Last week, I posted about the “Dignity Index,” which is a way to raise awareness about whether we are respecting the basic humanity of the person on the other side of the discussion. A few months ago, I listened to Utah Governor Spencer Cox talk about another way to discuss difficult topics, with a system of ideas he called “Disagree Better.” If I had to simplify both ideas down to one sentence, it would be that we should listen respectfully to people we disagree with.
It’s a fine idea on one level. But it assumes that all ideas are worth listening to. And they aren’t. Lies and hate-mongering should not be listened to with respect. They should not be given a platform at all.
Living in a shared community requires a shared reality. A lot of life is reacting to what’s inside our own head — fears, hopes, opinions, desires. If you’ve ever lived with someone who has lost touch with reality through mental illness, or been the mentally ill one yourself, you know how disorienting it is to not agree on what’s real with someone. Someone who is seeing threats that aren’t there; someone who is convinced others are out to hurt them; someone who believes they are worth nothing; someone who refuses to accept a reality that is right before their eyes.
If we don’t even agree on a reality, how can we possibly make decisions together? We may even have core values in common, such as wanting to support families and have a strong economy. But values cannot be translated into action until they’ve filtered through reality.
“Wo unto the liar, for he shall be thrust down to hell.” 2 Nephi 9:34. Among those who are condemned to the telestial kingdom are “whosoever loves and makes a lie.” (D&C 76:103).
There is a difference between a fact and an opinion. The liars and those who love lies pretend that the false facts they spew are actually opinions. There was no widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election; Trump lost. Anyone spreading the Big Lie is not speaking their opinion; they are telling a lie. The Covid vaccine was a triumph of modern science and effective. Anyone spreading around vaccine disinformation is lying, not speaking an opinion.
And so I present a Reality Index to be considered alongside the Dignity Index. I’ve ranked these according to how much damage I think the speakers are doing to our shared reality.
Level One. Deliberate liars who do it for money or power. These people know they’re lying. Fox News had to pay Dominion Voting Systems $787 million dollars because Fox News KNEW that Trump lost the election and yet continued to lie. JD Vance KNOWS that Haitian immigrants are not eating peoples’ pets but his political power depends on stirring up feelings against immigrants. Alex Jones KNEW that kids really died at Sandy Hook.
I don’t believe there is much good in engaging directly with deliberate liars. We have to speak out against them, so that those listening to the lies hear the truth. But deliberate liars are not going to change their conduct.
Level Two. Dementia and some forms of mental illness. Trump is rapidly sliding into this category. Some people honestly can’t distinguish between truth and reality.
This group is hugely challenging. There are some personality disorders that genuinely make people unable to see reality. Instead, everything is skewed and there’s really no way to straighten it out.
No one chooses to develop dementia or mental illness, but they can do damage and so we have to call out the false statements.
Level Three. Conspiracy theorists. These folks love the emotional high of knowing secrets. It makes life exciting to think they’re one of the few who see what’s really going on. It’s hard to engage with conspiracy theorists. Life would be boring if they had to come back to reality. It’s more exciting for them to believe the crazy stuff and that makes them hard to reach.
The best option for communicating with a conspiracy theorist is to not engage with the conspiracies, but to bring them back to reality by focusing on the people they love and the things they enjoy.
Level Four. Bigots. Some people like hating groups of people. If they can blame all the world’s ills on a group of people, they don’t have to do any hard work to genuinely make the world a better place. Bigotry is built on lies. No, one group of people is not responsible for how your life is going.
Call out the hypocrisies and self-interest of this group. They use a lot of generalities that make their arguments weak. Bigots have the capacity to grow and change when they broaden their life experience.
Level Five. Sycophants. These people don’t care whether their beliefs are true or not. They ingratiate themselves by automatically believing anything said by their favorite people and spread it around. The people threatening meteorologists for reporting on weather catastrophes might be in this group.
The first step in engaging with this group is to find out if they can understand the difference between a fact and an opinion.
Level Six. Exaggerating for attention. My examples here should be influencers and people who are social media famous, but I’m not on social media (except tumblr, and no one is influential on tumblr). But I do remember James Frey. He wrote a memoir called, “A Million Tiny Little Pieces” about drug addiction and recovery. It later came out that he exaggerated and falsified his story to make it more dramatic. An example in the LDS community is Paul H. Dunn, who falsified personal anecdotes to give them greater emotional impact.
This level of dishonesty doesn’t influence public policy or stir up anger or hatred against groups of people, so it causes less harm than the previous levels.
Level Seven. People who mean well, but lack critical thinking skills. Some people believe lies because their friends all believe the lies and they want to be part of the group. I put most people deceived by vaccine misinformation in this category.
Calm discussion and pointing out a few facts can sometimes help the people in this group spot manipulation.
Level Eight. Inaccuracies. An inaccuracy doesn’t affect our shared reality much. These are the ones who are two percentage points off in quoting a statistic, or they get a date wrong. These are easily corrected, and the speaker apologizes and does not have a pattern of lying.
Level Nine. Critical thinkers. These people check several sources to verify information. They know how to spot bias in reporting. They avoid exaggeration and focus on specifics. These people don’t speak in superlatives. They make an effort to be accurate and to provide sources for factual claims. They can change their minds and are willing to learn and be educated.
This one is the goal.
Level Ten. The fact-checkers. These are the people or groups who have built their reputation on telling the truth. When they make an erroneous statement, they correct it. They have integrity and place high value on the fact that they are trusted. They take steps to protect their reputation for honesty by being transparent and candid about their sources and their methods for verifying facts.
