The press relies on ignorance of history
Its own, and that of its audience. If your audience doesn’t know history you can get away with saying anything.
People know that the word “Nazi” denotes something bad, but what percentage of the population today has any deeper knowledge of what Nazis stood for, advocated, and actually did, as well as their plans for the future had they not been defeated? I would guess that knowledge is very shallow, particularly among those under fifty years of age (see this, for example).
So one can call President Bush Hitler, President Trump Hitler, demonstrators for Trump Nazis and Fascists, and the audience will nod sagely and take it all in. CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour shamelessly gets into the act. Hey, all’s fair in love and war, right? And this is war.
Of course, there’s always the possibility that she doesn’t even know what happened during Kristallnacht – or what’s happening now, for that matter:
I’ve long said anyone in our country that throws around the accusation of “Hitler” or “Nazi” owes every single person who ever suffered under the Nazi regime a big apology. Gross ignorance doesn’t cover it.
The hatred is what it’s all about, not historical accuracy. Amanpour has discharged her tribe’s 2 minute hate, now it’s someone else’s turn to spew bile next week.
In truth, there is little doubt in my mind that this hatred, fanned constantly by the MSM, is what caused so many people to vote for Biden. He certainly didn’t campaign with anywhere near the same energy as Trump, nor did he spend anywhere near as much time in the battleground states. But the Democratic Party learned from Hillary’s campaign that actual campaigning isn’t as important as counting the votes away from prying eyes. Which is why they could nominate a low-energy candidate with an unattractive V-P candidate.
Random thoughts from the middle of a migraine (and along the lines of deliberate deceptions)
I was genuinely shocked yesterday at a comment from a former co-worker (I’m now retired). Living here under “King Jay”, ruling from King County over his extended Washington fiefdoms, does mean most folks I know are liberals, but this co-worker is older, sensible and intelligent. She is compassionate and thoughtful. So, I had hopes (slim ones) that she could be carefully led to pieces of the truth, like a bread crumb trail. She had been discouragingly resistant, but because I care about her as a person, I was judiciously persistent.
I still care but I am discouraged and may not be as persistent now.
The comment which threw me led to an “epiphany” that most here have probably already reached. I was pointing out that human nature is such that power gained is almost never willingly relinquished (regardless of the political bend) and she said (we were discussing the new lockdown orders here and the whole COVID thing) – “Well, you know, this is only temporary”. I couldn’t hide my shocked and incredulous expression.
My epiphany – which maybe isn’t one, because I think we all know this, but perhaps haven’t really processed it?
– People are not being deceived because they lack the intelligence to comprehend the truth (despite generational efforts to dumb the populace down).
– People are not being deceived because the truth is too difficult to find (despite powerful maneuverings intended to block access to that information).
– People are not being deceived because they are too cowed to face it (despite overt strategies to intimidate).
People are being deceived because at some level – they WANT TO BE deceived. They want the lie to be the truth. They are emotionally invested in the lies being truth. And attacks against the lies are perceived as attacks against THEM.
These are not comforting thoughts.
They ARE in line with reality.
We are in the midst of a hurricane of deception and the storm is far from over.
From the perspective of a Christian, I know none of this is catching the Almighty by surprise. I would even be so bold as to state that God is neither a Trump support nor a Biden supporter. God is not so much interested in any nation “being great again” or having their “best days yet ahead”. He is interested in personal holiness, which has to start with each person CHOOSING to either face truth (however ugly and unpalatable it is) or to embrace deception. And I believe He is giving each of us every possible opportunity and fighting chance to choose truth. And I grieve for those who chose deception. They are friends and family and loved ones and ultimately, that choice is going to harm them greatly.
Over the weekend, left-wing Antifa and BLM thugs viciously attacked supporters of Trump (including women, children, and elderly men) during a rally in D.C., but the cowardly and mendacious Biden campaign chose to blame the violence on “white supremacists.” Progressives continue to deflect attention away from the real “domestic terrorists” (Antifa and BLM) onto imaginary enemies who can be conflated with anyone who voted for Trump. The intellectual dishonesty is not surprising, but disturbing and enraging nonetheless.
The Media knows EXACTLY what it’s doing.
Amanpour knows EXACTLY what she’s doing.
Oh, and apologies seems to be the latest fashion. It’s all apologies now, all the way down.
Amanpour apologizes. I am so sorry. It was never my intention to hurt anyone. (Sure, lady. Of course you didn’t. Not to worry—it’s a mistake ANYONE could have made…especially on the anniversary of Kristalnacht. )
Jack Dorsey apologizes. Should NEVER have happened, he says. Don’t know how that suppression of the Biden Family syndicate ever got off the ground… (Sure, whatever you say…as you continue—no doubt gleefully—to suppress the tweets of certain select folks!)
Mark Zuckerberg apologizes. What we did was wrong. We have simply GOT to do better. Of course we do. And WE WILL!!(Indeed, and all of are all so persuaded, so mollified that we’re rolling on the floor laughing.)
