For the annals of Things You Can Find a Professor to Say, quoted in a NYT article titled "Donald Trump’s Unstoppable Virality," by Emma Roller.
I'd love to know what Roller asked to get the professor — Bradley M. Okdie, a social psychologist at Ohio State University at Newark — to say that and how many other professors she talked to before getting Okdie to dish up the perfect quote.
Roller continues:
With his us vs. them invective and his refusal to denounce hate-filled speech from some of his supporters, Mr. Trump is an echo chamber for certain corners of the far right, as evinced by his popularity with white nationalists and the so-called alt-right movement of mostly online activists.There's zero acknowledgment that Roller is part of the anti-Trump's effort at virality and that she's working on talking to NYT readers about what they already believe. She's putting out concrete negative statements that lack nuance — Trump's "hate-filled" speech, etc. — and must hope for virality.
“Donald Trump is telling them something they already believe, and they’re sharing it because they want other people to believe it too,” Professor [Jeff] Hemsley, who studies virality, said.
But, sure: What a puzzle! Why is Trump so much more viral than everything else that people are trying to get to go viral? Maybe if Roller and others would use the subtle intellect that they like to think they have to analyze what Trump is actually saying rather than instantly repackaging it as white supremacy, nativism, and bigotry, they might learn something about why this man has been so effective.
It's easier to massage your usual readers about how the people who are not them are the ones with the low tolerance for ambiguity.
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The big problem with people with a high "tolerance for ambiguity" is that they wash out of STEM sooner than quicker.
The NYT must have a panel of middle aged Jewish divorced or never married women who determine editorial policy.
Sopan Deb @SopanDeb -
"The strangest thing: I've met a number of Trump rally attendees who say their top two are Trump and Sanders. Seriously. Or in reverse."
Trump's secret is that he's posing as the ultimate insider to outsiders who believe that insiders are manipulating the system, and promising to destroy the system from within.
Why is there an Ohio State University at Newark?
Why not a University of Wisconsin at Janesville?
The word "conservative" is part of the Rorschach test.
It's funny, most of the conservatives I speak with think Trump is a buffoon.
Maybe if Roller and others would use the subtle intellect that they like to think they have to analyze ...
This is the kinds of stuff that gets decided out of public view. The NYT long ago stopped being a place where ideas were openly discussed. The NYT is now the conduit for talking points already decided. That's why I call it "the baking of the president."
Maybe if Roller and others would use the subtle intellect that they like to think they have to analyze what Trump is actually saying rather than instantly repackaging it as white supremacy, nativitism, and bigotry, they might learn something about why this man has been so effective.
That isn't their job. Their job is to keep people clicking on articles in the NYT and they do that by writing stuff that reassures the readers that importing low cost, easily exploited labor so as to keep their costs low, even if it causes middle class wages to shrink and keeps the native poor out of the job market, is the moral high ground.
Any discussion of the "nuances" of immigration policy, who benefits and who suffers, is simply hater talk and need not be considered.
Those same criticisms apply to Bernie Sanders supporters, or really any group of hard core partisans. Of course they have answers before they know the question being asked, of course they prefer simple solutions that happen to support their worldview, and of course it's easier to demonize than figure out the opposition. No side has a monopoly on that sort of fanaticism.
A large part of Trump's appeal is the lameness of his opponents, both in the GOP (see Jeb's hapless assaults) and in the fevered swamps of the Left (see any analysis that writes off Trumpism to white supremacy, as if similar reasoning wouldn't mean that Obama's appeal is to black nationalism).
Maybe if Roller and others would use the subtle intellect that they like to think they have to analyze what Trump is actually saying rather than instantly repackaging it as white supremacy, nativitism, and bigotry, they might learn something about why this man has been so effective.
Yes yes a thousand times yes.
The Roller and others you refer to have developed a bad habit, haven't they? The repackaging habit. It's fascinating to see it just not working.
"What's all this talk about Donald Trump's virility?"
Gosh, what would you expect from a grad of the UWM and the one time editor of its student newspaper. You must be so proud of the deep thinker and her oh so predictable "analysis."
