[mpen-dayton4] FW: "Happening NOW [Massive Trump protest in Chicago]" & "Elizabeth Warren's smackdown of GOP obstruction" & "Why a Surge of Millennials are Feeling the Bern" and more
FYI. Best, Munsup
P.S. Please reply back to me with 'unsubscribe' on the subject line if you no longer want to receive my e-Newsletters. The convenient link to unsubscribe is no longer available due to security reasons to protect my email servers.
P.P.S. "He who dares not offend cannot be honest" - Thomas Paine
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· (Mar. 12) FW: Maker Fest 2016 (Munsup's Note: Sorry for this late notice!)
· FW: Happening NOW [Massive Trump protest in Chicago]
· FW: Presidential candidates consort with anti-LGBT extremists
· FW: James Crow Esq
· FW: Another war in Iraq? I'm voting no.
· FW: Don't miss Elizabeth Warren's smackdown of GOP obstruction
· FW: BREAKING: G4S out of Israel, U.S. youth prisons
· FW: 45th Anniversary of COINTELPRO
· FW: "Social Security Privatizer Larry Fink of Giant Asset Manager BlackRock is a Clinton Treasury Secretary in Waiting"
· FW: Let's help the Democrat who's going to make Chuck Grassley pay a price for Supreme Court gridlock
· FW: "Why a Surge of Millennials are Feeling the Bern"
· FW: Why Trump?
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From: lining qi
Subject: FW: Maker Fest 2016
From: Victoria, Matt, Anna, Schuyler, and the rest of the team; MoveOn.org Political Action
Subject: Happening NOW [Massive Trump protest in Chicago]
Breaking news: Donald Trump just canceled a rally in Chicago after thousands of University of Illinois at Chicago students, community members, and MoveOn members gathered outside and inside the venue in a demonstration that there's no room for Donald Trump's vitriol in their community.1
This is what standing up to hate looks like—and it's a huge win for courageous student and community organizers who knew they were risking their own safety by taking action. Everywhere Trump goes, his hateful and violence-inciting rhetoric needs to be met with this kind of outpouring of peaceful opposition.
Everyone needs to see the image of this protest and get ready to stand up to Trump's hate in communities across the country. Can you share this image right now to make sure this is covered far and wide?
Click here to share this image over Facebook—or click here to share it over Twitter.
Together we can make sure that love trumps hate. In Chicago and in the entire country.
Sources:
1. "Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump Cancels Rally in Chicago Due to Security Concerns," ABC News, March 11, 2016
http://act.moveon.org/go/2064?t=5&akid=163009.1195276.htHjhC
Want to support our work? MoveOn member contributions have powered our work together for more than 17 years. Hundreds of thousands of people chip in each year—which is why we're able to be fiercely independent, answering to no individual, corporation, politician, or political party. You can become a monthly donor by clicking here, or chip in a one-time gift here.
PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.
From: Southern Poverty Law Center// FIGHTING HATE // TEACHING TOLERANCE // SEEKING JUSTICE
Subject: Presidential candidates consort with anti-LGBT extremists
Presidential candidates court anti-LGBT hate groups
Ted Cruz has aligned himself with several individuals associated with anti-LGBT hate groups. Cruz and Marco Rubio have both formed advisory councils populated with advisors who have long demonized the LGBT community and would like to restrict their rights. --- READ MORE
From: albert baca
Subject: FW: James Crow Esq
This article is worth a read. It is a pretty good summation of what has been going on since Tricky, St. Ronnie, Daddy Bush, Slick Willie, the Shrub and even the Big O who had a mandate to do more but let the Republicans hood wink him. For shame.
Notice I left off Carter. Poor Carter had the misfortune of being bookended by two of the all-time worst presidents. (Carter's inflation was really Nixon's inflation courtesy of the Arab Oil Shocks and Henry Kissinger.)
Nobody will ever convince me that release of the Iranian hostages was nothing but hanky-panky pulled off by disgruntled former CIA agents trying to help their old boss help St. Ronnie get elected.
Carter also had the misfortune of Big Oil putting the kibosh on his energy policy. Oil, oil, whose got the oil? We sure as hell need all the oil we can get you know. Solar energy and wind energy be damned. But what about nuclear energy? Look here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_accidents_by_country
TO THE ARTICLE: https://sojo.net/articles/4-ways-political-forces-steal-elections-and-how-we-can-stop-it
4 WAYS WHITE POLITICAL FORCES STEAL ELECTIONS AND HOW WE CAN STOP IT
By Jim Wallis on 03-10-2016
A personal tweet I sent out this week said: "Let's be clear — and Christian: A vote for Donald Trump is a vote for racism."
