gotsnowgotslush
skates like Eck
- Joined
- Dec 24, 2007
- Posts
- 25,720
It Is Not As If We Were Not Warned
This week, we have Madeleine Albright speaking up, in the New York Times
Albright writes in the op-ed, titled “Will We Stop Trump Before It’s Too Late?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/06/o...-albright.html
“Fascism — and the tendencies that lead toward fascism — pose a more serious threat now than at any time since the end of World War II,” Albright writes in the op-ed, titled “Will We Stop Trump Before It’s Too Late?” She decries mounting nativist and extreme right-wing movements around the globe, along with the growing threat of despotism. A key enabler, she argues, is America’s unleashed president.
Albright blasts Trump’s withdrawal from historic, positive international coalitions, his philosophy of every nation for itself, and his disdain for civil discourse, equality, human rights and democratic institutions.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entr...cks-trump-fascism_us_5ac7ebf9e4b07a3485e4b7f3
Salon's Andrew O'Heir takes note of Madeleine Albright's opinion piece, and adds his own
"What Albright does not understand — and likely cannot understand — is that it was precisely that post-Cold War world order that she represents, variously described as “globalization” or “neoliberalism” or the “Washington consensus,” that paved the way for the resurgence of fascism in the first place."
"In any case, she (Albright) is eminently qualified to describe what fascism is and isn’t, and we can assume that in her book, “Fascism: A Warning,” she does so."
Does it describe Donald Trump, the proximate target of her Times op-ed? Pretty well, although we might have to fudge a little on “willing to use violence.” Can we say instead: Would like to use violence? Fantasizes about using violence, in juvenile and upsetting fashion? Fair enough. But she also intends it to capture a whole bunch of other pseudo-democratic or authoritarian leaders, who are decidedly not all the same: Vladimir Putin, of course, but also Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, Kim Jong-un of North Korea, Bashar al-Assad of Syria and Abdel Fattah el-Sissi of Egypt.
In Albright’s account, the worldwide upsurge of fascism, or at least “the tendencies that lead to fascism,” does not reflect a crisis of democratic legitimacy but rather “the abdication of America’s moral leadership,” as epitomized by You Know Who. She doesn’t quite claim that Trump is the uncaused cause of all these bad things, or that President Hillary Clinton would have stamped out fascism around the globe, but that's pretty much the implication.
In short, the world of free-market capitalism and universal democracy that Albright spent her career trying to build — under American dominance, of course — has pretty much failed. Oh, people still claim to believe in it, in almost exactly the same cynical and instrumental way that Soviet citizens of the ’70s still claimed to believe in communism. Ours is a less grotesque and inefficient system than that one, no doubt, and it excels at diverting its lower-rank denizens with disposable goods and finely crafted entertainment. So it is collapse is happening much more slowly.
https://www.salon.com/2018/04/07/tr...res-what-madeleine-albright-cant-or-wont-say/
gsgs comment-
What we do have in America, is desperation. Trump just made it worse, for the most desperate. He disregarded his supporters, and continued his tariff attack.
Trump brayed that he alone could fix the ills that cause their desperation.Trump only has a small group of fanatically devoted followers for a base. But they are idiots/morons with guns, just as he is an idiot/moron with nuclear weapons.
(This week, an intellectual cried out,"He's dumb! Why are people refraining from admitting that Trump is dumb ?)
They have studied why Trump and his true believers are morons/idiots
The Dunning-Kruger Effect:
Some believe that many of those who support Donald Trump do so because of ignorance — basically they are under-informed or misinformed about the issues at hand. When Trump tells them that crime is skyrocketing in the United States, or that the economy is the worst it’s ever been, they simply take his word for it.
The seemingly obvious solution would be to try to reach those people through political ads, expert opinions, and logical arguments that educate with facts. Except none of those things seem to be swaying any Trump supporters from his side, despite great efforts to deliver this information to them directly.
The Dunning-Kruger effect explains that the problem isn’t just that they are misinformed; it’s that they are completely unaware that they are misinformed. This creates a double burden.
Studies have shown that people who lack expertise in some area of knowledge often have a cognitive bias that prevents them from realizing that they lack expertise. As psychologist David Dunning puts it in an op-ed for Politico, “The knowledge and intelligence that are required to be good at a task are often the same qualities needed to recognize that one is not good at that task — and if one lacks such knowledge and intelligence, one remains ignorant that one is not good at the task. This includes political judgment.” Essentially, they’re not smart enough to realize they’re dumb.
