Robert Reich, 17 Oct 2024: Trump’s closing argument: full-throated fascism
Recalling Trump’s recent remarks about illegal aliens and the “enemy within” and how his political opponents are “evil,” Reich states:
Could it ever happen that Trump’s supporters realize what a horrible mistake they’ve made when Trump begins rambling like this before the entire world?
Salon, Charles R. Davis, 16 Oct 2024: “His brain is completely out of commission”: Moderator repeatedly calls out Trump for rambling, subtitled “The 78-year-old Republican could not stay focused nor answer basic questions about tariffs and his economic agenda”
Three weeks to the election, yada yada, polls tied, yada yada, what is half the country thinking??
This sounds about right.
Salon, Chauncey DeVega, 15 Oct 2024: “Brain flaws”: Understanding MAGA as an epidemic disease, subtitled “Epidemiologist Dr. Gary Slutkin: MAGA is a ‘dangerous and lethal syndrome’ of ‘Authoritarian Violence Disorder'”
Is this a surprise?
CNN, 14 Oct 2024: Why education level has become the best predictor for how someone will vote
There are many ways in which Americans are ‘divided’ — women v men, rural v urban, whites v voters of color — in ways that are reflected in their political preferences, but for whatever reason education now seems better than the others for predicting peoples’ votes.
Anything genuinely new today?
Well, yes. Trump is ready to call out the military against his enemies, such as “radical left lunatics,” presumably meaning anyone who doesn’t vote for him.
CNN, 13 Oct 2024: Trump suggests using military against ‘enemy from within’ on Election Day
I skim or glance at so many articles about politics every day, I’m surprised that I haven’t come across this phrase before, considering how this article suggests it’s been around a while. The word, or phrase, is “directionally correct,” and it’s another way to say “lying.”
Slate, Ben Mathis-Lilley, 12 Oct 2024: The Wrong-Direction Election, subtitled “A brief history of a phrase the right uses to justify Trump’s BS.”
The Atlantic, Charlie Warzel, 10 Oct 2024: I’m Running Out of Ways to Explain How Bad This Is, subtitled “What’s happening in America today is something darker than a misinformation crisis.”
Long before Project 2025, it seems, an organization called the Alliance Defending Freedom has been working toward the same goals. (Of course, its use of the term “freedom” is a little like the use of “science” in “Christian Science.”)
Slate, Susan Rinkunas, 10 Oct 2024: Ban Abortion. End Gay Marriage. Outlaw Birth Control., subtitled “A powerful Christian conservative legal group is quietly reshaping America through the courts. Here’s what it’s after.”
Of all the 1950s science fiction films, this one is arguably the most profound, the least typical, and the most liberal. It involves an alien arriving on Earth, but he is not hostile, despite the knee-jerk fears of the military who thinks he must be something dangerous and to be destroyed. Ultimately it’s about humanity, and whether we can mature, overcoming our tribal differences, sufficiently to be worthy of membership into some kind of interstellar community. (Still, for all its high-mindedness, it is not without a few points of naivete about how things work. But they are pretty minor.)
[Draft. I’ll do another pass and fill in/correct details.]
Gist
A peaceful alien with a powerful robot companion comes to Earth to delivery a message: Earth needs to clean up its act, and join the galactic union, or face destruction.
Take
Perhaps the best of the 1950s science fiction, it challenges the notion that aliens are hostile and must be destroyed, and turns its attention to humans and human nature, and what it would take for humanity to join an alliance of other peaceful alien races.
Slate, Jim Newell, 8 Oct 2024: This Does Not Bode Well for the Election, subtitled “The hurricane conspiracy theories spread by Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Marjorie Taylor Greene are really bad, even beyond their obvious danger.”
Summarizing the situation since Helene, and the conspiracy theories that followed…
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