Trump: Picking the Worst

As Donald Trump prepares to become the most powerful person in the world, it is hard to know where to push back. There are so many aspects to the awfulness, you have to step back and prioritize the outrage. As bad as he is with women and other groups, the march on Washington is small potatoes. Who cares if he’s a sexist pig. Who cares if he builds a wall or not. Doesn’t matter if Jeff Sessions was a racists. In the larger picture, these don’t matter. So what does?

    Existential Threat to Human Existence: Nuclear Annihilation

After Reagan/Gorbachev/Bush, the world became significantly safer. Nuclear weaponry was gradually reduced and controlled. Successive administrations continued this trend. The threat of nuclear global war by superpowers has more or less gone away. The greater threat has been rouge actors. (In the 2004 election, Bush II and Kerry agreed the biggest threat to national security was nuclear proliferation via terrorist groups.) Follow The Doomsday Clock for a fascinating view of this threat.

Conversely, Trump has been consistent about expanding America’s nuclear capabilities, as well as our allies and the world in general. This is despite gross ignorance (not understanding Japans relationship with the military, the nuclear triad, or much of anything).

As I write this, Trump is again talking about disbanding NATO. Likely he holds this view primarily as a negotiating tactic. America has an enormous strength in nuclear weaponry, and we should leverage that threat to get what we want. In addition, unpredictability brings its own benefits. This is usually referred to as “The Madman Theory”, first played out by Trumps hero, Richard Nixon. The benefits of this strategy are real, but they pale against the possible consequence, the end of all human life. It’s amazing that sentence ever needed to be written. You don’t screw around with nuclear war. Policy that wagers human existence against geopolitical advantage is literally insane.

    Existential Threat to Human Existence: Global Warming

On all of Earth, there is only major political party that denies the existence of global warming and the role of humans in it. That is the Republican party of The United States of America. It’s incredible that this one political coalition could imperil life on earth, but there it is. Trump has taken on these beliefs as well. Per usual, it is difficult to understand if he has a clear stance
or has thought very hard about the issue. There may be “some connectivity”, but it’s all a Chinese Hoax. Or something.

Divining his stance is fascinating, but action is where the rubber hits the road. He has been consistently against efforts to control global warming: promising rollbacks of regulations, backing out of the Paris Treaty, nominating deniers to positions of power. Once again, it is hard to overstate how real a threat this is. The consequence of insufficient action is the elimination of our species.

    Threats to American Democracy

These are harder to categorize, but Trump and the current GOP represent a real threat to the American Experiment.

America under control by a foreign power: There is little doubt that Russia attempted to influence the election. There is little doubt that Trump and his inner circle have deep connections to the Kremlin and Russia, and will never reveal what they are. Whether you believe Trump is a willing participant or not, it is self-evident that he has allowed a foreign power to strike at the core of our democracy.

It is great to see elements of the GOP pushing back on this, though it’s a bit late. (Hey John McCain, you endorsed Trump, remember!?)

Corruption of the presidency: Trump is already monetizing the new presidency. The mixing of his commercial and political roles is self-evidently corrupt. His model is Russian kleptocracy. He has shown no remorse or any inclination to stop. Pushing through nominees before background checks and conflicts of interest are vetted.

Partisanship above country: The GOP in general keeps moving further down a bad road. Undermining of the democratic process, both in law and accepted norms: Gerrymandering, vote suppression. Casting unfounded doubts on the voting system, pre-emptively accusing opponents of cheating. Blanket refusal to consider Russia’s influence. Refusal to allow consideration of a Supreme Court nominee, and other judgeships. Refusal to fill executive positions. Playing blackmail and brinksmanship, notably the willingness to shut down the government or default on debt over narrow partisan issues. Escalation of filibuster and similar extraordinary procedures to everyday barriers. Refusal to compromise as an ideological position. Abandonment of positions if the other party supports them (health care, cap and trade for examples). One could go on.

Degradation of facts and free-speech: The modern GOP is anti-fact. (My last real post spoke to this.)
Building their own media echo chamber, banning research in forbidden topics (gun control, marijuana) ideological denial of global-warming, etc. Trump represents a new low. He doesn’t even pretend to deal with facts. I dare any reader to discover Trump engaging with any policy issue in a meaningful, in depth, fact-driven, way. I’ll be waiting. Even on his signature issues of Trade and Immigration he seems to not know what he is talking about or be able to speak past the catchphrase. And he doesn’t care. He lies consistently, continuously, on any topic for any reason. Politifact and similar organizations have been neutered. In any normal election, these graphs would matter.

In addition, Trump is actively pushing back on free speech. He consistently demonizes journalists and journalism. He will not give a press conference. He is open about using his wealth and power to punish journalists, and pre-emptively keep them from reporting on him. He wants to loosen libel laws so he can go after journalists.
Taken together, these add up to genuine threats to American Democracy. Taken together, these add up to genuine threats to American Democracy.

Threats to America, threats to humanity. These outweigh everything else.

