debate about whether he's right.
 
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