Helping People to Understand Why Some Are Talking About a “Bubble” or “Hypnosis”
We all know at some level that people suffer from confirmation bias, that they see what they want to see, etc. But lately this phenomenon has gotten so extreme, it’s amazing to behold.
Look at this screenshot from a recent CNN article, talking about Trump’s initial reaction to the tragic events in Charlottesville:
I’m not even asking whether you agree with the CNN writer’s position. All I’m asking is: Can you understand how millions of Americans–say, the people who voted for Trump–would look at the lines I put in red underline, and think they were taking crazy pills?
Now if you click the article, you can see that the writer’s problem was the “many sides” stuff. And yet, that statement is obviously correct, as this new CNN (!) story on antifa clearly proves.
On Facebook I’ve heard people say, “Well, the problem is that Trump said antifa was just as violent and bad as the history of white supremacists.” I don’t think I heard Trump ever say that, but I’m open to it. Can someone provide a link in the comments?
Last one: I’ve seen memes showing D-Day and comparing that to Trump’s remarks. Well, OK, but if the German troops had first gotten a permit (not under duress) from the French government to march into their cities, then it would be more analogous.
I would offer my normal disclaimer about not liking Trump etc., but I think that’s superfluous at this point, given the screenshot above. You are either going to read what I wrote, or you are going to see through to what I “really mean” by my words.
One group of ‘bigots’ hates blacks and Jews and is prepared to use violence to impose their views. Another group of ‘bigots’ hates these Nazis and fascists and is prepared to use violence to stop them.
Is it ‘obviously correct’ to say that the problem is with both sides ?
@Transformer
Short answer: Yes.
Rhetorical question: Is the problem “hate” or “violence”?
@Transformer
You write white supremacists are prepared to use violence to impose their views. If there is evidence of such violence where are the arrests? There is zero political risk in arresting and prosecuting hate crimes committed by whites. The dearth of such prosecutions suggest a dearth of white supremacists being violent.
Yet in the past week I have read articles in our nation’s premier newspapers documenting Antifa willing to go to war to shutdown Nazis and any group they feel analogous. And they have showed they do mean it.
To minimize any misunderstanding of my position:
The White Supremacists do seem to come to their protests armed to defend their right to be ugly, vile, disgusting, revolting idiots. Antifa says they will use violence to stop them from doing that. The consequence in Charlottesville was a riot and one of the ugly, vile, disgusting, revolting, idiot Supremacists mowing down people with a car.
I hate the idea of any group given a platform to say such ugly things as the White Supremacists do. On the other hand. it seems to me that giving them that platform is a teachable moment to show the world how ugly, vile, disgusting and revolting their message is. Outside of these protests what do the White Supremacists do? They talk tough. They brag. They poster. And they do nothing. They are cowards – a point illustrated by the VICE video.
The reality with Antifa is their mission statement includes using violence to shutdown more than racist idiots. In addition, as they are given a pass for being violent it invites any protesters who feel offended to resort to violence. So we have seen violent protests at Universities to shutdown Libertarian and Conservative speakers.
Once a society accommodates some violence to shutdown offensive speech it invites any group that feels offended to become violent. That is not social progress.
Dan W. wrote:
“To minimize any misunderstanding of my position:”
Ha ha that’s a good one Dan W. How’s your black mustache coming?
“Another group of ‘bigots’ hates these Nazis and fascists and is prepared to use violence to stop them.”
Yes, but also to use violence to, say, stop the very not-Nazi Charles Murray from speaking on a college campus. Or basically to shut down the speech of anyone they don’t agree with.
So, please, be honest about what antifa is up to!
Transformer,
Obviously the white supremacists are terrible people. That doesn’t imply everyone opposing them is good or necessarily less objectionable when you take their actions into account. As this article (1) points out, those speaking on this topic need to know enough about both sides to understand the applicable nuances. For instance, people like Milo Yiannopolous, Ben Shapiro, Gavin McInnes, Dave Rubin, Steven Crowder, Sargon of Akkad (Carl Benjamin) have all been called white supremacists, Nazis, white nationalists etc by Antifa, yet every single one of them oppose identity politics, political violence, white supremacy, white nationalism, etc and are really just big proponents of western ideals and the American way of life.
