We have a unique opportunity to understand something today. For once, the president started a tweetstorm that isn’t about identity politics. In fact, he didn’t even start it on Twitter, but instead in an interview with Forbes magazine where he challenged his Secretary of State to an IQ contest. But, first, let’s have a refresher. The Secretary of State called Trump “a f—ing moron.” What does moron mean? On the original Stanford-Binet intelligence scale, it means that you have the mental development of a child between the age of eight and twelve:
Idiot (IQ of 0–25)
Imbecile (IQ of 26-50)
Moron (IQ of 51–70)
In other words, Rex Tillerson could have been harsher in his assessment. What’s important isn’t whether or not Tillerson is technically correct or if the president is telling the truth when he claims he has “the highest” IQ score. What’s important is that we’ll spend the rest of the day talking about this rather than talking about Puerto Rico’s needs, or gun violence, or the fact that Sen. Bob Corker thinks the president might start World War Three.
Trump distracts us constantly, preventing us both from dwelling too long on any particular subject and from being able to drive any narratives of our own. Most of the time he does this by attacking us on issues of identity, but this isn’t strictly necessary. He can make any kind of outrageous statement and it will serve the purpose just as well.
In her last piece, Nancy made the following remark:
The so-called “culture wars” not only include the agenda of the “court evangelicals,” but also Trump’s intention to exploit Islamophobia and the age-old issue of racial fear-mongering for political gain.
This is why I’ve been saying for a while now that those who claim that Democrats are hurting themselves by embracing “identity politics” are, at best, naive. The Trump administration is doing everything humanly possible to attack women, people of color, immigrants, Muslims and LGBT Americans. That is their strategy right now. It is one that is based on nothing but fear, hate and division. To stay quiet or ignore those attacks is to be complicit.
The charge of complicity is highly significant in this context. It’s easy to see how a failure to stand up for the weak, the vulnerable and the marginalized could be justly criticized and even turned into a kind of enabling of the victimizer. I think people on the left are wired to race to the defense of anyone who needs help defending themselves. They’re also wired to avoid taking criticism for failing to do so. This is normally a strength rather than a weakness, but it’s also predictable. And anything that is predictable is exploitable and can become a weakness. If I know how you will react to a stimulus, I can easily manipulate you into behaving exactly as I want you to behave.
That’s why today’s distraction is valuable. We don’t have anyone we need to race to defend. Other than the president, there’s no one here we feel obligated to condemn. We can choose how to respond to Trump’s IQ challenge without those other considerations. Or, if we’re really dedicated to playing the identity game, we can decide to defend the mentally challenged and disabled and take things in the direction of complaining about the use of intelligence-based insults.
Overall, however, this is completely different from defending those who protest police violence or Muslims or the LBGT community or victims of sexual assault. It doesn’t force us to take a position on charged issues like the national anthem or the flag or the pledge of allegiance.
The playbook from Trump’s perspective is roughly the same, though. He can count on us to react to his stimulus in a very predictable way. We may wonder why he’d rather we talk about whether or not he’s a moron than the fact that a U.S. senator thinks he’s a dangerous lunatic, but he has his reasons. Senator Corker’s accusations present a real danger that silly talk about IQ tests cannot rival.
Trump manipulates us this way to his advantage. People criticize Hillary Clinton for not having a strong enough message, but she was starved of attention by these tactics. You can’t just blame the media for acting like Pavlov’s dogs. The left reacted to Trump’s every outrage in the same way as the press. They felt obligated to drop everything else and race to the defense of the injured. They couldn’t help but leap in to exploit what appeared to be the latest gaffe.
There’s a separate but related issue here, which is whether we hurt ourselves by talking about issues of patriotism, race, religion and sexual preference. Trump and Bannon certainly felt that they could bait us into doing this and that the result would be a collapse in support from rural white voters that would (and did) put them over the top.
It could be that we had to fall into that trap to avoid complicity in Trump’s attacks on the vulnerable. Maybe we can’t find an ethical way not to race to the defense of an ESPN reporter who is suspended for telling the truth about the president’s racism. But we don’t want to be reduced to puppets on a string, either, and we can’t be perpetually trapped in a Pavlovian nightmare.
The IQ controversy gives us a chance to look at this question without all the typical baggage and moral obligations. Do we have the discipline to ignore a story that doesn’t help us and keep focused on stories that do? Do we have the foresight to focus on matters that actually matter, like children’s health care and Puerto Rican disaster relief, or will we flit like water bugs from one Trump-directed distraction after another?
To be honest, there are no easy solutions here. The best suggestion I have is that the left needs to work on developing ways of directing attention to the stories and narratives and issues that they want people to hear and discuss.
In much of the country, people are looking for answers to problems that are plaguing their communities and they’re not seeing how the Democrats are even examining their issues let alone offering solutions. This is the way in which a focus on so-called identity politics helped Trump win the presidency and how the Republicans have come to dominate Congress and the vast majority of state legislatures.