Andrew McCabe apologizes (sort of). Says he can’t figure out how that FISA abuse ever occurred. If he had to make the decision today, NO WAY. (Sure , Mr. McCabe, we’re all as confused as you are—but about certain other things.)
Rod Rosenstein apologizes (sort of), pulling out the always handy “HAD I KNOWN” defense. A little heavy on the remorse though, but hey, he’s a drama queen (if a represeed one) AND remorse works!
What about Comey? Ah, Comey. Comey deserves a lot of credit. No apologies from him, nossir. He’s a man of principle! As a pragmatist and romantic, it’s the “I really don’t quite remember” gambit. Pperiod. No compromise. No surrender. And it’s all credible. Those poor FBI directors have so much to remember it’s impossible to demand that they remember every little detail. Touche!
In theory, of course, everyone deserves an apology…but some are more deserving than others.
And clearly, there are those who deserve NO apology at all.
None whatsoever.
“…what caused so many people to vote for Biden…”
Hint: They didn’t.
(That’s the whole point of the nightmare we’re currently going through.)
I often watch Christiane Amanpour on NPR. In the past she would try to give the “impression” that she was neutral … but she wasn’t really. During this election she tossed all efforts to be neutral and jumped into the Biden camp with both feet. Almost all guest are in the liberal Biden camp and definitely Trump hatred is rampant. When she had the occasional conservative guest on or Trump she went with constant interruptions and when she got penned down she would go with … opinions are not facts argument!
About the Nazi thing it didn’t surprise me. In fact I expected it. She should be de-platformed from NPR!
While AOC did not technically use the word “Nazi”, she did make such a comparison.
So, here is a great response from a Polish Member of the European Parliment to AOC calling the US running "concentration camps" on the US southern border:
Tarczynski of Poland gives a lesson to Ocasio-Cortez on what is Auschwitz.
However, I suspect that AOC will NOT respond.
This post immediately brought this scene from Mike Judge’s, “Idiocracy” to mind:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntAR0IT5pl4
Unfortunately this is likely the level of a majority of current High Schoolers’ understanding of WWII.
I know different folks have different interests, but it astounds me that many people are willing to simply go through life being buffeted by circumstances within their control. There are so many critical things beyond our control (whether some of our cells are going to start mutating and forming tumors, whether a foreign nation will lob a nuke on our heads, whether a rock in space more than 20 miles in diameter will hit the Earth, whether a volcano will go off, throwing us into years of overcast skies, freezing temperatures and failed crops…), why not get a handle on the things one can control? Spend an hour or two each day studying history, current events, science, music, art… 1/12th of each day on something other than base pursuits of fleeting pleasure.
Amanpour’s husband James Rubin is Jewish. She knows she’s lying, in my opinion. Unforgivable.
Projection, deflection, willful blindness… all are simply aspects of intellectual dishonesty, whose motivation is an emotion based refusal to examine their need for societal acceptance.
The irony of claiming ‘wokeness’ while demonstrating a refusal to self-examine makes them complicit in the harm they enable.
Waging a ‘righteous’ war, ideologically blind to historical consequence.
Not sure she would consider it “lying”.
More like activism, “resistance”, agit-prop—with an audience of tens of millions (if not more) around the globe.
She gets a kick out of it. (They all do.) A powerful frisson—the thrill—of being a genuine operative in the anti-fascist “resistance”, doing what she can for Truth and Justice (and ratings). (Take, for example, Brian Stelter, anti-fascist extraordinaire, who no doubt suffers for his struggle, for his idealism, for his beliefs, oh how he suffers.)
On the other hand, it’s what passes no doubt, in their perverted fantasies as “the pursuit of happiness”, gives them a purpose, a reason to live, serves as a fetish to their sense of morality (along with a handsome salary and excellent benefits).
I guess the good news is that in spite of everything they still view “the pursuit of happiness” favorably…though who knows for how much longer…
“People are being deceived because at some level – they WANT TO BE deceived. They want the lie to be the truth. They are emotionally invested in the lies being truth. And attacks against the lies are perceived as attacks against THEM.” LJB
Bingo.
God “is interested in personal holiness, which has to start with each person CHOOSING to either face truth (however ugly and unpalatable it is) or to embrace deception.”
If God is truth then a refusal to face and accept truth must bar one from his presence. In which case, ‘hell’ is self-imposed.
“Progressives continue to deflect attention away from the real “domestic terrorists” (Antifa and BLM) onto imaginary enemies who can be conflated with anyone who voted for Trump.” je
Otherwise known as bearing “false witness”. Catholocism labels it a mortal sin. “A sin is considered to be “mortal” when its quality is such that it leads to a separation of that person from God’s saving grace.” And a refusal to face and repent of grave sin is the only thing that can make a sinner “irredeemable”… what irony for Hillary.
jack,
Many years ago, during the Iraq war, Amanpour’s reportage on it revealed her intellectual dishonesty. And it’s NPR that should be de-platformed. At least as a publicly supported propaganda outlet.
