'Post-Truth Politics' - Collapse in Information Integrity

[charon]

And now...

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/15/busi ... index.html

What a shame :-)

[JohnD]

Too many political bribes. I remember reading something about this a little while ago. They're looking for a more friendly state to house them.

[charon]

Re. all these pardons he's supposed to churning out, there's something obscene about a corrupt president being able to dish out a ton of pardons for other corrupt people. Assuming they're guilty as charged, of course.

He can make recommendations but they should go through an independent panel.

[Serpent]

Sure, but then they'd have to spread the bribes, and the president would have to go to all the trouble of appointing friends to the panel and collecting his kick-backs. This is more efficient.

[JohnD]

Now the hard yards begin for Biden and his administration. I'm sure he has an agenda all set out looking at what needs to be done and how soon. My suggestion would be to be rid of the college system but I know that will be near impossible to get rid of even if he had an overwhelming majority. Outside of this having tied the senate and still having a slender majority in the house he will have a struggle on a lot of issues that desparately need remedying.
Of course none of this even touches what is imbedded and wrong with the US. Why people have looked towards an outsider for direction and why they're very likely to do so again.
I recall that with the downfall of the Roman Empire it wasn't the hoards from the north, they may have been the final nail in the coffin but they weren't the poison that had already diminished the powers of Rome. That poison came from internal struggles that were allowed to get out of control. The people whose opinions and cries for help weren't listened to. I liken Trump to Nero. Remember Nero promised a new Rome.

Alt literal correction only.

[Serpent]

After this debacle of an election, many Republicans might be open to the idea of reform. The idea, if not the process. The college may be up for discussion. The voting itself is organized at state level, which accounts for so many of the discrepancies. I've heard the Biden-Harris team has a quite ambitious election reform bill already in the works, but its main thrust is to empower poor people, so it'll be very hard sell upstairs.
OTOH, Biden had a dozen or more executive orders, all typed up and bound, sitting on his desk, waiting for his signature to become legal, reversing some of Trump's worst unilateral decisions.
(Alberta screaming up a typhoon about their pipeline!)

[JohnD]

Republicans will certainly take a breather however after a while they will realise they have split both houses leading to all legislature having to be negotiated. This will slow reform and mean some changes won’t happen unless they are passed by presidential decree. In this respect things won’t change much from the Trump era.
History has shown that negotiation will lead to legislature so altered as to be unworkable. This is the hallmark of republicans, to stifle all attempts at change.
There are two great problems I see in the US today. The southern states and the situation with all colored people.
Southern states feel disadvantaged since the civil war. They were forced to give up their slaves which meant no more cheap labor, the great depression, and environmental concerns have meant they have been unable to recover. Along the way there has been a distrust of northerners and this has made them a target for republicans and extremists. It also means they will oppose legislation even though it may be good for them.
The end of the civil war didn’t mean the integration of colored people as promised by Lincoln. What happened instead was segregation. Most colored people still live in those areas they were assigned. Considering they were promised so much with so little being delivered there is a general mistrust of any politician promising change. There is genuine agnst and a deep desire for true change.
While there is great wealth in the US many parts of the country experience great poverty. The contrast is extreme however without resolution to the greater problems, without trust, there can be no great change no matter how resounding the words of any poet or politician.

[Serpent]

History has shown that negotiation will lead to legislature so altered as to be unworkable. This is the hallmark of republicans, to stifle all attempts at change.

Possibly. But there are two as-yet-unknown variables which may change that situation. One is pressure from the constituencies. The other, and far more interesting, is the bifurcation of the republican party.
They're waking up in a cold sweat from nightmares about the brand new Trump Supremacist Party.

There are two great problems I see in the US today. The southern states and the situation with all colored people.

That's the same problem - the endemic one; the fatal flaw in this tragic figure.
But there are a couple more great problems, as well. Like the collapse of the health-care system...

Southern states feel disadvantaged since the civil war. They were forced to give up their slaves which meant no more cheap labor, the great depression, and environmental concerns have meant they have been unable to recover.

Oh, hey! The Wall-Street casino and the dust bowl would not have been prevented by perpetuating slavery - (and, as per the ambitions of the Confederacy, establishing slavery into the western expansion, which would have caused a whole other mess) and environmental degradation would have accelerated with no opposition.
Southern states were 'disadvantaged' even before the end of slavery, by northern industrialization - remember, too, immigrants and children were almost as cheap as slaves and less likely to run away - and rival producers of cotton (India, Egypt) and tobacco (Africa) and sugar cane (the West Indies) which were all British colonies, while America no longer was. Their hidebound 'aristocracy' refused to countenance change then, and their degenerate descendants don't want change now - they want the old times back.
Nobody can give them that. But they keep believing anyone who promises to.

