I got this from Clarice Feldman this morning, who got it from Glenn Reynolds, who got it from an email he received. It's so good I wanted it here just because:
Trump showed that the annihilation of the American middle class was not the result of inevitable forces.
Technological change and globalization are not weather or the movement of tectonic plates.
The economy, and who gets what from whom, is embedded in political choices.
Who pays the costs and who reaps the benefits are political choices.
Who is crushed by the legal system and who benefits from it, and who is insulated from it, are also political choices.
Trump will never be forgiven for showing normal people that their destruction, and the enrichment of other people, who despise everything that they love, believe in, and care about, is a policy decision.
Trump showed other choices are possible.
Having seen once how it actually works, we can never unsee it.
That is Trump’s greatest achievement.
I thought that part of Clarice’s column was splendid. I’m so glad you republished it here. She is a sane, reasoned voice in an increasingly crazy world.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was awake too early this morning, thinking about things, I realized that our country, having been managed for four years by a man who knows what high level management - being the CEO of a large complex international enterprise - is all about, is back in the hands of lawyers. Not even practicing lawyers (although those hire others to manage their businesses) but politicians-for-life who went straight from law school to some public trough. They too do not know what they don’t know. Blinkered. Limited outlook. And probably hobbled by their defensiveness about what they don’t know or understand.
When I was awake too early this morning ...
DeleteI know the feeling.
Trump was not a politician, he is a STATESMAN!!
ReplyDeleteI, for one, was a dyed in the wool neocon in 2016, who voted for Marco Rubio.
ReplyDeleteSince then, my Overton window shifted so far, it shattered.
Same for me Charles Z. Exact same. Can't go back.
DeleteMark A.
"showing normal people that their destruction, and the enrichment of other people, who despise everything that they love...."
ReplyDeleteAnd, showing the latter to be capable of TDS, to an unimaginable extent, so as to provoke some liberals to get scared enough of this TDS, that they founded groups like the IDW.
A good book, about issues pertaining to this, is by Piers Benn,
see https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030571061 , where he discusses a (mostly SJW) rhetorical tactic, that has had a truly corrosive effect on public discourse:
"One notable, and often irrational way, in which we arrive at questionable beliefs, is due to the (often false) assumption, that anyone who *denies* them must have *dubious* normative views.
We see this, when someone who challenges such a belief, is assumed to be “really” defending something outrageous.
We often hear the rhetorical put-down: “Ah, so you are *really* saying X!”
The claim that supposedly implies, or is a cover for, ‘X’ might be some claim about the average behavioural differences between men and women,... or any number of currently contentious things.
Someone who says, that the finding that women are, on average, more agreeable than men, can be partly explained biologically, is easily *assumed* to be *“really saying”*, that women should be discouraged from being more disagreeable —that female agreeableness is “natural”, and therefore good."
What he's describing here may be called, a combo of straw-man and ad hominem.
More on (the recent spurt of) deployment of this baleful combo, from the IDW's Helen Pluckrose:
Delete"On social media, different factions in the culture wars are increasingly likely, to *ascribe* unwarranted, nefarious motivations and goals, to those whom they perceive as their adversaries, and often do so *openly*, even though they know other people are watching....
That people have ideologically motivated reading comprehension problems, and ascribe nefarious motivations to each other is not new, but they did, at least, used to try to make their arguments plausible, and their reputations as serious thinkers with integrity *used to* suffer, if those arguments did not hold water.
Now, it seems as though everybody... will *openly* spin self-serving and dishonest narrative after narrative, entirely *misrepresenting* the situations, motivations and actions of others, secure in the knowledge that their reputation *within their* group will not suffer in the least, and that the group will even play along and support their own ‘side’...
That people have ideologically motivated reading comprehension problems, and ascribe nefarious motivations to each other is not new, but they did, at least, used to try to make their arguments plausible, and their reputations as serious thinkers with integrity used to suffer, if those arguments did not hold water.
Now, it seems as though everybody from the President of the United States to the very online Social Justice activist will openly spin self-serving and dishonest narrative after narrative, entirely misrepresenting the situations, motivations and actions of others, secure in the knowledge that their reputation within their group will not suffer in the least and that the group will even play along and support their own ‘side’ in whatever battle of narratives is occurring....
We must decline to offer respect or support, to anyone who is disingenuously attributing nefarious motivations and goals to others, even if they are doing so in support of aims we share...."
From https://areomagazine.com/2020/08/17/ideological-theory-of-mind-how-to-stop-the-culture-wars/ .
A helpful take on Benn's book is at
ReplyDeletehttps://areomagazine.com/2021/01/15/in-defence-of-argument-intellectual-freedom-and-the-culture-wars-by-piers-benn/ .
Slightly OT, but also from the AT
ReplyDeletehttps://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/01/national_review_and_all_its_many_ways_of_insulting_conservatives.html
This article pretty well sums up my feelings about the Never Trumpers at NR. My only quibble: the author (probably unintentionally) left out Andy McCarthy.
I would happily place myself among the flyover conservatives referred to in the penultimate paragraph who fully appreciate what Trump did for us.
Now cometh those who would do an end run around the impeachment and go straight to disqualification for federal office. The senators pushing for this - dopey Tim Kaine and cadaverous Richard Blumenthal - have undoubtedly been reading Lawfare’s “how-to guide”. The one sane voice, according to Epoch Times, is Richard Durbin, who appears to not think much of the idea.
ReplyDeleteHere’s the how-to guide:
https://www.lawfareblog.com/disqualifying-insurrectionists-and-rebels-how-guide
And here’s the Epoch Times article:
https://www.theepochtimes.com/democrats-explore-using-14th-amendment-insurrection-clause-to-bar-trump-from-future-office_3669980.html?utm_source=news&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-01-25-1