Revelry in Red

"And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all." 

The final line of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death" seems appropriate as my wall clock inches towards midnight. As people grasp at revelry during the closing hour of 2020, they seek to keep the costs/benefits of their actions out of sight and out of mind. We have seen a year with lurid and grotesque consequences of the simplest, most human actions. Those consequences have not been much ameliorated by the limited application of vaccines. I'm sure this evening will feature many superspreader events, some featuring the newer, more transmissible incarnation of the virus. Deaths will inevitably follow.

Poe's story resonates with tonight's attempts to normalize life. The masquerade ball in Poe's story could very well be taking place New Year's Eve in America, 2020. And Prince Prospero makes a fine pseudonym for the man who has been shepherding the stock market as death tolls reached unconscionable heights.

I am reminded of the pure absurdity of human celebration under these conditions by both Poe's story and the gag gift on my desk. It's a clock with a faceplate filled by an image of Donald Trump, and I am 25 minutes from hearing it chime "Make America Great Again" as midnight arrives.

Bob Dietz

December 31, 2020

The Sanity Test of 2020

"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."  Marcus Aurelius (121-180)

Is awareness of one's insanity evidence for sanity? Or does that indicate the insanity is beyond volition and therefore worse? What can a culture do when volitional insanity is a growing trend? Lock 'em up? Or request that the insane stand back and stand by?

The insanity had been simmering for years, of course. It took a special kind of American leadership to turn the dial up a few notches to the proverbial full boil. Was President Trump always merely a carny barker lacking any kind of decency, empathy, or strategy beyond making a few bucks? Or was he the empathetic spear point for a new depressed and abused minority, the white American Christian male? Was he the harbinger of a white Christian male Second Coming? Despite the fact that the First Coming had never ended?

It's been 50 days since the November 3 election in which Donald Trump took an electoral beating by the same tally he had dubbed "a landslide" in 2016. The popular vote deficit for Mr. Trump was roughly eight million. That is not a close election by American (or any other) standards.

And yet, here we are, 50 days later, and somewhere between 70% and 80% of polled Republicans report that they believe Trump won the election. They report believing that the election was stolen through various and sundry nefarious means. The evidence brought to bear to support this in 60 lawsuits over the last seven weeks has been nil. Nada. Zilch.

That 70% to 80% of Republicans self-identify as rigged-election conspiracists seems to indicate that irrationalism is spreading in the GOP at an even faster pace now that the virus-deniers have been backed into their anti-science corner by 3000 covid deaths a day. In March, an NPR poll had revealed that roughly 40% of Republicans considered the virus a serious threat while 54% said the public was overreacting. As reported by Business Insider in May, roughly 45% of the GOP believed that a COVID-19 vaccine was an excuse for Bill Gates to microchip people. Today's mantra is "the election was rigged." I'm surprised that Bill Gates hasn't been fingered as the mastermind behind the purported rigging.

For the entirety of 2020, Americans have been faced with choices to make based on existing evidence and the slow unfolding of reality before their eyes. Those anchored in the narrative that COVID-19 was no worse than the flu have been pummeled daily by a tidal wave of irrefutable facts. Facts, however, didn't change their core positions or beliefs. We Americans have been left with the realization that literally a quarter of our populace has no place in a democratic society because they have absolved themselves of the responsibility to think critically. They have retreated to childlike hero worship and have adopted religious positions regarding secular decisions.

Over the course of 2020, not only did American ideologies bifurcate into non-overlapping belief systems, but the rules and means of processing evidence have bifurcated as well. For a large chunk of the American electorate, objective pragmatic evidence has become something beyond their inclination to recognize or process. The validity of the disparate approaches of these dichotomous camps was always going to be put to the test by outcomes in the 2020 real world. That is precisely what happened. As days passed and evidence mounted against the March/April/May proclamations of Trump and his acolytes, Trump's followers sought to put off the recognition of reality and the history of an entire year-in-the-life of America. Three hundred thousand died amidst the arc from "It's 15 and soon it will be none" to "I'm told it's going away in the summer" to "Covid, covid, covid; it'll magically disappear after the election." What magically disappeared in 2020, however, was not covid, but the ability of 50 million Americans to recognize and process real events.

Early in 2020, I realized that there could be only one outcome to all of this. Record numbers dead, a depressed, desperate population, and a religion masquerading as a political movement. Reality, not fantasy, was going to unfold. I was correct, of course. This was no test of competitive belief systems, of evidence-based hypotheses. This was science versus self-serving proclamations and a kind of state religion. The 2020 matchup was reality-based predictions versus delusional wishes. The delusions were wrong, of course, and the cost was high. 

The competing handicapping systems, science hypothesizing against magical conspiratorial thinking, was not truly much of a competition in terms of prognosticating. Michael Osterholm, of the University of Minnesota and the Biden covid team, nailed everything back in March and April. So did I, simply because I read what Osterholm and his international cohorts had to say. 

The science versus Trumpian narrative was no test of predictive power. It was a test of preference, and many Americans simply committed to what they preferred to hear. It's funny how someone like myself had moments where the Trump covid narrative had such massive support (especially here in the South), that I had to take a moment every now and then to ask, "Are they this delusional or might it be me? Am I missing something obvious?" Sadly, however, I wasn't wrong about a thing. Instead, it was this American president and his cronies running Florida and Georgia whose predictions were completely, utterly wrong and whose "strategies" were simply exercises in self-promotion.

The United States' leadership failed. And the events of 2020 pulled back the curtain on the cruel, cold realities of how American cultural myths are illusion-laden, ineffective-in-crisis, houses of cards. We've learned that people matter less than coin. And we've learned that 50 million Americans treat civic decision-making as a kind of me-first religion for children. You believe what you prefer to believe and act accordingly. The legacy of Donald Trump.

Bob Dietz

December 27, 2020

No Mystery: Trump's Behavior Explained

Warning:  This is a conspiracy theory that subsumes U.S. conspiracy theories. William of Ockham would approve.

Lying about the predicted severity of a pandemic that has left 250,000 dead Americans. Clearing protestors with tear gas for a photo op with a Bible. Lacing the White House administration with white nationalists. Welcoming Q-anon and other wild conspiracy theorists into the GOP. Telling people to rise up against Democratic governors instituting public health measures. Calling American elections rigged in advance of the elections, then refusing to acknowledge a one-sided election loss. Deciding to take no federal action as the pandemic reaches its worst stages, increasing exponentially. Trying to circumvent an American election by leveraging mid-management state officials into his corner. Inserting his loyalists into key Pentagon positions in the last 60 days of his presidency, then firing his election cybersecurity chief. Withdrawing troops against most military recommendations. 

Mainstream media asks why, as if it all isn't obvious. Doesn't Trump realize the permanent damage he has done to American institutions? Doesn't he realize how he is compromising American security, both here and abroad? Well, of course he does. That's the point. There's no real mystery to any of this. If you simply apply Ockham's Razor, all evidentiary roads lead to Rome, or in this case, Russia.

Tom Nichols, a specialist in Russian relations and author of The Death of Expertise, has already spelled it out many times. He says it gently, explaining that he has always considered Trump compromised by the Russians.

To put it more directly, the simplest explanation for Trump's behavior is that he's a Russian asset. Now some people argue, and it's true, that one doesn't need to know that one is a Russian asset to indeed be a Russian asset. That's correct, of course, but I'm not going to tap dance with the verbiage. The only logical conclusion is that Trump is a Russian asset, and he knows he's a Russian asset. 

This is Manchurian candidate stuff. Trump has managed to do maximum damage to the United States in a very short period of time. He's created racial divides at each opportunity, stepped aside as we're en route to a half million Covid-19 deaths, and has worked to compromise everything from the democratic process to military leadership to cybersecurity. 

If you'd been planning to destroy the United States and cripple its international capabilities, these are exactly the actions you would take. Trump has been executing a Putin wish list every step of the way. Yes, it's possible that this is all accidental correlation of Putin's wish list and Trump's actions, but realistically, with Ockham's Razor perspective, how likely is that?

What I don't understand is why "Trump as Russian asset" isn't getting serious airplay on every network.

Arguments Against Trump as Russian Asset

The usual pushback to the Trump as Putin lapdog frame is that not every international decision made by the U.S. has favored Russia unequivocally, especially those directly involving Russia. This argument misses two points. First, it presupposes that Putin's goal would be to make every single decision go in Russia's favor during Trump's presidency. Putin, however, would not be so baldly obvious, especially regarding near-term minutia.

Second, this argument assumes that the goal of Putin's Trump puppetry is short-term Russian gain. If, however, the actual goal is to destroy the United States long-term, not boost Russia short-term, then Trump's decisions all fall into place. To put it bluntly, if you're competing with someone for resources, stealing a few loaves accomplishes far less than injecting them with a cancer.

I think that Tom Nichols is correct. Putin's possession of Trump has come to a head with Trump's recent actions. If Vladimir Putin were the man in the Oval Office doing what Trump is doing today, Putin would  be arrested immediately for espionage. Trump will not be arrested today. Or tomorrow.

Putin has, by any measure, won. He is to be commended, as he has pulled off a stunt worthy of all Bond villains combined, and in full view of the world.

Bob Dietz

November 20, 2020

Third Party Power

I can't say that any of Trump's post-election behavior is surprising to me. He has done a bit of a Spinal Tap, taking the act to an 11, but I think that most of us who have followed him long-term expected nothing less.

