Shamelessness is Trump's super-power.
Trump rode a wave of public distrust of institutions. He supercharged that distrust. He made it normal. Then he made it required.
Public trust in institutions is at a low ebb.
Congress: Gallup puts Congressional job approval at 13%. We don't need Gallup to tell us that Congress is not addressing America's problems. We see it. Nearly everyone recognizes we have an unsolved problem with immigration. Congress is busy intentionally not solving the problem, hoping to score political points.
Religious institutions: Pedophile priests; mega-church hucksters.
Media institutions: Fake and biased news.
Health institutions: Fake drugs, corrupt CDC, inflated costs.
Universities: Hotbed of wokeness and plagiarism graduating unemployable people loaded with debt.
FBI: Deep state tyrants.
Elections and Democracy itself: Rigged, rigged, rigged.
I could go on. I urge readers to comment, naming institutions they think enjoy high public trust. I am at a loss.
Trump's genius for shamelessness expanded on this foundation of distrust. He started with a proof-of-concept exercise, asserting that Hawaii's vital statistics records, plus the contemporaneous newspaper birth announcements, were faked. Trump persisted. A great many Republican voters wanted to believe Trump. Their own birth records are real, of course, but not Obama's. Trump sold it and a majority of Republican voters bought it. Partisan advantage trumped trust in a state's official records.
Trump demonstrated that one could simply assert a position, and a significant number of people would believe it, not a reality posited by our institutions of society. That provided leverage on another, perhaps equal-size group of people, people who do not fully believe Trump, but who do not dare disagree openly with the body of people who do. Go with the stampeding herd. This is where the generalized distrust of institutions is so important. Trump enablers and fellow travelers cannot openly side with the institution, because they are perceived as weak, and Trump is adamant.
My own U.S. representative, Cliff Bentz, is an example of fellow-traveler Republicans of the kind that are commonplace among Republican officeholders nationwide. Bentz voted against accepting the electoral votes certified for Biden in Pennsylvania, notwithstanding an 80,000-vote majority and an election reviewed and approved by the Pennsylvania courts. He needed to bow toward Trump's election denialism lest he face primary opposition. Most of the presidential candidates hoping to replace Trump granted that Trump, not the institutions of justice, was right. Mike Pence, the Christian conservative presidential candidate who chose the Constitution over Trump's assertion of shameless self-interest, spoke to sparse, inattentive Republican audiences, and got 2% in the polls before dropping out.
Going along with a shameless assertion contrary to traditional authoritative truth isn't just normalized in the GOP. It is essential, if one is to be a Republican in good standing and not a RINO.
It is a new GOP. Ronald Reagan knew he had broken the law and his word when he sold arms to Iran to pay for aid to the Contras in Nicaragua. He was ashamed. He apologized. There was an outside moral standard that he had not met. The L.A. Times headline read: "President apologizes for Iran-Contra role: Says he needs no protection from the truth."
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| Oval Office apology |
Richard Nixon knew it was wrong to obstruct justice by telling the FBI not to investigate the Watergate break-in by claiming it was a secret CIA operation. It was a lie. He felt guilt and shame, so he tried to hide what he did. Nixon knew it would be illegal to destroy tape recordings made in the Oval Office. He could have shamelessly burned them and dared courts to do anything about it. He didn't. Both presidents understood there was a standard of behavior outside themselves that they would be ashamed openly to flout.
Trump is shameless. He looks at the institution and its verdict and says "no." He is defiant, not obedient to rules or norms. Trump exercises the shameless willfulness that Athens exercised over the Milians, as described by Thucydides. Winners take what they will and institutions suffer as they must. Republican voters want a winner; however he wins. Shamelessness is power. There are no rules.
This is a rough patch in democracy's road and I hope we come out of it.
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26 comments:
People like to whine a lot, especially about the government, but we depend on it for life to function relatively smoothly and for the most part, it works. Take regulators, as an example. People complain about regulation and Republicans especially want to deregulate everything, but suddenly they’re singing a different tune just because a door flies off an airplane. Where were the regulators?!
