FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2023
Whose side are you on? On the evening of October 25, his son had been shot and killed as part of the latest mass shooting event, this time in Lewiston, Maine.
On the morning of October 27, the grieving father was interviewed on CNN. He said he refused to hate the killer. The interview ended like this:
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR (10/27/23): Your son—it is clear that all the good in him came from so much good in you. Thank you for sharing about him with us this morning. And we're here for whatever you need.
AUBURN, MAINE RESIDENT: Thank you very much.
HARLOW: Of course.
(Turns to co-anchor.)
HARLOW: No love like a parent's love, right?
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: I don't—I don't have anything to say.
HARLOW: What a great human.
MATTINGLY: He said all of the things. And I wish I and everyone else could be more—
HARLOW: Like him.
MATTINGLY: —like him.
HARLOW: We'll be back.
There were pauses for emotion. Watching the interview, it wasn't hard to understand why Harlow and Mattingly had assessed the grieving father in the way they did.
Then again, there was this:
Along the way, the grieving father had made an odd remark about the "diversity" which has been taking place in the Lewiston area. And not only that! Two years earlier, a set of extremely odd remarks had resulted in this local news report, headline included:
Auburn’s Leroy Walker apologizes for racist comments /
City leaders say they'll form new diversity committee to tackle racial issues in Auburn
City Councilor Leroy Walker apologized Friday for racist comments he expressed this week as he discussed a proposal to name a footbridge for former Mayor John Jenkins.
Walker said in a prepared statement that Jenkins was “a good friend of mine for 40 years” and he “meant no disrespect to him or his family.”
Walker, who represents the New Auburn-centered Ward 5 and is running unopposed for a sixth term, said he understands his comments at Tuesday’s council meeting “were insensitive and inappropriate.”
“I humbly and sincerely apologize,” Walker said.
That city councilor is the same person who was lionized, two years later, on the CNN program. It seems to us that these dueling portraits of this man offer us Democratic voters a chance to assess some of the instinctive behaviors of our own flailing blue tribe.
Go ahead and make your assessment! Is the grieving father a great human being? Or should he mainly be assessed on the basis of the very odd remarks which were explicitly described, in a local newspaper's news report, as a "racist rant?"
How would you assess this person? For a fuller account of those earlier comments, you can just click here.
Is the grieving father an amazing human being, or is he simply another one of Those People? It seems to us that Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton have sketched the outlines of two different ways our badly floundering tribe can approach such questions.
In yesterday's report, we described Bill Clinton's general approach. His home state's Pentecostals rarely for voted for him. But he attended one of their events every summer, and as part of a longer portrait, he offered this appraisal in his 2004 book, My Life:
CLINTON (page 251): Far more important than what I saw the Pentecostals do were the friendships I made among them. I liked and admired them because they lived their faith. They are strictly anti-abortion, but unlike some others, they will make sure that any unwanted baby, regardless of race or disability, has a loving home. They disagreed with me on abortion and gay rights, but they still followed Christ’s admonition to love their neighbors.
[...]
Knowing the Pentecostals has enriched and changed my life. Whatever your religious views, or lack of them, seeing people live their faith in a spirit of love toward all people, not just your own, is beautiful to behold. If you ever get a chance to go to a Pentecostal service, don’t miss it.
Bill Clinton said that he had seen the good in this group of red voters. He even said that knowing them had "enriched and changed" his life!
People can assess that presentation in any number of ways. That said, while Bill Clinton has generally leaned on the side of inclusion, Hillary Clinton has recently voiced a different type of reaction.
Donald J. Trump may be leading President Biden in the polls! How can this still be happening, Christian Amanpour asked:
AMANPOUR (10/5/23): When you see another matchup between, potentially Trump and President Biden, what goes through your mind? And particularly, how do you process that this person who defeated you back in 2016 is still at it, given all that you've said—91 indictments, you know, civil fraud, sexual transgressions, according to the courts. How is this still happening?
CLINTON: It's a classic tale of an authoritarian populist who really has a grip on the emotional, psychological needs and desires of a portion of the population. And the base of the Republican Party, for whatever combination of reasons, and it is emotional and psychological, sees in him someone who speaks for them.
And they are determined that they will continue to vote for him, attend his rallies, wear his merchandise. Because for whatever reason, he and his very negative, nasty form of politics resonates with them.
Maybe they don't like migrants. Maybe they don't like gay people or black people or the woman who got the promotion at work they didn't get.
Whatever the reason, you know, Make America Great Again was a bid for nostalgia, to return to a place where, you know, people could be in charge of their lives, feel empowered, say what they want, insult whoever came in their way.
And that was really attractive to a significant portion of the Republican base. So it is like a cult. And somebody has to break the—break that momentum. And that's why I believe Joe Biden will defeat them. And hopefully, then that will be the end and the fever will break.
Why might someone favor Trump? In her answer to Amanpour, Hillary Clinton imagined no possibility that wasn't linked to racism, homophobia or sexism or to membership in a cult.
Hillary Clinton sketched a portrait of Others; Bill Clinton had sketched a portrait of friends. Meanwhile, this answer by Hillary Clinton called to mind a statement she made in 2016—a politically unfortunate statement which may, all by itself, have sent Trump to the White House.
In that statement, Hillary Clinton had said that half of Trump' voters could be placed in a "basket of deplorables." As transcribed by Time magazine, here are her fuller remarks:
We are living in a volatile political environment. You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?
[Laughter/applause]
The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic—you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people—now how 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric.
Now, some of those folks—they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America. But the other basket—and I know this because I see friends from all over America here—I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas—as well as, you know, New York and California—but that other basket of people are people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they’re just desperate for change. It doesn’t really even matter where it comes from. They don’t buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won’t wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroine, feel like they’re in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.
Credit where due! On that occasion, she started by acknowledging that she was being "grossly generalistic." Also this:
On that occasion, she condemned only half of Donald J. Trump's supporters as "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic."
"You name it," she somewhat cheekily said. She also seemed to say that some or all of those people were flatly "irredeemable."