That’s my effort to differentiate between levels of unreality and alternative facts. These are also known as lies. Again, working together as a community and a country requires a shared reality. The division in our country can’t be healed by more civility in discussions. Healing will require a return to a shared reality, a connection to facts, and thorough debunking of divisive lies.
You all know my political affiliation (Democrat). I know there will be some “both sidesism” in the comments. But I’ve got to point out that the gateway to being an influential Republican is to be a Level One liar. Any Republican who admits Trump lost in 2020 gets sidelined and then defeated in the next election. I know there are a lot of Republicans who see the dangers of Trump and Trumpism and I look forward to this group of Republicans regaining control of their political party. Please, keep fighting the good fight.
There’s a reason the dialogue has gotten so uncivil. There’s no way to speak politely and rationally with someone who is twisting reality into lies.
Questions:
- Yeah, probably going to be some disagreement in the comments. Keep it above Level Three on the Dignity Index please.
- What do you do for reality checks?
- What sources do you trust?
Edited to add one more category:
Level Undefinable. Reality is unknowable and facts can be defeated by vibes. Ignore the real world and base your opinions on word salad. No one is better than anyone else; to reject all is to rise above all.
Wheat & Tares 
I have noticed in my discussions with Trump supporters that some of them are willing to say they know he lies, constantly, yet they repeat as truth things they have admitted knowing is a lie. And…I just don’t understand the inconsistency. They love him so much they are willing to lie just to try to make other people love him too. Yet, ask them what it is they love about him and they say something to the effect that he is the only one telling the truth.
So, they know he lies, but his known lies are more “truth” than reality that they know is reality. They want to believe his lies because it makes them feel good to believe what they know is false. ?????
Before we work to hard to improve artificial intelligence, maybe we should do something about human intelligence.
And Governor Cox. I have to work with these people so I might as well step into their reality and support their lies. Did he even LISTEN to himself. My respect for the man went down to tube so fast. He sold his soul for political purposes and that makes him no better than the ones he was refusing to respect just the week before. He wanted to be a respectable and principled Republican, but because he says he has to work with lying crooks, he is going to become a liar too.
But then I vote in Idaho, so our politicians are worse and I just throw my Democrat vote into the Republiscum swamp. I mean, come on. Ammon Bundy…..well, I guess Utah had Lyman so there’s that.
Until Trump, my husband and I were pretty independent voters, with him leaning heavily Republican and me pretty much in the middle. Now, we are both voting straight Democrat because nobody who is a respectable Republican is left.
But I have tried to understand what it is that Trump supporters see in him, and other than loving the hatred he spews, I just can’t see anything.
Masterful work!
Maybe Level 7 includes people who really believe a lie, or choose to believe a lie, because it might hurt too much to acknowledge a painful or inconvenient truth.
Anna, I agree with you that there are many people voting for Trump who are blinded by the MAGA rhetoric. And I agree that many Republican office holders and office seekers have effectively sold their souls to earn the MAGA blessing. A common error that people make is to group unlike people into common categories, such as writing “I have tried to understand what it is that Trump supporters see in him, and other than loving the hatred he spews, I just can’t see anything.” I can see something else. Trump supporters come in at least two varieties–(1) those whom you assess as loving the hatred he spews (and these people exist), and (2) those who are looking for something different, and they’ve tried to figure out Harris her promises and her ability to deliver, and they’re not finding much.
I think that a lot of the people who cast votes for Trump will be more voting against what they see as the vacuity and hollowness that Harris appears to them to bring to the table, than they will be voting for Trump and MAGA craziness. These people know that Biden won the election in 2020, they abhor the January 6th Capitol events, they tend to be conservative, and they might not like Trump. People can holler all they want that voting for Trump is bad, but that’s an opinion, and it doesn’t make those voters bad people. I think that some people will do what Pope Francis suggested: weigh both, and then make your best choice.
I’d like to think I’m a fact checker. I read books, I listen to NPR, I research claims from multiple sources and I change my mind if I find that there’s a problem with an issue I’ve researched. Still I know we all have blind spots. I do agree that it seems that Republicans today are much more willful in their disregard of the truth but they are really good at justifying it. I also know Democrats have problems too but I think the leadership at Federal, State, and local levels work really hard to be truthful. I also know from working in a large Union (Teachers) that every effort is made to verify, verify, verify, anything said so as to not misrepresent anything. It is hard though when you are talking with those that deny everything Democrats say.
Georgis, your second group of Trump supporters still don’t make sense to me. Someone sees vacuity and hollowness in Harris, so the preferred choice is dishonesty, more Jan. 6, proto-dictatorial, vengeance, nonsensical tariff-happy economics, etc.? I’m not calling your second group bad people, but I am calling that decision incoherent.
your food allergy – thanks for saying that. Yeah, the decision between the liar who tried to overthrow the results of a free and fair election and someone who is being accused of being ‘vacuous’ and ‘hollow’ (what does that even mean? are there not any real criticisms so they’re resorting to vague insults?) should really not be a close call.
We don’t have to guess what more of Trump would be.
How much money went to his associates who built “the wall” which, if we are to believe the Republican rhetoric, has done NOTHING to stop immigration? Nor has ANY part of it been paid for by Mexico.
When a hurricane ravaged Puerto Rico he, literally, and I really mean “literally”, threw paper towels at desperate survivors.
When Covid-19 ravaged the rest of us he shook off the death toll while bedeviling and vilifying the arm of our government that was working night and day to understand and cope with the virus. Can anyone forget Dr. Birx standing behind him and visibly cringing at advice he gave the American people.
He decimated the State Department and installed toadies who sat at White House meetings telling him how brilliant he was. Now scores of major military and diplomatic personnel and his own senior staff are trying to warn the American people how deranged and motivated by revenge the man is.
