Maybe we needed Trump for a while

With the election of Joe Biden as president, we are about to see an abrupt change in direction in the policies of the US leadership in Washington.  

It is one of the benefits of American democracy that the public has the power to pull the country back when they perceive it has gone too far in one direction or another.

I created this graphic at the beginning of Donald Trump's term to show that over multiple presidential administrations, our course first tacks one direction and then another, but generally speaking, the long-term course remains in the middle, toward the better.

History is likely to conclude that the last four years pulled us toward white supremacy, isolationism, limiting rights, and general divisiveness.  The next four years will likely lead us in different directions.  It may well be that historians 50-100 years from now will see the Trump Administration as revealing a deep darkness in American society that had mostly been hidden.  Maybe we needed Trump's authoritarian tendencies, chaos, and bluster in order to learn important lessons and "reimagine" who we are as a society, what kind of country we were meant to be.

For example, the Obama Administration was pretty dramatic in terms of the liberal/progressive agenda.  The electorate decided it was time to take a break (not counting questions of election meddling). 

Now that we have experienced the opposite direction for a while, the electorate has decided it's time to take the next steps in addressing importing things like climate change, health care, the tax code, and meaningful immigration reform.

American democracy often doesn't "get it right." Bad decisions get made and sometimes it takes a long time to correct them.  But elections allow the electorate to correct the heading and preserve the long-term course.

Why I Voted Against Trump in 2020

Note: I wrote this in October 2020, well before the January 6, 2021 riot and so-called insurrection in the US Capitol building. Trump's role in that fiasco is not reflected in my analysis.
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I have returned my completed absentee ballots for the 2020 elections and I did not vote to reelect the president.

Conservatives like to characterize opposition to the president as "they hate Trump."

The truth is that people who are committed to voting against reelection have generally made well-thought-through decisions based on solid moral and ethical frameworks.  In addition, they're tired of the chaos, bluster, and incompetence.

For the record, I am not a member of any political party and have not been for 40+ years. I, however, have a well-developed framework of what I expect from a politician in terms of critical thinking, ethics, and public policy. My years in journalism led me to decide what I think about politicians in complex terms, judging their ethics, their words, their actions, and their behavior holistically. 

So, according to my evaluation, here are the fundamental reasons I voted against Trump.

1. Policy - I disagree with virtually every major policy position of the Trump Administration.

• Rejection of evidence-based decisionmaking and well-established science in favor of wishful thinking or profit motive
• Woefully mismanaging the US coronavirus response 
• Out-of-control spending and skyrocketing deficit
• Diverting Congressionally-allocated money to unrelated pet projects
• Unprecedented interference with private businesses that goes way beyond OSHA, FTC and FDA norms
• Withdrawing from the world climate agreement and WHO for petty reasons
• Fostering fear and intimidation among legitimate refugees, a massive violation of Christian teaching
• Trying to scale back the social safety net, as if the poor were not worthy of receiving help
• Abandoning allies and tacitly supporting enemies of the US, in violation of all recommendations from the military and intelligence agencies
• Encroaching on national parks and other anti-environmental decisions, in most cases to boost profits of corporate campaign contributors
• Regressive attitudes about health care policy, as if the poor were not worthy of receiving health care
• Interfering with military justice processes 
• Pardoning friends who are convicted of serious crimes
• Politicization of federal agencies that are not supposed to be political, particularly the Justice Department
• The high-pressure rush to seat a new supreme court justice less than a month before the election, so that the justice can vote on cases he brings before the court
• Even going to the Moon and Mars, which I like, is being forced at such a break-neck pace that safety may be compromised 

2. Management practices - No management class teaches doing things anywhere near the way Trump does, much less the prestigious Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania where he has a bachelor's degree (but no evidence of the MBA he claims)

• Continued bungling of COVID-19 crisis communication
• Appointing key people who have no relevant experience, or who were lobbyists for the industry they are now supposed to regulate 
• Reliance on unqualified ACTING leadership in important positions to avoid the Congressional confirmation process; never nominating permanent replacements
• Failure to give clear policy directives to subordinate agencies so that they misunderstand or are not properly prepared for implementation (this started almost from day one with his travel ban)
• Undercutting coordinated policy he previously approved
• Firing people by public tweet
• Non-disclosure agreements for public employees
• Failure to comply with legitimate subpoenas (which even Nixon did)

3. Morality and Ethics - We cannot tell what ethics are in the president's heart, but we can evaluate his morality (judgment of right and wrong) based on his public behavior.

