media facts

Oliver Darcy, writing for Business Insider, on the conservative media, quotes the following observation.

One of the chief problems, Sykes said, was that it had become impossible to prove to listeners that Trump was telling falsehoods because over the past several decades, the conservative news media had "basically eliminated any of the referees, the gatekeepers."

"There's nobody," he lamented. "Let's say that Donald Trump basically makes whatever you want to say, whatever claim he wants to make. And everybody knows it's a falsehood. The big question of my audience, it is impossible for me to say that, 'By the way, you know it's false.' And they'll say, 'Why? I saw it on Allen B. West.' Or they'll say, 'I saw it on a Facebook page.' And I'll say, 'The New York Times did a fact check.' And they'll say, 'Oh, that's The New York Times. That's bulls---.' There's nobody — you can't go to anybody and say, 'Look, here are the facts.'"

"And I have to say that's one of the disorienting realities of this political year. You can be in this alternative media reality and there's no way to break through it," Sykes continued. "And I swim upstream because if I don't say these things from some of these websites, then suddenly I have sold out. Then they'll ask what's wrong with me for not repeating these stories that I know not to be true."

By the "gatekeepers," Sykes essentially means those who do some "fact checking" on the stories that they run.  One assumes that there is some basic agreement on just what constitutes a "fact," or better a set of facts, and it has some basic alignment with Truth.  In the commonsensical world most of us inhabit on a day-to-day basis, a statement of fact can be labeled either True or False -- e.g. the world is flat.  At one time of course, people believed the statement was True, but because we have developed more sophisticated means of observing our world, we recognize the statement as False and have for some time.  In the famous example of media distortion (I have heard it attributed to several different sources) if a particular politician X comes out and says "the Earth is flat," there are several different approaches one can take to that statement.  

• The first is to "fact check" it, and the resulting media headline would be "Politician X made the false claim yesterday that 'the world is flat.'"  The headline itself is "factual," if indeed the statement is false and politician X made the statement.  Does this represent a "bias" against X?  Well, yes, if one assumes that politicians, like the rest of us, have some duty to the Truth, then it would be biased against X for making false statements.

• The second is to report the "stances," without regard to the truth or falsity of the claims in the statements.  If politician Y replies to politician X, saying "X is making the bogus claim that the earth is flat!"  the resulting headline would be "The Political Parties disagree on the shape of the Earth."  Here again, the headline itself is "factual," if indeed the two parties disagreed on the shape of the earth.   Does this represent a bias against X or Y?  If the subsequent story reports only the who-what-where of the two conflicting statements, the media could claim that they are simply providing "balanced" reporting between the two political camps.  If the story that falls beneath the headline, however, fails to mention that the claim made by politician X is, in fact, false, one could say there is a bias against the whole Truth -- that is to say, if one assumes that the media, like the rest of us, have a duty a duty that extends beyond partial truths to the whole truth, then the media would be revealing a bias that works for X against Y.  Why do I say that?  By NOT reporting the falsity of politician X's claim, the media leaves the impression that the conflicting statements have a more or less equal claim on the Truth and are merely matters of opinion.  If one assumes that politicians, like the rest of us, have some duty to the Truth, then it would favor X by obscuring the falsity of his claims.

• The third is to report the so-called "horse race."  If politicians X and Y make competing claims about the shape of the Earth, one False and one True, and the press reports on the public reaction to those claims, the resulting headline might be something like this: "64% of the American public agree with Politician X that the Earth is Flat."  Here again, the headline itself is "factual," if indeed "polling results" or some other sampling of American public opinion resulted in 64%.  Here again, if the subsequent story reports only the who-what-where of the two conflicting statements and the "polling results" around those statements, then it would favor X, not only by obscuring the falsity of his claims, but also by lending "credence" to those claims with significant agreement.   The same bias would prevail even if the polling results were flipped and the headline read: "46% of Americans agree with Politician X that the Earth is Flat." 

I have used a somewhat egregious "statement of fact" to illustrate the points, and it is based on a presupposition of simple "observable" fact.   While both parties have been guilty of the distortions outlined above, the conservative media has been especially egregious in their failed duty to the truth. Again, Darcy quotes the following observation by Ziegler:

"If you are a conservative talk show host, which I am, if you don't accept that it's likely Hillary Clinton has taken part in multiple murders, or that Barack Obama is a Muslim extremist sympathizer who was probably born outside this country — if you don't accept those two things, it's almost as if you're a sellout. You're a RINO. You're somehow part of the liberal elite. It's nuts. It's making my own show very difficult to do. It's almost where to the point where we are not able to function."

He continued: "It's almost like it's a disease, and it's taken over people. I don't remember this being the case four years ago. But something has happened. Something snapped. But now all of a sudden, if a story comes out, and it's not on Breitbart or endorsed by Drudge, it can't be true. Especially if it's about Donald Trump. Which is flat-out ludicrous."

The so-called "controversy" surrounding the birth place of President Obama should not really be a controversy.   Despite the ludicrous need, Obama has supplied a considerable amount of "credible" and "verifiable" evidence to confirm his place of birth within the US. I should be honest here.  I have not personally observed Obama's birth certificate.  It's unlikely that I will ever personally see Obama's birth certificate, but I have an unwavering belief in the truth of the assertion that he was born in the US.   Why?  Because respected members of the fourth estate have told me so.  Here, of course, one must interject the element of "trust."  Although one can suspect the Washington Post of a centrist liberal bias and the Wall Street Journal of a centrist conservative bias in their editorial views, if either were to run a story headlined -- "Donald Trump made the false claim yesterday that President Obama was born outside the US" -- I would "trust" that they had done the necessary "fact-checking" and that indeed there was "credible" and "verifiable" evidence to confirm Obama's birth in Hawaii.  Because 99.99% of Americans will likely never personally see Obama's birth certificate, it is important that we "trust" certain members of the fourth estate to do the fact checking, but as Sykes points out, the conservative media has done a good deal to undermine that level of trust.  "At a certain point you wake up and you realize you have destroyed the credibility of any credible outlet out there," Sykes said. "And I am feeling, to a certain extent, that we are reaping the whirlwind at that. And I have to look in the mirror and ask myself, 'To what extent did I contribute?'"

