Why Trump?

Why could America elect Donald Trump to be the next President when there have been a plethora of red flags being raised and waving vigorously in the air. January 6, 2021 alone should have provided enough reason for not reelecting Trump, but it hasn't. If that had been tried during the 1970s, both parties would unanimously condemn such actions and prevent those involved from serving in government again. But that was yesteryear.

There are 3 reasons that I can see why we could elect Trump as President. That does not imply that these are the only 3 reasons. What follows are the reasons that I can see.

Reason #1

As a society, our thinking is more limited today than it was decades ago. That limited thinking is not due to a lack of intelligence, it is due to how we think. We should add that our limited thinking is self-imposed. Why and how? The how is because more and more of us have passionately embraced a form of all-or-nothing thinking called black-white thinking. We see things either one way or the other. An example is when then President George Bush told the world after that 9/11 attacks that people are either with us or against. us. What Bush was telling others was that it was either his way or the highway. It isn't issues that necessarily polarize us, it is passionately embracing black/white thinking that does.

Such thinking not only causes polarization, it is also the kind of thinking that authoritarian leaders dream of in their followers. Such leaders dream of such thinking because it makes their followers more susceptible to their desires. To disagree with an authoritarian leader often results in the being labeled as 'enemies.' 

We can go to Russia to see some past examples of such leaders. Both some of the Tsars and Vlad Lenin promoted this type of thinking. While the Tsars promoted the idea that because they were Russia. That how Russians treated them illustrated how they were treating their nation is an example of such thinking. And the same goes for Vlad Lenin only his identification was with the proletariat and the Revolution in the newly formed Soviet Union. \

And so today we have Trump, who previously called the Press the 'enemy of the people,' predicting that there will be utter disaster if he is not elected. In addition, he has told me and my fellow religiously conservative Christians that we will never need to vote again should he be elected.

How have we come to engage in such self-limiting thinking? It is because of people like Rush Limbaugh, who for decades, encouraged us to see all liberals as having nothing to offer or teach us and true conservatism as being the fount of all blessings. And because, like Trump, Limbaugh knew how to speak to a frustrated conservative audience, he could promote these black/white thinking in people which has caused today's polarizations in America.  And like Reagan, he could make such conservatives feel good about themselves and their political causes.

Reason #2

And just as we have limited our thinking, we have limited our ability to be fair and objective. And we should note that just like our limited thinking, this inability to be fair and objective is self inflicted. The moment that we let our loyalty go wild, we decided that we no longer  needed or even would be able to judge our own groups and other groups using the same standards and measurements. 

What has infringed on our ability to be fair an objective? As was just mentioned, it is when we allowed our loyalty to go wild. And when our loyalty goes wild, we take a black/white approach to loyalty. In this case we believe that loyalty can only be a virtue, and never a vice, so long as we are loyal to the right groups.

The more loyal we are to a group, the more resistant we are to the criticisms of that group until finally we passionately embrace moral relativism.That occurs when right and wrong depends on who does what to whom. We see this in authoritarian led groups where either the person or ideology is seen as being relatively omniscient. In other words, borrowing a phraseology from Martin Luther King Jr., we see this moral relativity when a group believes that it has everything to teach and nothing to learn from others. And so with becoming so loyal to a group comes the elevation of the pedestal on which we put that group. 

Reason #3

Many of us have seen a decline in our affection for democracy. And what has caused that decline is the materialism that comes from our consumer society. Once we've become materialistic,  then democracy, with equality,  is no longer seen as being important.

Of course in this election, it isn't just those who are marginally opulent who are hit hard by today's economy, it is regular people too. But the same principle holds. Once our economy crosses certain thresholds, democracy with equality is no longer seen as being an important value to cherish and hold on to. We want our economy fixed and fixed now. And with our black/white thinking, we will look for simplistic explanations and solutions to our economic problems. That is why Republicans pin the blame the past spike in inflation, which is over with, solely on government spending while the Democrats blame the previous spike in inflation solely on corporate price gouging. What is missing from both narratives is the simple economic roles that supply and demand plays on prices. In lieu of recognizing that our inflation may have had multiple causes, both Republicans and Democrats oversimplified what caused our spike in inflation.