• Suppressing vital information that has led to over 200,000 COVID-19 deaths
• Constant threats, bullying, intimidation, name-calling, insults, and general lack of civility
• Amplifying debunked conspiracy theories
• Constant false claims and superlatives that fail fact-checking
• Frequent appeals to racism; encouraging hate against minority groups
• General lack of respect toward anybody outside his inner circle
• Using HLS (or other unidentified federal personnel) as a secret police force
• Vindictive reprisals against political opponents
• Profiting from his government position 
• Intentional Hatch Act violations 
• Anti-democratic, authoritarian tendencies (compromise is the moral foundation of democracy, not strong-man tactics)
• Ordering violent assaults on peaceful protestors
• Misunderstanding or deliberately disregarding the law and Constitution
• Consuming focus on self-aggrandizement
• Highest criminal indictment rate of political appointees in a century
• His personal tax returns show huge ethical problems and national security vulnerabilities

4. Aptitude - Certainly, Trump came into office with no experience, but he hasn't gotten any better while in office.  The "give him a chance" argument didn't result in improvement.

• Lack of insightful leadership on critical issues like pandemic relief and climate change
• Little evidence of critical thinking and an apparent lack of ability to comprehend complex issues
• Mercurial, unstable temperament 
• Inability to stay on topic
• Inability to articulate his ideas and policies clearly when "live" on camera
• Inability to admit error
• Inability to be "presidential" i.e. injecting inappropriate partisanism in situations that should be nonpartisan
• Reliance on right-wing pundits for policy guidance
• Wasting hours each day on "rage tweeting"
• Almost daily conduct unbecoming a president

To be honest, I saw these things coming and did not vote for Trump the first time.  He has given me no reason to change my mind, and in fact, revalidates my original 2016 decision almost daily.

Policies, not people

All over the place right now we hear name-calling and ad hominem attacks (attacks on who the people are, as opposed to the policies they support). 

But arguments like that are a great way to alienate voters "in the middle" who have not yet made up their minds, because you are not just insulting the top-of-the-ticket candidates.  You are insulting the undecided voters, themselves.

When you say things like:

You are un-American for supporting _______,

If you support that candidate, unfriend me.

You are gullible if you believe those lies. 

If you do/don't wear a mask, you are stupid and maybe evil. 

 

Who raised you? 

Do you think you will shame people into changing their minds?  It's not likely to happen.

If I tell you that you are stupid, does that open you up to new avenues of understanding?  No, it makes you stubborn and it makes you close down and avoid different ways of seeing things.

Name-calling is satisfying because it allows you to express anger or fear, but it is not good persuasion. Attacking the candidates for their personality or background does nothing more than add further polarization in the minds of the people you are trying to persuade.

If you want to get people to change their minds, you need to engage with them and use evidence.  People (such as voters) will use every tactic they can to AVOID admitting that they were wrong.  Good persuasion opens the door to greater understanding, and greater understanding opens the door to changing ideas.  Insults and attacks close down pathways that might change ideas.

If you want to change the ideas of people you know, don't insult them (or the candidates they may be considering). Engage with them and introduce them to persuasive evidence.  Ask questions so you know what their actual perceptions and concerns are and focus your evidence toward these things. 

Of course, phrase your questions so as to challenge their assumptions and point in the direction you want to go.  More about that in another upcoming blog post.  

 

Is the news media liberal? Yes, but not the way you think.

We've heard accusations for years about the alleged bias of the "liberal news media." Professional journalists are trained to keep their own opinions out of their work, but in the broader (non-political) context of "liberal," having a liberal news media is good for everybody. 

Read to find out why.

Does The Wall really make sense?

