{"id":20642,"date":"2023-12-15T17:39:15","date_gmt":"2023-12-16T01:39:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/?p=20642"},"modified":"2023-12-16T11:19:17","modified_gmt":"2023-12-16T19:19:17","slug":"stupid-or-evil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2023\/12\/15\/stupid-or-evil\/","title":{"rendered":"Stupid or Evil?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The dictatorship theme continues.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Are Trump supporters stupid or evil? A WaPo piece gives many examples of statements by them, dismissing his dictatorship intentions; then Salon&#8217;s Amanda Marcotte deconstructs them;<\/li>\n<li>Her take: &#8220;Regular readers know I&#8217;m Team They&#8217;re Evil, in no small part because I grew up in red state America and know that Republicans like to play at being stupider than they are.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Worst Congress Ever;<\/li>\n<li>Krugman on threats to universities &#8212; not presidents of elite universities equivocating about anti-Semitism, but the Florida education system.<\/li>\n<li>And a teaser for a piece I&#8217;ll explore tomorrow.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-apps\/imrs.php?src=https:\/\/arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/REBY33MIU55EBPKWH772EV4DXA_size-normalized.jpg&amp;w=691\" width=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Washington Post, Marianne LeVine and Isaac Arnsdorf, 13 Dec 2023<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/elections\/2023\/12\/13\/trump-dictator-comments-supporters\/\">Trump backers laugh off, cheer \u2018dictator\u2019 comments, as scholars voice alarm<\/a><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>CORALVILLE, Iowa \u2014 Clyde Carson was in the audience of the Fox News town hall with <a class=\"contextual_link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/donald-trump\/?itid=lk_inline_manual_2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Donald Trump<\/a> last week when host Sean Hannity asked the former president to rule out abusing power as retribution. \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/2023\/12\/06\/trump-dictator-day-one-hannity\/?itid=lk_inline_manual_2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Except for Day One<\/a>,\u201d Trump replied, volunteering that, \u201cafter that, I\u2019m not a dictator.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\" data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\">\u201cA lot of us Trump people get it, but he was trying to fool with the media. He did that on purpose,\u201d said Carson, a 53-year-old caucus captain from Davenport attending Trump\u2019s speech here on Wednesday. \u201cHe just done that because he knew the news would go crazy with it.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\" data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\">Many of Trump\u2019s supporters here, in an area where the former president held a campaign event Wednesday evening, said they appreciated his comments and did not take them to be a literal declaration of an intent to govern as a dictator. Trump in recent days has returned to the \u201cdictator\u201d theme, on Saturday repeating his intent to \u201cto be a dictator for one day,\u201d to drill for oil and close down the border, while claiming two days later that he was joking.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The article goes on with other examples of how Trump supporters have dismissed his threats of dictatorship. As jokes; as successful attempts to troll the media; or even as perfectly welcome &#8212; what&#8217;s needed to be done! Some of the examples are of things Trump claimed he was kidding about, where he clearly was not. The article ends with this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cIt\u2019s common sense. Of course he\u2019s joking,\u201d said Russell, who\u2019s been to more than a dozen Trump events. \u201cHe\u2019s not going to be no dictator. You can\u2019t be a dictator with a constitutional republic.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\\<\/p>\n<p>Actually what I noticed first today was this piece, reacting to the above WaPo article.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/mediaproxy.salon.com\/width\/1200\/https:\/\/media.salon.com\/2023\/12\/donald_trump_supporters_rally_thumbs_up_1281900798.jpg\" width=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Salon, Amanda Marcotte, 15 Dec 2023<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2023\/12\/15\/know-isnt-joking-with-his-dictator-remarks-its-why-they-love-him\/\">Republican voters know Trump isn&#8217;t joking with his &#8220;dictator&#8221; remarks \u2014 it&#8217;s why they love him<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;MAGA folks are gaslighting reporters when they say Trump is kidding&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Stupid or evil?<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s the perennial question that haunts those of us who support democracy when gazing upon the red-hatted minions of Donald Trump, who are working to destroy it. The everyday Republican voters who issue ungrammatical and fact-averse defenses of their beloved orange demagogue are a forever mystery. Are they really just too stupid to know that backing Trump means ending democracy? Or are they fascists who long for an American Reich, where all the people who made them feel bad for being racist will be made to suffer? On one hand, Trump supporters do sound like a bunch of morons, leading credence to the &#8220;stupid&#8221; theory. On the other hand, it&#8217;s impossible to believe anyone could think a guy who attempted a coup is safe for democracy. Most Republicans hold down jobs and manage to dress and feed themselves, suggesting they aren&#8217;t so braindead as to miss that Trump cannot wait to be a fascist dictator.