What does America want in a president?

It's unbelievable to me that this election is actually close. (At least, it is close according to many polls.)

I do understand that for many people, Kamala is a relatively unknown public figure. She hasn't been out there on the national stage for decades like, say, Joe Biden. And she's not a naturally charismatic figure like Bill Clinton or Barack Obama.

But her values are clear: she favors abortion rights, equal protection of the law, democracy as a governing approach, and dignity and opportunity for all people, regardless of race, gender, religion, national origin, or sexual orientation. She favors continuity in the norms and traditions that continue to make America a great country.

Kamala's values aren't hidden. They aren't secret. She's lived them consistently her entire life. Plus she's happy and is honest about who she is.

What's more, Kamala's values offer a direct contrast to the "values" that Trump holds, as seen in his words and actions. His movement, "Make America Great Again," is a call to return to a previous time in which America was great--a time, apparently, which isn't now. 

Trump says America is a failing nation. He denigrates American government, military veterans, immigrants, independent-thinking women, major cities, our nation's allies, experts of all sorts including scientists, judges and the courts, journalists and honest journalism, and literally any person who thinks differently from him.

So, granting that Kamala is relatively unknown and she's actually kind of boring, why would someone support Trump? He's not unknown. Nor is he boring (although he *is* a bore).

Maybe people support him because he's a Republican? But his record represents a dramatic turn away from Republican values such as the rule of law, limited government, deficit reduction, and investments in infrastructure and basic research.

Maybe people support him because he's a conservative? But his personal behavior and profligate lifestyle suggest he is not a conservative. He allied himself with those opposed to abortion rights, but every indication is that this was an alliance of convenience, not shared values.

Maybe people support him because he represents a sharp departure from the past? But he *was* president, and even before his heinous actions on January 6th, Americans overwhelmingly voted him out of office after just one turn.

So, why do people support him now? 

I think the true answer is that many Americans are tired of politics as traditionally practiced in America with fairly minor readjustments every few years when a new party is elected to the White House, maintaining our historic and widely-shared set of core values with a few disagreements at the fringes.

But what attracts people to Trump is not values, or beliefs, or character, or continuity with the approaches of the past. 

What attracts people to Trump is his outrageousness: his flippant disregard for traditions and norms that have kept our country stable and united for generations. Trump is a disruptive disruptor, offering to come in and turn over the table, ending the game as it's been traditionally played and flinging ketchup at the wall for good measure. 

This is what Trump did during his first term. And, it seems, there are many people who didn't get enough disruption, who want more.

People also want someone who gives voice to their own grievances, about the world not being as they think they were promised it would be. These people want someone who stokes their anger and points his finger at "Other people" who can be blamed for everything, and incites the fear of this Other as a psychological drug that temporarily hides every personal pain or personal failure. These people want the drug that Trump promises them.

Well, if these people get what they want, they'll get their disruption beginning in January. And I'm going to bet that his supporters will gradually abandon him, as he once again demonstrates that he might be an entertaining candidate, offering a daily carnival show complete with hyperbole and innuendo and downright gross behavior and the promise of Soma to soothe their souls, but he's a terrible public servant.

He won't be a good president. 

You think people would remember this from Trump's first term. But, apparently, their memories are short and their desire to be entertained and anesthesized is much stronger than their commitment to American values. 

So, America, which do we want: a fairly boring, competent, joyful public servant? Or a loud, outlandish, and predictably unpredictable fool?

The Very Real Fear of Communism in Today's America

Saturday evening, I went to a bar in downtown Sarasota. As soon as I sat down, the guy sitting next to me saw my Kamala hat. He immediately launched into a diatribe: 

"She's a COMMUNIST! She HATES OUR COUNTRY!!  *YOU* must HATE our country!!!"

I just smiled and nodded, saying "Oh, really?!" and looking plaintively at the bartender, who looked on somewhat alarmed.

The guy finished his spiel, got up, and walked out. The bartender (who was new) came over and said "I'm sorry!" I said, "Thank you, but it's not your fault. I guess it's my fault for wearing this hat in public."

--‐‐-----------------------------

But Kamala Harris is not a communist.

A communist believes that the state (or the people) should own the means of production. Communist countries typically nationalize businesses and limit the ability of individuals or groups to engage in private activities or to choose their own ways of life.

