Guest Commentary On Trump's Supporters

Receiving and responding to the comments of thoughtful and well-informed people is one of the reasons I maintain this blog. Yesterday I put up a post entitled, How Stupid Are Trump Supporters? It featured a Hulu show in which a convener pretends to be conducting a focus group study into the effectiveness of ads Trump is considering for his campaign. In light of comments from The Mound of Sound and Pamela MacNeil, I realize that mine was a superficial effort at best. I am therefore taking the liberty of reposting their insights, and my responses to them, here.

First, The Mound of Sound:

I think, Lorne, that a large segment of any people fed a constant diet of half-truths and outright falsehoods will eventually succumb.

I regularly write how the corporate media cartel has gone from watchdog of government to government's lap dog, especially when the government is right wing. Here's an example. When Dion and Layton were toying with the idea of a coalition majority government to displace a Harper minority, Canada's corporate media cartel spread the idea that this would be a constitutional coup d'etat, fiendish, the end of democracy. It was an outright lie. In fact that was how Harper's then BFF, John Howard, formed his government. As this utter lie circulated I was surprised at how many people I spoke with believed it.

Years ago 60 Minutes ran a segment about the Republican misinformation machine. Two key Repugs behind it openly described the system used to gain public acceptance of complete falsehood. It progressed through three stages.

The first stage was the open mouth radio shows - Limbaugh and others. They would float a rumour such as the stories about John Kerry's service in VietNam. From there it would be picked up by cable news - FOX in particular, first on their opinion shows (Hannity/O'Reilly) before migrating to the news department. Eventually it worked its way through the cable news milieu.

What began with the Limbaugh-bottom dwellers achieved a critical mass as it became established in cable news. From there it reached a point where the mainstream media - NYT,WaPo - could no longer ignore it and had to run the story or appear out of it. This was the formula used for the effective SwiftBoating of John Kerry.

The public, meanwhile, kept hearing the same lie over and over through progressively credible news services until they were getting it from the gold standard news outlets at the very top. Naturally many of them were conditioned to believe it.

The whole process is an insult to democracy, one that can quickly fester into something far worse.

Lies and half-truths are powerful weapons the unscrupulous wield invariably against their own. They use it to set the hook with those somewhat disposed to support them. Invariably they bait their hooks with generous amounts of fear and appeals to their prey's basest instincts. Harper did it. It works. We had a decade to see that in action.

My response:

Thanks for your in-depth analysis here, Mound. The failure of the media is manifest. In Dan Rather's memoir, he recounts something very similar happening around the time that he incurred right-wing wrath over calling out George Bush's military record. There was irrefutable proof that Bush was AWOL for a year, but the fledgling Internet quoted an early blogger (who was, in fact, a Republican operative) focusing on a particular document that must have been false because, he alleged, proportional spacing did not exist on the typewriters of that time. Proportional spacing did, in fact, exist, but once this blogger's words were in the air, it became a 'fact' that the document was false. The proof? The blogger's allegation and nothing more. It took off from there, ultimately resulting in Rather's dismissal from CBS.

Now, Pamela MacNeil:

No presidential candidate in any past campaign has ever intentionally focused on these people. Whether it was democrats or Republicans these people were not even a thought in the minds of either candidates.Trump has given them life and continues to manipulate them under the disguise of fighting for them.

Trump has made them believe, many for the first time in their lives ,that what they think and what they have to say matters.
They are not aware that now that they are visible, we are witnessing how pathetic they really are.Stupid yes, but pathetically so.

I almost feel sorry for them when I see them responding to the attention they get from Trump and his team. Something they have lived their whole lives without.

These guys have been ignored and dismissed politically, socially and culturally their whole lives. Now their being asked what they think. Living at the bottom of the intellectual ladder, this a moment where they think they can shine in an all too dreary life.

Listening and watching them is cringe worthy. Now they have been able collectively as Trump supporters to come together as a force. They are also an example of Mounds posting the other day on authoritarianism existing with the people not just their politicians, even when they are the mindless and the powerless.

I wonder what their numbers are.

My response:

Thanks for your thoughtful response, Pamela. I think you have identified a very important reason for Trump's support. While I have reacted largely with contempt to his acolytes, seeing them simply as responding to the racism he regularly appeals to, you have looked for a deeper underlying motivation.

How Stupid Are Trump Supporters?

If you watch this, the answer should become abundantly clear in about three minutes:

Food Security: A Comforting Delusion

Here in the eastern part of Canada, especially at this time of year, we delight in seasonal produce, especially that which can be purchased locally. Living close to the Niagara area, we enjoy such seasonal treats as cherries, strawberries, cantaloupe and corn. And despite some years of scarcity due to bad weather, we tend, I think, to take our largesse for granted. In some ways, it is as if we believe that our food grows in supermarkets.

This is not, however, a time for smugness. The fact that we Canadians take the security of our food supply as a given does not make it so. Climate change and the terrible volatility and variability that it entails should make us all the more humble and determined to do what we can to abate the worst, but there is no sign of this happening.

Watch the following and see if it doesn't shake your confidence. Start at the 7:55 mark:

Some Good News For A Change

Perhaps I follow the ways of the world too closely, but lately I have been feeling a deep disenchantment with everything. Time to change the channel and feature a story that highlights not only the human capacity for resilience, but also a community's capacity to embrace newcomers:

Why A Tax On Financial Transactions Makes Sense

Robert Reich, for whom I have a great deal of respect, offers this succinct explanation:



You can read more about this issue, also often referred to as the Tobin tax, here.

UPDATE: We Should All Be Outraged

My father lived to be almost 91 years of age. Should I enjoy such a long life, there are many things that I hope not to lose along the way. Near the top of the list is my capacity for outrage. This morning brought confirmation that at least for the time being, it is alive and well.