On that occasion, Hillary Clinton also said that we should empathize with the other half of Trump's supporters. When she spoke with Amanpour last month, that dispensation was gone.
Did the grieving father from Auburn, Maine vote for Donld J. Trump? We have no idea, but he certainly might have.
Back in 2021, why did he make the odd remarks concerning a very good person who he said he had always regarded as a friend? Did those remarks show that the grieving father is racist?
We have no idea how to answer those questions. In closing, we'll offer this:
Candidate Clinton's remarks in 2016 were weaponized against her. Given the narrow way that race was decided, it's imaginable that Trump ended up in the White House because of that one unscripted remark.
Politically, that remark may have hurt Candidate Clinton. That doesn't necessarily mean that it was wrong on the merits.
So how about it? When it comes to their reactions to others, who's actually right on the actual merits—the gentleman or the tiger?
On this matter, we would side with Bill Clinton's instinctive assessments. That said, many liberals and progressives would think our assessment is wrong.
Many liberals and progressives will be inclined to think that Hillary Clinton's assessment is fundamentally accurate. That said, liberals have been shedding votes among certain demographic groups, dating back to the 1960s, as we continue to offer such sweeping public accusations.
David Brooks says that national survival is at stake in matters of this type. He may be thinking of the way such public accusations swing votes over to people like Trump.
Nicholas Kristof says that "poisonous hatred" from the Israel/Hamas war is "spilling over to the United States and other countries worldwide." He says that the growth of this variegated hatred will "make it more difficult to ever...look into one another’s eyes and find a path to peace."
Offering those remarks as background, whose instincts are more right about those other people? Who's right about the tens of millions of people who will vote for Trump?
Politically and on the merits, we would side with Bill Clinton's instincts on this general matter. We don't think a person has to be irredeemable in order to be voting for Trump.
We strongly disagree with those voters. But then, those voters—those neighbors and friends—also disagree with us!
We think there are reasons why a decent person might choose to vote for Trump. In our view, the fact that we blues have a hard time imagining such reasons may perhaps say something unflattering about such self-impressed people as us!
Politically and on the merits, we'd side with Bill Clinton's instincts on this general matter. That, of course, doesn't mean that Bill Clinton is somehow "right," or that Hillary Clinton is "wrong."
Clinton and Clinton lean different ways. Now for an intended irony:
When it comes to the attempt to "see others," whose side are you on?
Somerby tells us the mayor said some racist things that he later apologized for, but Somerby doesn't trust us to judge for ourselves how bad those racist things were. He doesn't quote them, just the apology. That is putting his thumb on the scales more than a little, something Somerby used to deplore when journalists did it.
ReplyDeleteRemember when the Republican presidential candidate put 47% of voters into the deplorable category . Somersby seemed to have forgotten. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fact-checking-romneys-47-percent-comment/
ReplyDeleteCalling Walker a “great human” for being a grieving father and saying he doesn’t hate the shooter is a bit over the top. It’s a TV person’s glib reaction. Walker’s earlier comments do seem to be racist. These two aspects of him that Somerby wishes to contrast are not incompatible. One would hope that Walker would say the same about the shooter had the shooter been black. His earlier racist comments make one skeptical.
ReplyDeleteAlso, even if you take issue with Hillary’s statement as being politically tone deaf or insulting to the “others”, that doesn’t mean she was wrong. That may very well be why people like Walker voted for Trump. It certainly describes a part of the voting public deliberately targeted by the Trump campaign.
By the way, did Walker vote for Trump? Does anyone, including Somerby, know?
"Also, even if you take issue with Hillary’s statement as being politically tone deaf or insulting to the “others”, that doesn’t mean she was wrong."
DeleteVirtually everyone - on all sides - agrees that the "Others" are brain-dead morons driven by dishonorable motives. Many "liberals" here in this comment section think the "Others" are so brain-dead that it is pointless to try to persuade them. Some "liberals" here disagree and feel that if we stop talking to those neighbors we deem "Others," the nation is likely to perish.
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DeleteDogface, one of the advantages of using a nym is that you can search my comments. I have never said the “others” are brain dead morons, etc. Even Hillary didn’t say that.
DeleteSome commenters here make the point that conservatives or Republican voters are very unlikely to vote for a Democrat. It’s heavily driven by partisan policy differences, not whether liberals are “nice” to them. Cecelia is a perfect example of that. You thought she wasn’t an ideologue, but you only succeeded in getting her to admit to her own tribalism. She is here for the liberal bashing. Does she ever bash conservatives?
I would suggest the words "close-minded" rather than brain-dead, Dog. That is my experience.
DeleteAnon 1:57. I agree. In my view, most people, liberal and conservative, are close-minded.
DeleteNo, I disagree, Dog. Liberals are nothing if not open-minded. And I have seen too stick up their asses conservatives with closed minds.
Deletetoo many
DeleteIf you think "Liberals are nothing if not open-minded," follow mh for a while and you may change your view.
DeleteI read MH's posts all the time and I usually enjoy them. I don't think you understand what being open-minded means.
DeleteI don't consider someone a great human being because they have deep feelings for a loved one who has been shot. Something bad happened to the son, and it is right that the father remember the good in his son. It is what many, if not most people would be like. Only Somerby's dark view of humanity makes him treat this poor man as an exception.
ReplyDeleteIf Hillary had been talking about this shooting, does anyone think she would be calling MAGAs deplorable or using any kind of negative language? Of course not. But Somerby juxtaposes her words, from an entirely different context, pretending she is awful and would rub it in that some Republicans suck, in the context of this man's son dying in a mass shooting. That is majorly unfair to Hillary and to Democrats in general.
And if this particular Republican mayor can say both racist things (on one occasion) and noble things (on a completely different occasion), so can Hillary or any other person behave differently in different situations.
The problem here is how this Mayor would behave toward a minority group member. Would he execute his job the same way and treat that person as he would a white neighbor, or would he say the kind of racist thing he was accused of saying, and behave badly toward the minorities in his town? We don't know -- for one thing, Somerby hasn't told us what he said, and that does make a difference. And we don't know if his apology was genuine or politically motivated. He doesn't seem like a MAGA to me, despite Somerby's attempt to portray him as such. Why? Because he apologized. Who has ever heard Trump apologize for one of his out-of-bounds awful statements? MAGAs double down on their wrongdoing. This guy didn't.
