Beginning with this unusual topic. Not about Trump per se; more a general principle of story-telling. And faith.
OnlySky, Dale McGowan, 6 Sep 2024: For the Trump faithful, it comes down to plot armor, subtitled “It’s no surprise that Trump benefits from a feature you’ve seen on bad television.”
Did a brief skim; this seems to be related to the kind of plot device on TV where you know the heroes will survive because they have to be back for next week’s episode.
The writer begins by recalling comments from way back in 2004 from a Bush aide who contrasted the “reality-based community” with their own take: “That’s not the way the world really works anymore. We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.”
It was a simpler time. We thought we had reached our presidential nadir. The reaction from those of us in the reality-based community (RBC) to the statement by the aide—now believed to have been Karl Rove—was utter disbelief that such gibberish could emanate from the White House.
Like I said, a simpler time.
Then came Kellyanne Conway’s “alternative facts” and everything since. All humans are given to storytelling, the writer says, but some people have the “luxury” to care about truth, and take reality as it is.
As a result, I’ve been able to take in some harsh realities—death is final, there is no all-powerful protector, we broke the climate and probably can’t fix it, my country/race/gender is responsible for enormous suffering, and so on—and incorporate them into my narrative identity without much need for alternative facts. More often than not, I have enough personal security to accept reality, even when it grates against my preferences.
This isn’t the human default.
Consider someone who lacks those advantages. They were born into a family that either didn’t value critical education or couldn’t afford it. They grew up surrounded by parents and peers and pastors who reinforced comforting narratives, plus an entire mediascape devoted to the profitable maintenance of that bubble. They are continually assured that they live in the greatest country in the world, that they worship the right god in the right way, that they will live forever under his wing, and that all those who contradict this story are in thrall to [insert demonic being or social system or political party here].
That strikes me as a fair description of the conservative mindset. The writer goes on: Trump came along to reinforce their worldview. And therefore he acquired plot armor.
Plot armor is present when you know an important character in a drama will survive a dangerous situation because they are needed for the plot to continue.
My son discovered this phenomenon at age nine, watching a lightsaber duel in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. “I hate these fights,” he said. “You know the good guy is going to win.” Maybe it’ll be magic, or luck, or the sudden appearance of the cavalry, or a bending of the laws of physics, or the convenient revelation with no setup whatsoever that water kills the bad guy. One way or another, the necessary good guy will live.
That’s plot armor.
This makes sense the more and more he explains it.
From the white Evangelical perspective in 2015, reality was not a desirable storyline. Church attendance was plummeting, the nonreligious were on the rise, a president of the wrong color was finishing his second term, reproductive rights were near their peak, and same-sex marriage was the law of the land. They could feel themselves sliding away from the center of the culture. This was not in the script, the story with which they were raised.
And in that moment, Trump said, You’re right, the world has gone crazy with all this political correctness. Everyone is blaming you, but it’s not your fault. It’s their fault! And I alone can fix it.
Trump supporters, he explains, aren’t trying to “get it right”; they don’t care about evidence of the lies he’s told, the indictments, or any of that.
…it’s only evidence of our failure to get through our heads what they are actually engaged in. They are not trying to get it right. They are trying to finish a story in which they are the good guys and they win.
And this, to generalize, is another example of how humans live by story, by narrative, by ideology, and resist facts, evidence, and logic.
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And if one’s story is about how special one’s own tribe is, cooperating with others can’t be condoned.
Washington Post, Editorial Board, 4 Sep 2024: These are the asteroids that scare scientists. Are we prepared for them?, subtitled “Global cooperation is, unsurprisingly for a threat that comes from the stars, essential.”
This is a cool infographic ahead of an article about the number of asteroids discovered, mostly in recent years, that might hit Earth, though fortunately only about 300 are big enough to cause serious damage. And only 80 of them could cause an extinction event. Still. The article ends,
Global cooperation is, unsurprisingly for a threat that comes from the stars, essential. The U.N.-facilitated International Asteroid Warning Network already connects observers across the world. If the threats meet certain criteria, the Space Mission Planning Advisory Group, also a U.N. body, kicks into gear, bringing together leaders of space agencies from NASA to the European Space Agency, as well as Russia’s Roscosmos and the China National Space Administration to prepare options for reconnaissance and deflection. Some ground rules today could stave off tension tomorrow. Changing an asteroid’s trajectory takes time, and as its path shifts so does its “risk corridor” — basically, where it has the highest chance of striking. Imagine the drama should ultimately sparing Beijing mean temporarily endangering Tokyo.
Mr. Johnson of NASA has pointed out that a large asteroid hitting the planet might well be the only natural disaster, amid tsunamis and earthquakes and sun storms and beyond, that humanity has the technology to predict so far in advance that we can actually prevent it. It would be foolish not to try.
But of course the likes of Trump and his ilk don’t do global cooperation; for America to win, they must lose. So perhaps humanity is doomed.
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The Crazy Bits. Let’s do a few more today.
Joe.My.God, from Right Wing Watch, 6 Sep 2024: Hate Pastor: God Will Smite You For Voting For Harris
“Hey everybody, first of all, let me preface what I’m about to say. That I personally am a monarchist. I believe in a ruling, reigning king. I’m waiting for him to bring his politics to us in his coming.
“Regarding this upcoming election who should you vote for: For the Christian, it’s super easy. Because if you pull back rhetoric and emotion it’s a slam dunk. …
Again, they’re saying it right out loud: they don’t believe in democracy; they want a king, an authoritarian leader; and accuse the “Democrat” party (they never get that right) of being a “death cult” because of the lies they believe about biology. It’s yet again about stories. And tribal morality.
If American adherence to organized religion is declining, perhaps because so many religious leaders are crazy, sounding like tribalistic, ignorant zealots.
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Salon, Heather Digby Parton, 6 Sep 2024: Donald Trump’s incoherence makes the media’s double standard hard to hide, subtitled “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris curiously don’t get the same coverage”
Another example of how Trump’s increasingly incoherent speeches are not covered by the mainstream press… because it’s “old news.” Or, perhaps the mainstream media are biased toward Trump.
It seems like only yesterday that the elite media were extremely concerned that President Joe Biden had mistakenly referred to the president of Egypt as the president of Mexico. In the course of an otherwise cogent discussion of foreign affairs, he’d made that mistake in passing but it caused a huge uproar and spawned yet another round of critical reporting about his age and mental capacities. No one in the press blew off the gaffe and the substance of his comments went virtually unreported.
…
Donald Trump, on the other hand, has been speaking nonsense and spouting gibberish on the campaign trail and the media is covering for him by pretending that his verbal incontinence actually makes sense or by ignoring it altogether. Yes, there’s been some mordant chuckling in the media over his bizarre comments about “the late great Hannibal Lecter” and his meandering tales about electric boats and shark attacks. Those stories are all delivered with a twinkling eye-roll as if to say “Oh that wacky Trump, there he goes again” as if it’s just a funny little anecdote, apropos of nothing.
And… that’s enough for this evening.