The Barry Gibb Talk Show

One of my favorite skits ever is The Barry Gibb Talk Show. From a comedic perspective, I love schticks like this that are several concepts piled on top of each other. The crazy voice, the great song, the anger issues, the juxtoposing of serious political though, the vapidity of Robin, that they are clearly the 1970s version of The Bee Gees, the ad hoc harmonies, so much to love.

Today I realized I had one part wrong. I always assumed that Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon had written the song, much as Timberlake and Samberg did for Dick in a Box. I am now aware there is a fairly famous song by The Bee Gees, Nights on Broadway.

I don’t know if this makes the skits funnier or not for me.

My Latest Favorite Song: #14

Have you ever had a song that you didn’t really like, and then one day you just “got it”? This week, I suddenly “got” Babylon Sisters by Steely Dan.

The drumming is particularly wonderful. Go look up the Purdy Shuffle. This drum beat is also in Rosanna (Toto) and Fool in the Rain (the only good thing in the song). I could listen to those drums all day.

I like music that takes a while to get. It is what I don’t like about most pop music. There are a fair number of pop songs with some substance to them. But for the vast majority, once you’ve heard it twice there is nothing left to hear. There is no subtlety you missed, no bass line that you plays with the harmonies in a way you didn’t notice before, a out-of-key chord that you can hear the tension — it’s all done. That’s one of the reasons children don’t like jazz or classical music — it takes years to develop the ear that can hear what is going on in those genres.

The Internet Delivers: Glasses

I stepped on my glasses this morning, a lens popped out. A little googling, a little youtubing and the below video showed me how to fix it easily.

It is amazing how I take this for granted. Ten years ago I would drive to a glasses store, and hope they would do it for free. Odds are I would pay $20 and spend an hour doing this. Instead, it took me five minutes. We just assume this level of knowledge is out there for everyone to share in. Amazing.

God, I Hate Poker so Much

I did some bar poker this week.

Night one: In three hours, I had pocket 7s once, A-2 another time. That was the best I ever saw. Two bluffs did not work out. Blinded to death.
Night two: A-K suited on the third hand. Raise 6x, two callers. Flop is A-9-8. Check to me, I go all in (about 3x the pot). One caller, he has pocket 8s.

Sigh.

Plotholes: The Dark Knight Rises

Since I am constantly complaining at the absurdities that litter movies, this will start a new running feature. We just re-watched The Dark Knight Rises. Like most movies by the Nolan brothers, it is a great movie that should have been chopped down by 10-20%. Anyhow…

Bruce Wayne must escape from the very same prison that Bane grew up in. There is only one way out, to climb up. Many have tried and many have failed. Even Bruce Wayne fails twice. And then somehow heroically doesn’t. But why did he even need any help? He’s attached to a rope. For the rope to function, it must be attached to the top at some point. Just climb the stupid rope!

(Well, dang it — I’m not the first person to beef about this. This makes the same points better.)
And if you desperately need to make a jump long enough to live, maybe you shouldn’t pack up your belongings and bring them along.

It also seems there must be many easier ways to escape. How does food and water and clothing and medicines go back and forth? And prisoners? Where are the actual guards? All of these are opportunities to make other kinds of escape plans. How about a tunnel?

My Latest Favorite Song: #13

This isn’t my latest by a long shot. When Mrs. Muttrox and I were vacationing in France five years ago, this song was on the radio and kept us going. When we got back to the States, it took a long time to track it down because (1) we couldn’t remember the lyrics, and (2) we thought the singer was a girl. Oops.

Links o’ Interest

How to appear smart during meetings

This is great street art in Portland – many days I feel like this. And watching my kids go through the educational system reinforces it.

This Grantland article is a wonderful history and overview of waterparks. The web design is very engaging as well.

This schoolchilds Haiku is spot on.

Here’s a fun way to fix a bad tattoo.

Drummer with no arms. Take that Def Leppard!

Very meta comedy sketch, about a comedy sketch even as it’s going.

A twin interview with the mighty Austin and Lev Grossman. Probably the only joint interview of successful twin novelists ever.

Famous quotes, by other people. It adds a whole new layer of context.

Are you wasting your time right now?

Send off your interns properly

You should be grateful for the amazing kitchen you have, that you take for granted. Look at it with fresh eyes.

All the money in the world, in one image

This is a very interesting cover of Baba O’Riley. A pair of harpists, surprising rocking.

A fantastic meta science fair project. Very trueish.

This geneticist used 23andme.com to accidentally start his parents divorce. A fascinating story of the downside of knowledge.

Harry Potter titles, from the perspective of Hermione

Free football!

Democrats, Republicans, and Lying*

Paul Krugman had the same reaction to this article as I did. The conclusion is obvious, even if the editorial writer didn’t want to say it. The Democrats and Republicans approach truth differently. One side cares about facts, the other doesn’t.

Politifact grades the candidates

Another interpretation is possible. The lying also clusters around the folks who haven’t actually held political office. The longer they’ve served in important positions, the more accurate they are. This doesn’t get the GOP off the hook. When your leading candidates have no experience, and don’t know or care about the facts — that still reflects on the party, it’s voters, it’s priorities, it’s willingness to engage with reality.

* I titled this post lying, but it could be either lying or ignorance. Either is deplorable, and we both know which one it really is.