"Somerby juxtaposes her words, from an entirely different context, pretending she is awful and would rub it in that some Republicans suck, in the context of this man's son dying in a mass shooting."
DeleteThe sub-title of Somerby's post today is: "The Clintons Have Sketched Two Different Approaches."
He discusses Hillary's remarks immediatelyv following an extended discussion of Bill's. Any juxtaposing is between the two Clintons, not Hillary and the grieving father.
Somerby Derangement Syndrome strikes again.
Hector: if you wanted to avoid being a complete a**hole, you should've left the last sentence off.
DeleteSubstantive response. We have much to learn from you.
DeleteI remember the olden days when anonymices were concerned about the latent racism of Obama adversaries Hillary Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro.
DeleteThe concern never went away, so what.
DeleteAnonymouse 5:30pm, still concerned, huh? Right.
DeleteThen get off Bob’s back when he uses the couple (in one sense only) as an example of contrasts.
The Clintons have long been criticized for their various problematic stances on racial issues.
DeleteNo one is saying Bob can not contrast the Clintons.
Anonymouse 6:28pm, what are their problematic stances on race that are much more admittable than their stances on deplorables?
DeleteThe crime bill, for one. Hillary's mention of super-predators, which was a thing in the 90s. Bill Clinton says he had no choice but to reform welfare (which was being racialized by the right), since the majority right wing Congress could override his veto. I think some of the complaints were unfair to the Clintons, who have done a great deal to help racial minorities and have many surrogates and supporters among minorities. That support abandoned Hillary when Obama rallied the black troops behind his candidacy in the 2008 primaries.
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DeleteAnonymouse 10:26pm. you can thank Dick Morris for all that and so can the Clintons.
DeleteYou went along with that then and are lying that you ever resisted it. Just as you’re lying now in saying you are not resistant to Bob contrasting Bill and Hill, which is what this thread is about.
“Diversity, of course, is here and we know that, but we don't go around shooting each other.”
ReplyDelete(Walker, in that TV interview.)
It still makes no sense that Walker brought up “diversity” when talking about the shooting, which had no racial elements, as far as I can see. It’s apparently always in his mind, surfacing at random, inappropriate moments , like his earlier comments that got him in hot water.
I’m not sure why using the word diversity got Walker into trouble. It sounded to be like he was commending the town.
DeleteTo my ear he was saying that diversity, whether of skin color, national origin, culture, politics, and religion, has come to this small town in a very rural state .
Now people here are not homogeneous. We don’t all look alike, think alike, act alike and understand each other. However, even with all these differences, no one has killed anyone till now. With all this diversity, we’ve gotten along, until this very troubled man.
The racist statement was in 2021 and Somerby has not quoted it here.
DeleteFor God’s sake, Cecelia, the link to Walker’s earlier comment is here:
Delete“ How would you assess this person? For a fuller account of those earlier comments, you can just click here.”
Or https://www.sunjournal.com/2021/09/08/racist-comments-tarnish-agreement-to-name-bridge-after-john-jenkins/?rel=related
Anonymouse 11:58am, mass muders are now political events. They are political tools. Everyone waits with bated breath to find out the “diversity” of the shooter. This is a media managed mood-making money-maker.
DeleteI’ll look up Walker’s remark, but from his words about diversity, it appears that he may have been expressing feelings of surprise and newfound pride at how things had gone more smoothly than he thought would be the case.
You haven’t answered the question why he mentioned “diversity” in the context of this shooting. It’s a complete non-sequitur.
Deletemh, because diversity is different from the traditional homogeneity of small towns in general, and the state of Maine. It’s a more complex and personally demanding environment than Walker had experienced. (I’m not knocking that.)
DeleteI think that Walker could have been expressing his surprise that with all the change in their town, it wasn’t those sorts of divisions (which are always the media focus) that inspired this violence.
I think when he said diversity he ment different races live in shared communities. And maybe he meant that this sometimes creates tension, but has not yet led to violence, as it certainly seems to have in other places. This seems to have driven Bob a little crazy.
DeleteWalker did not get in trouble for using the word diversity.
DeleteWhen a Somerby fanboy makes a good faith coherent point, the sun will rise in the West.
I looked up Walker’s first statement that brought him controversy. Completely inappropriate comment.
DeleteBob’s point is that we’re are all a mixed bag. Of course, that obvious statement of affairs went over like an endorsement for fracking in the Everglades.
It doesn’t affect Walker’s comment one way or the other, but was Walker complaining of minority crime in Lewiston or of riots and looting in the entire country?
“Bob’s point is that we’re are all a mixed bag.”
DeleteThis is not Bob’s point. In fact nobody would bother to make such a facile point, it’s like saying we all breathe.
Anonymouse 6:22pm, and that means we are not the rational animal.
Delete8:05 what? That’s a nonsensical reply, even so, humans are rational, this is well studied; there are conditions under which humans lose the ability to be rational.
DeleteAfter all we are all a mixed bag!
Kill or be killed is rational.
DeleteHere is what he said:
Delete"Walker, who has represented Ward 5 since 2011 and is running unopposed for reelection, said that “what’s going on down there” in “Alabama and them areas” are the sort of “things that put a bad name on good people like John Jenkins.”
It is unclear what possible connection there could be between a deceased former mayor and the unidentified criminal activities that Walker described.
“It’s only because of the color of his skin,” Walker said in a phone interview Wednesday."
That is certainly racist.
mh is right that the statement recently comes out of left field because there were no diverse people among those killed and the shooter was not diverse either. Everyone involved was white.
This guy does seem to have race on his mind. Somerby uses that to imply that he is (1) an Other, and (2) a potential bad person. I am liberal and I didn't assume he was any kind of Other, coming from Maine, nor did I even assume he was Republican. I also did not think of him as a bad person or a good person, but as an unfortunate person because of the death of his son.