In one of the many postmortem discussions on Tuesday's primary results, Cokie Roberts on Morning Joe said we were leaving race out of the questions we're asking. She's right. Donald Trump's success isn't just because of his entertaining flamboyance, his marketing brand, his experienced self-promotion, his business boasting, and his other fabricated "outsider" identities that appeal to people who genuinely feel outside of American politics and life. At its core, Donald Trump's campaign is about race — which is why this is about far more than politics and partisanship for many of us religious leaders. When Roberts asked Trump if he was proud of the growing reports about white schoolchildren verbally attacking students of color and telling them they will soon have a wall built against them to keep them out of America, Trump reacted by saying it was a "nasty" question. No, it was one of the few good questions from journalists that morning.
Donald Trump is the race candidate, projecting white nationalism and xenophobia, appealing to fear and resentment, and always blaming people of other races for the problems of low-income white people. There is a long history of that in the United States, recently exemplified again by the KKK and other white supremacists coming into the electoral conversation and Trump's unwillingness to be quick and clear about his rejection of racial politics.
The pundits say working class Republicans are in revolt against the Republican establishment, which makes sense as those elites are ones who have supported and benefitted from rigged market forces and globalization that have turned all our economic rewards to the top 1 percent while abandoning working and middle class people. Bernie Sanders is getting many of those angry white votes, too, in the Democratic primaries. But Sanders doesn't blame "the others" as Trump does; he instead focuses on the richest institutions and people in America who have managed all this — the same ones Trump loves to brag about being part of with his ostentatious lifestyle. (How many press conferences have you seen with the candidate's expensive wines and steaks on display while he proudly lists all of his properties? Is this really happening in America?) There is also a long history of uniting working people from all races against the forces that would both ignore and divide them. One kind of populism tries to divide those who have been marginalized; the other kind tries to bring them together.
Donald Trump is clearly appealing to our worst instincts, as many have said, but let's be more clear: Donald Trump is appealing to the worst instincts of white people, and American history has shown how ugly and violent those white instincts can be. He is right when he claims to be bringing out people that have never voted before; those new voters are angry white people.
At the same time we're adding them to our voting rolls, there are active political forces directly engaged in trying to block and diminish the turnout of black, Hispanic, Asian, and Muslim voters. They're doing so in four ways.
First, as Michelle Alexander explains in The New Jim Crow, political strategies now connect the deliberate mass incarceration of black and brown men and women with the subsequent and purposeful political disenfranchisement of those millions of people of color when they return to society.
Second, deliberate gerrymandering and misshaping of voting districts creates and protects white voting blocs and puts minorities together so as to not challenge those white majority blocs. After sweeping victories in 2010, newly elected Republicans in state legislatures and governors' mansions across the country took full advantage of Census-based redistricting to gerrymander in favor of white conservatives.
Third, the passage of a slew of new voting rules and regulations enacted since 2010 are again deliberate attempts to reduce the votes of minorities and young people in what Rev. William Barber calls "the second career of 'James Crow, Esq."
'"In other words, after the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of the 1960s dismantled the overt Jim Crow laws that enforced segregation and denied African Americans many basic rights, Jim Crow went to law school, became the more respectable "James Crow, Esq.," and devised more sophisticated and insidious ways to disenfranchise people of color. The historic election of 2008 brought an unprecedented number of young people and people of color to the polls. The white conservative backlash came in the 2010 mid-term elections. As Myrna Pérez explains in Sojourners magazine:
Since the 2010 election, 21 states have instituted new voting restrictions—the biggest rollback of the right to vote since the Jim Crow era. This year will be the first presidential election with many of these new barriers in place, from requiring photo identification (which millions of Americans do not have) to curtailing early voting (which many citizens depend on to cast their ballots). On top of this, voters will go to the polls in November with the fewest federal protections against racial discrimination in half a century, due to a 2013 Supreme Court decision gutting a key provision of the Voting Rights Act.
Fourth, there are efforts to bring new white voters to the polls that are angry and resentful of America's growing racial diversity — basically, Trump's constituency.
Sojourners has just released an important new video detailing some of these efforts at voter suppression across the country, and also lifts up some positive efforts to expand access to voting in some states. I encourage you to watch this video to get an even better sense of what is at stake for our democracy this year. Then share it with others.
So here is an election strategy for people of faith from all races, for people of moral conscience in both parties who are against racist policies and practices, for everyone who believes that every American should have the right and greatest opportunity to vote, and for those who believe that access is absolutely essential to the future of our democracy. This should be a moral issue, not a partisan one.
It is time for a new and powerful alliance between the faith community, white voters against racism, and democracy advocates of all political stripes to unite together to register as many racial minorities and young people as possible to vote — with the best efforts being led by leaders and organizations of color — and then to mobilize the best possible access to voting on Election Day for everyone. Perhaps it's time for clergy to show up on Election Day in polling places to help support and secure the votes of those minority voters who are under attack.