As a college teacher, I avoid expressing political opinions in class.....but the new semester has not yet started yet, so, here are my comments on the proposed border wall, which is the consuming sticking point on the federal government shutdown.

1.  Big/long walls are not effective.  The full extent of the Berlin Wall required watch towers and guards, and people still got across.  The Great Wall of China (I've been there) is really a series of watch towers and an elevated road connecting them, not a barrier.  A good extension ladder would get people over The Great Wall pretty easily. 

2.  A border wall would require intensive guarding.  It would cost billions annually  for cameras, drones, aircraft, and ground patrols along nearly 2,000 miles of fence.  It would require hundreds of not thousands of guards.

3.  In spite of that, people WILL find a way over, under, around, or through the wall, when guards happen to NOT be looking. Humans are ingenious, particularly when their lives are in danger.  

4. The real cost of The Wall would be $30+ Billion, which that does not include the huge ongoing personal and programmatic costs mentioned in #2 above.  

5.  The wall would require condemnation of private property and destruction of wildlife sanctuaries.  In Texas, at least, one-third of the land needed for the border wall is owned by the federal government or Native American tribes. The rest is owned by states and private property owners, some of it owned before statehood. 

6.  The proposed wall would violate Christian teaching and whether or not you are Christian, it is hard to defend in terms of ethics and morality, particularly since the focus of stopping people is refugees seeking asylum because their lives are threatened back home.  

7. Drugs do not come in via refugees seeking asylum, but rather come hidden in luggage through legal checkpoints, or tunnels, drone flights, etc.  Any drug argument related to advocating for the wall is specious. 

8.  Illegal immigration has been down every year since 2007. I don't like the family separations and internment camps of the Trump administration, but what we have been doing for the last decade is working. 

9.  Most "illegal immigrants" have been in this country for more than a decade, such as overstaying their visas. A high percentage of them have children who are citizens by birthright.

10.  I am sorry, buy I do not trust the president to make wise decisions.  His constant logical fallacies, outright lies, and the way his actions reveal his morality have left me feeling that virtually everything he does lacks any semblance of critical thinking. So I am suspicious of his rationale. 

The conservative Cato Institute says, “President Trump’s wall would be a mammoth expenditure that would have little impact on illegal immigration.”

For the president and the current GOP, the Wall is a symbol of fear that would cost a huge amount of money and would not be effective, because it is not based on evidence or a solid plan.

The better solution is comprehensive and realistic immigration reform, period.

Facts vs. Truth

Screen capture from Meet the Press, NBC

Rudy Giulaini claiming that "truth isn't truth" is so strange, but WHY it's strange has been missed by the people reacting to his comments. 

It is a tenet of conservationism that there IS an absolute truth, outside of human experience and perception, that it is fixed, and relatively easy to understand. That is where literal reading of the Bible comes from. 

Conservatives, in the meantime, are skeptical about "new" knowledge, particularly when it contradicts the established narrative. This is where climate change denial comes from. I can easily understand a conservative saying that "facts are not the same thing as truth because facts are always suspect." 

The trouble for Giulaini is that this idea goes both ways. An administration that thrives on ignoring evidence, "alternative facts", and innuendo cannot be assumed to be telling the truth. But the way that Giulaini said "truth is not truth" smacks of propaganda and "if I say it enough times, they'll believe it IS the truth." And if the truth is not the truth, it leads to a mindset that lies are not lies. 

It seems to me that we see this "truth is what we persuade people it is" mindset all the time in the bogus and easily debunked claims that float thought the advocacy media. 

That is why we NEED professional, trained journalists, whose job it is to question claims, and fearlessly seek the actual truth, among the jumble of facts and opinions. The advocacy media can't do that for us, which is why we need the professional journalistic media.

Judging Ethics and Morality based on Behavior

All of the news about separating children from their parents keeps bringing me back to questions of ethics and morality, and the ACTIONS of the current administration, which many are judging to be immoral.

Behavior stems from ethical principles and moral judgments about right and wrong.  Thus we can evaluate a person's (or government's) ethics and morality by observing their behavior and actions.

I teach ethics in most of my media classes, so here are some definitions:  Ethics are general principles, morality is the ethical judgment of good and bad, and values are actions based on ethics and morality.