The far left progressives have violently attacked relatively mainstream right wing folks several times in Berkeley, in Sacramento, at NYU, at Middlebury College, and others I’m sure I’m missing in the last 18 months. Bottom line: If you can’t give me a 2 minute informative monologue on Jared Taylor and Yvette Felarca or Eric Clanton, you simply don’t know enough about this stuff to comment on it and need to go back to the local media archives and YouTube live streams of the last 18 months to get a better perspective.
Recently, Ryerson University in Canada had to shut down a panel discussion on, no joke, the curtailment of free speech in the west. The event featured a Jewish Lebanese professor, Gad Saad. However, due to a protest being organized to “stop hate speech from nazis,” the University shut down the talk. So much irony.
Finally, this image (2) shows that the antifa left are not in opposition only to the tiny fraction of the US public who can be legitimately called “white supremacists” or “nazis.” They simply hate everyone who is not a brainwashed Marxist progressive.
(1) https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/08/how-to-write-about-nazis
(2) https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateCommunism/comments/5rx18o/discussion_liberals_get_the_bullet_too/
Transformer, your original comment would make a lot of sense, if the Alt Right people had imprisoned some minorities and then the antifa sprung them out of their bonds using violence.
But of course that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about a group espousing awful views in a legal manner, and another group saying they are willing to use violence to prevent them from voicing such awful views.
Then, when people get hurt, yes both sides are to be blame.
I take everyone’s point about Antifa having a mission that goes well beyond shutting down fascists.
But when Bob says ‘We’re talking about a group espousing awful views in a legal manner, and another group saying they are willing to use violence to prevent them from voicing such awful views’ – at one level I know he is right but at a more visceral level I’m still thinking ‘ Lets drive those murderous Fascist scum right out of town!’.
@Transformer
Antifa are communists. Do you advocate driving those murderous scum out as well? Do you propose waiting until the Communists drive out the Fascists, and then you will drive out the Communists?
Gee, I really hope the group most skilled at using violence to destroy their opposition turns out to be libertarian! *fingers crossed*
Isn’t this what Tyler Cowen calls “mood affiliation?” In trying times, we are supposed to listen to our cooler, more rational, more stoic voice. If we all listened to the voice of visceral reaction, American politics would be even more hopeless than it already is.
The Germans got a permit to march in Czechoslovakia (issued by the French amongst others). Is that close enough? Perhaps they were just accidentally marching in the wrong area.
Maybe it all spilled over when the World Police were ordered to stand down?
“The Germans got a permit to march in Czechoslovakia (issued by the French amongst others). Is that close enough?”
No. The “Unite the Right” permit was from people actually authorized to issue such a permit. Also, they did not plan to seize political control of Charlottesville, or of any portion of it. So not very close at all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement
You guys really need to learn the history “they” didn’t teach you.
“Because the state of Czechoslovakia was not invited to the conference…”
So idiot Tel tries to “refute” me by making the very point I was making!
Do you actually read anything other than your own posts?
Here’s what I said: “The Germans got a permit to march in Czechoslovakia (issued by the French amongst others).”
So did that happen, or did that not happen?
Antifa routinely burn American flags, throw bottles of urine and feces at cops, and are some of the most identity-obsessed collectivists the world has ever seen. Comparing them to WWII American troops is not only laughable, it shows the utter lack of critical thinking ability of the person making the claim of equivalency.
The president is the leader. He is expected to lead. I cannot believe you do not understand the message he is sending. David Duke gets it. Some amount of political naivety is understandable but this is going beyond what is reasonable.
Harold…
Read the Scott Adams post. Trump, as bad as he is, never claimed to be a moral leader. He sold himself to the public as a guy with a set of negotiating skills. The fact that you and most other ppl in the US desperately need the president to be your savior doesn’t change the reality of the office itself.
Is the ACLU also pro-David Duke? I mean, they said the Charlottesville marchers should be able to march. Do the three dozen disavowals of Duke by Trump not count here?
