Linky Friday #193: Creatures in Crime
Education:
Image by lsiegert 
[E2] This is the Democratic Party I’m going to miss. {More}
[E3] 74million takes a look at teacher attrition.
[E4] In case you missed it, Elizabeth Piccuito wrote a good piece about handling suspected plagiarism.
[E5] Will Trump have an adverse effect on international students coming here?
[E6] Last month he outlined an ambitious student debt plan. I don’t mind capping student loan repayment… if we start looking at colleges and majors where people are defaulting and adjust accordingly.
Wildlife:
[W1] Kansas City is being invaded.
[W2] In addition to the United States of America, the Animal Kingdom of Earth may end up a loser in the Trump era.
[W3] Well, this is a very Russia story.
[W4] Save the cows! Save the cows!
[W5] Awww, snail love.
[W6] Dead fish. Lots of them. Lots and lots of them.
Planet:
[P1] Carl V Philips wrote a paper on the deleterious health effects of wind turbines, which wound around to lead him to a bit of Trump-voter Empathy.
[P2] China – which, by the way, did not invent global warming – may end up taking a lead on climate change. … We’ll see.
[P3] Britain may have to choose between a greener Europe or a blacker America.
[P4] Républicain Nicolas Sarkozy is threatening trade sanctions if Republican Donald Trump pulls out of the Paris Accord.
[P5] Ooooh, corporations sliding their money into activism. {dramatic music}
[P6] Good news: We may be able to inhabit Antarctica in a couple centuries.
Science:
Image by feverblue
[S2] Ooooh, some progress on fighting antibiotic resistance?
[S3] Roundest. Object. Ever.
[S4] Lee Jessim looks at the limitations of Stereotype Inaccuracy and the central problem: The lack of aggregate inaccuracy. {More}
[S5] On the other hand, what does it say about the validity of stereotypes that they can be so inconsistent?
[S6] A parasite that comes from cats alters your sex life.
Crime:
[C1] A study on liberals, conservatives, and criminality.[C2] Smooth, man.
[C3] Three cheers for Nebraska!
[C4] Never let daycare workers get bored. Bad things happen.
[C5] Maybe it was an owl that done it.
[C6] Dead dogs. Too many of them.
E1: Blogging would also be a much cheaper way to read what academics have to say about their research.
E3: I know that teachers are dedicated to their students but history teachers re-enacting the Battle of the Somme for their students is a bit much.
E5: If International students believe that they are going to be under constant surveillance even though they are here legally than yes, they are not going to want to come and study.
W2: Does this mean that King Leon the Lion will declare a war of self-defense and rally his predators against Americans? W1 suggests yes.
W3: The bride looks a little like a younger version of our new First Lady.
C3: The Cornhusker state has been doing some good work in criminal justice reform.Report
E6 [academics write too much crap]: I’m very sympathetic to Lattier’s argument, but one of the examples from a religious studies journal he cites,
strikes me as potentially very interesting. I’m certainly no expert on Buddhism or China’s adaptations thereof (and I haven’t read the article he refers to), but I understand that Guanyin is a major figure in–and the idea of a Bodhisattva is an important aspect of–that religious tradition. Simply identifying a weird-sounding title is not necessarily a clue that the piece in question is a bad one.
Now, maybe that article is still crap. As I said, there’s lots to decry in academic writing and the pressure to publish.Report
E4 [Elizabeth on “suspecting” plagiarism]: I wrote a pretty lengthy comment at her blog when the post came out. The gist is that college instructors’ and colleges’ means of identifying and dealing with plagiarism leave much to be desired.Report
We don’t have a subscription to Turnitin, but supposedly there is something called “SafeAssign” in BlackBoard for people who, unlike me, aren’t Luddites and want to do all their grading online.
I still demand printed copies of papers, that I can write on and file if necessary. I check plagiarism by doing a Google search on one or two random sentences in the paper (using quotation marks to see if I hit anything that’s an exact lifting). If I find something, I read the site, if it matches the paper, I print out the website, make a copy of it and the paper for my files (just in case) and staple the webpage to the student’s paper, and on the grade sheet have written “0. See me to discuss this.”
About 80% of the time when I catch a plagiarist, he or she responds with “oh, man, I didn’t think you’d check. I just ran out of time.” They accept the 0 and admit what they did, and I admit it bothers me that they’re simply chagrined they got caught…..and also that my reputation as someone who really truly does check hasn’t spread.
I once had someone protest what they did WASN’T plagiarism; I directed them to the defining statement of it in my syllabus and offered a meeting with the two of us and the department chair to iron things out, but then the student decided maybe they would just accept the 0.
A few people claim “But I didn’t know” but considering most every faculty member I know who requires written papers goes over just what is and is not plagiarism early in the semester, that one doesn’t wash either.
That said: I would NEVER confront someone in front of a class about it, and I would never base my claim on the usage of a single word. I think the professor in the instance described was in the wrong.Report
Part of my problem is that at least at the institutions I’ve taught/TA’d, it wasn’t up to the instructor to give a zero, but there were reporting requirements that if followed, could wreck havoc on a student’s academic career.
Part of my problem is that some instances of plagiarism don’t in my opinion merit a zero, especially when a zero means that the student will almost definitely get an F for the course. (Perhaps some of this is a difference in our disciplines? I know way too little about biology/botany, but in history, there is a lot of original argument required that demands both using other sources and coming up with one’s own thing. And the arguments themselves have a subjective component, too.)
I suppose my major beef is that instructors should have more latitude in how how they handle plagiarism and that with that latitude, they should see “busting” students on it as some sort of crusade.
(Disclosure: the last time I taught was spring 2009…..I’m getting so far away from that experience that maybe I shouldn’t rely on my anecdotes as much as I used to.)Report
We have leeway; my policy is to give a 0 for the first offense and any additional offenses after the person has been warned will go to Academic Dishonesty Council. I have never had to do that.
I give a very long time (more than a month for a 3-5 page review paper) for people to complete assignments, and I offer advice, and I even, in some cases, offer to look at drafts and comment on them.
Plagiarism is kind of a big deal if it happens “in the working world” in biology (though fabricating data is an even bigger bad deal) so I want to teach people how to do things the right way from the get-go.
The problem is, in high school, some students have been so miserably taught – either never had to write, or were told, “The only way you are not plagiarizing is to directly quote and then attribute” which, I’m sorry for the language, makes for piss-poor papers.
We’re SUPPOSED to report it to an online repository now but I don’t because that does feel needlessly harsh. A 0 on a paper in my class won’t net the student a failing grade but it will lower their final grade.Report
I realize my comment could be read as saying your discipline doesn’t put a high value on academic honesty. I apologize for that.
As for your broader points, I agree and find your example instructive. As much as I sometimes get on my high horse “academic people tend to grate on my nerves in their demand to retain their prerogatives,”* I think it would be wise to permit them greater latitude in addressing plagiarism and cheating, perhaps with some guidelines and due-process for the student accused of dishonesty. The fact that your institution is now requiring reporting on the online repository suggests to me that it is trying to erode that latitude.
*That’s not a jibe against you. It’s a jibe against some I have known personally and who tend to be like those described in this comment over at Elizabeth Picciuto’s thread, although perhaps not quite as bad as that commenter’s examples. (And at the end of the day, maybe that bad behavior ought to be irrelevant as an argument against academicians’ prerogatives.)Report
E1: Don’t get me started on my tirade about the academic-publishing “game.” It’s rigged in a lot of ways, but it’s a game most profs are expected to play if they want to get or keep tenure. (And I definitely want the protection of tenure, based on what happened during the last bad budget cycle to a couple of our non-tenured people who were highly regarded as teachers – they were gone, somewhat suddenly, because there was No Money)Report
S1: photons or protons?Report
FixedReport
Trump is considering Alabama Senator Jeff Seasions for Attorney General. This is a man who was rejected for federal judgeship because he referred to an African-American attorney as a “boy”.Report
Yes, although that was something over 30 years ago. He’s on Trump’s short list today because of his current stance on illegal immigration. Given things he’s said in the last few years, it would be unsurprising if he also turned the DEA loose on recreational and medical marijuana shops/dispensaries. I don’t recall if it was Sessions or one of the other Republican Senators who was recently blaming the rapidly growing opioid problems across the South on Colorado’s legalization of marijuana.Report
Yeah, Sessions is going to be awful.
I suppose that the saving grace is that there are enough conservatives who actually believe in the 10th Amendment and enough liberals who will find temporary support for the 10th Amendment to be politically useful that it might become an interesting Constitutional argument.Report
Unless, of course, the conservatives *DON’T* actually believe in the 10th Amendment…Report
Scott Leimeux of LGMs argument is that most people do not care about federalism when it suits them.Report
I think that’s at least partially true. In my experiences, conservatives are prone to like federalism on an abstract level. But they’re (way too) willing to toss that aside for expedience. Likewise, liberals are prone to dislike federalism in the abstract, but are willing to implement it and argue for it when it helps them.
This is a distinction but with only a minor operational difference.Report
Views on District of Columbia autonomy are the number one example.
If you think states shouldn’t be a big deal, or even a deal at all, you should love that the Federal government has absolute control over a piece of land.
And if you think the federal government overreaches too much, you should want the local community to have authority over its own affairs.
Yet, nobody sticks with convictions regarding the status of DC governance.Report
He’s right.
Texas is mulling over a state policy to override Houston’s policy on regulating Uber. (Houston just came to an agreement with Uber and Lyft, and it the issue was mostly about background checks and the required fingerprinting, and I think they pushed off the big ‘problem’ change until after the Superbowl anyways).
The spokesman from Houston pointed out that the State of Texas was thinking about doing to Houston what they always complain the Feds do to Texas — saying “We don’t like your law, and even though it has nothing to do with us, we’re gonna change it”.
I was really struck by how hard the States spokesman was finding it to justify, and even then he was stuck saying “We don’t like how Houston is regulating it’s taxi industry” — it wasn’t something he could hide.
But then, Houston’s used to that. We spent 20 years having Tom Delay micromanage our transit system. (He didn’t even represent Houston, for that matter, but Sugarland).Report
The Uber thing doesn’t contradict federalism, though. That contradicts “local control” which is overlapping but different.
State transit being micromanaged by Washington does, though.Report
I am aware it’s not federalism.
The same logic is used, and while Texas has no state version of the 10th Amendment, this is a pretty egregious violation of their own principles (which include local control, and it’s “local control” that leads them to praise the 10th Amendment so much, not the 10th Amendment that leads to them to embrace “local control”),
Tom Delay just hated the idea of Houston having mass transit. Hated it. He’d go so far as to shove in riders to explicitly block Houston from matching funds for transit stuff. Dallas could get it, Austin could get it, but Houston? Nope.Report
This has been a long standing Republican tactic. They also try and do it when blue cities in red states pass progressive legislation like bans against LBGT discrimination.Report
I’m really not pissed when state governments override the decisions of local governments. Counties and cities are administrative creations of the state. It’s the role of the state legislature to structure their powers and responsibilities. I’m also a fan of a more uniform regulation than a patch work of regulation.Report
In this case, you have long-standing regulations that Uber wanted changed to benefit them. Houston said “No, you have to comply with the ones we make everyone driving people around adhere to” and then Uber threatened to pull out, and then Houston said “Look, we’re willing to compromise short-term a bit here so your drivers aren’t missing out on the Superbowl, but ultimately you’re going to have to adhere to the long-standing regs that have been in place decades”
And then Uber lobbied the state.
It has nothing to do with “uniform state regs” or even the Houston regulations, which the State cared nothing for prior.Report
Counties yes, but cities (at least here in California) can form independently from the state government. They’re called charter cities and they have home rule power over municipal affairs that cannot be superseded by the State Legislature.Report
Many states have home rule municipalities but only because the state constitution and law permits it.Report
Scott Leimeux of LGMs argument is that most people do not care about federalism when it suits them.
