Recommended Reading
[Mark Safranski / “zen“]
Time for a really must-read pair of posts about the election and the reaction to the election.
T. Greer of Scholar’s Stage examines the reasons, causes, culprits and cure for what I would characterize as the post-election epistemic collapse of the American establishment in DC and the media and among activist liberals nation-wide.
They can also be read very much with the ideas of John Boyd’s OODA Loop foremost in mind. Another thing to recall would be the shocking NYT piece based on interviews with Ben Rhodes, President Obama’s Deputy National Security Adviser and off-the-record narrative weaver. In retrospect, it now looks much less shocking.
The Time Has Come to Give Up the Lie
….The lies went like this. Hillary Rodham Clinton is a wonderful and visionary person. She is a representative for women across the world, an extraordinarily talented politician, and a true example of what makes America great. Clinton’s words are inspiring. Her political judgement is beyond reproach—in fact, given current national conditions, her political instincts are ideal. She is a good listener. She is in touch with the concerns of the nation and its ordinary people. She is a woman of the future. History is on her side.
This lie both enabled and was enabled by others: America’s economy is only getting better; because of her predecessor’s efforts, the country’s future is bright. Americans look forward to that future. Only those deceived by Fox News and the “Alt-right” could believe otherwise. In fact, if you didn’t realize it yet, the few thousand twitterers known as the ‘Alt-right’ are a critical part of the enemy coalition; when normal Americans hear about this new political force, they will care about it, remember it, and feel threatened by it. Demographics is destiny. Hispanic voters will be an electoral force to be reckoned with. Gender will be a deciding factor in this election. The concerns of working class whites do not deserve to be addressed; really, it’s an open question whether that demographic even needs to be respected. Jim Webb and Bernie Sanders were out of touch. The media isn’t actually filled with the lap dogs of the DNC. The DNC isn’t actually filled with the lap-dogs of the Clinton campaign. Clinton’s victory is so sure that she should be spending her time in Arizona and Georgia, not in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The Democratic Party is in the best shape it has ever been in. Sharing John Oliver videos makes a difference.
It was all a lie.
Time for some truths:
And Greer’s follow up Winning the Popular Vote While Losing Grip on Reality
There has been a bit of push back to my last post. A lot of it revolves around this fact: Donald Trump did not win the popular vote. Others point out that if the vote had shifted 1-2% in favor of Clinton, Trump’s stunning electoral sweep would never have happened.
That’s all true. It is also irrelevant.
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