Have a beer and quit being such a puppet hysteric.
Harold wrote:
The president is the leader. He is expected to lead.
Right, so when two violent groups come together and tragedy occurs, I expect the president to say both sides are at fault, even though Tina Fey and Harold on the internet will say he must ipso facto be a neo-Nazi.
I cannot believe you do not understand the message he is sending.
I thought he was saying the hatred and bigotry was to be condemned in the strongest possible terms, but that the violence was due to both sides. I think that’s the message, because that’s what he said, and because that’s my own personal reaction to what happened. So Occam’s Razor.
David Duke gets it. Some amount of political naivety is understandable but this is going beyond what is reasonable.
If you were the president, right now Nancy Pelosi would be saying, “President Harold just admitted that ‘David Duke gets it.’ What more proof do we need?”
Harold, what do you think is to be gained by appealing to neo-Nazis, if that’s what you thought he was doing? Is this a joke? What this episode teaches me is how delusional the left is. Do you actually think 30% of the country deep down thinks the Nazis are cool?
“Harold, what do you think is to be gained by appealing to neo-Nazis, if that’s what you thought he was doing? Is this a joke? What this episode teaches me is how delusional the left is. Do you actually think 30% of the country deep down thinks the Nazis are cool?”
Trump has confounded predictions time and again. Adam’s calls him a master communicator, and clearly he has something along these lines as he got elected. However, one of the messages he is communicating is of racism and bigotry. That does not necessarily make him a racist and bigot. The contents of his heart and head are a mystery to me.
His “masterful” communications seem to work because people are happy to hear different things. You have focused on the fact that he did say Nazi’s were bad. Nazi’s focused in the fact that he said there were fine and decent people among them (each Nazi marcher will presumably think he meant them) and that the other side was just as bad.
Quite why you wish to focus on the one part only I don’t know, but it indicates that Trump is able to have it both ways – retaining his support among his more moderate supporters whilst appeasing the extremists supporters too. Most people do not find it hard to condemn swastika bearing Nazi’s chanting “Jews will not replace us” and “Blood and soil” without equivocation. It is not that hard. Trump singularly failed to do so. That sends out a message.
If Trump had always been very concerned about making sure he kept to the strict truth and was reluctant to offer opinion you might have had a point. His utterances could be construed in the context of a strictly honest person who only was always careful to stick to facts only, and there was fault on both sides. However, that does not describe Trump and we view this in the context of someone who is very quick to condemn on the basis of few facts – the London Mayor and calling the previous president “bad or sick guy” for example.
It may be that he has tried once too often to have it both ways and this time he has been seen through, by most at least.
“Nazi’s focused in the fact that he said there were fine and decent people among them…”
Liar. He very specifically said he wasn’t talking about Nazis when he said this.
Whilst you are technically correct about what Trump said, my comment was not about what he said but about what the Nazis focused on. You may disagree with my assessment but you cannot reasonably call me a liar.
Harold wrote:
“Most people do not find it hard to condemn swastika bearing Nazi’s chanting “Jews will not replace us” and “Blood and soil” without equivocation. It is not that hard. Trump singularly failed to do so.”
Harold, just so I understand you: You mean he failed to do so “without equivocation” on the first day, right? Or do you mean even when he specifically condemned KKK, neo-Nazis, etc. by name, that that doesn’t count as condemning the KKK etc.?
I’m not messing with you, I’m genuinely trying to understand your claim about what happened. I was busy with stuff that weekend, and I actually thought that Trump had been at his golf course or something, and that he actually failed to condemn the hate groups. (After all, that’s what lots of people kept claiming.) So you can imagine my surprise when I took a moment to actually look up what he had said.
“Harold, just so I understand you: You mean he failed to do so “without equivocation” on the first day, right? Or do you mean even when he specifically condemned KKK, neo-Nazis, etc. by name, that that doesn’t count as condemning the KKK etc.?”
I will try to explain how I see it.
1) He failed to condemn them on day 1.
