Category: Politics

Political Discourse and the Media.

All politics is moral. The facts of any given political issue are filtered through a moral world view. Every determination is colored or even dictated by the underlying morals of the world view applied to that issue. Even the facts are accepted or rejected based on that. It’s in our brains. It’s how we work. This reality MUST become the basis of a new 21st century model for political discourse, if we are to avoid catastrophe and warfare. In America, we have 2 parties, and one of them has been leveraging this knowledge to their benefit for decades, almost completely unchecked by the other. Let’s examine the issue of immigration through 3 different world views in America.

For progressives, the morality of immigration all about support and nurture. They see immigrants at our border as folks who need help, and they want to do what good progressives always want to do?—?to help and support people who need help. Every response to the issue of immigration can be understood through that moral lens. To accusations of wrong doing, progressives mostly reject that wrong doing occurred?—?rationalize it away as asylum seeking due to extraordinary circumstances. Even if we acknowledge that crossing a border without papers is legally wrong, progressive corrective action is guidance and support, especially for a minor offense like not having your paperwork in order, so there should be no punishment. But really, it’s the moral impulse to help that guides progressives.

Conservatives apply a different set of morals to this issue, the morals of sanctity, of following the law, and of social order. Their only possible response, given their world view’s exclusive method for corrective action, is punishment, not guidance or support. The simple judgement is that those folks broke the law, and should be punished, because that’s what you do to people who break the law. It doesn’t matter how trivial the infraction is, and pointing out that it’s a misdemeanor will not persuade. It’s a simple moral calculation, and reason has nothing to do with it. It doesn’t matter that that is barely true that they “broke the law,” because the facts don’t matter?—?the morals matter.

There is a third group. Liberals?—?real liberals?—?would see the border itself as an infringement on freedom and liberty. These are the “free trade” kind of people. They might make arguments about how the border was completely open before the 1950s (yes, really), and the appearance tickets you’d get for crossing it without paper work, was barely enforced before the 1990s, and only really enforced after 9/11/2001. But reason and rationalism don’t persuade.

(Liberals are the most distributed group, taking up space in both parties. They often refer to themselves as “centrists,” but that’s just not an accurate label. They make up the increasingly unpopular leadership within the Democratic Party, and social conservatives who are liberal on economic policy in the Republican Party, and the strange Republican Libertarians. The old Washington consensus of neoliberals are economic liberals, with varying social leanings. That’s why they agree to privatize everything, and on free trade. It’s a moral agreement between the parties?—?all politics is moral.)

If you see the issue of immigration as a law and order issue, an argument about freedom or nurture might as well be the sound of wind. Only if you see this as a moral issue about liberty, might you be persuaded by an argument about liberty. Only if you see this as an issue of nurture, might you be persuaded by an argument about help and support. If you have multiple leanings?—?the race is on?—?who’s going to apply the most compatible moral frame first? This is why rational arguments don’t persuade in politics.

For progressives, this is a simple issue, with a simple moral calculus. It’s the same with conservatives, and the same for liberals. And it’s the same for people with multiple world views?—?and we all have multiple world views, even though they aren’t compatible with each other. We make judgements about these issues based simply on which world view we are applying to an issue in the moment. And there are tricks we can use (and that Republicans have been abusing for decades) to activate the world view compatible with your desired judgement.

Some people are remarkably consistent on which world view they apply to political considerations?—?but most people are wafflers, applying a different world view to different issues, and even applying different world views to the same issue, in different contexts (conservative at home, progressive at work, for example). It’s true?—?humans have a remarkable ability to believe multiple incompatible “truths” at the same time! Well, not exactly at the same time, we mostly switch world views unconsciously, rarely being forced to reconcile them, and never at the same time. There is no blended world view. There is no rational “centrist.” They do not exist. (There is a way to put things in balance, but not without understanding the foundations, and not without accepting that some moral precepts simply conflict. That’s for another article.)

Narratively, we can activate one or the other, before explaining our policy. This is what is meant by moral framing. If I’m talking about immigration, and my judgement is we should help those folks, because my morals say we should help those who need help, then I might choose to tell empathetic stories about the plight of the immigrants, and connect their current situation to the situation our fore-bearers experienced. Or I can simply explain that how we treat people is more about us than it is about them, and demand that America is and be a kind and nurturing place —then demand we provide support. If I’m conservative, and have a knee jerk reaction that says those “other” people are not like us, then I need to come up with a rationalization to justify punishment. They don’t have their paperwork in order, etc. That’s enough reason to separate their families, and lock everyone up, right? Oh, it’s about the drugs, you literally just made up out of thing air… Got it, you want to punish them.