Laurence Jarvik,
Websters defines a lie as knowingly telling an untruth. To be a lie, you have to know it not to be true.
Which raises the question; can a lie be subconscious? Only when the conscious mind rejects consideration of information that exposes a belief to be untrue.
Which brings us back to LJB’s epiphany, “People are being deceived because at some level – they WANT TO BE deceived. They want the lie to be the truth. They are emotionally invested in the lies being truth. And attacks against the lies are perceived as attacks against THEM.”
Sir Walter Scott famously observed, “Oh! What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive”
Perhaps few among those “who practice to deceive” ever realize that the foremost victim within the web they’ve woven… is themselves.
I’ve long said that the left’s obsession with calling everyone “Hitler” is because there’s never been another ruthless, totalitarian dictator they _didn’t_ like.
Although I did once see Stalin referred to as “right-wing” on Reddit.
Rick Gutleber:
Excellent point. They’re not going to want to call our attention to Stalin or Pol Pot or Chavez. That’s also why they take such great pains to say Hitler was on the right (although he really was hard to pigeonhole into either right or left) – as though he had anything whatsoever in common with liberty-loving Jacksonians.
Is history even taught in schools today? Is civics even taught in schools today?
“That’s also why they take such great pains to say Hitler was on the right (although he really was hard to pigeonhole into either right or left) – as though he had anything whatsoever in common with liberty-loving Jacksonians.”
I have been in the online debate game for 30 years and in that time, I’ve watched the traditional right/left of US politics – eg, statism on the far left vs lack of statism on the far right – get shoved aside to adopt the right/left of Euro politics. Since they assume statist government, their scale is about the flavor of statism – nationalistic tyrannies like Nazi Germany get filed away on the far right because “nationalism” while international/classist tyrannies like communism are on the left. I don’t know if it was the intent in the beginning, but it became a convenient circumstance to saddle US conservatives – who, politically have literally nothing to do with Nazi Germany – with the “Hitler!” baggage.
Yes, it’s “nationalism” alright.
So that if you’re a patriotic American—if you want what’s good for your country—you’re a fascist.
(Or rather, in order to be a “patriotic” American you have to sell out your country and “lead from behind”.)
Similarly, it’s why all the “beautiful people” bemoaned (and continue to bemoan) Brexit.
And it’s why the State of Israel is Global Enemy #1
Curiously, though, nationalism is A-OK for China or Iran or Palestine….
Yes, the media rely on their audience’s ignorance of history. For which we can blame the public schools and the universities.
But the underlying problems are bigger than that. As LJB’s post makes clear, even relatively well-informed, intelligent people want to be deceived. At the very least, they don’t mind being deceived. Worse, they punish and ostracize people who expose and push back against the deception.
Neo has written repeatedly over the years about her fear that many people in this country–perhaps most people–have simply lost the taste for freedom. They don’t want to be free. They want to be taken care of. Above all they want to think of themselves, and be thought of, as good people. The combination of willful ignorance and invincible self-regard may well prove fatal to our country. It has already done tremendous damage.
(Trigger warning: highly controversial literature- and life-based observation ahead.)
1. Stephen Crane’s short story “The Monster” is about small-town bigotries and penalties for defying social norms. One of the characters explains the social death that is being meted out to the hero of the story, a doctor who shelters a hideously disfigured African-American coachman who saved his young son’s life in a house fire, with a simple statement: “It’s the women”. Based on what I have seen at my place of work and among my married acquaintances, I’m afraid there’s something to that. I wonder what Crane would have made of social media. Instead of tea-party boycotts, snubs in the street, and other petty social cruelties, he could have written about organized bitchiness campaigns on FB, Twitter, and Instagram.
2. In a December 1960 New Yorker column entitled “Two Heroes”, John Updike described two white parents out of a community of two thousand who escorted their terrified daughters to an integrated public school in New Orleans through a screaming mob of “segregationist banshees”. “One way or another,” Updike wrote, “under the harsh and ingenious pressures that a community can apply, all have been chipped away, leaving, for us to see, two people–a Christian minister and an ex-WAC whose husband, she has told reporters, spent three years in a foxhole in New Guinea and wasn’t going to let a mob of women tell him what to do. Out of two thousand, two. Strangely, it seems enough.” (Updike, Assorted Prose [1965]).
Pre-emptive apologies to our host, a very brave woman, for raising this issue, as well as to other extraordinarily brave and outspoken women like Candace Owens, Sidney Powell, the probably by-now deceased ex-WAC in Updike’s piece (Updike identifies her as “Mrs. James Gabrielle”), and Gov. Kristi Noem who have more ba-, er, *backbone* between them than most male politicians in this country. That said, I think social media-fueled norm-enforcing provides a partial explanation for the paucity of civic courage that we see around us.