2) Day 2 he then did clearly condemn them, reading from a script.
3) Day 3 in the press conference he reinforced the message from day 1, not the message from day 2.
If he had left it after day 2 it would have seemed a weak condemnation, given his propensity for quickly damning things he doesn’t like, but I think he could probably have got away with it. The last word would have been his clear condemnation of these groups. Even if it looked rather like a political move to undo the damage rather than a genuine expression of his thoughts. We could have said it was a bit late but he did eventually do the right thing.
Then the press conference where he said he couldn’t make the statement sooner because he didn’t know all the facts, as if that has ever stopped him. He reinforced the “both sides” argument. This undermined his condemnation on day 2 and made it look even more like a scripted damage limitation exercise.
There is an expression “damning with faint praise”. Everybody can recognize that although the words may be strictly truthful the intent is to denigrate.
I think this is a case of “praising with faint damns”
Harold wrote:
“1) He failed to condemn them on day 1.”
He *did* condemn them on day one. Go look at the OP. I put a red underline so you wouldn’t miss it.
What you mean is, he failed to condemn them *by name* and *only them*. Which is fine, but let’s be clear about what you mean. Like I said, when I heard people going nuts, I actually thought Trump had failed to comdemn the bigotry etc. But of course, that was not correct; he had condemned it.
“There is an expression “damning with faint praise”.”
Right, except to carry it through, it would look like this:
BOB: Wow I think Bohm-Bawerk and Mises were both amazing economists.
HAROLD: That’s damning Mises with faint praise, Bob. Why bring up Bohm-Bawerk as if he is good too?
“He *did* condemn them on day one. Go look at the OP. I put a red underline so you wouldn’t miss it.
He condemned violence on may sides.
OK, lets get this straight. You think his statement on day 1 was appropriate and did not require any further statement on his part. Day 2 was superfluous so there is no need to go into day 2 and 3.
This makes things simpler. So just to get things straight, do you agree that his statement on day 1 was an appropriate response?
I don’t understand your analogy. If I were to say that Mises was a better philosopher than Freddy in my second grade class, that would be damning with faint praise. It may (or may not) be true, but it suggests that Mises is operating at a second grade level. I don’t see how your Bohm-Bawek analogy fits with this at all.
I surely do not have to explain this to you. By comparing Mises to a second grade pupil I am denigrating him.
So by saying that all sides were at fault, Trump is doing the same thing. It may be accurate but it conveys a message that is different from the stated one. Sure, I am acknowledging that Mises is better at philosophy than a second grade kid, but I am implying that he is not that much better simply by making the comparison.
Harold wrote: “OK, lets get this straight. You think his statement on day 1 was appropriate and did not require any further statement on his part”
Harold, why is this so hard? People are saying Trump apologized for / endorsed neo-Nazis, and I’m saying, “No he didn’t.” That’s not the same as me saying, “I fully endorse what Trump said, in fact that’s what I would have said in his shoes.”
Harold, do you really think the following are basically the same statements? Because “your side” is using them interchangeably.
(A) “Trump did not handle that first press conference well.”
(B) “Trump endorsed Nazis.”
Damning with faint praise requires praise. Who are you saying he praised and how exactly was it damning?
Dan, I said he praised with faint damns.
Oh, so you are saying that by saying he condemned the hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides, that he was actually praising the white nationalists because he was comparing them to the communists flying the hammer and sickle that like to call themselves antifa.
I see the problem. You think comparing someone to these violent wackjobs that are throwing glass jars of piss at people is a compliment. While we see violent communists in the same light as violent nazis, as horrible people with messed up morals, you see the violent communists as somehow a positive, so comparing someone to them is actually a form of praise.
“People are saying Trump apologized for / endorsed neo-Nazis, and I’m saying, “No he didn’t.”
There are few references to endorsing Nazis. Nearly all the references are to failing to condemn, or pandering to Nazis, or words of comfort.
So you have picked an argument with an extreme position. What do you say to the majority? Did his choice of words send comfort to the Nazis?
The fact is it is on record that Nazis did take comfort from his words ans his refusal to condemn them.
