Shakespeare Explains the 2016 Election

I don't understand why this NY Times piece hasn't gotten wider play. A Harvard scholar explains that the question of how a sociopath can come to rule an otherwise rational country was thoroughly considered centuries ago by Shakespeare in his play Richard III. It's a brilliant analysis of a brilliant play, and you needn't be an English nerd to grok it easily. This is precisely the missing psychological chunk our pundits frustratingly never seem to supply. Please give it a read, it's short. Excerpt below:

First, there are those who trust that everything will continue in a normal way, that promises will be kept, alliances honored and core institutions respected. Richard is so obviously and grotesquely unqualified for the supreme position of power that they dismiss him from their minds. Their focus is always on someone else, until it is too late. They do not realize quickly enough that what seemed impossible is actually happening. They have relied on a structure that proves unexpectedly fragile.

Second, there are those who cannot keep in focus that Richard is as bad as he seems to be. They see perfectly well that he has done this or that ghastly thing, but they have a strange penchant for forgetting, as if it were hard work to remember just how awful he is. They are drawn irresistibly to normalize what is not normal."

The Republican Party Going Forward

This is the article everyone's talking about tonight, by Rick Wilson, a veteran Republican operative and one of the main forces behind the Republican "Never Trump" movement.

Whether Trump wins, loses, or gets swapped out by Pence, it will be quite a ride. And liberals would be wise not to celebrate. Ask any Iraqi how liberating massive sudden destabilization and radicalization feels. 

Interesting North Korean News

I found this very interesting report on North Korea , which contains some information I haven't seen reported elsewhere. It's slightly oddly written (at first, I assumed I was reading some foreign state's English language propaganda outlet), and very poorly edited, but the information seems credible. Here are some highlights:

More North Koreans are exposed to foreign media than ever before, and their resulting dissatisfaction with their regime may be close to a tipping point:

Since 2011, when Kim Jong Un came to power, the North Korean secret police have been warning their bosses that a growing number of propaganda efforts that worked for decades are now doing more harm than good. This is largely because people have access to cell phones and foreign media which provide contrary views of what is really going on in North Korea. This sort of thing leads to doubts and uncertainty among the population, even the senior leadership and their families. As a result there are more whispered anti-government (or anti-Kim Jong Un) jokes and, worse, the same message in graffiti. More North Koreans are openly complaining to government officials that they are hungry and cold not because of foreign enemies but because of bad government policies. For example a lot of free market activities are still illegal despite that fact that most people depend on access to the free markets for most of the essentials the state supplied until the 1990s. Implicit in this treasonous talk is a popular perception that most North Koreans survive in spite of the government rather than because of any assistance from the government.

China is really, really pissed over the recent nuclear tests, and is starting to make bellicose threats against Jong-un's regime:

China has allowed its approved pundits (scholars and popular media personalities) to freely (without censors coming after them) discuss subjects like unannounced Chinese air or missile strikes on North Korea nuclear and ballistic missile targets....Many North Koreans see...an unprecedented new threat; a joint Chinese-South Korean (and presumably American) effort to go after Kim Kong Un. To reinforce that perception American B-1B bombers very visibly flew over South Korea a week after the nuclear test.

The standard line is that China wants to preserve the North's regime because a collapse would send millions of starving refugees across their border. But that's not all. It's mostly a question of who'd take over, and there are no good answers for anyone. A Chinese or American occupation would vastly increase tensions, and South Korea would be seen as a proxy provocation by the US (plus, there are other issues with Korean Unification, per the next quote, below).

In reality, there is much China could do to get the attention of the North Koreans, but that would involve the possibility of making North Korean leaders more erratic and aggressive. Cutting economic (oil and natural gas) and food aid as well as halting unofficial aid to illegal North Korea exports (drugs, counterfeit currency, weapons) would hurt more than the current sanctions and might cause a collapse of the North Korean government. That is something China wants to avoid, because it would force China to confront South Korea and the West over Chinese plans to occupy North Korea in such a situation. China would call this peacekeeping but the rest of the world would call it an annexation. This could get very nasty. Another option is to back pro-Chinese North Korean officials in a coup to install a more obedient (to China) government. This is risky, as the North Korean leaders have been aware of this threat for over a decade and have regularly purged the ruling bureaucracy of anyone believed to be pro-China. A failed coup would be, well, messy.