And so we look for a magic leader who can immediately fix the economic problems we have been having. And that isn't the major problem here. Just as we are looking for an immediate solution, we become more willing to do without other  important things. So what if that magic leader needs more and more power to get the job done, as long as one's own economy is fixed, then all becomes forgiven. 

And so with today's Republicans, as long as they claim that they can "fix" the economy, immigration, and our other problems, who cares if we elect a person who tried to overthrow a fair election, who wants to be a dictator for "just" the first day, who has expressed strong admiration of dictators of the world like Putin, Erdogan, and Xi Jinping, and who has constantly and shamelessly lied throughout all of his Presidential campaigns?

We should also note is that the factors mentioned in those three reasons feed personal needs that we all have. The simplistic worldview that black/white thinking produces makes us feel more in control of what is going on around us. The excessive loyal to a group that we idolize makes us feel more significant because we belong to something greater than ourselves (see Fromm's The Authoritarian Personality) 

Not only have we heard warnings from those who served him during his presidency, we also have documentation from mental health experts some of whom are from prestigious universities (for mental health concerns such as Trump's narcissism, see The Dangerous Case Of Donald Trump). 

In addition to that, we have history, however recent. Like that of President George W. Bush, the end of Trump's first term ended with America in shambles. It was in shambles because of  Trump's belligerent attitude and response to the nation's medical science community; and it was in tatters because of his his response to the election. His lawyers brought no court worthy evidence in the 60 lawsuits they filed. And when they failed, there was January 6, 2021. Trump himself had told the Proud Boys to 'stand back and stand by.' He advertised the event by saying that it was going to be a 'wild time.' He tried to pressure then Vice President Pence into shirking his Constitutional duties. He set up the whole conflict by claiming before the election that the only way he could lose would be by fraud. He is vowing revenge on his political opponents while claiming that the indictments and guilty verdicts made by ordinary citizens in grand juries and juries are political attacks.

If we refuse to listen to those warnings and if we ignore the recent past, we will be like Israel when, despite the prophet Samuel's warnings, they insisted on having a king (see I Samuel 8:10-22). And what prediction that Samuel gave did not come true?

Yes, Pro-Life is an important issue. But those hoping to manipulate the votes of religiously conservative Christians reduce being Pro-Life to abortion. This reduction of what is Pro-Life is another example of all-or-nothing thinking. In truth, neither the Democrats, with their legitimate concerns for the climate, environment, poverty, and social safety nets, nor the Republicans, with their legitimate concerns about abortion, are consistently pro-life.

Will we heed the warnings or will we provide yet another example of what Hegel said when he said that the only thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from history?

Why Our Elected Leaders Fail Us

The list of items that the newly elected Democrats want to investigate Trump seems endless. It's not that Trump should be immune to investigations, that is not the issue here. The issue is that the newly elected Democrats were elected to either pass or reject new legislation. They were elected to exercise a personal vendetta against Trump--and I am writing this as one who strongly opposes Trump.

Of course, the Republicans are no different. Once Obama was elected President, Mitch McConnell's life goal, as well as that of many other Republicans, became to prevent Obama's reelection. And once Trump became President, the stated goal of the Republicans in power was to undo almost everything, if not everything Obama instituted--especially Obamacare.

At this point, it should not be hard to see why our government doesn't work anymore. Our two major political parties are too busy exercising vendettas against each other while employing all-or-nothing thinking. If the Republicans had listed some of Obama's accomplishments as being worthy of preserving or if the Democrats had stated that they were going to investigate only one or two aspects of Trump and his Presidency, then they would be behaving reasonably; but that is not the case.

There are two characteristics of the vendetta thinking exercised by both Republicans and Democrats that disqualify them from legitimately representing the people. the first characteristic is that too many members of both sides have revenge as their first priority. They want to do all that they can to punish their rivals. But when their revals represent so many of America's people, how can they pursue their attack mode posture toward their revals while still representing the people who elected them?

Second, by attacking or planning to attack as many agenda items or personal characteristics as possible, those representatives who do so show that they are exercising all-or-nothing thinking patterns. What is wrong with all-or-nothing thinking? According to one article, the following occurs (click here for the source): 

All-or-nothing thinking is problematic in many ways. It’s limiting and “creates extreme and impossible expectations.”