Somerby desire to make this into some sort of either/or black/white situation is offensive. This doesn't fit his view that if someone is an Other they are barred from humanity by liberals, a strawman that is not at all true in my experience with liberals. Entertaining Somerby's premise is a waste of time because it is too ludicrous to make any sense.
As I've said many times before, Somerby doesn't know much about how people think, feel or behave. His accusations against liberals (who bear the brunt of his complaints) are insulting and majorly wrong. It is more like HE is the person doing such stereotyping, calling liberals bad people for otherizing, when Somerby appears to be otherizing us nearly every day. I am sick of it, but it will go on as long as Somerby never reads his comments, which he maintains as a masquerade so that he can keep writing ugly things about liberals.
Kill or be killed is not rational, it is instinct.
DeleteAnonymouse 10:39pm, Walker’s statement as to Jenkins was utterly ridiculous, but his actual stance in the midst of suffering the worst thing that can happen to you, was sublime.
DeleteAnonymices have reacted to Somerby’s point in this exactly as he assumed that you would act. You’ve danced around it every way that you can. Every way in which you can minimize it and continue to set up a nuanced standard for yourselves and a simplistic one for your contrarians. It’s disingenuous and it’s inhuman.
Anonymouse 10:39pm, it’s autonomic, instinctive, and rational to pull away from fire that is burning your hand. It’s irrational to destroy yourself over Helen of Troy.
DeleteCecelia, don't use words you don't understand. Autonomic has nothing to do with instinct. Did you mean automatic perhaps? If you burn your hand, you pull it away from the heat via reflex, not autonomic or rationality or instinct -- reflex. Rational thinking is much too slow. The autonomic nervous system prepares the body for action, allocates energy reflexes and blood flow, and supports internal processes such as digestion. Instincts guide behavior in response to external cues, such as when someone is sexually attracted or fearful of spiders. That has nothing to do with why someone reacts to pain in their hand.
DeleteThere may be nothing irrational about going to war when the wife of the king has been kidnapped. But don't treat it as anything more than a silly story that Somerby is obsessed with. Homer described events that most likely never occurred, from a time period 1000 years before he himself lived. That makes the Illiad fiction and Somerby's concern over it no different than taking Macbeth or Hamlet seriously.
I saw an article suggesting that Dems lost popularity because of the radical social changes they are supporting.
ReplyDeleteDavid in Cal
Radical social change = tolerance of diversity
DeleteAnonymous11:57am, I comprehend that anonymices do not hold political positions, which is a relief, but how do their endless claims regarding the perfidies of their political opponents, differ from Rep. Green's nonsense?
DeleteThis post is advocating for a tolerance of diversity in political affiliations. It is a call for all of us to consider the common humanity of those with diverse political beliefs.
DeleteNo, Waylon, Anonymouse 11:57am is voicing the idea that voters who have lost interest in Democrats have mainly done so due to their racism.
DeleteNo, Cecelia, diversity is more than race. It also includes tolerance of other religions, of gay people, of women, etc.
DeleteWaylon, Cecelia, either of you care to address what Marjorie Greene says about Democrats?
DeleteMy response was specifically in reference to Mr. Somerby's initial post, which I feel relates to Democrat's diversity tolerance mentioned by the 11:57 commenter.
Deletemh: I appreciate your inquiry. As of the moment, I do not, but thank you for considering me.
DeleteWaylon, I though you said at 12:63 53 that this post was a call for “empathy and understanding.” Now, you say it’s about “Democrat’s diversity tolerance.” I suppose you think we must have empathy when congresswoman Greene calls is all pedophiles.
Deletemh: You're right, diversity encompasses more than just race—it includes respecting different religions, sexual orientations, genders, and indeed, political beliefs`. I view this as the central theme of Mr. Somerby's blog post today.
DeleteWaylon, sorry if I reject Greene’s political belief that all Democrats are pedophiles.
Deletemh
mh: I apologize for any confusion earlier. I didn't mean to say Mr. Somerby's post was mainly about "Democrat's diversity tolerance." My intention was to express that "Democrat's diversity tolerance." (an idea that was introduced by the commenter at 11:57) includes diversity of political beliefs as well as the other important types of diversity you mentioned.
DeleteRegarding Congresswoman Greene's comments, I must admit I haven't had the opportunity to review the specific statement in question. However, I do agree that it is essential to approach even nasty rhetoric with empathy. I feel like it is a choice we all can make in one instant.
Waylon, it’s not a much of a defense of the anonymouse to say that she wasn’t just calling former Biden voters racists, she was calling them all the other isms too.
DeleteThe point is that such blanket dumb MTG statements about contrarians are made every day here by anonymices and their anonymouse flying monkeys and mh never bats an eye.
Cecelia, I'm in complete agreement. It’s no defense for the anonymouse to claim a broader scope of accusations beyond racism; it’s just as dismissive and unproductive and only detracts from meaningful discourse. It's essential we hold ourselves to the highest standard of which we are capable, regardless of the anonymity the internet may provide.
DeleteThe significant racism occurring in America is supported by a large body of evidence.
DeleteSomerby and his fanboys’ denial of the evidence is a proximate cause for their nonsensical views they try to foist on others.
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ReplyDeleteMarjorie Taylor Greene called all Democrats pedophiles. Not half, not 47%. All.
ReplyDeleteHow can I have been a pedophile for 75 years and not realize it?
DeleteThe theme of this post is a call for empathy and understanding rather than judgment and division. It acknowledges that while it may sometimes feel otherwise, those who vote differently are not inherently irredeemable. It's about the decision each one of us faces, time and again, every day: a choice between fear and love.
ReplyDeleteWho would pick on someone whose son was just killed? Do we need such a plea on behalf of this guy?
DeleteNo, Waylon. Somerby is using Walker’s grief to make a political point. No one else is.
DeleteEmpathy and understanding are not mutually exclusive from judgement and division, it’s a false binary.
DeleteOf the two tribes, when considering empathy and understanding, there is no way to make a coherent argument other than that these traits are exclusively of the blue tribe, particularly since the red tribe routinely mocks the blue tribe for its empathy and understanding, which the red tribe sees as a weakness.