South Koreans claim to be pro-Unification (in the event of the North's collapse), but it's not true:

South Korea won't admit this, but most South Koreans know that absorbing North Korea would put a big dent in South Korean living standards. That is more unpopular than any other outcome. While all Koreans would like a united Korea, far fewer are willing to pay the price.

....and South Korea is quietly setting the stage for a Chinese puppet state as the best-bad-choice option:

The Chinese do not want North Korea to merge with South Korea, nor do they want North Korea to collapse economically and politically because that would send millions of desperate and starving refugees into northern China. All the neighbors (especially China and South Korea) want North Korea to stay independent, and harmless. Thus China is willing to unofficially annex North Korea, knowing that the South Koreans would go along with this as long as the fiction of North Korean independence was maintained.

Hijabs and Hypocrisy

Female chess players forced to wear hijab as governing body awards world championship to Iran, reads the headline. Understandably, chess players (and lots of others) are horrified. But then this...

Fide's Commission for Women's Chess called on participants to respect “cultural differences” and accept the regulations.

Ha; that language choice is an awfully interesting chess move!

Remember when environmentalists used to publicly lament that folks only get outraged about cute endangered species? Baby seals? An outrage! Beetles, lizards or mosquitos? Not so much. Similarly, liberals are all about cultural sensitivity...if the culture is one they find attractive. If not, other shades of indignation get swapped in. "Please hold a moment while we shift piques..."

These days, we've entirely lost our taste for delving into our own hypocrisies. Beyond Daily Show-style video clips of politicians saying contradictory things to contradictory audiences, nobody seems interested in examining contradictory impulses and sleepy assumptions. We're content to blindly power forward with our opinions and rage within comfortable channels of groupthink. I've met only one liberal who's even considered the Tolerance Paradox. I feel like a lonely outlier for having retained my taste for examining my own foolish blind spots.

The "Je suis Charlie" movement, for example, was obviously dementedly wrong-headed if anyone had taken a moment to really consider the situation. Yet, cutting the other way, I can't imagine many activists would support the Nazi march in Skokie these days. Too much nuance; too many layers of contradictory thought and feelings to be processed and resolved. We indulge our ids 100% of the time. That, alas, is the natural endgame for super-rich societies. Nous sommes Trump.

Resistance to Winnowing: The Bud Problem

My posting yesterday, "Resistance to Winnowing", was a bit subtle, discussing a human effect neither recognized nor experienced by most people. But I thought of the perfect everyday example: bars that don't serve Bud.

You're sitting in a craft beer bar - a rare refuge for enthusiasts - and a new customer enters, orders a Bud, and is told "Sorry, we don't actually serve Bud, but would you like to try one of our quality light lagers?" It doesn't go well. Worlds are rocked. People can get loud. Most craft beer bars keep a few bottles of Bud around to pacify such situations.

99.999% of bars in America serve Bud (in fact, the damned stuff was actually called "America" for a while this summer). In most cities, you're rarely more than a 5 minute walk from a bottle of it. So what's the big deal if a microscopically tiny slice of venues prefers a different way? Why not vote with your feet, and head somewhere else, realizing that different places serve different people?

Again: people tenaciously and indignantly resist any effort to make them self-bifurcate - to go elsewhere to better align with their preferences. It infuriates people to sense - even subconsciously - that they're being in any way winnowed.


Let's turn it around. Say the most popular beer in America was Russian River's legendary "Pliny the Elder", rather than Bud, and I lived a happy existence as a perpetually plastered, somewhat functional alcoholic. And say a tiny beleaguered minority didn't like the big flavor, preferring Budweiser. And say I strode into a bar called "Blandsville Pub" and off-handedly requested a Pliny the Elder...and was refused. I have to imagine I'd be slightly surprised, but accept that this particular bar isn't for me. I could walk out and get what I want in literally every other bar in town (or else order a bourbon).

But here's the difference: I wouldn't feel winnowed. Maybe it hinges on coming out on a downward ladder position - i.e. pushing sensitized buttons re: Cool Kids Club.