I could speculate about the reasons for undermining of "trust," but I believe it often comes down to this: the facts, as we normally think of facts in our commonsensical day-to-day lives, don't support conservative theories about the world quite as well as they would like.  Leaving aside the "birther" theories buzzing around Obama, or the more extreme house of cards murder theories stalking about Clinton, a better case in point would be the repeated insistence that either or both are coming to take away one's guns.  I won't dignify the first two, nor will I amass all the evidence here, but I suspect that, if one were to do a pro and con sort of chart for each of theories surrounding gun legislation (or the lack thereof), the existing evidence would strongly support what has been called "reasonable gun legislation."  I say this with a sense of irony, in full recognition that I may just be revealing my "bias."  Here again, one assumes that there is some basic agreement on just what constitutes a "fact," and there is a "neutral position" where one can judge the facts and form an opinion.  A good deal of modern philosophy (really most modern philosophy) has called the "neutral position" into question, and much of the contemporary social science too has chimed in.  For example, The Conversation has recently published a summarizing article Ian Anson that "Partisan disagreement about the economy is just one example of a broader phenomenon in contemporary party politics, known as 'partisan motivated reasoning.'”  He goes on to write that "essentially, Republicans and Democrats think differently about prevailing conditions because they are motivated to see the world in ways that help them feel good about the performance of the partisan 'home team.'” Or to put it more crassly, we come at the world with predispositions, and we skew or suppress the evidence that doesn't confirm that bias -- or perhaps even more crassly, we twist the "inconvenient truths" to fit our bias, and if we can't contort it to fit, we ignore the evidence entirely.   Consequently, as Anson points out, "ideological media sources, in turn, gain popularity among loyal partisans when they provide audiences with a version of reality that jibes with this “partisan preferred world state” – the way the world should work given partisan assumptions."  Consequently, we tend to see those media sources that align with our "predispositions" as unbiased and truthful, and extend our trust to them.   For those with conservative "predispositions," that means Fox News, the Drudge Report, or Breitbart News, and they can say, without irony, that "Oh, that's the NY Times, that's bull****."  They can assert, without irony, that if its not on Breitbart and endorsed by the Drudge Report, it can't be True.

If this larger meta-truth is true, the recognition that we are ALL biased, that there is no "neutral position" where we might simply judge unvarnished facts and come to a reasoned theory, however, is hugely self-defeating.  One can hear the shoulder shrug of defeat in Anson's last sentence, where he writes "rigid in party loyalty, yet limber in mind, Republicans and Democrats can deftly vault past disconfirming information to land in vastly different economic realities. In 2016 and beyond, then, we shouldn’t be surprised if economic accountability lies just out of reach."  We exist, so to speak, in parallel but incompatible universes, composed of matter and anti-matter, and there really can be no reconciliation without an explosion that eliminates one or the other.  The mainstream media reports on the "differing stances" or in election years on the "horse race" between those "stances," purportedly as a way of avoiding partisan bias, finding neutral ground in the larger meta-truth of ubiquitous bias by simply reporting on how the bias shakes out.  Meanwhile, the ideological media continues to reinforce the partisan differences between the stances, insuring the fans loyal to one "home team" don't jump ship to the other "home team."  

Having said this, however, though I think Anson's metaphor is apt, and much of political discourse can be reduced to "trash talk," we are not simply rooting for "home teams" in the normal sense of the word.   We are not talking about the relative distribution of Cub fans vs White Sox fans in the Chicago metro area, or who is most likely to win the world series, in part because the winner of the contest will need to govern, and how the country is governed could have dramatic effects on the lives of people.  Selecting one partisan stance over another will have consequence beyond the horse race in ways that a world series win will not.  One can believe or not believe in man made global warming, but the indisputable fact of global warming itself will have consequences, some understood, some not, but most clearly undesirable. As I have suggested, however, by merely reporting the stances, the media gives aid and credence to those stances that ignore or distort the facts.  If acted upon, stances demonstrating willful ignorance or cynical distortion of "inconvenient facts" about global warming (or gun control, or the economy, or education, or  health care, or ...) will nevertheless have "unbiased" consequence for both sides of the ideological divide. 

Wait -- "indisputable fact?"  Yet here again, I am assuming that there are "observable" and "independently verifiable" facts that either support (or do not support) one's preferred ideological stances on various issues.  There are various impediments to a belief in the truth of "observable" and "independently verifiable" facts, not least are ideological stances derived from religion.  It is one thing to believe that "jesus love me, this I know, because the bible tells me so," quite another to believe that creation actually occurred in seven days, despite the OVERWHELMING observable and independently verifiable evidence that it did not.  The latter has clear consequence for other belief systems, notably "evolution."  If acted upon, stances demonstrating willful ignorance or cynical distortion of "inconvenient facts" about evolution will have consequence for science education, but also for our understanding of the etiology of disease and the continuing development of bacteriological and viral diseases in particular.   Beyond that, there are various impediments to a belief in the truth of "observable" and "independently verifiable" facts, to include those "secular" ideologies that are nevertheless held "as if" they were religion.   Although there's a bit of the "I'm rubber you're glue" form of argumentation in the recent article on RedState about "climate deniers," to be fair, there's a grain of truth in the argument that "he climate change message has helped develop and unofficial pagan religion around the issue."  RedState suggests that "standing opposite of this environmental religion is the conservative conservationism that casts a skeptic eye on a lot of the propagandism touted by the left."  To be fair too, not all on the left subscribe to a dance around the may pole earth day paganism or buy into all the propaganda.  "Conservative conservationism" is exactly what I, as someone on the left, would endorse, and I too would "encourage debate and scientific research that furthers our understanding of Earth and her climate."  If that were the prevailing view of the republican party, however, one would expect something of a bi-partisan committee to review the available science and make recommendations to congress for action.  As someone on the left, I would relish such a committee and would support their recommendations with enthusiasm, but instead, we have the republican nominee tweeting a conspiracy theory suggesting that "the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive."  His next closest competitor during the primary season, Ted Cruz, made a point similar to RedState's that “it is always disturbing to hear science use the language of theology. Deniers. Heretics. That’s not what science is supposed to be about. Science should follow the facts,” but then actually went a step further than Trump to deny the "factuality" of the available "facts," suggesting that the US government itself was engaged in a conspiracy.  Time, for example, reported him saying, "government researchers are reverse engineering data sets to falsify changes in the climate. 'They’re cooking the books. They’re actually adjusting the numbers,' Cruz said. 'Enron used to do their books the same way.'”  This is probably fodder for a follow on post, but let me just suggest, if initially there was an orthodox "catholic" conservative ideology, that ideology has devolved in the same way as the historical catholicism, the first major schism being the "protestant" tea party, which itself has devolved into various "denominations," the most virulent of which are the apocalyptic dominionism of Ted Cruz and the equally apocalyptic alt-right vision of Breitbart News and "Trumpism."

As I have argued in previous posts, while both parties lie and suppress facts not amenable to their rhetorical positions, the conservative party currently suffers from this malaise of outright fact denial to the point that "inconvenient facts" are simply no longer possible, and Zeigler is correct, it's like a disease and it's taken over people.  If the major news outlets cannot be trusted to purvey "fact-checked" articles, if the US government cannot be trusted to publish "facts," if an article from a major news outlet like the Washington Post titled "Trump repeatedly claims more Hispanics are in poverty under Obama. He’s repeatedly wrong" is mere partisan propaganda, then who can you trust?  If the answer is "no one," then truly there is no way out of the "partisan motivated reasoning" or what has also been called "confirmation bias" -- where I can accept only that data confirming my biases -- and a media ready and willing to rub those biases into raw passion.  There is really only one way out of such "factionalism," and it is not the development of a "new consensus" through partisan debate of the sort imagined by defenders of democracy.  The only way out of the continuing feckless bickering is a triumph of one faction over the other, a triumph sufficiently complete to insure that the sort of "government conspiracy" imagined by Cruz actually comes into being, where they have sufficient power not only to "cook the books," but the ability to suppress any media (to include social media) that might call the chefs into question with "inconvenient facts."   It is a democracy, where power changes hands, not by vote reflecting a "new consensus," but by violent coup.  Insofar as there are those who imagine the coup has already taken place, who believe the current government is illegitimate, who believe any government but their government will have been secured "fraudulently," and for whom it is an imperative, often from God himself, to "take back the government," it's not difficult to see where it all leads.  We are a ways from that, one hopes, but the question we should be asking, is "just how far away are we?"  