The problem people like Roller butt up against if they try your approach to understanding Donald Trump is that it conflicts with their essentially binary, Manichean, view of the world. See, as you probably know, only conservatism is a bias. Liberalism is not a bias, it is plain common sense.
The idea that someone who isn't liberal could have anything useful to say to someone who is liberal threatens the intellectual foundation of liberalism. Liberals are good, non-liberals are bad. Listening to a non-liberal is therefore bad. The liberal mind is sealed shut for its own protection.
Which is why liberals get progressively more detached from reality as the years go by, it is why they cannot reform, cannot break out of their death spiral. And they will never have an insight about anyone who is not liberal.
Are New Yorkers concerned that Trump could actually win the state?
Perhaps slightly off topic, but related. The GOPs decision to include the importation of low cost, low skilled workers in the budget deal is an open declaration of war on its base. The GOP has decided to go all in on being controlled by its donor class/crony capitalists and the middle class and poor should just go of into a field somewhere and die.
Why they think this is a winning long term strategy for the party I don't understand. I know they think they are going to get Hispanics to vote for them, eventually. But how is importing workers to compete with the Hispanics for jobs going to woo them?
The people who control the GOP don't really appear to care about the party's viability and are using it for short term gains for themselves. Usually when a political party is captured by such people it soon implodes and some populist (hello Donald Trump) who is willing to voice peoples concerns (warranted or not) comes to prominence. Trump may not win the nomination or general election, but the issues he brings up, if not addressed, will continue to fester.
Drives the media absolutely insane that Trump plays them more skillfully than the media plays us.
The extremists are all on the other side.
Finally, I always find it incongruous when a leftist accuses conservatives of being insular. I would be extremely surprised if Bradley M. Okdie has ever had to engage a conservative in a serious intellectual discussion. I suspect that he would be of the opinion that such a discussion is not possible, by definition.
"Why is there an Ohio State University at Newark?
Why not a University of Wisconsin at Janesville?"
Because it's at Whitewater.
"Gosh, what would you expect from a grad of the UWM and the one time editor of its student newspaper."
I see that she did graduate from UW-Madison, which is not called UWM. UWM means University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee.
The usual "disagreement = pathology = insanity" argument of the left. Barely worth the effort to reply.
Speaking of ambiguity.
A question asked yesterday on your "Poor me, men are looking at my tits!" bit:
This is a question we hetero men discuss a lot. Why do feminist fag hags like you adore gay men, who engage in the most piggish promiscuity as a matter of course? Feminist fag hags then, inexplicably, are prone to denouncing hetero men for desiring the same with females. What's it all about, fag hags?
Gay male swinish promiscuity turns you on. Straight male swinish promiscuity repels you. I know that sexual behavior is often inexplicable, but we swinish hetero men wonder about this often.
Not off topic. What are the odds that the constituency for this article is primarily fags and fag hags? The NY Times is now the de facto loud speaker for hatred of normal, Christian white hetero America, which, of course, is Trump's constituency.
The Constitution is black and white. Lawyers live in gray, otherwise no one would need them. That's why lawyer no nothing, and don't want to know anything about the US Const.
Trump's ever-impending failure seems so assured to the NYT faithful because -- for lack of a better word -- thermodynamics. Not exactly the thermodynamics of the real world, but rather certainty that surely this man who offends all people of color and all women must surely fail because of measured certainty: The numbers are just not with him they say. Just like Lemmy, they are dead sure that all this "bad talking" -- like bad living -- will catch up with him sooner that latter. But they err.
Maybe if Roller and others would use the subtle intellect that they like to think they have to analyze what Trump is actually saying rather than instantly repackaging it as white supremacy, nativitism, and bigotry, they might learn something about why this man has been so effective.
This is as profound and fresh a statement as any I've heard about Trump. And in it is the wisdom for defeating Trump if they so choose. But I doubt they will.
Most common answers to my question.
1. The fag hags want to keep all the young, beautiful pussy to themselves!
2. The fag hags imagine that they are saving the young, beautiful pussy from a fate worse than death, while the young, beautiful pussy is eagerly seeking out that fate.