There is genuine agnst and a deep desire for true change.

There is genuine angst, but it's not restricted to Dixieland! I can't say the desire for real change corresponds geographically to that angst

While there is great wealth in the US many parts of the country experience great poverty. The contrast is extreme however without resolution to the greater problems, without trust, there can be no great change no matter how resounding the words of any poet or politician.

Until somebody challenges the economic system, wealth will keep wicking up and the people at the bottom will keep getting poorer, because the only way to sustain that is to find new wealth. That's very bad news - and it unfortunately is fake news to many Americans - because the material for new wealth is running out even faster than the people at the bottom are multiplying. A significant portion of that sediment of population is already on the move - with no viable destination.

[JohnD]

What's important is how they view things. Endemic as it is there is little trust. I'm confident that the southerners want change as much as anyone else but it seems to me they don't trust that what is proposed would work for them. That is why they listen to someone like Trump. It's a very big hurdle to jump and until you find a way there will always be concerns about some of the other problems you talk about.
As far as the economic and health systems the US has a problem with thinking that anything that is at all sounding universal must be communist. Even the word social or socialism is considered too far left for the average American to cope with.

[Serpent]

This is an interesting article about Trump and other lunatic fringe on social platforms:
https://www.vox.com/recode/22241390/trump-twitter-facebook-ban-deplatform-alex-jones-milo
and [eat this, Donny!] is just great good fun:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/21/us/politics/bernie-sanders-meme.html

Post-post-truth media is looking better by the day.

[TheVat]

Using socialism as a scare-word relies on a population rendered ignorant by poor education, and then kept frightened by social media propaganda. Pretty much all nations now, at least those that aren't failed states, have some government regulation of markets and means of production, i.e. have some form of socialism. The US has been socialist since the FDR administration in the early 1930s.

It's truly an aspect of "post-truth" when we can't have an intelligent national conversation about the specifics of government regulation and where it does the most good. We're probably not going to be communist, where the means of production are entirely government-owned, and which would require dissolving our Constitution and abolishing private property. And we're not going to be libertarian anarchists who have to hire private contractors for personal police protection and the paved street in front of our house. Everything between those extremes comes down to debate on the particular merits of a community pooling its funds for the public good and proscribing harmful/polluting/exploitative commerce.

[charon]

a community pooling its funds for the public good

That'll be the day.

[JohnD]

Post-post-truth media is looking better by the day.

The right-wing extremists are not gone but are smarting from the pain of rejection and repositioning themselves for a future attack. I would expect the return of Trump will be about a name change and the funding of a new group that will attempt to legitimize the words and thoughts of the beleaguered majority. As Trump and company would know in marketing and sales when speaking with a potential customer you place yourself on their side of the table by agreeing with their thoughts and desires.
(Additional thoughts)
The promotion of Trump was preceded by the fight over 'political correctness'. Remember there was so much media coverage over the correct usage of language and how people didn't feel comfortable anymore as they couldn't use the same language that they and their parents had used for so long.

[Serpent]

a community pooling its funds for the public good

That'll be the day.

That's every day of every community in the history of the world. That's the only way a community can exist at all. And that includes all kinds of community, from a village to a metropolis, from a quilting bee to the Holy See.
How that pooling and deploying of resources is managed varies, but the same principle applies in all cases: the more benefit is derived by the more members, the longer and healthier the life of the community.

[JohnD]

Using socialism as a scare-word relies on a population rendered ignorant by poor education, and then kept frightened by social media propaganda. Pretty much all nations now, at least those that aren't failed states, have some government regulation of markets and means of production, i.e. have some form of socialism. The US has been socialist since the FDR administration in the early 1930s.

The scariest of all about this fact is that left-wing parties all over the world don't use this word fearing a backlash from voters. There seems to be a way of thinking that says it's OK to be socialist however announcing it publicly tags you as a left-wing extremist. For the past 20 years, I've witnessed political parties attempting to be more right-wing in an effort to capture the 'middle ground'. This has pushed politics more to the right and allowed right-wing groups and parties to move further to the right providing an avenue for right-wing extremists into mainstream politics.
There is a parallel here with the early 20th Century when with the popular rise of industrialization mainstream politicians moved more to the right in order to show themselves as a viable host for multinational companies and separate them from left-wing groups causing strife on the streets of Europe.

