Trump and the Judge: Identity Politics Broke Bad

One doesn't quite know where to begin, so I will just begin peeling away at the onion and hope it leads me to a better understanding.  Most are aware of the basic "facts."  If you're not, you're living under a rock.  The presumptive republican nominee for the highest office in the land, during an unscripted speech, went on a rant about the judge currently hearing the class action suit against Trump University.  There are numerous clips available on the web, numerous defenses and condemnations, and a thousand reactions within the established press and the blogosphere, so it feels a bit redundant to recapitulate it here.  Nevertheless, he essentially said that the judge in the case, Gonzalo Curiel, held a bias against him because he had made a number of anti-immigrant statements, particularly about Mexican immigrants and the wall, and the judge was of Mexican descent.  Neither he nor his lawyers have offered up evidence of any actual bias.  It was sufficient that he was of Mexican heritage.

One striking aspect of this, and something that most only mention in passing, is that his rant was entirely self-interested.  The judge is hearing a law suit against Trump himself.  Attacks on the judge, if successful, will benefit Trump personally.  There are few other ways of construing it, and those that exist require some extensive tap-dancing around his actual speech, but there is common-sensical  assumption that self-interest in a matter impairs an ability to make rational, dispassionate judgements.  If Judge Curiel did have a self-interest in the case -- i.e. a financial stake in Trump University or had been a student of Trump University -- he would be required to recuse himself.   Judge Curiel does NOT, however, have a self-interest in the case.  The presumptive nominee DOES have a self-interest in the case, and so it would not be surprising if he felt the judge might be biased, particularly if the judge rules against him.  Ultimately, however, his feelings of bias are irrelevant because his self-interest impairs his ability to make rational, dispassionate judgements in the matter.  Although the presumptive nominee has a very large bully pulpit to display his feelings of bias, it is both a matter of law and a matter of moral common sense that we are not our own best judges.

Another striking aspect of his rant was its "racism."  I put "racism" in quotes because I have no special insight into Donald Trump, or his racial feelings, and so cannot determine whether he IS a racist or not.  I suspect he is, and others suspect he is, but the remark has been variously construed as "racist" because it suggests that the judge cannot do his job as a judge -- that is to say, make rational, dispassionate rulings on the law -- only because he is of "Mexican descent."  His statement fits, as Paul Ryan himself suggests, a textbook definition of racism.  There's a sort of double whammy involved in this charge of racism.  The left hook finds the remark reprehensible because Trump is using the charge of "bias," not to suggest that he might bring some special insight into what it means to be of Mexican descent as a class or as a corrective to injustices suffered by those of Mexican descent as a class, but as the source of "injustice" itself.  It flips the usual paradigm of "identity politics," suggesting that the racial or ethnic minority is now the victimizer, not the victim.  It suggests the Mexican is victimizing the rich white guy, and it seems, well, self-serving and perverse for someone like Trump to be playing the "poor me" card, particularly when he also plays the "rich, white, powerful, successful" card at the same time.  The right jab finds the remark reprehensible because it is "illiberal," not in the sense of current politics, but in its most traditional sense -- the universal statement that "all men are created equal" and, as a consequence, all are equally protected by and subject to the law.  The logical extension of Trump's rant suggests that a black judge cannot hear cases involving white men, that women cannot hear cases against men, that muslims cannot hear cases on christians ... the list is nearly infinite and it serves, ultimately, to throw out any semblance of the "rule of law."  If we are to have anything resembling a "rule of law," we must assume that the judge, as judge, will make rational, dispassionate judgements -- that he will treat all cases which come before him "equally" before the law.

OK, before I go on, we all know the assumption of an "unbiased" or "non-racial" legal system is an ideal, not a reality.  Trump's remarks, as he doubled down on them are doubly reprehensible insofar as there is a plethora of evidence to suggest that poor blacks and hispanics, as a class, are afforded more severe treatment within the criminal justice system than poor whites.  It is not solely an economic distinct, but a racial and ethnic distinction, though the poor generally, to include whites, are afforded more severe treatment than the rich.   As Kim Farbota put in the HuffPost, "racial disparities in the application of criminal justice are not the only source of differential incarceration rates.  Poverty, geography, and lacking educational and career opportunities all likely play a role." She goes on to say,  "regardless of the exact factors behind the incarceration gap, it is not some neutral, statistical fact that black people commit more crime.  The gap is the result of numerous interacting factors, not the least of which is racism."  There is a legitimate political discussion of the "exact factors behind the incarceration gap," and how we might narrow the differences between reality and the ideal of "equality before the law," but the sorts of self-interested race baiting that Trump has engaged seems, again, self-serving and perverse.  Achieving "unbiased justice" for rich white guys does not seem to be a particular problem for the legal system, unless of course we are talking about removing systemic bias in their favor.  Nevertheless, it is an ideal that we must assume, and in the assumption strive toward.  What is the alternative?  

OK again, before I go on, yes, judges demonstrate bias.  Let's not be coy.  The republicans want to forestall an Obama appointment to the supreme court because they want to select a judge with a conservative bias.  Some republicans have suggested that, although there are many reasons NOT to support Trump, one very good reason is that he will be charged as POTUS to select at the very least one member of SCOTUS and that one member, if conservative, preserves the conservative bias, if liberal, creates a new liberal bias.  Trump has done a great deal to disrupt republican party unity, and he has done so with smug self-assurance and aggrandizement, but the one thing that he has done to unite the party behind him is to provide a list of potential Supreme Court appointments, reminding them, if nothing else, that HE will be the one doing the appointment.

Additionally, along the same line, in conservative circles, much has been made of Sotomayor's "wise hispanic woman" remark, and it has been used to explain, if not defend, Trump's position relative to Curiel.  Sotomayor said, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman, with the richness of her experiences, would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."  At some level, this is an ill-advised remark, and there has been much discussion of "what the judge really meant," both from the left and from the right.  On the face of it she admits a bias based on the experience of being a member of a particular ethnicity and gender, being an Hispanic woman.  Indeed, but there is a significant moral and ethical difference between the sort of bias demonstrated by Sotomayor and the sort of bias Trump has accused Curiel of demonstrating.  On the one side, Sotomayor is defending her "resume," as one might expect during confirmation hearings.   She is claiming that, based on her background, to include her ethnic and gender "background," she can reach well informed conclusions.  There is some sense of self-puffery and disparagement in the "better" than a "white male," but those who had lived the lives of white males were already well represented on the court, and she claims to bring a perspective that is different and, yes, better, at least in some respects.  There is also some real suggestion that her decisions would advance certain "class interests," and serve a liberal bias in doing so, but there isn't a hint that she would or has taken personal retribution against specific litigants because they were NOT Hispanic females.  On the other side, there are few, if any, class interests at stake in Curiel's decisions regarding Trump University, except of course the narrow class of those who were ostensibly bilked by its claims.  Trump's accusation assumes that Curiel will take personal retribution against Donald Trump personally because Donald Trump personally has made disparaging remarks about his Curiel's personal heritage.   It's all "personal" top to bottom, and one suspects Trump makes that assumption because, well, that's exactly what he has done in response to disparaging remarks in the past and would do again in the future.

Nevertheless, Trump's remarks have brought back the specter of "identify politics."  Identity politics has become something of a bug-a-boo along both party lines, and like "socialism" has taken on a penumbra from bad ideas advanced by bad actors.  Nevertheless, it provides a useful touch point to describe certain aspects of today's political life.  The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy gives a sufficiently thorough academic discussion, and suggests that "identity politics" (with my own slight modification) "rather than organizing solely around belief systems, programmatic manifestos, or party affiliation, identity political formations typically aim to secure the political freedom of a specific constituency marginalized with a larger context."  Gay and lesbian rights can be understood as "identity politics."  A specific constituency, the LGBT community,  has been marginalized within the larger context and seeks to secure, if not political freedom, per se, at least the same economic and legal rights afforded to others within the larger context.  The civil rights activism of the 60s and the Black Lives Matter activism today likewise could be understood as "identity politics."  A specific constituency, the black community, had been marginalized within the larger context and sought to secure at least the same economic and legal rights afforded to others within the larger context.   Sotomayor's "wise Latina" remark can be understood as "identity politics."  A specific constituency, women and Hispanic women, have been marginalized within the larger context and her role on SCOTUS was to insure they had at least the same economic and legal rights afforded to others within the larger context.   The list goes on, but I'm sure you get the point.

I have been cautious in my phrasing.  I say "at least the same economic and legal rights" because clearly enough "identity politics" lends itself to other agendas.  If one has been unjustly treated in the "larger context," one might, for example, justifiably seek "justice" and take retribution against the prevailing social structure -- one might, for example, go so far as to over-turn the prevailing social structure and reverse the prevailing power structures.  MLK, for example, sought "the same economic and legal rights" afforded to others within the larger context, but Malcolm X and Huey P Newton sought to overturn the existing power structures.    MLK sought an extension of the universalizing  "liberal agenda" to include the black community, where "all men are created equal" and are afforded the same political privileges and rights as others.   To a certain extent, MLK sought "assimilation" within the larger context, where the differences of race that defined the community made no difference and effectively disappeared, where a person would not be judged on the basis of their race, but solely on the "content of their character."  Huey P Newton and the Black Panther Party wanted no part of assimilation and were willing to use violence to assert the "identity" of the black community as something separate and distinct from the larger community.  As a part of their 10 point program, they wanted "all Black people when brought to trial to be tried in court by a jury of their peer group or people from the Black Communities, as defined by the Constitution of the United States."