Leftists require weekly, in fact near-daily, reaffirmation that yes, they really are "Teh Special".
'cuz they are so smart and "confident" in their narratives/frameworks/belief systems.
And the media by and large, being part of the lefty-complex, happily obliges these "high tolerance for ambiguity" (snort) "thinkers".
David Begley said...Why is there an Ohio State University at Newark?
Why not a University of Wisconsin at Janesville?
I don't get the question. OSU is a very big university. Like many other big universities, it has satellite campuses. One of them is in Newark.
"I know they think they are going to get Hispanics to vote for them, eventually."
I don't know how reliable this poll is but it should scare the crap out of the GOPe. And the DNC. It's probably not reliable but it is interesting.
Because a new poll, which still has Trump leading the race, shows 40 percent of blacks are lining up behind Trump, as are 45 percent of Hispanics, and even nearly 19 percent of Asians.
The SOP:
1. Write the quote you want to put in your story.
2. Find somebody with a degree to agree with it, and quote them as saying it.
3. Report it as news, and thus the conventional wisdom.
Meade at 8:41 nails both this article and the average discussion thread here.
Trump like Reagan uses the words we use to see realty. That forms a bond. Then loyalty traps us.
Trump will keep leading using that "trick" leading many until he turns out to be wrong. That hasn't' happened as yet. He just rolls along exposing that it is the media who are
The False Prophets...the Media paid to tell us Silly Big
Lies that no longer confuse men once a word smith confronts them for what they are.
Conservatives...tend to be a lot more insular in nature
The NYT has to explain this to its readership, since they don't know any conservatives.
My curiosity was way bigger than fear, so I jumped in and got close
-things the audience for this article tend not to say about people like me.
Still, I'm sympathetic to the cathartic opportunity that Trump gives the cultural Marxists to express the same reactions saner people have been having for seven years: "Why does anybody like this buffoon? I hate seeing him on tv all the time! I don't care how much he likes golf! Quit telling me how beautiful you think his wife is! Quit telling me about some book he wrote more than a decade ago! He probably had that ghostwritten anyway!"
"And how can you hope for any positive change to come from a guy who willingly associates with Hillary Clinton?"
Yeah, CONSERVATIVES are the insular ones.
Explains why Liberty University booed and shouted Bernie Sanders down while Missouri embraced the press for their open discussions.
The NYT long ago stopped being a place where ideas were openly discussed.
As Rush said years ago, the Times stopped being the Paper of Record decades ago and is now the conduit of the dreams of the self-professed intelligentsia of NY.
Those same criticisms apply to Bernie Sanders supporters, or really any group of hard core partisans. Of course they have answers before they know the question being asked, of course they prefer simple solutions that happen to support their worldview, and of course it's easier to demonize than figure out the opposition. No side has a monopoly on that sort of fanaticism.
Hell, the NYT has applauded Obama ignoring Congress because they aren't doing what he wants. How often did they say that Obama "had to" violate immigration law because Congress wouldn't pass a new immigration bill.
You know, instead of simply enforcing the laws we currently have.
Why pass a new law when the current one is being ignored? Why would I expect a new law to be honored any more than the current one is?
Why is there an Ohio State University at Newark?
State Universities spread campuses all over the State so that more Legislators have Campuses in their districts and are therefore more likely to look with beneficience on the University.
"Conservatives tend to be a lot more reactive to negative information and they also tend to be a lot more insular in nature..."
....said a Conservative. That would have been a surprising ending to the sentence. "...said a University Professor" -- not so surprising. But as althouse notes, now the Times' readers can nod their heads sagely and say "I always have said this!
Nice seasonal typo: "nativitism": that would mean a prejudice in favor of Christmas (over Kwanzaa and Festivus?) or a general excess of Christmasy qualities. I think you meant to accuse people of accusing Trump of "nativism".
Professor Odkie, I'd like you to meet Professor Haidt. You might find his work interesting. Then again, you might just write him off.
"Maybe if Roller and others would use the subtle intellect that they like to think they have to analyze what Trump is actually saying rather than instantly repackaging it as white supremacy, nativitism, and bigotry...."
