2021 Politics: The New Era

[scottydog]

Yeah a lot of my friends and I are bummed that Virginia has gone red again. We've been blue for at least 10 years. Damn.

[Lupine]

That link seems to be working now, at least for me.

The link was working, but the video wasn't loading. It's fine today.

I've got a couple of quibbles. First, he seems to think that it's a new phenomenon, as in the past ten years or so.

Not a new phenomena, but social media has amplified it in that time scale.

I came across mention of this guy just the other day- in reference to his book.

In a positive or negative light? It's unusual for CNN to publicize something like this.

Most everything I've seen has been positive. Looking around he's been doing this for some time and at the moment seems to be flying under the social radar. So there's been no major backlashes I've seen.

[RJDiogenes]

Not a new phenomena, but social media has amplified it in that time scale.

That's true, it has been steadily escalating. In my own timeline, I date it back to 1993, which is the year I went to work at BMC and the year I noticed it being satirized in places like Doonesbury-- and, I think, about the same time that the Internet began to take hold in popular culture, which I'm sure is not a coincidence.

Most everything I've seen has been positive. Looking around he's been doing this for some time and at the moment seems to be flying under the social radar. So there's been no major backlashes I've seen.

That's good. I hope the book gains some popularity. He intends it as a guide to getting around the Wokies and undoing the damage, and getting back to making progress (although I haven't gotten to that part yet), but I think a lot of people could benefit from reading it. Strangely, he specifically says that the Wokies are not zealots, but he doesn't think there's much hope of bringing them around-- but I do call them zealots and I think a lot of them could be straightened out if given the opportunity.

[RJDiogenes]

I finished Woke Racism (actually over a week ago, but I keep forgetting to post) and I found it very good, though I do have a few quibbles. He says he wrote it mainly as an aid for people to work around Woke obstacles to change, but I think it would make a good self-help book for people who were suckered in but are still capable of being open minded. His comparisons to religion are right on the nose, but he touches only briefly on the profit motive, which is a little odd. But the really strange omission is that he never mentions how all this stuff drives Right-Wing recruitment (or at least voting). If we take Woke Culture at their word for their stated goals, it really must be the greatest effort at self sabotage in history.

[scottydog]

^^ Cool. I should order that from our local library and read it.

[Lupine]

Just when you thought politics couldn't any more insane, the President of CPAC wants to defund PBS because of a.... Muppet.

[scottydog]

^ You'd think he'd have more important matters on his plate than the introduction of a new character on a TV show.

[Lupine]

People are losing their minds over trivialities these days.

[RJDiogenes]

Remember Roosevelt Franklin?

I get a kick out of how the guy cites Ernie and Bert-- aren't they threats to America as well?

[Lupine]

Governor DeSantis in Florida wants to reinstate the Florida State Guard.
A quasi-military not under Federal authority: What could possibly go wrong?

[RJDiogenes]

That should give them the flexibility to respond quickly to hurricanes, pandemics, and undesirable election outcomes.

[scottydog]

The more I think about it, the more I'm coming to believe that Lincoln was wrong to preserve the Union. He should have just let the South go and become their own country.

[Lupine]

Unfortunately the South likely wouldn't have been content with just that. There have been claims that the Confederacy planned to expand into Latin America after the war. And that isn't even going into the issue of letting a slave holding nation exist.

[RJDiogenes]

North America would have ended up like the Balkans or the Middle East.

So, when I'm not sitting around in the ER, I'm still looking for signs that the extremist fever is breaking. CNN has posted a couple of interesting interviews recently:

Here's Bill Maher on Critical Race Theory, and here's CNN getting a clue that extremism is extremism is extremism. Better late than never, and it is a good sign that they are actually putting stuff like this out there for people to see.

In other news, a couple of reporters or editorialists have resigned from FOX because of extremism, not that it's likely to do much good.

[scottydog]

...here's CNN getting a clue that extremism is extremism is extremism. Better late than never, and it is a good sign that they are actually putting stuff like this out there for people to see.

This is a fabulous 10-minutes on the psychology of extremism. If I were still a teacher, I'd show this to my students. Jonathan Haidt -- a very well known expert on the psychology of morality -- has been saying for years that college campuses are making a big mistake by censoring right-wing views, and he deserves credit for publicly saying that he's (gasp) a political moderate. I'm curious how much hate he gets from his NYU students and colleagues.

Another interesting part of that interview was the four characteristics of people who hold politically extremist views:

1) They're in psychological distress about social conditions
2) They have a black and white perception of the world
3) They're overconfident in their beliefs
4) They're less tolerant of different groups & opinions

I love Haidt's solution to regulate social media platforms who make billions of dollars by cultivating these four characteristics and fomenting extremism.

I'm so glad my insomnia allowed me to watch this video