People are being deceived because at some level – they WANT TO BE deceived. They want the lie to be the truth. They are emotionally invested in the lies being truth. And attacks against the lies are perceived as attacks against THEM.” LJB
Shelby Steele has a phrase – poetic truth – that he uses to describe this phenomenon. Poetic truth is a fantasy people hold on to to convince themselves of their moral righteousness/superiority and to absolve guilt. Steele uses it to describe how many whites ‘cleanse’ themselves of racism by supporting all manner of civil rights grievances, ie., BLM, systemic racism, etc.. It doesn’t matter that the poetic truth is at odds with reality.
I am not inclined to give Amanpour and her ilk a pass for “ignorance.” They lie deliberately.
… what Nazis stood for, advocated, and actually did, as well as their plans for the future had they not been defeated? — Neo
I doubt many younger people have invested the time to watch the four seasons of the streaming show “The Man in the High Castle.” It is precisely the story of what the USA would have become had the Allies lost the war. It’s adapted from a Philip K. Dick sci-fi novel. Be forewarned that the the first season is a very slow start to the story.
Author Philip Dick considered a follow-on novel as there was demand for it. But he ultimately abandoned the effort because of the strain of spending a couple years in that sort of mindset.
I recall a story from a year or so ago about a NYTimes reporter flipping out because she visited the White House and the song Edelweiss was playing there. Edelweiss is the intro song for every episode of “High Castle,” and many of those episodes are very dark.
Geoffrey Britain,
Thank you for taking the time to write what you did about God and truth in your 6:26 comment. Although the concepts aren’t new to me, the way you put them together struck me in a new way. I’ve already re-read them a few times, and will likely do so a few more. Very thought provoking.
1.
Well, actually, damnit, over 70,000,000 AMERICANS voted for the Biden team. I’m disgusted.
2.
Back when we were united against Islamists, we recognized that taqiyya (i.e., blatant deception even in ordinary dealings) was among Islamists’ tools for which we needed to be prepared. As the American left’s alliance with Islamists has grown, so has (probably by coincidence) the American left’s resort to deception grown. Remember when Harry Reid was asked if he had any regrets about lying about Romney’s taxes, Reid’s response was “Romney didn’t win, did he?” (Hey, I know lying has been part of politics like forever. But its got so bad among leftists that Biden kept repeating, with no negative pushback from the leftist media, the “Trump said there were good people who were white nationalists” lie long after it had been repeatedly debunked.)
KyndyllG,
“nationalistic tyrannies like Nazi Germany get filed away on the far right because “nationalism” while international/classist tyrannies like communism are on the left.”
Yes and there’s a name for that, “transnationalism”. The hypothesis is that nationalism itself is responsible for wars. Eliminate national borders and wars are eliminated.Tribal warfare is just an inconvenient data point, easily ignored.
Communism posits itself as postnational with eventually the proletariat all sitting around the campfire singing kumbaya. The attraction for those suffering from arrested development is obvious.
Barry Meislin,
“Curiously, though, nationalism is A-OK for China or Iran or Palestine….”
China is communist so once the world is entirely communist, then its national borders will be abandoned… right. Iran and all other Islamic nations are a convenient ally for the left, as both Islam and the ChiComs rightly see America as the foremost obstacle to their agendas. As both are totalitarian ideologies, they are competitive predators in a temporary alliance. Though China’s treatment of its Uyghur Muslims demonstrates that the ChiComs recognize the internal threat.
Hubert,
“Yes, the media rely on their audience’s ignorance of history. For which we can blame the public schools and the universities.”
Far more than blame is required, being held accountable is critical because until consequence is applied, their actions will continue.
“Neo has written repeatedly over the years about her fear that many people in this country–perhaps most people–have simply lost the taste for freedom. They don’t want to be free. They want to be taken care of.”
Indeed. What utter fools they be not to see that without freedom there is no security. They are enabling the fashioning of the chains of their future enslavement. A preview of which is Joe Biden proclaiming that his ‘experts’ have advised him that this Thankgiving should ideally consist of but 5 people and absolutely no more than 10. With social distancing and the wearing of masks in the home.
M Williams,
Holding on to a fantasy at odds with reality, along with “good intentions” is that with which the road to hell is paved.
Rufus,
Thank you for the kind words.
Ira M. Siegel,
Far less than 70 Million voted for Biden.
The Left has declared war upon America and has embraced Sun Tzu’s dictum, “All war is based on deception…”
The fraudulent vote counting was massive.
I am with Barry; I do not think Joe got 70 million plus votes. But he received millions of votes.
In all my years of voting for Presidents, and I voted for a lot of losing candidates, I never felt “sick” after an election until 2020. This election shocked me with how truly corrupt the media and elected officials are and the reality that these individuals are running the Country. They are ruining the US and I do not understand how in the long term they will benefit. They are ignorant and have no sense of history. The French Revolution did not end very well for the masses.
On a positive note; Thank you Australia for getting it when it comes to US media.