Worse, Somerby makes a rather obvious error in his post today by cherry picking Hillary’s statement, he pointedly ignores this from Hillary:
“It's a classic tale of an authoritarian populist who really has a grip on the emotional, psychological needs and desires of a portion of the population. And the base of the Republican Party, for whatever combination of reasons, and it is emotional and psychological, sees in him someone who speaks for them.”
Somerby says Hillary can’t imagine any reason other than racism etc as the motivation behind Trumpers, but Hillary says it’s due to emotional and psychological needs, thus inferring that the various oppressions are manifestations of these needs.
Hillary is not a behavior scientist, but in broad terms, she gets it quite correctly.
In fact, individuals can be traumatized such that the symptoms of that trauma are not reversible, ie irredeemable.
You can display all the love you want to fascists and slavers, but in reality, those took wars to overcome.
Indeed, much of what ails America today comes from the aftermath of the Civil War. Lincoln did not intend to show any true mercy to the defeated Confederates, and he was shot in the head (he was also grousing a bit too much about wage slavery for the owner class). But his VP acquiesced to the right wing South, and Reconstruction was a failure.
It’s not love or empathy or understanding to not fight oppression, it is just the opposite, which is why Somerby’s posts and his hero worshipping cult of fanboys are morally bankrupt.
I’m “morally bankrupt” for believing that it might be wise to try to persuade 1-2% of the Others to vote for Biden? Isn’t that accusation just a tad overwrought?
DeleteIt’s not merely the notion, but also the method.
DeleteIt is reasonable to refer to apologists for those who engage in corruption, illegality, and oppression as morally bankrupt.
That those apologists see themselves as heroes or wise is not a credible counterpoint.
Furthermore, their stance is unsubstantiated by evidence.
First Bob seems to have hit on the revolutionary notion that good and bad and can exist in the same individual, and demands an explanation from the horrid blue tribe. It’s going to take me a few days to process this revelation but I’ll get back to him.
ReplyDeleteThis post does rather go begging for an account of the good side of Trump. Wisely, Bob takes a pass on this daunting task.
As for the notion of “deplorable” being the Electoral College dealbreaker, that’s possible but unknowable. More likely it was just the thing the salt of the earth dopes or the right chose to seize on, if it wasn’t that it would be something else. Once upon a time Bob would have ridiculed the press’s cooperation with such nonsense but now he joins in. Repetition is the key, like simpleton Cecelia with her daily insult that must make her fat ass giggle with self regard every time she types it.
You are not a good person. It’s time you face this reality. Sexist, rude and arrogant is no way to go through life, fella.
Delete"like simpleton Cecelia with her daily insult"
ReplyDeleteClassic.
Thanks!
DeleteIrony is dead.
DeleteI can’t but laugh. Anonymouse ire is comical.
DeleteYou insult people frequently, Cecelia, including me.
Deletemh - I think it's one thing to trade insults. Here, however, Anon 1:06 was not in any thread with CC. Instead, completely out of the blue, he wrote: "like simpleton Cecelia with her daily insult that makes her fat ass giggle."
DeleteIn my view, this is not a hill you should die on.
It doesn’t make it less true. You won’t even acknowledge it.
DeleteIndeed Doggy dog. Take a gander at your own double standard. At least I largely avoid our dim Cecelia (no actual arguments to respond to anyway) and would only occasionally speculate on her possibly gargantuan rump once in a blue moon. You two, lacking any depth, have made a bumper out of your single joke. But I’ll credit you with making a zombie out of irony, rising it up even as you declare it dead.
Deletemh, I’m often insultingly referenced in comment threads in which I have never posted.
DeleteGenerally, the comments about me are scathingly amusing.
You’ll live, darling.
I admire Cecelia. I wish I could get to know her better.
DeleteI’ll try to work you in more often, dear.
Delete“I’ll credit you with making a zombie out of irony, rising it up even as you declare it dead.”
DeleteAnonymouse 2:14pm, my gargantuan rump really likes that line.
Cecelia pretends to be a woman, and does nothing here other than attempt to own the libs.
DeleteThis is someone suffering from traumatic wounds, deserving of pity.
Cecelia is the poster child of why we need to better fund mental healthcare as well as support for better parenting.
Anonymouse 5:44pm, why, you’ve hit upon the advertising campaign that could possibly bring massive amounts of customers back to Bud Lite.
DeleteAnon 5:44 - CC may roll with the punches, but I find your misogynistic and sexually insulting comments to be repulsive.
DeleteFor example, someone traumatized such as Cecelia sees every interaction as a transaction, sees politics as a product instead of a method for making decisions in groups. As leading psychologists put it, they are stuck in survivor mode.
DeleteBud Light lost about 25% of its consumers, yet it is still highly profitable, and its parent company still dominates in its industry. The boycott has essentially been a self own by the right wing, but it’s good to have the freedom to choose products as you like, and since alcohol is one of the most destructive forces in society, hard to see a downside to how the right wing reacted, more power to them.
6:42 Oof the white knighting is particularly cringey considering the ironic context.
Deletehttps://fortune.com/2023/10/31/bud-light-earnings-dylan-mulvaney-transgender-promotion-backlash/amp/
DeleteIsn’t it interesting that Anonymices say that they see politics as a series of negotiated transactions for the betterment of mankind, but also believe that politics is not a matter of persuasion and changing minds.
We would chalk that up to their lack of logic, but it’s really deception and pretense. It’s the same sort of pretense that this anonymous feigns about me as concern about my mental state as she uses real psychological conditions that people suffer thru as pejoratives to tar and feather a political opponent.
No name and no there there.
A Czech brewery disputes Anheuser-Busch's right to the name "Budweiser".
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budweiser_trademark_dispute
7:22 not sure why you linked that article, but so there’s no misunderstanding the article repeats what I said, it says Bud Light sales are down (19%) but it is still highly profitable commanding 9% share of the total beer market (that’s close to Apple’s level of share in computers), and that the parent company continues to be the market leader in the industry, posting a remarkably high profit. Even Kid Rock continues to sell it at his bar.
