06.16.16
What I learned about myself
Hillary Clinton is the choice. It’s over and that’s it.
However, from the primary season’s Dale Carnegie course, How to Make Friends and Influence People, I learned much about myself.
I learned from Nick Kristof at the Times that if you supported Sanders and plan to vote Trump in protest you “have bipolar disorder.”
Earlier in the week, Paul Krugman categorized Sanders supporters. A few of the names: Naderites, refuseniks, Clinton Derangement Syndrome sufferers, and angry white guys, somewhat like the army of angry white guys now admiring Trump.
Add to that: morons (or equivalent, a couple 100 times), misogynists, cranks, magical thinkers, and Bernie Bros — or people who troll women on the internet.
And, courtesy of the NYT: guys who are going through psychological “reactance,” which is to say guys — white — who act defiantly and do the opposite when told to do something by a perceived authority figure, their mother, a woman, a teacher etc. Which equates to a fancy way of saying misogynist angry white guys and stupid ones, too.
Today, the NYT sent Thomas Edsall to Pottstown, PA, due south of my old Pennsyltucky home.
Pennsylvania, most of that part of the state I’m familiar with, has been part of what I’ve referred to as the 40 year slump.
“On one hand, Trump has a base of intense, even fanatical, support in much of rural and small town Pennsylvania …” writes Edsall.
There is a paradox. Pennsylvania was enthusiastically for Bill Clinton. That enthusiasm has not worn off. However, Hillary Clinton is a different story. While she has the overwhelming support of Pennsy women, she’s shunned by men.
Both Democratic and Republican administrations have never done anything for Pennsylvania. It’s old working class was destroyed by American policy and free trade, which the Washington Monthy notes, is now dead at the civiian level.
The same issue of the magazine gives Thomas Frank’s Listen, Liberal, a big thumbs down. I would have expected that. But I am a fan.
Writes Jonathan Alter, for the monthy, at the end of the book’s review:
This book perfectly captures the mind-set of Sanders voters. Is it also a harbinger of their unwillingness to suck it up and vote for the wife of the main villain of the piece? Let’s hope Frank is willing to set aside his bile long enough to use his credibility on the left to face the hard realities of politics and help protect us from a cruel fate this fall.
Another extended insult and a recommendation to suck it up.
Christoph Hechl said,
June 21, 2016 at 2:46 am
The talk of “reality” is a dead giveaway in my opinion.
Practically without exception it means that you have to follow that persons perception of reality or be wrong. It is much like the word “trith” which always is used without regard for the theoretical nature of that concept. Truth is not an absolute and it can never be universal.
People who use these words want to excert force on others by aligning themselves with something they deem ultimate.
Unfortunately rhetorical foul play is not highlighted often and imidiately enough, therefore it thrives.
Along with the incredibly annoying trend towards selfvictimization these choices of words and the effort to explain to less observant persons, just how language is used to manipulate them, are among the great evils of our times.
George Smith said,
June 21, 2016 at 9:47 am
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/ralph-nader-bernie-sanders-lesser-evilism-20160620
Nailed.
Taibbi: “When I think about the way the Democrats and their friends in the press keep telling me I owe them my vote, situations like the following come to mind. We’re in another financial crisis. The CEOs of the ten biggest banks in America, fresh from having wrecked the economy with the latest harebrained bubble scheme, come to the Oval Office begging for a bailout.
“In that moment, to whom is my future Democratic president going to listen: those bankers or me?
“It’s not going to be me, that’s for sure. Am I an egotist for being annoyed by that? And how exactly should I take being told on top of that that I still owe this party my vote, and that I should keep my mouth shut about my irritation if I don’t want to be called a Republican-enabler?”
Christoph Hechl said,
June 21, 2016 at 10:09 am
Volker Pispers, a german satirist said: Before every election, you ask yourself “Which is the lesser evil?”. After each election you ask yourself “Why does the lesser evil have to be so damn big?”