These are some moral marching orders for election 2016. We have about 8 months to do them.
- See more at: https://sojo.net/articles/4-ways-political-forces-steal-elections-and-how-we-can-stop-it#sthash.MEgxfwas.dpuf
Jim Wallis is president of Sojourners. His book, America's Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America, is available now. Follow Jim on Twitter @JimWallis.
From: Mike Honda
Subject: Another war in Iraq? I'm voting no.
I didn't watch the debate last night, but I did read an article this morning that Donald Trump declared his intention to send tens of thousands of American men and women back into harm's way in Iraq. Needless to say, this is a terrible and ill-conceived idea.
Back in 2002, I voted against President Bush's wrongheaded decision to invade Iraq — and no member of Congress has been a more active anti-war voice than myself.
No good will come from another invasion. Our previous boondoggle in Iraq was sold to the American people under false pretenses and resulted in the deaths of thousands of our sons and daughters. Beyond that, it destabilized the Middle East and gave rise to ISIS, and other terrorist organizations, who are doing irreversible harm to millions of families in the region.
Your contribution of $3, or whatever you can afford today, will help guarantee that we elect a strong anti-war voice that will oppose Republican attempts to re-invade Iraq.
I am tired of Republicans like Donald Trump wanting to spend trillions of dollars to send our children and our grandchildren into combat zones rather than utilizing our resources to invest in American workers and families.
We must not succumb to these misguided efforts again. We must reject the premise of war.
From: Ben Betz; Online Engagement Director, People For the American Way
Subject: Don't miss Elizabeth Warren's smackdown of GOP obstruction
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Happy Friday! Before heading into the weekend, I wanted to make sure you had a chance to see Sen. Elizabeth Warren's knock-out speech from the Senate floor this week about Republicans' Supreme Court obstruction.
Check it out now, and make sure to add your name to our petition telling Republican Senators to stop obstructing and DO THEIR JOB>>
Here are some of the highlights:
There's a vacancy on the most important court in America -- and the message from Senate Republicans is crystal clear.
Forget the Constitution. It doesn't matter who President Obama nominates because the Republicans will allow no votes on that nominee. They will hold no hearings on that nominee. Their response to one of the most solemn and consequential tasks that our government performs -- the confirmation of a Supreme Court Justice -- will be to pretend that the nominee, and President Obama himself, simply do not exist -- cannot see them, cannot hear them.
+++
At the same time that they are blocking all possible Supreme Court nominees, Senate Republicans are in a panic because their party seems to be on the verge of nominating one of two extremists for President. Two candidates who think nothing about attacking the legitimacy of their political opponents, and demeaning millions of Americans. Two candidates whose extremism, Republicans worry, will lead their party to defeat in November.
If Republican senators want to stand up to extremists running for President, they can start right now by standing up to extremists in the Senate. They can start by doing what they were elected to do right here in the Senate. They can start by doing their jobs.
+++
The message couldn't be clearer: no matter how much it damages the nation, no matter how much it undermines the courts, no matter whether it cripples the government or lays waste to our Constitution, Senate Republicans do pretty much everything they can to avoid acknowledging the legitimacy of our democratically-elected President.
For too long, Republicans in this Senate wanted to have it both ways: they want to feed the ugly lies and nullify the Obama Presidency while also claiming that they can govern responsibly.
+++
Because here's the deal -- extremists might not like it, but Barack Obama won the Presidency in 2008 by nine million votes. He won re-election in 2012 by five million votes. There were no recounts and no hanging chads, no stuffing the ballot box or tampering with voting machines, no intervention by the United States Supreme Court. No. President Obama was elected the legitimate President seven years ago, and he is the legitimate President right now.
From: Rebecca Vilkomerson; Executive Director, JVP
Subject: BREAKING: G4S out of Israel, U.S. youth prisons
This is big news: yesterday, private "security" conglomerate G4S announced that they were selling off their Israeli subsidiary, and getting out of the U.S. and U.K. youth prison businesses within the next two years.
This is a huge win for our movement.
The reason G4S made this decision could not be more clear: the worldwide coalition that has been putting on smart, tenacious, creative pressure for years to make it happen. I am so proud that all of us at JVP were able to play our part.
As reported in the Financial Times,
"...the company is extracting itself from reputationally damaging work, including its entire Israeli business, which employs 8,000 people and has a turnover of £100m."
Here's a translation: the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement for Palestinian human rights has enough power to force a company worth $2.8 billion to change course, and stop profiting from Israel's human rights abuses.
We need to make the most of this incredible victory. Please, take 20 seconds to spread the news about this win by sharing this photo on Facebook and Twitter:
This win shows the power of building coalitions in solidarity with one another based on a common principle - challenging mass incarceration and racist policing whether it is happening in the US, UK, or Israel.
