For whatever reason, this image kept coming to mind as I was putting this post together. Apologies to Hank Ketcham.
Every day it’s like this, and it’s going to keep on being like this, until Donald Trump no longer occupies the Oval Office:
- Europe Suddenly Worries Its Biggest Threat Is the U.S. — Yep. From leader of the Free World and chief guarantor of security, we have sunk to this.
- ‘This was the worst call by far’: Trump badgered, bragged and abruptly ended phone call with Australian leader — By the way, all of y’all who asked “How bad could it be?” if Trump were elected — I point you to this, his effort to wreck our relationship with Australia, of all countries. Obviously, this guy should not hold the lowliest post in government, much less be heading it.
- Defense Chief Seeks to Reassure Jittery Allies on Asia Trip — Thank God there’s this one grownup in this administration. Actually, should we even call it an “administration” when, instead of administering, it does little but wreak havoc?
- Trump defends chaotic foreign policy: ‘We’re going to straighten it out, OK?’ — Which I suppose is a promise to put out the fires that he himself sets.
- Trump’s unorthodox speech at the National Prayer Breakfast — He said those assembled should “pray for Arnold” because he doesn’t have awesome ratings like Trump’s on that stupid “reality TV” show. Really. The President of the United States said this. At a prayer breakfast.
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It’s weeks like these that make me think about Doug Ross’ political philosophies. We are witnessing near total entropy, folks.
And yet in my world, life goes on. The people I come in contact with every day aren’t obsessing over Trump. I work on campus at a large university and I don’t sense anyone walking around with the sense of dread that permeates this blog. Occasionally someone will make a joke about building a wall or making America great again. Otherwise people are living their lives.. as they should.
This isn’t entropy. It’s a wake up call for the status quo.
I’d suggest people stop for a minute and think about how much time they spend obsessing about Trump. Is it helping? Sure, your Facebook updates and blog posts are a way to vent (usually to your own echo chamber). But what difference does it make really? Life is short (as I saw recently with the death of a co-worker from a brain tumor). If you get some enjoyment out of analyzing every word that comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth at the expense of doing ANYTHING else, more power to you.
I’ll respond by saying I have NO intention of switching the focus of this blog to stamp-collecting or taxidermy.
Especially not during this unprecedented national, international crisis. Which is what this is.
Even if we wanted to look away, the all-day, everyday madness this guy keeps pumping out would yank us back to reality, and we would be grossly irresponsible as citizens if we ignored what is happening.
I know you don’t get that. You never have. It must be bliss not to realize what has happened, but that comfort is not available to me. I can’t forget what I know…
We philatelists take umbrage at your disparagement of our hobby.
I know exactly what has happened. The election results showed you and others had no clue about what was going on in this country. You all thought Trump would get crushed. You laughed at anyone who suggested otherwise. And now you have to double down on your fear mongering because it would be a huge blow to your ego to admit you were wrong.
I also know that no amount of blog posting will change it. I had a reality check several weeks ago when I read the back and forth on here about Israel and Syria. Like there is anything you all can do about it… it’s all words without any action associated with it. Mental masturbation…
If you truly are concerned, DO SOMETHING.
Let’s just start with this alternative fact: “You all thought Trump would get crushed.”
No, I didn’t. Not only did I not think that, but I was quite concerned throughout the fall that he could win. Which is why I never let up on trying my best to raise the alarm, while you and many others were telling me I should just chill.
So you might want to drop that meme of yours about how stupid and clueless I was. I wasn’t, at any time. It was obvious that there was a sickness abroad in the land, and that it did not bode well for the country.
Anyway, all of the following statements are untrue:
And since every one of them is untrue, you might want to consider the possibility that you are the one who doesn’t get it…
Yeah, I sort of have to agree that I don’t recall Brad ever being very confident in Hillary. By contrast, I was extremely confident that she would win, which is why you ended up with all that delicious beer.
In any event, here we are. The recriminations don’t really get us anywhere.
In other news: Did y’all see that another lone-wolf separated from the pack, shouted something that rhymes with “hello snackbar” and attacked a soldier with a machete? This mysterious man was then shot by a different French soldier. Motive is still a total mystery, y’all. We’ll probably never know.
Unfortunately your blog is too hard to search. Trying to review every statement you’ve made about Trump in the past year wouldn’t be worth the effort. If you can, point me to the earliest message where you said Trump COULD win. Was it after he got the nomination?