I don't like being partisan. I am registered without any party affiliation and I have said for years that I base my election choices on my perception of the ability of the candidate to perform critical thinking, as well as stance on specific issues of importance to me. Critical thinking, applied to ethical principles, is where morality and behaviors come from.

The morality of separating children from their parents is not defensible, particularly since they apparently have no plan for how to reunite the parents and children.  Adults who have been released still can't find out where their kids are.

The attempts at rationalization do not hold up and are often logical fallacies:

• "They broke the law."  Sorry, but many of them did not, because they stopped at the border and requested asylum. And even if they did, first-time violations are no more than misdemeanors. Separating children from parents in a way that they may not be able to find each other again is cruel and unusual punishment, particularly when it is done before conviction. Even felony convicts can have family visitation.
• "Obama (or somebody else) did it too."  Sorry, but alleged past infractions are irrelevant to current unethical behavior. Morality must stand on its own, not through "whatabout" logical fallacies about the past. 
• "The Democrats made me do it." Sorry, but the Trump administration's policy changed in April 2-18, through a directive from the Republican administration.  Nobody MADE them do anything. You have to take personal responsibility for your actions.
• "The Bible made me do it."  Sorry, but narrow out-of-context Bible verses, particularly verses that have been used to justify immoral actions in the past, cannot be a basis for ethical policy today. Holistic reading of the Bible makes clear that you do not mistreat foreigners or children.
• "We need the WALL, wah, wah, wah..." Sorry, but this is a policy question that is unrelated to tearing families apart. Republicans have not been motivated to pass funding for The Wall, so the Trump administration tried blackmail (although the GOP is trying). 

The list of rationalizations and logical fallacies goes on and on, but the point is that immoral behavior cannot be lessened by weasel words. Actions tell the tale about ethics and morality.  We judge a person's (or government's) ethics by ethical or unethical actions.

This is exactly why we need organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).   We need organizations that are willing to TEST the morality of the "groupthink" that can lead policymakers astray. The causes ACLU champions are often not popular, but the way to push back against immoral governmental behavior is to challenge it in the courts, and that's what ACLU does well.

By the way, I wonder if it has occurred to Trump supporters that if they LIKE the separation policy as a deterrent, they should be thanking Democrats, who they feel are responsible for the wording of the law.

So, if you, or politicians you support, make immoral decisions, and act accordingly, don't be surprised if YOUR ethics and morality are found to be lacking.

Trump: Masterful Control of the Narrative

More than ever before, political operatives struggle to influence what people talk about, and thus influence what they believe.  More than ever, it's done by making assertions that are, at face value, false.

Why do they do this and how does it work?

Many years ago, I watched an election campaign in which a member of Congress was seeking reelection.  His opponent had been active in local causes but was not well-known statewide.  The incumbent's campaign staff thoroughly researched the opponent for past public statements, such as letters to the editor.  For the last 45 days of the campaign, the incumbent blasted the challenger about every three days for some past public comment. The result was that the opponent was always defending himself, and never got to go on the offensive.  He lost the election in no small part because what people believed about him was defined by his opponent, not himself.

In all manner of public relations, practitioners want to maximize the positive and minimize the negative.  That's why negative news is often released after 3 pm on Fridays - because fewer people will see it Friday evening and Saturday, so any reaction will be smaller, and less intense.

Years ago, when Donald Trump became a celebrity, he learned that when he said outrageous things, they would be reported by journalists. He learned about the news cycle, in which his statements would be reported for a day or so, and then any reaction would be reported over another day or so. He learned to influence what the media talked about.

When he became a political candidate, reporters were guaranteed to report what he said in campaign rallies/interviews, particularly when it was something other than a standard stump speech.  It was the same pattern - inflammatory statements reported for a day or so, and reaction for another day or so, always repeating the original claim and thus validating it.

And on top of that, the more inflammatory the Trump statement, the more it, and reaction to it, would dominate the news for a couple of days, often marginalizing other stories having less controversial content.