And while the Democrats could do a better job coming up with solutions to issues like regional inequality, rural job loss, and the opioid epidemic, it’s more of a problem of not communicating a message than it is actual inattention. Trump’s ability to hog all the attention prevents us from getting that message out. And we’re complicit in letting this happen.
So, there’s more than one type of complicity here. And if we frame this around our moral obligation to act in ways that benefit our opponents, we’re not going to win the larger war.
First of all, it’s deeper than that. We might have an ethical duty to stand up for NFL players who are now at risk of suspension if they take a knee during the anthem, but we have no obligation to spend all day talking about IQ scores.
Secondly, if we don’t learn how to push a narrative into the consciousness of the electorate and maintain a discussion on our issues, we’ll be forever trapped in a battle where we’re more lab animals than genuine contestants.
1) People criticize Hillary Clinton for not having a strong enough message, but she was starved of attention. 2) You can’t just blame the media for acting like Pavlov’s dogs. 3) The left needs to develop ways of directing attention to the stories and narratives and issues we want people to hear and discuss.
The media will act like Pavlov’s dogs. That won’t, and probably can’t, change. So the criticism of Clinton (as smart, wonky, competent, qualified, and establishment as she is) makes perfect sense.
One cannot reason with a pack of salivating dogs. One must RING ANOTHER BELL.
That’s your #3. The way to handle, for example, the unjustifiably overwhelming focus on the Clinton email scandal was–and is–not to complain about the unjustifiably overwhelming focus on the Clinton email scandal. To do that is to ring the same fucking bell, the Republican’s bell, over and over. ‘Ring-ring! Stop salivating! Ring! RING! WHY ARE YOU STILL SALIVATING???”
The way to stop the hounding is to “push a narrative into the consciousness of the electorate and maintain a discussion on our issues.” By throwing the pack fresh meat. Ring another bell.
The answer to ‘Clinton email arglebargle!’ isn’t ‘Powell did it too!’. The answers is: Maybe we should bring back the Fairness Doctrine.
The answer to ‘OMG she said “deplorable”‘ isn’t apologizing, it’s saying: “Universal Basic Income.”
The answer to ‘she fainted!’ is: “Shatter the bonds of monopolies and unleash the power of small business.”
The answer to racist and misogynistic speeches isn’t only ‘racism and misogyny are bad,’ although yes, there is an important ethical duty to say that very clearly and loudly, it’s also: “Automatic health care for all Americans, you’ll never have to fill out another fucking form.”
And first step to learning to push a narrative is to stop worrying about policy details all the time. We can’t have both. We can’t control the narrative and also say absolutely true things like, “There are a lot of reasons we have the health care system we have today. I know how much money influences the political decision-making. However, we started a system that had private health insurance.”
I think you’re onto something. Part of the wisdom of what you’re saying is that you change the narrative by actually changing the conversation, not by engaging in a debate you didn’t start.
The Democrats have always had that problem, for what ever reason. When is the last time a Democrat told a debate moderator that their framing of a question sucks? Diplomatically of course.
100% agree. Another way to say this is that regardless of Trump’s intentions or strategy, he has a talent for eating all the available news space.
Democrats need to learn how to reclaim at least some of the media with the obese Pac-Man of a POTUS gobbling all the headlines. Steggles is right in making the messages simple and even controversial.
The idea that Trump’s response to being called a moron by his SoS is some kind of considered attempt at manipulating liberals is laughable and delusional.
It doesn’t have to be a considered attempt if that’s the effect it has regardless of what Trump is actually thinking.
But Booman is claiming this is something intentional and considered.
“The playbook from Trump’s perspective is roughly the same”.
“Trump manipulates us this way to his advantage.”
This is just not what is happening. He made a fool of himself again, and the reaction has been [eyeroll] [smh].
This is something very different than the Bannonite approach of being a maximum asshole and reveling in the reaction.
There’s an SF novel, I think by Peter Watts, in which humans encounter an alien species that is highly intelligent (capable of space travel) and yet non-sentient.
Trump is highly manipulative and operates from a very distinct playbook, and yet …
There’s also a left-wing tendency or compulsion not to attribute any wisdom or agency or planning to Trump or his advisors. So, for example, what can be explained by narcissism ought not be expanded into a winning strategy.
You’re right. It doesn’t matter. If what he does is effectively a winning strategy, then we must learn to combat it regardless of whether he deserves credit for understanding why it works.
But, again, he doesn’t change because he hasn’t lost. All the eggheads told him he was doing it wrong, and he proved that they were the morons.
So, he will continue to do this and it will continue to prevent us from offering any message to people in rural and small town communities that has any resonance for them.
It’s difficult, if not impossilbe, to get Trump out of the headlines, to be replaced with another narrative more favorable to Dems. Storms don’t do it. Attacks on him don’t really do it. Ridicule doesn’t do it. The press just sits waiting to report on his next tweets, insulting or ridiculous, or whatever.
If he has a strategy it’s all wrapped up with his narcissism. Just don’t spell his name wrong.
So far there has been no Dem leader/spokesperson, who can compete for the headlines, whatever they are (except maybe Harvey Weinstein).