Mylan and Insurance

I sometimes look around and wonder how we got to where we are.  The health care system, for example, how did we get to the position we're in?  I'm not just talking Obamacare.  There are significant flaws in the Affordable Care Act, but speaking personally, my wife and I have insurance.  Without it, we would have no insurance.   I'm not sure even that is an unqualified blessing.  Our premiums are at the edge of affordability, and even so he deductibles are so high that it really is insurance only against the catastrophic.   Who does our insurance protect?  Not us, really.  Given the deductibles and co-pays and the other expenses of a catastrophic illness, we would likely never recover financially, at least not within the scope of our life time.  It does, however, protect the health care providers -- those mostly corporate hospital systems -- from our inability to pay.  They would get the lion's share of their money, and they would dun us forever for the remainder.   With the decision of Aetna to withdraw from many of the exchanges, one wonders, however, how long we will even have insurance.

At any rate, there are significant flaws in the Affordable Care Act, and most of them stem from the very notion of "insurance."  Here, I have to point out that, in my humble opinion, "insurance" itself is a flawed concept.  For example, it takes only a moment's thought to realize that insurance companies are highly motivated to collect premiums, and are just as highly unmotivated to pay claims -- premiums are money in the pocket, claims are money out of the pocket.  The converse is true of the insured.   Everything else is just a variation on this theme.  For example, one might argue that all business has "business expenses," and the payment of claims is just a matter of a business expense, just a part of doing business.  True enough, but it's just another way of painting the same basic conflict of motivation.  If they want to stay in business and make a profit, they must limit expenses while maximizing revenue.  Of course, there are other ways to "maximize revenue," most of which have nothing what-so-ever to do with the exchange of premiums for claims.  Insurance companies are holding money against the possibility of a future claim, and while they hold the money, they invest it, ostensibly maintaining enough liquidity to pay claims as they arise.  I'm not attuned sufficiently to the industry to know how much of Aetna's profits come from the differences in the premium/claim exchange and how much comes from investment, but in my unsophisticated way, I strongly suspect that the former is merely the means of gathering capital for the latter.

At one level, of course, there is nothing "wrong" with this.  When we're talking about car insurance, or home owner's insurance, or the like, there isn't the same level of "moral hazard."  When our federal flood insurance found every loophole possible and failed to pay much of anything after a flood destroyed the value of our home, it was financially devastating, but even so only financially devastating.  As my father would put it, we're still here, still above the grass.  With health insurance, and the health care system, there is an inherent hypocrisy.  Robert Reich has a pithy way of putting it, "It lies in the structure of private markets for health insurance — which creates powerful incentives to avoid sick people and attract healthy ones. Obamacare is just making this structural problem more obvious."   Ostensibly, health insurance is designed to provide for health care in cases of illness or accident.  Instead, it provides a strong incentives for the insurance companies to avoid the sick, and for the reasonably healthy to avoid health care.   Let me get personal again.  I do not engage in any high risk health activities, like illicit drugs or sky diving.  I do not smoke.  I do enjoy a beer now and again, but only beer, and even so I drink in moderation.  Although I could stand to lose a few pounds, I am not obese and have a generally healthy diet.  Having said all this, should I "get ill," given the combination of barely affordable premiums and the cost of a doctor's visit, I would not see a doctor until the duress of the illness became unbearable.  At my age (62), I know I should have routine "preventative care," but that is a luxury that we simply cannot afford.   At my age, I know there are symptoms that I should take more seriously even if I'm not debilitated.  Still, I am in reasonably good health, and I will not seek medical care until I absolutely need it, at which point it might be too late.

But what about my neighbors and fellow human beings?  Here's a more egregious example, one that has hit the news cycle, but will likely quickly fade -- the cost of the EpiPens.   Chirlane McCray in a recent Washington Post editorial, writes "in 2007, Mylan pharmaceutical company won a near-monopoly on the device. The company used its new power to raise the price of EpiPens by more than 400 percent in recent years.  Because it could."  How Mylan achieved a "near monopoly" is another story, but such "near monopolies" are endemic throughout the pharmaceutical industry, mostly as a result of the current status quo of intellectual property and patent laws which postpone the production of more affordable "generic" drugs, sometimes indefinitely.  As NBC reports it, Among the usual advice for lower your prescription drug costs is to seek out a generic alternative. But because of the patent on the EpiPen delivery device, a true generic doesn't exist. Patients are instead buying abroad where the EpiPen is cheaper, and resorting to other devices that deliver epinephrine, including DIY syringes."  

At any rate, the issue is politicized, however briefly.   NBC news reports that "Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the former presidential contender and a member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, told NBC News in a statement: 'The drug industry's greed knows no bounds. There's no reason an EpiPen, which costs Mylan just a few dollars to make, should cost families more than $600. The only explanation for Mylan raising the price by six times since 2009 is that the company values profits more than the lives of millions of Americans.'"  Sanders has a point, and to make an even sharper point, the company executives value their salaries more than the lives of millions of Americans.  Again, as NBC news reports, having achieved the near monopoly Mylan's sales, their sales went up, "and while sales of the life-saving drug rose to provide 40 percent of the company's operating profits in 2014, as Bloomberg reported, salaries for other Mylan executives also went up.  In 2015, President Rajiv Malik's base pay increased 11.1 percent to $1 million, and Chief Commercial Officer Anthony Mauro saw his jump 13.6 percent to $625,000."  Meanwhile, as McCray points out, "many families will have to make huge sacrifices to scrounge up more than $500 every year. (They expire.) And some children will have to go back to school without this medication because their families can’t afford it. That is unconscionable." 

This story is one thing, but almost as an aside, McCray notes that "If you have good insurance, your policy may cover most of the cost. But people with high deductibles or no insurance are left scrambling."  Here's the thing. The cost of claims against the insurance has something to do with the cost of the insurance itself.  Good insurance might cover "most" of the inflated cost of the EpiPen, but doing so raises the cost of the insurance itself.   It's not just people with high deductibles or no insurance, it's everyone who has insurance.  It's just one example, of course, but multiply that example by the hundreds of other necessary drugs and the scope of the problem becomes clearer.   Again, as NBC reports, "The pharmaceutical industry has seen steep increases in the past few years. Along with specialized drugs like ones for cystic fibrosis, decades-old generic prices have spiked. When one company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, raised the price of a drug used by HIV patients 5,000 percent overnight, the ensuing uproar pressured it to pledge lower its prices. Though, nearly a year later, a search on the drug-price comparison site GoodRx shows pharmacies are still selling it for the same amount or higher."  The inflated costs of drugs in turn inflates the cost of insurance.  CNBC reports that

The leading health insurance lobbying group America's Health Insurance Plans, scoffed at Mylan's move [to reduce patient costs by providing co-pay assistance].  "We've seen this time and time again. Rather than actually taking steps to address the real problem of soaring drug prices, pharma companies try and cover their price hikes through patient assistance programs and co-pay support," said Clare Krusing, spokeswoman for AHIP.   "None of which will make a drug more affordable for the people who need it most. Exorbitant price increases on prescription drugs are leading to higher premiums and out-of-pocket costs for patients, and pharma companies continue to deny that reality," Krusing said. 