What is Trump actually saying that is not a crude appeal to white supremacy, nativism, and bigotry? He is just presenting his own version of "Hope" and "Change," (as all popular politicians do). Actually, Brando @ 8:24 AM has a mostly pretty cogent assessment of Trump's appeal.
The truth is, all of those running are career politicians, and anything they do and say is tempered by their desire to stay in office as their primary objective. People are sick of hearing the same canned platitudes and soft-boiled equivocations that are offered as "significant" position statements. Everyone knows the country is in a rotten state, that the media and Washington proffer lies, and that the politicians are doing nothing about any of it. So, of course, any aspiring candidate who seems to be telling the truth, who discards the style and substance we've come to expect of all candidates for high office, who seems to be a maverick and "angry" and willing to change the system, is going to be widely appealing to many.
This does not mean that what that candidate says is necessarily truthful or (even if truthful), is sensible or addresses the nation's problems with rational or achievable solutions. We all enjoy seeing movies and tv shows about the supposed "street smart" cop who ignores the rules, defies the bureaucracy, and metes out his own swift and sure justice. Yet, such cops violate the law and the civil liberties of those they seek out. Yes, it's satisfying to see the bad guy get his (or hers), but when violation of civil liberties and extra-legal methods are cheered as a means to solve problems, when we make heroes of cops who are one-man lynch mobs, the rule of law is subverted and tyranny is its usurper. Trump is just presenting himself as a latter-day Dirty Harry. But real life and politics is not a movie, and the visceral appeal of crude movie-style solutions is dangerous, if not fatal, to civil society.
The extremists are all on the other side.
There are extremists on both sides. The pretense that all extremists are conservative is overwhelmingly leftist.
1000 psychologists said Goldwater was crazy in 1964 - in their professional opinion. You can get Leftists to say anything.
tim mcguire wrote:
Which is why liberals get progressively more detached from reality as the years go by, it is why they cannot reform, cannot break out of their death spiral. And they will never have an insight about anyone who is not liberal.
I cannot imagine how a liberal could be opposed to legalizing pedophilia if the APA took it out of the DSM and published research that showed most pedophiliac victims 'showed few or no lasting signs of harm.'
Conservative writers have also refused to address Trump's positions as policy that should be reasonably debated. Trump has committed his positions to paper, so those who ignore them are not honestly opposing Trump's policies.
Ann Althouse:
"I see that she did graduate from UW-Madison, which is not called UWM. UWM means University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee."
Ha! You were hoping there for a moment.
Conservatives would prefer a negative concrete statement to a slightly positive, uncertain statement.
My twitter experience rates this statement mostly true.
"University of Wisconsin - Rock County" is in Janesville.
Trump has a certain resonance, mostly with lower educated people (because they don't know that certain things he is saying are untrue, and don't know the same range of facts so can assume more things to make what he says make sense) and he has this resonance because he is echoing to a certain degree whatpeople have heard before, uncontradicted, on talk radio and some other places, and because nobody comes up with very good arguments against what he says. But public discussion is generally of very poor quality.
And he is popular with people called conservatives because they have different prejudices tha people called liberals.
Trump actually has twice the number of people against him as for him, but some people, because of the way they read polls, and because of the history since 1972 of presidential candidates dropping out of the race, see him or call him a front-runner.
@damikesc
This is a FALLACY. Do you apply this to drug laws, or speed limits?
"The pretense that all extremists are conservative is overwhelmingly leftist."
The pretense that all extremists are "the other side" is a universal human trait.
“Donald Trump is telling them something they already believe, and they’re sharing it because they want other people to believe it too,”
Have they not a single self-aware person at the NYT??????
In short, American conservatives resist a pro-choice or selective philosophy.
As for risk management, it is not Americans who defer to minority rule, favor monopoly establishment, and sacrifice human lives to earn the favor of men and women with a god-complex.
Seems that George Orwell's advice for journalists could use an addendum: "Never use a description that could easily apply to any candidate, party, or partisan."
I grew up in a very Blue city in what is now a very Blue state. All my family and friends were Democrats. By the time I went away to College, I hadn't met a Republican.
I was a liberal by osmosis.