Maybe we need some rumor-mongers. Someone willing to say that Corker, McCain, and Collins are contemplating a shift to the Dems. Let’s talk about defections, and why. Because Dems are more sensible on the issues and want to govern in a bipartisan way. Who knows. Could work.
If the top Dems and a handful of A-list celebrity supporters hit the same points every day, sustained and focused and consistent over a fairly brief period, could we shift the national narrative?
Maybe the Russians hold the secret. Screw the national narrative and go talk to people in their Facebook feeds.
If I had a bazillion (or, for that matter, a hundred thousand) dollars, I would’ve filled the internet with discussion about Trump palling around with child molesters, flying on their private planes, being accused himself, making massive payoffs to nineteen different women (girls at the time). Easy to link that to his admitted sexual assault and predation on beauty contestants, not to mention the Steele dossier.
Does our party completely lack any outside groups with budget, media savvy, and my utter failure of ethical grounding? How is that possible?
“If he has a strategy it’s all wrapped up with his narcissism.”
The man is an addict in search of his next fix, only it’s not a chemical; it’s his supply of adulation, attention, and dominance.
IMHO the whole NFL issue is an example of strategic actions. From Trump’s perspective it’s win, win, win. He and his family, and basically everyone around him, are being accused of being traitors, so it’s a chance to wrap himself in the flag, which proves to his followers that he is patriotic and could not possibly do the things Mueller will eventually accuse him of. To Trump’s crowd being a flag fetishist is the same as being a patriot (missing the point that traitors are the first to salute the flag, and give pledges), so Trump is feeding that. Second…it gives Trump revenge on the NFL shitting on him and then laughing at him all those years ago. Third….it sucks all the air out of other subjects, giving Trump the attention that gives his life purpose.
So it IS a strategy. There is purpose to what he is doing.
.
I have no disagreement with the proposition that liberals spend way too much time chasing after every distracting shiny object that gets thrown at them, but when I read stuff like this:
I just have to ask: what exactly was it that was preventing you from offering any message to people in rural and small town communities — or in “eastern Ohio, upstate Michigan, and western Pennsylvania” — before Trump was elected?
good question. and the answer is that we had support there from labor unions and from folks who hate the GOP because it’s just out for rich people. we had historic support and we had the ability to win some elections on the local and district level. that effectively is over and is not coming back unless we come up with something new and work at it diligently.
Yeah, “Blindsight.” That was a very good story. It has all kinds of comments on the nature of intelligence and its usefulness. More on topic to the discussion, it finds that vampires were real and then recreates them.
Watts is crazy smart. Makes my brain hurt.
“I am not a moron” sounds an awful lot like “I am not a crook.”
When you spend your day denying that you are a mental defective, you’re not winning.
The question is “who are we talking to?” If we are hoping to have a conversation with Trump voters, they weren’t and aren’t listening. They listen to Fox News and right-wing hate radio and ignore the “Fake News!”
It’s a great idea about changing the narrative, but the media won’t cooperate. At all. They want to talk about Trump’s latest outrage, not the BORING plan to give all Americans health care. They are not going to change.
So, we simply have to out organize and fight them. That’s all. This is total war. Sadly, because nobody really wins wars, they cause massive devastation.
But, I’ve been increasingly afraid that we are re-living the Civil War here. I saw a article years ago about the “second and final defeat of the South.” That’s what’s going on. Of course, now we have to contend with the Southernization of the North.
We know what the answer to that is: health care and economic development. And Liberals need to continue to push that narrative, as Bernie Sanders tried to do.
But, let’s not pretend we can talk to 30% of the population. They cannot be reached because their identity is tied up in WHITE privilege, and the loss of the old, established rules for male and female roles, and the place of minorities and LGBT people.
We’ve had 200 years of history and during that entire time Southerners and rural whites in the North have had the option of allying with dispossessed and victimized. But, instead they love their kick down, kiss up culture. Slavish deference to those in power, furious attacks on anybody weaker.
They are not going to change. They can not be reasoned with. History is passing them by and they aren’t happy about it. Well, what do you want us to do about it? We can’t turn the clock back to 1953 if we wanted to. And we don’t want to.
We don’t need to talk to the hardcore base or reason with them. We only have to peel away enough of the right wing people to win the electoral college. As Booman has said, many of these are previous Obama voters.
From NRO:
If not Hillary Clinton, who can be trusted to “peel away enough of the right wing people”?
Saw today a revitalization of the opioid question. Why hasn’t Trump, after two months since his “commission” recommended a declaration of national emergency, done anything about it? Good question. Christie is covering for him: “There was no timeline.” But as Trump plays golf for 3 consecutive days, we can push that narrative. The epidemic still hurts and it can be a good Democratic issue with solutions suggested.
Fire in California. Yet another national disaster. Trump can connect with vineyard owners. Where is he on that issue? How about some help for those families burned out, the 11 dead, and 150 missing. Yeah, it’s California. But it’s RICH California, not the underprivileged.
Message: Go after his ignoring and inattention to his own peeps.