No… I was saying that back during the primaries. In fact, probably before the SC primary. Not that he WOULD win, or even that his chances were good.
What I said, more than once — mostly, I think, in exchanges with Bud — was that it was nuts for Democrats to hope Trump would be the GOP nominee. I kept saying, if he gets the nomination (which still seemed a low probability then), then he had a chance, and maybe even close to an even chance. My thinking was, and always is, once someone has the nomination, he’s already got about 40 percent of the vote. At any point in those last couple of months, things can happen to shift the contest a few points one way or the other. (That’s why it drives me nuts to hear partisans talking about hoping the other side nominates its worst candidate — because that person could WIN.)
And as we saw, those kinds of things happened all through the fall, which concerned me more and more — the Comey stuff, the Wikileaks stuff, Hillary’s fainting spell. Which is why you did not find me confident that he was going to lose in those last months…
Oh, and I’m sorry about it being hard to search. I sometimes have trouble myself. I usually have to hunt for some peripheral, unusual word that I used in a particular post in order to find it.
And if what I’m looking for was in a comment rather than the main body of a post, it’s harder.
Earlier today, I was looking for when I wrote that I wished people would stop being complacent and expecting Hillary to win easily, but I gave up after trying for a couple of minutes. I THINK I wrote that more than once in the fall, but it’s hard to say when or in what context…
From February 16:
https://bradwarthen.com/2016/02/do-yall-know-any-actual-trump-supporters/
You claimed not to know anyone who actually was a Trump supporter. So in your circle of friends and contacts, you didn’t know anyone who would eventually win the state and the Presidency.
That’s not out of touch?
As recently as April, I believe you thought there was some path for John Kasich to win the nomination – -this was based on your own personal biases and polls. We learned how accurate those polls were in November… and you didn’t take into account that Kasich was so much of an unknown that he was just getting the “anyone but Hillary” vote. Had Kasich somehow found a way to the nomination, Hillary and her team would have crushed him. Trump survived the most viscious attacks in political history,
Ok, here’s the first reference:
https://bradwarthen.com/2015/10/the-most-amazing-thing-about-trump-is-that-his-supporters-think-he-can-win-next-fall/
Your words:
“I suppose there’s a sort of cognitive block that prevents Trump supporters from imagining how non-Trump supporters see things. So they imagine a majority will agree with them. I suppose all of us are susceptible to such lacks of insight. I, for one, find it very difficult to understand how anyone could imagine Donald Trump winning the presidency next November. This is perhaps a defense mechanism on my part: If I could imagine it, I wouldn’t sleep nights…”
Yep, and that’s the way it looked — in 2015, when I wrote it. I think most Republicans were thinking the same thing then. It looked like 2012, when everybody was telling pollsters they wanted one of the extreme candidates, but when the primaries arrived, they went for Romney. That’s what it looked like in 2015…
As I said, I was saying stuff like that as recently as Spring 2016, citing those polls — because at that time, all indications were that either Trump or Cruz had no chance.
But in the runup to November, as we got toward Election Day, where do you see me saying anything along those lines? On the contrary, it was really bugging me by then that people were predicting an easy win for Hillary. I’m pretty sure I said that a couple of times, although it may have been in comments…
“I’ll respond by saying I have NO intention of switching the focus of this blog to stamp-collecting or taxidermy.”
Well it is Groundhogs day. Brad’s living the movie and we’re all having to listen to it. It’s sad that some people are revolving their lives around Trump being our President. Sad, just sad. I’m looking forward to tomorrow and this weekend, that’s what I’m doing… if anyone cares.
It’s kind of hard for me not to focus on it as I go about my daily life, since the job I do is made possible by IDEA funding. If Devos and Trump have their way, the future of special education is very much in doubt. I like helping children with disabilities. I would like to continue to be able to that.
It hasn’t happened yet, has it? If it doesn’t happen, you wasted your time and energy.
What hasn’t happened yet is the confirmation of Devos. If actions I take now help to dissuade her nomination than my time and energy will not have been wasted.
What is the probability that you will lose your job if DeVos is confirmed? 50%? 5%?
Isn’t it likely that if funding IS cut, that another source will be found?