People seem taken aback by the GOP enabling him, but look at the facts. Even with Trump's "deplorables" base, the GOP is a minority party in terms of demography. Then consider the very real possibility that the president is probably not averse to teaming up with far right media to create a third party, and that such a third party might conceivably outnumber "classic" Republicans. Trump could, of course, by founding such a third party, relegate the GOP to near-term powerlessness rather quickly. This Sword of Damocles third-party threat means that Trump has tremendous leverage over a corrupt, self-absorbed Republican leadership. The GOP might not love the idea that Trump wants a 2024 go at the presidency, but they simply do not have the ability to dissuade him because he owns that third-party-founding potential. He has them by the scrotum.

This third party threat has been implicit in Trump's entire run, including the 2016 primary leading up to his election. It's part of the reason that the GOP establishment has treated him with kid gloves the last four years. My personal conservative guesstimate is that Trump has the capability to siphon off at least 25% of the Republican electorate into a third party population, and he has always had this capability. The sycophantism of "normal" Republicans is therefore understandable. If they don't keep Trump in the GOP fold, they risk losing any semblance of their current power.

White Identity Politics

White nationalism is inextricably threaded through Trump's hard core base. Mainstream American media has done a good job connecting many of the dots. "The Vast Far-Right Web Behind the Hunter Biden Story," a November 3 piece by HuffPost reporter, Luke O'Brien, is a fine detailed specific exploration, while Sean Collins' July 21 piece in Vox, "Trump once flirted with white nationalism. Now it's a centerpiece of his White House" is a broader overview. 

Any new third party will undoubtedly feature, with decreasing subtlety, hard core white nationalism. Allow me, a non-political creature, to make an obvious observation. To borrow a 1970's Captain America storyline, the Fourth Reich is here. And it's American.

Nobody wants to call it what is, but if my estimate of Trump potential for siphoning off GOP voters is correct, the United States is home to somewhere around 20 million members of what could reasonably be designated The Fourth Reich. Keith Olbermann refers to these folks as Trump's Brownshirts (Braumhemden), and he's absolutely correct. They are currently firmly embedded in the GOP general electorate until such time as Trump asks them to extract themselves and recruit for his third party.

The way to recruit in 2020 is to start an online media network and then grow it into a national brand that doesn't require much in the way of advertising. Trump is more than capable of launching a state TV well beyond the content limitations of Fox. 

The Months Ahead

Right now, the GOP is being held hostage by a large but likely minority chunk of its own party. Donald Trump controls the playing field. His loss in the 2020 election with his threat of a 2024 run, in fact, fits almost perfectly into much of the Q-anon conspiracy prophecies. According to Q-anon, Trump is fated to disappear for a time, at the conclusion of which he will arise from the shadows with his allies in key military positions. They will then arrest all of the decadent pedophiles and save us from the New World Order and ourselves. 

If Trump plays along with this conspiracy mythology, we will be treated in the years ahead to a growing body of conspiracy theories and an increasingly fervent, expanding Q-anon base. Twenty million Brownshirts is not a small political movement, and it will grow.

Buckle up. As for me? I'm not concerned. I am, after all, German.

Bob Dietz

November 18, 2020

Two Words

I have just two words for a holier-than-thou, narcissistic, thinks-he's-a-genius idiot. Of course, these two words are for Dallas owner and general manager, Jerry Jones.

Colin Kaepernick

My Case for Trump

"I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, nervously clutching our crystals and consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance."  Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World  (1997).

People get the politicians they deserve.

Back in early 2016, a young independent-filmmaker friend, Dennison De Morda, met me on the ETSU campus and invited me to his apartment. He said there was something he really needed me to see. When we got to his room, he sat me down in front of one of his desktop screens and told me to watch. He then flipped on a recording of the previous night's Republican primary debate. Not being a political junkie, I hadn't seen it. In fact, I didn't know the debate had taken place. 

Transfixed and amused, I watched Donald Trump channeling his Apprentice character, demeaning the other candidates with various monikers and disapprobations. He was especially dismissive of Jeb Bush, whom he dubbed "Low Energy Jeb."

Dennison and I said nothing to each other as the recording ended. Finally he asked, "Watch it again?" I nodded yes. So we watched it over and over and over. We were each guffawing at various points, but we didn't really say anything to each other. After we'd seen Jeb Bush castigated as "Low Energy" more than half a dozen times, Dennison finally shut off the tape and asked, referring to Trump, "So, what do you think?"

I didn't hesitate. I said, "I think he's gonna win."

Dennison turned to me, "That's what I think."

What impressed us wasn't Trump's boorish behavior. I'd followed Trump my whole life, and Dennison had grown up in New Jersey in the shadow of the Taj Mahal. Trump's behavior, to us, was eminently predictable and unsurprising. What struck us was the reaction of the audience. They didn't seem put off by Trump's lack of decorum; they seemed to enjoy it. 

Dennison went on to say that he was looking forward to "living under a dictatorship." I said something about anybody voting for Trump being nuts. He'd bankrupted four different casinos, where the odds are in your favor, and that took a lot of work. To bankrupt four casinos, you really must be committed to stubborn stupidity and not learning. But, I said, as an old German white male, if anybody could survive a Trump presidency, it was probably me.

The US of A

I'm not a huge fan of the United States. Somehow the citizenry has managed to overlook genocide, slavery, and geographic protections from two world wars as contributors to America's place in the world. Instead, "the American success" is somehow attributed to a unique work ethic, genius, and moral fiber that eludes other nations. I find it all quite comical.

And let me be frank here. I'm mortal. I probably have 10 to 20 years left to me. What do I actually care if the country, or the entire world, goes to flipping hell? Plus, as a gambler I may be restrained, but I still enjoy action. Watching the United States try to cope with avoidable crisis after avoidable crisis is entertainment for me. I'm comfortable with high stress, with cognitive dissonance at every turn, with authoritarianism running wild. Most Americans won't even acknowledge how their precious  belief systems are being set against each other in a comic cavalcade. The market is supposed to value services in high demand, yet "essential workers" are now recognized as poor and at risk despite their essential-ness. Lives are allegedly sacred unless, of course, you must sacrifice some to goose the economy. I'm chuckling constantly as the GOP followers of the Nazarene reveal their twisted hypocrisy every day as they team up with the racist, porn star-lovin', grab-'em-by-the-pussy president. I mean, does anybody really believe Jesus of Nazareth would vote GOP in 2020?  Living in the U.S. right now, as an old German white male, is like hanging out in a 24/7 comedy club. Or a cabaret.

My overall point is that I enjoy the United States being exposed, via the Trump presidency, for the venal, inhumane, self absorbed narcissistic bog that it is. The San Andreas-size faults in the American self definition have never been more spotlighted. White evangelicals are really hard core racists. Well, we all knew that, but it's never been a daily feature on the 6 P.M. news. Our leaders are chosen without regard to expertise. In fact, there is no real vetting criteria other than access to cash and ability to bloviate. We all knew that, too, but the degree of incompetence has never before wiped out a quarter million (and counting) Americans. 

"The economy" doesn't give a rat's ass about most people. Hey, I certainly suspected that. I grew up in a mining county in Pennsylvania basically owned by two families, one of whom was named "Rich" (I kid you not). Roughly 85% of all stocks are owned by roughly 15% of Americans. The other 85% of people scrabble along and die in debt. Of course, when health care and educational expenses are personal, not societal, dying in debt is to be expected. 

So, in a sense, I am enjoying the United States cavorting on the world stage like a drunken cabaret dancer whose punctured implants are leaking out of her bodice. It's like watching Mike Tyson get his comeuppance at the hands of a 50-1 underdog. It's mesmerizing. For fans of underdogs, and most of the world is an underdog, it's amazing to see the United States completely muck up every aspect of a response to an existential threat.

U.S. Democracy is Fake News

The last few days, MSNC and CNN have broached the question of whether the United States is really a democracy. Well, I can lay that to rest pretty quickly. No need for deep philosophical debate or squinting at history. Let's go to the numbers.

I'm a professional sports bettor. The election odds clearly demonstrate that the United States is not a democracy. The popular vote odds have Biden as a -700 favorite. That means that you must lay $700 to win $100 if you bet Biden to win the popular vote. As far as actually winning the presidency, however, Biden is only -200. That means you must lay $200 to win $100 when it comes to the electoral college winner. 

Odds that radically different, the -700 as opposed to the -200, show two different processes in play that have very little relationship to each other. They are not even remotely similar. The democratic process, the popular vote, is a completely different mechanism than what the United States uses to appoint a president.

It's not as if there are minor differences or tweaks differentiating one from the other. The odds highlight the fact that two different things are going on. One is, by definition, democratic; it doesn't count. If the process for choosing the president is not democratic, how can you claim that you are living in a democracy? 

The Trump presidency has put a hot, bright spotlight on the undemocratic nature of the U.S. government. The electoral college is undemocratic and currently racist. You can crunch the numbers yourself to see how much a particular ethnicity's votes are actually worth. If white folks are a 1.0, all other ethnicities are less. The Senate is not a democratic institution, and it is also inherently racist. How can assigning two votes per state, regardless of population, be democratic? The Supreme Court, because it is vetted by the Senate, is also racist and regressive. 

There's really no way around the undemocratic structure of the U.S. government. A lack of democracy is baked in. As Republican Senator Mike Lee said on October 7, "Democracy isn't the objective; liberty, peace, and prosperity are." Spoken like a senator from Utah who knows he has as much voting clout as some senator from California, and who aims to keep his clout.

The Trump administration has resulted in all of this suddenly becoming evident. So, once again, Trump has made life more entertaining for me while also making obvious to everyone what I've been preaching for years.

If Trump Loses

If Trump loses, I'll go back to criticizing the moral absolutism of progressives and expressing my horror at tweens deciding what gender they should be based on what makes them "happy." Bor-ing.