O/T but
https://www.nationaljournal.com/s/659069?unlock=VB3JMW1G4WF5W8YM
Cook report on senate 2018
I think Dems are quite likely to take two seats this cycle (AZ and NV). And Steve Bannon seems to be helping us out, just to ensure it.
Getting a third seat is definitely a longshot, but there are small odds for AL (recent poll was only Moore +4) and TN (now with an open seat race). I think we have perhaps somewhat better odds in TX (Cruz has a strong opponent, with another possibly entering) and the second seat in AZ (since McCain will probably not make it to the summer).
Meanwhile, it is quite possible that Dems lose no seats at all. Manchin looks strong, Heitkamp has no serious opposition (and got a boost from Trump himself!), and several of the midwest folks look solid. My biggest worries are Donnelly (IN is tough for Dems) and McCaskill (where police brutality is such a big issue), though Claire is among the wiliest of pols.
Personally I think the most likely outcome from the 2018 elections is a 50-50 Senate. And then perhaps we convince Murkowski (or Collins, if she’s still a Senator) to caucus with team Blue…
Martin, I get your point overall, but not in the context of today’s news.
First of all, the attention being payed to “MoronGate” is purely in the vein of ridiculing Trump — for the fact that his own SoS thinks this of him, and the further fact that he would say it out loud to someone, and the further additional fact that such a statement would leak to the press. And humiliation, as we all know, is Trump’s kryptonite. So this is exactly the story that SHOULD get wide attention, as it will greatly undermine his image and probably lower his approval ratings.
Second, the whole “Trump keeps distracting us” vein, which was dubious to begin with, has now become really stretched. Granted that the American public doesn’t have unlimited attention, but there is certainly room for multiple stories. There is no reason this one has to impede upon anything else that needs our attention, like Puerto Rico’s recovery. And insofar as such stories don’t get the attention they deserve, they weren’t getting it before anyway, for different reasons.
Third, to be more specific about this active news cycle, Trump’s latest outburst doesn’t distract from Corker’s comments about how he’s unfit. In fact, by effectively siding with Tillerson, the two stories actually reinforce and amplify each other. All of which serves our purposes.
Now if you’d said that we shouldn’t be distracted by Trump’s constant fight-picking with NFL players, you’d have a stronger argument. (Though I still think the “distraction” concern is highly overblown.)
The story that needs to get attention is what the Democratic Party can do for eastern Ohio, upstate Michigan, and western Pennsylvania that the party has not attempted before and that the Republicans will never do.
Everything else is wasted space on some level, at least from an electoral college point of view.
It’s very hard for stuff like that to ever get attention, especially when you’re not in power. Once you hold the reins, you have people’s attention, and you’re in a much better position to say what you want to do for people and to get attention for it. The Bully Pulpit of the Oval Office particularly commands such attention.
For the time being, we have to play defense. And we’re both Giants fans (and the same age), with a history of tremendous defenses going back decades, so you know the value of grinding out a 13-10 victory.
I think it’s futile to continue to hope the media is going to carry the Democrats’ message to the public. That isn’t our vehicle for speaking to voters. One on one conversations with individuals is how we get out our message.
People aren’t hungry for policy prescriptions. They’re hungry for leadership. They’re disgusted. That right there is what will help them decide to give the Democrats a second look when they go to the polls.
The messaging I’m seeing in play is people standing up to white supremacy and white nationalism. People who have been silent for the last few decades waking up and saying, “Hell, no.” I find this encouraging. In the past when people of color made electoral and economic progress, they got stomped back into the ground. This time, though, the electorate might stomp back.
There is only one message the Democrats need to deliver, and haven’t yet: Vote in EVERY election. I can tell that young people are not getting that message because in this last primary in August in my county, only 30% of the people voted. I live in a county that produced strong results for Sanders, yet it hasn’t translated into an uptick in voting. We vote by mail, so there is zero excuse. Our local Dem party was taken over by Sanders people. They have a lot to prove.
Whom do the Democrats hate?
You want souls to the polls, figure that out.
F=MA, in politics as in physics.
Incensed, engaged minorities routinely roll apathetic, detached majorities.
You don’t see ‘incensed, engaged’ on the left outside of insular and discrete communities whose lives are on the line.
Vague positive reactions to potential redistributive measures aren’t cut it — not going toe to toe with naked race hatred, out-and-proud xenophobia, in-your-face misogyny.
Whom do the Democrats hate?
I agree 100% yet I’m afraid to say so because I assume this is snark that’s going right over my head.
Sometimes DXM is deadly serious (or at least 90 percent), and I kinda think this is one of those times.
Trouble is, Dems aren’t good at hating, other than the Judean People’s Front.
Sadly, I am inclined to agree. If I were to indulge some seriousness in this thread, I’d answer the question of whom to hate very succinctly: Nazis (neo and otherwise). Seems like a good start, especially since that ugly bit of human history seems to have decided to repeat itself. I have ancestors who fought against that sort of thing. What a horrible way for our country to dishonor their sacrifices.
