"Senators, America we need to exercise our common sense about what happened.... Let's not get caught up in a lot of outlandish lawyers theories here. Exercise your common sense about what just took place in our country."

Said Lead Impeachment Manager Jamie Raskin, quoted in a February 11th Wall Street Journal piece — "In Closing, Raskin Quotes Thomas Paine: 'Tyranny, Like Hell, Is Not Easily Conquered'" — by Lindsay Wise. Thomas Paine's 1776 pamphlet was called "Common Sense."

Quoted in response to Raskin, Senator Josh Hawley: "I was really disappointed they didn’t engage much with the legal standards. This is a legal process after all. Very little engagement."

When do we get to bypass studying the factual details and legal standards and all the links in a chain of reasoning? When is it okay to just look at the whole thing and rely on instinct and just know that something is right or wrong? 

The answer can't be: When it helps my side win. 

People who liked Raskin's appeal to "common sense" — as opposed to "lawyers theories" — need to realize it's also the way Trump argued that he won the 2020 election. You just look at what you can see and feel what you feel. 

And that's how Trump has been talking to his people all along. In your heart, you know he's right... or, in your guts you know he's nuts. 

Bias has become the preferred form of reasoning. Better not get bogged down in lawyers theories. The other side is off and running. 

Here's an article in by Sophia Rosenfeld in The Nation from 2017, "The Only Thing More Dangerous Than Trump’s Appeal to Common Sense Is His Dismissal of It":

Trump began his quixotic campaign for president as the embodiment of a familiar kind of right-wing, common-sense populism. Instead of deference to well-trained scientists, academics, journalists, and even governmental authorities, he touted the true wisdom of “the people.” In place of fancy studies built on research, data, and modeling, he promised plain-spoken, off-the-cuff reports on the state of our world and obvious, practical solutions to our problems. 

That is, Trump suggested politics was actually quite simple if only one would rely on the kind of basic reasoning which emerges from just going about normal, everyday business using one’s senses and instincts and which—surprise, surprise—tends to run counter to “establishment” conclusions.... 

Live-TV tedious excitement over the naming of the House managers for the show trial in the Senate.

I'm overhearing Fox News (with, I'm assured, MSNBC getting recorded) and (as I'm trying to finish my post about Michael Moore's assertion that Elizabeth Warren stabbed Bernie Sanders in the back) I'm seeing the faux-drama in the New York Times...



Nancy Pelosi is about to do a big reveal. How much do you care and how much depends on who the hell the House managers are?

I find this a bit irritating, this political theater.

UPDATE: I watched the announcement, but all I remember is Nancy Pelosi going on about the Constitution and mentioning Abraham Lincoln, Paul Revere, and "These are the times that try men's souls." And somebody said that not only would Trump be on trial, but the Senate is on trial. And Nadler, looking disturbingly green, said Trump is on trial and also democracy is on trial. The frame of what's "on trial" is ever-expanding. What do you think is on trial? I'll just say it's trying my patience. And my patience pleads not guilty.

I'm adding some tags with this update, and I tried to add "Paul Revere," not that I wanted to create a new "Paul Revere" tag, but I'd add the tag if it already existed. Did it? Well... kind of...



AND: Is my use of the term "show trial" apt? It's not the normal show trial, where the predetermined outcome is that the accused will be found guilty and punished. From Wikipedia:

A show trial is a public trial in which the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal the presentation of both the accusation and the verdict to the public so they will serve as both an impressive example and a warning to other would-be dissidents or transgressors. Show trials tend to be retributive rather than corrective and they are also conducted for propagandistic purposes. The term was first recorded in 1928.

In the case of Trump's impeachment trial, the show is of hearing the accusations and the predetermined outcome is that the accused will be vindicated and nothing will happen to him. But there is a propagandistic purpose to it, and it's some kind of effort to warn other would-be transgressors. And yet, it's not very scary, is it? Indeed, in the future, the threat of impeachment may lose its power. It's just political nonsense.

Did a memo go out to get Alec Baldwin?

After writing the last post, which contained the quoted line...

It’s that extra level of satirical depth that consistently elevates [Atamanuik's] portrayal of Trump above everything Alec Baldwin has done to date on Saturday Night Live.

... the next thing I saw (at The Daily Beast) was, "The Hell That Was Watching Kim Kardashian and Alec Baldwin Chat for an Hour/The second episode of ‘The Alec Baldwin Show’ featured a grueling sit-down talk between the reality-TV superstar and SNL’s Trump."