Harold wrote:
“There are few references to endorsing Nazis. Nearly all the references are to failing to condemn, or pandering to Nazis, or words of comfort.”
I refute you thus.
One reference is not a refutation, it is an example.
So is your complaint that Trump opposition is claiming he endorsed Nazis, when he actually pandered to them?
Harold wrote:
“So is your complaint that Trump opposition is claiming he endorsed Nazis, when he actually pandered to them?”
Harold, I think at this point I need to stop this conversation, while I still retain a modicum of sanity. You actually think this whole time, I have been arguing, “Trump pandered to Nazis”?
Again, I thought my red underline in the original post would help.
A bit of an aside. I concluded that the majority of comments were that Trump had refused to condemn, or pandered to, or offered comfort to the Nazis, rather than that he endorsed them.
I based that on a very quick Google search for “Trump endorses Nazis”
All my page 1 and 2 hits actually said the weaker form of words I used above.
However, if you did the same google search, would you find the same thing? I think your results would be “personalised” and you might get a whole different set of hits.
I don’t think this makes that much difference to our debate here, because the hits included most of the large MSM outlets such as CNN, WaPo, NYT, Guardian etc. I think this is a reasonable indication that “most” media reports were of pandering rather than endorsing.
However, it is very hard to know for sure. If my results are filtered to provide what they think I like, how can I get a proper view of the generality if comments out there?
Harold is actually good for my sanity. He drives me to go out and chat more with strangers to make sure the world hasn’t gone crazy. Then I’m reminded that comment sections and social media are terrible places to get the pulse of the people.
“You actually think this whole time, I have been arguing, “Trump pandered to Nazis”?”
No I guess not. I don’t think we will progress much more here.
Looking back over the conversation, I think the point of contention is that your red line does not continue to “on many sides. On many sides”
I think our opinions differ on whether those words matter.
I am glad I am good for Dan’s sanity. I feel my time on this Earth has not been wasted.
No, the president is not “the leader.” He is the “executive.” By definition, that is someone who “executes” certain functions or “carries them out,” usually on behalf of someone else. The executive officer on a ship is the person tasked with carrying out the captain’s orders. The chief executive officer of a company carries out the policies set forth by the board of directors or trustees or investors. In the case of this government, the president executes the will of the people expressed via Congress.
Honestly, why people care about this person’s opinion says more about the people than the person they’ve worrying about.
Wikipedia: “In politics, president is a title given to leaders of republican states”
Scholastic.com: “Because the presidency is the foremost prize of American politics, the president is also normally the nation’s principal political leader…”
Sparknotes: “Every nation has a chief of state, a person who serves as the symbolic leader of the country…”
These were just from page 1 of a google search. One of the president’s roles is leader. This is hardly controversial.
“Honestly, why people care about this person’s opinion says more about the people than the person they’ve worrying about.”
I don’t so much care about his opinion. I have said here often I don’t know what his opinion is. I care about the effects his utterances have.
For those saying only one side is to blame: I have seen reports that the antifa people showed up with bottles/balloons filled with urine, and began hurling that at the marchers. Do you dispute that?
If you agree that that may have happened, are you still saying this is 100% the fault of one side? That doesn’t seem a little bit odd for noble defenders of human rights to be using tactics like that? I could see bringing mace and guns/sticks for self-defense, if you feared that skinheads would jump you while you peacefully protested. But you don’t ever need a projectile full of urine for the purposes of self-defense.
Also, hilariously enough, at the Boston rally Saturday:
1) One guy who showed up with the “14 words” on his shirt was escorted out by cops because the rally organizers didn’t want him there
2) The cops were actually allowed to do their jobs such that there wasn’t a giant skirmish between the right and left. The right-wingers kept out of the rally space for showing up late were attacked by leftists.
Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLVbNDIEsCY
Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQzYHCjHLi0
3) The featured speaker was Shiva Ayyadurai, an Indian man running for Senate in Massachusetts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9X2ZRB9GCU
This all tells us a few things:
1) There is clearly a (large) segment of the American Right that is not John McCain and also not neo-nazis. Edgy conservatives like Crowder, Shapiro, and McInnes fit the description.