As part of the typically-forcible take-over of countries by communist groups, often involving coups by segments of the military, individuals are often driven from their homes, exiled, imprisoned, or killed, all in the name of a vision of collective cooperation for the greater good. (Of course, not all authoritarian governments are communist, but that's another matter.)

Americans have been afraid of socialism (and its cousin, communism) since at least the 1840s, when a series of labor strikes and armed rebellions wracked the countries of Europe, fueled by both the remants of feudalism and the excesses of capitalism. Fears of these movements--as well as the action of labor movements across the country--caused the U.S. to severely limit immigration and, eventually, to regulate industries and build a social safety net (including Social Security and Medicaid). 

But fears of communism have continued, spiked by fears of the Soviet Union, mainland China, and, more recently, Norh Korea, North Vietnam, Cuba, and Venezuela. American children are taught to fear (and to hate) communism as a direct challenge to our commitment to "free enterprise."

During the 1940s and 1950s, fear of communism (as part of the so-called "Red Scare") led some Americans to call for public investigations of communist party activity, including public pledges of fealty to the United States. The excesses of these anti-communist activities caused many Americans to call for the public shaming of the most vocal anti-communists, of whom the most famous was Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. (See https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/investigations/mccarthy-hearings/have-you-no-sense-of-decency.htm.)

More recently, Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union the "Evil Empire," not only because of its communist ideology, but because of its attempts to spread this ideology around the world. Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida, has signed legislation specifically mandating K-12 curriculums describing "the evils of communism" and preparing "students to withstand indoctrination on Communism at colleges and universities." These actions can be seen as tactics in an ongoing culture war in which the "good guys" (American supporters of "free enterprise") must vanquish the enemies of America (the communists).

The fear of communism among Americans has waxed and waned over the past 185 years. But it never subsides for long. Communism continually re-emerges as a boogeyman, especially useful to politicians on the right who seek to scare Americans away from more liberal or left-leaning candidates. 

But it's actually extremely rare in the United States to have politicians run for higher office who proclaim allegiance to communism as an ideology. Even Bernie Sanders--one of the most liberal U.S. Senators of all times--specifically disavows communism, saying that any transfer of wealth or power from the rich to the poor should proceed by "political revolution," not violent overthrow. 

But because Sanders advocates for "Medicare for All," which amounts to a nationalized health-care system, and because he has said that important sectors of the US economy (like energy) should be creating profits "for the people," and because in his younger days he had praise for the communist governments of Cuba and Nicaragua, it is fairly easy to suggest that Sanders is secretly a communist. (https://www.hoover.org/research/how-socialist-bernie-sanders)

To those who oppose the presidential bid of Kamala Harris, it is similarly easy to conflate her liberal views with communism.  Like Sanders, Harris has also expressed support for Medicare for All. But Kamala is not nearly as liberal as Sanders. She has not praised communist countries and has never called for the nationalization of other industries besides health care. 

But never mind these subtle differences. In today's America, "communist" has become short-hand for "liberal." The claim that Kamala is a communist isn't intended as a factual or historical statement. It's pure rhetoric, designed to inflame partisanship in a certain type of American.

Because the fear of communism has been an undercurrent of anti-liberalism in the US for generations, the word itself is inflammatory: used specifically because it is a trigger for many. The soil among some is quite fertile: plant the seed, and it will grow, resulting (they hope) in anger directed at Democrats or so-called RINOs that motivates people to support self-styled anti-communists: not rationally, but reflexively, like the angry man at the bar who has been programmed to believe that anyone who supports a more liberal person for higher office is, ergo, a communist.

On Expertise vs. Ignorance in American Culture: A "Shift-y Example

A long-ago schoolmate of mine posted this recently on Facebook:

"The Sahara going green is a 'weather shift' but not 'climate change'? Lol. Trust the media, they're on your side. Lol."

My guess is that this was prompted by a recent article on this topic that was picked up by CNN (and other media outlets). https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/13/weather/sahara-desert-green-climate/index.html

My schoolmate's Facebook post seemed designed to appeal to a certain "skeptical" type of Facebooker who likes to denigrate the media because, well, "the media" is a good whipping boy, especially the so-called "mainstream media" which is a favorite whipping boy of people with certain political leanings. 

