The question is are THEY worse off than they were 4 years ago?

I spent a couple evenings writing about an episode of Gastlit Nation and I accumulated a lot of browser tabs. So some that are still interesting:

Greg Dworkin, writing his pundit roundup for Daily Kos, included several quotes of interest. The first is by John Stoehr of Religion Dispatches. Stoehr wrote of the disconnect between rural residents and reporters of the New York Times. Some excerpts:

When rural Arizonans talk about “law enforcement” over a plate of eggs and bacon, what they mean is punishing the weak. When they talk about their “liberty,” what they mean is their dominance. When they talk about their “traditional values,” what they mean is their control. A Times reporter can’t possibly know any of that. 

…  

What [the reporter] should be reporting is that some Americans are willing to say anything to justify any action—violence, insurrection, even treason—to defeat their perceived enemies. Elite reporters, and some non-elite reporters who are following suit, keep talking about conspiracy theories as if they were a “collective delusion.” They are no such thing. The authoritarians who espouse them don’t care if QAnon is true. They don’t care that it’s false. Conspiracy theories are a convenience, a means of rationalizing what they already want to do, which is precisely what elite reporters can’t know and do not report.

Sarah Posner of NYT is contradicting that her colleagues are clueless and echoing what Stoehr wrote. She includes quotes from Warren Throckmorton, an evangelical who is a psychology professor at Grove City College in Pennsylvania. Evangelicals are drawn to posts that are similar to QAnon

because they reinforce their belief that Mr. Trump is under attack. “It’s a way of trying to justify their support for the president,” he said. “Anything that makes Donald Trump look honest or compassionate or good, they’ll spread, without checking out where it comes from, who posted it, who the source is.”

Dworkin included a tweet from Brandon Friedman with a quote from the nasty guy:

The people I like the best are the people that are less successful because it makes you feel so powerful. I always say it. Never go out with a successful person.

That is supremacy – always comparing himself against others in a way he knows will make him look better.

 

Walter Shaub, a former director of the Office of Government Ethics tweeted:

I don't think people voted for Trump hoping he'd make their lives better. I think they hoped he'd make other folks' lives worse. His failures don't matter to them. The question isn't are you better off than you were 4 years ago? It's are THEY worse off than they were 4 years ago?

Jason Stanley added:

This is what Tim Snyder calls sado-populism. It’s at the very basis of far right authoritarianism.

Andy Horowitz responded:

And it lies at the heart of most white conservatives’ calls for limited government for most of American history: it is more important that government not help Black people, this logic goes, than that it does help white people.

This is also an aspect of supremacy – a person making himself look better by making the lives of others worse. Authoritarianism takes that to the extreme. I had come to the same sort of conclusion. I’m glad to see others are already there.

 

The Washington Post tweeted an opinion column with this tag line, “I fear Biden would merely be the facade for an administration controlled by hard-left ideologues.” I didn’t follow the link to find who wrote it. Jamelle Bouie, a NYT columnist tweeted:

i know this is a troll column but i feel compelled to say it is the dumbest thing i read today

And Adam Serwer summarized it:

Look, I understand that Trump is an authoritarian who wants a one party state. But if Biden wins, liberals might pass legislation, and it’s worth never having another free election again if I can prevent that from happening.

 

About that “controlled by hard-left ideologues” thing … Leah McElrath tweeted pictures from Bend the Arc: Jewish Action showing Bernie Sanders as a puppet master behind Joe Biden. We can easily forget that Sanders is Jewish.

Presenting Jewish people as puppet masters is a long-standing anti-Semitic trope. (The same trope is also being employed whenever you hear allegations that George Soros is behind events.)

McElrath added:

On Rosh Hashanah call, Trump tells American Jews “We love your country.” He means Israel. The idea of Jewish Americans having dual loyalty is a foundational anti Semitic trope. You can be sure his white nationalist supporters heard this dog whistle.

 

I’m not sure what chain of links got me to a Twitter thread by A.R. Moxon from last May. It’s still accurate, though one should multiply the death count by 2.3. The American Independent had tweeted a video of the nasty guy saying:

It's a very small percentage, a very, very small percentage … a tiny percentage.

Moxon explained:

The points he’s making are: 

1) most people aren’t even affected 

2) most affected don’t die 

He’s saying “look, it’s a percentage game, and you’ll probably beat it.” 

You see? 

If unchecked, the projection is several million dead. 

Trump’s saying “yeah but it’s a big country.” 

Not merely unconcern for those who have died; rather deliberate unconcern for those who will die if we simply decide we're going to let them die rather than doing the work and paying the cost. 

Not just a case for acceptable loss, but a case to make any amount of loss acceptable. 

It's a level of unconcern for human life so deep and vast and total that most people refuse to comprehend it for what it is. 

A leader capable of it is capable of killing millions. A population obeying such a leader makes such death inevitable. 

That's what we're fighting.

Leah McElrath, speaking of the nasty guy tweeted:

His attacks the media are analogous to narcissistic abusers’ efforts to isolate their victims. 

As those of us who have lived through these dynamics interpersonally know, the sad reality is there is no easy end to this situation. 

Malignant narcissists attempt to annihilate those with whom their relationships end. 

Trump will target our nation for annihilation if he loses.

Mark Sumner of Kos commented on a decision by Scientific American. The nasty guy – and the GOP in general – are so anti-science that this science magazine has, for the first time in its 175 year history, endorsed a candidate for president.

Of course they endorsed Biden.

1845 was back in the Polk administration.