If you don't hear in Trump's accusation of Curiel a specific echo of Huey Newton's 10 point program, let me make it explicit.  Newton is asserting that black people cannot be judged by white people, in part because there has been a long history of reciprocal animosity between the two communities, in part because one must have the shared experience of being part of a community to make judgements on member of that community.  Trump is asserting that white people cannot be judged by brown people, in part because there has been a long history reciprocal animosity between the two communities, an animosity that he has exploited and exacerbated by his own remarks during the election cycle.  "I'm building a wall."  Moreover, he is asserting that having the shared experience of a community, being of Mexican heritage, is in some way "reductively totalizing" and inescapable.  One need ONLY know that Curiel is of Mexican heritage, and that his Mexican heritage CANNOT HELP BUT inform his decisions, so clearly the white man Trump cannot receive fair and impartial judgement by the brown man Curiel.  Trump is, in short, engaging in "identity politics," but the end game, clearly, is not assimilation, but the converse of Huey Newton's "identity politics," a specifically white neo-nationalist "identity politics" of isolation and exclusion. "I'm building a wall."

There is a national holiday and a statue honoring MLK on the national mall, but nothing of the sort for Huey P Newton.  To fully understand why, let me take a step back and "redefine" identity politics along the lines proposed by Stanley Fish in his editorial in the NY Times, "When Identity Politics is rational."  He writes, "you're practicing identity politics when you vote for or against someone because of his or her skin color, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or any other marker that leads you to say yes or no independently of a candidate's ideas or policies."   He goes on to write, "in essence identity politics is an affirmation of the tribe against the claims of ideology, and by ideology I do not mean something bad (a mistake frequently made) but any agenda informed by a vision of what the world should be like."  Identity politics becomes "rational" when it is used in furtherance of an "ideology," a vision of a better world.  MLK practiced a rational form of identity politics, insofar as it asserted identity in order to advance an "agenda informed by a vision of what the world should be like" and for MLK it was the vision of a fully assimilated post-racial America, where differences of race and ethnicity make no difference.  The election of Obama did not signal tha we had arrived at that ideal, and perhaps even set it back a bit insofar as a prima facia case can be made that the black communities, in their overwhelming support of Obama, were practicing a tribal form of "identity politics" -- that they voted for him solely because he was black.  Nevertheless, if we are to understand and correct the differences that DO make a negative difference in the lives of black people, understand and correct the lapses from that universal ideal where "all people are created equal," understand and correct those disparities where some are clearly "more equal than others," a rational form of identity politics will still have a place, and the "liberal" agenda, including Obama's, has been formed and informed by rational identity politics over the last half century.

It is precisely here, however, with the notion of full assimilation, that conservatives tend to disparage and resist "identity politics," and where Trump found his entry into "identity politics."   A couple of truisms.  It is important to note that, within ANY status quo, there are those who are advantaged and those who are disadvantaged, though at times the "disadvantage" takes the form of outright oppression.   It is also important to note that a "rational identity politics" is always "progressive," insofar as it examines the systemic advantages and disadvantages, if not outright oppression, and seeks to ameliorate them as a means of progressing toward the clear American ideal of "liberty and justice for all."   Those who are advantaged within the status quo will tend to resist changes and conserve the status quo, those who are disadvantaged will tend to support progressive changes to the status quo.  Much of the republican resistance to "rational identity politics" can be understood simply as "conservatism," a resistance to change within a status quo that have traditionally advantaged a predominantly white republican base and their progeny.

There is, however,  an inherent hypocrisy involved in the resistance to a "rational identity politics."  One cannot resist progressive change toward the ideal of "liberty and justice for all" as the preservation of inherent systemic advantage, at least not openly, and so one of the more common forms of resistance is denial -- that is to say, the denial that there is any inherent systemic advantages or disadvantages.  In the case of the legal system, if one wants to preserve the current status quo, at least, one must assert that it ALREADY provides "justice for all," regardless of one's "identity," else one opens the door to the sorts of progressive change that would erase advantage.  Trump's assertion that a judge cannot be fair to him SOLELY because he is Mexican up-ends conservative denial.  It opens the door to the worst forms of "irrational identity politics," the sort practiced by Huey Newton and conversely the KKK.  If what Trump asserts is true, if the "identity" of the judge matters and trumps other considerations, then one must assert that the legal system ultimately provides "justice for none," except in those rare cases where judge and jury are truly "peers," who share the same "identity" as the one being judged.  Much of the republican hemming and hawing around the issue can be understood in this light, an attempt to maintain the status quo by asserting that it ALREADY provides "justice for all."

The inherent hypocrisy, however, leads directly and perhaps inevitably to one like Trump.  If the legal system ALREADY provides "justice for all," then denial must take an additional step.  They must deny evidence to the contrary or provide other theories to explain the differences.  It would be difficult to deny the data that blacks and hispanics run afoul of the criminal justice system at greater rates than whites, that their conviction rates are greater than whites, that their sentencing is harsher, et cetera.  Differences must reside, not in the criminal justice system, but in the inherent weaknesses within the black and hispanic communities, and within blacks and hispanics themselves.  There is always a modicum of "truthiness" to such claims, perverse socialization in perverse environments leads to perverse results, but it is not a far step from the sorts of assertions that one finds Trump making about Mexican immigrants -- "it’s people from countries other than Mexico also. We have drug dealers coming across, we have rapists, we have killers, we have murderers."  Trump is asking us to draw lines between friend and foe on any number of "identity" markers -- ethnicity in the case of the judge, country of origin in the remark above, religion in his many comments about Muslims, so on and so forth.  If one knows the ethnicity of the individual, you need know nothing else.  They are the enemy.  If one knows the immigration status of an individual, legal or illegal, one need know nothing else.  They are the enemy.  If one knows another or suspects another is Muslim, one need know nothing else.  They are the enemy.  Trump is playing "identity politics" in its most malignant sense, asking his followers to target, in an almost literal sense, those who do not have the right identity markers.  Such thinking appeals to the lowest common denominator.  It is a tribal or a gang mentality, and it is probably not surprising that there is retaliation in kind with more or less open gang warfare after his rallies. 

BREAKING NEWS

One of the more tragic aspects of American life today is just how banal gun violence, particularly mass shoots, have become.   The "worst" incidence of gun violence occurred two days ago at a gay night club in Orlando, and I was struck by how similar the reporting of the incident was in some ways to the reporting of a tornado.  It's tragic.  It's horrific.  It's as unpredictable as a tornado, but inevitable.  The difference, of course, lies in the perpetrator.  A tornado is an "act of god," but a mass shooting is the act of human beings, but here too the response has become predictably banal.  The Washington Post published an article, "The New Norm: When Tragedy Hits, Americans Stand Divided."  It pretty much lays out the divide.  Obama called the incident an "act of terror" and "an act of hate," but he did NOT single out and vilify the shooter AS a Muslim, despite repeated calls by conservatives that he do exactly that.   RedState, for example, had this headline: "Obama Won't Say "Islam," But Goes Right to Gun Control in Pathetic Address to Nation."  The article itself is rather incoherent, with some of Trump's command of syntax, but it does say "despite the voluminous evidence of Islamic terror, and despite the fact that the shooter literally called 9-11 and swore allegiance to ISIS before the attack, the President at no point mentions Islam, radical Islam, Islamic terrorism, jihad, or even ISIS."  

One might ask why he would fail to do so?  I tend to agree with Sam Harris on the issue of Islam.  Those unfamiliar with his thinking can google him and find his podcasts.  He would agree with RedState that there is "voluminous evidence" of the islamic violence, that it is inherent to mono-theistic religions, including Christianity, but Christianity has at least better constrained its historic tendency toward violence against apostates and unbelievers.  Islam has not, or has not yet, constrained its tendency toward violence.   I can say that, Sam Harris can say that, but having said that, I also tend to agree with Obama's reluctance to call out Islam, and Muslims, in the way conservatives and Trump would have him call them out.  Assume, for the moment, that he did so, what then?  Internationally, of course, he could bomb ISIS and combat terrorism, but he is already doing so.  Domestically, virtually every conceivable response, specific to Muslims, would be a violation of the US constitution and established law.  The constitution states explicitly that "congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."  That would include, one supposes, Islam.  One could go down the list of amendments, and how contentious virtually every conceivable response specific to Muslims would be, but I will restrain my already unrestrained pedantry.  Suffice it to say, Obama could call it an act of hate directed at the Gay community, and an act of terrorism perpetrated by a Muslim, but that is no different in kind than calling the recent shooting at an abortion clinic an act of hate directed at abortion providers, and an act of terrorism perpetrated by a Christian.  The latter, one suspects, would generate a different kind of response.  

