This has been a blog with my opinions on politics, psychology, and pop culture using the Google Blogger platform with the address halbrown.org. As of Oct. 10, 2023 it has been renamed Hal Brown's Stressline and moved to the WordPress platform with the new address Stressline.org - Posts are sometimes serious and sometimes snarky.
This story was reported in the United States on Raw Story but over in the United Kingdom Brits have to be relieved that they lost the Revolutionary War when they read articles like this from the BBC:
Above is how HUFFPOST covered the story on the top of their website this morning.
There are two sides of the anti-woke movement. One is fascistic and no joking matter. The policies being promoted and in an alarming number of states enshrined in law will harm people. They will lead to, among other things, women being forced to have babies they don't want to children being denied medical care gender affirming care to a rise in hate crimes.
The other rises to a level so far beyond absurdity it is difficult to mock by rational people yet those who believe in them do so with passion and conviction.
There is irony in the fast-food chicken story because the woman who is boycotting one chain store is now going to a competing chain store which is far more LGBTQ+ friendly than the one she believes serves chickens from Hell.
Whoever decided to push for a ban on the Bible was doing this to make a valid point about book bans and must be pleased that their success made not only national but international news.
While rational democracy loving people will find these skirmishes or battles absurd there is nothing remotely amusing about these aspects of what has been called a culture war. They represent an gangrene infection in the body of the populace so dangerous that it should be amputated like a frost-bit toe or a severely infected diabetic foot.
This was what the main page of Salon looked like this morning:
Talk about clickbait, how could anyone not take a look at the story to find out who Ron DeSantis should fear?
Of course I took the bait and clicked:
Click above to read
The answer is in the subtitle (enlarged above) but you don't find an explanation until you read Chauncey DeVega's contention until the middle of the article:
But also because he is the only candidate in the field that will have the name ID enough to look viable to win the nomination that MAGA can accept once it becomes clear that Trump has too much indictment baggage. My expectations are that by late fall Trump will be facing multiple indictments and will begin to be seen as too risky to nomination. At this time, DeSantis is by far their most likely landing pad. The rest of the field as it currently exists is too obscure. Now, if a different MAGA flamethrower with very high name ID like Tucker Carlson was to emerge, THEN DeSantis would be in trouble.
While I still think it is possible, as I wrote back in February, that Trump could decide that Carlson would be his best choice for a VP running mate. He could announce this choice well before the GOP convention and knock out DeSantis and anyone else daring to declare against him.
The next question is what would running to be second banana to Trump give Tucker. During the campaign of course it would give him a job, albeit unsalaried. It would keep him in the limelight, hell, he'd have klieg lights on him that would be at least as bright as he had when he was at Fox News.
If he was asked to run by Trump he'd have a difficult decision to make. He'd have to consider Trump's chances of winning. He'd be looking at polls which included him as a candidate in the GOP primary and then at polls which had him running against President Biden.
If it looked like he stood a reasonable chance of beating Trump in the primary and polls showed that Biden was very likely to win the general election against him, Carlson might decide running as a probable loser wasn't worth his time and effort.
If polls showed he could beat Trump and, crucially, stood a reasonable chance of beating Biden, my expectation is that he would run.
Assuming he became president there's no way to determine how he would govern because only he knows what he really believes today although his history dating back to college shows he was a die-in-the-wool bigot even back then. In addition to being a member of The Christian Fellowship he was involved with The Jesse Helms Foundation (Helms was an outspoken opponent of gay rights) and The Dan White Society which was named for the man who murderedSan Francisco Mayor George Moscone known for his diverse hiring, and openly gay Supervisor Harvey Milk.
He claimed that transgender women “put every woman and girl at risk of male violence.”
He refused to apologize for using an anti-gay slur on air.
He's criticized having women in the military.
It appears what while Trump and DeSantis promote so-called anti-woke policies which discriminate against members of the LGBTQ+ community, Carlson's distain and disgust against them is deeply rooted and goes back at least to high school when it has been reported he once beat up a gay man in a public bathroom.
