Fiction as commentary

The social justice warriors can often be violent but in Western societies they are greatly restrained by the forces of law and order.  I have just been reading a series of short stories in which they have more power than they do at the moment. It is a look at the dystopian future they have in mind for us all.  But because it is so close to what we see of them right now, the stories are quite riveting.  They stand alone as good fiction, even while having a thought-provoking purpose.  The title of the book is "Appalling Stories. 13 Tales of Social Injustice" By David Dubrow, Paul Hair, and Ray Zacek. It is available on Amazon

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The Left are unresponsive to facts so get them where they do respond -- by attacking their social status.  Hence Trump's attacks on the purveyors of status -- the media

A good friend of mine wrote me recently. He complained about smug leftist neighbors who are “making decisions to ‘feel good’ with virtually no regard for true factual input or testing.” I get this a lot.

If you want to understand Donald Trump, you need understand why this complaint is myopic. Once you do understand, you’ll never see politics the same way again. You’ll also begin to grasp that leftism does work, and that you’ve just failed to understand how.  Which is why you lose so often.

Want a clue?  “Feel good” about what?

Not about being right, which is best described as “useful, to a point.” Aristotle noticed over 2,000 years ago that many people aren’t persuadable by logical arguments. So what’s the “feeling good” all about?

Try this on for size: People often take public positions in an attempt to increase their social status.

If you’ve been in a corporate setting, or settings with certain friends, I don’t need to offer further examples of this idea. You’ve seen it happen, and you also know that you need to be “reading the room” at all times before you speak and act. Failure costs status. People notice this dynamic, and act accordingly.

I didn’t say it was an ideal state of affairs. But a truly rational person must notice reality. My friend and his wife are picking up on a “we’re higher status than you” signal, and it’s part of the reason they’re so upset.

Macro examples also abound: Do you really think it’s a coincidence that leftism and its “Diversity Pokemon Points” amount to a full caste system?

Do you have any doubt about The left’s hatred for those who will not stay in their assigned status? Have you noticed their quickness to turn on their own allies? Fail to follow the latest fad, and your status is demoted.

Perhaps you’ve noticed that endlessly callous virtue signaling is the identifying badge of our modern try-hard Striver Class.

Maybe that’s because American public education is now a 20-year Milgram Experiment. Where the meta-message inside political correctness is to override your own judgement, in favor of deliberately-shifting judgements from people with higher status.

These aren’t accidents. They’re clues. Leftism isn’t a policy machine or an economic machine. Its economic results would tell you that much in a hurry. But the machine keeps running. Which means it must work for something. The correct question is: in what way does it work?

Analysis: Leftism is a status machine. A very, very successful status machine. Conservatives have lost status battle after status battle, often because they fought it as a policy battle. It rarely is. That’s conservatism’s most consistent and most damaging mistake.

From theory to practice: Trumping the media

President Trump’s systematic thrashing of the leftist media is the example that illustrates the theory.

Conservatives complained about the media for a long time. Aristotle’s dialectic approach, against people uninterested in truth. Net effect? Very low. Sad!

So let’s apply what we’ve learned.

Why do the media have power? Because they have social status with ordinary people. Are we still hearing about Watergate — decades later? The Pentagon Papers? How many movies seem to exist just to show journalists as heroes? Or let’s take a different tack: What’s the attraction of such a low-paying profession? Status given by the profession, and status from rubbing shoulders with high-status people. Status by acting as a vector for status signals, which is what every women’s magazine is. Ditto publications like WIRED, which is just Cosmo for geeks.

The media offers people clues about what things are high status within the areas they cover. People notice, and act accordingly. Yet most conservatives still don’t understand Trump’s response:

If I lower the media’s status, I will wreck their power.

So The Donald says that the media has “some of the most dishonest people” he has ever seen. Not an arm’s length complaint. A direct and personal status attack, rooted in truth.

Trump also acts in ways that cause journalists to fulfill his pre-suasion labeling. He makes “outrageous” statements, which many people outside the Beltway Bubble agree with. Those statements receive over-the-top media attacks, which make his enemies look ridiculous. Then events swiftly show that Trump had a point. Trump rubs it in, using the media’s own “Fake News” term against them and pouncing on every sloppy and dishonest mistake. As a final topper, Trump makes the dishonest media a focus during every massive rally. Which strengthens his out-grouping effect among participants and viewers.

He uses ridicule and lèse majesté, not bended knee and appeals — note that subordinating word — to logical argument.

The result? American belief in the credibility of their news media is now at about 32 percent. That’s the lowest ever polled, and an 8 percent drop from the lowest point of the 2008-2015 period. The media has lost audience, and a lot of power. When Vogue tried to damage Melania by ripping her wardrobe, activists promptly made memes from a photo of the weird-looking critic. The attack instantly lost its power.

