The Grand Illusion
These days, my wife the professor has observed that rigorous tests in education are fewer and less rigorous than ever before – and the majority of students are less prepared and more fragile when they don’t perform well on tests or in class, and too many administrators worry far more about feelings than facts or competence. Unfortunately, this trend isn’t limited to students.
Yet tests are a necessity in a technological society. We require people to pass tests to obtain drivers’ licenses, pilot licenses, medical licenses, legal licenses (even if it is called a bar exam), and the like.
The one area where native-born Americans don’t have to pass a test is to vote. All that’s needed is citizenship, registration (no test required these days, unlike for African Americans in the past, particularly in the South) and being a local resident of legal age.
Benjamin Franklin said that the Founding Fathers had created a “Republic, if you can keep it.” At that time, the United States was the first large, self-governing nation in the world. But the test Americans face is, as Franklin put it, whether we can maintain that heritage.
Unlike authoritarian regimes, democracy is messy, and it requires citizens to make choices that are often complex and far from ideal.
Most people, however, want simpler choices. They don’t want to look at an array of facts, or look deeply into much of anything, particularly the background of political candidates who strongly appeal to their beliefs and prejudices.
When a candidate lies, and admits that he created a false story to dramatize an issue, as J.D. Vance has with his tale of immigrants eating pets, doesn’t that suggest both oversimplification and a willingness to say anything in pursuit of power?
Americans have always been leery of politicians who change their mind about issues, calling them flip-floppers. The senior President Bush declared at one point, “Read my lips. No new taxes.” Then several years later, faced with a fiscal crisis, he changed his mind and increased taxes. He lost the next election because he changed his mind, but his judgement was correct, and his taxes balanced the federal budget for years. No president since then has shown that kind of courage.
Trump has remained steadfast in wanting lower taxes, especially for billionaires. He’s also been steadfast on other issues, including stricter abortion laws and punishing tariffs, and in denigrating any woman in a position of power who opposes him, while praising dictators, and promising to be one. He’s been steadfast in declaring he won an election he lost, one declared fair even by the vast majority of local Republican election officials.
Kamala Harris has moderated her positions on a number of issues, mainly in the environmental area and immigration, and she’s been attacked for changing her stance on those issues, while remaining steadfast in terms of personal rights and freedoms.
But is changing positions to reflect reality bad? Is remaining steadfast or lying about bad policies and election results good?
This coming election is in fact a test, like it or not.
The test of democracy is whether voters will look beyond the obvious, beyond their confirmation biases, to pick the better candidate based on the facts or to stick blindly to what they find comfortable.
And, always, the certainty of autocracy can seem so much more comfortable than allowing people greater personal freedom.
What we choose is a test, and we’ll have to live with the results for at least four more years, possibly far longer if too many voters choose unwisely.
The CNN transcript https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/sotu/date/2024-09-15/segment/01 says:
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BASH: Just once and for all, you, again, started this in part by saying that — which Donald Trump repeated on the debate stage, that — and he didn’t say anything about the policies that you’re talking about. He just said, Haitians are eating dogs and cats.
Can you affirmatively say now that that is a rumor that has no basis with evidence?
VANCE: Dana, the evidence is the firsthand account of my constituents who are telling me that this happened.
And, by the way, I have been trying to talk about the problems in Springfield for months, and the American media ignored it. There was a congressional hearing just last week of Angel moms who lost children because Kamala Harris let criminal migrants into this country who then murdered their children.
The American media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes.
BASH: But it wasn’t just a meme, sir.
VANCE: If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do, Dana, because you guys are completely letting Kamala Harris coast.
You had one interview with her. You talk about pushing back against me, Dana. You didn’t push back against the fact that she cast the deciding vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, which is why a lot of Americans can’t afford food and housing.
BASH: You just said that you’re creating a story.
VANCE: We ought to be talking about public policy. [09:15:05]
BASH: Sir, you just said that you’re creating the story.
VANCE: What’s that, Dana?
BASH: You just said that this is a story that you created…
VANCE: Yes.