From a functional point of view, a political ideology that prioritizes state’s rights is actually – in my view, anyway – a very important difference between the two parties at the level of retail politics since conservatives can pick and choose which principles or rights ought to be enforced at the state level, and which ought to be enforced nationally. For example, without blatant incoherence, conservatives can claim that SSM ought to be a states rights issue (since marriage isn’t a foundational right granted by the constitution) and gun rights ought to be a national one (given the 2A). Dems have less flexibility politically in making those types of distinctions since the Party’s ideological presuppositions are increasingly based (almost exclusively, seems to me) on national-level policies. Personally, I think that difference – as it plays out in practice as well as ideologically (especially as the distinctions between the two parties are heightened and increasingly perceived as oppositional/incompatible) – is one of the main reasons the GOP has dominated at the local and state levels. And now, of course, at the national level too.
None of that, I wanna add, should be viewed as a judgment of the content of the specific proposals widely identified with each party. But I also fully expect the GOP to make some spectacularly horrible decisions over the next two years.Report
For example, without blatant incoherence, conservatives can claim that SSM ought to be a states rights issue (since marriage isn’t a foundational right granted by the constitution) and gun rights ought to be a national one (given the 2A).
If they’d started from that position, perhaps. But history rather makes states’ rights look more like the motte to which they retreat when the DOMA bailey falls.Report
The Constitution does not grant any rights. All it does is note where the Federal Government cannot interfere with them.Report
You are aware that it has more than ten amendments, right?Report
The US is signatory to (and the Senate ratified) the UN drug treaty that requires marijuana to be a Schedule I drug. That alone would seem to take care of any Constitutional argument in court, putting laws and enforcement clearly in federal hands.Report
My immediate response is something to the effect of “Eff the UN and the horse it rode in on.”
Unfortunately when Scalia was given the choice between yelling “EFF WICKARD!” and punching a hippie, Scalia chose to punch the hippie.
I hope that there are more conservatives like Thomas than Scalia out there.
And, even if not, I hope that there are more conservatives that would prefer to punch the UN in the face than hippies.
But I see how the UN provides an out to the Democrats when it comes to the Feds kicking down the doors of Colorado dispensaries.Report
I’m not sure that makes sense.
The fact that I have sold your house without actually having authority to do so doesn’t diminish your title to the house. It obligates me to go back to the buyer and say “Sorry guys, I messed up and sold you a thing that wasn’t mine, here’s your money back.”
If the federal government signs a treaty promising to do things it lacks authority to do, does that grant it the authority it lacked at the time of signing, or does that oblige it to withdraw from the treaty?Report
Serious question:
Is there anything that the federal government lacks the authority to do?
Okay, okay. Somewhat loaded question because the easy and obvious answer is “yes, of course, are you dumb?”
So ask a tougher one: “Does the Federal Government have the authority to do *THIS*?”
Only crazy people might argue that it doesn’t. Smart people, good people argue that it does but it should do the right thing. Only nutters think that the Feds doesn’t have the authority to do it in the first place.Report
I’m afraid I don’t understand your question.
If federalism and the 10th amendment mean anything, then the US federal government lacks authority to do some things.
I was taking issue with @michael-cain ‘s argument that the fact the fed signed a treaty requiring it to do something, is useful as an argument that it has the authority to do that thing.
At best, I think the signing of the treaty on its own is an argument that the fed has an obligation to determine whether it has the authority to enforce the treaty, and then either withdraw from the treaty immediately, or enforce it until such time as it does withdraw.
Which may not answer your question.Report
I’m afraid I don’t understand your question.
I’ll try to clarify:
“Does the Federal Government have the authority to do *THIS*?” then becomes “Does the Federal Government have the authority to Schedule marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug?”
So we ask: “Does the Federal Government have the authority to Schedule marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug?”
Is this question phrased more intelligibly?Report
And according to the SCOTUS, who gets to make the call, the answer is “Yes, the federal government has that authority.”Report
“Huh. Maybe we shouldn’t have done that.”Report
OK, I think I gave a somewhat better answer below then.
The thing that seems dubious to me is whether the fed can require states to enforce the fines and prison sentences for production / sales / possession of drugs on the various schedules, when those activities take place entirely within state lines. Which comes out pretty close to the same thing.Report
Any shop, dispensary, or grow operation is going to be in possession of enough marijuana to get heavy sentences under federal law. The question is whether a Sessions-led DOJ will close such down, driving the marijuana business back underground. They don’t even have to prosecute, they just have to seize the product, which the DEA could manage with minimal effort and staff.Report
Dude, read Gonzales v. Raich again.
Here’s the argument again:
Angel Raich was the *PERFECT* person to bring this case. Young mother, who was afflicted with more crap than Job himself, was actively helped by marijuana.
Her friends grew marijuana for her, in California dirt, using California water, California sunshine, and hand carried weed to her and *GAVE* her the weed, not sold. Her argument was that “this is not ‘interstate commerce’, therefore the CSA does not apply to it.”
Anyway, I’m not doing the case justice.
It’s fun to go back and re-read arguments from the time of the case with 2016 eyes.Report
That’s what I mean – given that three supreme court justices not named Scalia agreed with her case, it’s not “crazy” to think the fed won, effectively, against the constitution.
I understand that it’s settled law now, but I suspect it’s one of those things where the supreme court chose to make the decision that would not upset things too much, not the decision that was more clearly supported by the constitution.
Also, read my comment about Gonzalez v. Raich again. You may be agreeing with me more than you think.Report
Two of those justices are gone.
The third is anathema.
The case is settled. We can hope that the Federal Government does the right thing… but the libertarian argument?
At this point, that position is crazy.
I mean, look at Kagan. Look at Alito. Look at Sotomayor.
Who among them would argue that the Federal Government does *NOT* have that power? Not that the federal government shouldn’t do something else with that power, mind.
Who would argue that, according to the Constitution, it doesn’t have it in the first place?Report
If federalism and the 10th amendment mean anything, then the US federal government lacks authority to do some things.
The problem with the 10th amendment is that it doesn’t tell you anything beyond the abstract of “…the US federal government lacks authority to do some things.” Essentially, it’s a statement of subsidiarity, which is one of those fine principles that sounds profound and wise but actually tells you precisely nothing about any particular issue in question. And because it actually tells you nothing while seeming to be an important principle it’s the perfect cudgel to deploy in support of any argument from any direction.Report
It lacks the authority to do things not listed among its enumerated powers in Article I, Section 8.Report
Meh… old argument that’s above both our paygrades. But even if I grant your assertion then the 10th would seem to be redundant and pointless. But… apparently it wasn’t seen that way to the folks at the time.Report
Alternate answer maybe assuming I understand the question:
The Gonzalez v. Raich decision suggests the fed does at present possess such authority – on the other hand, the decision was not unanimous, but 6-3. I would hesitate to declare judges Rehnquist, O’Connor, and Thomas “crazy”.
And, to my initial point, Gonzalez v. Raich is a much better argument that the fed possesses authority to ban drugs than the signing of the SCoND. The SCoND dates to 1961, Gonzalez v. Raich to 2005.
That seems like an awful long time to delay figuring out whether the authority exists – particularly given that the SCoND was signed only 28 years after the 21st amendment, which should have given considerable reason to question whether other drug prohibitions would require constitutional amendments as well.Report
One of the declared purposes of the Controlled Substances Act was to bring US law into conformance with the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. In Gonzalez v. Raich, the SCOTUS held that the US federal government had the authority to prohibit all use of marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act. So if the new administration is determined to shut down recreational and medical marijuana, the argument is “The UN treaty requires that marijuana be a CSA Schedule I drug; the CSA puts it there; the SCOTUS says we can enforce that.”
Now, whether the DOJ and DEA can require states to prosecute under the CSA is another matter.Report
Makes sense I guess – the state can allocate a $0 budget for enforcement, prosecution, and imprisonment, and maybe even bill the fed for the time of any state employee subpoenaed in a cannabis prosecution.
At which point it comes down to a staring contest…Report
I don’t see how the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs requires cannabis to be a schedule I drug in the US Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. It may require it to be on a schedule, but not specifically on one or another.
The SCoND contains in its schedule I:
Cannabis (CDSA schedule I)
Cocaine (CDSA schedule II)
Morphine (CDSA schedule II)
Oxycodone (CDSA schedule II)Report
(Sorry, Controlled Substances Act – the CDSA is Canadian)Report
People like Ted Cruz? Any respect I had gained for him for calling Trump out and refusing to endorse him was washed away by the pathetic image of him phone banking for Trump.
Even #NeverTrumps like Romney are lining up to kiss the ring. (And whatever happened to the principled Mormon holdout in Utah?)
I don’t expect much conservative opposition to the Trump administration unless public opinion turns hard. And even then, it’s questionable.Report
I’m hoping to hear a lot from Rand Paul, myself.
I’m expecting Rand Paul to open his mouth to oppose Trump and hear people snicker about his father’s newsletters, though. HEY RAND! WOULD YOU HAVE PASSED THE CRA?!?Report
I’m going to give Mitt some benefit of the doubt here. First, it’s not like Mitt needs a job.
Mitt could honestly think now that the deed is done, there’s no point in being in the bleachers complaining about the game, when he could be in the game, doing whatever good he can do.
Yeah, Mitt visited Trump tower, but at this point it’s a logistics thing, where else were they going to meet? It’s implausible for a President Elect to go around the country to get people skeptical of his leadership to serve in the goverment.
Mitt just saying ‘forget it, Trump doesn’t deserve people like me in his administration’ is more of a Burn The System To The Ground position than an anti-Trump positon at this stage in the process.Report
I’m with Kolohe. Romney would be a better SoS than most of the possible Trump candidates unless he started inviting Democratic figures to apply.Report
According to the WaPo, that wasn’t quite it — it was reference to all African-Americans by the capstone epithet, among many other questionable phrases and statements from early in his career. To be perfectly fair to Senator Sessions (and we critics of the Trump Administration can easily afford to be perfectly fair, as even when doing so there is ample material to criticize) it was thirty years ago.Report
This strikes me as very, very important. If his history is any guide, Trump is going to do a lot of terrible, terrible things. If we go into full freakout mode over things that can easily be dismissed (rightly or wrongly), we’re going to have trouble making a case when he inevitably does really indefensible things.
Then again, Hillary Clinton died the death of a million cuts over decades, so I suppose that full freakout mode and conspiracy theories work pretty well too, just on a longer timescale. I just think that the timescale for opposing Trump craziness is going to be 4 years. Trying to smear 84 year old future Trump with the general stink of corruption is probably pointless and redundant.Report
Yes, this.
The right spent the last 8 years creating outrage out of almost complete fabrications and imagined horrors. There were plenty of actual policy complaints they could have made in their post-Bush transition to small government and anti- interventionist ways but they couldn’t seem to help themselves from sharing photoshopped pictures of Obama kissing another guy to terrorist fist bumps, etc.
Trump’s opposition would do well to stick with policies rather than ginned up nitpicks. Let Trump do his own digging on the personal side.Report
Where on this policy-versus-personal scale do we put corruption?Report
I’m trying to convince myself that our budget and broader economy are large enough that Trump won’t do much noticeable damage as he spends the next 4 years looting the treasury for personal gain. I mean, it will be unseemly and gross, but it won’t really have much of a practical effect beyond eroding norms. I think it will only become a practical policy matter if he pushes bad policies for self enrichment such that $10M into his pocket is a $1B loss in bad governance. We’ll see how that goes.Report
From TPM:
The Cash-In Begins
Let’s review the stories of the last two days. Trump’s DC hotel is soliciting foreign diplomatic delegations to switch their business to the incoming President’s new hotel. On Tuesday Trump took a break from transition work to meet with his Indian business partners about expanding the Trump Organization’s business in India now that he’s president. Trump included his adult children in the meeting – the ones who will run his ‘blind trust’. The news didn’t reach the American press until it was reporting in an Indian paper. Now we learn that Trump’s Philippines business partner Jose E. B. Antonio has been named the Philippines new trade envoy to the United States.Report
Well, in my book, it’s way up there. And given the fact the democrats don’t hold either house of congress, they won’t have the ability to do perpetual investigations like the republicans did. Hopefully between Trump’s inability to shut his hole, his willingness to double down, and the presses ability to actually do reporting, Trump will undo himself there.