DeletePolitics is anything involved with making decisions in groups.
You’re conflating politics in general with electoral politics, thus your point is erroneous and irrelevant.
Furthermore, negotiated policies are not about persuasion, they usually involve compromise, which is a different concept.
There is no feigning, it is a primary concern; right wingers are, definitionally, those strongly motivated by an urge for hierarchies and dominance. This is not a natural or inherent trait, but an emergent trait, typically from unresolved childhood trauma. Those psychologists are in fact specifically speaking to the conditions of right wingers.
https://en.as.com/latest_news/how-much-money-has-bud-light-lost-in-sales-anheuser-busch-beer-sales-continue-to-plunge-n/?outputType=amp
DeleteBecause I own stocks and obviously you don’t.
Anything involved in negotiation involves persuasion. We are a democracy, even groups of like-minded people don’t make decisions without some persuasion. To say that this is divorced from compromise is utter bullshite. Every win/win or “don’t lose as much as we could have” is achieved by persuasion and compromise.
I appreciate your religious views, but hierarchies and dominance is the default without the less intuitive stance of persuasion and compromise.
Now anonymices have debased compromise and persuasion and declared their preference for dominance and hierarchy..
No one is surprised. Least of all Bob.
The term persuasion refers to attitudes and beliefs, not to decision making. Attitudes and beliefs may affect judgment and choice involved in decision making, but it is important to realize that they are not the same thing and they involve different cognitive processes.
DeleteHierarchies and dominance may seem like the natural order (default) to right wingers, but cooperation and mutual relationship (equality) are more often observed in human groups. In studies of parenting styles within families, for example, the egalitarian style is found to be more effective than the authoritarian style. In early cultures, people evolve a style that works best, and that was not hierarchy and dominance for most of human existence. The inequalities, especially with regard to wealth, are destructive to our society and bad for individual people, except for the small handful at the top (who are also found to be suffering psychologically, in studies of the very rich).
Note that Cecelia's latest comment uses words incoherently and makes no sense at all. When challenged Cecelia often writes hash like that, because she doesn't know what other people here are talking about. I would pity her, but all of my empathy is being used up by Lauren Boebert these days.
Anonymouse 10:59pm, it’s illogical to label politics as a sequence of negotiated deals for the improvement of everyone while simultaneously diminishing the role of persuasion in that process. Your perception, heavily influenced by militancy, is too limited to bridge that contradiction even with all the insults in the world.
DeleteSteadfastly ignorant to the end. See what I mean about doubling down on it?
Delete"It doesn’t make it less true. You won’t even acknowledge it."
ReplyDeleteJeebus. Don't whine. We all get insulted here on a regular basis. Anon 1:06's insult was different in that it came out of the blue (and was tinged with misogyny).
“We all get insulted here…” including Somerby, but you sure as hell whine when he gets “insulted”. Weren’t you defending Cecelia the other day as a fair minded non-ideologue? What bs.
DeleteAnd please, don’t tell me what to do, jackass.
Don’t you like surprises?
DeleteSorry, mh. Go ahead and whine if you want to.
DeleteOh, and I was defending CC as an open-minded ideologue, just to get that one straight.
DeleteAn “open minded ideologue”: ideologue: definition: “an adherent of an ideology, especially one who is uncompromising and dogmatic.”
DeleteIn what way is Cecelia open minded?
This is mh. My comments are disappearing right now.
mh - For some reason, I lost all interest in discussing this with you after you called me a jackass.
DeleteOh, touchy aren’t we. Then don’t call me a whiner.
DeleteActually, I'm not touchy at all. You can call me whatever you want. I just lost my respect for you, that's all.
DeleteI am touchy. I’m Corby.
DeleteDogface carrying the Somerby torch?
Delete“I just lost my respect for you”
Disingenuous, anyone?
Ad jackass is as bad as ad hominem.
DeletePerformative.
DeleteGood to know.
DeleteI agree with 1:06. I too suspect that Cecelia is not female and is mostly a troll. And she is often gratuitously nasty. I've come to the conclusion that Dogface is a waste of time and is only here to troll other commenters (making everything about himself, as someone pointed out yesterday). I find it misogynistic when a male commenter adopts a female persona without having a clue what female experience is like.
DeleteI suspect that Cecelia is neither female nor male.
DeleteAnonymouse 11:11pm, for all intents and purposes in the ether, I’m merely a nym.
DeleteI’ve never alluded to any authority or experience based upon anything but a sound argument and YOUR ability to guage my consistency via that nym.
You’re welcome.
I guage Cecelia’s consistency: doughy, even pasty, but not sticky. I am Corby.
DeleteNo, I’m sticky too.
DeleteCC - I want to continue on my quest to persuade you to vote for Biden in '24 (or, vice versa, for you to persuade me to vote for Trump). I think, as far as the economy goes, we can agree that, so far, Biden has done well. We'll see what happens in the next year.
ReplyDeleteSo that's Prosperity. How about Peace? There have been three major issues. First, the Afghan War. This was a quagmire that had lasted 20 years. Trump wanted to get out but did not have the guts to do so. Biden got us out in Summer of '21, and at a heavy political cost. (His approval ratings tanked that summer and have never recovered.) But because of Biden's political courage, now we won't have to spill blood in Afghanistan for the next 20 years.
Second, Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Biden was able to rally our allies in providing substantial material support to the Ukrainians, completely stopping what Russia thought would be a lightning-quick takeover of that country. Now Russia is bogged down in quagmire that might last for decades. We're not losing a single soldier, while Ukrainians are killing Russian invaders by the hundreds and thousands. By the end of this war, Russia is likely to little more than a third-world country.
Third, the Hamas attack on Israel. It's way too soon to judge Biden's handling, although it seems to me his behind-the-scenes efforts to keep Israel from overreacting are a good start.
Does this review comport with yours?
DG, I answered that question yesterday as to Biden’s personal acuity.
DeleteThe continued effort brings the term sock puppet to mind
OK. I'll quit.
DeleteDogface -- I can take on your approach. However, it won't do any good IMO, because it compares actual results with hyothetical alternative results.