Of course because I am one of the less acclaimed experts on Trump's psychopathology (scroll down to bottom of page for some of my articles), I was going to write about this Salon article which says what I've been writing about Trump since 2016:
The article is by Chauncey DeVaga, a Salon columnist who has written about Trump's psychopathology numerous times, and interviewed mental health professionals on the subject. He has, as far as I'm concerned, earned himself an honorary advanced degree in a clinical mental health profession.
His article begins with the Memorial Day Trump Truth Post:
In the current article, DeVega interviews two prominent psychoanalysts, Justin Frank and Lance Dodes, both of whom he has interviewed previously, and who have themselves published articles or books about Trump's dangerous psychopathology.
Here's the warning from Lance Dodes:
When a person has a chronic illness, we all know to expect recurrence of symptoms of that problem. Donald Trump is a permanent, chronic psychopath who has repeatedly demonstrated an inability to be empathic with other human beings, a frightening need to dominate, control and destroy others, an inability to tolerate criticism or accept any defeat, an utter disregard for facts and the truth, endless lying, and clear delusions, insisting things are true that are demonstrably and unquestionably false. As with other permanent conditions, these aspects of his psychopathic personality will not change.
Trump's behavior is worse now but that's only because we're seeing a peeling away of his façade as he becomes more desperate; his actions and speech will continue to show more of what he really is. He's already saying he will call out the National Guard to suppress dissent, as dictators have done forever, and it would be no surprise if eventually, like Saddam Hussein when he was finally put on trial, he shouts that he is the one true ruler and any effort to hold him accountable is illegal and immoral.
Unfortunately, nations being taken over by psychopathic dictators is common in human history. It happened in Germany, in Iraq, in Russia, and for centuries earlier all over the globe. It could certainly happen to us unless enough people recognize that Trump is psychologically just another Hitler, Stalin, Saddam or the other malignant tyrants throughout history.
It is important to consider, as DeVega does in the conclusion to his article, the following points, with my bold added for emphasis:
The picture is clear: As the 2024 presidential campaign begins in earnest, Donald Trump will become more dangerous, violent, threatening, unhinged, and his true horrible self, further unmasked and unleashed if such a thing is even possible.
Unfortunately, because of its horse race coverage and other failed norms and approaches to the news and politics in a time of democracy crisis and ascendant neofascism, the American news media will continue with its failed fixations on the "heroes" and "villains" and "winners and losers" of the week, month, and election cycle. In practice, this means that the American mainstream news media will desperately try to find a "normal" Republican character to juxtapose with Donald Trump's increasing extremism and radical threats to American society and democracy.
As of now, the mainstream news media has decided that the more "reasonable" and "sane" and "traditional" Republican is Gov. Ron DeSantis. In reality, DeSantis is as least if not more dangerous than Donald Trump. Both are neofascists who want to destroy America's multiracial pluralistic society. The choice between them is a false one because the outcome will be the same: the American people will be made to suffer even more as the fascist fever dream nightmare and its culture of cruelty takes hold even more and threatens to become permanent.
As national candidates there are two opposite personality rather than policy factors which would make it difficult for Trump and DeSantis to defeat President Biden.
Trump is crazy
DeSantis is boring
While Trump and others want to depict President Biden as doddering and dull he is really anything but. His embracing the moniker Dark Bandon really reflects who he is. Read NPR article.
I think Biden in his Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses, the same glasses Tom Cruise wears in his Top Gun movies, makes him look like the badass he is.
With Trump it is what is described in the DeVega article. He is, to use colloquial terms, unhinged, unmoored from reality, and a tantrum throwingtoddler. He is more likely to behave in increasingly abnormal ways as the primary season progresses. If this happens it will gradually lead some of his current supporters to see DeSantis as less risky choice fearing Trump will decompensate even more especially if he feels he is losing what he thought was his iron grip on the nomination.
DeSantis will pounce of this weakness and try to out-Trump by adopting a vicious manic style of grandiose narcissism and braggadocio. He is well aware that Trump is a showman adept at riling up his cult with what passes for performance art.
DeSantis knows he comes across and stiff and unlikable. I predict he won't bother trying to change this because he knows that while personally boring his war on woke is the most exciting thing he has to offer.