I'm sure the post was also designed to goad people like me, who tend to trust mainstream media and to distrust some more right-leaning media outlets. In this goal, the post succeeded: I was goaded. 

So I wrote a long comment, which I've decided to share. It's been slightly edited. 

There's this thing--maybe you've heard of it--called expertise. One of the things experts do is differentiate among different types of events. This may seem to be about obfuscation--and it's one of the reasons that respect for experts has declined in our anti-intellectual culture--but differentiation between similar (but not exactly the same) concepts allows for more granular and sophisticated descriptions of facts, which results in more understanding of complexity. Understanding complexity is what science and philosophy are all about.

I'm no expert on meteorology, but because I understand the complexity of complexity (!), I tend to believe that if experts in meteorology (or geophysics) use different words or phrases to describe (even slightly) different things, maybe there's some complexity there. And if I don't understand the complexity, I don't automatically assume that the scientists are trying to stake out a political claim. (They *might* be, but making that determination might require some further inquiry.)

Take your example here. Even on the face of it, "weather shift" and "climate change" seem (to me) to describe different things. Let's see what experts say about them.

A simple Google search for "weather shift vs climate change" results in a generative a.i. response that says:

"A 'weather shift' refers to a short-term change in atmospheric conditions like temperature, rain, or wind, happening over a day or few days, while 'climate change' describes a long-term alteration in average weather patterns over a significant period, typically decades or centuries, often attributed to human activities impacting the planet's temperature and weather systems; essentially, weather is the day-to-day condition, while climate is the long-term trend."

Now, as I mentioned, this is a generative a.i. response, and while it's technically correct (in terms of how these phrases are typically used [remember, generative a.i. only "knows" what others have written]), it's not directly on point with regard to the Sahara. So let's look a little further by adding "Sahara desert" to our prompt. The prompt no longer generates an a.i. response,  because the complexity of the prompt has increased. Instead, we get links to a bunch of web sites. Scanning through the first few briefly, we can choose CNN, Quora, or maybe the web site of the American Meteorological Society (because, well, they're the experts). We find at the A.M.S. site a peer-reviewed journal article called "Northward Shifts of the Sahara Desert in Response to Twenty-First-Century Climate Change."  https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-22-0169.1

Look at that! Even the *title* differentiates between a [weather] shift and climate change!!

If we were actually interested in understanding how the distinction is utilized by the meteorologists who wrote the article, we could read it to learn more. Why would we do that? Maybe because *we know that we don't know as much as they do* about this topic, and that we could learn something from their expertise. 

Or, we might immediately dismiss this--or, more likely, never even engage in this inquiry--because according to our non-expertise, "weather shift" and "climate change" are exactly the same! Therefore, these meteorologists and all the other scientists who participated in the peer review process must be full of crap! Right?

Schoolmate, I know you're not an expert on meteorology. Neither am I. But some people are. Are those experts useful to us? Do we care to learn from them, or are we somehow all-knowing about meteorology without ever taking a course in that topic?

Sneering about the distinctions that experts make is both a sign of, and a facilitator of, ignorance (i.e., "not knowing"). Ignorance is what drives our culture to denigrate expertise. Ignorance is what allows non-experts to claim (falsely) that the release of massive amounts of greenhouse gasses since the 18th century is having no effect on the Earth's climate. Ignorance is what leads humans to (sometimes) engage in self-destructive behaviors. Why would you want to encourage (or display) such ignorance?

Perhaps your reason is political?

Facebook posts about prehistoric archeology

Lately, I've heard of several people who are fascinated by some Facebook posts related to what might have happened on Earth before recorded history.

Our knowledge of prehistory is intrinsically indirect, because we don't have contemporaneous accounts. We can only *infer* what happened using a careful analysis of the (often circumstantial) evidence we do have. This kind of analysis sometimes requires deep expertise to *do* but also to understand. (For example, I recently read a discussion of the supposed lengths of the reigns of kings in Sumaria that argued that the numbers were actually intended as a lesson in quadratic equations rather than an attempt to offer a realistic chronology. I had trouble following the details.)

The stuff posted on Facebook about what "really" happened before recorded history often only mentions the "evidence" that supports a particular viewpoint. It also often ignores any scholarly analysis that might contradict the intended inference. (For example, a piece about the Easter Island statues makes it seem like it's *new* that we've learned through excavation that the "heads" actually have bodies that go many meters under the ground. It's *not* new. Plus, there are very natural explanations of how the statues were buried over time.)