Lesley Stahl's report that Trump has admitted attacking the news media so that negative stories about him won't be believed is just another way of using the news cycle to control the narrative.  It's not really a new tactic.  Vice President Spiro Agnew was famous for attacking the press (before pleading guilty to tax evasion, resigning from office, and serving felony probation).

Singling out of people and media employees for personal attacks uses the ad hominem logical fallacy, and while all of our teachers tell us that we should avoid logical fallacies, they can be highly effective in persuasion, because most people do not detect that the logic is flawed.

So here is the pattern:

1. A claim is made, with either no evidence or faulty evidence, but is reported by many media outlets because of who said it.
2. Other people react, repeating the original assertion, denying it or supporting the assertion, so the original claim is reinforced from many directions, creating doubt about the truth in the minds of the public.
3. When there has been enough talk, allies then say "we need a formal investigation into whether this is true."
4. The investigation repeats the claim endlessly, making it seem more and more plausible, or disappears into the background static of the news, and gets little attention when conclusions are finally released (if ever), because they are not as inflammatory as the original claim, thus leaving the original claim as the strongest thing most people remember. 

You can criticize this strategy of controlling the media.  You can make an excellent case that the use of falsehoods and exaggeration makes it unethical (along with a lot of other things in politics).

BUT...

It is a sly, crafty, and highly strategic way of manipulating the media and controlling the narrative, making sophisticated use of the fundamental ways in which journalists work, public psychology, and ways in which people consume news content.

What is a reporter's job, really?

Many people today misunderstand what a reporter does, and how the reporter is supposed to do the job. The reason is that there are so many people out there writing things that seem like they are journalism, but are not.

The pictured tweet is a reminder to reporters to be persistent, but for those of you who have never BEEN a reporter, let's try to understand more about the job really is.

News Judgment

The definition of what is, or is not, news is complex, because it can vary from day to day.  When a hurricane hits Texas or Florida, most other things are not news.  The same stories might get a lot of attention on another day, when the weather is fine.

But my working definition of news is things that are out of the ordinary.  Another way of saying that is things that are "new, different, or changing."  Same-old-same-old is not news.  "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead" is not news.

Reporter's Opinion

The reporter is not supposed to be part of the story.  In particular, the reporter's opinion is not supposed to be stated, or even allowed creep in.

Any opinion or value judgment in a professionally-writtten news story must be attributed to someone.  If no source for a value judgment is stated, then the "story" is not news.

The only things that do not need to be attributed in journalistic writing are facts that are "widely known or easily verifiable." We don't need to quote a source as saying that a hurricane hit Texas, but we DO need to quote sources concerning details of damage, etc.

Furthermore, if there are multiple legitimate sides to the story, they must all be told, and in a way that each side perceives the story as fairly representing their position. But note the word "legitimate."  We do not need to place the Flat Earth Society on an equal footing with astronomers in our eclipse stories.

Be persistent

As the Overheard in the Newsroom quote suggests, a reporter must be persistent. A reporter cannot be helpless, just because some official does not call back.  A reporter must try again and again.  Email, phone, go to the person's office, camp out on their home front steps (if it is an important enough story).

If it is a story worth covering, it MUST be covered, whether that one person calls back or not.  There are other people who you can find to interview and quote, even if they are not the ideal person, who has failed to call back.

Follow the story

Once a reporter has reported on a story, developments in the story must also be reported.

If we report that someone is arrested for something, we need to report on what happens when the person gets to court.

When President Gerald Ford tripped a couple of times on camera, it then became an expectation that future klutz moments must also be reported.

When President Trump was found to be tweeting inaccurate information, future inaccurate tweets also had to be reported.

Sometimes journalism is a "one and done" story, but more often, it is following a developing story, even if the developments come weeks apart.

Get details right

I tell my news writing students to quadruple check facts.  Reporters cannot make assumptions, misquote, or allow other inaccuracies into their stories.  Accuracy is one of the things that separates journalism from advocacy using journalistic formats.

Avoid anonymous sources

Yes, that's right, "avoid."

Journalistic standards say we can ONLY cite anonymous sources when the source could be threatened with punishment or could otherwise come to harm from having the source's name known publicly.