Resistance to Winnowing

Having ran online discussions since 1991, I've managed millions of online comments, reaching a point where literally nothing I see online can possibly surprise me. I know with high certainty where a person is coming from based on even their briefest written expression, and I can predict how multitudes will react to any given bit of online writing.

So these thoughts might not be fully relatable for readers who don't share my hard-won elite Spidey sense. However, such readers will not take that into account as they read the following, because the very point I'm making here is that people tenaciously and indignantly resist any effort to make them self-bifurcate.

Since I know all the many ways an online discussion can digress and otherwise fail to fit the bill of the original poster, I sometimes try to pre-filter results. I did exactly that here, where I tried to summon not the trillionth online hummus recipe, but the hummus recipe for those who, like me, are super-dissatisfied with the standard hummus recipes. The problem is that when people sense that their contribution is being pre-winnowed, they really don't like it.

The most popular forum derailment is to question the querier's assumptions. Ironically, if you try to stave that off (by noting something like "if you question my assumptions, cool, but then this discussion is not for you"), those same assumption-questioners will take umbrage, and question the assumptions behind your request not to question assumptions.

I'm tempted to conclude that you can't win; if people want to give you their shitty hummus recipe, there's just no way to persuade them not to. Trying to thwart them will only piss them off. However, I very likely did discourage a number of shitty recipe postings, where would-be posters shrugged and went away quietly. I also surely lost babies with that bathwater - dynamite hummus recipes not posted because I scared the bejesus out of posters unsure they'd fit my bill.

But still, half the replies are assumption-questionings, nitpicks, and umbrage. Enjoy the several non-fascinating parallel discussions of my stupidity.

The reason I'm bringing this up is because it recalls the reaction to Chowhound's old opening page (before it was sold to CNET/CBS). The following message obstructed each and every new visitor to the site:

Everyone has one in his or her life: the brother-in-law with a collection of 800 takeout menus, the coworker who's always late from lunch because she HAD to trek to one end of town for the best soup and to the other for the best sandwich. Chowhounds know where the good stuff is, and they never settle for less than optimal deliciousness, whether dining in splanky splendor or grabbing a quick slice of pizza. They are the one in ten who live to eat.

We're not talking about foodies. Foodies eat where they're told; they eagerly follow trends and rarely go where Zagat hasn't gone before. Chowhounds, on the other hand, blaze trails, combing gleefully through neighborhoods for hidden culinary treasure. They despise hype, and while they appreciate refined ambiance and service, they can't be fooled by mere flash.

No media outlets serve chowhounds. There are no chowhoundish newspapers, magazines or TV shows. And they've never had a place to gather and exchange information. This discerning, passionate crowd has long been completely invisible and utterly disenfranchised.......until now!

Chowhound.com's Alpha Dog, professional restaurant critic/author Jim Leff, along with Bob Okumura, launched this site to provide a non-hypey haven where their fellow hounds can opine, bicker, and rave to their hearts' content. Anyone who eats is welcome to stop by for unbiased, savvy chow advice or to just sit back and watch in amazement.

If you, too, fret endlessly about making every bite count; if you'd grow weak from hunger rather than willingly eat something less than delicious, this place is for you! Welcome to our community. Let's talk. Let's swap tips (click below to get to the meat & potatoes).

You needn't be an expert to participate. If you're less food-obsessed than the rest of us, but have a yen for egg creams, gazpacho, or Quisp Cereal, let the resident hounds guide you to the best stuff. Follow (and chime in on) some of cyberspace's most rollicking, contagious discussion -- featuring thousands of entertaining messages from characters all over the world. But, hey.....

ENOUGH CHAT; CLICK BELOW TO CUT TO THE CHOW!!!

It was a filter, intended to repel folks who'd fill our message boards with trendy ditz...while enticing intrepid treasure hunters. And it worked! We boasted the highest "bounce" rate in the industry, which ensured the distilled quality of the discussion. But, surprisingly, it really pissed off the people it was designed to repel. They could feel the repulsion, and it infuriated them. Once again, people tenaciously resist any effort to persuade them to self-bifurcate.