Addendum:
In the psychological weeds, explaining sociopath and psychopath, the two words often used to describe Trump and DeSantis.
The current official diagnosis for those who used to be called sociopaths and psychopaths, and still are by most people, is anti-social personality disorder. In common usage psychopath is used to describe someone worse, more brutal, than a sociopath. The current definition of antisocial personality disorder is as follows. I put a T for Trump and a D for DeSantis after the deceptions I think are applicable to each off them.
Clinical criteria (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition [DSM-5])
For a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder, patients must have
A persistent disregard for the rights of others (T and D)
This disregard is shown by the presence of ≥ 3 of the following:
Disregarding the law, indicated by repeatedly committing acts that are grounds for arrest (T)
Being deceitful, indicated by lying repeatedly, using aliases, or conning others for personal gain or pleasure (T)
Acting impulsively or not planning ahead (T is impulsive)
Being easily provoked or aggressive, indicated by constantly getting into physical fights or assaulting others (With T using verbal aggression)
Recklessly disregarding their safety or the safety of others (T and D)
Consistently acting irresponsibly, indicated by quitting a job with no plans for another one or not paying bills (T not paying bills)
Not feeling remorse, indicated by indifference to or rationalization of hurting or mistreating others (T and D)
Also, patients must have evidence that a conduct disorder has been present before age 15 years. Antisocial personality disorder is diagnosed only in people ≥ 18 years.
Patients with antisocial personality disorder may express their disregard for others and for the law by destroying property, harassing others (T, in writing and verbally), or stealing. They may deceive, exploit, con, or manipulate people to get what they want (eg, money, power, sex). (T) They may use an alias. (T did this)
These patients are impulsive, (T) not planning ahead and not considering the consequences for or the safety of self or others. As a result, they may suddenly change jobs, homes, or relationships (T with marriages and affairs). They may speed when driving and drive while intoxicated, sometimes leading to crashes. They may consume excessive amounts of alcohol or take illegal drugs that may have harmful effects.
Patients with antisocial personality disorder are socially and financially irresponsible. They may change jobs with no plan for getting another. They may not seek employment when opportunities are available. They may not pay their bills, default on loans, (T) or not pay child support.
These patients are often easily provoked and physically aggressive; they may start fights or abuse their spouse or partner. In sexual relationships, they may be irresponsible and exploit their partner and be unable to remain monogamous. (T)
Remorse for actions is lacking. (T and D) Patients with antisocial personality disorder may rationalize their actions by blaming those they hurt (eg, they deserved it) or the way life is (eg, unfair). (T) They are determined not to be pushed around and to do what they think is best for themselves at any cost. (T)
These patients lack empathy for others and may be contemptuous of or indifferent to the feelings, rights, and suffering of others. (T and D)
Patients with antisocial personality disorder tend to have a high opinion of themselves and may be very opinionated, self-assured, or arrogant. (More T, but to a lesser extent D) They may be charming, voluble, and verbally facile in their efforts to get what they want. (T)
You can see that Trump meets the criteria more than DeSantis does.
Chris Christie scores a knockout against Trump out when it comes to having entertainment value by himself and pitted against Trump it will be a Thrilla in Manila with Chris as Ali and Donald as Joe Frazier. Trump will probably win the primary but Christie will make the race exciting.
The expected formal announcement from Chris Christie that he will run for the GOP nomination has been discussed on MSNBC today (below) and elsewhere in the media (here).
Click to enlarge
All of the other announced or potential GOP candidates are treating Trump with kid gloves. It's become a cliche to say they treat him like Voldemort, he whose name must never be uttered. To use this comparison, Christie hopes to be Harry Potter. Fans know whose wizardry ultimately prevailed in the battle between good and evil.
Both Donald Trump and Chris Christie are larger than life. I mean this figuratively, not literally although Christie, who revealed in 2013 that he secretly underwent lap-band surgery for the sake of his wife and kids, if Trump feels threatened by his candidacy will bear the brunt of Trump's bullyish jabs about his being overweight. Trump might call him "corpulent Christie" although corpulent isn't a commonly used word and Trump isn't exactly svelte himself. More likely Trump will just call him fatso.