We know how all his hotels grossly overcharged the taxpayers to house security staff as he traveled the East Coast playing golf and relaxing at Mar-a-Lago.
We don’t have to project what another Trump administration would be. If a Harris administration had individual policies anyone disagrees with at least it wouldn’t be insane and dangerous and cost the American taxpayers what the Trump administration DID and WILL DO.
Ah, incoherent decisions! Why did she marry him when we all knew he was a loser? What was he thinking when he quit his job? Why didn’t she keep her mouth shut? Can you give me one good reason why he invested in that so-called opportunity? What was she thinking when she turned her back on her baby in the bathtub? Why did he leave his child alone with that dog? It is very easy to sit in one’s armchair and say that someone else’s decision is/was incoherent, but is/was it incoherent at the time to the person who made the decision?
I frequently don’t understand people, but I do try not to put labels on them. I don’t think that most people in my second category who will vote against Harris and for Trump are choosing “dishonesty, more Jan. 6, proto-dictatorial, vengeance, nonsensical tariff-happy economics.” They’ve looked at the candidates, parties, and policies, and they’ve made an honest choice as citizens. Some people are voting against Trump more than they are voting for Harris, and they also looked at the candidates, parties, and policies and made an honest choice. I think that two intelligent people can look at a problem and come away with two different solutions, and one needn’t be right and the other wrong. We don’t have to hate and demonize people who make other choices, whether it be in politics, religion, or other domains.
Georgis, you make an excellent point about trying to understand why people make the decisions they make. Understanding and tolerance are in too short supply when they not only help us be more generous to others but also feel better about the folks we live with. But choosing totalitarianism over democracy is a different order of event.
Trump is a totalitarian in his heart and will be doing his best to be a totalitarian in action in a second term. This is not a benign outcome that those of us who want the same blessings of liberty that we have had for our children and grandchildren.
I added another category that Georgis reminded me of.
Yes, people who vote for Trump are choosing “dishonesty, more Jan. 6, proto-dictatorial, vengeance, nonsensical tariff-happy economics.” You think someone can vote for Trump and NOT get those things? How?
It’s time to empty out the spam folder again janey. My comments are getting hung up.
Kamala’s Hitler/fascist comments about Trump are an excellent example of pure unreality. She is channeling Hitler’s 1939 Reichstag speech with her menacing apocalyptic speech. She’s losing millions of votes as she shifts her message from joy to hate. She’s equating Trump with the death of 7 million Jews. That’s a total disconnect from reality.
Godwin’s Law judges Kamala. When you invoke Hitler for a political meme you demean the Holocaust. Trump has many Jewish relatives. Kamala ignores that, and comes off as insensitive, boorish and unintelligent. By using Hitler’s methods she projects herself, not Trump, as a fascist.
I expect you to downvote this post, which will certify your partisan and religious hypocrisy.
Georgis, again, this is not hating or demonizing. I genuinely want to understand how your theoretical Trump voter is thinking, and so far your explanation is that they are making an “honest decision” after looking at candidates, parties, and policies. Unless you can explain more specifically how Trump is not worse than “vacuity,” it seems like an irrational, reality-agnostic decision to me.
I think bigots are more harmful to reality than conspiracy theorists and people with dementia. This is totally anecdotal, but it seems like there a lot more of them than there are people with dementia. Also, racism is the foundation of the vast majority of harmful conspiracy theories.
Edited conversation with a MAGAturd: “Biden did this horrible thing and that horrible thing. What do you think?” “That’s terrible. It shouldn’t be allowed.” “Sorry, tRump was the person who did that.” “It doesn’t bother me. I still support him.”
Hmmm, I think conspiracy theorists are worse for society than bigots, because conspiracy theorists actively try to persuade others of their wacko beliefs. Of course, many conspiracy theorists are also bigots, and vice versa.
Georgis, yes, it does make those voters bad people. They are bigots because his bigotry isn’t a dealbreaker. They are misogynists because his misogyny isn’t a dealbreaker. They are dishonest because his dishonesty isn’t a dealbreaker. They’re racists because his racism isn’t a dealbreaker. They’re bad people because his Fascistic wet dreams aren’t a dealbreaker for them. Just because they bring you a casserole doesn’t make them good people.
Harris didn’t say anything about Trump being a Fascist until she was asked by the news media about what Kelly said about Trump. That being Trump’s admiration for Hitler and the relationship Trump perceived that he had with his generals. No, Trump hasn’t killed 7 million Jewish people or countless other millions of people who didn’t fit his Arian view of perfection. But Trump’s language and what he says he admires seem to reflect Hitler’s pre-1937 statements and actions. So, people are calling it what it appears to be and what they are afraid it might turn into if we just let it go forward. History does repeat itself.
As for people saying Harris doesn’t have this or that or that she’s weak or whatever it is, either because they haven’t found out who she is (read her books or studied her past) or they are stuck in the past in their views about women not being able to lead. When people put her down or start insinuating insulting things like her sleeping her way to the top, I lose respect for the person talking that way.