An analogy I want to make is to discussions about climate change. Many scientists have concluded from the evidence (*not* actual thermometers from 1000s of years ago!) that recent warming is unprecedented in the past 100,000 years. This case is pretty solid; few reputable scientists say these data and conclusions aren't pretty reliable. (Not perfect, but very good.) And yet many climate-change skeptics argue that we don't really *know* much about temperatures on earth before about 1800.

This is very much like those Facebook posts that say we don't *know* that the Earth *wasn't* visited by gods or extraterrestrials who seeded human civilization. 

In a very limited way, the posts are right that we don't *know*. We weren't there, and neither was anyone who wrote anything down. (The cave paintings are also subject to many different interpretations.)

But direct personal experience isn't the only way to *know* anything. In trials, for example, where evidence is often circumstantial, jurors are instructed to *use their common sense* in drawing reasonable inferences.

Similarly, I think we have to use our common sense in responding to Facebook posts about prehistoric archeology. Do we have *any* actual evidence that gods or extraterrestrials have ever visited the Earth? Do we notice gods or extraterrestrials interfering in today's world? Do we wonder whether it was possible to get to the moon or build the Chunnel without divine intervention?

But wouldn't it be *totally cool* if we discovered that aliens taught early humans mathematics or philosophy or how to move enormous stones? Sure! But the possibility of something that might be *totally cool* isn't reason to think it might be true.

Occam's Razor tells us the simplest explanation for an observation is most likely to be true. What is the *simplest explanation* of those supposedly lengthy reigns of kings chronicled in ancient Sumerian tablets? Isn't it more likely that the numbers were made up as part of propaganda by people working for other rulers thousands of years later to justify their current boss's rule? Or that the tablets were intended to provide a lesson in quadratic equations in a society worried about losing that almost sacred knowledge?

You decide. ☺️

Kamala Harris for President

I lost some long-time friends in 2016 because I called them out on what I saw as gross distortions of the choices in that election. I regret losing the friends, but I don't regret speaking out.

Lemme push back a bit on some of the comments Ive seen from Trump supporters on the 2024 election. (I'm guessing I don't have any friends left who will unfriend me for *these* comments.)

1. Kamala Harris is a smart woman. She has an undergraduate degree from one of the best universities in the U.S. and a law degree from a top-rated law school. She worked as a prosecutor for most of her life, getting elected both in San Francisco and in California. She was a senator for four years and has served as vice-president for four years. She's highly qualified to be president. 

2. The idea that she's personally responsible for everything that's wrong with America today is just crazy. The Vice President has about as much authority as a "warm bucket of spit," especially when the Congress is split between two parties. Kamala did what she could, as a loyal second to Biden, and she doesn't disown his record, but she is her own person with her own ideas, who deserves a chance to lead the country. (Serving as Vice President has been a great addition to her life-long learning, by the way.)

3. The idea that she's "incompetent" is about as clueless/brainless as one can get in 2024 America. Someone who is saying that clearly gets their news from Fox/Newsmax/OAN, and has really no basis for that opinion but...um... their American right to a foolish, untethered opinion. These people need to get out more.

4. Kamala is progressive; she believes in opportunity for ALL (immigrants, women, the disabled, LGBTQ+, Palestinians). You could call her a "liberal," but you have to remember that she believes in the rule of law and the greatness of the American story. She's no "communist" or even "socialist." (These labels are tired and should be REtired forever from political discourse.) If you want to call her something, call her a "Democrat."

5. Trump has shown us what he'll do with a second term. Should we hold him responsible for the pandemic, economic collapse, and crime wave of his years as President? Should we hold him accountable for the crimes he's been charged with and even convicted of? Should we expect him to stop name-calling and red-baiting and dog-whistling and start seriously discussing the actual job before us? Or does he get a pass for all these things because he forefronts white grievance and Christian Nationalism (not to mention the effort to turn back a woman's right to choose)?

6. Despite the MAGA claim that Kamala will destroy America if she's elected, we have to look back on the actual history of the U.S. and the actual effects of presidential actions and beliefs (even from liberal presidents) on that history. The president's powers are quite limited (Thank Goodness!), but who we choose does represent our aspirations for the future and who we choose can help shape the evolution of those aspirations.