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/04/neuroscientist-explains-wrong-trump-supporters-brains/
Too dumb, to comprehend that their trusted local news anchors are reciting bullshit conspiracy theories, as if the words on the teleprompters were something rooted in reality ? Un-informed enough, to not know that former Russian propaganda writers have added their expertise, to something that should have been read, separately, as an editorial.
Thanks, Sinclair TV, the not-so-new FOX TV clone, you cynical bunch of rotters!
"I love the poorly educated”, announced Trump in a jubilant speech as he swept to victory in the Nevada caucus.
“We won with young. We won with old. We won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/p...-a6893106.html
"... we cannot really know, of course, is whether the president really believes what he’s saying, or just wants other people to believe what he’s saying. But the circular nature of his disinformation can be seductive to people who are inclined in his direction anyway. If the mainstream news about him is “fake” and so are the non-Rasmussen polls, then there’s only one source of information you can trust: the man himself. Evil as it is, it’s as good a method as any to keep his troops feeling upbeat and ready to vote."
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/04/trump-thinks-hes-wildly-popular.html
The Frightful Combination of Stupid, Violent, and Crazy
The Cult of Fanatic True Believers
There is the Russian branch of infiltrators of the cult, that multiply and expand the message of the cult, masquerading as true believers.
That does not discount the fact of the existence of fanatic true believers. It does not help, that FOX TV infotainment and Sinclair TV network reinforce their delusions. Look, at what happens after Trump feasts on FOX TV! He is the leader of a nation, but he does not stop to think, or consult with his "best people." It does not help, that he has fired all of his "best people."All that is left of Trump's cabinet and his staff are people that are grinding their own axes, and stabbing each other in the back. They are not any more experienced or knowledgeable, than he is.
Do we have crazies, inside the White House ? Do we have crazies in Congress, or the Senate ?
Bannon is not gone, he is just waiting by the revolving door...
John McCain warned America-
John McCain (R-Ariz.) is blasted GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump's rhetoric on illegal immigration, and worries it has energized the party's fringe.
"It’s very bad,” McCain told the The New Yorker in an interview published Thursday.
“This performance with our friend out in Phoenix is very hurtful,” he said of Trump’s rally against illegal immigration in his state over the weekend.
“Because what he did was he fired up the crazies,” McCain continued. “Now he galvanized them. He’s really got them activated.”
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/...up-the-crazies
This week, we have Madeleine Albright speaking up, in the New York Times
Albright writes in the op-ed, titled “Will We Stop Trump Before It’s Too Late?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/06/o...-albright.html
“Fascism — and the tendencies that lead toward fascism — pose a more serious threat now than at any time since the end of World War II,” Albright writes in the op-ed, titled “Will We Stop Trump Before It’s Too Late?” She decries mounting nativist and extreme right-wing movements around the globe, along with the growing threat of despotism. A key enabler, she argues, is America’s unleashed president.
Albright blasts Trump’s withdrawal from historic, positive international coalitions, his philosophy of every nation for itself, and his disdain for civil discourse, equality, human rights and democratic institutions.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entr...cks-trump-fascism_us_5ac7ebf9e4b07a3485e4b7f3
Salon's Andrew O'Heir takes note of Madeleine Albright's opinion piece, and adds his own
"What Albright does not understand — and likely cannot understand — is that it was precisely that post-Cold War world order that she represents, variously described as “globalization” or “neoliberalism” or the “Washington consensus,” that paved the way for the resurgence of fascism in the first place."
"In any case, she (Albright) is eminently qualified to describe what fascism is and isn’t, and we can assume that in her book, “Fascism: A Warning,” she does so."
Does it describe Donald Trump, the proximate target of her Times op-ed? Pretty well, although we might have to fudge a little on “willing to use violence.” Can we say instead: Would like to use violence? Fantasizes about using violence, in juvenile and upsetting fashion? Fair enough. But she also intends it to capture a whole bunch of other pseudo-democratic or authoritarian leaders, who are decidedly not all the same: Vladimir Putin, of course, but also Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, Kim Jong-un of North Korea, Bashar al-Assad of Syria and Abdel Fattah el-Sissi of Egypt.
In Albright’s account, the worldwide upsurge of fascism, or at least “the tendencies that lead to fascism,” does not reflect a crisis of democratic legitimacy but rather “the abdication of America’s moral leadership,” as epitomized by You Know Who. She doesn’t quite claim that Trump is the uncaused cause of all these bad things, or that President Hillary Clinton would have stamped out fascism around the globe, but that's pretty much the implication.