Since we’re talking about the Reality Index, it’s time people realize the new reality that women can lead as well as men; minorities can rule as well as whites, and the best leaders show compassion, integrity, and vision about how we can attain what the Constitution promises for ALL people.
tthq, To be frank, your ‘contributions’ on political-themed posts are nothing more than what a politcally-triggered troll-bot would write. Why not bring some of the same acumen to these conversations that you do when you comment about, say, LDS church history? Ending a post with “I expect you to downvote this post, which will certify your partisan and religious hypocrisy” is weak and, frankly, immature and low-class. If you really wanted to contribute to these posts, maybe you could step it up a bit? I don’t know, just a suggestion. It’s honestly getting more and more difficult to take your other comments as serious when write like this.
thhq – what sources are telling you that Harris made those comments? Because everything I’ve seen lines up more with how Instereo described the situation (thank you for that, Instereo). Your comments on political posts have raised my suspicions about the reliability of your sources for news. My post criticizing Fox News really hit a nerve with you. From that, I concluded that you like Fox News and therefore I don’t trust your facts at all. Fox News is a Level One Liar. They lie so deliberately they had to pay more than three quarters of a billion dollars to Dominion Voting Systems. If you heard it on Fox News, it was a lie. Lies. Lies. Lies. This post is about reality, and so you’ll have to turn off Fox News.
thhq – I checked the spam folder. Nothing from you was in there.
your food allergy – that phrase, ‘reality-agnostic’, is so descriptive! I’m going to start using that. There really are people who think you can’t know what actually happened. And while that’s true in some situations (like ancient history), in situations like whether Trump really has expressed admiration for Hitler’s generals and thinks Putin is a great guy, you can find out what happened.
surething and ji – your comments about where you would rank the various categories are valid. I went back and forth on whether bigots or conspiracy theorists do more harm, and you’re right that there is a lot of overlap in those two categories. As for why I ranked dementia and delusions/paranoia caused by mental illness so high — that was for Trump’s sake. Trump has always had difficulty with reality. He couldn’t have done nearly as much harm as he has without all the Level One Liars to back him up. But all on his own, I think Trump carries that second category to being as dangerous as it is. Sick people who don’t have his circle of influence don’t do such widespread harm; I agree with that. Trump is a rare individual.
vajra2 – a second thumbs up from me for your comment about Trump voters.
Sorry Brian. I’ve given you a pile of reference material on historic dirty tricks by Remini and Dallek. Have you read them? When you do, we’ll talk. Maybe you’ll be cured of your terminal partisanship. I’ve presented a realpolitik argument for why Harris is falling behind and you blow me off as a bot. That’s a pile of bot crap. You’re smart enough to engage in a debate bot to bot.
Want me to hate on Trump? Easily done. He didn’t lock Hillary up, he didn’t drain the swamp, he let Fauci run the country, and he ran up $7 trillion in debt. Satisfied?
On November 6, I’m stuck with one or the other of them. The debt will continue to skyrocket. I won’t be whimpering over the loser, just trying to figure out the next set of hedges depending on which one of them wins.
Someone emptied the spam folder again and a few more of my old posts showed up. Hawkgrrrl?
Nearly all the criticism I hear of Harris are people repeating trumps description of her. Like thhq repeating what a republican add says, and someone saying she’s, vacuous. So those people are repeating trump lies rather than finding the truth.
I watched an interview with a general who was an advisor to Obama and trump. He said he provided briefing papers to both of them Obama read them and came back with questions. Trump read the headings and ignored them. He was also on senate committee with Harris who he said was very intelligent and informed, and came back with action plans to discuss.
The add about trump and Hitler is another trump lie. She responded to a question “did she think trump was a facist” with yes I do. One of his previous military aids said that trump was a facist and admired Hitler and the unquestioning support of his generals. He also said trump wanted the George Floyd protesters shot. Kamala is married to a jew, she would understand the sensitivity.
From overseas it is difficult to understand why people support trump. One thought is that America is one of the most Christian country, and that their religion has groomed them to believe without fact checking, as that is seen as disloyal. They are just treating him like they do their religious leaders. I did hear him referred to as the orange mesiah.
You hit no nerve janey, but thanks for profiling me. I don’t watch Fox News. I live in a Welfare State, not Utah or Idaho. All I have to do is look outside.
It takes 5 seconds to google out Harris’s CNN interview. She was lambased by people like Anderson Cooper who tried to chase her down multiple rabbit trails without getting anything other than evasive gibberish. WaPo and LA Times are withholding endorsements. How many times must you listen to live interviews of Harris calling Trump a fascist before you finally hear what she said? When you finally do, THINK about what it means.
It’s a bad look to me. Joy has been replaced by Hate. I’m glad you see rainbows and moonbeams.
Geoff, I do indulge in Sky News from time to time. Especially to keep up with Harry and Meghan. But everything I have said has been on NBC, CBS and CNN. I read whatever news I can find that’s not behind a paywall.
Sorry to disappoint you but I am not hard wired to Trump. When I saw him handing out fries at McDonalds he looked like Bob’s Big Boy. It was funny. Everyone in the world saw it the same way I did. There is no agenda.
Someone please empty the spam file again. None of my comments come through when I post them.
When I say “hypocrisy”, I mean lockstep partisanship. What I have said about Harris’s fascist accusations are easily documented without resorting to Fox News. Yet my comment has been parsed and discarded as untrue. I sense a circling of the wagons around Harris against the bloodthirsty MAGA maniac. Can you actually handle the truth about the situation? What happened to the joy campaign? We’re back to Biden’s old epithets, with two weeks to go.
Janey – Just FYI on the Spam filter. I’m seeing him go to the Trash folder also. I literally can’t see a reason, but I just grabbed two new ones.
thhq – right now, you appear to be the only one with this issue (it has happened to others in the past, but not recently), so whatever is happening is on your end for some reason.
That said, reconsider the quantity of your comments. I’m sure the quality of them is beyond your control given what I’m seeing so far. I don’t need Harris to tell me Trump is a fascist. His own violent authoritarian rhetoric and his actions on January 6th already made that clear. Hearing the same from a 4 star general (who didn’t endorse Harris) was an unnecessary but welcome event. Where is the joy? After he loses yet again. Believe me, there will be joy on that day.