DeleteBiden critics maintain that Biden's weakness invited Russia's Ukraine invatison. They say that if Trump were President, Russia would not have invaded. As evidence, they point out that Russia left Ukraine alon e when Trump was President. OTOH Russia grabbed Ukrainian territory during the Presidencies of Obama and Biden.
In the case of Israel, you and I differ regarding best policy. You think it's important that Israel not over-react. I think it's most important that Israel win this war AND in a way that prevents a repeat of it, after the Palestinians have a few years to re-arm.
Persuasion plays no role in electoral politics, as Dogface George well demonstrates here.
DeleteThere are numerous books and studies that detail how persuasion is not a determinant in voting, Somerby’s thesis is utter nonsense.
DiC - All right, now we’re getting somewhere. As far as Ukraine goes, in my view the “Trump deterrence” view - which I credit as a serious argument - isn’t that persuasive. Because: Who the hell knows why Putin does what he does? But, even if you adhere to the view Putin would never have dared to invade if Trump were president, I do think you should concede that Biden’s efforts to marshall a united allied response to Putin’s aggression have been impressive. And my guess is that this invasion will turn out to be a catastrophe for Russia in the long run. So let’s see how this plays out over the next year.
DeleteAs far as Israel goes, I feel it is too early to draw any conclusions at all. Again - let’s wait and see.
Oh, and do you agree that Biden’s stewardship of the economy, so far, has been mighty impressive?
“isn’t that persuasive”
DeleteAh ok, you’re just a clown troll.
I do agree that the economy is doing better than I expected. Inflation is coming down and we didn't go into recession. The "soft landing" appears to be within reach.
DeleteOf course, Presidents get blame or credit for the economy, whether or not their policies were responsible. As far as I know, the only Biden act that had a major impact on the economy was the large amount of deficit spending. As a rule, deficit spending boosts the economy temporarily, but the increased debt creates problems to be dealt with later
One significant negative on the Biden economy is that people are poorer. Wage inflation was higher than wage growth,
I like Biden's general approach to Ukraine. He rightly says it's very important that we support their war effort against Russia. That's a lot better than Trump. A criticism I've seem is that Biden was too slow to approve various advanced weapons. An opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal today claims that more prompt supply of appropriate armaments would have prevented Russia from gaining any territory at all. I do not know enough about military stuff to evaluate this claim.
correction: Final sentence of the 3rd paragraph should be "Inflation was higher than wage growth"
DeleteIt is cute when Republicans pretend to discuss economics. I am Corby.
DeleteDogface, re. the stalemated Russia Ukraine conflict. Do we continue to provide substantial support to Ukraine during their decades-long quagmire?
DeleteIf hundreds of thousands of Russians continue to die, what about the Ukrainians that will die proportionally? And what about the destruction to the country of Ukraine a quagmire would bring?
This is something we should be proud of re. Biden? Because they are dying and suffering and not us? That is a good thing to you?
Are we to believe we have no agency in the matter? Russia's invasion was something that we couldn't do anything about? It is something we couldn't do anything about now? Are we to believe that? Is that something we should associate with Biden as a positive? He doesn't have the ability to intervene politically and stop that war? (By for example with a treaty pledging not to let Ukraine join NATO.) That is a reason to support him?
What has happened in Ukraine is an argument you associate with "peace"?????
Paging Dr. Orwell!!!
That is brilliant. It keeps the military industrial complex rolling in free money and people advocate it because suckers in another country do the fighting and dying. Man, propaganda is operating on a whole new level.
“There are numerous books and studies that detail how persuasion is not a determinant in voting.”
ReplyDeleteDo me a favor and cite the leading study detailing this contention. Thanks.
Google offers plenty, do your own reserach.
Delete7:01 - Alternatively, I’ll just assume you like to make shit up.
DeleteFrom less than a second on Google…
DeleteThere’s literally an academic book titled The Role of Persuasion in Electoral Politics, which details how persuasion plays no role in political campaigns, and is just the tip of the iceberg.
More like Titanic George, too apathetic to bother learning anything about the subject he pontificates on.
I’m reading the abstract of this book and it doesn’t say what you say it says. I don’t think I’ll buy the book.
DeleteMaybe the abstract went over your head, who knows, but your assessment is wrong.
DeleteHere’s a review of the book, which, even using direct quotes from the book, makes it clear that the book discusses how persuasion plays no role in electoral politics:
https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4051&context=faculty_scholarship
That you can’t be bothered to look into the subject, that you offer a false description of the book, speaks to how you are operating in bad faith.
"Somerby’s thesis is utter nonsense."
DeleteWhat is Somerby's thesis in your view?
In the case of Clinton's gaffe, could it be that he insinuates it was used to persuade Republican-type of voters that may have stayed home to come out and vote against her? Ie. Persuasion is not simply about persuading a red to vote blue.
That said, millions of voters who voted for Obama were compelled in some way to not vote for Hillary and to vote for Trump instead.
Somerby is here to bash liberals and to undermine the free press by bashing journalists, and to undermine academia and the concept of expertise by bashing professors. He focuses largely on female and black targets because he is exhibiting the misogyny and racism of the right wing. By undermining alternative sources of information, he clears the path for right wing disinformation of the kind spread by Fox News and other right news sources, who are promoting Trump and similar MAGA extremists as a way to undermine American democracy. I am unsure whether this is a project of Putin's Russia, or whether there are American wealthy individuals who were prefer an authoritarian government in the US. It is clear that there are coordinated sources of major funding in the US who fund efforts to suppress votes on the left, dismantle democratic institutions and redistrict in favor of the right wing. Attacks on public schools and on universities further these goals. This is what Somerby has been doing since 2015 and I believe he is being funded to engage in this effort.
DeleteThat is Somerby's thesis in my view. YMMV
Don't say this is outlandish or impossible -- it is what happened in Nazi Germany on behalf of Hitler.
You don’t undermine the free press by bashing journalists. You undermine journalism by penalizing media by voluntarily and involuntarily restricting the reporting of information.