There is some wiggle room here.  Often we hear about a "White House staff member familiar with the issue" and we know that it is actually a coordinated intentional release, but they just don't want a particular name associated with the information.

So what?

There's a lot more to a reporter's job, of course, like complying with AP style, strong leads, use of effective quotes...

But in today's environment of persuasion cloaked in trappings of journalism, it can be hard for the general public to understand why journalists do what they do, even when there are strong ethical and professional reasons.  It is even more complicated when politicians criticize journalists for doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing.

We need to remember "Caveat Emptor," or "let the buyer beware" and bring our critical thinking to bear.  Much of what you initially think is "news" is really propaganda and persuasion.  Just because you may agree with the conclusions of some article you read does not mean it properly tells all sides of a story, or is even true.

Hate

Causing or advocating injustice is hate.

Opposing injustice is not hate.

We need to be prefectly clear about this.

Who Posts Trump's Tweets?

When I first read the president's tweets about Charlottesville, my immediate reaction was that some of them didn't read the way he says things.  It turns out that some of them MAY have come from a staffer, not Trump himself.

During the campaign in 2016, we know pretty certainly that some @realDonaldTrump posts were made by the candidate himself, and some were made by staffers.  The language was different, but also some were posted from an Android device and some from Twitter for iPhone.  Trump was using the Android device during the campaign and staffers had the iPhone.

This is not unexpected. There are a LOT of politicians and celebrities who have staffers or publicists manage or contribute to their social media.  It is pretty much standard procedure, except that most politicians probably do the hands-on tweeting less than Trump has.

This article from March scrutinizes the Twitter dynamic of the Trump campaign/presidency. It turns out that some tweets are STILL probably written by somebody other than the president, personally. Again, not at all unreasonable for a politician.

The @TrumpOrNotBot bot analyzes the president's tweets and uses machine learning and natural language processing to estimate the likelihood Trump wrote a tweet himself.  It uses an algorithm that compares new tweets to the president’s massive Twitter record, and calculates the odds that Trump, personally, wrote the new tweet. Supposedly the algorithm is continually updated.

So what do I conclude from looking at the analysis?

I think it's really hard to accurately analyze the language, but the platforms the tweets come from are interesting.  This week, most tweets have still been sent from an iPhone, but some are from the "Media Studio" Android app.

The Media Suite Android posts are more likely to be announcements about events, videos of the president, government reports, etc.  Advocacy posts (and insults) are more likely to come from the iPhone app.

So what did @realDonaldTrump tweet?

iPhone:  We ALL must be united & condemn all that hate stands for. There is no place for this kind of violence in America. Lets come together as one! 

iPhone: What is vital now is a swift restoration of law and order and the protection of innocent lives. #Charlottesville 

Android Media Studio: We must remember this truth: No matter our color, creed, religion or political party, we are ALL AMERICANS FIRST. 

Android Media Studio: We will continue to follow developments in Charlottesville, and will provide whatever assistance is needed. We are ready, willing and able. 

iPhone:  Deepest condolences to the families & fellow officers of the VA State Police who died today. You're all among the best this nation produces. 

iPhone: Condolences to the family of the young woman killed today, and best regards to all of those injured, in Charlottesville, Virginia. So sad! 

iPhone: Our thoughts & prayers are with the families, friends & colleagues of #Virginia's @VSPPIO Lt Cullen & Tpr Bates #Charlottesville

I don't think it is likely that sometimes the president uses one phone and sometimes another, sometimes iOS and sometimes Android. It would not surprise me if more than one trusted person using an has access to post to the account. So I interpret the Android Media Studio posts as being the White House Communications office or other trusted party, and most, if not all, of the iPhone posts being directly from the hand of the president

In some ways, none of this matters, other than as a curiosity to observers. If something is released over the signature of the president, it IS functionally the president saying it, no matter who wrote it.  But given the unique Twitter dynamic the president has established, I find it to be intriguing to try to understand which tweets fall into which categories.

And particularly in light of the recent criticism of whether Trump should have called out white supremacists the way he calls out everybody else, I do wonder who really is posting what content to the president's accounts.

