There is by now evidence from a variety of laboratories around the world using a variety of methodological techniques leading to the virtually inescapable conclusion that the cognitive-motivational styles of leftists and rightists are quite different. This research consistently finds that conservatism is positively associated with heightened epistemic concerns for order, structure, closure, certainty, consistency, simplicity, and familiarity, as well as existential concerns such as perceptions of danger, sensitivity to threat, and death anxiety.
Ripping the scab off the big festering ulcer on the national ass - all of those being apt metaphors for the GOP, btw.
And oh yeah - ya gotta get all the way to 36:15 for the cool holiday surprise - for me anyway. But first, there's a bit of brilliant at about 9:00 when driftglass hits one out, talking about Matthew Dowd, using a font size metaphor.
This popped up quite a few places. Just need to get it in before I lose it.
I think it has to start taking it's toll after a while. Any attention is better than being ignored as far as Trump cares - he knows it's hard to find 'bad' publicity. But there's a point where you become Terminally Uncool. Like when Dick Nixon's handlers knew he needed something to help him "connect with the youngsters" in the late 60s, and so they invited Up With People to perform at The White House, and then at some rallies. Fuckin' disaster was all that was.
Here's a little taste (sorry). Although it does feature a very young Glenn Close - but don't listen to the whole thing. Seriously - it could give you diabetes. Don't do it:
Anyway, when people are laughing, and they're laughing not because you elicit some pathos, but because you're pathetic and they pity you - time to turn around and head back to the barn.
So - should we be afraid for ourselves? Or is it that we should be afraid of ourselves?
Isn't that pretty much what it comes down to though? Politicians in general (and Repubs mostly in particular) are eager to peddle the panic. They know how to play on our fears to keep us divided, and to use that division to get what their big money donors are paying them to get.
But over time, we become conditioned to the fear, which starts to drive a trend towards ideological purity, which always gets us out to the logical extreme in one big fuckin' hurry. ie: Everybody's a traitor to the cause except you and me, and I'm beginning to have my doubts about you.
We can have some fun pointing and laughing, but this shit gets real if we don't smarten up and stand in its way before it has a chance to reach critical mass.
And BTW - in case it's not obvious enough, lemme state the obvious for you - smart guys working for John Kasich put this together using Trump's nutty-tude to make Kasich look like something other than the radical god-knobbing authoritarian freak that he actually is. It's not like Kasich doesn't think very much along the same lines as Trump does, it's just that Kasich doesn't say that shit out loud.
And of course, that's kinda the problem - Trump gets a boatload of support for being "Anti-PC". But here's the word on that one, guys. It's Politically Incorrect to say certain things because they're shitty things to say. And since words comprise the expression of thought, PC becomes not much more than a general attempt to get you to stop thinking shitty thoughts about people.
Putting it another way - if you can learn not to talk stoopid, it'll help you learn how not to be stoopid, and then we can stop calling you stoopid, and then you can stop bitchin' about how everybody's always callin' ya stoopid. Deal?
And BTW also too - Since the "voting" in Ohio appears to be nearly as honest and forthright as it was in Noriega's Panama, I'll go out on a limb and say this: Assuming Kasich's still in this thing next March - and even if he's polling behind by 20+ points - he'll somehow manage to eke out a landslide upset. Just sayin' - again.
I guess my main problem now is deciding how to defend myself from accusations of peddling a little fear my-own-bad-self.
So there's this new study out of Yale, published in The Proceedings of the National Academies of Science that says Climate Change Denial is all about a Cash-For-Comments system used to manufacture an "opposing view". And what that allows is for the political operators to separate voters along imaginary ideological fault lines, which makes it easier to keep us bitching at each other rather than voting to send the Coin-Operated Politicians back home so they can open that shoe store their mom always wanted them to have - which would be a much closer career match for their skill sets while still meaning most of them would be vastly over-employed.
Ideological polarization around environmental issues—especially climate change—have increased in the last 20 years. This polarization has led to public uncertainty, and in some cases, policy stalemate. Much attention has been given to understanding individual attitudes, but much less to the larger organizational and financial roots of polarization. This gap is due to prior difficulties in gathering and analyzing quantitative data about these complex and furtive processes. This paper uses comprehensive text and network data to show how corporate funding influences the production and actual thematic content of polarization efforts. It highlights the important influence of private funding in public knowledge and politics, and provides researchers a methodological model for future studies that blend large-scale textual discourse with social networks.
Like I said - that's not something we didn't know. But I'll take it as a positive sign anyway, because while it's not likely to convince the hard core rubes, it's one more bullet point that rebuts the Both-Sides crap and might be useful convincing the Hipster-ish I'm-Too-Cool-To-Vote crowd to get up off their suspended-adolescence butts and realize they've got skin in this game whether they like it (or whether they even realize it) or not. hat tip = truthout