2) There are obviously people intent on violence on both ends of the political spectrum. The fact that, for instance, Eric Clanton didn’t successfully kill any of the handful of people he smacked over the head with a steel bike lock doesn’t make his action less bad than the guy who slammed into a crowd with a Dodge Challenger.
3) The new right in America is obviously a racially diverse group of people. Other examples are Joy Villa, Antonia Okafor, Paris Dennard, Tommy Sotomayor, and others. Claiming that the right wing as a whole supports Duke, Spencer, Taylor and the rest of the white supremacists/natoinalists is patently absurd.
BTW, let me also say as an olive branch: I am not comfortable with the way a lot of the “right wing” is handling this stuff, either. I have seen some say this is merely “the liberal media trying to discredit Trump” or whatever, and I think that’s inadequate if that’s the only response.
Last thing: I have no idea what motivates Trump. I am not saying I think he’s a great guy for saying what I believe to be a pretty accurate thing on this stuff. I’m just saying, when he happens to utter words that actually sound right to me, it’s weird when people go nuts and say he obviously just appealed to neo-Nazis.
@Bob Murphy
The Nazi thing? It’s a meme. The less sense it makes, the harder it is to contradict, and anyway, denying it makes you sound like a secret Nazi.
And there is a conscious attempt to say that hate speech = Nazi, hate speech ≠ free speech, so free speech = Nazi and therefore no free speech or public assembly (because you should punch a Nazi, and ppl who want “free speech” must want to talk about Nazi stuff, because non-Nazi talk is already free, and so you should punch “free speech” [Nazi] protesters, and so the “free speech” incites violence).
We live in interesting times…
@trent
You’re probably right about antifa.
But libertarian or not: Anyone who believes you should allow open displays of fascism to go unchallenged is dangerously naive about history.
I have no idea what Trump meant by his comments – I very much doubt he was secretly appealing to neo-Nazis.
But I also think it off base to say that those who objected to the “both side were to blame” statement are doing so just because they have been hypnotized by anti-Trumpism – which is what I take Bob to be implying.
@Transformer
But think it through – how do you “dis”-allow open displays of fascism? With force, of course, which is the only part of fascism that is anything more than aesthetically displeasing.
So, by “open displays of fascism” do you mean people dressed up in a certain way, with signs saying certain things (which would open them to debate)? Or do you mean the people who show up in masks with armor and weapons openly stating that they are there to use violence to score a social and political victory? Do you mean fascist fashion or actions? Who decides which views should be subject to violent crackdown? You? Hardly. So who? Seriously, have an answer to this one.
Thought experiment #1: Nazi regalia-wearing crowds bring weapons and armor to shut down a march supporting Mao and Stalin. Who is wrong and should be stopped, and why, and if so how?
#2 Nazi regalia-wearing crowds bring weapons and armor to shut down a march supporting literally Satan and Cthulu. Same questions.
#3 Non-political drunks leaving a sportsball game where their team has lost attach a political march randomly because it happened to be passing the parking lot at the end of the game and the political movement was using the same colors as the victorious visiting team. Same questions. Does your answer change if you I the march was in support of [thing or ideology @Transformer doesn’t like]?
I really think you don’t like the violence, but happen to feel like the violence *in this case* conforms to your view, and so you’re duping yourself into supporting violence in an unprincipled manner. This will bite you in the end.
There is a meme/zeitgeist right now that is trying to turn this country against itself (or trying to “deconstruct” it), and yes people are acting in utterly unprincipled ways to stay on the “right side” of every issue, and Trump-derangement syndrome is a good descriptive/category right now–I would argue that what Bob cites is a perfect example–but that the battle is actually much bigger and his presence/electability is just a massive lightning rod for the broader action going on.
Dang it. *attack a political march
Transformer, it sounds like you halfway support initiating violence against Nazis for promoting their beliefs. Does it not make you uncomfortable that you would be supporting a Nazi position of using violence to suppress ideas you find objectionable? If not, what other violent Nazi tactics do you think could be used for good?