That pales compared to science under siege, avoidable catastrophic death, and not being able to trust literally anything that comes out of a president's mouth. At this stage of my life (I'm 63), I'm fairly stress resistant, kind of like a cynical Bogart character who's more amused than disturbed as he watches the Trumpian stupidity unfold around him.

I don't think, however, that the stupidity will necessarily abate with a Trump loss. At least 50 million will cast a ballot for the man, and most of them will be old white guys, like me. Therefore, my pitch for Trump goes something like this. Voting him out won't end the stupidity; the 50 million who supported him are still alive and kicking. So if you're on the fence, please vote Trump for me. I have just 10 years left according to actuarial tables, and I sorely need to be entertained. 

Back in 2016, Dennison said, "I can't wait to live under a dictatorship." As an old white German dude, I like to think that I'd handle it well. So consider a vote for Trump. For entertainment's sake. 

After all, life is a cabaret, my friend. Come to the cabaret.

Bob Dietz

October 30, 2020

Articles of Note -- October 29

Here's a quick survey for some pre-election reading. These four pieces provide a range of thought-provoking subject matter. 

My first two recommendations discuss perspectives on living in America during the Trump years. Mira Kamdar's "Why I'm Glad I Left America" was featured October 14 in The Atlantic. "This Election is Going to Reveal Who America Really Is" by Umair Haque features a different kind of international vantage point. Haque's rundown of various views of America and Americans can be found in Eudaemonia on Medium.com.

For those who wonder just how many more have died in 2020 compared to normal recent years, regardless of "official" Covid-19 numbers, I recommend "US sees 20% more deaths than expected this year" by Naomi Thomas and Lauren Mascarenhas, featured October 12 on CNN.com. This column debunks much of the "overcount" nonsense promulgated by tweets from Sarah Sanders and others.

Finally, I want to point out a Washington Post piece, "New research explores authoritarian mindset of Trump's core supporters." The author is Christopher Ingraham, and it was published October 12. Those who most fear authoritarianism are often quite devoted to it. This column discusses the why.

For people who want to experience a full continuum of tones and approaches to the undemocratic mess that is the 2020 U.S. election, I give a shout out to two different shows available on YouTube. Both the David Pakman show and Keith Olbermann's are enormously entertaining with wildly different presentations. I recommend both, as it's hard to predict which contributes more to one's sanity in these trying anti-science times. 

Bob Dietz

October 29, 2020

The Price of the Power of Positive Thinking

The Reverend Norman Vincent Peale (1930-1993) influenced President Trump greatly during the president's youth. The president's family attended a church helmed by Peale. Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking espoused a worldview exercised by the president's father, Fred. Peale's Trump family spiritual advisor status has led to serious consequences in 2020.

Always identifying benefits but never acknowledging costs may work as long as one is a mega-millionaire and dad's money can cure all errors in judgement. Even then, however, problems can arise. Bankruptcies, for example, might be expected with so much focus on upsides rather than downsides. Then friction and lawsuits as sales pitches to others edit out all vestiges of the negative. Reality-based projections get buried under a veneer of positivity. Personal relationships get screened according to who provides the biggest doses of positivity and sycophantism. All interactions become components of an ego-boosting echo chamber.

In many of my hundred blog entries since the start of the pandemic, I've said that the inability to handle cognitive dissonance has been a severe problem for both the president and his supporters. Their refusal to actively recognize disconfirmation of their beliefs or to seek out such disconfirmation has brought us to our current widespread cultural irrationality. Millions of Americans accept irrationality in themselves and others as preferable to a change in attitudes or beliefs. Vice President Mike Pence, head of the Coronavirus Task Force, refuses to follow his task force's quarantining recommendations. President Trump holds large, mostly maskless rallies, risking the creation of more super spreader events. As logical reasons to support the GOP's Covid-19 response erode away, millions of Trump supporters retreat to conspiratorial nonsense so as to preserve their irrational world views.

Journalists as Enemies

Trump not only expects those in his orbit to adhere to his constant positivity requirements, he expects the world in general to do the same. Those who do not subscribe to his unyielding blind positivity are labeled as "losers." Journalists' need for objective facts puts them directly in opposition to Trump's priorities and view of the world. Trump and journalists are, in fact, obvious and natural enemies.

President Trump's inability to tolerate criticism was no historical secret. In a 1990 CNN interview featuring Trump being asked about the tortured state of his casino finances, the president-to-be said, "The news media gets away with murder." 

The reporter, Charles Feldman, asked, "What was inaccurate so far?"

Trump responded, "I thought your demeanor was inaccurate. I thought that questions you were posing to people in my organization were inaccurate and false and unfair." 

To which Feldman of course replied, "Questions by definition can't be inaccurate."

Fast forward 30 years. We had the semi-famous truncated 60 Minutes interview with, or versus, Lesley Stahl. And yesterday Trump said that reporting on the pandemic should be an "election law violation" because it's anti-Trump. 

Despite being a Trump fan in 1990, I recognized patently ludicrous stuff when I heard it. Ludicrous and outrageous was his stock in trade. Unfortunately, he's still ludicrous while holding the office of president in 2020. This expectation that everyone should share Trump's positivity regarding himself and his ideas has been a staple of Trump's personal mythos for 50 years.

The Kushner Reveal

This "power of positive thinking," which is not much more than simple magical thinking, appears to be highly contagious. Yesterday, Jared Kushner said, "One thing we've seen in a lot of the black community, which is mostly Democrat, is that President Trump's policies are the policies that can help people break out of the problems that they're complaining about. But he can't want them to be more successful than they want to be successful." That's quite a reveal of the Jared Kushner philosophical mindset.

Wanting to be successful, evidently, is supposed to make it so. If only we lived in such a magical world. A world where anyone who infringes on our positivity could be described as an enemy. A world where our friends label our enemies as cannibalistic pedophiles because, well, they are the worst kind. The positive folks on one side; sheer raw evil on the other. And if you've failed, it's probably because you didn't want to be successful enough.

Positivity, alas, is no substitute for policy. In the middle of a historic pandemic, magical thinking sans science kills. Against Covid-19, the power of positive thinking has not and will save the day.

Bob Dietz

October 27, 2020

Tales from The Asylum -- October 24

Here in The Asylum, we know something about "Rounding the Corner." The psychiatrists continually tell us that we're rounding the corner to sanity. What they don't tell us is that sanity requires recognizing and experiencing pain. So we invented a game to remind us. It's a boatload of fun. You get a group of people, choose a rectangular building, and run as fast as you can around it. Hidden from view, around one of the corners, you've had somebody prop a shovel against the wall. Whoever is leading when they round that corner grabs the shovel and takes a healthy swing at the second place person rounding the corner. After you've whacked him or her, you yell "It," drop the shovel at their feet, and re-assume the lead and keep running. The person who got whacked, if they are alive, takes the shovel and whacks the next person rounding the corner, who then becomes "It" (note the Stephen King reference). The eventual loser is whoever, after being whacked, suffers such egregious injury that he or she is unable to hold the shovel and damage the next person. We call our game "Rounding the Corner." So much fun at so little cost. 

This week in The Asylum, things have gotten even more grotesque than usual. Since the U.S. yesterday set daily Covid-19 case records, we can expect hospitalizations and deaths to hit the gas pedal. So of course the U.S. is going to follow the Coronavirus Task Force recommendations as laid out by Mike Pence in my June 27 "Task Force Review." We're going to pray, and pray, and pray, and pray some more. Evangelical "worship leader," former California Republican Representative candidate, and Fox News regular Sean Feucht has somehow wrangled the National Park Service into allowing he and an estimated 15,000 like minded souls to pray maskless at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. this Sunday. While fish and loaves are reportedly not on the menu, covid-spewing hallelujahs should be plentiful. The event has real potential for going viral, if you get my drift.

If praying is not your cup of tea, have no fear. Many pseudo-secular events are on the U.S. special events calendar. Super spreader rallies have been scheduled across the entirety of The Asylum. While the secular-ness of these rallies may be debatable, they will all feature plenty of opportunities to play "Rounding the Corner." The fun never ends, as they say, unless it ends for you.

The rest of the civilized world may look askance at our American pandemic response, but that's because they haven't played "Rounding the Corner" as we have. And if those travel bans on Americans stay in place, how are we going to export our game of games? The foreigners will never learn. Those travel bans on Americans, by the way, don't get mentioned much in polite company these days. I'm sure other governments are intensely ashamed of not allowing our stable genius-ness to cavort on foreign soil.

Meanwhile, the liberal media was caught completely misreporting what the president did during one of his initial high security briefings at Mar-a-Lago. Various left wing outlets have said that the president called a waiter into the secure meeting room so he could order a milkshake. The agenda-driven media has it all utterly wrong. President Trump ordered a malt, not a shake, and malts are totally different. As a fervent malt fan, I can vouch for the dramatic difference.

Speaking of malts, which are somewhat rare these days, I wish to explain that the president's recently uncovered Chinese bank account was simply a means to finance malt shops when he visits China. One cannot overestimate the importance of malt availability in international environs. Current American travel statuses, however, do pose an indelicate question. If Americans are banned from almost every country, will China allow President Trump to visit even if he offers to buy everyone a malt?

I'm thinking of subletting my wonderful room in The Asylum, since demand for my room should be overwhelming in another 10 days or so. A new Yahoo News/YouGov poll last week revealed that fully half of Trump supporters believe that Democrats are running an elite international pedophile ring. I'm assuming once sanity takes over government, my room here will be in high demand. It's likely that this will be a very popular destination for the folks who are hunting pedophiles for the president, once they are rounded up. They belong behind these four walls. And there are quite a few million of them. Best time to sublet, wouldn't you say?

As I type this, the significance of the malt topic has finally dawned on me. When it comes to keeping children safe, malts are a useful way to lure youngsters from Democrat pedophile clutches. Sometimes the president is three genius steps ahead of everyone else. 