7. There's NO doubt in my mind that Trump will win 44-47% of the popular vote in 2024. This is baked in. (The fact that America is so divided today is a lamentable thing, but that's a topic for another day.) If he's extremely lucky, he'll win the Electoral College. This election will be decided by the "UNdecideds." It's now a 74 day sprint to convince the undecideds to go with hope, optimism, and joy rather than fear, blather, and "American Carnage."

May the best candidate win. 🙏 

Groupthink on the Political Right; Or, What Brings All These Wackos to SouthWest Florida?

In 2019, after 30 years living in Chicago, where the Democrats have an iron grip on the electorate, I moved to SouthWest Florida, where MAGA runs wild and the Democrats can't even field a real Democrat to run against Ron DeSantis for governor (cf. Charlie Crist). 

This shift in my immediate political environment has been jarring, honestly, and I'm actually surprised I'm still here despite strong instincts to head back North. (That's another story for another time.)

But moving here has had the unintended (and initially unwelcome) effect of exposing me to the overwhelmingly White, and overwhelmingly Male, base of the GOP, and this exposure has allowed me to get a much better sense of what motivates these people to villify Democrats and to actually venerate a convicted cretin like Donald Trump.

One of the things I do pretty often here in Sarasota is I have become a regular at a couple downtown bars' Happy Hours. Fortunately, I can walk downtown, where there's a quite respectable group of restaurants and bars--much better than you'd expect from a small city like Sarasota, which has not only an interesting, financially successful citizenry (mostly from away, as they say in Maine), but also a lot of passers-through.

So I get to meet these financially successful citizens and their passing-through ilk regularly. And even though almost every bartender has banned political conversations at their bars, you can get a pretty good sense of someone's beliefs and values from a more general chat about life, work, and aspirations in general. 

And what I've learned is quite interesting, especially in light of the current political environment in the US and in Florida. 

Almost without exception, the White Males I chat with in Sarasota *hate* Democrats, *despise* the Democratically-led cities and states of the North, and *love* DeSantis and this income-tax-free "paradise." These strong beliefs motivate many of these men to move here from wherever they are from, bringing with them their hard-earned wealth and their extremely dystopian ideas about the "Hell Holes" up North like Chicago.

When I tell them I miss Chicago, I get the most interesting and vehement reactions, such as the nearly universal view that Chicago is (still!) the murder capital of the world and that the Democratic Machine is absolutely evil and completely un-democratic.

Facts be damned in these conversations: the beliefs I encounter are totally baked in, even--especially!-among people who actually lived at one time in Chicago or in similar cities North and West of the Mason-Dixon line. These beliefs provide almost certain proof that most of these men are consumers/products of FoxNews and are not-so-secret believers in tired old racial and gender stereotypes, not to mention Trump's "American Carnage" storyline.

What I hear from these men about Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Gavin Newsom, Chuck Schumer, and many others, is a true caricature: a classic projection of every fear and every disgust that they were raised on, or acquired sometime during their mostly very financially-successful lives.

A sample: Joe Biden is the worst form of "bought-and-paid-for politician" in the history of the world. Kamala Harris got where she is by sleeping with every powerful man she could, and can't utter a coherent thought. Immigrants are mostly criminals and terrorists, or are lazy shifters in search of government handouts. People like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are communists or fascists (or both?) who hate America and want to create a nanny state that eliminates free enterprise and independent thought. Northern governors like J.B. Pritzker and Gretchen Whitmer want legalized marijuana so their states' populations become addicted and easily manipulated. Academics are all elitist Marxists who think their book learning trumps common sense and everyday experience. (Okay, maybe that last one has some truth to it.)

While many of the men I talk to are truly experts in their respective occupations and seem to truly love their families, the analytical or empathetic approach they take to their work or personal lives seems to go out the window once the conversation edges toward the political. 

What's going on?

I really don't know the answer. I'm baffled by all of this. Is it the fluorine in the water? Is it COVID vaccines? Is it the result of Bill Gates' devious design of Microsoft Windows? Is it the work of the Trilateral Commission or the attendees at Davos? Is it creeping federal control of schooling in the U.S.?

Seriously, what explains the apparent takeover of (a large sector of) the political world by right-wing groupthink?

I welcome your thoughts.