Of the many, many things about today's MAGA conservatives that may confuse and exasperate you, as they do me, one of the strangest is their high regard for Vladimir Putin and their corresponding contempt for Ukraine. In a New York Times article from February 8th, David French undertakes, not to defend it (he finds it indefensible) but to explain how it came to be.
French describes the current situation:
As I type this newsletter, continued American aid for Ukraine is in grave doubt. Tucker Carlson is in Moscow to conduct a friendly interview with Vladimir Putin. And we’re receiving reports from the front lines that Russia is advancing, in part because of Ukrainian ammunition shortages. In short, the war is reaching a critical stage, and Ukraine may lose because Republicans are willing to hand authoritarian Russia a historic military victory rather than supply further aid to a democratic ally. Ronald Reagan isn’t just rolling over in his grave, he may also lurch from it in a fit of incredulous rage.
You may be thinking, 'All my life, Republicans have been hawkish against Russian hegemonic ambitions. For decades, we fought a Cold War to prevent them from expanding their sphere of influence beyond the post-World-War II Soviet bloc of countries. Why would MAGA Republicans now have embraced the opposite policy?'
Here is French's explanation:
To explain the intensity of Republican resistance to Ukraine aid, I need to return to a concept I wrote about in November: that of “bespoke realities.” My friend Renée DiResta, the technical research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory, coined the term, and it refers to the “bubble realities” constructed by communities “that operate with their own norms, media, trusted authorities and frameworks of facts.”
When it comes to Ukraine, that combination of idiosyncratic norms, media, trusted authorities and frameworks of facts yields this "bespoke reality":
Ukraine is a pernicious villain, Putin is a flawed hero and Russia should have crushed Ukraine long ago.
French goes on to trace the development of this bizarre narrative, including Trump's conversation with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky (the first time many of us had heard of him) which resulted in Trump's first impeachment; Hunter Biden's sketchy business dealings with the Ukrainian firm Burisma; MAGA's admiration of Putin's nationalistic Christianity and enforced civic morality; and MAGA's perception that Putin is anti-woke.
Some time back, I engaged in a bit of amateur analysis, postulating a three-legged stool consisting of Donald Trump the candidate, his MAGA followers and right-wing media to try to explain how impervious Trump has been in the face of his many flaws, mistakes, incompetencies, outrages and crimes that would have ended the political career of virtually anyone else. I described the relationship between those three entities as an "ecosystem". French, via DiResta, carries that concept farther: the three-legged stool actually combines to create its own "bespoke reality" or "bubble reality".
MAGA adherents live in a different reality than those of us who live in real reality. It's a problem.
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ReplyDeleteMAGAs don't live in a bubble. They live in a steel bunker breathing their own stale fears and eating a steady diet of MREs packaged for them by rightwing media frat boys like Tucker Carlson, half of whom think it's hilarious just to get them going.
ReplyDeleteDavid French and others can try to explain how the Bunker People think if they want. But that's a side show, imo.
The real issue is that Republican money from mega-donors elects presidents, and that money follows whatever candidate seems likely to back policies and legislation that grease the wheels of their Money Factories. Trump is more than accommodating on that score.
The analysis that might hold the keys to defeating Trump lies less in explaining MAGA Bunker People and more in how and why some GOP Mega Donors like Charles Koch are throwing money behind Haley. The answer seems to be summed up in a letter to supporters from Koch's super Pac as reported in NPR. "The statement says the Republican party has been choosing 'bad candidates who are going against America's core principles,' and that Democrats are responding with what it calls 'extreme policies.'" https://www.npr.org/2023/11/28/1215562976/nikki-haley-koch-brothers-iowa-new-hampshire-gop-primary
I don't believe for a second that Republican Mega Money cares about "American values" but it is scared that MAGA will radicalize the Democratic party, and that that will hobble the Money Factories with tougher labor and regulation.
If Haley can't get traction, the Mega Money will go back to MAGA, and we'll all be living in Trump Hell for another four years.
That's why I will be voting for Haley in Michigan's y'all come primary, and I encourage every other radicalized Dem like me to switch party affiliation to get her elected. She'll be awful, but our institutions can survive her. And maybe she'll wake up Democrats to put up a decent candidate in 2028.
I'm still a registered Republican for the exact purpose of voting for the least objectionable candidate in the primary. I will be voting for Haley, not that it will make any difference, because our primary isn't until May. Which makes me mad that my vote basically doesn't count. I think we should all be in Super Tuesday, or at least a March Madness.