To recap, Alec Baldwin’s #Resistance consists of softly parodying the president on SNL while the world burns around him. But Baldwin has consistently displayed Trumpian tendencies himself....

All of this makes him perfect for Kardashian, who has experience dealing with Donald Trump—and with Trump supporters, like her husband. As Kim recently admitted, she’s come to accept Kanye West’s newfound Republicanism as a means to an end, saying, “I am aware that Kanye speaking out in favor of Trump got me through the door—got him to pick up my call.” But while Kardashian has inarguably used her influence to do some good, this is hardly the time to just stand in the back and watch as your life partner co-signs a racist president, spreads false information and amplifies far-right voices....

When the conversation inevitably turned to Kanye West and Donald Trump, Baldwin predictably failed to ask the tough questions, letting Kardashian skate by on beauty-pageant platitudes about “having an open mind.”....

And what's going on with "Saturday Night Live" in the run-up to the election? Have they somehow determined that they're not helping the side they want to help?

As The Wrap reports, the new season of the show began with 3 weeks of new shows, but the past 2 weeks have had reruns and next week there's just going to be some collection of old Halloween-themed sketches. There is supposed to be a new episode on November 3rd, which is before the election, but it's odd — isn't it? — that the show is backing off right before the election. (You can compare the 2016 schedule here, 2014 here)

Anyway, keep an eye out for attacks on Alec Baldwin and flop sweat over the failure of pop culture to help the Democratic Party.

The only side I'm taking is I'm for the separation of art and politics. I don't like them cross-bred. You get "a sort of mule-animal, capable only of destroying, and not of breeding up." (I'm quoting Thomas Paine, of all people, who was writing in a slightly different context.)

"How Trump Withstands So Many Controversies... The word 'treason' is being thrown around..."

"... to describe how President Trump seemed to take Russia’s side during his summit meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin in Helsinki, Finland. But as with every major controversy that Mr. Trump has faced, it’s unclear if anything will happen as a result."

An excellent topic, well-explored on the NYT "Daily" podcast with Michael Barbaro. I recommend listening to the whole thing. There's no transcript, but from the notes on the show:

Under fire for contradicting United States intelligence reports of Russian interference in the presidential election, Mr. Trump asserted on Tuesday that he had misspoken at his news conference with Mr. Putin, and that he had meant to say, “I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia,” rather than “would.” He added, “Could be other people, also.”

Never in the modern era has the word “treason” become part of the national conversation in such a prominent way. Some of those who voted for Mr. Trump struggled to endorse his approach, but many are reaffirming their support.

On the subject of the prominence of the term "treason," there's a link to an article from yesterday that says:

[John O. Brennan, the former C.I.A. director... called [Trump's] performance “nothing short of treasonous.” The late-night hosts Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel also invoked treason on their shows. The front-page banner headline for The New York Daily News declared “OPEN TREASON.”

Max Boot, the former Republican who has become one of Mr. Trump’s sharpest critics, noted in a column on Monday in The Washington Post that accusing him of treason was once unthinkable. No longer....

Mr. Trump returned to the White House on Monday night as protesters outside the gate shouted, “Welcome home, traitor.” Even Dictionary.com trolled the president, tweeting out a definition: “Traitor: A person who commits treason by betraying his or her country.”

It later said that searches for “treason” had increased by 2,943 percent. By Tuesday afternoon, the word “traitor” had been used on Twitter 800,000 times and the word “treason” about 1.2 million times....

When I hear "treason" used in political discourse like that, my mind drifts back to 1964 and the rise of Barry Goldwater. One of the key books of that time was "None Dare Call It Treason." I look it up, and what they hell? The first hit is the NYT obituary for its author, dated yesterday!

John A. Stormer, whose self-published 1964 book, “None Dare Call It Treason,” became a right-wing favorite despite being attacked as inaccurate in promulgating the notion that American government and institutions were full of Communist sympathizers, died on July 10 in Troy, Mo. He was 90....

Communists, Mr. Stormer wrote, were bent on infiltrating the American government and had largely succeeded, as evidenced by American and United Nations economic support for Communist countries.

“The Communists have sworn to bury us,” Mr. Stormer wrote. “We are digging our own graves.... From where has the money come to build and finance the vast collectivist underground which reaches its tentacles into education, the churches, labor and the press?” he asked. “Amazingly, the fortunes of America’s most successful tycoons, dedicated by them to the good of mankind, have been redirected to finance the socialization of the United States.”