AFTERTHOUGHT- “ If the New World slave trade was genocidal, as alleged, the what was this? ELIMINATIONIST?”
Whenever I see a black American who’s followed Malcolm X or Muhammad Ali to adopt Islam as a their True roots religion, I’m always tempted to confront them about what they will do about Muslim approved slavery of the non-Muslim? These would or would have been be your ancestors, too, Man! You cannot be indifferent to their plight.
Neo (11/17; 654p.m.)…
Just a little addition to your Commmunist Monsters List: Mao. 60-million corpses of his own people. 30-million of those starved in the Terror Famines of Collectivization and (Cough, Gag!!) The Great Leap Forward. The vast gulag of the Lao Gai and mass executions of millions of innocents. No talk or print ever about the truth of Chairman Mao from the Western Left and rarely from Liberals.
Horrendous.
The name ‘Stalin’ and ‘Mao’ and the word ‘communist’ gets thrown around a lot too. Many Conservatives don’t know history either.
Republicans are not fascists and Democrats are not communists. I know you’re convinced of the first part. Now work on the second part.
I see some now aren’t convinced Biden got 70 million votes. LOL. Well, truth is he is at 79 million. Did he get 10 million fake votes? I recall when Hillary beat Trump in the popular vote by 2.8 million votes there were some conservatives who insisted that exactly 2.8 million illegals voted. Convenient argument [with no evidence….]
Hubert, re social pressure and malicious behavior…see my post The Drivers of Political Cruelty and Arrogance:
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/60732.html
re the John Dos Passos excerpt at the post I linked immediately above:
“It’s the women I remember most, their eyes searching out evil through narrowed lids.”
It may well be true that women in general are more susceptible to social pressure and to being motivated by such pressure to do / go along with very bad things. This time around, though, and just anecdotally, among the people I actually know, there seems to be at least as much of the leftist Crazy among the men as among the women, and maybe more.
Montage, Montage … there are many Democrats who ARE communists. And claim to be Marxist, or socialist – but support the same ideas that commies support: against capitalism, against God, (usually) against nationalism.
You know that commie Vietnam fought against commie China in 1979? It was after USSR supported Vietnam saved Cambodia from further Killing Fields of the China support Khmer Rouge & Pol Pot, by its ’78 invasion.
There are probably a few US neo-Nazis who also claim to be Republicans, but virtually any “fascist” policy, or “communist” policy, will get more support from elected Dems than from Reps, or from academic Dems or media Dems – those paid for their opinions.
One of the dirty tricks is to compare some less informed, less influential “Republican” who has some objectionable opinion, as “equally bad” as some terrible opinion of a famous Dem in Congress, the media, or some college official or professor.
One main reason the socialist Hitler is considered to be on the “Right” is because he was fighting against “Left” USSR. But in fact, the Left can and often has been fighting other factions of the Left.
However, the point you could have brought up is that in these post-historical times, many folk, probably most folk, don’t really know what those labels “mean” – in policy. People know that the word “Nazi” denotes something bad,
Nazi is bad. People want to be good. Lots of people call Trump a Nazi; bad Nazi; bad Trump. That does seem to be the 5 year old level of logic many folk want to use, and do use, because they are more comfy this way.
Yes, Biden got 10 mil or more fake votes. It does seem that the corrupt, lying deep state is claiming Biden got some 79 million votes. How many millions of those papers were frauds will never be known – I believe over 10 million. You might believe no more than 10 000 – or might believe every vote not proven fraudulent was honest.
Once the rules of the election are violated, I no longer presume the ballots are valid. The burden of proof shifts to the side that violated the rules. And it’s well known that neither side can tell legal from fake ballots once they get in the box.
Altho those with just Biden, and no other votes, are 99% likely frauds.
With illegals voting also in 2016, there were hundreds of cases. It can be, and was, argued that hundreds of proven illegals voters was irrelevant when compared to 2.8 million. But it’s far more than zero; infinitely more (in %). Not enough evidence is a lot different than “no evidence”. Sort of like OJ murdering his wife.
You don’t quite seem to be one of the Trump haters who believes the lies because you want to believe the lies. But it’s not clear what falsehoods you believe. I’m glad you’re challenging Reps to see if we believe any falsehoods.
One of the things dirty commies do is make lists of essentially innocent people who they then punish. Besides the re-elected AOC, there are other dirty Dems planning on doing this too. And already trying to punish law firms which were working with Trump.
“Well, actually, damnit, over 70,000,000 AMERICANS voted for the Biden team. I’m disgusted.”
True, but a significant number of those were Silicon-Americans.
(We can’t call them thumb drives anymore, that’s racist.)
Tom Grey,
The burden of proof never shifts to the side that is alleged to have violated the rules [or laws]. If it did we truly would be living in a communist state. In the American legal system you have to provide evidence. There is a reason that Trump team right now has lost 25 of 26 court cases so far. They have no solid proof backing up their claims. Plus, if you closely read the allegations by Trump team in each state it’s really only MI and PA that they are contending had fraud. WI and GA are simply recounts. AZ they dropped their case and did not allege fraud.