DeleteMAGAites might be living in a bubble but I think it's a bubble within a bubble that most Americans inhabit. Right now, I consider ourselves to be an empire way past overreach. Our own democracy is a shambles, our position of lead industrial country is gone. And our State Department and military are, I hate to say it, incompetent boobs. MIlitary leaders can be incompetent. Look what happened to France in WWII. We really need to stand back and get our own house in order. Like they tell you when you get on a plane, put your own oxygen mask on first and THEN put it on the kid. We can't do this and I think our presence throughout the world has distorted the realistic dealing of far-flung countries with their neighbors. The hubris of this country following the fall of the Iron Curtain was pathological. I think our hot shots led the Ukraine down the primrose path to confrontation with the Russians. And now we have Biden and Democrats like my own Senator Fetterman giving unconditional support to the Israeli genocide. Also the US, Britain and others have cut off aid to UNWRA based on an as yet unsubstantiated claim by Israel that 13 of the 30,000 UNWRA workers in Gaza participated in the July 6 massacre. If I vote for Biden, it will be a very last minute and painful thing. I certainly won't vote for Trump but supporting Biden has become problematic in the extreme. Haley was talking about assassinating Iranian leaders. All these posturing toughies who never fought in a war want to kill, kill, kill.
ReplyDeleteI think we wasted our "peace dividend" where we had a little window when things could have been different. I think Gorbachev was right that we could have helped Russia after the fall of the Iron Curtain.
DeleteStanley, I don't disagree with the gist of your post. Our behavior on the world stage has always been less than stellar, and Americans have never cared much about global politics.
DeleteBut, for me, this election is about saving the rile of law and the rights and responsibilities established in the Constitution. It's not a perfect document, but it stands between us and chaos or dictatorship.
Trump seems poised to to trash it.
Unfortunately, if we can curb MAGA, we still have global warming, regional domestic tensions, and tech and bio innovations that are moving faster than many people (me) can keep up. Living past my 70s doesn't look appealing.
Jean, I may end up voting for Biden to save what is left of democracy which is next to nano-nothing thanks to the two lousy parties. But that might behoove me to subsequently participate in civil demonstrations against, at a minimum, the genocide of Gaza. Whether I have the testicular fortitude to follow through on that is a question for which I don't presently have an answer. As far as I can tell, the system itself is augering in. There are ways to revive it like ranked choice voting but Americans are politically brain dead or in a mental daze. Too mesmerized by the Punch and Judy Show to have new thoughts.
DeleteThe Israelis have cut off water and food for over two million people. Starvation is a nasty way to die. I watched my father starve to death due to stomach cancer. I'm done with that government. They have enough nukes to take care of themselves and no one can stop their genocide. It's crossed my mind that the Israel has enough nuclear capability to wipe US out. Fetterman is on a video waving an Israeli flag from the roof of his home at pro-Palestinian demonstrators. I'm done with that jerk, too. I still get emails from his organization asking for donations. He can get it from AIPAC.
Pope Francis has said that he believes it is time to re-think the "just war" theory: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/251691/pope-francis-i-believe-it-is-time-to-rethink-the-concept-of-a-just-war
DeleteThe just war concept goes back to the 4th century. Needless to say it doesn't take into account the massive destructive capabilities of modern weaponry. It is interesting that in this interview the pope quotes a statistician who says that if all arms manufacturing ceased for a year, it could be possible to end world hunger.
I'll vote for Grampa Joe and hope for the best. But the Democratic party looks viable only compared to the horror that is Trump.
DeleteThere is a large Arab community in Dearborn, Mich. They turned out for Biden in big numbers and now feel betrayed. They know Trump would be worse, but they are calling for people not to vote for either of them at this point. Biden sent aides in to meet with Arab-American leaders last week, "missteps were made" in handling the situation, but everybody's still mad.
The Boy sometimes goes to temple with a couple Jewish co-workers. Temple has been receiving bomb threats. The caller the cops caught was from a white supremacist group in the U.P. Appeared to be a home-schooled incel.
Jews at temple feel besieged and are keeping their head down in public. He says there isn't much love for Netanyahu, but some congregants are indignant that people have ignored the fact that Hamas started it all and seem to think Israel has no right to "defend itself."