BASH: So, the eating dogs and cats thing is not accurate.
VANCE: We are creating — we are — Dana, it comes from firsthand accounts from my constituents.
I say that we’re creating a story, meaning we’re creating the American media focusing on it. I didn’t create 20,000 illegal migrants coming into Springfield, thanks to Kamala Harris’ policies. Her policies did that, but yes, we created the actual focus that allowed the American media to talk about this story and the suffering caused by Kamala Harris’ policies
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My understanding of the above is that he claims his constituents told him about the dogs and cats and that he “created the story” by which he claims to mean “bring it to the attention of the media”, or “made the story”.
I call BS. He doubled and tripled down on this issue after he was told by the local police and mayor that these things were not true. The lady who started it was a next door neighbor and admitted that she simply lost her cat but blamed it on the neighbors. She later found said cat in her basement. Trump knew better and carried that same story on and on and on. Liars and cheaters the both of them
A test of a person’s character is also whether he/she faces responsibilities. Trump has a history of not paying his bills. He did this with contractors in the private sector and forced those who could to try to recover their lost wages in court. His time as a politician has been no different. He’s failed to pay bills in a number of cities for carrying out his rallies (support services like police and EMT as well as rental for the venue). This issue was carried in a number of media reports recently. Here’s one;
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-chased-over-unpaid-debts-his-rallies-1961765
Both are just the kind of person one would never want as a neighbor. They are rude, selfish, and often just plain mean.
Speaking of neighbors, I’m going to tell a story. It’s even true.
A couple of people down the street from us once, well, I kind of envied them. They were much older, in their eighties, and she didn’t walk very well anymore. But he was always at her side, giving her support. He was old, but he stood straight and tall. And the times I talked with him, he was soft-spoken and kind.
I hoped I’d be like him if I lived that long.
After a couple of years, we didn’t see her anymore. Her mobility problems had gotten worse. But he ran all the errands, going to the grocery store or post office. He never let her down.
A few years ago, though, he left the house in the middle of the night…on a stretcher.
We talked to their best friends days later and found out what happened.
He believed someone in power who said it was “just like the flu.” He believed that person who said don’t wear a mask.
He believed…and he went to the grocery store and post office without a mask. And he died in the hospital, on a ventilator, never seeing his beloved wife again.
She wasn’t around to be told, though. When they took him away to the hospital, she turned her face to the wall, and ended up dying before he did.
So, you know, this election season, you too can choose who you believe. You can choose who should be in power.
You can choose to believe I’ve made this all up, too. Or that the best friends died. Believe whatever you choose.
But it’s your choice to make. All your choices are yours. I hope you apply all your critical thinking skills in doing so when the choice matters most.
Or you can let a personal experience guide you. It’s up to you.
But don’t you ever condemn me for the choice that I’m making this election. I thought a lot of those two, and they didn’t need to die. Not like that.
Not that any of you were wondering, but the story of my old neighbors isn’t my only reason for how I’m voting. There’s a ton more, and here’s a quick list:
– Jan 6, 2021
– The Access Hollywood tape
– Threatening to use the military against his opponents
– “I’m a stable genius”
– “Guilty” x 34
– His own former chief of staff called him a fascist
– Cozying up to Putin, Kim Jong-Un, Xi
– Tariffs
– “It’s a witch hunt”
– Injecting bleach
– Condemning the Constitution he swore an oath to uphold at his inauguration
– Dictator for a day
– His Supreme Court appointees
– Threatening to empower RFK Jr.
– “Let’s put her [Liz Cheney] with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK?”
– All the other violent rhetoric, even after someone tried to kill him
– Politicizing the civil service
– Vilifying John McCain
– Overweening vanity
– General vulgarity
– Campaign ads that assume I’m a dolt
– Climate denialism
– Science denialism
– Expert denialism
– Always denying something
And just in general –
Look, remember right after he got in office, CIA went and briefed him on something (probably “Putin bad”) and he told them to go back to school? The guy who’d never been in government, never done foreign policy, never any of that? Told them off when he had a golden opportunity to learn something? Then, with the pandemic, he gave Fauci and other experts endless grief, instead of listening, and taking another golden opportunity to learn something?