[Serpent]

[Post-post-truth media is looking better by the day.] By which I meant Trump is no longer center stage. That's a huge improvement in my book.

The right-wing extremists are not gone but are smarting from the pain of rejection and repositioning themselves for a future attack.

Sure. They'll have to be dealt-with. They're already going off Trump,
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/20/technology/proud-boys-trump.html
or at least the most extreme are peeling away from his cause
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/qanon-supporters-losing-trust-in-the-plan-with-biden-inaugurated-trump-in-florida-and-no-storm-materializing-01611261750
and he's losing financial contributions, income sources and legal representation.
He's washed up.
Of course they will find a fresh demagogue as their focal point and sloganeer-in-chief - but in the meanwhile, they're fragmented, frustrated, limited in their outlets for both physical and verbal aggression, likely to turn on one another - and thus, much, much easier to neutralize.

The promotion of Trump was preceded by the fight over 'political correctness'. Remember there was so much media coverage over the correct usage of language and how people didn't feel comfortable anymore as they couldn't use the same language that they and their parents had used for so long.

Yes, there's been a lot of whining about Big Brother's demand of basic courtesy in public discourse. There has been a lot of whining about
-- the removal of political and religious iconography in public places
-- women's right to control her reproductive function.
-- everything concerning LGBTQ rights
-- gun control
because all these issues, if successfully legislated for the general good, deprive a minority of majority power.
And there was much contention over
-- justice system reform
-- environmental protection
-- immigration policy
-- social welfare
because these issues, if fairly enacted, would deprive a minority of majority wealth.
They're five or six different minorities, but they joined forces in order to thwart the majority.
If they can be kept separate, and the lunatic fringes safely locked away, there is hope of restoring enough order for governance to catch up on some of its backlog.

[JohnD]

Serpent what you see as individual minority groups I see as subsidiaries of a much larger group that is still very much in the shadows. I see a group that has pulled the plug on Trump in order to save themselves like a chess player withdrawing from a game knowing there is a checkmate at some point in the future. The trouble with Trump is he sees himself as the iconic leader and doesn't yet realize he was being used.

[Forest_Dump]

Interesting point. I would need to think about that one more

[Serpent]

Serpent what you see as individual minority groups I see as subsidiaries of a much larger group that is still very much in the shadows. I see a group that has pulled the plug on Trump in order to save themselves like a chess player withdrawing from a game knowing there is a checkmate at some point in the future. The trouble with Trump is he sees himself as the iconic leader and doesn't yet realize he was being used.

I would like to see a detailed analysis of how this shadowy group operates, and why, powerful as they would have to be, they chose someone so unstable, uncontrollable and incompetent as their figurehead.

[JohnD]

I don't think Trump was selected by anyone, he happened and thus was used to achieve change. Opportunism is the greater part of valor after all. How they operate, I have little to no idea, however, I would summarize they provide support to some of these small groups. Giving them a platform. I don't have a detailed analysis just a feeling there has been far too much coordination for any of it to be considered coincidental. Another thing to consider is that Trump has a personal support base that is still active. This has to have been attractive to anyone looking for a change.

[Serpent]

I don't agree that valour is the container of choice for opportunism.
What is the change that "they" want? In what area under the auspices of the US federal administration? From what to what? Over how long a time-span? Has Trump effected any of that change? Is he likely to in the future, even with a personal fan club? These things are unclear to me.
(If I were to name a major beneficiary of the Trumpist agenda - besides Putin, I mean - it would be mega corporations. They got more benefit from Reagan. The military-industrial complex made out like bandits under both Bushes. A good deal of deregulation and working-class suppression was already done by Nixon - the first president within my memory who used the racial and generational divides to great advantage. Every one of them was saner and more effective than Trump. I don't see why "they" would let him "happen".)
Your feeling may be correct - then again, my observation may be correct. I see no way of comparing them.

[TheVat]

The four year Trump Fact Checker project is shutting down.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... our-years/

(full-length version is here, but may have PW...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html

...)

By the end of his term, Trump had accumulated 30,573 untruths during his presidency — averaging about 21 erroneous claims a day.

What is especially striking is how the tsunami of untruths kept rising the longer he served as president and became increasingly unmoored from the truth.

The Trump claims database was nominated by the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University for inclusion in a list of the Top Ten Works of Journalism of the Decade. “The project is a sterling example of what journalists should do — holding the powerful accountable by using reporting and facts,” the nomination said.

Whether such a tracker will be necessary for future presidents is unclear. Nonetheless, the impact of Trump’s rhetoric may reverberate for years.