Strategic Distraction in Social Media

Given the power that social media has to influence society and social agendas, it's become a regular tactic to use social media ti divert attention away from the bad stuff.

Trump does it.  Lots of other organizations do it. But we are hardly aware of what is going on.

Two stories have prompted this post. The first is about a study that concludes that the Chineses government employs a tactic of diverting attention from bad news or dissent. They do this NOT by addressing the issue to counter arguments, but by inundating social media with other, positive content that leads the conversation away from the dissent. The study concludes that they do this with an "army" of 2 million people who flood the internet with positive news posts.

The article quoted one of the authors of the study as saying:

We had always thought that the purpose of propaganda was to argue against or undermine critics of the regime, or to simply persuade people that the critics were wrong. But what we found is that the Chinese government doesn’t bother with any of that.  Instead, the content of their propaganda is what we call “cheerleading” content. Basically, they flood the web with overwhelmingly positive content about China’s politics and culture and history. What it amounts to is a sprawling distraction campaign rather than an attempt to sell a set of policies or defend the policies of the regime.

The second story I read recently concludes that bots are a major factor in spreading "fake news" on Twitter. Automated accounts are particularly active in the early spreading of viral claims, and tend to target influential users, according to the authors.

I have addressed bots before and not all are bad, but in the political realm, they are doing more than just auto-liking posts.

So what can we learn from these two stories?

• There are organizations and governments that are actively manipulating the flow of information via social media and the Internet, for their own benefit.
• Often, their goal is distraction.

The Chinese government uses "good news" to overwhelm the "candle in the wind" of dissent.

Donald Trump uses insults to distract from the criminal investigations centered on his election campaign.

But whether he knows it or now, Trump also distracts from OTHER important things going on in the American government.  Because the insult of the day has to be reported and analyzed in the media (it doesn't but they haven't figured that out yet).....

Other important things never bubble up to the surface for broad discussion, like this story about a Commerce Department plan that could reduce the size of 11 marine sanctuaries and monuments.

If the opposition wants to retake Congress in 2020, and retake the White House in due course, they have to get MUCH more sophisticated about how they disseninate simple, straightforward Twitter-like talking points that will REALLY get the attention of undecided voters. Armies of people doing coordinated posting and bots are clearly fair game, but false information is not, in my opinion.

Guerrilla Tactics for Corporate Tax Cuts

From The Intercept

The billionaire Koch brothers have plans to plant questions and comments at August congressional recess town hall meetings to make it appear that there is a grassroots demand for lower corporate taxes.

That's according to a confidential plan obtained by The Intercept, reported in this story. (The Intercept is the site that released Edward Snowden's documents about NSA hacking.)

Such guerrilla tactics are not new in politics. Over the years, there have been plenty of examples of paid rally attendees and planted questions -- more times than you can count, all across the political spectrum.

Sometimes the politician (or staff) does it, to make the politician look good or get a foot in the door for a prepared answer. Sometimes it really is to persuade the politician. But sometimes the goal is to allow the politician to JUSTIFY voting the way certain lobbyists and campaign contributors want.

"Every place I went this August, people were encouraging me to support cutting corporate taxes."

See how this helps justify voting a certain way?

But it's also hard to NOT see this underground campaign in the context of "back home" political events earlier this spring, in which activists hammered away on progressive social causes -- so much so that some Republicans were scared away from holding public events at all.

Don't get me wrong -- most politicians are honest, hard working, and devoted to serving their constituents. But they can also become seduced by power.  If you want to serve your constituents, you need more and more power, such as better subcommittee and committee assignments. To get those, you need to be seen as supporting the party leadership. And that means voting for litmus test legislation, like repealing the Affordable Care Act.

If you're going to vote on a controversial bill like that, it helps to have a strong rationale for WHY you voted the way you do. And that's where the guerrilla questions and comments at public events come in. When "constituent" questions go the way the politician wants, it's great. When they go a different direction, the politician resorts to avoidance.

To counter this kind of tactic, advocates for the other side need to keep turning out in force and keep countering the guerrilla operatives.