I keep seeing people say that it’s like hiring a plumber, and you don’t care about the person’s character; you just want someone willing to get dirty. Well, how about when that plumber grabs your wife by the p***y? Anybody want to hire that plumber now? You’re decrying Harris going negative, but Trump has done nothing but go negative. I don’t like negative campaigning either, but saying SHE’s the negative one is pretty damn rich.
Hypocrisy doesn’t mean lockstep partisanship; it means you believe or say one thing but do another.
The OP is a model of a Reality Index, and part of reality is the distortions and double standards we sometimes see. Someone recently said something along the lines of “Why are some people demanding Harris to be flawless, while giving Trump a pass to be lawless?” This approach certainly lives at the lower levels of the model.
I’m used to posting at WSJ, at a rate of dozens per thread, among dozens of other posters doing the same thing responding to each other in real time. A really active discussion can accrue 1000-2000 comments in a day. I sense that this might overload your system.
thhq: Yes that’s definitely not the pace of our little coffee klatch here. WSJ has a whole lot wider reach. Fishing your comments out of spam can’t be anyone’s full time job as it is a manual process. Again, no idea why you are going there.
thhq, it’s possible if you’re logged into a different email account on one forum than you are using when posting on another this might trigger an alert via cookies or … depending on forum settings perhaps… I seem to be fine commenting on W&T, but when I try commenting on BCC that frequently fails. I believe both are on WordPress.
I sometimes get through on BCC if I am actually already logged in to WordPress, when I am entering my password to comment. But the email address I use for WordPress is not the email address I might use on something like Reddit for example.
Not generally a fan of your comments however.
thhq – when you comment more than ten times on a thread (the Fox News one) with words that get increasingly defensive and accusatory, I assume something hit a nerve. You’ve commented six times in this thread already, and apparently even more comments have been lost.
Slow down and calm down.
When Harris was asked if Trump was a fascist, she replied that yes, he is a fascist. A fascist is a real word with a real definition and Trump meets the definition of a fascist.
I live in Chester County, PA, near Philly (interestingly enough, I just read an article that suggested I’m living in one of three counties that could decide the national presidential election.) Moved here from Los Angeles 18 years ago. I’m Republican and at this point my wife and three daughters all Democrat. We will all be voting for Harris for all of the reasons commenters here have already outlined.
I thought this group might be interested in my observations here on the ground.
My very serious question to the admins is this: At what point do frequent, off-topic comments such as “Janey, it’s sad that Harris does your thinking for you,” (which in no way contribute to the discussion, are meant entirely to provoke, are insulting, demeaning, and have no basis in reality) come into question. It brings down the whole blog, the atmosphere, the discussion. These are comments are impossible to constructively respond to, obviously. They are the comments of a troll who wishes to use this blog as a megaphone, who is using this space to spread disinformation, anger, and contempt. These aren’t comments like Jack’s, which are, at times, insensitive, rote. Jack’s comments are at least made in good faith. After an initial period of at least a modicum of deocrum, thhq’s comments are far, far afield from that. What would this blog gain/lose by restricting one person’s comments. What does it gain/lose from retaining them. Are these discussions occurring?
In the end, I acknowldge people often paint in broad strokes in comments (often in reaction to conservative commenters like Jack and Georgis, for instance, who, at least appear sincere and and respectful of the blog even when attack), but thhq’s contionious broad-stroke that is so frequently demeaning of/to the community here starts to make me question both my continued participation in a space that I used to come to to find varied, but mostly civil discourse, but am now finding more uncivil and on-topic. Again, this totally happens from all sides, but, as noted by others, the numerous, base-reactive, aggresive quality of tthq’s comments are, to me at least, like a cancer to this blog rather and a foreign irritant which makes it stronger and healthier. Just me tow cents.
Excellent post. Trump is Level 1.
As to the idea that Harris is vacuous and hollow, these are nothing but baseless right-wing talking points. A mere glance at Harris’s platform reveals quite the opposite. Plus Harris’s economic policies will save us from further runaway inflation. Trump’s policies will produce inflation. Bear in mind that Georgis regularly comes on here posing as a centrist but repeats right-wing platitudes and talking points (and even sometimes demonstrably incorrect right-wing disinformation). Never once has he said anything negative about Trump.
In a fast moving blog conciseness is key. Dissertations are hard to address, fall down the thread and disappear. I’m addressing the Reality Index when I judge Kamala’s Trump fascist trope. But I failed to grade it. It fails the reality test on points 1,3,4,6,7 and 8.
Brian – you’re correct. Personal attacks violate our comment policy. I’ve removed thhq’s comment.
thhq – you’re at Level One lies on the Reality Index in your summary of Harris, Trump, and Hitler. The facts are that Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly went on the record this week to say the former president fits the definition of a fascist, would govern like a dictator and has no concept of the Constitution. Hitler came into the discussion because Kelly described a conversation with Trump in which Trump said that Hitler had done some good things, and that he (Trump) wished he had general like Hitler’s generals. Then a reporter asked Harris if she thought Trump was a fascist, and she answered that yes, Trump is a fascist.
This thread really isn’t moving that fast, at least not at the rate of 1,000 comments an hour. You can take a minute to check your facts. Your first comment on this thread, in which you summarized your beliefs about what Harris said about Trump, is completely wrong. It is lies. You are believing and repeating a lie.
thhq – please make your next comment your last one. I’m not the only one in this thread who would like to get the discussion back on topic.
Gavin Duckworth – that was a really thoughtful and valuable comment. Thank you for chiming in. I know a few people who intend to vote for Trump as well, and they are similar to the people you describe. Afraid of change, and not paying much attention.
I hope future comments can focus more on comments like Gavin’s.
It’s worth knowing that the LA Times and Washington Post did not choose not to endorse as an editorial decision. Both were prohibited from endorsing by Trump-leaning owners.