Some may remember a post I made in July about Nadia Shoufani, the Mississauga, Ontario Separate School Board teacher who participated in a rally protesting Israel's brutal abuse of the Palestinians and the occupation of their land. At the time, the Jewish lobby demanded her head, conflating her criticism of the Jewish State with antisemitism, as they are wont to do.

It appears their efforts have paid off.

The CBC reports the following:

A Greater Toronto Area elementary school teacher has been suspended following a school board investigation after she was criticized for appearing in and speaking at what advocacy groups have called an anti-Israel rally.

Nadia Shoufani, a teacher at St. Catherine of Siena school in Mississauga, Ont., has been suspended with pay pending further investigation by the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board, the board said in a statement.

The school board said concerns raised by the public about Shoufani's professional conduct have been referred to the Ontario College of Teachers for review.

We should all be outraged over this craven capitulation of the Dufferin-Peel Board to the political pressure exerted by those who will brook no criticism of Israel, despite its well-documented record of human rights abuse and atrocities. Human Rights Watch notes the following:

Israel enforces severe and discriminatory restrictions on Palestinians’ human rights, and it builds and supports unlawful settlements in the occupied West Bank. Its security forces appear to use excessive force against Palestinian demonstrators and suspected attackers, raising the specter of extra-judicial killings. It has renewed the practice of punitive home demolitions. The Palestinian Authority has arrested students and activists allegedly for their political affiliation or because they expressed criticism. Hamas security forces also engage in torture and ill-treatment of people, including journalists. Israel’s closure of Gaza, supported by Egypt, amounts to collective punishment and has impeded reconstruction.

Says Amnesty International:

In the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Israeli forces committed unlawful killings of Palestinian civilians, including children, and detained thousands of Palestinians who protested against or otherwise opposed Israel’s continuing military occupation, holding hundreds in administrative detention. Torture and other ill-treatment remained rife and were committed with impunity.

The facts are not in dispute here, but thanks to those public officials working in Dufferin-Peel who have neither backbone nor a belief in freedom of speech, only the kind of cravenness seen in the worst of our politicians, Shoufani is being made an example of. That the board lacks even a scintilla of integrity is evidenced by their refusal to acknowledge they are succumbing to outside pressure, instead hiding behind another excuse for her suspension, as revealed by the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association (OECTA), which is representing the beleaguered teacher. They said,

the teacher wasn't suspended for her conduct, but instead for appearing to not comply with the investigation. However, OECTA said the teacher has provided all of the information the board has asked for and met its timelines.

But not everyone is unhappy about this witch hunt:

Amanda Hohmann, the national director of B'nai Brith Canada's league for human rights, praised the board for suspending the teacher this week.

"It is heartening to see the school board treating this matter seriously," Hohmann said in a statement.

While Hohmann and her group may be gratified by Shoufani's suspension, I expect and hope that fair-minded people everywhere will be appalled by this indefensible curtailment of one of our most valued Charter rights: freedom of expression.

UPDATE: Thanks to Marie for this video that clearly addresses the kinds of conditions that Nadia Shoufani was protesting against. Even if you watch even five or ten minutes, you will get the picture.

Guest Post: Putting Ourselves Under The Microscope

In response to my post yesterday, The Mound of Sound offered the following observations, which I am featuring as a guest post. The Mound has made an intensive study of the environmental and climatic perils we have created, and his insights are ones none of us can afford to ignore:

I fear, Lorne, that we have devolved into a culture of collapse. We plainly cannot keep going as we have since the Reagan/Thatcher/Mulroney era ushered in the scourge of neoliberalism. Yet, having been drawn in, there's no sign of the vision much less the popular critical mass to change and, when time is running out and our options are being steadily foreclosed, that can be fatal.

Jared Diamond contends that when past societies have collapsed it was usually the result of a choice and, in many cases, the disastrous outcome was foreseen. We can choose to conduct ourselves in ways today that we know or ought to know will spell disaster a generation or two from now. Our bacchanal of consumption is premised on "because we can" with scant regard to whether we should. We are just lucky our own grandparents were never empowered to wreak this sort of devastation on us.

Science tells us that mankind first exceeded Earth's resource carrying capacity when our population passed 3+ billion in the 70s. We're now at 7+ billion heading to 9 and beyond. To compound this, our per capita consumption footprint has swelled and continues to grow. Yet our overpopulation and over-consumption has come at a direct, although somewhat deferred (for the moment), cost.

The signs are tangible, palpable, measurable and, in some critical instances, visible to the naked eye from the International Space Station cupola. Rivers that no longer run to the sea. Red tides and blue green algae blooms in our lakes and along our sea coasts. Once fertile soil that now lies exhausted, creating spreading desertification. The blight of deforestation. The collapse of global fisheries as our industrial fleets fish "down the food chain."

We know how this ends but not exactly when. James Lovelock, creator of the Gaia Hypothesis, predicts mankind will number in a few hundred million by the end of this century. That's a massive die-off. He has warned that the only way to blunt this result entails what he calls "sustainable retreat." He uses this term to describe a social transformation away from our excess consumerism into "living small." Small houses, shared transportation, living local, everything necessary to sharply pare our individual and collective ecological footprint.

I've seen no sign that we would entertain this prescription. Your soon to be neighbour confirms this view. Our leaders still quest for 3% annual growth in GDP. We live in a political/economic construct in which negative growth is worse than death. We cannot conceive of how to live other than in the mode that has brought us to this precipice.

The following video, discussing how 2016 is on track to be the hottest year on record, helps to reinforce the consequences of our heedless ways:



Finally, Marie over at A Puff of Absurdity says that despite our natural tendencies, we cannot afford a 'business-as-usual' reaction to the perils engulfing us.