It’s interesting, but a few days ago you were astonished that I said there was voter fraud committed every election. You said you would not assume that. My view is, yes, there is some voter fraud but not enough to make a difference. But now you seem to completely embrace something akin to a conspiracy theory to the tune of at least 10 million fake ballots. This would mean you not only challenge MI, PA, AZ, GA and WI but you challenge many more states as well I guess.
I’m willing to let the court cases play out. But you seem to be of the theory that one rotten apple spoils the entire barrel. At which point, I have to ask; if it is proven that some Republicans committed voter fraud would you be willing to say that maybe Trump also had 10 million fake ballots? I wouldn’t.
Montage:
“There is a reason that Trump team right now has lost 25 of 26 court cases so far.”
A typical assertion without evidence. Many cases have not gone Trump’s way, some have. See Viva Frei/Roberts Barnes on youtube or rumble. The reasons for wins and losses vary from case to case, standing, evidence, etc. You know better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPNhiTExv1Q&t=140s
David Foster,
Thanks for the link to your 2019 Chicago Boyz post and the Dos Passos excerpt. Well said.
I’m in academe. Not just academe, but an especially “progressive” part of it. In my experience (and yes, big grain of anecdotal salt here), the most aggressive, relentless, and vindictive enforcers of left-wing orthodoxy have been my female colleagues. Guys are involved too, but usually as fellow-travelers and cheerleaders. The women have been the instigators, organizers, and “orthodoxy-sniffers” (Orwell). Not surprising, given the demographic make-up of my field. However, I have heard about the same pattern obtaining in the families of friends. In some cases the atmosphere has become so toxic that my male acquaintances have simply abandoned social media altogether. Good move.
“…there seems to be at least as much of the leftist Crazy among the men as among the women, and maybe more.” I don’t doubt that, alas. You may toil in a different part of the academic vineyard, however.
Depressing bottom line: everybody likes power. The sexes just exercise it in different ways.
Montage:
I keep seeing this “25 out of 26 cases” references (not just from you, but also elsewhere on the left), and so far I have yet to see a link. Nor can I find the link when Googling for it. Perhaps you could provide one.
But what matters is SCOTUS – not lower courts which in many cases would always rule against Trump however good his case might be. Now, I happen to think that no matter what the evidence is, Trump will lose even at the SCOTUS level, mainly because it is literally impossible to prove certain kinds of fraud – for example, the provenance of a mail-in ballot once it is separated from its envelopes (or the envelopes thrown away, as apparently happened in certain states). So that is undetectable fraud, particularly if bipartisan poll watchers in sufficient numbers were not around to monitor. The computer fraud that’s alleged may be impossible to prove or disprove as well, particularly the scope of it. It all remains to be seen, but I can tell you right now that I do not expect the courts to change the present outcome of this election, and yet I think it’s highly likely that fraud occurred, and quite possible that it was massive and determinative. I just think we’ll never know, and I don’t think evidence convincing to a court sufficient to get them to overturn the result will ever come out.
However, as I’ve written many many times here, the way the rules were changed for this election (with the excuse of COVID) offers great vulnerability to fraud, including enough fraud to change the outcome, and I expected that people would suspect fraud no matter who won. I am firmly convinced that had the shoe been on the other foot, Democrats would be attempting at least as many lawsuits as Trump is now. This election never, never, never should have been allowed to proceed in this manner. And it was mostly (although not entirely) Democrats who insisted on it. And in many cases the GOP let them. It is an extremely bad situation and completely foreseeable that there would be fraud and/or widespread perception of fraud, as I wrote here and here. Both were written well before the election.
Hubert,
Happily, I’m not in the academic vineyard at all. I really feel for those who are; I suspect the current climate is a big negative for recruiting of spirited and creative people.
A friend who *is* in academia (actually, now retired) said that it was in the late 1970s (IIRC) that women in class who wanted to express an opinion would often prefix it with “As a woman, I think”, rather than just “I think.”
Here’s a modified headline: “The press relies on ignorance.”
Montage,
“Many Conservatives don’t know history either.” True. We are lamenting the fact that ignorance of modern history appears to be fairly widespread. Neo’s post had to do with the ways in which the media take advantage of that ignorance to push a tendentious narrative. If more people had a better grounding in the basic facts of 20th century history, the media might not be able to get away with it so easily.