Although like everyone I know I find it difficult to grasp why so many people think Trump is charismatic. On the other hand in his own unique way I do think Christi is charismatic although outside of New Jersey where he was electedgovernor twice by decent if not overwhelming margins I am not sure people in the rest of the country find him as engaging as New Jerseyites.
Charisma is defined asa personal quality, evident in the way an individual communicates to others, that makes someone more influential. This power to attract attention and influence people can be embodied in the way someone speaks, what someone says, and how someone looks when communicating. Reference.
Trump is a showman. More than anyone else running to be, or rumor to be considering running, for the GOP nomination Christi is a showman. Like Trump, he is quick with the quip. He thinks on his feet. He is animated. Using boxing as a metaphor, Trump is Mike Tyson and Christie is Muhammad Ali. Trump wouldn't hesitate to bite an opponent's ear, Christie for all his heft would float like a butterfly and make every jab sting like a bee.
There was a time not long ago when Christie didn't show any signs of taking on Trump, let alone taking him on aggressively. For example consider this from an August, 2022 Salon article describing him as a lapdog for Trump in 2016:
Christie has not only wanted to be president since he realized that it might be possible. In 2012 he ran in the GOP primary. He has also opportunistically played the long game by attached himself Trump because he thought this would benefit him down the road.
For sheer entertainment I find Christie fun to watch. While he may not met the rules for being in the GOP primary debates because he won't poll high enough, if those in charge of deciding who makes the stage want a larger audience they will make sure Christie is there.
Not that many people would watch a cage match between a 900 pound gorilla and a bunch of capuchin monkeys. Put a second 900 pound gorilla in the cage and it would be must-see TV.
Trump’s lawyers called District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s prosecution politically motivated and argued that the federal courts have so-called “protective jurisdiction” to prevent state hostility to a federal officer. This is a legal maneuver, but wait a New York minute, let's analyze this from an entirely different perspective.
If Trump is correct in his belief about grabbing women, that is that if you're a star you can do it, or anything else that is illegal for that matter, then it stands to reason that if a president does it, he can do it too. Or, to quote Nixon, when a president does it, it's not illegal.
From shooting someone on Fifth Avenue to sexually assaulting women, to the comparatively minor crime of paying hush money to someone who could upset your political aspirations if they went public with what they knew, to making false and misleading financial statement to get better loan deals, Donald Trump believes that he is so far above the law that he'd need the Hubble telescope to even see where the law was.
Click images below to enlarge them
Let's remember that Richard "I'm not a crook" Nixon set a precedent for getting away with being a criminal.
Here's the famous phrase in context:
...because people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook. I've earned everything I've got.
These are the most snarky tweets in the HUFFPOST article:
You can predict how Trump, the most psychoanalyzed world leader since Adolf Hitler, will react in given situations. On the one chance in a gazillion that Biden would issue a preemptive pardon for Trump I think we can speculate that Trump wouldn't accept it.
It remains to be seen whether Trump will end up playing with his little putter in a prison yard, let alone be indicted and tried in criminal court for any felonies which carry a prison sentence. However if flop sweat had a stink to it I'd say that even if Trump was normal and not in narcissistic delusional denial being around him would be worse than being on the wrong end of a threatened skunk.
You can listen to "Let It Be" be clicking either images above.
Here's an article from Raw Story about Rockstar, Dolly Parton's new album which include numbers not only with Sir Paul, Ringo, Peter Frampton, and Mick Fleetwood on Let It Be, but also Elton John, Sting, Lizzo, Pink, Debbie Harry, Steve Perry, Steven Tyler, Stevie Nicks, Pat Benatar, Joan Jett, John Fogerty, Miley Cyrus and Ann and Nancy Wilson on other songs.
Aside from what promises to be an instant classic album this Dolly Parton collaboration is a celebration of geriatic musicians. All except Miley Cyrus (30) and Lizzo (35) are 70 (Pat Benatar) or older.