In my *****opinion,***** the guy is incapable of learning.
So those are my reasons for voting against him – well, the ones I can recall off the top of my head. Your views will of course vary. But those are mine, and they’re more than enough for me.
The thing to take away from my comments here, if you’re pro-Trump, isn’t that there are people out there who can get downright emotional in their opposition. Everyone knows that.
It’s that there are a number of people who don’t see him as the character he portrayed on The Apprentice, don’t see him as an economic savior, don’t see him as anything other than a convicted criminal who constantly lies.
So, what’s the point? It’s just that, if you spend all your time only taking in one side’s point of view, it’s too easy to shrug off the other side as not entirely real. As a fringe group, or “fake” or something.
That’s not the case. I for one realize there are millions of people who believe Trump is the answer.
I just hope those people realize that, for many of us, all those things I listed are what form our impression of him, and it’s a legitimate conclusion to reach.
Is it the *right* conclusion? Is it accurate? I think so, obviously, but I’m hardly a perfect prognosticator.
We’ll see how it all works out.
There are many people who disagree with the entire world-view you expressed. Obviously people who believe that world view will come to the conclusion that voting Harris makes sense. Double checking the truth of thing you believe is a good exercise, if you care about truth.
Many Trump voters seem to fear the same sorts of things (politicizing the civil service, destroying free speech, disconnection from the real world) coming from the Dems, and are therefore voting against that.
It’s worth asking oneself whether one believes words matter or actions matter. I am unaware of any great action the Dems actually did to mitigate climate change (ANWR was good, but not enough), or what they actually did to pass federal abortion laws. Some lawyers make the argument that no federal abortion laws can be passed since Federal power supposedly relies on things like the interstate commerce clause, yet it’s a Dem campaign point.
There are many people who will be voting for what they call the Trump super-ticket despite Trump. I.e. they’re voting for members of his team who they hope will convince him to do their pet thing. E.g. MAHA. It’s not only all about him.
Here’s a fact-check about the bleach narrative: https://www.wfae.org/politics/2024-04-03/fact-check-did-trump-once-tell-americans-to-inject-bleach-to-fight-covid-19
There are also many people who really don’t like either candidate, and are going to be choosing whether to vote according to their morals (and essentially have no influence) or vote for the least bad choice.
Let’s say I want to believe Harris is moderating some of her more impractical positions. Her base can’t like that, and her record isn’t consistent with moderated positions. The formula is alway run toward the base in the primary, and toward the center in the general. But I don’t think the rhetoric for the general election is necessarily predictive of how someone would govern, not when they’re not going to get that much centrist support anyway.
All hypothetical anyway. No Democrat since Truman (and few if any before him, either) is fit to hold office.
Wow, well apparently they did serve in office and did it admirably enough – unlike tricky Dick Nixon (and of course Lyin Trump).
You did use the verb ‘is’.
People might want to watch this video about how politics distorts their ability to reason.
Ground News is a news aggregator service that allows users to compare media coverage from across the political spectrum. It is owned by Snapchat which is an American multimedia instant messaging app and service developed by Snap Inc., originally Snapchat Inc.
Did not know that. Thanks!
I’m a bit late to this one but it’s fascinating how often people laud and lionize the democratic function in the US, not realizing that it’s one of the few countries in the west let alone the world that doesn’t have “democratic” in the name of its form of government.
It’s a constitutional republic. Democracy was chosen as a way to express the people’s choice of governance, but it wasn’t the only possibility, and its flaws etc were greatly scrutinized by the founding fathers which lead to the unprecedented check & balances the US has in place.
Besides all of that, much of the flak Kamala got for her political stances were that the “moderation” of her views were in complete counter to the direction she helped the Biden administration pursue. She also pretended to be a friend and fellow african american, despite being one of the biggest contributors in the legal sector to modern slavery for african americans.