And so we are caught in a vicious cycle. Krusing is, of course, complaining about the cost of claims, which cut into the profits of the insurance companies, and is blaming big phrama for the rising cost of claims.  In turn, big phrama, like Mylan, points the finger back at the insurance company.  Heather Bresch, the CEO of Mylan, told CNBC "the problem of drug prices isn't with Mylan or even the pharmaceutical industry, but instead with a health-care system that often requires consumers to pay not just insurance premiums [but] also out-of-pocket for prescription medications, sometimes to the full retail price."  She goes on to say, "The patient is paying twice. They're paying full retail price at the counter, and they're paying higher premiums on their insurance."  Untimately, CNBC paraphrases her to say "that the health-care system is in crisis, causing the patient to pay for full retail prices at the drug counter and rising premiums on their health insurance.  She said that creates a bubble that is going to burst, and that patients need to get engaged in their health care."  Indeed.  

It's worth pausing a moment and looking at the description of Mylan provided by Wikipedia.  Mylan is "an American-Dutch global generic and specialty pharmaceuticals company registered in the Netherlands and with operational headquarters in Hatfield, Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom."  Their corporate headquarters are in Canonsburg, PA.   OK, where does one begin to disentangle that?  In the same interview, CNBC reports "she also acknowledged that high retail prices of EpiPens in the United States effectively subsidize the cost of the devices when they are sold in Europe, at just $100 or $150.  Many of the countries there have government-run health-care systems that limit drug prices charged by manufacturers, unlike the U.S."  Whether the world is a better place for it, as she asserts, can be debated, but the upshot comes back to this.  Mylan charged inflated prices in the US "because it could," unlike the other countries, where government run health care systems limit drug prices.   

One of the arguments against government run health care (or anything else for that matter) is inefficiency, and one must admit that a truly competitive economy might drive the prices down. Here's where Mylan's "near monopoly" re-enters the story.   One might suggest that one role of government in capitalist economies is to maintain the competition that regulates pricing to reasonable levels -- profitable to the company, but not so profitable as to be "uncompetitive" in the vaunted market place.   The Sherman Act 1890, the Clayton Act 1914 and the Federal Trade Commission Act 1914 are all designed to do just that -- prevent cartels, limit mergers and acquisitions, and prohibit the creation of monopolies, all of which strive to eliminate competition.  Mylan, however, does not have anything resembling a traditional monopoly.  They have a near monopoly on a very specific, but necessary drug, and the government, far from breaking up the monopoly, protects it, and it does so for good reason.  One might suggest that another role of government in capitalist economies is to maintain intellectual property rights, the creations of the intellect where a monopoly is assigned to designated owners by law.  Along with protections for artistic creations, there are trademarks, copyright, patents, industrial design rights, and in some jurisdictions trade secrets," and those statutes that protect intellectual property that have allowed Mylan to maintain their near monopoly and the punitive pricing on a particular, but necessary drug, EpiPens.  We have, as it were, competing values, and which role of government should prevail?   Should the "monopoly" be broken up, allowing others to manufacture and distribute "generic" versions of the drug, which would, of course, benefit those who are threatened by toxic allergic reactions?  Or should "intellectual property" be protected, along with the exorbitant profits that often accompany the "monopoly" assigned by law, which admittedly encourages the sorts of "creativity" that lead to new and beneficial drugs? 

In this particular case, of course, we have chosen the latter, and we are caught taking turns blowing on the balloon of health care costs, the inflated drug prices (among other things) leading to inflated insurance costs.  There are a lot of reasons to be wary of the military-industrial-complex, and some of them would carry over to a healthcare-industrial-complex, but here I would simply point out that the monopoly of force belonging to a "government-run-military" has not led to a plethora of impoverished defense contractors nor to a dearth of creativity in thinking through ways to effectively kill one another.   Just as we have a military dedicated to our security and the projection of American power abroad, perhaps it is time, as Robert Reich put it,  for "a government-run single payer system – such as is in place in almost every other advanced economy – dedicated to lower premiums and better care for everyone."

Circling the Drain

Michael Gerson recently published an editorial in the Washington Post, The High Cost of America's Cheap Populism, which I find interesting for a number of reasons.  It begins with the premise that defeat is "now the likely outcome for the Republican presidential nominee," and so "the blame shifting has begun early and in earnest."  He first takes a swipe at Sean Hannity, a relatively easy target, but one with an bullhorn.  Hannity claims the "never Trump people will be responsible for Hillary Clinton's supreme court picks" as well as the hoards of "unvetted immigrants" entering the country.  The former is a legitimate political concern, the latter so much bread and circus distraction, particularly when the claim that immigrants are "unvetted" has been debunked so many times and in so many ways as to be ludicrous.  

Whoops, see, immigration, I'm already distracted from the central claim that the "never Trump republicans" will be to blame for Trump's defeat.  Gerson debunks this claim rather handily, pointing out there may be a simpler explanation:

Isn’t it more likely that Republicans are losing because their candidate has committed enough gaffes to torpedo 10 campaigns? Because he has premised his appeal on prejudice? Because he displays no appreciation of constitutional values and offers himself as a strongman? Because he has no knowledge of, or interest in, public policy? Because he is an erratic narcissist with a compulsive need to crush and humiliate his critics? Holding Never Trump forces responsible for all this is akin to blaming the spectators in Lakehurst, N.J., for the Hindenburg disaster. The pointing and gawking did not cause the flames.

Yes, that might be it.  While there might be some fascination, not so much in figuring out Trump.  He is exactly what he appears to be, an opportunistic narcissist created by extreme privilege.  His latest "pivot," his belated embrace of the black voter, being a case in point.  As it turns out, there is no interesting complexity in Trump himself -- but there is perhaps in figuring out what exactly he means and what he has unmasked in a larger American context (and mostly, for me at least, it's frightening).  Along this line, it bears pausing for a moment on Hannity's claim, however, insofar as it unmasks a presupposition that has shaped republican politicians at least since the embrace of the evangelicals.  On the one hand, it's a sort of frustrated incredulousness that their "agenda" doesn't have the universal mass appeal that it has for them personally.  It's akin to the frustrated incredulousness among evangelical missionaries when they engage with those who don't find their "personal testimony" particularly compelling.  On the other hand, because they simply can't believe their agenda doesn't have universal appeal, there must be nefarious forces at work leading the flock away from the true path, in the particular instance at hand, it's the apostate republicans.   As I've suggested before, they have become less a political movement, with all the inherent compromise that "politics" suggests, and more a fundamentalist religious movement. 

