The previous post, Farrago, meandered into the power struggles in the US and the assault on science in favor of fantastic explanations of things. [I prefer 'fantastic explanations' to 'conspiracy theories' because there are in fact conspiracies and people who pursue real conspiracies - like the Federalist Societies 40 year plan to pack the Supreme Court with justices who would rule their way - aren't always 'crackpots.']
Reader Jacob left a lengthy comment which you can see there. Rather than answer it there, I've decided to answer it in a new post.
Well, since I know many of you won't go back to see what he wrote, I've decided to put it here again.
"Jakob in IrelandSunday, October 6, 2024 at 5:07:00 AM AKDTHi Steve. Just a thought from across the pond...
When you started your enquiry last year asking HOW we got to this point (of finding more & more people believing the unproven in so many things around us) you more often than not explained the difference boiling down to university education levels.
I felt, and still do, that you do have the view of someone from the world of questions, of successfully negotiating the discipline of the academic reasoning & rewards. I also acknowledge that you (graciously) agreed that talent isn't limited to intellectual gifts, but also those of the 'multiple intelligences' view of human ability & talents.
So with all that, we plunged (as so many did then) into just HOW we could be at this political junction of PRO and CON re what we thought to be ‘dictator-in-waiting’ Donald Trump. We didn't succeed in pinning the tail-on-that-donkey, did we?
So today, I’m wiping my slate clean: I’m with many, if not most here, asking this question: Does Mr Trump plan to win regardless his methods to achieve it?
Given these past years of many quick checks and deep dives with so-many streams of thought & analysis, I have honed my own little thought for this presidential election in America, if anyone wishes to consider it. Mr Trump’s preparation is laid, his goal easy to know. He only awaits the day in which his blow will be struck.
Mr. Trump’s seizure of the presidency (at precious cost to a Republic) can be affirmed by his Supreme Court and a Congress with too-narrow mandate to intervene in a politically effective way. But most importantly, far too many Americans have ‘drunk the Kool-Aid’.
I am nearly 18 years from living in the USA now; I am also a person born to its promise & culture, to its history & dreams. I moved countries to know other histories, other ways of seeing law, culture & dreams. I can admit my shock to see so many Americans willing to surrender rule-of-law to a man of autocratic instincts, hoping his constitutional betrayal will deliver their aspirations. I have told European friends (here) that Americans have bedrock faith in their Constitution and its rule-of-law standards. It will win out.
Now I suspect I held a child’s faith: Too many Americans are faith-weary. So many flock to a ‘strong man’ promising his so-sweet nothing, “I’ll take back control for you.”
I am sorry to say that I am relieved to live where I do, where so very many here are asking, “What is happening to the USA?”"
Here's my response.
Jacob,
Lots of questions rolled up into the reply. And lots of answers too.
First, your comment “you more often than not explained the difference boiling down to university education levels.” I suspect that reflects more what you hear than what I’ve said over the years. I have indeed argued that good education does train students to think logically and critically (among other things.) That could start happening in elementary school and be honed further in middle and high school in a good school with good teachers. At good schools the attentive students graduate with varying levels of those skills. And I've acknowledged that a rigorous logical, left brain, education is the best way to start all kids. But I would add that all kids should be given the space to work on something that interests them, and a good school would then use their areas of interest, to cultivate logical reasoning in a context that makes sense to each kid.
As students go deeper into those topics at the university level, they can improve on those skills. Statistics that show college educated voters tend (note ‘tend’) to lean more Democratic than people with fewer years of education.
“The last few election cycles have been marked by an increasing divergence in outcomes based on education levels, with Democrats making serious gains with college-educated voters while Republicans win far greater shares of non-college educated white voters.” from Politico
But you don’t have to get those skills only in school. People who are different in some significant way from the ‘average’ - different religion, ethnicity, sexual identity, etc. - often grow up in at least two different worlds: 1) their family and group world and 2) the larger white world that has traditionally ruled the US. And for those with non-conforming gender identity, they can be in a different reality from their family.
