Althouse: "Blobby globs."

November 20, 2020

"Blobby globs."

It's a podcast.

Topics: "Misunderstanding viral media, Biden’s modest calmness, Kamala’s prosecutorial problem, divine conversation."

Extra topic: Rudy's handkerchief.

13 comments:

Carol said...: Yay, first walk with Althouse! Bluetooth headphones are da bomb.

I had a comment to make halfway through but forgot it.; 11/20/20, 10:54 AM
RBE said...: First time listening. Enjoyed it! Now to read the posts when I am not driving!; 11/20/20, 10:59 AM
wild chicken said...: Oh I remember. Totally agree with your un-PC train of thought re Harris.

I know just what you mean!; 11/20/20, 11:22 AM
wild chicken said...: Busted.; 11/20/20, 11:23 AM
Attonasi said...: One thing I find interesting is that at the start of the press conference Rudy and Sydney were both kinda nervous and halting.

Then Jenna spoke and tore people up.

After Jenna spoke it was like the fire had been reset and Rudy and Sydney started acting with more emotion.

Rudy began to sweat at that point.

Sydney stopped with the nervous pauses and glances and started breathing heavily and had an obvious reaction to deep seated anger.; 11/20/20, 12:35 PM
Chennaul said...: Really? Giuliani and the handkerchief is the most ludicrous thing you have seen a public figure do?

Can you be shamed or embarrassed out of even wanting the process to proceed? I always hate the larger group going after one person, or the scapegoat thing, does not matter to me who the one out guy is—usually.

Maybe Kanye when he went after Taylor Swifts microphone but what pissed me off there was the use of physical dominance.; 11/20/20, 12:48 PM
wild chicken said...: Rudy started out fine but it turned into cray-cray handwaving and I tuned out.

They really do need to act cool for this to work. I.e. keep the GOP from bailing too soon.; 11/20/20, 12:50 PM
Chennaul said...: Rudy started out fine but it turned into cray-cray handwaving and I tuned out.

They really do need to act cool for this to work. I.e. keep the GOP from bailing too soon.

................

I completely agree. Whoever set up the lighting over did it. Reminded me of the political critique of the Nixon-Kennedy debate. People listening on radio thought Nixon won, on television they saw Nixon sweating and that mattered more.

The embarrassment, shame thing is really troubling. I read somewhere that it is a really powerful emotion and that you should be really worried about someone when they feel shame. While I was in Shanghai there is this damn American that is a China advisor—whatever. He presents himself on Shanghai television as an “economist” but when you investigate his credentials it gets kind of scary— his specialty is “the brain” and how it works. I suspect that “shame”has long been a powerful tool to varying degrees— an extreme example would be CCP “struggle sessions”. I suspect some Americans might be susceptible to a high tech version of it, and perhaps Trump’s power derives from not being susceptible to it.; 11/20/20, 1:39 PM
West Texas Intermediate Crude said...: I just listened to the part of the podcast where you discuss the widely-held belief that there was funny business in the vote counting, even up to 30% of Dems believe that. You then state that most people can believe that and also believe that, sure, there was some fraud, but that the most reasonable conclusion people could reach, and should reach, is that there was not enough fraud to change the result.
That, professor, is argument by assertion.
Reasonable people can believe that no election is perfect. The dog that no longer barks is that the allegations are going only one way, i.e., that the Dems cheated. The Dem version of GOP cheating took the meme of Voter Suppression, but that never got any traction, despite the media's best effort. They were saying that black people aren't smart enough to figure out how to vote. The racism of the effort outweighed the political usefulness, and it was dropped.
Nobody claims that pro-Trump precincts stopped counting and brought in phony Trump ballots after midnight, or that pro-Trump forces somehow fiddled with the software. In this age of whataboutism, that is not mentioned.
All the allegations of fraud go one way, and one way only. All the states that changed sides after midnight, after a mysterious break in the vote counting, went from red to blue.
Your position is that the second part of the query should be answered with a statement that, "At this point, it doesn't matter."
I get that, if you really want Biden to win.
If you want to know who really won, you would call for a look at the evidence, at least investigate if it's really true that the vote counting stopped, or if red monitors were not allowed to view the ballot counting, or if the software is hinky. You would want to know if there were a pile of ballots that had not been folded, and had marks for Biden only. You would want to know if it's really true that the mail-in votes that were opened before midnight, when both sides were watching, ranged from 60-40 to 40-60, and that after midnight, they were 90-10.
All of these things have been alleged by credible witnesses.
I agree that there was, as always, funny business in this election.
I don't agree that there is reason to believe that it was not more widespread, and potentially outcome changing.
The more the Dems obfuscate and call the Trumpers racists and Nazis, the more suspicious I get. If Biden won fairly, he should welcome any and all inquiries into how he won; 11/20/20, 3:31 PM
Inga said...: Oh man, Althouse. The snotty Rudy handkerchief and all the wiping, I’m glad I missed that part.; 11/20/20, 7:57 PM
I'm Not Sure said...: "If Biden won fairly, he should welcome any and all inquiries into how he won"

Seems obvious, doesn't it?; 11/20/20, 9:42 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "You then state that most people can believe that and also believe that, sure, there was some fraud, but that the most reasonable conclusion people could reach, and should reach, is that there was not enough fraud to change the result. That, professor, is argument by assertion."

You're making an assertion that I asserted something, but I don't think I asserted that. How about a quote? "most reasonable conclusion people could reach, and should reach" — that doesn't sound like me. I challenge you to support your assertion. I don't do "argument by assertion" but you asserted that I did. What I said was that 2 things that might seem contradictory are not contradictory and can be believed simultaneously — which is what is in text in the post I was reading. You changed that.; 11/21/20, 4:46 AM
West Texas Intermediate Crude said...: You are correct, professor- you did not make that statement as an assertion. You did state that it is a reasonable conclusion, or that reasonable people can believe, that the outcome was not perfect, but good enough. If I mistakenly inferred that as your belief, I apologize.
But, no matter. If the 2nd question is answered as that it is likely that the outcome was incorrect/wrong/stolen/unjust, why are we not all outraged that this happened? Why are you, as a (former) officer of the court, so to speak, not outraged, and marching in the streets in protest?
Is our collective hatred of Trump greater than our love for our country and its Constitution? I know that it is not true in my case, but I'm a strong Trumpist (and a strong Constitutionalist).
What say you, Professor? We are not discussing a criminal trail, where it is wrong to infer guilt of an accused who declines to testify. We are speaking of our collective right to choose our government, which credible evidence indicates may have been stolen from us. Democracy dies in darkness. After midnight, when votes are counted and nobody is watching.; 11/21/20, 8:23 AM