Here again, assume that he did so, that he called it out as "Islamic terror," how exactly could that be interpreted?  Here, I have to answer that it would be "identity politics," but of what sort?   Perhaps it is a failure of imagination, but I cannot find a way to legitimately call it a "rational identity politics" in service to that secular American ideology that demands an equality of "justice for all" regardless of race, ethnicity, or religion.  Certainly the victims of the Orlando shooting deserve justice, but is it justice served by the punishment of an individual for a criminal act, or is justice served by the punishment  of an entire religion for its inherent criminality?  There is little to be gained by way of retributive satisfaction by punishment of the individual -- he has, in effect, already been punished -- but what is to be gained by the punishment of an entire religion?   The conservative call to mark the shooter, in way suggested by Red State, is to engage in the most malignant form of "irrational identity politics."  If one knows an individual is a Muslim, one need know nothing else.  They are, ipso facto, the enemy.  Obama's response, on the one hand recognizing the hate directed at the Gay community and on the other refusing to apply ethnic or religious markers to the perpetrator, is fully in line with a "rational identity politics" that sets as its goal the secular American ideology that demands an equality of "justice for all" regardless of race, ethnicity or religion.  As an individual I may call out the shooter as an Islamic terrorist, but for the President to do so, as the representative of the American people as a WHOLE -- white, black, gay, straight, christian, muslim -- would mark the first step toward the "irrational identity politics" practiced by the fascists, the delineation of friend from foe along inherent tribal lines.  If one knows or suspects another of being a Jew, one need know nothing else.  They are the enemy.

History, I have no doubt, will vindicate Obama.  If his "successor" fails and Trump is elected, history, I have no doubt, will mark it as the beginning of the end of the experiment in government so beautifully described by a republican -- a nation "conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."  We will become something else, but it most assuredly will not be a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" -- that is to say, "of the people as a whole, by the people as a whole, and for the people as a whole."  We will become a nation as fractured as the nation that occasioned the Gettysburg Address, and what emerges from that dissolution will be anyone's guess.    

The Duty to Tolerate, Violence, and the Succession of Texas

Yesterday I listened to the latest pod cast by Dan Carlin of Hardcore History and Common Sense.   In it, he made a point virtually identical to the point I made in my post of a few days ago.  He asked a question, for which he didn't have an answer:  what to do, in an open society, when our differences have devolved into a hatred so intense that we cannot live together?

There are, of course, several ways to answer that question.  The first, the most obvious, is to cease being an open society.  That, of course, is my over-riding fear.  An open society is predicated on several values, but the most important value, the one that keeps us "open," is the "duty to tolerate."  With free speech, for example, if I wish to speak my mind as a right, then I have a duty to tolerate others who speak their mind, particularly when I find that speech objectionable.  It is no trick to follow through on a "duty to tolerate" when we agree, it is only a trick when we disagree.  We all exist in a world of rife with human frailty, and there are provocations for us all that push us beyond the limits of tolerance, but if it were easy to follow through on a "duty," it wouldn't really even merit the sobriquet of "duty."

Knowing, however, that we live in a world rife with human frailty with provocations for all, there is a corollary value of "civility."  It is difficult to tolerate another's speech when it is aimed at me, as a person, and it lacks any form of civility.  We should not mistake "civility" for "political correctness."  The latter implies an enforced agreement with a comprehensive ideology or doctrine.  The former implies, not enforced agreement -- being a "good communist" or a "true conservative" or a "good christian" -- but simply avoiding offense for the sake of offense -- i.e. avoiding language like the following:

The Republicans have been here before - and will always look away if the target is a Democrat - Funny how many now take issue with Trump. It is simply because he is hurting Republicans. That is the only problem for them. Patriotism means little to these people - power is their only objective. 

Such language is designed to offend and draw boundaries.  The moment we start objectifying people, setting them apart as "these people," and simplifying their world view to the point of non-sense, we have ceased to be civil and have failed in our duty to tolerate.  Of course power is an objective for republicans.   Power is an objective for both republicans AND democrats, and in both cases it is simply instrumental to the fulfillment of a "vision" for the American future.  I disagree, sometimes strenuously, with the world view implicit in the republican vision, but "these people" are nevertheless people who no doubt love and worry for their families as much as we love and worry for our families.  I have to be reminded of this by my wife, who tells me at times that I wear my disdain all too visibly across my face, and I could have plucked examples of incivility from my own blog posts, but the undeniable fact that I am rife with human frailty does not make civility, in a civil society, any less important.

We can look back at history for examples that seem in some ways to mirror today's malaise.  The late 60s/early 70s come quickly to mind -- the racial and ethnic tensions, the weariness with a war that seems never to end and to lack definable "purpose," the growing severity of action and reaction to the political status quo -- but history is always an imperfect mirror.  There is a difference today, and I've alluded to it in my previous post and above -- social media.  It abets communication in many ways, not all of them good.  So much has been written about the "new" phenomenon of cyber bullying, trolling, and the like that I doubt I can add anything new to the discussion, but would simply point out, along with Carlin, that it abets the speed at which "disputes" escalate.  It has removed, as it were, "time for reflection." In the 70s, I wrote several letters to the editor of the Omaha World Herald, only one of which was published.  I have no idea how many "liked" it, nor did it occur to me to care.  I had expressed myself, and was glad that the paper's audience could hear what I had to say.   Today, I can post a response to a response to an article in seconds, but then so can everyone else.  If I want to be noticed amid the babble, if I want to accumulate "likes" or provoke responses, it helps if my position is more "extreme," less "civil," more "provocative."   So much too has been written about the "new" phenomenon of the virtual, echo-chamber community, that here again I doubt that I can add much new to the discussion, but would simply point out that even the most extreme points of view can find their virtual community, their reinforcing and reassuring echo chamber. 

The comment above is taken in response to an article in the Huff Post, entitled "The Media is on the Edge of a Murrow Moment."  It suggests that the current media is about to call out Donald Trump (see, trying to be more civil) in the way that Edward Murrow called out Senator McCarthy.  My gut level response is bologna.  The media today simply cannot have a Murrow moment.  In Murrow's day, there was a sense of journalistic integrity, which meant, in effect, reporting on the day's events with some sense of "objectivity." We assumed that journalists struggled to maintain their objectivity, but that they had a duty to do so, that they had a duty to report all the facts, not just the amenable facts.  In the world of Murrow and Cronkite, where there was a sense of journalistic integrity, it was shocking for a Murrow to call out a Senator McCarthy, for a Cronkite to call out the Vietnam War, a dash of cold water to the face of the American public.  Today, of course, there is little sense of journalistic integrity, and even more mainstream outlets -- Fox News and MSNBC -- have come to resemble the reinforcing and reassuring echo chambers of a "monetized" social media.   For those in the Fox News echo chamber, they have called out President Obama so many times, in so many ways, all of them "pre-escalated" to apocalyptic terms, his malignity has become a head-bobbing truism, not a shocking truth.  He is, as my dinner partner the other night put it, "out to destroy America" with malice aforethought.

The difficulty, of course, is that the walls of the bubbles are growing thicker, less penetrable, more vitriolic in their view of the other bubbles.  Dan Carlin referenced the Trump rally violence in San Jose as a case in point and led him to ponder an America where the vitriol had become so intense, the hatreds so malignant, the threat of violence so pervasive, the duty to tolerate others with civility so burdensome that the differences themselves can no longer be tolerated.   What then?  The response of government forever has been to close down the open society and silence the opposition.   Knowing that, it matters -- it really really matters -- who we put into power.  It becomes imperative -- even absolutely imperative -- that the person in power, the POTUS, reflects our world view.  We, of course, do not want to be shut down.  We want the others shut down.  We do not want their vision of the future imposed upon us.  We want to impose our vision of the future on them.  When we have closed down the open society, we enter a world where civil disagreement, much less civil disobedience, can no longer be tolerated -- where one form or another of "political correctness" actually does reign supreme, where simply expressing an "difference of opinion" has life altering consequences.  Those who long for a "strong leader," one who can simply "over-power" the stagnation in Congress, are asking that we close down the open society.  

What though if you are on the outs?   What if the hated other has taken over the government?  The mass of men and women are more like sheep than wolves, and there is sufficient historical evidence to suggest that the masses would simply keep their head down and go on grazing.  Most of us, however, do not like to think of ourselves in that way.  We assume that, in the face of an opposing tyranny, we would join the resistance.  Does "our vision of the future" matter enough, is our hatred of the other imperative enough, that we resort to violence?   We have, of course, experimented with civil war in the past.  Here again, though, history is an imperfect mirror.  Such a civil war would be "unthinkable" today in part because the federal government and its military is qualitatively "different."  We were verging into modern warfare with artillery and the first rapid fire "machine" guns -- and the introduction of those weapons into traditional military tactics accounted for a good deal of the bloodshed -- but for the most part the average farmer with a rifle and a horse had pretty much the latest in military technology.   The second amendment aside, the average militia man today does not have anything resembling the latest in military technology.   There would be no dividing up and squaring off, as there was during the civil war.  Some Texas legislators fantasize about succession, but their fantasies assume that, given a vote to break away, they would simply be allowed to do so.  I doubt that would be likely.   If the federal government decided that they wanted to maintain the union, however, they could easily quash any "armed" rebellion and restore a semblance of order.  The only on-going alternative for the "rebels" would be a continuous terrorist war against a federal government "forced," so to speak, into countervailing violent repression.  It would mean, effectively, the end of an open society with any semblance of a "right to privacy."  Any such rights would be quickly sacrificed on the alter of "security" and we would become a surveillance state outright.