Sort of reminds me that the newest version of Wolfenstein (Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus) is coming out. I’m eager to play that one. I remember an earlier version from the 1990s. This one is set in the US. For now (or at least as of late October), I’ll have to settle for battling virtual Nazis. There’s something cleansing about killing virtual Nazis. If videogaming is not quite your forte, this one is worth making an exception. I love the slogan: “Make American Nazi-Free Again.”
Look at shrinking social-democratic vote shares in places like Germany, where there’s an alternative peddling hate.
A kinder, gentler, better world has a constituency — just not a large enough one.
Somewhere I think I still have the URL “Don’t Take The Bait” (dot com). I envisioned a site where sharp critical analysis would lead stories urging folks like Dems not to…take the bait.
Any one with $10 million for this should DM me.
This situation can be played both ways. if, as Mr. Longman suggests, the progressive response to Trump’s verbal provocations has become predictable, so have the provocations themselves. It’s obvious that Trump will constantly resort to culture-war themes of one kind or another, both because that’s what he’s always done and because that’s all he’s got. And all this verbal nastiness, however unpleasant, doesn’t in itself actually change anything. As they say in George R. R. Martin’s books, “Words are wind.”
So the strategic and increasingly natural reaction to Trump should be boredom and dismissiveness. We don’t take seriously every temper tantrum from a child in the “terrible twos,” and we don’t have to take seriously any irritated blast from the presidential toddler either. Progressives can simply say, “There he goes again,” and talk about their issues. When Trump or his fellow Republicans seriously intend to take actions that will do harm, those actions should be strongly condemned; but presidential blathering can be ignored.
Hear! Hear! This is precisely the tone I’ve adopted in my life.
Trump said something stupid. It must be a day ending in ‘y’.
Robert Smigel saw it in 2005:
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/tv-funhouse-divertor/n11971?snl=1
The sad fact of the moment is that most people in the general audience (especially our personal networks) don’t have the patience to understand what is going on with Jamele Hill, Colin Kaepernick, “taking a knee”, and the several hundred police killings of unarmed people a year in this country.
It is an identity issue because the police forces tend to be white dominated (even African-American Patrolmen’s organizations are registering protest), the police unions tend to preserve institutional white supremacy, the media tend not to be honest about race, the rightwing media are strategically dishonest about race, gender, and other identities. The major part of the problem is there.
The left has become a scapegoat and excuse.
In fact, the left has been a major part of the people protesting in the streets against identity issues for some time. With the Black Lives Matter issue, they were there at Ferguson and added to the numbers in many huge demonstrations in major cities.
Identity is in fact one of the markers of class discrimination in a system as complicated as was the ante-bellum class system in the South.
The left was clear about what Trump was doing with identity issues, was appalled at Clinton’s simplistic strategy for dealing with Trump’s challenge, and are still waiting for the Democratic establishment to step up to the bar on military policing, police impunity, unconstitutional deportation, ICE extrajudicial actions and impunity, toleration of misogyny, and continued scapegoating instead of strategic action.
There are many different “lefts”. It is easy to pick and choose scapegoats.
Now that there is serious — it is serious, isn’t it? — investigation of what the relationship between the Trump campaign and Russia was, among other issues, the necessity to remind people about Russia is a waste of time as well.
If you want to ensure that NFL players being fired doesn’t become the main issue, put some pressure on all of the police departments in the country that treat misbehavior by officers with impunity. And put some pressure on the Fraternal Order of Police to stop acting like a gang with commitments of “omerta”, covering for each other, and allowing rampant corruption. That is the focus of the issue.
If the NFL billionaires don’t wake up, they could destroy their professional sport for everyone but white supremacists. What % of the stadiums and TV audience would that provide? They could go back to the days of the 1950s when the NFL was primarily of very local interest.
“Idiot”, “Imbecile”, and “Moron” are figures of speech often used informally (even Tillerson apparently uses them).
And everyone knows the Twitter stream is not serious discourse unless it goes into 10-post numbered threads.
The numbers in the left who are actually against identity politics are very small. The strategic objective of much of that commentary is broadening the existing white base in the opposition to Trump, which is not the same as getting more whites enrolled in the Democratic Party. That conflation is what drives some, especially Greens and socialists on the left, nuts. A political strategy is not exclusively an electoral strategy. Trying to reduce all strategy to electoral strategy often is what defeats an electoral strategy. It is too self-serving.
The most important “narrative” we must “push […] into the consciousness of the electorate” is racism, because the terms of the discussion is completely broken.
Nobody is “a racist.” Klansmen insist they aren’t “racist.” Trump is “the least racist person you’ll ever meet,” according to him. I personally know dozens of dyed-in-the-wool, stone cold racists (in my extended Midwestern family) who get visibly angry even at hearing the word “racist” — race has nothing to do with it. (They “don’t see color” etc.) Who are the racists? Obama; Spike Lee; Jorge Ramos. They “make it about race”…and it’s easy to see why do they do this because it’s the whites who are disadvantaged and facing predjudice while blacks and latinos line up for “free stuff”; they’ve got the system licked and are laughing at us. So, “racism” is an exploitative tool of the non-whites, a device by which to lure guilt-plagued, deluded liberals into forcing conservatives into biasing everything against white people.