As for communism, I suspect I have a better understanding of that than you do. I worked during the Cold War with people who had grown up in the Soviet Union and other communist countries. I have a pretty good grasp of what “communism as reality” (Alexander Zinoviev) really means. That is why it bothers me to see some of its distinguishing features–e.g. political censorship, political interference by the secret police, the systematic deformation of language, the consolidation in power of a corrupt and self-serving administrative class (the “nomenklatura”), the shift towards state-administered “social and economic rights” and away from the individual rights and freedoms in our Bill of Rights–gaining traction in this country. To take a specific example: I don’t know whether Rep. Karen Bass is or was a card-carrying member of the CPUSA, and I don’t care. It’s irrelevant. I do know that she has repeatedly visited and expressed admiration for communist countries and seems to regard them as a positive model for the United States. So, famously, has Bernie Sanders. So have others who look likely to join a Biden/Harris administration. That’s close enough for me. These people can call themselves whatever they want. I know what they stand for, and I’m against it.
There is indeed deep skepticism on this list and elsewhere regarding Biden’s vote count and the election in general, to put it very mildly. The reasons for that skepticism have been exhaustively presented and discussed in this and previous threads on this blog. Clearly, you do not find them convincing. So be it.
But a number of commenters–Ira Siegel, for example, just a few posts up from this one–have acknowledged that Biden got a hell of a lot of votes, whatever the “real” number may eventually turn out to be. That means that the country is deeply, bitterly, and pretty evenly divided. And that means that whoever prevails will have a “consent of the governed” problem. You don’t want to live under our guy, and we don’t want to live under your guy. You can talk all you want about how we’re all Americans and we’re all in this together. Trump actually tried that approach in his inaugural address in 2017, and it didn’t work with you. What makes you think it’ll work with us, especially after the last four years? After what we saw in Washington, D.C. this past weekend?
This is not your usual presidential election. We’re not talking about “partisan squabbles”, as you put it in an earlier thread, or splitting the difference in the interests of “bipartisanship”. We’re talking about fundamental, existential, and probably irreconcilable differences. So, I ask you again: What now?
Neo,
This page has a list of lawsuits related to this election.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawsuits_related_to_the_2020_United_States_presidential_election
By my count 27 have been denied, dismissed or ruled. A few are pending but some are in NC and TX which have no bearing on flipping the overall election.
I’ll agree we may never know, but laying out evidence that voting rules were changed and therefore fraud just may likely have occurred is being selective with facts to support a view you support. Let me give you an example. As I went searching for these lawsuits I found that there are 26 women who have accused Trump of sexual misconduct / assault. Just like with fraud, it can be very hard to prove these allegations. But since Trump has been known to like ladies, has had affairs with porn stars and hung around some bad characters who did bad things to women then should we just assume that without actual evidence Trump is guilty? I wouldn’t – but many Democrats definitely do. So I really think bias plays a part in some of the conclusions that people reach about allegations.
Montage:
See this.
If the opportunity for fraud exists of course it doesn’t mean it occurred. But the opportunity, combined with some of the facts that have emerged, and the relaxed rules, make it quite likely although far from certain.
It’s also likely it will never be known whether it did and to what extent. But the motivation could hardly have been more powerful than it was this year. You are naive if you don’t think so. The rules were absurdly weak on the face of it – no other country on earth votes like that even in COVID times. The Democrats have shown themselves to be utterly ruthless in their quest to take Trump down for the entire time he’s been president, and voter fraud is extremely plausible in such a scenario. The present course of events was entirely predictable.
Hubert,
This country has been divided at least since the Civil War. Every cycle people talk about the terrible divide but somehow America keeps on keeping on. My biggest issue has been with Trump the person not necessarily Trump’s politrics. I believe that is part of why he lost. He is far more divisive than any president since LBJ. Reagan and Clinton were hated too but they managed to win landslides in their second terms. Meaning people drifted to the center and the extremes of each party had fewer people than now. I think once Trump is gone things could level out a bit. Although the media needs to truly ignore him. But if the Republicans keep the Senate I expect some normalcy if for any reason because Biden is not like Trump. We’ll see.
Montage:
Trump is not to blame for much of the hatred that has raged against him. He’s no uniter, but the divisions were already fully there before he was ever elected, and the Democrats wanted to impeach him the moment he was elected, and called him illegitimate and themselves the “Resistance.”
What’s more, the rage against Bush was nearly as bad – the Democrats just weren’t leftist enough yet to employ the same methods.
It has never before been the case that the educational system and other cultural institutions of this country have hated America and worked to make young people hate it. That is very new, so comparisons to previous eras don’t reassure.
As for Biden not being Trump, would that he were. Biden is a man who was a mendacious mediocrity in his prime, and he’s long past his prime. Without being senile, he’s most definitely in some sort of decline. But even when he was young, he was a divisive figure despite his “hail fellow well met” exterior. I felt that way about him even when he was a Democrat – did not trust him one bit. During the Bork hearings Biden’s propensity for nastiness and lies was in evidence.
In some of Biden’s rhetoric during the 2020 campaign he has tried to talk about unity and an end to divisiveness and yet has been bitter and nasty. He’s even sometimes been combative and nasty to ordinary people asking questions at his appearances (“dog-faced pony soldier,” etc.). Not to mention the corruption that I believe has been part of his life and the lives of those near and dear to him for quite some time. He seems to be veering way to the left; his stated policy plans are deeply leftist.