Reading about this led me to take the lazy route to writing a blog for today and republishing with a few revisions my May 30 piece about ageism and how it relates to politics.
Biden and Trump's candidacy and ageism
WaPo column "3 reasons we’re stuck with Trump and Biden" led me to write about ageism in America and say humbly that at almost 80 if it was between me and Trump I'm more cognitively capable of being president.
This is the opinion column that jumped out at me when I looked at The Washington Post online on May 30, 2023:
The question I pose is whether this column by McArdle and the polls she cites reflect ageism. I will turn 80 in January. I live in a senior community where while I know many residents who succumb to dementia or demonstrate cognitive decline in their early seventies, I also know many who are cognitively sharp well into their nineties.
In an April NBC poll, nearly two-thirds of voters said they did not think Trump should run for president again — and more than two-thirds said the same thing about Biden, in large part because they think he’s too old. How did a once-great nation end up facing an election between two very old, very unpopular White dudes?
I can sketch out the proximate causes. On the Republican side, just as in 2016, a massive primary field is splitting the votes of the moderates, giving Trump plenty of room to consolidate his ultra-MAGA minority. Democrats, meanwhile, have no good options as long as the vice presidency is occupied by the hapless Kamala D. Harris, whose impolitic blurtings, inability to hold staff and tendency to choke under pressure make her an even less appealing candidate than her boss. Every Democratic operative I’ve asked blanched at the thought of running her — and also agreed that for reasons of coalition management, she cannot be pushed aside.
Aside from using the word "stuck" which in context is a pejorative, I found this paragraph problematic:
Yet that only describes the problem; it does not explain why we seem stuck with two broadly disliked candidates, one already in his 80s and the other turning 78 before Election Day 2024. Nor does it explain America’s broader problem of political gerontocracy, as embodied by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who seems too cognitively impaired to fully carry out her duties or to realize she ought to retire.
Biden is only disliked by the GOP. He may be disliked as a candidate by Democrats because of his age but he is not personally disliked the way Trump is. To include both Trump and Biden with Feinstein as emblematic of what is wrong with having seniors in political power, which McArdle calls a political gerontocracy, is patently unfair. Feinstein is an outlier because she has a serious cognitive impairment. With the average ages of 117th Congress at 58.4 years for Representatives and 64.3 years for Senators we are stretching it to call this a political gerontocracy. Being 58 or 64 is not being old. Sure it is reasonable to say Trump and Biden are old, but of those two only one has his reality testing impaired which is a sign of cognitive impairment.
Both Trump and Biden statistically have a higher chance of dying than if they were, say, in their fifties or sixties, but because as far as we know neither has a life threatening medical condition both could live into their nineties and, while risk of dementia increases as one ages, many elders never develop the disease.
A poll of Democrats should include a question asking whether assuming Biden will live with no impairments until he is in his nineties would you favor him as a candidate.
Calling Trump and Biden "relics of an era when America was more stratified by race and gender but less polarized by income, education, ideology or party" McArdle's concluding paragraphs shift focus from a critique of Trump and Biden's age to the way they speak:
Perhaps more importantly, they also talk like it. For both the Wharton transfer student and the guy who graduated near the bottom of his law school class, lower-middlebrow is their native language. In the mouths of the younger products of the high-intensity meritocratic rat race, this register of the American dialect sounds foreign — and given that only about one-third of U.S. adults have a college diploma, this matters a lot. In fact, it is in many ways the most compelling of the three explanations. It is also the most depressing, not so much for what it says about Biden and Trump, but for what it says about younger politicians: They don’t think like non-college voters — and therefore can’t communicate so well with them.
It’s very risky to be so dependent on people who are well into their golden years, who will not be with us forever. And what will American politics look like when the front-row kids who can’t speak lower-middlebrow are the only ones left in the room?
My impression is that when the 50 year old McArdle writes "golden years" she isn't really being complementary. Perhaps I react this way because I will be 80 in January and although to function well I generally need a 45 minute mid-afternoon nap I am both cognitively and physically unimpaired and if the choice was between myself and Donald Trump in all humility can say that political positions aside I would be more capable of carrying out the responsibilities of being president.