The previous paragraph is written from a speculative "what if" point of view, but for many who have internalized the over-heated rhetoric of talk radio, the hated other has ALREADY taken over the government.  For many, Obama, and all that he represents, has ALREADY taken away our freedoms. The so-called religious freedom acts, with their insistence on "states rights," are a case in point.  I have talked about the laws in previous posts, but they are dog whistle laws designed, under the cover of religion, to protect a freedom to discriminate, laws that protect individual measures that would free us from the hated other.  In that sense, Obama, as a black president with a "questionable" background, represents a federal government that has, since the Johnson administration, interjected itself more and more to TAKE AWAY their freedom to discriminate, their ability to free themselves from the hated other.   Federal anti-discrimination laws go beyond a simple "duty" to tolerate and create a legal obligation to tolerate those who, for many, are simply intolerable.  What to do when the federal government seems to ignore the will of the people, or at least the will of the people who think and act like ME?  If you live in an "algorithm" driven bubble of Facebook friends, if advertisements feed one a constant stream of "products you might like" along with "opinions you might share," the people who think and act like ME would seem to be legion.  What to do then when the federal government seems so opposed to the will of the people?  For true "patriots," those who feel the federal government has ALREADY "extend[ed] and unwarrantable jurisdiction," those who feel the federal government has ALREADY a "history of repeated injuries and usurpations," it is not difficult to use the language of our founders to initiate a call to "institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

It is, of course, easier to live in a bubble if one is rural or one lives in a"gated" community, where the  "other" is mostly an abstraction, and my neighbors are for the most part just like ME.  It is more difficult to live in a bubble if one is urban, where the "other" is the person just ahead of you at the grocery check-out, making small talk about their children with the clerk, who shares the same ethnicity.  It is difficult to sustain a reciprocal duty to tolerate with an abstraction, particularly when that abstraction can be so easily vilified in the on-going media feed.  It is more prudent, if not altogether easier, to sustain a reciprocal duty to tolerate when it is clearly a matter of maintaining the peace and safety between contiguous neighborhoods.  As an aside, even apart from arming a militia to oppose the federal government, it is easier to feel that gun laws are an "unwarrantable jurisdiction" and one is being deprived of constitutionally given rights where guns are used principally for hunting and self-defense is an abstract fantasy.  (Hearing my neighbors talk about self-defense, I always imagine the scene from A Christmas Story where Ralphie uses his red-rider bb gun to "protect" his family from masked robbers slithering over the fence in stripped shirts, but their mental vision is more r-rated and adult but essentially the same.)  It is harder to feel that gun laws are an "injury and usurpation" where guns are used principally as tools of illegal aggression and there is no gun-based self-defense from the stray bullet that comes through your living room wall during a drive by aimed at someone else entirely.   I sketch this rural/urban divide simply to point out that some of the deeper divisions within our country stem from that divide.   Part of the motivation for the religious freedom laws, for example, was to over-turn even more local -- that is to say, more urban -- laws prohibiting discrimination.  

Nevertheless, what if, just for the sake of argument, Texas actually succeeded from the union?   What if the duty to tolerate the hated other and their "injuries and usurpations" became too burdensome?  What if Washington, so to speak, said "peachy fine, see yah" and allowed a peaceful succession because they didn't have the stomach for killing hundreds of thousands of Texans.  It's likely that they would be just a smaller version of the current United States, with many of the same divides. Although Texas is a "red state," about as red as one can get, the majority of the voters in Dallas County, home to Dallas, nevertheless voted for Obama.   The same pattern holds throughout the US, the possible exception being Utah, a predominantly urban state that is consistently conservative mostly because of a Morman stranglehold.  Texas remains red mostly because it is predominantly rural, and while succession would give ascendency to the rural attitudes in the short term, the fundamental divisions and the fundamental problems that go with them would remain.  What if, though, just for the sake of argument, we assumed that Texas was uniformly red, that there were no divisions in the state, and that on succession the people of Texas uniformly and enthusiastically adopted a "true conservative" constitution -- if they did away with social safety net programs like SNAP, Obamacare, medicaid and medicare, and social security then reduced taxes accordingly balancing the budget? -- if they did away with the separation of church and state, put religion back in the schools, and allowed a state sanctioned religion to determine, among other things, a mandatory curriculum in the public schools and universities? -- if they had no restrictions on the purchase and sale of weapons of any sort including those that have only "military" utility like assault rifles and armor piercing rounds?  -- if they deported all "illegal aliens" and built up the "military" to patrol the border and enforce stricter controls on immigration and raised taxes accordingly balancing the budget?  --  if they "relaxed" current fourth amendment protections and increased internal surveillance, particularly on suspected minority populations like Muslims, to improve internal "security?" -- if they relaxed the requirements of the 24th amendment to the current constitution and put into place additional restrictions on "voting" rights to include various forms of "poll" tax?   Would it make Texas a more or less desirable place to live?  For whom?    

Profiles in Cowardice

Response to a Huffington Post Article of the same title by Robert Kuttner:

Although I am anything but a supporter of the trumpeter, to be fair, there are "principled" conservatives. I just happen to disagree with most of the "principles."  More disturbing, and what Kuttner dwells upon, is the "sell out" to the unprincipled candidacy of the trumpeter all in the name of "party unity" and to "stop Hillary."  One might understand the sell out were Hillary as malignant a force as the trumpeter, but she is not.  The so-called Benghazi affair is over-hyped conspiracy theory non-sense, no different in kind from the speculation that Bush engineered the 9/11 attacks.  Though I assume there are no huge revelations to come else they would have come already, the email scandal does not reflect well on her.  It likely could have been put to rest long ago were it not for an unfortunate tendency to tenaciously play out a bad hand.  Had she simply folded, pushed that pot to her opponent, and moved on to the next hand, it would continue to come up, but it would not be an "unfolding" story the way it has been.   

On the other hand, with the trumpeter, there is actual, incontrovertible evidence of an on-going malignancy that runs almost too deep for words.  The whole "business" of Trump University, for example, speaks to a tendency to "lie" blatantly for the purpose of self-aggrandizement and gain.  Even the name, Trump University, demonstrates the tendency to mislead for profit.  It is not a "university," not in any legitimate sense, and I could care less about a football team.  During my own tenure as a community college academic, colleagues at a sister institution spent five years amassing evidence sufficient to the sobriquet "university," which included expanding the range of their offerings to something approaching the universe of knowledge and improving the range and depth of a faculty actually qualified to pass on that knowledge.  It was no mean feat, and when the accreditation agency gave their approval, it was cause for celebration.   Trump University was predicated on the outset on "secret" knowledge from those in on the "secret," those faculty hand picked by the trumpeter himself, and "access" to the inner sanctum would cost you, a lot as it turns out.  Either the trumpeter lied when he claimed in advertisements to hand-pick the faculty or he lied under oath during the deposition when he denied knowing them, but one way or another he misled.   Even RedState.com has published an article titled "The Media are Letting Trump Get Away with Telling These Six Lies about Trump University."

So which is worse, which is the lesser of two evils, the email scandal or Trump University?  Both are potentially criminal, though Clinton's "criminality" hinges on technical issues that I doubt most could adequately explain.  The trumpeter's "criminality" is clearly visible to anyone who has paid more than they could afford for exaggerated claims. I doubt, however, that criminal charges will be brought in either case.  So which is worse?  It depends, I suppose, on who one wants to discredit, but there is considerable available evidence in support of the tag line that the Huff Post uses after every trumpeter story: "Donald Trump regular incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racit, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ball all Muslims -- 1.6 billion members of an entire religion -- from entering the U.S."   Hillary may be "crooked," but the trumpeter is twisted.   

Both issues, however, are red-herrings.  I believe we are witness in this election to the disintegration or re-alignment of the two party system that we have had now for about a half century.  The names will stay the same, Republican/Democrat, but the alignments that have made both parties "electable" on the national stage are coming apart into balkanized, irreconcilable "attitudes."  It's worse on the red side, so let me begin there.  In previous posts, I have suggested that the republican party has been comprised of three rather distinct strains -- the economic conservatives who favor "enhancements" of the existing status quo which clearly favor the already rich, the evangelical conservatives who favor hitting the resent button and reinstating the social mores of the 50s, and the neo-nationalists who favor a well armed militia in order to meet the threat of the alien other. The three strains overlap some and many are two out of three so to speak -- the disparagement of gays and the transgender appeal to both the evangelical and the neo-nationalist -- but the clear outlier is the economic conservative.  They need a broader base because few would vote for an economic policy that, if honestly described, would further enrich the already rich, entrench those riches across generations, and diminish any real opportunities for the upward mobility of the masses, including the working class whites.  

I will come back to the economic conservatives in a moment, but just a quick sketch of the neo-nationalist strain.  As his signature legacy of Lyndon Johnson, a democrat, signed the Voting Rights Act of of '64 and the Civil Rights Act of '65 and more or less ended Jim Crow, the de jure segregation that had been in place since reconstruction.   As with any action, there is a reaction, and many within the republican party, particularly Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon, saw it as an opportunity and began working within the disaffected to attract white conservative voters to the republican party.   As his campaign strategist, Kevin Phillips famously put it:

From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that.  The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats.