The dissonance between how these citizens who experience one reality at home and a different reality at school often gives them a leg up on seeing the big picture, on seeing there isn't just one reality.
And there are lots of others who get the dissonance even if they don’t go to college. And there are many college graduates who got by without learning how to think critically. Or who can, but have blind spots where they can’t apply those skills. Or they apply them in a twisted way. Like logically justifying white nationalism or misogyny based on odd facts and premises.
Getting back on track
Hoping people would come to their political senses when they were given the facts was not something I held out much hope for, though it’s my natural flex. I used to tell students writing reports for actual administrators that emotions always trump reason if there’s a conflict between the two. So they needed to know their clients’ values so they could write their reports not so it made sense only to the student, but also to the client.
I did hold out hope that enough US voters would choose the Democratic candidate over Trump. That isn’t unreasonable since that happened in 2016 and 2020. Though the way the electoral college works, that’s not enough. Harris has to win big so the GOP can’t fight with any credibility over crumbs in swing states. And can’t plausibly argue that Trump won. Of course there will always be those who deny reality as the 2020 election has shown.
Now to your first question, which you essentially answered yourself affirmatively.
"Does Mr Trump plan to win regardless his methods to achieve it?"
I agree that he does plan to challenge the election no matter what. All the talk of rigging elections is meant to get people ready for such a challenge. The bigger the margin of victory the harder that will be. The many lawyers and others who have been fighting Trump’s original challenges in 2020 are well versed in his strategy and paying close attention to new ones.
And this time round, Biden is in charge of the military and national guard and other levers of power that will be much better prepared than in 2021 post election.
And the people he has working for him are skilled administrators - as we can see in the preparations for Helene and the coordinated efforts after the storm hit, getting inflation down, implementing the Infrastructure bill, etc.
Will Trump supporters, those who believe all his lies, come out with weapons and raise hell? Possible. Even likely in some places.
One other point I’d like to make concerning reason and non-reason. It’s clearer and clearer that Putin and Iran and North Korea have all been using the internet to stir up conflict in the US (not to mention in UK and France and other parts of the world.). We know about it explicitly in 2016. It's been noted in every election since. It’s likely they were at it earlier during the time they were grooming Trump as an asset. They played a role in Brexit. They’re at it over Gaza and Israel. Taking down democracies strengthens their message to their own people that democracy is inherently unstable and bad. It also makes their aggression much easier.
Playing on people’s fears - of immigrants, of crime, of economic disaster - is always going to capture a certain number of people. Trump’s non-stop lies, amplified by Fox, and main stream media, is a well planned strategy to make it impossible to tell truth from fiction. Everything Trump says is projection of his own actions onto his opponents. With AI and hard to spot fake video, the ability to tell truth from lies gets harder. All traditional authorities are challenged - scientists, universities, doctors, teachers, anyone who ‘can prove’ something with more than sweeping declarations of how things are, are targets. The Right’s attack on public education is part of that package. They want to get public money funneled to private schools that they can control.
It’s ironic that until Reagan began attacking government, it was usually the Left that challenged government and the Right that defended it.
Trump has good reason to fight for power, even after he loses. If there is a Harris administration he will be on trial still and very likely sentenced to prison. At which point I wouldn’t be surprised if he fled to Cuba or another Russian ally. Or Saudi Arabia.
When he’s gone this isn’t over. Our authoritarian enemies will continue to do what they can to weaken the West. The Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society will continue to fight for the power of the rich white elite to control the country.
Fortunately their perfect candidate is also a huge liability. Republicans’ eagerness to exercise their post Roe power at the state level has alerted and alarmed sensible voters. And their demands for abject loyalty has resulted in less than stellar candidates in down ballot races - like North Carolina’s Mark Robinson, candidate for Governor.
We’ll know in a month how the election goes, and then we’ll have to wait and see how the post election goes.
You may well have made a good decision when you established yourselves in Northern Ireland. But if the US goes down, no one is safe.