But, after actually reading opposing pieces and questioning assumptions and gaining the confidence to actually disagree with the views of my family and friends, I easily migrated to the Conservative side. The journey probably took 4 or 5 years. The military helped, true, but working and raising kids helped even more.
Nobody who actually lives, works, loves, provides, reads, and seeks wisdom can be a leftist in the modern era. Too much reality to buy the Utopian fantasies peddled by Left-wingers. I see "Mattress Girl" and "Pajama Boy" and the "Hands up, Don't shoot" lies promoted by race-baiters, and I guess it makes me more insular -- too much nonsense and falsehoods.
So, I don't know if I am more "insular" than the average Joe. I don't worry about it.
Sammy Finkelman wrote:
(because they don't know that certain things he is saying are untrue, and don't know the same range of facts so can assume more things to make what he says make sense)
No, it's because being lower educated, they have experienced the bad part of open immigration (greater competition for scarce jobs) without the good part (cheap gardeners and nannies!).
Maybe if Roller and others would use the subtle intellect that they like to think they have to analyze what Trump is actually saying rather than instantly repackaging it as white supremacy, nativitism, and bigotry, they might learn something about why this man has been so effective."
Roller knows her audience and who butters her toast and caters to them. To put it succinctly, conservatives believe their lying eyes and progressives don't. The NYT is a DNC House Organ and it's readers want to see what they want to see and not what is really there. God forbid reality should disturb their vision.
"""Conservatives tend to be a lot more reactive to negative information and they also tend to be a lot more insular in nature...""
And yet, it's the liberals who are dying of scare because of "Global Warming", demand government to protect them from every risk possible from cradle to grave, who incessantly whine about "micro-aggressions" and who cannot believe that anyone would want to live free life, without IRS, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, subsidized housing, foodstamps, and affirmative action.
"Conservatives would prefer a negative concrete statement to a slightly positive, uncertain statement."
This is why Democrats believed Obama when he said "if you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance".
"Conservatives tend to be a lot more reactive to negative information ..."
Wouldn't it be just great if lefties would react to negative information, especially information such as the abject failure of this administration's Middle East policy. Not to mention the abject failures of domestic policies in the urban inner cities. Or Detroit. Or Illinois.
One cannot reasonably label as "extremist" the position that a large centralized government with a grasp into far-reaching areas of citizens' lives is, on net, a bad thing. The inability to find counter examples proves the point.
But Leftists would identify the urge of conservatives to be largely left alone as extremist.
Meade's attempt at humor notwithstanding.
This is a FALLACY. Do you apply this to drug laws, or speed limits?
If we simply had cops ignore that speed limits exist, why would I expect a NEW speed limit to be treated any differently?
If a community decides to simply ignore that drugs are illegal, why would I suspect a new drug law being passed with be honored?
When somebody utterly ignores a law, it does little more than simply erode confidence in the rule of law.
Trump has a certain resonance, mostly with lower educated people (because they don't know that certain things he is saying are untrue, and don't know the same range of facts so can assume more things to make what he says make sense)
People are amazingly well-versed in things that impact them.
Do you realize how utterly ignorant, say, the average NYT reader is about ANYTHING going on in the Midwest or South? They don't know a damned thing outside of their little parochial, once-great area.
It's a good thing 9/11 happened in 2001. There'd be WAY less sympathy for them if it happened now.
"In short, American conservatives resist a pro-choice or selective philosophy."
Quite the opposite in my experience. With the notable exception of abortion, I would describe American conservatism as radically pro-choice in it's essence. By historical standards, certainly. It is the statist Left that wishes to constrict our choices.
I live in a land of liberals - San Francisco.
The local upper-middle class is remarkably parochial, I find.
Perhaps it is that I am a foreigner, raised in a truly multicultural society.
But I have often been dismayed by the attitudes of these wealthy and ostensibly well educated, well traveled people. I am still, after decades, being surprised by the cultural ignorance of these people.
In many cases its not just a lack of knowledge, but it seems an active resistance to knowledge.
There is no such active resistance among adults of the lower middle class (their teenagers though are something else again).