It's critical that we amplify this victory because there is still so much to do. In the words of Adv. Sahar Francis, Director of Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association:
"The latest reports that G4S will sell its subsidiaries in Israel is welcome news but this has no immediate effect on those facing human rights violations inside Israel's prisons today."
G4S is still a reprehensible company making big money from prisons, detention centers, and mercenary armies around the world. The number of people in prisons - in Israel, the US, or the UK - is no smaller today than it was yesterday. So our job as activists for peace and human rights is to take wins like these, and use them as launching pads to our next, bigger impact.
Help us amplify our message - share this victory on social media, and let's keep on building our movement.
Because this is a victory for our whole movement. JVP's North Carolina chapter, leading a coalition of faith groups, social justice organizers, students, and peace activists, forced Durham County to drop a $1 million security contract with G4S in 2014. Along with dozens of other campaigns worldwide, this proves that change happens when people just like you and me step up to the plate.
The path ahead is long. Israel's repression of Palestinian rights continues unabated. And ultimately, the problem isn't the contractors who profit from this work -- it's the policies that try to "solve" dissent against oppression with policing and imprisonment.
So we have to keep moving. We need to amplify this win as quickly and as loudly as possible. We need to make sure every other company that profits off Israeli oppression, every lawmaker considering a vote on anti-BDS legislation, and most of all, every friend, family, and community member that we know is waiting for that moment of inspiration to step off the sidelines -- we need to make sure they know about this.
And most of all, that they know that we all did it, together.
It will take less than a minute to share this good news -- but it will make the hard work of literally thousands of people all over the world visible.
ecca Vilkomerson
From: Brandi, Rashad, Arisha, Evan, Brittaney, and Bernard; Color Of Change
Subject: 45th Anniversary of COINTELPRO
Don't let police eavesdrop on your phone calls.
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45 years ago this week, a group of peace activists broke into an FBI office. The documents they found would reveal the true extent to which the U.S. government sought to disrupt, misdirect, discredit, and neutralize social and labor movements.
The COunter INTELligence PROgram or COINTELPRO employed a series of secret, illegal and at times violent tactics. Agents blackmailed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., with illegally acquired recordings of his phone conversations, to try to get him to commit suicide.1 COINTELPRO mandated that the FBI prevent the rise of "a messiah" – specifically Fred Hampton – and called the raid that led to his assassination by police officers at the age of 21 a "success."2
Though COINTELPRO as a formal program has been dismantled, the FBI has persisted in its surveillance and disruption of movements for basic human rights, dignity and freedom. Today, however, it's gotten even worse. Now, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies are using military grade surveillance equipment – Stingrays – to warrantlessly record and track the cellphone usage of Black and Brown movement leaders, protesters, labor organizers and everyday people like you and me.
Demand the FCC make a public Stingray registry and require law enforcement agencies to disclose how they're using Stingrays!
Make no mistake, this surveillance serves not only to keep tabs on activists, but also to deter them from pushing forward. Surveillance is a tool of fear. Peaceful protests, vigils, and community organizing should not be treated as national security threats by our government, and yet they are. We now know from a first hand accounts and Freedom of Information Act requests that police use Stingrays to monitor protestors and keep tabs on their conversations.3 But what we know is only the tip of the iceberg.
With Stingrays, police are able to locate and track individuals, eavesdrop on calls, send malicious software, and even disrupt interactions between protest organizers.45 And they are doing this all without warrants or public oversight. In fact, the NYPD was just caught using Stingrays more than 1,000 times without a warrant while many other police departments have refused to disclose how they are using them.678
But there is hope for reigning in the police's secretive and warrantless use of this surveillance tool – the Federal Communications Commission. The same federal agency that heard our calls to save the Internet could now stop police from using these devices to illegally monitor our communities. The FCC has the power to force law enforcement agencies to publicly register their devices and to disclose how they are using them.
And in just over a week, we will be meeting with Chairman Tom Wheeler's senior staff to deliver your voices and demand just that. Join more than 30,000 ColorOfChange members in calling for FCC action!
Demand the FCC make a public Stingray registry and require law enforcement agencies to disclose how they're using Stingrays!
--
Help support our work. ColorOfChange.org is powered by YOU—your energy and dollars. We take no money from lobbyists or large corporations that don't share our values, and our tiny staff ensures your contributions go a long way.