The general public is enjoying one of the highest standards of living in history, but there’s a lot of discontent anyway and Trump has tapped into that. He’s a psychopath who attracts those who like to imagine that God and the Founding Fathers intended the U.S. to be a Christian theocracy ruled by White males. By taking over a major political party they have succeeded in eroding many of our republic’s founding principles, such as the peaceful transfer of power, but even if – God forbid – Trump were to be re-elected, he isn’t likely to achieve his fantasy of becoming the western Putin. Having three branches of government makes it all but impossible to pull that off. In fact, it's hard for the government to do anything - that's both the good news and the bad news. For all its faults, we still have the best government money can buy.
When Peter discussed the lack of public trust in institutions, such as universities, Peter forgot to include public schools in the mix.
The Medford Public School District had a 28% pass-rate in 2023, meaning that 72% of all students failed. That is impressive!
https://schools.oregonlive.com/district/Medford/
Further, the Medford School District actively promotes homosexuality and transsexualism on its students, and they employ "non-binary" teachers in first-grade classrooms. This confuses young children.
Additionally, three local male high school teachers were busted in the past five years for having sexual relations with their female high school students.
I have ZERO trust in the Medford (or Central Point, Eagle Point, Phoenix-Talent, or Ashland) School Districts. They all brag about their high, 95% graduation rates, at a time when most kids are failing. What are these students going to do when they become adults and they have no survival skills?
Curt Ankerberg
Medford, OR
Notge to readers of comments:
Once again, I posted a comment by Curt Ankerberg. It was an opinionated position, controversial and likely considered wrong-headed by many readers, but perfectly within the bounds of opinion. I suspect many will agree somewhat or fully with him.
I post it, notwithstanding that it tends to "normalize Ankerberg" but so that readers will see that he is indeed electable in this city and county if he communicates within the bounds of decent, non-threatening, not overly belligerent manner. Ankerberg is NOT stupid. He is, to my mind, an exaggerated and sometimes unusually hostile and vile version of Trump or Ramaswamy. Heads up to Democrats: A great many Republicans love Trump and Ramaswamy and I expect Trump to get approximately half the votes in a general election. Heads up to Republicans: I think Ankerberg could easily win the GOP nomination for County Commissioner. Local Republicans had every chance to turn away from Trump and Trumpish accusations of grooming, Trump name-calling, Trump disruption, and what Haley calls Trump's unhinged behavior. Many people consider Ankerberg unhinged. Yet our sheriff considers him appropriate to have a concealed weapons permit. Curt Ankerberg is southern Oregon's version of Trump. Trump, with all his idiosyncrasies. Trump with all his roughness. And very possibly, Trump with all his popularity.
If Ankerberg has a serious Democratic opponent in the general election, I suspect he will lose it. But Ankerberg is a serious threat in the GOP primary. If Republicans want Trump and Ankerberg both, they will likely get both. I consider them very similar people. Both are disrupters. Both have fans who like them exactly how they are.
I will not publish comments with insults or accusations or obscenity or threats or comments that involve politiians' families. I delete a lot of Ankerberg's comments. But when he is more or less civil -- at the level of a Trump tweet -- I will probably publish them. Local voters need to know who their candidates are.
Peter Sage
Yes, we need to be diligent about government overreach, waste, fraud and abuse. But I don't want a dictatorship, anarchy or barbarism either.
At some point the era of the former Occupant will come to a close. Perhaps the Republican Party will go through a "truth and reconciliation" process and return to some semblance of normalcy.
I wonder how many Real Republicans currently are being extorted, in addition to being threatened politically and physically.
The blogger is not obligated to give anyone a platform. If you only post the "civil" comments, readers will not get an accurate picture of that guy. I think that you either post ALL OR NONE of his comments.
Peter, I've owned a concealed gun permit for more than ten years. I've owned guns for more than 40 years. Mike Winters gave me a concealed permit, and then Nate Sickler gave me two permits. I haven't shot my guns in eight years. My guns rarely leave my house. My guns are intended for self-protection, considering that Joe Biden has just allowed hundreds of thousands of terrorists into America. I'm not a "gun fanatic", but I am interested in self-preservation. Lots of Democrats own guns, too.