Well, they're calling me to recess, so it's time for another session of "Rounding the Corner." I hope we use a snow shovel this time; the game tends to last longer. All you really need to thoroughly enjoy the game is blind faith, a shovel, and a willingness to talk others into doing things that cause them harm. No shortage of any of these in The Asylum called America.

Bob Dietz

October 25, 2020

 

Addiction Prediction

I've made some very accurate predictions during this pandemic, most of which resulted from simply paying attention to scientists. One of these days I'll do a summary. Today, however, I'm going to make a real long shot, out in left field, bizarro prediction. Despite the craziness of it, I think that there's a very good chance that I'll turn out to be correct.

Here's the unvarnished prediction:  I think that after President Trump loses the election November 3, he'll attempt to hold more rallies between then and the transfer of power. To what degree the GOP tries to dissuade him from doing so will be the big question.

Of course, it serves no productive purpose for the president, after losing, to schedule rallies. It makes zero sense. I think he's going to try primarily because he's addicted to them. After the general electorate rejects him, his inability to face the reality music will compel him to get more tastes of echo chamber public adulation. His entire life has been a climb into the insular narcissistic cockpit he now occupies. He won't be able to spend even two months cold turkey out of the rally environments. 

Part of it will be sheer addiction to in-person adulation. Part will be the cognitive dissonance. He won't be able to process his rejection and the perception that he failed. He will desperately seek counter evidence to sustain his self esteem. And part of it may an exercise in spite, to damage the country as a parting gesture, but under the aegis of challenging the fairness of the election. More rallies will ensue, either under the guise of publicizing the election rigged-ness or as potential fundraisers for a nascent third party that he'd like to helm. The interaction between a lame duck president and a GOP trying to clean up the mess should be fascinating.

The president is addicted to the cheers, the spotlight, and the adulation. He's going to do all he can to prolong the love and attention. Things may get ugly and even more unreal. This president as an out-of-control lame duck during literally the worst months of a once-a-century pandemic is a bad conjunction of events. Historically, lethally bad.

Bob Dietz

October 21, 2020

Every Lie Has a How and a Why

Last week, President Trump said at both a rally and during an interview that 85% of people wearing masks get Covid-19. The CDC study in question said no such thing. What it found was that among people who were tested because they were experiencing symptoms, self-report of mask wearing "often or always" was not a predictor of whether they would indeed be negative or positive. Various summaries of the study can be found at CNN and other national news sites, so I won't address the details here. The summaries are quite clear and include interviews with the doctors who wrote the paper.

At the rally, Trump said, "Did you see the CDC? That 85% of the people wearing a mask catch it, okay?" This was a gross and false misrepresentation of the study, but because it was Trump, the lie didn't even make me blink. He was obviously spouting nonsense. What gave me pause was thinking about how the lie originated. What were the processes and mechanisms by which this lie was told to millions during the NBC town hall after the president had tried it out on a rally audience? I decided to sit down and calmly create an outline for how these words made it on air.

The Provenance of a Lie

My first question is, "How did the president become aware of this study?" I doubt that this study was part of any daily security briefing. I doubt that the president was talking to some CDC administrators who mentioned it. I find it highly unlikely that he read the original journal article. It's not likely that anyone on the task force, who presumably would understand the study, would point it out as supportive of no-mask arguments, unless of course Dr. Scott Atlas had an eye out for such things. Who else in Trump's inner circle would be surveying current studies in search of some idiosyncratic line or two that could be torturously misinterpreted and twisted as a kind of lame evidence for not wearing masks?

The study came from the Health Data Services Center at Vanderbilt. How was the president alerted to the study? Who pointed it out to him? My speculative guesses are that it might have been Dr. Atlas or one of the researchers at Fox News. 

The next questions regarding the processing of the lie are more interesting. Once the study was mentioned to him, did President Trump read it? I find that highly unlikely. Did he read the abstract or a summary of the study, or at least read its conclusion? If he had read any of these, then presumably he would have understood that the study was not about "85% of people who wear masks get Covid-19." Now I suppose it is possible that the president could have read the abstract or conclusion and not at all understood them, but this seems farfetched. And if he didn't understand them, why would he use the line? So I am going with the theory that in all likelihood President Trump did not read the study, or the abstract, or conclusion, or a summary of the study.

The most likely sequence of events is that the president was told of the study, did not read it in part or whole, and then did not think it prudent to ask anyone about it, including task force members who would, presumably again, set him straight regarding the gist of the study.

The plot thus far:  Someone tells President Trump about the study, then invents and emphasizes the odd incorrect line Trump eventually uses in a rally and during a televised interview. The president takes the person's word for the accuracy of the lie, does not vet the information with anyone else who would be able to verify it or shoot it down, and makes the decision to use the line at the rally and then in the interview.

Now it becomes even stranger. President Trump uses the line, which is a complete mischaracterization of the study, at a North Carolina afternoon rally. His people, his family, all hear it, but nobody thinks to vet the line and verify it. So the president goes blithely forward and trots it out at the televised town hall, where he is informed by the moderator that he is misinformed.

The misinformation being introduced to the president, not vetted by the president, and then nationally promulgated all have consequences, none of them good for anyone's health.

The Why of the Lie

The next questions regarding this lie are about motives, the why of the lie. Why would anyone point out this kind of misinformation to the president? Whoever introduced Trump to the study must have pushed the false line about "85% who wear masks get Covid-19." Why do it? Why send the president out in public with a lie that makes him sound like he knows absolutely nothing? Or did the president know that it was a con line the whole time, and did he know this while feeding it to his rally attendees and then a national television audience? Does President Trump think Americans are dumb and would buy the line, or did he actually believe the line because it fit the narrative he wanted to push?

The president not vetting the line suggests that he doesn't care about truth even if the falsehoods can kill. The person who fed him the study and the line also cares nothing for truth or the consequences of its lack. And those in the Trump camp who heard him use the line at the rally evidently did not or could not dissuade him from using it at the later town hall interview.

At each step in the provenance and distribution of this lie, a proper accurate interpretation of the study was tossed out the window and consequences were ignored. Anyone intervening at any point could have derailed the lie.  No one did. 

Cost/Benefits of this Lie

How does a lie like this, which has really limited utility for the liar, evade disconfirmation? Why does such a lie, with marginal value, get used when life threatening consequences result if people buy into it?

I can't imagine that a lie with such marginal pluses for the liar but so negative in potential outcomes for the public would have made it into a national interview in any other presidential campaign in my lifetime. The basic problem here is the devaluation of the lives of supporters, who are most likely to buy the lie without researching it. The disdain for supporters must be severe. Why throw such a lie out into public when the political benefits are nominal and the costs potentially deadly, specifically to one's own supporters?

This was a case of really bad cost/benefit accounting practices that our president should surely understand. What the provenance of this particular lie demonstrates is the propensity of the president's team to use any piece of questionable information, any quote, to further an agenda by inches. What's at risk are lives, especially of supporters, when these false throwaway lines get inserted into national interviews. By any previous American cultural leadership standards, this cost/benefit calculus would be considered sadistic with a touch of psychotic. 

Bob Dietz

October 21, 2020

 

Debunking Herd Immunity as a Strategy for Covid-19

Introduction

The last week has featured the Trump administration pushing the concept of herd immunity as their solution to the current pandemic. All statistical indications are that we're finally entering the dreaded second surge, so the GOP has decided that now is the best time to do nothing.

This cliff notes debunking will be short and sweet. Understand that the United States does not have any long term data on Covid-19 because the virus has been around less than a year. 

Three Problems

Any reliance on herd immunity requires at least three leaps of faith. First, the effects of having had the virus in terms of conveying immunity are largely unknown. If immunity is conveyed, it likely is for a limited time measured in months rather than years. If people who have had the virus once can get it again, the entire concept of herd immunity is undercut and rendered practically useless. 

Second, the long term consequences of Covid-19 have not been established. If there are indeed "long haul" effects, as seems to be the case, then living through the virus isn't simply a matter of who survives and who does not. Rather, it becomes a case of who is debilitated to what extent and for how long. Regarding lung damage, for example, if a significant percent of Covid-19 survivors sustain 10% or more lung capacity reduction, that is a big deal. We each lose a small percent of lung capacity every year as we age. A good chunk of those who get the virus are, in essence, prematurely aged in terms of lung capacity. Other effects include inflammation surrounding the heart. If getting Covid-19 results in these serious consequences, repeat infections may cause grave add-on effects. Without long term data, any reliance on herd immunity is grossly speculative, risking serious consequences.

Third, herd immunity as an alleged strategy obviously risks overwhelming hospital systems, resulting in more deaths than would occur if infections were staggered over longer periods of time. 

Our Leaders Have Abandoned Us

Herd immunity, on this October 17, 2020, is simply one phrase that substitutes for another phrase, "doing nothing." Since the U.S. appears on the brink of the second surge blow-up, plying herd immunity as a so-called strategy allows those pushing the idea to abrogate their responsibilities. They wish to wash their hands of something at which they have miserably failed. Old time gamblers call walking away from a bad situation for which one is responsible, "pulling a Pontius Pilate."

Defining doing nothing as "herd immunity strategy" the week before our second American surge is a cynical, lazy, self-absorbed joke. When one compares countries that implemented various degrees of herd immunity emphases, the correlation is clear. They have not done as well as their peers. 

Here we sit as Americans, snowballing towards 400,000 dead, and our leadership throws science, lessons learned from other nations, our U.S. experts, and U.S. lives to the wind. Our current leaders are hell bent on passively culling the herd. And that is what they will be doing for the next three months -- killing us in the name of expediency and commerce. Pulling what they consider the perfect Pontius Pilate.