To this day, I frequently hear from people who were "turned off" by that intro. They assume it was a bad business practice, because they unquestionably assume that it was my aim to attract and please them. They figure I'd be stricken to learn that they didn't agree. Because this message made them think twice about participating in the site, it was an existential blunder on our part. Since they didn't enter, we scarcely existed!

I can't empathize with this mindset. But I can more or less anticipate it. It's one of the hardest for me.

Baffling Public Reactions: OJ and Trump

Watching the black community celebrate the OJ verdict, many felt, with great horror, that a significant chunk of America had gone batshit insane*. This year, not one but two TV series (a reenactment and a documentary, both wonderful) have shown the other perspective with belated explanation of factors unknown to white America at the time.

This feels like a similar moment, with a segment of the country seemingly having gone out of their minds, falling for a plainly dangerous con man.**

I wonder if a miniseries twenty year hence will show - with clarity of hindsight and an explanation of little-understood factors - why Trump's supporters weren't completely insane (OJ's patent guilt, and Trump's patent dangerousness aside).


* - I wasn't quite as alienated. As I recalled here, "I was one of the few white people at the time who knew how police treated black people in Los Angeles (I toured there in 1989 with an all-black band, and was surprised to see my normally nonchalant bandmates waiting anxiously for lights to change before entering crosswalks. It was explained to me. I gulped. Hard.)."

** - And, once again, I'm a bit less alienated. I have friends who like Trump - good people, as explained here.

More Flips

When you're the most attractive person, you're cursed to live in a world of ugliness.

When you're the strongest person, you're cursed to live in a world of weakness.

When you're the smartest person, you're cursed to live in a world of stupidity.

Et cetera...

This is yet another reason to work not just from your strengths, but also from your weaknesses.


Here's the tale of how "finding myself the worst guy was one of the greatest experiences of my life." Also: good links here and here.

Mr. Smith, Ms. Palin, Mr. Trump, and Mr. Godwin

Once the smoke has cleared, the political takeaway of this year's presidential campaign will be the peril of the "unconventional".

A number of factors combined this time to leave the electorate unusually favorable toward unconventional candidates. And "unconventional" is like "ethnic food" or "world music": a modest-seeming term encompassing vast realms.

Plenty of non-white-supremacist, perfectly decent Trump supporters see his unprofessional, erratic behavior, his brashness, and his ignorance as confirmation of his refreshing unconventionality. If "unconventional" is what you're looking for, an authoritarian loudmouth fits that bill. Shoot, a ham sandwich fits that bill. There is an infinite range of random options, each of them inappropriate by definition.

Unconventionality excuses bad behavior, blurry policy, and poor politicking of all sorts. When an electorate is of a mind to elect someone divergent from the norm, it should come as no surprise when a profoundly unqualified TV celeb draws momentum.

There is great danger at such crossroads moments, because the emotional need for change can attach itself to radical, misguided, even extreme sorts of change. "Change" can mean anything.

The preference for unconventionality is, itself, benign. After all, the film "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" is a cherished part of our national DNA. It struck - and continues to strike - a chord in those of us tired of the usual politicians. For 75 years this narrative - a decent everyman sent to high national office to replace the crooks and to speak for "The Real America" - has sat unquestioningly right with all of us, though scout leader Jefferson Smith had no experience or familiarity with the issues (he wouldn't have had anything incisive to say about Aleppo). A sequel might easily have been made about Mr. Smith's actual time in Congress, where he does lots of very stupid things and demonstrates shocking ignorance of the sort that's tolerable in scout leaders, but not in national ones. There are perfectly good reasons why we wouldn't want untested everymen running the country.

To understand the one-time popularity of Ms. Palin, consider Mr. Smith. And to understand the current popularity of Mr. Trump, consider Ms. Palin. And, with apologies to Godwin, to understand 1933 Germany (when another confluence of factors favored strong change and unconventional attitudes), consider Mr. Trump.


Next time maybe we'll get the ham sandwich...

Trump Leaks Twitter Feed

Owen Ellickson, from the Trump Leaks parody Twitter feed (the only thing keeping me - and many others - sane through the Trump campaign), has released the latest catch-up archives, in three parts.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

It's brilliant, hypnotic, hilarious, transcendent, but hard to break into in mid stream. I'd urge you to binge-read.