References:
1. "Why the FBI's Spying and Attempt to Subvert the Civil Rights Movement Is a Vital History Lesson for All Activists Today'," Alternet, 03-04-2016
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/5942?t=7&akid=5461.239715.YTR8iz
2. "What the FBI's Murder of a Black Panther Can Teach Us 40 Years Later," Alternet, 12-02-2009
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/5943?t=9&akid=5461.239715.YTR8iz's_murder_of_a_black_panther_can_teach_us_40_years_later
3. "Chicago activists claim police used 'Stingray' surveillance during Garner protests," RT, 12-10-2014
https://act.colorofchange.org/go/5852?t=11&akid=5461.239715.YTR8iz
4. "Feds to study illegal use of spy gear," The Washington Post, 08-11-2014
https://act.colorofchange.org/go/5846?t=13&akid=5461.239715.YTR8iz
5. "Chicago Cops Used Stingray to Intercept Protester's Conversations," Free Thought Project, 12-07-2014
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/5847?t=15&akid=5461.239715.YTR8iz
6. "Warrantless stingray case finally arrives before federal appellate judges," Ars Technica, 01-29-2016
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/5848?t=17&akid=5461.239715.YTR8iz
7. "NYPD tracked citizens' cellphones 1,000 times since 2008 without warrants," The Guardian, 02-11-2016
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/5849?t=19&akid=5461.239715.YTR8iz
8. "Police keep quiet about cell-tracking technology," Yahoo News, 03-22-2014
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/5850?t=21&akid=5461.239715.YTR8iz
9. "New Evidence Shows Milwaukee Police Hide Stingray Usage From Courts and Defense," ACLU, 01-25-2016
https://act.colorofchange.org/go/5851?t=23&akid=5461.239715.YTR8iz
ColorOfChange is building a movement to elevate the voices of Black folks and our allies, and win real social and political change. Help keep our movement strong.
From: Judy Burnette
Subject: FW: "Social Security Privatizer Larry Fink of Giant Asset Manager BlackRock is a Clinton Treasury Secretary in Waiting"
Social Security Privatizer Larry Fink of Giant Asset Manager
BlackRock is a Clinton Treasury Secretary in Waiting
David Dayen at The Intercept has ferreted out that Larry Fink, CEO of the giant asset manager BlackRock, is keen to become Treasury Secretary, and has positioned himself accordingly. He'salready has such a strong influence on Hillary's Clinton's thinking to the degree that even Andrew Ross Sorkin has taken note of how she closely she echoes on financial service industry matters: "…"could have... Read More
From: David Nir; Political Director, Daily Kos
Subject: Let's help the Democrat who's going to make Chuck Grassley pay a price for Supreme Court gridlock
The importance of having a Democratic president name the next Supreme Court justice cannot be overstated, so if Senate Republicans won't allow a nomination through this year, then it's up to us to make them pay the price and install a new Democratic majority come 2017.
Daily Kos is adding Patty Judge to our endorsement slate of Democratic candidates challenging at-risk GOP senators. She'll face off against longtime GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley this fall.
Can you chip in $3 to to Democrat Patty Judge to beat Chuck Grassley and elect a Democratic Senate majority?
Chuck Grassley is no mere foot soldier in the GOP's war on the Supreme Court: As chair of the Judiciary Committee, he's Mitch McConnell's top lieutenant in promoting the total blockade of any nominee Barack Obama might name to replace Antonin Scalia on the bench.
But Grassley, forced to defend the indefensible, is not holding up well under the glare of the spotlight. And that's a serious problem for him, since he just earned his most formidable opponent in decades, former Lt. Gov. Patty Judge.
Grassley's been accustomed to winning by wide margins every six years, but his outlook could be very different in 2016. A new PPP poll finds his job approval rating falling to a middling 47 percent positive/44 percent negative, a considerable drop from his 52-30 score just two months ago. What's more, PPP's survey also finds that Iowans want to see the Supreme Court vacancy filled this year, rather than kept open until next year, by a 56-40 margin—and all of this comes before a single attack ad has aired.
Judge, a farmer and a nurse who won two terms as state agriculture secretary before getting elected lieutenant governor in 2006, has already made it clear that she plans to go right at Grassley for advocating Washington dysfunction.
Please donate $3 to help Patty Judge make Chuck Grassley pay a price for the GOP's war on the Supreme Court.
From: Jimmy Franco
Subject: "Why a Surge of Millennials are Feeling the Bern"
Why a Surge of Millennials are Feeling the Bern
The ongoing battle within the Democratic Party between moderate Hillary Clinton and Socialist Bernie Sanders is creating a deep demographic rupture based upon age, ethnicity and gender. Yet, this is positive. - Continue reading..
Moderator: Jimmy Franco Sr.; LatinoPOV.com
From: Thomas Scott
Subject: Why Trump?
Donald Trump holds up a Bible while speaking at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C
photo: Drew Angerer/Bloomberg)
Why Trump?