Montage,
Thanks for responding. You are of course correct that millions of people voted against Trump because they dislike or even hate him as a person. I don’t happen to share that sentiment, but there is no denying that it was a strong factor in this election. It may have been decisive.
As Neo said, Trump didn’t create the divisions in this country. His election in 2016 was a manifestation of them. He was elected because he promised to take on our corrupt and incompetent ruling class and fight for the interests of middle-class Americans. Not surprisingly, the ruling class did their best to take him out from Day One, with the support of voters like you. It looks like they may finally have succeeded, at least for now.
I wish I could share your blandly sanguine attitude about the future of this country, but I can’t. I don’t think we’re going to muddle through this one. I have voted in every presidential election since 1980. About half the time, the guy I voted for lost. When that happened–and we usually knew that it had happened the night of the election–I shrugged and went to bed in the belief that the guy I hadn’t voted for probably had the best interests of the country at heart and would probably do an OK job. The Republic would survive.
I don’t feel that way this time. The people who are waiting impatiently in the wings to get their hands on the levers of power are not interested in preserving this country as a constitutional republic. In fact, many of them hate and resent this country: its history, its traditions, its prosperity, its decency, and its freedom. They have scores to settle. They have something very different in mind for us: a fundamental transformation. And this time they mean to make it stick.
I would of course be very happy to be wrong about this. I fear that I am not.
Neo, Hubert
I will agree elements of the left are problematic. I think if they push too hard they will be rejected. I think it’s one reason the Democrats lost House seats and didn’t take the Senate as was predicted. They may still. But, yeah, no doubt I think middle America is not ready for anyone left of Biden. Which is why in the Democratic primary the voters chose Biden. He’s pretty moderate – at least on the surface. Everyone else waiting in the wings is further to the left. Although it can be argued the current Republican party is pushing further right. I’d like some moderates. Let’s see how this plays out.
Montage:
When you write of the left that “I think if they push too hard they will be rejected,” I think you are showing naivete about the left. What you are describing is true of old-fashioned liberal Democrats, who were more respectful of what citizens wanted. The left could not care less what the citizens want if what the citizens want is to throw them out of office. They left believes the ends justify the means, and the ends consists of permanent power for the left, by hook or by crook. Lying, the race card, violence in the streets, banning speech, are just the beginning of what the left is willing to do. Election fraud is absolutely something they will commit given any opportunity. Lawfare – locking up opponents – absolutely the case. Letting criminals out of prison en masse? Yep. And the left ultimately will go to a lot worse than that if they think it necessary – to setting up a gulag. Don’t think it can’t happen here. It’s nowhere near that at the moment, but they would do it if they saw the necessity. And half the nation would be fine with it, or at least silent about it.
Um, no, not “naivete”.
Not at all.
(But I would agree that he/she—generally “tone perfect”—does a pretty good job disguising it…nonetheless, there are, on occasion, some lapses. Considerable lapses. Well, no one’s perfect….)
Related (and important) – a review of Rod Dreher’s “Live Not by Lies”:
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/abe-greenwald/soft-totalitarianism-hard-truth/
H/T Powerline blog
audience doesn’t know history you can get away with saying anything
IVANKA TRUMP WAS MY BEST FRIEND. NOW SHE’S MAGA ROYALTY
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/11/ivanka-trump-was-my-best-friend-now-shes-maga-royalty#intcid=recommendations_vf-trending-legacy_7fbaf76f-270f-42ba-bd15-dbe042edb412_popular4-1
Neo
When you write of the left that “I think if they push too hard they will be rejected,” I think you are showing naivete about the left.
When I say they will be rejected I mean by the greater number of Americans which would make up Republicans, Independent and moderate Democrats. Obviously the left would not reject itself. I do think the greater number of Americans are not in line with the leftist view of the world. The fact that the Democrats lost seats in the House and didn’t outright take the Senate tells us that. The reason Biden won is in part because he is not viewed as far left and because a lot of voters hated Trump. If Bernie had been running Trump would have won, IMO.
Montage:
You appear not to have understood my answer. I will try to be even more clear: the left does not care if this person or that person or people support it, as long as they can stay in power by any means necessary.
The reason they ran Biden rather than Bernie is simple: they thought Bernie was too obviously a leftist and could not win, and they thought Biden could be a stealth left candidate controlled by them but seeming otherwise. So Biden was chosen as more “electable” (perhaps with some help from fraud) and more poised to fool the public about what was intended as an enormous move to the left once he was inaugurated. That’s the plan, anyway.
So yes, they care in the sense that they will run whoever they think has a better chance of winning, as long as that person will perform in office as a person on the left. Once they further consolidate their power through court appointments, executive orders, threats, more voting rule changes, illegal aliens given citizenship, etc. etc. etc., there won’t be as much need to run stealth candidates and it can be done more out in the open.