But worse than that, such thinking is often classified as a cognitive disorder that can contribute to mood disorders and unhealthy behavior. In the end, such thinking distorts reality more often than not (click here and there). Do we really want elected officials who embrace, sometimes passionately, harmful thinking patterns that start to separate its practitioners from reality? Isn't having a President who uses that type of thinking bad enough for our nation? And by imitating what one's opponent does, hasn't one become one's opponent? Such is a legitimate question to ask of both the newly elected Democrats as well and President Trump and his allies.

Should the Democrats spend more time in trying to investigate Trump than they do on passing needed legislation, then they have shown themselves to be no different than the Republicans' whose life goal was to prevent Obama from serving 2 terms as President. And thus another difference between the Republicans and the Democrats fades of into the sunset.

Of course we should note that holding to a 2-Party system fosters such thinking. With having candidates from only two parties, all-or-nothing thinking is reinforced in the minds of Americans. For what the 2-party system forces on the voters is the idea that one must choose between 2 candidates, between the them and not them candidates. Such lays the groundwork for voters to embrace all-or-nothing thinking. And with that comes a greater and greater disconnect for all of the middle ground that often resides between our two choices.

Our political landscape should be declared a federal disaster area. Elections show that, with our limited choices, we keep descending into the depths of ignorance that all-or-nothing thinking fosters. And we citizens have no monopoly on those cognitive problems. Our political leaders willingly show that they have a capacity to passionately embrace a cognitive disorder that limits our thinking, brings mood disorders, and contributes to some of us losing touch with reality.

If the newly elected Democrats want to bring a positive change to our nation's current course of direction, then must limit the number and depth of investigations planned for President Trump in order to work on legislation that is beneficial to the most number of Americans. Nothing else will do.





 

The Latest Scandal Points To More Than Just Sex

Of course, the latest scandal has to do with what was previously winked at and allowed to fly in under the radar. But, and fortunately so, that is no longer the case. Sexual intimidation and assault will not, at least for the near future, be ignored.

What does the above point to? Doesn't it indicate the bipolar way we approach issues. We react in ways that indicate that we  either totally ignore abuse or we conduct witch hunts  in order to punish every instance. But what if we didn't ignore past behaviors and offered help to those who were beginning to show the lack of necessary self-restraint when working with women? What if we caught behaviors and attitudes that would eventually lead up to sexual assault and then intervened in order to prevent sexual assault? Wouldn't more people be better off?

The all-or-nothing or bipolar way of dealing with issues is a carry over from Cold War thinking as well as our two-party political system. In the days of the Cold War, one was either a Communist (actually a Bolshevik) or a good guy. So that anyone leaning toward the left was demonized and was thus often severely punished. That is what the US interventions and sponsored coups in Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Greece (1967) and Chilé (1973), to name a few, were all about. When we look at the post-WW II history of American interventions and sponsored coups, we see scores of actions that served our strategic or business (a.k.a., 'national') interests rather than the needs of the people there. For most of the time, we replaced democratically elected leaders with tyrants and military dictators simply because those tyrants and dictators served our interests.

But more important than the concern for the type of thinking we employ is the objectification of people that enabled some to go on and sexually intimidate and assault others. This objectification isn't confined to movies about sex or locker room talk. This objectification of people existed in other areas of life long before any of the sexual assaults now being reported on existed. This objectification has existed in our economic system and foreign policies  for decades. 

Martin Luther King Jr. explained one root of this objectification when speaking against the Vietnam War (click here for source):

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

What follows the valuing of things over people is the objectification of people. People lose all intrinsic value and can only gain importance when they can help us gain more of the things we want. While other people lose value when their existence infringes on our gaining of things. And we should note what King meant when referring to things: gadgets, profits, and property rights.

We have also seen the objectification of people in our foreign policies when we have either participated in coups or supported governments where the new leaders are tyrants. One could provide a depressing list of past American interventions to make this point, or one could simply point to our support of Saddam Hussein before he invaded Kuwait. Yes, our government supported Saddam Hussein while he was in power and was committing atrocities. According to many of our foreign policies, the people of a given nation do not matter to us, but the cooperation of a given nation's  leader(s) in positively contributing to our strategic or national (a.k.a., 'business') interests do. And that is true regardless of the political party affiliation of the President.