The so-called southern strategy, over the ensuing two decades, effectively flipped the racial alignments of the two parties.  The democrats, who put in place most of the Jim Crow laws during reconstruction, was now the party dismantling that same segregationist system.  Barry Goldwater, the most prominent of the hard core conservatives, began campaigning, not only on a strong states rights platform in opposition to the strong federal intervention of the voting and civil rights acts both of which interfered in the rights of private persons to discriminate and segregate within their place of business. This has its late echo, of course, in the Religious Freedom laws currently being passed throughout the south, laws repudiated by corporate America because they must operate in states and countries less favorable to such overt legal discrimination, but the Goldwater and later the Nixon campaigns marked the beginning of the so-called "dog whistle" style of republican politics.  Again, as Lee Atwater famously put it:

You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."

The issue of "cutting taxes," for example, might be supported on abstract economic considerations, but the cuts were justified, in part, by proportionate cut backs on "food stamps" and other programs that were believed to benefit the black urban voter at the expense of the white suburban and rural voter.  Such cut backs would, in effect, re-instate old patterns of of white privilege and economic segregation, but the real purpose was to create investment capital and the jobs that followed. The issue of "federal overreach," as another example, might be supported on abstract philosophic considerations, but scaling back federal interventions like "affirmative action" and "equal employment opportunity" meant, in effect, re-instating old patterns of white privilege and economic segregation.  The "purpose" of conservative positions was not overtly segregationist, was not overtly oppressive of minority populations, per se, but the "byproduct" is that "blacks get hurt worse than whites." For those that heard the dog-whistle that was just fine.  

The trumpeter, of course, is smart enough to avoid "nigger, nigger, nigger," but he has tooted overtly at Mexicans and Muslims, job thieves and terrorists.  Whether the trumpeter is or is not actually racist, one might never know, but he has earned points with the racist crowd for NOT engaging in dog-whistle politics, aka "political correctness," for just saying what they had been thinking all along.  Much of the conservative reaction to his more overtly racist and xenophobic language is a reaction to his self-serving failure to play the established "game."   One should find the right pitch, so to speak.  Blow the dog whistle loud enough to be heard, but not so loudly as to be condemned as a racist, because, after all, the "purpose" of cutting taxes, particularly on the wealthy, has really nothing to do with race, more to do with the consolidation, protection, and heritability of wealth.  The "purpose" of scaling back federal interventions, particularly in the arena of finance and environment, has really nothing to do with "states rights" or race, more to do with the unfettered expansion of wealth.  One blew the dog-whistle loudly enough to keep blood hounds and pit bulls barking in the fold, but not so loudly that it drew attention to itself for the wrong reasons.  The dog-whistle, in short, called in the basest part of the new conservative base and fed them  racially motivated by-products.  

As a primary strategy, the trumpeter succeeded in stripping away the neo-nationalist conservatives, those who responded to "dog whistle."   If he is to create party unity, he must bring the "economic conservatives" into the fold.  There are "principled" conservatives, who cannot bring themselves to support the trumpeter and his overtly, text-book definition, racist language and positioning. I would encourage readers of the HuffPost to read the post "David French Annouces his Final Decision on his Presidential Run" at www.redstate.com. They quote him as saying:

we live in a time when patriots are mocked and demagogues celebrated. Even good men have reduced themselves to excusing the inexcusable and defending the indefensible. Last week, Reince Priebus said that those involved in the independent effort were “embarrassing themselves.” But what is more embarrassing? Is it doing your best to defend the nation you love from two people who are unworthy of its highest office? Or is it using your God-given gifts and talents to advance the interests of a man who cares only for himself and who rejects the very values you’ve long claimed to uphold? As I’ve written many times before, nations are built on virtue — and courage is indispensable. But there is also prudence, and it was simply not prudent for me to take on this task. I remain against Trump and against Hillary, but I will do all I can where I am.
 
Prudence, of course, can be interpreted as a form of cowardice.  Although he promises to do "all I can where I am," that seems to be a pious, Pontius Pilate washing and wringing of the hands.  One is reminded of aphorism, "all it takes for evil to prosper is for good men to do nothing," and it seems French will be doing next to nothing. There are many economic conservatives who perhaps are betting that the billionaire trumpeter is closeted, is really "one of them" and will come out of the closet when elected and support the republican economic platform -- a platform focused, for example, on cutting those taxes supporting social welfare programs, in part because there may well be a sincere belief in the moral benefits of "work," in part because we most definitely WOULDN'T want to cut the larger expenditures on the military or scale back on our presence abroad.  Why?  In a multi-national, global economy, buttressed by "trade deals," the US military serves as a global police force maintaining sufficient stability to insure the protection of wealth.  In the pre-Reagan era, that meant containing communism and protecting European markets.  In the post-Reagan era, that meant containing regional tribalism (particularly the religious varieties found in the middle east that, until recently, threatened global oil supplies) and the re-alignment of the labor market away from the union dominated US toward China, Mexico, Vietnam, et cetera.  Over simplified, but Chomskian paranoia aside, our policies have always been, on the face of it, America First, if America is General Electric.  The trumpeter, however, has already called into question the intricate web of alliances, to include non-proliferation treaties, that facilitate the US in its role as the global police force.  What to do but hope that he didn't mean it?  

The southern strategy, however, was a faustian bargain.  Once you call the blood hounds and pit bulls to your assistance because you need their votes, it is difficult to "un-call" them, and they may chase you up a tree. The trumpeter has aligned himself with and stripped away the neo-nationalist strain of the republican base, who actually believe we should engage in some form of racial and ethnic cleansing, who actually believe we should "build a wall" and arm ourselves to protect it, but in doing so, he has chased the economic conservatives, the principled conservatives, who have a broad interest in global relations and do not share in his expressed xenophobia, who have a broad interest in their class issues and do not share in his expressed racism, up a tree.  It is an embarrassing and uncomfortable position, particularly when it is, ostensibly, a member of your own party that has chased you up a tree. What to do?  

Free Speech and the Trumpeter for Violence

Lora and I had dinner the other night with the family of a patient.  The patient had had alzheimer's disease and her husband had provided her care for well over a decade.  Lora helped him through the final stages of her disease.  As a consequence, he saw a side of her that other's rarely get to see, her compassion, her care, her tolerance.  He called her his angel.  Unfortunately, though, the dinner did not go well.  There was another couple there, who have lived in the rural bubble their entire lives and represented well the sort of stereotypical thinking one associates with the poorly educated, rural westerner.  Someone mentioned the current controversy over gay and transgender rights that has descended into the toilet, literally, and the conversation took a turn for the worse.  Frankly, none of it surprised me.  I had heard it all before.  I was willing to do what I always do when confronted with unassailable intolerance and ignorance at this level, simply listen with "furrowed brow" as if concerned all the while thinking "what idiots."

Obama, of course, was to blame.  He was "trying to wreck" this country, and the executive order that prohibited intolerance of gay and transgender students in public schools was just one more example of his active disdain for America.  Lora later asked why he had done that, and I tried to explain that it was in response to the so-called "religious freedom" laws that allowed one to discriminate legally on the basis of "sincerely held religious convictions."  One can debate whether private citizens in the private sphere can or should discriminate against gays and transgender people, but in the public sphere, including public schools, Obama attempted to foreclose discussion through an executive order.  One can also debate whether Obama "over-reached" in his use of executive authority, but that is a matter for the courts to decide.  In the meantime, if public schools wish to receive federal funds, they cannot discriminate against gay and transgender people.

The other  replied "well, that's simple, the states should just quit sending them their tax dollars."  He clearly thought that states "funded" the federal government, but that was just a matter of emphasis.  I suppose the people and the businesses in the states do fund the federal government, and Lora thought he was saying that we should just "stop paying our taxes."  At that point, I couldn't help myself.   I had to bring something that resembled a fact into the discussion.  I pointed out that most of the states (with the possible exception of Texas) who were suing the federal government to reverse Obama's executive order were "tax negative."  In other words, they receive MORE in federal funds than they COLLECT in federal funds, so they would cut state revenues about in half.  Most of the suing states can't afford that.  Idaho, the same.  (The next morning I looked it up to make sure, and yes, Idaho receives about twice as much in federal funds than it pays into system in the form of taxes, and the majority of that money goes to people like me in the retirement system.)  They NEED federal funds to continue operating.   The conversation ended with "well, if one of those queer's comes into the bathroom with me, I'll beat the piss out of him."

The facts did take the air out of the conversation, and the threat of violence seemed "last resort," but there it was.  The facts didn't win any converts.  They just looked at me with that blank stare, which, here, probably meant "I wish I had my pistol."   The level of vituperation, the quick resort to a threat of violence, however, took Lora by surprise, in part because she had watched the same man sit for hours, holding the hand of his dying wife who could barely acknowledge him, and on the final day, she had cleaned her body so he could lie beside her and hold her "one last time."  He wasn't a bad man.  On the contrary, by every other estimation, he was a "good" man," but there's no doubt that he would have followed through with his threat to "beat the piss out of" the "queers."   Lora succeeded in changing the subject, but it was clear enough that we didn't share their world view, most of which I find just plain incomprehensible.