Passing Trumpcare is NOT how high school Government taught it should be

The political machinations in Washington over Trumpcare are WAY outside the scope of how things are "supposed to work."

When I was in High School Government class, we learned a straightforward process by which a bill becomes a law. The process made sense and was a logical flow of thoughtful, informed decision-making:

Th first house does the best it can to create good legislation. Then they send it to the second house, which either agrees or makes amendments members there think will improve the legislation.  The two houses work out their differences and send the compromise to the president.  Sometimes the bill is rejected along the way.

When it comes to Trumpcare, the House Republicans didn't care about the provisions they voted on, because they knew it would be changed in the Senate.  Now it appears that the Senate Republicans are going to try to ramrod something through, so that they can figure out their final plan in the conference committee.  No significant hearings or public input in either house. They are voting on things that nobody has been allowed to read.

That's not how it's supposed to work!

Obamacare was something this country has never done before.  There were hundreds of special interest groups with their fingers in the pie.  It is not at all surprising that there are things that need change, now that we are down the road a ways. When you try something completely new, nobody expects it to be perfect the first time.  Success is often incomplete until it has been tinkered with and fine tuned several times.

I am open to changes that make sense to improve health care for vulnerable populations.  The best way to do that is to have everybody as "part of the pool."

I am not open to the mindset that says people are poor because they are lazy and do not deserve the support of society, which is what we are seeing among many Republicans right now.

(Image above from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/190066046749776126/)

Trump and the Boy Scouts

I don't blame the Boy Scouts for Donald Trump's flagrantly inappropriate comments at the national jamboree.  The president is always invited to speak and local hosts don't get to review the president's remarks in advance.

But what this shows, yet again, is that Trump cannot be counted on to make the right decision.

In this case, the decision was to inject politics into a venue where it very clearly does not belong.  To be fair, he ALWAYS injects politics into venues where it doesn't belong, and the reason is that he again and again makes bad judgment calls.  It is as if he lacks the critical thinking ability to evaluate the circumstances and determine what is proper and correct.

Some may say "he knows, but me doesn't care."  That may be, but he constantly distracts from his agenda and is his own worst enemy.  Things aren't getting done that would be, if he was not constantly oscillating out of control.

The thing that slays me is that if he can't make a sound decision about what to talk to boy scouts about, how can we trust him to make wise decisions about the critical issues facing the country and the world?

But again -- don't blame the Boy Scouts.

They complied with the long tradition of inviting the president to speak, as they would have regardless of who the president is.  It's Trump who blew the opportunity to show that he can be a statesman.

Actions = Ethics

Photo by Gage Skidmore
via Wikimedia.

As the Donald Trump Junior scandal unfolds, what he INTENDED to do is more important than what he ACTUALLY did.

He attended a meeting that he had been told specifically was part of a Russian effort to influence the election.

What does this say about his morality and values? A lot.

Why does "the media" keep "attacking" Trump?

In fact, there is no such thing as "the media" and they are not "attacking" the Trump administration.

"The media" is not some monolithic bloc with a mind if its own. There are organizations that use media and advocacy.  Some of them attack and some of them defend any given political viewpoint, using posts that resemble news stories, except for the advocacy.

But the point of THIS post is to examine the operation of the professional journalistic media organizations, and why THEY keep reporting on possible wrongdoing by Trump and friends.

Running Government Like a Business: Not

I have long thought that the idea of "running government like a business" is a fallacy, because they are not the same things. Their reasons for existing are different and as a result their ways of doing business need to be different.

It's not getting better

I haven't posted here for a while, both because of a busy wrap-up of the academic year, and because I have been hoping that things might get better as the Trump Administration made their way through their on-the-job training.

That clearly hasn't happened, plus it is summer and I will need some diversion from my academic writing, travel, and other summertime activities.  

Completely separate from questions of policy, the ineptness of Trump and his inner circle is astounding.  So I may resume making comments, about our political environment, science, and other things that interest me.  :-)

Trump Crisis Communications

When it comes to crisis communications, i.e. deflecting attention from scandal, the president only has one playbook - outrageous claims.

How does it work?  Why does it work?