Again, distracted.  Gerson goes on to say that there is "a more sophisticated form of blame by other conservatives."  He lays it out like this:

Yes, Trump is a poor vehicle for the blue-collar, populist revolt, but that uprising was invited by the arrogance and indifference of globalized elites, including Republican elites. Chief executives, politicians and Wall Street types live in a bubble of affluence, caring little for American interests and lacking sympathy for their fellow citizens who are sinking into despair, addiction and the floodwaters of Louisiana. 

Personally, I like blaming things on the globalized elites myself.  The more globalized the corporation, it follows a sort of prima facia logic that they would care about their global interests over any particular national interest.  If they are a "US corporation," it follows the same prima facia logic that any concerns for the US would be filtered through their corporate interests.  These interests are not altogether malignant, and for those corporate entities who have mass markets, the same sort of prima facia logic would suggest that they have some concern with the well-being of the masses, at least to the extent that the masses maintain enough affluence to continue consuming their products. Clearly though, they are not altogether benign either.  As Chomsky might put it, "profits will always trump people," and despite the uplifting PR campaigns of business too big to fail, there has been example, after example, after example of businesses putting profit before people, ranging from Volkswagon's fraudulent emissions reporting to the cynical manipulations of the mortgage industry that led to the 2008 crises.  Insofar as the corporate leadership also represents the so-called "donor class," they are in a position of sufficient influence to insure their interests are served before the interests of the so-called "voting class."  

Having said that, however, so far as globalization is concerned, I do tend to agree with Gerson that there really is no retreat from a global economy.  As he put it, "those on the left and right who promise to reverse the process of globalization are economic charlatans. Their main policy response — tariffs and other forms of protectionism — is a proven path to trade wars and global recession, which hurt the vulnerable most."  I'll concede the main point with a few qualifications.  First and foremost, there is an implicit either/or fallacy in his argument -- that is to say, it is either a "free market" or "tariffs and protectionism."  I have suggested before, and will suggest again, that there is no such thing as an actual "free market." The market is, so to speak, a "game" defined by and within legal and regulatory restrictions.  At any given point in time, if one were able to take such a snapshot, there is a "status quo" of legal and regulatory restrictions enforced by the "government."  I use the term "government" generically.  If one thinks of the "housing market," for example, their legal and regulatory restrictions range from local zoning restrictions to federal treaty obligations, and a lot in between.  Just as the rules of basketball tend to privilege height, the legal and regulatory restrictions tend to privilege some over others, and as a consequence, there is much political wrangling to "tweak" the "status quo" to shift who gets privileged and how.  Those on the left tend to want to shift the privilege to the populace, those on the right tend to want to shift the privilege to the "owners," itself a complicated picture when the "owners" include shareholders.  NAFTA and TPP, the villains de jure, are simply "negotiated" tweaks to the existing legal and regulatory "status quo," and the question to be asked is simply this: who will benefit and how?

There is, however, no quick and easy way to answer that question, or at least nothing that can be reduced to the bird seed of twitter.  Perhaps the most "populist" response would entail simply asking who attended to and advised on the negotiation?  A sort of prima facia logic would again suggest that the resulting treaty obligations would reflect the interests of whoever attended to and advised on the negotiation.   Having said that, a simple minded approach prevails.  Allow me a brief anecdote.  As a sideline, my wife re-sells craft supplies and gift items that, like Susanne's tea and oranges, come all the way from China.  One of the "board" members of the small re-sale shop objected to "cheap crap from China," wanting only things "made in the US."  As a result they decided to "jury" items that came into the shop -- imposing a restriction on what my wife could and could not bring in to sell -- and as a result, she said, "thank you very much," withdrew ALL her items and set up shop elsewhere. This, in microcosm, is the sort of "trade war" that Gerson references.  The beads, findings, and gifts  my wife sells are simply not made in the US.  If they are, one can't find them anywhere.  Similar items for sale at Walmart in town or at Hobby Lobby in Boise were all made in China.  What to make of this?  On the one hand, one could argue that the manufacture of beads and findings in China has displaced American jobs, dumping inexpensive manufactured goods into US markets.  This may be true, but it is also difficult to imagine most Americans actually doing such jobs, and it is also difficult to imagine most American communities actually welcoming the environmental concerns that such manufacturing in plastics would entail, especially when the result is an owl shaped trinket for a charm bracket.  On the other hand, one could argue that US firms, like Walmart, Hobby Lobby, Craft Warehouse and others across the retail sector exploit cheap Chinese labor and their horribly lax environmental regulations so Americans can "Save Money" and "Live Better."  My wife, for her part, was simply selling things that people in economically depressed Mountain Home could afford at a place other than Walmart.

Again, distracted.  Back to the point.  Second, as Gerson points out, "all these fat cats at Coca-Cola, Monsanto, Pfizer and Microsoft deserve at least a bleat in response. They are leading participants in an economic system — with its global supply chains, freely moving capital and rapid innovation — that, during the past 20 years, has taken about a billion people out of extreme poverty around the world."  Such a claim deserves to be fact checked, but here again, I'm willing to concede the point.  In fairness, it's an editorial, so one wouldn't expect mountains of evidence, but he does reference improvements in life expectancy, pointing out that, "with this economic growth have come miracle drugs, vaccines, improved sanitation and better agricultural technology. Global life expectancy in 1960 was 52.5 years; today it is 71.4.  In the early 1930s, American life expectancy was about 60 — what it currently is in Malawi.  Now American life expectancy is nearly 80."  This is, of course, good news, though I doubt it was an intended effect.  The intended effect of "global supply chains" with their "freely moving capital" was profit for the likes of Coca-Cola, Monsanto, or Pfizer.  So it is that, despite the good news around the world, it's difficult to call it, even "arguably, arguably the greatest humanitarian achievement in history" when back at the farm and factory, as Gerson also notes, "rapid economic change has also laid waste to whole industries and the communities sustained by them, resulting in toxic stress and terrible suffering."  If Global life expectancy rose, there are countervailing trends in American life expectancy.  As the Washington Post reports, "the statistics show decaying health for all white women since 2000. The trend was most dramatic for women in the more rural areas. There, for every 100,000 women in their late 40s, 228 died at the turn of this century. Today, 296 are dying. And in rural areas, the uptick in mortality was noticeable even earlier, as far back as 1990. Since then, death rates for rural white women in midlife have risen by nearly 50 percent."   Those "miracle drugs, vaccines, improved sanitation and better agricultural technology" are, as the Post notes, "now being overwhelmed by things that elevate it, including opioid abuse, heavy drinking, smoking and other self-destructive behaviors."  It's also useful to note that small caveat "rural."  As I have noted elsewhere, the great political divide in this country is the red rural and blue urban, and "the Post last month found a correlation between places with high white death rates and support for GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump." 