There really was no possibility what so ever of a real conversation, a respectful conversation, on the subject.  One can only hate Obama, along with everything he has done and everything he stands for, or one is what?  I disagreed with almost everything "Bush," and there were occasions when I thought "the consequences of such and such will be disastrous," but I never once really thought that he was deliberately, with malice aforethought, trying to "wreck" the country.  On what basis does anyone come to believe that Obama is trying to do so?  I want to blame it on something simplistic like the steady stream of vituperation that fox news spews forth, but of course it goes deeper than that.  I am not the first to recognize this phenomenon, and many have commented that we have more forms of communication available to us today than ever before. and we use them abysmally.  Within seconds, I can bring forth Sascha Lobo's column in Der Spiegel, and read "anlass, reaktion, eskalation: Der politische Discurs ist unertraglich vorsherbar geworden.  Das ist ein  Geschenk fur recite Hetzer." Roughly translated, it reads, "initiation, reaction, escalation: the political discourse is becoming unbearably predictable. That is a gift for the right stalker."   In the article, he references Trump, who he suggests we should watch, but already the watching is becoming a burden in its predictability.

Here's how he sees it working.  First, we have the "anlass" or initiation.  Someone, often an extremist, lets loose with an intentionally provocative statement.  Often this occurs within the hinterland of social media, but now we have a well-known figure, running for the presidency of the United States making such statements -- build the wall, (temporarily) ban muslims, kill the queers, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseum.  In the hinter lands of social media, or in the local biker bar, it is easily dismissed as "thoughtless" or "ignorant" speech, but how should we take it?  At some level, it doesn't matter how you take it.  If you dismiss it, and assume it will not get traction, then one has lost "a teachable moment," the ability to elevate the level of discourse and correct the ignorance.  If you do take it seriously, however, and adumbrate the costs and consequences of such an act, one looks as foolish as the high school nerd who fails to "get" a dubious sexual double entendre and goes on to explain why gravitational forces make it impossible to "enter the black hole."  There is text and sub-text, and it's sub-text that resonates, the attitudinal world view that sent out the dubious double entendre in the first place.  At the textual level, the trumpeter makes no sense at all, but he plucks the base string and lets it buzz.

Second, comes the initial report.  In the hinterlands of social media, or in the local red-neck bar, the provocateur is likely speaking within the bubble to their friends, others who respond to the same base frequency.  You don't friend those who might "think otherwise," and you certainly don't share a beer with them, but social media does have the effect of putting air into the balloon -- the friends of friends of friends, none of whom you've ever met face-to-face, but who share your "feed."  With the trumpeter, however, it is impossible to ignore.  He is a presidential candidate, after all, and the comments are so vituperative, so provocative, so unlike-any-candidate before, that one could feel their glee in bringing it forward.   For the most part, the liberal media initially positioned themselves as the local nerd, offering the American public a teachable moment. The conservative press, dominated by conservative economic interests, tried to divert attention to more acceptable candidates, those who would not go out of their way to build walls both physical and fiscal and impede the global flow of capital.  Both missed the point.  There is text and sub-text, and it's sub-text that resonates.  Not unlike the nerd explaining "black holes," or the retired academic explaining tax policy to someone who might as well have been a high school drop out, the joke really was on the media.  They failed to hear the base buzz of the sub-text.

Third, comes the escalation.  As Lobo put it,  again roughly translated, "the interested public sets the prevailing interpretation, as well as the outrage level in social media." If you doubt this, just pull up the latest story or commentary on the trumpeter in the Post or the Times and read the commentary.  It is likely mild compared to what circulates "privately" on more personal social media "feeds," but the divides are clear and predictable enough.  Within the conservative party, I had always thought there were basically three (somewhat incompatible) strains: the global economic strain that supports lower taxes on corporations and the so-called one percent, the evangelical strain that supports an incipient theocracy for the legislation of biblically based social law, and finally the miscellaneous republicans.  The miscellaneous, I thought, were single issue folks who yada-yada-yada the core republican talking points, but who passionately support, for example, their gun rights.  I was wrong, and the trumpeter has revealed my error.  The third strain in the republican party is not so much neo-nazism, per se, but a hyperbolic neo-nationalism fueled in part by failing economic circumstances of the under-educated white, in part by the displacements of a changing minority to majority/majority to minority demography, in part by a pace of (mostly incomprehensible) social change that allows little time for assimilation.  They're being left out and behind, and they'll be damned.

I won't follow through on all of Lobos steps, but from here there is a sort of escalation that comes when groups begin reacting to one another, each trying to outdo the other.  The first and second strains within the conservative party have been more or less normalized within our political discourse.  At the moment, I am mostly concerned with understanding the third strain, in part because such thinking almost always escalates beyond words, even violent words, to actual violence.  It now seems like ancient history, but it seems clear enough to me that the trumpeter "started it."  The protesters entered his rallies peacefully enough, and violence was tacitly encouraged against them as protestors, as haters.  This included a female reporter, who was man-handled, literally, by the trumpeter's campaign manager when she attempted an escape from the media containment area.

The liberal media, predictably, was outraged and equally quick to point out not only his encouragement of violence, but it's racist and xenophobic sub-texts.  When the protests outside the rallies became incipiently violent, when the protesters began meeting the incitement to violence on the trumpeter's part with a reciprocal violence, the liberal media -- I'm thinking of Bill Maher -- did warn against the escalation of violence in "free speech" terms.  He suggested, as I have suggested, and as others have suggested, predictably, that "free speech" is contingent upon a "duty to tolerate."  If I want to freely express myself, I must tolerate those others who express sentiments and ideas that I find repugnant, just as those on the other side must tolerate my sentiments and ideas.  If either party "fails" in their "duty to tolerate," then free speech collapses.  

The protests outside the rallies have now become actually violent and you have Post stories like "ugly bloody scenes in San Jose as protestors attack trump supporters outside rally."   As the Post goes on to report, "the incidents were the latest in a series of increasingly violent altercations between protesters, Trump supporters and police at the presumptive Republican nominee's campaign events.  A week ago, it was Albuquerque descend into chaos as the city was shaken by raucous riots and arrests outside a Trump rally.  A month earlier is was Cost Mesa California.  Thursday was San Jose's turn to take center stage in what is quickly becoming a traveling fiasco."  As one might imagine, there is plenty of video.  In one case, a trump supporter is surrounded by protestors.  A few of the protesters, mostly female, are attempting to "protect" him, getting between him and those attempting to get at him.  There is much incomprehensible shouting.

I don't want to over-state the case, but there is little cause for optimism in our current malaise.  It was, perhaps, astonishing how easily the trumpeter, as a candidate for our highest office, was able to demonize and dehumanize other human beings.  There was no remorse.  Indeed, he seems to be doubling down on his characterizations, demonizing and demeaning a governor and a judge for their hispanic heritage, in the first case because she was reluctant to support his candidacy and in the second case because he is hearing a class action suit against the candidate.  The videos are there for all to see.  It was, however, utterly predictable that his characterizations would elicit protest, particularly within an open society, and so there were protests, initially peaceful, but then it was astonishing how casually and cynically the trumpeter issued an unveiled call for violence against those who protested -- how casually and cynically he gave his tacit approval to those who rose to the call.  The infamous video of the protester being sucker punched circulated to millions of viewers, and the trumpeter's smug shoulder shrug of a response.

Beyond the few who might have known either the protester or the puncher, it was simply emblematic of  the man and his followers.  For those sympathetic, as one commenter put it, "the establishment is just jealous of the enthusiastic mods that Trump attracts.  It takes leadership to incite a mob.  That is what this country needs -- a leader" followed by eight exclamation points.  For those antipathetic, it was a call for indignation and outrage, and for some, it was a call, as the trumpeter himself would put it, to "counter punch.:  It is utterly predictable that some would rise to the call, and from there it escalates, all to be captured, once again, on video.  It probably doesn't help much that the supporter is white, the protesters hispanic.  Of course, as the Post goes on to point out, "many of the protesters were peaceful.  Some waved Mexican flags in a apparent response to Trump calling Mexican immigrants 'rapists.'"  Violent protest will always over-shadow peaceful protest, and in terms of symbolic verities, waving the Mexican flag  and shouting obscenities simply adds credence to the trumpeter's narrative that American is being over-run by alien others intent on violence and rape.

It is utterly predictable that the great leader, the one who has incited a mob, suddenly becomes the victim.  He can claim, as another of his sympathizers put it, "Trump is the victim here.  Trump is the one whose 1st amendment rights have been denied by violent protesters.  Therefore Trump and each of his supporters who were denied an open exchange of views are the victims."  It probably doesn't help much either that "the ugly scenes of violence toward trump supporters Thursday appeared to be the inverse of similar incidents earlier in the campaign in which trump protesters, not supporters, were targeted." The defense of "he started it" is a playground defense, not the defense of an adult, and the trumpeter's supporters DO have a point when, as the Post put it, "blame for the attacks circulated almost as rapidly as images of the violence, with Trump supporters accusing democrats and members of the media of having a double standard."