DeleteSomeone mentioned this before but Hillary Clinton has never had one meaningful political accomplishment in her whole life and was one of the most unappealing and uninspiring candidates in American political history.
DeleteThis may have induced millions of Obama voters to reject her and vote for Trump instead, leading to his shocking upset.
Fallout from this upset, left partisans who had been exploited about her lack of accomplishments confused and scrambling to rationalize how this could have happened, which in turn has led to full scale scapegoating and paranoia the likes of which we see here.
Let's all hope the nepotistic disaster that was Hillary Clinton fades into the past and we can all move on from the damage she wrought on our country and the minds of her psychologically beleaguered supporters.
As opposed to all of Obama's meaningful political accomplishments before he swooped in to stop that bitch?
DeleteI hear that. Obama was one of the most appealing and inspiring candidates in American political history though.
Delete11:10 - I think the very best summation of a completely evidence-free, bizarro conspiracy theory.
DeleteIsn’t it odd how these brave, intrepid conspiracy theorists are all so afraid to use nyms?
DeleteNyms would help conspirators eliminate us.
Delete11:10 has obviously gone insane.
Delete11:33, speak for yourself. It was well into his second term that the light finally came on and Obama realized he wasn't gonna charm any in that pack of barbarians they call the republican party. Hillary Clinton didn't need that six years of on the job training.
Delete7:50 - I’ve seen the review, and it seems the central claim made in the book is that relatively few voters change their minds during campaigns. That seems true to me, which is precisely why it makes sense to me to hope to persuade just 1-2% of the Others.
ReplyDeleteEnough of this bullshit. I am bored already. The republicans just made a fucking freak Speaker of the House. Every single house republican voted for him. Not 2%, not 1%, not 1/2% stood up against this insanity.
DeleteMaybe we can agree on this proposition: YOU are not open to persuasion.
DeletePersuasion about what, Dogface? That homosexuality should be criminalized? That abortion should be illegal even in cases of rape or incest? That the 2020 election was stolen and should have been awarded to Trump? That climate change is a lie from the pit of hell? That labor unions should be outlawed? That the government shouldn’t be funded? The list goes on. What the fuck are we liberals supposed to be persuaded about in this list? Because Republicans demand absolute capitulation to their views. Go ahead dogface. Tell us what liberal policies must we give up? Because that’s the only way you have a chance of the “others” voting for us. What are you willing to be persuaded about to agree with the Republicans? I am not 5:47.
DeleteI don't know what you mean by that, Dog. I will say, I have a tremendous and accurae bullshit detector.
DeleteI am 5:47.
That sensitive bullshit detector must have started honking when you wildly overstated the thesis of that book.
DeleteDog, Nope, that wasn't me who referenced that book. I never read that book or heard of it before. I still don't know what you meant about me being open to persuasion. I have an open mind.
DeleteWe have lost the war in Ukraine. The next step is explaining it the people who we fooled into thinking it was ever possible.
Delete"U.S. and European officials have begun quietly talking to the Ukrainian government about what possible peace negotiations with Russia might entail to end the war, according to one current senior U.S. official and one former senior U.S. official."
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/us-european-officials-broach-topic-peace-negotiations-ukraine-sources-rcna123628
"They began amid concerns among U.S. and European officials that the war has reached a stalemate and about the ability to continue providing aid to Ukraine, officials said. Biden administration officials also are worried that Ukraine is running out of forces, while Russia has a seemingly endless supply, officials said."
Delete"We have lost the war in Ukraine. The next step is explaining it the people who we fooled into thinking it was ever possible."
DeleteA better question would've been: what compelled the deep state to start war against Russia, in the first place?
Wolfowitz doctrine, I presume. How come that madman's drivel is still operational?
For that matter, what compels the deep state to start, or get involved with, any other one of their wars: Syria, Yemen, Libya, Somali, Niger, whatever, you name it. Potentially: Iran, China.
The Ukraine plan was laid out here a quarter of a century ago:
Deletehttps://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/asia/1997-09-01/geostrategy-eurasia
Biden is just carrying out a decades old neocon agenda to surround Russia with NATO countries. The problem is the world has changed since the nineties - but not to Biden and the corporate warmongers of the Blob - who are in their eighties, rich as hell, decades past their primes and out of touch with the real world. They still think it's the nineties. Another problem has been the media - which has engrossed the populace with diversionary narratives to distract from these realities. Both of these issues have caused a huge amount of people, especially young people, to fully distrust both of these institutions. This has left an opening for demagogues to come in and upset the apple cart, as we all have seen and will continue to see until both decide to change.
"For that matter, what compels the deep state to start, or get involved with, any other one of their wars: Syria, Yemen, Libya, Somali, Niger, whatever, you name it. Potentially: Iran, China."
DeleteOil.
America isn't a country. It's an oil company with an army.
@8:00 AM
DeleteNah. More like yearning for world domination, I think. A god complex of sorts.
"What's the point of having this superb military if you can't use it?"
-- Madeline Albright
"In one fascinating way, Biden is morphing into Trump when it comes to his base: It's old and white voters who seem most solid in their support. "Biden has retained the entirety of his support among older white voters," the N.Y. Times' Nate Cohn writes."
DeleteBiden's support among nonwhite voters dropped 33 points compared to 2020 results.
The more diverse a state, the worse Biden does, The Times found.
Trump's support among Black voters popped to 22 points, which The Times called "unseen in presidential politics for a Republican in modern times."
https://www.axios.com/2023/11/06/biden-black-hispanic-voters-losing-polls
Aging white Americans who still spend their time reading irrelevant blogs run by mediocre aging white men have not noticed that the rest of the country has passed them by and does not fall for the same rhetorical frameworks that worked a quarter of a century ago. These sources of information created a narrative-based loop of confirmation bias that feels good and gives the readers away to feel superior about themselves but in doing so, blinded them from political realities and helped put us in this position.
DeleteThe media tried to persuade the public into thinking Republican voters were "economically anxious", and not just a shit pile of bigots, as the reason they voted for Trump. The persuasion didn't work (how could it, really?), so they moved on to blaming Russia for Republican voters electing Trump.
ReplyDelete