That was the deployment of the word "treason" that went big in the 60s. People who were not right-wing, of course, viewed it as anti-communist hysteria, a throwback to the McCarthy era, and that's the way I've seen the word "treason" all this time. But John Brennan threw it back into the American discourse and the Trump antagonists have run with it. Nothing else has worked to stop Trump, so why not crack open this 100-foot long gushing fissure?



IN THE COMMENTS: Robert Cook writes:

It's really outrageous and alarming, this tsunami of people shouting "treason" at Trump for...what? Because he disputes our intelligence agencies? That does not fit the definition of treason. And besides, fuck our intelligence agencies!

This must be a coordinated effort to drown Trump in shit to the point where he can't move or speak, where he is immobilized. I don't say this as a fan of Trump--I think he's terrible in just about every way--but to recognize that there are powerful forces who will do whatever they must to stop any president from pursuing courses of action that they do not approve of. The Military/Industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us of, by whatever name it should be known now, is more powerful than ever, and sees itself as sovereign over us all. Those who hate Trump may cheer this now, but they will cry when the same tactics are used by these forces to paralyze the efforts of a president whom they do support.

"He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." Thomas Paine

Did you know Thomas Paine was a corsetmaker?

"In London, Paine's revolutionary writings were dismissed as the work of 'Tom the Bodicemaker'..."

Great cartoon fodder, wonderfully deployed:





I'd never noticed this historical fact before. I learned it from a NYT crossword from 2012 that came up in my crossword app last night. Paine wasn't much of a corsetmaker though:

Young Tom's formal schooling ended at twelve, when his father took him on as an apprentice to learn the family trade. Yet an uncertain economy made for a bad climate for a new tradesman, and Paine's efforts as a staymaker (and in several other subsequent careers) failed. After he sailed for America in 1774, he never practiced the staymaking trade again....

So metaphorical!

Hillary self-refutes: "I will not be a part of a political slugfest on the backs of dead Americans."

"It’s just plain wrong, and it’s unworthy of our great country. Those who insist on politicizing the tragedy will have to do so without me."

From her forthcoming book, previewed in Politico.

By "self-refutes," I mean a statement that asserts something and cancels it out simultaneously. I'm trying to think of some famous examples of this, but failing that, I'll just make up a sentence that demonstrates the kind of statement I'm talking about: I will not indulge in hyperbole as I present myself to you as the most qualified individual who has ever run for the office of President of the United States.

Ah! I thought of a well-known example: any statement that begins with the words "Not to mention." And here's one I found on the internet: "There are no absolute claims."

And here's something: "Internal Contradiction: Fallacies of Self Refutation." That quotes Aristotle,  — "One cannot say of something that it is and that it is not in the same respect and at the same time" — and Thomas Paine:

"But granting the grammatical right, that Moses might speak of himself in the third person, because any man might speak of himself in that manner, it cannot be admitted as a fact in those books, that it is Moses who speaks, without rendering Moses truly ridiculous and absurd: -- for example, Numbers xii. 3: "Now the man Moses was very MEEK, above all the men which were on the face of the earth." If Moses said this of himself, instead of being the meekest of men, he was one of the most vain and arrogant coxcombs; and the advocates for those books may now take which side they please, for both sides are against them: if Moses was not the author, the books are without authority; and if he was the author, the author is without credit, because to boast of meekness is the reverse of meekness, and is a lie in sentiment."

Let us do unto Hillary as Thomas Paine did unto Moses.

IN THE COMMENTS: Paul Zrimsek said:

Bush lied, people [censored]! 

Democrat, Democratic, Democratical.

Today, I encountered a word I'd never noticed before: "democratical." I was writing about the "common sense" meme and arrived at the Thomas Paine pamphlet "Common Sense" and John Adams's criticism of it as "so democratical, without any restraint or even an attempt at any equilibrium or counter poise, that it must produce confusion and every evil work."

The OED defines "democratical" to mean the same thing as "democratic," and it gives some usage examples going back to 1589 and continuing only to 1850:

Gun control and the "common sense" meme.

I got 19,300 results from a Google news search for "common sense" and "Sandy Hook."

To be fair, not all of the "common sense" is a characterization of gun regulation proposals. Here's "Parenting common sense and solace," for example. And here's one referring to "the common-sense procedures" that schools can put in place — and that in fact were in place at Sandy Hook Elementary School. But most of them seem to be about "common sense" gun control.

Why is "common sense" the meme of choice?