Calmer heads could prevail, but predictably they don't.  As another commenter put it, "I can't wait for Hitlery [sic] to come to my town.  This use of violence cuts both ways you f'n progNazis.  We conservatives own more guns.  Better think of that next time you try to riot in a state that doesn't ban all guns as KKKalifornia does."  The level of confusion here is, perhaps, astonishing.  The centrist left paradoxically becomes the far right and a whole state is identified with the KKK?  It has been said too many times that the trumpeter actually DOES invoke white nationalist symbolism and support, but then this too is an argumentative tactic from the playground of the "me?  yeah? you too [explitive deleted]" variety.  The level of vituperation, however, is far from astonishing, and the threat of violence explicit.  It would not be surprising to see the trumpeter's supporters more prepared to meet violence with violence at future rallies.   Rational discourse is no longer possible.  Political discourse has degenerated into bellicose posturing, the irrational equivalent of gang signs, all of it amplified on what has become "anti-societal" media.  There is no longer a sense of "we the people," only me and those who like me on my side, you and those who like you on your side, and the empty battlefield between.

Calmer heads could prevail, but that would mean re-invoking the duty to tolerate.  At the risk of redundancy, free speech is contingent upon a duty to tolerate.  If I want to freely express myself, then I must tolerate those others who express sentiments and ideas that I find repugnant.  Those on the other side must tolerate my sentiments and ideas.  As one commenter put it, "the fact that people ... don't agree with you ... doesn't mean that they're taking your rights away.  Protesters have a right [to] express their opposition to Trump.  The only times free speech is being denied is when the police or the Secret Service get involved in attempts to deny people the right to protest."   If either party "fails" in their "duty to tolerate," then free speech inevitably collapses.

Violence is always the ultimate "fail," not simply because the perpetrators are no longer engaged in discourse of any sort, but because, within any civil society armed with coercive power, will react to protect itself, to "pacify" the crowd.  It probably doesn't help that the police are called in, not against the "leader" who "incites" the mob, but against the agitated mob itself and the agitated mob responds in kind against the police.  As the Post characterized it, "the situation escalated when a protester smashed the back window of a police cruiser.  Soon after, someone jumped onto the vehicle and aggressively stomped on the top.  Others began to jostle the car back and forth as people in the crowd egged on the action."  Violence justifies further violence to quell the violence.  As another commentator put it, "typical Mexican trash behavior.  They have been given the wrong impression by Barack that they can come here to our country, illegally of course, fresh out of ignorant school and show that Mexicans are stupid, at least these Mexicans are stupid.  The tide will turn and when it does, it will turn hard, fast, brutal and quick. "

If the trumpeter has accomplished anything, he has accomplished this: he has revealed how deep, how intractable, and how intolerant we have become of one another.  I could point out, of course, that there probably is no more "typical Mexican trash behavior" than there is "white trash behavior."   I could point out that Mexicans probably share with whites the same spectrum of mental capacity, running from the imbecilic to the brilliant with most somewhere in the middle.  I could point out that "deportations of illegal immigrants" is fraught with record keeping challenges, but that the left is rather chagrined at Obama's record as well, not because he deported too few, but because he deported too many, over 2 million, more than in Bush's entire tenure.  I could point out ... but why bother?  It wouldn't help.  The "Mexican" is now in scare quotes, and the violent protests now justify further violence against the "Mexicans" to quell the violence.  As the same commenter put it, "peace once again will be restored or we will be in a civil war with the government and their cockroaches."  The implication, in context, is that the trumpeter will restore the peace.  It is an irony that the great leader, the one who incites the mob to violence, is now seen as the potential savior, the one who will restore peace he disrupted with "hard, fast, brutal and quick" action against the alien other in our midst, the Mexicans, the Muslims, the queers, the transgender, and lest we forget, the blacks, none of whose lives will matter.  It is an irony upon ironies that anything less is a call for further violence, for outright civil war against the government.  One might ask, if Clinton is elected, can someone of this sort shrug and say, "well, I guess the American people have spoken.  Hooray for free speech!?"  Or will he continue his war against the democratic government -- democratic in both the small sense of party affiliation and in the larger sense that demands of us a "duty of toleration?"

    

     

Liars, damn liars, and the possibility of truth

Not too long ago, I responded to a article in (I think) the Huffington Post.  In my response, I wrote:

The good doctor writing this article assumes that political discourse is (or even can be) rational discourse. Don't misunderstand me. It is probably a good thing that the doctor makes this mistake. Rational discourse begins with an assumption or hypothesis that can be supported or falsfied by verifiable evidence. Falsification is by far the most important. If the evidence does not support an assumption or hypothesis, that same assumption or hypothesis must be modified or in extreme cases abandoned. Rational discourse searches for truth, and it's probably a good thing that our medical practices are based on a search for truth. Political discourse too begins with an assumption or hypothesis, but unlike rational discourse, it cannot ALLOW itself to be falsified. Evidence that would falsify the claim MUST be dismissed or suppressed. Political discourse searches for advantage and power, not truth, and so it shouldn't surprise anyone that evidence is distorted, ignored, or suppressed -- Clinton's email, Trump's taxes.

The latter, however, takes political discourse to a new extreme, and the very sad thing is this: his supporters don't seem to care and don't seem to see the danger in it. Democracy depends upon an infusion of rational discourse as a check and balance on poltical discourse. The press, even a biased press, has traditionally served in this role -- fact checking the opposition so to speak -- and HuffPost does a reasonably good job of it. Hence this article. Trump, however, has been called out time and again, and again, and again, ad nauseum. I frankly do not feel his appeal, but he clearly enough appeals to enough of the American populace that he is where he is and he is clearly enough immune to fact checking. He is a super bug and the antibiotics are no longer working. He may well be elected, but his tweet storms have shown him, despite his immunity, to be adverse to pressure and criticism, almost pathologically so for a politician in a decmocracy, who really should expect as much. He has attacked critics and reporters, threatened new libel laws for the press, et cetera, and so he has clearly enough demonstrated the thin-skinned willingness to take the first step of every potentially dictatorial demagogue once in power, crack down on and elminate the free press. The second, third, and fourth steps should be clear enough, but what would it mean to a free society to vest CEO like power in the president, which his followers seem more than willing to do?

The precise nature of the article didn't much matter.  The same applies to discussions of climate change, the Zika virus, just about anything where one more or less expects those in power to make informed, data driven decisions for the good of the people as a whole, but what one gets is continued political discourse, the real motivations for which are often obscure and vigorously denied when they are held up to the light of day.

Within our day to day lives, we abjure "lying," not categorically, but "selectively."  We do differentiate between those "lies" which are primarily designed to protect others from a "truth" that might be injurious to them, and those "lies" which are primarily designed to protect our own interests.   Consider, for example, the moral dilemma of a person who has had an affair.  The person is confessing the affair to a friend, asking "should I or should I not tell my spouse."  The answer often hinges on whether the person intends to continue or has discontinued the affair.  If the former, the "moral" answer becomes "yes, you should tell."  Hiding the information would protect the spouse from emotional trauma, but the primary motivation is clearly enough to protect one's own interests.  If the latter, the "moral" answer becomes "no, what good would it do to tell?"  Revealing the affair might, perhaps, release one from the obligation to keep a secret, but it would cause emotional trauma that has now become unnecessary.   

I give this example merely to illustrate that the sorts of categorical biblical injunctions against lying -- e.g. thou shalt not lie -- are parsed within our day to day lives.  I give it also as a way of illustrating a difference between rational discourse and political discourse.   Let me take just one example, climate change.  Rational discourse would search for the "truth of the matter."  There are more or less supportable answers to the principle questions:  "Is human activity contributing to climate change?" and the follow on, "if yes, what then is the best course of action?"  The process of arriving at an answer can, of course, be "adversarial," not unlike a jury trial, where competing points of view present evidence, which is in turn deliberated and a provisional "truth" determined.  I say "provisional," of course, because additional evidence might well over-turn an original determination -- e.g. the use of DNA to demonstrate the innocence of the falsely convicted.  The process of arriving at a scientific proof is likewise "adversarial."  Competing theories are tested against the evidence, which is in turn "juried" or "peer reviewed" and a provisional theory determined.  Again, I say provisional because additional evidence might well cause reconsideration and modification of an existing theory.   At the moment, the jury has returned on the first question, and the answer is "yes, guilty, human activity is contributing to climate change."  New evidence might relieve us of our responsibility, but at the moment new evidence seems to all point toward the answer "yes, guilty, human activity is contributing to climate change."  

We could apply the standards of rational discourse to the answer to the follow on question, "what is the best course of action?"  In answering this question, however, we are confronted right up front with a particularly onerous difficulty in the form of definitional and value questions -- e.g. "what counts as best?" and/or "best for whom?"  There is no avoiding these questions.  To suggest, at one extreme, that we do nothing, that we continue on the present course, assumes that it is better to preserve the economic status quo, for the current generation, and leave future generations to their own devices.  To suggest, at the other extreme, that we do everything, that we ban all green house gas production, assumes that it is better to preserve the current ecological status quo, for the benefit of future generations, and disrupt the lives of the current generation.  The two answers, it would seem, are mutually exclusive.  Preserving the economic status quo will destroy the ecological status quo.  Conversely, preserving the ecological status quo will destroy the economic status quo.  Were I discussing this in class, one student would inevitably make a pseudo hegelian point that "surely there is a course of action that preserves BOTH the economic and ecologic status quo," but that does not seem to be possible insofar as the current economic status quo is heavily dependent upon fossil fuel production and consumption.  The two extremes represent mutually exclusive and competing values, but a decision between the values must be reached before any course of action or inaction can be taken.  It is this decision that throws us into the realm of political discourse.  