This is seriously the only way the majority of white American voters will respond to the word “racism.” We can say the word over and over but this is all they will hear. (A friend who is, confoundingly, a Trump supporter — but an erudite and virtuous person in every other way — insists that Trump’s support has “nothing to do with race.”)
Until we find a way to change this conversation, meaning, change it into an actual conversation, we will get nowhere. Everything else — everything listed above, that has to do with “identity politics,” defending the weak, etc. — can only follow from this.
There is a multi-billion-dollar media empire devoted to ensuring that the conversation about white supremacist institutions never gets into an actual conversation and will get nowhere.
When black billionaires engineer a hostile takeover of ClearChannel, Sinclair Broadcasting Group, and NewsCorp, maybe the situation can change. There is no major communications institution that is devoted to the elimination of discrimination and racial stereotypes. Their judgment is that the market for those audiences passed in the 1970s. Or certainly with the retirement of Walter Crokite or the shaming of Dan Rather.
The burden of converting it into an actual conversation depends on us finding a way to talk on a human basis again with our personal networks. That requires something beyond repeating talking points or defending institutional narratives.
White progressives have ceded so much ground because the people in their personal networks have excommunicated them rather than have a human conversation about politics. Anything else, including internet cates, is fair game but politics gets a shutdown even on basic agreement on facts.
And that includes politicians, who see that arguing fo4 $12 an hour minimum wage is somehow more doable than $15 or $20. It is clear that it isn’t. Or that single-payer government operated health insurance is a non-starter. Half-loaves have actually made the conversation more difficult.
Not sure I agree. Not only because I’m not sure what that ‘actual conversation’ would look like, even in theory (a conversation implies the respectful exchange of views, no?), but moreso because I don’t think we need to ‘end’ racism in order to make political progress.
If we addressed voter suppression, voter turnout (Australia style?), gerrymandering, and the disproportionate power of small white states and small-minded white billionaires, would we need a national conversation before moving the country forward?
Sure, all of that is a huge ask. But still more modest than trying to achieve a productive conversation about race.
I don’t know why BooMan insists on continuing to imbue Trump with some kind of strategic foresight or method. It’s clear that Trump (and his gang, including carpetbaggers like Bannon) think Corker is merely being “disrespectful and irresponsible” — engaging in bad politics; not respecting the implict power structure — whereas Tillerson has a) insulted Trump personally and b) by reference to a trait that Trump is clearly self-conscious about and compensating for, and therefore can’t resist the lure of refuting (like with the size of his hands, and, by extension, his penis, during the debates).
That’s all that’s going on. The Tillerson insult is much more vivid and real to him than anything Corker says…especially since it’s coming from one of his handpicked, cabinet-level daddy-figure pseudo-butlers, which really makes it sting.
Corker is merely a figment of “do-nothing Washington”; whereas Tillerson is one of those sacred, brilliant, Gandhi-combined-with-Einstein-and-Lincoln private sector titans: a CEO (there is no higher level of achievement or superiority in humankind).
agree 100%
Tillerson is right: Trump is Moron. As is anyone who thinks that Trump’s tweets are some kind of premeditated, strategic way to distract and manipulate the media.
They’re not. They are the sad, pathetic outbursts of a thin-skinned, egomaniac who feels the constant need to either defend himself from people who say bad things about him on cable news, or promote himself when no one else will.
It’s ALL reactionary. He spews racist diarrhea of the mouth at a rally in Alabama in front of a bunch of racists, and then decides to double-down on Twitter when people criticize him on TV.
It also just so happens that the guy has 0 attention span so he jumps around from topic-to-topic, which then people in-turn say, “He’s so brilliant by tossing so much at us we can’t keep up with him”.
Where I give Trump’s team (and the GOP in general) credit is that they are extremely skilled at crafting talking points and spin that make Dems look to be the bad guys every.fucking.time. The majority of it starts with Fox News, but it’s coordinated with the right-wing blogs and AM Hate Radio and echoed by Conservatives on Twitter and Facebook. That’s not so much strategy as Political Judo.
Then the MSM is complicit because they feel they have to go along with it lest Fox get all of the ratings… Frankly, you could put a really entertaining chimpanzee in a suit/tie and the GOP would still find ways to dominate the talking points and the MSM would agree.
The Pavlovian Response from Dems is most typically to say, “WTF?” and then point out how absolutely fucked up and wrong everything is, because as humans our natural response is not to ignore but to want to prove our point and we’re all the Old Lady from the GEICO commercial saying, “That’s now how this works, that’s not how any of this works!”
Meanwhile, the Dem Leadership is loving the fact that this guy is in office and setting them up for fundraising and a power grab in 2018/2020.
We are all getting further entrenched in tribalism and are heading toward nationwide mitosis – which I understand is what Russia/Putin wants, but honestly I say let’s just do it and get it over with.