How could we not expect the sexual objectification of women by men when workers are counted as disposable objects of profit? I saw people being made disposable when teaching. I saw adult students who lost their jobs or, to add insult to injury, who also had to train their replacements. And all too often, those job losses are there solely to increase the ROI for major shareholders. So while workers are expected to be loyal to their employers, many of these same employers see no reason to return the favor. That is because major shareholders do not see the intrinsic value of their employees. Nor do they care that when workers lose their jobs, communities lose their income to provide services for people.

Now if we don't care about the people who are objectified by our economic system or foreign policies, why should we care about people whose value is determined by how they can sexually please us especially when our appetites are aroused?  After all, aren't the strong preying on the weak in the first two situations? And if we allow that, why shouldn't that also occur in sexual situations and relationships? Of course, we know that morally speaking, sexual intimidation and assaults must never occur. But when people are recognized as having only extrinsic value, then moral concerns are put aside.

The sexual objectification of people that preceded and led to the recently reported sexual assaults nor the assaults themselves cannot be tolerated. But can we really stop these sexual assaults and the sexual objectification that precedes them when we passionately embrace the objectifying of people for other reasons? Perhaps we can for some for the immediate future. But will that last? After all, if we objectify people for economic or foreign policy reasons, what is to stop us from objectifying people for other reasons? 









 

Paul Ryan Does A 360 Degree About-Face On Ayn Rand

Has Paul Ryan pulled a "Mitt Romney" on Ayn Rand? We must ask because Ryan first declared that Rand was his inspiration for entering politics and now he claims to have rejected her basic philosophy.

But many could care less about Ryan's allegiance to Rand's principles asking, "Who's Ayn Rand?" This ironic question could be answered in terms of her history and philosophy. Above all, Ayn Rand is an all-or-nothing thinker who favors individualism over collectivism. This simply means that with any issue whether it be social policies, economic policies, or religion, she always sides with the individual sovereignty over outside help or control. As a result, almost everybody could find areas of agreement with Rand but whether one could be considered a disciple of Rand depends on how comfortable one is with their place on a continuum towards her all-or-nothing thinking. This is perhaps where Paul Ryan has found himself in trouble.

But before we get to Paul Ryan, one must note the source for both Rand's favoring the individual and her black-white thinking. The reason for both could very well come from her own history in Russia as it became a Communist country. What is necessary here is to consider the before and after effect that the Bolshevik Revolution had her life. Her family had to flee their home and her father lose his prosperous business to find safety from the violence of the revolution. In addition, she found the Bolsheviks to be control freaks. The trauma that must have been part of the experience can easily explain the all-or-nothing thinking Rand employs, but it cannot explain the preference for individualism since the latter preceded the revolution. Here we might refer again to her family's place in society as well as the fact that she was a highly gifted person.

Now, who is Paul Ryan and how does he regard Ayn Rand? In 2005, when speaking at an event celebrating Ayn Rand, Ryan gave her high praise as he credited her with inspiring him to enter public life. He also highly encouraged all of this staff to read her works. But a funny thing happened to Ryan on his way to the Vice Presidential nomination, he had to comfort Conservative Christians who take issue with Rand's opposition to religion, abortion, and, last but not least, Ronald Reagan. So Ryan pulled a "Mitt Romney," or a "John Kerry" if you are still living in the year 2008, and claimed that he only had a passing fancy in Rand and was interested in her economic views only. Should we mention to Ryan that Rand's economic views flow from her atheism?

So the question becomes whether Paul Ryan has a different view of Ayn Rand now as he did when he tried to force his interns to read her. To answer this question, we must first discern how much Ryan already disagreed with Rand. Rand was both an extreme individualist, a fiscal conservative, and was antiwar. As an individualist, she was a libertarian who favored abortion rights, and she promoted atheism and saw that as integral to her idea of individualism. Thus, she rejected religion because something other than one's own reason would rule over a person and their own self-interest.

