Author: Kevin Newman

Matt Taibbi on school closures?—?completely rational?—?and entirely wrong

Understanding that all politics is moral, there’s an even simpler way to see this. Rather than understanding the supportive role that public school takes up in society, parents have been primed by decades of unchecked Republican talking points, telling them how morally bad government and public school is, and especially those dirty teachers from that “other” librul group (itself, ridiculous). Rather than the heroic nurturers of future generations they really are, “everyone knows” that teachers are lazy, incompetent and have sneaky intentions to brainwash and indoctrinate your children. There’s a reason “everyone knows” that, and there’s nothing rational about any of it. It’s unchecked moral propaganda, unanswered by Democrats, who always seem to seek badly reasoned rationalizations for their loses, rather than moral understanding.

In this case, Matt Taibbi makes one up, right out of thin air. No it’s not CRT (critical race theory), a talking point that promotes a sense of a moral “truth” (it’s not about the policy, it never is?—?people don’t vote for policy, ever), no, Taibbi suggests, it’s parents doing the rational thing for their children. Ugh.

This is not complicated. Republicans are using plane old, vanilla in-group/out-group dynamics based on their superior understanding of moral politics. Moral politics explains this so much better than rationalism. It’s a nice sounding story that parents are rational self actors (homo economicus) and are just protecting their children from the educational harm of not being in school (itself a moral argument, if rational sounding). But it’s hilariously untrue.

Parents were pissed off at an unfortunate set of circumstances, and yes, the issue of school closing was a top issue because of it. But it’s the moral story the parties told in response to that, which swayed the outcome, not the reason, not the rationalization. It’s so important to understand why and how Republicans exploited that. Republicans used the opportunity to cash in on their moral positioning to scapegoat Democrats, by making a moral argument, not a rational one. It’s a simple tactic, they’ve used as part of a broader strategy to change American morality, and they’ve been doing it unchecked, for decades. They use propaganda to seed the moral landscape?—?nonsense like CRT is all about seeding the moral landscape. No one really cares about CRT. That makes it easier to sell their abhorrent policies, like school privatization?—?get ready for the sell to come (again) when they take back congress in 2022. Remember when those bad-guy (Democrat) teachers and corrupt (Democrat) schools failed your kids in 2021? It’s coming. Will you be ready, Democrats?

Matt Taibbi and the general neoliberal Democratic Party just keep falling for the same basic trick, over and over again. It’s not rational, and Democrats are not losing because reason. All politics is moral.

Democrats SUCK at Messaging

The media keeps asking for your messaging, because what you’ve said is not good enough.

In this article on “The Hill” there is a video of Nancy Pelosi, being visibly annoyed at the media for asking what I assume, she thinks is a stupid question. Go watch that and then come back.

Ready? Here’s the problem.

Acting responsibly, to protect and provide for our people, those are moral values. That’s what Democrats are trying to do, and what irresponsible Republicans refuse to do, with regards to running government, following science, and distributing vaccines. Democrats keep describing policy, as if that’s what motivates people… NOBODY CARES.

The moral values that underpin the policy is what Democrats need to describe?—?FIRST?—?to “frame” the issue. It’s like setting the why of the issue first, then explaining the policy, if you must justify this through 17th century reasoning. Democrats are SO BAD AT MESSAGING. That’s why the media keeps asking for your message… All politics is moral, and the dumb stuff you say literally doesn’t make any sense from any kind of messaging stand point, unless you already agree with the unspoken premises. Pelosi. Makes. No. Sense. Literally can’t be comprehended.

Look, it only took me a few sentences to explain this. George Lakoff explains moral politics even better (all the time). When will Democrats learn?

Republicans DON’T SHARE OUR MORALS. They want to change them?—?and have been successfully changing them for decades, and we have to fight back. And all we have to do to fight, is simply state our morals. Better if we put a similar effort in to it as conservatives, but it is not complicated. Our morals are better than theirs. Progressives and even so-called centrist Democrats primarily emphasize care and nurture and sense that we are in this together. We have straight up, plain vanilla, better morals, than that scornful nonsense Trumpian (fake) big “C” Conservatives believe.

“Build Back Better”. ? Get it together Democrats.

MMT Explains Our 2 Tiered Economy and Inflation

A novice take on the way Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) explains inflation from a permanent K shaped economy.

Basically, MMT says we get inflation when money policy juices demand and we are at full employment, or we juice just one sector which is at full employment, while the others are constrained. This all follows from the basic rules of supply and demand.

We have a 2 tiered worker economy?—?wealthy professionals, and everyone else. The wealthy professionals can still afford Nike sneakers, houses, and new cars, but everyone else can’t. It’s telling that Nike stopped even trying to sell sneakers to poor people around a decade ago. That’s the K as measured by either income or ability to spend?—?one group’s trend is going up, and the other is going down. Some call this a “K shaped recovery”?—?but it’s permanent, if policy doesn’t change.

So what happens when Nike and car companies choose to produce fewer, much more “premium” (expensive) products, and sell to fewer people with increasing expectations? Inflation! Supply and demand. Pretty simple.

Wealthy professionals, the top of the K, have produced more demand than there is supply. The bottom of the K?—?their demand is irrelevant, because they can’t afford anything, having negative disposable income.

Democrats make this worse by emphasizing education as the only possible way out, while we are pretty much at the peak of the ability of our education system to churn out more professionals. That had been raising the top of the K, but we are now at full employment in those ranks. Those who can professionalize, become the only ones who can afford a house, a car, or Nike sneakers, and we are just about at saturation. Republicans make this problem worse when they cut social support, and suppress wages, and therefor reduce the ability of blue collar and service workers to spend in the economy. That deepens the bottom of the K. Both exacerbate the problem by encouraging over seas production?—?another trend we are passed capacity on.