I seriously doubt Special Education funding will be cut and even if it does it’ll be minimal. Look at the fiscal issue Sumter school district is having, the majority of the budget overages are in staffing. Schools need to have teacher, a Principal, bus drivers, custodial, and cooks. They don’t need teacher’s aides, curriculum advisors, etc. I bet without even knowing people’s jobs I could look at a list of employees in every school and cut 10% off the top.
I could do that with ANY organization — any business, any government agency, any nonprofit.
And the less I knew about the organization, the easier it would be. Because I’d be ignorant of the havoc I was wreaking.
It’s extremely easy to see “waste” at a distance…
“It’s extremely easy to see “waste” at a distance…”
And even easier when it’s within your own workplace. I could cut 10% of our staff today and nobody would be that much affected come Monday morning.
The difference (as always) is that tax dollars are OUR dollars. Private businesses that waste money will suffer for it.
I dont know what the odds are, but i know that things Nobody thought would actually happen are happening, so it might be prudent to take things seriously. Do you remember in 2012 when our fabulous legislature did not allocate enough state funds toward sped and suddenly realized that they were in jeopardy of losing federal sped funds as a penalty, and they scrambled like crazy because they knew meeting the obligation without the federal money was just not even remotely doable. I just dont think you understand the scale. Do you recall SC takes in far more federal money than it pays in? No, I do not trust the SC legislature would see fit to find the money elsewhere. Were they to decide to want to, I dont know where they would find the money. Its not just will, its logistics.
If the federal Department of Education (a non-enumerated power) is that powerful, it should be dismantled.
Yeah, DeVos is honestly my most concerning pick. It isn’t even special ed or that she has trouble composing sentences. It’s her links to school choice and that crowd always remind me of victims of a pyramid scheme or a cargo cult.
“What guarantees do you have that your scheme won’t turn American public education into University of Phoenix High?”
“Well, I have lots of reasons and you hate the free market. Let’s talk about your hatred of the free market instead. That’s the important thing. That is what keeps you from really understanding the world.”
That is completely different from my experience. People who were never that interested in politics before are suddenly acutely aware — you would call it “obsessed” — with what has happened and is happening to this country.
With one of them this week, I jokingly quoted Jack Black in “High Fidelity,” saying, “I never thought I’d say this, but can I go back to work now?”…
Like who? What kind of jobs do these people have? Did they support Hillary?
I’m curious what is happening now that wasn’t happening November 8th? How has your job or life been impacted? I know mine and my neighbor’s haven’t changed.
Good God, Claus! Look at the headlines on any day! Trump is going around like a bull in a china shop, eviscerating rational policies and instituting amazingly stupid, dangerous ones left and right! Handing the Pacific Rim to the Chinese, ranting in public speeches about his truly disturbed ego problems (the inauguration crowd, the imaginary fraudulent voters that he “knows” was all for Hillary), alienating the entire Muslim world, gratuitously insulting close allies…
As much as I predicted how bad it would be before the election, not even I would have imagined it being this insane. He keeps topping himself — or perhaps I should say, bottoming himself, stooping lower and lower…
But Claus is right, so far “normal” everyday American life isn’t impacted by Trump’s explosion of ego. But it will be one day; and then people will feel it.
The problem is, what will it feel like? What will it be?
I’d rather not go there. Only dark places out there.
Kind of like the way people who ignore the warning signs of serious disease can think they’re fine until they suddenly drop dead very young.
Or more like hypochondriacs who treat every headache as a brain tumor.
Hillary lost. Democrats are out of power. To think nothing would change is foolish. Even Ted Cruz would have been vilified.
You’re all behaving just like the Republicans did when Obama won. You just can’t see it because it was your world view that got rejected this time.
Doug, you are incorrect on that; this is not the normal political opposition of one side vs the other.
This situation with Trump’s Muslim ban (that is what it is and was meant to be) is a Constitutional travesty. It is also something that is going to have an incredibly negative effect on America’s standing in the world.
And we aren’t even talking about his business dealings while in office or his penchant for assisting Putin – both of which we should be discussing.
First, however, must be this colossal error in judgment, this un-Constitutional action.
“It is also something that is going to have an incredibly negative effect on America’s standing in the world. ”
The majority of the Muslim countries already hate the US, so what’s going to change?
What business dealings?
If it’s unconstitutional, why isn’t it being taken up before the Supreme Court? I don’t even know if it’s being discussed outside of the Democratic Underground website.