Bob Dietz

October 16, 2020

Confusing "I" with "We" -- Narcissism and Anecdotal Evidence

"One thing that's for certain, don't let it dominate you. Don't be afraid of it. You're going to beat it. We have the best medical equipment. We have the best medicines, all developed recently, and you're going to beat it. I went; I didn't feel so good. And two days ago, I could have left two days ago. Two days ago, I felt great. Like, better than I have in a long time. I said just recently, better than 20 years ago. Don't let it dominate. Don't let it take over your lives. Don't let that happen."  President Trump (October 5, 2020)

The phrase "anecdotal evidence," to my mind, usually deserves quotes around it because "anecdotal evidence" is almost an oxymoron. There's a reason anecdotal evidence is not admissible in court. It's not really evidence. It's some standalone piece of data that gets introduced into conversation or debate without the benefit of statistical context. "Anecdotal evidence" is either some cherry-picked piece of information or information from a limited perspective. Without the benefit of statistics, the observations of one person are by definition limited, and usually fall under the "anecdotal evidence" aegis.

One of my problems with national media during this pandemic has been that, when conducting interviews or asking questions, they've often missed the forest for the trees. Interviews and press conferences have often failed to generate the most obvious, logical questions. Instead of responding to illogical proclamations with questions that attack a lack of reasoning or lack of data, lines of questioning have too often followed some pre-printed outline designed to elicit sound bites. Cogent follow-up questions have been rare. Interviews have become robotic exercises in leading questions being asked and answered. 

When President Trump made the comments quoted above, I was somewhat taken aback by national media assigning absurdity to Trump's spiel based on his getting medical care far beyond the access of normal men. Expert moment-to-moment monitoring and multiple drugs unavailable to the masses are, to be sure, valid drawbacks to Trump's "If I can do it, you can do it" coachspeak. The more critical point to hammer home, however, was the sheer inappropriateness, the unbelievable statistical idiocy, of using one man's results as any kind of template for what hundreds of millions of people will experience. 

Don't get me wrong. Trump's idiosyncratic treatments and position in society are valid means to debunk the significance of his results. At heart, however, his lack of representativeness really isn't the most damning argument. Simply put, one man's outcome means nothing in terms of predicting outcomes for millions. This is a basic problem with "anecdotal evidence." One man's results are almost meaningless.

The reality of this insignificance should be obvious, yet the statistical absurdity of the argument being made by Trump was not the spotlight criticism. Instead, the unrepresentativeness of his treatments became the media fulcrum for debunking the president's proclamations. Debunking the specifics of one case, however, was silly. The devil wasn't in the details of a single case; it was in the fact that it was a single case, period.

Personal Experience as Gold Standard

Moving on to the president himself, the first question is why would Trump make such an argument, namely that his own experience would forecast the experiences of millions? Why does someone assume, if indeed Trump actually believed what he was saying, that one man's outcome was a valid predictor for all men? How does "I" get conflated with "We?"

I refer back to the Norman Vincent Peale ministry on which President Trump was raised. What Peale "discovered," Peale argued, was applicable to all. This perspective requires a kind of magical symmetry between self and all others. It allows the person viewing the world to assume others' experiences mirror his, and that their outcomes, if they be worthy, should also mirror his own. This perspective is the height of presumptuous narcissism, and it allows the person holding the beliefs to assume his micro social environment is a kind of black box. Since he presumes what happens to self will happen to others, there's really no need to interpret others' actions on the others' terms. No need to exercise any empathy muscles. Everything is a reflection or projection of self. No need to venture beyond one's own black box. No requirement to even see beyond one's own black box. Since others are presumed to be a kind of statistical extension of one's self, there's no need to work to understand others.

This hall-of-mirrors inability to see beyond one's own life events horizon traps the individual in a narcissistic fun house. All evidence references the self. All evidence is, therefore, anecdotal and (unacknowledged by the self) of minimal value. Everywhere one turns is self, and self images fill and define not just evidence and decision-making, but every aspect of life. The president's take on the world is quite literally bounded by his funhouse mirrors. Not only is he unconcerned about what lies outside, but he may be unable to grasp that there is any landscape anywhere that doesn't contain his own reflection.

This is the quicksand of narcissism in the funhouse. The fact that Trump has lived a wholly transactional life, immersed in consumer culture as a kind of capitalist figurehead, adds locks and chains to the outside of the funhouse doors. He has been trapped, perhaps for his entire existence. Everything he sees, everything he does, is a reflection of him.

Bob Dietz

October 13, 2020

Politically Incorrect: Americans are Fat

Introduction

I wrote this entry about a month ago, but held off publishing it because it's somewhat mean spirited and the observations made are important but in a limited sense. In fact, they are (as usual) quite obvious observations, but nobody seems to connect the dots and put things together publicly. So leave it to me to state the obvious while upsetting folks. It's what I do. In the time since this was written, President Trump has been hospitalized, then released, with Covid-19. I'm going to publish this now, while he appears on the road to recovery and the observations herein don't have some postmortem cruelty to them. I'll post this as originally written, then add a few end comments.

Politically Incorrect:  Americans are Fat

Americans are fat, and it matters. It matters in many ways that never get mentioned on CNN, Fox News, or your local five o'clock broadcast. Americans' fatness matters politically, but it's considered so rude, so gauche, so politically incorrect, that nobody discusses it.

Allow me, then. In one of my first blog entries, I stated that my goal in life is to offend as many people as possible in the time I have left. I'm a man of my word.

It's debatable, however, whether I should be the person pointing out how obesity informs and permeates the United States. I am, after all, somewhere between 15 and 25 pounds above my optimal weight, depending on which formal medical measuring stick is applied. American standards are the kindest, of course, so I tend to quote these. I'm considered 15 pounds beyond where I should be, at least in the states. I am capable, however, of dropping that between now and the election, so I will get to it. But first, allow me to explore the various ways in which American fatness has obvious political effects that never surface in polite conversation.

American Obesity

At the turn of the century, the American obesity rate was a shade above 30%. Since then, according to the CDC, the U.S. obesity rate has climbed to more than 42%. Severe or morbid obesity increased over the same period from 4.7% to 9.2%. Think about that. Almost one in ten Americans is morbidly obese. To put this in an international perspective, as of 2016, the United States trailed ten Pacific island nations and Kuwait in obesity rates. Since then, Americans have easily overtaken Kuwait. Other than the constituents of these South and Mid Pacific nations, Americans are now the fattest people in the world.

Americans tend to not focus on or publicize these facts. With the advent of Covid-19, however, the reality of the U.S. leading the non-island world in obesity has taken on new importance. The ubiquity of American obesity has led to some fascinating, underappreciated political consequences.

Ignoring Obesity

For all of President Trump's aggressive, bullying behavior in primary debates, general election debates, and general discourse, it's been a cultural curiosity that no one has deemed it appropriate to return fire of like kind. He's leaned on attack monikers like Sleepy Joe, Little Marco, Lyin' Ted Cruz, Crooked Hilary, Low Energy Jeb, Pocahontas, and so on. The interesting thing to me is that nobody at odds with Trump assigns him the most obvious nicknames, which would reference his weight. Looking at the president, one is forced to admit that he's obese. My opinion, based on comparing both still photos and live footage, is that the man has gained at least 20-25 pounds since assuming office. Cheeseburgers and eight-hour stints watching Fox News tends to do that. Wearing heavy duty Spanx can't hide the newly minted extra poundage. Other than a one-time Nancy Pelosi dig, however, nobody incorporates Trump's obesity into nicknames or criticisms. 

Forty years ago, "Slim" was a common enough nickname-as-dig, but Trump hasn't even been crowned with that rather mild disapprobation. Political opponents drawing attention to the president's weight problem is noticeable by its very absence.

I have several key obesity observations I'd like to make. First of all, I think the reason most people give Trump a pass on his weight is because 40% of the American public is, like Trump, obese. So while the president can mock the disabled, or joke about height, the obvious retort of shining a spotlight on Trump's weight carries too much of an American political downside. If 40% of Americans are obese, then pointing out that the president is woefully obese may have no effect other than to bond the obese citizenry with an obese leader. Thus, Trump's most glaring physical characteristic becomes a non-issue. My suspicion is that in an Asian country, where obesity rates are much lower, a bombastic leader such as Trump would have garnered half a dozen weight-related nicknames.

Mask-Wearing and Obesity

Instead of once again reviewing the effects of obesity during a pandemic and the demography of American obesity, which I've discussed in previous entries, I'm going to go in an entirely different direction. What I'm about to say will, after I say it, appear obvious and banal. It does not, however, get mentioned in polite company, so I'll discuss it here.

Americans have been at war regarding the wearing of masks, with red state citizens interpreting the wearing of masks as some kind of political heraldry. Americans have resisted mask-wearing more than any other population. Americans are also the fattest population. I think that these facts are connected.

Two-thirds of Americans are overweight. More than 40% are obese. Lugging around an extra 25-40 pounds every second of every day is not an easy chore. Breathing while lugging that extra poundage can be a test, especially when carrying things or using stairs. Wearing a mask restricts your breathing. The effect is minimal unless you're working out, but carrying around an extra 25-40 pounds is certainly a workout. 

Try jogging two miles wearing a mask, and then jog two miles without. It's a lot easier without. Well, if that's the case, then assuredly everything is easier without a mask. You breathe more easily.

As an old distance runner who has done considerable formal training, I can also vouch for the effects of added weight. Carrying around an additional 25-40 pounds, as I did during a fair number of workouts while wearing weight vests, is flat out hard. Put a mask on and wear a weight vest, and you have a real challenge, which is what all of these obese Americans are facing. A big chunk of extra weight and mask-wearing is a no-fun combination. 