I’m just hoping that my fellow travelers don’t get all hung up on Melania’s citizenship, Trump’s kids, or other fringe items of nonsense. In most cases I think focusing on the small shit makes it easier for people to dismiss the big stuff. Ya know, sour grapes and all.Report
I think this played a pretty significant role in both the primaries and the general.Report
E3: I do think too much is made of teacher’s leaving the field, especially when one compares the number that leaves compared to other professions (as the piece points out). I am speaking anecdotally, but here in the greater Bay Area and Northern California in general, it is very hard to fill many teaching jobs with qualified staff. It might not be people leaving the field that has caused this problem, and perhaps teachers leaving the area for locations with a more affordable standard of living.Report
C6 – First of all, why the link to Russia Today? The article was a paraphrase of the Reason article. And yeah, I know Reason can be goofy, but they’re not propagandists for a thug like Putin.
Second, I’m a dog lover, but I have no problem with police using force against dogs if they perceive them as a threat. Of course any use of force should be investigated, but on a case-by-case basis.Report
It’s a (probably not good) habit I have that when I read a short encapsulation but not the longer thing it is drawn from, I link to the former rather than the latter.Report
Hey, I get it. We’re here to consume as many links as possible. Linky Friday isn’t a doctoral thesis.Report
Speaking of science/crime, have you seen this paper?
Here’s the paper’s title to help suck you in:
Automated Inference on Criminality using Face Images
Phrenology is back, baby.Report
Give me enough parameters in my neural network and I shall draw a hyperplane through a horse. Or something like that.
Aside from the obvious “big data” types problems, the observation that criminals tend to have “weird” faces and non-criminals have “normal” ones is an interesting one. I can’t help but wonder if that says more about how we decide who is a criminal than it does about how lip shape and criminality are correlated.Report
tf,
XXY have weird faces? ;-P
More likely you’ve got both a chicken and an egg problem.
Also, lookit the pretty pictures. There’s not much difference.Report
Apparently, #TrumpCup is a thing.
Here’s the deal: Go into a Starbucks. Order your usual order. Ask them to put “Trump” on the side of the cup. Take video. If they refuse to or refuse to call the name, put the video on the youtubes!
It’s just that easy!Report
Ooooh, I misunderstood. You ask them to put “Trump and then the number 1” on there.
They’ll have to yell “TRUMP WON”.
Unless, of course, they refuse to.Report
My standard response to people getting upset over things like that, and things like the very cup DESIGN is:
If your life is that free of troubles and woes that you must go out looking for them, get down on your knees and thank whatever Deity you believe in (or the Universe, or whatever, if you don’t) for such a trouble-free life. Gah.Report
“Trumpi! Cafe au lait for Trumpi!”Report
That’s a brilliant viral marketing scheme. Somebody deserves a raise.Report
C1 – I’d love to see that data controlled for religious involvement.Report
E1: Aren’t there plenty of blogging academics? I seem to see them frequently. A lot of these article felt like “Let’s punch the humanities academics” which is not surprising because it is FEE and economists with the FEE bent seem the most likely to punch humanities academics. I don’t see them suggesting that topics on theoreotical physics are too obtuse and deserved to be mocked.Report
C2 – Is using AXE body spray a primary offense, or is it something the police can check for once they pull you over? Either way, good for you, South Carolina.Report
I think you can smell AXE without pulling them over. Just take down their license plate and send them a ticket.Report
Ah. Protect the officer from more direct exposure. I see.Report
Fashion Designers have started announcing that they won’t make dresses for Melania Trump.
It’s like… sigh.
This is seriously, seriously, going to end with a pile of bodies.Report
First they came for the fashionistas…Report
We’re on “then” at this point in the iterated game. We’re not at “first”. We haven’t been at “first” for a long, long time.Report
You seem surprised by this.Report
Now, now, Jaybird. They’re just exercising their religious freedoms not to support people whose lifestyles they don’t approve of I’m sure. 🙂
(Although come on. Someone will break because Trump or not, exclusive designer to the White House? Oh yeah).Report
Still wondering why Trump won?Report
Still think you’re the only one whose met a blue collar worker or Trump voter?Report
There’s the guy who sells me my newspaper!
The guy who shines my shoes!
The janitor!Report
Agreed.
Though I admit there’s a certain schadenfreude in thinking of the First Lady having to wear a dress from JC Penney’s or something. (Wasn’t it Mrs. Ford who had the “good cloth coat”?)Report
I can easily see her deciding to do something like this.
I can easily see the so-called “coastal elites” snickering at her wearing a dress from JC Penney’s.
And then I see that the following states have senate elections in 2018:
Florida
Maine
Michigan
Missouri
Ohio
Pennsylvania
Virginia
Wisconsin
If I were Team Trump, I’d have Mrs. Trump purchase such a coat at the Mall of America and give an interview in which she explains that the designers who made coats for Mrs. Obama refused to make her one.
On a Friday morning, perhaps.
Then, in the middle of Friday afternoon, I’d probably do a bad news dump.Report
@fillyjonk
Pat Nixon. That was the famous Checkers speech.Report
Jesus Christ. Pence got chewed out at Hamilton.
It’s like proggies would rather signal virtue than maintain norms.
You’re losing 2018 already, guys. Do you not see this?Report
I think politicians should be booed often and loudly. Thank the FSM that the crime of lese majeste is dead again in this country.
I think both sides can declare “victory” after this “skirmish”.
I think Trump might come out ahead, because the Friday Night News Dump is dead – rather this event is highlighted and distracts from real stuff like the apointments, the settled lawsuit, the shady deals with foreign dips at the hotel.
Plus Trump’s tweet about it was a perfect troll, and he who trolls last, trolls best.Report
It too bad Margery Mason passed away recently, she’d be the perfect inauguration ceremony guest.Report
I agree. Of course I agree.
But “hey, the Republicans are back in office, let’s dust off this unused norm we’ve been ignoring for the last decade and put this one we’ve been using away” is probably *NOT* what you ought to be doing if your plans include getting more congressmen, senators, and governors in the parts of the country where Chili’s is considered a nice restaurant.
Speaking of Chili’s, ‘member this?Report
I remember that, and very recently was even thinking about that incident, before you brought it up here again.
But for some reason I remembered it as Applebee’s. Maybe because there was indeed discussion in that thread about Applebee’s.
To me, the distinction between the two is important, but I”m not positive how.Report
Applebee’s is where you take a lady friend on a date.
Chili’s is where you take the wife on a date.Report
I wouldn’t take either to Applebee’s. (To be clear, my “lady friend” and “my wife” are the same person.)Report
You should take that fine woman to Chili’s.Report
Applebee’s is where Obama doesn’t go to the salad bar because he’s an elitist, according to man of the people David Brooks, who, if he’d ever been there would know it doesn’t have a salad bar.Report
I do remember that, but now I’m trying to remember “the worst thing he did on that trip” and I’m drawing a blank.
And I think that’s meaningful at this point.Report
@jaybird
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2016/1008/Why-Mike-Pence-won-t-grant-pardon-to-exonerated-Indiana-man
The prosecutor recommended a pardon. The parole board recommended a pardon. Mike Pence will not pardon and you are worried about him getting booed at Hamilton. What’s up with you?Report
If I understand it, Jaybird’s worried about Pence continuing to be Vice President from 2021-2025, and possibly President thereafter.Report
At this rate, I’m worried about Pence being Vice-President from 2021-2034.Report
Guy who does shameful things gets shamed in the public square.Report
I am going to hope that Trump's opponents learn the difference between "cathartic" and "effective" quickly, for the sake of the country.— Dan Scotto (@dscotto10) November 19, 2016 Report
Indeed.
And publicly shaming people to veer outside societal norms is highly effective.Report
I suppose that this would be a better argument if it involved something measurable.
But my take from here is that Trump is winning this particular argument.Report
With who?
And why should we care?
This isn’t debate club, its society affirming its rules and boundaries of what is acceptable and what isn’t.Report
States like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
The Trump Coalition is still new and fragile.
Shit like this helps it harden.
That’s why you should care.Report
Retyping, from one of the commenters over at LGM, a tweet from Jeremy McKellen:
“One of the most common characteristics of abusers…is that the resistance to the abuser is justification for the abuse.
The broader message is ‘your resistance to my behavior is why I behave this way in the first place.’
“Remember this over the next four years when you hear the trope ‘See this is why Trump won.’
If you call his appointees racist, thats why Trump won.
If you boo Mike Pence, thats why Trump won.’
If you protest in the streets, thats why Trump won.
Its a rhetorical tool for neutering resistance. Always ask what function it serves.”Report
I’m not trying to neuter your resistance.
I’m pointing out that your resistance is already neutered.
I’m glad we’re hammering out that telling the truth is “abuse” now. Won’t it be awesome when that particular tool ends up in the hands of Trump.Report
I have no idea what this means.Report
The cultural elite are at the beginning of a journey of discovery where they find that they actually have to talk to the people who disagree with them instead of just putting them in the “bad people” file.
Pre-emptively marking “people disagreeing with us” and “explaining what happened” as being “abuse” will not work.Report
Oh, you want to round me up and put me on a registry of suspected terrorists? To convert my gay son via electroshock therapy? To shred my Medicare?
Yes, please, lets have a calm civil discussion, and engage with each other.
Lets discuss your feelings, and your secret pain and anxiety.
I certainly wouldn’t want to utter a word which might cause you unpleasantness or distress.
Because that might cause you to do something worse, and I wouldn’t want to be responsible for that.Report
This is because the cultural elite are bad people, and need to be reminded of that at every opportunity.Report
Well what to you except. The cultural elite have never ever been to Real America, none of them ever lived there, have family there or know anybody there. The CE live in bubbles while the rest of Americans don’t do that and mix with all sorts of people. And people who didn’t vote Trumpy are the Cultural Elite.Report
Anyone who wears glasses should be rounded up and sent to the Real American countryside where they can learn proper attitudes from the proletarian workers in Carhartt jackets.Report
Yes.
Which is why it needs to be broken, divided, and splintered apart.
We need to shame those who can be shamed, reason with those who can be reasoned with, co-opt those who can be co-opted, and then confront and overwhelm those who are left.
There are millions of Nice Polite Republicans who voted for Trump and now want to make him normal and safe and acceptable.
We need to block that, and call them out on the reality of what Trump stands for.
He isn’t normal, his appointees are not normal, and his actions are completely outside the societal norms.Report
Yeah, see if you can get Lena Dunham and the cast of The West Wing to help you.Report
@jaybird
http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2016/11/19/mike_pence_was_booed_at_hamilton_on_broadway.html
Report
I’ll just say at no point in the last 18 months, did Trump do anything ‘normal’ and he was never treated as ‘normal’
His escalator ride. Insulting Mexicans. Insulting POWs. Insulting a sitting federal judge. Insulting Muslims. Insulting African Americans. Insulting immigrants in general. Insulting women in general. Insulting a specific conservative woman. Abetting assault at another conservative woman. Including penis size as an issue in one debate. Skipping another debate entirely. Staging a bizarre, cult of personality convention. Insulting yet another woman, this time a gold star mother. Having three more debates where “San Dimas High School Football Rules!” would have been an improvement in his performance. Tweeting. Endless tweeting. Endless endless tweeting.
He’s never been normal, never been treated as normal, and yet, here we are.Report
Yup, weird happens. And it has and lots are going to be screwed for it. The answer is not to assume everything Trumpy does is magic or strategic genius. He didn’t even win the pop vote remember.Report
I totally agree that Trump Chris Columbus’ed it. A terrible plan with flawed execution that even his own people were ready to mutiny on, thinking they were sailing off the edge of the world.
Saved at the last minute by a previously unknown geographic feature on the map. One that he never understood what it actually was nor how it bailed him out.
The question is, how far does this analogy go? Is the feature like Altantis, ready to resubmerge beneath the waves? Or is like the actual New World? Cause the guys who came after Columbus knew what the New World really was, and had knowledge without peer on how to exploit it.Report
Also Comey. Comey had an effect. Heck plenty of people usually suspicious of the national security state were all in for Comey getting Clinton.
Good questions and none of us will know for a while. We’ll have some hints a few months into the Trumpy admin and some good data in two years. Long term question are the most irritating cause we all want to know now.