The Washington Post has an editorial cartoon this morning decrying the situation. Please don’t pretend that their failure to endorse is an indictment of Harris. The population here is far too sophisticated to swallow such nonsense. And the fact that someone does reflects on the honesty or intelligence of such a person.
LA Times and WaPo endorsed Biden. The owners are the same.
When I run the thought experiment of Kevin Harris, Biden’s vice president for the last four years, a former senator and attorney general of the most populous state in the country, running for president with an 80+ page outline of plans for the economy, and a series of talking points he frequently touts, I can’t conceive of a world in which anybody would call him vacuous. Experienced and on-message, or if we’re being Foxnewsy “calculated and repetitive,” but vacuous? Nope.
She’s (wisely, imo—it’s a lose-lose) not talking about it, but the sexism in this country is so entrenched. Any woman who’s even minimally aware of how patriarchy works sees it from a mile away. Plenty of men do too.
I suppose this falls under level 4, but it feels a lot more pernicious than that.
Rebuttal is common courtesy on blogs and in debates.
Something I’ve noticed in conversations with conspiracy theorists types who predict doom is that they never keep track of how often they’re wrong. All the people who said Armageddon was starting after 9/11 were wrong. People who predicted that the USA’s economy was finished after the 2008 crash were wrong. Everyone who was sure that the covid vaccine would cause widespread harm missed the mark entirely. You would think that the ones who predict the world’s coming destruction would eventually notice that their predictions never come true. Or at least the people who listen to the doom-sayers would notice that and stop trusting them. Some do, I’m sure. But people predicting the downfall of western civilization never get it right. At some point, they’ve blown their credibility and we don’t have to listen to them anymore.
Then you evaluate the predictions of climate scientists and look at how we can visibly see the climate changing around us. That ‘doom’ is actually happening. Conspiracy theorists say climate change is a hoax, and I just can’t figure out how conspiracy theorists can never look at their own predictions of doom (that don’t happen) and not see that all their conspiracy-based doom is a hoax.
My experience with friends and family supporting Donald Trump mirrors Gavin Duckworth, and I’m on the left coast.
I’ve mentioned this before on the blog, and I suppose I’ll mention it again. I view this blog as a godsend. I truly get frustrated by the few commenters that repeat the same thing multiple times in each and every discussion, but I choose not to engage. It really takes away their power. I guess not all commenters would agree. That’s fine. It just makes it harder to enjoy the discussion for me.
Said another way in the context of this post (thanks Janey!), if your communication styles are in levels 1-6, I’m just not interested in talking to you. And that’s not limited just to politics. It also includes religion and the great pumpkin.
The Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos. The LA Times is owned by Patrick Soon-Shiong. Those are two different people.
In the interests of letting other people comment in this post, I’m going to ration thhq to 10% of the posts. Put another way, thhq can only leave one comment in every ten posts. Put yet another way, at least nine comments have to separate thhq’s posts. Using thhq’s 11:43 a.m. comment as the starting point. With this comment, there are now four comments since thhq’s last comment. If thhq makes another comment before another five people have commented, I’ll delete it.
at Gavin Duckworth
Former Chester Co resident here—now living in California. We have very fond memories of our time living in Chester Co., I’m guessing some of our former neighbors might be voting for Trump, others, Harris too.
Why oh why is the Republican Party embracing someone like Trump?
Why not someone like a John McCain, Mike Pence etc?—-who would honor their oath to the uphold the Constitution?
The thing is, Republicans have Corporations a huge tax cut—and Trump has talked about lowering taxes again for corporations—and imposing tariffs (which will increase the cost of goods).
How did families benefit from that tax cut? Higher wages? Nope. Lower prices? Nope.
I feel like the Republican Party has turned in the party of pre-teen and teenagers. They’re supporting the “bully” so they can be “cool.”
at Lois
I’m with you 100%. The Republican Party is such an embarrassment to me at this point. My wife left a few years ago. I keep thinking that at some point the party will be done with Trump. Couldn’t be more disappointed in how that has played out the past four years.
Also agreed that the core MAGA believers are the teenage mentality you describe (at least what I observe first hand here). But I do go back to my original comment that most Republicans I interact with here are simply not willing to look past their normal conservative goals/fears and therefore will vote the Republican candidate (and they always say “I don’t really like Trump but I don’t trust the democrats”. Frustrating.
Another example. The person that cuts my hair. LOVE her. She told me she heard Trump won’t tax her tip money so she is voting for him but “I don’t really like him.”
Also, small anecdotal support for my claim that most of my neighbors are just not paying attention or that into it: no political posters on any one’s lawns but we do fly the Eagles colors proudly throughout.
I’m sorry America. I don’t know what more to do here in a state that will play a huge role in the final outcome.
In 1776 Conservatives wanted a king. In 2024 same thing.
In 1861 Conservatives wanted slavery. In 2024 same thing.
In 1939 Conservatives were indifferent to the rise of Fascism. In 2024 same thing.
I might be off here, but I thought I read somewhere that this blog was about topics related to Mormonism.
Out of of the 47 comments so far, only 1 of them mentioned the LDS church – Brian mentioned it tangentially. (And the OP had a line about Paul H. Dunn in the original post).
Has this blog changed to “Sometimes it’s about Mormonism and sometimes it’s about politics”?
My effort to make a comment relating to Mormonism is in response to those who say that anyone who votes republican is supporting dishonesty, bigotry, racism, sexism and the like and so the labels of bigot, racist, sexist, etc… apply to them.
I also see this logic applied by people who say that if you eat a Chick-fil-a sandwich you support homophobia, and you are homophobic. And I hear it from ex-mormons who say that if you attend the Mormon church you’re supporting dishonesty, racism, bigotry, and sexism… and so the labels of bigot, racist, sexist apply to you.
