Politics

Some insight into women who voted for Trump.

“I think he’s a really good man, deep down. This guy has such potential, and I truly believe he cares about our country and wants to help everyone.”

Well, by everyone, you mean “those exactly like me.” Actually, how about “just me”.

“But I had an 8-year-old who was totally on the Trump train. He talked me into taking him to a Trump rally.”

vicious neurotic,
blue blood coursing in black heart.
eyes piercing with lust.

Original at truthdig.com

You might be the subject of political pandering if:

1. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt are the main tricks in the politician’s kit.

A politician who never tires of scapegoating a feared group, or a feared outcome is undoubtedly pandering. Or a demagogue. Or both. Whether it’s Mexicans, or Jews, or Muslims, or gay people, they never seem to stop talking about why you should be afraid of someone or something.

The U.S. has become well-rehearsed in its response to mass shootings. An event. The pondering over terrorism vs. generalized craziness. The outpouring of prayers and support. Then the internet outrage. And more internet outrage. More meme pictures about guns and love. More color-your-profile picture trends. Empty scripted responses from pious politicians. A week or two, then back to our regularly scheduled programming.

News flash: this isn’t getting better. It’s not going to get better.

One of the most striking features of the GOP front-runner is his special fondness for conspiracy theories. From the (non-existent) connection between vaccines and autism to the “real culprits” behind 9/11, he shows the typical clustered endorsement of multiple conspiracy theories.

The question about whether this a form of pandering or a genuinely held set of perspectives is interesting, though barely relevant. In the former case, the abandonment of reason to achieve a political goal is an egregious fault. In the latter case, it sheds considerable light on crucial decision-making capacities. Endorsement of conspiracy theories requires a set of cognitive biases that fundamentally hobble evidence-based decision making.

It was recently reported in the Washington Post that the late Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia had ties to a secret society of hunters called the International Order of St. Hubertus and that several of the guests at the Texas ranch where Scalia died were members of this group.

Surely I’m not the only one that finds this a bit weird. A secret society of hunters? I don’t know the first thing about hunting but from I’ve seen, the only thing secret about hunting is sneaking up on an animal so you can kill it.

During a February 6, 2016 debate, U.S. presidential aspirant Donald Trump claimed that: “Right now we’re the highest taxed country in the world.”

Well, living in a country with much higher tax rates, I can tell you that his statement is patently false.^[Maybe he’s referring to the corporate tax rate which is quite high; but even that is irrelevant to the fact that all sorts of deductions and exclusions on the U.S. corporate tax return put the U.S. effective tax rate much lower than that of most counties.]

“I actually called her, and she never mentioned my name. You know, I - when I sold - oh, did I get a call from one of the Environmental Protection Agency, they couldn’t find it because it comes out in big globs, right, and you say to yourself, ‘How does that help us?’”

Trump is one of the most amusing orators in the history of presidential politics in the the U.S. But I wondered what would happen I took the text of a few of his speeches and fed it into a algorithm that uses Markov chains to shake things up a bit.