Couple pro-Palestinian demonstrations at the MSU board meeting demanding the U divest itself of Israeli interests. There was also a demo at the Capitol.
I expected better of Fetterman. I suppose that the synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh skews some feelings.
Problem with demonstrations, as I recall from the dear dim past, is that you never know what kind of element you're going to attract. The Boy said the BLM protesters in Lansing a couple years ago told everyone that their demonstration ended at 6 p.m. and to get off the streets. That's when the vandals and looters started drifting in.
For some reason, early on, everyone was rooting for Ukraine, and wearing sunflower stuff and playing bandura music. Then something happened and it changed. Oh, now I remember, Trump reminded his followers to fall in line. And they did.
ReplyDeleteBack in 2011 in the following PrayTellBlog.com post
ReplyDeletehttps://praytellblog.com/index.php/2011/03/28/television-time-use-lent-and-the-divine-office/
I provided this data on the potential influence of TV (and now other virtual media) on people's lives.
Summary of US diary studies: Total leisure hours from 1965 to 1995, persons aged 18-64 (based upon Robinson and Godbey, below)
For women, leisure time rose by 4.7 hours from 34.0 hours per week in 1965 to 38.7 hours per week in 1995. For men, leisure time rose by 7.9 hours from 35.7 to 43.6 hours per week during the same time period.
Much leisure time was channeled into television viewing. TV time rose by 5.7 hours from 9.3 hours per week to 15.0 hours per week for women; it rose by 5.4 hours from 11.9 to 17.3 hours for men.
A fifteen to seventeen hour per week viewing time is a pretty strong bubble, almost half the size of a forty- hour work week. A potentially strong influence on people's lives.
The explanation for why people put so much time into TV is that it is easily available any time we want it. People don't watch TV on vacation, and they say if they needed more time they would cut down on TV.
I think there is an additional explanation. TV creates community. It gives people something to talk about with family, friends, co-workers, etc.
Broadcast TV marketed itself to everyone within reach of the signal; cable TV has enabled networks to carve out audiences much as papers did. Along came rich men like Murdock who used Fox News much like the moguls who once bought newspapers to promote their own political agendas.
Now with the near constant access of media cultures that are shaped by political values by means of phones, computers and TVs people can choose to live in vastly different worlds. Yes, they may go to a workplace that is not politically segregated but even at work they can plug into a media culture that is politically segregated.
Kurt Vonnegut, in a 2005 interview on NPR, had these thoughts about screens and community when he tells his wife he’s going out to buy an envelope.
Delete“Oh, she says, well, you’re not a poor man. You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet?
"And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope.
"I meet a lot of people. And see some great looking babes. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And I’ll ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don’t know. The moral of the story is — we’re here on Earth to fart around.
"And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And what the computer people don’t realize, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And it’s like we’re not supposed to dance at all anymore.”
We are bored people which is why we spend a lot of time with TV, computers and books seeking new stimulation without moving around very much at all.
DeleteWe do get some new stimulation by moving about but moving has more costs than sedentary forms of stimulation which are readily available.
We also find stimulation from interacting with other people, but that interacting with others has its own costs as well as rewards.
While I understand that getting around six to ten thousand steps is good for my heart and brain, it is not easy. I find that it has to be accompanied by music and visual stimulation, or it becomes boring and tiring.
Back to Jim's post, I was a little puzzled by French's use of the term "bespoke realities". "Bespoke" isn't a word you run across very often. I think I am understanding it as a custom made or curated reality. Which means actual, objective reality really isn't the point.
ReplyDeleteIt's an odd term. Usually "bespoke" carries associations with custom-tailored and exclusive apparel constructed by tailoring experts that only rich people can afford.
DeleteI see "bubble realities" as being less bespoke and more cobbled up narratives from speculation about unrelated events.
Extreme example of one such cobbled up story was the claim that the NFL would to rig the Superbowl to ensure that Travis Kelce's team would win, and while millions of Americans watched, he and Taylor Swift would go to centerfield and endorse Joe Biden because Taylor Swift's music reveals she is a Satanist.
I am guessing that the methods if constructing these bubble realities owes something to evangelical preoccupation with the End Times, predictions of which depends on reading various events that parallel Revelation.
DeleteAnd maybe the Q Anon thing fits in there somewhere?