I think this is absolutely a straw man argument. It’s black and white level thinking at the lower levels of both the dignity index and the reality index.
Go ahead and check the following statement using levels 9 and 10 on the reality index: “There are good people who are voting republican this year and it’s not because they’re racist, sexist, bigots, and there are good people who are attending the LDS church this week, and it’s not because they’re racist, sexist, bigots.” When I use critical thinking and fact checking, I find that the above statement checks out.
aporetic1 I am not a Mormon. But I have been put on comment restriction for applying Janey’s Reality Index to Kamala Harris’s statements about fascists. So watch your step.
Janey,
The anti vaccine folks still believe the COVID vaccines have killed millions. They hear all kinds of anecdotal evidence from their news sources and they feel very vindicated by these reports about their doubts about the vaccines. I have heard that from plenty of MAGA folks in northern Nevada. They still aren’t getting vaccinated. They will tell you it’s a lot better to just get COVID.
They also don’t believe in global warming even though there has been regular examples of extreme weather. Why? There has always been times of extreme weather. It’s easy to just think each event is more of what has always been. Seeing the reality that they are happening much more frequently requires looking beyond today and reading statistics. After all, they are happening all over the country. If you don’t read the news you can just believe your weather problems are just a local curiosity.
thhq, if not LDS or affiliated witb LDS, why post here? I wouldn’t dream of commenting in Catholic sites, although I do read a couple. I don’t post at Protestant or Muslim sites, either, because I have no affiliation with them. OK to read because we can grow, but why be argumentative with a group with whom you have no association? I don’t see the draw unless it is to stir someone else’s pot. I have posted here because I care about my LDS family, and I see some painting with a wide brush in calling all Trump voters bigots, racists, ignorant, etc. I agree that some in our community are, but those among the enlightened who label others as bigots, racists, and ignorant are often themselves displaying bigoted, racist, and ignorant behaviors in their broad brush judgments. I would hope that we would be more tolerant in the greater LDS community, which includes active, inactives, disaffected, and former members who care about the community.
It has been fascinating, but also sad, to sit on the sidelines and watch this conversation fall apart. I’ll give thhq the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are sincere in their belief that they are being treated unfairly because other commenters don’t agree with their politics. thhq also keeps complaining that we don’t follow the patterns found on other sites they frequent, and keeps ignoring advice that they are acting badly given the norms of this site. It’s so hard for us to recognize and accept when we are behaving badly, when we are the ones causing the problems. This has been a valuable reminder to me that I need to both be honest with myself and careful to treat others with respect. That is actually an important sub lesson for these topics.
aporetic1 – there’s an election less than two weeks away. Look for more LDS-focused posts when it’s over.
thhq – you got put on comment restrictions for hijacking the entire discussion with multiple posts telling lies about what Harris actually said. Not sure that makes you the victim.
The discussion on this post has actually been a good example of the problems I addressed in this post. It’s pretty close to impossible to have a productive discussion with someone who lives in a different reality. Believing that the big problem in this week’s news is Harris agreeing that Trump is a fascist is detached from the actual news. That news story was actually about former Chief of Staff John Kelly warning of the severe danger of a Trump presidency, based on Kelly’s interactions with Trump back in his first term. Many other members of Trump’s first administration also joined in to provide a strong warning about Trump’s stated intention to be an authoritarian and a dictator. And yet someone telling lies has twisted that important warning into a false accusation against Harris. You can’t even have a discussion about what the people who worked with Trump think about him because the liars ignore the substance of Kelly’s statements and try to turn Trump into the victim.
The Reality Index exposes the real problem. If you can’t agree on what happened, and what someone actually said, you can’t have a normal, rational discussion. Instead, we get blasted with a bunch of lies in a series of rapid-fire posts, none of which are connected to what actually happened, and drowning out everyone else. And then the victim card comes out when I try to limit the lying.
This is the problem. Right here in this comment thread. Thanks thhq, for illustrating the problem so well. We get it. You can go back to leaving 1,000 comments on WSJ now.
thhq posts so much sometimes my eyes just glaze over and now I really don’t even pay attention to what he writes. But to that point, there are people who just inhabit alternate realities, have nested there, and it may be impossible to have productive conversations with them. Which, of course, is fine. We don’t have to engage in conversation. But it isn’t just Trump supporters for me (as a Democrat), it is some libertarians (some are ok) and some aggressive centrists and bothsidesists who are just so in love with the idea of appearing above the fray and equally blaming of both sides (as if it is some novel idea that no one has ever heard) that they are immune to any sort of idea that one side is better than the other, or the idea that there is more to US politics than just two sides and that political alignment is incredibly complex. I have a couple of bothsidesists in my family, who are also self-identifying libertarians, with whom I’ve given up talking about politics. They think they hold a position that is just so right and unimpeachable, and when I express disagreement with the fundamentals of their idea about both sides (which they’ve been saying ever since I’ve known them), they get very defensive and accuse me of being blind to the excesses of the Democrats or liberals or some sort of liberal boogeyman that they’ve made up in their minds. On several occasions they take it personally and can get offended. They espouse militant centrism and will claim that the earth is oval-shaped if it comes to the topic of whether flat-earthers or spherical-earthers are right. It seems a vapid belief system that really lacks conviction in anything except the core tenet of both sides being blind and centrists being enlightened. It is also actually unwittingly a right-leaning ideology despite its vehement denials that it is not right-wing.
Then there are people who have more complex political beliefs with whom I disagree on occasion but with whom I share an underlying commitment to the fundamentals of reason, decency, common sense, and respect for experts and evidence. I have no problem with those sorts of disagreements and find interaction with such people enlightening and sometimes even change my perspective after discussion with them.