It wasn’t a Muslim ban. It was a hold for specific countries. Calling it a Muslim ban is part of the hyperbolic overreaction. Is anyone asked their religious affiliation when entering?
Yes, preference will be given to persecuted Christian’s from these countries.
By no inference it is a Muslim ban.
It wasn’t a Muslim ban? You might want to go back and see this item from earlier in the week, in which Trump’s fan Giuliani tells what his guy was shooting for:
Yeah, and in the same article Giuliani explains that it is EXACTLY NOT a Muslim ban.
“And what we did was, we focused on, instead of religion, danger — the areas of the world that create danger for us,” Giuliani told Pirro. “Which is a factual basis, not a religious basis. Perfectly legal, perfectly sensible. And that’s what the ban is based on. It’s not based on religion. It’s based on places where there are substantial evidence that people are sending terrorists into our country.””
As to what Giuliani said… that’s right. He said they looked for a legal way to do it. And the legal way to do it was to present it as something other than a Muslim ban…
So to be clear – what was signed was specifically not a ban on Muslims. Stating it is just perpetuates the lie. But it allows for perpetuating the hyperbolic derangement.
Doug, what he intended was, to all intents and purposes, a move meant to be perceived by his fan base as a Muslim ban. Like the Wall and killing TPP, it was meant to be seen as “I’m doing exactly what you wanted me to do…”
Actually Trump did something that you should be proud of: he compromised. He asked about a Muslim ban and accepted an extended hold on immigrants from a small set of countries. That’s very statesmanlike if you ask me. Maybe he’s getting too soft.
Wrong. It was a Muslim ban. This is a concrete example of actual bad things happening. Another is the government hiring freeze. Thousands without jobs who would otherwise be working. So we’re at at least 2 bad things because of Trump. Doug if you want to keep score I will gladly oblige.
It wasn’t a ban of Muslims. Prove it. Quote the part of the executive order that says anyone who is a Muslim is banned from entering.
As for a spending freeze, that’s only halfway there for me. We need to see cuts.
So it’s only 0.5 “bad”.
In 1981, Ronald Reagan issued a similar hiring freeze within minutes of finishing his inaugural address, making good on a promise that he had made throughout his campaign against President Jimmy Carter.
Mr. Reagan’s freeze went further than Mr. Carter’s decision to allow only one federal employee to be hired for every two that departed government service. In February of that year, a federal judge ruled against a challenge to the freeze, saying that it was neither unconstitutional nor illegal.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/23/us/politics/federal-hiring-freeze.html?_r=0
Wow, I missed this comment of Doug’s yesterday, which REALLY demonstrates that he doesn’t know what’s going on:
“You’re all behaving just like the Republicans did when Obama won. You just can’t see it because it was your world view that got rejected this time.”
Of course, he has a LOT of company. Obviously, the Trump people say this. They think this is just like every other election, and don’t understand why people keep trying to explain to them that it is not.
That’s to be expected. If they were able to see that Donald Trump is unlike ANYTHING that has ever happened to this country before, they wouldn’t have voted for him.
But they are joined by a lot of Democrats, who give me fresh reminders every day (as if I needed them) of how stupid partisanship in America is.
Every day, we see Democrats acting like this is a situation like any other — the other side is on top, so they need to do the usual stupid stuff as always in an effort to get THEIR guy on top. You see them here on the blog trying to sell me on the absurd proposition that Trump is just another Republican like all the rest, business as usual, la de dah…
Which is why I write posts like the one about Gorsuch, trying to persuade those people to stop playing the usual stupid, partisan games, and focus on the ACTUAL threats to the country than Trump represents….
Yep, I don’t know what is going on. I was the only one on this blog who said Trump could win and explained why. But you keep telling yourself that you’re in touch with American political sentiment… you and Lindsey and Kasich can all get together and pat yourselves on the back for knowing the “truth”.
Doug, please.
Look back.
The way I remember it, when you and others said Trump could win, my reaction was that he absolutely could, which was why people could not afford to be complacent for a second.
And then I seem to recall you saying that well, he was probably going to lose (and maybe I’m wrong, but that’s my memory) — but my message never strayed from the point that our nation was in serious danger, and neither Democrats, independents or the vast numbers of Republicans who could see what was happening could afford to be complacent for a moment.