@Dan and trent,
Yeah, you’re right. I don’t like Fascists much – but first use violence is not the answer.
Good man. Agreed
@Transformer
I’ve gone through the same thought process. Great to have you on board!
Thanks Dan and trent !
Someone familiar with the history leading up to WWII might point out that it was the original Antifa communists and their persistent random street violence that pushed regular moderate Germans towards supporting greater police powers. Ultimately the communists were defeated, but at great cost to liberty.
Indeed, one would almost think that the present day Antifa were designed to do exactly the same thing. I wonder how many of the morons out there with baseball bats in their hand understand they are being useful idiots and nothing more than that?
“But libertarian or not: Anyone who believes you should allow open displays of fascism to go unchallenged is dangerously naive about history.”
This is a good, fair point. Let’s challenge them – non-violently.
I read something interesting on PsychologyToday.com last week. The author was writing, not about politics, but about parenting. I’ll have to paraphrase what she said because I can’t find the link and her exact wording now escapes me.
She said: The higher the level of anxiety in a system, the more people are held responsibilities for the actions and feelings of other people rather than those of themselves.
You can see this quite obviously in the way people react to everything Donald Trump says. We hold him personally responsible for the actions of the neo-nazis. We hold him personally responsible for the hurt feelings of any number of people who feel oppressed or under-privileged in America. We hold him personally responsible for the fact that he drops a ton of bombs and holds “the nuclear codes,” even though that precedent has already been set by many previous presidents. We hold him personally responsible for our own inability to communicate with people of different political persuasions and the sad state of American discourse.
All this suggests that the level of anxiety in American politics is quite high.
” We hold him personally responsible for the actions of the neo-nazis.”
I don’t think that is the case. I think he is being held personally responsible for his response to the neo-nazis.
The Economist had a “leader” lecturing people how Trump is definitely unfit for his job, after Charlottesville. I commented thus (don’t worry Bob, I don’t feel a black moustache growing, though I was saluted by a Heil thing):
“This leader got it wrong. Agreed, we can quibble about the very first Trump statement, in which he started to condemn hatred and bigotry. Then violence, and then he said “on both side”. It is more those loose wording Trump is alas familiar with.
But when it comes to moral equivalence and violence, The Economist is utterly wrong. Trump didn’t place any moral equivalence between the ideologies. Vis-à-vis ideas, the only ones he condemned were the KKK and neo-nazis. But when it came about the facts on the ground, that is the violence, what else could he do? Look, he had a much better understanding as his critics and other pundits, regrettably also as the Economist.
The important thing was to get the fact clear. And it appears clearly that both side were violent, even that the “antifa” crowd molested the (stupid, evil) guys that came to attend the speeches. What would it mean to condemn and blame only the KKK etc.? That, provided your ideas are repugnant, violence against you is justified. That would give a strong message to the violent left: since KKK etc. are bad, it is fine to attack the you will have the States backing. What would follow? Well, an acceleration of the already violent trend, permitted because not condemned by the media and the politicians. By Jove, what is the rule of law for? How is a judge or a jury to try somebody? To condemn to the gaol because irrespective of what he did, he thinks badly?
And apropos the death of H. Heyer: before scoring political points, like Rubio and his ilk, and speaking of domestic terrorism, look at the facts. They are difficult to tangle. A federal inquiry is necessary. Seeing the videos, you just can’t rule out it was not deliberate. The car first came slowly, and suddenly accelerated in the crowd. It could be deliberate, it could have being panic because of an attack by the antifa-facists. I don’t know, Rubio doesn’t know, The Economist doesn’t know. See what happened after the car was stopped? Half a dozen people jumped at it and smashed it with baseball bats. The victim joined in the rear with a stick of wood that had a kind of flag rolled. The driver could have feared for his live and went full speed in reverse, and then killed H. Heyer.
What about the principle of innocence before proven guilty in a fair trial? The Economist would have been unable to be a member of the jury, and it lectures Trump?
Gee, Trump has a much better understanding of the duty of a president.”