Georgis, I thought about your previous comments about how people can vote for Trump without being bigots, racists, misogynists themselves. I believe I understand what you’re saying and I’m going to try and clarify your point by using more specific behavior.
Trump has sexually assaulted women, and then publicly mocked and ridiculed his victims. Not everyone who votes for Trump has raped someone and then ridiculed them to a worldwide audience.
Trump has committed serious financial fraud, and was convicted for 34 separate felonies for falsifying financial statements. Not everyone who votes for Trump has committed financial fraud.
That’s what your getting at, right?
I disagree with your statement here: “I see some painting with a wide brush in calling all Trump voters bigots, racists, ignorant, etc. I agree that some in our community are, but those among the enlightened who label others as bigots, racists, and ignorant are often themselves displaying bigoted, racist, and ignorant behaviors in their broad brush judgments.” This appears to assume that ‘bigot’ and ‘racist’ are just generalized insults. They are words with specific meanings. A racist is a person who believes that one race is superior to other races. We can certainly identify racism in other people without being racists ourselves. Same with bigotry. Those words aren’t just insults like ‘jerk’ where you could believably conclude that someone calling someone else a ‘jerk’ is also behaving like a jerk.
There are good people who are voting for Trump. Gavin Duckworth described them. People who don’t pay attention to politics, who have always voted for conservative and aren’t interested in learning details about what’s going on. They can be good people and vote for Trump.
However. And this is where you and I differ in our opinions. And that’s fine – you can have a different opinion than me. If someone knows Trump has committed sexual assault, financial fraud, encouraged a coup, is a racist, is a bigot, and lies frequently, and that person (who knows what sort of person Trump is) wants Trump to be one of the ten most powerful men on earth, then I don’t believe (my opinion) that person is a good person.
I have mixed feelings about both major candidates. I will choose one on election day. I will support whichever candidate wins according to the Electoral College result. We will need to come together in peace as a nation.
Tom Irvine, I’ll never compromise my values and stop demanding justice. If Trump wins, I won’t stop calling for the abolition of the very undemocratic Electoral College. I won’t stop calling for justice for Trump. He has been convicted of 34 felonies and indicted for dozens more. No one is above the law. He needs to serve a sentence for his convictions and stand trial for impending indictments. I will call for Trump to step down if he wins. He is a traitor to the Constitution. He is a pathological liar and danger to the US. I will stand strong against the tyranny he has promised to impose. For this country was founded on opposition to tyranny. I will never accept Trump as a legitimate leader. He violated the Constitution over and over and should not be allowed to be president according to the Constitution itself, which bars insurrectionists from ever holding office. I will fight against the tides of fascism that are taking hold on so much of the country. Trump is a fascist. His own appointees have called him that. I will never accept him.
When commenting on vintage blogs, I’ve found that it’s courteous to read the room.
Thanks to Janey for this OP, and I noticed in the early comments so many rapid-fire snippets of dubious facts, all by one interlocutor. Thank you for regulating that, because I liked considering the conservative perspectives brought in good faith by other commenters.
I saw the failures of the LA Times and WaPo owners to endorse Harris-Walz when their employees were preparing to do so, and found the public statement by senior WaPo columnists, on record opposing their employer, to be illuminating regarding the paper’s action and motive. I tried to find news reports about either paper by other media, but it was crickets, at least for a couple of days. Except for the Columbia Journalism Review, from which I learned about the LA Times editorial columnist who had resigned, and the WaPo senior writers’ statement. Since then I’ve seen a few more media reports, but it’s all being eclipsed now by the shock of the ugliness of Republicans in Madison Square Garden with “spiritual sheets & pitchforks” and goose-stepping with their Führer.
Anyway , I appreciate Janey for organizing my gut feelings so well with this post. I think, in terms of numbers, Level 4 (Bigots) is the largest problem. The sheer numbers of people empowered by seeing raw bigotry at the highest levels of government have brought us to this point. Deconstructing how bigotry works isn’t useful for my comment on this post, but I think it’s possible that folks know it’s evil because so few people admit their bigotry, even to themselves. It’s always been thus, and throughout history there’s been all manner of doublespeak word salad cooked up to cover up the sins of bigotry. But what shocks me is how widespread it is in 2024, and how this underlying motivation isn’t that hard to see. People take pride in it. (!!)
I also think that these Levels are sometimes complicated and layered, with individuals, groups, and stated positions that can be categorized at different levels at the same time. And the most mystifying and confusing thing is when your own loved friends and family support something or someone involved in promoting destructive lies. I have a family member who is trans, and another family member who is vocally anti-trans, in public. It can, and has dismantled our family solidarity and good will with a single sentence.
I am multi-level too, I try to be at level 9 and succeed often, or so I believe. I give myself plenty of space to change my mind when evidence presents, and I try to go Level 10 on that, but I’m not gifted at research so I seek out people who are. My recent sources on whom I rely are Heather Cox Richardson, on substack and lately active on Facebook, but you may have to search there. If you subscribe (for free) to the substack, you get the content in your email. On Instagram I have found useful, factual information following people like Ben Sheehan and Sharon McMahon, and also for thoughtful commentary and for other sources to whom they point. I also follow news organizations’ accounts, with the caveat that they always have a bias. Sometimes the Associated Press can be useful, and I have found it interesting to follow Tangle, Reuters, and Guardian.us for the things they report that others don’t. Though it’s hard to get good information in the snake pit that we are in, one source of information that gives me hope is Republicans for Harris, AZ Republicans for Harris, and other such groups, who are at work trying to retrieve the GOP leadership from the extreme right.