I didn’t make ANY kind of prediction, as I recall, except for this — I said that if, as the polls indicated, Hillary won, the next four years were going to be ugly as hell — they were going to make the Bush and Obama years look like a picnic. But what choice did anyone have? The alternative was so vastly worse…
And if you DO look back, I’d appreciate it if you come back and let us know:
When I said “Trump would get crushed.” (What I DID say was that he needed to be crushed, so that Trumpism would be crushed as well. But I in no way expressed confidence that he would.)
When I “laughed at anyone who suggested otherwise.” When you find that, that will really be a prize.
The closest I came to ANY of that was when I cited polls in the spring that consistently showed that Kasich was the only Republican who could beat Hillary. And that was true. Poll after poll indicated that. And those polls were probably accurate — they measured reality as it existed at that moment. But as the general election arrived, it became more apparent that the situation had changed, which was why I was as concerned as I was….
Doug I’m a statistician so I never deal in absolutes when it comes to predicting the future. Nate Silver gave Trump about a 28% chance of winning the electoral vote. He explained that there were an unusually large number of undecideds. Personally I was concerned about voter suppression which certainly played a roll. Comey did as well. But let’s be clear, Trump got clobbered in the actual vote count and his voter approval is very low. Given all that I find Dougs cockiness a bit off putting.
But none of this matters. Trump is POTUS until the immolument clause catches up to him so I’ll give him his due. But so far his actions have done harm. ( not just the nebulous stuff Brad goes on about) Just ask the family of the navy seal who died in Yemen. Likely the first of many incompetent directives.
Here’s where all the smart people on my blog who took statistics in school hoot in derision and call Brad an idiot, but I wouldn’t want to deprive y’all of that pleasure, so here goes…
There never was a 28 percent chance of Trump winning. There was a 100 percent chance of him winning; we just didn’t know it until it happened. Just like there’s never a 60 percent chance of rain — it’s always 100 percent or zero percent, depending on whether it’s going to rain or not, something we don’t know until it’s happened.
Don’t bother trying to ‘splain probabilities to me. What I’m saying is beyond that. I’m being way existential, like Ren and Stempy.
Something is, or it is not. Something will be, or it will not be. There might be a high probability of something happening, based on an aggregation of factors, but please put it in words, not percentages — don’t try to make me think the chances are as precise as that. Don’t try to sell me on numerical hubris.
To put it in plain language, Nate Silver et al. didn’t know what would happen. They had good reason to think Hillary would win, but from the moment he had the GOP nomination, there was always a distinct chance that Trump would. That is all true. It just gets ridiculous when you try to put number on it. Statisticians look at something like poll numbers, and talk themselves into believing that they votes are somehow as reliable and definite as counting widgets. But they aren’t. They’re all constantly shifting in infinitely complex ways. Human behavior is way, way too mutable, too squirrelly, to predict with such precision as “28 percent.” The factors necessary for such precision are largely unknowable.
Yeah, I know. Everybody’s going to say I’m an idiot and I should stop embarrassing myself. But I assure you: There’s a 17 percent chance that someday, someone’s going to say, “You know, Brad might have a point. He’s an idiot, but he might have a point…”
You are certainly not an idiot; statistics are not a tool useful to you,and that’s o.k. I hope you will read The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis; Fareed Zakaria recommended the book on his CNN show yesterday.
The problem is that humans, including statisticians, are not “rational.” When dealing with probability, sample size makes a difference. The smaller the sample size, the larger the “confidence interval.” When there is a probability value of .01 (a one in one hundred chance that there is a problem with the sampling methodology, such as a small sample size), that means there is at least a 7% (and typically close to 15%) error rate. When there is a probability value (P value) of .05 (a five in one hundred chance that there is a problem with the sampling methodology, such as a small sample size), that means there is at least a 23% (and typically close to 50%) error rate. “Social Science” is happy with p values ranging between .01 to less than or equal to .05. I, and others, are skeptical about those p values. Replication several times will make me more comfortable, but never entirely comfortable.
I knew early in the night Trump was going to win; I was somewhat surprised, but my knowledge of statistics helped me understand why.
Trump IS the 2017 Republican Party. Period. When have there been not 1, not 2 but 3 cabinet secretaries that were boycotted by an entire party but got confirmed anyway. Donald Trump is the face of the GOP. He’s also the soul of the GOP. To deny how central Trump is to the aspirations and dreams of the Republican Party is an exercise in foolishness. Trump=GOP.