Not in my experience. I no longer consider myself a "conservative"--I think of myself as a libertarian RINO--but none of the conservatives I've encountered have been half as insular as your average lockstep "liberal" Eloi.
A high tolerance for doublethink would be a better description than high "tolerance for ambiguity"
Liberals have just the right amount of tolerance for ambiguity. Anything more or less is clearly evil.
rcocean said...
1000 psychologists said Goldwater was crazy in 1964 - in their professional opinion. You can get Leftists to say anything.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldwater_rule
The Goldwater rule is the informal name for a precept of medical ethics promulgated by the American Psychiatric Association. It forbids psychiatrists from commenting on individuals' mental state without examining them personally and being authorized by the person to make such comments.[1] The rule has no official name; it is simply Section 7.3 of the APA's ethics principles.[2]
The issue arose in the 1960s when Fact magazine published the article "The Unconscious of a Conservative: A Special Issue on the Mind of Barry Goldwater." The magazine polled psychiatrists about American Senator Barry Goldwater and whether he was fit to be president.[3][4]
The Cracker Emcee:
A resistance to pro-choice philosophy does not preclude individual choice, but rather constrains the progress of unprincipled, unreproducible positions and therefore unreliable, untrustworthy people. Americans are classical liberals tempered by Judaeo-Christian religious or moral philosophy, which implies we are predisposed to tolerance, not normalization, of a diverse spectrum of individual orientations and behaviors.
There probably are some psychological traits that affect whether someone is more likely to lean left or right (or libertarian vs. statist might be a better way to look at it). Perhaps multitaskers tend one way, or introverts tend another way, or risk takers vs. people who play it safer, etc. But in recent years a lot of these "social studies" seem to be unscientific ways for leftists to pat themselves on the back--"see, conservatives tend to hate things that are different! Liberals tend to be more generous!"--confirming what they already believe by skewing their approach to fit that. That sort of thing is worse than useless. It's not unlike the "What's the Matter with Kansas?" mystery, which pre-supposes that leftists know what's in someone else's best interest and so cannot figure out why that someone else thinks the wrong way (the conclusion? Bigotry).
"The pretense that all extremists are "the other side" is a universal human trait."
I agree but you might be alarmed, or maybe not, by this description of the new rulers of California and the USA.
This tech elite differs from the founding generation of Silicon Valley. The early leaders – Bob Packard, Bob Noyce, Andrew Grove, Jerry Sanders – tended to be centrist and pragmatic. After all, the early Valley was heavily subsidised by the military and NASA, and produced industrial products that faced enormous competition. They also managed vast organisations with large numbers of ordinary employees. Like other industrialists, they were concerned with low-cost power and water, reasonable labour regulation and the health of the overall manufacturing economy.
This changed when a combination of keen Asian competition and Californian regulation gradually shifted the chip and computer manufacturers out of Silicon Valley, which has lost roughly 80,000 manufacturing jobs since 2000. The new Valley is predominately post-industrial. For example, only 30 of about 16,000 production workers for the iPod are based in the US.
The new Obama elite has no idea how people actually live.
About 25 years ago, a young friend asked me whether I thought liberals (as that term is used in our era) actually believe the nonsense they spout, or is it all part of a power trip. I said that I believed that liberalism is an intellectual failing, not a moral failing. If I had a pet professor I suppose I could have cited him/her for the proposition that it's a mental illness.
@Hyphenated - and guarantees as far as the eye can see.
@Michael K:
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make with your comment at 7:30 PM.
The transfer of manufacturing jobs out of this country has been ongoing for quite some time, and reflects the desires and intent of the capitalists to reduce their labor costs to as low as they can go to bolster profit margins. This is the logical inevitable result of capitalism, and when the wages in China or India are seen to be too great, the jobs will be moved to lesser countries where the wages can be pushed even lower.
This has nothing to do with any "Obama elite," whoever they may be; this has to do with the financial elites, and Wall Street, and the never-satisfied-enough (and unsatisfiable) quest for ever-better quarterly returns.
"tolerance for ambiguity" means accepting the hypocrisy of liberals, such as Hillary claiming to be a feminist despite her actions showing otherwise.
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