DeleteI don't know much about QAnon, but these things all seem predicated on inside info disseminated by shadowy or unidentified individuals who talk in hints and innuendo to protect their safety. It's the same shtick tent preachers use. Short documentary from BBC about Kate Shemirani who went over the edge on covid vax in the UK. https://youtu.be/_WIRDCHzH1E?si=0-f5lSD_OYpE32ZR
DeleteFrench identifies four elements for these so-called bespoke realities: they are communities (and we should assume that means, "virtual communities") that operate with their own:
Delete* Norms
* Media
* Trusted authorities
* Frameworks of facts
Each of these elements could be unpacked to try to understand how their norms differ from traditional norms, how their media differs from traditional media, and so on. Surely, the primacy of truth and facts is one difference between traditional norms and bespoke-reality norms - and that difference is manifest in the media consumed by those who live in these bespoke realities.
In an article a few months ago, French noted the voluntary aspect of living in these bespoke realities:
Delete"Take YouTube, for example. DiResta writes that in 2019, YouTube hosted more than 8,000 channels with more than a million subscribers apiece. This means YouTube alone is sending a tsunami of content into the public square, algorithmically curated to provide subscribers with exactly the videos it predicts they’ll like.
"Combine vast choice with algorithmic sorting, and we now possess a remarkable ability to become arguably the most comprehensively, voluntarily and cooperatively misinformed generation of people ever to walk the earth. The terms “voluntarily” and “cooperatively” are key. We don’t live in North Korea, Russia or the People’s Republic of China. We’re drunk on freedom by comparison. We’re misinformed not because the government is systematically lying or suppressing the truth. We’re misinformed because we like the misinformation we receive and are eager for more.
"The market is very, very happy to provide us with all the misinformation we like. Algorithms recognize our preferences and serve up the next video or article that echoes or amplifies the themes of the first story we clicked. Media outlets and politicians notice the online trends and serve up their own content that sometimes deliberately and sometimes mistakenly reinforces false narratives and constructs alternative realities.
"Then, as consumers interact with one another in these like-minded online spaces, they not only form new communities; they also begin shared journeys of discovery that construct, brick by brick, their new political, social and religious realities."
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/opinion/political-reality-algorithms.html
Is living in a bespoke reality a nightmare from which one can wake up and resume normal, awake life in the normal, awake world? Or once constructed, is the bespoke reality resistant to actual reality?
DeleteI think the history of Donald Trump's political career illustrates that there is an awful resiliency to bespoke realities. Nothing, so far, has dissuaded his followers from following him. There is no reason to suppose that criminal convictions will.
Are these folks deprogrammable?
"Deprogramming"... that takes me back a few years when the Moonies, Hare Krishna, and the like were a thing. I suppose they still are a thing to some true believers. There were families who resorted to the services of deprogrammers to try and get their loved ones back from what amounted to brainwashing. The problem was that reprogramming was itself a form of brainwashing. I don't know what the success rate was. It seemed like the bottom line was that people had to decide for themselves that they were on the wrong track and distance themselves from the cult. I don't get the idea that the Trumpists want to distance themselves, and a lot of their families are just fine with it because they are Trumpists too.
DeleteI mentioned QAnon previously, and while I don't know a lot about it, I have read that one of the alternate realities that they tell themselves is that Trump is really a knight in shining armour trying to save the country. And all the bluster and lies are just a facade to fool the bad guys.
Again, it might be of passing academic interest to parse the psychology of those who live in an alternate reality. But ultimately, they're just disaffected whack-a-doodles who enjoy the rush of their special little worlds where only they know the whole truth and where only they and their chosen leaders can save the world. They've always been around. They just didn't always have a candidate who wanted to embrace them like Trump does.
DeleteI honestly don't think all--or even most--Trump voters are in the crazy corral. A lot of them don't even like Trump. But they are more socially conservative, reject European style democratic socialism, want limited government, and have legit concerns about deficit spending and chaotic borders. They're willing to gamble that an imperfect Trump can address these concerns better than any Democrat. And they seem to get really annoyed by the suggestion that America could be permanently damaged by four more years of Trump. Check out, for ex, Marco Rubio "translating" Trump's recent statements about delinquent NATO members.
I think Rubio and similar are wrong and grossly underestimating what Trump is capable of. But they don't sound like conspiracy crazies.
Delete"I think Rubio and similar are wrong and grossly underestimating what Trump is capable of." To paraphrase Maya Angelou, when someone tells you who they are, believe them.
I think you are probably right that a lot of people don't like Trump, but they think a Democrat would be worse.