We can choose a world view to apply if we are aware of them, but only if we are aware of how this works. If we are not aware, we are almost certainly getting manipulated. Republicans have been using and understanding of moral framing for decades in their marketing, almost completely unchallenged by any other political group?—?least of all the Democrats, and especially not the media.

So what do we do about it?

My preference is education?—?I’m a progressive?—?nurture and support. If we can get a broadly disseminated understanding of all this, we can have real dialog again. But I can’t wave my hands and get the entire country to understand this, so instead we must use this information to lead. Let’s frame this righteously, that’s the point, right? To a liberal, whose world view is all about individual liberty, maybe this feels manipulative. No it isn’t. It’s just clear communication and leadership. This is what leadership has always been, selling the moral vision?—?taking us to the promised land. The way to persuade on any given political issue, is to invoke the right moral world view, before describing policy or judgement. Everything in politics is a moral equation, not a rational one. If we ignore that, we cannot be effective political leaders. If you are in the media an ignore it, you cannot hope to explain any given issue to your readers effectively.

If it’ll ease our liberal conscious, we can simply also explain the trick. Honestly, it’s so hard to get anyone to truly understand this stuff, that it won’t have much of an impact, but let’s try anyway.

This is so important for journalism. Journalists are supposed to be the intermediaries?—?that’s where the word “media” comes from. It’s true that Democrats suck at moral branding, which you in the media often conflate with having “a message”. Democrats have a message?—?they just don’t have branding, and because of that the media is just essentially ignoring it, in favor of the right wing’s brand messaging. But Democrats frankly shouldn’t have to have a brand strategy to make headway in the media. The intermediaries in should know what a politician’s bias is, and be able to explain it to their readers effectively. If you write about politics, and you can’t take any given issue?—?including economic issues, not just social or justice issues?—?and write three paragraphs, one for each of the 3 major world views in America, then how can you call yourself a political reporter? How can you repeat focus group tested talking points from one party or the other, designed to manipulate as part of a strategy, without understanding how that strategy works? How can you analyze data, when all the questions follow a Republican lead? How can you write about this stuff, without explaining to your readers what the strategies employed by the politicians and parties are? How could you possibly educate your readers? You can’t. The Democrats are failing to manage the media sure, but the media?—?America’s 4th estate, is utterly failing in their core responsibility to tell the whole truth to their readers. Utterly failing.

Every time a journalist asks Nancy Pelosi or Joe Biden for their message (by which they mean, brand message), after an hour long press conference, they are demonstrating that they understand none of this, or at least are not applying that understanding, if they do. A journalist shouldn’t have to ask a politician for their world view, which is what they are really asking. Joe Biden’s world view is obvious, if you understand what that is, and listen to the words he’s saying. It might even help ask better questions. It’d certainly help write better, more informative articles. Maybe it’d even move units.

It’s the morals, stupid.

The arguments liberals and progressives and the non-partisan media make sound rational. But they mostly just repeat what different groups say about any given issue, without even trying to describe the moral context, or highlighting the shared world views at play. Rarely do they put the rhetoric in a moral context?—?and all politics is moral. Because of that, journalists, the well meaning ones anyway, are often entirely manipulated. They do occasionally touch the moral substance, but usually only after repeating right wing moral phrases, and usually only after things get really bad, like armed insurrection on January 6. Honestly, it’s maddening.

What will it take? World War III? American Civil War II? What will it take for the media, Democrats and Progressives to finally learn how this works. What will it take for them to finally respond in kind to a Republican machine they’ve been building for decades to manipulate the population on this ground? What will it take for the well meaning among us to finally fight on equal footing? What will it take?

And one more thing for the Democrats?—?this is not about brand marketing. A lot of Democrats in particular seem to write this stuff off as “branding,” throw up their hands, and continue to try to persuade with rational discourse. It doesn’t work. Branding, incorrectly applied, doesn’t work either. But this is NOT about branding?—?not exactly. There is cross over with marketing and branding, because brand marketing is largely built built on an intuitive understanding of this kind of groupish cognition. In particular, if you can adequately frame a political issue in a moral “value” you can indeed sell your “product” (policy) more readily. Republicans do this a lot. They don’t actually have a moral core, morally speaking, they don’t stand for anything (Biden is right about that, and everyone knows it)?—?they just know the difference between a political moral world view, and brand value. Brand marketing works on top of moral cognition (sometimes intentional, sometime accidentally), but its not the same thing. This is deeper than brand marketing. This is about political morality, the basis for all political judgement. It has to be incorporated in our discourse. Even better, if we can start to think more clearly?—?even rationally?—?about all this, we might even be able to discuss it rationally again. But we can’t just ignore it, and fail to respond to Republican attempts to manipulate the discourse. We definitely can’t just reject it as brand marketing. That’s been losing elections for decades.

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.