A couple months ago people would mention that the country is pretty evenly divided and had been for a while. Now…it’s Trump’s Country and we are either kings of world or defeated forever. Defeatism is the road to defeat.Report
They should have been chanting, “Lock him up,” instead if they wanted to be tactical about it.Report
Only when it comes from people with leverage or influence over the shamed.Report
To be honest I lean closer to Scotto and your opinion on the matter than not, but the idea of conservatives talking about any kind of respectful social norms towards the Presidency after their last eight year run is knee slapping funny.Report
You’ll find the 2018 elections downright hilarious.Report
Well if past patterns are indicative playing to their lunatic base should reward dems with the House, Senate and Presidency no?Report
It is entirely possible that a huge majority of Americans will decide that rounding up Mexicans and Muslims into cattle cars for internment is a wonderful idea.
I don’t have the power to change that.
But I do have the power to refuse to accept it as within the range of normal political ideas.
I do have the power to call it out as an atrocity.
I do have the power to shame and ridicule and confront those who accept it and apologize for it and provide it with rhetorical cover.
Evil always relies on people wanting to be comfortable and safe, and turn their heads and wring their hands in helpless apathy. Or fool themselves with too-clever-by-half strategems of “lets make nice and maybe we can win without confrontation or unpleasantness.“Report
If it came to that, people taking to the streets and disrupting things overall would be highly useful.
But if people are already getting their dander up about ‘”Trump’s America” when Obama is still President and de Blasio is still Mayor of NYC, they may be exhausted by the time the real fight is necessary.Report
Looking back, “body positivity” may have been a mistake.Report
There is the possibility that this is the Doolittle Raid of the eventually victorious anti-Trump coalition, but it’s hard to see that yet.Report
Anti-Trump forces could take a page from Operation Rescue and make entry and egress of every Trump owned or operated property a hassle, but they pretty much did the complete opposite of that in this case.Report
@kolohe @jaybird
We call it Trump’s America because Trump’s rhetoric through out the primaries and campaign gave license to the various hate crimes we have seen rise to post-election.
I don’t think people suddenly became anti-Mexican, or more sexist, more anti-Muslim, or more anti-Semitic but enough people feel like they can let their bigotry out more that it is noticeable. Most of this is probably not going to go beyond graffiti and sending hate e-mails and propaganda but they clearly received some signal from Trump that sending anti-Semitic propaganda is okay. I don’t think they would have sent it if HRC was the President-elect.Report
At least we can all agree that the Theater must always be a safe and special place.Report
Hurray! Let’s get the left to mock the idea of “safe spaces” too!Report
Agreed.Report
You do mean no shooting, right?Report
Interesting question, given which party loves the Confederacy.Report
The last several days I’ve not been so sure. We’ve got talk about secession. I just listened to James Carville on CSPAN calling for Democrats to pull out their bayonets in response to a question about preferential voting systems, and VOX ran an interview with a law professor who explained the purpose of the Electoral College as if he was Justice ‘fishin’ Taney.Report
SRSLY? Now we’re suddenly supposed to be concerned about norms? Like when a sitting congressman yells out, “You lie!” during a SoU address fer instance?
Dude, a hell of a lot of “norms” have taken a stroll the last eight or so years on both the public/political level as well as the personal. And I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you, but it wasn’t the “proggies” throwing them out the window.
Anyway, did you read what the actor actually said? It was a hell of a lot more respectful than a lot of sitting Congress critters have been toward Obama over the years.Report
“When they go low we go high” sure had a short shelf life, didn’t it?Report
Maybe, because as @north notes, it works so well.Report
FTR, I think it’s a bad idea- the actions of the cast are okay but the audience? Not cool. But I think the response from the right is just too funny.Report
I wasn’t talking about the actor.
I was talking about the boos.
Oh, and the culture war skirmish where “the left” and “the elite” just got their asses kicked.Report
@jaybird
Pence has also advocated for using electric-shock therapy to “cure” LBGT people and signed laws that mandated burials for miscarriages. Getting booed at is the least of his issues.
The statement done by the Hamilton cast was amazing and full of grace and dissent from what I’ve heard.
Do you care about dissent or only when red-leaning “real Americans” dissent? I would think as a non-libertarian libertarian who openly talks about wanting people not to vote for “lizard people”, you would not mind dissent and disrespect to politicians. Or are only liberals lizard people?Report
I care about dissent when it is more than virtue signaling, yes.
When it’s little more than “EFF YOU AND YOUR WAL-MART VALUES”, I see myself wondering whether you realize that you just lost an election to the people you’re booing at your $1,000/nosebleed seat play.
I’m sure that Trump and Pence both very much appreciate the impromptu fundraiser the audience at Hamilton threw them last night.
Look for more of this shit. If I’m Trump, I’m sending Pence to “The Book Of Mormon” next week.Report
And you are the lord master arbitrator and final judge of what counts as dissent and what counts as virtual signaling?Report
I’m pretty sure that the electoral college is.Report
If you want to persuade people, you talk to them. If you want to enrage people, you boo them. I’m not crazy about the term “virtue signalling”, but call it whatever you want. It was an act that could only make things more divided.
And sure, I understand that the left is only blowing off steam after a rough loss, but the truth is that this kind of escalation is what got us here, and got Trump the win.Report
Trump won because the simple, non-threatening common sense of Fox, Bretibart, Limbaugh and the rest of the right-wing noise machine overcame the hyper-partisan ranting of the MSM. Trump is a uniter, not a divider.Report
So in the link below, about these poor folks in Kentucky who are getting health care only due to Obamacare, and many of whom probably voted for the people who will strip it from them.
What do you think I should say to these people if I were to talk to them?
Aside from “What the f**k did you folks think was going to happen when you vote for a guy who openly promises to take away your health insurance?”
Is there some clever, witty, gentle and lovable way of telling them that they will probably die as a result of their own votes, and the votes of their neighbors?
What words would you use?Report
Luke 15:11-32Report
“There is another election in two years. Here are some candidates that will fight to get your insurance back.”Report
Those candidates want the government to create death panels that will kill your grandma, force your son to go to a gay re-education camp, and institute Sharia Law.
I saw this movie in its previous release, in 2009. I saw the original stage play in 1994.Report
Threaten them with the lost of the respect of the theatre community?Report
I know these people, or at least, people just like them.
One truck contractors, middle aged and middle class, just recently diagnosed with life threatening illness, completely reliant upon the grace of Obamacare and someday Medicare, if it exists when they reach 65.
And they voted Trump because he will make America great again and kids will pray and say the Pledge of Allegiance in school again (their exact words).
I don’t know what to say.
I am probably going to witness them being cut off from health insurance when Obamacare is repealed. And maybe the Paul Ryan Medicare voucher will cover their illness, but probably not, and they will slide into medical bankruptcy like millions before them. And then die.
I don’t know how to reach them, to persuade them to vote in their own interest.
What won’t I say?
The one thing I won’t say its my fault, that I somehow magically mesmerized them with my elitist metrosexual snobbery into voting so self destructively or that Hillary did this by using a private email server.Report
You’ll say anything except that it’s your fault for not reaching them, and Clinton was a terrible candidate with ethics problems. Great. The past week and a half haven’t been a learning experience for you, have they?
Ben Shapiro once said that most Democrats aren’t liberals; they just vote Democratic because they think that Republicans are a-holes. This year, people looked at Donald Trump and said that he’s less of an a-hole than Hillary Clinton. How does that happen? How do you convince anyone that any person who ever lived is a bigger a-hole than Donald Trump? Face it, that’s on your candidate. She lied all the time – badly. She ran on nothing. She avoided competitive states like the plague. She forgot to even try to unify her party, and never gave independents any reason to support her except that she’s female. I’d love it if some left-leaners would do some soul-searching about their policies, but if you won’t even admit that you had the worst candidate of all time heading your ticket, you’re never even going to start to understand this election.Report
Somehow my smug coastal elitism doesn’t seem to be a problem for Latino farmworkers who overwhelmingly vote Democrat. Or black working class voters.
Apparently the only working class voters whose feelings are so tender and sensitive are white folks.
But look, the battles are only just beginning.
When Paul Ryan introduces his bill to strip away Medicare from these working class white folks, I promise to be out in the streets with them to protest.Report
As far as I can tell, Ryan is going for the home run — if you don’t reach 65 in 2017, you don’t ever get traditional Medicare. I’m on retiree health coverage that, as the result of union settlement back in the early 1990s, assumes Medicare and Medi-gap insurance. Interesting times.Report
Pence got booed, at least once that I am aware of, by his constituents in Indiana. Just because the audience was in NYC doesn’t mean they were signaling (I am growing to hate that word) disapproval of “Walmart values” or anything of the sort. A bit over one week after a very negative and personal election where the ticket who won was extremely unpopular in NYC, emotions are high. I think booing is pretty ineffective as a form of dissent (Don’t boo, vote!) and I am one who values respect for institutions regardless of who is currently in a given role, but honestly, in the grand scheme of things, Pence getting booed is not worth the breathless discussion it is garnering. I mean, a sitting President getting heckled during the State of the Union by an elected official is pretty damn disrespectful, but whatever. You roll with it. You keep your head up. That’s what a leader does.
The statement by the cast was a very succinct description of WHY so many people are concerned about the Trump/Pence administration. It was a moment for Pence to really hear the concerns of the people he will be governing. He could have truly listened rather than falling into the trope of liberal elites mocking my Midwest values. We need to listen to the concerns of the people who voted for Trump, and they need to listen to ours. There is common ground, and a leader who hopes to “bring us together” would take this opportunity to try to find that common ground. One who uses it as a chance to score points is sad.
I don’t think you are wrong that the Republicans have really mastered the art of the us vs them narrative, to great effect, and sometimes we liberals don’t help our situation, but their dismissiveness toward our concerns is no better or worse than some people’s dismissiveness toward the concerns of the average Trump/Republican voter. We are all humans, and humans are imperfect and are not always thinking about the optics of our behavior in moments of stress and emotion. Nor should we. That would be a sad and decidedly inauthentic way to live.
Tl;dr – Pence got booed. Liberal elite smugness doctrine reinforced. Not important enough for wall-to-wall news coverage. Missed opportunity for T/P to show leadership for all of America. Any sign of empathy from P or T would be extremely welcome by many of us “elites” who feel like our lives are just as precarious, in their own way, as those in Michigan.Report
I am not opposed to the booing of politicians. I wish we had more of it.
*HOWEVER*, that booing ought to be when they are being politicians. If he went there as Mike Pence, the VP, sure, boo him. If he’s giving a speech, sure, boo him. If he’s going to the Waffle House to get some eggs, maybe some scattered and smothered potatoes, maybe some toast and some OJ, maybe that’s not the best circumstances in which to boo him.
Same for him going to a play.
He shows up at the Indy 500 to wave a flag? Boo the ever-living crap out of him.
I am not opposed to the booing of politicians.
While I appreciate your desire for common ground, I’m thinking that one of the pre-reqs is neutral ground.
If we are willing to argue that there shouldn’t be any neutral ground, we shouldn’t be surprised that we don’t have the common kind.
Edit: Also, good comment.Report
Fair enough on the neutral ground point.
I am willing to give this instance a pass as emotions and stress are running high, but I take your point as to time and place.
I don’t hold out hope that this incoming administration is looking to reach out to all Americans, but I am willing to be proved wrong.Report
“If he went there as Mike Pence, the VP, sure, boo him.”
Would he have gotten those tickets had he not been the VP? If not, then he was there as the VP… quite literally.
I otherwise agree pretty strongly with @maria . Pence hitched his wagon to the Trump Train which powered itself on ugliness, discord, and “calling it like it is”… or whatever. You don’t get to then turn around and say, “We just want a quiet night at the theater.” Sorry. No dice. What’s he want… a safe space? Some political correctness? Sorry, Mike. This is the new reality that you (not you alone or even just your side, of course) contributed to so no crying foul when it start reaches logical conclusions.
“The statement by the cast was a very succinct description of WHY so many people are concerned about the Trump/Pence administration. It was a moment for Pence to really hear the concerns of the people he will be governing. He could have truly listened rather than falling into the trope of liberal elites mocking my Midwest values. We need to listen to the concerns of the people who voted for Trump, and they need to listen to ours.”
This in particular stands out. The cast did not attack Pence. They said, “We are scared and worried. Please lead in a way that denies us reason to.” Liberals have been decried for ignoring the fears and worries of rural America or the WWC or whatever. And much of that criticism is deserved. But dialogue is a two way street. How many Black and Brown folks from the city does Pence know personally?