Except for being a fiscal conservative, Paul Ryan has never agreed with Ayn Rand. So for Ryan to suddenly say that he now disagrees with Rand is disingenuous to say the least. Where has Ryan always agreed with Rand? It is in the area of laissez-faire Capitalism. Here, no one should be forced to give to any in need and there should be no government regulation of business practices. To what degree Ryan believes that Capitalism should be laissez-faire and business should be regulation free is difficult to ascertain because no one who is in government has shown themselves to be absolutists there. But that Ryan goes strongly in the direction of the all-or-nothing thinking of Rand is beyond dispute when one considers what he proposes for Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid. Since Ryan is in favor of privatizing Social Security and parts of Medicare, he follows Rand's self-interest philosophy where a service is provided only on the basis that someone profits from it.

Ryan's proposal also puts programs like Head Start at risk though the degree of risk is unknown because of the lack of details coming from Ryan and the Republicans. But what is clear is that Ryan views both financial and environmental regulations as chains that weigh down business performance. In addition, Ryan wants to reduce tax rates and simplify the tax code. But what nobody is admitting is that the Bush tax cuts are one of the leading causes to today's budget deficits along with increased military and wartime spending.

Whatever statements elected officials make, none of them can fully implement Rand's philosophies. That is because government is too big to be totally ruled in a wide scale all or nothing fashion. But general directions can be determined. And what is clear is that Ryan's following of Ayn Rand principles have seen no change. Ryan has always selectively followed her.

But more is involved than just partially implementing Rand's philosophies. For example, as Ryan predicts doom for the Social Security fund because of the increasing number of beneficiaries versus the number of contributors, he neglects to mention that our Social Security fund is the largest holder of our nation's debt. So that the biggest threat to the Social Security trust fund is not the beneficiary to contributor ratio, it is government's willingness to steal from this fund to save face. That Ryan objects to the Social Security philosophy of current contributors paying for someone else's benefits is merely a philosophical disagreement that bears no consequence.

In addition, that Ryan wants to reduce or privatize social services goes in the direction of Ayn Rand philosophy. But Ryan's belief in both increasing defense spending and in American Exceptionalism are contrary to Rand's philosophy. Such inconsistency might point to the fact that virtue and self-interest can oppose each other rather than go hand-in-hand as Rand claimed.

That Ryan can point to flaws in Obama's policies implies no merit to Ryan's proposals. For most of the analysis that Ryan provides on Obama and what he promotes rests on an incomplete context for Obama's failures. And the constituents about whom Ryan expresses his deepest concern are businesses. So when Ryan parts with Rand, such as in exorbitant military spending, it benefits certain businesses. And when Ryan at least partially implements Rand's ideas and values, such as reducing regulations and taxes on businesses, again, it helps the business community.

So perhaps all of the talk that ties to or distances Ryan and Rand is merely a slight-of-hand that exists to simply distract the audience while the trick of promoting corporate interests is being performed. And Ryan's motivation for protect business interests seems to come from a personal self-interest.

From a Christian perspective, self-interest at the expense of others is rarely if ever put in a good light. It certainly does not follow the model Christ provided and promoted without a real twisting of the Scriptures. Neither is Rand's all-or-nothing approach to individualism what is taught in the Bible. Besides the many examples where the Biblical writers appealed to authority to determine what believers should do, collectivism is taught throughout both testaments. For throughout the Bible, people are severely judged for withholding help from those in need. That their lack of giving would have violated the kind of personal integrity that Ayn Rand taught was never an issue in those judgments.

From a human perspective, a red flag must always be raised when people speak in absolutes. This is not  meant to deny the existence of absolutes, it simply means that their presence is a strong indicator that we are playing on very thin ice. For one thing, psychologists warn against such thinking. So do most philosophers. But we should also note that many strongly religious people indiscriminately favor this kind of thinking. And we should note that because too many corporations follow an all-or-nothing approach to self-interest when they commit to maximizing profits, our economic system is about to implode rather than grow.

Perhaps this is why Martin Luther King preached a synthesis between Capitalism and Communism as the only viable social and economic alternative available to us. He promoted this because Capitalism's weakness is that it forgets that life always involves others, what the business world referred to as stakeholders, while Communism's weakness forgets that we are individuals. And the question becomes, when a public figure compares Ayn Rand to Martin Luther King as people, why would any sane leader base more of their theories on Rand rather than King. The answer to this question is simple. It is because of their self-interest. And it his own self-interest that determines how Ryan has and continues to selectively follow Ayn Rand.