- This blog isn’t about conservatives and the religious; it’s about people believing things that aren’t true, about tribalism and hypocrisy, and how human nature reduces everything into binaries.
- With numerous examples;
- And about how Trump didn’t win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Let me expand on something from yesterday. I compile many items in this blog that might be taken as criticizing political conservatives, or the religious. But those are meta-categories, if you like. What I’m actually attentive to are items that fall into roughly three categories, something like these:
- Things that people believe that are objectively not true. These include items about flat earthers and the connection between vaccines and autism. And, frankly, about “prophets” who get messages from Charlie Kirk in heaven.
- Examples of human behavior that illustrate tribalism and hypocrisy. These are typically items at odds with the principles of the Enlightenment, the US Constitution, even of the New Testament. Examples include Christians who seem far more eager to quote Leviticus than Jesus, and much political behavior.
- Examples of how human nature tends to sort everything into binaries: black vs white, good vs bad; and how many people are hostile to, or simply don’t perceive, intermediate positions, such as (as I’ve said) shades of gray, or even colors. And the inability to foresee long-term consequences.
Off hand those are the three main groups. Today I’m going to compile a bunch of JMG and similar items, and match them up with the three principles above.
Again: This isn’t about conservatives or the religious per se. This is about assessing the extent to which humanity can correctly understand the world, and the extent to which humanity can grow beyond its tribal roots in a manner that supports its continued existence on the planet. And how those things can be done given that we are hobbled by ancient, tribal, superstitious human nature. And that’s why these posts are about science fiction, which speculates about the nature of the universe, and of humanity’s future.
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Vox, Andrew Prokop, 10 Oct 25: The insidious legal strategy Trump and Stephen Miller are using against their enemies, subtitled “They’re bringing weak cases that will likely fail — again, and again, and again.”
It’s not about justice, it’s about harassment of political opponents. Tribalism.
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The Atlantic, Marc Novicoff, 10 Oct 2025: A Very, Very Expensive Way to Reduce Crime, subtitled “The Trump administration’s National Guard deployments are highly inefficient.”
It’s not about crime, it’s about retribution — as showily as possible — against ‘blue’ cities perceived as enemies of the red tribe.
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Media Matters, 10 Oct 2025: Right-wing media say Portland is a war zone under siege. On-the-ground coverage paints a different picture., subtitled “Local coverage has highlighted the peaceful nature of protests and the violent response of federal agents”
In this case it’s flat-out lying, in service of tribal animosity. Same as Trump repeatedly claiming that Portland is “burning to the ground.” Fortunately, such flat-out lying is getting more difficult in the age of smart phones and social media, when such lies can be exposed. Here’s another:
Boing Boing, Jason Weisberger, 8 Oct 2025: Images from the Portland “war zone”
At the same time, the silo-ization of social media means that many people see only what partisan sites choose to show, enabling confirmation bias. Social media giveth, and social media taketh away.
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Hypocrisy. Tribal loyalty trumps abstract principles.
- JMG, 10 Oct: FLASHBACK: Trump Hailed Nobel Winner In January (from Trump’s feed)
- JMG, 10 Oct: Hegseth Championed Diversity In 2013 Harvard Brief (from The Hill)
Ignorance and delusions:
- JMG, 9 Oct 2025: Evangelical: I Saw Charlie Kirk Riding Horses With Jesus In Heaven Where Jesus Also “Gave Him A Horse Ranch”
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This next would be a combination of ignorance (about what “discrimination” means) and allegiance to a perverse morality based on primitive human nature that defies the Constitutional system she would presumably swear to uphold.
LGBTQNation, Alex Bollinger, 10 Oct 2025: GOP governor candidate shouts that firing people for being gay is “not discrimination”, subtitled “She said that being gay is an ‘immoral lifestyle choice’ and that firing gay people should be legal.”
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This would be ignorance (of how science works), motivated thinking (they jump to a conclusion and then work to “find” the evidence), and ignorance again (what could possibly be a causal connection between circumcision and autism? Do these people know anything about human biology?).
Scientific American, Allison Parshall, 9 Oct 2025: RFK, Jr., Says Tylenol Use for Circumcision Causes Autism. Here’s Why That Claim Is Flawed, subtitled “Studies suggesting circumcision rates are linked with autism are ‘riddled with flaws'”
Also this:
JMG, 9 Oct 2025: Sec. Brain Worms: Autism Is Linked To Circumcision (from HuffPost, also entailing RFK Jr.’s ignorance of what a placenta is)
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OK, I’ve added this category in the list above: simplistic, black and white thinking, often defended as “common sense.” And an inability to foresee consequences.
JMG, 8 Oct 2025: Johnson Suggests “Illegals” Shouldn’t Get ER Care
Has he thought this through? First of all, he’s assuming that a pregnant woman showing up at an ER is a “illegal rabble rouser,” which is pure racism (more broadly: hostility toward the ‘other,’ toward those from other tribes). Second, so turn her away, what will happen? If a traffic accident victim comes to ER as an illegal, are they just supposed to dump him out of the sidewalk and let him bleed out? This is a cold-hearted, cynical bunch. Is that what Jesus would do?
Also, the hypocrisy. Johnson raises the specter of Americans’ taxes paying for the illegal to be treated in the ER — but cost isn’t an issue when it’s sending the National Guard to blue cities.
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More political retribution.
Media Matters, Matt Gertz, 8 Oct 2025: Calls for retaliatory prosecutions are the next phase in the right’s rewriting of January 6
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This is the predictable story of today.
Salon, Igor Derysh, 10 Oct 2025: “Technicalities”: MAGA fumes after Trump fails to win Nobel Peace Prize, subtitled “‘Nobody has done more in decades to bring peace to the world than Donald Trump,’ argued GOP leader Steve Scalise”
Ignorance: They don’t understand the rules. Whatever Trump has done in recent weeks won’t count until *next* year. Nominations for this year’s prize were due in February. And tribalism of course: MAGA’s leader is surely the greatest person in the world!
But mostly this:
The New Yorker, Susan B. Glasser, 9 Oct 2025: Trump, the Self-Styled “President of PEACE” Abroad, Makes War at Home, subtitled “The President’s martial rhetoric against fellow-Americans is a striking contrast with his push for an end to hostilities in Gaza.”
The world sees Trump sending troops into US cities, sees him bombing boats off the coast of Venezuela. And Trump wants a Peace Prize? (Long article, with many examples of Trump’s misstatements, or lies.)