I'm not a Trump "clone". Trump is an east-coast liberal who "morphed" into being a Republican. I'm a conservative like the late Dennis Richardson. Trump isn't a conservative. Trump is loud and boisterous. I'm quiet and reserved. What you leave out of your commentary is that anything I said was in response to your and other liberals' attacks. You folks can dish it out, but you can't take it back, and it's not my fault that I'm tougher than you are. If you don't like being insulted, then don't insult me first. You run a liberal blog, and you insult Republicans daily. What do you expect for a response? I made a serious commentary about education, and you retorted with an insult about me. You've got a problem, and not me.
Curt Ankerberg
Medford, OR
If you want local voters to know who Ankerberg is, maybe you should balance his occasional semi-rational diatribes with samples of his usual insults, accusations, obscenities and threats. On the other hand, that would probably only make him more popular among Republicans.
Messages like this, all three emails signed by Ankerberg:
"Go fuck yourself, little man."
"Hey asshole. You aren't anything but a lying piece of shit. Go fuck yourself."
"GO FUCK YOURSELFR, PRICK."
I also receive messages like this, written anonymously, which I presume are written by Ankerberg based on style and content.
Comment: "Peter Sage, 'I like pretty boys like Newswom. They give me an erection.'"
Or this one, written by "Dorothy" which, again, based on style I presume to be Ankerberg's: "It must be a bitch being a bigoted little weasel communist piece of shit like you, Sage. Why don't you be a man like Robin Williams and end all your misery?"
These are pretty rough. There are lots of others, but this gives readers a flavor of the angry-Ankerberg style. Two weeks ago he wrote a signed one, making an accusation of pedophilia against a completely unknown writer of a comment he apparently disliked. Ankerberg does that. Ankerberg writes in this vein often, occasionally signed, occasionally attributed to named people, occasionally fully anonymous. Since I get comments nearly every day in this style in both signed and unsigned manner, I consider the authorship obvious, but it is possible that Curt Ankerberg did not write all of them.
When Ankerberg stays on-brand as a civil and informed critic, he presents himself as a plausible candidate. Indeed, I believe he would be popular to the now-Trump-acclimated GOP primary base voter. I don't mean to insult Republicans by saying a majority of them would like Ankerberg. Possibly they will surprise me but in fact, in my judgement, Ankerberg represents the local MAGA base of the GOP--a potential majority. He nearly won one GOP primary and he might win another.
The question is whether Ankerberg can stay on-brand as a rational civil change agent or whether he will slip into obscene mode. My guess is that he would lose the primary election if he is known primarily for anger and obscenity -- his dark side. But there is also a different Ankerberg, sometimes apparent, sometimes hidden. My guess is that he could win his primary election if he were known primarily as someone taking on the GOP establishment. The natinal GOP establishment of McConnell, Romney, Pence etc. are now reviled by the GOP electorate. They get jeered by GOP crowds. Possibly Ankerberg will successfully liken the local GOP establishment to that now-reviled RINO establishment party.
Ankerberg has two styles, two demeanors, two brands. He will decide which one he wants to present. It has been fully two weeks since he has made a blind accusation of gay pedophilia against a stranger. Ankerberg can behave when he wants to.
I have urged him to get his own platform so he can establish his own identity free of the constraints of commenting here. He doesn't like this blog, but he wants to comment here, then acts surprised that he doesn't like this blog.
Since Curt is campaigning, he's a public figure and it's appropriate for you to editorialize about him all you want. If he wants you to give him a platform on your blog, he should pay you.
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy devoted to asking the question, “How do we know the things we think we know?“
As many have noted, thanks to the Internet we are now in the midst of an epistemic crisis. We are all on the receiving end of a firehose of information. Some of it is good information, some of it is well-intentioned but wrong, and some of it is intentional disinformation.
How to decide what to believe? Your average citizen in today’s world has no more reason to believe in viruses from their own direct experience than someone in the middle ages had to believe in evil spirits. You have to make arbitrary decisions about who or what to trust. There are no easy answers.