That last note tempts me to go off on a tangent here, and point out that those same rural and red areas of the country, distracted by abortion, are less likely to support a planned parenthood chapter with it's broad range of women's health services -- they would likely be adamantly against socialized medicine and a "public option" that would provide access to health care in rural areas -- and generally speaking, they are likely to be the victim of economic changes that have them doing "service work" outside the home for low wages while their unemployed husbands sit around the house, watching duck dynasty reruns, waiting for her to come home, take care of the kids, and fix his dinner.   OK, the last statement is perhaps a bit unfair, but I'm simply suggesting that women have borne the brunt of economic changes that have not been accommodated by corresponding social policy changes, like paid maternity leave, in part because they have been opposed by their red state politicians, those same red state politicians that have supported the legislative and regulatory policies that have prompted the economic changes.  If Gerson "is in favor of the [fat cats of the] Davos set becoming more sensitive to the struggles of their countrymen," if he really believes that "our political system has been negligent in helping millions of Americans adapt during a period of rapid economic change," he and the red state politicians could demand, along with the economic changes, support for needed social policy changes.  Inevitably, however, that support would take the form of an entitlement program, which would entail tax monies, and who could favor tax increases to pay for it.  If they were honest with themselves, the only "under taxed" segments of the American population are the very wealthy, but again those same red state politicians, deferring to their political interests, would most assuredly resist any increase in the taxes of the donor class.  So round we go round we go round circling the drain and along comes Trump.  

Wait, Gerson probably does support some (if not all) of the social changes necessary to accommodate the rapid economic changes.  As he put it, "conservative economics offers three positive alternatives: Provide a growth-oriented economic environment (including opportunities to sell overseas). Give workers the education and skills to succeed in a modern economy. And subsidize the wages of lower-skilled jobs to provide a decent living."  Of course that doesn't sound like "conservative economics" so much as "liberal economics,"  particularly the latter two suggestions.  The notion that we would "give" workers education and skills more or less begs the question of what we might mean by "give."  Increasingly, across all education sectors, there has been a "conservative" push to "privatize" public education.  The effects are most visible in public higher education, where decreased state tax support has led to corresponding and often dramatic tuition increases even at the ostensibly more affordable community colleges, effectively pricing higher education, where workers get the education and skills necessary to succeed in a modern economy, out of reach for an increasing number of Americans.  If "give" is a euphemism for "market" then it is not likely to have much effect -- you can market the hell out of something, but like Matthew McConaughey's Cadillac, it will still be out of reach for an increasing number of Americans -- but if "give" really means "give," then we are back to the populist programs of Bernie Sanders and someone will need to "pay" for the gift.  Likewise, god forbid, who will pay for the "subsidy" on lower skilled jobs?  As Gerson notes, "who are the obstacles in pursuing such policies? On the latter two, they are not globalized elites; they are more likely to be conservative ideologues."   Quite quickly we are back to circling the drain.  

Gerson is correct, I think, when he says "Thirty American CEOs at Davos would come up with several ideas to improve, say, educational standards. Thirty members of the House Freedom Caucus would oppose all of them on principle."  The work of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is a case in point.  Though there is always room to quibble,  and their vision of the future IS rather tech-centric (what a surprise!) I nevertheless believe that, for the most part, they act on their principle that "the path out of poverty begins when the next generation can access quality healthcare and a great education."  The real question is this: will the political circling of the drain remain unbroken?   It does little good to blame "conservative elites, who are embracing the cheapest form of populism, involving no intellectual energy, no policy innovation and no actual help for those in need."  The ultimate solution -- dare I say it -- might be Hillary Clinton.  As the Sanders' supporters were quick to point out during the primary season, those thirty American CEOs are not particularly averse to her, nor she to them, and if the survey from the National Association for Business Economics of over 400 experts is any indicator, she ultimately has the support of the business economists as well.  As CNN points out, Trump comes in third, behind the libertarian candidate Gary Johnson.  The president, of course, is only part of the picture, unless her election points to a new sort of alignment, pulling the business community away from the authoritarian, racially-baited, misogynistic populism of Donald Trump that now dominates the republican party toward a more centrist and ultimately realistic approach -- away from a evangelical, all-or-nothing, movement approach to conservatism, toward a more inclusive and ultimately more politically pragmatic "conservatism" that could hammer out support for "access to quality healthcare and a great education" of the sort that won't bankrupt either the nation or the corporate superstructure, but nevertheless REALLY will insure our children's and grandchildren's future. We should, in other words, vote for the sort of "progressive conservatism" represented by Hillary Clinton and quit obsessing about her fracking email on the one side and her connections to big money on the other.  So say we all.

What If Trump Loses

Politico has run an article entitled "What if Trump Won't Accept Defeat?"  Eli Stokol's titular question is a good one, and of all the scary things about this election cycle, it is perhaps the scariest.   While Trump may surprise us and graciously admit defeat, there is much about him that suggests otherwise.  There is the standard tactic of "blaming the media," which seems at best hypocritical insofar as Trump has benefited enormously from the free media coverage, but beyond that there are the assertions that the elections will be rigged.  We have been tunneling in this direction for some time now, particularly as the anti-government rhetoric grows stronger and is trumpeted in an increasingly evidence-free environment.   If one suggests that the game is "rigged" up front, then losing isn't really "losing," it's being a victim of the rigged system, with all the moral authority that comes from being the "victim."  Although there is little in the way of evidence to suggest that voter fraud exists -- indeed, instead of people voting fifteen times, the bigger problem seems to be voluntary disenfranchisement, people not voting at all -- the game however will be rigged by "voter fraud."  The courts should be the last arbiters of "fairness," but they are obviously in on the game, insofar as they have cut down many of the voter ID requirements that ostensibly protect against the non-existent threat of voter fraud.  So, as Stokol puts it, “If he loses, [he’ll say] ‘It’s a rigged election.’ If he wins, he’ll say it was rigged and he beat it. And that’s where this is headed no matter what the outcome is.  If Donald Trump loses, he is going to point the finger at the media and the GOP establishment. I can’t really picture him giving a concession speech, whatever the final margin.”

Altogether, by preemptively victimizing himself, Trump is simply amplifying a climate of "illegitimacy" that has had some sway for some time, but particularly since the election of Obama.  Trump was perhaps the most well known, but certainly not the only "birther," for whom no amount of evidence would convince them that he really was a native citizen and qualified to run for the presidency.  He has occupied the ironically named white house "illegitimately" for eight years.  If Clinton wins, she too will occupy the white house "illegitimately," and there is a segment of the American population who will believe the claims.  Although the media will be dutifully reporting the trumpeted claims of "rigging" and "fraud," and for the sake of balance will no doubt also dutifully report the election commission's debunking of the claim, none of it is to be trusted.  The mainstream media -- the Clinton News Network -- conspires against them.  It will do no good to challenge results in the courts because the courts too are conspiring against them.  And, unfortunately, "Trump’s words are having an effect. Just 38 percent of Trump supporters believe their votes will be counted accurately; and only 49 percent of all registered voters are “very confident” their votes will be tabulated without error, according to a Pew Research survey last week."  If one believes we have been living under an "illegitimate" government for the past eight years, if one believe we are facing the prospect of living under an "illegitimate" government for another four years at least, what to do?  

This is not small potatoes.  As Stokol reports,

Among the values most necessary for a functioning democracy is the peaceful transition of power that’s gone on uninterrupted since 1797. What enables that is the acceptance of the election’s outcome by the losers,” said Steve Schmidt, the GOP operative who was John McCain’s campaign strategist in 2008.