1. The massacre itself feels senseless, and we want things to make sense. Our fervent desire for sense about what happened in the past makes us amenable to related ideas for making sense. Politicians and policymakers step forward to fulfill/manipulate this need for meaning.

2. To say that this "sense" is "common" is to say: a. It's easy, relax, and see what is right in front of your eyes, and b. This conversation is over, and only weird/bad people are cluttering it with other ideas. "Common sense," by offering closure and comfort, seems well-meaning and helpful, but it is also manipulative and power-enhancing.

3. "Common sense" says: I'm moderate. I'm not about banning and confiscating guns, but doing a few modest things that will constrain the bad people of this world without burdening the good people (like you). In that, it's similar to "balanced approach," which is getting a workout in connection with the "fiscal cliff" negotiations. Those who want more taxes — only for the bad guys, not for you! — want to look sensible and moderate. It's those other people who are unbalanced.

4. "Common sense" is a quintessentially American frame of mind. It was the title of the pamphlet Thomas Paine wrote in 1775, stirring up revolutionary fervor. It was completely incendiary and treasonous. And it led to quite a bit of gun violence.

There were those in high places who, while in agreement with Paine's sentiments, voiced criticism of his method. John Adams, ... in his Thoughts on Government wrote that Paine's ideal sketched in Common Sense was "so democratical, without any restraint or even an attempt at any equilibrium or counter poise, that it must produce confusion and every evil work."

Ah! So balanced approach has deep roots too. We are a pragmatic people, and we like practical proposals. We're amenable to arguments framed as balanced and common sense. But if we are indeed practical, we know these are propaganda words, and we look on them with suspicion.

Danny Boyle has declined a knighthood.

He's about being "an equal citizen," he says.

Who else has declined a knighthood? Among others:

David Bowie, musician
Francis Crick, physicist and Nobel Prize winner
Michael Faraday, scientist
Albert Finney, actor
E. M. Forster, author and essayist
Michael Frayn, novelist and dramatist
John Galsworthy, playwright and novelist
Graham Greene, novelist
Stephen Hawking, scientist
David Hockney, CH, RA, artist
Aldous Huxley, author
Rudyard Kipling, author
Henry Moore, sculptor
J.B. Priestley, novelist and playwright
George Bernard Shaw, playwright and critic
Paul Scofield, actor
Ralph Vaughan Williams composer
H.G. Wells, writer

Meanwhile, also at the link: Winston Churchill declined a Dukedom, Neville Chamberlain declined an earldom, John Cleese declined a barony, and John Lennon returned his MBE "in protest against Britain's involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam, and against Cold Turkey slipping down the charts."

The United States is constitutionally forbidden to grant titles of nobility. How different would we be now if we'd been doing that sort of thing all these years?

Dignities and high sounding names have different effects on different beholders. The lustre of the Star and the title of My Lord, over-awe the superstitious vulgar, and forbid them to inquire into the character of the possessor: Nay more, they are, as it were, bewitched to admire in the great, the vices they would honestly condemn in themselves. This sacrifice of common sense is the certain badge which distinguishes slavery from freedom; for when men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.

Said Thomas Paine.

George Zimmerman's lawyers withdraw... because they can't get in touch with him.

"Attorney Craig Sonner and Hal Uhrig said...  they haven't heard from George Zimmerman since Sunday... and against their advice, Zimmerman contacted the special prosecutor who will decide if he should face charges."

Sonner said: "He's gone on his own. I'm not sure what he's doing or who he's talking to. I cannot go forward speaking to the public about George Zimmerman and this case as representing him because I've lost contact with him."

Uhrig said he's "not doing well emotionally."

Meanwhile, Zimmerman has a website: here. He's trying to collect donations, and he says: "I am attempting to respond to each and everyone of my supporters personally." Speaking so freely... it's not the way a lawyer would tell you to deal with a potential prosecution.

At his home page, there's a set of links, one of which is "My Race." If you click, you get to a picture of an American flag and the quote, under the heading "My Race": "The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion." — Thomas Paine. There's also the Edmund Burke quote — which appears on every page — "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is that good men to do nothing."

I'm not a psychologist. Perhaps you are. I won't say how this strikes me. What do you think?

ADDED: From the Orlando Sentinel:

The lawyers said Zimmerman called Sean Hannity of Fox News without consulting them. He also called the special prosecutor in the case, something the attorneys said they'd never have told him to do....

Uhrig added that he thinks Zimmerman is going through post-traumatic stress and is "largely alone... he's at least emotionally alone.... I will not tell you where George Zimmerman is, because I don't know."