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And then Marcotte &#8212; senior writer for a site that is basically a collection of opinion pieces, not a journalistic news site &#8212; states her opinion, and segues to the WaPo article.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Regular readers know I&#8217;m Team They&#8217;re Evil, in no small part because I grew up in red state America and know that Republicans like to play at being stupider than they are. But <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/elections\/2023\/12\/13\/trump-dictator-comments-supporters\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a recent Washington Post article interviewing Trump<\/a> fans in Iowa underscores the point:\u00a0 Republicans who plan to vote Trump in the primary know that he has promised to be a dictator. They know he&#8217;s not joking. They&#8217;re just thrilled, because they loathe America&#8217;s multiracial democracy and want to bring it to an end.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And then she deconstructs several of the WaPo examples. Here&#8217;s one.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Another woman, 66-year-old Leann Reed, couldn&#8217;t even keep her story straight on whether Trump is &#8220;joking.&#8221; Her comments are worth quoting at length:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cI don\u2019t think he meant what everybody is saying, being a dictatorship \u2014 and actually<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>you know right now under Biden, that\u2019s probably what we got because he does what he wants to do and he\u2019s not really listening to the voters,\u201d Reed, 66, said. \u201cI think we need somebody that\u2019s going to move forward fast to clean up everything, and I think that\u2019s what he meant.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>We take an entire journey from &#8220;he&#8217;s joking&#8221; to falsely claiming Democrats did it first to arguing that fascism is a necessary evil \u2014 all within the space of a few seconds. These aren&#8217;t folks who are confused about what they&#8217;re voting for. They&#8217;re people who want a dictatorship very badly, and feel justified in playing word games to get what they want.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Marcotte think the mainstream media &#8220;is still unable to grapple&#8221; with why Trump remains popular. And she concludes,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>But having a clear-eyed view of what is really driving the Trump base is critical. For one thing, the less credulity shown the &#8220;just joking&#8221; argument, the harder it is for the small-but-crucial number of swing voters to convince themselves there&#8217;s nothing to worry about with Trump. More importantly, it will help progressives and Democrats conserve their energies. Trying to convince Trump&#8217;s loyal supporters that he&#8217;s a fascist is not worth your time. They know \u2014 it&#8217;s why they like him. That&#8217;s time and energy that needs to be directed towards turning out the vote for Democrats and educating the persuadable voters to take the Trump threat seriously. And that will be much easier to do if we don&#8217;t get bogged down with bad faith arguments that he&#8217;s &#8220;just joking.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\\\\\\<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-apps\/imrs.php?src=https:\/\/arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/2BHBPN7BEAGKPMYHY26XI5YKVU_size-normalized.jpg&amp;w=691\" width=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Washington Post, Dana Milbank, 15 Dec 2023<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/2023\/12\/15\/worst-congress-ever-house-gop-biden-impeachment\/\">Opinion | Worst. Congress. Ever.<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\" data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\">A year ago, I assigned myself to the Capitol to cover the new House Republican majority, suspecting that this erratic crowd of lawmakers would provide some lively material.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\" data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\">They did not disappoint. What I could not have known then, however, was that this would turn out to be the most ineffective session of Congress in nearly a century \u2014 and quite possibly in all of American history.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\" data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\">The year began with chaos and incompetence. It ended with chaos and incompetence. In between were self-created crises and shocking moments of fratricide \u2014 interspersed with more chaos and incompetence.