The way to fix this is exactly what most on the left have been advocating for centuries?—?it’s always the way to balance the equation, whatever the economic theory. Bring the bottom of the K up (through various means —which ones is the whole political ball game), and suppress the top of the K’s ability to spend through taxes. These two groups aren’t really separate. They make up our entire socioeconomic system, and a K shaped economy is not sustainable?—?for either side, for so many economic and political reasons. But the top has the most to lose the system fails.

We are currently doing exactly the opposite. Even though we can’t produce more professionals, we are deepening the permanent K. The wealthy are literally subsidized by government through “tax relief” gimmicks?—?yes, even for the upper income middle, the professional class. They get a lot of tax carve outs on their houses, for example, and education, and 401ks and other financial instruments, personal llc, and all sorts of other tax dodge scams, to offset all that mildly progressive income tax they pay. For big businesses, states and municipalities will even throw large sums of cash to entice them to show up and open an office, or a factory in their town. These tax policies increase the professional class’s ability to spend, while the working poor are taxed, to suppress their consumption.

What’s interesting about MMT, is the way they go through the history of money?—?and feudal lords understood this pretty clearly. They used to simply burn tax revenue (in the form of tally sticks), and paper money was invented because you can burn it (and tally sticks were a real pain).

The devil is in the details. MMT is not quite as well tested as other models, but it’s pretty friggin’ convincing if you ask me, partly because of how easy it is to apply, but also because of the story it tells compared to other apologetic economics, which I and many others?—?especially business people?—?have rejected for its obvious flaws. Orthodox economics might as well be talking about money on Mars. It seems to have nothing to do with reality, despite all its fawning over questionable mathematics and sociological assertions. MMT explains that money is a feature of the human experience that predates writing, and is neither good nor bad?—?it just is, and this is how it work (explained through history).

I suspect this is going to be just as annoying to know about as moral cognition in politics, because it completely changes the necessary narrative around taxing and spending, and why we should do each of them. And just like with moral cognition in politics, I’ll have to fight against embedded myths to make any headway…

Vaccine Hesitancy, What a Joke

Republicans don’t get the vaccine, because their “in-group” authorities tell them not to.

The facts are not the problem in politics. You wouldn’t know that talking to any Democrat about vaccines. But here’s a jagged pill?—?the facts don’t matter to Democrats either.

Talk to any Democrat, and you’ll likely hear pretty quickly that vaccinated people can spread the virus (mostly a Republican talking point that Democrats mindlessly repeat…). The CDC is actually pretty clear. Most of their website is clear, not that any partisan blind follower will ever look at any of their material, or make any kind of effort?—?especially Republicans. Republican leaders have decided the CDC is the “out-group” and their followers happily follow. Sheep indeed. Here’s what the CDC says:

• Fully vaccinated people with Delta variant breakthrough infections can spread the virus to others.

That’s pretty clear?—?“breakthrough infections” are required. This simple statement is not convenient for either party tribe’s in-group narrative though, so it just gets ignored.

Out of an abundance of caution, it makes sense for the vaccinated to wear a mask?—?you don’t know if you are one of the ~15% or so of vaccinated people who will get a “breakthrough infection”?—?so yes, please wear a mask, because reason?—?not because some political party’s in-group authority tells you to, or not to. Also, get vaccinated, because reason. If only 15% of the population can get and spread the infection, this thing will be over. But Republican authorities aren’t telling their followers any of this, and Democrats are exaggerating it, repeating Republican talking points, and generally overplaying their hand, with no kind of strategy at all (ever). None of this is helpful.

Literally, the facts don’t matter in politics. Politics is tribal, and moral. The problem is that people think they are in a tribe along party lines, with their own authorities and morals that are distinct from that “other” (evil) tribe, and increasingly they hate each other. The tribes are Republicans and Democrats (in America). Think about how strange that is. You really identify?—?with THEM.

BTW, Republicans have been manipulating that kind of group identity science for decades, far more effectively than Democrats, using focus groups to figure out which “morals” (aka values) and wedge issues drive people, and then creating short phrases (talking points) to manipulate those people in to a fake in-group called “conservative.” How many times have you heard exactly the same arguments from Republican friends and family, using exactly the same phrases, in exactly the same order? Talking points. No thought required.

Democrats are mostly reactive, and mostly just keep trying to play identity games, without any kind of moral center (the party of Aaron Burr?—?they even refer to the “center” or “centrist” as between moral world views?—?what a crock). They treat identity like weather, something out of their control, while Republicans build fans, and coalitions. Republicans have been building institution after institution to create a new identity for decades, an identity wrapped in the trapping of conservatism, but which isn’t conservative at all. They’ve been getting away with it, unchallenged in any effective way, for decades. Democrats either refuse to learn how this works, or have no moral backbone. It’s why no one likes you, Democrats.

In neither party tribe is it all about the facts. It’s just in-group/out-group authority, in fake tribal identity groups. It’s horse shit. It has to stop.

Why don’t vaccine hesitant people get the vaccine? Because their in-group authorities tell them it’s “evil” and they trust their authorities. It’s not more complicated than that.

So how do we convince “hesitant” Republicans to get the vaccine? We don’t! Or we pry them from their fake in-group (there are some who swing between the two?—?not blend, swing?—?there’s a difference). We are not their authority. We are just an “other” and increasingly so?—?they are getting more insular?—?everyone is an “other” at this point. Their leadership, their in-group authorities, who have mislead Republican voters are the entire problem. Getting leadership to change their tune, or getting people out of that fake tribe?—?those are our options. Discussions about “vaccine hesitancy” without addressing that problem, is just noise.