Before I go on, however, the discussion in the previous paragraph assumes that all "agree" on the provisional verdict, "yes, guilty, human activity is contributing to climate change."  The evidence continues to mount in its favor.  One could, however, simply step outside the realm of rational discourse entirely and throw out the verdict itself.  One way of doing this is to discredit rational discourse itself.  The verdicts of rational discourse are always adversarial, always provisional, always subject to falsification by additional evidence (and there is always SOME evidence that points in another direction).  Consequently, we can discount the whole enterprise of arriving at a verdict because it has not delivered unassailable truth, and go on with our lives.  There are, however, difficulties with discrediting and rejecting rational discourse itself, not least that such rejections are always very selective.  We ACCEPT the results of rational discourse when it cures our cancer, REJECT it when it requires us to give up our SUV.  It seems at best an ironic hypocrisy, at worst a self-motivated lie -- that is, they actually believe in the validity of the verdict, but it is in their interests to pretend otherwise and convince others of their pretense.  

Basically, this is the stance of the republican party today, and it is morally indefensible.  When confronted with hypocrisy, the "moral" response is to resolve the disparity.  One cannot accept the results of rational discourse in one domain, reject it in another, just because the mounting evidence for a position proves inconvenient.  One cannot subsist in a known hypocrisy without engaging in a morally indefensible lie -- a lie designed, not to protect others, but to benefit oneself at the expense of others.   Along the same line, in rejecting the results of rational discourse in just this particular domain, they are in effect making a value decision.   They are, in effect, answering the question, "what is the best course of action?" with "do nothing."  If we were to ask the follow on value questions, "best for whom?" the answer seems to be the conservation of the power and economic structures implicit in the current status quo. This too is morally indefensible.  If we "know" that a particular course of action is likely to have catastrophic effects on the next generation, then it would seem, within the normal course of human morality, to be indefensible.  We must "do something," even if the something is compromised or incremental, and there are plenty of compromised or incremental steps that can be taken between the to extremes of "do nothing" and "do everything."  The republican party, however, cannot "so something" without, to one degree or another, disrupting the power and economic structures of the current status quo, and those who benefit most directly from the current status quo are likely to object and the objections throw us into the realm of political discourse.  

Within political discourse, truth does not count as the final arbiter.  Consequently, neither revelation of hypocrisy or the revelation of more blatant, morally indefensible lies count for much.   What does count is "persuasion."  Plato would have banned the sophists from his republic because the sophists were concerned solely with persuasion, with "rhetoric" understood as Aristotle understood as "the best available means of persuasion." Of course, the "truth" can be persuasive, and for some only the "truth" is ultimately persuasive.  I would like to count myself a member of that party, but I alone can't be the final arbiter of my allegiance to "truth."  If I alone could be the final arbiter of "truth," then we must accept a solipsistic and morally relativistic universe -- one, that is, where "truth" for me may not be "truth" for you, and there is no point of arbitration outside of me or you to determine which of us holds a better, more defensible "truth."  If we cannot accept a solipsistic and morally relativistic universe, if there are standards of right and wrong that transcend my own or another's particular set of beliefs, then we must accept a point of arbitration outside of me or you to determine which of us holds a better, more defensible "truth."  There are a number of ways that we can create a "point of arbitration," and I will talk about a couple.  Here, let me just say here that political discourse, at fundament, accepts a solipsistic and morally relativistic universe -- one where there is no "point of arbitration," where there is no real possibility of "truth," where persuasion in the form of "branding" is the only means available to bridge the differences between thee and me.  

It is interesting to see the Washington Post headline that reads, "Donald Trump's dangerous, nonsensical energy plan."   The Post assumes that one would want to "make sense," but that also assumes that we are engaging in rational discourse, but Trump has simply set aside rational discourse.  There are, perhaps, two "points of arbitration" for rational discourse that have had world significance.   The first, and most enduring, but least relevant to climate and energy, is religion.  If one accepts the premise that religious revelation provides a standard against which to judge truth or falsity, then one has a point of arbitration that transcends the solipsistic.  The early rejection of Trump by religious conservatives, including the likes of Ted Cruz, and Mitt Romney, is telling.  Although he gives lip service to christianity, there is little in his past or his present behavior that would suggest a traditional christian orientation, quite the opposite.  His peccadilloes with women would likely make Bill Clinton blush, or envious, and he certainly does not demonstrate christian humility at all.  He has never, to the best of my knowledge, given god credit for his good fortune.  He has, rather, taken it all upon himself.   

The second, and more recent, and most relevant to climate and energy, is science.  If one accepts the premise that experiment and factual observation provide a standard against which to judge truth or falsity, then one has a point of arbitration that transcends the solipsistic.   Here's what Trump said about wind energy: "wind is very expensive.  I mean, wind, without subsidy, wind doesn't work.  You need massive subsidies for wind.  There are places maybe for wind.  But if you go to various places in California, wind is killing all of the eagles."  The Post, again, assumes that Trump would want to "make sense," or at least his auditors would want him to "make sense" against observable, verifiable facts.  They write in response, "wind power, including U.S, subsidies, became the cheapest electricity in the US for the first time last year, according to BNEF," Bloomberg reported last fall.  "Solar power is a bit further behind, but the costs are dropping rapidly, especially those associated with financing a new project."  Also, about those eagles, "it's true; turbines are often situated in places with good wind currents, which birds also like to use.  The Audubon Society estimates that between 140,000 and 328,000 birds die each year from turbines.  Some of them are eagles -- but not hundreds.  One assessment published in 2013 counted 85 dead eagles over a span of 15 years." Although again he gives some lip service to the "facts," but there is little in his rambling that would suggest a fact based orientation on the world, quite the opposite.  He has mastered "assertion without evidence."  

Trump, however, is not about "making sense."  Trump has thoroughly internalized the solipsistic and morally relativistic universe.   Trump has, in effect, transcended rational discourse -- that is to say, traditional concerns with parsing the truth or falsity of a claim, and the moral implications that hinge upon telling the truth.  His statements are neither true nor false, and consequently, they are not so much moral or immoral, because that implies a standard of truth that could provide a point of arbitration whether the particulars of his statements are self or other serving.  Ultimately, the Post article concedes this point.  Trump claims, "despite that" -- the demise of eagles -- he is "into all types of energy," but he is "into all types of energy" so he can universalize his "brand."  He is for fracking and solar, coal and wind, and against nothing.  No doubt he is also for clean water and air, though there's mounting evidence that one cannot be for fracking and for clean water at the same time (not to mention the earthquakes) -- that one cannot be for coal and clean air at the same time.  The mounting evidence, however, means nothing, because Trump is engaged solely in selling a brand.  He has mounted a hostile take-over of one brand, the "republican," and is now selling a transcendent brand, "Trump." 

Let me end with an anecdote.  I am a Cubs fan.  Although I lived for a number of years in the Chicago metro area, there is no rational basis for being a Cubs fan.  I could have as easily been a Sox fan.  One cannot, however, be both a Cubs and Sox fan.  When the two teams play their inter-league series, one finds oneself rooting for one over the other, despite any rational peregrinations around team stats, and for me that has been the Cubs, perhaps because they are the perennial underdog, the perennial "wait until next year" team, and perhaps because they are in the right league, the national league.  Most, however, want to back a winner.  The fan base for most teams expands if they are winning, contracts if they are losing.  The brand Trump is selling is not unlike the brand of a sports team.  There is no rational basis for being a Trump fan.  He is, however, positioning himself to be the "home town team."  His blather about a wall and a muslim ban, for example, are all about "america first."  Having brown skin or wearing a hijab is not unlike wearing a Sox jersey to a Cubs game, and if you don't think it matters, try it out sometime.  His discourse has all the gravitas of "trash talk."  His followers are not choosing one rational platform over another, they are choosing a "sports team," and right now Trump is presenting the best and most entertaining team.  He is a (mostly self-professed) winner.  His fan base has expanded as he has won, and even if you were opposed to him in the play offs, well, he's in the republican league.  Now that it's coming down to the world series, better to root for the republican league team even if they are the Mets. 

The difference, of course, is this: when the Cubs win the world series this year (yes, hope springs eternal) they will all go home, they will watch football and basket ball, and wait for the next year's spring training to do it all over again.  When the donald wins, he will actually have to govern.  When he comes to a fork in the road, he cannot, Yogi Berra style, just take it, he will need to turn to the north or to the south.  He will need to make actual decisions, and those decisions will have real consequences beyond bragging rights in the bars surrounding Wrigley.  If the decisions are "bad," he cannot simply declare bankruptcy and close down the United States ala Trump University.  If the decisions are damaging to a wide range of people, as they were for the people who signed up at Trump University, and there is a  "class action" suit, how will he respond?  With derogatory tweets to the American people?  Probably, but will a demagogic ego like Trump's allow himself failure, or will he project blame on his "haters" as he did on the judge hearing the Trump University case?  To what extent will he restrain himself in his retaliation?  The first step will be to shut down the "haters," the second step will be ... and that is how democracy in the US ends.