Now I'll throw some additional statistics at you, and you can make of them what you will. Obesity increases as education decreases. That's a clear cut and dramatic correlation. Among whites, Trump support increases as education decreases. That is also a clear cut correlation. Finally, those red states where mask-wearing has had difficulty becoming standard practice (it was 15% in Tennessee three months ago), have higher obesity rates than the states with higher percentages of people wearing masks. Coincidences? Correlations? Causes-and-effects? 

What I just laid out is as obvious as the grass is green, yet it doesn't get discussed in the national conversation.

Role Models

Seventy-nine year old Dr. Fauci and his wife jog four miles several times a week. I suspect that the doctor has a hard time getting into the head of obese, undereducated Trump supporters who refuse to wear masks while lugging around weight vests made of flesh. And I'm sure the obese, undereducated Trumpsters view Fauci as some alien creature partly because the doctor doesn't seem to grasp the hassle of mask-wearing for some.

Fauci has tried to set one example, but he's alien to the Trumpsters. The president, on the other hand, is a non-jogging, porcine fellow who mirrors their own obesity. Who do you think they see as their natural leader? 

These are some of the social psychological dynamics currently in progress in the United States. They are obvious, and they have cost lives. It's time they should be examined and discussed.

 Political correctness be damned.

Postscript

In the month since I wrote this, I've managed to lose all of three pounds. I went jogging today, wearing a mask. Although I'm sure the actual reduction in air intake is less than 10%, it's certainly harder to jog with a mask. It is, however, a small price to pay for additional safety. 

Bob Dietz

October 7, 2020

And on the Third Day, He Rose . . .

 . . . from his hospital bed in Walter Reed and, via chopper, headed back to the White House.

I suppose if you're going to head a religion, you may as well go the whole nine yards with metaphor and optics. 

It turned out, as early as my last entry was written, I got most things right. Hope Hicks was, predictably, not likely to have been the source of the president's positivity. As soon as her positive diagnosis became public, I figured the president was already infected. I was correct. Hicks was willing to fall on her sword for Trump, but then more positives occurred, the super spreader event at the Rose Garden was uncovered, and the first wave of lies went to hell.

Think about the sleazy narrative that President Trump tried to sell. Hicks had, he stated, been touching and hugging and talking closely with first responders and folks in the military. That was undoubtedly the source of her infection. And she was the likely source of the president's positive. Yeah, that was the ticket.

Until, of course, it was not. Instead, it was a GOP event flouting CDC and task force recommendations. Flouting really isn't a strong enough word. Thumbing its nose at CDC and task force recommendations is more accurate.

So now we have a medicinally gooned up president telling people to not let Covid-19 dominate their lives, even as he gasps for air while an array of pharmaceuticals unavailable to the public courses through his veins. Vice-President Pence, meanwhile, should be in quarantine. Instead he wants to appear at tomorrow night's scheduled debate. Chris Christie checks himself into a hospital after his positive diagnosis. Perhaps he could use a pep talk from the president so he could head home and not allow the virus to dominate his life.

Reality versus the GOP. Guess who's winning?

The interesting aspect to come will be watching the president deal with Covid-19 on a daily basis for the next few weeks. As a 74-year-old in terrible physical shape despite being an avid lover of golf and Spanx, he is going to have to shoot a bunch of videos today or tomorrow so he can distribute them in the weeks ahead as the steroids wear off and he feels like hell.

Sixty-five million people voted for this guy. The same guy who routinely called into tabloids and radio shows to anonymously tout his own sex life. The guy who bankrupted four casinos. The dude who was involved in two lawsuits a week for more than 30 years. And nobody vetted his finances or his dependence on Russian oligarchs backing a bank. 

If this was and is our process for choosing leaders in this country, Americans got the president we deserved. To paraphrase Dean Wormer in Animal House, "Fat, stupid, and drunk on hubris is no way to go through life, Americans." The United States has four weeks to slim down, smarten up, and get humble.

The clock is ticking.

Bob Dietz

October 6, 2020

Galatians 6:7

President Trump and Melania announced that they had tested positive for Covid-19 last night. I find this as surprising as tomorrow's sunrise.

Back on July 4, I commented on the covid-problematic design of the outdoor rally pavilion in South Dakota. Given the president's fondness for rallies sans face masks and social distancing, his positive test was just a matter of time.

Falling on your sword while completing a year of anti-science proclamations and high risk behavior is one thing. That harms only yourself. If initial reports are true, however, and Trump risked infecting donors after Hope Hicks' diagnosis, and if the Trump campaign failed to alert Biden of the positive tests...well, that is (once again) a level of irresponsibility almost beyond belief. It's as if the president is hell bent on doing as much damage as possible in the months he has left in office. At times, it appears that Putin possesses Trump like Pazuzu possessed Regan in The Exorcist.

Call me cynical. I figured as soon as Hicks' positive test was announced that the president had already tested positive. I suspect that if the president had tested negative, Ms. Hicks might have taken a long vacation due to, as the president tweeted, her having worked nonstop so many long months. As to whether her Covid-19 diagnosis would have made it to the newsrooms, I'm guessing not immediately. Again, call me overly analytical, but I found the incorporation of "nonstop working" references in the Hicks positive-reveal tweet to possibly be more than coincidental. The president, like many amateur writers, may have had a tweet prepared to explain her imminent "vacation," and was loathe to not use a line already in his mental docket.

In any event, we now have a covid-positive president. The line of infection has been presented as Hicks-to-Trump, but who really knows? She had symptoms Wednesday; he had them Thursday. That is not guaranteed evidence of disease provenance. It's been presented as a gospel chain-of-infection, but the sequence, who gave what to whom, is not a mortal lock at all. So take all current information with a salt shaker.

After the debate debacle Tuesday night, I found a Biden -130 the next morning and bet it, but only for three digits, mainly because I didn't necessarily trust him to live until November 3. Now both candidates are seriously at risk, as we await Biden's test results from his Trump exposure. 

What preventable absurdity comes next? My blog series addressing the U.S. pandemic response is called "Tales from the Asylum." A better title eludes me.

Bob Dietz

October 2, 2020

The Always Right

And I thought the Religious Right was a problem. 

I've felt from the beginning, since that day Trump adolescently bullied Jeb Bush during a debate and the crowd approved, that support for Trump was, for many, a neophyte religion. It was always as the president said in January, 2016 -- he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and his supporters would still be supporters.

The religious nature of Trump support seems to both highlight and explain the dichotomy between Trumpism and science. Trumpism, like communism and other belief systems, cannot really be disconfirmed. If you ask Trump supporters what Trump behavior or piece of evidence would cause them to reject Trump as leader, you'll get a long, long pause. 

Any belief system that immediately diverts disconfirming information into categories of "fake news" or conspiracies is basically impervious to evidence from outside the belief system and extremely intolerant of modification from within. Trumpism serves as a religion, with Donald Trump the only arbiter of truth and what's best for all. Trump's rallies take place in a sacred space. Much of his energy during those rallies is devoted to drawing the inside/outside distinction. Inside the rally is sacred space. Outside is profane corruption. Trump himself occupies a sacred position. Criticism from profane outside forces simply misses the mark because, by definition, a sacred leader cannot be evaluated by profane means or profane outsiders. 

Trump and Trumpism have demonstrated a complete inability or unwillingness to self-correct. Self-correction is viewed as a weakness and, more importantly, as unnecessary because sacred leadership does not require self-correction. Trumpian leadership is both gnostic in nature and divinely inspired. Outsiders simply have no access to the gnosis or the content of the divine inspiration. The profane outsiders are always viewed as trying to decipher and bring down something they not only don't understand, but are unqualified to judge. The devil, whether fake news or the deep state, lacks the pureness to critique the sacred.

Trumpism as Antithetical to Science

During my lifetime (I'm 63), acknowledgement in the political arena of having been wrong or changing one's mind has evolved from evidence of increased information and debate to a complete and utter sin. The evolution has been fast and unidirectional. Policy positions have taken on a religious veneer in that they are almost a kind of permanent commitment requiring a future evasion of rethinking and a radical avoidance of disconfirmation.

In a sense, political positions have been evolving into religious positions requiring fealty and an absolute lack of positional compromise. Trumpism as a religion is a natural outcome of this ongoing American political evolution.

Science, meanwhile, is anathema both to religion and the direction of American politics precisely because science is self-correcting. Self-correction is an indelibly permanent feature of science. Unfortunately for policy-making, this means that self-correcting scientists are viewed as something less, and science is seen by Trumpsters as unstructured and unmoored because it subordinates policy decisions to ongoing analyses of data.

The self-corrective nature of the scientific endeavor places science directly in the cross-hairs of political religiosity. Since self-correction has become so stigmatized in Trumpworld, respect for science literally has no place in it. Fealty to data is not fealty to the sacred. Science finds itself defined as a kind of natural enemy of the Trump religion.

None of this is terribly startling, as policy guided by personalities is always going to generate friction against policy directed by data. In 2020, this friction has become a veritable firestorm. Although lip service is tangentially being paid to data, as when Rand Paul cobbles together some oblique, far-fetched information and tries to jam it into a coherent argument, the fact is that you can almost feel the underlying disdain for appealing to logic or numbers or establishing cause-and-effect. The Trump religion is straining at the bit to just suspend the entire logic charade and impose what they want with minimal concern regarding whether suspension of disbelief becomes a requirement.

The sidestepping, ignoring, and outright lying regarding data during this pandemic has led Scientific American, after 175 years of political neutrality, to endorse Joe Biden for president.