<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-body\" data-qa=\"article-body\">\n<p class=\"wpds-c-cYdRxM wpds-c-cYdRxM-iPJLV-css overrideStyles font-copy\" dir=\"null\" data-testid=\"drop-cap-letter\" data-el=\"text\">\u201cThis will go down as &#8230; the least productive Congress since the Great Depression,\u201d Rep. Joe Neguse, Democrat of Colorado, observed this week as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=i7DQIKWAfGU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rules Committee marked up plans<\/a> for an <a class=\"contextual_link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/2023\/09\/12\/biden-impeachment-inquiry-meaning\/?itid=lk_inline_manual_6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">impeachment inquiry<\/a> into President Biden for imaginary crimes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The piece goes on with details of what House Republicans did, and did not, accomplish. Quite a long piece.<\/p>\n<p>\\\\<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2023\/12\/16\/multimedia\/14krugman1-cflq\/14krugman1-cflq-superJumbo.jpg\" width=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Paul Krugman, NY Times Opinion, 14 Dec 2023<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/12\/14\/opinion\/harvard-desantis-florida-college.html\">The Biggest Threat to America\u2019s Universities<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Krugman contrasts the recent hullabaloo over university presidents and anti-Semitism, that imply woke policies are threatening higher education, with the less-reported, far greater threat.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">These are troubling times for American higher education. On one side, some students at a handful of elite universities have made harsh anti-Israel statements, some crossing the line into outright antisemitism, and some university presidents have been diffident and mealy-mouthed in their responses. Ugly as these events have been, however, there isn\u2019t much reason to believe that the quality of education at these institutions \u2014 which, in any case, account for a small fraction of America\u2019s college enrollment \u2014 is under serious threat.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">On the other side, the State University System of Florida, which has <a class=\"css-yywogo\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flbog.edu\/2023\/09\/18\/floridas-universities-lead-the-nation-in-u-s-news-world-report-public-university-rankings\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">more than 430,000 students<\/a>, is under intense political assault by the state\u2019s Republican government. The American Association of University Professors recently released a <a class=\"css-yywogo\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aaup.org\/report\/report-special-committee-political-interference-and-academic-freedom-florida%E2%80%99s-public-higher\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">report<\/a> titled \u201cPolitical Interference and Academic Freedom in Florida\u2019s Public Higher Education System,\u201d which details a takeover of key administrative and oversight positions by partisan appointees and growing pressure on faculty members to avoid teaching anything that might be considered woke. This political assault almost certainly will degrade the quality of higher education for large numbers of students, in ways I\u2019ll talk about in a minute.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But first, let\u2019s ask the obvious question: Which of these two education issues has been absorbing our collective attention, and which has flown mostly under the radar?<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">You know the answer.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>He makes this key point:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The extreme left may be morally no better than the extreme right. But in America the extreme left has almost no political power, while the extreme right controls one house of Congress and a number of states.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And concludes,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>So, yes, let\u2019s hold college presidents\u2019 feet to the fire when they bungle on a major issue. And let\u2019s denounce calls for violence wherever they come from. But let\u2019s also focus on the biggest threat to our system of higher education, which is coming not from left-wing student activists but instead from right-wing politicians.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\\\\\\<\/p>\n<p>Finally, I&#8217;ll note this longish piece, which I&#8217;ll pick up with tomorrow. It&#8217;s about the history of democracy &#8212; a blip in the long arc of human history &#8212; and Trump.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Vox, Zack Beauchamp, 15 Dec 2023<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2023\/12\/15\/23990986\/trump-2024-democracy-consolidated-culture-campaign\">What Trump has already taken from us<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;Democracy is a culture \u2014 and Trump is destroying it.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The dictatorship theme continues. Are Trump supporters stupid or evil? A WaPo piece gives many examples of statements by them, dismissing his dictatorship intentions; then Salon&#8217;s Amanda Marcotte deconstructs them; Her take: &#8220;Regular readers know I&#8217;m Team They&#8217;re Evil, in &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2023\/12\/15\/stupid-or-evil\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,16,77,54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservatives","category-culture","category-education","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20642"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20647,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20642\/revisions\/20647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}