Trump and Pence won by sewing fear… by telling their supporters that they are right to be scared but they shouldn’t be any longer because Trump is scarier to the people they are afraid of. Well, included among those people are folks like the cast of Hamilton. Trump *wanted* them to be afraid. Telling Pence that, hey, it worked is about as fair as fair gets.Report
So, everywhere, for the rest of his life, he should expect to be booed if he wants to see a play in NYC? He ought to stick to the Chili’ses if he wants to have a pleasant evening out on the town?
This side is yours, that side is mine?Report
Hey, John Nance Garner warned him about the pitfalls of the job.Report
“Who are those seats for?”
“The Vice President-elect.”
Whenever that happens… yes.
Let me ask… do the people harmed by the policies that Trump and Pence enact get a break from that harm when he goes to a play?Report
I don’t think you’re going to like where this ends up.
You’re very much going to be wishing for a non-political public space at some point and agreeing that Pence doesn’t deserve one carries with it the implication that you don’t deserve one either.Report
I’m not the Vice President.
I didn’t just contribute to a campaign built on fear-mongering, hate, mockery, and general ugliness.
You don’t get to be the, “Let’s burn it to the ground” party and then complain about all the smoke, soot, and ash in the air.
ETA: Sounds quite a bit like you’re talking about carving out a safe space. How PC of you!Report
Damn, I am stealing, er, expropriating this in the name of the People.Report
In this case, I think demanding an apology for the exercise of politically-oriented speech rights isn’t soot from another conflagration but its own separate fire.Report
Sounds quite a bit like you’re talking about carving out a safe space. How PC of you!
Not a safe space, but a neutral one.
But if we’re establishing that we would like to eliminate safe spaces, I think that we’re going to find a lot of people more than happy to root them out and shut them down.Report
I didn’t just contribute to a campaign built on fear-mongering, hate, mockery, and general ugliness.
To Jaybird’s point here: given the above, do you think it’s appropriate to boo, harass, shake-down your Trump voting colleague or friend in a social setting or the workplace?
I mean, if Trump-Pence was a campaign built on hate, mockery, fear and ugliness, then surely the people who voted for that ticket are even more blameworthy than the messengers, yes?Report
To your second question, I’d say that they are not which largely informs my response to your first question, which is no. In fact, over dinner and drinks last weekend, I had a long conversation with the one close friend I know voted for Trump that was entirely civil. Pointed, intense, but civil and enlightening.Report
To your second question, I’d say that they are not
Hmmm. I’m losing the thread here a bit. Why? Why would you view those two groups differently (the Trump-Pence political team and the citizens who voted for them)? Presumably, based on liberal CW at this point, Trump merely appealed to the basest instincts of racism and bigotry already held within the American conservative (and some quisling Dems too…) electorate. But here you’re saying that you had a civil dialogue with a Trump supporter.
Why didn’t you just punch him in the face? 🙂Report
I feel no need to adhere to liberal CW.Report
Are you willing to reject liberal identity politics?Report
I’m not sure I understand the question.Report
Liberal identity politics is an essential part of liberal CW.Report
I’ll confess to having never really known what the phrase “liberal identity politics” meant.Report
Of course you didn’t. As a cis-het white male, it probably never even occurred to you that you ought to have looked it up.Report
That was helpful.
Stillwater seems confused by my position because it doesn’t adhere to liberal CW. When I said that I don’t adhere to liberal CW, I was asked about my feelings on a particular element of liberal CW that I don’t really understand.
Maybe I’m not the liberal Stillwater thinks I am?Report
Maybe I don’t. So, to phrase it differently, I’m just wondering what type of liberal rejects liberal CW when discussing politics with their Trump voting friend while (seemingly) adhering to liberal CW by advocating Pence being booed at every NYC theater he attends.Report
“…advocating Pence being booed at every NYC theater he attends.”
I did not advocate anything of the sort. In fact, I explicitly said I wished they hadn’t kneejerk booed him. What I have said is that I am wholly unsympathetic to complaints of “harassment” or that they shouldn’t have booed because Pence actively contributed to an environment where anything goes.Report
OK, you didn’t advocate. You apologized for.
Which, given your views of his politics and campaign messaging amounts to license to freely boo.
I mean, he opened that can of worms, right? (Isn’t that what you said above?)Report
Yes.Report
I think the idea here, kazzy, is that personal interactions with people are fundamentally different (as they should be!) than interactions based on people’s ideological commitments. It’s easy to reduce Pence to the embodiment of a set of perverse and (frankly) evil ideological commitments* merely because WE (or others) – as participants in the body electorate (Walt Wittman…) – have so reduced him. Same goes for other people who hold views we don’t agree with.
Unless those folks exhibit pathological deviant behavior, of course. Like identifying with a political party we’re not a member.
* “People like Mike Pence go to Hamilton to confirm their conviction that New Yorkers have always been filthy immigrants who proudly mock God and “history” while celebrating their perversities with every variety of that noisy jungle music.”Report
You know I neither wrote nor endorsed that paragraph in your footnote, yes?
As I said elsewhere, if you are the burn-it-all-down-party, it is disingenuous to complain about how smokey the air is.
I don’t like that the crowd booed. In fact, I wish they hadn’t.
I’m totally okay with the cast’s comments.
I think Trump calling their comments “harassment”, demanding an apology, and insisting the theater should be a “safe place” is complete and utter bullshit.Report
I would also say that I would not advocate people treating supporters of Trump/Pence the same way they treat Trump/Pence.Report
The cast’s comments are BS. They just wanted a public stage to lecture him. They could have had some class and invited him backstage and said the same thing. But they are full of It.Report
White folks: “We’re scared!”
“Listen up!”
Brown folks: “We’re scared!”
“No class.”
And that’s without the manner in which it was said… decidedly in favor of the Brown folks.Report
Try to give a coherent response.Report
Irony is dead.
You know what’s actually BS… you and your schtick. Goodbye.Report
Apparently good manner are dead as well.Report
By irony do you mean the Hamiton folks lecturing Pence but also calling only for non white actors to audition?
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2016/03/29/hamilton-casting-call-non-white/Report
Kazzy
It gets better. One of the Hamilton cast was on the CBS morning news for an interview about their lecture. The cast member told the interviewers that they told the audience to get their phones out to record the lecture. Clearly these folks are full of of BS.Report
In the conversation, I asked my friend why he voted for Trump. I asked if he supported Trump during the primary (he didn’t), why not, and how he made the transition to support him. I expressed the struggle I had teaching the values of kindness, decency, respect, honesty, and the like to my kids (biological and otherwise) and how this argument struck him as someone with deeply held values and children of his own. I asked what he made of Trump’s many troubling comments and actions, which he described as deplorable* but which he ultimately felt were less problematic to the future of our country than a Clinton presidency.
* I didn’t push on his use of this word and whether it was informed by Clinton’s comments or was an assessment of his own.Report
Brilliant. On so many levels.Report
As a practical matter, 52% of Trump supporters believe that African-Americans are “less evolved” than whites… and so do 33% of Democrats. Over a third of Trump supporters (in some of these way more than a third) see them as lazy, rude, criminal, and violent… and so do over 1/5 of Democrats (in some cases substantially, though in one case maybe less).
Nobody wins without votes racists. The question is what they do or don’t do to court that vote. Virtuous candidates square this by reaching around the racism and grabbing on to other issues. Some on issues that involve race and don’t make direct racist appeals. Some make racist appeals of varying directness.
But talking about whether or not Dems can appeal to racist voters, the answer is that they already do. They just find other ways to do so. And Trump, on the other hand, speaks to the darkness of man. And the goal should be to bring them to the light. If not all on issues, then at least on who they vote for. (And, of course, find those that aren’t animated by race even if they are seemingly indifferent to the racism.)Report
@will-truman this is a really great comment, and good way to think about the “it’s all race / no! it’s all economics” conversation that keeps coming up.Report
The idea of civil discourse is predicated on there being a shared space within agreed upon boundaries and norms.
Trump and his followers have predicated their campaign on shattering those norms, on saying impolite and uncivil things.
When you step outside the norms you lose the protection of them.
This is why I am so emphatic on rejecting the normalization of it all.
Trump is not merely another politician, any more than Nazism merely another point of view or that pedophillia is merely another sexual orientation.
His raging hostility towards most of America does NOT deserve a polite hearing. He does NOT deserve to be treated with respect.
I won’t engage in a civil dialogue about rounding up Mexicans and registering Muslims and I refuse to respect anyone who does.Report
The idea of civil discourse is predicated on there being a shared space within agreed upon boundaries and norms.
Trump and his followers have predicated their campaign on shattering those norms, on saying impolite and uncivil things.
I don’t disagree. Especially at the level of politics. But I’d feel real bad if I didn’t say that conservatives feel the exact same way about liberals (even tho they don’t phrase it the same way). Conservatives FEEL like liberals have and continue to shatter norms as well.
Difference in kind? Maybe. Difference in degree? Well, we’re facing four years (inshallah) of a Trump preznitcy as a response to the shattering of norms.
Seems to me anyway. (I’m perhaps incorrectly excluding Hillary’s astoundingly high unfavorables from the analysis here…)Report
Yeah, this hits the nail on the head.
I mean, assuming that we can dismiss Hillary’s unfavorables.Report
I’m going to pedant revolt this until December 19th, but Mike Pence is the governor of Indiana and not the Vice President Elect. (Yet. Sigh.)Report
@will-truman
Fair enough.
Did he get those seats because of his stewardship of the great state of Indiana? Or because of what happened last week?Report
Oh, I think I agree with you*. I’m just saying WE SHOULD STOP CALLING HIM THAT BECAUSE WE DON’T HAVE TO YET is all.
* – There was a thing where people were tut-tutting people who booed Trump as he was voting. Which sounds bad, but I decided to let it pass because he was able to skip in front of the line. Secret Service protocol, probably. But it meant that there was some degree of officiality in his presence. Others I pointed this out to agreed.Report
Jews (and non-Jews!) in Brooklyn woke recently to found a swastika spray painted on a children’s playground named for a Jewish local. Where is their break?Report
This one?
I agree that that looks horrible. Whoever defaced that playground is a terrible human being who is engaging in hate speech and deliberately trying to create fear in the people who live there.Report
Yes, that one.
Did Trump demand an apology from the folks who painted that? Would he consider that harassment? Does he think children’s playgrounds should be safe places?
(If you didn’t see Trump’s tweets, than please know much of my language here is directly or indirectly cribbed from them.)Report
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/11/19/trump-demands-apology-from-hamilton-after-casts-message-to-pence/Report
Oh! And I just want to say, I don’t think Maria’s position and your position are necessarily illogical here.
Hell, I don’t even necessarily think that you’re wrong.
I just think that your position will lead to war or divorce.Report
When one side declares war, sometimes your hand is forced.
ETA: And, yes, I’m sure that’s what Republicans are saying about Democrats this very moment.
ETAA: I’d rather the crowd didn’t reflexively boo Pence. I’m on board with the cast’s statement. I just am not going to criticize the former for their choice and I damn sure am not going to listen to calls for decency from Trumpers.Report
That’s what they said.Report
Heh… see my edits.
I’d rather Dems/liberals/anti-Trumpers take the high road. I’d rather them aim to make the necessary changes to win in 2018 and 2020 and 2022 and 2024. I’d rather they (we?) be smart and strategic and composed and intentional.
I’d rather we all pivot back towards decency and the country eventually unite around abhorrence to Trumpism.
But this week… Pence and his ilk get zero sympathy from me for stuff like that.Report
So, everywhere, for the rest of his life, he should expect to be booed if he wants to see a play in NYC?
Yes. Of course. He doesn’t enjoy himself, he only attends those plays to reconfirm his views that NYers are morally, intellectually and racially debased*.
*{{Oh, hell, I was gonna cite evidence for that last claim but can’t find the article right now…}}Report
Forget the election.
Forget the Presidency, and the VPresidency.
Forget partisanship.
Mike Pence, former Governor of Indiana, should be booed by decent people every time he leaves his house.
For the actions he undertook while he was there.