It really doesn’t help when high officials like Fauci tell us not to wear masks (to save them for medical personnel), then later tell us to wear cloth masks (that are actually ineffective), before finally telling us to wear effective masks like N95/KN95. It erodes trust. Can you blame most people, who have no medical or scientific knowledge of their own, for deciding that officials like this are not trustworthy?
In this information environment, someone who exudes confidence and acts sure of himself can convince significant numbers of people to believe what he tells them.
When the printing press was invented, all of a sudden almost everyone could have their own copy of the Bible. Biblical knowledge was no longer restricted to “the authorities“. This led to a few hundred years of religious wars within Christianity.
The Internet has made everyone a broadcaster. The days of Walter Cronkite of CBS News telling us “And that’s the way it is” are over. It has become exceedingly difficult for even people who read widely to figure out the way it is.
A new information ecology has started to evolve. It is not functioning well at the moment. Maybe something better will eventually emerge, but we are not even close to being there yet.
Is this a platform for ALL candidates running for office?
The networks and local affiliates, for example, may interview and cover certain candidates (not all). Beyond that, candidates need to Buy Advertising. They can use their own money or use campaign donations from groups and individual supporters. They don't get "free air time," except as noted previously.
Any candidate get use social media him or herself if they comply with the policies. You don't need to deliver their messages to voters. Your role, imo, is to cover and comment.
If you still want to enable this person, you can preface the disgusting comments with a *Warning*
You also can censure his comments to a degree. In traditional media, including broadcast tv, they -bleep- certain words and replace obscenities with (expletive).
Remember, you may have some young readers. I don't know why you give this loser any attention and satisfaction, but it is your blog.
Curt, thank you for providing a child's point of view.
Peter, CA does not make your blog better in any fashion.
You don't have an obligation to present his comments.
He is Trump, in that his attacks, victimhood and indecency distract attention from the subjects we should be discussing.
Peter may lose his audience by allowing CA to post.
It's not liberals who run Medford's schools!
1 out of every 100 students that enter the Medford school district leave with 4.0 gpa so there’s that too. Maybe there’s some outside issue affecting grades and pass rates for the underachievers?
Give the gay stuff a rest little man; where there’s a homophobe there may be a homo.
Dude just needs to go see a doctor. Excellent psychiatric meds on the $4 formulary at Walmart. It would change his life.
Dennis Ruchardson was an honest, serious man, a Veteran and dedicated Public Servant who also happened to be a Republican. You, Mr Angerberg are nothing even close to what Dennis Richardsom was, and stain his memory by claiming to be anything like him.
I don't think the majority of Peters readers would leave because of occasional unhinged rants by Ankerberg. I normally just scroll by his remarks, as the unhinged ones are more common than the more civil variety.
I do think Peters warnings about Curt should be heeded, as I recall all the times he tried to warn us that Former Guy could win back in 2015 and 2016, and it would be a real travesty if Ankerberg actually got elected, to any Civic post.
In some states, schools are now teaching kids how to distinguish information from misinformation and disinformation. Adults can also easily learn which sources are credible in their areas of interest.
When it comes to a pandemic brought on by a novel virus, everyone's in the dark until the specialists start getting it figured out. Until then, all the medical community can do is share the best information they have, and they did a masterful job of getting a grip on COVID-19. It's a shame that rather than heeding their advice, so many preferred the nonsense of talking heads who scammed them into dying of stupidity.
curt, why don't you talk about home schooling and how it hides child neglect and child abuse? Or do you think that's OK?
Richardson used his public office to advance his religious beliefs.
He was also a trial lawyer, which conservatives hate.
I agree with you, Mike. But it's Darwin at work.
The next pandemic will make the COVID pandemic seem like a walk in the park. It could even wipe out humanity.
Nature always bats last.
Darwin, coupled with Karma can be a deadly combination.
Even the most voracious virus won't kill 100 % of humans. And if it happens, maybe the survivors will do a better job of protecting the Planet, but I doubt it.
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