By George Lakoff, Reader Supported News on 06 March 16
Donald Trump is winning Republican presidential primaries at such a great rate that he seems likely to become the next Republican presidential nominee and perhaps the next president. Democrats have little understanding of why he is winning -- and winning handily; and even many Republicans don't see him as a Republican and are trying to stop him, but don't know how. There are various theories: People are angry and he speaks to their anger. People don't think much of Congress and want a non-politician. Both may be true. But why? What are the details? And why Trump?
Many people are mystified. He seems to have come out of nowhere. His positions on issues don't fit a common mold.
He likes Planned Parenthood, Social Security, and Medicare, which are not standard Republican positions. Republicans hate eminent domain (the taking of private property by the government) and love the Trans-Pacific Partnership (the TPP trade deal), but he has the opposite views on both. He is not religious and scorns religious practices, yet the Evangelicals (that is, the white Evangelicals) love him. He thinks health insurance and pharmaceutical companies, as well as military contractors, are making too much profit and wants to change that. He insults major voting groups, e.g., Latinos, when most Republicans are trying to court them. He wants to deport 11 million immigrants without papers and thinks he can. He wants to stop all Muslims from entering the country. What is going on?
The answer requires a bit of background not discussed in the media to date.
Some Background
I work in the cognitive and brain sciences. In the 1990's, I undertook to answer a question in my field: How do the various policy positions of conservatives and progressives hang together? Take conservatism: What does being against abortion have to do with being for owning guns? What does owning guns have to do with denying the reality of global warming? How does being anti-government fit with wanting a stronger military? How can you be pro-life and for the death penalty? Progressives have the opposite views. How do their views hang together?
The answer came from a realization that we tend to understand the nation metaphorically in family terms: We have founding fathers. We send our sons and daughters to war. We havehomeland security. The conservative and progressive worldviews dividing our country can most readily be understood in terms of moral worldviews that are encapsulated in two very different common forms of family life: The Nurturant Parent family (progressive) and the Strict Father family (conservative).
What do social issues and the politics have to do with the family? We are first governed in our families, and so we grow up understanding governing institutions in terms of the governing systems of families.
In the strict father family, father knows best. He knows right from wrong and has the ultimate authority to make sure his children and his spouse do what he says, which is taken to be what is right. Many conservative spouses accept this worldview, uphold the father's authority, and are strict in those realms of family life that they are in charge of. When his children disobey, it is his moral duty to punish them painfully enough so that, to avoid punishment, they will obey him (do what is right) and not just do what feels good. Through physical discipline they are supposed to become disciplined, internally strong, and able to prosper in the external world. What if they don't prosper? That means they are not disciplined, and therefore cannot be moral, and so deserve their poverty. This reasoning shows up in conservative politics in which the poor are seen as lazy and undeserving, and the rich as deserving their wealth. Responsibility is thus taken to be personal responsibility not social responsibility. What you become is only up to you; society has nothing to do with it. You are responsible for yourself, not for others -- who are responsible for themselves.
Winning and Insulting
As the legendary Green Bay Packers coach, Vince Lombardi, said,
"Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing." In a world governed by personal responsibility and discipline, those who win deserve to win. Why does Donald Trump publicly insult other candidates and political leaders mercilessly? Quite simply, because he knows he can win an onstage TV insult game. In strict conservative eyes, that makes him a formidable winning candidate who deserves to be a winning candidate. Electoral competition is seen as a battle. Insults that stick are seen as victories -- deserved victories.
Consider Trump's statement that John McCain is not a war hero. The reasoning: McCain got shot down. Heroes are winners. They defeat big bad guys. They don't get shot down. People who get shot down, beaten up, and stuck in a cage are losers, not winners.
The Moral Hierarchy
The strict father logic extends further. The basic idea is that authority is justified by morality (the strict father version), and that, in a well-ordered world, there should be (and traditionally has been) a moral hierarchy in which those who have traditionally dominated should dominate. The hierarchy is: God above Man, Man above Nature, The Disciplined (Strong) above the Undisciplined (Weak), The Rich above the Poor, Employers above Employees, Adults above Children, Western culture above other cultures, Our Country above other countries. The hierarchy extends to: Men above women, Whites above non-Whites, Christians above non-Christians, Straights above Gays.
We see these tendencies in most of the Republican presidential candidates, as well as in Trump, and on the whole, conservative policies flow from the strict father worldview and this hierarchy
Family-based moral worldviews run deep. Since people want to see themselves as doing right not wrong, moral worldviews tend to be part of self-definition -- who you most deeply are. And thus your moral worldview defines for you what the world should be like. When it isn't that way, one can become frustrated and angry.
There is a certain amount of wiggle room in the strict father worldview and there are important variations. A major split is among (1) white Evangelical Christians, (2) laissez-fair free market conservatives, and (3) pragmatic conservatives who are not bound by evangelical beliefs.