Perhaps the 2020 electoral battle should be framed with somewhat different language. It's not so much red versus blue as it is theocracy versus democracy. And the theocracy has a very human, very Un-Christian leader. 

Bob Dietz

September 25, 2020

Politically Incorrect: The Evangelicals

Superficially, one of the great conundrums of the Trump era appears to be how purported Christian evangelicals can overwhelmingly support a man whose personal history and self presentation have been so, to put it charitably, Un-Christian.

Literally dozens of sexual assault allegations, three marriages sprinkled amidst a lifetime of "grabbing them by the pussy," four thousand lawsuits to squeeze every dollar out of every transaction. The man has suggested the main thing he and his daughter have in common is sex, and he strongly suggested Howard Stern would enjoy dating his daughter. He's built a wall so the meek don't inherit the United States. Not exactly a Matthew 19:14 proponent, he locked up children at the border. 

Yet, of white evangelicals who voted in 2016, 81% voted for Donald Trump. And the projections are in the same ballpark this time around. How can one reconcile the evangelical support for Trump with Trump's lifelong behaviors? The man doesn't really go to church. During his infamous church poseur moment, he looked as familiar with a bible as he might look holding a SAT exam.

From whence the white Christian support for this president? The man, after all, is known both for being in the eye of the storm and in the thighs of a Stormy. And forget about getting a camel through the eye of a needle (Matthew 19: 24). How could this guy possibly get into heaven? It seems superficially preposterous that American white evangelicals would get their mental knickers all twisted trying to support Donald Trump.

But I disagree with those who find evangelical support for the president mysterious. White evangelicals, I argue, are uniquely suited to be ardent Trump supporters.

First off, let's not forget the adjective "white" in front of that "81% white evangelical" phrase. White goes a long way in the United States. It's my reason for choosing to be reincarnated as a U.S. white dude.

Second, let's face it. Christianity is not the most logical, scientific, or humane belief system on the planet. If you spend most of your waking hours swearing fealty to a belief system featuring virgin births, various people coming back from the dead, angels of death slaughtering first borns, fiery tongues entering people, floods wiping out everything except what's on a big boat, and oh yeah, everlasting life...well, I hate to break it to them, but the entire Christian cultural/psychological milieu is a big lie. You're basically living life with a delusion as, at the least, a backdrop that you rarely question. At worst, you're making real world decisions while incorporating fairy tales as rationales for those decisions. And much of the arguments for doing so are "God said this" or "Jesus said that." Authoritarianism to the extreme.

Skip forward a thousand years from the Middle Ages, and here we are. If you can compartmentalize all the Christian lies and nonsense and still function, you're not going to have much of a problem finding ways to compartmentalize everything distasteful or ridiculous about Donald Trump. As a Christian, you've accepted conflicting stories (heck, the gospels have at least two very different storylines), you have been trained for obeisance to canon, and you've learned to keep science off in its corner for huge chunks of your conscious life. It's great training for Trumpism.

An evangelical gung-ho white Christian is primed to be an ardent Trump supporter. All the science-avoiding and logic-evading muscles have been honed. You've swallowed so much evangelical grape Kool-Aid that Trump's lies taste no stronger than plain seltzer. 

As far as resisting disconfirmation, evangelical Christians are notoriously good at it. I mean, when was the last time somebody rose from the dead? It's a couple billion humans ago, if the New Testament or Osiris are to be believed. Not much in the way of fiery tongues or angels of death, either. Yet Christian faith hangs in there.

Given the far out claims of Christianity, it's really impressive that fervent Christians have few issues maintaining their faith. A tad nuts, but impressive nonetheless. Compared to the challenges of Christian belief, it's probably a mere bagatelle for the evangelicals to maintain loyalty to the president. Loyalty is a toned-down version of faith, not requiring as much mental contortionism. All things considered, white evangelical Christians are perfect vessels for the Trump Kool Aid. "Onward Q-Anon Soldiers, Marching Off to War" has a historical ring to it.

When irrational belief systems form the backbone of a culture's mores, then rationality or consistency or meaningful results are not required to hijack the reins of power. You just have to mimic the belief systems. In a sense, you get bonus points for being authoritarian, for being irrational, for requiring faith.

Trump as egg-laying cuckoo in Christianity's nest was an obvious possibility. As long as no Christians asked "Who would Jesus vote for?" the nest was his for the taking.

Bob Dietz

September 16, 2020 

If I Were Woodward

The last two weeks, a handful of people have asked me what I thought of Bob Woodward's Trump tapes. They know I was originally a journalism major at Penn State, and I was hard core on journalistic ethics. You always tell the truth in print, you never give up your sources unless lives are directly and immediately at risk, and so on. In my mind, Spider-Man's classic mantra applies, "With great power comes great responsibility."

I feel that if I had been Woodward, the longest I could have sat on the tapes was the end of March. Too much was at stake. Too many lives in the balance. I would have had too much power to potentially do good in my hands. I'd have felt an overwhelming obligation to tell the American public loudly and clearly that President Trump privately did not believe what he was saying publicly. I would have visited every available media outlet and warned about transmission through the air and the lethality of Covid-19 as at least five times that of a normal flu.

I would have said these things publicly as long and as loud as I could. Book be damned. Election timing be damned. The American public had a right to know so people could protect themselves and plan their lives with maximum information.

That's what I would have done, and it would have been, to me, the only and obvious decision. I could not have even considered delaying for months. The argument can be made that the timing of the tapes' release will have a maximum effect on the election itself. I think that manner of thinking is speculative and besides the point. Saving lives, I believe, takes precedence over maximally influencing the election. 

Further, my suspicion is that Carl Bernstein knew what was on those tapes. In most of his CNN appearances these last months, Bernstein's tone has been declarative regarding Trump, and there's been an underlying ominousness. The declarative nature of Bernstein's proclamations, made without reference to new specific evidence, makes me think that his tone originated in part from knowledge he had in his back pocket. If I'm correct and Bernstein knew the Trump interviews' contents, then again I would have considered myself ethically obligated to go public had I been in Bernstein's shoes, even though the tapes were Woodward's private and intellectual property. Saving lives trumps loyalty to Woodward, and we're talking many, many lives.

The Transactional United States

One angle concerning what Woodward did not do is the overarching transactional theme that permeates the United States' failed Covid-19 responses. The president did what he perceived was best for him and his deluded dream of a monarchical multi-generational Trumpfest-in-charge. The GOP, meanwhile, en masse subordinated the public good and saving lives to the calculus of their individual ambitions. Again, framing the pandemic in a transactional manner.

The cloud regarding the Woodward delay is that holding back the tapes in service of the book has the appearance of putting personal cost/benefit analysis ahead of saving lives. So Woodward's delay risks falling under the aegis of transactionalism. I'm sure this seems, to the rest of the world, as another blatant example of the U.S.'s obsession with individuals' material resources (money) and non-material resources (fame, prestige) at the expense of civics (remember that word?) and public goals. "Civics" has become some extinct freakish idea, relegated to the Smithsonian along with The Fonz's leather jacket and stuffed dodos. Something our grandparents knew about in the 50's.

"The Woodward Delay," as I think journalists a hundred years hence will call it, will be remembered as another inexplicable capital-obsessed selfishness during the era of Trump. Exposing the arch-villain only after he's killed everyone is not the best example of "With great power comes great responsibility." Unless your only responsibility is to yourself.

Bob Dietz

September 16, 2020

Articles of Note -- September 5

Here are some very important articles of note. Please take a look at them.

First is a mention of the www.respectfulinsolence.com blog site that annihilates the recent arguments for hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Covid-19. He has four pertinent entries debunking the HCQ push:

July 24  "Yale epidemiologist Harvey Risch defends hydroxychloroquine in Newsweek -- badly"

July 29  "Hydroxychloroquine:  The Black Knight of treatments for COVID-19"

August 17  "The astroturf effort promoting hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19                  continues apace"

August 31  "The 'only 6%' gambit: The latest viral COVID-19 disinformation"

These four pieces by "Orac" absolutely clear up any misconceptions and annihilate the pro HCQ disinformation.

Second, I recommend reviewing both the initial reports by Penn State's Dr. Wayne Sebastianelli and the follow-up "clarification" reported on by Timothy Rapp in the September 3 Bleacher Report. Of course Dr. Sebastianelli is walking on eggs here. The Big 10 reportedly is trying to walk back its postponement of football until the spring. Evidently they want a crack at that playoff money.

Finally, Thomas Smith of Elemental contributed "A Supercomputer Analyzed Covid-19 -- and an Interesting New Theory Has Emerged." This piece is also available through Medium.com.

These are great, critical articles to keep abreast of the pandemic. I especially appreciated the August 17 Orac blog entry because it addressed some of the content of my "Analyzing Louie Gohmert" entries in this blog. Gohmert repeatedly mentioned the numbers debunked in the August 17 piece.

Stay safe.

Bob Dietz

September 5, 2020

Tales from The Asylum -- August 29

(Organ music)

Watch your step, my friend, as we slowly descend these stone stairs leading to the sub-basements of The Asylum. It was Republican National Convention week, and here in the sub-basements, the party never stopped. 

Be very careful to not slip on these steps; the slime tends to build up the deeper you go. Slime can be slippery, but if you know where it is and what it looks like, there's nothing to fear. No one riots in the sub-basements. No one loots. So there is no need for fear.

That stench? Oh, just hold your nose. The smell is coming from the big pit.  Don't get close to the edge and don't look down. Slide your way around the perimeter. That's it; back to the wall, scoot sideways, like a crab. Don't fall. Most of us have been partying down here so long that we don't even notice the smell.

This week in The Asylum has been particularly fun. Abby Johnson, a second day speaker at the RNC, said she stands by her advocacy for one vote per household. And if people disagree, the man gets his say, as God intended. 