For being the person he is.Report
Even Snopes had to admit that what you’re saying isn’t exactly true.
Stop reading fake news sites, Saul.Report
While the President-elect may have a thin skin about criticism like this, Pence himself seems to have an appropriate response: “That’s what freedom sounds like.”
I appreciate this response even though it appears to be recycled from his generalized political toolkit. Even if it’s it’s insincere, at least it calls people to a generalized norm of our society that I recognize.Report
Pence handled it well.
I could see him actually helping the ticket next time.Report
He arguably delivered the presidency this time.Report
Living in Colorado, I’m not sure I had the perspective to see where he did a dang thing. (He was like Kaine!)
Was it the Indiana being the first cousin of those 3 states nobody expected to be battlegrounds?Report
He was Trump’s ambassador to the GOP. There were billboards in the midwest with Mike Pence on them saying Come Home. Pivotal states were in his back yard. Walker probably would have gotten the job done, too, but none of the actual finalists would have but Pence.
Usually VP picks only matter when they’re bad picks. This may be the first exception of our lifetimes.Report
Three tweets that make the point fairly well, I think:
@SalenaZito @mike_pence Regular democrats? Is that some kind of code for straight folks?— Renée Jacobs (@ReneeJacobsLens) November 19, 2016
@ReneeJacobsLens @mike_pence pic.twitter.com/3qL36g9tNH— SalenaZito(@SalenaZito) November 19, 2016 Report
Among the lesser bad things about this election outcome, but still an agitating thing about said outcome, is that I can’t dismiss Zito as easily as I used to.Report
You might find this interesting:
Mike Pence, Public Scold of All Immorality, showed up at Hamilton for two reasons. First, getting good seats at the most popular show in one of the world’s top theater cities shows that he, VP-Elect Mike Pence, is now a Very Important Person. (If you were Mike Pence, you wouldn’t believe it without outside confirmation, either.) Second — most important, I’m guessing — {…} People like Mike Pence go to Hamilton to confirm their conviction that New Yorkers have always been filthy immigrants who proudly mock God and “history” while celebrating their perversities with every variety of that noisy jungle music.
I just don’t even know where to start with this, actually.Report
There’s a lot in there.Report
Do you agree with the Balloon Juice story?Report
Actually just wrote the following (which is pertinent):
I do not feel bad for Mike Pence.
The reasons I don’t feel bad for Pence is that he signed on with Trump and has some particularly bad views. I, like a lot of unclean folks, recognize that I have some “particularly bad views” as well and so there is a tendency to see ourselves in him even if we don’t like Trump. That being said, he signed on with Trump, so oh well.
Above comments refer to the booing. I think there’s a time/place argument where there’s a difference between booing at a show and booing at a rally, but it’s kind of murky. I thought the cast speech at the end was fine.
Notwithstanding the fineness of the cast speech, and my ambivalence on the booing, I believe that Donald Trump won the exchange for at least five reasons: (1) To the uncommitted, the hecklers do not come across as the good guys, (2) he wins any time the totalitarian card is pulled out on something people don’t care about, (3) Pence is not himself nationally unpopular, and (4) More important stories are being missed. Oh, and (5) increased tribal solidarity among Trump’s supporters and wobblers.
The only upshot I see is tribal solidarity among his opponents, which I don’t think was previously lacking. Maybe they helped get some of Pence’s past and/or present views on gay rights out there, though not in a way I think is especially helpful.
That being said, this is not a game-changer and is not huge. It’s indicative of potential problems, but right now it’s like a thirty yard kickoff return called back on a penalty. Not off to a good start, but life goes on.Report
“Won the exchange”?
What did he win? A set of Trump brand steak knives?
Greater acceptance of forced gay conversion?
Is there someone somewhere saying, “Y’know, I used to be fine with gay people, but now that they booed Mike Pence, I think he’s right, we should curb stomp some homos”?
Are there people who are sitting atop some razor thin indifference, completely ambivalent between Trump and basic human decency, and can so easily be pushed to one side or the other by this simple act?
How come it never seems to work the other way?
I am opposed to ISIS, and Sharia Law and beheading infidels, but you know, Pam Geller is so shrill and uncivil.
I think I am going to vote ISIS in 2018.Report
Won the exchange in that insofar as it mattered, it mattered to his benefit and not to the benefit of those who booed and the cast members.Report
How come it never seems to work the other way?
It does. Obama has won plenty of these types of exchanges over the years, no?
Or more subjectively: do you think Obama has effectively utilized Bonnetti’s defense given the rocky terrain?Report
Bingo.Report
Ir proves that the booers are out of touch and smug.
Had it been Hillary being booed, it would have proven that she was out of touch and smug.
Next time I’ll explain how it doesn’t matter that the coming tax cuts are going to explode the deficit, because everybody has a share.Report
Good read, Mike.Report
Maybe not a complete read of the situation, but not irrelevant either.
Foundational political-economic concepts like smugness (and privilege, and resentment…) have been elevated to the primacy they deserve this election.Report
Referring to a book that’s not a novelization of a superhero movie is smug.Report
Divorce or War.
Or both.Report
Oh my God, a Balloon Juice post is unhinged. We really need to reign in our crazies, because if 2016 proved anything, it’s that being cautious and responsible is the sure path to victory.Report
@stillwater
LeeEsq would tell you that during the 1920s, a lot of Americans referred to NYC as “the foreign-occupied city of New York” because the city had a WASP minority (albeit a usually very wealthy one) and most New Yorkers were non-WASPs and if they were Christian they were probably Catholic.
You don’t even need to go very far out of NYC to see this attitude. When I was in grad school, several of my classmates lived in the New Jersey burbs with their families and came into the city every day for class. One woman had a party at her house and a lot of us trecked down to suburban NJ to hang out at her house with her family. She had some neighbors over as well. These neighbors all thought that NYC was something out of Escape from New York rather than a gentrified uber-wealthy place. I wonder what they thought of my classmate for getting on the train nearly everyday for class and rehearsal. Did they think she wore armor?
I find it rather amusing that all my urban friends complain about gentrification and rising rents and unaffordability and luxury condos and then to see people talk about SF, LA, or NYC like it is the bad old days of the 1970s with high crime, high graffiti, and no money in the budget. They both can’t be true.
In many ways, I see Trump’s election as a combination of 1920 and 1928. Harding’s “Return to Normalcy” was a conservative blowback to the Progressive Era and reforms that happened under Teddy Roosevelt and Wilson (like the direct election of Senators and giving women the right to vote and appointing the first Jew to the Supreme Court and anti-trust actions like breaking up Standard Oil, passing the FDA, housing regulations to get rid of slums, etc.) 1928 pitted an urban, Catholic, wet (the 1920s equivalent of marijuana legalization) against a small-town WASP. Al Smith’s New York accent was foreign to most America and they did not like it when they heard it on the radio. I guess it is progress that Sanders and Trump did not turn off voters with their NYC accents.
But it seems to me that there is an undercurrent of “Enough Hope & Change” in the 2016 election. But it is not a conservative tide like Nixon in 1968 or 1972 or Reagan in 1980 and 1984. HRC looks like she won the popular vote by over a million votes (though not with great geographic spread), The Democrats still picked up 2 Senate seats and 5 house seats. We have a chance to pick up one more in Louisiana in December but this is a long shot. We also picked up 5 seats in the House.
These are paltry numbers but it is not an epic defeat. Yet so many NeverTrumpers seem determined to treat the freak nature of Trump’s victory as the Mandate from Heaven. I can’t quite figure this out.Report
That “etc.” covers some unpalatable things, too. Wilson wasn’t really the best on race relations. You might mention some progressives’ endorsement of eugenics (Buck v. Bell came after Harding, but before Smith). Even things like the prosecution against Standard Oil enunciated a legal standard that made future prosecutions difficult. Remember also such “progressive” policies as the Palmer raids.
As for Harding being a blowback on progressive reforms, yes, I suppose it was. But “normalcy” rang true also because WWI and the postwar “reconstruction” (as it was then called) had created many problems that Harding’s supporters rightly and wrongly (but probably mostly wrongly) associated with the Dem’s of that era. Was that particularly fair to Wilson and the Dems? Maybe not, but it wasn’t only blowback against progressive “reform” and such reform wasn’t always good and beneficent.
I agree with your second point that 2016 does not so far seem to represent the type of rising tide that 1968 or 1980 did. Trump–whatever he represents–shot a hail Mary and won the touchdown. Whether or not it’s a rising tide of something won’t be clear for another ten years.Report
It’s a rising tide of something, all right. Try not to step in it.Report
Whether or not it’s a rising tide of something won’t be clear for another ten years.
I think the analytical problem is two fold: one, how may planks on the old ship can you change before you have a new ship? (and related: does Trumpism constitute a deviation away from contemporary GOPism or is it merely the logical next phase of that GOPism); and two, a ten-year lead time on determining whether Trump(ism) constitutes a paradigm shift isn’t helpful in determining how to respond right now.Report
I have lived since 1993 in a city of 150000 (then) to 200000 (now) that was paradigmatic for the worst excesses of the late 1900s, in particular pollution – and gang crime leading to the downtown being an urban hellhole after dark and sometimes before then. In 1996, a friend of a friend was beaten to death for being in the wrong place at the wrong time wearing the wrong clothes despite being a noncomprehending (white) higher-SES dude.
None of that shit happens now. It hasn’t for a decade. You can walk from your condo with a view of the surprisingly non-gravy-colored bay to a Zagat-rated restaurant in the heart of downtown without particularly worrying about your safety – black, white, or indifferent.
Ice-T memorably sang (ok, rapped, but it was with his nu-metal band) about what was like growing up in South Central LA back when it really was a war zone. Now he can be seen at lemonade stands. Has he changed, or has urban America changed?Report
@el-muneco
I think urban America changed. When I was in middle school, my favorite t-shirt said “Welcome to NY” and had a drawing of one of those police outlines of a dead body.* The reason that image sold is because NYC still had a reputation for being tough and gritty even though it was starting to change by then.
Yet the idea that cities are scary and evil places still persists.Report
Very much this. Urban America has changed. The perception of it filtered through action movies of the time wasn’t particularly realistic, but it had a grain of truth at the heart of it.
The problem is that the country is still looking at Urban America through the exact same filter – where Jeff Goldblum is designing drugs and Laurence Fishburne (inexpicably without temple-less sunglasses) has to reel him in, or Ice-T is a homeless man hunted by Rutger Hauer, Gary Busey, and F. Murray Abraham.
Bad movies are what people remember. Reality isn’t important.Report
Those regular Democrats were at the salad bar at Applebee’s, no doubt.Report
Only if they were single.Report
H/t to the former Rose Woodhouse this is pretty interesting. Looks like everything’s coming up Milhouse for the erstwhile losers in the Obama era intelligence community civil wars.Report
Subscription blocked. Never been subscription blocked til after the election. Thanks Trump.Report
You just need to wait. After January 20th, we’ll all have the hugest incognito tabs and the classiest private browser modes.
(But basically, the guy that pretty much came out and said that Russians buttniskied into our election was on the ‘fire when Obama rents the UHaul’ list at least a month ago, but now has met with Trump to be the head jefe of intel in the government)
(The complication is that who should be the head jefe has been a point of contention going back to the Dubya post 9-11 re-org of intel)Report
Colorado looks good. Go Buffs!Report
, Elections have consequences part umpteen zillion.
The people profiled here in Kentucky will probably die an early and miserable death, due to proposed changes in Obamacare and Medicare/ Medicaid.
But to publicly boo the people responsible might force them to do even more drastic punishment to the ailing poor, and therefore we should stay silent.Report
Of course we have no idea how things move thru Warshington in Trump’s first few months, but I’d be very (VERY) surprised if GOPers unilaterally dismantled Medicaid (or Medicare, for that matter) and bear the brunt of that political disaster all on their own. They’ll want Dems on board to take cover for them.
So the real question, I guess, is how many Dems are gonna switch sides to
vote for the war in Iraqveto the public optionhelp dismantle these programs.Report@jaybird @stillwater @kolohe
This is what makes me angry about the whole issue of being angry that Pence was spoken to and booed at Hamilton and it is only virtue signalling.
