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