I know what you're thinking -- those evangelicals are anti-woman. Nothing could be further from the truth. While Abby Johnson approves of everyone in a household sharing one vote, God approves of everyone in the Jerry Falwell Jr. household, plus a pool boy, sharing one bed. Nothing anti-woman about Becki Falwell opting for pool boy versus her old man. According to the pool boy, Jerry Junior at least got to watch. And you just know there'll be DVDs for sale soon with a holy purpose. Gotta love a triune-a'-trois God.

Speaking of which, thank the Almighty that we're down here in the sub-basement. Up above, in The Asylum proper, you have looting and rioting and all kinds of socialist decadence. Down here, just optimism and glee. 

For example, last week we sent out word that convalescent plasma was a game changer. But it didn't take long before those scientists and epidemiologists threw a wet blanket over the proclamation. We had a cure, and then we didn't. Bummer. Next, we gave the order that all of that Covid-19 testing of asymptomatics could be halted. Sure enough, three days later, those darn scientists upstairs shot down our optimism once again. Don't they understand? Saying makes it so! That's how we ended up in The Asylum, and thank our triune-a'-trois God that we did.

Meanwhile, preseason number one Alabama has racked up, uh, wait a minute. Oh, that's not 1,200 points in the coaches' poll? It's 1,200 students with Covid-19? Huh. Well, number one is still number one. Hard to be the pinnacle of anything, so kudos to Alabama for the double achievement. Still doesn't top the Falwells, though.

The great thing about these sub-basements -- you're sealed off from the nutcases in the rest of The Asylum. Down here, nobody interrupts whatever you rant, unless it's with applause. Nobody fact checks everything you say. Nobody steps on whatever you prefer to believe. No meds (unless it's HCQ). No Keds (outspoken athletes get stopped at the sub-basement door). And no peds (Q-Anon makes sure of that). Down here, it's all the best version of everything. The Trumps are like the von Trapps, if the von Trapps were Nazis, of course, and couldn't sing. And didn't ever want to leave the stage during their performance.

What's that? You're still having trouble with the smell? It's not that bad, my friend. You can't dump 185,000 corpses in a pit without a little bit of stench. Don't worry, though. By Christmas, we'll have dug another pit. Just for the evangelicals. They requested it.

Join us next week (cue organ music) as we somehow get out of the sub-basement and back onto the grounds of The Asylum, where there's looting and rioting. Did I mention the pillaging?

Bob Dietz

August 30, 2020

Black Tips on White Spears

I'm not one to spend much time watching either party's convention. But I have been trying to figure out why mainstream media hasn't debunked some of the GOP convention speakers for the best, most obvious reasons.

Life is about probability. Why do news networks ignore this reality? Instead, we get personal stories and anecdotes and other gibberish that tells you absolutely nothing about what has happened on a large scale and what will happen. Instead, we get a parade of freak show, end-of-the-bell-curve personal outcomes that engage emotions but lack any descriptive or predictive utility. The anecdotal sample is too small to represent anything. The stories, in fact, have usually been chosen for their freakishness, their public pop, their very non-representative elements. They aren't much value in painting any kind of full reality picture or predicting general cause-and-effect.

On Monday, the GOP trotted out Tim Scott, the sole black Republican senator. Scott explained that, since his family had gone from cotton fields to Congress in one generation, the best way forward for those interested in fulfilling their potential was via the GOP and President Trump.

Without numbers, Scott's message is hollow and useless. No numbers about black income. No numbers about black Covid-19 issues. No numbers about vertical mobility in America. No numbers about black health care in general. No numbers about black educational scores. No talk of blacks in Congress other than himself. No numbers at all.

What we received was a speech about an individual that offered no real evidence of anything and therefore meant almost nothing. The GOP may as well have lined up some lottery winners to praise the economic miracles of Republican leadership. Bootstrap-hoisting stories are sweet parables, but they are no substitute for facts or numbers. Planning based on parables is no substitute for social policy based on numbers.

When Consumer Reports publishes its automotive issue, it's isn't a bestseller because a handful of car owners give enthusiastic speeches for particular models. It's the most popular issue because an enormous amount of survey information from across the country has been collated and put in a readable format.

Placing successful blacks as political speakers, while referencing no numbers regarding black demographics, health care, or economics, is no different than hiring Michael Jordan to sell sneakers. It's about people holding up personal accomplishments as a reason to buy (or buy into) something. Some people pitch shoes. Some people pitch a political party. It's about trying to sell a white crow as an example of all crows.

Bring on the lottery winners to sell economic policy, the octogenarians to praise American health care, and a Republican who survived a lightning strike to verify that the GOP is both blessed by miracles from a Christian god and has Thor on its side as well. The lottery winners, the octogenarians, and the folks who survived lightning can all be completely sincere. It's not their fault, at least not completely, that they see the world from their narrative stance and ignore all of the numbers. That is, after all, what children do. And America is full of arrested development.

Political parties and voters in democracies should know better than to believe that most crows are white because they're presented with a few examples.

Herschel Walker

Herschel Walker also gave a brief speech in support of President Trump. Trump, buying the USFL New Jersey Generals from J. Walter Duncan in 1983, took over Walker's personal services contract, which was designed to circumvent the fledgling league's salary cap. The contract made Walker the highest paid player in professional football, although technically it was not solely a football contract. In his RNC speech, Walker vouched for Trump as not being racist.

Why would President Trump ever have displayed one iota of racism around Herschel Walker? I'm not sure about this theory of assembling black people to vouch for a white guy's non-racism. Wouldn't you be better served asking white dudes who hung out with the white person suspected of racism? Just a thought, but a pretty obvious one. The Walker speech was almost a "Hey, I have a black friend; I can't be a racist" moment.

Summary 

Biographies are not proof for policies. Why doesn't every news organization state this before launching into personality pieces or analyses of autobiographical speeches? If you trot out people instead of numbers to make your points, it's a sign you have no proof for your policies. 

 

Bob Dietz

August 28, 2020

Curious Lines

Occasionally, a high profile line in print or from a speech has, when viewed from a somewhat oblique perspective, more import than would suspect. A tip-off of sorts, like cultural Nazca Lines that appear part of the landscape from ground level but that provide surprising meanings when viewed from a height. These "Curious Lines" entries are devoted to overlooked clues implicit in snippets of text or speech.

My initial offering has to do with South Carolina Republican Senator Tim Scott and his closing speech Day One of the 2020 Republican National Convention. First, a brief synopsis of how my attention was drawn to a line in this speech.

I am not an avid fan of American politics. As such, I admit to never watching much of any convention by either party. I never watched Bill Clinton or Bush or Obama. I've probably seen a total of 30 minutes live convention broadcasting in the last 30 years. Basically, I figure that it's more efficient (time being valuable) to spend 10 or 15 minutes reading summaries than spending a couple of hours watching these things.

In any case, Scott's speech had gotten high marks from both conservative and progressive pundits, but one talking head read a few highlight quotes, and I heard:

"Joe Biden and Kamala Harris want a cultural revolution. A fundamentally different America. If we let them, they will turn our country into a socialist utopia."

I thought I must have heard this incorrectly. The last line could not be right. So I looked up a transcript of the speech. The transcript read exactly the same. Well, I still wasn't convinced. Perhaps the transcriber had made a simple error. I pulled up a video of the Scott speech. I was surprised. What Scott said was exactly the same as the transcript.

Now, if Noam Chomsky sees this, he'll have a field day with it, but allow me some simple observations. Here's where I'm going with this.

Utopia is a noun. The word utopia means (quoting Merriam-Webster), "A place of ideal perfection, especially in laws, government, and social conditions." My question thus becomes, "How could turning America into a utopia be a bad thing in Senator Scott's mind?" 

Evidently, the adjective "socialist" is some kind of deal breaker. And what that implies is most interesting. Scott (or his speechwriters) see "socialist utopia" as a kind of oxymoron. He must believe, given his words, that utopia is not a desirable thing if it incorporates aspects of socialism. Scott views "socialist utopia" as inimical to his preferences, although the very definition of utopia describes ideal laws, government, and social conditions. Taking Scott's perspective to its logical conclusion, Scott therefore does not really see "ideal lives for all" as something towards which society should strive. Given the GOP's comfort with current socioeconomic inequities in the United States, I suppose this should not be surprising. What's surprising is what these few lines expose about utopia being a GOP anathema.

Lifelong struggle and inequality are the noble, American-approved status quo. These are to be maintained as they are preferable to any kind of utopia, because utopias by definition have some kind of leveling socialist features. 

Sometimes a line here and an implication there reveal more subtext than the author, speaker, or speechwriter intended. People say things out loud that really belong in whispers. I think, in this case, what these lines reveal is that striving for utopia and the increasingly Social Darwinist GOP worldview do not blend. American life should be, evidently, about struggle and stratification.

My closing thoughts regarding Scott's curious lines are that, first, this speech was undoubtedly vetted by multiple GOP'ers. So everyone was on board with framing a utopia as a bad outcome since it contains socialist elements. Considering how many people in the United States were a paycheck away from broke before the pandemic, and how things have gotten worse, this is quite a speech-writing commitment to the one-percent. 

Second, and more importantly, the import of defining utopia as a bad thing is truly extraordinary. The people striving for utopia are "the other." They are alien, they are outsiders, they are the opposition. Americans don't strive for "socialist utopia." They are supposed to strive for something else, presumably the status quo en route to record inequality.

Third, and most unsettling, when people write lines into speeches like this, the speeches aren't really being written for the population of a democracy. They are being written for the leadership and constituents of a plutocracy that is quite comfortable with being a plutocracy.

Bob Dietz

August 26, 2020