I know a lot of people in NYC and SF who fled from their small town hometowns. Many of these hometowns are in Trump country and Trump state. Most of these people are outsiders in one way or another. Sometimes multiple ways. At best, they just preferred reading and/or dungeons and dragons to sports. Many are LBGT and some are physically disabled. Most of them have stories of getting the tar beaten out them nearly daily. Many left when they turned 18 or 22 depending and did not turn back.
I have a lot of sympathy and empathy for these people. To them big cities and often the arts are where they could be who they are without judgment or fear.
How many people in that audience fled from their small towns to the safety of NYC where they could be themselves? How many of them know and love people who fled from their small towns because they were outsiders?
I’ve brought this up before and it always gets ignored. I’d like to see it addressed. Why shouldn’t small town America be confronted with stuff like “This is what you have done. What did Matt or Lisa do that they deserved to be beaten to a tar nearly every week? Why does it matter if they are gay or prefer writing poetry to football? Or if they are different? How does it hurt you?”Report
What you say is completely true. Unfortunately their is simplistic narrative that has developed around liberals and the WWC. Liberals live in impermeable bubbles absolutely hating WWC and fly over country, people they have never ever met and places they have never seen. Fighting the narrative is always hard. To many people can correctly diagnose a faulty stereotype when its aimed at a group they sympathize with and be blind to other stereotypes. Gosh knows SJW’s have done this enough. I’ve also known some of those coastal people, some here is Ak, who will clearly say lots of small town rural places are filled with bigoted, judgmental people and they couldn’t’ run out of their fast enough.Report
“…who will clearly say lots of small town rural places are filled with bigoted, judgmental people and they couldn’t’ run out of their fast enough.”
A slight difference is that those folks at least had their understanding of that slice of the world (partially) informed by time spent there.Report
Oh yeah. Some people dislike things based on bitter experience, some on stereotypes. That goes for conservatives hating liberals and vice versa and every combo possible.Report
Agreed. But I think it is reasonable to respond differently to the person who fears hot pans because of burn marks on his finger tips and the person who fears hot pans because he thinks they are possessed by aliens.Report
This maybe just the group of people I know, but the biggest group who say “we have to understand where they’re coming from” are usually folks who have never lived outside a major metro area while most of the area who say “screw ’em all” are usually from those small towns and rural areas.Report
All of us could do better in the empathy department. That’s humanity for you.
The thing is – how many people in urban areas know at least one person who came from a hard-hit rural area, vs. how many people in those rural areas have ever met face-to-face a person who came from an urban area? I know which way I’d bet (higher than you’d expect on both sides but significantly leaning to “cities are a place you move to, not from”).
Pop culture is an argument, and a decent one. But that assumes that pop culture accurately reflects the high-SES urban experience… And I’m sorry, but any narrative where someone as unfunny as Kevin James continually is able to marry a woman significantly younger, more intelligent, and more attractive than himself is just a fantasy. Assuming that that gestalt actually represents how urban life goes is ridiculous.Report
I would posit that the testimony of people who left an area do not reflect the totality of experience of those places. And while it’s true that a lot of people who live there have always lived there, almost all of them have family who live elsewhere. There’s more cross-pollination than one might think.
When I was doing my substitute teaching in Redstone, I remember seeing all of these bright kids and then looking at the adults and wondering “What happened?!” It took me a while to realize… the bright kids leave, sometime for cultural bliss but I suspect more often for opportunity (and because for most people it’s just depressing as hell). Like, almost all of them. Which is the story of Redstone: The smart, the ambitious, the capable left. And Redstone is now those who were left behind. An unfair characterization, but not too unfair.
Dukakis got 67% of the vote in Redstone. Obama also got 67% and then 64%. Hillary Clinton got 52% (the statewide Democrat got 70%).
So, I mean, I read Saul’s characterization with a degree of exasperation. I mean, if Democrats want to say “screw’em” I guess they’re welcome to do that. Whether that’s a good idea or not (for Redstone and other places like it) depends on the electoral calculus. But I don’t think I am ever going to respond favorably to the provided characterization juxtaposition (though I’m genuinely glad that bookish people were valued at his school), nor the resentment at the notion that there should be empathy involved.Report
@will-truman
If Redstone had changed such that fewer people left and, hell, maybe someone people angled themselves there… how would that have been received by the “locals”/lifers?Report
Not sure I understand the question.
Town was generally welcoming. I got a couple instances of rudeness, but that’s about it. But I lived elsewhere. Trying to attract people was a common topic of discussion in the paper.
A point of clarification, the population has been pretty stable in the last 25 years, having dipped a long time prior. I also can’t find confirmation of the 100k figure (which I got from a documentary) , with the census maxing out at 60k.Report
Why did the bright people leave? What were they looking for?
Imagine you identified what they were looking for and added all that to Redstone? Would the locals look around and think, “What has happened to our home?”Report
I think the most pertinent answer is jobs. Some leave for the bright lights and for cultural reasons, and there’s nothing Redstone can do about those. It’ll never again be that kind of place. I’m sure they would welcome a nice big movie theater, the regional live theater troupe to stop by more often, and of course Chili’s and Olive Garden. Little stuff like that can make a pretty big difference, but I don’t think it’s a deciding factor. (They do have a couple gay bars, for what it’s worth, though I’d imagine the dating pool is pretty limited just by sheer numbers.)
I didn’t get many assignments at the high school, but one two-day stint I did get was two days on the last week of school. They were talking a lot about where they were going and what they were doing. Some were going off to college and others were talking about the fields in North Dakota and the like. It seemed mostly about finding solid ground somewhere.
When I was in small city Deseret, I was always encouraging a lot of people to leave. Kind of presumptively and rudely, at first, in ways I regret. Some left and came back because the things city people take for granted (like traffic and cost) really grated on them, or because they wanted to live nearer to Mormons. But a lot never left because there was just enough to keep them there. But it had the economy where they could, without great sacrifice.
(Our county in Deseret went 45% Dukakis, 42% and 37% Obama, then 30% Clinton, though McMullin got a stout 10%)
In Redstone, my impression is that those aren’t there as much (certainly not the Mormon factor, obviously). Which makes it something of a cycle. The social networks aren’t there as much because nobody from the old days is still there. Nobody from the old days is still there because the network is gone. There aren’t jobs because there aren’t good people to fill the jobs, and there aren’t people there because there aren’t the jobs.
All of which leads to there not being simple answers. Some probably have visions that Trump is going to dump a lot of money into infrastructure (which I guess he might), but their reactions to this are all over the place. Trump is big there, Gary Johnson is big there, Ron Paul is big there, Occupy Wall Street was big there.
On a side note, I mentioned that the town is welcoming, but the more I think about it the more I think that’s directly related to the lack of migration into it. There is a lot of anti-migrant sentiment out there. Not a huge immigration freakout that I recall, but lots of stray comments about Californians coming in and being obnoxious and changing the character and so on.
But those were the laments of the more successful places and not Redstone. I don’t think Redstoners have thought that far ahead. If they ever do get what they want, I wouldn’t be surprised if the same sort of thing started to happen.Report
THAT last bit is what I was getting at… they want things to get better but not change.Report
I don’t think they’ve thought that far ahead. I think they’d welcome change now, then grumble about it later. Although the grumbling wouldn’t necessarily be universal. Go over to Summit and you have the change. Which has lead to some unwelcoming attitudes, but the permits keep getting issued. (Summit: 41% Dukakis, 50% and 46% Obama, 45.5% Clinton. Mitt won it in ’12, Clinton this year.)Report
Which is pretty much universal. It’s what’s happening when people complain about gentrification.Report
But Presidential elections aren’t being decided by people in gentrifying communities. No one is seeking top down solutions.
We’re told to listen. I’m listening. But I’m not hearing much.Report
That they did not was the main surprise to the Democrats (and Republicans for that matter). If 50 to 100k people north of the Ohio river would have voted the other way, the narrative would have been “How does the GOP break apart the ‘permanent Democratic majority?’, with one answer being ‘siphon off the upwardly mobile urban 20 and 30 somethings by exploiting the natural wedges between that group and legacy city machine politics’ – which is the split we seen for a decade in most intra party primary contests in the major cities of the US.Report
Which is pretty much universal. It’s what’s happening when people complain about gentrification.
Yeah, that’s a good point. According to stereotype, conservative ruralia wants the economic fundamentals of their town to change but not the culture, while liberal urbania wants the culture of their town to change but not the economic fundamentals.
Something like that anyway.Report
@will-truman
Former poster Zik was no one’s definition of a conservative. She also hated the brain drain that happened in rural Maine.
Her solution was that we should just start teaching kids via culture like TV that there is nothing wrong with being an assistant manager at Wal-Mart and we should stop having TV shows set among professionals in glamorous cities.
This struck me as a non-solution more than anything else.Report
I guess I agree with her. I mean, I do think society sends a message that assistant managers at Walmart are failures. TV portrayal is a part of that, and social norms geared by people who went to college (the better the college the better, etc) towards people who went to college.
And I don’t think that’s healthy.
But it’s not something there is a policy solution for.Report
I agree, too, and with your caveat that it’s not really a “policy” solution.Report
@will-truman @gabriel-conroy
My issue with Zik’s view is that it makes everything an accident of your geographical birth which I find deeply wrong and illiberal. I was born in suburban New York which provided a lot more opportunities than Redstone in terms of intellectual/educational, cultural, and career advancement.
You two were also born in areas where the above was true even though our parents did very different things for their livelihoods.
I just find it deeply wrong that someone with our abilities and intellect should be forced to resignation and “being an assistant manager at Wal-Mart is okay” just because they were born in Redstone and not Denver or suburban New York.Report
That’s more-or-less the rationale behind the Kansas City Plan. To help people born in places where their talents are not needed, and put them in places where they are.
I favor the ability of those with grander ambitions to pursue those ambitions. Not everybody does, of course, and that’s good because everybody can’t be an archeologist. And being an assistant manager at Walmart shouldn’t (in itself) be seen as failure (for the individual or society).Report
Well, I have friends and family members who were born in or very near Denver and have jobs that while better than assistant manager at Walmart are much more modest than the types of jobs celebrated on TV and in the movies.
On the other hand, I do agree that being born where I was born gave me advantages that would not have been available to me if I hailed from Redstone, all other things being equal. I was also lucky in a lot of ways in addition to where I was born. It’s probably easier to be lucky in Denver than Redstone. (However, while in my lifetime and before, Denver was always a good place for opportunities, it wasn’t always–and won’t always be–what it supposedly is now.)
I suppose the proper response to my first paragraph is that if friends/family members had applied themselves more (or had better “intellect and abilities”), then they at least had a better starting point than if they had been born in Redstone. That seems to be what you’re going for, and I guess I agree.Report
Culturally, we have always celebrated wealth, youth, beauty, and good luck. Indeed, these attributes transcend through most cultures: the wealthy are celebrated more than the poor; the young and beautiful are celebrated more than the elderly and the ugly; good luck is always celebrated more than poor luck. The exact definitions of what constitutes these things varies sometimes, especially with beauty.
But we should hardly be surprised that cultural media depict aspirational figures in such a fashion. So we might have a show that depicts a Wal-mart manager in an aspirational way, but the manager is going to have some other aspirational quality becuase as a Wal-mart manager there just isn’t enough wealth to be of interest. So the manager might be really attractive (think, “Two Broke Girls” which ought to be titled “Two Attractive-But-Broke Girls”) or have origins in a wealthy family but be a fish-out-of-water (think, “Undercover Boss” meets “Roseanne”).Report
You don’t necessarily need admirability if you have relatability. Thinking of The Drew Carey Show, which I thought handled the work issue really well. And, of course, The Office revolved around the concept. Though TDCS flirted with Drew being a loser, we were nonetheless rooting for him and his goals are reasonable and everyday. We rooted for the folks at Dunder Mifflin, too. I think, as far as entertainment value goes, all of that is in a different cast than Friends where everybody either has an aspirational career or (in Chandler’s case) transitions to one.Report
I believe I’ve said this before, so please forgive and indulge.
This sub-thread of a sub-thread reminds me of an observation a friend of mine once made about how Good Will Hunting (unseen by me but I know the Cliff Notes version) and The Full Monty (seen by me several times) represents different (in his view American vs. British) attitudes toward class.
