Factory Settings

Posted on Sunday 20 October 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • The idea of “factory settings” as describing base human nature, and how some people can transcend them;
  • A woman wonders if religion is the only way to instill her child with “scaffolding for spirituality and morality” (answer: no);
  • Richard Dawkins reflects on the American electoral college system, and Jordan Peterson.
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I was struck by something in this op-ed today. (In today’s paper, it was posted a couple days ago.)

NY Times, Jamelle Bouie, 18 Oct 2024: There Is No Precedent for Something Like This in American History

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Good Questions, Interesting Answers

Posted on Friday 18 October 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • David Brooks wonders, Why isn’t she running away with this?
  • Adam Gopnik wonders why even his opponents don’t recognize the extent of Trump’s villainy;
  • Jill Filipovic wonders why NYT softens headlines about Trump;
  • David French wonders if Trump’s policies make any more sense than his tweets;
  • And items about Trump’s profanity-laden talk to the Catholics, MAGA’s bond, Trump’s dehumanizing language, and Musk misrepresenting Harris’s policies.

NY Times, David Brooks, 17 Oct 2024: Why the Heck Isn’t She Running Away With This?”

He wonders why the race is so tied, the polls immobile. And he wonders:

Why has politics been 50-50 for over a decade? We’ve had big shifts in the electorate, college-educated voters going left and non-college-educated voters going right. But still, the two parties are almost exactly evenly matched.

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What It Means to be Fascist

Posted on Thursday 17 October 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Robert Reich’s take in five points;
  • AlterNet’s John Stoer’s take;
  • How Trump can claim anything — now he’s the “father of IVF” — and his fans will believe him.

Robert Reich, 17 Oct 2024: Trump’s closing argument: full-throated fascism

Recalling Trump’s recent remarks about illegal aliens and the “enemy within” and how his political opponents are “evil,” Reich states:

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Out of Commission

Posted on Wednesday 16 October 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • More examples of Trump as the rambling, incoherent traitor;
  • How people trust Trump on the economy because he oversimplifies things, and conservatives don’t do complexity or nuance;
  • Thomas B. Edsall on Trump’s appeal to racists;
  • A Florida Republican who thinks her non-Christian opponent should be disqualified from office.

Could it ever happen that Trump’s supporters realize what a horrible mistake they’ve made when Trump begins rambling like this before the entire world?

Salon, Charles R. Davis, 16 Oct 2024: “His brain is completely out of commission”: Moderator repeatedly calls out Trump for rambling, subtitled “The 78-year-old Republican could not stay focused nor answer basic questions about tariffs and his economic agenda”

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Doomscrolling

Posted on Tuesday 15 October 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Is MAGA a disease like violence is? Depends on your terms, and ideals.
  • Items about Musk, Trump’s lie-industrial complex, and why Trump is doubling down on racism.
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Three weeks to the election, yada yada, polls tied, yada yada, what is half the country thinking??

This sounds about right.

Salon, Chauncey DeVega, 15 Oct 2024: “Brain flaws”: Understanding MAGA as an epidemic disease, subtitled “Epidemiologist Dr. Gary Slutkin: MAGA is a ‘dangerous and lethal syndrome’ of ‘Authoritarian Violence Disorder'”

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Education and Focus

Posted on Monday 14 October 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Education is now the best predictor for how someone will vote;
  • Why Trump’s supporters don’t believe his threats (they’re focused only on their particular concerns);
  • How Trump wants to lie in real-time without being fact-checked;
  • Paul Krugman suggests that Trump’s lies are a mishmash result of being unmoored in time.

Is this a surprise?

CNN, 14 Oct 2024: Why education level has become the best predictor for how someone will vote

There are many ways in which Americans are ‘divided’ — women v men, rural v urban, whites v voters of color — in ways that are reflected in their political preferences, but for whatever reason education now seems better than the others for predicting peoples’ votes.

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The Enemy Within

Posted on Sunday 13 October 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Trump is ready to use the military against his “enemies from within”;
  • What one immigrant thinks when he hears Trump speak;
  • How Republicans are sure there will be cheating, and migrants will vote. Counter: why not let the whole world vote on the US presidential election?
  • Gateway Pundit admits lying; a MAGA woman explains how Alexa is part of the government’s control of hurricanes; how Fox knows it’s lying about immigrants and disaster aid.

Anything genuinely new today?

Well, yes. Trump is ready to call out the military against his enemies, such as “radical left lunatics,” presumably meaning anyone who doesn’t vote for him.

CNN, 13 Oct 2024: Trump suggests using military against ‘enemy from within’ on Election Day

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There’s Another Word For It

Posted on Saturday 12 October 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

I skim or glance at so many articles about politics every day, I’m surprised that I haven’t come across this phrase before, considering how this article suggests it’s been around a while. The word, or phrase, is “directionally correct,” and it’s another way to say “lying.”

Slate, Ben Mathis-Lilley, 12 Oct 2024: The Wrong-Direction Election, subtitled “A brief history of a phrase the right uses to justify Trump’s BS.”

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Assault on and Rejection of Reality

Posted on Friday 11 October 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Charlie Warzel in The Atlantic on how things are much worse than a misinformation crisis;
  • Meteorologists notice that ignorance is becoming socially acceptable — but this has always been true, as C.P. Snow noted;
  • The Republican conspiracy theory that children who go to college are indoctrinated into liberal positions is belied by reality. It’s more that children who experience the world reject the ideologies of Republicans.
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The Atlantic, Charlie Warzel, 10 Oct 2024: I’m Running Out of Ways to Explain How Bad This Is, subtitled “What’s happening in America today is something darker than a misinformation crisis.”

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The Christian Authoritarian Agenda

Posted on Thursday 10 October 2024 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Long before Project 2025, Christian conservatives have had an agenda to impose their values on everyone;
  • How some conservatives will call any evidence about the good economy fake news;
  • How MAGA disinformation can be deadly, but Trump’s followers would rather “spit on reality than admit liberals are right about something”

Long before Project 2025, it seems, an organization called the Alliance Defending Freedom has been working toward the same goals. (Of course, its use of the term “freedom” is a little like the use of “science” in “Christian Science.”)

Slate, Susan Rinkunas, 10 Oct 2024: Ban Abortion. End Gay Marriage. Outlaw Birth Control., subtitled “A powerful Christian conservative legal group is quietly reshaping America through the courts. Here’s what it’s after.”

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