The problem of course is largely scientific. Conservative brains tend to see things in black-and-white, whereas Democrats see the gray in between. We are burdened with things like nuance, and empathy, they just see it is their way is right and everyone else is wrong. Somehow we had them in check, but Fox News/Limbaugh/Beck,Breitbart, etc… tells them what to think, has empowered them, and made a coalition of the crazy/fringe to do the bidding of the Ultra Rich and I don’t know how to revert things back to the way they were, except banning all media that is not rooted in truth, making MSNBC from 8pm-11pm mandatory watching for american citizen, requiring verification on Facebook and Twitter to eliminate russian bots, overturn gerrymandering, overturn Citizens’ United, pump tons of money back into public education so people don’t grow up to be Morons like Trump who are happily sitting-back and watching the Reality TV show that the Presidency has become – which honestly Trump makes it more-and-more obvious how fucking unnecessary the president really is except to spend 4-8 years undoing the shit the previous guy spent 4-8 years doing. But Bernie & HRC were standing ontop of Mountains screaming all the right populist things, but our Media is addicted to Trump (as they were Palin before) and whereas Sex Sells, apparently so does Stupid.
Once you accept that Trump’s method is that of every personality cult CEO, you understand that it is fundamentally authoritarian and depends on the followers on his team and the followers in the civil service acting like he has the power he claims.
Corker lifted the curtain just enough to show the man behind the curtain, to use a Wizard of Oz image. Who else sees the man behind the curtain? How soon does a bucket of water hit the Wicked Witch of the West (and who might that be?).
The strategy is pretty transparent. The counter-strategy is indeed resistance. Too bad that the Democratic establishment hasn’t a clue yet what resisteance means in a fully political sense instead of narrow Congressional and electoral strategies. Indeed their electoral strategies are countering their Congressional strategies instead of complementing them.
The Republicans are constantly setting the debate with catchy phrases they repeat ad nauseum. But they soon become common wisdom. Take health care, for example. We even use their phrase “repeal and replace.” We need our own such as “retain and improve.” Another one is “Obamacare is collapsing.” How about “Obamacare is being sabotaged”?
Why do our high-paid communication consultants and campaign consultants who act as surrogates in media appearances do that?
With Lanny Davis it was clear; he had huge conflicts of interests with commercial clients.
The whole IQ thing is ridiculous. Back during the bad old days of eugenics, a pseudo-scientific theory that held that those of northern European ancestry were superior to all other flavors of humanity, IQ tests were routinely used and abused to “prove” that those who were not of northern European ancestry were somehow lesser, and as a result deserved to be disposed of. We saw how that turned out in Nazi-era Europe, but also saw gross human rights abuses carried out in the US as well (forced sterilizations of those deemed “inferior” certainly come to mind). Near as I can reckon, IQ manages to measure very little, beyond access perhaps to the finest prep schools money can buy. Perhaps I am being slightly hyperbolic, but only slightly. The White House occupant’s obsession with that bullshit, including the eugenicist bullshit, has been obvious for ages if anyone bothered to actually pay attention to what he was about. A narcissist who believes that crap will of course try to make a spectacle of his alleged super-genius. But it is just that – spectacle. Real damage to real human beings is done while he throws his latest tantrum. And oddly enough while distracted by his latest tantrum the very people whom the eugenicists hated back in the day are the ones being hurt behind the scenes. History repeats – or at least rhymes.
Here’s a direct critique on exactly the problem you are describing and one man’s view (which I share) of how Democrats respond:
“This puts Democrats permanently on defense. But as my old boss Jack Kemp, a former pro football player, always told me, “You don’t win games on defense.”
Another strength of the right that the left could learn is its self-confidence and aggressiveness. Turn on cable news at any hour and you will hear a right-winger expounding with bravado on some subject they have no clue about. If there is a liberal on for “balance,” he or she will waste all their air time futilely trying to explain why what their opponent said was complete nonsense. As a consequence, progressives never get their points across and appear feckless. I often joke that a Democrat is someone who won’t take their own side in a debate.”
http://billmoyers.com/story/im-not-democrat/
Every Democrat on every show should start with
-I’m not going to respond to such
idiotic nonsense
bald face lies
utter stupidity
willful ignorance
when (our issue)__ is so much more important and serious than their ___
voo doo economics
innumerate tax policy
medieval stance on ___
And then just outline what needs to be done on (our issue) for any sane people out there.
Talk directly to the audience to get your message out, etc.
And try working the refs –
Democrat on every Sunday show or complaining when they are not.
Go on Faux News and talk right over the host and other guests directly to the audience. Establish a reputation on Faux News as feisty, aggressive, take no bullshit people.
Republicans whine all the time, but it’s directed at the refs, not the audience.
When I was a little kid I saw George Wallace on a network Sunday show before he was shot.
He gets asked a question and he responds with
Wallace: People who support my campaign can send their donations to ____.
Host (shocked): You can’t solicit donations on network TV
Wallace: Don’t pay any attention to what I just said about sending your donations to _
____.
That’s the attitude, get your message out, don’t let uninformed TV hosts, or moronic Republicans get in your way.