In his view, Good Will Hunting shows someone in a very modest career and he’s inspirational because he doesn’t really deserve to be there. He has the natural prodigious intelligence and he overcomes his bad mark in life by earning the respect of people who are both his social betters and his intellectual peers/inferiors.
The Full Monty shows people whom the newer economy has displaced. They’re able to work together for a common goal and gain a little bit of dignity and a little bit of money. And maybe from then on, they’ll be happier. But at the end of the day, they’ll still be poor and displaced.
With the caveat that I haven’t seen Good Will Hunting, I find the Full Monty people much more inspiring.
Now to our hypothetical Walmart assistant manager. I could imagine a sensitive show–following perhaps the example of whoever produced Friday Night Lights–that portrays in a sensitive light the challenges, setbacks, and victories that person encounters.
The show I’m imagining wouldn’t be some sort of a “TRIUMPH OF THE LITTLE GUY” sort of role modeling. In that way it might be limiting. But it would be a representation of someone doing the best he or she can in challenging circumstances.Report
@gabriel-conroy
You see this a lot when British shows transition to being American ones. The British version of Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares was very much “work with what you have.”
The American version (I only saw a few episodes) always came with a complete kitchen makeover.Report
I’ve seen only a few episodes of either version, but your observation rings true to me.Report
Superstore is a show about the people of walmart, in a funny and affectionate way.Report
I’ve been meaning to watch that one. 10 Items or Less really had its moments though was a little gawky towards various lower-end demographics.Report
It borrows some of the same vibe as MASH – hate the game, but love the players. They even have many of the same archetypes – almost note for note recreations of Blake and Burns (although the Burns analogue actress has already done Winchester things). America Ferrera is a combo of Hawkeye and Radar.
If anything, I think they should lean into that even more – that is, the darkness of early run MASH. But, as far as I know, they’ve been on the bubble of being cancelled the entire show run, (they may be cancelled now for all I know), and likely can’t afford to take the risk. No one can in 22 minute comedies on network TV anymore.Report
Saul, you may misunderstand my position.
I am not angry that Pence got booed at Hamilton.
I understand why Pence got booed at Hamilton.
I am angry that the optics for this are so freaking awful and “the left” and “the elite” are more interested in escalating the culture war than in looking around and saying “huh… we just lost an election that was pretty much a must-win for us, given the current state of the House/Senate/Governorships…”
“The left” and “the elite” are in the part of the cycle where they’re losing the culture war and it seems like they would rather engage in cathartic primal scream therapy than figure out what went wrong.
I am not blaming them for indulging in catharsis. I am, however, looking at how this system seems to be evolving and I find it troubling because shit like Pence getting booed at Hamilton is representative of what I see as going wrong and I think that it’s most likely to end in either a war (yes, with people with guns shooting at and getting shot by other people with guns) or in some kind of secession movement where Jesusland and Utopia have a relationship with each other that is probably best analogized to the EU with stricter border controls.
So arguing against my position as if I don’t care about the chubby nerdy kids in school who play D&D is to misunderstand my position.Report
A couple responses…
Given that we are not yet two weeks from the election… an election with results that caught so many by surprise (whether or not it should have)… I would say that some cathartic yelling is still appropriate. If in two years all we are getting is boos and nothing more, we have a much bigger problem.
Expecting the “losers”/outsiders to start turning the cruise ship is a tall order.
More than anything, the left lacks leadership at this moment. Clinton is gone, I have no idea where Bernie is (or if he is even the right choice). We’re all going through the various stages of loss largely in isolation or small groups. We are rudderless. Expecting ANY sort of organized, intentional, rational movement is an even taller order.Report
And that’s fair enough.
But something the Dems want to avoid is inspiring “Ugh, I made the right decision” thoughts in the fragile Trump Coalition. You want “Ugh, I can’t believe I voted for this guy… that was a mistake.”
The Hamilton Food Fight is calcifying the “right decision” just a bit more and isn’t anywhere *NEAR* “mistake”.
But if the Democrats need a few weeks in the yurt, that’s what they need and there ain’t nothing wrong with needing what one needs.Report
Yeah, no, I’m not buying this.
These fragile flowers who run to Daddy Trump because those mean homos scolded Pence, are, I believe, entirely imaginary.Report
You’re going to want those fragile flowers to show up and vote for your guy/gal in 2 and then 4 years.Report
“the left” and ” the elite” did not boo Pence. The crowd at the theater did. That is actually an important distinction.Report
Greg, would you say that the crowd at the theater is representative of “the elite” at all?
I mean, enough for people who consider themselves on “the left” to be defending them in this situation?Report
They’re New Yorkers, man.
New Yorkers have always been filthy immigrants who proudly mock God and “history” while celebrating their perversities with every variety of that noisy jungle music.Report
Those New Yorkers would do well to visit Wisconsin once in a while. They might learn something.Report
Would you consider a KKK rally to be representative of all white southerners? Cause there is apparently a KKK celebration rally scheduled for Dec 3 which i remembered because it’s my birthday.
If we want to move past shallow stereotypes we gotta stop judging large groups by small samples.Report
You’re not going to beat the KKK talking about how evil it is when it’s discussing the concerns of white people and you’re not, especially when your group has such high negatives.Report
@greginak
You forget that in conservative land, going to see a musical like Hamilton with its minority cast, hip-hop score, and Broadway location, makes you a member of the lefty elite.
In this case, there might be some truth in it because Hamilton tickets are expensive. I can’t afford to see it. I can’t afford the SF show because it also requires buying tickets to four other plays for the right to purchase Hamilton tickets.
On the other hand, people make unwise purchases they cant afford all the time.Report
@jaybird @chip-daniels and company.
Mike Pence seems okay with what happened::
https://twitter.com/foxnewssunday/status/800342125909069828Report
Is the takeaway “Mike Pence has class”?Report
Mike Pence isn’t totally daft on the meaning of ‘freedom’.Report
I guess I can see why so many would have voted for him, then.Report
I just personally avoid using the word “class” because I find it largely meaningless these days.Report
I feel the same way about “freedom”.Report
See, this is where I disagree.
I witnessed the change from the late 60’s to the 70’s, and saw how social norms evolve and change.
And while we dress up norms in all sorts of decorous language, about how society decides what its boundaries are and how they should be enforced, at the street level its often a brutal, cruel, and traumatically painful process.
Issues like integration, feminism, gay rights, the Vietnam war were all decided, not by calm reasoned intellectual debates, but by raw emotional arguments over dinner tables, bars, and workplace watercoolers all over America.
Both sides lobbed accusations of shame and ostracism at each other, and eventually one side won and the other side backed down.
It was ugly, and hurtful, and there were countless casualties of relationships severed, holiday gatherings ruined, and families torn apart.
But thats how society sets and enforces its boundaries.
Right now, the Trump forces have embraced transgression of social taboos.
The first step in changing a social norm is to make what was once taboo commonplace, open for debate and unsettled, what Moynihan called “defining deviancy down”.
I won’t yield that ground. If you want me to treat you with respect you have to stay within the boundaries of civility.
I’m not striving for persuasion here. As in any relationship, we have to stake out our boundaries, redlines beyond which we won’t yield or negotiate or debate.Report
@chip-daniels
Clarifying question… does voter = supporter?Report
Practically speaking, they are the same in a pretty fundamental way. But – and I can’t repeat this enough – we simply have to differentiate between the hardcore Trump voter, the median Trump voter, and the margin Trump voter. They’re all important, but in different ways that warrant different responses.Report
@kazzy Yes, what Will said.
And this is what I am striving for, to split out the persuadable Trump voter from the hard core.
The Neo-Nazis on Reddit who post Pepe memes aren’t who I want in 2018.
The middling Trump voter who wants to be respected and accepted into polite society, and who is horrified by the Steve Bannon types, are the target.
Which is why we liberals need to hit this key again and again, that Trump comes with a posse of Bannons and Neo-Nazis. There is no moderate Trump administration, the Neo-Nazis are not fringe actors but driving wheels.
You can either continue to support Trump, or enjoy the respect of the rest of society.Report
For what it’s worth, this was where I came down on the whole thing during the election. It was precisely the election that changed my perspective. And realizing, to an extent, that tactic (which again, was one I backed when it seemed feasible) was not a winning one.Report
I can’t control how people will react to the choice.
If I say, “Supporting Trump means supporting a bigoted policy towards Muslims” and someone responds “OK by me!”, well that’s their choice.
But at least we have clarified things.
Because right now there is a lot of “Well, he’s probably all bluster, and Hillary had something email argle bargle, so they are really both the same”Report
I think this is extremely important and cannot be repeated too many times.
You can’t have your cake and eat it. You can’t say “I voted Trump because the Supreme Court….” or something, “…but I have nothing to do with creating registries for Muslims. I didn’t vote for that”.
YES-YOU-DID
You voted for the whole package. Muslims Registries was just the price tag attached to the Supreme Court deal YOU wanted. Is not something that happened while you were distracted. Is all part of the same package.
You had two bites of the apple to get the Supreme Court you wanted: the primaries, and the General.
This is You. You are the one that created the Muslm Registries.Report
IF each of us only voted for politicians who advocate our own views about every policy issue out there, we’d all have had to run and been the only person to vote for ourownselves.Report
Yeah.
What it actually reminds me of us people who won’t vote (or voted for Johnson) despite firmly believing that Hillary Clinton was the lesser of evils.Report
@stillwater
Or, if we all said to politicians that there are extremes we would not follow them to, perhaps they wouldn’t go there themselves.Report
Or, if we all said to politicians that there are extremes we would not follow them to
Like not following Hillary to her seat in the Oval Office?
I mean that seriously, by the way.Report
It’s possible that the dynamic is different when the Trump/Bannon continuum is in power than when it was not, and the techniques such as Chris Daniels describes may work – even if they didn’t from Jun 2015 to Nov 2016.Report
Sorry, Chip Daniels, not Chris Daniels.Report
Okay that’s on me then. I was using “supporter” to mean “voter” and was focused on the median and marginal folks.Report
@will-truman
Depending on how it turns out, I think there is cause to be harder on the medium and marginal Trump voter than the hardcore Trump voter. The hardcore Trump voter knows what he wants and what he voted for (presumably White Supremacy). The median and marginal Trump voters are the ones who say “Yeah Trump said all these horrible and disturbing things and I don’t trust him and his temperament sucks but e-mails and HRC is a woman so……”
If Trump is even half as bad as his dissenters say he will be, the marginal and medium Trump voters have no excuse. They know who he is, they admit their reservations and distrust and disgust in polls and surveys and still….they voted for him.Report
In some ways I find the true believers easier to deal with. I know where they’re coming from. They tend to be pretty straightforward about what they believe and why. It’s less likely to be about Team Red and Team Blue.
But there is no convincing them and no winning them over. They support Trump for pretty strong reasons, sincerely held. And a lot of them are really quite racist. Not all, but a lot of them. And not in a way that can be reached around.
For the median and the margin, it’s a question on whether “being hard on them” is effective, counterproductive, or neutral. My sense is that it’s more likely to be counterproductive just as the focus on his supporters turned out to be counterproductive in the elections.Report
Sam WangReport
Sunday Night Flashback.
Remember September?Report
From an article about the alt-right (and how to get rid of them quickly):
Report
OK, lets be reasonable and compromise.
We will stop talking about registering all Christians and they stop talking about registering all Muslims.
We will stop talking about how all white people are murderous rapists, and they will stop talking about how all Mexicans are murderous rapists.
See?
Bipartisanship!
Tip and Ronnie having a drink!Report
Meh. I can’t speak on behalf of anybody but myself.
But I’m pretty sure that your moral claims require a certain amount of common ground in order to pull at the heartstrings of your opponents.
Without that common ground, I think that your moral claims only come across as so much noise.
You know, like if a Babtist was telling you that you had to get rid of your Twisted Sister cassettes.Report
Speaking of Creatures of Crime, how is this allowed?
Isn’t being part of the transition (before Dec 19) holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States?
Because Bondi’s still on the Florida Electors list provided to the Florida Secretary of State by the Republican Party.Report
how is this allowed?
He moved on her. He grabbed her. Yer allowed to do that when you’re a star. You can do anything.Report