Not true. Something will happen and some will grow a backbone; will be forced to, unfortunately.
Don’t hold your breath on Lindsey Graham.
Bud, if Trump were a Republican, I wouldn’t be writing all the stuff I do about him.
I’d be fine with a Republican being president, which is why I’ve endorsed so many of them.
You MUST understand — everybody must come to realize — that what just happened to this country is most assuredly NOT about Democrats vs. Republicans. There has never, EVER, from ANY party, been a president this ignorant, impulsive, unbalanced and dangerous as this guy.
This is a national crisis, and it has NOTHING to do with parties. It’s about this one extraordinarily unfit man…
“if Trump were a Republican”
Funny how people keep trying to define him out of the party – as if there were one true and forever valid definition of what a Republican is, or a Democrat for that matter. When in fact a party is whatever its supporters make it. Which means that parties, like a lot of things in life, are always in the process of becoming. For some, Trump isn’t a “genuine” Republican. For others, Graham is a RINO: not a “genuine” Republican. What’s true, at least at the moment, is that both are Republicans, because they both identify themselves as such. What the future identity of that party will be is still to be seen.
Bill I absolutely agree that if someone says they are a Republican they ARE a Republican. It’s sort of a truism. But where Brad and I disagree is what set of characteristics frame a typical “Republican”. Brad continues to cling to this quant notion of Republicanism that valued traditions and mores that was philisophicly different from Democrats but similarly valued a traditional way of governing. That brand of Republicanism has been supplanted by a confrontational, take no prisoners approach that values winning above tradition and compromise. Trump is merely the final manifestation of that transition. Old school Republicans are nearly extinct in today’s political world. I cite as evidence the astonishing unqualified nature of Trumps cabinet picks. So far there are exactly 2 votes against ANY of these people. By contrast the Dems have supported several of the less contentious picks but have come out strongly against the very worst of these people, generally because they flat out lied. The bottom line is this: the 2017 version of the GOP is a reflection of its leader, Trump. He is most assuredly not some sort of rougue outlier. Rather Trump is a typical Republican.
Bill, you and I have different goals. You seem to want to demonize Republicans by saying Trump’s one of them. Which is kind of default mode for Democrats and other liberals. But as I keep saying, this is a national crisis, and no time for the usual partisan stuff.
I’m trying to peel Republicans away from him. Everyone who sees what a danger Trump is to the country should want to do the same thing. That’s one reason why I keep telling Republicans that I know he’s not one of them. Meaning, of course, that it’s logical and worthwhile for them to distance themselves from him.
The goal here is to isolate him. We’re a long way from getting that done because GOP elected officials are still scared to death of him and his supporters. Basically, they’ve been subjected to a hostile takeover, and they don’t know what to do about it.
Conservatives who are NOT elected officials are far less scared of him (as E.J. Dionne noted in his column today), and more inclined to speak up. What we need to do is create an environment in which some of the elected officials can man up.
If liberals would just drop their reflexive hostility to everything on the other side of the aisle and start observing without prejudice, they’ll see interesting things happening. For instance, I want to know more about Matt Moore’s decision to leave his post as state GOP chair because, as he says, “with so many changes in state and national politics, I feel like now is the right time to hand over the office of state chairman to someone new”…
Once again, Brad, you demonize those who don’t fall in line behind your latest crusade. AND you overestimate your powers of influence by assuming that if YOU tell Republicans he’s not one of them, they’ll of course come to their senses and oppose him. The first is annoying, the second is laughable. Rank-and-file Republicans won’t peel away from him simply because you or anyone else places him outside their storied ranks. IF they peel away from him, they’ll do so because he either A) doesn’t adhere to party dogma, or B) because he gives the impression that he’s unhinged and out of control. Since you are constantly trumpeting your non-partisan bone fides, option A) obviously can’t interest you. That leaves option B). But what you fail to appreciate (maybe because you’re so wedded to tradition for its own sake) is that the GOP is not the party it was and that it is still in process of change – and that Trump, to a significant degree represents that change, if in a somewhat degenerate form.
There’s a lot there to unpack, but let’s just start with the beginning: Whom did I just “demonize?”
Answer: Folks who “demonize” Republicans by not getting on Brad’s crusade to save them from themselves.