“Here you have a candidate after a terrible three weeks, which has all been self-inflicted, saying the only way we lose is if it’s ‘rigged’ or stolen — in a media culture where people increasingly don’t buy into generally accepted facts and turn to places to have their opinions validated where there’s no wall between extreme and mainstream positions. That’s an assault on some of the pillars that undergird our system. People need to understand just how radical a departure this is from the mean of American politics.”

It bears repeating that "acceptance of the election's outcome by the losers" is what differentiates the US democracy from many of the second and third world "experiments" in secular democracy.  Although the ins-and-outs are complex, as a bottom line, the recent coup in Turkey should stand as a reminder of what happens when a significant segment of the population views the "elected" leadership as "illegitimate."  We are, one hopes, are not quite Turkey, but we are working ourselves in that direction, and Trump's not-so-sarcastic suggestion that the 2nd Amendment People might have a solution to the election of Clinton and her Supreme Court picks isn't far from suggesting an armed coup.   Perhaps I exaggerate.  I don't know.

Consider this, a recent Breitbart news article has the headline:  "NY Post Columnist: Media’s Attacks on Trump Show ‘Collapse’ of U.S. Journalism."  It is an aggregated column by Michael Goodwin, which essentially makes the point that "The shameful display of naked partisanship by the elite media is unlike anything seen in modern America.  The largest broadcast networks — CBS, NBC and ABC — and major newspapers like The New York Times and Washington Post have jettisoned all pretense of fair play. Their fierce determination to keep Trump out of the Oval Office has no precedent."  One might almost concede the point.  Although they did publish an open letter by Jerry Falwell Jr., saying Trump is the Churchillian leader we need, the Washington Post has been clear on their view Trump.  They have called him "A Unique Threat to American Democracy," and most of their editorial content is clearly anti-Trump.   If there is a partisan slant to the NY Times and the Washington Post, there is the Wall Street Journal and the NY Post, which, of course, have a conservative bias, the latter having given Michael Goodwin his voice to decry the collapse of US Journalism.  There is more than a whiff of the tabloid about the Post, however, and there is the question of the "audience" to which they appeal.  There is, however, no question about the audience that the "alt-right" media, like Brietbart News.  As a "cultural exercise," it is useful to read the comments and Michael Goodwin's article drew many comments like this from the Breitbart audience:

The Old Media WILL die. They have been outed as a rancid pack of liars, fully as untrustworthy as any used-car salesman, as sleazy as middle-aged men trying to sell swampland as prime real estate to old widows. They are Democrat operatives pretending to be journalists. The National Enquirer has actually been more trustworthy this election season than CNN and their fellow travelers. Their words are meaningless gibberish, and no one should take them at their word ever again.  

I doubt that Aitch748 will be convinced of anything, except what he (I assume it's a he) already believes.  Anything else, of course! is a lie.  I am surprised at how resilient some of the old McCarthy-style language has proven to be -- the communist's "fellow travelers" have now become CNN's fellow travelers -- which lends some credence to those who fear that the Trump-style language will prove to be resilient as well.  Perhaps even more resilient.  American democracy weathered the storm of McCarthy, in part because a "trusted" media outlet and a "trusted" media figure called him out.  There no longer is a "trusted" media outlet and there certainly is no Edward R. Murrow to call him out.

So far as the "rigged" election is concerned, consider this: "Obama: ‘Of Course the Election Will Not Be Rigged — What Does That Mean?’"  Obama makes what might be called the standard response against "rigged" elections.  As he points out, "the federal government doesn’t run the election process. It is states, cities, and communities all across the country. They are the ones who set up the voting systems and voting booths." This is true, and while it points to the possibility of "local" fraud, which if suspected can be contested by election commissions and the courts, but it also points to the near impossibility of fraud on a national level.  As Obama goes on to point out, "If Mr. Trump is suggesting that there is a conspiracy theory that is being propagated across the country, including in places like Texas, where typically it is not Democrats who are in charge of voting booths, that is ridiculous. That does not make any sense. I don’t think anybody would take that seriously.”  On the latter score, of course, he's wrong.  Here again, as a "cultural exercise," consider this comment:

Sad truth is the establishment does everything it can to rig these things, tries to suppress the votes of our soldiers and ignore questionable actions of their chosen ones at the same time the liberal news media is also part of it with their own activities, their bogus polls favoring their chosen candidate, Hillary Clinton in this case and liberal candidates and issues in general as well while at the same time making in like vultures at every perceived weakness of candidates they don't like, I speak from experience they never give republicans an even break not even 'moderates' but we have the American people and that is where we need to play.

My apologies for Michael Ryan's "stream of consciousness" and lack of punctuation, but his (I assume it's a he) comment is still clear enough.  The vote will be rigged and the media will assist in the cover up.  Here again, I'm not sure what can be said to convince Michael otherwise, and because it is Obama speaking, it is yet another occasion for racially tinged invective against Obama's legitimacy.  As foreverflag put it, "of course they are rigged how the hell do you think you won idiot with your black power buddies outside the polls. You can only fool the morons that follow you like sheep."   Once again, I'm not sure there's anything I can say that would convince foreverflag of much of anything.

I'm merely suggesting that, if Donald Trump loses, there will be those who believe it impossible, literally impossible, that he lost fair and square, among them perhaps Donald Trump himself.  I am also suggesting that, perhaps, they are not the most benign segment of our population.   There have been various reports of Trump rallies that do not paint a pacific picture.  Jared Yates Sexton, for example, writes for the New Republic (admittedly a liberal leaning publication) that "in Greensboro, North Carolina, Hillary Clinton was called a “bitch” more times that I could count. “Trump That Bitch” was the most common refrain. They shouted it from the rafters, wore T-shirts emblazoned with it.  But at a rally in Raleigh on Tuesday night, a new cry rang out:  'Hang that bitch!'”  One probably shouldn't be surprised that Sexton received death threats for his efforts from the various on-line trolls.  One need only read the comment section of Breitbart to have some sense of the violence roiling beneath the surface of American life, much of it racially motivated, much of it couched in the language of what?  a hyper-patriotism?  Sexton writes that 

the last time I heard someone calling for the death of a politician was at a Tea Party informational meeting at the Greene County Fairgrounds outside Bloomfield, Indiana, back when Obamacare was still a dirty word. Speakers equated President Barack Obama with Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin. They alluded to the Great Famine and the Great Purge. If Obama had his way, they argued, we should all be ready to report to work camps. After the presentation, I listened to farmers and factory workers alike wonder whether to take up arms and march on Washington. If the time had come, as one speaker put it, to “refresh the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants.”

Of course, neither the great famine nor the great purge occurred, and I'm still waiting for the work camps, but the same sort of hyper-ethno-nationalism comes is revealed when supporters suggest that Clinton should be shot for "high treason."  Here again, perhaps even more blatantly, the figures and language that animated the culture wars of the 60s and early 70s reappear, with the allusions to Mao and Stalin, and the signs that read "The Silent Majority Stands with Trump" bringing to mind the backlash that brought Nixon to office. 