“As a result of Trump’s constant lying through the presidential megaphone, more Americans are skeptical of genuine facts than ever before,” presidential historian Michael Beschloss said.

[toucana]

Jim Acosta who was the CNN White House correspondent for the whole of the Trump presidency recently mocked president Trump as "The Lord of the Lies"

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/24/media/donald-trump-last-days-jim-acosta/index.html

It's a reference to William Golding's famous dystopian novel The Lord of The Flies (1954)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_Flies

[charon]

"Two roads diverged in American politics, and the Republican Party chose the one traveled by disgraced ex-President Donald Trump and QAnon conspiracy theorists."

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/28/poli ... index.html

If this is true then, personally, I'd leave America. And, if Biden has any sense, he'll go too. Do you mean to say the Republicans want the crazy man back in the White House? After all this? That they want supporters who believe the deluded QA nonsense? What are they playing at?

With a government like that who needs enemies? They'll destroy America. I'd love to know what's really going on because I'm sure there's something I'm missing. Normally people who do this kind of thing are locked up.

Why doesn't someone just shoot the bastard and get it over with? It's all beyond insanity.

[Serpent]

I long held a personal crackpot theory that Trump's presidential career was a protracted revenge on America for making fun of him and electing Obama.
Of course, once in office, he started believing his own self-generated publicity and swelled up with the adulation of a crowd (any crowd! - that's why he couldn't stop campaigning after he'd won, any more than a heroin addict can stop using) and wanted more of it - military parades, statues of himself on every putting green in the land, a life tenure, a throne, a succession, a dynasty, waldos to type a hundred more tweets when his tiny hands get tired...

[TheVat]

[Moderator note: postings suggesting assassination are strongly discouraged. Other reasons aside, we really don't want SPCF web hosting service to pull our plug. ]

I think the rift in the present Republican party may widen, and a far-right group will splinter off and take the Q nuts with it. And Trump, as their focal point, will probably dissolve as he deals with multiple legal actions pending, massive debt, and his apparently growing dementia.

[charon]

Sorry, Vat, I'm not really in favor of shooting people although in this case it would be rather an instant relief. Mind you, it would have to include his ghastly brood as well... oops.

Sorry, delete if you want :-)

Actually, it's not so much Trump, poor chap can't help it (he was an abused child, you know), it's what the GOP and others are apparently doing. After all, if there were no followers the threat would be non-existent.

After the great furore and widespread distancing from the riot, some of them are U-turning and going back again. I really... Why does anybody give credence to these people? Who are they? Why are they there at all?

As I suspected, it's extremely likely that you-know-who will be acquitted twice. Therefore he might be able to come back in 2024. And, unless he ends up in jail, convictions for state crimes (as far as I know) will not bar him from it.

It's hard to believe that the GOP is willing to get him back simply so they can rule the roost again. If that is indeed the motive.

Trump, as their focal point, will probably dissolve as he deals with multiple legal actions pending, massive debt, and his apparently growing dementia.

He has dementia? Is that a clinical diagnosis?

[TheVat]

Sort of. A group of respected psychiatrists/psychologists got together and examined footage, noting changes in his speech patterns and ideation over the past several decades and finding strong indicators of cognitive decline. And I would agree with them that it appears to accelerate in the past few years.

[JohnD]

From news reports Biden has been working very hard to sign presidential decrees to reverse actions taken by Trump and to move forward on Covid 19 and climate change. This is great to see, it warms the heart. On the other side of the coin, the stock market has been acting oddly, to say the least. It seems investors are looking to how they can make money in these troubled times. No doubt Covid has affected how business is conducted with some businesses not able to operate at all. From where I sit all shares are behaving sporadically with surge buy and sell that don't seem to have any logic base. Investors seem to be targetting any company that has any form of an idea that is different from what is presumed to be the status quo.
The world has multiple problems the biggest seemingly being Covid and climate change. Families and individuals invest and these people are looking for a change and a direction for that change. It doesn't surprise that some will be looking to the far right for a possible answer even after Trump.

[Serpent]

Everything you need to know about the stock market and its odd behaviour.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/270750.A_Tenured_Professor

JohnD -- Families and individuals invest and these people are looking for a change and a direction for that change.

I have wondered why you believe this so strongly. I hear a demand for change on the - largely ineffective - leftward edge of the democratic party. I don't see any desire for change on the right. I see a longing to retreat from change, from any acknowledgement of or response to present reality, any confrontation of the future. On the contrary: what they want is return to a past [Make America Great Again] which is at least half fictional [Make America like the old cowboy movies: white, Christian, tough and illiterate).