Frankly, don’t ever think you are appearing in a ‘fair debate’ or that your mission is ‘to teach’ the voters or to ‘set the record straight.’
Or even worst of all ‘be objective’ or acknowledge value in the other side UNLESS it suits your message goals.
I never understand why people write posts about things that they don’t think people should be talking about. If you think we should be talking about Puerto Rico, write about Puerto Rico.
And why would Trump distract us with a story that puts him in a bad light, rather than, say sending his V.P. on a political stunt to a football game?
In counter point, I don’t see much talk about Tillerson’s comment except to point out the disfunction of the administration. Even there, it has pretty much fallen out of the news cycle.
These are the current Trump-focused headlines. It doesn’t seem like he’s had much success distracting us.
That’s your headline, right Booman?
And almost immediately, you throw in a “pavlovian” zinger.
it’s a very good one. I laughed, and in fact I heard it spoken internally in William Buckley’s nasty, sneering upper class drawl.
But what it is saying is that Trump is monumentally stupid.
And he is not. Not by a long shot.
Yes, he may not be particularly gifted intellectually…or maybe he is, and he’s simply developed a world class dumb act. I really don’t know at this point. I personally think that he suffers from some sort of mild dyslexia. He probably could have overcome it with some seriouys work, but he was so rich…why bother. That’s what secretaries are for. (Among other things in TrumpWorld, I am sure. BillClintonWorld, too. bet on it.)
But here is what I do know. It is a basic part of the worldview that I have been taught by some very gifted people.
Human beings are the only widely known three-brained animal on this planet. (I hedge with the words “widely known” because I believe that it is perfectly possible that we have been visited…and perhaps even genetically created using genetic engineering…by other sentient creatures.)
The three brains are the physical brain, the emotional brain and the intellectual brain. They all interact and affect one another, and it is child’s play to see individual people’s varying brain strengths once you know how to use this idea.
Take Donald Trump.
Please.
(A nod of gratitude to the one-liner king Henny Youngman’s signature joke. “Take my wife. Please.” )
But seriously folks…
Take D. Trump.
He has a very strong physical brain…look at him throughout his career for all you need to know on that account. He takes over every encounter by his sheer physicality, and has done so for the duration of his career. Then he lowers the boom emotionally.
He has a possibly genius-level emotional brain. Mostly negative emotions, but hell…that works too. Take my ex-mother in law. Please.
And he is “smart” enough to be able to talk in full sentences when it fits his purposes…also smart enough to rely on his own greatest talents to achieve his goals.
He is not a “fucking moron,” and every time we refer to him on that level we are doing our own cause great harm. Give the devil his due. Deviish business has been very successful throughout human history.
Just sayin’…as I have been trying to say here since I pretty much pioneered the idea that Trump had a very good chance of winning the presidency way back in 2015…respect him. He is a powerful enemy. Know thine enemy.
Truth be told, most of the “left” knows neither itself nor its enemy.
So it goes.
AG
OH really.
Trump is a sociopath. As you certainly know already, sociopaths tend to be practical geniuses at charming and manipulating people. Take this from someone who was so manipulated and victimized before catching on to WTF was going on.
Idiot, imbecile, moron are all very old English language words that have remained in common usage and are synonymous. They were never incorporated in the Stanford-Binet test score categories. That they were once appropriated and used by psychologists, educators, etc. for the three lowest S-B scores (techno-speak) is irrelevant. (Like most people, Tillerson would have no knowledge of that now archaic techno-speak.) Hysteria/hysterical was similarly appropriated and used for medical/psych clinical diagnosis in the nineteenth century, but have since lost that usage, and the earlier meaning as well.
Trump’s my IQ is one of the highest is apparently his long-standing defense when he thinks his intelligence is being challenged. Pathetic.
Also pathetic is his vocabulary that barely exhibits an average intelligence with limited formal intelligence.
(Disclosure — as a grad student, I administered a significant number of IQ tests. The quantitative scoring was the least interesting aspect.)
I’ve been saying this for a long time on this site and others and that is that the GOP – and conservatives and their fat cat donors generally – have put a lot of money, time and effort to building a massive media structure of hate radio and TV, rightwing religious radio, “think tanks”, numerous blogs and online right-wing editorial and fake news platforms that the Democrats simply either don’t have or have only the palest shadow of one. The right-wing media octopus reaches everyone and everywhere. Think of the huge Sinclair network, which has bought even urban TV stations and started replacing genuine local news with Breitbart and Info-Wars like rants. Sure, viewers can just change the channel but enough will be ensnared to steadily enlarge the already distorted presentation of reality.
Obviously, Democrats won’t and shouldn’t attempt to create a counter network of leftwing hate media, e.g. some sort of “antifa network”. That just degrades the political environment still further. But a vast new counter-narrative or alternative narrative that pushes back on the lies and presents real solutions in ways that are attention grabbing is essential to recruiting new voters and changing the minds of existing voters. Waiting for an electoral campaign to do this is way too late.