White Evangelicals
Those whites who have a strict father personal worldview and who are religious tend toward Evangelical Christianity, since God, in Evangelical Christianity, is the Ultimate Strict Father: You follow His commandments and you go to heaven; you defy His commandments and you burn in hell for all eternity. If you are a sinner and want to go to heaven, you can be "born again" by declaring your fealty by choosing His son, Jesus Christ, as your personal Savior.
Such a version of religion is natural for those with strict father morality. Evangelical Christians join the church because they are conservative; they are not conservative because they happen to be in an evangelical church, though they may grow up with both together.
Evangelical Christianity is centered around family life. Hence, there are organizations like Focus on the Family and constant reference to "family values," which are to take to be evangelical strict father values. In strict father morality, it is the father who controls sexuality and reproduction. Where the church has political control, there are laws that require parental and spousal notification in the case of proposed abortions.
Evangelicals are highly organized politically and exert control over a great many local political races. Thus Republican candidates mostly have to go along with the evangelicals if they want to be nominated and win local elections.
Pragmatic Conservatives
Pragmatic conservatives, on the other hand, may not have a religious orientation at all. Instead, they may care primarily about their own personal authority, not the authority of the church or Christ, or God. They want to be strict fathers in their own domains, with authority primarily over their own lives. Thus, a young, unmarried conservative -- male or female -- may want to have sex without worrying about marriage. They may need access to contraception, advice about sexually transmitted diseases, information about cervical cancer, and so on. And if a girl or woman becomes pregnant and there is no possibility or desire for marriage, abortion may be necessary.
Trump is a pragmatic conservative, par excellence. And he knows that there are a lot of Republican voters who are like him in their pragmatism. There is a reason that he likes Planned Parenthood. There are plenty of young, unmarried (or even married) pragmatic conservatives, who may need what Planned Parenthood has to offer -- cheaply and confidentially.
Similarly, young or middle-aged pragmatic conservatives want to maximize their own wealth. They don't want to be saddled with the financial burden of caring for their parents. Social Security and Medicare relieve them of most of those responsibilities. That is why Trump wants to keep Social Security and Medicare.
Laissez-faire Free Marketeers
Establishment conservative policies have not only been shaped by the political power of white evangelical churches, but also by the political power of those who seek maximally laissez-faire free markets, where wealthy people and corporations set market rules in their favor with minimal government regulation and enforcement. They see taxation not as investment in publicly provided resources for all citizens, but as government taking their earnings (their private property) and giving the money through government programs to those who don't deserve it. This is the source of establishment Republicans' anti-tax and shrinking government views. This version of conservatism is quite happy with outsourcing to increase profits by sending manufacturing and many services abroad where labor is cheap, with the consequence that well-paying jobs leave America and wages are driven down here. Since they depend on cheap imports, they would not be in favor of imposing high tariffs.
But Donald Trump is not in a business that makes products abroad to import here and mark up at a profit. As a developer, he builds hotels, casinos, office buildings, golf courses. He may build them abroad with cheap labor but he doesn't import them. Moreover, he recognizes that most small business owners in America are more like him -- American businesses like dry cleaners, pizzerias, diners, plumbers, hardware stores, gardeners, contractors, car washers, and professionals like architects, lawyers, doctors, and nurses. High tariffs don't look like a problem.
Many business people are pragmatic conservatives. They like government power when it works for them. Take eminent domain. Establishment Republicans see it as an abuse by government -- government taking of private property. But conservative real estate developers like Trump depend on eminent domain so that homes and small businesses in areas they want to develop can be taken for the sake of their development plans. All they have to do is get local government officials to go along, with campaign contributions and the promise of an increase in local tax dollars helping to acquire eminent domain rights. Trump points to Atlantic City, where he build his casino using eminent domain to get the property.
If businesses have to pay for their employees' health care benefits, Trump would want them to have to pay as little as possible to maximize profits for businesses in general. He would therefore want health insurance and pharmaceutical companies to charge as little as possible. To increase competition, he would want insurance companies to offer plans nationally, avoiding the state-run exchanges under the Affordable Care Act. The exchanges are there to maximize citizen health coverage, and help low-income people get coverage, rather than to increase business profits. Trump does however want to keep the mandatory feature of ACA, which establishment conservatives hate since they see it as government overreach, forcing people to buy a product. For Trump, however, the mandatory feature for individuals increases the insurance pool and brings down costs for businesses.