As I said, though, I don’t see it as my job to save them. I care about my country more than any party — which is why I can’t in good conscious vote Republican.
That’s an interesting take. Me, I’m more or less as likely to vote for a Republican as a Democrat because I care about my country more than any party…
At least, that was the case in the past. Some of the bad craziness in the GOP the last few years has pushed me away a bit…
Maybe you have a different flavor of Republican down there in the Midlands. The choices in the Upcountry range from bad to worse: from Trey “Benghazi!” Gowdy to Jeff “tea party” Duncan to Steve “extremism is no vice” Bryant, etc. None of them are folks I can support. And, no, Sen. Graham doesn’t pass muster with me either – even if he does sometimes serve a useful role as a Trump foil. If the party were to move back to the pragmatic center where I am, then maybe I could rethink things. But the party’s broader policy trajectory makes that look unlikely.
So I guess you aren’t frequenting the Science departments then? My husband is in the Chemistry Department at USC. Freezing EPA grants, putting gag orders on researchers, denouncing climate change – these things do not bring joy to scientists.
How much has actually happened versus what you THINK will happen?
Apparently when it comes to government funding, nothing must ever be reviewed or cut, right? Every tax dollar is well spent and produces (in Trump’s words) GREAT, FABULOUS results.
The gravy train may be over for some people. It will all sort itself out.
These things have happened: Freezing EPA grants, putting gag orders on researchers, denouncing climate change
In other words, Doug had not yet been personally impacted by any of this – so these things do not, in fact, exist.
Mark that’s not true, our tax dollars are funding research that is worthless, one I know of is for studying sports fans emotions after wining or losing a game. Fascinating stuff, and your tax dollars at work.
Actually, if someone could explain THAT to me — the way people get about sports — I’d appreciate it. …
You’d appreciate someone else paying for you to learn that information.
I’m not talking about money. I am talking about America’s values and our Constitution.
You think anyone anywhere is EVER going to strip all your perceived waste out of the government? That is never, ever, going to happen. Ever,
No, it is exactly what I said. If funding is cut, that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be cut. There is plenty of waste in government funding.
There’s a way around gag orders. Quit your job and find someone willing to fund your research. If you want the funding, you have to live by the rules implemented by the powers that be. How often do you see private employees going public to complain about THEIR employer? There are consequences that come with doing that.
Come on Doug, private companies aren’t going to do research on climate change or the effects of second hand smoke or black lung disease or the value of pre school education or space research. It was government who developed the internet. It was government who developed atomic energy. It is government that fights the corruption and cruelty of corporate excess like pollution or unsafe cars. Check out the VW bastards for an example of that. or the greed of companies like Enron or Bernie Madoff. And yes it was government that brought Donald Trumps Trump University scam to a judicial end. So yes it is a bad thing to see government funding cuts to research. That’s knowledge lost forever and still more wealth headed to the coffers of the plutocrats who do virtually nothing to earn such wealth .
Why does it have to be private companies that do it? If a large enough group of people are concerned about climate change, they can donate money to a non-profit to fund the research. You can kick in your $100 rather than take mine.
“Come on Doug, private companies aren’t going to do research on climate change or the effects of second hand smoke or black lung disease or the value of pre school education or space research.”
Drug companies are constantly doing research on drugs for diseases. The reason drug prices are so high is because the majority of the money is put back into research. A friend of mine is a chemical engineer who does research for Pfizer. Pfizer’s (PFE) R&D expenses were $8.4 billion in 2014, $6.7 billion in 2013, and $7.5 billion in 2012.
Virgin Galactic is spending billions on research for space travel. There are a handful of other companies working on human space travel as well.
You don’t understand the concept of public good do you Doug? That reactionary attitude is what gave us burning rivers back in the 60s.
The private sector does not do the basic research that private companies build upon to make their products. Generally government funded research at universities and agencies is where the basic research is done. If private companies have to take over that roll, I’m guessing we will have fewer innovative products or the cost of those products will go up.
Also, it should be noted that the scientists employed by private companies who do do their own in-house research very likely received their training and credentials to be scientists doing publicly funded research in grad school.
Basically, you can’t escape the necessity of publicly funded research if you want to continue to have access the technological advances we have become accustomed to.