Facebook has tried to fight these trend lines by flagging items as “fake news.” Recently, the social media giant decided to stop. Too many people sought out flagged articles. Or, put another way: In many circles, the mainstream media’s status has become negative. What an amazing amount of damage to a hostile institution.

Rational people notice and acknowledge real-world results. Even the left has noticed.

So, why hadn’t anyone ever done this before? In fairness, Newt Gingrich had some success in the 2012 primaries, and Ted Cruz has also tried. But they lacked the full array of tools. Worse, they didn’t understand how to make the media their enemy.

Once you understand conservatives’ biggest and most consistent mistake, it all becomes clear. Facts don't matter to the Left.  Status does. Make them feel bad.

SOURCE

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Trump blows away another Leftist attack on himself
 
Never in the field of human politics has so much abuse been borne by one person



As the Russia collusion delusion melts away, the Left has adopted a new attack against President Trump. We have heard whispers for months, but the publication of Michael Wolff’s new book turned the rumors into a full-fledged media conspiracy.

According to the Left, the president is crazy. As Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) noted recently, this tactic is not new for the Left — it has questioned the sanity of virtually every Republican president.

The theme of Wolff’s book is that the president can’t focus, is impulsive, can’t read, is obsessed with himself, etc. Well, little did Democrat congressional leaders know, as they were headed to the White House Tuesday, that they would end up demolishing the narrative the Left has been constructing in recent weeks.

They walked into the Cabinet Room and sat down at the table. The White House press pool was brought in to take a few pictures and record a few moments of video, which is shared with other media outlets and used for brief clips on the evening news. At that point the press is normally ushered out of the room.

Instead, President Trump kept the cameras rolling so that the American people could watch the negotiations play out on national TV. For the next hour, every cable channel broadcast the meeting live. It showed President Trump in command and fully in charge of the facts.

At one point, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) complained that what the president was proposing is very complex and would be hard to get done. Trump urged him to be serious about negotiating and to get it done.

The entire performance was a brilliant strategic move. Even CNN’s Wolf Blitzer acknowledged that President Trump deserved “a lot of credit” for hosting a “really remarkable meeting.”

But What’s the Policy?

The way the president conducted Tuesday’s meeting was remarkable. He looked very much like a stable genius. But there are concerns by many on the Right over where this may be headed.

For example, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) pushed for a “clean DACA bill,” meaning no border security measures, followed by “comprehensive immigration reform,” which really means a massive amnesty.

DACA, Barack Obama’s unconstitutional amnesty for the children of illegal immigrants, is a bitter pill to swallow. If that pill is part of any deal, then it is imperative that the president gets authorization and funding for a border wall. For many conservatives, a big new immigration law prior to the wall would likely be a bridge too far.

The White House must be very careful that these negotiations do not result in a situation where all the president gets is a pledge to fund the wall at some future point. We have been burned by past promises for future border security. We cannot afford to repeat the mistakes of the past.

If that happens, we will have another wave of illegal immigrants bringing their children across the border. In fact, it may be happening already.

In my view, the president can survive, regardless of what the polling says, if DACA is terminated. What I don’t think he can survive is getting through his first term without serious progress on the wall.

A Good Day

There are many ways to define a good day. For me, a good day is whenever I can cause the Left to set its hair on fire. And when I tweeted support for the president’s performance at Tuesday’s meeting, I got an avalanche of attacks from hateful progressives, which I find reaffirming. A far-left attack group called “Right Wing Watch” generated the wave of invective.

As you can imagine, the remarks ran the gamut from suggestions that I needed a mental evaluation to accusing me of being anti-American. Much of it can’t be repeated here.

When I did a little checking, I quickly discovered that many of my critics where proud atheists. Not surprisingly, the anti-faith movement has become one of the most intolerant and vicious battering rams of the Left.

I hope President Trump is teaching every Republican leader that if they wake up in the morning and are not being attacked by the Left, they aren’t doing their job!

SOURCE

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A new level of abuse from the Left in the DACA debate

If you support Trump, you are an "inhumane beast raised by wolves”


Judging by appearances, Rubin (on Left) was the one raised by wolves

Stephanie Hamill, advisor to the National Diversity Coalition for Trump, defended Trump to the panel, saying “I respect our laws and I understand we can’t allow everybody to come in,” also saying that the United States is “the most generous country in the world,” statements she could barely get out over the loud protests of the other panelists.

Washington Post writer Jennifer Rubin responded, “Okay, number one, we do not have open borders. If she’d actually talk to any real people who actually work for the Immigration and Customs Agency, she would find out that in fact we have fewer border crossings than we have. Our borders are more secure than ever"

“Thanks to Trump,” Hamill said.

Rubin shot back, “Excuse me, it’s my turn! You be quiet while I speak!.. . She added, “And third of all, what kind of person would send back people who have been working here, who have contributed to this country, who have children here, who would be separated from their children, from their communities, what kind of inhumane beast–are you raised by wolves?”

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated),  a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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