In short, the world of free-market capitalism and universal democracy that Albright spent her career trying to build — under American dominance, of course — has pretty much failed. Oh, people still claim to believe in it, in almost exactly the same cynical and instrumental way that Soviet citizens of the ’70s still claimed to believe in communism. Ours is a less grotesque and inefficient system than that one, no doubt, and it excels at diverting its lower-rank denizens with disposable goods and finely crafted entertainment. So it is collapse is happening much more slowly.
https://www.salon.com/2018/04/07/tr...res-what-madeleine-albright-cant-or-wont-say/
gsgs comment-
What we do have in America, is desperation. Trump just made it worse, for the most desperate. He disregarded his supporters, and continued his tariff attack.
Trump brayed that he alone could fix the ills that cause their desperation.Trump only has a small group of fanatically devoted followers for a base. But they are idiots/morons with guns, just as he is an idiot/moron with nuclear weapons.
(This week, an intellectual cried out,"He's dumb! Why are people refraining from admitting that Trump is dumb ?)
They have studied why Trump and his true believers are morons/idiots
The Dunning-Kruger Effect:
Some believe that many of those who support Donald Trump do so because of ignorance — basically they are under-informed or misinformed about the issues at hand. When Trump tells them that crime is skyrocketing in the United States, or that the economy is the worst it’s ever been, they simply take his word for it.
The seemingly obvious solution would be to try to reach those people through political ads, expert opinions, and logical arguments that educate with facts. Except none of those things seem to be swaying any Trump supporters from his side, despite great efforts to deliver this information to them directly.
The Dunning-Kruger effect explains that the problem isn’t just that they are misinformed; it’s that they are completely unaware that they are misinformed. This creates a double burden.
Studies have shown that people who lack expertise in some area of knowledge often have a cognitive bias that prevents them from realizing that they lack expertise. As psychologist David Dunning puts it in an op-ed for Politico, “The knowledge and intelligence that are required to be good at a task are often the same qualities needed to recognize that one is not good at that task — and if one lacks such knowledge and intelligence, one remains ignorant that one is not good at the task. This includes political judgment.” Essentially, they’re not smart enough to realize they’re dumb.
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/04/neuroscientist-explains-wrong-trump-supporters-brains/
Too dumb, to comprehend that their trusted local news anchors are reciting bullshit conspiracy theories, as if the words on the teleprompters were something rooted in reality ? Un-informed enough, to not know that former Russian propaganda writers have added their expertise, to something that should have been read, separately, as an editorial.
Thanks, Sinclair TV, the not-so-new FOX TV clone, you cynical bunch of rotters!
"I love the poorly educated”, announced Trump in a jubilant speech as he swept to victory in the Nevada caucus.
“We won with young. We won with old. We won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/p...-a6893106.html
"... we cannot really know, of course, is whether the president really believes what he’s saying, or just wants other people to believe what he’s saying. But the circular nature of his disinformation can be seductive to people who are inclined in his direction anyway. If the mainstream news about him is “fake” and so are the non-Rasmussen polls, then there’s only one source of information you can trust: the man himself. Evil as it is, it’s as good a method as any to keep his troops feeling upbeat and ready to vote."
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/04/trump-thinks-hes-wildly-popular.html
The Frightful Combination of Stupid, Violent, and Crazy
The Cult of Fanatic True Believers
There is the Russian branch of infiltrators of the cult, that multiply and expand the message of the cult, masquerading as true believers.
That does not discount the fact of the existence of fanatic true believers. It does not help, that FOX TV infotainment and Sinclair TV network reinforce their delusions. Look, at what happens after Trump feasts on FOX TV! He is the leader of a nation, but he does not stop to think, or consult with his "best people." It does not help, that he has fired all of his "best people."All that is left of Trump's cabinet and his staff are people that are grinding their own axes, and stabbing each other in the back. They are not any more experienced or knowledgeable, than he is.
Do we have crazies, inside the White House ? Do we have crazies in Congress, or the Senate ?
Bannon is not gone, he is just waiting by the revolving door...
John McCain warned America-
John McCain (R-Ariz.) is blasted GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump's rhetoric on illegal immigration, and worries it has energized the party's fringe.
"It’s very bad,” McCain told the The New Yorker in an interview published Thursday.
“This performance with our friend out in Phoenix is very hurtful,” he said of Trump’s rally against illegal immigration in his state over the weekend.
“Because what he did was he fired up the crazies,” McCain continued. “Now he galvanized them. He’s really got them activated.”
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/...up-the-crazies