Direct vs. Systemic Causation
Direct causation is dealing with a problem via direct action. Systemic causation recognizes that many problems arise from the system they are in and must be dealt with via systemic causation. Systemic causation has four versions: A chain of direct causes. Interacting direct causes (or chains of direct causes). Feedback loops. And probabilistic causes. Systemic causation in global warming explains why global warming over the Pacific can produce huge snowstorms in Washington DC: masses of highly energized water molecules evaporate over the Pacific, blow to the Northeast and over the North Pole and come down in winter over the East coast and parts of the Midwest as masses of snow. Systemic causation has chains of direct causes, interacting causes, feedback loops, and probabilistic causes -- often combined.
Direct causation is easy to understand, and appears to be represented in the grammars of all languages around the world. Systemic causation is more complex and is not represented in the grammar of any language. It just has to be learned.
Empirical research has shown that conservatives tend to reason with direct causation and that progressives have a much easier time reasoning with systemic causation. The reason is thought to be that, in the strict father model, the father expects the child or spouse to respond directly to an order and that refusal should be punished as swiftly and directly as possible.
Many of Trump's policy proposals are framed in terms of direct causation.
Immigrants are flooding in from Mexico -- build a wall to stop them. For all the immigrants who have entered illegally, just deport them -- even if there are 11 million of them working throughout the economy and living throughout the country. The cure for gun violence is to have a gun ready to directly shoot the shooter. To stop jobs from going to Asia where labor costs are lower and cheaper goods flood the market here, the solution is direct: put a huge tariff on those goods so they are more expensive than goods made here. To save money on pharmaceuticals, have the largest consumer -- the government -- take bids for the lowest prices. If ISIS is making money on Iraqi oil, send US troops to Iraq to take control of the oil. Threaten ISIS leaders by assassinating their family members (even if this is a war crime). To get information from terrorist suspects, use water-boarding, or even worse torture methods. If a few terrorists might be coming with Muslim refugees, just stop allowing all Muslims into the country. All this makes sense to direct causation thinkers, but not those who see the immense difficulties and dire consequences of such actions due to the complexities of systemic causation.
Political Correctness
There are at least tens of millions of conservatives in America who share strict father morality and its moral hierarchy. Many of them are poor or middle class and many are white men who see themselves as superior to immigrants, nonwhites, women, non-Christians, gays -- and people who rely on public assistance. In other words, they are what liberals would call "bigots." For many years, such bigotry has not been publicly acceptable, especially as more immigrants have arrived, as the country has become less white, as more women have become educated and moved into the workplace, and as gays have become more visible and gay marriage acceptable. As liberal anti-bigotry organizations have loudly pointed out and made a public issue of the un-American nature of such bigotry, those conservatives have felt more and more oppressed by what they call "political correctness" -- public pressure against their views and against what they see as "free speech." This has become exaggerated since 9/11, when anti-Muslim feelings became strong. The election of President Barack Hussein Obama created outrage among those conservatives, and they refused to see him as a legitimate American (as in the birther movement), much less as a legitimate authority, especially as his liberal views contradicted almost everything else they believe as conservatives.
Donald Trump expresses out loud everything they feel -- with force, aggression, anger, and no shame. All they have to do is support and vote for Trump and they don't even have to express their "politically incorrect" views, since he does it for them and his victories make those views respectable. He is their champion. He gives them a sense of self-respect, authority, and the possibility of power.
Whenever you hear the words "political correctness" remember this.
Biconceptuals
There is no middle in American politics. There are moderates, but there is no ideology of the moderate, no single ideology that all moderates agree on. A moderate conservative has some progressive positions on issues, though they vary from person to person. Similarly, a moderate progressive has some conservative positions on issues, again varying from person to person. In short, moderates have both political moral worldviews, but mostly use one of them. Those two moral worldviews in general contradict each other. How can they reside in the same brain at the same time?
Both are characterized in the brain by neural circuitry. They are linked by a commonplace circuit: mutual inhibition. When one is turned on the other is turned off; when one is strengthened, the other is weakened. What turns them on or off? Language that fits that worldview activates that worldview, strengthening it, while turning off the other worldview and weakening it. The more Trump's views are discussed in the media, the more they are activated and the stronger they get, both in the minds of hardcore conservatives and in the minds of moderate progressives.
This is true even if you are attacking Trump's views. The reason is that negating a frame activates that frame, as I pointed out in the book Don't Think of an Elephant! It doesn't matter if you are promoting Trump or attacking Trump, you are helping Trump.
A good example of Trump winning with progressive biconceptuals includes certain unionized workers. Many union members are strict fathers at home or in their private life. They believe in "traditional family values" -- a conservative code word -- and they may identify with winners.
Why Has Trump been Winning in the Republican Primaries?
Look at all the conservatives groups he appeals to!
The Democratic Party has not been taking seriously many of the reasons for Trump's support and the range of that support. And the media has not been discussing many of the reasons for Trump's support. That needs to change.
End of MPEN e-Newsletter
posted by lucas at 8:04 PM
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