In particular, the reactions by conservatives to things that do change. Topics today:
- Illegals and the military;
- How poor poll results must be fake;
- The American struggle between reason and ignorance;
- How one small town is indeed deeply conservative;
- Considering the assumption that people become more conservative as they grow older;
- When you have no substantive arguments, resort to the trivial: Doritos!
1, Scaring Conservatives with Lies
Salon, Kelly McClure, 17 Aug 2024: Trump scares his followers with talk of “illegals,” but border crossings are lowest in four years, subtitled “A new tally by border agents shows that illegal crossings are at a steady decline, down 32 percent since June”
During Donald Trump’s press conference at his Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey on Thursday, he pivoted from speaking points meant to focus on inflation to, once again, rattle off misinformation about Kamala Harris wanting to “end detention of illegal alien migrants, releasing vicious monsters into our communities to rape, maim and murder.” And this has been a popular loop-de-doop of his for years, regardless of who his opponent is. But it’s usually not based on facts by any stretch of the word.
And:
Media Matters, Matt Gertz, 15 Aug 2024: Fox News totally ignored new report showing violent crime is down — while running more than 4.5 hours of violent crime coverage
Fox News has not mentioned on air new data released on Friday showing that violent crime dropped sharply in major cities over the first half of 2024, even as it devoted more than 4.5 hours of coverage to violent crime during that period. Much of Fox’s crime coverage during this period was reporting on individual anecdotes featuring alleged migrant offenders.
Once again, students: anecdotes are not evidence. Learn statistics; look at trends.
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Instead, what Trump wants to do:
NYT, 17 Aug 2024: Deploying on U.S. Soil: How Trump Would Use Soldiers Against Riots, Crime and Migrants, subtitled “The former president’s vision of using the military to enforce the law domestically would carry profound implications for civil liberties.”
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2, If the polls aren’t going your way, accuse them of being rigged.
Salon, Kelly McClure, 18 Aug 2024: JD Vance thinks polls showing surge of Harris support are “fake”
How and why are they faked? He doesn’t say.
As Axios points out in their coverage of Vance’s claim, “The polls aren’t always accurate, but they certainly aren’t fake,” highlighting that “nearly every major pollster has shown Harris surging,” maintaining a 6-point lead, 51% to 45%.
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3, The state of America today.
Here’s a review of a new book about the infamous Scopes trial, about which I’m fairly familiar, if only via the play about it. The point of the book isn’t about evolution per se, but about how the trial reflects American ‘values.’
NY Times, Matthew Stewart, 11 Aug 2024: A Telling of the Scopes Monkey Trial Where Evolution Is Not the Point, subtitled “In ‘Keeping the Faith,’ Brenda Wineapple finds an ongoing battle over the soul of America in a century-old trial.”
Actually, the review doesn’t expand much on this title, except at the very end. I’ll skip all the description of Darrow and Bryan and the trial itself. The review concludes:
“Keeping the Faith” is history at its most delicious, presented free from the musty smell of the archives where it was clearly assembled with great care. And if you have been awake for the past 16 years or so, you won’t miss the point. The struggles of yesteryear between reason and ignorance do not merely illuminate those of the present. They are the same struggle. This is a story from a past that isn’t even past.
“The struggles of yesteryear between reason and ignorance” have not gone away; it’s the essence of the current political battle.
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4, Small towns.
San Francisco Chronicle, Soleil Ho, 17 Aug 2024: I took a trip to Trump country. It was more bleak than I could have imagined [gift link]
Soleil Ho was the chief restaurant critic for the SFC for a few years; now Soleil is an “opinion columnist & cultural critic.” In this piece she — er, “they,” their preferred pronoun — returns to visit their extended family in rural Illinois. They remembers the county fairs.
This month, I went back after two decades away to see what I’d been missing.
Everything was basically the same, from the cheese curds to the moaning herds of wooly sheep — except this time, the fair was feeling a little … weird.
Along with corny fair merch and anime ponchos, every, and I mean every T-shirt stall was draped with Trump flags: “I’m voting for the felon,” “F— Biden” and the relatively anodyne, “I’m With Trump.” While browsing the pet supply shop across from the local Republican Party’s stall, I saw GOP staff greeted with cheers and raised fists — echoing Donald Trump’s triumphant pose after the assassination attempt on him — by numerous fairgoers wearing red caps and “Ultra MAGA” shirts. “Boo, Kambala!” yelled a woman, laughing.
Anecdote, or random sample? The cliches about flyover state small towns are true, in Soleil’s experience.
Living in the Bay Area, it’s easy to forget that pockets of deep-red space exist everywhere in the United States. But I knew better than to be utterly shocked. My family, mostly Democrats or otherwise apolitical, are pragmatic about politics: This is their home. They quietly listen to the daily political rants and ravings about crime, immigrants and “transes” from MAGA colleagues, neighbors and friends, hoping for any opportunity to pivot to the weather. The truth is, if you cut and run in a place like this, you won’t have any friends left.
They ends:
On my final visit to the six-day fair, we went to the rodeo, a traditionally gladiatorial extravaganza of bull riding and barrel racing. The event, like many rodeos, began with a prayer, but with a political twist: The emcee asked the audience to pray that “those in the White House” would raise their hands in praise of the Christian God.
By the time the crowd pulled off their hats and launched into a singalong of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” I’d had enough. I stayed seated, head in my hands, and waited for the bulls to come charging out of their pens.
I could go in to how much of this reflect my own history; my parents grew up in a small Illinois town. I’ve done some of this in my family history and personal history posts. I don’t think I would dare revisit Cambridge, Illinois, ever again.
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5, And addressing a deep-seated assumption.
Washington Post, Brendan Greeley, 18 Aug 2024: Opinion | Having a lot of children made me less Republican, subtitled “JD Vance and other conservatives think that growing up nudges you to the right. I found the opposite.”
The addresses the old saying, “If You Are Not a Liberal When You Are Young, You Have No Heart, and If You Are Not a Conservative When Old, You Have No Brain” (Google).
There’s an assumption among conservatives that growing up nudges you to the right, as you start paying taxes or get mugged by reality.
I think this is something said by conservatives, as they grow older, to defend their positions in society. That is, as get older, have a family, acquire property, you don’t become wiser, you become more selfish, and less concerned about other people. Human nature.
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6, And when you have no substantive response to the opposition, resort to the trivial.
JMG, from Daily Beast, 17 Aug 2024: Fox Mocks Harris For Eating Doritos When Trump Won.
As she watched the election returns, she ate Doritos. The horror. Is this the best they can do?