The silent majority is anything but silent, and as several have noted, they are not likely to go away if Trump loses the election.  With the appointment of Bannon, there's some speculation that Trump is REALLY not running for president, but setting himself up to create a media empire, one no doubt more blatantly ethno-nationalist than Fox News.  Whether or not that's true, I won't speculate, but it is certain that the media outlets that have mounted a consistent and relentless campaign against Obama will not let up once Clinton is in office.  Indeed, insofar as Obama came into office relatively untainted by scandal, Clinton comes into office pre-scandaled.  The moral taint surrounding her husband will remain, and has already taken a nasty turn for the worse with t-shirts emblazoned with the slogan "Clinton Sucks, But Not Like Monica."  The "carelessness" taint surrounding her will remain, along with the perpetual reminders of Benghazi and her email, with each new revelation giving occasion for a rehashing of the hash.  Then too, there is the "foundation," with its own set of emails and potential scandals.  The "investigations" into Clinton will never stop, and so, again, she will come into office already "illegitimate" in the minds of many.  As John Sprinklebumj commented on an article entitled "Donald Trump Calls for 'Expedited Investigation by a Special Prosecutor:"

Yes, and Hillary has the e-mail scandal. a lawsuit from a Benghazi family and prosecutors investigating the Clinton FoundationS. There are more than one. Perhaps play for pay while Secretary of State is among the more damning politically. Trump is not perfect, but he is not a habitual liar and crook, and he is not a serial sexual predator. You cannot say the same about the Clintons. Moreover, Hillary, once again, has not been honest about her health and it will come out, despite her laughing off health questions and having no news conference for over 200 days.

Then too, she will need to actually "govern."  If she follows through on her liberal agenda, she will be damned by the right.  If she fails to follow through on her liberal agenda, she will be damned both by the left for her failures and by the right for trying.  The right will fall back into the new normal, an ever more hyper-ethno-nationalism of roiling resentments, among which will be an even deeper suspicion of the government because clearly and obviously the whole damn election was rigged from the outset -- how "the hell do you think the bitch won, idiot!"

There are a couple of responses to this, and I have to admit that I find myself viscerally, if not intellectually, torn.  At a visceral level, my response is equal and opposite.  We should, that is, "refresh the tree of liberty" not with the blood of the various vilified groups, not with the blood of Obama or Clinton, but with the blood of all those ethno-nationalists calling for blood.  Of course, feeling that way makes me deeply sad, not only for myself, but for my country.  I most assuredly do not want to feel an urge to violence, and to be honest, I feel anger not only at the content of the provocations of the likes of foreverflag, but at the very fact that I am being provoked to an anger that I find repugnant and counter-productive.  I simply want them to engage in civil discourse and, if they can't, to "shut the f**k up."  

They won't, and so I find myself engaged in a detached and hermetic intellectual endeavor to understand what we are up against as a country.  I suspect that Andrew Sullivan came up against a similar dilemma when he suggested that we are facing an excess of democracy.  While the internet has allowed America to speak its mind very openly, it has become apparent that much of what America has to say isn't worth hearing, at least not on the surface, though I suspect the current election cycle will provide a generation of historians with fodder for discussion of our racial attitudes, among other things.  As Astra Taylor put it, "In May, in a widely circulated cover story in New York, Andrew Sullivan expressed misgivings that America is suffering from too much democracy ... Leaning heavily on Plato, who remains one of democracy’s most scathing critics, Sullivan argued that 'hyperdemocratic' society was eroding vital 'barriers between the popular will and the exercise of power.'” Part of Sullivan's anxiety was fueled by the rise of Trump, or perhaps more accurately, by the sentiments revealed by the rise of Trump.  Taylor goes on to write that "the wave of anxiety began with the unbearable prospect of a President Trump. The notion of a racist, demented reality-TV star occupying the nation’s highest office has caused an increasing number of people—left, right, and center—to question the decision-making capacities of the masses."  And so, again, as Taylor put it, "the crowd is quickly being reconfigured back into its historical double, the mob. And the hive is increasingly viewed, by liberals and conservatives alike, as a hornet’s nest, a threat to democracy itself."  I may simply be showing my biases, but the left's vituperation nowhere matches that on the right.  Read the comment section of any conservative web site, and it's hard NOT to feel that one has stumbled into a hornet's nest.  Case in point, as Devil Dog has said before, "polls, polls, polls...all BS cooked up the clinton owned media...one day she is behind...then for the next two weeks....oh my.....lookie there....she just jumped over 20 points....ohhh she is soooo deeply loved by America!! My arse!!"  This is not someone who will concede defeat.

On the one hand, I find myself agreeing with Sullivan and others, like Traub, who feel that "it's not about the left vs. the right; it's about the same vs. the mindlessly angry," and it may well be time for the "elites to rise up against the ignorant masses." It depends, however, on just who that elite might be, doesnt it?  As Sexton put it, I’ve spent a good deal of my time on the 2016 campaign trail trying to empathize with the Donald Trump supporter. ... They have, after all, been manipulated for at least the past 50 years to vote against their interests" distracted all the while by "wedge issues and social crusades [that] have persuaded them to forget their checkbooks and pledge support to a Republican Party that has promised to protect them from The Other, whether that’s been African-Americans, homosexuals, or feminists."  They have, in other words, colluded in their own marginalization.  So, on the other hand, however, I also find myself agreeing with Taylor, who concludes that 

In reality, our political system is far less democratic than it was a generation ago. Over the past 40 years, we’ve seen unions crushed, welfare gutted, higher education defunded, prisons packed to overflowing, voting rights curbed, and the rich made steadily richer while wages stagnated. It’s not the frustration of the people that should terrify us, but rather the legitimate sources of their frustration, which have so long gone unaddressed. Regular citizens struggling to make ends meet have almost nowhere to turn, nothing to join. We shouldn’t wonder that so many voters have seized on this election to make a statement, even a nihilistic one.

Her point, however, may be lost on too many who have colluded too long in their own marginalization.  To say, "we've seen unions crushed" would not be seen as a problem by Scott Walker or most neo-liberals.  To say, we've seen "welfare gutted" would not be seen as a problem except by those wanting a "free ride" on the government dole.  To say, we've seen "higher education defunded" would garner cheers by many who see the professoriate as a haven for left wing radicals intent on destroying what is best about America.  To say "prisons are packed to overflowing" would elicit a cheer particularly if one of the cells was to be occupied by "crooked Hillary."  To say "voting rights curbed" is peachy fine, particularly if it allows us to take our country back from those blacks and browns who have illegitimately usurped power through voter fraud.  While racial attitudes are recalcitrant, however, the real issue remains the money.  Neither the left or the right seems willing and/or able to address the reality that the "rich are made steadily richer while wages have (for the most part) stagnated."  Perhaps it's not the frustration of the people that should terrify us, but the way in which those frustrations are expressed matters.  The mob, we know, is all to ready to find a scapegoat, and while Clinton at some level may be as crooked as the day is long, at least her campaign slogan is "stronger together."  I'm not sure how we come to that, but I am terrified by the prospect of Trump winning and only slightly less terrified by the prospect of him losing and failing to graciously concede.  The alt right media will amplify the resentment and the anger, and none of that bodes well for the future of this country.