Also, FYI: federal grants are competitive and awarded based on merit by peer review. They aren’t handed out indiscriminately.
also Fyi:
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Media/Slideshow/2013/03/07/10-government-funded-inventions?page=0
https://psmag.com/what-are-the-benefits-of-government-funded-research-5559aeb1d1c4#.7z7gzrvdc
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/10/news/la-heb-drug-development-taxpayers-20110210
Acknowledgements: my chemistry phd husband helped with this message.
Scout, the sky isn’t falling. Much of the research being done isn’t worth the money being spent. Under the Obama administration they handed out money like it didn’t matter. I know of two grants being conducted at USC that have no merit other than a possible journal article. One is for $1.3 million the other is a $9 million grant.
It’s just possible that there is value in things that is not apparent to you, personally. No offense, but I may not accept your judgment that “Much of the research being done isn’t worth the money being spent.” as the final word on the subject.
Journal articles form the bedrock of the knowledge base that serves as the foundation for future advances. I would guess that many current advances could be traced back to seeds of ideas that came from journal articles that seemed isolated or insignificant at the time published. If we no longer see the value in collecting and recording data, whether or not it seems relevant at the moment, we will stop having advances.
FYI federal grants are competitive and judged on their merits by peer review. They aren’t handed out willy nilly. So, if 9 million dollars in federal grant money was awarded, people more knowledgeable than you on that particular subject found the project to have merit.
Its also worthy to note that federal grants support the education of graduate researchers.
You don’t have to agree that any of this worthwhile. But it is.
Hear, hear!
If anyone hasn’t read it, read Chris Cillizza’s column in the WaPo today about the leaks coming out of the White House. Seems like Trump would rather get his information from televised news than from his staff.
What was he thinking when he abruptly cut short his phone conversation with the PM of Australia and insulting him by saying, ……”this was the worst call by far” he has had with a world leader.” PM Malcolm Turnbull is not some banker or contractor Trump is dealing with, Turnbull is the leader of one of our strongest allies and he insults him the way he would an underling? Does this man have no sense of decorum or even polite civility when dealing with the leader of another country?
Trump is worst than a bull in a china shop, he is a charging bull in the diplomatic arena of international politics and eventually he will break too much china and there will no way to reverse the damage as long as he is in office.
Darn, should be “worse than, not “worst than”.
In some ways Doug is right…of course people are going on with their lives…what choice do they have? And mere handwringing among one’s own circle of friends on Facebook doesn’t accomplish much…but Doug, what I see is a lot of people doing things they’ve never done before, like calling and writing their Senators about Cabinet picks and so forth. Or going to the march on Jan. 21—I did not go, but I know a lot who did. All of this may not have that much effect, but I think it’s wrong to say that people are merely fear-mongering to themselves.
Where Doug is mistaken and Mark is correct is that this is not simply the seesaw of political philosophies taking control of the government. This is a categorical difference, not between conservatism and liberalism, but between pro-democratic and pro-authoritarian strains in American political life. Trump is indeed “getting things done,” and a lot of people in America (and I admit, I grossly underestimated the numbers in this regard) would be just as happy to dispense with the messiness of a free press, an independent judiciary, a robust two-party legislative system, in order to break the gridlock we’ve experienced for some time now at the federal level and to have a strongman rule more or less by decree.
It’s a balancing act—on the one hand, Trump has crossed only certain lines and not others—so wariness and steadfast opposition is called for, but not hysteria. We have to watch carefully. But I’m most troubled by the whipping-up of fear…this is the authoritarian’s greatest tool. I believe we are one serious terrorist attack away from Trump declaring a national state of emergency and martial law and what worries me is not him doing so, but that so much of the country will probably support that.
But for now, as Doug says, people are going on living there lives. And hey—-my mother about to have to have her 13th birthday by mid-February 1933 was, along with her parents, also going on about her life. Her parents and relatives (as she’s recounted so many times for me), mocked their newly elected leader for his bombast, did not take him seriously, believed his most extreme rhetoric was purely red meat tossed to his “base,” thought the responsibilities of governance would moderate his views, and that things were so screwed up that, hey, maybe somebody from way outside the system might shake things up in a good way.
Did not work out as they thought it might. So, vigilence is always wise.
Excellent comments, Phillip, especially this:
Absolutely. What is happening is qualitatively different from anything that has happened to this country before, disastrously so. And the sooner everyone realizes it, the better….