Biden and Trump's candidacy and ageism
By Hal Brown
WaPo column "3 reasons we’re stuck with Trump and Biden" led me to write about ageism in America and say humbly that at almost 80 if it was between me and Trump I could be president.
There's a Harry Trump campaign button that I could use with a few changes. Click image to enlarge.
This is the opinion column that jumped out at me when I looked at The Washington Post online this morning:
The question I pose is whether this column by McArdle and the polls she cites reflect ageism. I will turn 80 in January. I live in a senior community where while I know many residents who succumb to dementia or demonstrate cognitive decline in their early seventies, I also know many who are cognitively sharp well into their nineties.
In an April NBC poll, nearly two-thirds of voters said they did not think Trump should run for president again — and more than two-thirds said the same thing about Biden, in large part because they think he’s too old. How did a once-great nation end up facing an election between two very old, very unpopular White dudes?
I can sketch out the proximate causes. On the Republican side, just as in 2016, a massive primary field is splitting the votes of the moderates, giving Trump plenty of room to consolidate his ultra-MAGA minority. Democrats, meanwhile, have no good options as long as the vice presidency is occupied by the hapless Kamala D. Harris, whose impolitic blurtings, inability to hold staff and tendency to choke under pressure make her an even less appealing candidate than her boss. Every Democratic operative I’ve asked blanched at the thought of running her — and also agreed that for reasons of coalition management, she cannot be pushed aside.
Aside from using the word "stuck" which in context is a pejorative I found this paragraph problematic:
Yet that only describes the problem; it does not explain why we seem stuck with two broadly disliked candidates, one already in his 80s and the other turning 78 before Election Day 2024. Nor does it explain America’s broader problem of political gerontocracy, as embodied by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who seems too cognitively impaired to fully carry out her duties or to realize she ought to retire.
Biden is only disliked by the GOP. He may be disliked as a candidate by Democrats because of his age but he is not personally disliked the way Trump is. To include both Trump and Biden with Feinstein as emblematic of what is wrong with having seniors in political power, which McArdle calls a political gerontocracy, is patently unfair. Feinstein is an outlier because she has a serious cognitive impairment. With the average ages of 117th Congress at 58.4 years for Representatives and 64.3 years for Senators we are stretching it to call this a political gerontocracy. Being 58 or 64 is not being old. Sure it is reasonable to say Trump and Biden are old, but of those two only one has his reality testing impaired which is a sign of cognitive impairment.
Both Trump and Biden statistically have a higher chance of dying than if they were, say, in their fifties or sixties, but because as far as we know neither has a life threatening medical condition both could live into their nineties and, while risk of dementia increases as one ages, many elders never develop the disease.
A poll of Democrats should include a question asking whether assuming Biden will live with no impairments until he is in his nineties would you favor him as a candidate.
Calling Trump and Biden "relics of an era when America was more stratified by race and gender but less polarized by income, education, ideology or party" McArdle's concluding paragraphs shift focus from a critique of Trump and Biden's age to the way they speak:
Perhaps more importantly, they also talk like it. For both the Wharton transfer student and the guy who graduated near the bottom of his law school class, lower-middlebrow is their native language. In the mouths of the younger products of the high-intensity meritocratic rat race, this register of the American dialect sounds foreign — and given that only about one-third of U.S. adults have a college diploma, this matters a lot. In fact, it is in many ways the most compelling of the three explanations. It is also the most depressing, not so much for what it says about Biden and Trump, but for what it says about younger politicians: They don’t think like non-college voters — and therefore can’t communicate so well with them.
It’s very risky to be so dependent on people who are well into their golden years, who will not be with us forever. And what will American politics look like when the front-row kids who can’t speak lower-middlebrow are the only ones left in the room?
My impression is that when the 50 year old McArdle writes "golden years" she isn't really being complementary. Perhaps I react this way because I will be 80 in January and although to function well I generally need a 45 minute mid-afternoon nap I am both cognitively and physically unimpaired and if the choice was between myself and Donald Trump in all humility I can say can say that political positions aside I would be more capable of carrying out the responsibilities of being president.
